Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/60

50 “Who … you bastard?” Then, suddenly twisting up his mouth and stretching himself up, he burst out into a loud laugh.

“Fetch some water.”

He took the pail of water and dashed it on the face of the student, who had been left lying prone on the floor like a railroad sleeper.

“He’ll be all right—there’s no need for you to be looking at what’s not your business. Get on with your work.”

Next morning the hands saw the student of the day before tied up to one of the pillars. His head was sunk down on his chest like a chicken whose neck has been wrung, and just at the nape one big round bone of his back showed, sticking out clearly. Then in front of him, like a child’s pinafore, a piece of cardboard was hanging with something written on it, obviously in the boss’s handwriting:

“As this is a disloyal malingerer it is forbidden to undo the rope.”

When they felt his forehead it was like touching cold steel. Up to the time they entered he had been jabbering to himself, with no one to answer him. When they heard the voice of the foreman coming down after them, they moved on from the machine to which the student was bound, dividing into two streams until they had all reached their proper places.

When the crab-fishing got busier things became worse. They had their teeth smashed in and spent all night spitting blood; they fainted from overwork. Their extreme tiredness made them more