Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/62

52 eyes filled with tears and they waved their hats. “That’s our only protection,” they thought.

“Damn it all, when I see her it makes me blub!”

They watched it as it got smaller and smaller, until it disappeared wrapped up in smoke.

Returning to their quarters they all shouted, “Blast!” In the darkness their voices, full of hatred, sounded like the bellowing of bulls. Although they did not know against whom they were aimed, the thoughts, the words and actions of these 200 men, talking freely together day after day, came imperceptibly to move in one direction.

It was morning. Climbing slowly up the companionway the miner said, “I can’t keep it up.”

The day before he had worked almost till ten, and his body was like a half-broken machine. As he was climbing up he dozed off. Shouted at from behind, he began to move his feet and legs mechanically. He slipped but continued crawling up on his belly.

Before beginning work they gathered together in a corner. Their faces were the colour of clay.

“I’m going to try sabotage. I can’t work,” said the miner.

They all looked expressively silent for a while, and then someone said, “It means a big branding”

“I’m not shirking. It’s because I can’t work, I tell you.” The miner rolled his sleeve right up and then held his arm out level with his eyes and examined it.