Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/82

72 Okee could not overcome her terror. The visits of the police always upset her, and Rinkichi had to calm her.

Early on the morning of 15th March, Okee was rudely awakened from her sleep. Another search! Five or six policemen dragged Rinkichi away with them, without giving him a chance to exchange a word with his wife. This time Okee was thrown into a kind of stupor from terror.

It was three o’clock in the morning. The cold nipped one’s hands and face and pierced through one’s clothes to the very bone.

Five or six men were tramping over the frozen snow.

They came out of dark, narrow alleys and turned up the wide street leading to the union hall. The street was lined with tall, naked telegraph poles.

These men were police and they had their belts in readiness, their sabres grasped firmly in their hands.

They halted before the trade union headquarters and then burst into it without even stopping to take off their shoes.

The members of the union had laid down to sleep only an hour before. They had fixed on 15th March for a public protest against the force of arms. The entire membership had been mobilized.