The Cannery Boat
I
“Hallo, we’re going off to hell.”
Two fishermen were leaning against the tailings of the deck. Their gaze was fixed on the town of Hakodate as it lay enfolding the sea. One of them spat out the cigarette which he had smoked up to the butt. It rolled over and over comically and then fell over the edge, grazing the high side as it went. The man’s whole body smelled of sake.
Steamers floating on their red bellies; vessels loading cargo inclined to one side as if something from out of the deep was pulling at their sleeves; squat yellow funnels; big bell-shaped buoys; launches, looking like vermin, plying from ship to ship; soot, bits of bread, rotten fruit all swishing together on the water like some strange-patterned fabric; a choking coaly smell brought by the smoke which was swept along the waves by the wind. Now and again a rattling sound of winches came clear over the waves.
Next to this crabcanning steamer, the Hakko Maru, lay a sailing vessel, her paint peeling off and the chains of her anchor hanging down from holes in the bow that looked like the nostrils of an ox. Two foreigners could be seen with pipes in their
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