“It won’t be long. I’m not shirking, I tell you.”
“If you’re not, then it’s all right.”
That day the boss stamped round again like a fighting cock. “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” he shouted. As it was not just one or two men, however, who were taking their time, but almost everyone, he could do nothing but fume inwardly as he went round. It was the first time that the fishermen and sailors saw the boss like this. On the deck hundreds of crabs let out of the nets made a grating sound as they crawled about. The work accumulated like a blocked drain. ····· “The transport! The transport!” This cry from the upper deck was heard below. Everyone jumped out of his bunk just as he was, in his sleeping rags. The transport aroused the men more than a woman would. It alone did not smell of the salt sea, but had a breath of Hakkodate clinging to it. It smelled of the land, the land which did not move and which they had not trodden for many months. And this boat delivered letters, shirts, underwear, magazines and many other things.
Seizing their parcels in their knotted, crab-greasy hands, the men rushed back excitedly to their quarters. Then, sitting up in their bunks with their legs crossed, they undid their parcels. All sorts of things came out: letters in their children’s unsteady handwriting, written with the mother standing near telling them what to say;
