The Cannery Boat/Linesmen
Linesmen
by
Teppei Kataoka
Linesmen
Aerial wires, underground wires, submarine wires; encircling our planet like a huge spider’s web.
Telephones. Telegraphs.
Countless wires stretched taut and strong above our heads, under our feet.
Linking up the world’s capitalists. Capitalists in their spider-parlours, organizing themselves over these wires.
Into a treacherous league for mutual aid in sweating and racking the workers. …
I
A gale. Evening in the suburbs. Telephone pole on telephone pole looming up black.
And the wind moaning through the wires.
Near the post office stood a special big pole. The test pole. Near the arms was a little platform. Tokimoto, a linesman, clambered up to it to find out where the line was blocked. Fixing his set on to the wire, he put the receiver to his ear. Where was the trouble? Up or down?
He tested first the up-direction.
“Hello, hello,” he called, and from the city side he overheard a faint voice.
“A finger, I say.”
The wires must have crossed.
“Finger, a little finger or an index finger … he says he can let you have one.”
Hell, that’s a curious sort of conversation to hold; that’s a rum thing to be selling.
Tokimoto’s curiosity was aroused, he held his breath to listen.
“Then how much can you buy it for, one finger?” This time a different voice, quite distinct.
“I think about …” the faint voice again, “make a fine show … cut … with a knife … a lecture …” were the only disconnected snatches of talk he could catch.
Then again came the distinct voice:
“Anything up to 100 can go down as expenses to the Cultural Club. … No, no, not over the phone. You’d better come to the compound.”
“All right. … I’ll bring the man with me. …”
Tokimoto could hear no more. What the dickens was the connection between the finger and the Cultural Club? Then he remembered he had work to do. He realized that the hand holding the receiver was cold.
The persistent moaning of the wires assailed his ears.
The Cultural Club and the fingers … he couldn’t forget them. Which Cultural Club? Their Cultural Club? The one for Communication Department workers, of course, couldn’t have any connection with fingers. Could it be the Cultural Club attached to the I.T.M.B. (Imperial Tobacco Monopoly Bureau)? Quite possible, there might well be some connection with fingers … skilled. If the Tobacco Bureau workers had skilled fingers that meant efficiency.
Tokimoto remembered that in three or four days’ time he had to attend a refresher course at their own Cultural Club. He knew that these Cultural Clubs were a lot of bunk, but all the employees of the Communications Department and of other important government departments too, were obliged to join them, damn it all. But he had work to do now. …
The trouble didn’t seem to be the up direction. He fixed his set on to the down-wire.
“Hey, is it up or down?” shouted a crowd of his mates gathered round the foot of the pole.
“Down,” he answered. It was blowing a big gale. There’d be more trouble to follow. This is tough weather for us, boys; as he looked down on their heads he wanted to pour out his woes to them. Standing up straight, his back pressed against the pole, he looked over the darkening town. Against the faint grey sky stood out the roofs of the houses, and punctuating the latter was an unending procession of telephone poles.
That was life for you. To keep all those poles and wires in order we were sweated unmercifully. If we didn’t like it, how else could we earn a living?
Wind. Dusk.
Tokimoto was standing on the platform—at his job. Nothing else seemed real. The dream-like conversation—about buying a finger—was completely forgotten.
He hoped to God it wouldn’t be a snowstorm.
II
That night Soroku Tamano, another linesman, was on duty. He was sleeping in the linesmen’s quarters in the post office.
He became aware of some disturbing sound. But he was tired out after his day’s work.
“Let me sleep a bit longer. Have a heart. Don’t disturb my slumbers sweet …”
He lay there drowsy. He was terribly sleepy, he thought to himself, and he would keep on sleeping no matter who tried to wake him.
But it was no use thinking like that; if he didn’t get up he’d be fired. He rubbed his eyes. It was the telephone ringing. “Blast it,” he mumbled, and hopped out of bed.
“Hello, hello,” an irritated voice snapped back. “This is Tokyo Central. The No. 4 line, the No. 6 line and the No. 7 are all down. The No. 5 is uncertain. All wires on No. 2 are blocked. Get a move on. D’ye understand?”
“I understand; I’ll call an emergency rally.” He hung up the receiver with a bang and hitched up his dirty sagging breeches.
“Twenty to three.” With a yawn he glanced up at the clock on the wall. “It’s the middle of the bloody night.”
The sooty window rattled in the gale. Snow pattered against the glass.
“A snowstorm. What do we want a blasted snowstorm for? It’s no wonder all the lines are out of order,” he grumbled as he put on his muddy rubber boots. “And so late, too, blast them.”
Outside the wind tore at his coat and the snow beat against his face. It was a bad storm. There was nothing to do, however, but plod on through it. The head electrician lived about half a mile away. He arrived at the house at last and banged on the gate.
“A message from Tokyo Central.”
It took a lot of knocking, but at last he appeared, this Communications Department electrician who drew a Grade 5 salary of eighty yen[1] a month. He was thinking that his wife as she stood there, having dragged herself out of bed to see him off, didn’t look very prepossessing, but once outside his expression changed. “It means an emergency rally. Hurry up and call them all up,” sourly he ordered Soroku. Already his pet toothbrush moustache was powdered white with snow.
III
Is it because the great mass of the people would be inconvenienced with the telephones and telegraphs out of order that there is all this fuss, officials shouting and workers being forced out into the snowstorm? If every single one of them was blocked for a whole day what loss would it be to the workers? But, for all that, it was proletarian linesmen who had to lose their sleep to go rushing round all over the place in the storm. If they dawdled, they’d their day’s wages docked.
From the centre of the network of wires which joined up every corner of the land the bourgeois were organizing themselves. Not only making use of them for their ordinary business and speculating, but also to concoct their plots and their coups to crush their enemy—the struggling proletariat.
“500 tons coal State price Reply urgent 20,000 bushels rice arriving Will sell 3000 Tokyo stock N Y K down 20 points Secure me Kanegafuchi Spinning at lowest price Can you sell 300 at 2 Reply urgent Indications that Communist remnants entered your district Muster 15 detectives at XXX Station Search thoroughly XX Maru arriving Port to-morrow Communist aboard disguised as business man.”
Then there are the telephones linking up with every police box, every country policeman’s house, every police station, all the political police offices, every gendarmerie.
The spy walking in the streets. He has his eagle eye fixed for any member of the proletariat who is wanted. In a passing taxi is a suspicious-looking figure; it tallies with the description; straightway the spy flies to the nearest police box and calls up headquarters. Then in every other box and every station the bells go ting-a-ling-ling.
“Man in black Inverness with brown felt hat and horn-rimmed glasses. Check up with picture of the Communist on your files and arrest.”
Within the short space of three minutes all over Tokyo a drag-net is cast. So efficient is the police telephone system for the bourgeois class.
IV
Soroku Tamano kept on running through the snowy night. He went from one end of the little town to the other, knocking up his mates.
“Emergency muster. All the lines are out of order.”
He’d struck it bad to have to go routing them out in weather like this. Like him, they all were sleepy. “What the hell does a snowstorm want to come for?” came grumbling voices from inside the houses.
“It’s no use blaming me,” Soroku would grumble. “They all seem to look on me as some sort of tormentor. It’s a damned rotten job I’ve got, and I don’t like it. Boys, don’t hate me, hate someone else. It’s not my fault.” He felt like blubbing. Pulling a funny face he went round from house to house.
In less than an hour eight linesmen, including himself, ten skilled men and seven casuals had collected at the post office.
“Are you all here? All right, then we’ll get to it,” said the young electrician in charge.
“I’ll ask two linesmen, Kimura and Yamagiwa, to stick it out on the platform of the test pole till the morning. Get there as quick as you can.
Some time after the two had gone out the telephone started to ring. It was a report from them. The electrician put the receiver to his ear.
“Tokyo No. 6 line, the lower wire. Yokohama No. 12 line, the upper wire. No. 1, what about M 1? I see. All right, then”
He went back to where the rest of the men stood awaiting orders, and divided them up into groups to go out and attend to the trouble. He remained there in constant communication with the men on the test pole, waiting for the results of the repair work. Until all the lines were repaired he had to stay there, but at least it was indoors. A charcoal fire burned cheerfully.
V
Soroku, in charge of two skilled men and three cauuals, was assigned the lower part of the M 1 Tokyo No. 6 telephone line. From the test pole, the wire going towards Tokyo was called the upper and the one in the opposite direction the lower. They knew it was the lower part that was damaged from the report of the men up the pole.
Shining their gas lamp along the road they trudged through the outskirts of the town, out north along the highway. Twenty-five miles ahead lay the next post office. There, too, there’d be an emergency muster, for sure, and a squad might be sent out in their direction. In that case the two squads would meet. But, if not, Soroku’s squad might have to walk the whole twenty-five miles.
The storm showed no signs of abating. It was 3.30 a.m., still some time to dawn. You couldn’t keep your eyes open in that gale. Snow flashes danced in the light of the gas lamp.
“It’s cold. Damned cold.”
You couldn’t work in overcoats, so under their ordinary coats they wore old jerseys. Some didn’t even have that. Before they knew it the snow soaked in through their coats, through their shirts until they were wet to the skin.
“It’s cold. Damned cold.”
They forced themselves to pass casual remarks from time to time, as if it was a jolly lark. Otherwise they’d feel too wretched altogether. It was pitch dark, but they couldn’t walk carefully; they had to shine the light on the wires above and then stagger along with their necks craned up to discover where the break was. It might be anywhere between here and the next twenty miles.
Their outfit consisted of a ladder, a bamboo pole, a portable set, and copper binding wire to join the wire on to the porcelain insulator. On the end of the pole was a nail bent like a hook. They hitched this on to the wire and it scraped off the snow as they walked.
In weather like this there were all kinds of accidents. Crossed wires; earth leakage; snapped wires. When two wires got into contact through the wind—that was crossed wires. When the pole got blown down, you had not only crossed wires but a break as well. When the snow collected too heavily on the wires, the current leaked to the ground and that was earth leakage. ····· Soroku and his gang had been walking for two hours. The poles seemed to stretch for ever along the highroad. It was dawn. The wind had died down and the snow was subsiding. White fields, white trees, white hills—the ordinary scenery of a country road.
“I could do with a bite,” yawned Kayama, one of the navvies.
“What about some noodles,” suggested Soroku. They had entered a little village that looked like an old post-town. They could get noodles at least here, he thought.
“Don’t be silly. D’ye think anything’s open at this hour of the morning?” answered the skilled worker, Torida.
Under the fire look-out was a stone statue of the children’s god, Jizo. Round the corner was a little bridge with grass growing on it.
The snow had stopped completely.
There was a noodles-shop and an eating-house. Squeezed in between a doubtful-looking “cafe” and a cake shop was a farmer’s thatched cottage. The door was still bolted and the fire seemed to have been just lighted.
In the eastern sky appeared a blue patch.
They were all tired out with walking. Since they’d been called up they’d worked on without anything to eat. Their bodies were almost frozen where the snow had worked its way in, but now a stickly sweat covered them.
How much further would they have to go?
Endlessly those wires, those cursed wires, would go on stretching to the gates of hell.
How much further was he going to walk them?
On they went, with heavy eyelids and running noses.
The front door of a little restaurant by the road-side opened, and a girl in a nightdress poked out her hand. The powder had come off her face in patches and she wore a stupid expression.
“Hello, sweetie,” one of the men shouted. “Did you have a good time last night?”
The others all cackled, but the girl just stared at their sweaty grimed figures. Sinking back into listlessness again, they tried no more sallies.
Leaving the village behind them they were again on a monotonous road lined with paddy fields. The ladder and the pole had become the worst burden to them. Their feet were not very tired; it was in the upper part of their bodies that they felt it. How much further, O Lord?
“I hope we find the trouble soon!”
“So do I. It’s as bad as hunting for yer girl.”
“For your enemy, more like.”
“Now the snow’s all gone, maybe it’s mended itself. Don’t you reckon all the snow ahead will soon be melted?” said another, although he knew such hopes were vain.
“And so you mean to say we may as well turn back?”
“No such luck.” They all gave a joyless laugh as they glanced in Soroku’s direction.
“It’s no good talking like that. Suppose when we got there they found it wasn’t all right, there’d be hell to pay.” Soroku gave the warning rather unwillingly, with his head down.
“There’s nothing I’d enjoy more than a good row and then to be fired. Who wants to stick at a job like this all his life?”
As one of the skilled workers said this, Soroku raised his face and glanced at him. His name was Machida, and he was tall with a thin yellowish face which he seldom shaved. He was well known for his grumbling.
“Don’t you like this job?” asked Soroku.
“Hell, is there anything to like about it?”
“But you’ve taken all the trouble of learning the work, haven’t you?”
“Are you suggesting that I try and raise myself like you’ve done, eh?”
“Don’t be funny,” countered Soroku.
When an ordinary navvy passed into the skilled class he automatically became a candidate for the still higher class of linesmen. Did Machida mean it didn’t count anything to become a linesman? He must be kidding. Wasn’t the standard of living of the skilled worker far above that of the casual navvy? And at this stage for Machida to be saying he didn’t like the job—what else could he do, anyhow? There was nothing for him except to become a free labourer and get far less wages and be sweated far worse one-half of his time and out of a job the other.
Linesman Soroku Tamano had himself been picked out from the ranks of the skilled workers. Three years ago. His first wage was 1.10 a day. The second year it rose to 1.14. That meant a rise of four sen a day. Four sen a day rise was an honour. Last year it was only 2 sen. So now he was getting 1.16 a day. Some men who’d been working as linesmen for ten or twenty years were getting as much as 2.20 or 2.30 a day. They’d turned their backs on the ordinary workers.
The morning sun shone on the snowy fields. Their road started to ascend. It was a pass. Both sides were thickly wooded. The sun’s rays were more gentle and there was the sound of flapping wings somewhere. As they emerged from the wood the road suddenly became very steep.
Then at the summit it swerved round to the right. One of the navvies, who had reached the top, was just going round the bend when he gave a shout.
“We’re in for it.”
“Why?” asked the panting Soroku from below.
“This chap’s going to be a devil.”
Soroku hastened to the spot from where the voice came and there he saw a big pole lying prone across the snow.
“That’s the chap that’s given us all this trouble.” The wires had snapped.
They all stood there stock still, eyeing it with disgust. It would be a big job to set it up again and mend the wires. Their bellies were empty. Their bodies were exhausted.
“Hey, there, let’s make a start,” shouted Soroku, with a forced display of spirit.
VI
At the bottom of the other side of the pass was a pond. As each got near it he flopped down on the snow or else stretched himself out on a stack of timber that was there.
“Just how much pay do you get?” asked Machida, getting a light from Soroku.
“Me? 1.14 a day.”
“And some travelling allowance as well?”
“With that it comes to about 2.30 a day. So I’m mighty thankful for days like this.”
“You mean because going like this, on and on with nothing to eat or drink, you can save all that, eh?”
“Now you’re being funny again,” said Soroku, laughing.
“But don’t you reckon that when they drive you like this, you deserve at least 2.30 extra? I’ve heard that those damned engineers, who don’t do a stroke, get travelling allowances of 10 or 20 yen a day. The more I think of it the more I get fed up of this whole damned world.”
“You’re right,” said Soroku, lowering his voice. “All of us fellows are treated rotten, and of course we want to do something about it, and some of the fellows talk about forming some sort of a union. But I think you’ve got to turn it over a lot before deciding—because if you go and get fired for it where will you find another job? In Tokyo the unemployed are already at one another’s throats for jobs.”
“But if it wasn’t for us. I’d like to know who’d mend the breakdowns?”
“But for all that we only get a rise of two sen or three sen or, in rare cases, four sen a day each year. They sure make fools of us.” As Soroku spoke he remembered something else. “The other day at the Cultural Club some guy was spouting away about that linesmen were of great national importance and that they had some grand something or other. Just trying to butter us up, the bastards.”
“Flattery’s cheap, anyway,”
“That’s their game. When an electrician does outdoor work, he gets another special allowance proportionate to the distance he travels; so many sen a mile. How about us? Whether we travel twenty miles or forty miles, we don’t get a sen more. If we linesmen are so important to the state, why do we only get a rise of two sen a day each year? Why don’t they give us that allowance for distance?”
They heard a faint snoring. Two men on the timber stack were lying fast asleep.
“Here, there,” shouted Soroku at these two sleeping figures, his discontent having no other outlet. “Here, get up, you’ll catch cold. Let’s be starting.”
His watch said 11.50. A white glare came from the snow. They had been walking for eight hours on end; their start in the snowstorm last night seemed as far off as a dream.
“Let’s go.”
“Go? How much further?”
VII
The Communications Departments Cultural Club had organized a refresher course in a wing of one of the famous temples in the Shiba district of Tokyo. Fifty linesmen, thirty skilled workers and twenty electricians, engineers and foremen had been got together. Linesman Tokimoto was among the number.
The course lasted for three days. During that period the members slept in the temple. All day they were drilled or set to cleaning. In the evenings they listened to lectures.
Such was the “culture” given to these conscripted government employees.
“In the event of war the linesman’s responsibility is very great,” the lecturer would say. “In war-time all manner of telegrams, code ones and other vital ones are passing all the time over the wires. On receipt of messages, forces are moved, stratagems planned, orders carried out. They hold sway over the destiny of our nation. You will therefore understand that you who toil so hard to keep the wires in proper order, you men who doctor the telegraph and telephone, so to speak, carry the fate of the nation on your shoulders. Once you have awakened to this mission of yours you will never become poisoned by imported, foreign ideas which have been spreading lately, and you will never let yourselves be led into doing anything rash.”
War is coming, the lecturers warned them. In such a vital service it was essential that the workers be drilled into obedience. To hide the imminence of war by mouthing pacifist phrases would be fatal. Here they made no bones about their preparations for war. They were terrified lest when war came the linesmen lined up with the working-class. So terrified were they lest the proletariat should take possession of that vast network, that vast spider’s web, the telephone and telegraph systems.
Here the capitalist class exerted all the strength of its will to emasculate the proletariat.
The last night of the course arrived. There was a lecture. The chairman introduced the speaker.
“This gentleman is a worker like you. This evening he has been persuaded to make a confession before all of you. I have no doubt that a worker’s own story, told by himself, will contain much to edify us all and I hope that you will give the gentleman your closest attention.”
Clapping. The man arose. A thin harsh-faced man dressed in a suit of ready-made foreign clothes. A low hound, thought Tokimoto.
“Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,” in a practised voice quite out of keeping with his somewhat vulgar appearance, he began to speak. “Without concealing anything, though I am ashamed, I confess to you here that until last year I was an active member of the Japanese Communist Party.”
The audience, who until them had discounted him because of his appearance, at the words, “Japanese Communist Party” suddenly became tense, as if a blow had been struck. Here was a fellow worth listening to, a member of—but then, if so, why all this modesty about “being ashamed,” and then, in the second place, why did he announce that he was a member?
They gave a cautious glance at the faces of the engineers, but these were quite composed, without any trace of surprise.
“Gentlemen, I tell you I worked for the Communist Party, never sparing my strength, even risking my life..”
Wait, that sounds a bit fishy, thought Tokimoto, why does he say “for the Communist Party,” why doesn’t he say for the working class? The speaker raised his voice a pitch higher.
“But the leaders of the Communist Party, while we were fighting grimly, what were they doing? They were in the Red Light district and in geisha houses squandering the money they’d got from Russia on debauchery.” His tone was one or outraged indignation. With a start, Tokimoto realized that it was all a put-up game. The fellow was clearly just a puppet of the ruling class. Tokimoto strained his ears to catch what he’d come out with next.
“Therefore I became thoroughly fed up with Communism. The principles seem sound enough, but those who try to follow them out in the end only become the dupes of the leaders. Gentlemen, I confess my mistakes and repent of them. If you follow in my footsteps, you’ll get the same bad deal from those leaders. And now I am going to give you testimony to let you see with your own eyes how deeply I regret my past. I am not disloyal. I swear before you all that I am an obedient subject of His Majesty, the Emperor. Here is proof of it, here.” He fished out something from his pocket. A knife. Then he laid his left hand on the table, with the knife flourished in the air, ready to be lowered, he paused some moments. He glanced over at the engineers’ seats. They were sitting back is if witnessing a show. The lecturer stretched out the fingers of the hand on the table. Steadily he lowered the knife until it was pressing on his little finger. “Um!” he shouted. Blood spurted out. The spectators rose from their seats as one man.
The finger had rolled over on the table. The lecturer swooned face downwards on the blood-stained table.
Tokimoto blanched and made his way outside. The conversation that had leaked to his ears on that platform of the test pole, four or five days ago—now how vividly had that deal in fingers been enacted before his eyes.
He could not keep his body from trembling with the excitement and indignation.
- ↑ Yen = 100 sen. A yen is equivalent to about two shillings or half a dollar; a sen to half a cent or a farthing.