The Sound of Waves Read Online Free PDF Page B

his sluggish engine that had given the plane its target.
    The plane dropped a bomb on the boat and then strafed it with machine-gun fire. The boat’s funnel was split open, and Shinji’s father had his head torn apart down to his ears. Another man too was killed instantly, hit in the eye. One was hit in the back by a bullet, which entered his lungs. One was hit in the legs. And one who had a buttock shot away died shortly after of the bleeding.
    Both the deck and the bilge became a lake of blood. The fuel tank was hit and kerosene spread on top of the blood. Some hesitated to fling themselves prone in this mess and were hit in the hips. Four persons saved themselves by taking shelter in the icebox in the forward cabin. In his panic, one man squeezed himself through the porthole behind the bridge, but when he tried to repeat the feat back in port he found that, no matter how he tried, he could not wriggle through that tiny opening a second time.
    Thus, of eleven persons, three were killed and a number wounded. But the corpse of the old woman, stretched out on the deck under a rush mat, was not so much as touched by a single bullet.…
•    •    •
    “The old man was really something fierce when fishing for sand launce,” Shinji said reminiscently to his mother. “He’d beat me every day. Really, there wasn’t time for the welts to go down before he’d raise more.”
    Sand launce were found in the Yohiro Shallows, and catching them required unusual skill. A flexible bamboo pole with feathers on the tip was used to imitate a sea-bird pursuing a fish under the water, and the operation called for split-second timing.
    “Well, I guess so,” said his mother. “Sand-launce fishing is real man’s work even for a fisherman.”
    Hiroshi took no interest in the talk between his mother and brother but was dreaming of the school excursion that was to take place in only ten days more. Shinji had been too poor to go on school excursions when he was Hiroshi’s age, so he had been saving money out of his own wages for Hiroshi’s travel expenses.
    When they had finished paying their homage at the graveside, Shinji went on alone directly to the beach to help with the preparations for sailing. It was agreed that his mother would return home and bring him his lunch before the boats put out.
    As he hurried toward the Taihei-maru along the busy beach, someone’s voice from out of the throng came to him on the wind and struck his ears:
    “They say Yasuo Kawamoto’s to marry Hatsue.”
    At the sound of those words Shinji’s spirits became pitch-black.
    Again the Taihei-maru spent the day octopus fishing.
    During the eleven hours they were out in the boat Shinji threw his whole soul into the fishing and scarcelyonce opened his mouth. But as he usually had very little to say, his silence was not particularly noticeable.
    Returning to harbor, they tied up as usual to the Co-operative’s boat and unloaded their octopuses. Then the other fish were sold through a middleman and transferred to the “buyer ship” belonging to a private wholesale fish dealer. The giltheads were flapping about inside the metal baskets used for weighing fish, flashing in the light of the setting sun.
    It was the day out of every ten when the fishermen were paid, so Shinji and Ryuji went along with the master to the office of the Co-operative. Their catch for the ten-day period had been over three hundred and thirty pounds and they cleared 27,997 yen after deducting the Co-operative’s sales commission, the ten per cent savings deposit, and maintenance costs. Shinji received four thousand yen from the master as his share. It had been a good take considering that the height of the fishing season was already past.
    Licking his fingers, the boy carefully counted the bills in his big, rough hands. Then he returned them to the envelope with his name on it and put it deep in the bottom of the inner pocket of his jumper. With a bow toward the master, he