Teppei Kataoka

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”