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Gem Trader
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tional
feeling, for after all, the Chinese, the Arabs and the Japanese had
discovered Jolo—as it was then called—long before I had ever heard of
that interesting neighbour of Borneo. The crews of pearling luggers are
usually mixed crews from half the coloured races of the world; and
whatever the rest may be, black men, Arabs, Indians, Malayans, Chinese,
half-castes, the divers are pretty sure to be sons of Nippon.
Like
Ohtami, a diver I knew, these men are from the hardy fisher stock of
Northern Japan, which wrests a miserable existence from the
storm-ridden Pacific. The diver's job, better paid, is no less
precarious. Ohtami, for instance, stepped into the lead-weighted boots
of his predecessor, who had been swimming off the beach and had met a
shark. The Idmu was two days' sail from port at the time, and
as there was nothing left of Toyo to commit to the deep, the only
formality that remained was to choose a new diver. The choice fell on
Ohtami, which meant he was to work in alternate shifts with the
principal diver at a rate of pay plus cwnsha (rake-off) better than anything he had ever seen before.
Ohtami
looked as though he had been cut with a clasp-knife out of a block of
wood. He was short and very thick, with enormous lung development and
extraordinarily long and mobile arms. With the assistance of his
tender, who would look after the air pump and the end of his lifeline
while he was below, he got into the thick woollens that the diver wears
beneath his rubber cuirass, into the felt front-piece and back and
shoulder pads, into the suit itself. The boss ran an eye over him. The
things fitted.
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