It is loud in the back of the lorry. The steady sound of the engine’s low mechanical growl creates a sort of white noise that is punctuated by the scraping of flints in lighters, the clanks of cutlasses against the frame. The only organic sounds are those of the odd half-heard joke, or a greeting when a stop is made.

Dawn is barely a dull glow on the horizon, but along the village of Canefield’s arterial road, dozens of men stand gathered beneath the tungsten light of street lamps. This village, located in eastern Guyana near the border with Suriname, has grown along the edge of the Rose Hall sugar estate. Its origins are intertwined with the estate, and its population originally consisted of estate workers and their families. 

The lorry reaches the end of the village, and crosses a bridge into the still-dark cane field. The men sway in unison when it makes turns. They are so tightly packed that the bumps don’t bother them anymore. From time to time, a silhouette becomes an amber face as a cigarette is lit. Everybody’s clothing is ragged, but clean. Men stand asleep, held upright by the press of surrounding shoulders and backs. Wind rushes through the metal cage. The air is cool, and smells like dew.

The cane field feels endless in the green night. Eventually, the lorry slows to a stop. For a moment, its rear lights cover the cane leaves in a red glow. There is a narrow bridge that it cannot safely cross—on the other side sits a chain of punts that will transport the cutters to their still-distant work.

The men flow out of the truck, and trudge across the bridge toward the bluish beams of the field managers’ head lamps, which are darting around in the near distance. The managers begin taking names, noting the members that will constitute today’s cutting teams, assigning fields. They give their friends the “cleanest” fields: those which have been recently burned and are still free of obstacles such as vines, or those which are on higher ground and are therefore less muddy. Cutters are paid according to volume rather than time, so being assigned to a clean field is a significant benefit.

The buzzing crowd of cutters separates into orderly, British queues that file across the planks and into the punts. Each one is numbered, some have roofs welded on, all are painted the same dull shade of red. When the bellies of the roofed punts are full, men climb onto their tops, which have the dimpled texture of corroding iron. It rained during the night—the rusted roofs are covered in inky, ferrous puddles that stain trousers and shirts. 

One horizon is lightening now. Within minutes, the yellow-grey pallor of dawn has washed across one hemisphere of the sky. It bleeds into the men—more jokes now, and louder. Cigarettes change hands. They yell to the other punts as they begin to recognise the figures sprawled across their tops. Far ahead the tractor engines are audible, but it is otherwise quite quiet as the punts glide up the canal.

Twenty-odd minutes pass before the caboose punt is detached alongside a recently burned cane field. The others continue up the canal, and the train becomes shorter as punts are moored alongside the fields they will pour their cutters into. The cutters survey their assigned fields, and separate into smaller groups of three to five, before changing into their “work clothes”—long-sleeved shirts, knee-length socks, and shorts.