Life in a Railway Factory Part 19

"Chuck it up!"

"Lie down, can't you!"

"Mind your own business!"

"Put him through the tool."

"Got the c.o.ke ready for after breakfast, Jim?"

"Ah!"

"I'm going to put you through your facings, by and by."

"I don't trouble! I ben' a-goin' to work no harder for n.o.body."

"Look out for Ratty! He's peepin' about. He's going to report the first one as puts his coat on afore the hooter goes."

"He's worse than old w.a.n.ky!"

"'Tis all d.a.m.n watchmen here!"

"How's the minutes?"

"It's quarter past."

"There's the buzzer!"

"There he goes!"

"Tools down, mates!"

"Whack 'em down!"

"Hooter!"

"Hoo-ter-r!"

"Hoo-oo-ter-r-r!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE NIGHT SHIFT--ARRIVAL IN THE SHED--"FOLLOWING THE TOOL"--THE FORGEMAN'S HASTE AND BUSTLE--LIGHT AND SHADE--SUPPER-TIME--CLATTER AND CLANG--MIDNIGHT--WEARINESS--THE RELEASE--HOME TO REST

Whatever the trials of the day shift at the forge may be, those of the night turn are sure to be far greater. For the daytime is the natural period of both physical and mental activity. The strong workman, after a good night's rest and sleep, comes to the task fresh, keen, vigorous, and courageous. Though the day before him be painfully long--almost endless in his eyes--he feels fit to do battle with it, for he has a reserve of energy. In the early morning, before breakfast, he is not at his best. He has not yet "got into his stride," he tells you. His full strength does not come upon him suddenly, it develops gradually. He can spend and spend and spend, but cannot exhaust. Nature's great battery continues to yield fresh power until the turn of the afternoon. Then the rigid muscles relax, and the flesh shows loose and flabby. The eyes are dull, the features drawn; the whole body is tired and languid.

But this is with the day shift, working in the natural order of things.

A great change is to be observed in the case of the night turn. There nature is inverted; the whole scheme is reversed. The workman, unless he is well seasoned to it, cannot summon up any energy at all, and he cannot conquer habit, not after months, or even years of the change.

When, by the rule of nature, he should be at his strongest and the exigencies of the night shift require that he should sleep, that strength, bubbling up, keeps him awake, dead tired though he be, and when he requires to be active and vigorous just the reverse obtains. The energy has subsided, the sap has gone down from the tree. Nature has retired, and all the coaxing in the world will not induce her to come forth until such time as the day dawns and she steals back upon him of her own free will. That is what, most of all, distinguishes the night from the day shift, and makes it so wearisome for the pale-faced toilers.

There is a poignancy in preparing for the night shift, the feeling is really one of tragedy. This is where the unnaturalness begins. Everyone but you is going home to rest, to revel in the sweet society of wife and children, or parents, to enjoy the greatest pleasure of the workers'

day--the evening meal, the happy fireside, a few short hours of simple pleasure or recreation and, afterwards, the honey-dew of slumber. As you walk along the lane or street towards the factory you meet the toilers in single file, or two abreast, or marching like an army, in compact squads and groups, or straggling here and there. The boys and youths move smartly and quickly, laughing and talking; the men proceed more soberly, some upright with firm step and cheerful countenance, others bent and stooping, dragging their weary limbs along in silence like tired warriors retreating after the hard-fought battle.

There is also the inward sense and knowledge of evening, for, however much you may deceive your external self, you cannot deceive Nature.

Forget yourself as much as you please, she always remembers the hour and the minute; she is far more painstaking and punctual than we are. The time of day fills you with a sweet sadness. The summer sun entering into the broad, gold-flooded west, the soft, autumn twilight, or the gathering shades of the winter evening, all tell the same story. It is drawing towards night; night that was made for man, when very nature reposes; night for pleasure and rest, for peace, joy, and compensations, while you--here are you off to sweat and slave for twelve dreary hours in a modern inferno, in the Cyclops' den, with the everlasting wheels, the smoke and steam, the flaring furnace and piles of blazing hot metal all around you.

Within the entrance the place seems almost deserted. The huge sheds have poured out their swarms of workmen. The black-looking crowds have disappeared, and the great, iron-bound doors are closed up and locked.

The watchmen, who have been patrolling the yard and supervising the exodus of the toilers, are returning to their quarters. Only the rooks are to be seen scavenging up the fragments of bread and waste victuals which the men have thrown out of their pockets for them.

Arrived at the shed you are greeted with the familiar and dreadful din of the boilers priming, the loud roar of the blast and the whirl of the wheels. The rush of hot air almost overpowers you. You feel nearly suffocated already, and half stagger through the smoke and steam to reach your fire and machine standing under the dark, sooty wall. As you thread your way in and out between the furnaces and among the piles of iron and steel you receive a severe dig in the ribs with the long handle of the man's shovel who is cleaning out the cinders and clinker from beneath the furnaces, or the ash-wheeler, stripped to the waist and dripping with perspiration, runs against you roughly with his wheel-barrow and utters a loud "Hey-up!" or otherwise a.s.sails you with "Hout o' the road, else I'll knock tha down," and hurries off up the stage to deposit his load and then comes down again to get in a stock of coal from the waggon for the furnaces. Here the smith is preparing his fire, while his mate breaks up the c.o.ke with the heavy mallet; the yellow flames and cinders are leaping up from the open forge by the steam saw. The oil furnaces are puffing away and spitting out their densest clouds of pitchy smoke, filling the shed, while the stamper fixes his dies and oils round, or half runs to the shears in the corner and demands his stock of iron bars to be brought forthwith. The old furnaceman, sweating from the operation of clinkering, shovels in the coal and disposes it with the ravel. The forging hammers glide up and down, clicking against the self-act, while the forger and his mates manipulate the crane and ingot, or charge in the blooms or piles.

Everyone is in a desperate hurry, eager to start on with the work and get ahead of Nature, before she flags too much. It is useless to wait till midnight, or count upon efforts to be made in the hours of the morning.

All this is during your entry to the shed and often before the official hour for starting work. On coming to your post you, too, strip off hat, coat, and vest, and hang them up in the shadow of the forge, then bind the leathern ap.r.o.n about your waist, see to your own fire and tools--tongs, sets, flatters, and sledges--obtain water from the tap by the wall, shout "Hammer up!" to your mate, and prepare to thump away with the rest. The heat of the shed in the evening, from six o'clock till ten o'clock, is terrific in the summer months. For hours and hours the furnaces and boilers have been raging, fuming, and pouring out their interminable volumes of invisible vapour; the sun without, and the fires within have made it almost unbearable. The floor plates, the iron princ.i.p.als, the machine frames, the uprights of the hammers--everything is full of heat; the water in the feed-pipes is so hot as to startle you. As the hour draws on, towards nine or ten o'clock, this diminishes somewhat. The cool night air envelops the shed and enters in through the doors, restoring the normal temperature, though, if the night be muggy, there will be scarcely any diminution of the punishment till the early morning, when there is always a cooling down of the atmosphere.

Now the general toil commences in every corner of the smithy. The brawny forger pulls, tugs, or pushes the heavy porter; the stamper runs out with his white-hot bar, spluttering and hissing, and poises one foot on the treadle while he adjusts it over the die, then _Pum-tchu, pom-tchu, ping-tchu, ping-tchu_, goes the hammer, and over he turns it deftly, blows away the scale and excrescence with the compressed air, and _pom-tchu, ping-tchu_, again replies the hammer. Here he claps the forging in the trimmer, click goes the self-act, and down comes the tool. The finished article drops through on to the ground; the stamper thrusts the bar into the furnace, turns on more oil and off he goes again. The sparks swish and fly everywhere, travelling to the furthest wall; he wipes away the sweat with the blistered back of his hand, looking half-asleep, and rolls the quid of tobacco in his cheek.

Hard by the smith is busy with his forge and tools. His mate is ghastly pale and thin in the yellow firelight, though he himself looks fat and well. He sets the blast on gently till the iron is nearly fit, then applies the whole volume, to put on the finishing touch and make the iron soft and "mellow." This lifts up the white cinders in clouds and blows them out of the front also, so that now and then they lodge on the blacksmith's arms and in his hair, but he shakes them off and takes little notice of them. He jerks the jumper up and down once or twice, turns the heat round quickly, then shuts off the blast, and with a lion-like grip of the tongs, brings it to the anvil and lays on with his hand-hammer, while his mate plies the sledge. Presently he throws down his hammer, grips the "set tool" or "flatter," and his mate continues to strike upon it till the work is completed. If the striker is not proficient and misses once or twice, he jerks out, in a friendly tone--"On the top, or go home," or, "Go and get some chalk"--_i.e._, to whiten the tool--or, "Follow the tool, follow the tool, you okkerd fella." Once, when a smith had a strange mate--a raw hand--with him, and bade him to "Follow the tool," when he put that down the striker continued to go for it till it flew up and nearly knocked out the smith's eye, but he excused himself on the ground that he thought he had to "follow the tool."

Here is a skinny, half-naked fellow, striving with all his might to draw a heavy bogie piled up with new blooms, half a ton or more in weight.

His head is thrown far forward, about a yard from the ground. His arms, thin and small, are strained like rods of iron behind his back; only his toes grip the ground. He shouts out to someone near for help.

"Hey! Gi' us a shove a minute."

"Gi' thee tha itch! Ast the gaffer for a mate. I got mi own work to do,"

the other replies, and keeps hammering away.

Next is a belated stamper in want of tools. "Hast got a per o' tongs to len' us a minute, ole pal?"

"Shove off wi' thee and make a pair, or else buy some, like I got to.

n.o.body never lends I nothin'," is the answer he receives.

This one wants a blow. "Come an' gi' I a blow yer."

"Gi' thee a blow on the head. I got no time to mess about wi' thee."

Another is concerned as to the hour--there are those whose thoughts are always of the clock, anxiously awaiting the next stop. "What time is it, mate?"

"Aw! time thee wast better," or "Same as 'twas last night at this time.

Thee hasn't bin yer five minutes it."

Perhaps the steam pressure is low. "Wha's bin at wi' the steam, matey?

We chaps can't hit a stroke."

"Got twisted in the pipes, I 'spect. Go an' put thi blower on, an' fire up a bit, an' run that slag out."