Kindling (20 page)

He continued, “And your progress payments scheme is none so bad, though I’d rather have seen a bit more on the materials. You need have no fear about the ships themselves—they’ll be good, sound ships before ever they leave the yard. But whether we’ll build them at a profit … that I very much doubt.”

Warren nodded slowly.

“In my opinion, Mr. Warren,” said the manager evenly, “you’d better budget for a fifty-thousand loss on the three ships.”

“So much as that?”

“I think so, Mr. Warren. Mind you, don’t think I’m setting up an alibi right from the start, but look at it fair. Four hundred and twenty thousand pounds of work, at what in normal times we’d reckon a cut price, although it’s none so bad these days. And starting from a yard that’s dead, stone dead and derelict. It’s not reasonable to expect a profit, Mr. Warren. We’re going to lose money at the start, and I’d say that it would be the thick end of that sum before we’re cracking as a proper yard again.”

Warren smiled slowly. “Well, go to it,” he replied. “Make it as little as you can.”

The manager got to his feet. “You can depend upon it that we’ll do that,” he said. “And now, with your leave, I’ll go and get a bite of something to eat, and then I’ll get along to King’s Cross. Time I was on the job.”

He got to Sharples early the next day, and walked down from the station to the “Bull’s Head”, carrying his bag. Once or twice he saw a man he recognised and gave a friendly nod; his heart sank at the aspect of the town. There was no life, no spirit in the place; it was with a serious face that he rang the bell of the hotel.

A slatternly girl came and unbolted the door. “Mr. Hancock home?” he asked.

“Aye,” she said, “he’s within. Will ye step inside?”

The landlord came lumbering into the hall.

“Eh, Mr. Hancock, you remember me? I want a room for a few nights till I can get fixed up—I’m working here from now on.”

The landlord greeted him warmly. “Sit ye down, an’ let me draw ye a can o’ bitter, an’ tell me what brings ye back to Sharples,” he exclaimed. “Sit ye right down.”

“I’d rather have a mug of tea, if it’s the same to you.”

In half an hour he had learned a great deal about Sharples, and it was with a more thoughtful face than ever that he walked down to the Yard. He routed out the watchman, Robbins, from his hut. “You remember me?” he said. “Grierson, my name. I remember you when I was working here—in the stores, weren’t you? I mind your face. I’m the new manager. You’ve had a letter?”

“Oh, aye,” the old man quavered. “A letter come yesterday. I told the missus, I said, I couldn’t make head nor tail of it, I said.”

Grierson eyed him critically and his heart sank again; even the watchman was too old to be of any real service. He was starting from absolutely nothing.

“Well,” he said quietly, “I’m manager here from now on, Robbins. Get the offices opened up this afternoon and get a room cleaned up for me. I’ll go in Mr. Drew’s old room for the time being.”

He took the old man’s keys and started on a tour of inspection of the Yard, note-book in hand. It took him two hours and a half; at the end of that time he had been in every store and shed, and had filled three pages of his book.

Then he went down to the Labour Exchange.

Within a quarter of an hour the town was in a ferment.

The news spread from the door, carried on running feet, that Mr. Grierson was within, him as was under Mr. Drew, and they were taking on a ganger and ten men for labouring down at the Yard. By the time it had run through the town as far as Pilgrim Street it was to the effect that Barlows had got a good order for ships, Mr. Drew and Mr. Grierson were in the town, and fifty men were needed at the Labour Exchange at once. By the time it got to the top of the town it seemed that two hundred skilled men were required, specially platers.

The town became revitalised that afternoon, awoke to running life. Men struggled into jackets, crammed their caps upon their heads and went swarming down the hill to the Exchange; wives routed out the stay-at-homes, the pessimists, and sent them packing off to join the throng. Outside the doors of the Exchange the crowd swelled to over a thousand men, filling the street, and waiting patiently for news.

Grierson, coming out of the side door after an hour’s
Conference with the manager of the Exchange, was surrounded and besieged by questions. He hesitated for a moment, then fought his way to the main steps of the Exchange.

On the steps he stood above them, visible to everyone. “Now, see here, lads,” he said. “I’ve come back here as manager of Barlows Yard, only it’s not Barlows any longer. It’s been taken over as a new Company. Don’t ask me what we’re going to build, because I don’t rightly know myself, and if I did I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

A voice cried out anxiously, “Will ye be needing platers, mister?” The speaker was jostled into silence by his mates.

The manager laughed, and some of the men laughed with him. “Go easy, lad,” he said. “We got to get an order for a ship before we start and plate her. I’m hopeful we may get an order, but we haven’t got one yet. Soon as we do, we’ll be needing platers, fitters, riveters, joiners—all sorts. At present I’ve taken on ten men for cleaning up the Yard and getting straight, and there’ll be no more needed for a while. It’ll be no good anyone coming to the gate or writing letters to the Company, because I’m taking on through the Exchange. That’s fair to everyone. Now, get along back home to your teas and don’t come pestering me, ’cos I know nothing more than what I’ve told you.”

He came down from the steps, pushed his way through them, and went back to the Yard. The men stood about in little groups for an hour or more, slowly dispersing to their homes.

The news got to the hospital as soon as anywhere.
It came, no doubt, from the out-patients; it went flowing through the cold stone corridors into the wards. In the children’s ward it came from a nurse to Sister, who passed it on to Miss MacMahon.

“Nurse says there’s something happening in the town,” said Sister. “Something about Barlows starting up again.”

At the words something seemed to turn over inside the Almoner; she straightened up above the cot and stared at the sister. “That—that’s splendid news,” she said uncertainly. To the sister’s astonishment, she was blushing. “Do you know any more?”

The nurse said, “They were saying down in out-patients something about a Mr. Grierson being in charge. Some name like that.”

“Would that be Billy Grierson that was?” inquired the sister thoughtfully. “I wonder if there’s any truth in it?”

Miss MacMahon left the children’s ward and went down to the office. She found Mr. Williams there alone. “They’re saying in the wards that the Yard’s starting up again,” she exclaimed. “Is it true?”

He laid down his pen. “Aye,” he said cautiously, “I did hear something about it. They’re saying Mr. Grierson’s back, and taken on ten men down at the Yard.”

She said, “It’s wonderful!”

He eyed her dourly. “This’ll be something of your Mr. Warren and his wurrk, nae doubt?” He noted her flushed face and bright eyes.

“It might be. But he never told me it would be so soon.”

“Ah, weel,” said the Secretary, “maybe ye’ll get him better trained one day.”

Next day the work of cleaning up the Yard began. Grierson, deep in work of every sort, found time to keep an eye on his ten labourers, and what he saw displeased him very much. In the late afternoon he called the ganger to him.

“Ye’ll have to get your men working better than this, or ye’re no ganger for me,” he said brusquely, but not unkindly. “Lord love you, man, there’s not a day’s work done among the lot of them!”

The man agreed. “It’s no a good day’s work. I’m feared they’re terrible soft, but they’re wanting to please you. Go easy with them for a week, Mr. Grierson, and ye’ll see a big difference.”

“I’ll be needing to,” said Grierson grimly.

The man hesitated. “I was wondering, Mr. Grierson, if ye’d consider paying by the day, the first week or two, and not wait till the week-end, the way they’d get a better dinner, this first week.”

The manager thought quickly. Precedent was everything in a shipyard; he could let himself in for endless trouble if he made a false move at the start. But the request was reasonable—the men could not do heavy work on a starvation diet. “I’ll no do that,” he said. “This first week, I’ll give each man two bob a day out of my own pocket, as a gift—not wages. And I’ll look to you to see it’s spent on food—not beer.” His eye strayed across the Yard. “Now, get along and jerk ’em up a bit. Look at that big chap—there, wheeling that barrow-load of stuff. What’s his name?”

“McCoy, sir.”

“God love us, man, he might be going to his own funeral.”

He turned back to his office, disheartened. He had not reckoned in his costs that he would have to feed his men up before setting them to work.

Two days later he wrote his views to Warren in London.

As regards the labour here
(he wrote),
the position is very bad, and we should realise it. I have ten men clearing up the yard and putting the slips in order, as stated in my last letter, but not one of these is fit for a proper day’s work. They are very soft, and there is no strength in them. I have laid off two and replaced them, but the new ones are as bad. These are labourers, of course, but I think we shall find the tradesmen will be just the same; I do not think there is a man in the town that is fit for a real day’s work
.

I am now getting very worried about the fifty thousand pound loss that I told you when I was in London. Unless we can get some decent labour to work with, that figure will be very much increased. I would like to talk this over with you before you definitely decide to put the order with this yard, as I do not want you to feel that I have been leading you astray
.

Warren received this letter in his office the next day. He read it twice with a grim face, then put it in a drawer of his desk. One didn’t want to have that sort of letter floating round the office before a public issue.

He reached out to the telephone, and put in a call to the Yard. Five minutes later he was speaking to
Grierson. “I’ll get down to Newcastle on Friday night, late. Can you arrange to pick me up at the hotel on Saturday morning, and drive me out to Sharples?”

“I’ll call for you myself, in my own car, Mr. Warren. I’ll be right glad to have a crack with you about the Yard.”

Warren laid down the receiver, and sat for a few minutes deep in thought. Then he reached out for a sheet of private notepaper and wrote:

Dear Miss MacMahon
,

I shall be in Sharples on Saturday morning, at the yard. Would you care to lunch with me? I don’t know where one does lunch in Sharples, or if you would be free to lunch in Newcastle, but if you would give me a ring at the yard we might be able to fix something up
.

Yours sincerely,              
Henry Warren
.    

He posted this, and turned again to the set-up of Laevol Ltd. The sticking point in that lay in the collateral security for dividend; without such a security the Company would be purely speculative and quite unlikely to secure support. Even the most hardened speculator would fight shy of a gamble in Laevatia, preferring to do his gambling against unloaded dice.

The collateral security that he had got upon the profits of the State Railway removed the issue from the speculative class and put it, if not in among the trustee stock, at any rate into the realms of serious business. He had negotiated an agreement, signed and sealed in Visgrad, between Laevol Ltd. and the
Laevatian Government pledging the profit of the railway to support the Laevol dividend, but this agreement, between a Government-controlled company and the Government, had not of course been signed on British territory, and was subject to the laws of Laevatia. And, as Warren very well knew, the laws of Laevatia were laws unto themselves.

It would look all right in the prospectus, of course; he was not worried about that. The dangers that he knew existed lay concealed too deep in the legal system of Laevatia for any solicitor connected with the issue in London to be likely to unearth them. It probably would be all right, in fact, so long as all went according to plan.

Anyway, there was nothing to be done about it now. The whole thing was a pretty rocky deal that would be carried on in his name alone, and he would have to see it through.

He turned again to the wording of the prospectus. He worked on that all day with the solicitors, had it printed over-night and circulated to the underwriters, and spent the next day deep in conference with them. Plumberg came back to talk to him again of silver, and Heinroth’s cousin, over from Paris with a Finn, demanded his attention.

For three days he did not leave the office before nine at night.

He freed himself on Friday afternoon, and caught the train to Newcastle. He slept at the hotel, indifferently, and greeted his manager after an early breakfast. Together they drove out upon the Sharples road.

“I’m right glad you’ve been able to get down,” said Grierson. “It’s proper that you should see for yourself the way things stand.”

They reached the Yard and went into the office. For some time Grierson outlined the work that he was doing in the Yard in preparation for the order; then he came to his main point.

“It’s the men I’m worried about, Mr. Warren. I can see my way in everything but that.”

Warren nodded. “I know,” he said. “I got your letter. Tell me what the trouble is, exactly.”

“They’ve go no stamina, Mr. Warren. I never saw such. It’s on account of Sharples being a small town, I think. Most places, on the Clyde or that, a man would maybe get a spell of work now and again in one yard or the other; he wouldn’t be out of work continuous, if you take my meaning. But here, there’s been no other yard to go to. All these men here have been out of work five and a half years, and they’ve not got the strength. I tell you, Mr. Warren, we’re going to have a job to get the work from them that you’ve a right to expect.”

Warren got up and went to the window; the manager came and stood beside him. “Look at that chap there now, handling that baulk of stuff. Did you ever see aught like it?”