Twenty-Two
A new brick building was put up at great speed, some distance from the wooden work sheds, and shortly before Christmas 1915, a Lieutenant Michaels from the Woolwich Arsenal visited the works and announced that there was to be a new process for dealing with detonators.
Soon after, one morning while Jess was working, she sensed she was being watched, and looked round to find the foreman, Mr Stevenson, observing her.
‘I’ve a new job for you,’ he was softly spoken, polite, not like the cocky sods you found in some factories. ‘Would you come with me, please?’
Polly, who was in the same shed that day, winked and pulled her mouth down mockingly as Jess was led out, as if to say, ‘Well aren’t we the lucky one!’
Jess and two other girls followed Mr Stevenson as he led them with long strides into the new building.
‘You can hang your outdoor clothes here when you come in,’ he told them. He stood with his hands pushed down into the pockets of his overall while the three of them moved into line, facing him. Jess was rather in awe of him. He was so tall she had to look up to see into his face which was a handsome one, she realized, with dark eyes and strong black eyebrows. But she thought how tired he looked. Even the way he talked seemed to imply an infinite weariness. ‘And you’ll need to wear these over your ordinary shoes.’ He freed his hands from the pockets and turned to reach for pairs of rubber overshoes which he handed to them, and the three of them bent to put them on. Jess’s felt rather big and floppy.
‘This is dangerous work you’ll be doing. I’ve picked out you three because so far you’ve been sensible, and good workers. I’m going to take you through each stage and you must listen very, very carefully, for your own safety. Now – come through here.’
The shed was divided up by two brick walls. A doorway led through to the next section, with a high brick barrier that they had to step over. Jess followed, walking awkwardly in the oversized rubber shoes.
‘If you look, you’ll see only three walls are brick,’ Mr Stevenson pointed to one side. ‘That one’s plywood. In the event of an explosion . . .’ He finished the explanation with a gesture which implied that one wall, at least, would rip off like paper. The three girls looked at one another.
‘You two will work in here,’ he told the others. ‘This is where they’re varnished, then heated in the oven. So – you wait here, please, and you . . .?’
‘Jess,’ she said shyly.
‘Jess – come through here.’
Behind another wall, in the third section was nothing but a large metal drum, attached to a spindle which passed through the wall, allowing it to revolve at the turn of a handle. Above it a clock hung on the wall and nearby on the floor stood piles of boxes.
White and Poppe
,
Coventry
, Jess read on the side of them.
She listened carefully as Mr Stevenson explained that she was to put forty detonators – ‘no more than that, all right? There’re forty in a box but I still want you to count’ – into the drum, which was full of sawdust. ‘That’ll polish them up in there. You’ll be surprised at the difference when they come out.’
He showed her how to rotate the drum. Jess watched his long fingers close round the handle, became mesmerized by the circling motion. She imagined writing to Ned about this. So many of her thoughts were a commentary to him in her head. I’ve a new job finishing the detonators for your grenades, so I’m doing it the best I can. I have to wear shoes that make me feel like a duck . . .
‘Are you listening?’
She jumped. ‘Er . . . yes.’
Mr Stevenson looked at her in silence for a few seconds as if reappraising her and Jess found herself blushing. ‘I said turn it for three to four minutes – look, you’ve got the clock up there. D’you think you can manage that?’ He wasn’t being sarcastic, she realized. He spoke with a kind of detachment, as if his mind was partly elsewhere. She found herself wondering what he would look like if he smiled.
‘Yes, Mr Stevenson.’
‘Then you count them out again – carefully. You don’t want any left in there. They go through next door then for varnishing. You might as well come and hear what I tell them – you can’t start ’til we’re all ready.’
Jess didn’t take in much of what he told the other girls. She felt how cold it was in the shed and stood hugging herself, hoping the work would warm her up. The varnish smelt strongly of methylated spirits.
‘. . . heated for ten hours,’ Mr Stevenson was saying. ‘When they’ve cooled they’ll be picked up from here to have the fuse caps fitted. Now – have you got all that?’
The detonators went into the drum looking dark and tarnished, and emerged as if reborn, a shiny copper colour. Next door the girls varnished them and stood them to dry on racks. Jess rather liked the new work, the fact that she was alone, the rhythmic rumbling of the drum.
When they got home that evening, a letter had arrived from Bert. The Dardanelles had been evacuated earlier in the month and he’d been reposted to Mesopotamia, had had a bad dose of fever but was feeling better. Olive seemed as if a weight had been lifted from her, and was in a good mood. When Jess told her about the new work, she made a face.
‘’E put a dreamy so-and-so like you on doing that? Heaven help ’em – I just ’ope yer don’t send the whole place sky high!’
Jess laughed, happy at her aunt’s warmth towards her.
She settled into the work, in the ‘Danger Shed’ or what quickly became known as the ‘Rumbling Shed’, and managed it without mishap. She was happy in the job. But even working alone, she soon picked up the fact that there was discontent growing among some of the other women, through murmurings during the breaks or through Polly and Sis repeating the gossip.
One morning when they got to the factory they found a group huddled round the entrance, arms folded, their faces defiant.
‘We’ve come out on strike,’ one of them said importantly. Vi was one of the older women at the works, the sort you didn’t tangle with and a natural leader. ‘We reckon we’d all be better off on piece work, so that’s what we’re asking ’im for, when ’e comes in.’
Jess and Polly hesitated, but by the look of it, with everyone else out, they didn’t have much choice but to join in. The morning was damp and very cold. They stood in groups, their breath billowing like smoke.
‘Are they right?’ Jess asked Polly. She didn’t know what to think about it, but most of the women had years more experience of factory work than she did. ‘D’yer think we’d be better off? We don’t seem bad off now, compared with before.’
Polly hunched her shoulders to raise her collar higher round her ears. ‘I dunno – it’s worth a try anyhow. They could’ve chosen a better day for it though.’ Her nose was pink with the cold, eyes watering in the chill wind and her skin yellow. Although among some of the ‘canaries’ the yellowness was a sign of pride, a sign of what they were doing for the war effort, Polly loathed it. ‘Makes me look really poorly and ugly,’ she complained sometimes, looking in the mirror. ‘Blasted TNT. I’m all sore and itchy round me collar from it an’ all. Maybe I should look for another job.’ But it suited them all for now, going off to work at the same place.
Sis looked round at the crowd filling the yard. ‘Oh well – this makes a change from being in there, don’t it?’ she said cheerfully. ‘Ooh, I wonder what old Misery Guts is going to say when ’e gets in!’
A few moments later Mr Stevenson came round the corner, the collar of his black coat up to keep the wind out, hat pulled well down to stop it blowing off. Though a quiet man, he had a strong presence and the women fell silent as he approached, all watching him. Jess felt her stomach tighten. It was only then it occurred to her that Mr Stevenson was a nice man and she liked him, didn’t want to make him angry.
‘O-oh,’ someone said. ‘’Ere we go!’
Seeing them all standing there by the sheds he faltered for a moment. Jess saw the surprise, then concern register on his face, eyes scanning the sheds as he hurried towards them.
‘What’s wrong?’ He looked over at the Rumbling Shed. ‘Has something happened? Is everyone all right?’
He didn’t sound furious at all. Jess had expected him to lose his temper at the loss of time and order them all back to work. But then she saw by the way his gaze swept over the sheds that he was worried there might have been an accident.
‘It’s nothing like that.’ Vi moved forward, arms folded. She was a broad, muscular-looking woman with black hair on her top lip almost like a ’tache. ‘We’ve come out to ask yer to put us on piece work, like they’ve got over at Dalston’s. We ain’t happy with it being a fixed wage, like, and we’re all fast workers. We think we’d do better on piece work.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Mr Stevenson took his hat off and looked down, obviously considering this, his dark eyes scanning the muddy surface of the yard. His black hair blew boyishly down over his forehead. After they had stood waiting for a couple more moments he looked up at them.
‘The thing is, ladies—’ He spoke in a reasonable tone, and rather quietly so that some of the women moved closer to hear, leaning towards him. ‘I know every one of you is working very hard here – not much in the way of holiday time and so on . . .’
‘None at all, yer mean,’ someone mumbled behind Jess.
‘Sssh,’ Jess turned to them, without thinking.
‘Oi – who d’yer think you’re telling to shoosh? Think yer above the rest of us now yer over there, do yer?’
Jess blushed, and stared straight ahead of her.
‘I do want to do what’s best,’ Mr Stevenson was saying. ‘But the problem is, we’re going to find that the amount of work coming to us varies from time to time. Sometimes you might be right about earning more on piece work – fractionally more anyway. Other times when things’re slower, it’ll be less. So if you stay on the regular wage . . .’ He looked round at them with genuine, disarming concern. He knew, and they knew, that they were now earning better than most of them had ever earned in their lives before. ‘You’ll be guaranteed that coming in every week instead of it going up and down – especially down.’
There was silence for a moment as the women digested all this.
‘So ’ow come Dalston’s do it the other way?’ Vi didn’t want to give in too easily.
Mr Stevenson shrugged. ‘Up to them, isn’t it? I’m just telling you what I think’s the best for you. So – that’s my point of view.’ They could tell that, for all the gentleness of his tone, he was not going to be argued with. ‘Are you in agreement?’
Again Jess’s mouth leaped ahead of her. ‘Yes!’ she cried.
Mr Stevenson almost smiled. The corners of his wide mouth twitched as Jess’s face went even pinker.
Vi, after conferring with her neighbour, gave a nod. ‘If that’s the way it is, we’ll stick with the wage.’
‘Thank you,’ Mr Stevenson said. He put his hat back on firmly and turned towards the shed that served as an office. ‘Good morning, ladies.’
This was his way of telling them to get to work. A card had come from Ned to Iris’s saying he’d arrived in France and would write properly soon, and Jess tried to fill her time so that it would pass more quickly, keeping herself as busy as possible.
On Christmas Day she went to see Iris Whitman, who was under the weather with a cold. Jess stoked up the fire for her, making her tea and pampering her as much as possible. She’d considered buying her a little bottle of brandy to help warm her up, but thought the better of it because of Iris’s religion. Iris had no desire to possess knick-knacks of any kind, so instead, Jess found her a nice second-hand blanket for her bed, and bought a few groceries to go with it.
‘Ooh,’ Iris was childlike with delight, her face rearranging itself into one of her rare and beautiful smiles. She spread the blanket over her lap, stroking the soft wool. ‘My goodness, they must be paying you well nowadays.’
‘They are,’ Jess beamed, warmed by Iris’s pleasure. ‘When I got my first wage packet I went and got my mom’s quilt back.’ She’d told Iris long ago that she’d pawned the quilt, though not the full reason why.
‘Well—’ Iris said, holding up her teacup as if it was a champagne glass. ‘Here’s to happier times. Pity we haven’t got something a wee bit stronger to toast ourselves.’
Jess grinned. ‘I thought you’d most likely signed the Pledge.’
‘Oh no—’ Iris was spooning extra sugar into her tea from the bag Jess had brought. ‘Why should I want to do that? Do you think of me as an immoderate person – someone who wouldn’t know when they’d had enough?’
She seemed rather indignant.
‘Er – no, I don’t.’ Jess raised her cup too, to change the subject. ‘Different from last year, eh?’
‘Yes,’ Iris gulped the tea. ‘Yes indeed, dear. Best to be friends with your family, if you can manage it. Though that Ned of yours . . .’ Iris had taken to this particular phrase for talking about him. ‘He’s used to approval, isn’t he? Not easy, if you have to become a fighter all of a sudden. Rather different for you, of course. Seems to be more of a habit for you.’
Jess laughed at Iris’s sharpness. ‘It’s one I wouldn’t mind breaking though, Miss Whitman.’
One evening they were all sitting round at home. Ronny was asleep upstairs, Olive at the table thumbing through the paper, and Jess was sewing a soft little nightshirt for Polly’s baby, squinting in the poor light. Polly had her feet up on a little stool, yawning frequently. She didn’t have the energy to do anything much once she got home from work. Her belly was like a neat little football now and she sat stroking one hand over it. Jess looked at her, wistfully.
