Ruined City (22 page)

'Would that be Billy Grierson that was?' enquired 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 ward mat 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 yell 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 oy two, and not wait till the weekend, 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 man could not do heavy work on a starvation thet. '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 barrowload 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 realize 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,

l 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 Newcasde 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 in deep thought. Then he reached out for a sheet ot 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 bc 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 overnight 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.

Tm 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 bis 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 got 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?'

They stood for a few minutes looking out into the Yard.

Then Warren turned back to the room.

'I've known of this,' he said, 'before you told me.' He looked the other in the eyes. 'At the same time, I mean to get things started here again.'

He dropped into a chair by the table. Tell me this. Suppose we go ahead now and build these ships, and more ships after them. Maybe we'll lose a lot of money.'

'You will that.'

'In two years from the start, how will we be then? The men will have had two years of steady work, regular food and beer. Will we still be working at a disadvantage then, compared with other yards?'

The manager thought for a long time before answering. 'No,' he said at last, 'I'd not say that we will. Two years is long enough for a man to get back his skill and strength, if he's ever going to. Mind, there's some, forty-five and fifty years old, that'll never come back to work again, after five years' idleness. But in two years' time I think we could compete in price, Mr Warren. After all, it's a handy size, this Yard and it'd not take a great deal of work to meet our overhead.

'But it'll be two years of bloody grief,' he said.

Warren nodded. 'Still, I think we'll go ahead. You should have your order by the end of the month, and be able to get started ordering materials. We'll want sufficient capital to see us through, but I'll look after that.'

The manager smiled. 'It's as you say. Mind, you'll have a bonny little business if you can carry it through. Sharples folk were aye good folk to work before the slump came, and this Yard showed a profit every year.

'Soon as we get on to our feet,' he said, 'we want to try and get back on to Admiralty work again. That's where the Yard used to make its profit. There was seven Barlow destroyers at the Battle of Jutland, Mr Warren. Did ye ever hear that?'

They went out, and spent some time in going round the Yard. Warren noticed a considerable difference since he had last seen it: the piles of scrap were cleared away, the fence had been repaired,
the
berths were orderly.

'You're getting it in shape, all right,' he said.

'Aye,' said the manager, 'but there's a lot to do yet before we can start an' build.'

He glanced across the Yard, critically. Beside the hydraulic guillotine he saw a woman coming towards them, picking her way delicately through the Yard. 'Yon's Miss MacMahon,' he said, 'her that's working at the hospital. Her father was solicitor to Barlow's.'

Warren nodded. 'I think she's come for me.'

They walked to meet her; she greeted them both equally. To Grierson she said, 'That man Harrington's got a poisoned hand. It'll be some time before he works again.'

The manager turned aside. 'He was only on for three days,' he said resentfully. 'They're ower delicate, these folks.'

'Give them a chance,' she said. 'They're bursting with anxiety to get to work.'

'Aye, an' then when you set them to work they go off sick. I know they're willing, Miss MacMahon, but you can't build ships with nothing but good wishes.'

They'll harden up.'

'Aye,' he said, 'we must do the best we can with the material we've got.'

She turned to Warren. 'I've got lunch for you in my room up at the hospital,' she said. 'Is that all right? There's really nowhere else that you could go, except the 'Bull's Head', and that's not much.'

He smiled. 'That's very kind of you,' he said. He turned again to Grierson, and had a final word or two with him, then left the Yard with the girl and went walking up towards the hospital.

'You can't imagine what this little bit of work that's going on here now has meant,' she told him. 'It's psychological. Everybody's talking now about the Yard, and what the chances are of work again. It's helped the place enormously.'

He wrinkled his brows. 'Just by giving them something to look forward to?'

She nodded. 'It's been terrible this year,' she said gravely. 'You know how it is when someone's desperately ill — for days they may keep cheerful, hanging on. And then, one day, they let go, just don't care any more, and you know they're sinking then, that they'll never get back.' She turned to him. 'That's what it's been like in Sharples all this year, Mr Warren. They've been — sinking.

'I honestly believe,' she said, 'that if you'd come along this time next year you wouldn't have been able to do anything at all in Sharples.'

'We've got a bad enough job now,' he said grimly.

They went into the hospital. In the front hall they passed the Matron, round and rubicund. She smiled at them, and Warren stopped and spoke to her.

She beamed. 'Your lunch is ready,' she said to them. 'I've just been along, and it's quite ready for you when you want it.'

'That's very kind of you,' he said. 'I didn't mean to give you the trouble.'

'Hoots, Mr Warren, dial's no trouble. You're welcome to it, any time that you're in Sharples. I've been thinking, the hotel accommodation's none so good in Sharples just now. I can always fit you up with a bed here, if at any time you want to stay the night.'

'You'll have to pay for that,' said the Almoner. 'That's my end of the business.'

'Any time you like,' said the Matron. 'Just let us have a card.'

She left them, and they went on down the passage to the Almoner's room, where lunch was spread upon the table by the fire. A ward maid waited on them.