by John Masters
‘Right.’
Richard picked up a paper from his IN tray and started to read. Morgan said, ‘Charltons called … their foreman … and said they’d decided not to try to deliver our last order of lamps to us. Said their drivers were all union men, and even if they weren’t, it would be too dangerous for them to try to get through the picket line here.’
Richard said, ‘Bloody cowards.’ He took off his thick glasses and polished them angrily – ‘We’ll go and get them, then. Work out what lamps we’ll need for the lorries that we’ll finish in the next month – make it two months … Send our lorries out tomorrow, at nine o’clock. I’ll see that there are plenty of police on hand then. And tell the lead driver … send a good reliable man … to be back at the station, Hedlington Station – at exactly four o’clock in the afternoon, of the day after. We’ll have police and our own guards there to escort them back into the factory … And as soon as we have taken delivery, I’m going to cancel any outstanding orders we have with Charltons. They’re breaking the contract and they can’t give me any argument.’
‘Where are we going to get electrical gear from then, Mr Richard?’
‘We’ll try Gregorys’ first. It’s a Hedlington firm and I’ve had good reports of them. Of course Mrs Gregory is my niece, but if they don’t come up to scratch, we’ll drop them. And we’ll drive a hard bargain in the first place.’
The telephone rang and Richard picked it up – ‘Rowland.’
‘Frank Stratton here, sir. One of our aeroplanes has just crashed. You’d best come up.’
‘What happened? Was the pilot hurt?’
‘Mr Vinton was flying it, Mr Richard … an old Leopard we were experimenting on with the new ailerons. He’d been in the air about fifteen minutes when first one engine failed – I heard it, he was still circling round quite close … then in a minute or two, the other, and he had to make a crash landing … broke some ribs, I think, and his wrist. The machine’s a wreck.’
‘But what made the engines stop? They didn’t catch fire in the crash, did they?’
‘Fortunately no. I’m not sure yet, but I have a good idea what happened.’
‘What?’
‘Someone put sugar into the fuel tank … the big one by the hangars, that all the machines fill up from.’
‘Who? … The strikers!’ Richard gasped. ‘But how did they get at it?’
‘At night, probably, sir. It’s not too difficult to climb over the fence. We have two night watchmen, but they can’t be everywhere, and it doesn’t take long … just empty twenty pounds of sugar in there … The engines are seized up, sir. I’m still working on it, but that’s what it was.’
‘I’ll be right up. And hire four more guards.’
He hung up, thinking. He said, ‘What about dogs? Why don’t we get some big fierce dogs … keep them hungry and bad-tempered, maltreat them so that they associate humans with pain? No, that won’t do, they’ll be frightened … We could teach them to bite anyone, using dummies …’
‘Except the people who feed them,’ Morgan said drily.
‘Feed them mechanically,’ Richard said. ‘We’ll work something out.’
He hurried out of the office towards his car. Morgan, looking after him, shook his head slowly. The Boss was going nuts about the strike. He was taking it all as a personal insult, and he wasn’t thinking of anything else. All this business was costing money – guards, more guards, rebuilding the paint shop, doctors’ and hospital bills for workers injured by the pickets … he was suing the union for those … lawyers’ costs. If the strike didn’t break JMC and HAC, bankruptcy might …
Later, at the aerodrome, Richard inspected one of the Leopard’s engines, which had been lifted out of the wreckage and taken to a bench in a hangar. The cylinders were black, the pistons stuck firm in a black glue the consistency of baked tar – the sugar, melted and burned in as the petrol ignited. He could claim from the insurance company for the aircraft, and for Vinton’s hospital bill; but they wouldn’t like it. Aircraft insurance was risky enough, the agent had said, without them having to be concerned about industrial unrest as well. They’d pay this time, but they might cancel the policies after that; or hold them in abeyance until the strike was ended … or renew them only at higher premiums. Damn them all! He wasn’t going to give in.
‘What about the police?’ Keble-Palmer asked anxiously. ‘We ought to tell them. Vinton could have been killed.’
‘We’ll tell them,’ Richard said. ‘And see that it’s published in the local paper, including Vinton’s injuries and what a narrow escape he had … with pictures of his wife and little children. Make the union unpopular.’
A man came in and said, ‘Telephone for you, Mr Richard, in Mr Keble-Palmer’s office.’
Richard hurried off, throwing over his shoulder, ‘Call the police as soon as you can, Ginger.’
In the other office Richard picked up the dangling instrument. The voice at the other end was the unmistakable Welsh lilt of Morgan – ‘They’ve got our sheet steel, Mr Richard.’
‘What do you mean, they’ve got it?’
‘They had a man at the edge of town – who stopped the leading McGarvie lorry and told them he was from you … they were to take a secret route to the factory because pickets were blocking the direct road, with crowbars and steel spikes …’
‘God!’ Richard gasped. ‘And they believed him?’
‘Yes. He was well-spoken, they said. Wearing a blue suit and bowler … told them his name was Morgan, the works foreman … Well, the bloke, whoever he was, led them to North Hedlington, out on the Chatham Road, and into a field by the river, where they had fifty men waiting, hidden behind some of them old brick kilns. And chucked all the steel into the Scarrow … Then they roughed up the McGarvie drivers a bit … and the guards … told them not to be blacklegs, and sent them off, with their lorries. The McGarvie charge hand called me from Rochester.’
A thousand pounds’ worth of steel gone, Richard raged inwardly. More insurance problems. More delays. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘reorder. Tell Miss Harcourt to start making out the insurance claim … The next order we have for over a hundred pounds, of anything, send a man with an identity card to the supplier, to come all the way back here with the goods.’ He hung up as Keble-Palmer came in – ‘What do we do next, about the fuel?’
Ginger said, ‘The fuel tank is being pumped out now. Then it’ll have to be cleaned of all trace of sugar in the residue. We’ll have to stop flying for two or three days.’
‘No, we won’t,’ Richard snapped. ‘Call BP and tell them to send a tank lorry here, and keep it here. We’ll fuel direct from that. Tell them we’ll want another tanker when the first one’s three-quarters empty. And see that the tanker is guarded day and night.’
More money, he thought. Damned swine. What could he do to get back at them? He wasn’t just going to react to their filthy deeds, but do something on his own. But what? They’d lost their jobs already … and all other benefits, of course … Perhaps he could see that they didn’t get any other jobs, at least in Hedlington. It wouldn’t be easy, but he had a lot of influence, and all employers ought to stick together … a sort of union. Why not? Those bastards had one.
What a damned mess! And on top of everything else, he was going to lose Frank Stratton to Guy’s Foundation … damned waste of a superb mechanic, in his opinion – but there it was.
Wilfred Bentley MP sat back in the passenger seat of the old Rowland Ruby … time he got a new car; but the Ruby ran perfectly, for all its its old-fashioned appearance. It was ironic that he should be going to Hedlington in a Rowland car to tell another Rowland – the son of the original Harry Rowland – how to run his business … ironic, but fitting, perhaps. His wife, Rachel Cohen, was driving. She had insisted on being taught as soon as he became an MP, and had warned him that as of early 1920 she was going to need a car of her own, as it would save a great deal of money in taxi and train fares. In London one could usually use
the bus or tube, but his constituency was Mid Scarrow, and that took a lot of covering …
Rachel said, ‘We’re seeing Rowland first, then Bert. Lunch between, with the Mayor. He’s a Conservative, but several of the town councillors are Labour. And they’re all worried about the strikes.’
Wilfred nodded, but said nothing as Rachel slowed down, for they were entering Hedlington, coming up the Scarrow from Rochester. Fifteen minutes later the two of them were in Richard Rowland’s office at the Jupiter Motor Company, with Richard and Morgan, the latter standing behind Richard’s chair, his bowler hat very straight on his head. They all shook hands, and Richard said, ‘Please sit down.’ All sat, except Morgan. Richard said, ‘I appreciate your coming down, and hope you can help us end this strike and the violence that the strikers have been using against our loyal workers.’
Rachel said tartly, ‘I hear there’s been some violence on management’s side, too.’
‘Nothing that was not in self-defence,’ Richard snapped back.
Wilfred cut in, soothing – ‘We can discuss these things in due course. What I think we should look into first is the cause of the strike, as seen from both sides.’
Richard said at once, ‘They went on strike because I refuse to permit the Union of Skilled Engineers to make this factory and Hedlington Aircraft closed shops. That is my right. This is my factory, founded with my family’s money … and some American capital … not theirs.’
Bentley said, ‘The USE is very strong in the car business, Mr Rowland. They have a good reputation in Wolverhampton and Coventry and Birmingham, where most of the factories are. The owners I have spoken to say they provide an element of stability in the labour force, and that they live up to their side of contracts.’
‘They won’t take over here,’ Richard said. ‘I’m not going to be told what to do by the likes of Bert Gorse. Or have the whole works shut down because we sack a man for petty thievery.’
Rachel said, ‘All these things can be covered in a good contract with a good union, Mr Rowland.’
‘They can be,’ Richard said, ‘but that has never stopped the unions protecting thieves, scoundrels, and plain incompetents among their members … In this factory a worker’s loyalty will be to his work, not to a union official.’
The talk went on, round and slowly round in circles. Would he take the strikers back if the whole question of unionising was shelved for say a year? Would he meet with a member of the national board of the USE to discuss what sort of a contract he would consider making with them? Would he accept arbitration by the Government? By any other body?
At last they broke up, Rachel and Richard both out of temper and worn with frustration. He/she would not see her/his point of view. Morgan went to his little office, put up his boots on the table, and ate a cheese sandwich. Richard drove home and railed on to his wife about the iniquity of the union, the stupidity of Labour MPs …
Wilfred and Rachel had lunch at the South Eastern with the Mayor and the two Labour councillors. Rachel said, ‘He’s like Haig … It’s the Western Front mentality all over again. Dig your toes in, close your eyes, refuse to try anything new …’
One of the councillors said, ‘He ought to be made to back down. There’s too many men out of work … kids near starving … and winter coming.’
Wilfred said, ‘He can’t be forced to accept a union. He can be persuaded.’
‘But he can’t,’ Rachel said heatedly. ‘That’s what we have just spent the morning discovering … which I knew already.’
‘We have to try,’ Wilfred said. ‘I should think the financial situation will do some persuading for us soon. And he must be having difficulties getting supplies of material, for both factories, as long as the picket line is up.’
Later, they met Bert Gorse and a man from the central headquarters of the USE, in the local branch office, HE 16, in Stalford Street. Bert said, ‘We’ve got him on the run now. He doesn’t know where to turn. He’s running round in circles … hiring more guards here, putting up more fences there, sending his own lorries as far as Newcastle-on-Tyne for materials. We’ll break him soon.’
‘Meantime, a lot of people are going hungry,’ Wilfred said. He turned to the union representative – ‘I don’t like the reports that we have been hearing of violence … arson, deliberately sabotaging aviation fuel with sugar, bricks thrown through windscreens, tyres slashed … physical beatings of workers …’
‘Blacklegs,’ Bert said.
‘Nothing’s been proved against any member of our union,’ the official said.
‘You know that’s almost impossible,’ Wilfred said. ‘You’ll lose sympathy if it goes on. And it can be stopped.’
‘It won’t stop as long as Rowland’s men use knuckle-dusters and run over pickets,’ Rachel said.
‘It has to stop somewhere,’ Wilfred said. He spoke directly to the union official – ‘I rely on you to see that all violent action by the union, or its members, is stopped. You don’t need it. Just see that the picket line is maintained, day and night, round both factories. Make it clear to Mr Rowland, as we already have, in your name, that you are willing to negotiate a contract with him as soon as he wishes to … and that everyone will go back to work while you’re negotiating.’
‘He won’t take anyone back, who went out,’ Bert said.
‘Sooner or later, he’ll have to … You have plenty of strike funds?’
The USE official nodded – ‘Through January … providing we don’t have to back any more major strikes in other parts of the country.’
Rachel said, ‘See that you don’t. Tell your other branches to postpone any strike action till you give the go-ahead … and tell them why. They’ll understand, and hold back until you have JMC and HAC in the fold.’
Naomi Gregory paced up and down the big office, from the desk at one end, where her husband Ron sat, to the other, where an exactly similar desk faced his across the breadth of the carpeted floor. ‘What are we going to do about Uncle Richard’s letter?’ she said.
‘The specifications are simple enough,’ Ron said slowly. ‘I’ve been through them with Reynolds and he agrees there’s no difficulty at the shop end. Prices … if the order’s big enough we could shave a few pennies off the regular quote, but not many. We’re already bidding very low, to get ourselves established.’
‘You don’t have any new methods yet?’
‘Not for headlamps or sidelamps. I’m working on a new magneto, but it won’t be ready and tested for six months yet.’
‘Well, let’s fill out the forms in pencil and take them to all the foremen and then to the buying department to see that we haven’t overlooked anything. It’s a good order, if we get it.’
Ron leaned back in his swivel chair, and said, ‘If your Uncle Richard gets it, Naomi. His people are on strike, and there’s a picket line.’
‘I know that. But we’ll find a way to deliver the lamps, if they accept the models we’re offering. I don’t see why they shouldn’t. They meet all the specifications for size, shape, waterproofing, bulb types, glass. We can find a way to deliver through the picket line.’
Ron said, ‘I don’t think we should.’ He got up and joined her in the middle of the floor, as though they were two boxers meeting in the middle of a ring – ‘I know your family’s dead set against unions. But I think they’re here to stay … to take a much bigger part in running industry than we ever expected … bigger, probably, than they did, even. A man from the Union of Electrical Engineers approached me yesterday, and told me they would like to organise us. He said that he’d had messages from some of our staff that they wanted a union, and the UEE was the obvious one.’
‘What did you tell him?’ Naomi demanded.
‘I told him I’d talk it over with you. And Reynolds, of course.’
‘The UEE,’ she said. ‘They’re very Bolshie, aren’t they?’
‘Not really,’ Ron said. ‘They’re tough bargainers, I know that. And they usually stick by the
ir contracts … they don’t tolerate any unofficial actions at all. They’ve got some very able men in the central organisation … some of them are heading for Parliament, and if there’s ever a Labour Government in this country, one or two of them may well be in the Cabinet.’
‘Let the union in, without a fight?’ Naomi cried. ‘It’s … it’s treason! What will Uncle Richard think of us?’
Ron stood his ground manfully – ‘We can’t afford to worry about what Uncle Richard thinks, darling. Our whole business is at stake. How long could we last if there was a strike here, backed by the UEE? We’re just getting known, just getting on our feet financially, just building up a reserve, getting ready to expand … we’d drop back, down, down, and out. And don’t think the UEE don’t know it. The man I saw was really saying, in a nice way, look, come in easy, now … or we’ll come and get you the hard way, later.’
Naomi pursed her lips, glaring at him. He was willing to surrender their rights as owners of the business … all that she had worked for, that both of them had worked for. But what he had said was true. It was no use denying it. She hated the idea, but there it was. If they started now they could get a favourable contract. And for everything the union demanded she would see that Gregorys’ got something cast-iron in return. She said, ‘All right, Ron. Let’s get specimen contracts from the union, and find out from, say, Charlton and Lucas what their contracts give – and don’t give. If they won’t lend us copies, have them stolen.’
Ron said, ‘I’m sure you’re doing the right thing, Naomi … And we’d better tell Uncle Richard we can’t bid on the lamps until his strike is over.’
She nodded – ‘He’ll call me some names I didn’t think he knew. But it has to be done.’
Willum Gorse shouted upstairs, ‘I’m going out, Mum!’
‘Where to?’
‘To the Rovers’ ground, of course. There’s a match on between the strikers from Mr Richard’s factories, and the extra police they brought in from Canterbury and Margate and Rochester after that aeroplane crashed.’
‘Well, go along then. Betty! Push your father to the Rovers’ ground … Here’s a tanner for each of you to get in … And another for a beer on your way home, and a lemonade for Betty.’
