BACK FROM TRENCH TO WORKSHOP

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2487, 14 June 1915, Page 6

BACK FROM TRENCH TO WORKSHOP

"SHELLS, SHELLS, AND STILL MORE SHELLS " The following is a description of & visit to a miraition factory In the British Midlands which is engaged on Government work: — From tho trenches of La Basses to a, lathe in a war munition works. That is tho story of some of the men who havo como back to the works —where I spent an hour —to fight the _ Germane by the skill that half a life-time's toil has given them. And they are fighting as worthily as ever Flanders saw them fight. Instead of using bombs and shells they are making them; the diu of war has given place to the whir of wheels, the rattle of straps, and the scream of cutting steel. They aro soldiers and workmen too. Beneath the blue overalls you catch a glimpse of the khaki, stained with Belgian mud, and they walk to the "shop" with the tilted cap and raking cigarette that only the Army seems to give a man. Some of them liked, being brought back, but mostly, they swore softly about it. Twelve hours a day, seven days a week, month after month, isn't romantic. Aye, they let you smoke when overtime begins. That is cheering, ana and it helps to remind you that your bit counts, beeauso it is new—new since your job became time-fuses for shells instead of motor-car bearings. The money is good too —10 per cent, war bonus, double pay on Sunday, time ana quarter or time and a half for overtime—and £3 or £4 is in the tin that on Fridays used to hold a bit less than £2; but, after all, work to bed and bed to work is dull, dead dull. 1 In some such way as that the sol-dier-workman thinks. On Saturday afternoon, when tha crowds were at the football matches and the tramway-cars were taking folk out to tho country I went to the works. Days are pretty much liko one another there; neither Saturday nor Sunday, and day and night are one. Always the Whirring wheols, the clinking hammer, tho metal twisting in fanciful wisps from the keen steel tool in the automatic lathe, and the lubricant pouring steadily. Scarely is there tuna to clean the machines aud over them tho metal shavings are strewn. I walked about. Everywhere the men, the boys, and the girls are keen at their jobs. No looking abcut, no interest paid to the lookor-on, the same monotonous twist of the handle, the swift change or ring after ring or cylinder after, cylinder as the part of the shell is in- , ished. Nine out of ten men puffed stolidly at pipes, nine out of ten girls sang as their deft lingers slipped among handles, but it all seemed sterner wort: than peace sees. Few of them but knew that more shells and yet more shells ara ; wanted. One saw the parts stacked, neat and shining, in boxes, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds—but more yet, and still more! Just as the ma- ] cbines are eating up brass and steel, just so are the cannon out yonder eat» . ing up the beautiful machines of death. 1 peeped through a window into a 1 yard where blue-dressed girls in uncommon shoes flitted about. "The powder, department" 1 learned. . The powder, stores aro small and each is 6urrounded by a bank of earth. The dresses worn c by the women and meu are of cloth that 1 will not blaze and the boots are studded with brass nails that will not spark . when struck. ! But it was at a lathe that was turning groove and dovetail on 60-pounder . shells for our sin. guns that I found a , lighter 6ide to the stern work. For the first time I laughed. A six-foot mech- ■ anio—who I afterwards found out was a Belgian refugee —was looking blankly, at a foreman who was wetting his finger and turning over the pages of a little brown-backed book. Suddenly ha stopped and looked at the Belgian. "Cherchez votre ouvrage" (Find your : work), he said gravely, pronouncing tho words as they are spelt. The Belgian stared hard, and then shrugged his shoulders. The foreman held up his book and looked at it again . closely. "Cherchez votre ouvrage," he said . again, but plainly a little disconcerted, ■ The mechanic shook his head sadly. , The foreman turned and pointed to a shell. "Ah!" said tho Belgian, grinning broadly. "Cherchez votre ouvrage" (saying tho words properly), and bringing his job. Tho foreman smjled wryly and examined the shell. Ho pulled a face, and looked up his book. "Mauvais," he said confidently, again pronouncing it wrongly, But the Belgian this time understood that the foreman meant it was poor woii. His face fell and he turned quietly and seriously to his work. The foreman said, "I impressed on him when he came a day or two ago that the shells were for killing Germans, and he approved. He says, T Ah, keel 1 Sherman, ya!' He is a trier. He was 1 a turner in Belgium, so he knows something about it. Last Friday night I j heard him singing 'It's a Long Way to . Tipperary,' and I went to him and asked him what he was'doing. "'Que faites vous?" 1 said, but he - didn't seem to get me, so I showed him . the book. His face beamed, and ha said, 'To Tipperary.' His views on the war are quite short—as he expresses . them. He says 'Belgy gud, France - gud, Angley velly gud, Sherman bad, no gud.' "It's is very difficult at times, of • oourse. But lie tries very hard, and > I manage to rub along with about eight French phrases and what he knows of English." ' I learned somothing at the works about shirking. A man who controls two departments where men and women work said: "There are difficulties. A 1 tenth Of the girls here have taken men's places. Many skilled men went . to the war and haven't come back. , A few have. Men who were originally skilled men but little good and who • turned to other jobs in consequence ' have come back to their trades owing to the shortage of men. Again, the time of year is bad for' work. It is illness weather. I say emphatically there is no shirking here. Sometimes I wonder how they all stick it. I firmly believe we should get more work out of the men if wo rested on Sundays. Ido not ' pretend that no man loses time. Sometimes men como off uight shift and call ! at the beerhouse—l am told of one that ; takes £50 before breakfast. They go home and sleep too long or they wake . and aren't fit to come to work. But those occasions aro rare, and usually night workers alone lose time—ana 1 night work is trying." There was no doubting his word. His own eyes wero deep set and heavy lined; his broad forehead was very white, his cheeks > pale. "I have never worked so hard m i my life," he added slowly. "Sinco August last year they've been sticking it. Men were brought back 1 from holidays with six-sevenths of. the ! holiday still" to go. Men were needed 1 badly. I know one firm whose representatives wore stopping men in seaside places and asking, 'Are you a mechanic?. Do you want a job?' "The work is very delicate. If tho fucc—tny men are making those chiefly —doesn't work accurately the shell's power will be partly lost and perhaps rendered wholly useless. If the shell doesn't explode at all the Fuse may be found and give the rango of your bat- ' tory to the enemy. The fuse is made to 5-1000ths of an inch—something liko tho thickness of a hair." I watched him threading his way among the olcsc-packod lathes and tho stooping men with the tobaecQ-smoke spurting from t.heir lips. No! this was no shirkers' home. J.H. Saaio&n Storekeepers sell