ONE A.M.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2772, 16 May 1916, Page 3

ONE A.M.

ON A NIGHT SHIFT IN A SHELL

FACTORY (By Brenda Giivin, in the "Pall alall Musette.") From my lathe I can see tho clock. It Is round, with a white face and a swinging brass pendulum. The long hand creeps until it points to one o'clock.. Is it really one a.m.? Can it be the middle of tho night? Is it possible that at my .home my father and my mother are usleep, and tho house is quiet, wrapped in the eeriness and silence of the dead hours? Here, at work in a busy factory, it does not seem credible; here, where all the world is awake, where everybody is working. Once I would not have believed I could work through the night hours and not be overcome with sleepiness. Seldom does a'feeling of weariness overtake mo. When it does it passes; there is so much to think about, everyone else is up and doing. It is not myself only, it is those 300 other girls as well who are turning shells as accurately as they would during the- normal working hours of the day. Hero and there perhaps you may see one nodding drowsily on a pile of shells, in another corner two sitting on a barrow, one with her head on the other's shoulder, while some look paler than usual, and tho rings round their eyes are deeper. The electric light glares down upon them. This, the oppressive heat of the building, and the few drowsy girls are the only indications that it is one a.m., and not one p.m. The Magic Hour. One o'clock in the morning is a magic hour in the factory. It means vest and food. I find my eyes going often to that clock as the long black ; hand approaches It. ■ Twenty minutes to one!- . . . Time to lurn two more shells. ... Quarter to one! . . . Oh! what a long five minutes It has been! . . .. Ton minutes to one! The spectacled girl on the machine opposite to mine stops work. Behind her lathe is a small tank of oil. She dips her hands in it, and swirls them round until the dirt and grease roll off in waves. Then, she wipes them on a piece of rag which she brings in her attache case and keeps secreted under her machine. She rubs her face with another piece of rag, and, standing up against the open lid of her case, a small mirror—probably a very beautiful one, encrusted in shells or mounted on red velvet—proceeds to powder her nose. Next, she tidies her hair, and may even take down some of it and do it up again, replacing the frilly cap at the most becoming angle. Last of all she straightens her overall, besmeared with oil and grease—perhaps worn into holes where the rough surface of tha shells has cut it—with as much care and pride as though it had been her best dress' and she was dressing for n opeclally attractive party. These are the preparations a Khaki Girl makes before tho half-an-hour break, which Is the ono period of rest given her in an eight-hour shift, and which takes place after she has been at work for two. and a half or three hours

As the black hand points to ono o'clock nn electric bell tingles and vibrateo through the faotory. In a moment every lathe is stopped, and girls carrying bt\». kets, attache cases, some with only teapots in their hands, others with m-ftp, or cups, swarm up the "streets" towards the great woodon doors which separate the "shop" from tho canteen. The Shift Changes, So at one o'clock in the morning ;«. sit down to mince and mash, bacon and tomatoes, or meat pies. There is nothing in tho selection of food to tell you what hour it is. Sinco you sleep nil day and miss your meal it surely must bo your lost lunch. It takes some readjustment to convert your night into day and your day into Jiigbt. ltoiuul and round tho white-faced clock tho black hands travel swiftly, far more swiftly 'than one could have believed pos-sib'le.-'lookiug at it from the apprehensive point 'of view. ■'■ There is something "about tho atmosphere of the factory which makes -join hoart sink- when 3 on. come on for fha night shift. It is depressing on a snowy winter's night to be setting out for your work when everyone else will soon ha snug' in bed. It is depressing arriving, for you will never fail to see the group' of girls sitting round the gas fire, leaning ono against the other on tho wooden benches, their hands over their eyes, snatching their Inst chance of sleep be. fore the bell rings announcing the changing shift. You wonder if morning will never come, if those long hours stretching before you will not seem interminable in length. After all, they pass so quickly, and you have scarcely realised the night .has gone when the black hands are pointing to half-past six, and the shift changes once again. The Wakinn World. ' So from a world that has been working all night yoa step out into a world that is just waking up to its work. Hero and thero a blind has been drawn up where the servants ot the house are down to light the tire for the master's bath; the placards of the morning papers, not circulated yet, are being pasted on the showboards; the milkman is taking round the milk; and a few clerks who must bo at their work early are hurrying to the station, their coat collars turned up almost to their not yet wide-awake eyes. I thought when 1 cumo wt from tho factory after a night's work I should \w so exhausted that I could drop down anywhere and sleep, and sleep, and sleep. Instead—it is always the same—a fueling nf exhilaration comes over me which must arise from tho -fact. (hat all the'world is waking up and thero is movement all about me, movement now, not only in the factory lying liehind me, but in all the world spread round me. Still, when 1 get home I scrub and scrub, and feel it was worth the trouble of having a bath to bo clean again; I eat a healthy breakfast, and then—down come the blinds. I do not care if it is light outside, I. cannot see the>sun shine. Footsteps sound on the staircase, - but they do not trouble mo. The gong for lunch sounds through the house. Ido not hear it, -There I am in the most glorious sleep, cuddling my hot water bottle, and anyono who has not worked on a lvght shift cannot realise the bliss of that daytime sleep. .