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The Town By The Sea tof-3

Page 30

by Владимир Павлович Беляев Неизвестный Автор


  The sun was still high in the sky when after finishing our dinner and resting a little we gathered round the pile-driver and on the instructions of the pile-driver man started dragging over pieces of old road-building machines, greasy bed-plates from unknown machines of the last century, and even a broken rusty press for making unleavened bread, which Nikita said had been found in the yard of an old synagogue.

  The hardest job was to drag the heavy iron bed-plate of the printing-machine under the pile-driver. We sweated and strained and even the old furnace men came out to help us.

  At last the operator closed the gates of the enclosure and we ran back out of the way.

  Then Tolya set the winch in motion. A creaking steel cable hauled the heavy ram to the top of the winch. It hung poised for a moment clearly outlined against the pink-blue of the evening sky, then Tolya pulled a lever and the ram swept down with a crash. The huge metal pear had to be raised several times to bombard the scrap-metal before the massive bed-plate cracked apart.

  "Hurrah!" Tolya shouted, abandoning the lever and rubbing his greasy hands with delight. The worst was over.

  When we entered the enclosure, we discovered in place of the old machines a heap of shattered metal. Good, coarse grained iron glittered where it had broken. Tolya picked up a chunk of bed-plate and looked at the break.

  "Good iron!" he said to Nikita. "There's not much graphite in it, but plenty of phosphorus and silicon. This kind of iron melts like butter, and it lasts a long time when it's cast."

  And Tolya lifted the lump of iron on his right hand as if to test his strength. Now he was not a bit like the immaculate secretary whose appearance had given me such a shock at our first meeting.

  To prevent the Komsomol iron being mixed up with the general supply, Zakabluk roped off a special enclosure for it. We carried the heavy lumps of metal into the enclosure, and when the contents of all three trucks were piled in a heap, Zakabluk hung up a notice on the rope: "Iron for Komsomol Reapers."

  Already I could see the yellow fields of wheat waving above the Dniester, and the reapers that we had made with our own hands sailing across them like ships on a golden sea...

  Turunda took over the job of the foundry's Party secretary Flegontov, who had been sent to Leningrad by the management on business. Every day I would ask Turunda's advice on how best to get our chaps keen on the job, how to make them reliable helpers of the Party in all things.

  With the simple, practical advice of a Bolshevik and experienced production worker Turunda directed our youthful enthusiasm towards concrete achievement. He knew just when and how to give his advice. After a talk with him I could see the weak spots in our work. I learnt to understand Turunda's merest hint and he, in his turn, directed the Komsomol members in such a way as to give full scope to their initiative.

  The first is always the worst. A week after my argument with the chief engineer, a second issue of the wall newspaper appeared. Grisha Kanuk was doing famously.

  A tall brawny chap in a leather apron and goggles stood at the controls of a crane-operated pouring ladle. A stream of iron flowed from the lip of the ladle writing letters that made up the title of our newspaper: Young Foundry Man. The fiery title at once caught the attention of the foundry workers, young and old.

  All the articles had been neatly typed out in the management office by Kolya Zakabluk, who had written two of them himself.

  In an article about the economy drive our time-keeper went round the foundry as attentively as if it was his own property.

  "Neither the shop storekeepers, nor Fedorko, nor the chief engineer Andrykhevich," Kolya wrote, "are paying due attention to the Party's call for economy. Has the chief engineer thought how much space is being wasted round the unfinished blast-furnace? Yet all we have to do is to clear away the sand and scrap and it would make a fine place to set up the moulding machines that have been awaiting repair for over a year in the foundry stores... And how many tampers with broken wedges are lying about the foundry! Yet, when we run short of tampers, foreman Fedorko always sends up to RIP for new ones. The tool-makers waste expensive metal making new tampers for us. Wouldn't it be simpler and just as efficient to put new wooden wedges on the iron handles?"

  Zakabluk discovered many striking examples of this kind. Without mincing his words he accused the management of wasting graphite, sulphite liquor, and molasses in the fettling shop. And he did not merely pick on shortcomings, he called on the workers to fight for every drop of iron, for every handful of the coarse sand which was brought to us from a long distance away, for every cracked mould-box which could be patched up and used without recasting.

  In his article "The Soft-Heartedness of Foreman Fedorko" Zakabluk "emery-papered" the shop foreman for his lenient attitude towards slackers and bad workers. Zakabluk told the bald truth. He wrote that a bad worker had only to invite the foreman to a family wedding, or ask him to be godfather at a christening and Fedorko would be ready to turn a blind eye to all his blunders. "If those slackers won't change their ways," Zakabluk wrote, "the foreman ought to clear them out of the foundry."

  I signed my article "Vasil Mallet." I had liked that word ever since I had started at the factory-training school. It was a mallet that the moulders used to shake up the model before drawing it out of the sand moulds. And I wanted to act like a mallet in shaking up the lazy and complacent people who were hindering the work of the foundry.

  Vasil Mallet expounded an idea that had been worrying him for a long time. He suggested abolishing the primitive method of heating the machines with slabs, which wasted so much time.

  A detailed letter which Turunda had received from Flegontov in Leningrad was also published in the wall newspaper.

  The Party secretary wrote about rationalization methods in the foundry at the Krasny Vyborzhets Works, about the packing of moulds with compressed air, about distributing work properly between teemers and moulders. "And why shouldn't all this be done at our works?" asked the newspaper.

  Flegontov, a stocky grey-haired man of about fifty, was a moulder of wheels for reaping machines.

  His was a very difficult and tedious job. When I watched him at first, I had thought he worked too slowly, too carefully. He spent ages on every mould, dabbing water on the edges as if he were washing a baby, peering into every notch and channel with the help of a mirror to make sure they were clean. In the time that it took us on our "machine-guns" to do ten or more moulds Flegontov and his partner managed to finish only one. Once I said something about Flegontov's slowness to Turunda.

  "You're a sight too hasty in your judgements," he replied. "That's not a running about job, lad. Wheels and chassis are the biggest and slowest jobs of all. They have to be moulded by the most skilled workers in the foundry. Why, you ask? It's very simple. If you mess up five or six gear-wheels because you're in a hurry, it's a pity but we can face it. But just imagine what would happen if a full-size wheel was moulded badly. Think of the iron that would be wasted in recasting it! ... No, Flegontov's a fine craftsman!"

  The Party secretary's letter to our youth newspaper was read with great interest by the older workers, in fact the whole issue made a deep impression.

  The night when the young workers in the foundry decided to start work not at four but at one o'clock, so, that they could mould the parts for the Komsomol reapers well before the other workers arrived, I felt terribly nervous. Suppose we, young moulders, couldn't manage these big awkward parts! They were the basis of the whole machine! But we couldn't very well bother the old workers with requests for help. We would manage on our own somehow. Before we could start work, however, Turunda and Gladyshev walked into the foundry. Then the "old men"— skilled craftsmen who had long since passed Komsomol age—trickled in one by one.

  "Hullo, Comrade Turunda!" I exclaimed. "We were going to work on your machines. How shall we manage now?"

  Turunda grinned and said: "You're a bit too anxious to write us off as old men! We've come to help you. It's our common cause, i
sn't it?"

  I felt as if a block of cast iron had been lifted from my shoulders. Good old Turunda! Now I could be certain that all the metal parts of the reapers would be properly moulded and cast.

  We began on the stroke of one.

  Compressed air hissed through the pipes, the hot slabs glowed under the models. Shovels plunged into the heaps of sand releasing thick clouds of steam.

  We had arranged beforehand that my partner for moulding gear-wheels should be Kolya Zakabluk. From the way he tightened the screws on his machine, I realized again that he was no beginner at moulding.

  Before Kolya had time to pack his first mould, however, we heard the sound of Naumenko's grumpy voice:

  "Hey there, young fellow! What are you doing on another man's machine! You'll strain yourself and ruin your health again. We can manage without you!"

  Naumenko took over his machine from Kolya, and after making sure that the mould-box was firmly fixed, drove the sharp tip of his tamper into the steaming mass of sand.

  "Never mind, Kolya, don't let it get you down!" I consoled my unlucky partner. "Uncle Vasya and I will do the moulding and you go for a walk. Or you know what? Go and show Kolomeyets how to sift

  the sand. Or here's something else you can do: keep the machines supplied with hot slabs, so that we don't have to interrupt our work. We haven't got much time, you know."

  Nikita was on the job too. How could a restless fellow like him sleep on such a night, when he knew that the young foundry men had started making the reapers for the commune on the Dniester!

  Far away on the Dniester the silvery oats, the blue-green rye, the wheat, the barley were forming ears and reaching higher every day. Soon it would be harvest time. There was not a minute to lose.

  I had got a temporary pass from the foreman for our guest from Podolia. Nikita had consented to do any work he was fit for. Now he started racing Zakabluk out to the heaters for slabs.

  Petka had rallied the young workers in the joinery to make the wooden parts for the reapers out of working hours and free of charge. Sasha had come to the foundry with me, so that he would be on the spot to help if there were any mechanical hitches.

  As we worked, I gradually became aware that Uncle Vasya was deeply displeased about something. He kept muttering under his breath and sighing. In the end he had to tell me.

  "Ah, what a darned nuisance! Just a bit late! And all because of the old woman! I told her to wake me at midnight and she goes and oversleeps herself. When I looked at the clock it was half past the hour. By the time I'd washed my face and got my clothes on, you'd started the job!"

  "Never mind, Uncle Vasya, we'll still finish before work starts," I consoled the old man.

  "It's not whether we'll finish or not. The point is this is social work. And it's a double shame to be late for social work. I'm not Kashket, I've never wanted to be a lone wolf. I want to be with my mates!"

  I had never got so much joy out of my work as I did that night. Let's be honest about it, on ordinary days there's always the thought in the back of your mind of how much you are earning. And if by knocking-off time you've done more than your usual, you go home feeling pleased with yourself. But that night we were working purely for the public good. The joy and fellow feeling of it made our hands and feet leap to the job.

  Three days later Nikita, Golovatsky, and I called in at the paint shop. The smell of oil and turpentine greeted us at the entrance. In the roomy shop stood many new reaping machines ready to be sent off.

  We quickly recognized our five reapers. Even among hundreds of other machines it was not difficult to find them, for on the side of every reaper made for the Dniester commune gleamed the badge of the Communist Youth International. And just beside it, under the works trade-mark, the young painters had neatly painted two lines from a favourite popular song of those times:

  Our armoured train flies on ahead!

  Communism is journey's end!...

  And below that fine song was painted in smaller letters: "To the Lenin Komsomol Commune from the workers of the Schmidt Engineering Works."

  The works transport department had promised to send off the reapers with the first goods train after midnight.

  ON THE TRAIL OF PECHERITSA

  After we had inspected the reapers I suggested taking a boat out to the harbour bar. We had been intending to go out there ourselves for some time, and now there was a good excuse. It was a fine evening with a light breeze blowing from the steppe.

  During the past three days of anxiety, while the various shops turned and assembled the parts we had cast, the sea had been stormy. But at dawn today the gale had dropped and we had no difficulty in getting a light white-painted rowing boat from the Life-Saving Society's landing stage.

  Petka and Nikita took the oars and I took the rudder. Only Sasha had nothing to do, so he kicked off his shoes and sat with his legs dangling over the bows.

  We took turns at the long, springy oars and after about an hour the nose of our boat drove into the long spit of sand that ran out from one end of the town to the lighthouse.

  Here there was nothing but sea and sky. The rippling expanse of water stretched away on both sides divided only by a narrow strip of clean, silvery sand.

  The town was scarcely visible. Like seaside cottages in the distance, its tiny buildings ran along the shore from the Liski to Matrosskaya Settlement. To the right, at the end of the bar, stood the white cone of the lighthouse. It must have taken a lot of work to build it out there, on the treacherous sand, if even here the bar was so narrow that any big wave could easily swamp it.

  Sinking into the soft sand, as if we were wading in a corn bin, we dragged the boat out of the water and Petka slipped his clothes off.

  Like a goose flapping its wings in winter, Nikita swung his arms a few times, glanced with half-closed eyes lat the reddening sun, and dashed boyishly into the water. We, too, raced after Nikita into the gleaming sea.

  There was something fascinating about bathing out here in this great open expanse of water. The sea was warm as a steppeland pool. Pounded by the heavy waves of the day before, the bottom was covered with sandy wrinkles. The pleasant salty breeze smelt of fish and rotting seaweed. And if you floated on your back, you could stare up at the sky where a merlin was hovering over the steppe. He was looking for prey, the rascal, but he just couldn't make up his mind what to swoop upon from his lofty height.

  We had a grand bathe, and when we scrambled gasping out of the water, Nikita started doing physical jerks. He swung his arms about until the bones cracked. And although we had the open sea all round us and the tang of salt in our nostrils, it seemed as if we were back again with Nikita in Podolia. I thought of our walks round the town at night, and suddenly I remembered something.

  "Enough of this mystery-making, Nikita!" I said. "Tell us what happened to Pecheritsa!"

  "All right, I'll tell you, don't get excited!" Nikita replied soothingly, and sitting down in the boat, with his face to the setting sun, he began his story.

  .. . Ever since Dzhendzhuristy had found the ginger moustache of the fleeing Pecheritsa by the entrance to the District Education Department, Vukovich's mind had been working overtime.

  To discover where Pecheritsa might be hiding, one had to study his whole past, his present, and even to glance into his future, one had to find out about every friend or acquaintance he had ever had or was likely to have. One had to discover where he had travelled, what places he knew best, and then it would be easier to guess where he might find accomplices and protectors.

  Zhitomir and Proskurov could be counted out. It was unlikely that Pecheritsa would think of stopping in those little towns situated so near the frontier. The frontier was always well guarded, and after Pecheritsa's flight from our town it would have been doubly dangerous for him to venture near it.

  Judging from the ticket that Pecheritsa had left with me, it might be assumed that he had intended to travel as far as Millerovo. Surely he hadn't made for the Don or the
Kuban?

  From the fugitive's records and from information supplied by his former colleagues, Vukovich ascertained that Pecheritsa had never been in the region of the Don. What was more, soon after his arrival in our town, when he was still quite above suspicion, Pecheritsa had said proudly to a typist at the District Education Department: "I have never been to Moscovia and, God willing, I never shall. Why should I leave the Ukraine?"

  It was hard to imagine that he had made such a statement deliberately, so that in a moment of danger it would make hated "Moscovia" a safer hiding-place for him.

  In case that happened, however, all suspicious persons in Millerovskaya, Olkhovy Rog, Nikolsko-Pokrovskaya stations, and even in the villages of Krivorozhye and Olkhovchik were investigated. No trace of Pecheritsa was discovered there. In all probability Pecheritsa had taken the ticket to Millerovo as a blind. Who could tell whether he hadn't written himself out several more free travel warrants to various parts of the Ukraine, and perhaps under different names?

  Vukovich set about solving the riddle.

  The first thing he did, so Nikita told us, was to study the period when Pecheritsa donned Austrian uniform and marched into a Ukraine seething with revolution.

  At that time the Austrian generals were using Ukrainian nationalists from Galicia for their own ends. A whole legion of "Galician Riflemen" was sent as part of the Austrian army to plunder the Ukraine.

  Popular uprisings broke out in the Kiev, Kherson, Yekaterinoslav provinces. Villages and even whole districts mustered partisan detachments and fought the invaders. In the neighbourhood of Zvenigorodka alone the partisans destroyed several regular units of the German-Austrian army.

  The Austrian Eastern Army was led into the Ukraine by Field-Marshal Bohm-Ermolli. The command was then handed over to General Kraus. At the end of March 1918, by agreement with the Germans, General Kraus plundered the Podol, Kherson, and Yekaterinoslav provinces—a huge area of the Ukraine stretching from the Zbruch to the Azov Sea.

 

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