I'm All Right Jack (13 page)

“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced Mr Hitchcock, “as you know, the Chairman of the Board usually says a word or two on these occasions, but as he is still convalescing, we have another of our senior directors here to say a few words: Mr Tracepurcel.”

Mr Hitchcock’s introduction had been punctuated with occasional ironic noises, which he appeared to take in good part, and now the mild applause rang out for Bertram, spiced with an audible boo or two.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” began Uncle Bertram, “I won’t keep you long, as I can see you are enjoying yourselves so much. Overwork has laid our Chairman low, but we all trust not for long. The amount of energy and sweat, if I may say so, which he puts into his work on our behalf is a shining example to us all.” It was evident that Kitey was becoming a little restless and Charlie Prince started noticeably at the phrase ‘on our behalf’.

“These outings are a well-deserved break from the work we are all doing,” went on Uncle Bertram virtuously, “and will no doubt refresh us all to buckle down to our tasks with a new spirit of restraint and devotion to duty which we sorely need to put the Old Country where it used to be in world markets.”

Mr Hitchcock shot Bertram an even more dubious glance.

“I know I am voicing the feelings of our Chairman and the whole Board,” continued Bertram with emphasis, “when I urge you to enjoy yourselves today and to start again tomorrow with a new determination to keep up the level of our exports at whatever cost, for without the imports which our exports pay for, we should all soon starve.” The word ‘starve’, coming from the well-groomed Bertram, had a visible effect on Kitey.

“In conclusion,” resumed Bertram after the mutterings, “let me, on behalf of the Board, whose hospitality we are enjoying, wish you the best of luck both for now and for the future we must all work our hardest for. I am sure there is not one of us who can put his hand on his heart and say: ‘I am already doing my best.’

“This great country of ours was founded on honesty, hard work and a sense of service to the community—an ideal which many of us, I’m afraid, have lost sight of in a general grab for what we can get.”

The resentful noises made it difficult for him to continue
for a few moments, and he took advantage of the respite to rub it all in with a nicely-timed pull at his cigar.

“Many of you may say,” he resumed, “that the Company can always cut down its profits and thus reduce its prices so that it can sell more.” A “Hear!-hear!” from Charlie Prince cut the fuggy air. “But if profits go down any more, with the cost of living going up, our shareholders will simply want their money back, to invest it elsewhere. No, ladies and gentlemen,” he went on, in a mounting rumble of dissent, “the real answer is that we must all be more efficient, and for every day’s good money we must see that we give a day’s good work, whether it be by hand or by brain, and we must work with our fellows, irrespective of whether they share our beliefs, or whether they belong to another union or another race, for the success of the firm is the success of us all.”

Slow hand-clapping and ironic cheers, to which Bertram gravely bowed, marked the end of this oration, and Bertram, with a genial wave, shook hands with an unsettled-looking Hitchcock and a sour Mr Prince, and retired to the saloon bar, leaving a babble of belligerent voices. Kitey had already left the platform in dissent.

“I thought he expressed himself very sensibly,” commented Stanley, “though it didn’t seem all that popular.”

“Better not say so to Dad,” said Cynthia. “He and Charlie Prince look proper peeved.”

In the saloon, Cox was treating a very cheerful Mrs Kite. “Have another, girl?” he urged her. “Might as well. Ah, here’s Mr Tracepurcel back.”

“Oh, is that Mr Tracepurcel? Fancy.”

“That’s right. This is Mrs Kite.”

“Good evening to you,” said Uncle Bertram with interest, for any further chance to stir things up did indeed interest him.

“Hullo. Was it you made a speech?” asked Mrs Kite. “Same old stuff, I suppose, about all pals together. You’re as bad as my husband; on and on and on you go.” Mrs
Kite laughed and gave him a little shove. “Talk, talk, talk.”

“Oh, you heard my speech?”

“Not on your life. You didn’t mind me giving it a miss, did you, dear? I get so much of all this about capitalism and the Soviet Union.” She guffawed again. “Makes me tired, quite honestly. I came out as soon as you started.”

“Quite right too, Mrs Kite,” agreed Bertram. “More in life than work, eh?”

“You’ve said it, dear,” said Mrs Kite. “They all take it so
serious.
No idea of just
enjoying
it for a change.”

“Good for you, girl,” said Cox. “You sure your hubby won’t mind you leaving him like this?”

“What?” Mrs Kite burst out laughing. “He’s been trudging round after me, grumbling, all the blessed day. Be moaning all the way home in the coach too, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Why don’t you come back to Town with us in the car, then?” asked Bertram quickly. “We’ve got a built-in cocktail set.”

“
We
won’t grumble at you, love,.” added Cox.

“Come on, then,” said Bertram. “I’ll get Cox to tell you some of his funny stories.”

“Here, you
are
leading me astray,” guffawed Mrs Kite happily. “Tell Mr Kate I’ve gone home by car,” she called to the barman from the door.

The outing, though much ruffled by Bertram’s speech, soon settled down again to drinking, determining to get their money’s worth from the firm.

“Hullo, Mr Kite,” said Stanley when the singing had started again. “You don’t seem too happy.”

“It’s all about finished now,” said Kitey, successfully defying the evidence of his senses. There was obviously a good deal of life yet in the gathering. “Might as well get home.”

“Is there a programme you don’t want to miss on the telly?”

“No, no. Waste of time. Television’s
real
function is for
the education of backward peoples. That’s what they use it for in the Soviet Union, not for showing the masses legs all the time. It’s all right for backward peoples, but
we
don’t need to look at it.”

“Don’t tell me you’re too old to look at legs, Dad,” said Cynthia.

“Extraordinary speech for a director to make,” said Mr Hitchcock.

“I don’t know,” said the Time and Motion man. “I agreed with every word. He could have said much more, in fact.”

“But, my God, you can’t
tell
the chaps all that, truth or not. Well, this is where I need you, old boy. Here’s where the difficult bit starts—getting them home.”

The gathering proved resistant to cries of time, but the formal closing of the bar and a few coach hooters outside proved rather more effective in clearing the place. More than half the crowd made their way out.

It proved difficult to fill all the seats in the coaches. Mr Hitchcock urged and escorted small singing and stumbling groups to the vehicles, but when his back was turned they tended to come out again and make their way back into the pub. Eventually, most of the coaches filled and drove off, but it was some time before Mr Hitchcock and his assistant got the last two away. They had finally to resort to shoving people into a coach and locking them in while they collected some more.

“I hope you’re making a Time and Motion study of all this,” panted Hitchcock in exhaustion.

With the one or two absences permissible on the grounds of confusion and assurances that the absentees had gone in previous coaches or had said they were not coming, they finally slumped in the rear seats of the last coach.

“At last,” panted Mr Hitchcock.

But they had to wait another mysterious twenty minutes for the driver.

I
N THE
morning, the effects of the outing were plain to see. Almost without exception the sea air and the careless pleasure of the day had left their dreadful mark, and the Monday morning clocking-on was for most an even grimmer affair than usual. A large number of those who had been on the outing failed to beat the clock, and this added to the store of latent savage resentment that was generally felt at being back at work.

“Morning all,” said Knowlesy in fraternal greeting. “Though the heart bleeds, the show must go on. Where’s old Kitey? Died of wounds?”

“I hope you enjoyed your bread and circuses,” said Kitey primly. “You’ve had your little treat, lads; now it’s time to start working your guts out for the grasping
shareholders
, God bless ’em.”

Kitey began his toil in some gloom. Mrs Kite had been particularly intractable when she had returned, towards two in the morning, in a Rolls-Royce. She had, she
reported
, greatly enjoyed herself. At the Siamese Cat Club, to which she had apparently been taken, there had been an amusing cabaret, and dancing. Bertie, it appeared, was a lovely dancer, and it was Kitey’s fault she had gone, because he never took her anywhere. Who was Bertie? Bertie was Mr Tracepurcel. Well, what if he was a
representative
of the lousy bloody boss-class? He and that other gentleman, Kitey might be interested to hear, were more amusing than all Kitey’s wet committees rolled into one.

In his office, Mr Hitchcock thought bitterly about the outing.

There was no doubt it had been even worse than usual. It was a pity the Chairman had been ill: his usual
platitudinous
speech, with its innocuous lullaby quality, was the
sort of thing the occasion of a merry celebration called for—not the provocative direct remarks of Mr Tracepurcel.

A feeling of insecurity crawled over him, intensifying when he remembered Stanley. He recalled vividly the disparaging things he had said in the saloon bar about those who were, inexplicably, Stanley’s comrades. Where exactly was this fellow Windrush employed? He went to one of the filing cabinets and looked him up.

Mr Waters, the Time and Motion man, prepared for action.

He set out his six stopwatches in a row on his desk, and began arranging them in his pockets. Outside breast pocket, hip pocket, one in each jacket pocket, one in each trouser pocket. Mr Tracepurcel was absolutely right: greater efficiency
was
the answer. Mr Waters was very glad that someone on the Board of Directors had given the right lead. There was a problem, and it needed to be tackled with courage. No ifs and buts; no respecting the sacred cows of immemorial practice; no more being put off by a defeatist Personnel Manager; no more lagging behind America.

There was no doubt at all that the most promising field for improvement was that of handling: the books were unanimous on that point. Now that Missiles had had
fork-lift
trucks for a full two years, there must surely be big improvements possible in the handling times for materials on their way round the factory. Why had there not been? How long did it
really
take to do some of these operations?

With a keen
sense of mission, Mr Waters made his way to the Stores Block.

Stanley’s week began very well. The bubble car started at once, and on the way to Missiles all the traffic lights turned green for him. Just for once he arrived in time to clock on effortlessly, and he approached his fork-lift truck metaphorically rubbing his hands for action. After an enjoyable day by the sea, and with the prospect of a quite
possible marriage to an attractive and energetic young woman, he felt ready for anything and keen to start saving up from income.

Most of the men were rather subdued. When Stanley came in with a cheery “Good morning, good morning!” there was little response. Even Knowlesy merely said: “Oh, only you, Squire? And here was me going to put me collar on.”

“All right this morning, Knowlesy?” asked Stanley brightly, unplugging his truck from the battery charger.

“Steady on, cock,” advised Knowlesy. “You’ll find yourself taking on a bit too much. You remind me of Curly Graham the way you’re going on, and you don’t want
that
to happen.”

“What to happen?”

“The way it was with Curly Graham. Used to do
weightlifting
with ’is teeth. Made quite a hobby of it, till he went over to France on a day trip.”

“Why did that stop him?”

“Well, what it was, there was some sort of fair going on, for a religious festival. In the middle of August this was. Old Curly thought he’d have a go at lifting some weights they’d got there, only instead of pounds they was marked in kilometres, and he didn’t reckon it out right, so when he had a go lifting he snatched up more than he reckoned and done himself an injury.

“All I say is, watch out you don’t bite off too much, Squire.”

He shook his head sadly and drove away at a leisurely pace, as Mr Morris came out of his cabin with Stanley’s schedule for the day.

The morning had advanced sufficiently far for the week’s work to have been properly started, when Stanley, busy at transferring a load of crated castings one by one from the far end of the racks to the loading bays, became aware of a man leaning on the end of a stack and scrabbling in a pocket. He was still there when Stanley came back again and this time ventured a Good Morning.

“I wonder if you could help me at all?” he went on. “I’m rather a new boy here.”

“Oh, so am I,” said Stanley. “What’s the trouble?”

“Oh, no trouble. I was just interested in that truck of yours.”

“Ah yes. Very handy, aren’t they? Look at all the fetching and carrying I’m doing, all on my own. That’s progress, you see. Once upon a time there’d be dozens of men staggering about with all this stuff, but now there’s just me.”

“It isn’t difficult?”

“Oh no, not a bit. It’s extremely simple.”

“Could you lift two of those castings at a time, instead of one?”

“Oh, I expect so. I can carry two tons but the union doesn’t like us to do it that way.”

“How long does it take you to lift one of those and make a trip to the other end and back?”

“I don’t know. I just keep on doing it till they’re finished.”

“I suppose it might take longer carrying two, if you weren’t used to it?”

“I shouldn’t think so. Let’s see.” Stanley edged the truck forward and collected two of the crates on his forks. “Here we go, and before you can say Productivity I’ll be back.”

He departed at the truck’s smartest pace and was, indeed, soon back. Mr Waters stopwatched it at two minutes eighteen.

“There we are,” said Stanley on his return. “They certainly are jolly good little trucks. What would you say that took?”

“Oh, about three or four minutes, I suppose. That’s the lever for lifting, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s right. It only takes a couple of lessons to get the hang of it, but you do have to remember plugging it in for battery-charging. Did you say three minutes? That seems a bit long.”

“Four, I thought. Does it get slower near the end of a day, like those electric milk vans?”

“Oh no. Four minutes? I wouldn’t have thought it was as much as that. Let’s have another go.”

This time Mr Waters timed it at two minutes nine seconds.

“I’m not keeping you from your work, am I?” he asked when Stanley came back.

“Oh no, I can do this while I’m talking.” Stanley found it stimulating that someone should take a keen interest in his affairs. “What sort of work are you going to do here at Missiles?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m just having a general look round,” said Mr Waters, suddenly diving into his hip pocket. “I thought I’d start looking round this department first. Will that thing lift
three,
I wonder?”

When Mr Kite put his head round the door he saw the Time and Motion man with his right-hand jacket-pocket stopwatch in his hand, and the back view of Stanley’s truck proceeding at a spanking pace towards the loading bays with three crates aboard.

Mr Kite took in the situation instantly. He turned abruptly about, walked out again, and getting out his bird-warbler blew loud and furious calls on it.

For a few seconds there was no response, but presently fork-lift trucks emerged from various buildings, and from all directions converged on him.

Stanley, merrily singing a vigorous Negro work-song, trundled rapidly back down the racks.

He seemed to have found his natural rhythm.

When he caught sight of his twenty fellow drivers, bunched scowling at the door of the shed, he let the melody die away. He was momentarily puzzled at their appearance.

The Time and Motion man looked round in a startled way, and waving a gesture of farewell, made to go about his business. When he reached the door, loud hissing sounds
filled the air around him as he excused his way through the group of drivers.

“Oi!” called Kitey from the doorway to Stanley, “What’s up? You training for the Olympics or something?”

“What?” said Stanley. “No, of course not. Just seeing what this truck can do.”

“What you want to do that in front of young Soapy for?” demanded Perce Carter.

“Who?”

“Soapy Waters, that bloke,” said Kitey in an angry tone. “The new Time and Motion boy, or didn’t you know?”

“Of course I didn’t know,” said Stanley. “He didn’t tell me. He just said he was new here and was interested in the truck.”

“You must be dead stupid,” said Perce Carter. “Of course he wasn’t going to tell you.”

“You done it now,” said Knowlesy.

“Done what?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” said Kitey. “They’ll publish a stopwatch report tomorrow, with new rates for these jobs. That’s what you’ve done. And you actually speeded up for him. I dunno.”

A groan, more of despair than hostility, rose from the drivers.

“You going to make a protest to Creepy?” asked Ted Baker, a driver of diminutive proportions. “We wasn’t any of us consulted about this lark.”

“Lofty’s right,” said another driver. “You want to get on to him straight away.”

“Don’t you worry,” said Kitey. “I’ll be there, I can tell you. Typical bosses’ trick.”

“I’m sorry about all this business,” said Stanley. “I had no idea, but honestly, it wasn’t harder and it got it done in half the time.”

“Oh yes,” said Kitey. “They’d only need half the drivers at that rate. You want your head seen to.”

“I don’t suppose it matters to you,” said Perce Carter. “But
we
need the money, mate.”

“Oh, but so do I,” protested Stanley. “In fact I could do with a good bit more.”

“You’re going the right bleeding way to get it, and no mistake,” said Perce Carter. “They’ll be cutting the rate to about half. Why don’t you abide by the terms of the agreement? We got on all right a couple of years the way it was.”

“Oh, I don’t expect they’ll alter the rate, Perce,” said Knowlesy. “Not if old Kitey tells ’em we’ll walk out. Eh, Kitey?”

“You don’t want to be too sure,” said Kitey. “You heard what Tracepurcel was saying on the outing.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Knowlesy. “I was out in the Gents.”

“Well, it looks to me as if they’re reckoning to get a bit tough, talking about inflation and more efficiency and getting prices down by harder work.”

“Oh, I wasn’t working
hard
‚”
protested Stanley. “Just quicker.”

“You was working like a bloody black,” said Perce Carter.

“That’s it!” cried Kitey. “You remember those black chaps coming round. You know what I reckon, brothers? I reckon they think they can get away with a lower rate on these trucks because they can get coloured blokes to do it if we won’t. Like the railways. And you remember what old Tracepurcel said about working with anyone no matter what their creed or colour? I’m off to see Creepy Crawley.”

“Well, of all the rotten lousy tricks,” said Perce Carter.

“Oh, I don’t think it was anything like that,” said Stanley. “Those black men who came round were only from the Coloured Conference. I know because a friend of mine showed them round.”

“A friend of yours?” asked Kitey, suspiciously. “What friend?”

“Well, he’s called Wallace Hardy-Freeman. At the Foreign Office. Oh, good morning, Mr Hitchcock.”

The Personnel Manager had appeared in the doorway behind the drivers, who all turned round to look at him.

Mr Hitchcock came in, with a suspicious look at Stanley.

“What’s the trouble, Mr Kite?” he asked. “This chap Windrush letting you down or something?”

“Was it you put the management on to stopwatching these trucks?” asked Kitey.

“Stopwatching? Oh believe me no,” said Mr Hitchcock. “Without consulting the union? You know me better than that. What exactly have you been up to, Windrush?”

“Funny you turning up like this, then,” said Kitey, before Stanley could reply. “I’m getting on to Mr Crawley straight away.”

“Look here, Kite,” said Mr Hitchcock, “I came here to have a chat to Windrush. I don’t know what Mr Waters is up to. Damn it, I’m Personnel Manager here, aren’t I? I don’t have to apply to the Branch Committee of the General before I talk to a blasted member, do I? I just happen to know Windrush personally, that’s all.”

“Another friend of yours?” asked Perce Carter
sarcastically
of Stanley. “Creep.”

“Don’t pretend you wasn’t aware what was going on,” cried Kitey, in some heat. “Don’t think I don’t know what way the wind’s blowing.” The provocations of the last twenty-four hours were rapidly coming to a climax with Kitey, “I’m reporting the entire episode to the Branch Committee.”

“You do that, by all means,” recommended Mr
Hitchcock
. “Then perhaps they’ll send someone to tell me what’s going on.”

“I know the way management policy’s going,” cried Kitey, “just as well as you do. But I warn you, we’re not going to step aside for any black men as easily as you think. Come on, brothers.”