The Town By The Sea

AT THE MACHINE

"Here's a new mate for you, Naumenko!" said Fedorko, the shift foreman, leading me over to an elderly worker who was busy adjusting two moulding machines.

The worker turned round. He was over fifty. Tall and grey, wearing a rough homespun shirt with short sleeves, he looked in surprise at Fedorko.

"Show him the ropes," the foreman said, nodding at me. "You'll get the average while you're instructing."

"Now look here, Alexei Grigorievich! Put him with someone else!" the old man protested.

But the foreman interrupted him, waving his arms:

"You've got to do it, Naumenko! You're an old operator and it's your duty to teach the youngsters."

And the foreman vanished behind a wall of empty iron mould-boxes.

We were left alone. Naumenko eyed me sourly. Evidently it would have suited him far better to mould alone, than to bother with a pupil and have to answer for his work.

When the foreman was gone, my teacher spat deliberately at the ground and said to the moulders working behind the barrier opposite: "Just my luck! First they give me a drunkard to put right, now I've got to teach milksops!"

The men laughed. One of them, tall and thin, with close-cropped hair and dark prominent cheek-bones, looked like a Mongol. The other, with sharp, prickly eyes, was short. He went on packing his mould and said: "Not half, Uncle Vasya, you certainly do pick "em!"

"But I mean it!" My teacher complained to his neighbours. "Things were going fine today, I thought I'd have fifty moulds ready by dinner-time, and now I'll have to start again from scratch." And turning to me he asked gruffly: "What are you looking down in then mouth for? What's your name?"

"Vasily Mandzhura."

"Hey, what are you moaning about, Uncle Vasya, you've got a namesake! You'll be able to celebrate your name-day together, think how much you'll save!" shouted the nimble little man with sharp eyes, working fast at his mould.

"Ever worked "em?" Naumenko asked, nodding towards the machines.

"Never seen one before. I always used to work on the moulding floor, I didn't have anything to do with machines."

"Oho, Uncle Vasya, you've got an expert on artistic casting!" cried the sharp-eyed worker. "He'll soon be teaching you to cast sculptures in your old age!"

"Where was it you worked on a moulding floor I wonder?" Naumenko asked with evident curiosity.

I realized that hand moulding was valued much more highly here than machine-work. I had to relate how I had come to be in this town.

Naumenko heard me out patiently.

"All right, we've done enough chin-wagging," he said at last. "Get to your place!" And he nodded to the left-hand machine.

I had to make my way to the machine along a narrow passage past a tall stove, nearly the height of a man, which stood between the two machines. Also between the two machines stood a deep box of special moulding sand, which the men here called "mixture." On my left and on Uncle Vasya's right towered a wall of empty iron mould-boxes piled one on top of the other.

My feet sinking in the dry sand I went up to the machine. There was a babbitt model of some kind of bush fitted to it.

"You take the bottom, understand?" Naumenko called to me. "These bushes are called 'sausages.' You'll pack the bottom and I'll do the top. Watch and see how it's done."

At first I could not take my eyes off the machine. I pulled the mysterious iron bars sticking out at the corners and touched the two gleaming slippery conical bolts soldered to the model.

"Hi, youngster, look this way!" Naumenko shouted angrily.

With a swift heave he planted a gleaming iron frame with wing-nuts at the sides on similarly gleaming pins, then without looking round, he took a mould-box off the back row, placed it in the frame and deftly tightened the screws. When the screws held the box firmly in the frame, Uncle Vasya took a bag off a shelf and shook it over the model. The babbitt "sausages" were powdered with an even coating of sand. Still without looking round, my instructor dipped his hand in the box and, taking a handful of the mixture, sprinkled it over the model.

The next moment Naumenko had a shovel in his hands. He plunged it into the heap of sand that lay between us and began tossing the sand into the mould. Steam rose from the scattered heap. Apparently the sand had not yet cooled from yesterday's casting.

I watched him closely, trying to remember every movement.

Naumenko smoothed the damp, hot sand with his gnarled but supple hands, picked up a short tamper and started ramming the sand down.

The muscles rippled in Naumenko's rugged old arms. The sharp wooden wedge on the end of the tamper plunged into the sand with such violence it seemed Naumenko wanted to smash the machine, or at least drive it through the floor.

The tamper crushed and forced the sand into the grooves of the model. More and more sand went into the mould-box, until it was hard as a cart-track. Naumenko went over the uneven surface of the mould with a square tamper, removed the tin top and levelled off the mould with an iron ruler. Then with a long vent wire he pricked the ventilation holes. After tapping the bottom of the mould with a mallet to loosen the model in its sandy casing, Naumenko with a deft swing gently raised the packed mould with its iron frame on the four corner bars. For about a minute, my instructor changed from energetic pounding to gentle, cautious, almost delicate movements, while he took the model out of the sand.

The rounded babbitt bushes of the model had done their work, leaving a clean nest for the future casting in the tightly-packed sand.

With a' hook Naumenko made a groove in the sand for the pouring lip. Before I noticed where he had taken it from, a rubber hose-pipe with a brass nozzle, like the nozzle of a soda siphon, appeared in my instructor's hands. Naumenko pressed the lever on the nozzle and a stream of compressed air hissed over the mould. After cleaning the frame, he tossed the hose away behind the machine.

"Now we'll set it. Follow me," he said.

With an effort he lifted the rather heavy mould-box in its frame off the machine. Holding it in front of him, he ran quickly to the moulding floor.

Four moulds that Uncle Vasya had packed before I came already stood on the dry sand of the moulding floor, behind our machines. The lower half of a fifth mould lay like a pillow on the soft sand. In it there were four cores that would form the holes in the iron "sausages."

Treading gently, Naumenko walked to the fifth mould and covered it with the moulded top half that II had just seen him make on the machine. The smooth, black-leaded pins of the upper frame fitted tightly into the holes of the lower frame, so that the upper mould rested exactly over the lower mould, joining the channels along which the iron would flow, and the edges of the future castings.

Although everything I had just seen was new to me, the experience I had already gained helped me to imagine how the dry cores were neatly encased in the grooves of the upper mould, and how the finished iron "sausages" would slip out of the mould after casting. And II pictured at once those important parts of a machine which at harvest-time would ply to and fro over the broad fields of our country. And again I felt glad that I had chosen such an interesting and skilled trade.

Meanwhile, Uncle Vasya, making sure not to shift the mould, carefully unscrewed the frame, lifted it, took it apart and threw me the bottom half.

"Catch!" he shouted.

The rather heavy iron frame was hard to catch without practice. Using both hands, I managed to grab it just before it hit the ground, and one of the wing-nuts jabbed into my knee.

"Now go to it yourself!" Naumenko said, taking a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. "And we'll have a smoke."

Trying not to make a mistake, I repeated the movements he had worked out and tested through long years of practice. Having screwed on the frame, I dipped my hand into the box and without looking, tossed a handful of mixture over the model. Then I started plunging the sharp shovel into the sand. I danced about round the machine, packing the sand with such fury that my arms felt as if they would fly off my body.

It made me sore to think that Naumenko looked upon me as a nuisance. I realized that from his point of view, as an old and experienced moulder, he might be right. Of course, it was a lot nicer for him to get on with his moulding alone than to teach a beginner. As yet I did not know what the foreman had meant when he said, "You'll get the average for instruction," but I concluded Naumenko stood to lose by being given a mate like me.

As I packed in the sand, I felt the sweat break out on my forehead. As usual, I was wasting a lot of energy for nothing. There was sand in my boots, and my teeth felt gritty. Now and then I felt Naumenko's eye on me. He was watching me suspiciously, distrustfully, checking every movement.

"Can I lift it now?" I asked.

"Try," said my teacher evasively.

"Right," I said and, after tapping the mould with the mallet, pulled the lever.

Before I could clean the mould with the hose and take it off the machine, the men on the other side started laughing.

"What's the bit o' cake you've left on your model, youngster?" the tall, dark fellow shouted.

I glanced under the mould—and felt utterly wretched. A big lump of sand had stuck to the model. Some cake! Naumenko stood behind me laughing.

"Fine job o' work, eh?" Naumenko said to the nimble little man, whose name was Luka, nodding at me. "Forgot your sprinkle—that's where the cake comes from," he explained to me.

But I had already realized my mistake. In my hurry I had forgotten to dust the model with dry sprinkle from the bag on the shelf. "But that old devil's a nice specimen too!" I thought. "Saw I had made a mistake and didn't say anything, so that he could make a laughing-stock of me!"

When I had knocked the sand out of the mould, Naumenko said: "Yes, and I expect your model's cold by now. It's some time since I gave it any heat. Take the tongs— behind the box there—and come along to the grate." Carrying the long forge tongs and not knowing really what I should need them for, I followed Naumenko down the main alley of the foundry.

My teacher strode on with long steady strides. His head was slightly bowed. I trotted behind him like

a guilty schoolboy, guessing that he was not in the best of tempers. "Giving me a kid to train from Podolia somewhere!" Naumenko must be thinking. "Now I've got to fiddle about teaching him instead of getting the work done myself!"

We crossed the long foundry shed.

Now from one side, now from another came the banging of a mallet. Mountains of empty mould-boxes towered behind the machines. Near them, finished moulds stood ready to receive their castings.

Powerful ventilators hummed monotonously. They forced air into the cupola furnaces, fanning the slabs of coke and melting the chunks of iron. The molten metal oozed down over the hot coke in white streams and gathered at the bottom of the furnaces in a seething mass, ready to pour out as soon as the furnace man tapped the furnace with his steel bar.

"Look, Naumenko's got a new lap-dog!" someone shouted from the back of the shed.

The shout came from a foundry man with a bronzed surly-looking face. His head was wrapped in a red handkerchief, like a woman.

"Vasya, old man, how do you like your new assistant?" he shouted even louder, thinking that Naumenko would stop for a "chin-wag"; but my teacher went on all the faster.

As we passed the next machine, I caught sight of Tiktor. He must have recognized me, but he looked at me as if I were a stranger.

Tiktor was throwing sand confidently into a mould-box. He was working as mate to the man who wore the handkerchief on his head.

The "grate" was outside in the yard, a little way from the foundry, lit was a round brazier filled with hot coke. The ends of metal slabs that were heating in the coke bristled from its grated sides.

"Remember where I put ours!" Naumenko said, and pushed two heavy slabs into the glowing coke.

"Do you have to come out here every time?" I asked.

"Of course!" Naumenko gave me a look of surprise and annoyance.

"But it's so far!"

"If you want a clean mould you'll keep your slab heated. There's no other way!" Naumenko snapped.

He took the tongs and pulled out the slabs which he had put in earlier, and which were now white hot. I felt sure that if we had not come for them at that moment the slabs would have melted like the iron in the furnaces.

"Now buzz off and put them under the machine!" Naumenko ordered, handing me the tongs.

Holding the tongs out in front of me, I raced back to our working place.

"It's a big place but the way they manage these slabs isn't much good!" I thought, as I pounded along through the shop. "Surely they could put that brazier somewhere nearer?" '

The slabs were still a bright red when II pushed them into the slots under the machine. Soon the wet sand on the babbitt turned grey and dried out. The models got so hot that it was hard to keep your hand on them for long. Still Naumenko did not appear. So as not to waste time, 'I started packing the bottom mould on my machine.

Now that I was alone with the machine, I felt more at ease. No one was standing over me. Our neighbours were busy somewhere behind their machine, and there was no one else about.

"Let the old fellow go for a walk round the shed," I thought, "I know a thing or two without him telling me!"

The second mould came out nicely. No sand stuck to the model, as it had first time, and I even took the risk of setting the mould on the moulding floor without waiting for instructions. It slid out of my hands gently on to the sandy pillow.

Then I shot back to the machine. After cleaning the well-heated model with air from the pipe, I screwed on the spare frame and started packing another bottom mould. 'I had no hopes of catching up with my teacher, but I wanted to have a little work in hand.

I became so absorbed in moulding that I did not notice Naumenko's return.

"Who's going to do the cores? Your uncle?"

Naumenko's stern voice at my elbow made me start. The heavy tamper missed its aim and came down hard on my left thumb.

It was an awful wallop. Tears started to my eyes. "Good-bye to my thumb-nail!" I thought.

I wanted to shout and hop about and writhe with the pain, I wanted to hurl that darned iron tamper as far away as I could, I wanted to turn the air blue with curses! But I realized that if I did so I should only call forth fresh jeers, and to smother the pain I bit my lip until it bled. Keeping my face averted so that Naumenko should hot see my tear-filled eyes, I said quietly, through clenched teeth:

"I'll just finish this bottom one, then I'll do the cores."

By dinner-time my thumb had swollen and turned blue. The bone felt as if it was broken.

"Who thought of making tampers heavy as that?" I thought to myself. "It might crock a chap up for good... But if it's too light, it won't pack the sand in properly. I'll have to be more careful next time."

When II had to take a mould-box off the machine, I tried desperately to smother the pain. Hiding my feelings from Naumenko, I undid the screws somehow, grabbed the frame and dashed back, trying to save every minute I could. There wasn't even time to shake the sand out of my shoes.

"You're wearing the lad to a frazzle, Naumenko!" Luka shouted to my teacher.

"Why don't you knock off for a bit!" advised Gladyshev, Luka's mate, the moulder who looked like a Mongol.

Although their words stung me, I tried not to show it. You can joke! I thought...

The signal was given to knock off for dinner. Since the works hooter could not be heard amid the din of the foundry shed, when dinner-time came round, the furnace men banged on the iron bar that hung near the furnaces.

Ignoring the signal, I kept working at my moulds.

One after the other the mallets fell silent. Only the furnaces by the wall kept up their ceaseless roar.

"Right. Pack in. Let's go for dinner!" Naumenko said sternly. "Come and wash your hands."

Cold water from the tap splashed on my dusty hands and the pain immediately relaxed a little. Seeing my teacher take a handful of coarse sand from a tin, I did the same. The coarse sand mixed with clay cleaned the dirt off well. Soon I saw my red, work-scarred palms, with the beginnings of fresh corns on them.

In silence I followed Naumenko back to the machine, picked up the lunch that our landlady had prepared for me, and sat down near my teacher.

With slow dignity Naumenko unwrapped his lunch— three eggs, a slice of smoked chebak, curly-topped radishes, a hunk of home-baked bread with butter on it, and a bottle of strong tea.

"Never mind, lad!" Naumenko said suddenly in a kindly tone. "You and I'll earn our bread today—that's a fact. And tomorrow we'll get enough for borshch, and after that, before you know where you are, you'll be having cutlets. . . It's always hard to start with... I've got a boy too, just a bit older than you. Used to work here, in the foundry. Now he's in Yekaterinoslav, studying at the mining institute. At first his letters were all moans and groans. 'I'll never stick it! I'm coming home!' he says. 'It's much easier at the works!' But now, he's not doing so bad. Got into the swing of it. Looks as if he's rumbled this science business. Getting cheeky too: 'When I'm a mine manager, Dad,' he says, 'you can count on a job as time-keeper,' ... Hey, what's happened to your finger?" And looking at my hand, Uncle Vasya frowned.

Now that I had washed the black-lead dust off my hands, the congealed blood under my battered thumb-nail showed up well.

"Just gave it a knock," I said lightly.

"Just a knock! Why, your finger's swelled up like a priest at Easter. Why didn't you show me before? Off you go to the first-aid room. They'll give you a certificate."

"No first-aid room for me!" II said as cheerfully as I could. "Fancy bothering a doctor with a little scratch like this!"

"You're a fire-eater, H see, lad!" said Uncle Vasya, shaking his head. "Want to stick it out. Well, you know best. But they'll always give you a certificate for a thing like that."

There was a note of respect in his voice. He spoke to me as if I had been his partner for a long time. That was something worth far more than any direct praise.