Reject

CHAPTER 14

  "Things were going well!" reflected Watkins as he luxuriated behind his desk. The turning point in his fortunes had occurred when Folklore's department had packed its bags and left for the Home Counties and Millar's dungeon. He recalled that morning with self-satisfied pride. As the lorry had pulled away, leaving only a forgotten cardboard box labelled 'Mr Folklore - Pre 1965' in the middle of an otherwise empty floor, he had walked in through the back door to take possession of Folklore's old office, drapes, Lie Charts and all and was in the act of towing his desk into it when the Works Manager put in an appearance.

  "I shouldn't bother, if I were you, Watkins. I have plans for this room."

  "But I desperately need a new office - I've put up with that pokey hole for years! Surely you can't begrudge it to me?"

  "Far from it!" he smiled "but in memory of our dearly loved and so recently departed colleague, I have decided to set it up as a sort of shrine."

  "What are you going to do with it, then?"

  "I am going to turn it into a toilet for the catalyst room workers!"

  Watkins exploded into halitosed laughter but was quick witted enough to request Grey's superoffice instead.

  "Good idea, and you'd better take those", waving a hand at the drapes, "with you before the catalyst man wipes his arse on them."

  Still giggling to himself, he had reversed his desk and towed it up the corridor only to meet Mr Happy towing his own desk down from the other end. Watkins beat him to Grey's doorway by the width of a filing cabinet but Mr Happy blocked him with his desk before he could complete the turn and they faced each other across them like two motorists fighting for a parking space.

  "He promised it to me!" snarled Mr Happy.

  "Who did?"

  "Grey, that's who!"

  "Well, you'd better go and get him to help you then, hadn't you."

  "Look! I'm going to have this office. Why don't you take Folklore's?"

  "Because the Works Manager wants it for a toilet. He told me to have this one instead."

  "He's got no right to. This is a Technical Department and in the absence of any higher authority, I claim it on Grey's authorisation."

  "Have you got it in writing?"

  "Have you?"

  They stared at each other in steadily mounting fury and it was only the sounds of the Works Manager's mirth which prevented them from coming to blows.

  "If you two could only have seen yourselves!" he cried when he had recovered his breath. "I will wave my Works Managerial Wand and solve all your problems. Mr Happy, you can have Smith's old office and I have every right to give Grey's office to Watkins, here. You can have that in writing too, if you like!"

  And so it had come to pass. The superoffice (10% larger than Folklore's) looked very well with the drapes all round the walls, the red carpet which Grey had forgotten to pack, and the impressive row of telephones on his desk. The Lie Charts had been left on Folklore's walls and were now largely obscured by pornographic pin-ups, except for the one which demonstrated convincingly the role his Department had played in the Company's productivity, with the output line reaching steadily upwards to the date of departure and the subsequent, anticipated downturn marked in by some nameless statistician who had used a rather unappetising brown ink.

  "His fortunes" he continued to reflect "had been further enhanced when Howell had talked Mr Happy into letting him install his Magic Box on the No.5 moulding line." As he, Watkins, had known nothing about it until after the event and it had begun to show itself as a Good Thing, he had had the afterthought to send Mr Happy a retrospective memo authorising him to try it out, so that when Anderson was ambushed by Howell outside the executive toilet, persuaded to go and see it and duly impressed, Watkins could prove that it was all his idea in the first place. Howell was now busily constructing another one to replace one of Sage's horrors on the No.4 moulding line which would, in due course improve the Weekly Works Figures to his credit and at the same time please Anderson by giving him more pins to stick into Sage. It was all rather pleasing and this morning Watkins found himself in sole command of the factory.

  It was the first day of the annual shutdown and the memory of what the Works Manager had actually said to him on the previous Friday afternoon was fading into the roseate glow of the knowledge that he was omnipotent.

  "Due to a series of mistakes, Watkins, it seems that during the closure you have the distinction of being the most senior man on the premises. Now all that I require of you is that you return the factory to me in a fortnight's time in good working order. Don't try to do anything clever! In fact, don't try to do anything at all. Just make sure that the maintenance engineers oil the machines like they are supposed to and you can usefully employ yourself by catching up on your paperwork. This would be a useful opportunity for you to read Mr Folklore's American Report. It's up to 147 pages, this year" he added as an afterthought.

  At nine oclock sharp, he had driven in at twice the permitted speed, waved airily in the direction of the gateman, blandly misinterpreting his raised two fingers and mouthed 'Pouff!' from the safety of his glass box as servile obeisance. He parked with a flourish in the Works Manager's reserved parking place instead of his usual spot behind the Technical Block and then felt vaguely foolish because he had to walk three times as far as usual to reach his office.

  There was nobody about. For half an hour or so he busied himself with the 'Telegraph' crossword until he became stuck and then whiled away a further ten minutes by calling himself on the two internal phones.

  "I think I'll just go and see that everything is in good order" he said aloud to himself, fastening a few random sheets of paper to a clipboard which he tucked under his arm before setting off with a distinctly napoleonic strut around the deserted factory. A Works at rest takes a bit of getting used to. There is a cathedral-like hush in which the settling dust is the only sound to be heard besides one's own footsteps and the tweeting of birds outside, accompanied by the occasional bleat of a distant sheep. Even the maintenance fitters seem to be affected by it. They lay down their tools carefully so as not to make a noise and wince apologetically if they have to strike anything with a hammer. He nodded importantly to the few individuals he encountered on the way round and his strut was beginning to wear off as he entered the vast hall of the Dispatch Stores.

  It was completely deserted and he was about to change his mind and go outside again by the same door through which he had just entered when his eye lit upon the fork lift truck. He looked carefully around the building. Nobody in sight. Gleefully, he put down his clipboard and climbed into the driving seat. The key was in the ignition and he turned it on. A big red light on the control panel glowed brightly at him. Releasing the handbrake, he carefully drove forward a few yards and then, equally carefully reversed it back again. Next he drove it in a big circle right round the Dispatch Bay. This was fun! He put his foot hard down on the accelerator and roared from one side to the other, turning hard just short of a stack of mouldings and running along inches from the wall almost to the corner, before rounding hard to the centre of the floor and pirouetting the truck on the spot half a dozen times.

  He was really getting the feel of this! He almost chortled out loud as he ran it straight at the Dispatch Office wall, swerving at the last moment and performing two complete left hand circles, followed by three right hand ones and then three times round one of the roof support pillars. With an air of complete mastery, he repeated the manoeuvre, at the same time raising and lowering the forks. Drunk with power he made six high speed turns round the roof support nearest to the loading ramp, simultaneously raising the forks to their fullest extent and then lowering them back to the ground. On the sixth turn, the forks bottomed and scraped on the concrete floor, causing him momentarily to lose concentration and the back of the truck caught the pillar, he overcorrected and ran head on into a pile of empty resin drums which had been stacked six high by the loading bay. Only the s
afety screen on the truck prevented him from being crushed.

  It is impossible to give adequate description to the noise made by forty or fifty empty 45 gallon drums as they cascaded down to the floor, the sound amplified by the empty building. Bouncing and skittering across the floor in all directions, rebounding from the walls and colliding with each other on the way back, the big black barrels resembled a herd of panic-stricken elephants milling about in the jungle. Two of them chased across to the Dispatch Office, which was a Portacabin parked in the far corner. The first struck and rebounded smack into the second which catapulted right over it and end-on through the window, rending all the fittings apart, splintering the telephones into a shapeless mulch of plastic and wires and lodging behind the door so that it could not be opened. Another brought down a stack of pallets loaded with Cortina seats and three converged simultaneously on a single pallet loaded with drums of adhesive, bursting two of them open on to the floor.

  Watkins sat, stunned and completely deaf until the chaos had largely subsided before regaining his wits and fleeing through the side door, leaving several of the barrels still gently rolling about, one spinning slowly on its axis and two more bouncing down the Dispatch Bay and out into the open yard.

  His hearing was beginning to return as he made his way from the scene of the crime. He could discern distant shouts and, closer, the sound of running feet. He did a 'U' turn around a baling machine and made his way back to where just about everybody in the factory was converging. He was faintly surprised to see how many of them there actually were, rooted out from their hiding places to see what had happened.

  "What the Hell is all this?" he demanded loudly. In part, he had to raise his voice to penetrate the ringing in his ears and in part to impress the others with his innocent indignation at the outrage. It looked like he was going to get away with it. Throwing himself into the role of CO (Acting) Furious, he soon had the maintenance men on clearing up before setting off determinedly in the direction of his office to take three soluble aspirins in an attempt to subdue the cacophany still echoing inside his skull.

  His nerves had substantially ceased to jangle when the door was opened by the Dispatch Chargehand, an unsavoury character whom Watkins distantly disliked.

  "It is customary to knock!" he snapped.

  The man was unabashed. "Oo's been a naughty boy, then!" he riposted.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Oo dropped a whopping great big clanger, then?" and with an unpleasant smirk he dropped Watkins' clipboard on his desk, right on top of the papers which he had spread out to give the impression that he was working hard if anybody should come to see him. "I saw the whole thing! Quite the little Stirling Moss, aren't we? I had a ringside seat, you might say, from the cab of the lorry that was parked in the second loading bay. You'd have to pay good money to see anything as funny as that on the films, let alone in real life!"

  "Who do you think would believe you?" replied Watkins somewhat lamely.

  "The truth has a habit of sounding convincing, all by itself."

  "All right then, but what good will it do you to spread the story all round the factory?"

  "Quite so, Mr Watkins. But it would make you look rather silly, wouldn't it? Especially with you being in charge and all that. So before I give in to the temptation to bring a little amusement to my fellow workers' otherwise dull and monotonous lives, I thought I ought to come and see you about it, in case you might be able to come up with any alternative suggestions. If you take my meaning."

  He sniffed contemplatively. "You wouldn't happen to have a spare cigarette on you? - I seem to have forgotten to bring mine with me." He picked up Watkins' packet from his desk, took one out and offered them back to him. He took one with a bemused hand, put the wrong end in his mouth and ignited the filter with his lighter. The shock as the end burst into flames brought him out of his trance.

  "So what are you after?" He ground the wreckage into his ash tray, waving the smoke away from his face.

  "A little favour. I have a friend who is in the scrap business in a small way. This would be an ideal time for you to try him out. His charges are very reasonable."

  "I can't do anything like that!" he protested. "That sort of thing is handled by the buying office."

  "Ah, well - that's just the point. During the shutdown you are in charge. You can do whatever you like. They might complain when they come back but by then he will have got his foot in the door and he can look after himself. All I want from you is to give him that chance."

  "So what's in it for you?"

  The Dispatch Chargehand gave a lopsided grin. "There's some quite nice stuff goes out of here to be dumped. It's sometimes worth more than the scrappie earns for removing it. Shall we say no more!"

  Watkins knew the score. It was well known that the Company's erstwhile scrap sometimes appeared on market stalls in the district, being sold direct to the public for profit margins undreamed of by the sales managers. He lit a fresh cigarette as he pondered his position. The man had him over a barrel. His mind bitterly registered the pun. It was also clear that the evil swine had thought it through and it was definitely within his powers to call in a fresh scrap contractor in the event that they had a problem. All he had to do was cover up his actions in retrospect. It would probably annoy the buyer who would stand to lose a 'backhander' from the regular scrap contractor, but no doubt he could put the screws on this man's friend in due course and recover the lost ground. It looked as though Watkins was going to have to sweeten him with an expensive dinner or something similar on his return, but then, he was over a barrel.

  "All right" he replied resignedly. "Tell him to call in at the gatehouse on Wednesday morning and to ask for me."

  "Thank you Mr Watkins." He grinned evilly "I think you did the right thing."

  "You've got want you wanted. Now get out of my office and don't come back."

  He tossed his butt into the wastepaper bin and went, still smirking unpleasantly.

  "Bastard!" snarled Watkins at his departing back before burying his face in his hands in a futile attempt to shut out the renewed echoes clamouring inside.

  For the next three days he shut himself in his office, daring to set foot outside it only when either his stomach or his bladder dictated and the factory continued its holiday in a state of blissful idleness, disturbed only by the occasional clink of a fitter's spanner as the maintenance crew worked their way around the sleeping machines. He was actually reading page 102 of Mr Folklore's American report between long spells of dozing off when the telephone aroused him from his reverie.

  "It's Harrison, here. You know, Special Product Sales" he prompted, mistaking Watkins' semi-somnolent condition for the usual reaction which people made to his announcement of his name. He occupied an unnoticed corner of the marketing effort and his ebullient enthusiasm for the unusual failed to arouse much interest amongst the executive who were geared up to large volume outputs at typically low profit margins. They were unmoved by his impassioned pleas:

  "If you will only make this special grade, I can sell 50 of them tomorrow for œ5 a piece" because such small numbers rarely justified the tooling up involved. He survived on the basis of one single customer who bought a goodly quantity of special tin free sheeting for agricultural use. It had to be tin free to pass a British Standard to do with the food industry and it was the only foam of its kind the Company manufactured. Grey had come up with a rather clever formulation to do the job, back in Rees' time and it had been going steadily ever since.

  "Oh, its you! What are you doing here - you should be on holiday like all the other salesmen."

  "No time, old boy. Far too busy to even think of it!"

  "Let me put things into perspective for you." He picked up a large document "with a short quotation from Mr Folklore's American Report."

  He cleared his throat meaningfully.

  "Turning to the upturn in the overall diverse produ
cts market. This has been more than over-compensated for by a contraction in the number of wholly controlled sales outlets, although the overall volume output, corrected to 1966 figures and including a deseasonalisation factor, has slightly increased but this latter when adjusted to take account of inflation and the variability of international exchange rates remains more or less constant as at 1965 levels of profitability, but does not take into account a proportional drop in actual manufactured output due to excess overseas sales for the year."

  He was rewarded by the sound of Harrison's heavy breathing as he tried to digest the parable. Eventually, he gave up and decided to ignore it.

  "Look here, old boy, I've just had Elsinore and Snodgrass (his big customer) on the blower and they've just had a rush order come through this morning and want us to supply them as soon as we can."

  "But..."

  "I know we're shut down, but if you can meet the order there's a great deal of goodwill to be had from it and a lot of personal kudos in it for you. After all, you are Acting Works Manager."

  "Oh, well - I don't know. It's asking a lot. What sort of quantity?"

  "They want 15 000 metres of sheeting, 60 cm wide by 2 cm thickness."

  "Christ!" Watkins almost dropped the phone. "That's a full day's output. That's getting on for œ6 000 worth of resin, I don't know if we have that much in stock. It would probably mean ordering a road tanker."

  "Please, old man! It's very important.

  "I'll see what I can do, but I can't make any promises."

  Watkins paced up and down the superoffice with his hands clasped behind him. The Works Manager's words echoed hollowly in his ears. Nonetheless, he had received a direct request for assistance and he knew that it was within his power to comply with Harrison's order. He had dipped the resin tank and it was almost full. He could scratch together enough men to operate the machine, provided that he did the setting up and calibrating himself and he desperately needed a feather in his cap to offset the affair of the Dispatch Chargehand's friend. This had caused more complications than he had bargained for because, when he had given permission for him to come on to the premises on Wednesday morning to collect a load of scrap, the regular scrap contractor had protested loudly to anybody who would listen to him and then, when Watkins had refused to send the new man away, promptly departed himself to write a nasty letter to the buyer and threatening not to come back. Thus, the only contractor on site was now the Dispatch Chargehand's friend who had turned out to be a most shifty looking character with an incredibly battered lorry which was bound to excite comment when it passed the Works Manager's office window upon his return from holiday on Monday week.

  The mental picture that this evoked finally decided him. He would set everything up this afternoon and start running first thing in the morning. That would give him plenty of time to get it sheeted and ready for dispatch early next week. He found the Maintenance Foreman and issued his instructions, choosing to ignore the man's sceptically raised eyebrow. He would show him!

  The run was perfect. By 4pm 60 blocks of foam lay on the conveyor belts and in the holding stores, the resin tank was empty. With a swagger for the Maintenance Foreman's benefit he took the lab. sample over to the physics lab. for testing and, as luck had it, Gwenda was in for the week to have a tidy up and clear out.

  "Test this as soon as you can and bring the results to my office when you have finished" he instructed. "The specification will be on file."

  He was on the point of calling Harrison to tell him the good news when Gwenda politely knocked on his door. "This sheeting was for Elsinore and Snodgrass, Mr Watkins?"

  "Yes, yes, that's what I told you." He felt it necessary to put impatience into his voice as befitted his status.

  "In that case, I'm sorry to say that it fails the specification."

  "What!"

  "The tin content is miles too high. You must have used the wrong catalyst." She laid the lab. report gingerly on his desk. "Will that be all, Mr Watkins?"

  He nodded automatically. He could not speak. As the door closed behind Gwenda's unnoticed sexy bottom, he picked up the report with a hand that shook so violently that he could hardly read the damning result, tore it into fragments and hurled the wreckage at his waste bin. He had set it up with his own hands! He remembered it with total clarity. He had completely forgotten about the special tin free catalyst and he had used up œ6 000 worth of resin and heaven knew how much in TDI and other chemicals. To make matters worse, nobody else took foam of the Elsinore and Snodgrass type - the whole run was scrap. Watkins practically wept. Even the scrap contractor would be unable to take it off the premises with his stupid, battered lorry because the blocks were too big. The old one could have managed with his shiny Foden 33 footer, he reflected bitterly. He was ruined!

  He poured himself a large glass of whisky from a bottle which he had been given by a salesman at Christmas and had stowed away in the back of his filing cabinet. Taking a sheet of paper from his desk drawer, he wrote out his notice, folded it carefully and put into an envelope which he addressed to the Works Manager. Grief and self pity washed over him. What was he going to tell his wife? How would he keep up the mortgage repayments? The children would have to leave their nice, secluded private school and grow up to be like all the other scruffy neigbourhood urchins down at the local comprehensive. Probably the car would have to be sold and, as they lived a long way from the town centre, even going shopping by the infrequent buses would be a hardship, not that there would be any money to go shopping with! And that was the prospect which faced him just five weeks from Monday when his notice expired. There wasn't much point in asking the Works Manager for a reference, either.

  As the whisky soaked in, it dulled the shock and enabled his brain to function more rationally. "No point in playing the Roman Fool" he said aloud to the red drapes as he tore up the envelope. "I might as well hang on and cover up for as long as I can while I look for another job. That's better, Watkins!"

  He took another large mouthful of 'Vat 69'. "First, get the evidence out of the way. How are you going to do that?"

  The red drapes smiled back encouragement. "Get it cut down into ten foot lengths and stow it away behind the moulding shop in the old scrap bay they don't use any more."

  "What about Harrison?" enquired the drapes.

  "Tell him I couldn't do it. In the morning", he added.

  "What about the empty resin tank?"

  He took a thoughtful sip before replying. "Get a tanker in next week."

  The drapes nodded in appreciation. "But how are you going to account for it?"

  "I suppose they'll have to find out eventually, but I could cover it on the monthly returns by bringing it forward as stock until the next stocktaking at the end of the year."

  The drapes were impressed. "You have gained almost six months. What a clever Watkins you are!"

  He smiled knowingly and refilled his glass. "But you haven't heard the best of it yet, because Old Watkins has just worked out how to get off the hook altogether. This is what we do." The drapes leaned forward eagerly as he lowered his voice conspiratorially. "As you know, we have this peculiar system whereby although we make blocks by the metre length we actually sell it by the kilogramme to cover ourselves against variations in density."

  "Well, what of it?" The drapes looked perplexed.

  "So, all I have to do is fiddle with the weighing scales and increase them by a kilogramme or so and sit back until I have gradually paid off all the deficit."

  "What a genius you are!" The drapes were overawed. "But what happens when the customers do their own weight checks?"

  "Ah well, that's the beauty of it, because very few of them actually do, the mistaken fools take our word for it - and even if they do, the discrepancy is so small that it wouldn't be worth bothering to complain."

  "That only leaves you with one more problem."

  "Oh yes, and what's that?" Watkins
drained his glass.

  "How the Hell are you going to drive home?"

  The outgoing scrap contractor sent a strongly worded letter of complaint to the buyer and headed the envelope 'PERSONAL' in large, angry letters so that it was that much easier for Watkins to intercept and destroy. He was able to report an uneventful fortnight to the Works Manager except that the scrap contractor had let them down at short notice and he had had to rush about to find a replacement and that the man with the scruffy-looking lorry (at that moment driving past the window) was the best that he had been able to do in the circumstances. Oh, and he almost forgot - the stacker truck in the Dispatch Stores must have been parked with the handbrake off because it had run away and crashed into a pile of empty drums. Fortunately, nobody had been about at the time or there might have been an injury.

  He was totting up the figures for October when Howell interrupted him, an unusual occurence because his air raid shelter was a long way from his office and, anyway, they didn't have much in common.

  "What can I do for you?" he offered kindly. He was in a particularly good mood because he had that morning seen the last of the Elsinore and Snodgrass scrap driven away in the scrap contractor's new lorry and would be able to sleep peacefully in his bed in the knowledge that there would no longer be any danger of the Works Manager making an embarrasing discovery behind the moulding shop.

  "I thought I ought to see you about a little problem which has arisen. Somebody has been tampering with my controller on the No.5 moulding line."

  "Are you sure?" Watkins was sceptical, it was well known that Howell had a persecution complex.

  "Put it this way. This morning the shift foreman called me to say that he couldn't start up after yesterday's afternoon shift. They're not running nights just now, as you will know, and I found that all four circuit boards were well and truly blown. I replaced them and they were back in production inside half an hour, but the point is that the sort of failure that occurred just couldn't have happened in normal use."

  "That's all very well" objected Watkins, "but the controller has a lock on it."

  "Well, it certainly has now" retorted Howell, "because I've put a bloody great padlock on it, but the thing that was on before was purely nominal, the sort of lock you can open with a screwdriver."

  "Was it locked when you went to repair it?"

  "Oh, yes, but that doesn't prove a thing, does it?"

  "I suppose not. What do you want me to do about it?"

  "At the moment, nothing. I don't suppose that word has got very far, but I shouldn't like Sage to know that it went wrong. It would be news he would dearly like to hear."

  "All right, then. Thanks for letting me know - though who would deliberately sabotage it, I can't imagine."

  "I could name you eight people without even trying!" retorted Howell as a parting shot.

  Watkins shook his head sadly after the departing figure. "Poor bloke's going off the rails at last."

  He checked the final column of figures. He was actually in profit. He had paid off, on paper, all the material he had wasted on the Elsinore and Snodgrass sheeting and now it only remained for him to reset the weighing scales and the whole episode could be forgotten. It was as he scrutinised the final column that it occurred to him that if he simply did nothing then he would show a handsome gain on his Works Return for next month and each month thereafter ad infinitum! The idea appealed to him. It would be a real feather in his cap. He could claim that due to the improved productivity which he was paid to strive for, he had made a good Works Profit, demonstrating that he was not only doing his job properly, but exceptionally well.

  Watkins winked at the drapes and the drapes winked knowingly back. "You crafty old sod", they seemed to say, "you'll make it to the Boardroom yet!"

  "All the same" he thought, "the sudden failure of Howell's Magic Box was not to his advantage, the kudos to be had from it had been useful. It wasn't possible, of course, that Howell was right - he was simply finding an excuse for the failure of his equipment. Maybe Sage had been right to be suspicious of his electronic gadgetry."

  Six days later the Magic Box failed again. This time it blew up completely when the shift foreman came to switch it on. As soon as he threw on the main switch, the box erupted with a blue flash and the works caught fire, emitting clouds of acrid smoke. He promptly switched it off again and then emptied a fire extinguisher into it through the side panel, which had to be ripped open with a crowbar. By the time Howell appeared on the scene, all that remained was a smouldering ruin, oozing foam from its crevices. He moved quickly. The unit which was destined for the No.4 line had been completed for a fortnight and was only waiting for a clear weekend in which to be installed. With the aid of the foreman to carry it over and remove the remains of the old one from its brackets, the line was back in production in an hour.

  Back in his workshop he carefully examined the wreck. The damage to the side panel and the subsequent flooding with the fire extinguisher had obscured most of the evidence, but, catastrophic as it had been, two of the circuit boards had survived and were still more or less functional after he had dried them out. This contrasted with the behaviour of the previous one, in which all the boards had short circuited and therefore suggested a different cause. He was mystefied. The controller carried a three amp fuse and yet, the catastrophic failure had to have been caused by a heavy overload, more consistent with the sort of thing he had seen on large electrical plant. Splattered fragments of melted copper wire were stuck to the metalwork of the casing on the inside and the main supply lead had virtually disappeared. He returned to the scene of the crime where the replacement controller was working satisfactorily and the No.5 line was back to normal. The fuse box was mounted on the wall not far away and, as soon as he swung open the door he could see that the controller's line had a new 30 amp fuse and not a 3 amp one as it should have done. He found the proper one amongst the fuses on a spare bank of heaters which were only used in very cold weather and which would have blown out as soon as they were turned on. With lips compressed into a thin, cold line he swapped them over and went off to find the shift electrician.

  "You mended the fuse on the No.5 line this morning, didn't you?"

  "After the blowout? Yes, I did."

  "That's right. What rating did you put in?"

  "Same as it was. Thirty amps."

  "Now", he said emphatically, "this is important. Are you sure that the original fuse was 30 amps?"

  "Of course I'm sure. Positive!"

  Howell nodded. "Thanks. One more thing. Do you know if any work has been done down in that shop lately?"

  "Nothing as far as I know, but you can always check with the foreman. He'll have all the job cards over in his office."

  The foreman confirmed the electrician's opinion. There had been no work on it for two months. There was no mention of any repairs from the previous blowout either and it dawned on him that although in that failure, all four circuit boards had been fried, the fuse had remained intact and so must have been a big one. The evidence seemed to be pointing inevitably one way.

  "Oh, come on!" protested Watkins. "We often hear talk of industrial sabotage, but when it comes down to it, have you ever known it to happen here?"

  "Look at the evidence" retorted Howell, growing hot under the collar. "First we have a most unlikely kind of blowout and the next thing we know, some clever bastard switches the fuses and rigs the thing up to short out."

  "Well, how could he do that? You stood here in this office only last week and told me you put a bloody great padlock on it."

  "So I did, but that doesn't stop him from squirting water into it through the ventilation grilles, and it wouldn't stop him from doing it again, either" he added sombrely.

  "Pure supposition on your part."

  "But plausible!"

  "Alright, maybe it is, but I couldn't take a tale like this to Higher Management, they'd laugh at me."

&nb
sp; "So you will do nothing?"

  "So I will do nothing. The only way to prevent it from happening again, that is if it really is sabotage, is for you to personally check the equipment every morning before the shift starts up."

  "Alright, I'll do just that!" and he stamped angrily out of the office.

  "Just as well that I don't have to rely on his contraptions to help me to the Top" he told the drapes. "I think I'll keep well out of the way of this one and just let my natural genius speak for itself. My figures are beginning to look quite good already and the next month or two should bring me to the notice of the right people."

  Howell was back the next morning, looking angrier than ever. "Bad news travels like lightening in this place! Read this." He held out a memo addressed to himself from Sage. Watkins noticed that the hand which held it was shaking.

  'As I understand that your controller on the No.5 moulding line has failed twice in a week, causing loss of production, I have no alternative but to instruct you to remove it forthwith and replace it with the original unit. You will note that this was designed and built by my own Home Counties Engineering Department and has proved to be reliable for a goodly number of years. Furthermore, I must ask you to stop any further work on this project and await instructions from myself.'

  "Are you going to?" enquired Watkins warily.

  "Like Hell I am! This is a deliberate plot."

  "If you directly disobey him, he has got you. After all, he is your boss."

  "In name only" Howell ground out between clenched teeth. "What that man knows about electronics could be written on the back of a fag packet. I want your support. You know the facts and you supported the installation in the first place."

  "There's nothing I can do" he protested. "I told you yesterday that they would laugh at me if I carried a tale of sabotage to them, and I mean it. I know them better than you do, believe me!"

  "Do you. I should have known better than to ask for your help."

  "Please don't take it like that. I realise that you are upset but it won't do any good to raise a shindy about it. Play it cool and when he's forgotten about it, you can have another go. Claim you've done some modifications or something."

  "You don't realise the situation, do you. I'm fighting for survival. Once that bastard gets my equipment off the line, he's discredited me and that's the end. Goodbye Howell - transfer to shift electrician and see out my days putting plugs on electric typewriters. Are you going to help me, yes or no?"

  "I've already made my point of view clear. Sorry!"

  "Thank you, Mr Watkins. I shall get on to Anderson direct, then."

  "You're asking for trouble if you do", he said but he was talking to Howell's departing back.

  He was on his way back to the office after the November Monthly Meeting, glowing smugly at the memory of much praise. The Works Manager had been suspicious of his figures and had had the accountant check them, then and there, and they had withstood the scrutiny. News in the form of the minutes (with the Works Manager's suspicions erased) would be winging its way to Head Office and the name of 'Watkins' would be heard echoing in those hallowed corridors. It came as somewhat of a shock when he came face to face with Howell whom he had not seen for some weeks.

  "How are things?" he enquired casually.

  "Could be worse" countered Howell. "You may have noticed that my controller is still on the No.5 line and no further trouble, either."

  "Anderson's backing you, then?"

  "I knew he would - its generally known that he dislikes Sage. We have an arrangement - he keeps him off my back and I check the controller every morning, which means I have to come in early."

  "Have you found anything?"

  "No. But that doesn't mean I can afford to stop checking."

  "Well, I hope you catch the blighter!" and he moved on with a sudden flash of sympathy for Howell's predicament. He supposed that one day the inevitable process of attrition would wear him down and he would be gone, "but" he thought with stern resolve "he, Watkins, would that day be going in the opposite direction. Best avoid Howell in future, association with him was likely to do more harm than good."

  "You have done well, Smith." Folklore was in an expansive mood.

  "Sabotaging Howell's controller was a waste of time, though. Look here Mr Folklore, I've given you what you wanted. I've no stomach for this sort of thing - let me go now", his nerves were on edge as he sat uneasily on the plush leather chair across the crimson desktop.

  "All in good time, Smith" he smiled moistly. "That really was clever of you to find out how Watkins is fiddling his monthly returns. You could go far!"

  "What will you do now?"

  "Nothing at all." Folklore smirked even more wetly at Smith's obvious puzzlement. "You see, while you have been carrying out your little assignment for me, one of my other irons in the fire has warmed up. I now know that I am certain of a Directorship when Millar retires so that Watkins ceases to be a threat to me, in fact it quite suits me if he also gets a position on the Board. With the information which you have brought to me, I can influence his vote if I need to. You take my meaning?"

  Smith shrank back in his chair from sheer revulsion. What had he got himself mixed up in?

  Folklore continued, oblivious to his expression. "I have one further little job for you to do while you are down at the other factory. I want you to write me a report strongly recommending that we increase our technical strength down there."

  "What on earth for?"

  "I need a hole to drop somebody into, who is too outspoken for his own good. And if you do that to my satisfaction, you can have back your report and expenses claim."

  "Can I go now?"

  "Of course! By the way, Smith. Keep close to me, I'm impressed with you - you won't find me unhelpful in the future."

  "Like Hell I will" he growled back from the safety of the other side of Folklore's door. "I'd rather keep the company of a puff adder!"

  "You can get by without the Works Manager, but you can't manage without the Catalyst Man."

  M.S.P. 1971