CHAPTER 17
"I've got a little assignment for you" said Grey. "It's been handed on by the Safety Committee, via Folklore, Mellow and now me. If you can't think of anybody to pass it on to, you'll have to attend to it yourself."
"Well, it's Bobski or me, so I suppose I'm lumbered. What is it?"
"In their wisdom, the Safety Committee have decided to try again in the matter of the toxic waste disposal unit, only this time they intend to construct it more robustly. However, they are worried about the dangers associated with storing TDI in drums."
"Why?"
"Because every now and again we get them building up pressure."
"Is that all! If we get one of those, all we have to do is to call for Dik. There's nothing he enjoys better."
"What does he do about it?"
"You've never seen him in action?"
Grey shook his head.
"We had one a couple of months back when Dan, Dan the Catalyst Man got mixed up and tipped a load of water into the TDI scrap drum by mistake."
"That must have been fun!"
"What must have been fun?" Mellow had entered the office, silent on his 'brothel creepers'.
"When Dan, Dan the Catalyst Man tipped water and catalyst into the TDI scrap drum by mistake" repeated Dave.
"What would that do?"
"Erupt in a most amusing manner."
"So you sent for Dik?" asked Grey.
"And he spiked it with his crowbar numerous times until all the juices ran out and rendered it harmless."
"Why did he do that?" enquired Mellow.
"To prevent an explosion. You see, TDI reacts with water to form polyurea which sets off like concrete, and carbon dioxide gas at the same time. If the bunghole gets plugged up with the polyurea, the whole lot goes off bang. On that occasion there was catalyst mixed up with the water and it was all happening rather quickly - froth was flying ten feet up in the air and the barrel got too hot to touch, even though the fireman was hosing it down."
"Does that sort of thing happen very often?"
"Often enough, I suppose. I can think of three incidents since we've been on this site, not counting the one I just told you about. What usually happens is that drums get left outdoors and it rains so they collect water inside the top rim. Overnight when the temperature drops, they cool off and develop a partial vacuum inside, sucking water through the bung threads - especially if they've been opened up for sampling, which most of them have."
"And that makes them build up pressure? Why doesn't the gas leak out the same way as the water got in?"
"Because TDI reacts with some of the water at the point of entry and seals up the bung threads, just like 'loctite' only by then water has got trapped inside. I've seen them swell up so that the ends go rounded and start to tilt the barrel over."
"What does Dik do about those?" Mellow set a match to his pipe and eyed Dave quizzically through a blue cloud.
"He has a very long crowbar with a point on one end. He dresses up in a polythene mattress bag and throws it like a javelin. Never been known to fail. Big squirt of TDI out of the hole and it's all over. Only he uses the barrel for target practice afterwards and by the time he's finished there's usually more holes than there is barrel in between."
"Sounds a bit dangerous to me" observed Mellow through his home made fog.
"It is! One of these days, there's going to be a big bang and no Dik."
"Is there any other way? Like unscrewing the bung?"
"Rather you than me! The only safe way is to blow it up from a distance or shoot a hole in it with a gun. That will look good in my report to the Safety Committee!"
"Next time we get one, will you inform me so that I can see for myself."
"You can throw the javelin, if you like!"
No thanks! He shook his head emphatically, "I'll leave it to the experts."
"You can't be serious!" The Works Manager was not amused. He prodded Dave in the chest with a rolled up copy of his report entitled 'TDI Drumstock. Dangerous Internal Pressure Buildup'. "Mr Anderson would rightly have hysterics if I were to place an order for gelignite and detonating equipment. Go away and produce something sensible!"
"I'm sorry if that's how you feel", Dave stood his ground "but I can think of no safe alternative other than employing a marksman to shoot a hole in the drum and I presume that you would find that just as objectionable."
"You presume correctly." He stuffed the report into Dave's hands. "If you can't do any better than this, then don't bother at all!"
Folklore's secretary was on the line. "He has asked me to get your assistant to collect a box of documents from Goods Inwards. It is labelled 'Mr Folklore - Pre 1965' or something like. Just come in from the Other Factory - can I have it as soon as possible? Thanks."
Dave cursed inwardly. He would have to go right down to the other end of the factory in the rain because Little Mike was off sick with three broken fingers and a squashed foot. Dik had imbibed one over the usual three pints of 'Red Barrel' the previous Friday lunchtime and then ordered him to move the notorious 'skipping barrel' to the opposite end of the pilot plant for a joke. (The 'skipping barrel was one of Folklore's Follies. Following a request from Grey for an 'evaluation sample' of a rather unstable isocyanate and not wanting him to get ideas above his station, had refused to delegate the task to him, choosing to order it himself. Since a lesser quantity would have been beneath his dignity, he had ordered a 45 gallon drum. Dave had drawn off 10 gallons into a smaller container for ease of handling and rolled it into a corner of the pilot plant where it had resided ever since. Predictably, it had 'gone off' so that when next he came to move it, he discovered that he could only roll the drum for half a turn before it became too heavy to push as the solid contents wound up inside. As soon as he let go, the ponderous three hundredweight mass whipped back and almost pinned him to the wall. As a toy, it was great fun. Bobski was strong enough to roll it over centre so that it would charge satisfyingly away until arrested at the next half turn and come flying back. Given sufficient intake of Vodka, he would stand his ground, confident of the Laws of Physics which would prevent it from making the return roll and he had so far always been right. Little Mike had not been so lucky).
It might have been a box once. Several moves from one dusty corner to another by inattentive labourers had weakened it. Strips of decaying sellotape bore evidence that someone had once made a half-hearted attempt to shore it up but it had failed to withstand being thrown from the tailboard of the lorry and he was faced with a shapeless mound of spilled papers, already becoming soggy from rain blown in through the open entrance to the loading bay. He picked one up at random. It was a stock record sheet, dated an incredible 4th May 1954.
"What a load of old garbage" he said aloud to a nearby chemical drum, "and how typical of its owner".
He turned the pile with his foot as a gesture of contempt. "Hello though, what's this?" Substantially intact amongst the damp litter was a cardboard box file with "Production records" roughly pencilled on the front cover. He extracted it, laid it on the chemical drum and opened it up. The spring clip held a wad of assorted documents in place, the top one a memo from Folklore to Anderson (then the Works Manager at the Other Factory). It was to inform him that since his promotion to Acting Production Manager, three months before, his Weekly Works Figures, averaged over the period were 27% better than for the same period the preceeding year and 36% better than the previous quarter. Copies had been sent to two persons at Head Office who's names were not known to Dave, but who carried imposing titles.
Interspersed with a whole pile of weekly stock returns were similar memoes and a reply from Anderson thanking him for his information and requesting a detailed reconciliation.
Another memo, a week later from Anderson to Folklore stating that the Development manager (Dr. Edwards) was complaining about the large amounts of products being stored in E2 building and why were they there, anyway? A copy
of Dr. Edwards' memo to Anderson was pinned to it, bemoaning the fact that there was insufficient space for his own modest storage requirements and pointing out that the building was not sprinklered (he remembered Grey saying that Folklore had got into deep water with the coroner after the E2 fire for carrying large stocks of foam products and chemicals in an unsuitable building). His eye lit on one of the weekly stock returns. A spare line carried a pencilled entry '27 A449 cushions' and 'E2' in the destination box on the right hand side. Other returns showed similar transfers. "What was he up to? The most likely explanation seemed to be that he was hiding substandard stock in order to improve his Weekly Works Figures. If he could conceal enough for long enough, perhaps he could get himself promoted out of the situation, before it caught up with him. How he must have blessed that fire! And poor old Dr. Edwards, caught on the first floor on his own.
There was a duplicate book. He recognised it as one of a type Folklore occasionally used for minor notes and 'unofficial' memoes. Only a few pages had been used and the pink copies remained. As he leafed briefly through them he noticed one to Dr. Edwards.
It read:
"Tom, can I see you to discuss the space problems in E2. Would tomorrow after the day shift ends, say 5 oclock be too late. I'll come over."
He read it through a second time. E2 had gone up in flames just as the day workers were going home. It was dated 'Tues. 18th.' "Wasn't the fire on a Wednesday? Couldn't this have been written the day before?" Dr. Edwards had evidently been in his office on the first floor, above the open plan ground floor stores area. A number of chemical drums had been involved early on in the fire, according to Grey and toxic fumes had made entry into the building almost impossible from the beginning - three firemen had been taken to hospital as a result of heroic attempts to rescue him.
"So E2 burns to the ground, taking Folklore's scrap with it and a new Development Department needs to be created with the demise of Dr. Edwards to which Folklore gets promoted on the basis of his apparently good performance as Acting Production Manager! Dear God, what am I thinking?"
The barrel next to him rocked gently as he leaned against it, lost in a chaos of terrible thoughts. A sense of something amiss on another plane niggled at his mind, distracted him. "Holy Christ! I'm leaning on a bomb!"
He jumped back hastily, dropping the file behind the drums as he saw the label 'TDI' stencilled on the drum which had rounded out ends and was beginning to bulge ominously at its seams. "No wonder it rocked about! I hope Mellow's in today."
He waited until the fourth 'thud' on the other side of the pilot plant door before opening it. "Neat grouping!" he observed as the 'Page 3 girl' from yesterday's 'Sun' swung into sight with the four throwing knives embedded in her left breast. Something flashed past him into the yard outside.
"Jesus Christ! Why you not knock?"
"I thought you only had four!" Dave had gone white to the lips at the vision of himself with a hacksaw blade buried in his own left breast, right up to the frayed, grubby insulating tape handle.
"I have full set of six, now, so I can practice my circus act with Ernie for when we get made redundant."
"One day you're going to kill somebody, you crazy Polish bastard! Anyway, you'll never persuade Ernie to be your Aunt Sally in a million years."
"Oh, yes! I give him Polish Vodka. He do anything then!"
He shook his head in disbelief. "Anyway", recalling his purpose "have you seen Dik. He's needed urgently."
"He feeding the Compactor, where else?"
"I'm surprised there's anything left to dispose of."
"There nothing left. He working into the Engineer's Stores from behind."
Dave shook his head bemusedly again. Dik had been content to play with Melksham's document destroyer until the arrival of the new rubbish compactor and he spent most of his time nowadays scouring the factory to find offerings to give it. It fascinated him to watch the mighty hydraulic ram crunch whatever it was into a shapeless pulp before swallowing it. He had even threatened to drop Folklore into it. He came upon him in the act of dropping a length of steel pipe into the feed hole.
"Got a job for you!"
"Oh yeah?" he was plainly unwilling to be distracted.
"TDI drum about to blow up over in the Goods Inwards bay."
"Is there, now!" His eyes lit up. "Haven't had one of those for quite a while. Don't let the cretins from Security get near it and I'll be over as soon as I've got my stuff together."
News had travelled quickly so that by the time he returned to the Goods Inwards bay about half the factory had assembled into a knot of noisy spectators in spite of the rain, straining against a rope barrier which the security men had hastily erected about fifty yards from the seemingly innocent barrel and Folklore's past correspondence. A ripple of applause greeted Dik's arrival. He had already donned his polythene bag and was breathing through a small hole which he had bitten out. On his shoulder, he carried the famous javelin.
The Works Manager avoided Dave's eye as Dik made a practice run up, turned, balanced the javelin at shoulder height and sprinted down on to the target. The heavy spear flew through the air, the pointed end swung off line, it sideswiped the barrel with a dull bang and rolled to rest a few feet from it. A chorus of derisory boos and whistles broke from the audience, causing Dik to turn and raise two fingers at them before going to retrieve it. He had taken four paces when the barrel exploded with a deafening crack.
The audience fled in all directions as a huge cloud of disgusting rain, mingled with scraps of paper, billowed up and outwards, the Works Manager a good ten yards ahead of the rest. Dik stood stunned, rooted to the spot until the shattered remains of the barrel fell down beside him, then bounced up over his head to crash down on his other side before he, too, broke and fled.
"I decided to sleep on it before I said anything to anybody. You are the only other person who was present when it happened and you told me that you had gone home before the fire started. Did Folklore mention anything to you about going to see Doc. Edwards that afternoon?"
"Not as far as I can remember. Look here, what you are implying is very serious and the evidence you have, or rather, had, is purely circumstantial. You want to be careful what you say and who you say it to."
"Circumstantial or not, if that notebook had been produced at the inquest, the coroner might well have come up with a different verdict. I am utterly appalled!"
"You have no proof of anything. If you did see what you tell me you saw, you still can't do a thing about it."
"Do you doubt I'm telling you the truth?"
"Not at all. But that's just the sort of thing a lawyer would say."
"What do you think? Is Folklore capable of such an act? I find I can't cope with this, my mind is in turmoil."
Grey looked away unhappily. "I really don't know what to think. We both need time to react to this, in the meantime, keep it to yourself, I'll talk to you again."
Dave could see that Folklore was not his usual urbane self, he held an expression which he had never seen before.
"Yes, Mr Folklore?"
Folklore did not invite him to sit down. When he spoke, there was a deadly menace in his voice. "You have been making allegations about me, behind my back. Very serious allegations and totally without substance."
"You bastard, Grey!" The thought flashed angrily through his mind.
"The best thing you can do", he continued icily, "is to give in your notice, here and now. I'll give you a month's pay in lieu."
He felt sweat prickle on his forehead as he fought to control his emotions. Panic, rage and distress warred together as he stared across the luxury desk at his enemy and then, recognising that the thought 'enemy' which had come unasked to his mind was exactly accurate, a sudden cold anger washed away all else. "You can't make me and I won't give you that satisfaction" he countered.
"There is nothing else for you here" snarled Folklore. "If you won'
t leave, I'll sack you at the first opportunity."
"Not much more to say, then, is there? But one question I do have, Mr Folklore. Where were you when E2 caught fire?"
Folklore turned a nasty shade of purple as he rose from his chair. "Get out! Get out of here! Now!"
"I've been asked to sort you out" said Mellow from behind his pipe. "I'm not really sure what has happened between you, Mr Folklore and Mr Grey and I have no axes to grind, so you can take me as neutral. I understand that he asked you to resign?"
"He did, but I'll be damned if I give him that pleasure!"
"Well, it seems that he is pretty angry with you but, at the same time, is unwilling to risk trouble with the Union, so he won't sack you, at least, not just now."
"So what happens?"
"He wants you as far away from here as he can get you. Your promotion to Chief Development Chemist, Other Factory is applicable immediately and you start down there next Monday."
"What if I don't want to take it?"
"Your present post ceases to exist as of that date. You would be entitled to redundancy pay, a week for each year of service plus £100. He wouldn't expect you to work out your notice."
"So he told me himself. Do I get a rise?"
"£25 a month and the usual relocation package."
"How generous! Also, last time we moved, he wouldn't even let us see the staff handbook. I'm sure we all missed out on things. I take it, you will make it available to me now."
"By that, I assume you accept?"
"I don't have a lot of choice, do I?"
"Not really. Look here, I don't want to know what it's all about, but he threatens you with legal action if you start saying things you shouldn't. And if I were you, I'd start looking for another job, because he's really got it in for you and I can't see things ever changing."
"When the Americans want to get rid of someone, they promote him, give him an empty office with no secretary, no telephone and no work to do. They usually take the hint."
P.W.C. 1971