stream of iron flowed from the lip of the ladle writing letters that made up the title of our newspaper: Young Foundry Man. The fiery title at once caught the attention of the foundry workers, young and old.
All the articles had been neatly typed out in the management office by Kolya Zakabluk, who had written two of them himself.
In an article about the economy drive our time-keeper went round the foundry as attentively as if it was his own property.
'Neither the shop storekeepers, nor Fedorko, nor the chief engineer Andrykhevich,' Kolya wrote, 'are paying due attention to the Party's call for economy. Has the chief engineer thought how much space is being wasted round the unfinished blast-furnace? Yet all we have to do is to clear away the sand and scrap and it would make a fine place to set up the moulding machines that have been awaiting repair for over a year in the foundry stores... And how many tampers with broken wedges are lying about the foundry! Yet, when we run short of tampers, foreman Fedorko always sends up to RIP for new ones. The tool-makers waste expensive metal making new tampers for us. Wouldn't it be simpler and just as efficient to put new wooden wedges on the iron handles?'
Zakabluk discovered many striking examples of this kind. Without mincing his words he accused the management of wasting graphite, sulphite liquor, and molasses in the fettling shop. And he did not merely pick on shortcomings, he called on the workers to fight for every drop of iron, for every handful of the coarse sand which was brought to us from a long distance away, for every cracked mould-box which could be patched up and used without recasting.
In his article 'The Soft-Heartedness of Foreman Fedorko' Zakabluk 'emery-papered' the shop foreman for his lenient attitude towards slackers and bad workers. Zakabluk told the bald truth. He wrote that a bad worker had only to invite the foreman to a family wedding, or ask him to be godfather at a christening and Fedorko would be ready to turn a blind eye to all his blunders. 'If those slackers won't change their ways,' Zakabluk wrote, 'the foreman ought to clear them out of the foundry.'
I signed my article 'Vasil Mallet.' I had liked that word ever since I had started at the factory-training school. It was a mallet that the moulders used to shake up the model before drawing it out of the sand moulds. And I wanted to act like a mallet in shaking up the lazy and complacent people who were hindering the work of the foundry.
Vasil Mallet expounded an idea that had been worrying him for a long time. He suggested abolishing the primitive method of heating the machines with slabs, which wasted so much time.
A detailed letter which Turunda had received from Flegontov in Leningrad was also published in the wall newspaper.
The Party secretary wrote about rationalization methods in the foundry at the Krasny Vyborzhets Works, about the packing of moulds with compressed air, about distributing work properly between teemers and moulders. 'And why shouldn't all this be done at our works?' asked the newspaper.
Flegontov, a stocky grey-haired man of about fifty, was a moulder of wheels for reaping machines.
His was a very difficult and tedious job. When I watched him at first, I had thought he worked too slowly, too carefully. He spent ages on every mould, dabbing water on the edges as if he were washing a baby, peering into every notch and channel with the help of a mirror to make sure they were clean. In the time that it took us on our 'machine-guns' to do ten or more moulds Flegontov and his partner managed to finish only one. Once I said something about Flegontov's slowness to Turunda.
'You're a sight too hasty in your judgements,' he replied. 'That's not a running about job, lad. Wheels and chassis are the biggest and slowest jobs of all. They have to be moulded by the most skilled workers in the foundry. Why, you ask? It's very simple. If you mess up five or six gear-wheels because you're in a hurry, it's a pity but we can face it. But just imagine what would happen if a full-size wheel was moulded badly. Think of the iron that would be wasted in recasting it! ... No, Flegontov's a fine craftsman!'
The Party secretary's letter to our youth newspaper was read with great interest by the older workers, in fact the whole issue made a deep impression.
The night when the young workers in the foundry decided to start work not at four but at one o'clock, so, that they could mould the parts for the Komsomol reapers well before the other workers arrived, I felt terribly nervous. Suppose we, young moulders, couldn't manage these big awkward parts! They were the basis of the whole machine! But we couldn't very well bother the old workers with requests for help. We would manage on our own somehow. Before we could start work, however, Turunda and Gladyshev walked into the foundry. Then the 'old men'— skilled craftsmen who had long since passed Komsomol age—trickled in one by one.
'Hullo, Comrade Turunda!' I exclaimed. 'We were going to work on your machines. How shall we manage now?'
Turunda grinned and said: 'You're a bit too anxious to write us off as old men! We've come to help you. It's our common cause, isn't it?'
I felt as if a block of cast iron had been lifted from my shoulders. Good old Turunda! Now I could be certain that all the metal parts of the reapers would be properly moulded and cast.
We began on the stroke of one.
Compressed air hissed through the pipes, the hot slabs glowed under the models. Shovels plunged into the heaps of sand releasing thick clouds of steam.
We had arranged beforehand that my partner for moulding gear-wheels should be Kolya Zakabluk. From the way he tightened the screws on his machine, I realized again that he was no beginner at moulding.
Before Kolya had time to pack his first mould, however, we heard the sound of Naumenko's grumpy voice:
'Hey there, young fellow! What are you doing on another man's machine! You'll strain yourself and ruin your health again. We can manage without you!'
Naumenko took over his machine from Kolya, and after making sure that the mould-box was firmly fixed, drove the sharp tip of his tamper into the steaming mass of sand.
'Never mind, Kolya, don't let it get you down!' I consoled my unlucky partner. 'Uncle Vasya and I will do the moulding and you go for a walk. Or you know what? Go and show Kolomeyets how to sift
the sand. Or here's something else you can do: keep the machines supplied with hot slabs, so that we don't have to interrupt our work. We haven't got much time, you know.'
Nikita was on the job too. How could a restless fellow like him sleep on such a night, when he knew that the young foundry men had started making the reapers for the commune on the Dniester!
Far away on the Dniester the silvery oats, the blue-green rye, the wheat, the barley were forming ears and reaching higher every day. Soon it would be harvest time. There was not a minute to lose.
I had got a temporary pass from the foreman for our guest from Podolia. Nikita had consented to do any work he was fit for. Now he started racing Zakabluk out to the heaters for slabs.
Petka had rallied the young workers in the joinery to make the wooden parts for the reapers out of working hours and free of charge. Sasha had come to the foundry with me, so that he would be on the spot to help if there were any mechanical hitches.
As we worked, I gradually became aware that Uncle Vasya was deeply displeased about something. He kept muttering under his breath and sighing. In the end he had to tell me.
'Ah, what a darned nuisance! Just a bit late! And all because of the old woman! I told her to wake me at midnight and she goes and oversleeps herself. When I looked at the clock it was half past the hour. By the time I'd washed my face and got my clothes on, you'd started the job!'
'Never mind, Uncle Vasya, we'll still finish before work starts,' I consoled the old man.
'It's not whether we'll finish or not. The point is this is social work. And it's a double shame to be late for social work. I'm not Kashket, I've never wanted to be a lone wolf. I want to be with my mates!'
I had never got so much joy out of my work as I did that night. Let's be honest about it, on ordinary days there's always the thought in the back of your mind of how much you are earning. And if by knocking-off time you've done more than your usual, you go home feeling pleased with yourself. But that night we were working purely for the public good. The joy and fellow feeling of it made our hands and feet leap to the job.
Three days later Nikita, Golovatsky, and I called in at the paint shop. The smell of oil and turpentine greeted us at the entrance. In the roomy shop stood many new reaping machines ready to be sent off.
We quickly recognized our five reapers. Even among hundreds of other machines it was not difficult to find them, for on the side of every reaper made for the Dniester commune gleamed the badge of the Communist Youth
