Read Online The Broken Chariot by Alan Sillitoe - Free Book Online Page A

tips into cork was satisfying, but he was happy to let the old hands have a go, since the pint might foil his aim.
    People he didn’t know would call in a friendly way as he walked into the canteen: ‘Hey up, Bert!’ His name went up on the notice board and after a few more sessions he was let in on a match, though feared he’d never be as good as most others on the team.
    During an hour or so when there was no sweeping, or lifting, or trolleys to push, and it looked like someone had hammered nails against the arrowed hands of the clock face, he had time for thinking, and didn’t much like it. The heavy load in his mind was asking to be sorted out, and that wasn’t what he had taken a job in the factory for. A voice he didn’t trust said the only course was to pack up at his digs and get on the train to another town. Life would be interesting again. The challenge of the unknown would get his blood jumping.
    â€˜Slowin’ down a bit, aren’t you?’ Archie said.
    Herbert leaned on his brush handle. ‘I’m bored out o’ my clogs.’
    â€˜You’re gettin’ used to it, that’s why. But don’t let it get yer down, the first three years is the worst. Just ’ave a word with the chargehand and tell ’im yer aren’t mekin’ it pay. Tell ’im yer’ve got to mek it fuckin’ pay, or you’ll gerra job somewhere else. Things might look up, then.’
    Herbert thought it best to be inconspicuous. Another place would be just as boring, and there’d be less chance of being recaptured if he stayed where he was.
    â€˜It gets fucking monotonous working on a lathe as well,’ Archie went on, ‘but at least I’m mekin’ munny, so it don’t!’
    The best way to diffuse the blues was to flash up the Stalag towers of his school. He swept a coil of swarf from Archie’s lathe, like the discarded tail of a steel piglet. Eileen looked as if trying to weigh him up – what for? – and not for the first time he noted her blush as she turned away. One of the women beside her said: ‘Go on, he wain’t bite yer!’
    He might, one day, if he got the chance, and decided to be pleasant in her presence and see where it got him. The dungarees over her bosom in no way hid the shape, and her headscarf only scantily covered glistening auburn hair. Hard to imagine there’d be much chance with such a favourite of the department, though she wasn’t near as stuck up as Dominic’s sister had been.
    He marched across to the viewing tables, in response to her shout: ‘Come on, Bert, get these boxes out o’ my sight.’
    The first one slotted on to the trolley. ‘Tek yer sweat. You’re workin’ me to death.’
    â€˜We all thought you’d faint when you first come into the factory,’ she said. ‘You looked as if yer’d never done a day’s hard work in your life.’
    He leaned close to smell her powder. ‘Yer was wrong. I’ve worked since I was fourteen.’
    â€˜What made yer so strong, then?’
    â€˜Bovril.’ He pushed the trolley away. ‘And Oxo,’ he called over his shoulder.
    Arthur Elliot went off sick, so Herbert was set to work on his lathe. ‘We’ll give you a day to get used to it.’ The chargehand thought him a bit daft to be writing the instructions down. ‘After that we’ll set you up on piece work. We’ll find Arthur summat else when ’e comes back.’
    â€˜Now you’ll be able to GRAB!’ Archie bellowed into his ear as he passed on his way to the lavatories. ‘Just like me!’
    Herbert practised for an hour, and next morning the chargehand came to see how he was getting on. ‘Have you done this before?’
    Herbert flicked the turret ninety degrees, adjusted the sud pipe, and eased in the drill. ‘No, never.’
    â€˜You’re on your own then, from now on.