Vladimir Belayev The Old Fortress 3 The Town By The Sea

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"Well, my fine friend, why don't you and your Komsomol pals ever show yourselves in the works
dining-hall?" the director challenged Golovatsky and, sitting down on the bench, put his arm round his
shoulder,
"But Ivan Fyodorovich!..." Golovatsky protested.
"I know I'm Ivan Fyodorovich. They've been calling me that for fifty years or more. But what about
those pledges you made when we opened the dining-hall. You said that while the workers were having
their meals in the break you, Komsomol members, would give political talks about workers' conditions
in Britain, and about China, and about that humbug Chang Tso-lin... And what's been done? Yesterday I
went round there not a sign of Chang Tso-lin. Today I went there workers from every shop in the
dining-room, but not a murmur from you... Surely you aren't going to let me down like that!..."
"Yes, it's my fault... I'm sorry, Ivan Fyodorovich," Golovatsky admitted and, pulling off his checked
cap, bowed his head until a lock of his auburn hair touched the bench. "You know why it happened?
We've been preparing for a big campaign against those dances. All our people are working on that."
"Dances aren't the main thing, Tolya, they're a side-line. The main thing for us is production,
industrialization, agriculture, education. We've got to get all the efforts of the working class focussed on
those things."
"That's just what we've come to see you about, Ivan Fyodorovich," said Golovatsky hastily, and
whispered to me: "Give him your letter, Vasil."
I handed Nikita's letter to the director and felt my chest tighten with excitement. The fate of our
request hung in the balance!
Ivan Fyodorovich pulled an ancient, metal-rimmed pair of spectacles out of his pocket, and perching
them on his aquiline nose, started to read Nikita's flowing handwriting. As he read, the expression of his
tired eyes grew kinder.
"It's a grand idea, lads," he said at last. "Communes like that are just the place for training leaders of
the peasantry. And the men who are trained there will lead the peasant masses on to a broad
transformation of agriculture. But what can I do to help that's the question. I've been expressly
forbidden to sell the stuff we produce. The works isn't an agricultural machinery shop."
"Couldn't you make an exception?" Tolya asked cautiously.
"Don't be silly, lad, how can I make exceptions! For a thing like that I'd get expelled from the Party
and the trust manager would sue me. We're not fulfilling our plan, as it is!"
"Suppose we make the reapers ourselves?" Tolya asked.
"Who? You and him?" The director nodded at me.
Tolya looked offended. "Of course not. All the Komsomol members at the works. In their spare time
the young foundry men will cast five sets of parts, then the Komsomol members and young workers in
the other shops will assemble them in relays. Those reapers won't be any worse than the ones the old
men turn out. I'll work at the furnace myself and do the best annealing you've ever seen."
"You're a good enough hand at annealing, I know that, but where's the iron coming from? You know,
as well as I do, Tolya, it's iron that's holding us up, holding up the whole country, in fact. If our
blast-furnaces were turning out more iron, how many more plants like ours could be built! Our future is
based on heavy industry, and heavy industry isn't going full blast yet. That's one of our difficulties."
"Ivan Fyodorovich! What about that scrap-metal we, Komsomol members, collected? You haven't
used all that, have you?"
"Used it all up ages ago. Not a bit of it left!"
My thoughts turned to my home town perched on its rocky cliffs amid the rolling Dniester
countryside. Many were the old Turkish guns and cannon-balls and other kinds of scrap-metal that we
:had found in the yards of the old mansions, on the banks of the Smotrich, under the bastions of the Old
Fortress. And how much scrap-metal of a later date was lying about in the yard of the military court, in
the old seminary and the ecclesiastical college! At one time we had started bringing all that metal up to
the Motor Factory, but we had given up the idea because the yard simply wasn't big enough to hold it all.
And then a daring thought occurred to me.
"What if we get you the iron, Comrade Director?" I said firmly. "Will you let us make the reapers?"
"If you get the iron, Comrade Foundry Man, I'll gladly co-operate," the director said smilingly.
... Half an hour later I was at the central post-office sending Nikita Kolomeyets a telegram:
CAN MAKE REAPERS IF YOU SEND SCRAP IRON STOP GET KOMSOMOL COLLECT
SAME IMMEDIATELY STOP ADDRESS OUR WORKS STOP ALL THE BEST ANATOLY
GOLOVATSKY VASILY MANDZHURA SASHA BOBIR PETKA MAREMUKHA
PAY-DAY
Pay-day was a day every worker in the foundry looked forward to. Our pay-books, which Kolya [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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