You took a bit taik into Machines now and then for a gabble with Norman on this thing and that, the new wing they’d built, called Chemicals, where the business of loading the cylinders with gas was to start in another week or so. Already a birn of chaps had come from the south with a special training for that kind of work, Glasgow sods and an Irishman or so. You and Norman would sneak out to the WC for a fag, and you’d ask if Norman had seen anything of Ewan? And Norman would say he’d seen him once or twice at meetings of the Reds down on the Beach, he’d fairly joined up with the Communists now and spoke at their meetings—daft young Bulgar if ever there was one, and him gey clever and educated, Bob.

You said rough enough that you knew all that, and Norman looked at you queer and said Oh of course, you yourself had been a bit of a Red a while back and belonged to that league that Tavendale had raised. Why had you scuttled? Got the wind up?

You took him a smack in the face for that, he was at you in a minute, you couldn’t stand up to him, the foreman came running in and pulled you apart: Hey, what the hell do you think this is? Boxing gymnasium? Back to your work, you whoreson gets. And back you both went, b’God you’d given the mucker something to think of, saying that you had the wind up—you!

It was just that you’d seen the Reds were daft, a chap that joined them never got a job, got bashed by bobbies and was sent to the camps, never had a meek to spend of a night or a shirt that didn’t stick to his back. Och to hell! You wanted a life of your own, you’d met a quean that was braw and kind, she and you were saving up to get married, maybe at New Year and maybe a bit sooner, you’d your eyes on two rooms in Kirrieben, the quean was a two months gone already but you’d be in time if your plans came off; and you weren’t sorry a bit, you’d told her, kissing her, she’d blushed and pushed you away, awful shy Jess except in the dark. So who’d time at all for this Red stite and blether that never would help a chap anyway, what was the use of getting your head bashed in for something worse than religion?

But that evening you and some of the chaps had a bit of overtime in the works, clearing up the mess of some university loons allowed down to potter about in Castings. You finished gey late and as you came out there was some kind of meeting on at the gates, a young chap up on a kind of platform, speaking low and clear, who could he be? And you and the rest took a dander along, a fair crowd around, Broo men and fishers, stinking like faeces, and a dozen or so of the toff student sods that had messed about that evening in Castings. The toffs were laughing and crying out jokes, but the young chap wasn’t heeding them a bit, he was dressed in old dungarees, all whitened, a chap from the granite-works, no doubt, with big thick boots and red rough hands. And only as you got fell close did you see that the speaker was young Ewan Tavendale himself.