The King of the Cogs Read online

  The King of the Cogs

  Michael White

  Copyright © 2016 by Michael White / EDP. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form without the prior written consent of the author/publisher or the terms relayed to you herein.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or pussy-footing around is completely coincidental.

  The author can be contacted via the links below.

  Website: www.mikewhiteauthor.co.uk

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @mikewhiteauthor

  Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B006Y7JHCK

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  Book Two: The Road of the Sun

  Back to The Light

  Book One: The Shadow Lords of Old

  A Bad Case of Sigbins

  Bee’s Knees

  The Adventures of Victoria Neaves and Romney:

  Book One: Victoriana

  Book Two: The Strange Case of the Denwick Beauchamp Fairies

  Book Three: The Vanished Man

  Book Four: The Clockwork Thief of Crickenden Broadwick

  Book Five: Romney’s Day Off

  Book Six: The Abbot Bowthorpe Dependables

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  Overboard! (September 2016)

  The King of the Cogs

  I lie in a hospital bed covered in bandages though I cannot be sure for I cannot move. The pain is terrible yet I cannot speak though a nurse happens past me from time to time and drips water into my mouth. I can hear them talk to each other though they do not seem to realise that I can hear them. I remember reading once that hearing is the last sense that you lose when dying, and I fear that soon my hearing will be gone too. How this happened is an odd tale, though it is known to the newspapers and in Parliament, for I was an engineering apprentice by the name of Cornelius Radley, apprenticed to old Finch, or as he is known by the idle and children now (according to the nurses who tend me anyway) as “Black Finch” which in itself is also part of the tale.

  Let us begin for I have little time.

  There can be little doubt that old Finch was the King of the Cogs. As an engineer he was of course an irascible and not by any means approachable man, but put in front of him any device in which mechanics were involved and his touch would appear to the uninitiated to be almost like some form of magic. His deft touch with any kind of machinery was without a doubt uncanny. He would merely glance at a piece of machinery or a blueprint and instinctively know how it worked, and moreover if it could be improved.

  “Levers and pulleys” he would say. “When I was a lad it were rope and wood. Now it’s hard metal; iron and steam. Much more efficient.” We would be inclined to agree with him in the machine shop of Allsop and Bright, the assembly line being something new, powerful; almost revolutionary. She was a harsh mistress of course, as the children slogging all hours there would attest, but the work got done and that was the main thing.

  There was a tale told of his expertise in his younger days that proved not just how good an engineer he was but also the reverence in which his expertise was held. It does not mention much of his sense of humour however.

  It was said that a large firm up north had an issue with a steam hammer in that its efficiency was not what it should be, and so they called on old Finch who even back then was always referred to as “old”. He turned up and insisted the machine be turned on. He stood watching it for several hours during which he would brook no interruptions. After some time, the factory inspectors saw him move to the machine and make a small mark on one of the boiler plates with a piece of chalk that he produced from his pocket.

  “Replace the larger cog directly behind there and efficiency of the engine will improve by at least fifty percent.” he said and left. A week later the factory owner had the cog replaced and as old Finch had said the performance of the machine was vastly improved. Shortly after the same factory owner received a bill for one thousand guineas and a penny. The factory owner was livid and requested that Finch send him a detailed invoice which arrived shortly after.

  The invoice read thus:

  For making the chalk mark... one penny

  For knowing where to make the chalk mark... 1000 guineas.

  The bill was promptly settled.

  Bafflers and angle irons, cogs and steam hammers planers and shapers were his meat and drink, steam and iron and coal his obsession. If you were to hand when he looked at a malfunctioning machine the first thing you would notice was how he was able to lose all sense of time and place, his concentration given solely to the function of the device. If called on to diagnose a misfiring piece of equipment he would stare at it for long minutes as it hissed and crunched, the spinning cogs and parts taking over his attention to the extent that sometimes it was quite possible to believe that he had stopped breathing altogether.

  Then he would suddenly snap to attention and hold his hand up to insist the machine be stopped, and as it slowed he would begin his work, murmuring under his breath that cog seventeen needed realigning, or a tappet needed replacing or the like. Many would wonder how he knew where the fault lay, and many more wished him to be wrong, but he never was. The work would be done and he would stand back, gathering up his tools and raising his hand for the machine to be started up again. When it did it was like new; the problem solved.

  The management invariably considered him to be more than just a useful asset and there was always talk of promotion, which of course he always resisted as it would take him away from his beloved machinery and drive him into the much duller and to him completely uninteresting desk job with the inevitable report filling and pen work.

  This to some degree made the management more than just a little nervous. They knew that Finch was approaching retirement: his white shock of unruly hair and woefully thin frame attested to advanced years, though his eyes remained as blue and intelligent as they always were. Mister Nasmyth however, the owner of the factory knew perfectly well that there were no other engineers on the premises or possibly in the country that had the instinctive feel for machinery that Finch had. So they were keen for him to take on an apprentice or apprentices, which Finch being Finch he resisted voraciously.

  There had been a history of failed apprentices behind him of course, the longest serving of which had been just under a month for Finch had no time for them or their constant questions at all. He was also not terribly good at explanations. Eventually old mister Nasmyth dragged him into the office on one of his infrequent visits and told him that he was going to put him in charge of a new apprentice training initiative as he called it, though as far as Finch was concerned it was a school when all was said and done. There was always the smell of oil and coal tempered with the hissing of steam and the oiled hiss of pistons moving up and down, cogs spinning and iron being beaten and pressed into shape.

  “Made me an offer I could not refuse.” Finch would say to anyone who would care to listen, and even those who would care not to. It was an about face though for now he was forced to teach them if nothing else the basics of engineering and his precious cogs, pullets and what have you. It must have been terrible for the poor apprentices, for the turnover of young men on his books was extremely high. Sometimes they only l
asted days, never mind weeks, for he was a harsh master. He continually carried a clipboard around with him on which was strapped sheaves of paper on which he would scribble furiously with his thick blue cased fountain pen as he inspected each apprentice's work. Yet he shielded what he was writing from any who would even attempt a cursory glance at what he had written, and nobody ever saw anything he had inscribed there.

  In fact over time Finch’s clipboard and blue fountain pen became almost as legendary as his ability with cogs and machines was. His apprentices made many increasingly absurd attempts to see what he had written on his clipboard as he wandered about their stations from day to day; some involving mirrors and so forth but to no success. The contents of the clipboard remained a mystery not just to the apprentices but to everybody except Finch for he was never seen without it and many a joke was passed around the workforce about the fact that he probably slept with the damnable thing, and assuredly took it with him into the privy too! Inevitably there were also several somewhat lewder jokes regarding the fountain pen as well, but I shall not recount them here.

  It was probably during the last three years before he retired that Finch began to become the ill-tempered, highly critical and downright rude person that he is remembered for to this day. That and the other thing of course, and perhaps one thing leads to another, but there was absolutely no doubt about the fact that during the last three years of his employment in Nasmyth’s Finch became a monster. Profanity after profanity he would bring down to bear on any apprentice or indeed employee that displeased him, and even the most hardened factory worker would be hard pressed to maintain a steely demeanour once the tirade of abuse was directed towards him or her, adult or child alike.

  “Useless!” was a favourite expression of his. “Incompetent!” being another, and they are very much the sanitised version of what he actually said, the recipient of his disdain being subjected to the burden of such vitriol that was currently being directed towards him. His language would make a church goer blush of course, and there were many complaints but Finch was, as he knew, completely untouchable. He just carried on as before if any complaints were made against him, safe in the knowledge that they would certainly not go any further.

  In fact his apparent descent into disdain for everything to do with his place of work began to take on epic proportions. Nothing was good enough for him, management were incompetent, the apprentices were buffoons and everyone else in between not even worthy of his attention. Yet nothing was said for despite his attitude, Finch’s apprentices began to grow in knowledge, and despite his frequent and vehement repudiation of his underling’s abilities, they did seem to the management if not anyone else (and certainly not Finch) to begin to display positive signs of competence that bordered on mechanical craftsmanship and competence.

  Though as I said, Finch would not agree and as his inevitable retirement began to approach his temper seemed to become shorter too. I even think that the management began to look forward to his departure now that there were half a dozen or so apprentices who were very quickly becoming more competent by the day, though this was of course as I said not Finch’s opinion.

  Time flew until on the last day of September 1858 Finch’s retirement day finally came. I seem to remember it was a Thursday which seemed like a strange choice of day of the week to retire upon but it had been explained by Finch that on the Friday after the day of his official retirement he was to take a liner to visit his brother in the Americas, which many of us who worked in the factory considered strange as he had never mentioned any such family before. Yet he was not an easily approachable man, not given to much jibber jabber and so it passed over our heads that it was entirely feasible that he would not mention family or indeed anything else of a personal matter to us at all.

  Much excitement filled the factory that day for it was announced to the workforce that there would be a presentation given to old Finch at three o’clock and that any who wished to attend could be free to do so as long as they made up their time away from their work at the end of the day. Despite Finch being by this point very much a character who hardly promoted any feelings of joy or comradeship it was predicted by the workforce in general that there would be a high turnout for the retirement presentation as a rumour had flown about the factory floor that old Finch was finally to reveal the contents of his clipboard, which had over the years now reached legendary status and was therefore of great puzzlement and interest to all who worked in Allsop and Bright’s. It was said that even mister Nasmyth himself did not know what was written on the clipboard and if the owner himself did not know anything at all about the clipboard’s contents then what chance did they have as mere underling for its secrets to be revealed? It was of the general opinion that at the end of the day the retirement speech would be the time that the secret of what the clipboard contained would finally be revealed.

  Many thought that perhaps it was going to be mundane scribbling he made there which would be of no benefit or use to anyone other than a fellow engineer, and although this was invariably the case it was of great interest to all concerned that even this unremarkable fact was about to be revealed.

  Three O’clock came and we filed onto the engineering workshop floor for the speeches. Old Finch stood looking straight ahead, his gaze never wavering as he was praised by the management to the rafter and back and was finally graced with a memento of a cog cast in gold which Finch sniffed at before placing it into his overall pocket by where he stood. After this Finch made a somewhat dry and humourless speech that concentrated mostly on the unacceptable decline of quality in engineering in general and Allsop and Bright’s in particular. Mister Nasmyth stood wincing beside him as Finch tore into almost everyone he came into daily contact with and his final words were very much of the nature of “goodbye and good riddance.” Deciding almost certainly that the feeling was entirely mutual, Mister Nasmyth began to shuffle old Finch off the perch where he stood and into retirement and obscurity, though strangely Finch did not seem to be ready to leave just yet.

  Until someone settled the matter by calling out from the crowd.

  “What about the clipboard then, Finch?” came the shout which was rapidly taken up around the shop floor, voices crying out for the clipboard’s secrets to finally be revealed. It was almost at that point that it became apparent that Finch did not actually have either the clipboard with its attached sheaves of paper or blue fountain pen with him! It was a first and that was for sure!

  As the cries increased in volume Finch raised a hand for silence which settled about the multitude gathered there, their expectations rising.

  “Ah the clipboard.” smiled Finch with what I must say was a slight air of malevolence in his voice. There could be little doubt that he was fully aware of the enigma this simple piece of stationery had become given that he seemed to spend most of his time concealing both it and the accompanying blue fountain pen.

  “I have prepared a little puzzle for those who consider my clipboard to be of some strange fascination.” Smiling he stepped to one side and pulled what appeared to be a small wooden box from under a bench to his side. It stood on the floor and looked like a small crate covered in what appeared to be etched plates of brass and cogs, lettering scrawled and etched into the soft metal. There was a small lever on the top to which was attached what looked like a little brass bell. “If my apprentices are as competent as the management consider them to be then you will soon find my clipboard and fountain pen inside.” He gave a broad wink which was more unnerving than reassuring. “Every single note I have ever written on my clipboard is in there.” He gave one last smile. “Feel free to peruse them at your leisure.” He paused as if done and then held one finger up for attention. “It must be opened by the application of engineering of course. Try to force the lid or break the box in any other way and there is a small container of acid inside the box which if disturbed will dissolve the contents long before anyone can get their hands on them!” He smiled once again and then he
stepped down and making his way through the crowds left the factory at a brisk pace, pushing ill-naturedly through the thronged mass of now boisterous workers as he went as if in a hurry. Obviously he had to make swift departure to board the liner that would take him to the America’s.

  Not a single person that was gathered there then has ever seen him again.

  There was a mad scramble to look at the box but management urged us back to work and the box was transported to a workbench in the engineering and maintenance department for the apprentices to have a look at it.

  In their own time, obviously.

  I examined the box carefully, as did the other apprentice engineers. If I were to tell the truth it soon became obvious that Finch had set a test that was clearly beyond our capabilities to open. Quite simply the arrangement of gears and cogs made no sense at all. The handle at the top of the box when moved merely rang the brass bell, presumably as if indicating a wrong move had been made. Half a dozen of us apprentices stood around the box scratching our heads and making suggestions, none of which seemed to work. The cogs would turn of course and the levers and gears could be switched but the box stubbornly refused to open or indeed to do anything at all.

  A week passed. Very quickly the majority of the workforce lost interest in it of course, though to us apprentice engineers it grew in fascination if anything. Several of us would arrive at work perhaps a little earlier than usual with scribbling made on an old scrap of paper and set to turning the cogs on the box and finally pulling the lever, at which point inevitably the brass bell would ring to indicate that a wrong move had been made, and so the sequence would need to be restarted right from the beginning once again. There were many dinner breaks spent poring over the box as well, and more than a few evenings spent spinning cogs and pulling levers with the usual effect of just one single brass bell ringing. Mister Nasmyth even showed his face around the door one evening as we stood there as flummoxed as usual.