FORGING SHELLS: THE SLAVES OF THE WHEEL No composition could be finer, no movement more expressive, no grouping more perfect, and yet all this was happening every day and all day in an oily, dirty, greasy, smoky shell factory where no artist had ever worked before and the workmen, black men, were turning the big shell, under the big hammer, by the big capstan wheel that held it, and I noted in the shop that the black men saw more in my drawings than the white, yet there’s only one black painter in the country. [Illustration] XXV THE WHITE AND THE BLACK HAMMERS The biggest hammer in the world, said the foreman, maybe--any way the Shop was amongst the most pictorial of all those I have drawn devoted to shell making. “Say, friend,” said the workman, “won’t they let yer use a machine, in war time, is that why youse does it by hand?” [Illustration] XXVI SHELL FACTORY NO. TWO: FROM SHOP TO SHOP The contrast between the dark old shop and bright new one was wonderful. “Pretty good, Dad,” said a precocious apprentice. I suppose they don’t mean anything but compliments, still I never fail to lose my temper, then the peace maker appears--“Don’t mind that kid, mate, he dunno no better, he’s edurkated.” “Say, wot paper’s it comin’ out in--I’ll buy that paper.” That was a compliment. [Illustration] XXVII SHAPING A GUN FROM AN INGOT When the ingot comes from the furnace, it is put in this press, deep buried in a pit, and the hot metal is compressed into the shape of a section of a great Gun--then it is taken out and bored and planed and finally, after about a year of work, the gun is ready to do its work. [Illustration] XXVIII THE GUN PIT. NO. ONE These Pits which I have drawn in Europe and America have the greatest individuality of all the processes of war industry. The buildings are most impressive, towering, windowless, sombre without, very spacious within, filled with strong shadows and strange shapes. And as I looked out from the blackness to the ore crane, making new ranges of Alps on its hillside, I wanted a gun--or rather wanted to know how it was moved. “Why, bring him one,” said the manager--and it came and posed while I drew, and was such a good sitter. And so I find my studio and my models wherever I work. [Illustration] XXIX THE GUN PIT. NO. TWO No better proof could be shown of the way each big plant puts big character into its products than this and the previous drawing. Here everything is done deep down under ground; in the other shop it is all above, away up high in the air. And one day, they told me, the President of the Company passed with a party--and he saw a man, tired out, sitting with his head in his hands. “Why don’t you clean out the pit, boy?” “Well, Sammie, if you want to know why, you go down an’ find out for yourself.” [Illustration] XXX THE GUN FACTORY