CHAPTER XI.. Concrete. Puddle.

CONCRETE. PUDDLE.

"Have you managed to squeeze any 'extra' profit on the quiet out of concrete?"

"Yes, twenty or thirty years ago, but there is not much to be got now. Since a few engineers took to writing upon the subject they have reminded or informed others pretty well what to look after, but there were not many thirty years back that knew how it ought to be made; and you see, although one receives the materials, the concrete has to be made with them, manufactured, as it were, on the work, and you can spoil the best Portland cement that is, was, or ever will be made in the proportioning, mixing, and blending it with bad sand and gravel, or dirty broken rock.

"They handed me the Portland cement, and all the specification said was, 'All concrete shall consist of 1 of Portland cement to 6 of clean gravel, and shall be mixed and deposited in a workmanlike manner [which we consider means as the workmen like] to the entire satisfaction of the Company's engineer.'

"This was drawn up by a civil and mechanical engineer, which is a big-drum kind of title, and I should think covered corkscrews and manufacturing machinery, and everything else under the sun that can be handled at any time, including a 6-inch drain, the Forth Bridge, and the Channel Tunnel thrown in. It's too much, it seems to me, for one man to completely understand; and I once heard a celebrated engineer say that, with a few brilliant exceptions, such a man knew thoroughly neither civil nor mechanical engineering--life was too short. I don't presume to say anything, but his specifications of our kind of work might have been more exact; still they were sources of joy and comfort to us.

"Machine mixing was hardly known at the time I am particularly referring to, and the Portland cement was of all qualities, good, bad, and indifferent, and some as I really can't say had any quality in it at all, and was utterly unlike what you get now. It was then sometimes bought on the same principle as going to the first shop handy, and saying, 'Small bag of cement. How much?' There was no name on the bag, for no one wished to own he had made the cement, and it was indeed of illegitimate origin, and had no parents.

"The cement came, and we did pretty well as we liked, for the inspector knew nothing about it; in fact, we were all in the same boat. But what a lucky thing it is that there is such a thing as a margin of safety!"

"You mean the difference between the strain a thing has to bear in ordinary use and what will break it?"

"Yes, that is it. One day an engineer said to me, 'There is a large factor of safety in this case, which is fortunate.' I thought he was talking about a flour factor near the works that also sold fire-escapes and fire-extinguishers, so I said, 'He weighs nearly eighteen stone, and I should call him big rather than large, for he is like the prices at which he sells flour, and charges a penny a quartern too much; but he is greatly respected in the neighbourhood by those who don't know what fair prices are, for he is so oily and civil, as just suits a lot.' Between you and me, he swindled them, and beat us for 'extra' profit.

"The engineer looked as if he could not at first make out what I was talking about, and, as it turned out, I did not know what he was. He seemed to enjoy himself, and let me finish my sermon. He then explained to me what we call 'margins' of safety, and what they call 'factors' of safety are the same goods."

"You have learnt something now."

"I have, another name; no doubt their word is the right one, but they ought to consider the likes of us are not poets, or fed on stewed grammar, and should remember we were boss-gangers once, and have blossomed into sub-contractors.

"Let that pass. You should have seen the cement. It was lucky we never had to sift it as we do now, or we should never have got any through a forty-to-the-inch mesh. It was just like fine sand, and nearly the colour of it, too, instead of grey. I have had a fair experience with Portland cement now, for we had testing-rooms, machines and troughs, fresh and sea water, slabs, and a host of other detective apparatus at the last dock works I was on. However, the cement we had and I was just referring to, was pretty nearly all residue, and of course it did not stick the gravel together except in streaks that had good luck rather than anything else. And the gravel! Well, it is an elastic truth to call it gravel, for it was dirty; and I conscientiously feel I am close to thinking I am not speaking in accordance with the principles of strict veracity if I call it gravel.

"And the mixing! Well, there was not much of it, just a turning over or two, and we deluged the stuff with water so as to make it easy to handle, and we hurled it into the foundations as we pleased and at all sorts of heights, just as might happen to be convenient. I did not trouble myself about it then, but I do now, for I had a month or two in and about the testing places when there was no other job for me that suited, and I firmly believe almost all the failures of Portland cement concrete occur because the men that used it do not understand it, or the specification is not carried out, or is wrong somewhere. The best goods in the world want proper treatment, and, after all, the abuse of a thing is no argument against its use. Some quarry owners and stone merchants don't like cement concrete; it is poison to them, because it hurts their trade. It is my opinion, founded on what I have seen and know, that Portland cement concrete is grand stuff when properly made; but you can't make the 'extra' profit on it you could, unless you can forget to rightly proportion the material. I mean leave out anything on the quiet you find is more profitable when it is absent; and now mixing machines are always used on works of importance where concrete is made in any considerable quantity, that is the only way you get a chance of a bit 'extra,' at least so runs my experience.

"Bless me! when I come to think of it, it is really wonderful that some of the concrete I have cast in has set at all, and don't believe it can all have set; for, first, the cement was wrong, then the gravel was not gravel, the sand was like road siftings, no trouble was taken to proportion the materials properly, and no mixing was done rightly, only an apology for it. The water was dirty, and used anyhow, and if a lump got a bit stiff it was rolled over, broken up in the trench and watered down below. Some went in like the soup that has balls in it, and we threw the concrete (?) down just anyhow. The inspector, as I said before, knew nothing much about it, although he was a beautiful kidder and could patter sweet and pretty just as if he were courting, and the engineer was away, so the road was clear for a bit 'extra,' and we took it."

"Now, how the dickens could any concrete be right with such treatment? It is cruelty to expect it."

"I left those works, and the engineer got corpsed, so he is past blaming; but, fortunately, the middle wall of the dock that got strained the most--the one in which was some of the concrete (?) I have been telling you about--had to be removed for improvements, and when they pulled it down I heard the concrete was in layers like thick streaky bacon, a layer of gravel with hardly a bit of cement in it, then a few lumps of solid on the top and hard as all would have been if the cement, gravel, sand, proportioning, mixing, and the putting into place had been done properly; then another layer of open stuff that had stuck together a bit, and then a lot of soft oozy rubbish, like decayed cheese, bad, coarse cement, you know, that would not or could not hold together and had done the 'fly' trick, you know, had cracked about, the coarsest part of the cement The streaks were there because we watered the cement so much that it was not concrete but weak grout, and bad too; and it could not drain down because one of the thin, hardish streaks, already set, stopped it, and it was bound to make friends with the gravel and dirt somehow, although trying to shun such company by running away and so get off duty. It was the same all the way through, and there were a lot of holes in it caused by the nearly set lumps coming together and slightly sticking, and therefore preventing the other material from filling the voids. Hardly a cubic yard of the whole mass was the same.

"That is what I call a real bit of scamping; but, honestly, I did not think I was putting it in so bad as that, but I then knew hardly anything about the material. I shall never do it again, for I know I shall not get the chance, besides we all must draw the line somewhere; but there, a lot is now known about concrete that was only in the brains of a very few then.

"As the cement is now supplied to you, I often put it in a bit thick, that is when I have to find the gravel and sand. It would be the other way about under different circumstances; but at the present time, with Carey's concrete mixer--which, luckily for plunder for us, is the only machine that measures and mixes the materials mechanically, and turns out from 10 to 70 cubic yards of concrete per hour--you do not get much chance of 'extras' and none with it; and concrete mixing is now nearly done as carefully as mixing medicine, and I don't regard concrete as fondly as I used to, for no 'extras' worth thinking of are to be made out of it. My old love, consequently, is cooling off, becoming warm and perhaps distant respect, not much else; but good Portland cement concrete is the best material, bar granite, I know of, if properly used, as it is then all the same strength--that is when the Portland cement is right, the proportions, mixing, and depositing even and proper, and the gravel and sand really clean sharp gravel and sand. You see, in that case, it is uniform throughout, and, after all, what is the good of the hardest stone or brick when you have a weak mortar to join them together which cannot nearly stand the same strain in any direction as the stone or brick?"

"You are right, it is simply waste. Like deluging good spirits with pure water, and spoiling them both. Lucky you had finally left those dock works before they pulled the middle wall down, or you might have had a bad quarter of an hour in a very sultry atmosphere."

"After that we will have a toothful neat."

"That's warming and is real comfort."

"I have never had much to do with concrete, but I remember seeing a lot go in on some dock works where I had some puddle to make for the cofferdam, and I got something 'extra' out of that."

"How did you do it?"

"Well, you know, working such stuff all day and nothing else makes anyone rather sick of it, it is like breaking stones for metalling, I should think, and the weariness of it makes the big stones have a tendency to hide and cause the face to look small and even. I had a dozen men besides casuals, and all old hands at the game of 'extras.' We had to, or were supposed to, work up a certain right proportion of sand with the clay so as to prevent the puddle cracking and keep it sufficiently moist. I own we sometimes let the clay have a taste of peace; in fact, between you and me, we were going express speed, and 'extras' was the name of our engine.

"One day the resident engineer came, and somehow got up close to us rather unawares, and took us by surprise. Of course, the material ought to have been worked the same throughout, and we nearly did it, but nearly is not quite. He seemed to sniff out that all was not just as right as it might be, and said:--

"'Don't forget to work it up thoroughly. You have a good price, and it is important the clay should be uniformly mixed with a little sand.'

"'Certainly, sir.'

"I generally agree with my boss, it pays best. So I at once called out sharp to my chaps, as if all I loved in this world was at stake, 'Don't fear mixing it, lads. Get it well mixed.'

"One of them, he was a new chap to me, and belonged to the militia I found out, turned round, and said:--

"'All right, boss; I always make the broad-arrow kitchens in the camp, and the flues and the openings for the Flanders kettles, so I know how it ought to be done; but if you think I'm a white-faced doughey [i.e. a baker's man] I am not, and you had better fetch a batch of dougheys and start them at work feet and hands. It will make them sweat. That puddle, I tell you, is as well mixed as the dougheys do the different kinds of flour, and call all the bake the best and purest bread, and make it smell sweet with hay water.'"

"I suppose you silenced him quickly?"

"No, I pretended to take no notice, for I knew I had spoken too sharp, but the resident engineer smiled downwards and passed on.

"We had a heap of clay on one side and the same of sand on the other, and the inspector saw we had from time to time a small mound of clay and one of sand put separate and measured ready for mixing. We had a few piles of clay and sand at first measured exactly, and then we got used to it, and did it by sight only. We were close to the river, or rather estuary, and used to fill a barrow now and again with the sand and shoot it over the entrance jetty. A little was taken from each heap. The engineer knew his book, and would not have it worked from one or two big heaps, and the sand brought to it, but he would have separate mounds of about 20 cubic yards at a time. There were nearly 5000 cubic yards of puddle to work up, and as the clay came from the trenches so we worked it up. A kind of filling and discharging, and everything on the move.

"I made a nice thing 'extra' that way, but nearly got bowled out, for one day there was an extraordinary low tide, a low tide was expected, but a land wind was blowing great guns, and it was the lowest tide known for fifty years or so. Now, when you start the game of 'extra' profit you will agree with me, it is necessary to have someone you can rely upon, or else things may not go exactly as you expect. They may work wrong, and then you have to look out for squalls when they lay you bare and find out all. Here, I had been getting a rise out of my bosses, and blessed if old Ginger's snip, his boy, whom I paid a bit extra to do the harrowing well out, did not get a rise out of me. It caused a near shave, too.

"Well, the tide ran down till it laid dry a little sandbank, that is, some of the stuff that should have been at home in the puddle, had travelled by the wrong road by the entrance jetty. I did give Ginger's snip a talking-to, I tell you, after; but it was a near shave, as you will soon know. I saw the bank, so I sent him down the jetty with two chaps that knew what was up and got duly rewarded by me. They knew me. I never forget friends--too good, I am. Not even to borrow from them, if occasion requires, so that they should remember me in their dreams. I said to them: 'Stir up the sand, lads, for I think I saw a leg in it, and a bit of a dress; it may be there has been another midnight horror. It's really shocking!' And that was true, for I thought the sand was shocking, and that murder will out, as the saying goes. It was a shave, for just as the tide began to turn, up came the resident engineer, and there could not have been more than an inch or two over the sand, but it soon rises, as you know, and almost walks up. I had not time to call the men, and there they were, stirring away. It was lucky I thought of the leg and the woman's dress. So I shouted, 'Come up, lads, it's nothing.'

"Then the resident engineer started asking me questions; and I was afraid he might ask the men something, so I kept him as long as I could, and spun a yarn, and pointed out the spot where a body was found some time ago, and talked away like a paid spouter, for every minute that passed was good business, for the water was rising quickly, and I knew the tide would soon just about put it right. After a little while the resident engineer went away, and I was rubbing my waistcoat thinking I had been in another near squeak, but won on the post by a short head owing to jockeyship, when I saw him down below with a large black retriever, and the blessed dog was half out of the water. I kept as far away as I could, but I saw he had taken off his boots and turned up his trousers, and was walking about on the heap probing with his stick. He did not stop long, as he knew the tide was rising, and then he came to me afterwards and said that a sandbank had been deposited at least 30 feet in length.

"'Very likely, sir; but did you find the leg, or body, or dress of a woman?' 'No. But I found a lot of sand that would have been better in the puddle.' And he looked straight at me.

"Well, I had to put on my best sweet, innocent child face, and I hazarded the mild remark, 'It's the eddies that have done it. I have known them bring stuff for miles, sir.' It was no use saying from the other side or nearer, because there was no sand like we had to mix with the clay for the puddle for many miles, nor could I declare that a barge had got upset. He did not say anything more, but called his dog and went to the office. Let me impress upon you that the last 1500 or so yards of puddle had more sand in them than the first 3500. Tides I like, and they are healthy and useful; but it is the deuce to pay if you think you can go against them, as King Canute showed his courtiers, when he did the chair trick upon the sea-shore. Do you know I go so far as to think that if a floating caisson were taken about and sunk so as to lay bare the bed of the Thames in certain places, things would be found by a little digging that neither you nor me dream of, and perhaps might not like to see, for even sandbanks at certain times and places are not pleasant to gaze upon. Eh?"