Chapter 11 #3
“All right then, you’re the boss,” he said, pleased with how she was taking charge now. She was more self-confident and had learned a lot about the business in the last nine months. His tutelage was paying off. She was ready to fly on her own, and making good decisions.
Victoria found an excuse to go to the factory a few days later.
She saw Thor engrossed in his work, and he looked up as she walked past him.
She nodded with the smallest smile, and there was a warm look in his eyes.
It was the only acknowledgment he would allow himself, not to attract the attention of the others.
They had all been notified of their raise by then, and Thor was impressed by her again.
She was a woman who listened and made things happen, and an honorable person, just as Bert had been.
* * *
As Thor had predicted to Victoria, after the one-day rogue strike, and the raise, everyone settled down and went back to work.
The day after they returned to work, the shot rang out which changed the world, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated.
Victoria had met him several times in Vienna with her father at the archduke’s ball.
For the next month the tension was severely felt in Europe, and precisely a month after the assassination the Austrian army invaded Serbia and war was declared, with all of the European nations entering the war, and battle lines drawn.
Overnight, Europe was at war. Able-bodied men volunteered or were drafted, and Victoria was about to find her factories emptied except for some older workers, and a few younger ones who had health issues which prevented them from going to war.
But almost all the men were leaving. She knew she had to find a solution quickly, or close her factories for the duration of the war, which could be years.
There was only one possible solution. She would have to hire women to take their place.
A new day had dawned, and women were going to be filling men’s jobs in order to support themselves and their families.
The men would no longer be there to do it.
For the first time, women who had never worked before would enter the workplace and take on jobs previously only performed by men.
Most of her factory workers were going. Hubert Maddox, the administrator who had trained her to run the company, was one of the first to leave, considering it his patriotic duty.
All of the foremen were going, among them Thor Lindqvist, and close to four thousand workers.
It was an overwhelming prospect and so was the war.
Victoria wanted to say goodbye to Thor and wish him well, after their encounter only a month before when he had rescued her. She had only glimpsed him once since and had never spoken to him again. But that night had impressed them both.
She wrote a letter to those of her employees leaving to join the military forces, wishing them well, and a safe and rapid return.
She went to the main factory then, and hoped Thor hadn’t left yet. After saving her life only a few weeks earlier, it seemed like the least she could do was to say goodbye to him personally. She’d already said a tearful goodbye to Hubert Maddox, and thanked him for all he’d taught her.
As it turned out, it was Thor’s last day, and she caught him just as he was leaving the building. A few minutes later and she would have missed him. She was relieved that she hadn’t.
She was hurrying into the building in a pale blue cotton dress when she saw him.
It was a warm day, the beginning of real summer weather, and he smiled when he saw her, a real smile, not a small furtive one.
They had nothing to hide now as foreman of a section of factory workers and mill owner.
They could be friends for these last minutes before he went to war in the next few days.
“Very good luck, Thor. Your job will be waiting for you when you get back, if you still want it.”
“I’m sure I will.” He was thirty-seven years old, a little old to be going to war, but they needed everyone they could get, to make soldiers of them.
Women were being asked to enlist as nurses, or to volunteer to fill paying jobs that would be unpaid when performed by women.
It was about to become a massive female workforce, in every country involved in the war.
Victoria hated to see Thor leave. She would be handicapped without him, and severely shorthanded without all the men she employed.
She hardly knew Thor, but she knew she was going to miss him every time she looked at the corner where he used to work.
It would always remind her of the night he had saved her and the conversation they’d had, which had resulted in a raise for all her employees.
She was a fair woman and she had listened to him.
“Take care of yourself, and come back safely,” she said.
“Without the men, will you close?” he asked her. He was worried about her and afraid to say it. There was never anyone to take care of her, ever since her husband had died. She worked hard and was always alone when he saw her.
“I don’t know yet. If I can, maybe I’ll have to hire women.
I have no other choice. And they’ll need money to support themselves and their kids.
I hope I can get some good people and keep the factories going.
” And then, feeling emotional at so many goodbyes, she touched his arm.
“Stay safe, Thor. I need you in one piece when you come back.” It was the only way she could say that she hoped to see him again.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, with a tender look at her. She wasn’t just his boss, she was a woman alone, who had no living family and would have to run an enormous company with no one to advise her. The men were leaving so fast.
They chatted for a few minutes and then Thor had to go.
Victoria could hardly say anything significant to him with people swirling around them, and it wouldn’t be appropriate.
Everyone was in a rush now to leave. She hated goodbyes and losing people.
“Take care of yourself,” was all she could say.
He had saved her life in the strike, and now his would be on the line constantly until he returned.
She watched him leave the factory, and he turned back once to wave with a broad smile, and then he was gone, to become a soldier and fight in a war.
She had no idea if she would ever see him again. It was true of every man going to war.
She had been planning to spend the month of August in Hampshire, but there was no way she could go now.
She had to hire close to four thousand women to take the place of the men who had just left.
She was twenty-five years old, with the weight of the world on her shoulders, and a huge company to run without men now.
It was a daunting prospect, even for her.
But she would have to do it. There was no other choice, for any of them.
A new day had dawned, and the women would have to carry the burden of a world without men, until they came home.
And no one knew how many of them would return.