Baek Mujeong Did Not Pick Up the Broken Jig

Baek Mujeong did not pick up the broken jig.

He left the shard of side plate, the wedge, and the oily metal shavings where they had fallen under the workbench. Seokbeom's left hand rested on a board held up by two craftsmen. His second finger was bent back toward the top of his hand, and the skin under the nail was already turning black.

"Don't touch it."

Mujeong's words were aimed at the jig. But no one moved.

Yun Sunhwa asked first the moment she walked into the workshop.

"Name first."

"Seokbeom."

"What time was he hurt?"

The bellows boy gave the time he had hung the red tag. Sunhwa checked his pulse and pressed the tip of his finger. Seokbeom clenched his teeth.

"Any feeling?"

"It hurts."

"How far up?"

Seokbeom pointed to the space between his second and third fingers. Instead of answering him, Sunhwa wrote the name, the pain, and the time into the first three columns of the ledger.

The quartermaster officer spoke from outside the door.

"We need to send at least two of the passed pieces before the gate shift changes."

Sunhwa did not even look up.

"No."

"They've already been inspected."

"If you send the man and the jig off in the same process, you lose the cause."

"Who takes responsibility while two rifles are missing?"

Sunhwa asked as she unrolled the bandage.

"Who takes responsibility for Seokbeom's finger?"

The officer shut his mouth.

Before setting the splint, Sunhwa explained the procedure to Seokbeom. Setting the bone would hurt more. If the color did not return to his fingertip, the doctor would have to reopen it. Today was not the end of the work, she said, it was the start of the treatment.

Seokbeom looked at Mujeong.

"I tightened it too far."

Mujeong did not answer. The crack in the jig's side plate had been hidden under the oil after the first pressure test. When he pulled the second passed piece, he had wiped the surface himself. He had not seen it. Or rather, he had looked at the count of passed pieces first.

"Master told us to stop."

"He said it too late."

Mujeong brought over the accident compensation ledger. The first line held the bellows boy's burn, the second the line Seorin had just written for Seokbeom's name. He inserted a blank line above the second.

Process manager's error.

Failed to wash and check the side plate for cracks after the jig's first test. No pressure ceiling marked. Blocked wedge retightening only by verbal order. Continued the third test after seeing the delivery count of two passed pieces.

Mujeong wrote his own name at the end.

The craftsman spoke.

"Seokbeom turned the handle too."

"So?"

"The mistake should be written down together."

Mujeong pointed at the broken handle.

"It wasn't written down how far you can turn it before it breaks. There's no stop pin either. Blocking what we didn't know with a hand order, that's my process."

He did not write "violated instructions" on Seokbeom's line. Instead he wrote, "retightened the wedge with the pressure ceiling unknown."

Sunhwa read the sentence.

"Don't erase it."

"I won't."

"Write the treatment cost and the wages for the days off first."

"How many days off?"

"Are you trying to decide that right now?"

Sunhwa's voice was low. Mujeong understood that his question had been the wrong one.

"First payment date."

"Today's treatment cost, three days' wages. In three days we check the color and pain of his fingertip and decide again. Leave the full recovery date blank."

Mujeong wrote it down as she said. When the officer stepped closer to look at the ledger, Sunhwa covered it with her palm.

"The patient sees it first."

Seokbeom, splint on his hand, read the words. Once he confirmed the responsibility had not been pinned on him alone, he marked it with his right thumb.

Sunhwa posted the work stoppage conditions on the workshop door.

Seokbeom's dressing and transport to the doctor. Preservation of the broken jig in its original position and investigation of the cause. Full wages for the first hour of the stoppage. Half pay after that if there is no other safe work. Any new jig or process change requires approval from all three representatives and the worker who witnessed the danger.

Seokbeom, splinted hand resting on his chest, raised that line.

"For other work, I can still keep records with my right hand."

Sunhwa asked.

"Who told you to?"

"No one. If I rest, someone else has to cover my wages too."

"The work on the day your finger broke, that's treatment."

"Handwriting only needs one finger."

Sunhwa spoke gently, then cut the last word short.

"Not today."

Seokbeom's face reddened. Being protected looked, to him, like being pushed out of the workshop. Sunhwa did not paper over that feeling with kindness.

"If you still want to keep the records in three days, decide it again in front of the representatives. If we write that you worked today, the next apprentice will have to earn wages with broken bones too."

After a long pause, Seokbeom marked the work stoppage line with his right thumb. It was not a mark of consent to being sidelined. It was a mark against turning labor after injury into common practice.

The quartermaster officer pointed at the third line.

"The doctor treats him, Mujeong finds the cause, why does it need the worker's approval?"

"The injured person isn't finished yet."

"He can't work today."

"That's exactly why it's needed."

Sunhwa asked Seokbeom.

"Who do you want to look into the cause in your place?"

Seokbeom pointed at the bellows boy.

"He saw the red tag first."

The fourteen year old boy startled and stepped back. Sunhwa did not pull him forward.

"Can you do it?"

The boy thought for a long time, then nodded.

"Can I say I don't know when I don't know?"

"That's the first job."

Mujeong roped off the broken spot. Without moving the jig, he set the test order back in place. First screw machining, oil wipe, side plate ink line check, wedge pressure marking, worker confirmation. Four columns had been added that did not exist before the accident.

He moved his own error to the first line of the chart. Above the craftsman's name, above the apprentice's name.

"Why write the master's name at the top?" the bellows boy asked.

"Because I was wrong first."

The answer was short, but his hands stopped for a moment. Mujeong tied red string around the two passed screws too. It marked that they would not ship until the jig's cause was found.

"Those two look fine," the officer said.

"Only looking at what looks fine is how the finger broke."

The number of usable goods to send to the gate dropped back to zero.

Han Seorin returned with the doctor's cart. The treatment envelope was already unsealed, and the transport lead was preparing to carry Seokbeom off, board and all. Seorin checked the new line in the accident ledger and Mujeong's signature.

"Where do the three days' wages come from?"

"The new tool fund," the officer said.

Seorin shook her head.

"If you mix accident wages with the money for new tools, the next jig gets cheaper than it should."

She wrote out the quartermaster's share, the workshop manager's share, and the trading house's advance share separately. Seorin paid her share without settling the cause. Before deciding who was at fault, she settled first who should not go hungry today.

Mujeong asked.

"And the money to rebuild it?"

"Once the cause chart comes out, it opens up."

"The gate?"

"Rushing over that question is what broke him."

Sunhwa took up the answer.

"Treatment, cause, wages. Work does not resume until all three are settled."

"Do you have the authority to order that?" the officer asked.

Sunhwa pointed at the red tag clause on the workshop wall. Anyone who saw danger could stop the fire. The person in charge of treatment had a duty to prevent transport and re-exposure of the injured. It was a clause the workers themselves had fixed the day before.

"We got it from here."

The three representatives signed the stoppage sheet one after another. Mujeong wrote fourth. Not as an approver, but in the column for the person submitting the cause.

Even after the cart carrying Seokbeom left, the workshop stayed quiet. The hammer hung in place, and water had been poured into the bellows. The workers did not go home. Instead of taking the stoppage wage and leaving, they drew out the accident scene.

The bellows boy traced the shape of the oil stain. The craftsman representative measured the thickness of the side plate. The transport representative dug up the receiving time and weight of the crate the jig had come in.

The officer complained that they were being paid while stopping the work. Mujeong pointed at the accident diagram drawn under the workbench and the receiving sheet.

"This is today's work."

"Not one screw is coming out of it."

"The next finger doesn't break."

"You can't count that as a quantity."

Sunhwa closed the ledger.

"You counted the broken finger just fine."

The officer said nothing more. What came out of the stoppage hours was not finished goods but four drawings, a pressure record, and three named testimonies. Mujeong attached those to the receiving sheet as well. He left a column for who refused them, in case the quartermaster warehouse would not accept paper as goods.

The first two passed pieces were sealed separately. Even if the parts looked fine, as long as they came from the same jig, they were not usable quantity until the cause was found. Mujeong wrote "nominal two, usable zero." The distinction he had learned from Haejun's ledger the day before had come back around, over the workshop's iron box.

Mujeong inked the broken surface to enlarge it for inspection. The crack had not gone from outside to inside, it had started from inside the mounting hole. Whether it had existed before the first test, or had formed during the first two pressure cycles, he could not tell.

"Unknown."

He wrote it on the first line of the cause chart.

The second line needed the source of the side plate's steel. The workshop's storekeeper brought the receiving ledger. It recorded that the steel plate for the jig had come in on the same cart as the copper battery plates.

Mujeong went to the storeroom. The steel plate crate was still half full. Beside it, the copper wire column recorded twelve bundles received, and the battery plate column recorded eight sheets received.

On the shelf sat only two bundles of cut copper wire.

Not a single battery plate remained.

The storekeeper opened another compartment. Empty. The outgoing sheet showed only three bundles issued for telegraph repair and two sheets for the ammunition process contacts. By the ledger, seven bundles of copper wire and six battery plates should have remained.

"Were they moved to another storeroom?" Mujeong asked.

"There's no transfer sheet."

"Who received them?"

The storekeeper pointed at the receiving signature. There was a name, and the date and cart number matched. On paper, the arrival quantity was complete.

Mujeong ran his hand across the empty shelf. Instead of copper dust, he caught the smell of freshly wiped oil. Whether it was embezzlement, a wrong spec hidden elsewhere, or someone buying it up beforehand, he could not tell.

He confirmed nothing.

He hung one more red tag on the storeroom door.

The copper needed for telegraph repair and the ammunition process had arrived, on the ledger.

There was no such thing in hand.