Parting Breath Read online

  ‘Sit-in,’ said Challoner. ‘On Thursday. We’re occupying the administration block at Almstone.’

  ‘Are we?’ asked Derek Doughty blandly. ‘Do we have a reason?’

  ‘Don’t ask him,’ pleaded Barry Naismyth, ‘or we’ll be here all night.’

  They’ve sent Humbert down,’ snapped Challoner. ‘Did it in the vac., too. That’s a dirty trick, if you like. Thought we wouldn’t do anything about it, I suppose, if they did it then. We got back yesterday –’

  ‘From Moscow?’ asked Martin Robinson innocently.

  ‘ – and found he wasn’t here,’ said Challoner, thin-lipped. ‘He’d been trying to get in touch with our Committee all summer.’

  ‘I’ll bet he had.’

  ‘It’s all very well to take that line,’ said Challoner, ‘all the while everything’s going all right for you. But you’d have been glad enough to have our Direct Action Committee behind you if you got sent down.’

  ‘It wouldn’t help me much,’ retorted Martin Robinson. ‘They wouldn’t cut any ice with my father, I can tell you.’

  ‘Of course’ – Challoner was very condescending – ‘if you haven’t got rid of any of those petty bourgeois ideas about parental authority yet …’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got rid of them, all right,’ said Robinson airily. ‘Years ago. It’s my father who hasn’t.’

  ‘Why not until Thursday?’ asked Derek Doughty. ‘It’s Tuesday today.’

  ‘Because,’ said Challoner unwillingly, ‘Humbert couldn’t get here until then.’

  ‘Is he in Peking or something?’

  ‘Ireland,’ said Challoner briefly.

  ‘Seems a pity to waste the fare if he’s not wanted.’

  ‘We want him,’ said Challoner.

  ‘Short of a mascot, are you, then?’ asked Derek Doughty.

  ‘Couldn’t you manage with something symbolic instead?’ suggested Barry Naismyth. ‘Like a golliwog.’

  ‘Or a flag,’ said Doughty.

  Martin Robinson shook his head solemnly. ‘Not a flag, old chap. It’s been done before.’

  ‘No,’ said Henry Moleyns slowly, looking at Challoner. ‘You want him for something else, don’t you, Challoner?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘You want him so that someone on the university staff comes up with the bright idea of suing Humbert for trespass.’

  ‘That way,’ said Challoner complacently, ‘we get a court case.’

  ‘You need to prove damage for trespass, don’t you?’ asked Doughty. His father was a solicitor. ‘It’s only a civil wrong or something.’

  ‘Child’s play,’ said Henry Moleyns. ‘They’ll take care to see that Humbert does the damage.’

  ‘And is seen to do it,’ added Martin Robinson brightly.

  ‘Tell me, Challoner,’ went on Henry Moleyns, ‘would I be right in thinking that membership of the Student’s Union is suspended when a man is sent down?’

  ‘Automatically,’ said Challoner smugly. ‘It’s in the Rules and Regulations. In cold print.’

  ‘I don’t see …’ began Barry Naismyth.

  ‘I do,’ said Henry Moleyns coldly. ‘Quite clearly. Last time there was any damage at a sit-in they deducted the cost from the Student’s Union grant, didn’t they?’

  ‘They did,’ said Challoner.

  ‘And you didn’t like that, so this time Humbert will do the damage,’ said Moleyns. ‘You hope that the University will still deduct the cost of the damage from the Union grant and –’

  ‘And,’ finished Robinson, cottoning on quickly to this and taking up the tale, ‘you’ll then go to law to prove that it wasn’t the students who did the damage and try to get the University to court for wrongful administration of public funds or something and make them look silly into the bargain.’

  ‘Right,’ said Challoner. ‘Good idea, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a lousy, rotten, trouble-making idea by people who should know better,’ said Moleyns explosively. ‘What they want to do is to grow up –’

  ‘Now, look here –’

  ‘Your lot are just playing at power politics, that’s what they’re doing.’

  ‘Playing, are we?’ responded Challoner angrily. ‘Well, I’ll be –’

  ‘You just don’t know what it’s all about,’ said Moleyns with intensity.

  ‘Don’t we, indeed! I’ll have you know that –’

  ‘It’s kids’ stuff,’ said Moleyns pityingly. ‘Sit-ins for a trouble-maker.’

  Challoner straightened up, his voice pitched in a furious rasp. ‘I’m not standing for any snide remarks from you, Henry Moleyns.’

  ‘Humbert did nothing but ask for it all last term,’ snapped back Moleyns. ‘The man’s a fool. In my opinion he deserved all he got.’

  ‘I’ll have you know that five hundred people don’t agree with you –’

  ‘More like five hundred sheep,’ retorted Moleyns. ‘One dog and they go where they’re told.…’

  ‘I won’t have you –’

  ‘Listen to me, Challoner.’ Moleyns had risen to his feet to face Challoner now. He wasn’t tall but he seemed to grow as he spoke. ‘Blind obedience to leadership is nothing to be proud of. In fact, if you ask me, it’s the most dangerous thing in the whole world.’

  ‘Is Humbert bringing any friends with him from, er, Ireland?’ Barry Naismyth interposed a question before the leadership and authority that was present – at the High Table – saw fit to intervene.

  ‘He might,’ said Challoner, reluctantly taking his attention away from Moleyns, and rapidly regaining his normal composure. ‘Come and find out for yourself.’

  ‘I thought your crowd didn’t believe in law and order,’ remarked Tommy Talbot. His plate was empty now and so he was giving Challoner his whole attention.

  ‘We don’t,’ said Challoner, soothed by the question, ‘but it comes in handy sometimes. Besides, there’s no point in not using it if it’s there, is there? Not if it helps the cause.…’

  2 Engagement

  Not all that far away – at Berebury Police Station to be exact – Police Superintendent Leeyes was making precisely the same point to those members of the local force who were assembled in front of him.

  More aggressively, though.

  ‘Of course they don’t believe in law and order unless it suits them,’ he said scornfully, ‘but then, there’s nothing new about that here, is there?’ He glared round at his officers. ‘After all, when you come to think of it, we never do have to deal with anyone who does, do we?’

  This train of thought – had they heard it – would have greatly pained Challoner and his Direct Action Committee. They would certainly have challenged it. The Berebury Police officers on the other hand, owing an oath of allegiance and having a long tradition of obedience to authority, heard the Superintendent out in silence.

  ‘And,’ he went on, ‘if they don’t keep to the law, then they’re villains, aren’t they?’

  There was someone else whom the simple extension of this line of reasoning would undoubtedly have upset. He was called Harold Tritton and he was Hereward Reader in Logic at the University of Calleshire.

  ‘There’s another thing,’ growled the Superintendent, who didn’t know Harold Tritton and who wasn’t strong on logic anyway. ‘The fact that they don’t believe in the rule of law doesn’t mean that the little –’ He stopped and started again. ‘That the students won’t expect the police to stick to it. And write to the Home Secretary if we don’t. Oh, no’ – he twisted his lips wryly – ‘they wouldn’t like it at all if we didn’t stick to the rules.’

  ‘Do we know what they have in mind this time?’ enquired Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan. He was head of the Berebury Police Station’s tiny Criminal Investigation Department and was sitting in on the conference in case of trouble later.

  ‘A sit-in on Thursday,’ his colleague, Inspector Harpe, informed him gloomily. Everything about Inspector Harpe was always so gloomy that he was universally know
n as Happy Harry. He was in charge of Traffic Division and swore that that was enough to make any man permanently melancholy. He was at the conference because somehow everything – but everything – always managed to involve Traffic Division.

  ‘Where?’ asked Sloan.

  ‘Almstone.’

  ‘Ah … Almstone … of course. Yes, it would be Almstone, wouldn’t it?’

  The University of Calleshire had always displayed a distinct penchant for naming the Colleges of which it was composed against the current trend, and Almstone, which was the family name of the Dukes of Calleshire, was no exception.

  The tradition had begun in early Tudor times with the first of its ancient foundations – Tarsus College. This had been called after Theodore, the other noted Christian scholar of That Place, at a time when the stars of noted Christian scholars were definitely not in the ascendant. It had been followed somewhat ambiguously by Princes’. The Princes’ were variously held at the time (by the daring) to be the poor unfortunates in the Tower (Edward and Richard) and (by the politic) to be the sons of Henry the Seventh (Arthur and Henry). The Statutes referred even more cautiously to the sons of the Monarch and left it at that.

  Things had been no better nearly two hundred years later. At the Restoration – of all times – the University had chosen to call its two newest Colleges after a pair of Oliver Cromwell’s Civil War generals and Fairfax and Ireton had come into being.

  And when the next burst of university expansion in the sixties had come round – the nineteen sixties this time, not the sixteen sixties – the University Senate had proved just as intransigent in the matter of names. In spite of a very lively modernist lobby in favour of calling them Jung and Freud and at a time of pronounced egalitarianism, it had opted for using the family names of the two noblest families in the county. Thus the two newest Colleges were called Cremond, after the Earldom of Ornum, and Almstone, after the Dukedom of Calleshire.

  ‘In the administration block of Almstone,’ amplified Inspector Harpe.

  ‘Probably,’ opined Superintendent Leeyes, ‘the only place where anyone does any real work anyway.’

  ‘That’s where their records are, I suppose,’ said Sloan realistically – and to avert a tirade against idle students.

  ‘It is,’ said Leeyes. ‘All the University records, actually. In the new building there. They’ve considered moving them and decided against it.’

  ‘Too provocative?’

  ‘Too heavy and too many.’ Leeyes jerked his head. ‘But at least someone senior had started to go through them for – er – er’ – he cleared his throat and searched for another phrase rather than use the word the students used – ‘er … inflammable material.’

  ‘That’s something, I suppose,’ agreed Sloan.

  ‘It doesn’t do anything for me,’ complained Harpe immediately. ‘If half my men are keeping law and order at the University, then I can’t have them keeping the traffic moving here in the town, can I?’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ grumbled the Superintendent. ‘It’s not actually either a criminal or civil offence to occupy a building like Almstone, remember. After all, it is University property and they are students at that University. Members within the meaning of the Act.’

  ‘I suppose, then,’ said Harpe fretfully, ‘that the clever ones are going to argue that they’ve got every right to be there?’

  Leeyes gave a deep sigh. ‘They are. And don’t you forget, Harpe, that they’re all clever ones over there. Or think they are.’ He rapped his knuckles on his desk. ‘That’s the whole trouble with the lot of them. They’re all so clever that they all know where the flies go in winter and how the milk got in the coconut.’

  ‘No leave for anyone anyway on Thursday, I suppose,’ continued Sloan, concentrating on the practicalities.

  ‘No leave,’ said Leeyes. ‘And,’ he added, glaring round at his assembled subordinates, ‘no trouble either, if we can help it this time. It’s going to be a low-profile, kid-gloves job if I’ve got anything to do with it.’

  ‘What about the Riot Act?’ enquired Sloan impishly. ‘If we’re going to stick to the letter of the law and do the thing properly …’

  ‘We’re turning it up now,’ said Leeyes. ‘There’s another thing I’m having them turn up, too.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Whether it’s slander to call men pigs,’ said the Superintendent with dignity, ‘or just defamation.’

  News of Thursday’s threatened sit-in had reached another quarter as well by Tuesday evening: the Head Porter’s Lodge at Almstone College. The first reaction of Alfred Palfreyman, sometime Sergeant-Major in the East Calleshire Regiment, now Head Porter of Almstone, was quite unprintable.

  The second was to review his forces.

  ‘Almstone Admin. on Thursday,’ he mused in much the same way as he had contemplated the storming of Mallamby Ridge by the East Calleshires in 1944. ‘We’ll have to see what can be done, won’t we, sir?’

  ‘We will indeed, Palfreyman.’ The Dean of Almstone – the head of the College – Dr. Herbert Wheatley, who had brought him the news, nodded agreement. He coughed and said, ‘There are those who wanted us to keep the administration block closed all day on Thursday to stop them getting in.’

  ‘Bad tactics,’ said the Head Porter immediately. ‘They’d only go somewhere less convenient.’

  ‘I quite agree.’

  ‘If,’ said Palfreyman, ‘we have them in the admin. block at Almstone, at least we’ll know where they are.’

  ‘And,’ continued Dr Wheatley, ‘there was also a school of thought that wanted the clerical staff to do their work that day somewhere else. Like the Library.’

  ‘A great mistake, sir, if I may say so. That would only cause more trouble.’

  ‘My sentiments exactly,’ said the Dean, a note of real warmth coming into his voice. In fact Alfred Palfreyman was quite often the only member of the entire staff of Almstone College with whom the Dean really saw eye to eye. Both men had their feet firmly on the ground and their relationship was one of complete understanding.

  Palfreyman shook his head. ‘It really upsets the office people to see their files being messed about, sir.’

  ‘Naturally they don’t like it,’ agreed Dr Wheatley.

  ‘Better to tell them not to come in,’ said the Head Porter.

  ‘I have,’ said the Dean. ‘And we’re closing the Library for the day, too.’

  ‘Now, let me see …’ Palfreyman looked thoughtful. ‘We could take the locks off the doors and windows.’

  ‘We could.’

  ‘And drain the radiators.’

  ‘Water can do a lot of damage,’ said the Dean.

  ‘And see that they get plenty of fresh air.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I have noticed that they don’t seem very fond of fresh air.’

  ‘They aren’t,’ said the Dean. ‘And it can be very chilly in October, too, can’t it?’

  ‘It turned quite cold last night,’ said the Head Porter. ‘I think, sir, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll get one or two mates of mine to come along to give me a hand.’

  ‘By all means, Palfreyman,’ said the Dean, adding prophetically, ‘It’s going to be a busy day for us all.’

  He departed well satisfied with his interview. He was not surprised to find that, as usual, he had achieved more in talking to Alfred Palfreyman for ten minutes than he did in two hours on any academic committee.

  The Greatorex Library was in fact the obvious alternative to Almstone for a working place for the clerical staff.

  It was an imposing building, even of its period, paid for out of the benefaction of one Jacob Greatorex, who had in his day successfully exploited the possibilities of that intricate system of life assurance known as the tontine. So well had Jacob Greatorex grasped the working principle of the tontine (survivor takes all) and then mastered the detail (most of the University historians drew tactful veils over this: they were not there, after all, to corrupt the young)
that eventually he found himself the sole remaining member of the tontine. Being without an heir and by then much encumbered by both wealth and conscience, he had left the proceeds of the tontine to the University of Calleshire for the founding of a library.

  Not surprisingly Flaxman’s bust of him in the entrance hall showed a plump man, well pleased with himself and with life.

  Unaware that the Dean had not only considered the idea of the clerical staff moving in, but had dismissed it too, the Students’ Direct Action Committee sent one of their number to spy out that particular land. He was called Hugh Bennett. Once in the Library, Bennett made his way to one of the bays, and then went through the pretence of searching for a book and of finding it. Then he sat down with it open in front of him. He did not, however, read it. Instead he studied the Library carefully.

  There was no doubt about it. Any amount of clerical work could be done here in conditions that – ironically enough – were probably a good deal better than those in the administration building. On the other hand there were no signs at all of any impending movement of the clerical force this way because of the sit-in. People were working much as usual. He caught Colin Ellison’s eye from one of the Natural History bays and nodded across at him from his own position of vantage.

  Hugh Bennett was still sitting in the Library when Henry Moleyns came in. Henry fought his way to the enquiry desk with some difficulty: there were stacks of books everywhere. He edged past a particularly precarious pile and said to the library assistant, ‘I thought they burnt all the old books at Alexandria.’

  ‘Not this lot,’ she responded with feeling. ‘Some old boy has left us all his books and his letters. Thousands of them.’ She peered at him. ‘Not that they’ll interest you. You’re an ecologist, aren’t you? These are mostly Wordsworth and that crowd.’

  ‘Didn’t he do something with daffodils?’ murmured Moleyns, innocently deadpan. ‘That’s ecology.’

  ‘That’s poetry.’

  ‘I know. And ne’er the twain shall meet. Listen, my love, what I really want are books on war …’

  ‘Trojan, American, European or World?’ she countered swiftly.