Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens (30 page)

“He’s taking Morovitz’s lectures for the rest of this term,” said Alison.

“That must be an improvement, however bad he is.”

“I think he’s rather sweet. And for God’s sake stop yawning, Patrick.”

“I feel sleepy.”

“You can’t feel sleepy at four o’clock in the afternoon. And we’ve got important matters on the agenda. Item one. Tomorrow’s demonstration.”

“You are determined it shall be violent?” said Ahmed.

“Yes. I am. Non-violence has failed. All we’ve done so far is to hold up the traffic. We’ve made no impression on the authorities at all.” She gave Ahmed a look which was almost motherly and said, “There’s no need for you to join in if you don’t want.”

“I shall join with the others.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m convinced of the tightness of what we are asking for. Not to be treated as children. To have a say in our own affairs. And I am not afraid of violence – I come from a violent country. Of its last six rulers, four have died by violence. But violence leads to a hardening of attitudes. At the moment, few of us feel any animosity towards the authorities. I feel none. To be violent without being provoked seems to me to be wanton.”

Alison sighed. She said, “It’s very difficult. We’ll give Pat the casting vote.” A strangled snore came from the chair. “For God’s sake. He’s asleep.”

Alex Fraser was clearly a tycoon. His office, on the eighth floor of the building overlooking the Thames proclaimed as much. It had close carpeting, comfortable chairs, a desk the size of a tennis court, and, in one corner, a neat scale model of a drilling rig. Mr. Fraser’s blonde secretary, herself a neat scale model, proclaimed it, too. The only unpretentious thing about the whole set-up was Alex Fraser himself. He was small, had a nut-brown face crowned by a mop of greying hair, and was wearing a suit which must have been ten years old at least, and far from well looked after. Mr. Calder took in these points at a glance. Being himself a man who disliked pretension, he was prepared, on balance, to disregard the tycoonery and approve of the person.

“It’s a damned serious situation,” said Mr. Fraser. “East Gulf Oil Company, which is one of our subsidiaries, has been working a number of concessions down near Muscat and Oman. They’re very promising. And the most promising survey report I’ve ever read in my life is the one we’ve just completed in Ras-al-Daar.”

“Congratulations.’’

“Congratulations would be premature. What we had was an exploration contract. Not a drilling contract. That has still to be signed.”

Mr. Calder said “Ras-al-Dar? That’s old Sheik Akbar. I used to know him quite well. He never struck me as being unduly greedy.”

“He’s not greedy. He’s a desert Arab of the old stock. And he’s got ideals. He’s seen what money has done to other small Arab States.”

“Instant Western civilisation. A package deal available overnight,” said Mr. Calder with a shudder.

“It’s not all bad. He realises that. The oil revenues will pay for hospitals and roads and education. It’ll also bring in alcohol and traffic accidents and the quick-money boys. And jealousy from any neighbour who isn’t lucky enough to possess oil. And unrest from his own subjects.”

“Not a very attractive balance sheet?”

“Well, maybe I’ve falsified it a bit. Anyway, that’s what the old man’s thinking about. And to find out how Western civilisation is working out in practice, he’s sent his son to an English university. The FO recommended Middlesex. Being new they thought it might be less troublesome.”

“They may be new, but they’re learning fast. Two days ago they heaved a couple of bricks through the Rector’s window. I understand that the change in the Rector’s outlook was positively startling. He stopped being a genial uncle or elder brother and became a roaring lion.”

“It’s wonderful what a well-placed brick will do,” said Mr. Fraser. “I only hope the thrower wasn’t Ahmed?”

“Ahmed was in the forefront of the battle. Mercifully he wasn’t pulled in. The police had all their work cut out arresting a wild Irishman. But there’s no saying he won’t be in trouble next time. And if he spends one night inside an English gaol, I imagine your chances in the Eastern Gulf will look a bit sketchy.”

Fraser got up, moved across to the corner of the room, and stared malevolently at the model oil rig. He said, “I don’t suppose I need explain to you, Calder, just
how
valuable a good concession in that part of the world would be to us right now.”

“You don’t need to explain,” said Mr. Calder. “We’re taking it seriously all right. My chief, Mr. Fortescue, sent a colleague of mine, Mr. Behrens, down there at the beginning of term to keep an eye on things. Now he wants me to go down and lend a hand too. Normally Behrens would have been perfectly capable of dealing with a situation like this on his own. But there’s a complication.”

“What sort of complication?”

“This one’s got auburn hair and her name is Alison Varney.”

“Sam Varney’s daughter?”

“That’s right.”

“It was bad enough without that,” said Fraser, gloomily.

Mr. Behrens said, “There’s the bell for lunch. Enough tuition for this morning. We’ll knock off, shall we?”

Alison Varney shuffled her books and papers into a pile on Mr. Behrens’ table, sighed, and said, “I’m not really hungry. How could anyone be, the food they serve up here.”

Mr. Behrens was busy filling his pipe. He said, “Eating’s a thing you either worry about a great deal, or not at all. I’m in the second category. When I’m at home, I’m cooked for by my aunt. She permutes on three dishes. Mince, chicken casserole and Irish stew.” He had the pipe going nicely now. He added, between puffs, “I’ve got so little sense of taste that I find them indistinguishable.”

Alison said, “Tell me something, Mr. Behrens. What are you doing here?”

“Endeavouring to lecture in Social and Economic History.”

“Come off it. You’re not a don.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You don’t look like one. Or talk like one. Or think like one.”

“You’ve made a study of the species?”

“Indeed yes. This is the third university I’ve been to. I was sent down from the other two. For violent and subversive behaviour.” “Did they know that when they accepted you here?”

“Yes. But my father promised them a handsome grant to finish the library.”

“I see.”

“Do tell. You’re some sort of official. An inspector?”

“Oh dear,” said Mr. Behrens. “Am I such an obvious civil servant.”

“Or are you something more exciting than that? I have it. You’re a member of MI5. Come down to spy on us.”

Mr. Behrens swallowed a mouthful of smoke and started to splutter. Alison patted him on the back, and said, “Own up.”

“Since you have guessed half the truth,” said Mr. Behrens, “I’ll tell you the whole. I was planning to take you into my confidence anyway. I’ve been sent down here to keep an eye on Ahmed, and see he isn’t led astray by wild companions.”

“Meaning Patrick and me?”

“Yes.”

“And how were you aiming to do it?”

“I’ve often found that in a tricky situation the best plan is to co-opt your opponents onto your own side.”

“Cool. Tell me more.”

“Ahmed’s father is hereditary ruler of a patch of desert in the south-east corner of the Gulf. It’s rather smaller than the Isle of Wight, has a population of nomad Arabs who live by date-growing and camel-farming with a side line in gold smuggling. Additionally, it looks like being the brightest prospect for oil that’s been turned up for many a year. It would do us a power of good if we were allowed to develop it. Normally, we should be. We discovered it. And we’re first in the field for a concession. But if Ahmed gets slung out of an English university or into an English gaol, our prospects will be dim.”

“And you’re suggesting that I should tell him to be a good boy so that an oil company can make some money?”

“Not an oil company,” said Mr. Behrens. “England.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to start beating the patriotic drum? Rule Britannia. The Army, the Navy and the Air Force.”

“Yes, indeed. And since you mention it, the Air Force in particular. It’s amazing to think that thirty years ago there really
were
young men, who grew huge moustaches, and said things like ‘Bang on’ and ‘Wizard prang’ and fought their private battles five miles above the fields of Kent, and were burned to death, quite a lot of them, big moustaches and all. And when they knew they were dying, weren’t entirely unhappy, because they were doing it for England. Does that make you laugh?”

In the silence that followed, Mr. Behrens could hear the distant trampling of feet down the corridors and the banging of doors.

Alison said, “I’m not sure. It’s the sort of thing that either makes you laugh or cry. It depends how you look at it. But the point is that it’s an anachronism.”

“If you mean that we’re never going to have another conventional war, I agree with you. More’s the pity, I sometimes think.”

“Do you mean you
want
another war?”

“It wouldn’t affect me. I’m too old. It’s the young people I’m thinking about. Fancy living your whole life without ever having a cause worth dying for. Maybe that’s what makes them so discontented.”

“We have got a cause.”

“Breaking the Rector’s windows?”

“You say that because you don’t understand. He can mend his windows. He can’t mend his public image.”

“What’s wrong with his public image?”

“It’s a fraud. These places are selling second-class goods. Not even second-class. Shoddy third-class. But it’s such a seller’s market for universities just now that they can get away with it. The teaching’s a farce. Most of the students could get on faster if they sat at home and read the set books. The brighter ones do.”

“You can’t manufacture dons overnight.”

“Agreed. But what about the living conditions? One bathroom for forty students. When it works. Rabbit hutch cubicles with walls so thin you can hear people talking three rooms away. And the food! If you served up muck like that at Dartmoor, you’d have a mutiny.”

“And how would you improve it?”

“Simple. Hand over all administrative arrangements to a committee of students. Do you realise that we’ve got men here who’d be helping to run businesses if they weren’t at university? Women who’d be married, keeping house, maybe looking after a couple of children. And they treat us as though we were children ourselves. That’s what we’re fighting against. And we’re going to go on fighting. I don’t suppose any of us will be killed. But we’ll be uncomfortable, and some of us will be hurt.”

“Suppose I were to agree,” said Mr. Behrens, “that every word you’ve said is true? I think you’ve exaggerated it, but suppose it is true. Must Ahmed be one of the rebels?”

“He and Pat Meaghan are the leaders. Pat’s in gaol. If Ahmed backed out, we’d have to start all over again.”

“You underrate yourself. They’re not the leaders. You are.”

“Even if that was true,” said Alison, seriously, “I’m not prepared to go on alone.”

“You realise that if you go on at all, you’re heading for real trouble. Few people fight dirtier than an aroused Establishment.”

“If it’s going to be a tough and dirty fight, we need a tough and dirty leader. Would you care to take on the job? I’m sure you’d be beautifully unscrupulous. What about it?”

Mr. Behrens sighed. He said, “I’m not involved in this fight.’’

“But you’d enjoy it, wouldn’t you? Do you know
when
I spotted that you were different from the rest of the professors. It was when you were talking about Hitler. It’s true, isn’t it? You did meet him.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“It was in Russia,” said Mr. Behrens. “In 1943. He made me a personal presentation of the
Dresdner Kreuz
with crossed palm leaves. I don’t think he’d have done it if he’d known that my reason for being there was to arrange for an explosive device to be placed in his private aeroplane.”

“There you are,” said Alison. “What did I say. You’re just the man we need to run a student riot.”

Mr. Calder sat in the saloon bar of the Duke of Pomfret public house in a back street of Wallingford. Thickset, middle-aged, nondescript in appearance and dress, he attracted no attention and desired to attract none.

The snow had changed to frozen rain. The bar was warm and crowded. Mr. Calder sipped his whiskey and cast an occasional glance at the small serving hatch, through which he could see most of the public bar.

The stout man he was following was sitting in a corner by himself, spinning out half a pint of beer and occasionally glancing at his watch. It was getting on for nine o’clock before the second man joined him. This was a small, spruce character with the look of a prosperous jockey. He carried his drink over and the two men talked for a few minutes. When the packet was passed it was done so inconspicuously that if Mr. Calder had not been watching very closely he would have missed it.

Soon afterwards the stout man lumbered to his feet, wrapped a scarf round his neck, said a general goodnight to the bar, and made his way into the darkness of the street. With his head bent forward against the stinging rain he was unaware of anyone behind him until Mr. Calder put one hand on his shoulder. As he swung round, Mr. Calder clipped him scientifically on the side of the throat, caught him as he fell, gasping for breath, and lowered him gently to the ground. He found the packet in a coat pocket and transferred it to his own. By the time he had done this the stout man was already recovering. Mr. Calder helped him up into a sitting position with his back against the railings and said, “If I were you, Mr. Ponting, I should go straight home now. You’ll get a nasty cold if you sit about in this weather.”

“Who exactly
is
Mr. Ponting?” said Mr. Behrens two days later.

“He keeps a small tobacconists and sweet shop,” said Mr. Calder. “It’s just behind the University and he has a lot of student customers. I’m afraid he sells them nastier things than cigarettes and sweets.”

“Cannabis?”