Swiftly: A Novel (GollanczF.) Read online

  ‘And now you are using the Romanish word!’ chuckled Oldenberg. ‘My, my, my, but yes.’ He paused, coughed, and then, in a rush: ‘It seems to me abundantly clear that that-which-we-ingest, the good things of the earth that have been provided for our health and wellbeing that these are the things upon which Christ built his religion. To read the Bible is to read, again and again, of images of food - of food - of food - of wheat in the field, if-the-grain-die-not - mouton, sheep, mutton as the French call it - vines in the vineyard - salt and fish. A fine, healthful diet! Tobacco, and therefore snuff, is not mentioned explicitly, I accept; but I take tobacco to be a form of wheat, one variety amongst many, and in addition snuff is akin to mustard, the grains of mustard that are also mentioned in the Novum Testamentum.’

  He stopped here and sipped at his drink, and indeed he fell into a sort of reverie, looking at the fire. Silence reclaimed the room, broken only by the intermittent crackling of the wood in the fire. As the silence lengthened, the energy seemed to drain from the mood.

  Bates, looking more closely, could see that there were tears in Oldenberg’s eyes. This startled him.

  ‘Dean,’ he said. ‘What is amiss?’

  Oldenberg’s eyes gleamed like pearls in the firelight. ‘Nothing,’ he said, his voice pregnant with misery. ‘Nothing, nothing. ’Tis not Shakspeare? I think it be Shakspeare who says it in his Lear. Nothing nothing.’ The plunge from his mania to his melancholia was so sudden it gave Bates - even Bates, with his own long experience of emotional mutability-a sort of vertigo to contemplate it.

  ‘Pray, sir,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘Do not upset yourself. Do not, sir. What can we have been saying, to upset you so much?’

  ‘My moods,’ said the Dean, drawing his thumb over his left eye, and then his right eye, to wipe some of the moisture away, ‘are sudden, I know. You despise me, Mr Bates.’

  ‘Not I!’ Bates was shocked.

  ‘You do.’

  ‘No, no, I assure you.’

  ‘Or is it,’ he said, starting up with an abruptly restored animation, ‘or is it Hamlet? The rest is Nothing. I misremember. Never, never, never, perhaps that is the phrase. I should know my Shakspeare better.’ He was holding his silver snuffbox between forefinger and thumb, and had flipped the little lid with a practised smoothness of gesture. He placed two miniature mounds of white on the back of his hand, and sniffed one into each nostril. Then he put his head back, holding his breath whilst the skin around his nostril’s underwent little shudders and quivers. At last he exhaled, a lengthy sound of pure satisfaction. ‘Shakspeare!’ he said vehemently, as if the word were an oath. ‘I would,’ he turned to Bates, ‘offer some to yourself, as one gentleman to another, but my supply is limited and I am not certain how I shall come by another quantity, I’m sure you understand.’ His words were once again being issued helter-skelter, a near-gasping rapidity in his breath.

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ said Bates. ‘I do not myself take snuff.’

  Bates excused himself on grounds of his tiredness and mounted the stairs to the room he was sharing with Oldenberg. But he could not get away from the Dean, whose body now seemed bursting with energy. ‘Sleep, sir, no sir,’ he said, following him up the stairs and snatching at his sleeve’s cuff. ‘There is much to do, too much to do.’

  The landlord had, it seemed, removed himself to bed long before, and Oldenberg - never mind that it amounted to theft - had taken one of the candles from behind his counter and carried it up to the room. This he lit and glued to the windowsill with a drop of spilt wax. It threw a variable brightness through the small room: the uneven plaster, the two rickety beds.

  ‘I must confess to being tired, sir,’ said Bates, seating himself on one of the beds.

  ‘Tired? Nonsense.’ The Dean sat in the room’s single chair opposite, and talked. He talked on and on, as Bates became more and more exhausted. For stretches of the conversation Bates maintained his interest; but midnight passed, and the small hours tolled dimly on the grandfather clock downstairs, and he grew more and more tired. Oldenberg could not, however, be gainsaid.

  ‘Tired sir ? No, no. Thought ventilates the brain,’ he insisted, ‘wakes the spirits, and if you apply your thoughts, sir, you will feel fresh, fresh as a new daisy. Day’s eye, the word means, the eye of the day. For the flower is thought to represent the sun. Sun of God, ha-ha-ah-ha! Do you see? A miniature sun, but then again, do we not now live in a world of miniatures?’

  ‘Miniatures?’ Bates was not following.

  ‘The little people - people, but little. No? No?’

  His conversation wandered over all terrain, like a vagabond. But a constant was Oldenberg’s fascination with the Lilliputians. ‘The scale,’ he kept saying. ‘I’ll tell you, the scale is the key.’

  ‘Key to what, sir?’ But Bates was so very tired now. It required a continual effort of will to remain awake.

  ‘Why,’ said the Dean, his eyes wide with innocent astonishment at Bates’s ignorance. ‘The key to all, sir. Pan-solution. Pansoluo, I solve all. The key to everything.’

  ‘I confess I don’t follow you sir.’

  ‘The scale,’ said the Dean, getting off his bed and pacing up and down the length of the room in his excitement, ‘is everything. What is the scale? One to one twelfth. One to one twelfth.’

  Bates’s upper eyelids felt as if they were composed of some lodestone material magnetically attracted to the lower eyelids. It required specific effort to hold the lids apart. ‘One to one twelfth,’ he repeated.

  ‘Think of the world revealed to us,’ said Oldenberg. ‘The Lilliputian is one twelfth the size of a man. The Brobdingnagian is twelve times as large. The number is a significant one. Do you agree?’

  ‘I do not doubt you are correct,’ said Bates.

  The Dean sat down again. ‘I shall tell you in what way this number governs the universe,’ he said. From his travelling bag he brought out a leather-bound volume, something like an accounts book. ‘Do you know,’ he said, looking up with sparkling eyes, ‘that the Old Testament is exactly twelve times the size of the New?’

  ‘Truly?’ said Bates.

  ‘In order to arrive at the correct number, one must,’ said Oldenberg, leafing through his ledger, ‘include the apocryphal books in the Old Testament, and disregard certain of the less important New Testament books, but the calculation is sound, the ratio is sound. Ah!’ He bent the covers of his volume back until the spine creaked, and laid it upon the bed beside him.

  A yawn grew inside Bates, enormous as a silent scream. He strained like Samson to suppress it, but it shuddered up through his life and wrenched his jaws apart. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Excuse me?’

  Oldenberg did not seem to have noticed. ‘My great love amongst the sciences is astronomy. The noble study of the heavens. It is seemly, too, that a vicar of Christ study the heavens, for God has written there in languages of light and darkness for us to read.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Bates.

  ‘At Yorkshire - outside the city of York-I studied the heavens through the large telescope. Excellent astronomical landscape that, excellent for the science of astronomy, looking up, looking at the heavens, you know. Outside York, I studied there.’

  Bates interest revived a little. ‘Our present destination?’

  ‘Ah, yes. But astronomy was the least of it,’ the Dean rattled on. ‘The great cannon was constructed, and I was part of the team.’

  ‘I do find this device to be of particular interest ...’ Bates started saying. But the Dean, carried along on his own train of words, did not hear him.

  ‘For anybody acquainted with the principles of ballistics, by which is meant the science of free flight, the mechanics of the device are straightforward. Imagine a carriage, built of iron of course, and padded within. Imagine this carriage shaped so as to fly through the medium of the air with the minimum of impediment. Can you visualise such a thing?’

  Bates murmured and nodded. He was not sure how the conversa
tion had come round to this matter. Not that it was uninteresting. But he was tired.

  ‘In effect we would travel-I say,’ the Dean started up from his bed with his fist clenched together and his eyes alight with enthusiasm, ‘I say we will, we will travel - with the speed of a bullet, in the manner of a bullet. Inside a bullet, inside a bullet of magnificent proportions.’

  ‘Travel in the manner of a bullet,’ repeated Bates. ‘Pardon me, but—’

  ‘Naturally,’ said the Dean, seating himself again, and talking as if replying to a completely different comment from Bates, ‘the Crown wished the cannon merely as a device for bombarding enemies of Britain, not as a device for travel. They themselves insisted that it be oriented as it is - others wanted it oriented towards France. I worked with the great Davidowic. Have you heard of him? A Hebrew sir, but a genius. He died before he could accept the primacy of Christ into his heart, but what genius he had! And Christ was a Jew too, let us not forget. We worked together. Others would say I was his junior, sir, but he treated me with marvellous condescension. And the Crown was, at that time, the Crown, sir, was confident of victory over the French. Foolishness! Vanity! Nevertheless, they assumed that victory was imminent, and they looked to a more distant future. Would you believe,’ the Dean said, with a giggle in his voice, ‘that they thought the conquest of France a certainty, and were already looking forward to the next war? The next war!’

  ‘Against Russia,’ Bates prompted.

  ‘Indeed. Whether it was feared that the Russians would attempt to take the East India Company by force, and occupy the Indian lands, or whether the plan was for an English army to proceed into southern Russia, I know not. But at any rate the cannon was orientated in such a way that a shell might be fired to land in that place.’

  ‘Prodigious,’ murmured Bates.

  ‘Truly, truly,’ agreed the Dean, nodding so violently that his cheeks wobbled. ‘A prodigious quantity of gunpowder would be required, and a cannon shell of prodigious size. But it is perfectly possible, the laws of physics permit it. Think of such ordnance! No Russian cavalry charge could capture it - or escape it!’

  ‘Could it be accurate?’ Bates asked. ‘I hardly believe it could, at such distance.’

  ‘The calculations required are very precise,’ Oldenberg agreed. ‘Very complex. This is why the French are so desirous of claiming the cannon.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because their machine - their calculating machine - renders such work a matter of seconds, rather than days. Seconds! And the accuracy is much improved.’ Oldenberg shook his head. ‘They can calculate the trajectory, the force of gunpowder required, in moments. Accordingly they could use the cannon in a way that not even the most optimistic English generals planned . . . they could fire half-a-dozen of shells in a minute. They could flatten their enemy from beyond the horizon.’ He shook his head again.

  ‘But why should the French desire to attack India? Or Russia?’

  ‘Or Afghanistan neither - you are correct,’ said the Dean. ‘They have no quarrel with these peoples, no, no. But the gun can be used to fire upon any country along that line, along the line of its orientation, do you see? They could fire upon Germany - Austria-Hungary - Turkey. Perhaps their military ambitions are in that direction? Besides, once they’ve claimed the device, and seen for themselves how it is constructed, they may build another, and angle it where they choose - they could build hundreds.’ Oldenberg shrugged and scratched the top of his head.

  ‘You seem cavalier, sir,’ said Bates, trying to stifle another yawn. ‘As Englishmen we should be alarmed, surely, at such a development?’

  ‘Perhaps. But I plan to take us far away from this war-plagued little country - far away - far away.’ Trembling with excitement, the Dean hopped from his bed and sat next to Bates. ‘There is a hollowed shell of the sort I mentioned.’

  ‘There is?’ Bates was uncertain what the Dean was talking about.

  ‘Yes. Padded inside, room for four - room for you and me, certainly. And we’ll fly to India!’

  ‘To India?’

  ‘I am very good friends with the Archbishop of Bombay. He and I are very good friends. Balliol. Very. And whilst India remains free of French interference we can find a sanctuary there. We might escape.’

  ‘Could we not merely take ship to India?’ asked Bates.

  ‘The French would never allow it, sir! Never allow it! I know too many things. The things inside my head,’ and here he smacked his head, flapped the palm of his hand against it with alarming force, ‘would bring tremendous advantage to any General campaigning against them! In this noddle, sir! In here, sir! I am too important to the French, sir! They’d never permit me to sail away. And if I did go, they’d send a ship to recover me. Piracy, a funeral pyre. Puero maxima debetur reverentia. No! The cannon is the only way. They’ll not catch that, once it’s in flight! Eh? Eh?’

  ‘But, Dean,’ Bates said, rubbing his eyes and desiring sleep very greatly. ‘How can it be? The expulsion of such a shell from such a cannon - it would be too violent a shock to a human body. Would it not?’

  ‘Quite so,’ said the Dean, his voice a little calmer. ‘Quite so - turn a human corpus into porridge.’

  ‘And upon landing the shell would explode - would it not? Even if it did not carry explosives within it, the force of impact would shatter the shell and its occupants into a thousand tatters. Would it not?’

  Oldenberg was silent.

  ‘Would it not, Dean?’ Bates pressed. ‘Pray, tell me, for I do confess a great interest in the device.’

  There was no answer. Bates leaned forward in his chair.

  Oldenberg was asleep. He had fallen into a slumber whilst sitting up. Carefully, Bates placed a blanket across his lap. From Oldenberg’s bed Bates took up his book. Its pages were covered with columns of numbers, nothing more. He shut it, placed it on the floor. Lying himself down on his bed fully clothed, he fell into immediate sleep.

  [4]

  Bates was woken shortly after dawn by the noise of horses. The Dean, in his chair, was snoring like a rusty axle.

  There was no water in the jug beside the washbowl. Bates rubbed his face with dry palms and resolved to have words with the landlord. Outside, the noise of activity was growing distinctly. Bates stood at the window, tiny stained diamonds of glass in a fishnet of lead, to see what was going on outside. Below him he could see dozens of French cavalrymen passing by, two-by-two, moving briskly along the road past the inn and heading north. In a few minutes the room seemed filled with the sound of jingle and trot, and the occasional shivery horse-voice. The troop passed off and it was quiet again.

  He dressed as best he could and made his way downstairs. The landlord was not about. Unable to order hot water he was forced to wash himself at the pump in the back yard. Stomping, cold and wet and in poor humour, to the front of the inn he found the French Colonel Larroche smoking his pipe in the misty air.

  ‘Good day, Mister Bates.’

  ‘Colonel, good day.’

  They stood together for a while. Bates watched as the half-dozen soldiers from Larroche’s platoon made the carriages ready for the day. They were greasing the axles, wiping the sides, stitching the loose flaps of the leather of the tackle. The carriage carrying the Computational Device seemed somehow more solid than the others. Two men stood at attention beside it, the metal spires of their rifles poking over their shoulders.

  Bates sat himself on the lip of a stone horse trough. The water inside shuddered with the movement of a great many tadpoles.

  ‘I saw,’ said Bates, ‘a troop of horse pass by. Saw it from my window.’

  Larroche puffed at his pipe, regarding Bates coolly.

  ‘They do not join our party?’

  A puff spilled from the corner of the Colonel’s mouth and spilled away from him through the air, like foam washed along the top of an invisibly flowing stream. ‘No.’

  ‘They are on manoeuvres, perhaps?’

  The Colonel
said nothing.

  ‘I only wondered. Perhaps there is fighting further north, and they proceed rapidly to join their comrades.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Larroche, tipping his pipe upside-down and knocking the bowl against the inn wall. ‘Perhaps the fighting is not so far north.’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’ But Larroche had walked away.

  Bates looked down, and the slimy water in the trough bubbled coldly and slowly with the action of the creatures within it. Hundreds of squirming tadpoles, each with a body as fat as a knucklebone, all of them blank-faced and black-bodied and repulsive.

  Mist, the remnants of which were yet to be evaporated from the more distant hills, gave the landscape a laminate appearance: the vividness and fulfilled reality of the near at hand layered upon by two-dimensional shapes made of nothing but blank canvas, and then the slightly stippled white of the further distance which appeared as if in readiness for the painter’s touch to add its colours.