Operation Pax

by Michael Innes

  ‘Listen – and don’t be so quick to make irrelevant remarks.’ Remnant’s tone held its old assurance. ‘It’s a principle of Oxford roof-climbing that there is no natural feature known to climbers of which there is not a pretty fair artificial equivalent in the buildings of this city. And the principle has been worked out very fully.’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest doubt it has.’

  ‘Do you know about the Mendip caves?’

  A dim and horrid light began to dawn on Jane. ‘No – I don’t and what’s more–’

  ‘They form a very extensive system of underground caverns which it is possible to get into here and there – with a very tight squeeze. Really very tight. Not a game, for instance, for your friend Bultitude. Well, like everything else in the world, the fissures that take you down there have their equivalent here in Oxford. Or rather have one equivalent. You’re standing beside it now.’

  ‘You mean – ?’

  Roger Remnant laughed, very softly. ‘I mean that you and I, Jane, are about to enter the world’s greatest library.’

  7

  Somewhere at her feet Jane heard a muted clang, as of a metal plate or grid forcibly displaced. For a fraction of a second a torch flashed on in Remnant’s hand, and she had a glimpse of what appeared a very small circular aperture flush with the ground. Then the darkness was again entire and Remnant was once more whispering.

  ‘Listen carefully. This is important. As it happens, I’ve never made this expedition, for a reason that I can tell you about later. But I have the facts. First, there’s your clothes. People commonly strip.’

  ‘Thank you – no. I’ve lost quite enough perfectly good clothes today already.’

  ‘Good enough. But they absolutely mustn’t bunch up. Can you grip your skirt between your knees?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That should do. Your measurements are pretty fair.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘You go down feet first – legs together, hands palm downwards on your thighs, wrists in the pit of your tummy, all quite rigid. Can you feel your heart beating?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jane was tart. ‘I can.’

  ‘Let it count five for you as you go down. Then begin to pull up. That means you jack-knife ever so slightly. Behind down and knees up. You may lose a bit of skin. But it’s perfectly all right, unless you start slowing down too suddenly and too soon.’

  ‘What happens then?’

  ‘The confidential character of our mission fades out. I fetch the police, the Fire Brigade and the University architect. Sappers are sent for from the nearest garrison town.’

  ‘I see. I don’t think it’s a thing to think about very much.’

  ‘Then down we go – me first. Don’t worry. It’s not half as bad as that crazy nylon rope.’

  ‘I’m not worrying. I just want to say–’

  Remnant had vanished. For a moment Jane thought he had stepped behind her. ‘Roger,’ she said softly.

  There was no reply. Her sense that there was any longer somebody near her must have been illusory. He had really gone – had vanished down that small hole that now lay invisibly at her feet. He probably has the disadvantage, she suddenly thought, of not having the sort of heart that makes itself heard… For a second she hesitated. What she had meant to say was that her appointment with John made this underground proposal impossible. And he had known it well enough. His cutting her short like that – his simply vanishing like the bad fairy in pantomime – had been typical Remnant unscrupulousness… Jane found that she had sat down on very chill stone – and that, as once before that day, her legs were dangling in nothingness. The shaft, chute, or whatever it was, felt quite desperately narrow, and she had a sudden vivid sense of what it must be like to be the lead in a pencil. But Remnant had gone. And his shoulders must be far broader than her hips. Jane went too.

  She certainly lost some skin, but there was more of indignity in the thought than painfulness in the sensation. Her brain worked with extraordinary speed. As she fell she guessed what the particular hazard of this journey must be. The chute must have a kink in it, or must somewhere flatten out like a section of a big dipper. If you gained too much momentum there would be a nasty crash at the end. If you checked it too soon you simply came to a stop in a spot too tight for wriggling. She felt that she had never had a nastier thought… She was suddenly in empty space, and Remnant had caught her and set her on her feet.

  Her knees were unsteady, and she felt the need of something to say. ‘It was absolutely horrible. Miles worse than the nylon rope. But just your cup of tea. Why have you never done it before?’

  ‘Because I like shaving at half past seven and having breakfast at eight.’

  ‘What has that to do with it?’

  ‘Well, of course it’s one-way traffic. You couldn’t go up that, could you? There’s a bit of Latin I once knew–’

  ‘Facilis descensus Averno – quite so. I knew some spark of learning would be struck out of you sooner or later, Mr Remnant. But I don’t see–’

  ‘And there isn’t any other way out. The whole place is locked up at night as strongly as a bank. I suppose the books must be valuable.’

  ‘I suppose they must.’ Jane was alarmed and angry. ‘Do you mean to say that we have to stay here till morning? John–’

  ‘Bother John.’

  ‘I won’t bother John.’

  ‘Bless him then. The normal situation is this. Chaps coming down to the Mendip caves simply have to lurk until the place is opened up, and then dodge their way out. The few people who have made the attempt have got away with it so far. But–’

  ‘Of all the perverted and idiotic uses to which to put–’

  ‘–a great library? I’m quite sure you’re absolutely right. But, as I was saying, to slip out when things open up is desperately difficult. Sooner or later, somebody will be caught, and there will be a fearful row – far worse than over roofs and towers and things – and the Mendip caves will just cease to be a feature of Oxford life. Which will be a great pity, in my opinion.’

  ‘Can’t we get up to ground level?’

  ‘I think not. We’re inside a vast, well-ventilated safe. Look at it that way.’ Remnant fell silent for a moment. They were standing in complete darkness. ‘I have got an idea, all the same. When we’ve found this paper–’

  ‘I don’t believe we can possibly find it.’

  ‘Don’t be dismal, girl. When we’ve found this paper, it occurs to me that we might rustle up a telephone. The place must be stuffing with them, and one of them may be connected with the city exchange. In that case, we’d just ring up the old boy who runs this place–’

  ‘Bodley’s Librarian?’ Jane, who thought that she had already touched the uttermost verge of horror, felt her blood curdle in her veins.

  ‘I don’t see why not. He could come along with a key and let us out. Glad to assist in the course of justice, and so on. I’d ask him to keep dark about the caves, of course.’

  ‘To keep –’ Jane found herself speechless. At last, with a struggle she found words. ‘We’ll tackle that problem when it comes. At the moment, the point is that we don’t in the least know how or where to find this batch of books. Particularly as we’re in pitch darkness.’

  ‘A point well taken. But here you are.’ And Remnant snapped on his torch.

  The beam fell on books. This, at least, was reassuring; Remnant had not been wildly out in his calculations and landed them in a sewer. Jane remembered the old fantasy she had indulged that morning of being precipitated through some hidden trapdoor into dark and subterranean waters, deep beneath the foundations of Bodley. It had been, she decided with interest, a clear case of dream-like precognitive thinking. One’s actual dreams were said to be full of distorted images from one’s own future…

  Her eye was following the sweep of Remnant’s torch. It was a powerful torch, and its beam had now moved laterally far into darkness. But it was still playing upon books. It swept back
, and then off in the other direction. The books ran off, apparently to infinity, in that direction too. It struck her that she had seen something like this not long ago. For a second she was puzzled. And then she knew of what she had been reminded. It was the high and interminable boundary wall of Milton Manor. But that had appeared to lose itself in distance because it was a single great curve – what the old writers on aesthetics liked to call an artificial infinite. The books marched on and on in straight lines.

  ‘I had no notion of this.’ Remnant – for the first time since she had known him – seemed impressed. He also seemed puzzled. ‘Do they keep all the old ones?’ he asked.

  Caught unawares, Jane laughed aloud. And her laughter pealed and rolled through vaulted immensities, to come echoing back to her, deepened to a sort of stage thunder. ‘They didn’t always,’ she said. ‘At one time they had rather a knack of selling things. But not much goes out of the place now.’

  ‘It’s very depressing.’ Remnant’s reaction was decided. ‘I’ve never before been made so powerfully aware of life’s utter futility. All those chaps scribbling away, persuaded that fame and immortality were just round the corner. And now nobody so much as remembers their existence, except this old fellow – what do you call him? – Bodley’s Librarian. It’s the sort of thing that makes one look round for a drink. Sorry to be such a barbarian.’

  ‘You’re not terribly singular. A great library made Dr Johnson feel much the same… But now you see that it will be rather difficult finding what we’re after.’

  ‘It’s just a matter of time. And we’ve got all night for it.’ Remnant was dogged. ‘Good Lord – look at that!’

  He had turned the torch upward, seeking the roof. But as its beam climbed and climbed it still met books – although books now in part obscured by open-work catwalks of cast iron, by vertical ladders and spiral staircases, and by criss-cross of supporting girders. Jane felt slightly giddy. But she managed to speak firmly. ‘Try downwards.’

  The beam swept down. They were standing on just such a catwalk as they had been observing high above their heads. Below them was another infinity of books.

  It was like something, Jane thought, by Piranesi – a dream, architecture cunningly devised to suggest at once the reach and the impotence of the human mind. But Remnant’s response was now severely practical. ‘It all seems reasonably orderly. You made it sound, you know, quite cock-eyed. But there are all the books–’

  ‘Nothing like all the books. This is just a place that was dug out forty years ago to hold a million or thereabouts. There are stacks and stacks elsewhere: in Bodley itself, in the New Bodleian, in the basement of the old Ashmolean–’

  ‘I see. Well, this will do for a start. But the point seems to me to be this: the more books there are, the more efficient must be the system of running them to earth. All that case-mark stuff can’t be the absolute abracadabra. What sort of people actually find the books?’

  ‘Quite small boys, I’ve been told – although one hardly ever sees them. Some people say it has to be either boys or dwarfs, so that they can wind their way between some of the stacks. Rather like children in the coal mines long ago. But that’s unreliable.’

  ‘Any ponies? They have them in mines.’

  ‘No. I think it’s a matter of mechanization having been brought right up to the face, so to speak. There are said to be conveyor belts and pneumatic tubes, and all sorts of gadgets like that.’

  ‘But the crucial point is those boys. No doubt they’re bright lads, but they can’t all be little Einsteins and Isaac Newtons. The job must be organized so that they get a grip on it fairly easily. There may be this collection and that collection, as you say. But there must be overall order, and a key to the whole thing. We can certainly puzzle it out in time. The trouble is’ – Remnant hesitated – ‘that there may be others on the scent who understand the system already. I expect most dons do.’

  ‘Dons?’

  ‘My dear girl, we can’t ignore the fact that we know two of them to be mixed up in this affair in a rather unaccountable way.’

  ‘But we’re in and they’re out.’ Jane felt very clear-headed. ‘They can’t get in until Bodley opens up. If we could find the telephone you spoke of and put up a sufficiently convincing show, we could make sure that those likely books were searched before anybody else was allowed to lay hands on them. And surely that’s our best plan.’

  ‘Good girl – fairly good girl.’ Remnant had begun to move cautiously forward, shining his torch before them. ‘But about others getting in – getting in any time now – well, I just don’t know. Think of that Gregory’s business. I got in there just as we have got in here. And there was old Ourglass already, almost scooping the pool. And – mind you – I expect the sort of people who run places like this are pretty guileless. Other-worldly, and all that. Suppose a plausible and unscrupulous colleague hurried in on this Bodley’s Librarian as he was flooring his fourth glass of port–’

  ‘I think you have distorted ideas of life among senior members of this University.’ Jane paused. ‘Still, I see what you mean.’

  ‘It comes back to this: that the best thing will be for us to win out now. And first, we want lights.’

  ‘Isn’t that risky?’

  ‘I don’t see how it can be. We might be at the bottom of a mine, for all anybody in Oxford can know about it… And – by jove – here we are.’ Remnant’s hand had gone out to a cluster of switches; he flicked at them rapidly one by one. Clear light sprang up everywhere. What they had hitherto only glimpsed piecemeal they now saw in its entirety. Thus displayed, the vast storehouse was not less impressive than when Remnant’s torch had been exploring it. It was this, partly, as being another world from the Bodley that Jane knew. There, the buildings and its furnishings were heavy with immemorial associations and rich in intrinsic charm, so that the books were no more than an element in the total effect. But here, everything was modern and bleak and functional; the single use of the place was to range in an accessible manner as many books as could be crowded in. There were three main levels; they stood now on the second; and this and the level above them were no more than a system of girders supporting the stacks and the narrow lanes that ran between them and at intervals intersected them. Thus visibly on every side of them, and above them and below them too, were hundreds of thousands of books. It was a striking spectacle, but it was an uncommonly oppressive one as well. The narrow lanes were mere slits or canyons between the interminable and towering cliffs of leather and cloth and vellum. These went so monotonously on and on that one was constrained to fancy some illusion – one, perhaps, whereby a spectacle of less credible proportions was merely magnified by a cunning arrangement of mirrors. Nor, whether one looked up or down, did the eye and mind gain any relief. For the first time in her life Jane felt that she had some inkling of what it must feel like to be a neurotic suffering from acute claustrophobia. Living in a submarine must be something like this – a Jules Verne submarine as cramped as a real one but as big as a grand hotel. She would have given anything for space to swing a cat.

  Remnant was busy with a pencil and paper against the side of the nearest stack. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘One copy for you and one for me, since we may find it quicker to split up. Title and casemark of the four likely books. They’re as complicated as you said. But I’ve noticed something about them. They’re in pairs. These two differ only in the last couple of figures on the line. And it’s the same with those. So we have just two rows of books to find, all told. There’s a start in that.’

  Jane doubted its being much of a start, but she said nothing. Certainly Remnant’s observation was accurate as far as it went; in two several places in the Library they had to find a couple of books that would be shelved almost side by side. But in the Library, she reminded herself grimly; not necessarily in this single vast chamber hollowed out under Radcliffe Square. She looked at the stack nearest to her – one of a thousand identical units in the place – and frow
ned. ‘Why is it so broad?’ she asked. ‘Books don’t require all that depth.’

  ‘I’ve always been told that some are very deep indeed.’ Remnant seemed to take considerable satisfaction in this little joke. He was peering at the stack. ‘Actually, it’s pretty cunning – a space saving arrangement. I wonder if the old boy thought it up himself.’

  ‘You have a very primitive notion of the functions of Bodley’s Librarian. But how does it work?’

  ‘Can’t you see? They all move on rails. That allows you to mass four tiers of books without any space between. It’s simply two double-fronted bookcases that move parallel to each other and almost touching. And in every long row of them there’s one gap. You just find your place, and, if what you want is behind, you give a shove and get the gap where you want it… Like this.’ Remnant, as delighted as a boy with a new mechanical toy, gave a thrust at the case beside him. It rolled away, traversed the gap to which he had pointed, and came to rest with a dull thud against the case beyond. ‘Isn’t that enchanting? You could have your gap in the same place on both sides and be able to dodge through.’ He grew enthusiastic. ‘You could have a sort of perpetually changing course, and think up a sort of dodging game with rules. I wonder if the old boy –’

  ‘For pity’s sake get to work.’ Jane was exasperated. ‘If we have to shove a lot of these things about it easily doubles the job… I wish I had a notion where to begin.’

  ‘Haven’t you? Look down at your feet.’

  Jane looked and was abashed. She had noticed that the ends of each stack bore case-marks. She now saw that at every main intersection the floor was painted with a system of arrows and symbols designed to show what further case-marks must be sought in one direction or another. She studied first this and then the paper in her hand. ‘I don’t think we’re burning hot,’ she said, ‘but it does seem to me that we may have had the enormous luck to begin not altogether cold… I believe all four really will be in this place, after all. Look – you hunt the two “perlegi” ones and I’ll hunt the two others.’