Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (9780063021440)

Abel Goodfellow strode out alone from behind the barricade.

The commander met Abel in the middle of the street. They exchanged words. Robin could not hear what they were saying, but the conversation seemed heated. It began in a civil manner, but then both men started gesticulating wildly; at several points he was afraid the commander was about to put Abel in handcuffs. At last they came to some agreement. Abel retreated behind the barricade, walking backwards as if making sure no one shot him in the back. The mustachioed commander returned to his battalion. Then, to Robin’s amazement, the Army began to retreat.

‘He’s given us forty-eight hours to clear out,’ Abel reported upon his return to the tower lobby. ‘After that, he says they’re going to forcibly clear the barricades.’

‘So we’ve only got two days,’ said Robin. ‘That’s not enough time.’

‘More than that,’ said Abel. ‘This is all going to play out in fits and starts. They’ll give another warning. Then another. Then a third, strongly worded this time. They’ll drag their feet for as long as they can. If they were planning to storm us, they would have done so right then and there.’

‘They were perfectly happy shooting on the Swing Rioters,’ said Victoire. ‘And the Blanketeers.’

‘Those weren’t riots over territory,’ said Abel. ‘Those were riots over policies. The rioters didn’t need to hold their ground; when they were fired upon, they scattered. But we’re embedded in the heart of a city. We’ve staked our claim on the tower, and on Oxford itself. If any of those soldiers accidentally strikes a bystander, this spirals out of their control. They can’t break the barricades without breaking the city. And that, I think, Parliament cannot afford.’ He rose to leave. ‘We’ll keep them out. You keep writing your pamphlets.’

So this, an impasse between the strikers and the Army at the barricades on High Street, became their new status quo.

When it came down to it, the tower itself would provide much better protection than Abel Goodfellow’s hotchpotch obstructions could. But the barricades had more than mere symbolic value. They covered an area large enough to allow crucial supply lines in and out of the tower. This meant the scholars now got fresh food and fresh water (dinner that night was a bounty of fluffy white rolls and roast chicken), and it meant they had a reliable source for information on what was going on beyond the tower walls.

Despite all expectations, Abel’s supporters grew in number over the following days. The workmen strikers were better at getting the message out than any of Robin’s pamphlets. They spoke the same language, after all. The British could identify with Abel in a way they could not with foreign-born translators. Striking labourers from all over England came to join their cause. Young Oxford boys, bored with being cooped up at home and looking for something to do, turned up to the barricades simply because it seemed exciting. Women joined the ranks as well, out-of-work seamstresses and factory girls.

What a sight, this influx of defenders to the tower. The barricades had the peculiar effect of building community. They were all comrades in arms behind those walls, no matter their origins, and the regular deliveries of foodstuffs to the tower came with handwritten messages of encouragement. Robin had expected only violence, not solidarity, and he wasn’t sure what to do with this show of support. It defied what he had come to expect of the world. He was scared to let it make him hope.

One morning he discovered Abel had left them a gift – a wagon deposited before the tower doors, piled high with mattresses, pillows, and homespun blankets. A scrawled note was pinned to the top. This is on loan, it said. We’ll want these back when you’re done.

Meanwhile, inside the tower, they devoted themselves to making London fear the costs of prolonged striking.

Silver afforded London all of its modern conveniences. Silver powered the ice-making machines in the kitchens of London’s rich. Silver powered the engines of the breweries which supplied London’s pubs, and the mills which produced London’s flour. Without silver, the locomotives would cease to run. No new railways could be built. The water would run foul; the air would thicken with grime. When all the machines that mechanized the processes of spinning, weaving, carding, and roving ground to a halt, Britain’s textile industry would wholly collapse. The entire country faced possible starvation, for there was silver in the plough-frames, seed drills, threshing machines, and drainage pipes throughout Britain’s countryside.^*