Stone of Destiny (16 page)

In this wilderness of suburbs I was suddenly homesick. I thought of my own underpopulated country, and how easy it would be to hide an army in it. I saw the Braes up behind Paisley where I had been born, and remembered the greyness of them in winter when the south-west wind came in from Ailsa Craig and the rain washed them and bent the rough grass flat. That was a country where a man had room to move and think without trespassing on his neighbour’s garden or thinking his neighbour’s thoughts. I thought of the island of Arran, which hangs like a mirage far beyond Renfrewshire, but clear in the grey sea on a good day. I had gone there on holiday once. You could tramp over the hills all day and see nothing but the heather and the green bracken; you could watch the rain come in over the Kilbrannan Sound and wipe Goat Fell clean off the picture. I wondered if any of these men of Kent had ever seen the blush of green bracken on the throat of a hill. If they had not, I pitied them.

It was a far cry from the hills to this place and we knew it well. Half a mile down the road we stopped and looked around us. Anything was better than to drive until dawn brought arrest. It seemed to our strained nerves that to make the effort of hiding the Stone was better than to drive aimlessly. On the south side of the
road was a stretch of grass, perhaps 20 paces across; beyond this was a clump of bushes in which a sparrow would have looked like an eagle. With the optimism born of fear we dragged the Stone across and thrust it into the undergrowth, only to drag it back, laughing at our folly, to fight down the fear and panic which was rising in our throats. Were we never going to come to an end?

We let in the clutch and drove east, thinking of the seashore. A few miles further on we passed the outline of aircraft hangars on our right and shortly after came to a line of trees. Alan stopped the car and I ran over to examine the place.

It was ideal. The road at this point was 10 yards out from the trees, and beyond the fence the ground sloped steeply down an embankment to a wood. The embankment was overgrown, and littered with dead leaves, windblown straw, and scraps of paper. Above all a quick scratch with my hand showed that the leaves had kept the frost from penetrating the ground, so that the earth was soft, and could easily be hollowed away to make a bed for the Stone.

I went back to Alan and again we manhandled the Stone from the car. We had almost worn away the upholstery, but that was the least of our worries. We took the map with us, and whenever a car passed, as we worked our way across the grass strip, we sat on the Stone and consulted the map, hoping that we did not look too conspicuous. Sitting in the black dark reading a map, we did not look in any way conspicuous. We looked plain daft. It was a measure of our tiredness. We dragged the Stone under the fence, and halfway down the slope I hollowed a recess in the earthy mould. We lifted the Stone bodily into it, and covered it first with earth, then with leaf mould and straw, and then with papers. In the dim of the night we stood back to admire our handiwork. We were certain we had done a good job.

We returned to the car and drove on to Rochester. We were not sure exactly where we were and we wanted to get a fix on a large town. In five minutes we came to the outskirts and determined to
get a meal, or a drink at least, since we were far from home and very tired. To our surprise the pub we approached was closed. We asked a passer-by the time and he indicated the clock on a church steeple, which showed it was after midnight. Dismayed at the lateness of the hour we set off back the way we had come, but before we did we searched the car for incriminating evidence. The iron bar to which we had hoped to lash the Stone on our first attempt was all we had left. We had wrapped it up in crepe paper to make it look like a Christmas gift if we had to carry it through the streets. We ripped the paper off it and left it lying behind the pub. I expect it is there still.

Leaving the pub we checked the milometer on the car, and rechecked it as we passed the spot where the Stone was hidden. We were two and a half miles distant from Rochester. Our duties ended, I lay along the back seat, and Alan put his toe down for Scotland. We had hidden the Stone where it would never be found. We alone knew where it was hidden, and we were certain that when we were arrested we could get the information out to some fellow Scot. We only hoped that Kay was as fortunate with her piece as we had been with ours.

I lay and slept as I was now very tired. It was not the 90-odd hours since we had been in bed that did it. It was the way we had passed them. They had been hectic. Now that we had discharged our responsibilities I slept like a dead man. As we approached the outskirts of London I woke up and took over. Alan, white-faced and staring, stumbled into the back seat and collapsed. Thus, one sleeping and the other driving, we passed through London. When we reached the open road we both slept in snatches, pulling into the gateway of a field for half an hour, and then one would wake and drive on. It is a journey that is recalled only through a haze of exhaustion. Some time after dawn I wakened and looked around me. We had managed to reach the Great North Road near Biggleswade. Indeed I recognised the very spot because I had been stationed near there during my time in the Royal Air Force.
We were 50 miles from London, and 80 miles from Rochester. We had taken 8 hours to cover 80 miles, which broke no record. But we were on the way home. Although we had a long way to travel, home was very real to us. Beyond all reason Scotland seemed safe.

Swiftly I eased myself out into the cold greyness, and the fresh air slapped me across the face. It was a bonny morning and I felt my blood leap at the feel of it. A hoar frost had turned the grass white and softened the brown of the ploughed fields. A morning mist hung over the fat Bedfordshire farmlands, and the sun glowed like a red ball well up in the eastern sky. I stretched and straightened myself, and the knots in my back worked loose. I was terribly glad I was alive.

I had left the door open, and the fresh air wakened Alan. He climbed out wearily and then blinked and smiled.

‘Where are we?’ he asked.

‘Biggleswade,’ I said.

‘How odd!’ He seemed surprised. ‘We’ve come a long way then.’

Since he had driven much of the way the remark shows how tired we were. We got out the map and gleefully studied the road we had come. We could remember little of it. All these miles made good seemed like a prize won in a raffle.

We washed ourselves in the roadside frost and dried ourselves on my towel, which was dirty and clammy and seemed uncivilised compared to the cleanness of the morning. Then we lit cigarettes as though the fresh air was not good enough by itself.

We looked at each other and smiled. Last night’s horror of
weariness had passed completely, and what for 24 hours had seemed like a dream we now knew to be reality. We had crossed the Border and raided the very heart of Englishry, and we were returning unscathed, while all around us the authorities gnashed their teeth and held committee meetings. Again and again we went over the details. ‘Remember this! Remember this!’ we cried. We recalled all the incidents, and contrasted our dejection when I had been caught by the watchman with our present elation. There is no feeling quite like the shadowless happiness of the hour after success. We drove off shouting and singing, quite unbalanced with carelessness. We were young and triumphant, and all the glory of the morning was on our lips.

Self-consciousness had parted from us long ago. We resurrected some of the old Jacobite songs and gave new meaning to them, quite unaware that in Scotland almost everyone who could sing was doing the same thing. This was something to sing about. As we passed through village after village our voices drifted out of the window, to the amazement of the stolid English pedestrians, who must have thought we were drunk. We careered up England roaring and singing.

Occasionally we fell silent and talked about Kay, who was our only worry. We had had no news since I had telephoned Bill the previous night, and we were very afraid she had been caught. She had been in the Anglia, the dangerous Anglia, which had been seen outside the Abbey. It seemed inconceivable that she could get through in such a kenspeckle car, and we hoped that she had gone to ground. It would be a hollow victory if she and her part of the Stone had been captured. We wondered, too, what had happened to Gavin, but we felt that he would be quite safe, for there was no reason to believe that he was a suspect.

Then we would fall to singing again, or I would recite ‘Edinbane’, one of the modern ballads of Skye, which I have repeated to myself many times since in lonely travelling. It tells
about the happiness of the journey’s end, and it was not inappropriate to us as we drove up England towards home.

Occasionally, when we had tired of verse or song, I would think of Bill Craig, and how he would regret for the rest of his life that he had not come with us.

In more serious moments, we talked about what we had done. The shadow of jail did not fall across our minds, and since we had seen no papers we could not tell what the general reaction was going to be. Anyone interested in history would know the reason for what we had done, but we hoped that our action might find a more general acclaim. But, in truth, we were too wrapped up in the joy of accomplishment to weigh nicely the final result.

We took turns at driving, and although the roads were treacherous we made good speed, since we knew exactly what our car would do. When we came to Stamford we stopped, and I went into the post office to telephone Bill for news. Alan went off to find somewhere we could get breakfast. In a short time he joined me with the grim news that everywhere was closed. It seemed that the natives were celebrating some festival called Boxing Day.

I got on to Bill almost immediately. I could sense his delight when he heard my voice. He must have had an anxious night, wondering where we were, what we were doing, and knowing that he could do nothing to help.

‘How’s Christmas?’ I asked.

‘Fine,’ he said. I could hear the chuckle in his voice. My vociferous contempt and dislike for Christmas was notorious. ‘There’s a big party going on. One of the guests has just arrived. He’s fine. We’re still waiting for his partner.’

Good! That meant that Gavin was home, and that Kay was still safe.

We thought around for other double-talk to confuse any operator who might be whiling away the time by listening in, and finally realised the absurdity of the idea and relapsed into realities.

‘The Border’s closed,’ he said. ‘Everything coming into Scotland’s being searched.’

‘Are the English putting up customs posts at last?’ I asked innocently, and we both laughed.

‘You’d better go to ground.’

‘Not at all,’ I said. It was his job to worry, and my job to refuse advice. Go to ground, indeed! We had no friends like Kay had to hide with, and could only travel on hopefully. When he saw I was adamant, he urged me again, fearing more for the Stone than for us.

‘Well, for God’s sake don’t lose it now. If you’ve hidden it, send me a map.’

On this note of caution he rang off, and I reflected on what he had said. I did not wish to commit the hiding place of the Stone to paper, in case in some unknown way the police had got on to Bill. Yet it was the safest thing to do. Suppose we were captured and sent to prison without getting a chance to disclose where the Stone lay? Or worse still, suppose we were involved in an accident and both killed? These things happened. Was this great relic which had been venerated for thousands of years to pass from history because two boys had had their lives snuffed out in a skidding car? On the back of an envelope I drew a plan. I sealed it in a registered envelope and posted it to Bill at the University
Union. That would be safer than his home address. Then I went back and found Alan asleep in the car.

By the time we reached Grantham we were both in need of food. More important than that, the car was beginning to show signs of the ill use it had been put to. There was three inches of play in the steering wheel, and we were not at all sure that it would not come off in our hands at any moment. We were losing power too, but I was certain that a minor adjustment would cure that.

We were too late at the George for breakfast, and too early for lunch, but they fixed us up with parsimonious tea and biscuits. Then I took off my jacket and had a look at the car. I am fond of engines, and it is one of my particular vanities that they run better when I am standing near them. They like me. Furthermore before I had left Glasgow I had bought an expensive wrench. I had hoped to use it on an Abbey door, but the occasion had not arisen.

Now I attacked the carburettor with it, and in a few minutes I had cured it. The steering wheel was, however, quite beyond my compass, and although I poked and pried it was only to impress Alan that I knew what I was doing. We drove off, Alan complaining witheringly that before I had put spanner to car we could have got home in 12 hours, while now we would be lucky if we got home in 24.