Stone of Destiny (24 page)

We had some difficulty in finding the house, and finally we stopped and Bill put through a telephone call, so that when we eventually arrived our friend was waiting for us on his doorstep. Johnny, Alan and I sat in the car while Bill went out. The student was thoroughly trustworthy, but it was fairer to him as well as to us to let him know as little as possible. He was a friend of Bill’s, and Bill alone need deal with him.

In a short time Bill returned to report that all was well. Police activity had slackened in the area and there was every chance that we would get through. The road from Longtown to Langholm seemed the best bet, since it was one used much by local people and little by long-distance traffic. Our friend was certain that if we crossed the Border there, we would not be stopped. To make
doubly certain, Bill had arranged one of his code signals to be used if we were in any doubt. We were to telephone this man and ask him how his auntie was keeping. If the roads were clear, his auntie was well; if they were completely infested with police his auntie was very ill; gradations in her health between these two states would indicate how active the police were being. Fortunately the police kept within doors that weekend, so our friend’s holiday was not clouded by family sickness. We drove south from Carlisle knowing that our intelligence arrangements were in good hands.

Our trip from Penrith over the Pennines to Scotch Corner was less eventful than when we had travelled in the Ford. True, there had been a heavy snowfall, but the wheels of much traffic had hammered it flat. Although we skidded occasionally and had much wheel spin we were never in danger. If the roads were no worse than this we would make good time.

Up on the roof of England we halted to stretch our legs. The sky was overcast but a hazy glow came through from the lowland towns. Darkness is a decreasing phenomenon. On all sides stretched a measureless waste of snow, which shone wan and uneasy under a clouded sky. There was complete silence, except only for the crackle of the ice under our feet. We were frightened a little as though something were watching us, and we were glad when we piled into the car again and closed the doors against the cold mystery of the moor.

We continued to make good speed. Alan and I changed with each other fairly frequently so we did not tire. We ate hugely of the store of food that was in the car, and looked longingly at the gill of whisky that Alan’s father had given him; but we did not drink it. We were preserving it for a special occasion. Of sleep we had little, as both Johnny and Bill were fresh and their remarks lit the night with humour. Time and again, when sleep was almost there, laughter would come and destroy it. We did not mind. We were making good time. It was a time to laugh.

We stopped at Doncaster for a cup of tea. It was still early morning but the cafe was thronged with football fans on their way by bus to a game. They had early morning papers, and were talking more about the Stone than about football.
Ruat coelum!
If we were ousting football from its proper place the world was swinging off its axis. We buttoned up our accents and asked for tea and rolls in monosyllables, and urged Johnny to do most of the talking; but our ears were open and we were delighted to note the interest our actions had aroused.

Dawn had scarcely begun to show itself when the first flurry of snow swept across the headlights, blotting out the way ahead. At first the only hindrance was to visibility; each snowflake was a reflector which turned the headlights back into the eyes of the driver. Soon we were reduced to a crawl by our inability to see. Carried by the wind, the tiny snowflakes slid across the road until they found a hollow to lie in. In half an hour the drifts were several inches deep and the back wheels began to skate and spin. Snow built up under the mudguards and tore at the wheels. When dawn broke, and the snow was still falling, we knew that we were going to have to find a garage and have chains fitted. Outside Newark we stopped to pick up a lassie with a shopping basket who was waiting in the snow, hoping her bus was still running, and she was able to direct us to a garage where we would get good attention.

We found this under the shadow of Newark Castle. The mechanic assured us that he could attend to our wants, so we left the car in his charge. It was now coming on for ten o’clock and the nearby hotel rather brusquely refused us breakfast, so we had a wash and shave in their toilet and left under a barrage of frowns. We were still hungry, and on enquiry were directed to a small eating house full of stuffed birds and filth, where we had the worst breakfast in England for which we were charged the ruinous price of three and sixpence each.

For the last few hours we had held constant discussions on the
best place to stow the Stone in the car. Underneath the boot there was a receptacle for the spare wheel, and it seemed to me that, if the Stone would fit in there, it would be an ideal hiding place. We had some argument on the subject, and to settle the matter once and for all I bought a ruler to measure it. Then we discovered that none of us could remember the measurements of the Stone, so we had to buy a morning paper to find out. The papers contained a very full description of the Stone, including the exact measurements. I do not know if this description ever assisted anyone else, but it certainly proved invaluable to us.

The car was now ready and we went to collect it. The chains swallowed up a fair proportion of our fast-dwindling money. We found, however, that it was worth it. Although the snow had stopped falling it still lay deeply, and indeed we heard later that the roads we had travelled were classed by the motoring associations as impassable. It was not until we were well south of Stamford that we could stop to take the chains off.

This was now my opportunity to stop and measure the spare wheel aperture, and to my intense chagrin it was, as all the others had maintained, too small. It seemed that there was no alternative but to put the Stone in the boot. I did not like this. If the police stopped us, that would be the first place they would look. I wanted to have a chance to bluff it out even if we were stopped.

I checked over the car and discovered that the front passenger seat was separate from its backrest. The seat could be lifted out, springs, upholstery and all. We moved the backrest to the limit of its travel and removed the seat, measured the space carefully, and discovered that there was ample room for the Stone. True, the passenger would be uncomfortable. He would have to sit with his legs straight in front of him, but with a travelling rug over the Stone, and a coat over his knees, nothing would be visible unless the nearside door was opened. We would have to keep it locked.

At Letchworth we stopped, and Johnny and I got out to search for a travelling rug to cover the Stone in its new capacity of a car seat. The travelling rugs were more than we could afford, and we had to make do with a second-hand coat. Thus the Stone of Destiny came back to Scotland clad not in the purple of kings, but covered humbly with a commoner’s cast-off overcoat.

It was growing dark when we arrived in London, but we were very cheerful. It had taken us 24 hours to cover 400 miles, but we had kept ourselves fresh for the night’s work that lay ahead of us. We had plenty of time, because we did not wish to arrive at Rochester until late in the evening; the later we were, the fewer people there would be abroad. We headed for the West End and parked the car in the Strand. It will be remembered that on Christmas morning Bill had wired £10 to Gavin at the Strand post office. Gavin had returned to Glasgow and this money had never been uplifted. We determined to retrieve it now. Bill went into the post office, presented proof of Gavin’s identity, signed Gavin’s name and collected the money. Thus we added forgery to our many other heinous offences.

We bought papers and proceeded to a cafe to read them and to have a meal. The
Star
carried a headline: ‘
STONE: ARRESTS EXPECTED SOON
’. We laughed a little uneasily about this. It seemed a long time since we had left Scotland, and we wondered if there had been any new developments. Then we read on and found that the police were still dredging all adjacent stretches of water. It seemed a cold pastime for that season of the year.

Towards 8 p.m. we took the road to Rochester. Alan and I had lost ourselves so often on this road that we had little hope of finding it first time. London is not so much a city as a desert of houses crowded together. Outside the West End there is no character whatsoever, only an unvarying monotony of houses. I am sure that it is easier to be lonely in London than anywhere else on earth. Certainly it is a featureless wilderness to the comparative stranger. This time, however, we were lucky, and in an
amazingly short time we were passing the familiar Elizabethan roadhouse and shooting along the avenue of poplars.

It was a dark night but not too dark for our purpose. The snow had not reached as far south as this, but there was a hint of it in the air. The temperature was a few degrees below freezing point, and occasionally the back wheels swung across a patch of ice. The weather seemed to have frightened most motorists indoors so we were agreeably surprised to find the road almost deserted. We were getting close to the hiding place.

One after another, in the grey of the night, Alan and I picked up our landmarks. First there was the little cart track beside which the Stone had lain hidden on Christmas Day. Then a few miles further on there was the line of bushes into which we had tipped it in the vain hope that they would be sufficient to conceal it. Soon, against the dark backdrop of the sky, we saw the outline of the aircraft hangars. We swept past a line of trees before which a dancing fire cast shadows on a gypsy’s caravan.

‘We’re nearly there,’ I said.

Johnny chuckled with delight. ‘Wouldn’t it be funny,’ he laughed, ‘if the gypsies were camping on top of the Stone?’ He had scarcely finished speaking when the outskirts of Rochester reached out to meet us.

I said nothing. I was suddenly afraid. My excitement was mounting. The chances were a million to one against it. Such a thing was too extraordinary to happen. Johnny fell silent. He too knew what I was thinking.

We turned the car and as we passed the pub, we checked the mileage on the speedometer. I watched the tenths of a mile clicking up. The Stone was two and a half miles distant. At the two-mile mark the fire came into sight. The gypsies were going to be near enough to be difficult. As the fifth tenth came up, we passed the fire and the caravan. There was no doubt about it. The gypsies, if gypsies they were, were camping directly on top of the Stone.

We had travelled almost 500 miles. We were the most sought-after people in Britain; the Stone might at this moment be cracking with frost. Yet our journey had been in vain. The Stone was guarded as surely as if it were back in Westminster Abbey. Fate seemed determined to favour us with the picturesque.

We drove 200 yards up the road and stopped the car. This last stroke of ill luck was harder to bear than anything that had previously happened. We had, in the beginning, asked only for an even chance, and luck had joined us as the fifth man. We had accepted that, given thanks for it and relied upon it. Now the fifth man seemed to have joined the millions who were against us. It was so unexpected that it was cruel. The easy operation suddenly became one of great hazard. We discussed what we should do.

‘Wait for 24 hours,’ I counselled. ‘They can’t stay here for ever. We’d be fools to lose it now because we were too impatient to wait.’

‘Ach,’ said Johnny, the thruster. ‘Walk through them and take it.’ He wasn’t going to be kept from the Stone by a wheen of gypsies.

We discussed ways and means. It would be impossible to outflank them and carry the Stone through the wood. They were just too close to it for any such attempt. We thought of impersonating a squire and ordering them off, but they would probably have made us foolish by refusing to go. It would be useless to wait for them to go to sleep since the barking of their dogs would arouse them.

‘Buy some bottles of whisky and get them drunk,’ suggested Johnny again, but we dismissed this idea, for they might fight in drink, and none of us wanted to take on a drunken gypsy.

‘What if they’re detectives?’ said Alan, voicing the fear which was in all our minds. Were the police not as stupid as their actions seemed to prove? Had they perhaps discovered the Stone? Was all their search in the puddles of England just a blind, while the modern Sherlock Holmes sat on the Stone and played a gypsy fiddle? We discussed this seriously for a moment, because the situation was so fantastic that anything might be the key to it. Then we dissolved in laughter when we saw the fantasy of it. We decided the police were as stupid as they looked.

Our laughter revived our drooping spirits. Bill got out of the car. ‘I’ll talk to them,’ he said, ‘and see what can be done.’ I got out with him, and together we walked down towards the fire, our feet catching and tripping in the rough frozen grass of the roadside baulk. The other two sat and waited.

I had often listened to Bill talk, both in public and private. I had heard him again and again in the riposte of argument, when two hard minds meet and strike sparks from each other. I had every confidence in his ability, but he was meeting a situation that was outside the ambit of ordinary experience.