by Ian Hamilton
We drove to a side turning past the Albert Hall, and pulled into the parking space in the centre of the road, one car nose to tail behind the other. It must have been well into the early hours of Christmas Eve by now, because the streets were much quieter. In the hotel opposite to where we sat, the manager came hopefully to the door at the sound of car engines, and seeing two shabby little cars, encrusted with mud, prepared to refuse us a bed. To his obvious anger, however, we did not get out of the cars, and after a while he went to an upstairs window, whence he glared balefully down at us. Plenty of people spent the night in their cars when touring, so there was nothing he could do to harm us.
With our breath freezing on anything we breathed on, we settled down to pass the night.
Chapter Nine
I have never been so cold in my life. If this was martyrdom, I preferred the fire of the stake. London was in one of its periodic Moscow moods, and I swear I saw wolves scavenging the streets. Feet, ears and hands we had long since ceased to worry about, but now it seemed impossible to keep up body heat. We were not dressed for palavering about in Arctic conditions, and with no engine to give its meagre heat our breath froze immediately on the windows. In the car in front Kay and Alan had the luxury of the two ragged blankets from the bed in my digs, but in our car, Gavin and I had to make do with an old coat. The night developed into a struggle for that coat.
Every half-hour throughout the night one or other of us, in either of the cars, would waken up and start the engine and race through the streets, hoping to find a coffee stall or an early morning cafe. Gavin and I had to be particularly careful, as our car had no antifreeze, and a burst cylinder would have ruined the expedition. We were all heartily glad when six o’clock came, and we decided to go somewhere, try to eat breakfast, and thaw out.
At breakfast we were not so much cold, as stiff and twisted and petrified into distorted shapes. We must have looked like four Highland reivers as we sat, miserable and silent, eating our congealed sausages. We all still wore our coats. Gavin and I wore heavy overcoats and a growth of stubble on our chins. Alan was hidden in the depths of a duffel coat, from which every now and again he peered like a wren out of a nest, to invite us to ‘spend your holidays in the sunny south’. Kay managed her mug while dressed in scarf, polo neck, slacks and gloves, and the waiter was not impressed. However, we kept talking about our long cold run up from Ilfracombe, and no doubt he took pity on us.
We lingered over breakfast to the last possible moment, and then drove aimlessly round the city, for it was very early on Sunday morning, and no one was abroad. We did not know that by this time tomorrow we would have made off with the Stone, but each of us knew in our hearts that we were going to have another try. When the streets began to stir, we parked the cars in Northumberland Avenue, and went up to Charing Cross station to look for baths. Take a cold, demoralised man and give him a jug of hot water and a razor, and if he is worth his salt, he will be spring heeled and glowing inside 10 minutes; give him a bath and he will be a superman.
There are no baths at Charing Cross so we took a tube across to Waterloo. It was magnificent. We lay and steeped until the attendant came and thumped on the doors and abused us. British Rail seemed to pick their minor officials for their rudeness, but it was just as well. Not having relaxed for 48 hours or more, it would have been fatal had we steeped until we were soft and sleepy.
Sleep was indeed far from us. When we were clean and warm we held a council of war. We were all uneasy since we were spending a lot of money. We would have felt inadequate for the rest of our lives had we been forced to creep back ignominiously over the Border, having had a cheap holiday at a friend’s expense. On the other hand we did not wish to force ourselves into rash and clumsy action. Alan and Gavin wanted very sensibly to leave the next attempt until night-time, when, with all the knowledge we had gleaned, we might force an entry from the outside. I thought, however, that this was scarcely possible, and I wanted at least to consider a daylight attempt. The 20-year-old plan, evolved, I think, by Compton MacKenzie and Councillor Gray in the days of their youth, had been to create a diversion in the nave while a party of men attacked the Stone and carried it out the back door of the Margaret Chapel.
We had rejected a daylight attempt before as being impracticable, but in the absence of any other we decided to investigate it. We spent the day in and around the Abbey, which was filled with Christmas worshippers as it was Christmas Eve. At one point we even posted Kay just off Knightsbridge in the Anglia, in case we got a chance to seize the Stone and arrived to transfer it to her with the police hard on our rear number plate. None of us, however, seriously considered it a possibility, except Kay, perhaps, who sat waiting with that imperturbable calmness which was such a feature of her character. However, when we arrived back at Kay some three hours later, we had no Stone, and again it seemed that we were beaten. And time was wearing on. It was late in the afternoon of the day before Christmas.
But now, more than ever, our failure became a challenge to win through. We had been many hours in London, and our only anchor to Scotland was the Stone, so surely set in the heart of the Abbey. It had taken on its own character, and it seemed to us to be something venerable in the hands of its enemies, and as we mingled with the sightseers and read the inscriptions to half-forgotten Englishmen and knew in our hearts that a daylight attack was impossible, we were ever on the lookout for that scrap of information that would give us a clue to a raid in the hours of darkness.
Dusk fell on a raw frozen night, with no cheer in the bright lights which lost themselves in a faint freezing mist. Before the next dawn we were to succeed, but we did not know it then. We were pretty miserable. Laugh, you bastards, laugh, at the idea of four youngsters raiding the heart of the Empire, with no money, no back-up team and no headquarters other than an old car, but we persisted. Sitting in the car in Northumberland Avenue we held another of our interminable councils of war, searching for the loophole we felt there must be in the Abbey guard.
At the end of the council we went for a meal, and in the restaurant Kay drew me aside. She was white-faced and shivering, and I suddenly noticed she was far from well.
‘What’s the trouble, Kay?’ I asked. I knew she was hardy, and I was troubled to see her looking so ill.
‘Of all the things,’ she said almost casually, ‘I’ve got the flu. I’ve been feeling ill all day, and I’m running a temperature now.’
I was horrified. I am never ill, and therefore fear illness, and this one, coming on the eve of our next attempt, seemed inevitably to mean the end of the expedition. The very private thought crossed my mind that it gave us the perfect excuse. While our first loyalty was to carry through to the end, I did not see how we could stay in London while Kay suffered. What more could be expected of us?
While all these thoughts shot through my head I was standing staring at Kay. Before I had time to frame any words she continued, ‘Do you think that if we don’t decide to do anything tonight, I could sleep in a hotel?’
I suggested that she might be better to go home, but she would not hear of it. I think she felt that she was now the weak link in our chain, and she was determined that no matter how overstrained she was she would not break and let us down. I did not express my admiration for her, and she would have been embarrassed had I attempted to do so.
‘Don’t’, she pleaded as we walked to our table, ‘tell Gavin and Alan. There’s no use upsetting them.’
After dinner, I told the other two that I was determined that Kay should have at least a few hours’ sleep in a hotel that night, and they heartily agreed. We decided to relax for a little while first, and we went for a drink to a pub up near Victoria. I think we were all racking our brains and turning over in our heads all the knowledge we had, to try to see what to do next, while all around us people were celebrating peace on earth and goodwill towards men. I can think of many reasons to get drunk, but the birth of Christ is not one of them. None at all is a better one than that
. However, gradually the warmth and companionship around us affected us, and for a little time we forgot all about failure and enjoyed ourselves.
Towards nine o’clock I drove Kay over to St Pancras and found a hotel for her. It was a miserable little dosshouse, but it was cheap and she would hear of none better. Indeed, we had not the money for anything better. She was controlling her illness remarkably well, and I don’t think either of the other boys ever discovered how she was feeling. Before I left her, she extracted from me the most solemn and binding promise that if there was to be any excitement whatsoever I would telephone her. I carefully noted the telephone number and gave her the promise, never thinking just how much excitement that promise was to yield.
I went back to Gavin and Alan, and we made our usual journey along Whitehall to the Abbey. It was now certain that if we were to be successful we would have to break in from the outside. Yet again we marshalled the facts that we knew. First, the door to Poets’ Corner, the most secluded door to the Abbey, was of pine and could possibly be forced. Second, there was at least one watchman inside. Third, if the information given to me when I was caught on Saturday were correct, he kept up a patrol all night, and could reasonably be expected to hear the noise we made forcing the door, and would come across us in any event, even if he did not hear our first forced entry.
These were the relevant considerations. The rest was a matter of deduction. None of us could really believe that a watchman, unsupervised as he would certainly be, would pad continuously about the dim corridors of the Abbey. He would need to be a religious fanatic to do that, and he had seemed a nice human sort of person to me. The most he could be expected to do was patrol at regular intervals, and whether or not he did so would be a matter for his own diligence. For my part, I could not see him doing his rounds any oftener than every two hours. At what time these patrols would take place we did not know, and that was our problem.
We needed more definite information. It was now after ten o’clock, and Alan and Gavin slipped out of the car and walked boldly into the Dean’s Yard to see what they could discover. From the Dean’s Yard, they pushed on into the Cloisters, looking and talking like two interested, if belated, tourists. In a fret of overcaution I had warned them that anyone who saw them would take their names, as my name had already been taken, but as very often happens the bold plan succeeded.
They had been in the Cloisters only a few minutes when they were approached by an elderly divine, who later volunteered that he was Archdeacon Marriot.
‘Rather late to be in here,’ observed the old gentleman peering at them nervously.
‘It is indeed,’ Alan agreed. ‘But we are very interested in the building. We’re wondering if it’s dry rot that makes the surface of the stone peel off like that,’ and he pointed to where the centuries had eaten into the stonework.
The archdeacon looked. ‘Age,’ he said. ‘It’s age.’
The archdeacon, a real enthusiast for his church, seized Alan by the arm, and took him round to show him some more of the interesting features of the Cloisters, and Alan, a civil engineer, plied him with leading questions.
The discourse had scarcely begun when the nightwatchman, the same bearded fellow whom I had already met, appeared out of what was obviously his office in the north-west corner of the Cloisters.
The archdeacon halted his discourse to speak to the watchman.
‘I thought you went off at ten o’clock,’ he said.
‘Eleven o’clock, sir,’ replied the watchman respectfully.
‘Oh yes,’ said the archdeacon. ‘Then Dandy or Hyslop comes on.’ He turned from the watchman and resumed his discourse on Norman arches, flying buttresses, and the Perpendicular style.
The two boys heard him to a finish, anxious to get away with this information about the watchman. It was of the first magnitude, and they knew its value. When he had finished his discourse, the archdeacon beamed amiably on them and asked what part of Scotland they had come from.
‘Eh! Eh! Forgandenny,’ said Alan, seizing on the place where he had been to school, and which he thought was the least likely the archdeacon would know.
‘Forgandenny,’ boomed the divine. ‘I know it very well.’ Alan’s heart sank to his boots as the archdeacon continued, ‘I once had a living near there. Do you know So-and-so and So-and-so?’
Hastily Gavin explained that it was a long time since they had been at home. Seizing the gentleman’s hand, he shook it, and the two boys departed into the night, feeling a little guilty at having deceived such a venerable and charming old man.
Again we sat in the car, our cigarettes glowing in the darkness. We now had enough information to press on. We knew with certainty that there was only one nightwatchman, who was relieved at eleven o’clock. We could be almost certain that he would not patrol oftener than every two hours, and we were willing to gamble on that. Furthermore, the new watchman would probably spend some time talking to the retiring one, and we estimated that his rounds would take place about 11.45, 1.45 and 3.45. In actual fact we overestimated his efficiency. The only patrols he made were at 11.45 p.m. and 6.15 a.m.
There was also another factor. All around us were signs of the wildest conviviality, amounting to drunkenness. We did not know the incidence of sobriety among nightwatchmen, but we did not think it would be high. There was always the chance that the new watchman had blunted his perceptions by spending his evening in a pub. If so, it would make our job easier. We waited patiently outside the Dean’s Yard, hoping to see the incoming watchman pass reeling and hiccupping, but we saw no one like that. At any rate, we now knew that if we could choose a time when he was in his office, he would not hear us at Poets’ Corner door, or anywhere else near the Stone. We had identified that his office in the Cloisters was too far away.
It was now nearly midnight, and we should really have collected Kay, but there was still a great amount of spadework to be done, and we felt that she deserved a sleep. I was loath to disturb her, sick as she was, until we actually needed her. We decided to do our initial preparation without her.
The lane leading to the door we intended to force was defended by two gates. The one which opened directly onto Old Palace Yard stood wide open, but the other, 10 yards from the Abbey door, was locked and bolted. Moreover, a gas lamp threw its light directly onto this gate and onto the door. A twist in the lane, a line of railings and a flying buttress gave reasonable cover to the door, but the gate was in full view of the road. At the top of the lane, and on the outside of the gate, there was a little space where a small car could be manoeuvred, and sitting with its lights off, it might pass unnoticed from the road. But there was still the gate to be circumvented or forced open. Lifting the Stone over it was out of the question.
We now turned to examine that side of the lane which was closest to the Abbey, and indeed to the Margaret Chapel, which I knew well from the inside. A wooden hoarding, breached by a padlocked door, fenced off a little space hard against the Abbey wall. This space was in use by masons as a yard for their repairs to the fabric of the building. We reckoned that if we forced the door in this hoarding, and passed through the sheds, it would bring us out past the lamplit gate, and directly opposite Poets’ Corner door.
It was too early to attempt this, as the streets were still full. The pubs had just skailed, and we were delighted to see that insobriety was the rule of the night rather than the exception. That would keep the police busy. We left the cars and walked about, calling out a hearty ‘Merry Christmas’ to everyone we passed.
As time melted away, we became more and more tense and strung up. Conditions were ideal, for there was an air of careless well-being in the city. The cabinet minister took out his cigar, and the policeman unbuttoned his tunic. This was London, the heart of the Empire. London was preparing to celebrate another Christmas. The Union Jacks were flying: all was right with the world.
Chapter Ten
When two o’clock struck, we knew that the time had come. A few people still
sang through the streets, but they were a camouflage rather than a danger. They were a warm kindly people, and they often shouted greetings to us, as country people do, and I warmed to them and felt that had conditions been different we could have initiated them into the rites of the ceilidh and had a night with them.
But conditions were not different, and our warm amiability towards them was only a patina on our inward selves. Excitement had gone, and with it our sickness and fear. I suppose our defence mechanisms were deadened by fatigue, for while we calculated risks, we could weigh them only in relation to the end, and not as risks to ourselves or to our liberty. It was as well that it were so, because had we stopped to think of Wormwood Scrubs or Dartmoor, our purpose might have been blunted.
As the last chimes of Big Ben died away, I produced my jemmy, and Gavin and Alan went up the lane with it towards the door in the wooden hoarding. I stood at the bottom, feigning drunkenness, and broke into a fit of coughing whenever I saw anyone coming. When I coughed, they flattened into the shadows close to the hoarding.
I heard a creak which ended silently, and then a whispered shout. The square was deserted, and I crept up the lane to join them. The hasp and padlock hung at an angle from the door. We wrenched them off and passed in.
We found ourselves in a typical mason’s yard, with all the tools of the trade scattered round. Straight ahead was a little stone stair leading up to the back door to the Margaret Chapel.
