by Ian Hamilton
I had left my torch with Kay, so I was sightless. On my hands and knees I groped along the route we had taken until I reached the altar steps. Then I remembered my matches and by the flickering light of a match held in my hand, I retraced my steps. In that vast darkness the light lit nothing but myself, but I persisted until the matchbox was nearly empty. Suddenly near the door I put my foot on something uneven. I bent down and picked up the keys. The ring had been flattened by the passage of a heavy weight, but the keys were undamaged.
I ran back all the way to the car. If my calculations of time were correct, the nightwatchman would be starting his rounds soon. The car battery was flat, but I took out the starting-handle and swung the engine over by hand. In spite of the cold it started on the first pull. I raced the engine furiously to warm it, since I did not dare to have it stall on me and not restart. I’d have given up then. I pulled out of the car park and along into Old Palace Yard. There were two policemen at the door to the Houses of Parliament under St Stephen’s Tower. Things were waking up, and already there were some pedestrians around, but I had to take my chance. The nightwatchman would start his rounds at any time now. I did not know the time, but I knew it was running out for me. I swung the car boldly into the lane in full sight of the policemen.
In the lane I did not bother to switch off the car lights; subterfuge was now useless. I backed up as fast as I could, and in my excitement smacked the hoarding heavily with the wing of the car. I had no very clear idea of what I was going to do, except that I was going to get the Stone into the car and drive away with it. Sometimes life’s that simple.
The Stone was still lying where the other two had left it. I caught hold of it by one end and dragged it to the car. I do not recall having any difficulty. I raised it up on its good end so that it stood near the car, and then I walked it, corner by rocking corner, to the car door and tipped one end in. The car came down with a crash onto its springs, and I thought for a moment it was going to beetle over on top of me. I got hold of the end that was still on the ground and lifted it mightily until it passed top dead centre, when it fell, with another fearful crash, into the car. I followed it in, and lifted it bodily onto the back seat. Then I took off Alan’s coat and covered it up and went back into the driving seat and drove away down the lane.
I drove down the lane as Andrew Hyslop, the nightwatchman, was telephoning the police to report his loss. I did not know that then, but it would have made no difference to me.
I was a young man. We had so very, very nearly been defeated on so many occasions, but we had persisted. It was a lovely victory, but I was too elated to be proud. That would come later, and it has never left me. I shouted and sang. Let them take me now and all Scotland would be at my back, not that I cared then and I still don’t care. I never have. A nation’s soul is in its people’s keeping. In the keeping of each one of us, day and daily, wherever we are, and whatever we do. For an instant that morning I felt that it was in mine alone. I hoped that Kay would feel the same.
I drove through Parliament Square and swung round the roundabout and across the bell-mouth of Whitehall, past the tower of Big Ben, which I had never heard striking all that hectic night and morning, then I was on Westminster Bridge and south of the river. I reckoned that I had at best an hour and a half before the police could get their forces mustered. I was certain that they would be stupid enough to concentrate their forces on the roads to the north. It was Christmas Day, and they would be bleary with sleep. Still, I could take no chances. I was on my own. I must find the first piece of open ground and hide the Stone.
The trouble was that I did not know the road. This had not been part of the plan. I knew that I should find the Old Kent Road, and by good luck I hit it quite quickly. But I could not keep to it. Perhaps it was not adequately signposted, or perhaps I was stupid from lack of sleep, but at any rate I lost my way and wandered around in a maze of side streets. I asked and was directed, or misdirected. Every village has its idiot, and I spoke to all of them in London in that short drive. A cold grey dawn was beginning to creep up the Thames from the sea, and I was almost in tears of frustration. To have the most valuable cargo that had ever entered a car and to be the most sought-after man in Britain were two responsibilities I could bear. But to be lost nearly ended me. I was driving desperately down a mean street when another of the coincidences happened which were to mark the whole course of our enterprise. There, plodding away from me, were the familiar figures of Alan and Gavin.
We had never been in this part of the city before. They were walking without design, and I was driving in a maze, completely lost. It was a plain miracle and it did not even surprise me.
I drove fast and pulled up wickedly behind them with a squeal of brakes. It was a rotten thing to do and would have frightened the wits out of me if someone had done the same to me. Without a glance behind them they broke and fled precipitately down the street. The weight of their consciences drove them on. Running and guilt are close companions. I laughed like the bastard I am. The street was deserted. I stopped and shouted out the open window at them.
‘I’ve got a bit of Bannockburn in the back seat.’
At that they stopped running and came back. I opened the nearside door.
‘I’ve got it. I’ve got it,’ I said. ‘Look! It’s in there.’
They thought I was talking about the small piece, until I pulled back the coat and showed its rough loveliness to their delighted eyes. Then they both dived to get in beside it and jammed in the door.
‘Only one,’ I said. It was an old car and I was afraid for the springs. Alan fell inside, and Gavin closed the door.
‘Meet at Reading station at four o’clock,’ we agreed. Then we shared our money out to see that none of us would go wanting. I let in the clutch, and we left Gavin standing on the pavement, looking as though we had marooned him.
We swung from mean street to mean street, and had to ask our way several times. We were still lost but our reunion had heartened us. I had been worried about manhandling the Stone out of the car into hiding by myself, but what would almost have been an impossibility for one was easy for two. Finally, somewhere about Shooters Hill, we hit the Rochester Road. Exhausted and light-hearted with victory I handed over the wheel to Alan. He put his toe down and we raced into the south.
‘We did it. We did it.’ A hundred times I told him all that had happened to me since I had left them in the Abbey to see why Kay had moved the car forward. He listened to me gently, like the great quiet gentleman he is.
Then, as we crossed Eltham Common and plunged into suburbia, it was Alan’s turn to talk. When he and Gavin had noticed the policeman they had faded into the shadows, certain that at any moment they would see the door swing open as he came to investigate. When they heard Kay and me drive away they waited a few minutes and then crept down the lane almost on the heels of the policeman, bringing my coat with them. They reached the car park just as Kay and I were driving away in the Anglia, and although they ran after us, they were too late to stop us. They immediately searched for the keys of the other car in my coat pocket and, not finding them, assumed that I had them with me. Just then a police car had raced along Millbank towards the Abbey, its siren going, and thinking the game was up, they had started to walk aimlessly until, by the grace of God, I had almost run them down.
‘What happened to my coat?’ I asked.
Alan looked round anxiously. ‘Didn’t you get it?’ he asked. ‘We left it behind the car.’
That was a blow because my name was on it, and it would be discovered when the car park attendant came on duty. I thought ruefully that we had got the Stone away, but that at the same time we had left behind us a complete case for the prosecution. It was a fair exchange, and no one in our position would have grumbled.
Chapter Fourteen
I lay back and closed my eyes and tried to relax, but I could not. Every few seconds I would sit up and try to annoy Alan by urging him on to greater speed, but he was hon
ed to a fineness and would not be annoyed. Then I would fret and peer in all directions, looking for a suitable hiding place for the Stone.
Suddenly I noticed that I was cold and clammy. The blood drained from my head and everything became grey. A white sweat broke out on my forehead, and I started to shudder and shake uncontrollably. I had a stiffness across the small of my back and my limbs ached. Had I been holding anything it would have fallen from my shaking hands. I glanced at them as they jerked sideways from the ends of my wrists as though trying to shake my fingers loose. They were scratched and worn from contact with the Stone, and although this sight steadied me a little, I was still on the point of fainting. Spots of light danced behind my eyes. I looked across at Alan, who was driving coolly, and took an enormous grasp of my self-control; then I asked him if I could take the wheel, and in the excitement of driving fast on a doubtful surface the nausea passed away and did not trouble me again.
About half past eight we sped downhill and, turning right, came to a crossroads. On the far side was a large roadhouse, built in mock Elizabethan style, and straight ahead was an avenue of poplars. We were now in open country, and two miles further on we saw a little cart track climbing into the fields. We turned the car into it and put its nose to the hill. It was a steep pull for such a little car with such a heavy load. It whined and sang, and in the lowest of its three gears it only just made it. We had been asking a lot of it and it gave it. When we had gone 50 yards we were out of sight of the road, so we stopped the car as best we could. The brakes would not hold on the hill and we had to leave it in gear and chock one of the wheels with a boulder. Then we looked round us for a hiding place.
There was nowhere suitable in sight; the ditches were shallow hollows and the hedges, although high and straggly, were sparse and thin with winter deadness. We climbed 10 feet up a grassy bank and looked down the other side into a hollow, dotted with undernourished trees. A narrow path wound through it, but it was overgrown with dead grass and looked little used. It was far from being an ideal hiding place, but we had little choice.
Sweating and straining, we lifted the Stone from the car and half dragged, half rolled it up the bank. We were both very tired, and there was no immediate fear and excitement to spur us on. The brightness of flashing stars behind my eyeballs impaired my vision, and I found the strength gone from my fingers. We stopped frequently for a rest, and once I thought of the joy of lying down in the dirty snow and going to sleep. Then we started again, confident that one more effort would see the job done.
At length we got it to the top of the slope and let it toboggan down the other side, then we dragged it off the path among the grey rotting grass to where a few sprays of bramble had survived the winter. We threw some grass on it and crowned it with a ragged edge of scrap metal, but it was too large to be hidden. We looked back at it from the top of the rise, and it stood out like a wart on a girl’s face. We had no alternative but to leave it. Our car was too hot. The police had its number. We consoled ourselves with the thought that there were no newspapers on Christmas Day, and that even if the local people saw it they would not know what it was until they saw its description in the press.
We backed the car onto the road and headed north for London. Now was the time for song, but we could not sing. Fatigue had its knee in our backs, and reaction was setting in. All was dullness. We turned to consider the problems, expecting at any moment to be stopped by the police. But nothing happened.
As we drove, we evolved a plan to meet the new circumstances. We had arranged to meet Gavin at Reading that afternoon, and as yet there was no reason to deduce that either he or Alan were suspected by the police. They had my name and address, and the number of our car. Since my meeting with the watchman in the Abbey, my duel with the detective outside Kay’s hotel, and our conversation with the constable in the lane, I was too dangerous to be allowed near the Stone. It seemed that the best thing Alan and I could do would be to part company. Alan would meet Gavin at Reading, and together they would hire a car and transport the Stone to Dartmoor, while I would play the old game of decoy and make for Wales in the Ford.
However, we could do nothing until we got to London. The thought of my coat was festering away in my mind. Unless the police had found it, it was still lying in the car park beside the Abbey. While we felt that we had left so many clues behind us as to make our detection certain, we did not wish to hand the police evidence on a tray. That coat had my name on it, and the address of my father’s tailor’s shop. It had to be recovered.
We drove back through suburbia feeling for the residents what a deep-sea sailor must feel for a ferryman. These people who were rising to beer and turkey and to another Christmas Day had something that I should have been terrified to possess. I have always been afraid of the sameness of life in which each day is worn to a thinness, and night brings only the promise of an identical dawn. I wanted to make my life an adventure, and already I was filling it with bright things. It lacked only security, which is the cement of society, and the God of suburban life. I thought that morning that if I always sought adventure, I could go on to the end without security. Instead of a pension and a portfolio of shares, I would have a pageant in my mind of a life lived to the full. I would trade wealth for the richness of life itself, even if it meant dying a pauper. So far I’ve managed.
These thoughts sustained me while we drove back into town. I will never know how we managed, as we had only the vaguest idea of the route we had come. We had lost our way many times coming out, and we expected to do the same thing going back, but suddenly I realised that we had hit the Lambeth Road, and in a few minutes we were on Lambeth Bridge. We looked to our right towards the Abbey and wondered what was happening in the Confessor’s Chapel. However, when we did a dummy run past the car park there was no one about, so we stopped the car on the road opposite and retrieved the coat. It was in a terrible state. There remained only the plaque to find.
But the plaque could not be found. It was not a matter of great importance, but it was the only end left to us to tidy up. It was the one which said ‘CORONATION CHAIR AND STONE’. Without amendment it would be of no further use to the Abbey authorities. However, we could not find the bombed site where it had been hidden. Undismayed, we laughed. ‘Never mind,’ said Alan. ‘When they find it they’ll dig up every bombed site in London to try to find the Stone.’ We could not foresee that it would be a month before it was found, and its discovery would give a distracted Scotland Yard something new to think about. Before that, they had dragged most stretches of water in central London. Their operations in the Serpentine attracted every Scot in London to jeer them on.
When we gave up our search I took over the wheel, for I knew London better than Alan. We headed west through Hammer-smith. We drove to meet Gavin at Reading, and although Alan ought to have gone by train in case the car should be stopped, we did not press the matter. There was a haven of comradeship in the car, and we needed each other’s support.
We arrived in Reading at about ten o’clock and immediately went to the station for a wash. There was no sign of Gavin, but we had not arranged to meet until four o’clock, and he had probably stayed in London for a meal. We would both have enjoyed one too, because we had not eaten since the previous night and we were starving. But it was Christmas Day and the town was locked and deserted, and indeed we had little money for food.
I gave most of the money I had to Alan. Money is only scraps of tokens and has no meaning except in the artificial conditions we live in, but artificial or not we needed more. Together we could only muster about £15. Gavin also had some but I was afraid that, even pooling their resources, he and Alan might not have enough to hire a car, so I decided to telephone Bill Craig in Glasgow and have more sent to Gavin care of the Strand post office. I could not use Alan as the addressee, as no one in Glasgow knew he was with us. They would have to wait until the post office opened after the Christmas holiday, which was no bad thing. Having arranged these things, I drove
off westwards, leaving Alan gazing after me in the station square.
It was a bright morning and the roads were deserted. The snow had gone from them, and the car and I sang to each other as we sped westwards. I wanted to put as much distance as possible between myself and Reading, because I still thought that my arrest was imminent and I did not want the police to deduce that my accomplices might be there. Near Thatcham I found a telephone box and put a call through to Bill Craig. There was a pause as his mother went to fetch him.
‘This is Ian Johnstone,’ I said excitedly when at last he came.
‘Who’s Ian Johnstone?’ he asked. He had forgotten my code name and he sounded ill-tempered as though newly risen.
‘You know Ian Johnstone,’ I said. It was my turn to be ill-tempered. He had forgotten the code, and I envied him his bedroom yawn. ‘Wake up,’ I snarled, and at that he recognised my voice. Then I made the arrangements for the money to be sent, and at the end I added casually, ‘By the way, Bill, the book has been a great success down here.’
He knew what I meant at once. ‘Has it?’ he said, and a flame leapt in his voice. At that I put the phone down without satisfying his further appetite. Let the bastard starve.
Days later I heard Bill’s reactions to my cryptic message. He told me that when we left for London he had not much hope of our success. He had expected us to arrive back in Glasgow with our money spent and the most valid reasons for our failure, as indeed we might have done if we had given up when I was first caught by the nightwatchman. He had listened to the radio on Sunday and, when there was no news from Westminster, had concluded that we had done nothing. Then came my telephone call.
