The Danger of Life

by Ken Lussey

  Archibald Cameron laughed. ‘It has the makings of a good joke, doesn’t it? “A man from the army, a man from the navy and a man from the air force came calling.” I’m afraid you don’t fit into the joke, Madame Dubois.’ He smiled. Come in, please. Can I offer you a cup of tea?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Cameron,’ said Bob.

  ‘Please, just call me Archibald. Round here everyone answers to “Mr Cameron”.’ He showed them into a sitting room that occupied a large part of one end of the cottage. The three armchairs didn’t match one another or the sofa, but everything was spotlessly clean. Pictures of Highlanders in historical settings adorned the walls, and a peat fire burned in the grate. A black cat lay curled up on the mat in front of the fire.

  ‘Thank you, Archibald,’ said Bob. ‘I prefer to be known as Bob, and this is Michael, and as I imagine you already know, this is Clive. This is…’

  ‘Please call me Monique.’ She smiled brightly at Archibald.

  The four visitors obeyed their host’s instructions to sit down, the three men choosing chairs, while Monique took one end of the sofa. Archibald Cameron busied himself in the next room, which Bob presumed was the kitchen.

  When the tea was poured, Archibald Cameron sat next to Monique and looked at each of them in turn. ‘It is very pleasant to see you all, but I don’t think you are here just to pass the time of day, are you?’

  Bob said, ‘No, you are right, Archibald. Something turned up this morning, and when I showed it to Clive he suggested we come and talk to you about it.’ He pulled the handkerchief-wrapped coin out of his breast pocket and passed it over to the older man.

  The three visitors watched as Archibald Cameron unwrapped the coin. When it lay in his hand he sat very still, looking down at it, for so long that Bob asked, ‘Are you alright, Mr Cameron?’

  ‘Where did you get this?’ asked Archibald. Bob was shocked to see tears in the older man’s eyes when he looked up.

  ‘It was found by a navy diver near the old stone pier, a couple of hundred yards from the White Bridge, at this end of Loch Arkaig,’ said Bob.

  ‘Were there any more with it?’ asked Archibald.

  ‘No, and there’s reason to believe that one might only have been there a couple of days. It might help you understand why I think that if I tell you what’s been happening this week.’

  ‘Please do,’ said Archibald.

  Bob continued. ‘On Wednesday evening a trainee at the Commando Basic Training Centre was murdered. It’s my team’s job to investigate that sort of thing. Two of my men travelled up from Edinburgh on Thursday. Then, on Friday evening, one of them was also murdered. It seems very likely that his murder took place on that pier on the shore of Loch Arkaig. This morning navy divers looked at the lake bed around the pier and found that.’ Bob indicated the coin in Archibald’s hand. ‘Clive tells me that you might be able to help me understand how the coin got there. Knowing that might just help me find out who has been killing people at Achnacarry.’

  Archibald Cameron stood up, and surprised Bob by spinning the coin in the air towards him. Bob had never been very good at ball games, but his problems with depth perception since losing the sight in his left eye made games of catch something he avoided at all costs. He was relieved that he managed to avoid dropping the coin.

  ‘Very well then,’ said Archibald, ‘but we’re going to need something stronger than tea.’ He went out to the kitchen again, returning a few moments later with an unmarked bottle full of golden-brown liquid. ‘I know it’s a little early in the day, but what I have to tell you might take a little time, and when I’ve finished you’ll understand why I want to share some of our local delicacy with you.’

  ‘That looks rather interesting,’ said Bob.

  ‘How much do you all know about the 1745 Jacobite rising? I think you know all about it, Clive. What about you three?’

  ‘A little from school,’ said Bob

  ‘Very little, I’m afraid,’ said Lieutenant Dixon.

  ‘Only what you are about to tell us,’ said Monique, smiling.

  Archibald held up the bottle of whisky. ‘I’d be pleased if you could join me.’ He poured the whisky into five glasses on the sideboard and passed four of them around. ‘A toast, please, to the “King Over the Water”.’ Then he grinned impishly. ‘Don’t worry, Bob, I think the Jacobite claim to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland died out long ago, so it’s probably no longer actually treasonable to take part in that toast.’

  ‘Thank you, Archibald, I’m not sure how reassured I am by that.’ Bob also grinned. ‘If this is illicit whisky, it puts the output of a lot of legal distillers to shame.’

  Archibald sat back on his sofa, took a sip of the whisky, and closed his eyes. ‘Let’s go back just under 200 years in time. On the 19th of August 1745 a small rowing boat landed at the north end of Loch Shiel. It was early in the afternoon. Prince Charles Edward Stuart, “Bonnie Prince Charlie” as he is often known, came ashore and met his escort of fifty MacDonalds before retiring to a nearby barn to await the response to letters he had sent to possible supporters all over the Highlands.

  ‘Another 150 MacDonalds were quickly on the scene, but for some time it seemed that Bonnie Prince Charlie was going to have to challenge for his father’s right to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland with just 200 men. Then the sound of pipes was heard approaching from the north. In marched around a thousand men of Clan Cameron coming from Achnacarry and Loch Arkaig. It is worth remembering that the west end of Loch Arkaig lies under nine miles north of the north end of Loch Shiel.

  ‘By the end of the day, 300 more men had arrived. Judging that he had enough support to mount his rebellion, Charles Edward Stuart climbed a nearby hill and raised his standard. A brief ceremony, translated into Gaelic for the benefit of the Jacobite clansmen, followed, and the Prince then ordered that brandy be distributed.

  ‘And so, the ‘45 was born. It was to end in bloody failure at Culloden on the 16th of April 1746, less than eight months later. In its aftermath the Highland way of life that had existed for hundreds of years was swept away by brutality, suppression and self-interest.

  ‘But in the meantime, Charles had come very close indeed to taking the crowns he sought. His army reached Derby on the 6th of December 1745, before retreating after a closely argued meeting in the upstairs room of a Derby pub. Meantime, the Hanoverian court was packing its belongings onto ships in the Thames. Had Charles advanced, George II would probably have fled, leaving Charles’ father as James VIII of Scotland and III of England.

  ‘Some say that if that had happened the English and French would have avoided a further 70 years of conflict; the English would not have had to raise taxes in the colonies to pay for the French wars; the Americans would not have had cause to fight a war for their independence; and the French revolution might not have happened. The world would be a very different place. Perhaps, who knows, we might not be fighting a war against Germany today.’

  Captain Sanderson said, ‘I’ve also heard it said that if the Jacobites had advanced from Derby they might have been cut to pieces by government troops four months earlier than they actually were, and at somewhere like Northampton rather than at Culloden.’

  Archibald smiled across at him. ‘Aye, I’ve heard that said too, Clive. Who can know for sure? But given Bonnie Prince Charlie’s real interest lay in London, he spent more time than he intended or wanted in western Scotland. Before raising his standard at Glenfinnan, Charles Edward Stuart had initially landed on Eriskay in the Western Isles. He then landed on the mainland in Loch nan Uamh, near Lochailort, some miles west of Glenfinnan.

  ‘The irony is that after Culloden he passed this way again, several times, while evading the government troops searching for him. It says much for the loyalty of his supporters that no-one collected the vast reward placed on his head. And on the 20th of Septem
ber 1746 he left Scotland for the last time when he was picked up by a French frigate on the shores of Loch nan Uamh, close to where he had landed just over a year earlier and perhaps 20 miles in a straight line from the western end of Loch Arkaig.’

  ‘Where does our gold coin come into the picture, Archibald?’ asked Lieutenant Dixon.

  ‘Have a little patience with an old man, Michael,’ said Archibald. ‘A successful military campaign needs a number of things. It needs men, and weapons, and food, but as much as any of them it needs money. Unless you can keep paying your men they will sooner or later desert you, and unless you can pay for food and weapons, you will sooner or later run out of both.

  ‘If you were a Jacobite, then the real tragedy of the 1745 rising was that several opportunities that could have made all the difference were missed through bad decisions, bad planning, or simple bad luck. We can argue about what would have happened if they’d not turned back at Derby, but that’s just one example. Another is the way the Jacobite army prepared for battle at Culloden, which virtually guaranteed it would lose.

  ‘And then we come to the gold. A classic example of bad luck and bad timing concerns the arrival in Loch nan Uamh on the 10th of May 1746 of two French frigates. That was less than a month after the final Jacobite defeat at Culloden. The ships brought weapons, ammunition and medical supplies. They also brought gold pledged by the Spanish government to help pay for an uprising that had by then already failed.

  ‘It was decided that this gold, which was in the form of 35,000 French Louis d’or, just like the one you showed me, should be brought ashore, and used to help Jacobites in Scotland. Records suggest that 800 coins were stolen as the gold was being landed by clansmen from Barrisdale in Knoydart, leaving 34,200. These were taken overland to Loch Arkaig, in, it is said, seven large wooden caskets.’

  ‘What happened to the gold?’ asked Bob.

  ‘For reasons I’ll come to in a moment, the Clan Cameron archives have a fairly detailed account of what happened to most of it.’ Archibald waved a very dog-eared notebook he had brought back through from the kitchen with the whisky. ‘I looked at the relevant documents some years ago and took notes.’

  Archibald looked the notebook. ‘4,200 of the Louis d’or were distributed to men who had served in the Jacobite army, or to their families, to cover arrears of pay, while 3,000 were sent to Edinburgh to cover expenses of Jacobite sympathisers there. Another 3,000 were taken with him by Charles Edward Stuart when he eventually escaped to France.

  ‘This is where things begin to get rather murky. The remaining 24,000 Louis d’or were left in the charge of Macpherson of Cluny, the head of Clan Macpherson, but apparently remained hidden at Loch Arkaig. This is also where it begins to get very personal. An ancestor of mine was a man called Archibald Cameron of Locheil. As it happens I was named after him. He was a doctor and a leading Jacobite. He was badly wounded at the Battle of Culloden, but despite that he later managed to help Charles Edward Stuart escape from Scotland and departed these shores with him.

  ‘While he was in exile, Charles never had enough money, and his thoughts often turned to the gold believed to remain here. In 1749 he sent Archibald Cameron of Locheil back to Scotland to find out what had become of the gold. During his visit, my namesake spoke with several people, including Macpherson of Cluny.

  ‘When he returned to the continent, to the Jacobite court in exile, Archibald Cameron wrote a very detailed account of what he thought had become of the gold for Charles Edward Stuart. A copy of this later found its way into the Clan Cameron archives, which is how I came to see it. Within his account he described the expenditure of another 12,981 Louis d’or, for arguably legitimate purposes, which left just over 11,000. Of this remaining 11,000, Macpherson of Cluny had personally taken possession of 5,000, and Archibald Cameron was able to take 300 back to the continent with him, leaving 5,700 Louis d’or still hidden at Loch Arkaig. The various uses to which the gold had been put by Macpherson of Cluny and others were the cause of a huge amount of friction amongst Jacobites in Scotland, and Charles Edward Stuart later accused Macpherson of Cluny of embezzlement.

  ‘In 1753 Charles Edward Stuart again sent Archibald Cameron of Locheil to Scotland, this time to try to retrieve all the gold that remained, which they must have hoped meant the 5,700 Louis d’or they believed was hidden at Loch Arkaig, plus at least some of the 5,000 that Macpherson of Cluny had taken. It is believed that Archibald Cameron did locate the gold that was still hidden at Loch Arkaig, only then to have to conceal it again as government troops, who had been tipped off about his presence, closed in on him.’

  ‘Where did he hide it?’ asked Bob.

  ‘No-one knows for sure,’ said Archibald. ‘According to one story, he hid it temporarily in the loose earth of a freshly-dug grave in an ancient graveyard surrounded by an oval stone wall on the shore of Loch Arkaig at Murlaggan, and later moved it again. That time, it is said, he hid it in the valley of the Callich Burn, or the “Allt na Caillich” as you’ll find it written on your maps. This climbs up from the north side of the loch. Another story claims that the gold was hidden in Glen Mallie, which is a side glen that heads west for some distance from the southern side of Loch Arkaig. Yet another story would have us believe that part of the gold was hidden near Arisaig, on the coast to the west.’

  ‘Didn’t your ancestor pass the information on?’ asked Bob.

  ‘I’m sure the Hanoverian government tried to make him say where it was,’ said Archibald. ‘He was betrayed and arrested and taken in chains to London. On the 7th of June 1753 he became the very last Jacobite to be executed for his part in the 1745 rising, in a savagely brutal way. The location of the hidden gold went to the grave with him.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Bob. ‘I can understand why seeing that coin was an emotional experience.’

  ‘If that coin was only put where you found it recently, then it seems likely that someone has found at least part of what remains of the gold,’ said Archibald.

  ‘I’ve been thinking much the same thing,’ said Bob. ‘I’m just having a little difficulty making sense of how and why that coin ended up by the pier and the sequence of events that must have preceded that happening.’

  ‘Well, thankfully, that’s your job and not mine, Bob,’ said Archibald.

  ‘Surely over the years people must have tried to find the gold?’ asked Lieutenant Dixon.

  ‘Of course,’ said Archibald. ‘Over the past two centuries many have looked for it. There was a story that some of it was found in an unspecified wood near Loch Arkaig in 1850 but I’ve never seen any evidence to support that. When I was a child my father told me that when he was a small boy his two older brothers had spent weeks one summer searching the valley of the Allt na Caillich whenever they had any spare time. There’s a waterfall on the main river, quite high up, and it seems they thought that was a likely hiding place. But they never found anything. The thing I’ve never understood about the traditional story is that by 1753, my namesake was in his mid-forties and had suffered severe wounds to his ankles at Culloden which weren’t properly treated until he reached France with Charles Edward Stuart many months later. Even carrying the surviving gold wouldn’t have been easy. He must have had helpers, but only one is known, a man called Alexander MacMillan of Glenpeanmore. He came from Glen Pean, which extends west from the west end of Loch Arkaig, and I’ve never discovered what became of him.’

  ‘Perhaps Alexander MacMillan rehid the gold when things quietened down?’ suggested Bob.

  ‘Who can say?’ said Archibald. ‘Perhaps he removed it and used it to fund a new life for himself and his family in the new world? Given how everyone else had helped themselves to the gold, it would be hard to blame him.’

  ‘How much of a burden would the gold have been?’ asked Bob. ‘I’ve no feel for how much 5,700 of these coins would weigh.’

  ‘That’s a good question,’
said Archibald. ‘I looked into exactly that while visiting Edinburgh once, years before the war, and again I took notes. One of those coins weighs close to 8.16 grammes. If you multiply that by 5,700, you get over about forty-six and a half kilogrammes, which is a little over one hundred pounds in weight.’

  ‘A hundred pounds of gold? That sounds worth taking a few chances for,’ said Bob.

  ‘My figures may be a little out of date,’ said Archibald, ‘but last time I looked, the price of gold was about $34 US Dollars per ounce. At the fixed exchange rate of just over four US Dollars to the Pound Sterling, that makes 5,700 of those coins worth a little over £13,800. You also need to consider that the gold in the coins is only about 92% pure, making the total value £13,800, minus 8%, or nearly £12,700. Call it two pounds and five shillings per coin. That is simply their value in gold, of course. It takes no account of their historical importance.’

  ‘That’s not as much as I’d expected,’ said Bob, ‘but if you assume that before the war an average house cost under £600, it’s more than enough to set someone up for life.’

  ‘It might be enough to drive a man to murder,’ said Archibald.

  Bob said, ‘You’ve mentioned the west end of Loch Arkaig a few times, Archibald. What’s there now? The map shows a school. Is there a village there?’

  ‘No,’ said Archibald. ‘The area was once well settled, but that all changed a century or more ago, when sheep were considered better tenants than people. Before the war there were a couple of occupied crofts up at Strathan, and the old school. But when the men left to go to war, their families couldn’t continue to live out there, so they moved to places like here at Clunes or Spean Bridge.’

  ‘Is there anything else of interest there?’ asked Bob.

  ‘There’s an old government barracks from the Jacobite era,’ said Archibald. ‘It’s called “Tigh nan Saighdearan”, which translates as “The Soldiers’ House”. It could only ever have been tiny to start with, and there are only a couple of walls left now, standing on a high point next to the track from the head of the loch to Strathan. The main thing of interest about the west end of Loch Arkaig is the way it serves as a crossroads for routes leading off in a variety of directions.’