by Ken Lussey
‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Bob. ‘Hopefully the military police will still be at the pier to keep an eye on the boat. I’m beginning to think we need another trip, this time to the west end of the loch. We’ve got the fingerprint kit with us. Let’s check this stuff, then head back to tell the lieutenant colonel the news.’
Bob was surprised that Petty Officer MacDonald was unable to find any useful fingerprints on the jerrycans or tools, which they loaded into the boat.
Bob and Lieutenant Dixon found Lieutenant Colonel White in his office with Captain Sanderson. It turned out that White already knew he was looking for two men.
‘You can’t imagine how unhappy I am about this, Bob,’ he said. ‘The second man is a Sergeant Patrick Quinlan. He’s a firearms expert and teaches trainees in the use of our own and enemy weapons. He’s also one of the best shots I’ve ever seen. We’ve checked his service record, and though he was in the army at the time of Dunkirk, he was stationed in Egypt during the first half of 1940. He volunteered for the commandos in the middle of that year, and his firearms skills were so outstanding he was immediately taken on as an instructor. That was long before commando training was centralised here at Achnacarry, and by the end of 1940 he had been appointed to the staff of the Special Training Centre at Lochailort.’
Bob remembered that Sergeant Potter had mentioned Lochailort when talking about the origins of the commando knife. ‘Is that the War Office establishment to the west of here?’ asked Bob.
‘It was,’ said White, ‘but it was closed down and handed over to the Royal Navy as a training unit a couple of months back. The Special Training Centre at Lochailort was where the sort of specialised training we now use here was developed. Without what they did there, there would be no Commando Basic Training Centre here at Achnacarry. And neither would the Special Operations Executive training units housed in various locations near the coast have come into being. Many of the instructors at Inverailort House, which was the H.Q. of the Special Training Centre, helped the SOE set up their operation. This was, and still is, headquartered not far away at Arisaig House. Many of the Lochailort instructors also ended up on my staff here.’
‘Hang on a moment, Edward. I’ve reached the conclusion there were two murderers based on the number of shovels we found. Why do you think there’s a second man?’
‘It was getting dark when we started to search Achnacarry last night. We found nothing and overnight I placed strict security on all routes into or out of the place. As you know, there aren’t that many of them. In the early hours of this morning, Sergeant Quinlan drove a lorry out of Achnacarry, apparently to pick up ammunition in Fort William from a boat he said was docking there early this morning. He was well known to the men on duty and his story was plausible, so they let him through. They did report what had happened to the duty officer this morning, however, and he was able to establish that there was no delivery of ammunition scheduled. We therefore alerted units more widely across the area and the military police at the checkpoints into the Protected Area, which effectively cuts off everything this side of the Caledonian Canal.’
‘Was the lorry searched?’ asked Bob.
‘Yes, it was, though perhaps not thoroughly. The guards were confident that Sergeant Quinlan was on his own, however. That doesn’t really mean anything. Assuming he and Sergeant Mallory were in this together, it would have been no problem for Mallory to walk across country to meet Quinlan and the lorry on the road south of here.’
‘Where did the lorry go when it left here?’ asked Lieutenant Dixon.
‘We were a bit surprised to have found no trace of it this morning,’ said White. ‘But a short time ago it turned up abandoned at a place called Banavie.’ He walked over to a map on the wall. ‘Look, gentlemen. We are here, and Banavie is here. You can travel between here and there without crossing any of the Protected Area checkpoints. Mallory and Quinlan must have assumed that the alarm would be raised quickly and decided to take no chances.’
Bob also looked at the map. ‘I suppose the critical question is where they went after abandoning the lorry. These are locks marked nearby, on the canal. Would there have been guards to prevent anyone crossing the canal on foot over the lock gates?’
‘I very much doubt it,’ said White. ‘And if they crossed the canal on foot, then there are railway stations on the other side, on the branch line to Banavie itself and on the main line to Mallaig.’
‘Or they could have been making for Fort William, sir,’ said Lieutenant Dixon.
‘Which would give them access to the railway line to Glasgow,’ said Lieutenant Colonel White.
‘What about escaping by sea?’ asked Lieutenant Dixon.
Bob asked, ‘Given your knowledge of this area, where would you go looking for a boat, Michael?’
‘There are some obvious places, sir,’ said Lieutenant Dixon. ‘I’m sure there will be boats in the canal basin at the southern end of the canal, a very short distance from where the lorry was abandoned. My personal choice would be to steal something like a motor gun boat from HMS St Christopher in Fort William. That way I could be hopeful of outrunning any pursuit.’
‘But you’re a naval man,’ said Bob. ‘Could we expect two army sergeants to know their way around a boat well enough to steal something like that?’
‘Remember these men’s backgrounds, Bob,’ said Lieutenant Colonel White. ‘We deliver training on many different types of boats here at Achnacarry, and my staff are expected to build a broad range of expertise, and not just focus on their particular specialisms.’
‘They’ve got a good few hours lead on us,’ said Bob. ‘Presumably, if they were going to steal a boat from one of the places you’ve just listed, we’d know about it by now?’
‘Perhaps, sir, but we need to check. If you look further afield there are plenty of other places within reach.’ Lieutenant Dixon moved his finger across the map. ‘Lieutenant Colonel White referred to the new Royal Naval training base at Lochailort. I’ve yet to visit it, but I bet they have suitable boats for what I have in mind. There will also be a choice of vessels on offer at Arisaig and at Mallaig, which can be reached by road or by rail from where the lorry was abandoned. Remember, we are talking about very resourceful, not to mention dangerous men.’
Bob looked at the map. ‘The longer you look, the more options they seem to have.’
‘That’s true,’ said White. ‘We’ve suspended the course for our No.3 Intake and divided the 350 men into patrols, each led by an officer or NCO from the staff here. Each patrol has been assigned an area or a location across a wide swathe of the western Highlands, looking for any traces of Mallory and Quinlan and making sure that if they are still in the area and travelling overland we will find them. It goes without saying that all of the patrols are fully armed.’
‘One thing I haven’t asked,’ said Bob, ‘is how we can be so sure that Sergeant Quinlan isn’t simply visiting a girlfriend in Corpach or in Fort William. Do we have anything to definitely tie him to Sergeant Mallory?’
It was Captain Sanderson who replied. ‘They don’t share accommodation or anything like that. And we’ve spoken to the men that each does share with, who are also instructors here. It seems Mallory and Quinlan didn’t exactly seek out one another’s company when not on duty, though our records do show that they had worked together on some of the training courses. I can tell you that both were absent from the camp on Friday afternoon and evening, for reasons that seemed legitimate at the time. And I can also show you this, found folded into a pair of socks when we searched Quinlan’s quarters a short time ago. It will look very familiar to you, Group Captain.’
The captain leaned over and placed a gold coin in Bob’s hand. ‘I’m sorry if you’d have preferred to check it for fingerprints, but it was handled by the officer undertaking the search before we thought of that.’
‘That’s not a problem,’ said Bob, turni
ng over in his hand a gold Louis d’or identical to the one he still carried in his breast pocket. Or, on closer inspection, not quite identical. ‘This one is dated 1740,’ he said. ‘I wonder why he left it? I take it that Mallory’s quarters have also been searched?’
‘Yes, sir, and we found nothing of interest,’ said Captain Sanderson.
Lieutenant Colonel White said, ‘In light of this conversation, I think our highest priority has to be to warn everyone in the area who might have a boat that could be of interest to Mallory and Quinlan to be on their guard, and to have them check to ensure that no boat has already gone missing. Can you look after that, Clive?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Captain Sanderson, ‘I’ll do that now.’
‘The thing I can’t work out is the gold,’ said Bob. ‘Let’s assume that on Friday, Mallory and Quinlan returned to the pier with one or more gold coins each, perhaps just a single souvenir they would be able to hide away somewhere. They could never have hoped to keep large amounts of gold hidden around the camp. Let’s assume they had at some time previously found some or all of the hidden gold, somewhere further west along Loch Arkaig, presumably by accident. Following the pattern of what happened in 1753, when Archibald Cameron’s namesake and ancestor came looking for the gold, the safest thing might have been for them to move it to a new hiding place that only they knew about. They could then return to collect it at their leisure, perhaps in some years’ time, once the war has ended and these mountains are a little quieter.’
‘Those seem reasonable working assumptions,’ said Lieutenant Dixon. ‘It’s not going to be a very relaxing time for either of them, though. Let’s remember that between them they have murdered two men, as well as a woman in Belgium, so moral scruples won’t worry either of them. And, assuming our theory is correct, they are the only people in the world who know where they have hidden the gold. There’s a strong incentive for either of them to murder the other, both to double his personal share of the gold, and to remove any possibility of the other one coming back prematurely to steal the gold or telling anyone else where it is hidden.’
‘Both will be watching their backs very carefully,’ said Bob. ‘I’d still love to know how one of the coins was lost, and the other abandoned.’
‘I’ve no idea about the first, sir. But we don’t know what went on between Mallory and Quinlan yesterday evening. Perhaps if Quinlan shared his accommodation with another man, he was unable to return to collect his belongings, including the coin in his socks, for fear of alerting his room-mate to what was going on.’
‘You may well be right, Michael,’ said Bob. ‘I’m not sure how much we can usefully add to the hunt that’s under way for Mallory and Quinlan. With your permission, Edward, I’d like to borrow that boat again, and this time head up to the far end of Loch Arkaig. Archibald Cameron mentioned a couple of locations where the gold might have been hidden in 1753, and at least one of them is meant to be very close to the loch. I suppose as much as anything, I’d like to get a feel for the landscape in the area.’
‘I have no problem with that, Bob,’ said the lieutenant colonel, ‘but let us kit you out a little better for the mountains before you go. I hope you don’t mind if we don’t accompany you? I’ve already told you of the searches that are under way. We’ve got a busy day planned here in other ways too. We’ve got the final parade later for the Scots Guards and the 24th Guards Brigade detachments. I’ll hand out their green berets and commando knives, and then they will march off to Spean Bridge railway station with accompanying pipes and drums provided by our in-house demonstration troop. I am of course putting special measures in place to ensure that Mallory and Quinlan are unable to use the event to make good their own escape. I appreciate they are probably far away by now, but we can’t take any chances. Once the two guards detachments have gone, we will start work on reorganising the accommodation. This coming Thursday we are to be joined by 84 men in what will be our third police intake.’
‘I didn’t know you trained police here, too,’ said Bob.
‘Not as police,’ said White. ‘We’ve had two previous intakes from the police and they’ve proved highly successful as commandos. As they have no military background, they spend three months here, and then go out to add maturity and experience to the various commando units.’
Chapter Seventeen
It was still a fine day, but nonetheless there was a cold wind from the west. Bob sat with Lieutenant Dixon in the middle of the boat while Petty Officer MacDonald took the helm. He was grateful that he’d accepted Lieutenant Colonel White’s offer of suitable clothing and equipment.
The three of them were dressed in what the lieutenant colonel had called Denison smocks; the camouflaged water-resistant jackets the training centre staff wore when the weather was poor. They also wore heavy army boots and gaiters and had been issued with cap comforters, the headgear worn by all the trainees at the Commando Basic Training Centre as well as by many of the staff when out in the field. Their initial efforts to turn an oblong scarf into a hat had caused some amusement. Bob had realised that this was a joke that was played out whenever new trainees arrived. In the end it was Petty Officer MacDonald who worked out that the secret lay in turning one end of the scarf inside-out within the other end, then rolling up the sides of what was left.
Right now, the cap comforters were earning their keep, as were the khaki woollen glove/mittens which separated the index or trigger finger of each hand from the remaining fingers. Bob and Lieutenant Dixon carried the two Sten guns, while the rifle lay in the boat close to Petty Officer MacDonald. The three had also been issued with canvas packs and a variety of rations. This had seemed unnecessary to Bob, but he went along with it anyway.
Sergeant Potter and Private Jenkins had not seemed too distressed at missing out on the boat trip. Bob had asked them to liaise with Captain Sanderson as the hunt for Mallory and Quinlan progressed, and work with colleagues in MI11 in London to see if anything more could be found out about the two men.
Lieutenant Dixon pointed off to the left. ‘That’s the entrance to Glen Mallie, sir. That’s the first place we get to that Archibald Cameron said was traditionally believed to be a possible hiding place for the gold.’
Bob had been looking at the map. ‘I think we press on by, Lieutenant. That glen extends for quite a few miles west of here, and to my mind if someone had stumbled over the gold anywhere there, even in its entrance close to the loch, they’d have elected to move it by another means. The map shows a track all the way along the south shore of the loch from the east as far as here. A lorry would attract less attention than a boat. And if the gold had turned up further along the glen, then it would have been easier, and more discreet, to access it from the south, from Loch Eil. I also suspect that if the discovery of the hiding place had been this far east along the loch, then Mallory and Quinlan wouldn’t have felt the need for three jerrycans of petrol.’
‘That’s true, sir,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Even assuming multiple runs, you’d only need that much fuel if you were travelling to and from the western end of the loch.’
Bob kept a lookout for signs of life along the sides of the glen. He thought he glimpsed deer several times, but only in the distance. As they headed west, Bob began to appreciate the full scale of the landscape, and the loch, for the first time. At last he saw what he had been looking out for. He tapped Lieutenant Dixon on the shoulder. ‘You see the distinct narrowing of the loch ahead of us?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Dixon. ‘The Callich Burn, or Allt na Caillich, is on the north bank about half a mile before we reach that point. That must be it there.’ He pointed up to where a river had carved a valley down through the hillside, all the way from the skyline to the edge of the loch.
‘That’s where Archibald Cameron said his uncles spent one summer looking for the gold, isn’t it?’ said Bob. ‘You can see how it twists and turns, and parts of it are wooded. If you wanted to,
you could bring a boat ashore almost anywhere along that side of the loch to allow you to explore the valley. It would be good to know if there’s been any recent digging up there, but I don’t think the three of us are going to find that out today.’
Lieutenant Dixon turned his attention to the west. ‘The next place Archibald Cameron mentioned was Murlaggan, sir. He talked about his ancestor temporarily hiding the gold in an ancient graveyard surrounded by an oval stone wall on the shore of the loch. That was before he moved it to a more permanent home in the valley of the Callich Burn.’
Bob pointed to a derelict cottage next to a track some way above the shore of the loch. ‘I think that has to be Murlaggan. I don’t see a graveyard, though.’
‘There’s a walled area next to the cottage, sir,’ said Petty Officer MacDonald.
‘It doesn’t really qualify as “on the shore of the loch” though, does it?’ said Bob.
‘Well how about that then, sir?’ said MacDonald. ‘There’s a broken-down wall running along the line of the shore here, but if you look at the base of that group of old trees over there, it’s just about possible to imagine another ruined wall forming an oval.’
‘I see what you mean,’ said Bob. ‘I’d rather thought we were looking for something a little better defined, perhaps with gravestones. I suppose it depends how ancient is meant by an “ancient graveyard”.’
‘We could put the boat in there, sir,’ said MacDonald. ‘There’s a tiny inlet and we could tie up to that tree growing out of the rubble of the wall running along the shore.’
They did just that and while Petty Officer MacDonald was tying the boat to the tree, Bob and Lieutenant Dixon walked the fifty yards to the possible graveyard.
‘You know, sir, I think Andrew’s right,’ said Lieutenant Dixon. ‘If you look closely you can just about see an oval rim linking up the trees, as if an old stone wall collapsed here many centuries ago.’ He walked closer. ‘Yes, look, you can see some of the stones, covered in grass or moss. I think this has to be where the original Archibald Cameron hid the gold for a while, before moving it on.’
