Stone of Destiny

by Ian Hamilton

  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.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  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.

  As we drew nearer, we noticed that there were two caravans and two fires. It was the first one that we were interested in, as the blind back of the second one effectively screened the gypsies at the second fire from the hiding place.

  In the leaping flames we could see an ancient gypsy couple sprawled against the fence, their boots outstretched to the blaze. The man could have put his hand through the fence and touched the Stone. Their caravan beetled over them, and the firelight fell across the black entrance. It was open and sinister. The trees leaned uneasily to the warmth, the sparks rose through their bare branches like fireflies, and the darkness pressed around as though jealous of the fire. A lurcher pup came at us, jumping and fawning, and was called off by the woman. We came close to the fire.

  ‘Can we have a heat at your fire?’ Bill asked like a cheery traveller out of the night. The woman invited us in with a ‘Sir’ and a smile. I said nothing. We sat silent for a long time. The firelight danced across the bronze faces of the gypsies in the frosty night. Then Bill started to talk.

  He talked of the cold at first, and the woman nodded and smiled. He did not go hurriedly and there were many long pauses. Then he asked them how long they were staying and the woman said, ‘For a day or two.’ At this the man mentioned that it was late, and the hint was obvious.

  Then Bill started talking in earnest while the flames leapt across our faces and the sparks shot up and the lurcher pup crept close to be fondled.

  He talked first of all about the gypsies and how they were harried by the authorities. He talked about the free life they lived and how in these times there were many people who talked about liberty, and many more who soiled it by denying it to those whom they did not understand. He told them about our country in the north which was a little country, and which like the gypsies was striving to preserve its liberty and be itself. Their ways and customs were not ours, but the problem was the same all over the world. Darkness was coming down on the world and only a few people like the gypsies and the Scots foresaw that darkness and tried to live their lives like a light. The gypsies made no sound and no movement.

  I watched Bill’s face, young and earnest in the firelight. I can see it to this day. He had forgotten that he was playing a game, which was as well, for the gypsies would not have understood a game; they may not even have understood his words, but he was down beyond words to the level of sincerity, and they knew and trusted that.

  Then he talked about liberty itself, and how in the end of the day it is the only precious thing. The slaves who would not be free, because their masters fed and clothed them, were still with us today, but food and drink vanished and left in the end only freedom or slavery. Freedom could be preserved, not in caravans or in houses, but only in people’s hearts, and as soon as they stopped valuing it it disappeared. ‘We’re not like that,’ he ended. ‘And to keep our freedom we need something out of that wood. It’s not wrong, but it’s illegal. We are doing right, but we will go to jail if we’re caught.’ He looked at the gypsy simply and with no defiance.

  The gypsy who had as yet scarcely spoken answered him.

  ‘You can’t get it just now,’ he said without moving. ‘There’s a local man who isn’t a gypsy at the next fire and you can’t trust him.’

  For a long time we followed the gypsy philosophy of staring into the fire as though it contained all wisdom and all knowledge. Then the outside world broke in in the shape of Alan and Johnny. They pulled the car up by the edge of the road and walked over to see what kept us so long. The gypsy woman looked up with patient serenity, and the lurcher bounded to meet them.

  ‘They are our friends,’ said Bill, and the gypsy smiled.

  ‘Where is the Lia Fail?’ whispered Johnny fiercely, using probably the only two Gaelic words he knew. Bill and I answered nothing, and soon all six of us sat staring silently at the fire.

  In a little while, another gypsy drifted in from
the group beyond the other caravan to see, no doubt, who had visited his friends. The two men talked a little in their own language, and then the newcomer went back to his own fire.

  ‘It will be all right,’ said the gypsy. ‘The stranger will be gone soon.’

  Shortly afterwards a man came from the direction of the other fire. He mounted his bike and road off down the road towards Rochester. The gypsy from the other fire came back and told us it was safe.

  My excitement uncoiled like a spring and I vaulted the fence. Alan followed with the torch. The Stone was exactly as we had left it. The litter on top of it was frozen stiff and came off in one piece like the lid of a box. It had protected the Stone, and the frost had hardly touched it. The four of us manhandled it up the slope and under the bottom bar of the railing.

  When the gypsies saw the weight we were carrying, the two men rushed to our assistance. We carried it bodily across the grass and sat it in the space already prepared for it at the nearside front seat. Alan and Johnny tumbled in. ‘Go on and wait for us up the road,’ said Bill and we returned to the fire.

  I fumbled in my pocket and produced £3. I offered it to one of the gypsies.

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘No!’

  I felt despicable. In my country I would not have done it, but I had judged my hosts by the Londoners. ‘Yes!’ I cried, to cover up my shame, and thrust the money at him. I had violated one of the most sacred rules of hospitality, and shown myself unworthy to sit by their fire. Feeling like a commoner among kings, I thanked them for their hospitality, and together Bill and I left the circle of warmth and kindness and stepped back into the cold and the namelessness of the darkness.

  I do not know if the gypsies knew what they did that night. I like to think that they did. The Stone has a long, strange, unknown history, and gypsies may have played a part in that history before that night. It is difficult, after that episode, to deny that there is a design in life, although what that design is I have never known. The gypsies were no handicap to us. It was only in our bitterness when we first saw them that we lost our faith, and swore that there were never people as unlucky as we.

  How long had they been there? I do not know. How long did they stay after we had gone? I do not know that either. But I do know that as long as they were there they were the most efficient guard we could have placed on the Stone. Who would be suspicious of a car stopped at a gypsy’s caravan? Who would look for the Stone of Destiny in the heart of a gypsy encampment in the English countryside? Yet the police looked in many places at that time and there were many who would have been suspicious had they seen something carried into a car from a lonely and deserted wood near London.

  Sometimes I wonder if they were really there, yet they must have been, for we all saw and spoke to them. But why? Out of all the broad acres and highways and lanes of England, why on that exact spot? Within one yard? Why on that exact night of all nights? Must everything be explained? If so, I fail.

  As we walked up towards the car Bill turned to me and said, ‘By God! The gypsies will have a fine place in the new Scotland we’re going to build.’

  ‘By God,’ I said. ‘They will.’

  One fact remains with me to this day with searing shame. That is that I tried to repay kindness with money.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  A hundred yards up the road the car was waiting for us, and putting the gypsies out of our minds we saw the Stone and leapt in. The Stone was damp and earthy and as yet uncovered with any coat, but Johnny was sitting on it, his beard bristling and his eyes flashing with fierce pride.

  ‘It’s not groaning,’ he said. ‘I can’t be a king.’ The old legend has it that the Stone groaned aloud when the true king of Scots sat on it.

  Half a mile from where we had left the gypsies, a road led off to the left. We dropped Bill at the corner and turned into it to make adjustments to the Stone. Bill would watch the main road and see whether the police swooped on the gypsies’ camp. Someone might have seen us and reported the suspicious circumstances. We could take no chances.

  As we manoeuvred the Stone into its most effective position Alan and I continued our argument. He was still certain that the boot was the best place for it, but I would not hear of it. We shoved and pulled at the Stone until I was satisfied. It was not perfect, but it was as good as we were likely to get. In the dark, little was obvious, but by daybreak we would be nearing the Border, which was the place of greatest danger. From the road, Johnny appeared to be the right height, and it was not until the driving door was opened that he seemed to be at all awkward. Even then, with a coat over his legs he was natural enough. It was only when the nearside door was open that it could be seen that the seat had been removed and something substituted.

  That seat was our biggest worry. If a patrol stopped us an intelligent constable might wonder where it had come from. We tried to lock it in the boot, but even there it would be noticeable, and anyway it was too big to go in. There was nothing for it but to leave it lying on the back seat. We draped it with coats and tried to make it look as much like an armrest as possible. But we were uneasy about it.

  ‘We’ll send somebody up by train with it,’ I said.

  I could feel Johnny studiously trying not to hear me. He knew that that would be his job, and he wanted to cross the Border with the Stone like the rest of us.

  We picked Bill up at the corner. He had nothing to report, so we pointed the bonnet for London. We pulled away slowly. We had started on the last lap. I drove first and let Alan sleep. He would need all the rest he could possibly sandwich between his spells at the wheel. We would be tired before we reached Scotland. Yet as we gently cruised into the heart of London I was burning with excitement. The newsboys were still shouting the headlines, ‘STONE: ARREST EXPECTED SOON’. People were buying the papers and reading and wondering where it could be, while the Stone passed by, half a yard away. We looked out at them, and knew. It would be in Scotland tomorrow.

  We passed through London without a word being said about the car seat. We had all remembered it, but we had all refrained from mentioning it. We were learning. It had been a mistake for the three of us to separate on Christmas Day. People work better together. The problem of the seat could wait until we were nearer the Border. In actual fact we took little risk. We reckoned that by that time, six days after the removal of the Stone, any police patrols would be confined to the northern counties of England. Time enough to take precautions when we were 200 miles north of London.

  As we drove, we discussed the best route to take. I had ridden them all on my powerful Speed Twin motorcycle when I was in the forces. The Great North Road was our easiest way, and the one least likely to be blocked with snow, but that road would be well watched. The same would apply to the A6 through Derby and Manchester. Furthermore, north of Lancaster this road climbs up over Shap, and there was a considerable chance that it would be impassable.

  It seemed that our best route was to start by the A6. We would go straight up through the heart of England to Nottingham, passing Luton, Bedford and Leicester on the way. From Nottingham we would head for York, crossing the Great North Road just south of Bawtry and passing thereafter through Snaith and Selby.

  This was not our most direct route, but it had the advantage of keeping us to the secondary trunk roads, which were not so busy as to be carefully watched, but busy enough not to be blocked with snow. Having made our decision we wasted no further mental energy on argument. Alan and Johnny slept. I drove, and Bill read the map for me.

  All the way to Luton we waited for the snow to fall. The night was dark and woolly, with that relaxed feeling in the air which is brought by the threat of snow. The weather seems to sigh, before expiring in whiteness. Luton brought the first snow flurries. Soon it fell in a steady white sheet. I was dazzled. The speedometer fell back, and we were reduced to a crawl. My eyes ached with peering through the snow, which seemed to be coming in handfuls, thrown at our tired eyes.

  There was no doubt as to
whether it would lie or not. It was soon binding under the mudguards, and even on slight hills the engine whined and the rear end swung as the wheels failed to grip the road. We put off the evil hour of getting out into the cold to fit the chains to the rear wheels, but as we neared Bedford we knew that it was unavoidable. Outside, it was dark and cold and wet. The darkness pressed on us. The snow fell with that dull sound, which is like intensified silence. It was like an army creeping into position. I at least was frightened, but we needed these chains.

  We took them from the boot, unfankled them with many curses and stretched them out on the snow. Then I carefully backed the car onto them. For fully half an hour we lay on the snow, while filth dripped on us from the mudguards and the wet crept into our skin. We wrestled and pulled at the reluctant freezing metal until our arms ached and our knuckles seemed red raw. What the garage man had easily accomplished was beyond our power. The ends of the chain obstinately refused to meet. We pulled and swore and twisted and finally gave up. We would have to try to drive without them.

  We drove on. We could do nothing else. And all the time we were thinking of the bloody mush the Stone would make if we overturned and it thumped on top of us. But gradually we forgot our fears, and remembered only our successes. Each mile that came up on the clock was yet another mile nearer home. Even if we were finished now, every mile was a victory. And when occasionally, in our tiredness, we wondered if we were not straining ourselves in vain, we would pull the coat back from the Stone and rub our hands against its dear roughness.

  And straining we were. We found an all-night garage in the centre of Leicester. As we approached it Bill said to me, ‘Give the wheel to Alan. You’ve been talking so slowly this while back that I can hardly make you out.’