Stone of Destiny by Ian Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

journeys. Through journeys were done by train. Between habitations it would be deserted. People didn’t use their cars much in the winter for long journeys. If it was icy I had reason to hope that the bits through the bigger towns would be gritted, but for the rest we would have to do our best if there was ice, and after all it was December. We would freeze if we broke down or had punctures. I wondered if she knew what she was letting herself in for. The sheer cold and effort of such a trip would be exhausting.
    As a precaution against the cold I had bought a supply of night-lights, these short stubby candles which you burned on the glove tray. They helped to keep the windscreen from freezing up, but they did little to warm the inside of the car or the people travelling in it. I planned to take a couple of blankets off my bed but even that was insufficient. I thought of hot-water bottles but they soon cooled and there would be no way of refilling them in the course of the journey, which would take a long time. We could expect to average little more than 25 miles an hour, and with stops the 400miles would take the best part of 20 hours. People doing this sort of journey usually went by train. If they went by car they took two days, unless you were a serviceman and couldn’t afford hotels. Students were in the same category. My concern for Kay and the other two was born of an ex-serviceman’s experience over these post-war roads. I had once had a fellow serviceman travelling pillion with me collapse because the cold had got to him crossing Douglas Moor. I thought he was going to die. However that was on a motorbike, and we would be better off in a car. It would be cold but there would be no wind chill.
    I was right to be worried. We arrived tired and continued tired and perhaps it affected our judgement. Had we been fresh we would have been sane and turned and come back home. We didn’t and throughout, Kay faced the cold and the excitement and the risk with bland indifference. Time and again when things went wrong, and we descended into black depression, she kept her composure when we had nothing else left to cling to. The success of the whole episode probably owes more to sheer feminine practicality than anyone will ever know.

Chapter Six

    The rapidity with which things happened after I approached Kay often fills me with astonishment. Within one week we had cut all our threads in Glasgow and taken the road south, with two compatriots, two cars and a sackful of house-breaking tools.
    Before that was done, however, I felt that my first duty was to report the new addition to our forces to John MacCormick and Councillor Gray. I rang John MacCormick, and told him that I had found a friend to take on holiday with me. Although I had no reason to fear that his telephone was being tapped a natural canniness made me take care.
    ‘Oh yes, Ian,’ he said in his usual curt noncommittal way.
    ‘I’m taking her for coffee. Could you meet us?’
    There was a sudden hesitation in his voice as he heard that my associate was a woman. Then he named a place and time and hung up.
    We were to meet that afternoon in Miss Rombach’s restaurant in Waterloo Street. I passed the information on to Kay and made arrangements to meet her there. I arrived a few minutes late and found them already in conversation, for they were no strangers to each other. I sat down and we ordered coffee.
    The older man took the initiative right away, and I was glad, as I was not used to diplomacy of this sort.
    ‘Kay has been telling me that she wants to go for the Stone with you, Ian,’ he said.
    ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I think it’s a very good idea.’
    Kay sat quietly listening.
    ‘Well, it would have its advantages,’ he said, looking at Kay.
    I knew from experience that I did not have to enumerate the advantages to this man. I had found, on many occasions before, that a word or a hint or a look could convey all that I could have said in ten sentences. A