The Miller's Dance (45 page)

The
Self-Defence
-
Elegant Light Post Coach, as it described itself - left the Royal Hotel, Plymouth each weekday at 8 a.m., reaching the New Hotel, Falmouth the same evening at 8.30 p.m. On the way it called at the London Inn, Torpoint, the King's Arms,
Liskeard, the Talbot Inn, Lost
withiel, the White Hart, St Austell, and Pearce's Hotel in Truro. It travelled with two coachmen and an armed guard, had accommodation for four travellers inside and eigh
t outside. In view of the hard ti
mes such enterprises were enduring (though it did not say this in the advertisements) the price of t
he journey was reduced to £1.10
s. inside and £1 outside, with lesser distances proportionate. No more than two pieces of hand baggage-were permitted per person.

On Monday, January 25 everything was as usual. The coachmen were called Marshall and Stevens, the guard Blight. All four places were reserved: two were to join in Plymouth, the Reverend Arthur May and Mrs May, two in Torpoint, Lieutenant Morgan Lean, RN and a Mr George Jewell. The Rev. and Mrs May were booked right through to Falmouth, Lieutenant Lean to St Austell, Mr Jewell to Truro.

It was a bright sunny day when the vehicle set off, a cobalt sky and a north-westerly breeze edging a few clouds before it. The gold-painted coach looked very smart, as did the coachmen and the guard in their scarlet coats and high black hats with gold hatbands. They rattled over the cobbles through the narrow, already busy streets of the town, the long horn blown shrilly to announce their coming. People were reluctant to edge out of their way: milkmaids, girls with baskets of shrimps, slatternly women dragging ragged children, an old man with a herd of goats, a one-legged beggar in a sailor hat, redcoated soldiers leaning and yawning, dogs fighting, and down an alley a donkey braying, stout townsmen in dark suits, then more and more sailors as they neared the docks; in the wind a smell of putrid fish.

There was already a slight blemish on the day in that, even as she left the inn, it was clear that the clergyman's wife was feeling unwell. She clung to her husband's arm arid held a handkerchief to her mouth. The Reverend Mr May implied that she was suffering in the early stages of pregnancy and asked, if it should become necessary, that they might be permitted to draw up the blinds of the coach. This was readily acceded to, for it was not an uncommon custom to do this in foul weather or over bad roads where flying stones might shatter the glass. The Rev. Arthur May was a tall thin man of perhaps forty, with a fresh complexion but greying hair, and heavy steel-rimmed spectacles. His sight was clearly not of the best, for he stumbled in getting into the coach. His wife was also quite tall, with pronounced dark features under a transparent white veil. She was very gracious to the coachman who handed her in.

The ferry carrying the coach crossed the Hamoaze, threading its way through a forest of masts: brigs, frigates, cutters, ketches, intermingled with great battleships of the line; two first-raters being re-fitted, a half dozen double-deckers of different size and rating. The masts and rigging were like trellis, intermingling and glittering in the winter sun. Plymouth Dock was one of the main arsenals of British sea power. From here and from a half-dozen other such ports Britannia ruled the waves. Everyone except Mrs May got down to point out and admire.

Presently they were across and drawing up at the London Inn. Here the four outside passengers were joined by three others, and Lieutenant Morgan Lean arrived, a youngish powerful-looking naval officer with a white wig and heavy black eyebrows; but Mr Stevenitt, the landlord of the inn, had had a message from Mr Jewell that he would not be joining the coach until Dobwalls or Liskeard. Until then they must retain his seat.

So, a little before nine, the coach set off on its first substantial stage. This was the longest stretch of all, and with some of the steepest hills to be negotiated. Mrs May had not alighted from the
coach at Torpoint, but a glass o
f brandy had been taken in to her. After a few miles the mahogany panels were drawn up to shut out the light and the view. It seemed a pity on such a fine day, for they were jogging and jolting among the lovely tidal creeks round Antony and Sheviock.

As soon as the. blinds were up the Rev. Arthur May looped off his spectacles.

'By God, I can scarcely see! I should have borrowed something with weaker lenses.'

'Did everything go to plan?' asked Lieutenant Lean.

'Seems so. And you?'

'Aye. I suppose you saw the cash-boxes loaded?'

Mrs May nodded. 'Two, as you said. So far so good. When do we start?'

They both looked at the sham clergyman. Because it was Jeremy's plan, he had come to lead it. '

'Another few minutes,' he said,
I
believe they stop at Polbathic, don't they?'

They waited, unspeaking. Paul was wearing a frock of his dead sister Violet. Although he was taller than she had been they had been able to let out the hem and loosen the gown at the waist, so giving it extra length. They had all bought wigs, though at different times and in different towns. Second-hand wigs were plentiful, and Jeremy had bought one of horsehair, such as the Rev. Mr Odgers always wore, much lighter in colour than his own hair; Paul, a full female wig of black curls; Stephen had cut his own hair much shorter in order to accommodate the naval wig. Stephen had complained that of the three of them he wore the least disguise; but Jeremy and Paul had both spent the night at the Royal, which he had not had to do, and Jeremy was probably right in saying that no one ever looked closely at a person's features - it was the distinguishing signs people would remember: a tall near-sighted clergyman with heavy spectacles, a thin dark pregnant young woman in a veil, a big naval officer in a smart new uniform with a white wig.

The coach stopped. The blind was made of very thin mahogany which was raised and lowered from inside the door exactly in the same way as the glass it protected, and Jeremy, with the window down and his thumb against the shutter, was just able to see a slit of the road outside. 'Look to yourselves,' he snapped, and sat back in his seat
.
There was a respectful tap at the door, and after an appropriate interval, Jeremy allowed the blind to sink into its socket.

'We're stopping here, sur,' said one of the coachmen. 'Five minutes. Wondered if the lady'd like another glass o' brandy.' .

Paul, still holding a handkerchief to his mouth under the veil, shook his head.

'Very good, sur.'

'I'll take a tot,' said Stephen. 'Nay, nay, I'll come for it' He excused himself to his two companions and followed the coachman into the inn. 'Doubt if that's wise,' said Paul under his breath. 'The nearer normal we seem the better. Thank God it's a fine day. Otherwise, who knows
...
?'

Presently they were off again. Jeremy continued to watch things through the thin gap he was forcing in the blind. This slit, apart from guarding against surprise, allowed a little more light in for what they had to do. 'Right,' said Jeremy.

He was seated on the edge of the seat with his back to the horses. Stephen now pulled the cushioned seat away, and put it behind him. The lining of the coach behind the seat was of thick carpet-like red felt, stiff material which had been cut to fit the arch of the interior. It was sturdy enough to stay in position on its own, and only two screws secured
it to the woodwork behind. Stephen took out a screwdriver, eased out the screws, bent the lining back into the coach, exposing the wood.

Paul felt under his skirts and untied a suspended parcel of linen, putting it on the seat beside him. From the parcel he unwrapped a brace and bit. In the meantime Stephen had taken out a piece of chalk and drawn a circle on the wood
about the size of the face of a large grandfather's clock. Then he screwed in the bit and applied it as it were to twelve o'clock on the clock face.

This wood, also mahogany, was about three-quarters of an inch thick. It was how Paul, who knew a lot about how (coaches were constructed, said it would be. This single wooden barrier separated the interior of the coach from the padlocked compartment under the coachman's seat. But the mahogany was hard and unyielding -quite as hard as oak -and to bore a hole needed constant muscular pressure to force the bit to bite. When the bit was unwound and withdrawn it left a hole about a third of an inch in diameter. Stephen began to drill a second hole at six o'clock.

The coach slowed as it attempted the long ascent near Trerule Foot. Some beggar children began to run alongside it, calling out and shouting. One or two tried to get a lift by hopping perilously on the axles but were quickly driven off. Paul unwrapped the rest of his linen packet. Three narrow saw-blades about six inches long for fitting into a wooden handle of the same length; a tin of grease, a hunch of keys, a tiny botde of 'train' oil, two steel crowbars each about a foot long and screwing together.

By now Stephen had driven six holes.

'Let me take over,' said Paul.

‘
Wait.'

The coach was slowing as they neared the crest of the hill. 'Quickly the lining was flipped back into place, the cushion seat replaced, the tools stowed under the cushions. The coach stopped and the outside passengers got down to lighten the load. Jeremy lowered the blind and peered out. Mrs May continued to lie back with closed eyes. The gallant lieutenant opened the window and put his head out.

'Would ye wish me to walk too? It is no trouble.'

'Thank ee, no, sur,' called the driver from his seat. 'We'll manage nicely, thank ee all the same.'

It was no more than a hundred yards to the top, but it. seemed a long way.

'Am I disturbing ye, ma'am?' Lieutenant Lean asked, is
the
air too fresh?'

'No, no,' said Mrs May. it is pleasant for a few moments.'

At
the
top was a toll-bar. Here they stopped a moment to pay their dues. Then the outside passengers and
the
second coachman and the guard climbed aboard. The coach, with some clucking and clicking and the snapping of the whip, got under way again, the blind was drawn up, and after it the window. At once the lining was bent down again and Stephen snatched up the brace.

'Like me to take over?'Paul asked.

'No, not yet. Put the blade of the saw in, fit the bars together. God's eyes, are we never to be still! It is one thing we hadn't banked on!'

The 'thing
’
they hadn't banked on was the lurching of the coach. In bad places it jolted and swayed so much that Stephen was off his balance and nearly let the brace fall. Often the hole took twice as long to drill.

Jeremy looked at his watch. 'How many have you done?'

'On my ninth.'

'How is that going for time?'Paul asked.

'Not ill. We might just accomplish it all before Liskeard. It depends on the number of interruptions.'

'D'you wish me to sta
rt with the saw?' Paul asked im
patiendy.

'Certainly not. It's a last resort, that. In any event we have four hours before Lostwithiel.'

I
'd be happier to see it all done this side of Liskeard.'

'Forget that. Take over from Stephen now. Then I'll take over from you.'

They changed
places. The space was very conf
ined and they constantly bumped against each other. Stephen began to brush the sawdust together with his hand and put the dust in an inside pocket of his naval coat.

Jeremy watched the others and watched the holes growing in the clock face. In spite of his apparent calm his heart was thumping as if he had run a mile. Paul also was badly strung up; but rather to Jeremy's surprise Stephen looked equally so. Risk and hazard and the illegal act were not nearly so foreign to him as to them, but he had never before run this son or risk. Danger was to him something to be undertaken in the heat of the moment, violence as its natural expression. This was too cold, too calculating: a burglary taking place in a jolting coach,
surrounded
by other people within earshot, almost within reach, and virtually in the presence of two coachmen and a guard armed with a carbine. He looked sick.

One thing about this scheme — and Jeremy had no idea whether it approximated to the events of the Brighton coach robbery - was that it was, so far, silent You had to think not only of the coachmen but of the passengers, who could be '' heard overhead moving about from rime to time, scraping their boots on the roof, shouting to each other and laughing. But the brace and bit made virtually no sound at all. If at a later hour the saw had to be used, and later still the crowbar, the inside noise might increase; but even so it should not be above the acceptable level. What passenger or guard was ever likely to hear anything from inside the coach when they were jogging and wobbling and jolting along an ill-kept turnpike road with the horses trotting and a fair breeze blowing over all?