and the gibe of his equals. Added to my misery was the thought that if a real victory lay between us as two humans that night, the victory was his. He had acted at Christmastime in a true Christmas spirit; he had made no room for me in his church, but he had seen that I was not penniless when he turned me away. The fact that I had to accept his kindness as a sort of betrayal of him troubled me greatly and I could find little consolation in knowing that the whole sorry business arose from this un-Christian English church keeping property at Westminster that did not belong to it. I greatly admire gentleness as a virtue, and I met gentleness in the Abbey that evening.
I never met the watchman again or heard what became of him. I like to think that he was a trainee curate and that he settled into a quiet living and became beloved of his flock; that he never read the works of Tom Paine or Samuel Butler, or had philosophical doubts. He represents the other Church of England, the one I admire. I have a tiny copy of the Book of Common Prayer, the Cranmer and Latimer one, which I read from time to time. I love it. A smile of affection comes to my lips when I think of this other Church of England and its night-watchman. His concern for me and how he ascertained that I had enough money for a night’s lodging struck a dissonant chord with the drunken celebrations I saw all round me. Although I am one of life’s doubters I left the Abbey with a lurking feeling thatI may be missing something that was very precious to the man who had just turned me out.
I wondered about this as I walked aimlessly along the Embankment, contradicting myself with every thought. I was resigned to a long wait, because we had made no provision to meet should things go wrong. It had never occurred to me that I might be caught and ejected, and that a rendezvous point would be necessary, and, somehow, I had to stop the others trying to make contact with me inside the Abbey when zero hour approached. I was much criticised by many of my friends for my lack of foresight in this instance, but foresight can only see through a fog. Hindsight is the only clear vision. We had not been planning for failure. We had been planning for success. However by one of the series of coincidences that were to mark everything we did, I found Gavin’s car, which I had left only two hours before. It was standing on the Embankment, and I waited beside it in the bitter frost and drew on a cigarette. I knew that Gavin would arrive shortly and I would have to explain how I had bungled matters and let everyone down.
After about quarter of an hour I saw him coming jauntily towards me. He wore no coat, but his hands were lost in a massive pair of sheepskin gloves. A cigarette poked skywards from the corner of his mouth. He was almost on me before he saw me, and then he stopped dead in his tracks and the cigarette fell to the pavement.
‘How did you get here?’ he asked as he stooped to pick it up. His amazement was justified. He knew I had been locked in the Abbey.
‘I walked,’ I said sourly and ungraciously.
He unlocked the car door and we both got in.
‘I got caught,’ I said, and told him the story. He listened to me to the end without a word, and then he started the car and drove off.
‘You can thank your lucky stars you’re not in there.’ He jerkeda fur-clad thumb towards the bulk of New Scotland Yard, which loomed over us. I was too dejected to reply.
We parked the car in Northumberland Avenue and moved over to Trafalgar Square, where Gavin had arranged to meet Kay and Alan after their return from making themselves familiar with the west road out of London.
We waited moodily at the Underground entrance in the square. They were late, and I was in no mood for conversation. As the minutes dragged by it seemed to me that there had been another hitch, and that Alan and Kay would never materialise out of the thousands who teemed about the giant Christmas tree in the