“Aye, aye, sir,” said the brothers together. As Mr. Raison sculled away into the shadows they picked up the ungainly ram and carried it up to the wheelbarrow. Geoffrey helped stack whatever stores they could round it, and the rest — mostly petrol — they hid in deep shadow under the old Abbey wall.
The main gate was locked, and though the key fitted the lock it wouldn’t turn it. Arthur produced an oil can from a pocket and they tried again. Geoffrey was just feeling in the barrow for the big bolt cutters when the corroded wards remembered their function. Arthur oiled the hinges, and after one ugly screech the gates swung silently open. Geoffrey shut them behind him.
The lock to the front door of the museum would not move at all, but the smaller door round on the far side gave easily enough, and they were in. The cars lay ghostly to left and right, lumpy blobs under their plastic foam and dust sheets. The floor was gray with dust, and Geoffrey was surprised that he could see it, until he realized that the moon must now be up — he hadn’t noticed in the tense crouching over the locks. He looked behind him, and saw in the dust four sets of footprints, like those black shoe-shapes which comic artists draw to show the reeling passage of a drunk along a pavement. One of the brothers lit a pencil torch, and in its stronger light Geoffrey could see little puffs of dust smoking out behind each heel as they put their feet down. Silence lay round them like a dream. Geoffrey had been against risking the telltale rubber wheel on the barrow — he’d felt they’d have been safer with good medieval iron muffled in canvas — but now he realized he’d been wrong. As they floated round the corner to where the Rolls ought to be the thud of his excited blood seemed the loudest noise in the night.
“That’s her,” said Basil.
“Aye,” said Arthur. “That there lump on ’er bonnet’s where the silver lady stands. Drape a bit of your bedding atween those two there, Jeff, and we won’t hardly show no light.”
Basil was already scratching with his fingernail at the white goo beneath the projection Arthur had pointed at. He tore a strip of the stuff away and shone his torch on the hole. They all saw the overlapping RR.
“Aye, that’s her,” said Arthur, and chuckled in the darkness. Geoffrey ran a cord between projections from the two white lumps on their right and draped sleeping bags into the gap. Arthur lit a small lantern torch and began tearing systematically at the cocooning plastic. Geoffrey untied the dust sheets that covered the rear two-thirds of the machine and found that the dash and the controls had also been cocooned. He helped Sally into the driver’s seat and set her pecking sleepily away, then went off with the barrow to fetch the rest of the stores. By the time he’d finished his third trip, Basil and Arthur had torn off all the cocooning that would come easily, and were working under the bonnet, swabbing down the plastic with solvent. It shriveled as the sponges touched it to a few small yellow blobs, which they wiped away with cloths. Sally was fast asleep on the front seat, sucking her thumb in a mess of white plastic. She grunted like a porker as Geoffrey heaved her into the back, but stayed there. He covered her with a blanket, swept out the litter of cocoon and started to swab away at the dash. She’d done pretty well, really. He finished the dash, cleared the steering wheel, gear-lever and brake, and climbed down to see how the brothers were doing. They’d almost finished.
“I’ll nip down and get the last jerrican,” he said. “Then I’ll give you a hand with the wheels and the ram.”
“OK, Jeff. I reckon she’d start now — if she’ll start at all.”
Outside the moon was well up, leaving only the big stars sharp in a black sky. And something else was different. He stood still, and realized that the night was no longer noiseless. There was a muttering in the air. As he walked down to the gate he recognized it as the sound of low, excited voices. There was dim, flickering light beyond the bars — a lantern! He crept through the clotted mat of grasses, that had fallen during five summers of neglect into the drive, and peeped round the stone gatepost. There were three or four men on the grass bank where they’d landed on the other side of the road. The one with the lantern knelt and pointed. Another ran off to the sleeping houses. They must have spotted the tread marks of the barrow’s tire. As quickly as he could move in silence, Geoffrey loped back to the museum. The brothers had hauled the ram into position in front of the bonnet and were standing scratching their heads.
“There’s no time for that! They’ve spotted the barrow tracks, or something. One of them ran off to the village!”
“Ah,” said Basil, slowly, as though someone had told him crops were moderate this year.
“What’d we better do?” said Arthur, as though he already knew the answer but was just asking for politeness.
“Do you really think she’d start?”
“Aye. We’ve put some petrol in her, and primed her, and pumped her. Mebbe we could be getting off to some tidy spot in the Forest now, and put the old. ram on there.”
“What about the tires?”
“Reckon we must go chancing that, Jeff. They don’t look too bad to me. I’ll be pumping the accelerator while Basil cranks and you can see if she’ll go. Oil’s OK.”
Geoffrey and Basil unfastened the absurd great straps which held the hood forward, eased the framework back and folded the canvas in. Sally said “I’m all right” as he lugged her back into the front seat to make room for the stores, but she stayed asleep. Then he settled himself behind the wheel, whispering to himself “Be calm. Be calm.” Arthur was standing by the left front wheel, methodically pawing away at the footpump, when Geoffrey moved the advance/retard lever up and switched on. Basil swung the starting handle, but nothing happened. The same the second time, but at the third swing the engine kicked, hiccuped and then all six cylinders woke to a booming purr. He revved a couple of times, and Arthur grinned at him through the easy note of power. This, thought Geoffrey, was far the most beautiful toy that man had ever made for himself. The idea was spoiled as a snag struck him. He gazed up the narrow and twisting path between the shrouded cars to the intractably locked main doors.
“How are we going to get out?” he shouted, though there was no need to shout. At low revs the engine made no more noise than a breeze in fir trees* but panic raised his voice.
“Ah,” said Basil. He walked round and kicked the wall behind the car.
“This is no’ but weatherboarding here,” he said. “I got a saw somewhere, and I’ll be through that upright in a brace of shakes.”
Arthur didn’t even look up from his pumping. His long, pale face was flushed with the steady pumping, and there was a pearl or two of sweat on his moustache.
“All I ask is have a care the roof don’t come down atop of us,” he said.
Basil scratched his jaw and looked up at the crossbeam.
“Don’t reckon she should,” he said. “Not till we’re out, leastways.”
He took his saw from his toolbag and sawed with long, unhurried strokes at the upright timber. When he was through at the bottom he stood on two jerricans and started again about seven foot from the ground. Arthur packed the pump into the back and went round the car, kicking the tires thoughtfully..
Basil jumped down from his pedestal and heaved the cans into the back. He looked over the door at the sleeping Sally, climbed up, picked her up gently and stowed her on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Then he lifted the sleeping bags off the cord and tucked them round and over her, until she was cushioned like an egg in an eggbox. He knelt on the seat and reached over into the back, feeling in his toolbag, and brought out two hefty wrenches. He handed one to Arthur and settled into the passenger seat.