Ghosts of the Tower of London Read Free Page B

area should have a sinister reputation, any more than anywhere else in the Tower, yet it was but five years or so earlier that a sentry of the Scots Guards had been on duty at that very spot. He had been aware of something moving, something that had the shape of a cloaked figure. The shape had emerged from the shadows, to be promptly challenged by the sentry. Receiving no reply, again the challenge came - a challenge that was stopped mid-breath, as the figure was seen to have no head! That particular episode ended with the soldier receiving first-aid for his distraught condition. Despite an exhaustive search, no trace was ever found of the headless intruder.
    Such reports of course were not passed on through the regiments over the years and so there was nothing to alarm the sentry on duty on the night in question. Like a wraith himself, he moved along the roadway between the two high walls eyes probing the darkened arrow slits the pools of shadows between the old cannons which bordered the path. Suddenly, with a sharp ‘click’, a small stone struck his boot. Thinking that he had kicked it, he continued his patrol. Two, three paces further on, another stone hit his foot, followed by yet another. Then one hit him on the leg! He froze into immobility. The small missiles seemed to come from the wall on his left, the high battlements linking the Wakefield Tower with the Lanthorn Tower. He knew that all his colleagues were either resting or on duty - and in the Tower of London no-one played jokes on armed sentries!
    Curious rather than apprehensive, he retraced his steps until, at the end of his beat, he met his companion pacing the adjoining beat. A few half-whispered words - and the two men changed places. The new sentry stepped out, half-doubting, yet wary. A practical man, he was more concerned about the possible damage flying stones might inflict on his highly-polished boots! Half a dozen paces - a few more - and then a stone struck his ankle, to clatter away across the well-worn cobbles! The Orders for the Guard were clear and well-defined; anything unusual must be reported immediately. The sentry made a quick decision; the sergeant’s sceptical disbelief would have to be risked - this WAS unusual!
    The senior NCO was not sceptical. Together with other NCOs and soldiers, they searched the area. There was no trace of any living person. The wall in question was over a hundred yards long and thirty feet high. Even more significant, it was eight feet thick, thus effectively ruling out the possibility of anyone on the other side of the wall lobbing stones over the top. The size of the stones, coupled with the trajectory required, eliminated the chance of hitting the feet of a moving target with any degree of accuracy. That anyone could have been on top of the wall was also out of the question. The only access was through the Wakefield Tower, but its two ground level doors were locked and its upper door, at battlement level, had an additional iron barred gate secured across it.
    The sergeant, puzzled yet satisfied with the thoroughness of his search, ordered resumption of the normal patrols. He resolved however to carry out random checks throughout the night, a resolve which was to lead HIM into a perplexing and eerie situation. But that was not until two more sentries had had their nerves tested!
    Midnight was striking as these two approached the archway beneath the Bloody Tower. This archway, for long the only entrance to the Inner Ward, the precincts of the royal families, was also the dreaded route trodden by the doomed prisoners. These tragic figures, queens and princesses, archbishops and aristocrats, entered via Traitors’ Gate and thence through the Bloody Tower archway to their prison towers, many later to suffer death ‘neath the descending axe. Now the archway stood dimly lit in the cold still night. A pigeon stirred in a wall crevice nearby as the two sentries passed beneath the raised portcullis. Suddenly both men