Dead I Well May Be (24 page)

We slept and it rained and the morning crept up on us. The story in the ceiling was all about the floods and recent devastation in the window continent—flooding, which had postponed all possibility of a quick invasion.

That day was a third day and they came and unlocked us. Every time they did this it made me extremely nervous. I was sure they would notice something about the locks, but they never did. My other fear was that since they just grabbed locks from the big bag when they locked us up again, Fergal wouldn’t be able to open the ones they stuck on our ankles. But he was right, they were all more or less the same and none of them took him over two minutes to break.

We walked into the yard.

It all seemed normal, but I wasn’t to know that it was going to be a hell of a day.

I dumped the slop bucket in the latrine at the old cell-block end and on the way back grabbed some straw. Fergal and Scotchy walked close behind me, just in case. It was a hot one and the guards were paying less attention than usual. We were all feeling pretty good, though.

Everyone walked clockwise, I’m not sure how, or why, but that’s what always happened even if it started out randomly.

In front of us was the little oul boy that Fergal had noticed before. He was maybe in his middle sixties, flat face, Indian. Seemed like an old lag, in and out. I never paid him any mind. Always when we weren’t talking the only thing I was thinking about was the bugger who was wearing my sandals. But the old geezer must have been on Fergal’s mind, because Scotchy told me later that Fergal had said that last time out he’d heard him singing what he thought was “My Darling Clementine.” Scotchy had said to Fergal, Well, so the fuck what? But for Fergal,
it was proof that the oul boy knew at least some English. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ.

We dandered round the courtyard and the whistle went, and Scotchy and I broke formation with everyone else, heading quickly back towards our cells. (Sometimes they thumped people who were slow off the courtyard.) We assumed Fergal was behind us, but when we turned to check he wasn’t there.

Ach, Jesus, I said, and looked for him in all the melee of people and dust. I thought he’d fallen over. I didn’t think it was anything serious, because, like I said, once they had our shoes (or maybe once they knew that Andy had died) the other prisoners weren’t interested in intimidating us or giving us a hard time.

Eejit’s tripped himself up, I said to Scotchy. But when we looked through the dust we saw that, sure enough, the dumb-ass wanker had gone over to the wee Indian fella and was asking him something.

Trouble, Scotchy predicted in a whisper.

Fergal’s voice was ridiculously loud and oddly alien:

Excuse me, mate, I was wondering if you could do me a wee solid and—but before he could continue, the man had turned and started yelling at him, harsh and guttural. He was pushing Fergal, screaming in his face. He was frightened of gawky, harmless Fergal. Any fool, including Fergal, should have seen that.

Fergal grabbed the man by the shoulders.

Calm down, mate, making a whole fuss. We don’t want everybody over, Fergal said.

The man shoved Fergal’s arms off him and caught Fergal a glancing blow on the face.

That’s it, come on, I said to Scotchy, but before we could make it over, Fergal had punched the little man on the jaw. He went down like a collapsing stack of cards, crumpling there in the dust. Fergal backed off and looked about him, but it was too late. Another man had been running over, all the time, from the lower end of the cell block. Our age. He had something in his hand. It was glinting.

He’s got a fucking knife, I yelled, and we both ran.

Fergal heard me and turned his head, but the man had jumped him from behind. There was a yell and a lot of dust and when we got over,
Fergal was lying on his back with a piece of glass embedded in his chest. In his heart. Scotchy and I both wailed for the guards. The whistle blew again and they fired a shotgun in the air. They yelled at us to move. We sat there.

Everywhere dust, in vortices, ascending like prayers.

I tried doing mouth to mouth, but there was no breath in him. Guards came and beat us away and dragged us back to our cells. They locked us in the leg irons and howled at us and shook their heads in amazement and disgust. They spat and left, banging the door behind them.

Scotchy crawled over to me.

Do you think he’ll make it? he asked.

I shook my head.

No chance.

Scotchy scrambled back to his side of the cell and we sat there saying nothing, staring wide-eyed at one another.

Our condition worsened. Scotchy began to get his cough again, and both of us were weak as kittens. We hardly had the energy to catch the crickets anymore, and Scotchy concealed from me the fact that his hair was falling out in clumps.

Our luckiest break was that Fergal had left the pick in the cell near a wall. I’d found it after a panicky half-day search. I suppose he’d had the gumption to realize that he could have lost the pick out in the yard, could have dropped it. He had that much bloody sense, at least. I thought about him. Fergal was an only child. His folks were still alive. They’d take it hard. What a complete fucking eejit.

It took Scotchy about a week to figure out the way to pick the locks on our wrist and ankle chains. He’d done a wee bit of that line of work before with cars and bike locks, but Fergal had really made it seem simple.

Scotchy didn’t care anything about the moon now, he just wanted us out of here. It was getting colder at nights and the cell was damp. We were exponentially weaker every day and we could both see that we couldn’t wait much longer.

He got himself out in five days and in the early morning, a day later, he got me out. It wasn’t a third day, so we wouldn’t have to go into the yard, thank God. Indeed, the very minute he got both of us out of the leg irons, we were ready to go. He spent the rest of the day working on the locks on our wrist manacles, but these weren’t so important. We both thought that somehow we’d bloody manage it even if our wrists were chained. Which, as it turned out, would have been disastrously wrong.

It was academic, anyway, for Scotchy got himself out of his wrist manacle at noon and he literally had just gotten me out of mine a few hours later when the door opened and the guard came in with food.

I’d been leaning over next to Scotchy and I leaned back and tried my best to rearrange the chains. He started to fake-cough to give the guard something to look at. The guard was Squinty, who had a bad eye and a jowly face. He was the nicest of the bunch, though, and sometimes, rarely, made a remark.

Today of all days he decided to stop and speak to us while we finished our food.

Scotchy was tense. Our legs and wrists were obviously unlocked. I knew he would be formulating a plan which would be a suicide mission. Squinty would notice that we weren’t locked in our irons and Scotchy would leap up and kill him immediately with his manacle. The only thing then would be to make a break for it across the yard, somehow overpower another guard, get a gun, get over the gate, get a car … Certain death.

Squinty was practicing his terrible English:

Is baseball is no good,
fútbol, sí, fútbol
, everyone play
fútbol
, he said.

Normally I liked to encourage Squinty, to get more rice out of him. Today, though, I just wanted to get him the fuck out before Scotchy did something stupid. But even so, I didn’t want to act out of the ordinary, either.

In Ireland, where we’re from, remember, we play football, we don’t play baseball, we’re Irish, not Americans, Irish, we play football, I said slowly.

Squinty grinned and looked up at the ceiling.

He pointed. Of course, he doesn’t notice our leg irons, but today he sees the big hole in the concrete roof.

Oh, Jesus fuck, I whispered.

Scotchy began to get up.

Squinty lowered his arm and made a mock shiver.

Huracán
, hurricane, big wind, he said.

There’s a hurricane coming? I asked, and made eye contact with Scotchy, pleading with him to sit the fuck down.

Big wind, he said, grinning.

Maybe big wind blows away prison and we all go free, I said, and forced a laugh.

Squinty didn’t understand but laughed anyway, took away our plates, and locked the door.

Scotchy came over and patted me on the shoulder.

Did well, Bruce, he said.

For the rest of the day I tried to keep my food down, and I mostly succeeded.

We waited until nightfall. As soon as it was good dark, we were leaving.

Getting up through the high ceiling with three people would have been relatively easy—with two it was going to be difficult. But we had a plan.

You all set? I asked him.

He nodded.

I hoisted him up onto my shoulders and he scraped away at the bitumen until there was a hole in the roof that let in the stars. Yeah, with two of us it would be harder to get out but what we were going to do would probably work. Instead of Scotchy going first, Scotchy jumped down and I got on his shoulders. He was pretty unsteady, so as soon I was up there I started pulling myself up through the hole. The light was incredible, there was a huge sky filled with stars. The spotlights on the three occupied towers were playing randomly over the yard and the roof and the fence. I pulled myself up, and when I had my elbows over the edge of the hole, Scotchy jumped from the cell below and grabbed onto my ankles. He was heavier than I’d thought and it took a painful effort not to fall back down into the cell again.

I gritted my teeth and, drawing some reserve of anger, I attempted to pull myself and Scotchy up through the hole. It was almost impossible, but I managed it. When my thighs were through, I lay almost flat
on the roof and crawled with straight legs towards the edge of the cell block, Scotchy hanging on the whole time. It was difficult, but gradually I was making it, using the roof as a lever and going slow. I felt Scotchy’s hands let go of my ankles and grab the sides of the hole. I turned round and grabbed him by the remains of his shirt and tugged the bastard, and he was up.

We were through the roof and hadn’t been seen. We crouched there for a moment, elated. Breathing hard. The searchlight beams were tracking lazily and indiscriminately on the far side of the cell block. Only two out of the three were working and they weren’t particularly powerful.

That was easy, Scotchy said.

I grinned at him. Aye, easy for you, I whispered.

We looked down the other side of the cell block. We weren’t going the way of the courtyard and the front gate; it was the fence or nothing.

The only thing for it now would be to get down. I could see that the drop was about fifteen feet. Higher than the ceiling, much higher. The concrete floor of our cell was clearly raised above the ground, probably because of thick foundations. It was a good job we hadn’t decided to tunnel.

We had to jump, but if we went for it, there was no way we could climb back into the prison again. If we jumped, we were committed. We couldn’t scout the fence and go another night. It was tonight or nothing.

Scotchy, look, I whispered, it’s a big drop. If we go now we’re not getting back in.

Why the fuck would we want back in?

I don’t know.

Just go, you big girl.

I turned and crawled away from the hole towards the edge of the cell block. I looked over and then turned round and began lowering myself down as far as I could by the arms. When I was holding on only by my fingers, I tensed and dropped. I hit the ground and rolled to the side and I was ok. I’d stuffed straw down my trousers and T-shirt to help with the razor wire, and as I rolled, it helped cushion the blow a little. Nothing was broken, and I got up. I started walking backwards to give Scotchy space to jump. After about three yards I discovered perhaps
why the other prisoners hadn’t availed themselves of our brilliant method of escape. My feet went suddenly into sucking marsh up to my knees. I looked and it all became obvious: nearly the entire prison was surrounded by a swamp. In an instant, I could see the whole thing clearly. The prison was built on a peninsula of hard rock, with layers of concrete on top. The area at the gatehouse and the road were also on good land, but within ten feet of the east, west, and north walls it became a bog. It could be that they designed it that way as an extra precaution against escape, but I doubted it. The whole countryside seemed swampy, and more than likely they’d built the prison on the best bit of hard ground they could find and the swamp was an added bonus. Once you put a wire up, it would be impossible to get through. The only way in and out of the prison was along the road and through the gate. The only bit of solid ground was at the gate and, of course, the gate was crawling with guards. For a third-world country it was all pretty ingenious, and I would have been impressed had I not been so completely gutted as I stood there, horrified and amazed.

As far as I could tell, the only way out would be to make your way round to the gatehouse and climb back over into the courtyard and then try and get out over the front gate where there was solid ground. I couldn’t believe Fergal, in all his long observations, hadn’t realized this was a bog, an impassable, quicksandy fucking swamp. He thought it was fucking grass. The idiot. The bloody stupid no-brained bastard.