Preparations for the escape had been going on for so long that it was hard to believe we were actually going to escape. We’d invested so much emotional, mental and physical energy in the preparations that in a way we were, like someone about to spend their life’s savings, apprehensive about taking the big step. If our plans and equipment did not work (i.e. we got caught) the thought of all that effort going down the drain was more daunting than the thought of the extra years that would undoubtedly be added to our sentences. However, we were sufficiently confident that we would make it and did not feel that we were taking a blind gamble with our future and our lives.
We were sorry that our comrades were not coming with us because we knew that if we could clean out the prison it would represent a political victory of gigantic proportions. If we made it by ourselves it would be victory enough though, and we knew the escape would be more likely to succeed with just three people. The whole business had taught us many things: above all that people’s needs are different and that we shouldn’t have expected from others what we’d expected from ourselves. We learnt too that people in a prison situation needed a routine of certainties and that uncertainties were destabilising and threatening.
Strangely, as Tuesday the 11th of December came around, Alex and I felt less tension than we’d experienced during the stage ones and twos. But then getting out was not going to be much different to the stages, and we’d got used to doing those. The confidence we felt was much like the feeling you get if you’ve studied hard for an exam or trained hard for a strenuous sports event. Stephen too displayed no apparent fear and his faith in us added to our general feeling of confidence.
There was little to do by way of preparations on the preceding days – we were totally prepared and had been for some time. There was just some tidying up to do: cleaning up our cells to eliminate clues, preparing our clothing to streamline our exit and washing everything that could be given to dogs to gain our scent. Since the prison authorities and the police would undoubtedly go over our cells with a fine toothcomb after the escape, we flushed our treasured letters down our toilets and destroyed notes and documents we’d kept among our belongings. It was not easy to do this as we knew that if we didn’t succeed our lives would be bleak without the precious sentimental things we’d clung onto for so long.
On the big day, as had been agreed, everyone attempted to act as naturally and casually as possible. The warders did not appear to suspect anything, but it was hard to believe that they knew nothing of our plans. Deep down we could not help thinking that they were playing the same game with us as we were playing with them and that they would be waiting outside the front door to nab us as we emerged from it, to cause us maximum embarrassment.
As there was no work that day – the workshop had been closed since the beginning of the month – we had to enter the workshop to get out of it the few tools we would need for the task
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ahead: two screwdrivers (one large and one small – for dismantling seven’s lock and to force any other recalcitrant doors), a chisel (in case ten would not yield to our more gentle persuasions) and a file (in case we had to modify any keys). The tools were hidden in the storeroom as usual to be taken up at a convenient time. Apart from this there was nothing else to do downstairs.
The three of us tried to keep out of sight of the new warders by keeping indoors as far as possible. The temptation to go out was strong as it was a bright, warm summer’s day. We wanted to gloat at our captors and take a last look at the walls that had surrounded us for so long. The walls had lost their solid, impenetrable look – they were paper, transparent and no longer aroused that sickening, deadening and hopeless feeling that made you sigh in despair and your gut sink when you looked at them. They were only there surrounding us because we had chosen to leave them there until that day. The thought that we could just walk through them with the minimum of effort whenever we wanted to made a mockery of all the misdirected security measures that were kept place against us.
We spent the day trying to read, but it was not easy to concentrate as our minds were already outside and our comrades were discreetly silent. We did not discuss the escape because there was nothing more to discuss; we spoke to nobody because there was nothing to say.
Lunch tasted awful – we had been preparing our palates for more savoury fare. We only ate it to make sure we wouldn’t have to eat it again: we weren’t sure when our next full meal would be. Certainly we weren’t going to do something as foolish as treating ourselves to a lavish restaurant meal once we got out, although we had enough money to buy all the food we would need.
At shower-time we extracted the bag holding our escape equipment from behind the geyser and arranged our civilian clothing in three neat piles on the floor of the geyser closet so that we could retrieve it with minimal fuss later. The workshop tools we’d brought up in a thermos were placed, together with the ‘pea’, in the key-bag and left on top of the geyser (we secretly hoped that a leak wouldn’t develop above it all – that would have been the supreme irony!). We each brought to the shower our running shoes and left them with our balaclavas, gloves and caps on top of our respective piles of clothing. I removed one number two key and three number one keys from the key-bag and each of us hid one of the number ones in tins of sugar in our cells and Alex the number two as well.
The geyser door was locked and we enjoyed our last shower: we had an appointment with the public and did not want to smell like a bunch of musty old convicts. At supper we stuffed ourselves with several plates of the vile prison soup and ate all our bread, barring a slice or two to take up to our cells for the purpose of leaving on our tables to give the impression that we’d eaten our supper and gone to bed. Tuesday was also book day when the large box of library books was brought into the dining room. The three of us selected our books as usual and tucked them under our arms to take up to our cells for a good night’s ‘read’.
The three of us were on our own now; in spirit we had already departed. As there was still a little time before lockup we walked up and down the tennis court, as we normally would. To our surprise Raymond came up to us, wished us luck and said goodbye. We had not been expecting any goodbyes, so his well wishes were heartily accepted. That one small gesture instantly changed our attitude towards him. He had no idea how much encouragement his acknowledgement of our technical triumph and agonising months of planning gave us. His good wishes were tantamount to a collective farewell.
Then a warder shouted ‘time’, the last time we would be hearing that hated and oft-repeated word that constantly reminds prisoners of their predicament and summarises the essence of it.
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Lockup took place at half past four as usual. The warder in control of the keys locked the doors in the usual mindless way and the sergeant in charge of inspecting the prisoners trod the length of the passage and back like an impatient yo-yo. No one appeared to suspect anything and as our hated jailers trooped out of the section and locked the section door we silently bade them farewell and good riddance.
As soon as we heard the clang of the section door we set to work. In a scene repeated simultaneously in three cells: bedclothes were pulled back and prison overalls were placed on beds, overalls were stuffed with clothing, books, towels and other items to make dummies as had been done before. At the bottom of the ‘legs’ shoes were propped up vertically to simulate feet and then bedding was pulled over and the lump pummelled into the shape of a sleeping body.
We undressed ourselves and placed our day’s prison clothes in hot soapy water in our basins so that they could not later be given to dogs to get our scent. We dressed ourselves in our blue sports shorts, our escape socks and white T-shirts. I put on the hideous pair of glasses I’d put aside for the escape and hooked my normal pair under the elastic of my shorts. To further confuse the dogs we sprayed our beds and clean prison clothing with deodorant and filled our prison shoes with pepper. To confuse the night-warders we arranged our cells to look as if we had put our things away for the night and gone to bed. I left a book open on my table with my reading spectacles on top of it and a half eaten sandwich on a plate. Alex and Steve arranged their cells in similar ways and Steve and I fixed hooks under our number two doors and tied them to our grilles with bootlaces.
This all took just a matter of minutes, as we’d practised what to do every night the previous week. We’d developed the procedure down to a fine art and knew exactly how long it would take us to get our cells and ourselves ready – less time than it took for the stokkies to be locked up, the staff to have their end of day inspection in the administrative section and to lock up the prison and clear out. I stood at my window to listen for the inspection (you could hear them shouting orders and stamping their feet to attention), for the clang of the metal doors in the administrative section and for them to roar off in their cars.
As soon as I heard these familiar sounds I banged on the wall to signal to Stephen to unlock his grille, and waved a towel out of my passage window for Alex to do the same (he was watching with his shaving mirror). Each of us unlocked our grilles with the keys we’d hidden in our cells at shower-time, and to prevent our grilles clanging as we went out we taped toilet paper to the door frames where they made contact when they were closed. (This little touch was later to confuse the authorities, as one of their theories of how we’d escaped was by stuffing tissue paper in the holes into which our bolts protruded to prevent them coming out – quite impossible actually.)
Alex was the only one with a number two key. He would come out first and open my number two with it, and then Stephen’s number two with his number one key. I listened again for movements, this time to hear if Vermeulen was moving around. Hearing nothing I gave Alex the all clear by signalling again with a towel out of my passage window. After making sure that the pos-warder was in his alcove opposite my cell, Alex stuck the crank mechanism out of his passage window and opened his number two while I watched with my mirror. There was a slight delay before he emerged but I knew that he was dismantling the crank and replacing the brush onto his broomstick. His door swung open and he stepped out into the passage. He relocked his number one and two properly – two turns – before running down to our cells in his socks to unlock our number twos. He passed to me through my window the number two he had used and then disappeared into the shower to get out the equipment.
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Stephen and I could not release ourselves immediately as we had to wait for the pos-warder to move to the far end of the catwalk. Fortunately, being a new warder and still keen to obey the rules, he soon moved across to the other end out of view of the inside of our cells. I banged on the wall again to signal all go to Stephen. We loosened the bootlaces holding our doors closed, removed the hooks and put them in our pockets (they were no more than little metal brackets).
We swung our doors open, locked them both properly and then joined Alex in the shower.
Alex had already removed our gear from the closet and had dressed himself in his civilian clothing – as any prisoner would do who is about to leave prison! He had placed our clothing and shoes in two piles on the floor of one of the shower cubicles. Steve and I pulled on our ‘civvies’
over the shorts and T-shirts we were already wearing and, unconventionally for departing prisoners, donned gloves and balaclavas. We wanted to be certain that we left no trace at all and left them completely mystified how three prisoners had spirited themselves out of the prison.
And in case we bumped into Vermeulen, we did not want to be recognised.
I collected the keys Alex and Steve had used to liberate themselves and placed them in the key-bag. I took from the bag and gave to Alex the ‘pea’ and the key for the film cupboard and placed in my pockets all the keys we would need to get beyond door six. Steve was then given the bag to carry.
This had all taken just a few minutes. We had rehearsed the procedure so often in our discussions and minds that it was as if we were doing something quite routine. Up to that point we had not had a chance to feel any apprehension; we were doing exactly what we knew had to be done. Besides, there was no need to worry if we were doing things right; we knew that we were. Every minute detail had been worked out, leaving the only unknown the precise movements of Vermeulen. We just hoped he would not do something out of the ordinary. In any case, this was not the first time we’d come out of our cells; we had ‘escaped’ from them five times before.
After pushing the empty sack that had held our clothing to the bottom of the space behind the geyser, the door was relocked and we got ready to go down. We slung our running shoes around our necks by their laces and edged toward the entrance of the shower to listen for any warder movements. Hearing nothing we tiptoed in a crouched position down the passage to door three.
Our thoughts as we passed our comrades’ cells were for what they must have been thinking:
surely they can’t just be sitting there getting on with their studies?
I peered through the keyhole of door three to see if anyone was standing on the other side.
Assured that all was safe I quietly unlocked and opened it. Steve and Alex scurried down the stairs to the film cupboard while I went to the switchboard to turn off the lights for the first floor.
By chance we had discovered beforehand that the face panel of the switchboard was loose and that if it was pulled forward it could be jammed into the rim of the switchboard door to prevent it opening – just a small move to delay Vermeulen. I relocked door three and made my way downstairs to join the others in the cupboard.
The space inside the cupboard was very limited and only just big enough to accommodate the three of us. By carefully repacking the film equipment the space had been increased considerably but it was still a tight squeeze. Because I was the smallest I crouched low on the floor between the legs of the others who stood in an uncomfortable semi-crouched position. Stephen stood deepest in the cupboard while Alex held onto the bootlace to pull the door closed. We’d practised all this the Friday before, so we knew our positions and duties exactly.
After two or three minutes we could hear Denis’ shouts as he called Vermeulen to come and investigate the sudden power failure. The stokkies also started making a commotion and probably
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a number of them had pressed their emergency bells in complaint at the sudden darkness. It struck us at that moment that if we had to do another stage two/three, we could rely on the stokkies to call Vermeulen out of his office.
We heard an unperturbed Vermeulen acknowledge Denis’ call. He picked up his keys and wearily made his way down the passage to door four. He unlocked the gate and, without relocking it, made his way up the stairs. As he walked over our heads our silent laughter and excitement almost made us burst out. We were really enjoying ourselves and not half as scared as we thought we’d be. Fortunately Vermeulen went directly into our section without checking the switchboard first. We dashed out of the cupboard, closed the door without relocking it – in case we had to make a hasty withdrawal – passed through door four, and ran down the passage to doors five and six.
Alex was in such a hurry to get out that he forgot to press the button for door eight in the office. I shouted angrily at him, but immediately he realised what he hadn’t done, spun about and sprang into the office to press the button. We heard a loud buzz and clang as the electric bolt released the door. It was much louder than we’d remembered, but then our senses were in such a state of arousal that every slight noise sounded greatly amplified.
I opened doors five and six and after we were through them I relocked both two turns. We had done it; we were now out of sight of the warder and ready to tackle the remaining three doors across our path.
I had made three keys for door seven. The first one I tried almost turned the lock but jammed just as it began to move the bolt. The cuts were obviously too high. The second one glided around as smoothly as a perfectly machined cog – the filing of the levers on stage two had obviously done the trick. The door swung open and the three of us burst through into the last section of the passage. The door was left unlocked, as we did not know at that stage if we’d have to pass back through it. Door eight was swung back and hooked against the wall. Door nine was opened with the visiting-room key that had been found to work on stage two.
All this had taken only a few minutes. It was just past five, according to our calculations, and there we were standing in front of the last fetter on our freedom, door ten.
We strained our ears to listen for noises of the gate opening and the voices of guards. But there was nothing, just total silence. Although it was what our surveillance had told us we would find, we could hardly believe it. It meant that if we opened the front door we could just walk out, totally unseen and unheard and no one would ever know how we had done it. Could our luck be so good?
As we surveyed our last barrier we spotted something on the door which no one had ever noticed before: at eye level was a small flap that opened to give a view of the street outside the prison. Alex lifted it up and drew in the view from outside. With a gasp of disbelief he reported that there was nobody outside and that the gate of this maximum-security prison was wide open.
He invited us to have a look. Sure enough, the gates in the street were hooked back against the walls on both sides of the street and the sentry box was totally empty.
Without wasting a moment I pulled out of the key-bag a smaller bag containing the little keys we had made for the wooden doors. I tested each one expectantly but not one of them would turn. I cursed in disappointment: we had been relying on one of them working. Although we had our picks, the thought of having to struggle with the last door had not entered our planning. Alex impatiently grabbed the keys from me and tried each one, but had no better luck.
I took out the set of picks and started to jab the levers while Alex attempted once again to open the Captain’s office. We had more or less given up the idea of using his office as a vantage point