The plan for the attempt we’d just abandoned after the scare over the new sentry post became the basis for our new escape plan. We were determined now to get out without having to accost the night-warder and without leaving a trace. But before we could proceed with the plan we had to be absolutely certain that we could open door six using our own resources.
Going out through door six and without the warders’ knowledge meant a total reconceptualisation of our escape plans. Out the window went all our strategies to tackle the warder as well as the need to rely on the complicated contingency route through the visiting- room. While this meant abandoning all notions of taking the warder’s car, the advantages of getting out secretly were so much greater that it did not matter.
In any case, as our intelligence improved, it became obvious that it would not be so easy to simply hop into the warder’s car and drive off. And after the withdrawal of the comrade with the driving licence the warder’s car had no particular advantages for us as there was no point in driving it somewhere to hire a car. To get away from Pretoria we could just as easily, and probably more safely, use our money to hire a taxi; less favourably catch a bus or train. It was these observations that led us to the conclusion that if we wanted to proceed we had to find a way of getting to door six to see if we could open it.
It had long been suspected that door six used the same key as door two. We had arrived at this conclusion by a complex process of deduction. As we had never seen any keys on a bunch carried by a warder that could not be linked to a particular lock, key six had to be one of those that were in regular use. It could not be one of those on the night-warders’ bunch as he was locked into the prison by door six. He had only two keys: one for the section doors (our door three) and one for door four (the same as five). His section door key was different to the number ones we’d used to open three, but this was because his could not master them. If he had been able to do so he would have had access to half the cells, and we knew that he couldn’t open the cells with the keys he carried. If a cell had to be opened at night in an emergency, someone from outside had to bring the day-keys (i.e. the ones and twos) or a key to unlock a locker containing them in the office. This meant that the departing day-staff had to leave with at least one bunch of the day-keys to lock the doors on their way out, including six. From this it was reasonable to deduce that six used a one or two key. It seemed less likely that it would be a number one as key one was related to the section key used by the night-warder, and door six just looked like door two.
Our experiences with the number two locks had taught us that it was not good enough to know that a particular lock used a particular key – it had to be tried out. But to test six was altogether a different matter to testing our ones and twos, or even three and four. The only time we could get down to test it was during the 8 p.m. inspection round when we would have no more than a few minutes. This meant that we had to be pretty certain that our keys would work: there would be no time for modifications on the spot.
129
The project to go down to test door six became known as ‘stage one’ because it was to be the first part of a two-stage project to test our keys in all the doors on the way to the front door.
‘Stage two’ would be the testing of the doors beyond six to the front door. ‘Stage three’ would be the actual breakout.
Stage one, or at least the first stage one attempt, was carried out around the beginning of August 1979. The general plan was the same as the one we had previously worked out but it contained certain refinements to make it workable. As with all our plans it relied on Sergeant Vermeulen being on duty.
We had decided against using the dining room as our hiding place while Vermeulen passed to go upstairs in favour of the film equipment cupboard under the stairs to our section. The dining room had the disadvantage that its door was visible from the end of the passage at door four. We could not take the chance of exposing ourselves to view while entering it. The film cupboard was set well back from view.
It was easy enough to obtain the measurements of the key for the film cupboard. I simply measured them one Friday when Dave K was given the key to get the film equipment out. When the equipment was repacked after the film show it was arranged in such a way that it would allow two people to crouch inside the cupboard not too uncomfortably. The key was a typical wardrobe key, simple in construction, and a copy easily made from a piece of sheet metal found in the workshop.
A number of other details also had to be worked out. As we had no watches there was no way of knowing when it was eight o’clock or when we should go downstairs. We couldn’t just go down and sit in the cupboard for hours on end – it would be too uncomfortable. This is where we took advantage of our records.
Vermeulen never carried out his inspection at exactly eight, but only after he had finished playing the records that had been selected for the night or when he came to the end of a record at around inspection time. As he was required to play them in the exact order given to him, it was possible to tell pretty accurately how near we were to the inspection. A certain record placed in the list could signal the moment for us to go downstairs; the last record when it was eight. The record chosen as the signal record was Parallel Lines by ‘Blondie’, a record popular at the time.
Vermeulen was so reliable and predictable that he would never leave his office if a record was coming to the end, even if he had been called upstairs by a stokkie who had pressed his bell. It was thus quite safe to move downstairs during the last cut of a record because Vermeulen would want to be in his office to turn it over or put on the next one.
Without any opposition Alex and I were chosen to carry out the mission. We had the most experience in practical matters and had worked out the plan; we were also the only ones who would do it. This is not to say that we were not dead scared about doing it. We’d been messing around with locks for months and both of us had been out of our cells while our doors were supposed to be locked, but the thought of having to remain out of our cells for probably more than an hour, violate the sanctity of the admin section and expose ourselves to the possibility of bumping into Vermeulen was terrifying in the extreme. The thought of it would cause us to break into shivers of cold fear; our bellies would lock solid and we’d feel week in the knees.
This then is how the first stage one was carried out:
At around six o’clock, that is, an hour and a half after lockup, we placed dummies in our beds.
These we created out of our prison overalls by placing them on the bottom sheets of our beds and stuffing them with clothes, books, towels etc. to make them look like authentic ‘bodies’ under the blankets. There was no need to worry about the ‘head’ because this was toward the wall
130
below the passage window and out of sight from the passage. (The authorities realised this fatal error after our departure because one of the first things they did was to turn the prisoners around so they could see their heads from the window.) In the unlikely event of Vermeulen looking through our windows, we arranged our cells to look as if we had eaten our sandwiches, undressed and gone to sleep.
At around 7 p.m. we both unlocked our inner doors with the number one keys we’d earlier concealed in our cells. Alex unlocked his outer door using the crank mechanism, after I had signalled to him with a towel that I could hear no sounds from Vermeulen. After emerging from his cell Alex relocked his number two, turning it once only, and tiptoed down to my cell to unlock my outer door. While Alex made his way to the shower I emerged from my cell and relocked my number two with the key he’d passed me through my window. I then made my way to the shower too.
Alex had opened the geyser door and removed from the cache the keys we would need, the
‘pea’ and our balaclavas. When ready we crouched, one in each shower, behind the low walls separating the two showers in each room to wait for the signal record to end. Here we were out of view of Vermeulen if he had come into the section and looked into the showers from the passage. Had he come right in he would obviously have seen us but we’d reckoned that if this happened his sudden discovery of two masked ‘terrorists’ would give him such a fright that he’d probably drop down with a heart attack. Then we’d have the prison to ourselves.
We were dressed in our prison overalls but had decided that if we got caught we would threaten Vermeulen with the ‘pea’, tie him up, release Stephen, get dressed in our proper escape clothing and make our way out as best we could. Around our necks we carried our running shoes tied together by their laces.
When the ‘Blondie’ record came near to the end we rose from our hiding places and poked our heads out of the shower to watch for the all-clear signal from Stephen – a wave of a towel – before proceeding to door three. On the signal we crept down the passage towards the door. I peeked through the keyhole to make sure no one was standing on the other side and then slowly unlocked the door. We went through and after listening for any movements from downstairs I relocked the door and we cautiously made our way down the stairs to the cupboard. Alex unlocked the cupboard and the two of us squeezed inside. Once inside we realised that there was one detail we’d not thought about: how to hold the door closed. The small lock jutting out on the inside did not afford a proper grip. A small detail, but an important one.
From inside the cupboard we could still hear the music coming from our section. It was an eerie sound and much louder than we’d expected, but reassuring in that it indicated that everything was in order. Silence would have been much more frightening as we would have had no idea how long it was to the eight o’clock inspection round. Our thoughts in the pitch darkness, the agony of our contorted limbs and our pounding hearts flooded our senses.
As soon as the music stopped we could hear Vermeulen picking up his keys and making his way towards door four. The sound of him opening the grille so near made us shudder with fright.
Alex tensed and as he did so his sweating fingers lost grip of the lock by which he was holding the door closed. The door swung open a little and a bright shaft of light entered the cupboard.
He’s seen us, we both thought, but Alex managed to regain his grip and pulled the door closed just as Vermeulen would have come into view of it. I swore quietly in Alex’s ear.
As Vermeulen walked over our heads and up the stairs Alex’s hand was shaking so much the door rattled as if there was an earth tremor. ‘Oh God! He must have heard it’, I whispered out
131
aloud, forgetting myself in that moment of terror. But no, he continued on his customary way up the stairs and into the stokkies’ section. He must have been in a trance.
As soon as we heard the clang of the stokkies’ section door closing we leapt out of the cupboard and made our way through door four, which Vermeulen had conveniently left open. As we turned the corner after door four, door six, the last major obstacle in our path to freedom, came into view. We stared at the solid blue barrier in awe like two archaeologists finding the entrance to some long-concealed tomb. It was closed across the passage as we’d suspected.
I unlocked door five, a grille a few inches in front of six, with the number four key. The key glided around with no resistance and we swung it open so that I could get to six. I inserted a number two key into six and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t turn – not even a little bit. My heart sank. Another long battle ahead, I thought. I tried several of the other number twos but none of them turned. I also tried a number one key, just in case, but it also refused to turn.
I remembered how long it had taken us to get our number twos to work, and then we’d had hours to test them each night. How often will we be able to get down here to test this door? How long is it going to take to get this one right? Is this really the end? Alex prodded me back to reality as I contemplated the problem: ‘Take it out. There’s no more time. We’ll have to try again.'
I relocked five and we made our way back to the cupboard, baffled and dismayed. The wait for Vermeulen to return seemed to take an eternity. We’d arranged for Denis to detain him for as long as possible by asking him the latest on the rugby front, and obviously Denis was carrying out his task with relish. In fact Vermeulen took so long to return that we wondered if something had gone wrong: Has he discovered us missing from our cells? Has he radioed for reinforcements?
Eventually we heard him coming out of our section and his casual footsteps descending the steps above our heads. The release of tension as he closed four turned our fear into defiance and we congratulated each other by telepathy. As soon as we heard him throw his keys onto the table in his office and turn on his radio we came out of our hiding place, scurried up the stairs and made our way back to the shower. We returned to the cache everything we’d taken, apart from one number one and one number two key. After Stephen had given another all-clear I relocked Alex in his cell, returned to my own and relocked my number two with the crank.
After I had relocked my cell doors and cleaned up all evidence of the ‘misdemeanour’ I expected to come down from the agitated state, as one normally does after a stressful event. But there was so much adrenalin flowing in my veins that night that I remained in a high state and wasn’t able to get a wink of sleep. I lay awake all night wondering if I’d be able to face another stage one: my nerves could only take so much. The keys hadn’t worked and it seemed we might have to go down many times. I wasn’t sure I could face it again.
The whole episode, including the days preceding the actual operation, had been one of the most agonisingly stressful, self-inflicted experiences of our lives. It took us both a few days to come down from that high and when we did we tried to reassess the situation. Although none of our keys had worked we were not convinced that six did not use a number two key. Close examination of the keys the day after had revealed that some of them had almost turned and that the problem had been caused by the ward cutaways not matching the wards exactly. Why they did not jam in our number twos we could only ascribe to the fact that our cell doors were opened and closed much more frequently than number six, causing the wards to be more worn. One thing was for sure, door six did not use a number one key.
132
Very shortly after our first stage one attempt a series of disasters and near-disasters occurred.
The first happened one Friday morning while we were supposed to be busy cleaning our section.
Alex and I had completed our chore of cleaning the showers and for some reason had taken out of the cache one of the sacks of clothing and the ‘pea’. As we were going through the sack we heard the section door open. I peered out of the shower and saw that it was Bewaarder Moreby, the most hated of all the warders, who had just entered. I shouted to Alex. He instinctively slung the bag into the closet and closed the door, without locking it; the ‘pea’ he tucked into his belt under his shirt.
Moreby must have seen my worried look and made his way directly towards the shower to see what was going on. Alex grabbed a rag and pretended to be cleaning the wall. I went to the entrance again to see what Moreby was doing. As I turned to look out, Moreby stepped into the shower and the two of us collided head on. ‘What’s going on here’ he demanded. ‘Nothing, Mister Moreby. We’re just cleaning the shower as we’re supposed to. What’s the problem?’ Alex glanced casually over his shoulder but said nothing. Moreby stood with his hands on his hips for a few seconds scanning the scene to find something wrong. Satisfied that he could find nothing, he warned, ‘You just watch out’, and left the shower. I guess he must have thought that Alex and I were having it off. What else could have accounted for our red faces?
After that incident Moreby kept a closer watch on Alex and me than he had before. He was a totally insecure character always out to flatter himself to his superiors, and he wanted desperately to uncover some dirty business and bring it to the attention of the Captain.
A second misadventure involving Warder Moreby occurred shortly after the shower incident.
It was on a day when our usual workshop attendant, ‘Loggie’, was off duty and Moreby had taken his place. Alex, foolishly, started making a spanner for dismantling door seven’s lock out of the handle of an old tin opener. Moreby spotted him doing something that was not required for the particular job in hand and started to walk towards Alex’s bench to see what he was doing. If Alex had thought quickly enough he could have invented some explanation for the unfinished and unrecognisable object, such as saying it was intended to be a butter knife or something for the garden. But when you feel guilty your first reaction is to conceal what you’re doing, and that’s what Alex did. He placed the piece of metal on the shaft of his vice which extended under his bench. Unfortunately it did not balance properly and fell to the floor with a loud clang just as Moreby approached. Moreby picked up the object and immediately headed for the Captain’s office with his little prize.
Nothing actually came of this incident as far as Alex was concerned and we even managed to turn it to our advantage by getting Moreby transferred to another prison very shortly after it happened. This we achieved by complaining bitterly to the Captain the next day about Moreby’s attitude toward us, which had always been one of bossiness and aggressiveness. We did not find his rapid transfer unusual because our complaint was clearly the pretext the Captain had been waiting for for a long time. Prisoners and staff alike despised Moreby. He was a twisted character who took out his frustrations on others by being extremely arrogant and rude. He was the only English-speaking warder in the prison and hated us intensely because we could tease and taunt him more easily than the others.
At the time we did think that the discovery of the spanner-in-the-making was being taken seriously because the very next evening the warder on pos duty remained on the catwalk after lockup at four thirty. Until that day the catwalk had been unoccupied during the period from lockup until ten at night. Everyone interpreted this change as a sign that the authorities suspected what we were up to and had closed the major loophole in their security.