Free Death In Captivity by Michael Gilbert Page A

possible.

 
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    ‘We’re definitely interested,’ said Overstrand to Desmond Foster, ‘but we’d like to know a little more about it first.’
    ‘Particularly that bit about the lights,’ said Baierlein.
    ‘All right. You know Tim Meynell?’
    ‘The sewer rat?’
    ‘That’s him—’ They referred to an enthusiast from the Royal Engineers who had dug a way for himself from the camp latrine into the main sewer and had propelled himself along it on an inflated rubber mattress in a number of indescribable journeys of exploration. He had never succeeded in reaching the open and the only result so far of his pioneer work had been that his friends ostentatiously walked up-wind of him.
    ‘Well, he went down last week to have another look at the main pipe – he’s got an idea of forcing a grating inside the Italian quarters – and he reckons he was just about here’ – Foster demonstrated on a plan of the camp which he had drawn – ‘when he suddenly ran into this new electric cable.’
    ‘New?’
    ‘Oh, definitely. He’d been that way two months before, and it wasn’t the sort of thing you could miss seeing. A great insulated cable, obviously new.’
    ‘That sounds very interesting,’ said Overstrand. ‘You think—’
    ‘Well, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Between the time he was down before, and that time, those four chaps got away over the wall by fusing the lights. You know how it was done.’
    ‘They cut the overhead wire with a pair of shears on a stick, didn’t they?’
    ‘Yes. And it’s hard to guard against that sort of thing. There are too many places where you can get at the overhead wire – from the roof of the theatre for one, or anywhere along the south wall, if you’re prepared to take a bit of a chance on it – or from the cooler. Obviously, if they wanted to prevent it happening again, either they had to change all the overhead wiring or else—’
    ‘Or else,’ said Overstrand bitterly, ‘or else, like the triple bastards they are, they might install an alternative underground wiring to all the sentry boxes, so that the next lot who tried to fuse the lights and rush the wall would only fuse one of the systems – the other would come into operation, and the results would be sticky.’
    ‘Just the sort of clever, slightly sadistic thing Benucci would think up,’ agreed Baierlein. ‘It’s got his signature all over it.’
    ‘And you think that this cable is the alternative system?’
    ‘It looks like it, doesn’t it?’ said Foster. ‘It was put in a few weeks after the last attempts, and you can see from its direction’ – he demonstrated again on the plan – ‘it runs out from the main towards the outer wall. I don’t see what else it can be.’
    Overstrand and Baierlein turned this over for some time in silence. They were walking with Desmond Foster round the perimeter, since this offered the only chance of complete privacy to conspirators.
    ‘The idea being, I take it,’ said Overstrand, ‘to cut both systems at the vital moment.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I think it sounds rather hopeful,’ said Baierlein. ‘It’s got just that element of the unlikely that brings a scheme off. Have you thought about the ladders yet?’
    Foster looked the least bit embarrassed.
    ‘As a matter of fact we have,’ he said, ‘only you must most solemnly promise not to say a word about it to anyone. There’s going to be a certain amount of feeling about this, when it’s found out, but I don’t see what we could have done. There simply wasn’t another piece of wood in the camp of the right length.’
    ‘Of course we won’t say anything,’ said Baierlein. ‘What’s it all about? You sound as if you’ve robbed a church.’
    ‘Well, it’s not quite as bad as that,’ said Foster. ‘I’ll tell you.’

 
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    ‘Are you coming out for a kickabout this afternoon?’ said ‘Tag’ Burchnall. ‘We thought we might start with a scrum practice and have a pick-up game