Free Escape by Paul Dowswell Page A

their escape. Maybe one of their keys would fit, but they would also need to bring a selection of files, screwdrivers and chisels stolen from the workshop.
    December 11th, 1979 was the day they chose for their escape. That evening the duty officer would be Sergeant Vermeulen. He was the most lackadaisical and dozy guard they could think of. But they would have to be quick. At 6:00pm in the evening, the guard who stood at the entrance to the prison would arrive. That gave them just one and a half hours to make their getaway…
    At last, the day arrived. Fortunately there was plenty to do to keep their minds off the danger they were facing. The previous week had gone painfully slowly though, and each man had daydreamed about the friends he would be able to see again, and all the different foods he would be able to eat. Years of the dull, bland prison diet had made them all desperate to eat something really tasty.
    That afternoon the three arranged their cells, intending to leave no clues behind. They knew sniffer dogs would be sent to trail them, so they washed the clothes they had worn that day, sprayed their beds with deodorant, and sprinkled pepper over the shoes they were leaving behind. All secret plans and letters were flushed down the lavatory. Jenkin found this especially difficult to do. During his long, dark days in prison he had become attached to these mementos of his yearning to escape.
    Then, as a final touch, they all made dummies to fit into their beds. They stuffed prison overalls with towels, clothes and books to pad them out, and placed shoes at the bottom of their beds to look like feet.
    Their fellow prisoners in the corridor, who all knew of the escape, wished them luck. Some wondered if the guards had discovered their plans and were getting ready to pounce, but there was no reason to suspect this was the case.
    At showertime that afternoon, they unlocked the cupboard and arranged their clothes in order, so they could dress quickly. At supper they ate as much of the prison’s insipid soup as they could bear, and returned to their cells and waited.
    The final routine of the day, where all the doors were locked and the guards left for the night, dragged out. This was a nightly ritual none of them hoped to hear again. As soon as the prison settled down they would put their months of work to the test.
    So, at 4:40pm that afternoon, as other Pretorian citizens were thinking about their journey home from the office, or winding down on their factory shift, the escape began. The three all unlocked their inner cell doors with their forged keys, then Moumbaris opened his outer door with the broom handle key. He sprinted down the corridor to release Jenkin and Lee.
    Then all three crept to the shower room, to get rid of their uniforms and change into everyday clothes. They put gloves on to ensure they left no fingerprints, and masks, so if a guard spotted them from a distance they could sprint back to their cells without being recognized. Then they ran to the end of the corridor, and opened the door with their third forged key.
    Beyond the corridor lay a landing and stairwell. Here on the wall was a fuse box. Jenkin carefully levered it open with a screwdriver and dislodged a fuse. This immediately caused the lights to go out on the first floor. Locking the landing door behind them, the three escapers sprinted down the stairs to the ground floor, and hid in a storage cupboard in the stairwell.
    After a pause, as they had all been instructed to do, their fellow prisoners on the first floor began to shout and complain that the lights had been cut off. The night guard Sergeant Vermeulen stirred in his seat. He was deep into a racy novel and in no mood to be disturbed. He lumbered down the hall, past the storage cupboard, and up to the first floor.
    â€œPipe down, Pipe down,” he called out. “Now what’s the trouble?”
    On the first floor he found out soon enough.
    â€œShut up, shut up.