We had one job left to do. The power cord was still plugged into the outlet, downstairs and outside the building. We needed the cord. It was our rope. We needed it to climb down the outside of the prison wall to the street. One of us had to go down the stairs, push out through the door in full view of the guards in the adjacent gate area, unplug the power cord, and then climb back up into the roof again. I looked at my friend, his sweating face clear in the bright light bathing us from the hole we'd cut in the roof, and I knew it had to be me.
Downstairs, with my back against the inside wall, next to the door, I paused again, and tried to will the strength into my arms and legs for the move out into the open. I was breathing so hard that I felt dizzy and nauseous. My heart, like a trapped bird, hurled itself against the cage of my chest. After a few long moments, I knew I couldn't do it. Everything, from judicious caution to superstitious terror, screamed at me not to go out there again. And I couldn't.
I had to cut the cord. There was no other way. I took the chisel from the side-pocket of my coveralls. It was very sharp, even after the work we'd done with it in trying to penetrate the wooden barrier in the roof. I placed it against the trailing power cord, where it entered under the door. I raised my hand to strike. The thought occurred to me that if I blew out the power by cutting through the cord it could sound an alarm, and perhaps send a guard into the building to investigate. It didn't matter.
I didn't have any choice. I knew I couldn't go out into the open again. I slammed my hand down hard onto the chisel. It cut through the cord, and embedded itself in the wooden floor. I swept the snipped ends of the cord away from the metal chisel, and waited for the sound of an alarm or the tumble of voices to approach from the gate area. There was nothing. Nothing. I was safe.
I grabbed the loose end of the power cord, and rushed back upstairs and into the roof space. At the new manhole we'd cut in the roof, we secured the cord to a heavy, wooden bearer beam.
Then my friend started out through the hole. When he was halfway onto the tin roof, he got stuck. For a few moments, he couldn't move upward and he couldn't move back. He began to thrash wildly, straining with all his strength, but it was hopeless. He was stuck fast.
It was dark again in the roof space, with his body blocking the hole we'd made. I scrabbled around with my hands in the dust, between the roof joists, and found the cigarette lighter. When I struck it, I saw at once what had trapped him. It was his tobacco pouch-a thick, leather wallet that he'd made for himself in one of the hobby groups. Telling him to hold still, I used the chisel to tear a flap in the pocket at the back of his coveralls. When I ripped the pocket away, the tobacco pouch fell free into my hands, and my friend went up through the hole and onto the roof.
I followed him up to the tin roof. Wriggling like worms in the gutter of the trough, we moved forward to the castellated front wall of the prison. We knelt to look over the wall. We were visible then, for a few seconds, but the tower guards weren't looking our way. That part of the prison was a psychological blind spot. The tower guards ignored it because they didn't believe that anyone would be crazy enough to attempt a daylight escape over the front wall.
Risking a quick, frantic glimpse at the street below, we saw that there was a queue of vehicles outside the prison. They were deliverymen, waiting to enter through the main gate. Because each vehicle was searched throughout, and checked with mirrors beneath, the queue made slow progress. My friend and I hunkered down in the trough to consider our options.
"That's a mess down there."
"I say we go now," he said.
"We have to wait," I countered.
"Fuck it, just throw the cord over and let's go."
"No," I whispered. "There's too many people down there."
"So what?"
"One of them'll play hero, for sure."
"Fuck him. Let him play hero. We'll just go over the top of him."
"There's too many of them."
"Fuck them all. We'll go straight through 'em. They won't know what hit 'em. It's us or them, mate."
"No," I said finally. "We have to wait. We have to go over when there's no-one down there. We have to wait."
And we did wait, for a twenty-minute eternity, and I wriggled forward again and again to look over the wall, risking exposure every time. Then, at last, I looked down to the street and saw that it was completely empty in both directions. I gave my friend the signal. He scrambled forward over the wall, and down out of sight. I crept forward to look, expecting to see him climbing down the cord, but he was already on the street. I saw him disappear into a narrow lane, across the street from the prison.
And I was still inside, on the roof.
