Dead I Well May Be

7: VALLADOLID

Night and half-light and then the dawn. The days come and sometimes they wake us, other times we are up already. Scratching, squirming, moaning, dreaming.

All the agonies of memory and the present. Pain and guilt and recrimination.

Of course, I can never tell the boys what I suspect, that they’re here because of me. And that makes me think about her. Hair, eyes, but distant, fading, and I try for them, all the long day.

The same old view. Fergal, Scotchy, flies. Change position, lean back, look up.

The story, the movie, food. Exercise and slop on the third day. A scramble for dry straw. Lockdown. Water and then a squat above the bucket as only liquid comes out. Dry yourself with straw and try not to rub too hard. Last thing you need is a bleeding arse.

Sometimes Fergal mutters a Hail Mary. It irritates Scotchy, but he doesn’t say anything.

Watch Fergal at his pick. Watch Scotchy scratch himself.

Stare at the ceiling when light comes in.

My story continues.

Above me the big war has begun and it progresses in a terrible, infantile bloodbath. The door continent has committed half its resources on a broad attack on many fronts. But its initial success has led to a crisis of supply and logistics, and both armies are bogged down into a static line of trenches. Wave upon wave beating against one another. It’s Shiloh or Ypres or, again, the Somme. A slaughter of innocents. With the resources of continents this could go on for decades. The press is becoming discontented and the governments introduce censorship at source; victories are proclaimed. It’s always victories.

More night. More days.

We take out our wet straw and replace it with dry stuff. Our hair is long and our beards are shaggy. We stand out even more from the Indian prisoners, who somehow manage to groom themselves. Occasionally, we hear a truck in the yard and prisoners are moved in and out. There are some new inmates, you can tell by their clothes rather than faces. For everyone else, this might be a transit prison, but I know that we’re here for the long haul. Maybe the longest haul.

At night and sometimes in late afternoon, now on a regular basis, giant rumbling thunderstorms shake the prison. The rains drip down on us from the ceiling and the floor floods. We move our bodies pathetically onto little hills of unevenness on the concrete and thus on any convex mound we try and sleep.

The floors dry but never for very long. It’s a little cooler, but we’re heading into what must be the wet season. I try to remember from my geography whether we’re in the tropics and I believe we are.

Thunderstorms, dry patches. More night. More days…

And then, wonderfully, amazingly, incredibly, finally, something fucking different:

A hand on my shoulder.

Fergal wakes me before daybreak, holding something in his hand. I look up. It’s an object, I can’t make it out. Everything is a bit out of focus still. It’s curved and round. I stare at it for a while and then sit.

What is it?

Fergal cannot fully contain his excitement. He punches me on the shoulder.

It’s my fucking leg iron, you stupid wanker, he says.

I sit bolt upright.

Jesus, your fucking pick worked?

’Course it worked.

Does it just work on yours? I ask anxiously.

No, man, it’ll work on them all; all the locks are interchangeable. They just put ’em in a bag, you know. They’re old, twenty years old, I’d say. They test them for brittleness, but that’s all. Old, easy. Tell ya, it was piss easy.

It took you four fucking weeks, Fergal, I say.

Yeah, but with the tools I had, he says.

I’m grinning at him, and he’s practically laughing.

Do mine, Fergal, do mine, I say, excitedly.

Ok.

He sits down in front of me and grabs the lock attaching my ankle chain to the ring bolt. He works on it for about ten minutes and incredibly the lock clicks. He lifts it up in slo-mo and dangles it in front of my face.

You’re a fucking genius. All this time, you’ve been a fucking genius, I say, biting back something like a breakdown.

I am, too.

We gotta wake Scotchy.

We walk over to Scotchy. We fucking walk over. Delight in it, and stand behind him, something we haven’t been able to do since we’ve been locked in.

Scotchy, I whisper, and he wakes instantly and turns to us, gobsmacked.

How in the name of fuck, he says, far too loud.

That wee shite did it, I say, gleefully.

Fergal is beaming. Scotchy thumps him in the leg.

You bastard, you tricky wee sleekit wee bastard. Wee fucking sneaky wee fucking shite, Scotchy says.

Fergal bends down and undoes Scotchy’s lock. This time it takes him only about five minutes.

Every time it’s easier, he says.

Scotchy is momentarily thunderstruck and silent.

What now? I say, excitedly.

Can you do the door at all? Scotchy asks.

Fergal shakes his head.

You need a big key. We don’t have the metal, and even if we did, it would be a tough job. Loud, too.

Scotchy’s spirits are up, though, and I’m thinking even if we can’t get out, at least we’ve got one over on the bastards.

Scotchy tenses and turns on us.

Hands, he says.

Our wrists are manacled together by a foot and a half of chain: one end of the chain is welded to the left manacle, the other attached to the right by a lock. These locks are never undone, and I think that they might be rusted or harder, but Fergal says that they’re all standard issue. He goes at mine for a few minutes and that lock clicks too. Scotchy insists he’s next, and Fergal does himself last. We have complete freedom of movement for the first time in weeks. I do jumping jacks and touch my toes, and the two boys stretch and laugh at me.

Scotchy huddles us close.

Ok, boys, got to get our shit together. All right, let me think, ok, something I’ve wanted to do since I got in here. See what’s out that fucking window. Bruce, you get Fergal on your shoulders there, hoist him up.

I nod. I’m still the strongest; Fergal is the lightest. It makes sense. We go over to the barred window. I cup my hand and he stands on it. I lift him up, and he clambers onto my shoulders.

What do you see? Scotchy asks almost frantically.

Ok, there’s the towers at the corners and guys on them, two, I think. There’s a fence beyond our cell wall here. It’s, um, I suppose twenty feet high and there’s razor wire in two loops at the top of it.

How far between the wall and the fence? Scotchy asks.

I don’t know. Thirty yards, twenty, I can’t really judge.

And what’s beyond it?

Beyond the fence?

Of course, beyond the fence, Scotchy snaps.

About another thirty or forty yards of grass and then there’s trees.

All right, get down. You’re fucking killing me, I groan.

Scotchy is pumped, and I am too. But Fergal still on my shoulders is all business:

Even if we get through the door and into the courtyard and up over the cell-block wall and we do get out, there’s still the fence. I mean, it’s a big fence, and they probably have guard dogs all along it at night, Fergal says.

Would you just get down, ya eejit, I say.

No, wait, tell us everything again, height of the fence, how far, how far to the trees. Are there spotlights on the towers? Scotchy demands.

Scotchy, we can look again later, I say, and Fergal climbs down my back just as I’m about to collapse on the floor.

Scotchy comes over to Fergal and sits down beside him. He looks serious.

Fergal, tell me again, slowly, why you can’t pick the lock on the cell door, he says. He doesn’t want his hope to vanish so quickly after it just appeared. None of us does.

Fergal shakes his head.

The locks I just opened are easy, standard, from years ago. Once I had his belt buckle filed, it was pretty straightforward. The lock on the door is different: it’s big and needs a big key and there’s no way I could pick it with this, it’s impossible. I’d need the key itself, or a big wad of metal to mold, and even then it would take me months, maybe years, to file it into the right shape.

Fergal has said all this with great patience. Scotchy is quietly appalled. There really isn’t a way out, even with our leg irons off. We could never tunnel through the wall. They’d notice that, and the floor’s solid concrete. It has to be the door or nothing.

So what’s the fucking point then? What difference does it make if we’re fucking free in here if we can’t get out of the fucking cell? Scotchy says, antagonistically.

I didn’t say it makes any fucking difference, Scotchy, so why come on with the attitude to me? Fergal says.

I’ll come on with the attitude with whoever I fucking well like, Fergal, Scotchy says.

Aye, well, save it for the tough guys of Crossmaglen, Scotchy. You’re not impressing anyone here, Fergal says.

Aye, well, when you did ever impress anyone, ever?

I got us out of the fucking lock.

Aye, and what good is it?

What have you done apart from fuck us up in Mexico with your bollocks? Fergal says, at breaking point.

Now you listen, boy, Scotchy says with menace.

No, you listen.

Let me fucking tell you one or two things.

They start pushing one another. I close my eyes to escape it. I put my hands over my ears.

You fucking can’t tell me anything, Scotchy, you have to know something first.

You wee fuck, I was fucking fucks like fucking you before you were born.

Aye, Scotchy, so you say, and you can…

I drift out. I can’t hear anymore. It’s morning and the show’ll come on soon. I lean back and look at the rivers and the towns and the canals. There’s a railway I haven’t noticed before. It connects two of the larger provincial cities on the left continent. Even with its water shortage and irrigation problems it still seems the most technologically advanced of the two kingdoms. There’s a new invasion plan that will break the war wide open. The war minister looks at his minutes and notes that this scheme is coming along nicely; that railway line will help. A feint to the south and then a rapid movement of troops to the north and across the Great Ravine. The window continent’s forces will still be stuck down in the south. They won’t be able to deploy fast enough. They’ll be outflanked. The whole northern side of the window continent will be captured before they can do anything about it. Unless they can retreat, draw the army back to the funnel cobwebs, aye, into the Pripet Marshes, into Siberia. Draw them in, bleed them. I smile. The show’s starting. The shadows of the bars are progressing from right to left. I stare at the ceiling. Hmmmm. I-stare-at-the-ceiling. At the ceiling. At the bloody ceiling, and then I have it.

Eu-fucking-reka, I whisper to myself.

It had taken a week, but finally we had made a hole big enough for a man to fit through in the ceiling. We had worked with our bare hands and the manacles on our wrists. (Fergal had refused to let us use his delicate pick. After all, he had to lock us up with it every day when our guards came and he didn’t want to damage the thing.) We’d scraped the underlayer of concrete almost the whole way through to the bitumen roof covering.

The prison roof was made of reinforced concrete that had been prepoured into long slabs, craned up, and placed on thick ledges that ran the length of the cell block. The roof was basically a series of simple bridges. The walls were supporting structures, so the whole thing was pretty rigid. It was a cheap job and I wouldn’t like to be underneath it if an earthquake hit, but it was good for our purposes.

The concrete was about six inches thick, but the years of weathering had not been kind to its components. It crumbled easily, and the only thing you had to watch was tearing too big a hole in case a chunk of it caved in or the ceiling collapsed on top of you.

As additional protection against rain, over the flat reinforced concrete roof, a layer of tar had been laid down, a sort of bitumenlike substance, that allowed water to run off. That had obviously been years ago and it had warped, torn, and buckled since then. Over the bigger holes they had placed aluminum siding. Still, it was no obstacle at all.

We’d all been builders at some point and knew what we were doing. The cell-block roof was flat, and we checked from the exercise yard that we could get onto it without being seen. At night it would be very dark, and from our observations it seemed that the searchlights only scanned every once in a while. Fergal had done most of the scraping, working on my shoulders and then Scotchy’s, but we’d all done our bit. Like I say, the concrete was flaky, pathetic stuff and we’d have got through sooner had we not been careful about not puncturing the bitumen, and that stuff we could rip with our hands the night we decided to go. No point doing it too soon.

We’d made the smallest possible hole in the cell corner and we’d used the Great Escape tactic of concrete down our trousers to get rid of the evidence in the yard. Our only problem would be if they decided to do an inspection on the flat roof. Someone walking along might notice, or worse, might fall through it.

If you were in the cell itself and you looked straight up, you might see it or you might not, depending on the light and shade. But none of the guards ever did that anyway.

Our moods had changed. Fergal upbeat. Me, a second wind. Scotchy recalled to life. When we weren’t scraping the ceiling, Scotchy had Fergal up on my shoulders checking ambient temperature, the phases of the moon, the regularity of the searchlights, the weather, the terrain beyond the wire, and, seemingly satisfied, he said that we were ready to go in the next few days.

The plan was simple: I’d hoist Fergal up, he’d break through the tar and get on the roof. I’d hoist Scotchy up onto my shoulders and then Scotchy would pull himself up to his waist and I’d grab hold of his ankles and then both of them would pull me up. Once on the roof, we’d drop down onto the grass on the other side of the cell block and make a break for the wire. If there really were dogs (and Fergal in many, many observations hadn’t seen one), we’d just have to kill them, and then we’d climb over the wire and make for the forest. Scotchy would head us north to the sea, using (he claimed) the Pole Star, and then we’d steal a boat for the U.S.

Objectively, the plan seemed a bit dodgy, but none of us was or could be in the objective universe quite at the moment.

I think it’ll work, Scotchy, I said one day, but if we don’t go soon, I’m a little concerned that the guards will discover the hole. I mean, a heavy rain could mess with that film and crack it.

It’ll be ok, Bruce. Dark of the moon we go, couple of days, Scotchy reassured me.

Two things we haven’t totally thought through, Fergal said.

I smiled at him.

What?

Well, one is food when we get out, and the second is the whole dog thing again, Fergal said.

I looked at him.

We live off the land for food, and really, Fergal, you’ve got to stop worrying about the dogs. It’s something we’ll just have to deal with if it happens, I said, doing my absolute best to sound reassuring.

No probs, Fergie boy, Scotchy said.

And Fergal: sure, they’d be Chihuahuas. You know, those wee small ones with yon ears, I said. No probs for the likes of us.

Oh aye, those wee, wee ones, Fergal said, taking what I suggested seriously. It clearly comforted him, so I didn’t press it.

I gave Scotchy a look that he didn’t see.

Your man Jimmy Deacon had one of them dogs, used to carry it round in his sea jacket, Scotchy said, getting all ruminative with us.

God, Jimmy Deacon, I haven’t heard of that name for a while, Fergal said.

I hadn’t heard it at all, but I was saying nothing since we seemed to be well off the subject of attack dogs now.

Aye, you remember him, Bruce, don’t ya? He was the boy with the one arm that saved yon boy from drowning.

That was Scotchy McMaw, Scotchy, who you don’t know before you pretend you do, I said.

I do know him, Scotchy said.

Fergal was speaking, but I was tuning out. It was good to hear the boys talk about home. Talking about anything. I snoozed and I smelled chimneys and peat fires and there were chips in the chippie and hot whiskeys in the pub and the craic was good…

Later the same night, and Fergal was looking at us skeptically. He had just climbed down off my shoulders, counting the seconds for the scanning searchlights again. There really was no time period as it turned out. The guards just shone the light haphazardly wherever they liked, but it was rare that they would come back to the same place quickly after they’d swept it.

Soon, Scotchy said. In forty-eight hours no more moon, and we’re out of here.

Fergal shook his head. Fergal, even with his optimism, sometimes had a bit of a knack for seeing the black cloud.

What is it, Fergal? I asked him.

He said nothing for a while, but then sure enough it came to pass:

Ach, this fucking plan’s full of fucking holes, he said, clearly the culmination of a mounting concern that had grown within him.

Hopefully one big hole, anyway, Scotchy said, giving me a wink.

I laughed, but Fergal wasn’t to be diverted.

Well, look, if it’s so fucking simple, why haven’t they tried it? Fergal asked, jerking his thumb towards the other cells.

’Cause they’re remand prisoners; they’re awaiting trial, be stupid to escape, Scotchy said.

I was now a bit peeved. This was typical Scotchy.

How do you know that, Scotchy? How could you possibly know a thing like that? I asked.

They are, he insisted.

Aye, Scotchy. How can you fucking know anything? What if there still is dogs, wee or not, between the wall and the fence? What if the fence is electrified? Fergal asked.

Electrified. We’re in bloody Mexico, Scotchy snorted.

So what if we are? It could be mined. They have mines, don’t they, Fergal insisted.

Come on, Fergal, be realistic, Scotchy said, soothingly.

We all wanted to believe. But we were terrified. Why hadn’t the other prisoners made escapes? What did they know? Maybe they didn’t have the gumption. Shit, maybe they had made escapes, maybe there’d been lots of escapes. How would we know?

I think it’s because they don’t have a lock picker as good as Fergal, I said.

’Course they do, must have, this is the criminal element of Mexico. I betcha they make us look like bairns. No, they know something we don’t, Fergal said, gloomily.

Well, we can’t ask them, we don’t have the lingo. And none of them will have anything to do with us, I said.

Aye, and they killed Andy, are you forgetting that? Scotchy said.

Shouldn’t we try, at least, have one chat, they’re not all killers, just get the lie of the land, Fergal said.

I shook my head.

That oul boy who wanted to talk to me before. One chat. Look, in one minute we could clear everything up. Are there dogs? Is the fence electric? Two quick questions.

Everyone will know we’re doing an escape, you buck eejit, I said.

Aye, you’ll give the plan away. I forbid it, Scotchy said.

You forbid it? Fergal asked.

Aye, I do.

And who the fuck are you to be giving orders now? Fergal said.

They both stood and stared at one another, each waiting for the first move. I thought for a moment that Scotchy was going to take a swing. I got up and put myself between them.

Sit down the pair of youse, acting like weans, I said.

We all sat down warily.

Fergal, I know it seems silly. I mean, intelligence is important and all, but Scotchy’s right, we can’t trust those bastards, can’t ask them anything, I said.

Aye, you just remember Andy, remember, Scotchy said.

Fergal said nothing. I patted him on the shoulder. Scotchy continued:

Look, it’s simple, they just don’t have the initiative. Look at us and look at them. You’re a star, Fergal, they don’t have people like you.

Fergal cracked a smile, but we could tell he was uneasy. I wasn’t sure how much of it was genuine concern about the effectiveness of our plan or just plain old-fashioned cold feet. Fergal was no chicken, at least no more than the rest of us, but none of us had been in a situation like this before. Me and Scotchy, though, had both been in the clink, him in Belfast and me in a wee barracks on Saint Helena. But we’d neither of us even bothered with thoughts about escape. Scotchy had been in short term and I was being dishonorably discharged in a matter of weeks. I don’t know what it was like for him, but for me it had been a holiday. Fergal, though, was a different kettle: he was a craftsman and a thief and he’d never done time. He’d come to America, and I suppose he’d ended up in the wrong crew working for Darkey and Mr. Duffy. He should really have been pulling scams somewhere or been part of a soft-glove outfit. I mean, he’d handled his gun ok in that shoot-out at Dermot’s, but mainly that was because of the hours Darkey made us all spend on the range. He wasn’t a heavy, he wasn’t cut out for this.

I looked at Scotchy and he looked at me. I wondered if we were both thinking the same thing. We had to calm him down. Andy’s death had been terrible for him. We needed to be easy on him. And after all, we owed him everything.

Look it’s going to be ok, ya big wean, I said, and patted him on the back.

Aye, it is, Scotchy agreed, smiling too. Sure, isn’t it all for you that we can do anything? Like I say, you are a star, Fergal, and when we get back I’m going to see to it that you get a fucking medal.

Fergal smiled at us.

Boys, look, I know it’s going to be ok, he said after a time.

We chatted a while and cleared the air. Scotchy said that tomorrow night or at the latest the next night would be the night, depending upon the weather. If there was no lightning storm, we’d go. We agreed and talked some more. Fergal locked us back in the ring bolts and the guard came with rice and water. We ate and drank, and they came for our bowls. I pissed in the bucket and solid shat for the second time since coming to Mexico and wiped my arse with straw. We spent the evening talking, something we rarely did. Scotchy spun us some tales about his childhood, and I told them a made-up story about the girl who used to baby-sit for me.

We slept and it rained and the morning crept up on us. The story in the ceiling was all about the floods and recent devastation in the window continent-flooding, which had postponed all possibility of a quick invasion.

That day was a third day and they came and unlocked us. Every time they did this it made me extremely nervous. I was sure they would notice something about the locks, but they never did. My other fear was that since they just grabbed locks from the big bag when they locked us up again, Fergal wouldn’t be able to open the ones they stuck on our ankles. But he was right, they were all more or less the same and none of them took him over two minutes to break.

We walked into the yard.

It all seemed normal, but I wasn’t to know that it was going to be a hell of a day.

I dumped the slop bucket in the latrine at the old cell-block end and on the way back grabbed some straw. Fergal and Scotchy walked close behind me, just in case. It was a hot one and the guards were paying less attention than usual. We were all feeling pretty good, though.

Everyone walked clockwise, I’m not sure how, or why, but that’s what always happened even if it started out randomly.

In front of us was the little oul boy that Fergal had noticed before. He was maybe in his middle sixties, flat face, Indian. Seemed like an old lag, in and out. I never paid him any mind. Always when we weren’t talking the only thing I was thinking about was the bugger who was wearing my sandals. But the old geezer must have been on Fergal’s mind, because Scotchy told me later that Fergal had said that last time out he’d heard him singing what he thought was “My Darling Clementine.” Scotchy had said to Fergal, Well, so the fuck what? But for Fergal, it was proof that the oul boy knew at least some English. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ.

We dandered round the courtyard and the whistle went, and Scotchy and I broke formation with everyone else, heading quickly back towards our cells. (Sometimes they thumped people who were slow off the courtyard.) We assumed Fergal was behind us, but when we turned to check he wasn’t there.

Ach, Jesus, I said, and looked for him in all the melee of people and dust. I thought he’d fallen over. I didn’t think it was anything serious, because, like I said, once they had our shoes (or maybe once they knew that Andy had died) the other prisoners weren’t interested in intimidating us or giving us a hard time.

Eejit’s tripped himself up, I said to Scotchy. But when we looked through the dust we saw that, sure enough, the dumb-ass wanker had gone over to the wee Indian fella and was asking him something.

Trouble, Scotchy predicted in a whisper.

Fergal’s voice was ridiculously loud and oddly alien:

Excuse me, mate, I was wondering if you could do me a wee solid and-but before he could continue, the man had turned and started yelling at him, harsh and guttural. He was pushing Fergal, screaming in his face. He was frightened of gawky, harmless Fergal. Any fool, including Fergal, should have seen that.

Fergal grabbed the man by the shoulders.

Calm down, mate, making a whole fuss. We don’t want everybody over, Fergal said.

The man shoved Fergal’s arms off him and caught Fergal a glancing blow on the face.

That’s it, come on, I said to Scotchy, but before we could make it over, Fergal had punched the little man on the jaw. He went down like a collapsing stack of cards, crumpling there in the dust. Fergal backed off and looked about him, but it was too late. Another man had been running over, all the time, from the lower end of the cell block. Our age. He had something in his hand. It was glinting.

He’s got a fucking knife, I yelled, and we both ran.

Fergal heard me and turned his head, but the man had jumped him from behind. There was a yell and a lot of dust and when we got over, Fergal was lying on his back with a piece of glass embedded in his chest. In his heart. Scotchy and I both wailed for the guards. The whistle blew again and they fired a shotgun in the air. They yelled at us to move. We sat there.

Everywhere dust, in vortices, ascending like prayers.

I tried doing mouth to mouth, but there was no breath in him. Guards came and beat us away and dragged us back to our cells. They locked us in the leg irons and howled at us and shook their heads in amazement and disgust. They spat and left, banging the door behind them.

Scotchy crawled over to me.

Do you think he’ll make it? he asked.

I shook my head.

No chance.

Scotchy scrambled back to his side of the cell and we sat there saying nothing, staring wide-eyed at one another.

Our condition worsened. Scotchy began to get his cough again, and both of us were weak as kittens. We hardly had the energy to catch the crickets anymore, and Scotchy concealed from me the fact that his hair was falling out in clumps.

Our luckiest break was that Fergal had left the pick in the cell near a wall. I’d found it after a panicky half-day search. I suppose he’d had the gumption to realize that he could have lost the pick out in the yard, could have dropped it. He had that much bloody sense, at least. I thought about him. Fergal was an only child. His folks were still alive. They’d take it hard. What a complete fucking eejit.

It took Scotchy about a week to figure out the way to pick the locks on our wrist and ankle chains. He’d done a wee bit of that line of work before with cars and bike locks, but Fergal had really made it seem simple.

Scotchy didn’t care anything about the moon now, he just wanted us out of here. It was getting colder at nights and the cell was damp. We were exponentially weaker every day and we could both see that we couldn’t wait much longer.

He got himself out in five days and in the early morning, a day later, he got me out. It wasn’t a third day, so we wouldn’t have to go into the yard, thank God. Indeed, the very minute he got both of us out of the leg irons, we were ready to go. He spent the rest of the day working on the locks on our wrist manacles, but these weren’t so important. We both thought that somehow we’d bloody manage it even if our wrists were chained. Which, as it turned out, would have been disastrously wrong.

It was academic, anyway, for Scotchy got himself out of his wrist manacle at noon and he literally had just gotten me out of mine a few hours later when the door opened and the guard came in with food.

I’d been leaning over next to Scotchy and I leaned back and tried my best to rearrange the chains. He started to fake-cough to give the guard something to look at. The guard was Squinty, who had a bad eye and a jowly face. He was the nicest of the bunch, though, and sometimes, rarely, made a remark.

Today of all days he decided to stop and speak to us while we finished our food.

Scotchy was tense. Our legs and wrists were obviously unlocked. I knew he would be formulating a plan which would be a suicide mission. Squinty would notice that we weren’t locked in our irons and Scotchy would leap up and kill him immediately with his manacle. The only thing then would be to make a break for it across the yard, somehow overpower another guard, get a gun, get over the gate, get a car… Certain death.

Squinty was practicing his terrible English:

Is baseball is no good, fútbol, sí, fútbol, everyone play fútbol, he said.

Normally I liked to encourage Squinty, to get more rice out of him. Today, though, I just wanted to get him the fuck out before Scotchy did something stupid. But even so, I didn’t want to act out of the ordinary, either.

In Ireland, where we’re from, remember, we play football, we don’t play baseball, we’re Irish, not Americans, Irish, we play football, I said slowly.

Squinty grinned and looked up at the ceiling.

He pointed. Of course, he doesn’t notice our leg irons, but today he sees the big hole in the concrete roof.

Oh, Jesus fuck, I whispered.

Scotchy began to get up.

Squinty lowered his arm and made a mock shiver.

Huracán, hurricane, big wind, he said.

There’s a hurricane coming? I asked, and made eye contact with Scotchy, pleading with him to sit the fuck down.

Big wind, he said, grinning.

Maybe big wind blows away prison and we all go free, I said, and forced a laugh.

Squinty didn’t understand but laughed anyway, took away our plates, and locked the door.

Scotchy came over and patted me on the shoulder.

Did well, Bruce, he said.

For the rest of the day I tried to keep my food down, and I mostly succeeded.

We waited until nightfall. As soon as it was good dark, we were leaving.

Getting up through the high ceiling with three people would have been relatively easy-with two it was going to be difficult. But we had a plan.

You all set? I asked him.

He nodded.

I hoisted him up onto my shoulders and he scraped away at the bitumen until there was a hole in the roof that let in the stars. Yeah, with two of us it would be harder to get out but what we were going to do would probably work. Instead of Scotchy going first, Scotchy jumped down and I got on his shoulders. He was pretty unsteady, so as soon I was up there I started pulling myself up through the hole. The light was incredible, there was a huge sky filled with stars. The spotlights on the three occupied towers were playing randomly over the yard and the roof and the fence. I pulled myself up, and when I had my elbows over the edge of the hole, Scotchy jumped from the cell below and grabbed onto my ankles. He was heavier than I’d thought and it took a painful effort not to fall back down into the cell again.

I gritted my teeth and, drawing some reserve of anger, I attempted to pull myself and Scotchy up through the hole. It was almost impossible, but I managed it. When my thighs were through, I lay almost flat on the roof and crawled with straight legs towards the edge of the cell block, Scotchy hanging on the whole time. It was difficult, but gradually I was making it, using the roof as a lever and going slow. I felt Scotchy’s hands let go of my ankles and grab the sides of the hole. I turned round and grabbed him by the remains of his shirt and tugged the bastard, and he was up.

We were through the roof and hadn’t been seen. We crouched there for a moment, elated. Breathing hard. The searchlight beams were tracking lazily and indiscriminately on the far side of the cell block. Only two out of the three were working and they weren’t particularly powerful.

That was easy, Scotchy said.

I grinned at him. Aye, easy for you, I whispered.

We looked down the other side of the cell block. We weren’t going the way of the courtyard and the front gate; it was the fence or nothing.

The only thing for it now would be to get down. I could see that the drop was about fifteen feet. Higher than the ceiling, much higher. The concrete floor of our cell was clearly raised above the ground, probably because of thick foundations. It was a good job we hadn’t decided to tunnel.

We had to jump, but if we went for it, there was no way we could climb back into the prison again. If we jumped, we were committed. We couldn’t scout the fence and go another night. It was tonight or nothing.

Scotchy, look, I whispered, it’s a big drop. If we go now we’re not getting back in.

Why the fuck would we want back in?

I don’t know.

Just go, you big girl.

I turned and crawled away from the hole towards the edge of the cell block. I looked over and then turned round and began lowering myself down as far as I could by the arms. When I was holding on only by my fingers, I tensed and dropped. I hit the ground and rolled to the side and I was ok. I’d stuffed straw down my trousers and T-shirt to help with the razor wire, and as I rolled, it helped cushion the blow a little. Nothing was broken, and I got up. I started walking backwards to give Scotchy space to jump. After about three yards I discovered perhaps why the other prisoners hadn’t availed themselves of our brilliant method of escape. My feet went suddenly into sucking marsh up to my knees. I looked and it all became obvious: nearly the entire prison was surrounded by a swamp. In an instant, I could see the whole thing clearly. The prison was built on a peninsula of hard rock, with layers of concrete on top. The area at the gatehouse and the road were also on good land, but within ten feet of the east, west, and north walls it became a bog. It could be that they designed it that way as an extra precaution against escape, but I doubted it. The whole countryside seemed swampy, and more than likely they’d built the prison on the best bit of hard ground they could find and the swamp was an added bonus. Once you put a wire up, it would be impossible to get through. The only way in and out of the prison was along the road and through the gate. The only bit of solid ground was at the gate and, of course, the gate was crawling with guards. For a third-world country it was all pretty ingenious, and I would have been impressed had I not been so completely gutted as I stood there, horrified and amazed.

As far as I could tell, the only way out would be to make your way round to the gatehouse and climb back over into the courtyard and then try and get out over the front gate where there was solid ground. I couldn’t believe Fergal, in all his long observations, hadn’t realized this was a bog, an impassable, quicksandy fucking swamp. He thought it was fucking grass. The idiot. The bloody stupid no-brained bastard.

Scotchy landed awkwardly in front of me. He grunted and came to his feet.

Are you ok? I asked.

Aye.

Scotchy, bad news, I said.

What?

It’s a bog. All this over here isn’t grass, it’s bog all the way to the wire. The fence is on pile drives. None of it’s solid ground at all.

I’d tried to keep the panic out of my voice. Scotchy, similarly, was not to be perturbed.

We’ll just wade through it, Brucey boy, he said, breezily.

It’ll take a long time, if we don’t get stuck or drowned. They’ll pick us up on the lights, I said. Can’t do it.

What fucking choice do we have? We can’t go back, can we? Scotchy said, furiously.

I shook my head, but of course he was right. We couldn’t get back in. If we walked round to the gatehouse they’d see us for sure. We had no other options. Scotchy went first. The swamp was thick with mossy grass on top, but your weight immediately broke the surface. Scotchy sank to his waist and for a second I thought he was going to be sucked all the way down. He was a country boy, though, and maybe he knew a bit about bog walking. At first, however, it seemed not. His arms flailed, and he fell back and sank up to his elbows. Then he flung himself forward and he began to float a little, but as soon as he tried to move, he went under. Farther out from the prison, it seemed that it became more watery and less boggy. Scotchy scrambled onto the floating grasses and tried to swim, but still it was too thick. His head kept ducking under, and now he looked as if he was going to drown.

The whole thing was a fiasco, but I went in after him anyway. I waded up to my waist to see how deep it got and when it was neck height I tried to swim too. It wasn’t quite quicksand, but it was still pretty thick stuff. Swimming was utterly impossible: your legs were so buoyant, your body buckled up and your head kept sinking. Your arms were too weak and coated to help you anyway. Everywhere in suspension were grains of sand and silt and thick muck. The only thing like it I’d experienced was when I’d swum in a quarry sinkhole as a kid, garbage and cars and mud and reeds making it all a potential death trap. But this was worse. Even dog-paddling was impossible; you kept going underneath the surface and bobbing up under the grass, swallowing the thick, grainy water. I tried the crawl and breaststroke, but always the same problem, I would sink rather than swim, my legs coming out of the water and my shoulders and head going underneath it. Again and again, water went into my lungs, and I scrambled for the surface. Finally, I turned round and started clawing my way back to the cell block. There was no way I could get through twenty or thirty yards of this to the wire. I turned slowly and pointed myself towards the prison, but Scotchy saw and stopped me and whispered loudly:

On your back, on your back, Bruce, on your back.

I looked over to discover that he was doing a sort of backstroke through the swamp and he was actually making good progress. His head and arms were cutting the mossy surface like an icebreaker and his legs were kicking and giving him momentum. He was evenly buoyant and he wasn’t sinking. I couldn’t quite figure out why this worked and not the breaststroke or the crawl, but it did. I rolled over on my back and began gently moving backwards, following in the trail that Good King Scotchylass was making. The surface was thick and closed in behind us when we got through it, but we were getting through it, slowly, but we were doing it. The spotlight beam was tracking along the swamp, but this time it was going so sluggishly, it was easy for us to duck under when it was a few feet away and then come up again. It probably wouldn’t be back now for a while.

We swam and pushed our way through and then waded a little backwards until we got to the fence. Thank God, Scotchy had had the patience to get our wrists unchained too; we would have failed otherwise.

We were utterly exhausted, and we both could hardly believe that we’d made it.

Scotchy was saying something, but he was so excited it was incoherent.

Get our breath, I was saying, and Scotchy nodded. We hung there for a long time on the bottom of the fence. We were breathing hard, and our arms and legs ached.

Can we go under it? I asked.

Scotchy dived down to see if we could get underneath the fence, but according to him it went a good bit down.

It can’t go all the way down, do you think they had fucking divers? I said.

Listen, Bruce, the swamp is probably seasonal, rainy season and all that. I’m telling you it goes all the way down to the mud.

Aye, well, I’m checking, I said.

I tried pulling myself down to the very bottom of the wire, and after about four or five feet I did find the bottom. You could maybe squeeze underneath it, under the wire; it was tight, but you could maybe do it.

I came up gasping for air and told Scotchy what I’d found.

Look, we’re not going to fucking drown under that thing. We’ll never make it, we’re going over.

I saw his point. We probably would get stuck under there and die a horrible suffocating death. I nodded. I didn’t want to go over, but under was too hard. When we were rested, there was nothing else for it but to climb.

We started out, and climbing was a lot easier than the swamp. The fence had big holes that feet could fit into and it was fairly rigid so it didn’t wobble everywhere. We climbed steadily, not wanting to slip or make any noises. Scotchy was to my right. We’d decided to go up together, though it probably would have made more sense to go one at a time.

When we were near the top of the fence, we took a breather. We were now at the razor wire, and we were both beat.

What now? Scotchy asked, as we hung there panting.

We just got to go over it, Scotchy, that’s all. We just got to.

I grabbed a piece of wire and hauled myself up. There was a sharp, stabbing, terrible pain in my palm; I’d cut myself already, a gash right under my thumb.

Fuck, I whispered. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

I pulled myself up halfway onto the first roll of wire. Most of the straw had fallen out of my T-shirt and I was scraped and cut all over my chest and arms. I pulled myself up farther, my right hand and my legs getting a slashing. I knew it would be worse for Scotchy, because at least I had jeans to protect my legs a little and he had only his shorts.

I tugged, and the razor wire dug into my chest.

Christ.

I was in a complete panic now. The pain was awful and the thought of going on was worse. I was in the middle of the front roll of wire and here the coil wasn’t tight or thick, so I was leaning way out backwards over the swamp.

My bare feet shivered on the edge of the fence and I knew it would be a new horror when I pulled them up onto the first coil of wire. I had to find a spot on the coil at the top of the fence where there were no razors. I stood there for a long while, raised my foot, and placed it on the coil. I took a breath and pulled myself up, placing all my weight on the wire. I’d missed the razors but the whole coil of wire trembled and leaned back, and for a second I thought I was going to fall off backwards into the swamp.

Shit.

It was moving like a great writhing serpent. It was impossible to get a steady grip.

What’s going on? Scotchy whispered.

I couldn’t reply. I took another breath. Whatever happened, I couldn’t stay in this position, I’d fall in a second or two. I was leaning way back, my hands digging into the wire just to hold on.

Scotchy was whispering something again, but I couldn’t hear him. I froze for a second, unsure of what exactly I was going to do. I rocked back a little and then pushed forward with all my strength. The coils of wire returned to the vertical.

I took my foot off the razor wire and put it back on the top of the fence.

I pushed the razor wire hard and the big curl of wire moved forward to a position where it seemed more rigid.

Scotchy was still there on the fence. He hadn’t gone near the wire yet. I was glad, for if both of us had been on it when it went backwards we would have gone off for sure. But even so, he couldn’t linger there all night.

Scotchy, for fucksake, come on, I said.

Ok, I’m coming, just getting my breath, wanker, he said. It was the last thing I ever heard him say.

I lifted my leg and planted my foot on the first roll of wire again. I was trying to be delicate, and I did get lucky, my toes finding a safe area. I heaved my body up and leaned forward on the first roll. I put the other foot on and pushed. My hands were cut to shite, but I was nearly halfway over the first roll. If the wire had been put on better, tighter, it would have been easier, but it was so loose it was practically hugging you, slicing at you. Pain and the fear of the pain between breaths.

I scrambled up another inch. The wire embraced me again, tearing me, ripping me. I convulsed and threw up.

The wire vibrated horribly, and I could feel Scotchy on it to my right.

Everything happened at once now.

The searchlight, which had been scanning to our left in the swamp, suddenly raised itself and went along the wire. There was nothing we could do, we couldn’t drop off now, we just had to hope that it lowered itself at the last moment.

It didn’t.

The beam swept straight past us and then came back and stayed there.

Voices began yelling in Spanish. I scrambled up the second roll, falling up it. The razors cut horribly into my feet and fingers and I hooked one along my face. I heard a shotgun pop and misfire and then another one spray a barrel of shot into the fence to our left. The prison was a big old guard dog, shaking itself and coming to life. I heard more yelling and then a high-powered automatic rifle, an M16 without a doubt, and I saw Scotchy get hit in the back.

Scotchy, I yelled, but his body went limp and tumbled downwards almost all the way through the first coil of razor wire. The razors nearly decapitated him, slicing into his neck and hanging him there. His arms shook and, as blood poured grotesquely from his mouth, his jaw moved up and down, as if he was trying to speak.

Jesus Christ.

I stared and cried out and then desperately climbed on and reached the top of the second coil through a threshold of screaming nerve endings. The wire swayed and wrapped itself about and in me. It went effortlessly into my flesh and I used the purchase to pull myself on.

At the top of the second coil, I balanced on my stomach and all the while there were shotguns firing and the whirr of a couple of Armalites. I forward-rolled over the crest of the second coil of wire, my hair and shoulders getting caught and pulled and torn, and then I fell thirty feet into the swamp on the other side. I stayed under the water and swam and briefly surfaced for air and swam again. I did this for two minutes, and I realized I’d gone way to the left but hardly any farther from the fence.

The whole prison was awake. They were ringing a bell and shining the two big searchlights at the swamp where I’d originally fallen in. Everyone taking potshots at the water. I ducked out of the spotlight beam and moved with my backstroke towards the trees. The shooting was deafening and continuous, but they didn’t shift the spotlight beam at all. Perhaps they think I’ve broken my neck and drowned, I was saying, comforting myself.

I waded to the trees. The forest was waterlogged and thick with vines that tripped me every few yards. It gave way to solid ground and I ran, my feet shrieking with the hurt, my eyes full of blood. My hands were burning, my thighs, my feet. I’d sliced off two or three toes, gashed a hole under my eye.

I ran the whole of the night, and when day came I slept under the giant roots of a jungle tree, and when night came I got up and ran again.