Titanic 2020: Cannibal City

27 Escape

'Cut it! Cut it! Cut it!'

'I am bloody cutting it!' Jimmy hissed.

'Cut it harder!'

They were at the wire fence surrounding Fort Hope. Rain Man had done what he'd promised to do. The generator was down and this was their one chance to escape. Hand-cranked sirens wailed. Officers screamed orders. Soldiers stumbled out of their barracks. It was utterly black. There wasn't even a moon to give them some guidance. It was total chaos, and exactly what they wanted, but it wouldn't last for ever — and they couldn't cut the damn wire and vital seconds were storming past.

With the nurse gone for the night Jimmy and Ronni had gone through the surgical equipment stores in the First Aid hut and found a stout pair of jagged-mouthed scissors which cut cleanly through everything they tried them out on — wood, plastic, iron bed springs — but now that they really needed to work they were absolutely useless.

'Jimmy — do it!'

'I'm doing my best!'

But his best wasn't good enough. Jimmy flung them down. He looked up at the fence — the barbed wire that topped it was thick and razor-sharp, there was no way they'd be able to wriggle through it. Nor could they dig under — the fence was tight against the ground and sealed in with cement.

Ronni pulled at his arm. Jimmy — the gates, we have to go through the gates . . .'

'Too far away — too many soldiers!'

'We have no choice!'

In those last few moments before the lights went out they'd been anxiously scanning the perimeter as far as they could see so they knew the gates had been open then, but the guards' first reaction to the sudden darkness would surely have been to shut them to prevent what must be an enemy attack from penetrating the fort. But Ronni was right — what choice did they have?

They turned and they ran. The gates were easily two hundred metres away. They collided with other soldiers, running about confused. They picked themselves up and charged on. Someone was yelling, 'Protect the President! Protect the President!' Jimmy was sure he heard Mohican's distinctive tones.

They came to the gates.

Open!

There were guards there, dim outlines against the blackness, but not close enough together. And they were facing the wrong way — out.

A better army might have had night-vision glasses and could have shot them dead. But these soldiers couldn't see more than a metre in front of them. Jimmy and Ronni slipped between two nervous sentries.

'You see anything?' one of them hissed. Jimmy could almost feel his breath.

'I can't see nothin', but there is somethin' there.'

'Should we shoot?'

'Not me, I don't give orders!'

'Sir! Somethin' movin' — can we shoot?'

'What is it?'

'Don't know!'

'Where is it?'

'Not sure!'

'Hold your fire!'

Jimmy grabbed Ronni's hand — there was too much chance of losing her in the dark — as they raced away from the fort. Jimmy's legs, so recently sucked of all strength by the river, wobbled beneath him. Ronni had lain largely immobile for weeks and her muscles now strained and threatened to rip apart. But they kept going. The plain seemed to roll on for ever. Their feet, rushing though the knee-length grass, sounded incredibly loud purely because they were trying to be so quiet.

'We . . . must . . . nearly . . .' Jimmy wheezed.

'We . . . have to be close . . .'

And then, as simple as someone flicking a switch, the lights of the fort came on — just bright enough to turn them into running shadows, and they still had a hundred metres of the open plain to cross before they reached the relative safety of the woods.

For a few achingly long seconds they ran on, unobserved, but then the searchlights began to sweep back and forth. They passed in front, then behind, before finally converging on the escapees.

Without speaking or even looking at each other Jimmy and Ronni began to zigzag. The beams lost them for a moment, then caught up again. They let go of each other's hands; Jimmy veered left, Ronni right. There was blessed darkness for another ten seconds and then they were found again, and this time they couldn't shake them.

A shot rang out, then another and another, then the steady clatter of a machine gun. The soldiers of Fort Hope were not trying to capture them alive.

Jimmy threw himself the last few metres, crashing through undergrowth and rolling over three times before coming to a dead halt up against a gnarly stump. Although he was just a few metres into the trees it was suddenly absolutely black again, as if a giant wooden curtain had been pulled behind him.

'Ronni!' he shouted. 'Ronni . . . !'

There was only silence. For a moment he feared that she was still out on the plain, shot down as she ran, but then he heard a low groan.

'J-jimmy — are you . . . ?'

'I'm here!'

Jimmy scrambled sideways. 'Keep talking, I'm coming!'

He'd moved about a dozen metres when he collided with her.

'Are you OK?' he asked breathlessly.

'Sore . . . sore but fine. Just fine. We did it!' cried Ronni.

'We really did it!'

They hugged each other, jumping up and down — and then abruptly found themselves very embarrassed about it and separated. Just as they did they heard the unmistakable rumble of a diesel engine. They hurried to the edge of the woods and peered out. A truck laden with solders was roaring across the plain towards them.

They weren't done with running!