Adrian McKinty - Dead I Well May Be

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.