Tom Gallon - Dead Man's Love

I came out of Penthouse Prison on a certain Monday morning in May. Let there be no misunderstanding about it; I came out by way of the roof. And the time was four in the morning; I heard the big clock over the entrance gates chime in a dull, heavy, sleepy fashion as I lay crouched on the roof under shadow of the big tower at the north end, and looked about me.

Looking back at it now, it seems like a dream, and even then I could not realise exactly how it had happened. All I know is that there had been an alarm of fire earlier in the night, and a great running to and fro of warders, and a battering at doors by frantic locked-in men, with oaths, and threats, and shrieks. The smell of burning wood had reached my nostrils, and little whiffs and wreaths of smoke had drifted in through the ventilator in my door, before that door was opened, and I found myself huddled outside in the long corridor with other fellow-captives. And at that time I had not thought of escaping at all, probably from the fact that I was too frightened to do anything but obey orders.

But it came about that, even in that well-conducted prison, something had gone wrong with the fire-hose; and it became a matter of a great passing of buckets from hand to hand, and I, as a trusted prisoner, and a model one, too, was put at the end of the line that was the least guarded. Smoke was all about me, and I could only see the faces of convicts and warders looming at me through the haze, indistinctly. I handed the buckets mechanically, as I had done everything else in that place during the few months I had been there.

I heard an order shouted in the distance, and I lost the faces that had seemed to be so near to me; the fire had broken out in a fresh place, and there was a sudden call for help. I hesitated – the last of the line of men – for a moment; then I set down my bucket, and turned in the opposite direction and ran for it. I knew where there was a flight of stairs; I guessed that one particular door I had seen but once would be open; the rest I left to chance. With my heart thumping madly I fled up the stairs, and flung myself against the door; it yielded, and I stumbled through on to the roof of the prison.

I could hear down below me a great hubbub, but the roar of the flames had subsided somewhat, and I knew that the fire had been conquered. That meant for me a shorter time in which to make good my escape. I went slipping and sliding along the roof, half wishing myself back inside the prison, and wondering how I should get from that dizzy height to the ground. Fortunately I was young, and fit, and strong, and they had put me to the hardest work in the prison for those first months, thereby hardening my muscles to their own undoing; and I was active as a cat. After lying on the roof for what seemed a long time – until, in fact, the hubbub below had almost subsided entirely – I determined that I could afford to wait no longer. I raised my head where I lay and peered over the edge, as I have said, just as the great clock struck four.

I looked straight into the open mouth of a rain-water pipe a few inches below me. It was almost full daylight by this time, but a hazy, misty morning. I worked my way to the very edge of the roof, and lay along it; then I got my arms over the edge and gripped the broad top of the pipe. There could be no half measures about such a matter; I threw myself over bodily, and dropped to the stretch of my arms, and hung there. Then I quickly lowered one hand and gripped the smooth, round pipe, and began to slide down. I remember wondering if by some fatality I should drop into the arms of an expectant warder.

But that didn't happen. I reached the ground in safety and crouched there, waiting; there was still the outer wall to scale. In that I was less fortunate, for although in the grey light I made the circuit of it inside twice over, I failed to discover anything by which I could mount. But at last I came upon a shed that was used for storing the oakum, picked and unpicked; it had a heavy padlock on the wooden door, and the roof of the shed inclined at an angle against the high wall. It was my only chance, and there was but one way to do it.

I stepped back a few paces, and took a running leap for the edge of the roof, jumping for the padlock. I tried three times, and the third time I got my foot upon the padlock, and caught the gutter with my hands. Exerting all my strength, I drew myself up until I lay flat upon the shelving roof of the shed, scrambled up that, and stood upright against the outer wall, with the topmost stones about a foot above the reach of my hands.

That was the most ticklish work of all, because the first time I tried to make a jump for the top of the wall I slipped, and nearly rolled off the sloping roof altogether. The second time I was more successful, and I got my fingers firmly hitched on to the top of the wall. I hung there for a moment, fully expecting that I should have to let go; but I heard a shout – or thought I heard one – from the direction of the prison, and that urged me on as nothing else could have done. I drew myself up until I lay flat on the top of the wall, and then I rolled over into freedom.

Incidentally in my hurry I rolled over on to a particularly hard road, without much care how I fell. I picked myself up and looked about me, and began for the first time to realise my desperate situation. What earthly chance was there for me, clad as I was in convict garb, in a wild country place, at something after four o'clock in the morning? I was branded before all men; I was a pariah, to be captured by hook or by crook; the hand of the meanest thing I might meet would legitimately be against me.

But then I was only five-and-twenty, and the coming day had in it a promise of sweetness and of beauty – and I was free! Even while I cast about in my mind to know what I should do, I know that I rejoiced in my strength and in my young manhood; I know that I could have grappled almost gleefully with any adverse fate that might have risen up against me. But I recognised that the first thing to do would be to make for cover of some kind, until I could make shift to get a change of clothing, or to decide after my hurried flight what the next move was to be.

After going some little way I dropped down into a ditch, and looked back at the prison. It stood up grim and silent against the morning sky, and there was now no sign of any disturbance about it. Evidently for the present I had not been missed; only later would come a mustering of the prisoners, and my number would be called, and there would be no answer. That gave me time, but not time enough. I determined to make my way across country as quickly as I could before the world was astir, and so put as great a distance as possible between myself and the prison.

But by the time I had run a few miles, and could see in the near distance the roofs of cottages, I began to realise that in the country people have a bad habit of rising at a most unearthly hour. It was but little after five o'clock, and yet already smoke was coming from cottage chimneys; more than once I had a narrow squeak of it, in coming almost face to face with some labourer trudging early to his work in the fields. Daylight was not my time, it was evident; I must wait for the friendly darkness, even though I waited hungry.

The record of a great part of that day is easily set down. I lay perdu in a little wood, where, by raising my head, I could see out on to the broad highway that was presently in some indefinite fashion to set me on the greater road for freedom. All day long the sun blazed down on that road, and all day long from my hiding-place I watched vehicles and pedestrians passing to and fro; I had much time for thought. Once some little children toddled down hand-in-hand into the wood, and began to pick flowers near where I lay hidden; that was the first sight of anything beautiful I had had for a good long time, as you shall presently understand. Despite the danger to myself, if they should have seen me and raised any alarm, I was sorry enough when they toddled away again.