Death In Captivity Read Online Free Page B

something smaller and slighter. A trap-door which consisted of a single slab of concrete, six feet by six feet and over two feet deep; a
    trap-door which weighed nearly half a ton and needed four men, assisted by double-pulleys; to lift it was something outside their ambit. It evaded search by being too big to see.
    (It might as well be admitted that only a fluke had rendered its construction possible. The Italians had made the mistake of letting the prisoners into Camp 127 a fortnight before it was really ready – a fortnight during which construction work was still proceeding on the shower baths and the drainage. Despite all their precautions it had proved possible to get hold of cement and certain tools, and the escape committee had immediately ordered the construction of this monster trap. The original base of the stove, a lighter piece of work, was taken out, broken into pieces, and dropped into the water storage tank. The new base was cast in one piece and the lifting apparatus installed. Before the camp had even been completed, therefore, the foundation stone for a way out had been well and truly laid.)
    Overstrand and Byfold were already dressed for work.
    It was their job, every morning, to open up the tunnel, connect up the electric lighting system, see that the hand pump and airline were in order and that the trolley, which ran from the trap-door to the digging face, was working without hitch. With the tunnel now more than a hundred feet long, these details were becoming of increasing importance. When they gave the word that all was ready, the first shift of diggers would go down and the trap would be lowered on them. They would dig for four hours and would then be replaced by an afternoon shift.
    Although they had dressed for tunnelling often enough not to feel self-conscious about it, both Overstrand and Byfold might have presented, to the unaccustomed eye, somewhat remarkable figures. From the waist downwards, they were clothed in that useful army garment known to the Quarter-master as ‘pants, woollen, long’, the ends tucked into the tops of their socks, of which they wore two pairs. Their top halves were covered by skin-tight association football jerseys. (Of no known club, they were part of an issue of sports kit by the Protecting Power, and were believed to be the colours of the Zermatt Wanderers.) Both wore balaclava helmets and were shoeless.
    ‘Where’s Cuckoo?’ said Overstrand.
    ‘He’s along there already,’ said Byfold. ‘Check the security, would you?’
    Overstrand looked out of the window, and noted the position of various towels, shutters, refuse bins and deck-chair loungers.
    ‘Seems all right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
    They made their way along the empty passage and into the kitchen. The stove hung suspended in the air.
    A pair of steel spectacles gleamed from the darkness of the entrance shaft under it.
    ‘I thought you were never coming,’ said Goyles. ‘I’ve connected up the light. It looks all right from this end. There are twelve bags of sand waiting. We’ll have to get them out before digging starts.’
    All three of them had climbed down the ladder and were standing in the bottom of the twenty-foot vertical entrance shaft. The tunnel itself, rather less than a yard square, ran away from the east side of this shaft. A slight bend hid the working face of the tunnel from a person standing in the shaft.
    ‘I’ll go up,’ said Overstrand. ‘Give me two minutes and then start checking the pump.’
    He placed himself face downwards on a small flat trolley which ran on rails up the tunnel and propelled himself forward with his hands. Trolley and man rounded the bend and disappeared.
    Goyles looked at his watch.
    ‘Ten to nine,’ he said. ‘The shift will be here in ten minutes. Let’s have these bags up and get the disposal squad busy.’
    ‘Why did God make sand so heavy?’ said Byfold. He had tied two sacks together, hung them over his shoulder, and was climbing