The Mammoth Book of Prison Breaks Read Online Free

IRA guns pointed at his temples. He told the ECR that no one there had triggered the alarm, but the ECR said that the one beneath the television had been activated. The prison officers near the TV started to move away from it surreptitiously, none of them wanting to be on the receiving end of IRA punishment. McFarlane and Storey weren’t as concerned about that as getting the ECR off the line, but Wright, seeing an opportunity to alert his colleagues, asked how he should reset the alarm. The IRA men knew full well what he had done – as McFarlane later pointed out, they knew how to reset it, let alone a senior prison officer – but the warder in the ECR didn’t get the message. Instead he told Wright to “push it back in, you stupid bastard” and rang off. Wright’s face drained of blood as he realized what was likely to happen to him.
    The IRA had far more immediate problems. They didn’t have anywhere near sufficient firepower to keep the forty-plus guards under control if they decided to resist. (One of them who tried to encourage his colleagues to attack was told to shut up or be a dead hero by the IRA.) It was around now that prison officer Jim Ferris was stabbed: he had tried to run from the lodge to raise the alarm at the prison gate, but had been chased by one of the IRA men in prison warder uniform and attacked. Although the wound didn’t look that serious, combined with Ferris’ history of heart problems, it meant that he died later.
    That attack had been seen by the British Army soldier in the watchtower who thought initially that there was some sort of scuffle going on between prison guards. He told his operations room what he had seen, and they contacted the ECR, only to be told that there had been a false alarm. But only a few minutes later – at 4.12 p.m. – one of the prison guards managed to get to a telephone and contact the ECR, who alerted the Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).
    At this point, all hell broke loose. The IRA was losing control of the situation, and they knew that they had to get out now, or risk the whole escape collapsing. The main group of escapees were still in the back of the lorry, in which Kelly and McLaughlin were still sitting (Kelly now using a fake gun to keep the driver under control, although McLaughlin was unaware of the switch). As McFarlane ran to open the main gate, he was recognized by one of the arriving prison warders, while another one blew his whistle when he realized that the Tally Lodge was under siege.
    The lorry should have been able to go through, but an alert warder called two members of staff to block the entrance with their private cars. Once this was done, the lorry was useless, and the men jumped from the back. They ran through the main gate and into the car park. Officer Gallagher was just pulling in, and six of the prisoners tried to hijack his car. Gallagher threw the keys away, and received a severe kicking as thanks. The prisoners found the keys, and piled into the car, heading for the external gate, half a mile down the road. Officer Talbot had already been alerted to the escape and was locking it as Gallagher’s car came speeding towards him, closely pursued by another car, driven by warder McClure, lights flashing and horn blaring. McClure managed to ram the prisoners’ car, but they skidded into the gate, forcing it open. Most of them dived out of the vehicle, across the car’s bonnet, through the gate and away; one didn’t get out in time, and was arrested.
    Three of the IRA escapees had formed a rear guard to prevent the warders from following them, and during the melee that followed, warder Campbell Courtney was shot in the leg by Harry Murray. Murray himself was then shot by the British soldier in the sentry post; the two wounded men found themselves being treated together at Lagan Valley hospital. The majority of the other men were able to get over the fence, and away into the fields. Thirty-five men had managed to get