Return to Contents PageBy the end of 1978 the first plan of escape had taken shape - the product of countless hours of debate and dispute. With hindsight it can be said that the plan contained a large element of adventuristic ideas, but at the time we weren't aware of the many pitfalls that lay before us. It was not a complicated plan: it involved leaving our cells shortly after lockup (at 5 p.m. to be more precise), quietly moving downstairs, passing through door four, jumping the night-warder in his office, tying him up and taking his prison and car keys.
Door six remained a major problem but we'd thought of various ways to tackle it. We hoped that one of our many keys would fit its lock or that we would find the key for it in the possession of the night-warder. If not, there was a contingency plan which involved going out into the yard, entering the visiting-room, smashing the window separating the two halves of the room and then re-emerging in the passage beyond door six but before door seven.
Door seven wasn't considered consider much of an obstacle because we could cut through its bars with a hacksaw, or dismantle its lock with a spanner. Door eight we would open by pressing the button in the warder's office before going out into the yard. Doors nine and ten were wooden doors which we could smash open, or, as they opened inwards and exposed their hinges, we could dismantle these. Then we would all jump into the warder's car outside and drive off into the setting sun. Simple as that!
The plan was somewhat far-fetched and undoubtedly suicidal, but based on our knowledge of the prison and terrain at the time it seemed feasible. Getting out was a bit like making your way through a jungle: if you know the way and all the hazards that lie before you the chances of getting through are good; if you know nothing the tendency is to take chances based on intuition, with unknown results.
By January 1979 both Denis and Dave K were fully behind us and prepared to come along on the first date, which had been set for a Saturday in early February. It was understandable that Denis should have shown an interest because he had everything to gain by escaping. He'd spent 15 years in prison and had no release date to look forward to. As we began to show that the prison's doors were not as impenetrable as he'd been led to believe, his attitude grew more positive. Dave K had always shown an interest in the escape even though he had not at first displayed any keenness to participate. He looked at escaping in much the same way as we did, largely as a technical problem.
Although those of us in the escape group were determined to break out, there was an air of unreality about the whole affair. We had a plan but no one we spoke to had real faith in it. Privately we could somehow not see ourselves tiptoeing down to the warder's office and pouncing on him there; we could not see ourselves tying him to a grille and fastening a gag around his mouth; we could not see ourselves casually hopping into his car and driving off to freedom. That was the stuff of movies, not reality.
As the escape date approached, Denis rightfully began to raise a number of objections and problems. Then two days before the date I was told that outside contacts had responded to a request for escape assistance and claimed to be able to provide transport, a safe house and all the rest if we would give them some time and further details. Denis had conveyed the request in a letter code which he had established many years previously through departing prisoners and kept up to date through subsequent releases to cover new situations.
A vote was taken on the issue and it was decided to postpone the attempt until help could be arranged. Those participating felt that in view of the increasing number of people showing an interest in escaping, our chances would be infinitely improved if we could be assured of outside assistance and did not have to rely solely on our own resources to get away. It would also then not matter so much if the actual breakout was not a neat one as we would be able to get away from the mess quickly. Only Alex voted against postponement. Looking back, it was a good thing that he was defeated on that one occasion.
We realised that it would take some time to arrange assistance and for some reason - probably impatience - assumed that two months would be sufficient. From our point of view we considered this reasonable: when you have all the time in the world to contemplate one thing only, it is difficult to understand how it could take others longer to think about the same thing. We tended to forget that those outside were planning and executing the revolution and that our little request could not have been top of the agenda. Even if it was, it would have taken months to assemble a team to carry out the task, to acquire suitable vehicles and a safe house, let alone carry out all the detailed planning.
A second escape date was set for mid-April and a letter sent off to the contact. The reason for the choice of the April date was because the presence on duty of a certain night-warder, a Sergeant Vermeulen, was vital to the success of the then-existing plans. He was going on a two-month holiday from just after the initial (February) date and was due to return in April. The new date was on the first weekend after he was due back on duty after his holiday.
Vermeulen's presence was necessary not because we had struck an arrangement with him but because our plan involved taking a warder's car, and we knew what sort of car he had and where he parked it. Not only that, the man had been on the early night shift - at his own preference - for almost 11 years and was thus thoroughly reliable and consistent in his movements. For instance, he was supposed to inspect the cells every half hour or so but we knew that he never came into our section until 8 p.m. when he was required to come up to the first floor to turn off the stokkies' lights. And when he did come into the section he never looked properly into the cells. Most nights he would go straight to Denis's window and chat about rugby or air his gripes. Other warders, in most cases being younger and newer on the job, grew bored and restless as the evening wore on. They would perform inspections at whim, just for something to do. Some would look carefully into the cells and some would stop for a chat. Others would even play tricks by coming into the section very quietly and then try to trap a prisoner doing something illegal or embarrassing.
During this two-month wait we made some of our greatest technical advancements. We developed our lock-picking abilities and improved our adjustable picking device to enable us to open doors nine and ten as well as all the other wooden doors to which we had access. The period also gave us time to recover from the effects of the nervous strain that the preceding months' activities had inflicted upon us. Everyone had been affected by the stress of carrying out these activities under the noses of the warders and it helped those of us intimately involved in the preparations realise why some of the comrades had expressed opposition to the escape preparations.
I cannot speak for the others, but the strain seriously affected my sleep. At night I would lie awake for hours with my mind's cursor jumping from one idea to the next. Shapes of keys would flit across my brain, locks would be dismantled and we would escape from the prison in a hundred different ways. When I concentrated too deeply on these thoughts my heart would pound heavily as if I had just received a fright. I would break into a cold sweat and be completely unable to relax. Even during the day when I had a moment to rest, my heart would beat faster than normal, stuck in a state of chronic excitation. Memories of the university physiology class came to mind and the flight and fright system of the autonomic nervous system. What had been purely theoretical then was now being demonstrated to me in the most practical way. The hours awake were not wasted though, for mental work like this can be productive: many problems were solved during those late night insomniac sessions. And if we'd made a breakthrough it would ensure that I got no sleep at all that night.
Despite the agony caused by the fear of being caught, there was no question of reconsidering or stopping what we were doing, or of being stopped. The preparations had taken on a momentum of their own and drove us forward remorselessly. We began to live the escape, sleep the escape and see everything in terms of the escape. Nothing else mattered; nothing else existed. It forced those of us at the core of the exercise closer together, but further apart from those who were not. Our combined obsession was turned into an inexorable force.
It was during this period of waiting that David R and two others became interested in the escape and asked if they could join the group. David joined after the February postponement because he could see that our technical capabilities had progressed to the point where the chances of pulling off an escape were becoming increasingly good and that there was a likelihood that outside assistance might be forthcoming. He also had a very long sentence ahead of him. The reasons for the others joining were similar although they were encouraged to an extent by Dave's joining. The earlier thoughts that we were wasting time by making too many keys before working out a plan were raised no more. The keys in hand had been shown to be more effective in opening doors than brainwaves.
The added participation was welcomed by all and the 'escapees' were integrated into the group. Although these new recruits greatly increased the logistical problems, the political impact that we would make if, say, eight people got out of prison at one time, made them worth it.
This period was one of good comradely co-operation as well as intense debate. Dave R took an active part in preparing clothing for himself and others. Dave made himself a canvas shoulder bag while the others ordered some T-shirts, inks to dye them and felt pens to draw on them. After 'civilianising' them the shirts were stored behind the geyser with all the other gear.
Dave R discovered another hiding place for forbidden wares - in the space between the two sides of the corrugated iron yard wall. The wall ended just below and to the one side of his cell window. From his window he could reach the top of the wall and hang a bag down the middle from a piece of string attached to a nail. The string could not be seen from inside his cell so it was quite safe. It had two disadvantages though: it could only be accessed late at night and was open to the weather. Nonetheless, the bag he made was wrapped in plastic and stored in the place until the end.
A rather amusing incident concerning the acquisition of civilian clothing happened at this time. To wash the floors of our part of the prison we needed a large supply of rags. Usually we were provided with discarded bedspreads which could be torn into useful-sized rags. One day, after a request had been made for more rags, it was found that there were no old bedspreads available. In order to avoid the floors not being cleaned - something the governors could not tolerate - some old clothing left behind by stokkies was given to us by none other than Captain Schnepel. Amongst the jumble was a perfectly usable pair of blue denim jeans. As they happened to be Stephen's size he took them, washed them, mended the loose hems and repaired the zip. Since the jeans were 'legal', they were washed openly and hung on the washline in the yard to dry. One of the warders saw them hanging up and asked where we had got them, thinking he had stumbled on a misdemeanour. When told that they had come from the Captain and were to be used for cleaning the floors he expressed surprise but could do nothing. The jeans soon disappeared into our cache.
Soon after this Alex made a windfall discovery of a mine of disused civilian clothing. For a long time a large wicker basket had stood under the stairway to our section, which everyone knew to be full of old linen and blankets. One day, out of curiosity, Alex put his hand into the basket and lifted up the sheets and blankets to see if it contained anything else. At the bottom of the basket he discovered sufficient socks, shirts and trousers to dress a battalion. The clothing was castoffs that had been left by departing stokkies. Over a period of weeks we removed everything of value and hid it in the cache. The items were washed and repaired, and altered to the respective requirements of all those participating.
With a full wardrobe of escape garments we began to think of other ways of disguising ourselves. In the storeroom was a shoebox-full of old spectacles discarded by the comrades over the years. Alex found a pair of weak, old-fashioned glasses which hardly affected his normal vision at all. He looked quite ridiculous when he put them on but that was the whole idea. Stephen ordered a pair of sunglasses because he found the Pretoria sun 'too bright' for his eyes.
I could not wear any of the old specs because of my short-sightedness so I set about thinking how I could get another, different-looking pair for myself. I normally wore a pair of clip-on shades over my glasses because I really did find the Pretoria sun too bright. But I couldn't wear those while escaping because the prison staff would have got used to me looking that way. So I put in a request to see the doctor and complained to him that I was getting terrible headaches because I believed there was something wrong with my glasses. I was taken to an optician who - what a surprise - found nothing wrong with my prescription. But I insisted that I was to be given a new pair of glasses. Maybe the distance between the focal points of the two lenses had been ground in the wrong place, I suggested. After much wrangling and having to put up with accusations of complaining about headaches just to get a ride into town they eventually relented: I could choose a pair of frames paid for by the state or pay for frames of my own choice. I chose the state frames because they were dreadful - thick, dark and heavy. They thought I was mad because I had 'lots of money' and because the frames did not suit me at all (even they could tell that!). I explained that in prison it did not matter how I looked and that I would rather spend my money on records and books, when I was allowed to buy them. When the specs arrived a week later they went straight into the cache and were never worn until the day of the escape: I did not want the warders to get used to seeing we with them on.
After much thinking about the difficulty of organising help through the established codes with people who could never appreciate the problems we faced in getting out of the prison, a contingency plan was worked out in case on the day of the escape there was no help waiting for us outside.
The plan was based on the strange fact that one of the newly-joined escapers had in his possession, in his cell, his 'Book-of-Life' - an identity document carried by all white South Africans containing various licences such as driver's licence, marriage certificate, gun licence and so on, as well as personal details. Through some curious bureaucratic bungle he had been handed the document by the security police so the commanding staff never questioned his keeping it. Noting that he had a driving licence stamped in it, we realised that if we could get to a place where there was a car-hire facility it would be possible for him to hire a car which we could use to drive ourselves to the border.
The plan that emerged out of this was that if we managed to get outside and there was no assistance waiting for us, we would all climb into the warder's car parked outside and drive from Pretoria to Jan Smuts Airport near Kempton Park where undoubtedly there would be car-hire facilities. There Denis, Dave K and one other would split from the rest of the group, take the airport bus into Johannesburg and fend for themselves. At the airport the rest of us would dump the 'hot' warder's car and hire a car from one of the car-hire firms. From there we would drive as rapidly as possible to the northern Lesotho border. We estimated that this would take between five and six hours, beyond the time when our absence would have been discovered, but hopefully before the police would have mobilised roadblocks that distance away. This contingency plan had the second-level contingency that if the warder's car was not outside the prison, we would take the airport bus from Pretoria to Jan Smuts.
Only the five of us would use the hire car because it was felt that it would be impossible to drive all the way to Lesotho with eight people in one car. Besides this, Denis and Dave K claimed to have friends in Johannesburg who would 'put them up' and felt it wisest anyway not to make for the border immediately but to wait some time for the heat to wear off. The comrade who would accompany Denis and Dave, also the last person to join the group, had stated that his coming was conditional on there being assistance waiting outside the prison. There was also an understanding that he would have to find his own way once we got out.
Alex and I were unhappy with this plan because we felt it would be better to make for Swaziland rather than Lesotho: we considered the time factor to be more important than the intensity of the border guard. Our estimate was that it would take between three and four hours to reach the Swazi border in the region of a town called Amsterdam in the Eastern Transvaal. This would give us sufficient time to be over the border before the police had been mobilised and roadblocks set up. Our objection to the Lesotho route was that it would take too long to reach the place and the police would already have been alerted by the time we got there. Also, we did not like the idea of eight people climbing into one car directly outside the prison, let alone driving all the way to Jan Smuts. Lastly, we felt that Lesotho would be too vulnerable, being completely surrounded by South Africa, and from where there would be nowhere to go should we not have been welcome. By going to Swaziland we could pass immediately to Mozambique, should the need arise, where we would be welcome.
Since it was vital that our getaway be made with the warder's car and because we had to rely on the comrade with the driver's licence the two of us had no choice but to go along with the Lesotho plan.
Another major dispute broke out over the question of taking arms, if we could lay our hands on any. It had been observed that when the warder who was to stand guard on the pos came on duty at 10 p.m., he would first collect his FN rifle from the night-warder in the office. The latter passed the rifle through the office window to the other who stood in the yard, while the dog-minder held the dog on leash. There was no exchange of keys so it was legitimate to assume that the night-warder had free access to the rifle, and thus we would too. In addition we thought that the night-warder would either have a small pistol on his person or have one lying about his office, or have keys to the gun-room or a locker in the office.
Alex and I argued that we did not plan to shoot our way out of the prison, but that if we were accosted at the last moment by someone who did not represent too great a menace, the weapons could be used as a threat. We envisaged, for instance, that there might be a guard on the gate outside the prison and that we would have to force him inside where he could be tied up.
Others argued that if we got away and it was discovered that we'd taken weapons we would be regarded as 'armed terrorists' and shot on sight. This was a fair view but we believed (perhaps naively) the police would prefer to capture us alive than dead: they knew that we were not an inherently violent lot. In any case we felt that it was more important to think how we could gain our freedom rather than waste our thought-power on how they would recapture us.
Whether in retrospect the arguments for or against taking arms seem more sensible, our attitude on this point reflected our single-minded determination in contrast to the others' greater sense of caution. The arms question was finally decided by the vote and it was agreed that no weapons would be taken. The three of us were in a minority at that time and had to abide by the group's decisions.
Alex, Stephen and I had expected the outcome and had prepared ourselves for it: we had begun to construct a wooden model of a pistol which would substitute for the real thing. To this project (known only to myself, Alex and Stephen) we gave the name 'pea', short for 'pea-shooter'.
In an old Reader's Digest we found some really good profile photographs of a Beretta 7.62 mm pistol. The pictures were illustrating an article about a murder and were of the murder weapon. They were perfect side, front and oblique views - a bit like the pictures of a criminal from a police record. I made a tracing of the side-view photograph and a number of accurate enlargements from this using a grid. These shapes I then cut out for the three of us to study so that we could choose the one which seemed to be the most life-size. Once we'd chosen one, I cut it into its major component parts and made accurate drawings of the other smaller parts.
Alex stuck the paper cutouts of the body and breech of the gun to suitable pieces of wood and cut out the outline shapes in the workshop. Between us we cut out all the other visible parts to be stuck to the body of the gun later. This we did not only so that the finished product would look more realistic, but also as a safety measure in case a warder found a part on one of us. The parts before they were properly shaped looked like nothing at all and could easily be explained away as something else.
The barrel was made on a 'lathe' created out of a large breast drill. This we did openly in the workshop and explained it away as a 'pencil-holder' in the making.
The parts of the gun I carved to shape in my cell at night, one at a time. I carried them up and down in the same manner as I'd done with the keys, in the bottom of my thermos flask or in a tin of sugar. Our trusty piece of hacksaw blade came in most handy for this job but for the final details we 'borrowed' files from the 'security' cupboard. To finish them each part was sanded with fine sandpaper and then coloured with a very soft pencil. To prevent the lead rubbing off, I sprayed the parts with artist's fixative which Denis ordered for me. He explained to the warders that he needed it for 'protecting his old university drawings'.
When all the parts were completed the 'pea' was assembled. There were many parts: the body, sliding breech, barrel, trigger, magazine, hammer/cock, safety catch and two side panels for the handle. They were all stuck in place with epoxy glue and when completed it looked extremely realistic. It even fooled the other comrades when we showed it to them. Finally, it was wrapped in toilet paper and plastic and stuck under the bottom of the metal tool cupboard in the workshop - probably the least likely place the warders would have looked for booty if they had decided to have a thorough search.
Despite the earlier opposition to arms, when the others saw the 'pea' there was no opposition to its use and it even became included in the general plans. It was to be used in accosting the night-warder and making the job of tying him up a bit easier. Some wanted the plan to include revealing to the warder after he had been tied up that the 'pea' was a fake gun and even leaving it with him so that we would not be regarded as armed fugitives. How the 'pea' was finally to be used was never brought to the vote because the 'gun question' got pushed into the background as other problems came to the fore. Later the escape plans were changed such that the 'pea' was no longer an important question.
*****
In November 1977 the prison authorities announced that political prisoners would no longer be allowed to study beyond matriculation level while in prison. Prisoners who were already studying post-matric courses (in all cases correspondence courses through the University of South Africa - South Africa's correspondence university) would be allowed to complete their courses, but no new courses could be started.
The change in policy was said to have been made because prisoners on Robben Island had abused the study 'privilege' (as the authorities saw it) by using study material to smuggle 'inciting documents' to the outside. Rumour had it that one or more prisoners on Robben Island had written revolutionary slogans in a library book from the University of South Africa. Because of this alleged abuse by one prisoner all prisoners had to pay the penalty.
The authorities are probably sorry now that they took away this right (as we saw it). The ensuing publicity was very bad for them and the first two prisoners to be affected by this ruling at Pretoria Prison decided, as they were forbidden from engaging in academic studies, to study something else - how to get out of prison. I would not like to believe that our escape was the sole or even one of the main reasons for the reinstatement of studies shortly after we got out, but undoubtedly it must have affected their decision.
The real reasons for removing the right to study had nothing to do with an 'abuse' of the 'privilege' by political prisoners. The authorities for years had been looking for a pretext to stop political prisoners studying. They knew as well as the prisoners that prison is regarded as the university of the revolution.
On Robben Island Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders imprisoned for life had organised their fellow prisoners to study, much to the chagrin of the enemy. Many of the prisoners had engaged themselves in correspondence courses to complete their school certificates so that they could go on to study for degrees; prisoners who had been in prison for a long time were working on their umpteenth degree. It was no wonder that Mandela and other leading figures were removed from Robben Island and sent to Pollsmoor where they are now kept in isolation from the general mass of politicals.
The fascist jailers grew jealous that their captives were able to engage in studies funded by outside sources, and they were not. They despised prisoners who were more intelligent than themselves - especially black prisoners. Also, they believed that these 'terrorists' only used their education for 'subversive purposes' when they were released. Why allow the them the opportunity to advance their cause while in prison? Their imprisonment was specifically designed to remove them from circulation so that they could not 'subvert' law and order. They should be allowed to rot, to suffer for their 'crimes', to be kept completely in the dark so that when they come out they are broken and of no value to their 'terrorist' friends. These were the real reasons behind the ending of studies, not the discovery of slogans in the margin.
It is true of course that the prisoners did 'abuse the privilege'. They did so in every conceivable way, deliberately and cunningly. This was natural for they used every opportunity to advance their knowledge not only of current happenings in the real world (otherwise known as 'news') but generally so that they could be of more value to the Movement when released (just as suspected!).
The desire to study, at least in our prison, did not arise so much out of the wish to accumulate degrees but out of the need for books. The university had a fabulous library by prison standards and provided just about everything that could not be obtained other ways. Library books were not supposed to be swapped but of course they were. At the beginning of the year it was decided collectively who would study what so that the broadest possible range of library books could be obtained. Nobody ever studied the same subject in the same year - that was a waste. The course on Comparative Literature, for instance, gave access to a great range of top-class literary works from many countries. We read all the most famous novels of the Russian revolution as well as a number of progressive African writers. To the censor the Soviet books looked like ordinary novels and he didn't know where Mockba or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was - he only knew that 'Russia' was the bad word to look out for. The course on Comparative African Government gave access to virtually any books on Africa. Those who hadn't been able to keep up with developments on the continent because of the denial of news could update their understanding to within a year or two.
Science subjects were not permitted but the reasons for this were practical - there could be no access to laboratories and workshops. The only arts subjects not permitted were law and Russian language. Law could not be allowed, they said, because people who had been in prison couldn't become lawyers. The real reason was that they didn't want us to know too much about the legal circumstances under which we were being held. Who knows what the prisoners might have got up to had they known more about the law! Of course this prohibition was meaningless because there was usually one or more qualified lawyers among the prisoners and most of the others had studied some aspect of the law at one time or another. On top of this we had the best lawyers at our disposal so there was little that the authorities could get away with on this score.
The comrades did not take the formal side of their studies very seriously - they were only interested in the library books. This doesn't mean that they did poorly in their assignments and examinations. On the contrary, among us were some of the university's best students. There was so much time for studying that the work could be left to the last moment and help could be obtained from those who had already studied the same course. In any case most of the comrades were graduates already and so found the courses very easy and treated them with cynicism because of their low standard and conservative content.
Not everybody was engaged in formal studies while we were there. Johnny, because he was not enrolled when the ban came into force, was not permitted to start a new course. Alex, although he was enrolled, did not study at all (formal studies, that is). His was a fake enrolment that allowed the others to order library books in his name. Everyone read the university library books, including those not enrolled. In addition there were a vast number of textbooks that had accumulated over the years and these could also be read by all. There was even a complete set of Russian grammar books which had been purchased by one of the comrades who had studied the language before it was banned. In a way, those who were not enrolled had an advantage over those who were - they were not encumbered with essays and swotting. Everyone could also order any book they wanted - you just had to find someone whose course covered your area of interest.
Most of the money to pay for the studies came from various prisoner relief agencies. To use this money like Alex and others before him to pay for fake studies was not unethical. In a sense practically everyone who was studying in our prison was engaged in 'fake' studies as they did it for the books and not to learn what the courses were supposed to teach them. Most of those who sent in assignments and wrote exams only did so to keep up appearances. In the light of the total ban on news by the authorities we felt justified in using the studies to keep ourselves informed about the world. We also had to ensure that our years in prison were not totally wasted and that our minds did not atrophy as our political enemies wished.
The position on Robben Island was quite different. The black comrades had not lived the privileged lives we had: very few had achieved matriculation level and even fewer had obtained degrees. Prison gave them the opportunity - many for the first time in their lives - to receive a relatively acceptable education. It was reported that some warders had been heard saying that black prisoners deliberately got themselves arrested so that they could get free studies. Clearly a case of sour grapes.
Prison for the black comrades was much harsher than it was for us, but the opportunity it gave for study in a sense made it an experience with some value. The ending of university study was for these comrades a serious blow; for us it was not so serious. For them it meant that they would never be able to progress beyond the school level; for us it meant the end of private studies in our own specialisations.
These private studies were taken very seriously by our fellow prisoners. A prisoner whose life is made less meaningful by being confined in a prison will grasp onto anything that gives life meaning and direction. Those who found that studies did this for them devoted everything they had to it; those who were more interested in defeating the prison system devoted everything to that.
Return to Contents Page