Return to Contents Page
The plan for the attempt we'd just abandoned after the scare over the new sentry post became the basis for our new escape plan. We were determined now to get out without having to accost the night-warder and without leaving a trace. But before we could proceed with the plan we had to be absolutely certain that we could open door six using our own resources.
Going out through door six and without the warders' knowledge meant a total reconceptualisation of our escape plans. Out the window went all our strategies to tackle the warder as well as the need to rely on the complicated contingency route through the visiting-room. While this meant abandoning all notions of taking the warder's car, the advantages of getting out secretly were so much greater that it did not matter.
In any case, as our intelligence improved, it became obvious that it would not be so easy to simply hop into the warder's car and drive off. And after the withdrawal of the comrade with the driving licence the warder's car had no particular advantages for us as there was no point in driving it somewhere to hire a car. To get away from Pretoria we could just as easily, and probably more safely, use our money to hire a taxi; less favourably catch a bus or train. It was these observations that led us to the conclusion that if we wanted to proceed we had to find a way of getting to door six to see if we could open it.
It had long been suspected that door six used the same key as door two. We had arrived at this conclusion by a complex process of deduction. As we had never seen any keys on a bunch carried by a warder that could not be linked to a particular lock, key six had to be one of those which were in regular use. It could not be one of those on the night-warders' bunch as he was locked into the prison by door six. He had only two keys: one for the section doors (our door three) and one for door four (the same as five). His section door key was different to the number ones we'd used to open three, but this was because his could not master them. If he had been able to do so he would have had access to half the cells, and we knew that he couldn't open the cells with the keys he carried. If a cell had to be opened at night in an emergency, someone from outside had to bring the day-keys (i.e. the ones and twos) or a key to unlock a locker containing them in the office. This meant that the departing day-staff had to leave with at least one bunch of the day-keys to lock the doors on their way out, including six. From this it was reasonable to deduce that six used a one or two key. It seemed less likely that it would be a number one as key one was related to the section key used by the night-warder, and door six just looked like door two.
Our experiences with the number two locks had taught us that it was not good enough to know that a particular lock used a particular key - it had to be tried out. But to test six was altogether a different matter to testing our ones and twos, or even three and four. The only time we could get down to test it was during the 8 p.m. inspection round when we would have no more than a few minutes. This meant that we had to be pretty certain that our keys would work: there would be no time for modifications on the spot.
The project to go down to test door six became known as 'stage one' because it was to be the first part of a two-stage project to test our keys in all the doors on the way to the front door. 'Stage two' would be the testing of the doors beyond six to the front door. 'Stage three' would be the actual breakout. (See ground floor plan of the prison)
Stage one, or at least the first stage one attempt, was carried out around the beginning of August 1979. The general plan was the same as the one we had previously worked out but it contained certain refinements to make it workable. As with all our plans it relied on Sergeant Vermeulen being on duty.
We had decided against using the dining-room as our hiding place while Vermeulen passed to go upstairs in favour of the film equipment cupboard under the stairs to our section. The dining-room had the disadvantage that its door was visible from the end of the passage at door four. We could not take the chance of exposing ourselves to view while entering it. The film cupboard was set well back from view.
It was easy enough to obtain the measurements of the key for the film cupboard. I simply measured them one Friday when Dave K was given the key to get the film equipment out. When the equipment was repacked after the filmshow it was arranged in such a way that it would allow two people to crouch inside the cupboard not too uncomfortably. The key was a typical wardrobe key, simple in construction, and a copy easily made from a piece of sheet metal found in the workshop.
A number of other details also had to be worked out. As we had no watches there was no way of knowing when it was eight o'clock or when we should go downstairs. We couldn't just go down and sit in the cupboard for hours on end - it would be too uncomfortable. This is where we took advantage of our records.
Vermeulen never carried out his inspection at exactly eight, but only after he had finished playing the records that had been selected for the night or when he came to the end of a record at around inspection time. As he was required to play them in the exact order given to him, it was possible to tell pretty accurately how near we were to the inspection. A certain record placed in the list could signal the moment for us to go downstairs; the last record when it was eight. The record chosen as the signal record was Parallel Lines by 'Blondie', a record popular at the time.
Vermeulen was so reliable and predictable that he would never leave his office if a record was coming to the end, even if he had been called upstairs by a stokkie who had pressed his bell. It was thus quite safe to move downstairs during the last cut of a record because Vermeulen would want to be in his office to turn it over or put on the next one.
Without any opposition Alex and I were chosen to carry out the mission. We had the most experience in practical matters and had worked out the plan; we were also the only ones who would do it. This is not to say that we were not dead scared about doing it. We'd been messing around with locks for months and both of us had been out of our cells while our doors were supposed to be locked, but the thought of having to remain out of our cells for probably more than an hour, violate the sanctity of the admin section and expose ourselves to the possibility of bumping into Vermeulen was terrifying in the extreme. The thought of it would cause us to break into shivers of cold fear; our bellies would lock solid and we'd feel week in the knees.
This then is how the first stage one was carried out:
At around six o'clock, that is, an hour and a half after lockup, we placed dummies in our beds. These we created out of our prison overalls by placing them on the bottom sheets of our beds and stuffing them with clothes, books, towels etc. to make them look like authentic 'bodies' under the blankets. There was no need to worry about the 'head' because this was toward the wall below the passage window and out of sight from the passage. (The authorities realised this fatal error after our departure because one of the first things they did was to turn the prisoners around so they could see their heads from the window.) In the unlikely event of Vermeulen looking through our windows, we arranged our cells to look as if we had eaten our sandwiches, undressed and gone to sleep.
At around 7 p.m. we both unlocked our inner doors with the number one keys we'd earlier concealed in our cells. Alex unlocked his outer door using the crank mechanism, after I had signalled to him with a towel that I could hear no sounds from Vermeulen. After emerging from his cell Alex relocked his number two, turning it once only, and tiptoed down to my cell to unlock my outer door. While Alex made his way to the shower I emerged from my cell and relocked my number two with the key he'd passed me through my window. I then made my way to the shower too.
Alex had opened the geyser door and removed from the cache the keys we would need, the 'pea' and our balaclavas. When ready we crouched, one in each shower, behind the low walls separating the two showers in each room to wait for the signal record to end. Here we were out of view of Vermeulen if he had come into the section and looked into the showers from the passage. Had he come right in he would obviously have seen us but we'd reckoned that if this happened his sudden discovery of two masked 'terrorists' would give him such a fright that he'd probably drop down with a heart attack. Then we'd have the prison to ourselves.
We were dressed in our prison overalls but had decided that if we got caught we would threaten Vermeulen with the 'pea', tie him up, release Stephen, get dressed in our proper escape clothing and make our way out as best we could. Around our necks we carried our running shoes tied together by their laces.
When the 'Blondie' record came near to the end we rose from our hiding places and poked our heads out of the shower to watch for the all-clear signal from Stephen - a wave of a towel - before proceeding to door three. On the signal we crept down the passage towards the door. I peeked through the keyhole to make sure no one was standing on the other side and then slowly unlocked the door. We went through and after listening for any movements from downstairs I relocked the door and we cautiously made our way down the stairs to the cupboard. Alex unlocked the cupboard and the two of us squeezed inside. Once inside we realised that there was one detail we'd not thought about: how to hold the door closed. The small lock jutting out on the inside did not afford a proper grip. A small detail, but an important one.
From inside the cupboard we could still hear the music coming from our section. It was an eerie sound and much louder than we'd expected, but reassuring in that it indicated that everything was in order. Silence would have been much more frightening as we would have had no idea how long it was to the eight o'clock inspection round. Our thoughts in the pitch darkness, the agony of our contorted limbs and our pounding hearts flooded our senses.
As soon as the music stopped we could hear Vermeulen picking up his keys and making his way towards door four. The sound of him opening the grille so near made us shudder with fright. Alex tensed and as he did so his sweating fingers lost grip of the lock by which he was holding the door closed. The door swung open a little and a bright shaft of light entered the cupboard. He's seen us, we both thought, but Alex managed to regain his grip and pulled the door closed just as Vermeulen would have come into view of it. I swore quietly in Alex's ear.
As Vermeulen walked over our heads and up the stairs Alex's hand was shaking so much the door rattled as if there was an earth tremor. 'Oh God! He must have heard it', I whispered out aloud, forgetting myself in that moment of terror. But no, he continued on his customary way up the stairs and into the stokkies' section. He must have been in a trance.
As soon as we heard the clang of the stokkies' section door closing we leapt out of the cupboard and made our way through door four, which Vermeulen had conveniently left open. As we turned the corner after door four, door six, the last major obstacle in our path to freedom, came into view. We stared at the solid blue barrier in awe like two archaeologists finding the entrance to some long-concealed tomb. It was closed across the passage as we'd suspected.
I unlocked door five, a grille a few inches in front of six, with the number four key. The key glided around with no resistance and we swung it open so that I could get to six. I inserted a number two key into six and tried to turn it, but it wouldn't turn - not even a little bit. My heart sank. Another long battle ahead, I thought. I tried several of the other number twos but none of them turned. I also tried a number one key, just in case, but it also refused to turn.
I remembered how long it had taken us to get our number twos to work, and then we'd had hours to test them each night. How often will we be able to get down here to test this door? How long is it going to take to get this one right? Is this really the end? Alex prodded me back to reality as I contemplated the problem: 'Take it out. There's no more time. We'll have to try again.'
I relocked five and we made our way back to the cupboard, baffled and dismayed. The wait for Vermeulen to return seemed to take an eternity. We'd arranged for Denis to detain him for as long as possible by asking him the latest on the rugby front, and obviously Denis was carrying out his task with relish. In fact Vermeulen took so long to return that we wondered if something had gone wrong: Has he discovered us missing from our cells? Has he radioed for reinforcements?
Eventually we heard him coming out of our section and his casual footsteps descending the steps above our heads. The release of tension as he closed four turned our fear into defiance and we congratulated each other by telepathy. As soon as we heard him throw his keys onto the table in his office and turn on his radio we came out of our hiding place, scurried up the stairs and made our way back to the shower. We returned to the cache everything we'd taken, apart from one number one and one number two key. After Stephen had given another all-clear I relocked Alex in his cell, returned to my own and relocked my number two with the crank.
After I had relocked my cell doors and cleaned up all evidence of the 'misdemeanour' I expected to come down from the agitated state, as one normally does after a stressful event. But there was so much adrenalin flowing in my veins that night that I remained in a high state and wasn't able to get a wink of sleep. I lay awake all night wondering if I'd be able to face another stage one: my nerves could only take so much. The keys hadn't worked and it seemed we might have to go down many times. I wasn't sure I could face it again.
The whole episode, including the days preceding the actual operation, had been one of the most agonisingly stressful, self-inflicted experiences of our lives. It took us both a few days to come down from that high and when we did we tried to reassess the situation. Although none of our keys had worked we were not convinced that six did not use a number two key. Close examination of the keys the day after had revealed that some of them had almost turned and that the problem had been caused by the ward cutaways not matching the wards exactly. Why they did not jam in our number twos we could only ascribe to the fact that our cell doors were opened and closed much more frequently than number six, causing the wards to be more worn. One thing was for sure, door six did not use a number one key.
Very shortly after our first stage one attempt a series of disasters and near-disasters occurred. The first happened one Friday morning while we were supposed to be busy cleaning our section. Alex and I had completed our chore of cleaning the showers and for some reason had taken out of the cache one of the sacks of clothing and the 'pea'. As we were going through the sack we heard the section door open. I peered out of the shower and saw that it was Bewaarder Moreby, the most hated of all the warders, who had just entered. I shouted to Alex. He instinctively slung the bag into the closet and closed the door, without locking it; the 'pea' he tucked into his belt under his shirt.
Moreby must have seen my worried look and made his way directly towards the shower to see what was going on. Alex grabbed a rag and pretended to be cleaning the wall. I went to the entrance again to see what Moreby was doing. As I turned to look out, Moreby stepped into the shower and the two of us collided head on. 'What's going on here' he demanded. 'Nothing, Mister Moreby. We're just cleaning the shower as we're supposed to. What's the problem?' Alex glanced casually over his shoulder but said nothing. Moreby stood with his hands on his hips for a few seconds scanning the scene to find something wrong. Satisfied that he could find nothing, he warned, 'You just watch out', and left the shower. I guess he must have thought that Alex and I were having it off. What else could have accounted for our red faces?
After that incident Moreby kept a closer watch on Alex and me than he had before. He was a totally insecure character always out to flatter himself to his superiors, and he wanted desperately to uncover some dirty business and bring it to the attention of the Captain.
A second misadventure involving Warder Moreby occurred shortly after the shower incident. It was on a day when our usual workshop attendant, 'Loggie', was off duty and Moreby had taken his place. Alex, foolishly, started making a spanner for dismantling door seven's lock out of the handle of an old tin opener. Moreby spotted him doing something which was not required for the particular job in hand and started to walk towards Alex's bench to see what he was doing. If Alex had thought quickly enough he could have invented some explanation for the unfinished and unrecognisable object, such as saying it was intended to be a butter knife or something for the garden. But when you feel guilty your first reaction is to conceal what you're doing, and that's what Alex did. He placed the piece of metal on the shaft of his vice which extended under his bench. Unfortunately it did not balance properly and fell to the floor with a loud clang just as Moreby approached. Moreby picked up the object and immediately headed for the Captain's office with his little prize.
Nothing actually came of this incident as far as Alex was concerned and we even managed to turn it to our advantage by getting Moreby transferred to another prison very shortly after it happened. This we achieved by complaining bitterly to the Captain the next day about Moreby's attitude toward us, which had always been one of bossiness and aggressiveness. We did not find his rapid transfer unusual because our complaint was clearly the pretext the Captain had been waiting for for a long time. Moreby was despised by prisoners and staff alike. He was a twisted character who took out his frustrations on others by being extremely arrogant and rude. He was the only English-speaking warder in the prison and hated us intensely because we could tease and taunt him more easily than the others.
At the time we did think that the discovery of the spanner-in-the-making was being taken seriously because the very next evening the warder on pos duty remained on the catwalk after lockup at four thirty. Until that day the catwalk had been unoccupied during the period from lockup until ten at night. Everyone interpreted this change as a sign that the authorities suspected what we were up to and had closed the major loophole in their security.
It was some time later that we found out from Sergeant Vermeulen that this change in the pos-duty shifts just happened to coincide with a genuine change in routine. Apparently the warders had for a long time been asking for a three-shift day - for some reason which was of interest only to the warders themselves. The opportunity to introduce the new routine was taken when an important awaiting-trail prisoner was brought to the prison. He was Eschel Rhoodie.
Eschel Rhoodie was one of the main characters in the 'Information scandal', a major subject of interest in white politics at the time. He was alleged to have been one of the villains who spent vast sums of public money on propaganda exercises overseas. He later fled South Africa and from exile began to spill the beans on the other crooks in the 'government', which included Prime Minister Vorster. He was arrested in France in August 1979 and immediately extradited to South Africa. At his trial he was convicted on five counts of fraud and sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment, some of which were to run concurrently, making the sentence an effective six years. However, he was subsequently acquitted on appeal and allowed off scott free. Illegally spending millions of Rands of public money was evidently not a crime, like posting some ANC leaflets.
We did not at first know of Rhoodie's presence in the prison because our newspaper delivery system had broken down at that time, and of course it was cut out of our radio news broadcasts. But somehow the news filtered through and then we were able to see him through cracks in the fence surrounding the stokkies' yard. It was peculiar to see a prominent figure of the regime mixing with the ordinary stokkies, most of whom were petty criminals and only in prison because they could not afford decent lawyers to get them out on bail.
The interpretation that the 24-hour pos-guard was a response to suspicions of an escape attempt prompted a major gathering of the escape group to discuss the issue and the strategy to be adopted in the light of the change. The meeting proved to be a major turning point. Denis expressed his apprehension and declared that he could not contemplate going while a guard remained on the pos over the crucial four thirty to ten period. He and Dave K were of the opinion that the guard would eventually be withdrawn, citing as evidence a similar incident in the past which had reverted to normal when the crisis passed. Dave K considered the guard on pos duty to be a setback but not an insurmountable problem. Dave R adopted Denis's position and recommended that all escape-related activity should cease until the guard disappeared. He proposed that all of us should rather concentrate on other projects that would promote our interests, such as pressurising the authorities to bring all political prisoners, black and white, together in one prison such as Robben Island.
Alex, Steve and I saw no reason for all this gloom. We wanted to proceed with the escape preparations whatever the position. The problem of the warder could be tackled when we reached that bridge, as had been done with all previous bridges. To halt preparations at this stage might mean halting them forever. The extension of pos duty would not affect our immediate objective, the testing of the doors down to the front door.
As usual there was much discussion on this issue. In the end the other three had to submit to our proposal that we be allowed to go ahead with the project to test the doors down to the front door - that is, carrying out stage two. The others were insistent, however, that we should not go beyond stage two, which in practice meant escaping, until the four thirty to ten period was free of the pos-guard.
It was decided too that it would be too risky to ask for outside help while there was a guard on the pos during the escape. It would neither be possible to park an escape vehicle outside the prison nor be correct to expose other parties to the very real possibility of being shot. A decision was made immediately to advise our comrades outside that all plans of assistance should be held in abeyance until further notice.
Another near-disaster followed closely in the train of the previous ones. One evening as I was getting something out of our cache in one of the geyser closets during shower time, I noticed that the sack was wet on top. How was this possible in a warm environment? There was only one explanation: a leaking tank. But that was impossible because it was an insulated tank and any leaks would only show at the bottom, not at the side. As I pulled the sack up to save the easily destroyed wooden keys, a drop of water dripped onto my hand from the roof of the closet. I knew it then - another pipe leakage!
Pretoria Prison was built by prison labour, which was a large part of the explanation why from time to time leaks would appear in someone's cell or in one of the downstairs rooms. It had been found that the prisoners who had installed the plumbing had deliberately sabotaged the system by tightening all the pipe couplings only one thread before they were encased in concrete. It was not possible to repair all the joints in one go as no one knew where they were. To replace the whole system would have meant virtually knocking down the entire prison. Leaks just had to be repaired when and where they appeared. But we couldn't report this leakage: we weren't supposed to know what happened inside the geyser closets.
The sack of contraband in the closet with the leak was huge - too large to be placed with the rest of the stuff in the other one. We could leave it on the floor of the other closet but if the warders opened it for any reason they'd see it and then search the closet for more. That way we'd lose everything. It was better to take it out and leave it somewhere else until we could find a better place. In the absence of any better places just then, there was nothing else we could do but hide it in the nearest cell - Alex's - until the next morning, which fortunately was a Friday.
The next day we assessed the situation: the leak appeared to have worsened overnight; we knew from past experiences that leaks had a habit of spreading - meaning that if it was leaking above the one geyser it would probably soon leak above the other. Both caches had to be cleared out. But where could we move all the stuff? It was a mountain. There was no other safe basket for our eggs.
As we were contemplating what to do with our gear while cleaning the section, a warder burst in to announce an inspection by a big-brass from Prison Headquarters. We couldn't believe our ears and our bad luck. The bastards were bound to look under the beds, and then everything would be exposed. More than exposed, there would be pandemonium. How would the Captain explain to the chief a huge bag of keys and civilian clothing simply lying under one of the prisoner's beds? Did they never have shakeups?
There was one chance. Raymond was ill in bed and if we put the sack under his bed it was unlikely they would disturb him by going over his cell. Alex appealed to Raymond, but Raymond, quite rightly, would have none of it. He was not involved in the escape and was - not unreasonably I thought - not prepared to take unnecessary chances. Alex in his usual uncompromising way swore profusely at all concerned, for this bad turn of events. There was nothing we could do but cross our fingers and hope they would not look under the beds.
Each prisoner was expected to stand in his cell while the inspection took place. As my cell was first I tried to be as friendly as possible to set the tone for a casual, chatty inspection. It appeared to work. The big-shot responded favourably: he asked a few questions about how I was getting on and then after a cursory glance around the cell passed on to the next. Alex's heart must have been punching the inside of his chest by the time the big-one got to him. Fortunately, when he reached Alex's cell he had grown bored looking into the cells, which all looked equally clean and tidy, and disinterestedly passed on to the next.
As soon as the officers and retinue had cleared out we set about finding another hiding place for our sacks of goodies. There was one place that might be suitable - the sealed off stairway at the far end of our section. We could tie the sacks together and hide them around the corner on the first step of the stairway. By sitting on the floor and stretching a hand through the bars it was possible to reach far enough to place the sacks out of sight.
The sack in the other geyser was taken out and the one under Alex's bed brought into the shower. The two were tied together and while someone stood at door three to listen for warders they were carried to the end of the passage, pushed through the bars and out of sight around the corner. It was a reasonably good place, but without much effort anyone could have stuck a hand around the corner and felt them. We just hoped the warders were not in the habit of doing so.
Fortunately the leak grew a lot worse and the water started to pour down a hole into the downstairs toilet. This was gleefully pointed out to the Captain and a few days later it was repaired. It was a major job. Both geysers had to be removed and the wall containing the pipe had to be broken open to expose the leaking joint. Just as well we'd had the foresight to clear out both hiding places.
The real scare occurred while we were attempting to retrieve the sacks the following Friday. Alex put his hand around the corner to grab our precious hoard, but instead of grasping the sacks his hand bumped them and both went tumbling down the stairs to the first landing. I sent up a howl of despair. How were we going to get them up now? All that work and irreplaceable clothing gone down a black hole. A mirror revealed nothing: it was too dark and dusty. Even those who were not participating in the escape commiserated with us. They knew what efforts we'd gone to to create and collect it all.
Someone hit on the brilliant idea of making a grapnel out of wire which on the end of a piece of string could be thrown in the direction of the sacks. Hopefully it would catch onto one of them so they could be pulled up. From somewhere suitable pieces of wire and a long piece of string appeared.
Alex spent more than an hour throwing the grapnel in the direction of where he guessed the sacks to be lying. I stood behind him chewing my nails while Stephen stood guard at the section door to listen for warders. What we would have told them had they come in I don't know. There would have been no use in making up a story, since any commotion at the end of the passage would have drawn attention to the sealed off stairway.
After many, many throws Alex pulled on the string and felt resistance. Like a fisherman he wondered whether he'd hooked some debris or, finally, the big one. It was the sacks! He slowly pulled up his prize until he was able to lay a hand on it. In no time the sacks were back in their holes behind the geysers and Alex was being applauded for his miraculous retrieval. I felt like throwing him down the dark abyss from which he'd just pulled his catch.
Despite the previous terrifying experience, the disused stairway was retained as an alternative storage place. A month after the leak saga one of the geysers burnt out and had to have its element replaced. This happened on a Tuesday but the problem could not be reported until the Friday when the sacks could again be placed around the corner at the top of the stairway. The comrades in the cells on the side which drew their hot water from the failed geyser suffered most but they understood the problem and bore with us.
To avoid losing our sacks a second time we tied a long, strong cord to them and a piece of black cotton to the other end of the cord. The other end of the cotton we tied to the bottom of one of the bars sealing off the stairs and covered it in dust to conceal it. Instead of placing the sacks on the top step as we'd done the first time, they were pushed down until they came to rest in a stable position. If they'd fallen any further it would not have mattered; they could still have been pulled up. Disasters can be useful.
In early September we attempted a second stage one. The tactics adopted were somewhat different to those we'd applied during the first attempt. Since there was now a fulltime guard on the pos who looked directly into our cells, we had to open our doors in daylight when it was difficult for him to see into the cells, which were relatively dark compared to the outside. To further obscure the guard's view Alex and I opened our window panes half way and placed tall objects in front of them and on top of our cupboards. Several other refinements were added: to prevent our grilles clanging when we closed them we taped pads of tissue paper to our doorframes; to prevent my number two springing open when it was unlocked I fixed a hook under it and from this tied a bootlace to my grille.
We exited from our cells as soon after lockup as possible. As before, we left dummies in our beds and arranged our cells to look as if we'd undressed and gone to bed. Alex came out first because his cell was in a better position relative to the guard on the pos (most of the time the guards sat in the sheltered alcove at the end of the catwalk opposite my cell, from which position they were unable to see into Alex's). Alex then unlocked my number two as before, handed me the key and hid himself in the shower. Instead of coming out immediately I had to wait for the guard to move towards the other end of the pos. When he eventually moved I untied the bootlace holding my door closed, came out of my cell and locked my number two behind me. I joined Alex in the shower where he had already taken out of the cache all that we would need for the expedition. We put on our balaclavas, dressed in our escape clothes and finally pulled our overalls over the top. We then took up positions, one in each shower, to wait for the signal record ('Blondie' again).
Since we'd planned to go down to the cupboard at about 7 p.m., the two hour wait in the shower presented a problem we'd not thought of before: where to relieve ourselves. The obvious place was down the shower drainholes above which we were crouched. But trying to pee down a small hole on a flat surface while dressed in escape clothing with overalls over the top proved to be almost impossible. Standing up didn't help because it was then impossible to hit the target, and if we missed the warders would smell it the next day and ask questions. If there was a next time, we agreed, we would bring along a watertight bottle which could be stored overnight and emptied in the morning.
When the signal record came near to the end Stephen signalled with a towel that he could hear no sounds from below. We tiptoed in our socks down the passage to door three, opened it cautiously and moved silently down the stairs to the film cupboard as before. But, oh no!, the cupboard key would not turn. I felt sick at the thought of all the nervous energy we'd spent for nothing. Both of us felt like kicking it in but realised it would be wiser to return to the shower and our cells. Fortunately we'd given ourselves an hour so there was plenty of time to get back before the eight o'clock inspection.
Getting back into our cells was the reverse process of coming out. When Stephen signalled to us in the shower that the pos-guard was in his corner I locked Alex back into his cell and returned to the shower to wait for Alex to signal that the guard had moved along the catwalk towards his end. As soon as I heard a bang on the wall I rushed back to my cell and relocked my number two using the crank method as usual. No sleep again that night as I lay feeling the unstoppable pounding of my heart.
The next morning we tried out the cupboard key to find out why it hadn't turned. Of course it worked perfectly - old Murphy playing his tricks again! The dimensions of the key must have been slightly out, we concluded. That Friday I checked the key against the original and found it to be a fraction of a millimetre too high. I filed off the surplus metal and tested it over and over to make sure there would be no repetition of the problem.
A third stage one was attempted about a week later. Several other improvements had been made since the first time: we had made a 'handle' consisting of a drawing pin and a bootlace to hold the film cupboard door closed while we were inside; we had modified all the number two keys so that the wards would not jam in number six.
Using the same procedure as before we made our way down to the film cupboard at about 7 p.m. At eight o'clock, after Vermeulen had passed by, we came out of the cupboard and made our way into the administrative section. Instead of coming with me to door six as he'd done the first time, Alex kept guard at the end of the passage opposite door four while I tested the keys. The plan was that if he heard Vermeulen coming back to his office prematurely (he could have been called on his walkie-talkie, for instance) we would nip into the warders' toilet next to the office until it was safe to come out again.
I tried the modified keys in door six. All of them turned through 180 degrees but none would unlock the door. I couldn't understand it. The fact that they'd turned inside the lock proved the lock used a number two key. But why wouldn't our keys turn the bolt? Surely they were correct. After all, they'd worked in all the number twos in our section. As I was contemplating these problems I heard a whispered but impatient shout from behind me. Our conceptions on the time we'd used up differed: I wanted to go on and solve the problem; Alex wanted to get back. I looked around and could see that he was beginning to lose his normal cool, so I relocked five and turned back.
As I ran back towards Alex I gave a thumbs-down sign. The disappointed look that drew across his face was the saddest sight I'd ever seen. He just stood there spellbound with his hands hanging in a questioning position. He had thought I'd taken so long because I'd had a success. I almost had to drag him back into the cupboard.
Although none of our number twos had worked we were still not convinced that door six did not use a number two key. The fact that the keys had turned part of the way indicated that the ward cutaways were correct and since they were a complicated pattern, key six had to be very similar if not identical to key two. We were forced to assume that the reason the keys had not unlocked the door was because they had been cut to work in our cell doors which were opened and closed far more frequently than number six and were consequently more worn. Our number two keys must have been lifting the levers of the number six lock fractionally too high and thus were not able to turn the bolt. As it turned out, our assumptions were correct.
To overcome this problem we decided to make a special shaftless key that could be jiggled up and down and would thus not be limited in the amount the cuts could lift the levers. The depths of the cuts would be made the same as number two's, as these were obviously correct. The idea was borrowed from our picking device which worked on the same principle.
The new key was made from two pieces of sturdy wire Dave K had found in the garden. I drew a template to which the wires had to be bent and then Alex hammered and twisted them to shape in the workshop. The pieces of wire were then soldered together on top of the template. (The soldering iron belonged to us prisoners but was kept in the office for the odd electrical job.) The 'bit' of the key was made out of wood and then glued with epoxy to the shaped ends of the wires. Finally the cuts were filed to the same depths as number two.
We tested the key in all the number two locks in our section and it appeared to work well. Being metal meant it could be turned with much more force than the wooden keys; the latter relied on the dimensions being absolutely perfect rather than on force.
About mid-October we made our final stage one attempt. Following the same procedure as the previous time, Alex and I made our way down to the administrative section at 8 p.m. to test door six. As on the previous occasion Alex stood guard at the end of the passage near door four while I tested the new key. This time I had more confidence - I knew six was going to give up its unreasonable resistance.
I opened five and as I took key six from my pocket my heart sped up - they were beats of expectation and excitement, not fear. I pushed the special key in, located it between the inner faces of the lock and turned it slowly. It turned with such ease I thought I'd missed the levers altogether. I turned it back to check what had happened and as I did so I heard a loud 'clonk' as the bolt shot back out. It had worked! What had all the fuss been about? I turned the bolt in and out several times to make sure that it really did work and then turned it one and a half times to see if it would work on the second revolution. No problem! The key turned so easily there was no need even to jiggle it up and down to make it work.
I withdrew the key and relocked five. When I turned to run back towards Alex I could see that this time he'd not allowed his ever-overflowing optimism to get the better of him: he had expected the worst and had a preset disappointed look on his face. But when I gave the thumbs-up instead of the expected thumbs-down, the look instantly changed from dark gloom to one of excited elation. He leapt for joy and shouted far too loudly I thought, 'We've beaten the fascists!' Inside the cupboard again we forgot our normal anxiety and shook hands and hugged each other in congratulation and with excitement at the prospects. We knew that we were now as good as out.
Return to Contents Page