Chapter 37
My cap was my ticket to freedom.
I was taking my turn to dig the tunnel.
With the aid of Otto’s ingenious breathing system, the tunnellers were able to stay underground up to fifteen minutes at a time. They had made a lot of progress in the past three months, and I was taking my turn that evening.
We dug naked, to keep our clothes clean.
Above my head, the men were singing loudly to drown out the noise of scraping.
I was singing along with them: Pour in, drink up!
It took my mind off my work. Here in the dimly lit tunnel the orange clay was thick and cloying, clogging my lungs, too much like the trenches for my liking.
Although it was cold under the ground, I was sweating with the effort of digging, my spine bent as I jabbed away at the earth, muscles aching, my naked body smeared with dirt.
Drink up! And suddenly the singing tailed off just like that.
The breathing tube, made from old tin cans, was hurriedly withdrawn. I heard the squeal of the bed being pushed into place. The guards were doing an inspection.
I crouched, and my shadow hunched next to me in the feeble glow of the stolen bicycle lamp.
Silence, a command, then voices.
I couldn’t hear the conversation clearly but I could follow the rise and fall of it. It sounded amiable enough. I guessed the guards were admiring the new pin-up on the wall.
My thoughts went to Cora. She would be passing the camp soon, on her way home. I didn’t want to miss seeing her.
The minutes ticked away. Get a move on, I ordered the guards by the power of my mind.
I could hear Otto talking and the guards laughing. They were decent enough, making the best of things. It hadn’t seemed a drawback, but one could take these things too far.
I stretched my neck and rubbed the hard muscles at the base of my skull. I was losing track of time. It was getting harder to breathe in the tunnel now. The air was getting stale.
I felt a growing sense of panic. My lungs were labouring and my heart bouncing, dum-dum-dum-dum. The guards were still talking in the room above my head. They’d been there for an age. I wondered what was keeping them, what there was left to talk about.
The bicycle lamp brightened for a moment. But just as suddenly, it flickered and went out.
I crouched blindly in the cold blackness, trying not to panic, and groped for one of the sawn-off bed legs that served as pit props, reminding myself of where I was, that I wasn’t in the trenches, although it felt like it.
The sweat chilled and clung, and I felt a rush of dread.
Being buried alive was my worst nightmare.
I’d dug out pals, too slow and too late, and seen the grimace on their earth-filled mouths, their dead, staring eyes.
I shivered. I didn’t want to die. I was suddenly filled with such a raw terror that I couldn’t breathe.
Yes, you can. Stay calm!
I can’t.
You’re not in a coffin.
No. Not yet.
I felt around for the digger, it was here somewhere in the dark, lost with me in the cavernous hole of the earth’s throat.
I found it and in a panic I began stabbing furiously upwards, gouging through the layer of clay. I punched until the crumbling soil began to rain down and suddenly like a miracle I was looking through a grassy peephole of earth at the black and gold-smudged night sky and the air was fresh.
I sucked it in, filling my lungs with it.
Dah-dum-dum-dum, dah-dum-dum-dum. My heart was steadying now and my thoughts were settling into logic.
All I had to do was wait for the singing to start up again and for the milk-can breathing tubes to be reconnected to the fan.
I would finish my stint, shower the mud off, get dressed as normal.
Nothing bad was going to happen, I knew that now. Not tonight, anyway. I was delirious with relief as I stared up at the sky through the hole, couldn’t take my eyes off it.
I wondered, out of curiosity, how far we still had left to go.
Using my bare hands, I dug away more earth, scooping it down into the tunnel where it trickled down my torso and piled up on my feet.
When the hole was big enough, I pushed my arms through and hoisted myself up, kicking and wriggling, and when I emerged I looked back in amazement.
The dimly lit huts were behind the barbed wire.
I’d come out in the farmer’s field behind the camp.
Good old Otto! We’d done it, we’d established a route out of Camp 198.
This was the moment we had worked for and I grinned with sheer elation.
For the past months this escape was a matter of honour.
Right now though I wasn’t too bothered about honour, I was enjoying being solitary again even if it was just for a few minutes.
I wanted to enjoy the sensation of being alone in the world, just me, with space all around me, nothing more than that.
I brushed the mud from my naked body as best I could and looked across the black fields towards the gently curving hills. With a growing sense of gratitude I stretched out my arms to the heavens.
I’m alive! And I’m free!