The Tunnel (15 page)

‘Come on,’ John said. ‘We’ll go and see him, we can’t do any harm.’

They found Tyson sucking an empty pipe and putting the finishing touches to a civilian jacket he was making out of a blanket.

‘’Morning,’ Peter said. ‘May we come in?’ It was the mess in which he had dined on the night of his arrival.

‘Come in, come in!’ Tyson cleared a stool and moved from his own seat to the bed. ‘Come in and sit down.’ He looked at them inquiringly.

‘We’ve got a scheme for a tunnel,’ Peter said.

Tyson grinned. ‘What, another?’

Briefly they outlined the plan. It sounded good to them. While they were talking Tyson filled his pipe and lit it from the stub of John’s cigarette.

‘Yes, it’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘I’ve had it suggested before. Unfortunately the chapel is on parole and must not be used for escape purposes. That also applies to anything to do with the theatre. I’m afraid you’ll have to think again.’

Peter looked at Tyson quietly smoking and sewing at his jacket and felt the hopelessness of it all. Here was a man who had been here for years, and had tried to escape ever since he had been here. And they were only on the fringe; had not even started. At first he had thought it would be easy. ‘Get to a permanent camp and then make your plan.’ He looked round him at the now well known squalor of the large room and felt the misery rise inside him like a sudden wave of nausea. He fought it down again, tried to drive it back, refuse to acknowledge it.

‘Is there any chance of getting into a scheme that’s already started?’ he asked.

‘There are only two tunnels going at the moment,’ Tyson said. ‘The one from the
abort
and that crazy idea from next door. The
abort
one’s full up and I wouldn’t advise the other.’ He hesitated for a moment, then, having considered, spoke with more enthusiasm. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of opening up an old tunnel that’s been lying derelict for some time. We had to abandon it because of flooding. It’s worth having another shot at, anyway.’

‘D’you want any help?’ Peter asked.

Tyson puffed at his pipe. ‘We haven’t decided to open it up yet. I’m going down this afternoon to have a look at it.’

‘Where’s it from?’ John asked.

‘It’s from the cookhouse behind the hospital – where you get the hot water in the morning. If we do open it up again we shall need some enthusiastic types and I’ll keep you two in mind. You won’t get into the digging team right away but I might be able to start you off in one of the dispersal squads.’

‘Thanks very much.’ Peter rose to his feet. ‘It’s a pity about the church.’

‘We must stand by our word,’ Tyson said, ‘even if the goons don’t.’

Out on the circuit again John was enthusiastic. ‘Well, we’ve got somewhere,’ he said. ‘It was worth having the idea just for that.’

But Peter did not want to be enthusiastic. They had been enthusiastic too often during the last few weeks. He wanted to wait now until it was certain. To talk about it now would spoil it. But he felt the excitement inside him, making him walk faster, walk as though he were really going somewhere instead of marching like a processional caterpillar round the circuit of the wire.

They walked quickly without talking, overtaking others, slipping on the damp clay as the path dipped down towards the football pitch. They passed the
abort,
skirted the Russian compound, passed the White House, the hospital and the cookhouse – significant now because of its abandoned tunnel. They climbed the far slope, came round behind the barracks and down past the
abort
again.

‘Did you know that Otto was in the
abort
scheme?’ John said.

‘No, is he?’

‘Nor did I until the other day. I found a heap of old clothes covered in damp clay under his bed. I was looking for a potato I’d dropped. When I taxed him he told me all about it. D’you know, the thing’s about fifteen feet deep. I think they stand a pretty good chance of getting away with it.’

‘How far have they got?’

‘They’ve done about ninety feet already. They’ll be out in about a month – that is if the goons don’t decide to dig another
abort
and fill in the old one.’

‘It’s certainly time they did,’ Peter said. He could still smell it from where they were, on the far side of the football pitch. ‘Where does the tunnel actually start?’

‘From the side of the trench. You have to get right down into it to get into the tunnel. Not a job for the squeamish. They struck water about halfway, and they have to crawl through inches of it. Those clothes of Otto’s stank to high heaven – he usually keeps them down the tunnel, but they had to get out in a hurry the other day and they hadn’t time to change.’

‘How did they manage to get from the
abort
up to the barrack block in their tunnelling clothes without being spotted by the goons?’

‘I didn’t ask him. I suppose they put greatcoats on or something. They couldn’t have chosen a more unpleasant place to start a tunnel from, really … Although a kriegie never gets a chance to get far from an
abort.
I tried to escape from the window of one coming up through Italy, and I’ve been hounded by them ever since.’

‘Did you do that, too?’ Peter was amused. It was extraordinary how like Roy John was, with his dark vitality hidden beneath a cloak of indolence.

‘What?’

‘Try to climb out of the lavatory window.’

‘If anyone wants to escape he’s almost forced to go to the
abort
to do it,’ John said. ‘If he wants to eat or change his clothes while he’s escaping, he has to do it in the
abort.’
He laughed. ‘I used to eat my tuck in the lavatory at prep school. It was the only place one could be alone.’

‘It’s the only place you can be alone here,’ Peter said. ‘You
can
be alone there – but at what a cost!’

‘Not in the big one you can’t,’ John said, ‘not in the forty-eight seater!’

When they had eaten their lunch, Peter and John began to prepare the evening meal by peeling the twelve half-rotten potatoes which were the ration for the day. The potatoes were bruised and black, but to make them clean more than half would have had to be cut away. They compromised, cutting away only the parts that were already putrid. They put the potatoes in water in the square baking-dish which Saunders had made from rolled-out Klim tins, and Peter took them out to find a place on the cooking stove.

There was not much room on the stove but he managed to get the tin near the edge, where it was almost cold. At intervals he went out to push the tin a little nearer the centre; but as eleven other cooks were each doing the same thing, the tins merely followed one another in endless procession round the top of the stove.

‘D’you think anything will come of Tyson’s idea?’ John lay on his mattress, gazing at the bottom of Peter’s bunk a few inches above his head.

‘Shouldn’t bank on it.’ Peter was busy on a rough design that he was making for the theatre scenery. He drew on a piece of cardboard cut from a Red Cross food box. ‘Anyway, if anything does come of it we shall only be on the fringe. I should have been much happier if the church idea had come off.’

‘The church and the theatre would have to be on parole. I wonder about the hospital?’

‘Bound to be,’ Peter said. ‘You couldn’t do it. If the goons closed that down we’d be in a hell of a state.’

‘It’s a stupid thing, giving parole.’ John kicked the foot of his bunk and sent a shower of shavings flying from the upper mattress. ‘The church would have been an ideal place,’

‘If there were no parole there’d be no church, theatre or hospital. It’s the only way we can get the costumes and paint for the scenery. We’ve got to strike a balance. After all, we’d both be pretty lost without the theatre.’

‘I wouldn’t mind doing without it for a chance to escape.’

‘The two things don’t necessarily follow.’ Peter forced himself to concentrate on the drawing.

By two-thirty the potatoes were half boiled and he took them off the fire and brought them back into the mess, where he mashed them with a tin nailed to the end of a piece of wood.

‘They still look pretty black,’ John said.

‘The salmon’ll hide it,’ Peter told him.

They opened the two tins of salmon and mixed the fish with the mashed potatoes, adding a little Klim and pepper and salt. The mixture still looked depressingly grey.

‘I’ll make some gravy,’ Peter said. That’ll hide it.’

‘If we put a little more Klim in, it won’t look so grey.’

‘This’ll fix it.’ Peter was mixing brown gravy powder with water. As he stirred he tried to forget Tyson’s tunnel, to think of the scenery that he was designing. That, at least, was a fact, not merely a vague possibility.

‘I think we could do with some more Klim,’ John said. ‘I say, I’ve just realized why they call it Klim – it’s milk spelt backwards!’

A balcony would be the thing, Peter was thinking, with stairs on the prompt side; a good heavy looking carved oak balustrade.

‘Should we put a little more in, d’you think?’

‘Yes, shove it in.’ Would it be possible to make a piano out of plywood? A piano would look well with that coloured shawl thrown over it, and a bowl of artificial flowers. There was a chap in Block 5 who made jolly good artificial flowers. He’d have roses, mixed red and white roses looking as though they had just been cut from the garden.

‘I think we can spare it,’ John said.

Peter came back to earth. ‘How much have we got?’

‘About half a tin.’

‘Better not. Put some more breadcrumbs in if you like. Here’s the gravy.’ He poured the thick brown liquid over the mixture in the tin. ‘There, that should camouflage it all right.’

John stepped back and examined it. ‘Looks a bit soggy.’

‘It’ll stiffen up,’ Peter told him. ‘They always do.’

‘A little Klim would help.’

‘We can’t afford it.’ Peter was firm about this. ‘Bread’ll have the same effect.’

John grated in some more breadcrumbs. ‘What shall we give them as a sweet?’

‘Oh, God – of course!’ Peter had forgotten the sweet. ‘Let’s have cheese and biscuits.’

‘There’ll be a hell of a row if we don’t make a sweet. We gave them cheese and biscuits yesterday.’

‘Let’s have stewed prunes.’ It was all he could think of.

‘Are there any soaked?’

‘I thought you soaked some yesterday.’

‘I thought you were going to.’

‘Well, I didn’t, so we can’t have prunes. What do you suggest?’

‘We could fry some biscuits.’

They’ve got to be soaked, too.’ He would have done almost anything to be relieved of the responsibility of being cook.

‘I’ll soak ’em,’ John said. ‘You look after the pie.’ He took eight large round biscuits and put them to soak in water in another tin.

With a fork Peter drew a stylised pattern on the smooth top of the salmon pie. ‘There – that’ll come out all right, I hope. Now I must get down to the theatre.’

‘What’s the time?’

‘It’s about three o’clock.’

‘We’ve got to stooge at three.’

‘Hell – I’d forgotten all about that. Bandy’ll be furious. Where do we have to go?’

‘I’m in the White House, you’re in the lower
abort,
I think. We’ll just make it if we hurry.’

In the lower
abort
behind the football pitch, Peter found the tunnellers already assembled.

‘Come on!’ Stewart said. ‘Where the hell’ve you been?’

‘Sorry, I’ve been cooking.’

‘So’ve I for that matter. There’s your contact, standing on the corner over there. See him?’ He pointed to a muffled figure who stood at the far end of the football pitch, apparently watching a group of prisoners throwing a rugby ball about. It was Saunders. ‘If he blows his nose, give us a shout.’ Stewart began quickly to strip off his clothes.

Peter watched the figure at the far end of the football pitch and listened to the clipped conversation of the men behind him. They were talking of the air pump and of wood for shoring the tunnel. Presently he heard the clack-wheeze, clack-wheeze of the pump, and knew that they had started work.

He began to grow stiff and cold. He knew that many yards below his feet men were sweating and straining in the slime of the tunnel. He knew that he was helping them, but that was not enough; he wanted to dig. He wanted to be in a scheme himself. If only Tyson decided to open up the tunnel from the cookhouse he would have a chance. At first he would only be stooging as he was now, but he would have a footing. He would know that if the tunnel succeeded he would have a place in it, however low down. And he might eventually get into the digging team. Since his arrival at the camp he had looked on the tunnellers as a special breed of men, much as at school he had looked on those with tassels to their caps.

At intervals seven-pound jam tins full of clay were hauled to the surface. The clay was emptied into the adjacent
aborts,
and pushed under with long poles. The smell was almost overpowering. He pressed his nose close to the draughty window, and concentrated on Saunders, whose muffled figure was becoming difficult to see in the gathering dusk.

Suddenly he saw a flash of white. Saunders was blowing his nose. ‘Goon approaching,’ Peter shouted. ‘Stewart!’

‘OK, watch Saunders.’ Hurriedly Stewart began to dismantle the air pump. ‘If he scratches his head it means that the coast is clear again. Give us a shout if he does.’

He heard the air pump being hidden and the scuffling as the men who had been working on the surface dispersed to various seats in their role of involuntary visitors.

He saw Saunders scratch his head, and gave them the ‘All clear!’

He heard the pump begin to work again, and presently the splash of falling clay.

At four-thirty Stewart called a halt. It was time for the tunnellers to come up and wash before their tea.

‘Let’s have some jam,’ Saunders pleaded. ‘I’m frozen through to the marrow.’

‘The rule is,’ Peter said, ‘jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today.’ He cracked the old, old joke, hiding his hurt beneath the badinage.

‘I know, I know,’ Saunders said. The joke was wearing a little thin, even for him. ‘But we’ve had the mail today – let’s have a bash.’

‘If we have jam for tea, we have no jam for breakfast,’ Peter said. ‘Please yourselves – we’ll have a vote. All those in favour? … Fair enough – let tomorrow look after itself.’

‘Bandy Beecham called in this afternoon to see why you hadn’t gone down to help him with the scenery,’ Hugo said. ‘I told him you were busy. He wants to know if you’ll go over tomorrow.’

‘Thanks.’ Peter put a minute quantity of jam on to each slice of bread and butter.

Otto came in and sat down; he looked tired. ‘Ah, we have jam. That is good.’

‘Sheer prodigality,’ Peter told him, and gave him some extra jam.

‘I’ve had a letter from my Aunt Grace,’ Hugo said. He was cutting his slice of bread into thin fingers, maintaining the convention of afternoon tea. ‘She’s got a Siamese cat. Used to write to me every week while I was on the squadron.’

‘What – the cat?’ Saunders was spreading his jam lovingly into every corner of the slice of bread.

‘No, the aunt – about the cat. She’s worried about his habits. Used to send me bulletins regularly every week. She’s sent telegrams before now. I thought I’d got away from it all when I was shot down, but now she’s started writing to me here. I suppose I’ll have to use my precious letter forms to write to the old bitch.’

‘I shouldn’t bother.’ Saunders took a bite that accounted for a third of his slice of bread.

‘Oh, but I must. I have expectations, great expectations.’ Hugo took a small bite from one of the fingers of bread and jam and replaced the remainder on the table in front of him.

‘This also is funny,’ Otto said. ‘I have a letter today. I do not have many letters; this one is the first I have received in six months. Many months ago I receive a sweater from the Red Cross, and inside the sweater is sewn a piece of paper with the address of the lady who had knitted the sweater. I write to this lady in South Africa, and thank her for the sweater. I have now a letter from her. She says that she is sorry and it is all a mistake, she knitted the sweater for someone on Active Service.’

‘She ought to try it sometime,’ Saunders said. ‘What d’you think – my old woman’s joined the WAAF. Says it’ll be more companionable. I’ll give ’er companionable when I get back …’

‘Were there any letters for me?’ John asked.

‘They all looked like bills,’ Saunders said. ‘I threw ’em on the fire.’

‘There was nothing for you.’ Loveday’s meditation was over for the day. ‘I looked specially,’ he added darkly. ‘I’ve been observing you, Clinton, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re the type that can’t exist without extraneous stimuli. Letters are very important to you, aren’t they?’

‘Well – I like getting them.’

‘There you are. Now, the only way a man can be complete—’

‘Young Simpson got caught this afternoon,’ Saunders said.

‘Caught doing what?’ John seemed grateful for the interruption.

‘Trying to get out in the rubbish cart. He hid under some old tins they were carting away from the cookhouse. They got as far as the gate, and one of the ferrets started poking about in the rubbish with his steel spike. He got young Simmy right up the arse with it, and that was that. Marched ’im straight off to the cooler.’

‘You’ll never learn,’ Loveday said. ‘Why run away from life? If only you individuals would realize that this incarceration was sent to try you. Then you would grasp it with both hands, instead of running away from it.’

‘Why running away from life?’ Peter said, fighting down his misery. ‘Surely it’s just as much running away to stay here and accept it.’

‘If it was your fate to be taken prisoner,’ Loveday said, ‘it was your fate. There’s no running away from that.’

‘How d’you know it isn’t your fate to escape?’ He knew that it was useless to argue with Loveday, but now he could not help it.

‘You’d be given a sign,’ Loveday said.

‘You treat fate like a fruit machine,’ Peter said. ‘Stop it working when it’s most convenient. How did you know that it wasn’t your fate to go down with the aircraft? Why did you bale out with a parachute?’

‘The pilot told me to.’

‘Supposing he hadn’t? Supposing he’d been killed? Would you have baled out then?’

‘It was fate that he wasn’t killed,’ Loveday said. ‘Everything is ordained by fate.’

‘What absolute cock!’ Peter could contain himself no longer. He rose to his feet and blundered out on to the circuit. To escape from the mess and take his misery with him, out on to the now deserted and muddy path. He too, had received a letter that afternoon, a letter from his mother, written on an official letter form, telling him that Roy had been shot down over France. ‘I pray that he has been taken prisoner,’ his mother had said, ‘and that one day he will join you in the camp …’