CHAPTER TWENTY–SEVEN – PRISON BREAKOUT
Tom wandered across the hut towards the redhead, with Charlie and Edward following close behind. He stopped in front of the huge man, who stared down at him from where he was sitting on the top bunk, rather like a tiger about to pounce.
“What you want, kid?” he growled.
“I just wanted to apologise for causing trouble with my little trick that’s all. We are circus acts, you see, and make our living with magic tricks.”
The man’s face showed something approaching stunned surprise at that. “No wonder the Jerries have you locked away. They don’t like gypsies and circuses. But I thought they had rounded you lot all up years ago, in the forties. Thought they sent you all to work camps to ‘learn how to become productive members of society’ or whatever the propaganda says. How come you are still about? Your grandparents escape, is that it?”
Tom’s mind raced. He had forgotten about that. He knew about concentration camps – they had been taught a bit about it at school – but had forgotten that the Nazis in his world had locked up many ‘undesirables’ as they saw them, including tramps, vagabonds and gypsies.
Edward came to the rescue. Such things were well after his time, but he had been reading a lot of history in the Prof's library. “Yes, that’s right. My grandparents took my father into Switzerland when the war started and hid there. But you can’t hide forever and so we have been travelling about entertaining folk and avoiding the authorities. Life is grim and folk need fun. We get fed, put up for the night and move on. Alas, our luck ran out and we were caught.”
The grunt shrugged. “Ok then, show us a trick,” he said and folded his arms.
“Eh?” Tom panicked.
“If you guys are circus acts, show us a trick.”
Charlie stepped in, “We don’t have any props or kit. Sorry but ...”
“Aw come on; let’s see what you can do.”
“You want to see a trick?” Charlie asked.
“Yup.”
“Right now?”
“Yup,” the grunt said, smiling and crunching his fists together. The men nearby sniggered and looked on with interest.
Charlie looked round at his friends and winked. “Ok then. In my act I am called ‘Flash Lightning’. Faster than a speeding bullet: speedier than a rocket. Watch me and be amazed,” he said dramatically, lifting his arms up high.
“Go on then, amaze me,” the redhead said, with an edge of steel to his voice that implied that unless the act to come was staggering, Charlie would be the one to provide the entertainment for his men.
In one movement Charlie left the spot in front of the red–headed giant and like a blur sped down the room to the door, turned right along a row of bunks and looped back round the entire hut to stop in front of the grunt and then wink at him.
There was an awestruck silence. The grunt suddenly smiled. “Now that’s impressive,” he said and held out his hand. “The name is Phil.”
There were handshakes all round and some laughter. Phil sat back heavily on the bench, looking glum.
“Maybe you can give us a last performance tonight,” Phil said at length.
“Last performance?” Tom asked. “You going somewhere then?”
“Lad, you don’t leave this place. They bring prisoners here either to send them to work camps in the Welsh mountains, digging for them, or more often to execute them.”
“Execute?” Edward asked.
“Well in your case ‘cause you are gypsies and the like. In our case – well I guess it don’t matter now to tell you, in our case because we are underground – the Resistance. When the Nazis won the war, some of our dads and granddads banded together to carry on fighting the best they could – too few to do much good, though and they are all now too old or else dead. So, when we grew up, we carried on their fight,” he shrugged. “Had to try ... didn't we? Now that we are caught, as soon as they’ve finished interrogating us, we’ll be shot.”
Tom looked at his friends. Maybe this man could be of use.
“How’d you get caught?” Charlie asked.
“We blew up a munitions train.”
“You did what!”
“The whole of Wales is a big arms factory and most of England too. Massive slag heaps, munitions factories and uranium refining plants. We make the guns for their wars, don’t we? And the ammunition ...uranium–tipped shells and the like, nukes too and worse. Not that there are many nations left fighting them. But if we blow up a train, that is fewer guns for the wars and fewer guns for the occupation forces. So, last night we tried to destroy a train taking some tanks southwards. Got careless and a patrol caught us holding the explosives and standing by the track. Bit hard to explain that was.” He laughed his grim laugh again.
“The train was going south?” Tom asked.
“Yes, that’s right,” then he looked thoughtful, “actually, to the West Country. Odd that. Usually the trains go to Portsmouth or Liverpool for loading on the big transports bound for Africa or South America or wherever the war is.”
“Any idea exactly where the train was going?”
Phil shook his head but one of the other men spoke up.
“Exeter or something like that,” said a thin beanstalk of a man with a hook nose.
Exeter, thought Tom, just like that convoy on the road. “So how long have these trains been going to Exeter?” he asked.
Phil shrugged and thought for a moment. “Not more than a couple of days or we would have heard more about it.”
Tom took a deep breath. “What if I told you I might be able to get you all out of here?”
The redhead gave a booming laugh.
“I’m not joking, Phil.”
“Kid, you’ve got nerve and I like your style, but you are just a lad. What makes you think you can do the impossible?” The other men sniggered, but one or two studied Tom, their eyes sparking with hope.
Tom shrugged and Walked back to his world for an instant and then back again to stand in front of Phil. He and his mates were staring open–mouthed.
“How the hell did you do that?”
“Ah, but that would be telling,” Charlie grinned, “and an artiste never gives away a secret.”
“Talent is what he have,” said Edward, “a few tricks: the art of misdirection and illusion. With our wits and your brawn we can do this and we can escape.”
Phil stared at Tom and nodded to himself, as if he was thinking it over.
“But you have to be willing to free the women, including our friend,” Tom explained, “and you will need to fight and take down a few guards.”
Looking at the others around him, Phil raised a questioning eyebrow. They shrugged; a few nodded. Phil turned back to Tom.
“The way I see it pal, we are all dead anyway – us from a bullet tomorrow and you most likely from radiation sickness after a few weeks of handling uranium rounds. Might as well go down fighting, right lads?” he asked his companions. They all nodded and one or two smiled.
“So, what’s the plan?” he asked.
Tom looked at Edward and indicated that he should speak. He was the soldier: this was his department.
The Lieutenant gestured at them all to gather round and spoke in a whisper.
“Well, this is what I think ...”
It was an hour later and still dark outside, the camp lights having been switched off for the night, but that darkness was lifting slightly and a lighter tone heralded dawn’s arrival in maybe an hour. Twenty yards from the door to the men’s hut two guards were lazing about beside a small brazier, which was burning with a low flame. They huddled close to it for warmth and spoke in inaudible mutters. Each had a rifle that was laid within reach on the ground. Although on guard duty, they were sleepy and inattentive and did not see the three shadows now hiding near the door to the hut.
Like a blur, Charlie attacked one guard with a whirlwind of fists, while Edward Walked to just behind the other and picking up the man’s rifle, clubbed him hard ov
er the head. They both slumped to the ground with barely a whimper. Charlie and Edward dragged the guards to the door where Tom was still standing. He felt around in the unconscious men’s pockets and came up with a bunch of keys. One of them fitted the padlock on the hut door.
The door was quickly opened and the bodies heaved inside. Phil and one of his men stripped the guards and donned their uniforms then bustled back outside. Tom, hiding just inside the door, saw them both freeze.
A guard officer had arrived by the brazier and picked up the two abandoned rifles. He looked angry and spat out some words in German at the pair or them. He then peered closer and his mouth opened.
“Hilfe!” was all he managed to say before Phil’s right fist took out three teeth and his left winded him. A final clout to the back of the head and he was out cold. They dragged him into the hut where Edward now put on his uniform. He adjusted the peaked cap, grinned at Tom and said, “How do I look?”
“Frankly; sinister!”
Edward laughed, “Right then; ready to be a hero, Phil?”
“Or die horribly, I assume? Yes. I’m ready.”
“Then we march everyone else over to the women’s hut as if we are escorting them,” Edward suggested. He seemed at ease and Tom realised he was relishing being back in command and leading men in a fight.
“What if we get stopped?” Charlie asked.
Tom looked at Edward, “Can you speak German?”
“Nur ein Bißchen.”
“What?” said Charlie.
“Only a little is what he said,” Tom replied, thinking he would pay more attention to his German lessons in future. That was, of course, if he had a school to go back to and a future. It came home to him in a sickening lurch that he had momentarily forgotten he did not exist.
Edward shrugged. “It will have to do. Right everyone, line up. I suggest Phil, you and I go at the front and your man follows at the rear. Walk quietly everyone.”
They marched in silence across to the hut in which Mary was held. There were no guards outside; evidently the two guards Edward and Charlie had jumped were also supposed to keep this one under their gaze.
The door was padlocked, but once again, the guard’s keys unlocked it.
They opened the door and gazed inside. Peering back at them and huddling together as far away from the door as they could get, were about twenty or so terrified women and girls.
Fear turned to confusion as Tom walked in and looked about him.
“Master!” shouted Mary from the huddle and got up.
Tom was followed in by the others and soon men found wives or daughters amongst the women. A murmur of whispered greetings and some crying broke out, along with much hugging.
Phil hushed everyone and reminded them they were still inside a prison camp; then told them of the plan to escape. Immediately, they all fell silent, listening fearfully for sounds that they had been discovered while Edward went outside to scout out the main gate.
“If we get away, what will you do? Go back to the resistance fight?” Tom asked Phil.
Phil looked thoughtful and then shrugged. “I guess so. It often seems pointless. This army has been here for sixty years now and we have been an occupied state ruled by a military dictatorship since before most of us – and most of them – were born. Yet you have to hope, don’t you, that one day it can change. Just needs the right moment I reckon: the right opportunity.”
Tom nodded, not sure what to say. He was thinking of his world. Not perfect at all, but it seemed paradise compared to this.
“I don’t suppose you could teach me how to vanish like you and your friends do? I’m thinking it is a bit more than just an illusion. How do you really do it, lad? I’m not a superstitious bloke, but it looks like some kind of magic to me.”
Fortunately, at that moment Edward returned, saving Tom the tricky problem of how to answer.
“Ok, there are only two guards at the gate. They are up in the little watch tower above it. It’s still very quiet all around and there is no sign of any movement in the barrack huts, so I think we risk it. We march to the gates and try and bluff our way out.”
The short walk to the gate was uninterrupted by any guards, but moving slowly and in silence, it seemed to take forever. Tom kept glancing east where he could see, off behind the women’s hut, a slight glimmer of daylight. It was the glow that preceded the sun: the glow indicating that dawn was only minutes away. He nudged Edward and tilted his head in that direction. The Lieutenant grunted.
“Yes I see it,” he whispered. “If this was a British camp, there would be cooks and orderlies all over the place soon, preparing breakfast. I imagine these Germans are the same. Let’s pick up the pace a bit and hope they don’t switch on the floodlights!”
Now they were approaching the gates. Two tired–looking sentries stood watch, rifles cradled in their arms. They were observing the approaching column with suspicion.
“Halt!” shouted Edward and the prisoners and escort stopped.
He marched smartly to the front of the column and shouted out an order up to the guard post.
“Schnell, schnell! Lassen Sie uns vorbei!”
The guards exchanged puzzled glances and then one shrugged to the other and they stumbled down the steps to stand in front of Edward.
“Entschuldigen, Herr Leutnant, aber ich muss Ihren Befehle sehen!”
“Was gibt...oh stuff it! I said would you mind awfully opening the gates, old man?” Edward replied giving up the attempt at German. The guard’s jaw dropped open in astonishment and a moment later he took a deep breath and yelled.
“Alarm!”
As the guards fumbled for their guns, Edward surprised them by Walking to stand behind them. Charlie was ready to move as well and the fight was over in a moment.
“It almost seems unfair, don’t it?” said Charlie chuckling.
“Not quite cricket, you mean?” Edward said. “Do you think we should fight fair, then?”
They looked at each other for a moment then, at the same instant, they both laughed.
"No, I didn't think you did." Edward chortled, searching the guards and locating the keys to the gate.
Behind Charlie and Edward there was a hushed silence. The prisoners had seen Edward Walk and looked at him with a mixture of fear and suspicion.
Phil came to the rescue. “It’s ok, everyone, calm down; they are circus acts – magic and all that. It’s all an illusion: done with mirrors: trick of the shadows and that kind of thing.”
The prisoners did not look convinced, but then Phil hissed in a loud whisper, “Come on, move it: does it really matter how it was done? We don’t want to hang around here or we’ll all be caught again.”
The woman with the two young girls scooped one up in each arm and was first through the gates. That got everyone moving. Soon, hobbling, walking or running, all the prisoners were through and separating out to flee in all directions.
Tom watched them run across the fields and away into the night. What was their fate, he wondered. Would many still be free by sunset? Would any survive the week? He blinked, to bring himself back to the present. Edward, Mary and Charlie were standing beside him and were also watching the last prisoners disappear. The last except one: Phil, the red–haired grunt, was still with them.
“You should go, Phil,” Tom said, pointing towards the woods.
“I will, mate. But where are you guys going? I have a place nearby, if it helps.”
“We will be just dandy,” Edward said, “We have our own place to go to.”
“Are you guys Resistance as well then ...?” Phil asked.
“In a way we are. We certainly are not friends with the occupying army, put it that way,” Tom answered.
“You all fight well, you know. You could be useful in the struggle.”
Tom was about to reply when he heard a pistol being cocked behind him. He swore under his breath; the guard’s shout of alarm had been heard then.
“Halt! Do no
t move! Turn about slowly, with your hands in the air.”
They did. Standing about twenty feet away was Lieutenant Teuber accompanied by a guard. Teuber held the pistol and the guard had a rifle pointed at them.
Teuber stared into Tom’s eyes for a moment and then turned to the soldier. “Private, go and call out the guard. Tell them there has been an attempted escape.”
The guard hesitated, but Teuber glared at him and he ran off.
“Why the prisoner breakout? I imagine that with your, ah ‘talents’, you could just leave once you had found these two.” Teuber waved the pistol at Charlie and Edward.
“We could, but we thought if it was just us who’d gone, it would look bad for you,” Tom said. “We didn’t want your own, ah ‘activities’ brought under scrutiny,” he grinned.
Teuber considered that for a moment and then nodded, returning the grin, “Yes it possibly would. I am grateful for that. Hopefully Redfeld will not suspect anything.”
“Who is this guy? Why does he know you? Are you collaborators?” Phil said, backing off.
“Stay where you are!” Teuber ordered, the pistol now whipping round like a snake to point at the redhead. “The truth is that these four and this boy in particular are no traitors and if you want a better world – a free Britain – then these may help bring that about one day. You are Resistance aren’t you? Don’t bother denying it ? I overheard just now.”
“So are you going to shoot me?” Phil said.
Far away the noise of alarm whistles and raised voices came across the night. Teuber reversed the pistol and held out the grip to Phil.
“No, I am going to give you a reason to trust me. Take it. When they get here,” the officer nodded towards the noise, which was getting closer, “I must be unconscious and you all gone.”
Phil looked confused. “Eh?” was all he could say. Teuber put the Luger in Phil’s hand.
“Knock me out with the pistol butt. Then, in a week, be in those woods – a week today at midnight. If you are Resistance, you and I need to talk,” he said and then turned his back on Phil and closed his eyes. For a moment he opened one and added a few words.
“Go back to your world, Thomas Oakley. Do what you need to do there. Maybe one day, I and others like this man can sow the seeds to change our world and maybe one day you can return to help.”
Phil still looked dumbstruck and all he managed to say was, “I er ...”
“Do it now, idiot Englishman!” Teuber ordered in full German officer voice and Phil thumped him hard with the pistol. Teuber collapsed like a boxer after a solid right hook.
Phil looked down at him and then at the pistol. “What just happened?” he asked.
The guards were visible now and getting closer.
“No time to explain. Keep that appointment with the man. Trust him. You two need to talk. I think he might be just that opportunity you spoke about needing,” Tom shouted. “Now run, man! Make for the woods. We will go this way.”
Edward led them off at right angles to the woods while Phil sprinted across the field, diverting attention from Tom and the others by firing the Luger back at the guards as he ran for cover. Returning his fire, they chased after him whilst the four Walkers raced for a clump of bushes and ducked down behind them into the shadows. “Ok, that’s far enough,” panted Tom, “let’s go.”
He reached out to touch Mary and Charlie, and Edward put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. When they were all linked, Tom brought the dim, out of focus map of his own reality into clear view in his mind and suddenly, the prison camp, woods and guards, along with the entire Twisted Reality, were gone. For the second time that night a cow got a nasty shock as this time not one, but four humans appeared out of nowhere.
Tom looked about him. They were in the same field in Newbury he had visited before, but maybe at the other end of it. “What’s so funny?” he asked Charlie, who was smiling to himself.
“Oh, it’s probably nothing, but just before we left I thought I saw Phil glancing back at us as he reached the woods. I think he saw us Walk away. It was only for an instant, but you should have seen the look on his face!” he added, with a laugh.