The Crate Escape, page 19
Chapter Thirty-Two
Apparently, it was a busy period at the Brisbane nick, and they were short of space. If only they would have asked us, we would all have helped them out by leaving, but then they were not known for their common sense! Mike, I and another lad were put in the same room to make space for the new prisoners. The war must have been going very badly with the arrival of the new detainees; however, we were doing our bit to make them feel at home.
One night, all three of us were joking around when the idea of escape came to mind. Although I only had about twenty-five days left to do and the other kid just a little bit more, Mike assured us that as prisoners of war, it was our bound duty to make at least one attempt at escaping.
He had been trying to read a book and that was always a dangerous time with him as he only managed to understand about every third word and so he sometimes got the gist of the book wrong. Anyway, according to his book, if you tied some material such as cotton in a long rope, soaked it in water and then tied both ends together and twisted the whole thing as it started to dry out, it would shrink. If it were tied to say, the window bars and the bottom corner of the door in the cell, the pressure would be so great that the door would be forced open!
He was positive that if we tried it, it would work and then all three of us would be free. We reminded him that if we managed to open the door and get out of the room it would put us in the hallway of the building, and what would we do then? The hallway was also covered with iron bars at both ends. So, if we managed to get into the hallway and turned either left or right, our escape path would be blocked by a massive array of these bars which, as we agreed with Mike, had a door located in them. Of course, these doors were also made of metal bars and would be locked from the outside.
This was a mere hiccup according to him, the important thing being to get out of the room, and all other details could be worked out after this had been achieved. We spent the rest of the night making plans for the great escape, but as the door was made up of a sheet of solid iron, we had our doubts that a couple of cotton sheets would have the power to bend it! Another idea was raised by Mike; if one of the door hinges was broken, it would be much easier to complete the plan, but how would we break the hinge?
We could pinch a cold chisel from the electrical workshop then, by using that and hitting it with the heel of a shoe, we could keep banging away at the hinge until it broke, or until someone heard the noise that we would be making and reported it to the authorities.
All the major problems were dismissed, as it was accepted that we would get into the hallway surrounded by iron bars and break through them, then we need to get into a corridor with more iron bars, get over a twenty-foot wall, then climb a twenty-foot chain fence on the other side before finally scaling a twenty-foot brick wall and with all the guards hanging around and ignoring us! Both I and my other roommate were quite sure that the plan wouldn’t work, but Mike was quite convinced that his book had got it right and even gave us an example involving the washing of a shirt which can shrink, ‘right?’ So, finally, we agreed to go ahead with him and do it.
The following day, we all went to work, and I spent most of the day sniffing through toolboxes looking for exactly the right cold chisel to do the job. Finding one that suited the situation, I secreted it on my person and smuggled it back into our room. The great escape was on!
As soon as darkness fell, we started banging the hinge, but the more we banged it, the more nothing happened. We were overjoyed at one stage when we missed hitting the hinge altogether but managed to hit the cement surrounding it and a little bit of the cement came flying out. That hole would soon be spotted by our guards, we told Mike, but he was quite sure that if we filled it up with soggy bread no one would notice it and the bread could be removed when we were finally ready for the escape to take place.
Giving up on the hinge idea, we focused our attention on the shrinking material part of our plan. We ripped the bedsheets into thick strips and soaked them in water then, after twisting the entire length, we joined the ends together to form a circle by tying them around the window bars and slipped the looped end under the corner of the door. We broke a leg off the table and pushed it through the twists in the sheet before twisting the table leg to tighten up the whole circle of the wet bedsheet even more. After completing our task, we all sat down to take a rest and watch our idea come to fruition.
It was like watching wet paint dry, nothing happened! After a few hours of staring at it and with all that work we had ended up with something that resembled a washing line full of twisted up sheets that had been blown by the wind and, what’s more, the door hadn’t budged an inch! All we were left with was a three-legged table and no sheets to sleep on for the night.
The night passed slowly and from time to time we debated what had gone wrong with our wonderful idea. What was at fault, was it the sheet, the door or Mike’s misreading of the book? All we were left with was a room that looked as though a bomb had gone off in it and an escape plan that for some mysterious reason we had had to cancel. One thing that urgently needed to be taken care of was the state of the room as nobody would believe that a hurricane had whipped through the place overnight! Early the next morning, I spoke to the landing orderly, who was a friend of mine and responsible for all the property used in the rooms. I explained that the night before, we’d had an accident, and he agreed to give us a new four-legged table and sheets whilst promising not to tell the guards.
Whilst he was sorting out the new stuff, he commented on the noise that had kept most of the wing awake during the night.
“It sounded like someone was trying to escape.” He laughed. Laughing with him, I commented,
“No one in their right mind would try that, would they?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
With the idea of escape gone from our minds, things got back pretty much to normal until one day, when we were all together in our little electrician’s hut, the boss man sounding half apologetic, told me that he was not allowed to take me to the farm anymore.
“…And why not?” I snapped at him, thinking that it might have something to do with the many electrical cables that I had deliberately damaged every time I went there.
“Because apparently, they’re going to deport you, and you might prove to be an escape risk!”
“Deport me, escape risk,” I repeated very slowly before breaking into a big smile as it sank in. “Are they mad? Why didn’t they tell me before? If they’re going to deport me, I’d do anything they want me to.” I did a little song and dance before adding, “Anything!”
A few days after being told of my pending deportation, we were all back in our little electricity shed. It was first thing in the morning, and we were waiting for one of the paid goons to bring the daily worksheet. This was an especially important document as it would inform the boss man, and eventually us, of what light bulbs would need to be changed that day. The number of bulbs was the most important part of our workday as the three members of our junior division, who were all smokers, would put one rolled-up cigarette into a pot and before the document arrived would guess the number of changes needed. The one who made the closest guess would keep the whole pot of three cigarettes. Without this competition the daily excitement of changing the light bulbs would have ceased to exist.
Across the street from our electrical shed and a little to the right was the start of a building that housed the jail’s workshops and about half an hour after we had started work, a great flux of people, walking single file and like a long snake would wind their way into the buildings to begin their days toil on one of the many sewing machines that were lined up in there.
During the night and for a reason known only to the owners of the concentration camp, a lonely goon with a pistol would be on patrol outside these buildings. Looking very smart in his uniform, he would spend a boring night talking to himself, with only his gun for company. As we, members of the electrical shed, were the first to arrive in the mornings, the boss man, who was always with us would shout a message to the goon with the gun who would then walk further away from us and we would enter our shed being safely protected in case the goon decided to use us for target practice. I suppose the idea was to keep us away from the gun he had on his hip because if people like Mike managed to get their hands on it, they would think that all their birthdays had come at once!
Well, this morning, we turned up as normal and went into our shed. The goon with the gun was in his usual place and we shouted our normal, if perhaps slightly two-faced, good morning to him. What we didn’t know was that he was a smoker and had turned up for work the night before without any matches. He had spent the whole night desperate for a smoke and with no way of getting a light for his cigarette! The first we knew of all this was while we were hanging around the shed waiting for the daily lottery to arrive, he came in and asked if anyone had a light? Mike, who was the furthest away and in an amazing display of generosity, pulled out a match and offered it to the goon who walked between us, gun and all, and quickly lit his cigarette! He failed to notice that all of us were standing around with our mouths open in utter shock! Our boss man eventually told him that perhaps it would be a good idea to get the gun and himself the hell out of the place! Anyone of us could have very easily removed the gun from his waist and held the whole place hostage. I would hate to think of what could have happened if the goon had done the same thing with any other group apart from the jokers of the jail!
The final days of my ‘prisoner of war’ times had come to an end. Tomorrow would be the last day of my mixing with real Australians before my being deported back to my own country. The war would be over, and I would never need to return to this island again. Around midday, I was taken to see the governor of the penal colony—he didn’t like to work a lot and so stayed in bed most of the day. Today, in my honour, he had fallen out of bed, semi-drunk, to come and say goodbye.
“So, Brian, you’re leaving us tomorrow, right?”
“Yep.” I smiled back. “And about time too!”
“I hope that it hasn’t been too hard for you?”
“Nope, as ‘prisoner of war’ camps go, I can recommend it and there are worse places,” I smiled at him before adding, “I guess!”
“You’ll need to sign this paper.” He passed a sheet of typed A4 over to me.
I read it slowly and it said something about my acknowledging that my property had been returned and that apart from getting my suitcase back (with all its contents), I would receive the money that had been collected on my behalf from the BHP steel works in Newcastle. I nodded my head before asking him a question, “so where’s my ticket?”
“What ticket?” He looked a little surprised.
“My ticket to London, or am I supposed to walk?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, trying to conjure up a smile.
“I’m being deported back to a civilised country, and for that, I need a ticket, right?”
“Deported? No, you’re being released from here, not deported!”
I hit the roof; they had lied to me yet again! Would it not be possible for at least one person on this God-forsaken island to at least tell the truth? All the arguments I put forward fell on deaf ears; I would be free to go from the jail!
“I don’t want to go; I want to be deported!”
“Well, you’re not going to be!”
“Then I’m not going anywhere; I’ll stay right here!”
“You can’t!”
“Who says I can’t, you?”
“The law says that you can’t!”
“The law’s an ass! Are you telling me that your stupid laws kept me in here for sixty days when I was public enemy number one, and now, I don’t even hold that exalted position? This is incredulous!” I was shouting by now. “Are you telling me that I’m not even a danger to the public? Well, I’m not going, and that’s that!”
Refusing to sign the paper, I stormed out of the room with a suggestion to them of where they could stick it.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It was only about an hour later when I was very politely ‘asked’ if I would go and meet the governor again. This time we sat on opposite sides of his desk while he informed me, in what sounded like an almost apologetic tone, that they had forced people unwillingly into the place and stopped people from leaving, but to the best of his recollection they had never had anyone with the legal right to leave refusing to go!
We discussed the matter for over an hour before I realised that all the argument in the world was not going to get me anywhere and that tomorrow morning, like it or not, I would be thrown out. I felt at a new low, stuck in a country where I had no wish to be and subjected to the all-time insult by being thrown out of the local jail!
So, it came to pass, the next day I was homeless and without a chance of being deported. I wandered the streets for a while before drowning my sorrows with a milkshake and making plans for my future. One thing that was certain was that I would never trust any Australian official again, as far as I was concerned, they could all stay in the local nick where they belonged!
Alone and with just my suitcase for company I decided to return to Melbourne and see what sort of trouble I could cause for them there.
Two days later, after travelling by train, I arrived back in Melbourne where all my troubles had begun. The city hadn’t changed much with the same dreary weather that I remembered from the last time I visited and immediately after my arrival I put myself to good use trying to find a place to stay.
I found a place owned by an Italian immigrant who was pocketing the rent whilst avoiding the need to pay tax on the money. The bedsitter was in an area of Melbourne called St Kilda. It was two rooms, a basic bedroom and the room next to it which had been converted into a small sitting area with a kitchen attached. It would do for the time being.
Now that I had secured somewhere to sleep, I needed to find a job to help pay for the rent.
A few days later whilst I was walking around Flinders Street Railway Station in central Melbourne I found, near the back of the building, a sign that informed everyone that workers were required. I went in and applied for a job in what transpired to be a paper mill. My application was immediately accepted, but the strange thing was that the workers were on strike and although I attended work every day, there was actually very little work to do; just sit around and wait until it was time to leave for home. Very boring, but why should I complain, I was getting paid for doing nothing!
Settling down to life in my bedsitter and going to work during the day made life chug on, but it didn’t take long before I became completely bored. So bored, in fact, that one day after finishing my hanging around at work routine, I decided that I would go back and look at the hostel where I had started this epic adventure. The place was only a twenty-minute walk from where I was working so it wouldn’t take much effort and would at least pass some time away. I soon arrived and the place looked the same as the first day I had arrived from the UK. I walked around as if I owned it and was quickly reminded that all my problems had started here. I couldn’t wait to get out of the place and go home to St Kilda and as I was about to do so, I bumped into one of the residents. His name was Paul, and after saying hello, we had a brief conversation before he invited me into his room to meet a friend of his named John.
It turned out that they were both from Ireland and been friends since school days. As I had been doing in the past, they were both working for the railway. Neither of them liked living in Australia and so I was in good company. We chatted away for hours and got on so well that we agreed that I would forget my feelings about the hostel and come to visit them again the next day.
It didn’t take long before we had all became good friends and used to do almost everything together. Sometimes, I would visit them and other times they would come over to St Kilda to visit me. They were extremely interested in many of the things that I had been up to in Australia, but the thing that mainly held us together was our mutual hate of the country in which we found ourselves living. That hate was generated by the feeling that we had all been lied to and let down by the people who had encouraged us to go there.
One evening, we were sitting at my kitchen table in St Kilda when Paul mentioned that there was some sort of British Exhibition being held in Melbourne and that it might be a good idea if we all went and had a look at it; at least, it would give us something to do. So, the next day we all turned up at the Melbourne Showground…
Chapter Thirty-Five
Los Angeles, USA
I could feel the aircraft dropping slowly, and I knew that we were about to land somewhere. Tilting its wings and dropping even further, I reasoned that we couldn’t be that far off a runway. I had absolutely no idea where we were, and it was difficult to even remember the number of stops we would have to make before we reached London. Was it eight or eighteen? I had no idea; my mind just wasn’t functioning in the way it normally did. All that I understood was that I could feel nothing but the pain from the tip of my nose to the tip of my big toe.
The rush of speed as we hit the runway forced my body against the back wall of the crate and then let me go again as we slowed down. I went from a forced upright position back into the slouched position that I had adapted into during my journey. The aircraft stopped and taxied before coming to its final halt. After a few minutes, the doors of the ’planes hold was opened, and I could hear the by-now-familiar sound of muffled voices followed by the movement of freight. For some reason, this time it seemed different from all the other times and as the noises became clearer and clearer, I realised that the people unloading were speaking English. Suddenly, through the cracks, slits of light were entering the crate and the airport employees seemed to be completely emptying the hold of all its freight. My crate seemed to slide across the aircraft floor and was lifted into the air—quite abruptly I was outside the aircraft and could see the yellow lights of the airport. We had arrived; I was finally in London, and from the little I could see Heathrow Airport had never looked so good.
