by David Barry
‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
While Bill and Van Sant grabbed their clothes from under Kliney’s bed blanket, and hurriedly dressed, Bill told him about the flooding of the tunnel.
‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed. ‘Six months work down the pan. ‘
Bill and Van Sant used toilet paper to wipe the mud from their faces and hands, then shoved the sheets into their pocket. The convict outside the cell clicked his fingers twice, a signal that a guard was making his way along the row of cells. Because Bill was the convict under most suspicion for escape attempts, and not wanting to be found in Kliney’s cell, he smoothed his hair down and left hurriedly, cursing their bad luck as he made his way back to his own cell. Just a matter of another month - weeks, even - and they’d have made it through to the outside.
For the next week Bill went outside during the recreation period. If the tunnel spring was a powerful one, he was worried the water might seep up to ground level. And if the yard became swamped, then it was inevitable that it would be inspected. It hadn’t rained for some time, so it would be bound to look suspicious if a pool of water suddenly appeared in the yard. But when after a week, the ground remained dry, Bill decided to return to the tunnel to investigate.
‘Well?’ Kliney asked him when he surfaced from the hole.
Bill grinned at him. ‘There’s two feet of water, so we have a clearance of two feet. It’ll be hard digging in water. Much slower. But we’re almost there. I think we can do it. ‘
Kliney’s face lit up. ‘Praise be the Lord!’ he intoned.
Chapter Twenty
June, 1942
After breakfast they were always sent back to their cells; but six weeks to the day when Van Sant’s pick had hit the underground stream, Bill’s eight hand-picked convicts, Kliney and himself, finished their breakfast, left the dining hall in relays, and made straight for Kliney’s cell. Once inside, they hurriedly took down the pictures from his wall, removed the plaster-board cover, then crawled into the hole. They dropped into the cold water below. Bill was the last inside.
The nine men splashing their way to freedom in front of him sounded frantic, like so many crazed rats. He could hear them panting and wheezing as they crawled along the hundred and twenty feet to the end. Van Sant was at the head and he crawled up the hole and began frantically digging and clawing at the final two feet of earth. As soil and concrete showered down on them, they closed their eyes or covered them. Then, through the darkness, they felt the power of the light as it reached down into the hole. They were through. The outside world.
Van Sant lost no time in clambering out. It was now each man for himself, as the convicts emerged into the street. Rows of cars parked by the sidewalk offered a bit of cover from the stores and offices opposite the prison, but ten men scattering crazily in all directions would be bound to claim some attention. As soon as Bill clambered from the hole, he took a brief moment to get his whereabouts, wondering which direction to take. He didn’t want to follow most of the other escaping convicts. Now was the time to go it alone. He’d stand more chance that way. Try and make it to the Puerto Rican district of Brooklyn where he could become anonymous.
Following the prison wall away from the main entrance, he pounded along the sidewalkAround the corner from the prison, he thought he might slow down, cross the street, and vanish down a side street. But as soon as he rounded the corner, he almost ran into two cops. They were so surprised, it took them a while to react. One of them recovered a beat quicker than his colleague and reached for his gun.
‘Put your hands up or I’ll shoot,’ he yelled.
‘Go ahead and shoot,’ Bill said, then turned and ran across the street. As he ran, he heard the blast of the gun and the bullets ricocheting off cars parked on the opposite side of the street. He thought any moment now he’d be hit. But he didn’t care. He was desperate.
As he dodged across the street, every bullet in the gun’s chamber was fired, and miraculously each one missed him. But by now the second policeman had withdrawn his gun and aimed. The first shot missed Bill’s head by less than an inch and the bullet smacked into the windscreen of a Chevrolet.
He thought he could make it now. He got between the Chevy and another car, jumped onto the sidewalk, but then missed his footing. The pain screamed across his nervous system as his ankle twisted into the gutter and he came crashing down on the side of his face. He heard the pounding of their boots as he tried to get up. Too late. As they grabbed his arms he heard the rattle of cuffs. And the wailing of three cop cars that happened to be cruising the district.
Back in captivity after less than one minute of freedom.
Later he discovered most of the others were caught in less than five minutes, with the exception of Tenuto and Van Sant, who made it to New York, but were back in custody a few months later.
Chapter Twenty One
January, 1943
Day fifteen. Feeling light-headed. Not so bad now. Day thirteen was the worst. The stomach cramps. Doubled over in pain. Excruciating pain. But now the light-headedness had an almost mystical feel about it. Floating. Gently floating on a sea of nothingness. Everything white. Even the sound. The occasional drift of colors. Red and pink, like a sunset. Sometimes blue. But no more pain. Just emptiness. And acceptance of death, if that’s what it took.
Keys rattled in the lock. Laid out on his bed, Bill opened his eyes. A guard stood aside and Warden Smith loomed into view. He coughed before speaking, the precursor of a long speech, and Bill smiled up at him. As weak as he was, he felt he hadn’t a care in the world.
‘Well, Sutton, all the others have caved in. I’ve seen hunger strikes before, and they never work. Most of the others in the isolation block didn’t get past day ten. Another one managed it as far as day thirteen, but then the pain got to him. It seems you’re the only one stubborn enough to keep this up. I know that once it goes this far it becomes easier to go the whole way. I don’t mind telling you, I don’t want that stain on my record. But let me tell you this, Sutton, you wouldn’t be the first. Men kill themselves when they’re inside. Always have, always will. Guys flip. They hang themselves. Goes on all the time. But this is senseless. You’re an intelligent man. You’ve read a lot of books. Dr. Schwarz tells me you’re a smart man. So what’s eating you? Let’s hear it - if you’re capable. What’s your beef?’
It took Bill a while to understand what he was being asked. His lips were dry as leather, wrinkled and tight. Inwardly he felt he was somewhere else - another person. But his instinct told him the warden was here to negotiate. He tried to sort out what he wanted to say, but his communication skills had slowed right down. Then, from somewhere deep within the pit of his stomach, he managed to summon up the strength to address the warden.
‘When we were caught attempting to escape, Warden, we had to stand trial again. I had another 15 to 20 years added to all the other sentences. Most of us accept this philosophically. I speak for most of us. But two years isolation seems excessive on top of the added 20 years. ‘
Smith shook his head impatiently. ‘You knew the rules, Sutton. Before you planned this escape, you knew what would happen if you were caught. ‘
‘Yes, and I accept that my sentence would be increased. But isolation as well. Murderers get off lighter than that. You can only execute a man once. ‘
Bill waited for the warden’s reaction. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, though his stare was penetrating.
‘I’ve already spoken to the State Department of Correction,’ he said, ‘and I’ve reached a solution that seems. . . well, the only solution. I’m having all of you transferred to other institutions. You, Sutton, will be going to Holmesburg County Prison in Philadelphia. You’ll be starting your sentence there with a clean slate. Now perhaps you might like to end your fast. ‘
It was a compromise, and Bill accepted it with a small nod of acqu
iescence. Eastern State Penitentiary had beaten him after ten long years
‘Get this man some food,’ the warden instructed the guard, then turned briskly and left the cell.
. Bill closed his eyes and let his mind wander, imagining the insipid prison fare to be the most exquisite cuisine in the world.
Chapter Twenty Two
February, 1947
One minute to midnight, tense and silent, Bill and four other convicts crouched the other side of the cell block door. They heard the guards’ approaching footsteps and the rasping sound as the key slid into the lock. There was a metallic click and the door started to swing open. Two of the convicts hurled their combined weight against it. There were two guards, and both were taken completely by surprise. Especially by Van Sant, who had a . 38 caliber gun aimed at them.
Bill had worried about Van Sant having the gun, knowing how much he despised the prison regime. But it was Van Sant’s contact who had supplied the weapon, which came concealed among vegetables in the delivery truck. Not that it made much difference who had the gun now, he thought, as two of the other convicts relieved the guards of their guns. They were five desperate men, who would chance anything in their bid for freedom, although each of them was aware that any killing could send them to the electric chair.
Bill grabbed the keys from one of the guards, and the other convicts forced them to walk ahead with their arms raised. Quietly they padded along the cell block until they reached H-Block, which adjoined the engine room, where they knew there were some ladders. Bill unlocked the adjoining doors and they entered the engine room. A guard came forward to meet the guards with their hands in the air, his perplexed expression changing to one of alarm, as his hand automatically reached for his gun. Van Sant appeared from behind the two disarmed guards and aimed his gun at him.
‘Get your hands in the air,’ he said, ‘or you’re a dead man. ‘
Knowing how desperate these convicts were, the guard’s hands shot up as though jerked by a puppeteer. Bill went and unclipped the gun from his holster. The guard stared at Bill with anger and hatred, but didn’t dare try anything, sensing just how dangerous these convicts could be. They had nothing to lose now.
While Bill and three other convicts found the ladders and lashed them together, Van Sant kept his gun trained on the guards.
‘Don’t try anything,’ he warned them. ‘I’m on a short fuse. ‘
Once the ladders were securely fastened together, they forced the guards to remove their coats and hats. One of the convicts, Dave Akins, grinned as he stuck the hat on his head and slipped into the guard’s jacket. Akins, an affable man in his fifties, always got on well with the guards. He had a great deal of charm and they often laughed at his jokes. Now they stared at him with revulsion, as if dressing in their uniform was the final indignity.
Two of the other convicts slipped into guards’ uniforms, then they got various lengths of rope from their pants pockets and tied the guards’ hands behind their backs.
They lay them on the floor on their stomachs and Bill unlocked the door to the yard outside. The hardest part. Crossing the yard with the ladder.
But they had chosen this night because of the severe weather conditions. That very morning, after a spell of freezing temperatures, the skies became leaden and dark, and by mid-afternoon there was a heavy snowfall which didn’t look like abating for some time. That’s when they became nervous and excited, and agreed that it had to be tonight.
It was now just after midnight, when the guards on the machine gun towers would be starting their shifts. Snow was swirling and gusting, everything a mass of white, and the watchtowers were barely distinguishable from other shapes and shadows. Each convict held a section of ladder as they ran through the snowdrift towards the wall. As they raised the ladder against the wall, there was a staccato crackle, and a spitting sound as a hail of bullets hit the wall close by. They’d been spotted by a guard in one of the towers. Dave Akins ran several yards towards the tower, and for an instant the other convicts thought he must either be crazy or trying to surrender.
‘Stop! Stop!’ Akins yelled. ‘We’re guards. Can’t you see we’re guards. Get away from that gun. Move away from that gun. Now!’
The guard, confused and scared, and blinded by the furiously swirling snow, moved away from the gun and went to consult with a colleague. The convicts wasted no time in shinning up the ladder to the top of the wall, and leapt into a soft pile of snow on the other side. They ran three blocks to where it was prearranged that a car would be waiting. But either there was some mistake, or their contact on the outside had failed them.
‘It’s has to be the right place,’ said Akins, huddled over against the blinding snow. ‘We were told by the timber yard. This is it. Brewer’s Wood and Timber. ‘
There was no car.
‘Fucking cocksucker!’ yelled Van Sant. ‘If I ever get hold of him.’
The prison siren began its wailing. By now they knew they had an escape on their hands. Pretty soon the district would be crawling with cops. The convicts began running, trying to cover as much ground as possible between them and the prison. They ran along the suburban streets, houses pale and ghostly. In the white silence, all they could hear was their own breathing. Then they heard the faint clink of bottles. They sprinted around a bend in the road to find a milk wagon, its motor idling, parked in the middle of the street. They had found a milkman who began his deliveries really early.
They ran towards the wagon, now their only hope in getting away from the district. The milkman was delivering to a nearby house and didn’t hear them as they bundled into the wagon on the passenger side. They sat squeezed tightly together, breathless from their sprint in the snow, and waited for his return. They heard him coughing as he neared the wagon. Crunch of heavy boots in snow. Then the wagon door squeaked open, and the milkman was shocked to find himself staring down the barrel of Van Sant’s . 38, only inches away from his nose, while four other pairs of eyes stared at him from the darkness of his wagon.
‘Drive us to Philadelphia,’ Van Sant ordered.
The milkman climbed into the cab, threw it into gear, and drove off carefully towards the city centre. Each of the convicts grabbed a bottle of milk from the back and enjoyed its taste for the first time in years.
‘The company will take that out of my pay,’ the milkman complained.
Bill said, ‘ We can’t have that,’ and gave him ten of the fifty dollars that had been smuggled in to him a few months ago.
They threaded their way towards the city centre. Police cars, sirens blaring, tore past in the opposite direction towards the prison. The snow was still falling heavily and visibility was poor, but the milkman was a cautious driver and was clearly not going to take any risks. As soon as they arrived near the city centre, Bill realized that six people crammed tightly into a milk wagon, would arouse suspicion if spotted by any other drivers. He ordered the milkman to stop the wagon.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘This is where we leave you. ‘
The milkman tried to speak, but what came out was a croaking sound, which petered out. Then they heard him swallow loudly.
‘It’s okay,’ Bill reassured him. ‘We’re not going to kill you. ‘
Then he remembered his old psychological trick when he’d been robbing banks.
‘Go back to Holmesburg and continue delivering your milk. But if you go to the cops, there’ll be some time in the future when one of our men’ll come looking for you. Understood?’
The milkman nodded silently. He seemed too shocked and frightened to speak.
‘Right! Let’s go,’ Bill told the others.
They clambered out of the wagon, and watched it u-turn and head back towards Holmesburg. Then they quickly walked several blocks towards the centre of Philadelphia, where they hoped to find a car to steal. But they had walked only three bl
ocks when all hell broke loose. One minute there was silence, just the crunch of snow from their boots, the next a police siren wailed nearby, and they saw its lights flashing as it headed towards them.
They immediately scattered like a flock of frightened birds. Bill dashed between two houses and clambered over a wooden fence into the yard at the back of one of them. Looking back over the fence, he saw the cop car screeching to a halt outside the house, and the milkman’s wagon pulled up behind. His threat hadn’t worked.
Bill ran across the yard and leapt at a fence. It rattled nosily as he pulled himself over, and knew this must have alerted one of the cops, because he was now being used as live target practice. There was a loud blast, and a bullet hit the fence near his hand as he dropped onto the other side and landed in a drift of snow. He ran down the side of a house, towards another street, as lights came on in upstairs rooms, and he imagined the frightened but curious residents plucking up courage to peer from behind their curtains. As he reached the street, he thought he recognized it from the time he’d spent in Philadelphia over a decade ago. It looked like Frankfort Avenue. He ran as hard as he could in the soft snow. Suddenly, siren screaming, the cop car came hurtling round a corner, skidded in the snow, straightened itself and came hurtling towards him. Evidently the cops hadn’t followed him on foot. When they realized he was heading for a parallel street, they must have got straight back in their car to give chase.
He tore between another two houses, and discovered he was in a cul-de-sac, at the end of which was a high brick wall. In front of the wall was a huge snow drift, possibly four feet high. He wasted no time in attempting to go over the wall. Instead, he dove into the side of the snow drift, and crawled along the ground close to the wall.