by Ted Lewis
I blew out smoke and it hung on the motionless air. I thought about something Dennis had said the night before. At the time it had made me smile not because of what he’d said but because before his current sentence he’d only done six months inside and it would hardly give him a wealth of experience about his subject. But now, thinking about it in the daylight, Dennis had been quite sharp about the situation. He’d made his remarks shortly after a sing-song Walter had organised. The favourite number had been “Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner,” and Walter had been in his element, beating time with his fist, exhorting those who were sick and tired of the song to join in at the tops of their voices. But when even Walter had no longer been able to keep the Scouts’ atmosphere going, most of the cons had taken to wandering round the room like characters in search of a director, smashing up any remains of furniture still big enough to break, sticking bits of wood and metal in their belts like pirates, cursing the screws and the Governor and their mates and their wives and their mothers. It was during this aimlessness that Dennis had said to me: “Look at them, Billy. They’re not up to it. They’re not equal to the situation.”
“How do you mean?”
“They’re a lot of piss artists. Before this, to hear them talk, you’d have thought they were all fucking Prime Ministers. ‘I did this, I did the other, when I was on so and so’s firm, and with that I said . . .’ All that fucking cobblers. But they’re a fucking joke. They don’t know how to handle fuck all. They’re just winding themselves for nothing. They’ve convinced themselves that they’re in control. There’s no reality to them any more. They’ve done too much bird. Even Walter’s acting like a fucking infant.”
I hadn’t agreed and I hadn’t disagreed. I hadn’t known Dennis long enough to commit myself with him.
“I’ll have a bet with you, Billy,” he’d gone on to say. “Right now, all those that are roaming about are feeling stalky. That’s half the reason they can’t sit down. They’re being pulled round by their pricks. Inside half an hour there’ll be some action, no worry.”
He had been right. I’d seen it happen before when there’d been a mixture of excitement and fear and frustration. Once when I’d been on a driving job with two heavies and the truck we’d been waiting for had been ten minutes late and we’d all been in danger of getting nicked just sitting by the kerb waiting, one of the heavies had slipped his hand in his pocket and given himself one just to get the tension out of him. And it had been the same with the cons during the night. Three of them had started crowding that vaseline-arse Ian Crosbie who didn’t mind a bit but appreciated that those hard-cases, Monks, Climie and Ford liked it with rough stuff and so he’d put on a bit of a show of resisting. But before it’d gone very far I’d faced them out of the office and into the chapel because that kind of game is inclined to make me want to hurt somebody. Badly. A few of the others had drifted out with them to watch but when they’d all come back into the office afterwards only Monks and Climie had had the guts to look into my face and then not for very long.
I threw the cigarette down on to the floor and turned and had a look at the barricade.
But beyond the barricade there was something much more interesting to look at.
Two people had come out on to the landing. One was a bastard of a screw called Swain.
The other character was Hopper.
He was carrying a bucket and a floor cloth.
Swain’s voice echoed up and down the levels.
“All of it, Hopper,” he said. “And I want it looking good.”
Hopper put the bucket down and got down on his knees and dipped the floor cloth in the bucket.
“Not there,” said Swain. “You can do that afterwards.”
Hopper looked up at him.
“I want you to do the catwalk first. No sense in doing all this and going over there and then walking your mucky feet back over what you’ve already done.”
Hopper’s head swung round towards the gate. I stood stock still.
“What, over there?” he said.
“That’s right,” Swain said.
“But what about them?”
“What about them?”
“Supposing they come out?”
“They won’t come out,” said Swain. “Why should they, now they’re in? Besides, the gate’s locked. So get on with it.”
I didn’t wait to listen to any more. I dodged back into the office and shook Ray and Tommy until they were awake.
“Hopper’s coming to the gate,” I said.
Now all the sleep fell away from their minds.
“To the gate?” Tommy said.
I nodded, then explained what was going on. There was a silence. Eventually Ray said: “It’s a trap.”
I nodded again.
“That’s right,” I said.
Another silence.
“So what do we do?” Tommy said.
“What do we want to do?” I said.
More thoughtful silence.
“It’s chancey,” Ray said.
“That’s right,” I said.
“But worth taking,” said Tommy.
“Right,” said Ray. “How else are we going to get close to him?”
“Right,” I said. “And if we’re claimed, so what?”
“We’re not staying here for ever,” said Tommy.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
“So what’s the form?” Ray said.
“One of us goes to the gate when he’s over the catwalk, taking the key with us. Clear a little space to give us room to manoeuvre. Chat Hopper for a bit. Then when he’s in the best position try and haul him inside. At which point the other two come and give the other one a hand, and in the event of a trap we organise Walter’s pokers to beat back the heavy mob.”
They both agreed.
Between us we woke up the others. Of course Walter was all for rushing out and claiming Hopper on the landing. I sometimes wondered how Walter had managed to become such a rich man. But he saw it our way when we told him that he was to be king of the pokers.
As it was our plan, Tommy, Ray and me drew for who went on the landing. I’d volunteered but the other two wouldn’t have it: everybody wanted to be first to lay a hand on Hopper.
So Tommy ambled out on to the landing and sorted his way through the barricade.
Ray and me stayed in the background in the gloom near the office door and the rest of them stayed in the office, ready for the action.
The minute Hopper heard Tommy sorting through the barricade he got to his feet, standing like a hare poised for flight. But Tommy just got to the bars and lit a snout and rested his elbows and said to Swain: “Where is everybody, then? Everybody given up, have they?”
“That’s right, Tommy,” Swain said. “You’re too big and brave for us. We’ve decided you’ll just have to stay in there for ever.”
“That’s all right, then,” said Tommy. “At least you won’t have to work so hard.”
“That’s what we thought. When you’ve all starved to death it won’t be a job for us any more.”
“I can see that,” Tommy said. “Course, there’s still plenty of room if you want to get anybody else off your hands.”
Hopper began to back away towards the catwalk.
“What’s the matter with you, Hopper? Finished that floor already?”
Hopper turned to look at Swain.
“Who told you to get up off your knees?” said Swain. “Get down and get finished. If you stop once more I’ll open the cage and let them have you.”
Hopper got down again and began to swab the floor. Swain stayed on the other side of the catwalk, watching.
Tommy turned his attention to Hopper.
“We had an interesting evening last night,” Tomm
y said.
Hopper didn’t look up but he was trembling like a leaf.
“Should have been there. We got the records out and had a party.”
While he’d been talking Tommy had taken the key out of his pocket and gently slipped it into the lock.
“We all read out our party pieces. Everybody had a go. Really is a pity you weren’t there. Because yours was by far the most interesting. Really. I can’t remember when I last enjoyed such a good read.”
Tommy flicked his cigarette end through the bars and into Hopper’s bucket. Hopper stared hypnotised into the water. That was when Tommy made his move. And Ray and me made ours.
Tommy swung the gate and grabbed Hopper by his hair. Ray and I scrambled through the barricade to get to the gate but the minute Tommy stepped out six screws appeared from either side of the gate. They’d been there all the fucking time, just holding their bloody breath and waiting.
Tommy didn’t have a chance. Three of the screws claimed for him while the other three pushed their way inside the gate. But I’ll give Tommy this, he didn’t let go of Hopper. Still clutching Hopper by the hair he tried to swing him round towards the gate just in case any of us could get to Hopper and haul him in. But Ray and me had the other three screws on our hands and there was nothing we could do about it.
In front of us I could see the rest of the screws racing across the catwalk towards the gate. I chopped off one of the screws inside the gate and Ray was sorting another and the third didn’t have a chance at all because Walter and his clubmen had got to us and they finally had someone to ease their tensions on.
We bundled the screws out and met the second wave through the bars but they didn’t last very long because the position was exactly the same as when we first got in. A lot of fucking good their hide and seek had done them.
I stood back and watched Tommy after the screws had been chucked out. Before they gave him the stick he got his boot in Hopper’s face and the other one across Hopper’s fingers. But he just wasn’t able to get the one in where it mattered. Hopper had pulled it again. I thought: there’ll be a third time. There’s got to be a third time. Then it’ll be us who are lucky. Not Hopper. Not next time.
I’m sitting in the café with Howard and Johnno. Early evening sunlight warms the formica of the table top. Empty espresso cups are huddled together at tables and to make room for Howard’s invisible blueprints of the coming job.
“This point’s the really tricky bit,” he says. “Getting on the roof’s a piece of piss. A doddle. The skylight’ll be nothing, either. It’s just the drop from the skylight to the stockroom floor. We can only guess at the height. But we’ve got to be careful because the walls are no thicker than the wallpaper. Next door, as I say, they’re always up. The old bat never sleeps. She probably wanders about all night just waiting for something like this to happen. I remember when we used to neck round the back in the alley she was always sticking her head out the window and bawling at us. She could hear a Durex slipping on at fifty paces. So, as I say, it’s just the drop down. Nice and soft and we’ll be all right.”
“How much do you think there’ll be?” Johnno asks.
“He doesn’t cash up till tomorrow. Wednesdays and Saturdays he stacks it away. So if we go tonight there’ll be two days’ worth in the till. A chemist . . . Could be anything. He’s got four staff on so he’s doing all right. Won’t be less than two ton. Four could be nearer the mark.”
Johnno whistles.
“Christ,” he says. “A ton each. Just think of it. Up West with a ton in your pocket.”
But I’m not thinking of the money. I’m thinking of the climb, the drop, the actual job.
The cage door opens and in walks Tony Jackson, all suited up and ready for some kind of action. He comes over to our table and sits down.
“What’s on, Tony?” Johnno asks. “Who is it tonight?”
“Sharon Cross. Three hours of finger at the Essoldo. And tonight she’ll really be a goer now she’s got her results.”
“Results?” I say.
“You know. School Cert. She got all she went for so she’ll be chuffed to NAAFI break tonight.”
“When did they come through?” I ask.
“This morning. Didn’t you get yours, then?”
I shake my head.
“Got mine. Sharon told me. They posted them up at school. As expected, one hundred per cent successful.”
“How do you mean?”
“Didn’t get any.”
I want to ask him if he knows what my results are. But I don’t want to seem interested in front of Johnno and Howard. Not that I’ll have done any good. I deliberately threw the exams. They weren’t important any more. But now the evidence of my failure will be public. I feel de-pressed with shame. I can’t help thinking of the waste, knowing what I could be like. But it was a choice, deliberate and calculated. And tonight, climbing to the roof of the chemists shop, the choice will be vindicated by the way I’ll be feeling then. But right now, all I can think of is the dusty sunny exam hall, and the way Mr. Bradley kept looking at me as I sat back and watched everybody else scribbling away. The feeling then was good, and afterwards everyone clustered round my boldness. But now the feeling is different. The scene has gone sour.
I look at my watch. Six hours to the job. If only the crowd from school could be around to admire this one.
On the third day, the Home Office showed up. They sent up a man called Hepton. This was good news in more ways than one. First it meant that the Home Office had concluded that Moffatt wasn’t up to getting us out. Which made Moffatt look bad and us feel good. Second, Hepton was straight, according to Terry, who had known Hepton when he’d been a Governor. Straight, principled, and fair. So the Home Office were worried, worried enough to ease us out with someone we’d tumble to.
When Hepton appeared Terry was elected spokesman. The rest of us stayed in the office and listened to the dialogue. Hepton’s words were the best we could hope for; while he wasn’t prepared to bargain with us, he’d read our statement of grievances and he assured us they’d be given very serious consideration. He hinted that the longer we stayed in the less serious the consideration would be. But everything about Hepton’s words and the way he said them pointed to what we already knew: they badly wanted us out, whatever the terms.
When Terry came back from the barricade we all had a parley.
“The way I see it,” I said, “if we go out under Hepton where Moffatt failed, then we’ll have made Moffatt look bad. We wouldn’t be going out under threat or by Hobson’s choice. We’d be going out reasonably and rationally, in fact behaving the dead opposite to the way Moffatt’s behaved to us. This can only improve whatever chances are going at the Home Office as far as them looking into Moffatt’s policies are concerned. And besides, there’s a terrible hum drifting over from the chapel and speaking personally I don’t think I could take another four days’ worth. No, as far as I’m concerned now’s the time to negotiate.”
Walter said: “Yeah, all that’s fine, Billy, it’s all fucking lovely, but how do we know Hepton’s playing it straight? We’ll get clobbered once we set foot outside of here.”
“No, no, Walter,” said Terry. “I’m telling you: Hepton’s straight.”
Walter mumbled for a while about getting clobbered but when we put it to the vote he voted with the fors. There were eighteen fors, four abstentions and against were Monks, Climie and Ford but they were head cases and didn’t really count.
So that was it. Terry went back to the barricade and negotiated us a meal and no loss of privileges. We went out to a battery of magistrates and screws formed in threes, but Moffatt wasn’t there.
We stripped, bathed, changed our clothes, went downstairs to the hot-plate and got ourselves a dinner and went back to our cells to eat it. A few of the screws had been round the cel
ls smashing record players and ripping letters and photographs and burning private towels, that kind of thing. They’d been sensible enough to leave me out.
Although the screws must have tried hard to get us all done for assault, in fact only Dave and two others were given the arbitrary honour of copping for that one; the visiting commission was tempering justice with common sense; they didn’t want a backlash against the sentences. In fact they even had the nerve to accept Terry’s explanation of how he came to be in the office. Terry was first one up in front of the commissioners and he told them that he’d just come out of his cell and got caught up in the mad rush and despite trying desperately to disentangle himself he’d been carried along in the tide and once in the office the rest of us hadn’t let him go. Nobody on the Board believed a word of it but Terry got acquitted; the commissioners would appear straight and just men on the paper on which the minutes were taken.
Apart from the token assault charges the rest of us were done for mutiny and destruction of government property and we got forty-two days behind our doors and the equivalent loss of earnings. We all kept our cell privileges such as wireless, newspapers, tobacco, etc. It was the most toothless sentencing any of us had ever been dished out. Almost a seal of approval on our actions. Nobody could get over it. Particularly the screws. They weren’t just mystified, they were fucking furious.
So they retaliated with about the only weapon they’d got left in their armoury: the three-man unlocking rule at meal times. The food was kept downstairs on a hot-plate and normally you were taken down in threes and you brought your food back to your cell. There were a number of gates between the cells and the hot-plate and normally these were left unlocked until everybody had been there and back. But now the screws locked and unlocked every gate on the way there and on the way back with each trio of prisoners. And they took their time doing it. This effectively dragged out meal times to about one and a half hours and it worked out that about three-quarters of us got lukewarm food. To me it was a case of beggars not being choosers. We’d got off light and easy and I figured forty-two days of lukewarm food was neither here nor there. But not Walter. He elected to register his protest by going on a hunger strike. For the privilege of being starved I can do all sorts of wonderful things such as chin screws, smash prison property, generally be a pest, but to do it voluntarily is just squandering my seed. But it was one out all out and so I included myself in. The wing was on hunger strike. And a lot of bloody good it was too. I’ve never seen screws so happy. There was a sparkle back in their eyes and a fresh jingle in their key rings. Their wives or boyfriends could never have had so much attention. Sometimes when they opened my door and asked me if I was coming for my grub and I told them I wasn’t they’d stand there for a moment, grinning, savouring the sheer delight of the situation.