Unseen,Unspoken-A Long Kesh Tunnel: Digger

Unseen,Unspoken.

My back is aching, my shoulders burn the palm of my hand feels like a hole is being driven through it. In some ways that’s exactly what is happening. I have a towel wrapped round my hand and I a digging a blunted metal knife into the soil which is inches from my face.  It is freezing  down here but I am sweating with the exertion. I dig as much soil as I can before putting it into a large metal pan or Dixie. It has handles each end.  I tug the rope and the pan is pulled away. I hold the rope tied to my end. I feel a tug. I pull the pan back up to me and start the process again.  Dig in at the bottom. Work up.  I didn’t suffer claustrophobia but this space is enough to worry anyone. Its  maybe 18 inches square.  Its not like the movies. I will never watch the Great Escape again. The clay sticks with an oily cold feel. We lie on the mud which  mixes with the condensation from our breath.  The biggest fear is a cave in.   There is always one man behind. Close enough to pull the digger back in case of a collapse.  I was never into geography at school but now we become experts on soil nature and alluvial clays.  For the record one of our smart alecs says the Kesh is built on  ‘Upper Oligocene clays . Personally I would call it shit because it’s a bastard to dig through.  We take turns doing the face work, the pulling out work and then the disposal work. A team of men are set aside to clean every bit of earth and  clay from the floor. Getting rid of the bloody stuff is a real problem. Just watch the movies. True enough. Some days I get a good patch. Firm, no stones and heavy. Other days it is gravel and stones nearly like a concrete mix. Deadly on the hands.  Some days its mushy. Its the worst. How do you shore that up? We use anything and I mean anything to line the sides and especially the roof. We are only 6 or 7 feet down but that’s  a lot of earth above your head. It doesn’t take a lot to trap a person and hold them.  .  It only take minutes to suffocate.  Every so many feet we dig a sump or pit to take the excess water.  We joke about asking Arthur Scagill for some pit props from the pits  Maggie is closing. But we don’t know how to get them through security.

When we started it seemed so easy. But each day it got a bit longer and so our speed slowed with the pulling in and out.  I don’t like the crawl up to the face. Im not the smallest guy here. I crawl using my elbows fearful of knocking out a prop and causing a cave in.  One of the guys has devised a ventilation system. Thank heavens otherwise I couldn’t do this. The serious effort burns up the limited oxygen. we pour out the carbon dioxide.  I sometime would still feel faint.  The light is strung from the sides. Very small and weak light. We whisper when down here but doubt if anyone overhead would hear. At times we have felt  via tremors people above but cannot hear the voices.

Compound 18 is a UVF/RHC  cage set in a corner of the Long Kesh prison camp. Our numbers are dropping and soon we fear this cage will close because of its proximity to th e external wall. A decision was made to escape. We have some men serving out at least 35 years many 25 years minimum. Many of us know we will be here for  along time. We are going to get out or maybe die trying. Same difference.

I hate it when I eventually get back to the surface. The day light seems dazzling. But the air is so fresh.  My legs wobble a bit. And my back still aches. At first I didn’t care about my hair but I would get a shower quickly and found both clay and stones sticking tightly to my scalp. I got our resident barber to shave it all off. Far easier to clean now.  I wrap a towel around my head,  change into clean clothes and take my shorts and t shirt to the shower to wash away all the clay. This is important as tell-tale signs and be picked by an inquisitive screw. Some of them are sharp bastards.

We fall into a routine and pattern.  Debate starts about who will go when the time is right. We have worked out the line of sight of the towers. We will have help on the outside but it will be a bit of a turkey run. Even getting a few men away will be a victory. We talk in code in case the huts are bugged.  We walk the wire and talk. If we go then we leave our parents and families. You cant exactly go home and hope no one notices. I prefer Scotland.  We have good support there.  We have no guns. An army helicopter periodically flies low and slow over the compound. Someone says that they have special radar that can detect hollows below the ground. We wonder. And wait.  Another bright spark talks about ground sensors that picks up vibrations. He has seen it in a movie?

Bombshell.

The screws have just told the cage C.O.  that we are moving.  We are being split between cages 19 and 21. We have not dug at night but we will now.  Ironically one of the giveaway signs was smell. That stale dank smell of freshly dug earth.  We were worried that screws coming in for the morning head count would wonder what the odd smell was. Even Big Rabs night time farts couldn’t cover that smell.

The only time I ever experienced digging holes and fresh clay was at funerals. I have a growing respect for grave diggers. We try harder to dig faster while staying safe. It is difficult to estimate the distance accurately but we guess that we will fall short of the high wall.   There is a hurried plan to  get out on the ground and scale the wall with rope. Hardly ideal but needs must.  Night time. Quietly. Overcast with no moon. We are all fit and lean. We all have a great motivation to go. We are putting the screws off with every lame excuse possible. But we cannot risk them thinking that an escape is about to take place.  Our hand is forced. We are given a date to leave.

We pick our time.  The first batch is ready to go. The man at the front will go upwards and then the debris will be ferried back along a chain of hands. It is inevitable that clothes will get some dirt but it cant be helped and it is 3am. Co incidentally,  things are happening in Belfast and elsewhere to keep the peelers and brits occupied.  The dig up seems to take forever. This is it. No more digging after this.  We all did the good luck thing before we started down.

The knife breaks the surface. There are grass roots. The smell of fresh air. The orange glow from the security lights.  A sudden stop. Waiting for a shout,  a siren. A searchlight. Everyone is quiet and tense. The rope is passed up to be used quickly and quietly. The lead has to chance a look. He gets a hoist up from the man below. He looks left. The space seems huge after his confinement. He looks right.  Good heavens above. A screw and dog are walking away from the hole.  They show no signs of having heard anything. The lead man drops down and whispers the news. Two minutes earlier and they would have walked in on the mass escape attempt. We have to wait.  We need at least 5 minutes good time to the rope up secured and men starting to scally up. But the longer the team sits the odds increase of another dog patrol. The lead man eases gently up just peeking out. He does a 360. All clear. And then voices. He ducks down. What fucking now. A near by gate has a wicket gate in it. Two screws are talking. We hear them crystal clear in the cool still air. One is gurning about his sore big toe. He thinks he has gout. Then we hear a shout. A screw in a lookout tower is shouting down. Bantering. I think, ‘Why don’t you all come down here and have a fucking party’.  This is unusual. We had men stay up all night to monitor and record what activity there was. Yes there were dog patrols. Most of the men in towers just closed the trap door and slept.  Did they know or suspect something? We all wait. Tension and excitement are starting to dissipate.

Nerves are jangling. Fraught. The absolute silence is a killer. One man has a watch. The time is 4.05am. I look at Barry,  the driving force behind this undertaking. The eyes say it all. No need for words. It is summer time. It will be light soon. Daybreak. Dawn. Our chance is slipping away second by second.  All the hours of digging, pain, drudgery,  dirt and wet cold shivering will be for nothing. We wait until we can wait no longer. The screws gossip about their bosses and who earns what.  Another doggie patrol is seen. There is no room for debate. There is an order.  Return. Now.  And quietly. Not a word is said. Plenty of time later for regrets.  The screws will go berserk when they find this enterprise as they will. My back is still breaking. But that’s nothing compared to how my heart is.

Digger