The Man in the Street

by Martin Howe

  Tony enjoyed the act of tunnelling. He liked the hard, physical effort, quickly acclimatized to the stifling heat and was exhilarated by the risks they were taking. He was not alone. “It’s as hot as fucking Hades down there,” Sid succinctly put it one day as he emerged from the shaft wreathed in smiles, his sweat-bathed body caked in a muddy brown paste, “we’ve got to do something about the fucking ventilation, the tunnel’s getting too bloody long. Soon it’ll only be me and Tony going down there.” Ray hauled him up, quietly satisfied that he had avoided slithering into that hell. Later in the afternoon he chalked the word “Hades,” together with an arrow pointing downwards, on a wooden board that he nailed at the entrance to the tunnel.

  Preparations for the descent into “Hades” became a particular ritual. Tony always undressed in the living room, neatly folding his clothes and slipping them into the space under the floorboards. He then placed his boots beside them. Brushing the hair back from his forehead with one hand, he then pulled down an oversize cap over his head with the other, checking no hairs had escaped. Tony then reached into the tunnel and tugged on the string that was attached to the man digging at the soil face, signalling he was to come up. He would emerge, a minute or so later, at the bottom of the ladder that led to the surface, having backed down the tunnel on his hands and knees. It would take seconds for him to turn round in the confined space, he would then stare blinking up into the light, waiting for the signal to climb out. It was about ten feet to the surface, but it took a great effort to climb the ladder with tired, stiff muscles. Tony often had to drag Sid the last few feet.

  “How’s it going?”

  “It’s me bloody legs, it happens every piggin’ time, the bastards. First it’s pins and needles, then this fucking awful cramp. Help me for Christs’ sake… thanks. It’s not going badly. You’ll need to shore up the sides and roof of the tunnel, before you do much more. I don’t know how you can do it, working with that bastard Eric.”

  He laughed and limped off to try and climb the stairs to the bathroom.

  The atmosphere in the tunnel was sweltering, a wave of heat breaking against Tony’s face like the searing blast from the opening of a furnace door. It felt abrasive in the nostrils and sat uncomfortably in the lungs. He would gasp for air, taking short sharp breaths, until his body acclimatized to the lack of oxygen. The smell, a metallic earthiness, would envelop him as he moved further into the tunnel, becoming a part of him. In the middle of the night, he would often wake up gripped by a profound anxiety. Drenched he would sit bolt upright barely able to breathe in the stench of the catacombs.

  The trepidation as he lunged head first into the tunnel and his mastery of this fear became part of the rite – he discovered he had no concern for his personal safety and was prepared to leave his fate, as he rationalized it, in the hands of a higher power – crawling myopically into the feeble glow of the electric light bulb shimmering ahead of him at the soil face. The mining tools, a small gardener’s fork and trowel, lay cast aside on a pile of newly dug earth, the wicker basket beside it half empty. The tunnel was getting too long to push the basket back each time it was full and Tony was working on a pulley system to make life easier and more efficient. He enjoyed problem solving, it gave him something useful to think about when he was digging, diverting his mind from a recent preoccupation of his with the life he was wasting and the crassness of men he was forced to spend time with. Even Eric was moving beyond the pale. He had taken to boasting about the massive “hard-on” he would get as he was working. He claimed it was perfectly natural, it would happen to anyone exerting themselves in a warm, dark confined space and that Tony was the abnormal one. They joked that Eric had a permanent erection and it would have been a surprise if he hadn’t had one. It became a familiar refrain, “Never go down there ahead of Eric, and if you do, be careful.”

  Tony looked forward to his hours of solitary digging, to the stipple of perspiration that broke out across his forehead as he burrowed deeper into the tunnel, to the sensation of skin that was slippery to the touch when he began digging and would be bathed in sweat by the time he finished. The heavy repetitive work honed his muscles and labouring naked enhanced his appreciation of the steady refinement in his body. He began to disparage physical weakness and eulogize his own fitness. Never before overly concerned about his appearance, Tony became in these summer months increasingly vain, often casting approving glances into the dusty mirror hanging on the wall above the fireplace in the living room as he limbered up before work. He had rarely, in all his campaign forays for the British Union, felt particularly confident about his street fighting skills, relying on a brute physical strength that did damage, but left him dissatisfied at its lack of grace. In his heart he knew he had been fortunate to escape physically unscathed. Tunnelling changed all that and he began sparring with Eric and the Biff Boys and, when alone, trading blows with a punch bag they had rigged up in the garden. Day in, day out, he worked out his frustrations bludgeoning his way to a kind of contentment. In these calmer moments he could appreciate the irony of an increasingly disillusioned fascist finally understanding the power implicit in the perfect male body, but it didn’t give him cause to change his behaviour.

  Letters from home, often heavily censored, arrived infrequently in the camp and always caused emotional disorder, fanned by the recipient’s elation, anguish or anger. A phase of psychic disruption would consume the prison body, often for days. Whatever the sentiment of the message from a loved one, the bored mind cut off from all commonplace mitigations – a kind word, the fleeting caress, a smile – was only too capable of misconstruing even the most innocent of phrases, succumbing easily to a paranoia which only grew with time. Tony was not immune. He always felt uneasy when his name was called out and he recognized Emily’s spidery script scrawled in distinctive royal blue ink across a brown envelope. On the surface all seemed well with his family. His eldest son, Stephen, was enjoying school, while the youngest, Freddie, was learning to ride a bike and talking “nineteen to the dozen.” Emily was coping with the shortages and getting by without him, but as she said, “she was not the only one these days.” Her health was suffering, but then she had always had problems with her chest. Every winter had seen her laid up in bed with flu, or something like it, for weeks on end. But it was none of these things that troubled him. Tony struggled to put his finger on it and the best he could come up with, was that there was nothing in the letters about the future, nothing about the life they were going to lead after all this was over. Eric said he was mad, just imagining it, and what could he expect; but Tony was not reassured. For God’s sake, what did Eric know about women? Emily was an impressive, strong-willed woman and she had loved him at the time of his arrest, he knew that. He loved her and tried to put that in his letters, but somehow it was missing in hers. The words were there, the emotions weren’t. But then it was probably nothing.

  A letter from Emily, which arrived in mid-August, really did worry him and reignited concerns about the lack of influence he had over his life and family. There was something definitely wrong at home – an implicit threat, ill-defined but real – a feeling that bolstered his determination to escape from the camp. It wasn’t the letter that concerned him, that was much like all the others, it was a clipping from his local newspaper, “The Blackpool Gazette and Herald,” that had been folded many times and slipped into the envelope. He’d not received anything like it before, maybe the censors had taken them and they’d missed this one or, more likely, they didn’t care if he read this particular cutting. It was the front page dated from a couple of weeks before and headlined, “This is the Isle of Man today – an Island and its secrets,” by a special reporter. It began as a general travelogue describing places of interest for the visitor, it then turned its attention to Peel and to the prisoners behind the wire:

  “One could not help thinking as we watched the British Fascists interned at Peel, how fortunate is their lot. These people,
some of whom would doubtless sell out their country for a dish of spaghetti or a bratwurst, live off the fat of the land and their wives bring them food parcels, which the patriotic residents of the island deem just cause for violent protest.

  Like the aliens, interned alongside them, they sea-bathe, and disport themselves, and altogether their lot is pleasant, if boring.

  The power of money is used to the last halfpenny by these Mosleyites, some of whom are well blessed with this world’s goods. They are the plutocrats Hitler talks about.

  I wondered what were the feelings of the soldier guards tramping outside the barbed-wire for a pittance, plus army rations, when they surveyed the life of idleness and semi-luxury enjoyed by these creatures, who do not even have the excuse they are foreigners.

  I wondered what the feelings would be of the people of Blackpool if they knew that a number of their fellow citizens are enjoying the fruits of their treachery and basking untroubled in the sunshine of this holiday island.”

  Tony lay on his bed, the only light a yellow line at the bottom of the door. He couldn’t sleep, despite being exhausted. A summer cold muddled his thoughts as he struggled to conjure up an image of Emily. After many months of separation it was becoming increasingly difficult, he found, and this worried him. Recently, he had confused her with other men’s wives, those he had watched that day, paying a visit, walking close to each other along the promenade. Emily had never come to any of the camps he’d been held in. He understood why, but he desperately needed to see her. There was a scuffling sound from the stairway and a board creaked.

  “Eric,” he smirked to himself, “now there’s a man who doesn’t have these problems, there’s a bastard who knows how to enjoy himself.”

  Rolling over he turned his back to the door, as it swung slowly open. There was no way he wanted to talk endlessly into the night with Eric. His mouth open, he deliberately deepened his breathing and closed his eyes. Eric would usually stumble to his bed, cursing loudly under his breath, and fling himself down, the springs straining noisily, to fall asleep almost immediately. Tonight, he came over to Tony and began shaking him roughly.

  “Tony are you awake,” he whispered, his stale breath hot on Tony’s cheek.

  “Bugger me, Eric, what are you playing at?”

  “Shhhhhh, keep your voice down.”

  “Leave me alone will you, I was asleep.”

  “Tony, Tony I need your help, please.”

  His voice was shaking, edgy.

  “Please Tony, you’re the only one I can trust. Get up, will you.”

  Tony sat up, confused about what was happening.

  “For God’s sake. If you’re…”

  “No, no, there’s no time to lose. Get dressed.”

  “Is it the tunnel?”

  “No, it’s me, me. Please hurry.”

  There was a pleading tone in the way he spoke and an urgency to his movements – his agitated pacing back and forth in the gloom unsettling. Tony swung his legs onto the floor.

  “This better be good, you know. I mean it.”

  A clawing hand grasped his arm.

  “Thank-you, thank-you.”

  “Hey, let go for Christ’s sake, that hurts. I’ve not done anything yet.”

  “I know, hurry.”

  “Eric, come on, what’s so important? What’ve you done?”

  “Later, later. Please be quiet, no one else must know.”

  “What?”

  Eric stopped and grabbed Tony firmly round the shoulders.

  “Tony,” he pleaded, “trust me. You’re my only friend. I’ll tell you later, I will, please, no more. Just come with me, hurry.”

  “Alright.”

  Eric sighed heavily and resumed his pacing.

  “I’m going as fast as I can.”

  “I need a cigarette, have you one?”

  “Eric.”

  Tony pulled on his trousers and a jumper, then unable to find his socks in the dark, slipped on his boots, which felt cold and sticky on his bare skin.

  “I’m ready.”

  Placing a finger to his lips Eric led him quietly down the stairs and out through the kitchen, without disturbing anyone in the house. He seemed relieved when they reached the garden and paused to take several breaths of cool night air. Tony noticed he was trembling, but said nothing.

  “Follow me and be quiet,” he said abruptly, then stooping slightly he set off rapidly down the incline towards the promenade. It was difficult for Tony to see where he was going, a sliver of moon cast a faint silvery pall across Peel Bay, but the land was in almost total darkness. Stumbling on the broken tufted ground, he stopped, Eric was nowhere to be seen and all he could hear was the sound of his own rapid breathing and the distant crash of the waves on the beach. He sat down.

  “This is fucking ridiculous, I should be in bed.”

  Several minutes later he heard Eric whispering his name.

  “Over here.”

  “Stay close to me, will you, or someone will hear us.”

  “Wait for me then, will you. I don’t know where we’re going, remember.”

  Moving more slowly they reached the bottom of the slope, skirted the open parade ground and fetched up behind the wall that ran along the end of the gardens of the terrace that fronted onto Walpole Road. Each garden had a gate and when they reached the third one, Eric stopped.

  “This is the place. No noise, just do exactly as I do, no one must see us.”

  The wooden gate was warped and misshapen and it took Eric several attempts to force it open enough for them to slip through. He led the way across the overgrown garden to steps that led down to the cellar. Grasping the wooden handrail he lowered himself gingerly down the steep stairs, his boots grating noisily on the sand that had drifted in to the well. Tony followed him down and noticed a faint glimmer of light shining under the door to the cellar. Eric tapped lightly on the peeling wood and there was a faint scuffling and a grimy fretful face appeared in the doorway. Seeing Eric, he relaxed and swung the door open.

  “Where’ve you been?” he gasped, “Eric I’ve been going crazy. Eric?”

  “Let us in, will you.”

  The young man moved aside. Tony had never seen him before. He was tall with jet-black, heavily greased hair, which he wore swept back from his forehead. A furrowed brow and chapped lips framed a handsome boyish face that was pale and racked with anxiety. His white vest and dark trousers were covered in grey dust. Behind him, a candle guttered in the breeze from the open door. In the flickering light Tony caught sight of an unmade bed, a sheet lying crumpled beside it on the floor. Eric closed the door and placed an arm round the young man.

  “Everything’ll be alright now, Paolo. Tony’s my friend, we’ll sort this out.”

  “Sort what out?”

  “I was so worried…”

  For the first time Tony noticed his Italian accent.

  “…I couldn’t keep him quiet. He kept struggling, Oh God.”

  “Eric?”

  Tony whirled round, eyes searching the gloomy room. There were cobwebs everywhere, bowing drapes heavy with grime, festooning the shadowy recesses, but nothing particular to see. He moved towards the back of the cellar. He made out a wash-basin and a filthy towel hanging lopsidedly from a wooden roller.

  “Tony, I can explain.”

  A flight of concrete steps led up to what looked like a trapdoor set in the ceiling. There was a large wooden barrel blocking the bottom of the stairs and a number of battered boxes and chests were piled haphazardly alongside it.

  “Over here, Tony.”

  Eric was standing in a small alcove set in the far wall of the cellar, reached through a brick arch, crudely daubed with whitewash. At his feet lay a man, gagged and bound hand and foot with strips of torn sheet. He was struggling and staring up with wide fearf
ul eyes. His body smelled of urine.

  “Bloody hell, Eric, what’s going on?”

  “He was trying to blackmail us. Said he was going to tell the authorities, everyone. I couldn’t let him.”

  “About what Eric? What was he going to tell them?”