The Man in the Street

by Martin Howe

  Eric hesitated, uncertain.

  “Oh Tony, my friend…”

  “What? Oh my God, the tunnel. He knows about the tunnel?”

  Eric slowly nodded his head, his face breaking into a relieved smile.

  “Yes, that’s right, the tunnel. He was going to tell Faulkner about the tunnel. That’s right. He saw me come down here to see Paolo, followed me down and then made threats. We grabbed him, tied him up and I came to get you.”

  Turning he grasped Paolo by the arm and pulled him close.

  “My friend here was a great help, but he has no stomach for violence and we have to deal with this.”

  He nudged the man with his foot.

  “What do you mean deal with it?”

  “Think straight Tony, we’ve got to teach him a lesson. We can’t risk all the hard work we’ve put in. If we let him get away with this, we may be here for years. We could even be sent back to Walton or some other God-forsaken hole as punishment if it comes out.”

  The man on the floor began grunting loudly and thrashing around, his feet hitting the walls, chipping large flecks of plaster and whitewash from the brickwork.

  “How did he find out? Who told him?”

  “I don’t know. Look we can’t hang about.”

  “Didn’t you ask him, Eric?”

  “No, I was so angry I just took a swing at him.”

  “We should find out, it could be someone in our house. Let’s ask him.”

  “No wait, don’t.”

  Eric grabbed Tony by the arm.

  “Tony, we can’t risk it mate. The house is full of people. They’re just above our heads. If he managed to call out we’d be done for.”

  “What does he want?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What does he want for not telling about the tunnel?”

  For a moment Eric seemed nonplussed, he coughed and looked away.

  “Sorry mate, dust or something. No, he wanted to be in on it, to be part of the escape, him and several of his friends, though he wasn’t prepared to do any digging.”

  Tony panicked.

  “What if he’s told others?”

  “No, calm down.”

  Eric placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Irritated Tony pulled himself free.

  “I’m certain he hasn’t. Think about it, it’s not in his interest to spread it around yet, is it?” Before Tony could give it any thought, he went on, “Come on, let’s sort him out, we haven’t got that long, it’ll soon be getting light.”

  “Hold on a minute.”

  Tony stepped away, rubbing his forehead.

  “What are you suggesting here, not killing him?”

  The bound man lay perfectly still, wide eyes staring at them. Paolo got up from the bed where he had been sitting and moved across the room towards Eric. He stood beside him, one side of his face in shadow the other illuminated by the quivering candle.

  “I don’t know,” Eric said slowly and deliberately, “I just don’t know.”

  The dripping of a tap was the only sound.

  “Tony we can’t be pushed around on this, it’s too important. We’ve no choice, mate, no choice.”

  Clear-headed, but nervous, Tony desperately wanted fresh air.

  “Who is he? Do I know him?”

  “I don’t think so. I’d only seen him a few times.”

  “Is he one of us?”

  “I think so, from somewhere in the Midlands.”

  “What’s his name? I must know his name.”

  “Albert Chalmers, a right bastard.”

  It would be very different if he had a choice, Tony knew that, but he had to escape from the camp, without the tunnel life here would be unbearable.

  “Tony, we can’t hang around, come on, please?”

  Eric’s voice was insistent, pleading yet edged with an abrasiveness that Tony feared would end up being turned on him if he hesitated any longer. He didn’t know the blackmailer, after all. What harm would a good beating do? If they let Albert Chalmers get away with it, where would it end? Too many people had worked long and hard on this escape plan for some cheating bastard to muscle in and take it from them. With the three of them his punishment would be swift and easy. Tony knew he was strong and capable enough to carry it out.

  “Yes, yes, let’s do it.”

  Eric, who had been looking increasingly agitated, instantly stiffened, smiled grimly then grabbed Albert Chalmers by the legs and dragged him into the centre of the cellar. His body left a slick trail on the dusty floor. The man struggled for a moment, then lay still, his eyes flicking wildly from side to side. His gag was sodden and the corners spotted with blood, where the sheet cut into the sides of his mouth.

  “Paolo and Tony, you hold him up, I’ll do the honours.”

  Paolo shrugged his shoulders, bent down and grabbed the trussed man’s right arm, Tony got hold of the other and they lifted him to his feet. He began moaning, trying to speak. Tony and Paolo turned their heads away and tightened their grip. Eric stepped up to within inches of Albert Chalmers face and spat at him. Then he picked up the sheet from the floor and tore off two long strips. Slowly he wound the cloth around each of his hands, grasping the loose ends firmly in clenched fists.

  “Ready?”

  The body convulsed and twisted, almost breaking free. Tony nodded his head. The first punch to the stomach, bent all three of them double, Tony and Paolo straightened up for the second and the third. A hammer blow to the head and they were supporting a dead weight in their arms as the body sagged close to the floor.

  “Haul the bastard up,” hissed Eric, “I haven’t finished.”

  With the next strike Albert Chalmer’s head whipped backwards, the neck audibly cracking, and then came to rest lolling lifelessly on one shoulder. Blood began pouring from his nose and seeping from the saturated gag. Eric stood back, then kicked him hard in the genitals, the only sound the thud of boot on cloth. The force cut his legs from under him and the unconscious body slipped from Tony’s grasp, falling heavily face down on the floor. A further kick to the side of the head, cracked the skull and blood began to pulse in tiny rivulets from his left ear. Eric was preparing to kick the prone figure again, when Tony grabbed him.

  “Enough, you’ll kill him. Stop it.”

  Eric struggled in his arms.

  “Let me at him, I’ve not finished. The bastard, I’ll teach him.”

  “Eric, Eric.”

  Tony managed to turn him away from the twitching body on the floor, but Eric lashed out with his boot and caught his victim again in the stomach.

  “Eric, stop.”

  Reluctantly, Eric moved away and sat down on the bed.

  “Stay there. Paolo, is he still alive?”

  The young man bent over the bloody crumpled figure and placed a hand on the side of his neck. Shaking his head slightly he moved closer.

  “Quiet. I’m listening to…” he coughed, clearing an obstruction in his throat, and wiping his hand across his forehead smearing it with blood, “…to hear if he is breathing.” The agitation of his body could be heard resonating in the quaver of his voice.

  Tony didn’t move, just stared at Paolo and the dark silent bulk of Albert Chalmers. His chest was gripped in a spasm of muscular pain that left him feeling nauseous. In a rising panic, he blinked and focused on the burning sensation, concentrating on the transitory, anything but what next. The only sound he could hear was the rhythmic creaking of springs as Eric rocked back and forth on the edge of the bed. Every so often he would break off, sniff heavily and clear his throat, then pick up again, his boots grating harshly on the gritty floor.

  “Yesssss…,” Paolo’s relieved voice came from nowhere and Tony was barely listening, “… he’s breathing. Yessss, yes, he’s alive.”

  Paolo st
ood up, a look of profound relief sweeping across his blood-streaked face.

  “Thank you, Jesus.”

  He crossed himself once, then, as if to underline his immense gratitude, a second time.

  “Keep your voice down, will you.”

  Eric spoke in a matter of fact manner, the old authority returning to his voice. He leapt to his feet, patted Tony on the back, then walked calmly over to Paolo, placed an arm around his shoulder and squeezed hard. Paolo smiled weakly.

  “We’d better get him out of here, it’ll be light soon. Untie him. I need to think.”

  Paolo palmed a flick-knife, deftly snapping out the blade, bent over and sliced through the bindings. Free of its restraints the body slumped, its limbs splaying across the concrete.

  “Clean up in here, Tony and I will carry him up to the prom and leave him there. When it gets light, he’ll soon be found.”

  Hearing the pronounced click of the knife as it closed brought Tony round and he listened alert to what was being said. He put up no resistance when Eric turned to him.

  “Come on Tony, old mate, lend a hand. We can’t hang around.”

  They wiped away as much of the blood and dirt from Albert Chalmer’s face and neck as they could, then each taking an arm over their shoulders, they picked up his unconscious form – there was a moan at this first movement, then silence. They had no trouble hauling him up the steps, through the garden and out of the gate. Glancing back Eric noticed that dragging feet were leaving a distinctive double track in the sandy soil.

  “Damn, we’ll have to come back and cover that up. Can we lift him so he doesn’t touch the ground?”

  With effort they each took hold of a leg and carried the body out onto the promenade, where they dumped it, face down, away from the terrace, close to the wire. It was high tide and they could hear the rush of the surf over the sand just feet away. Tony stood and stared out to sea, it was still pitch dark, though it was close to dawn. For the first time he felt cold and shivered in an exaggerated manner, clutching his shirt collar tightly around his neck.

  “Thanks mate, I couldn’t have done this without you, you know that. You get back. I’ll go and brush over the tracks. See you later.”

  He was gone, swallowed up by the darkness. Tony vowed he’d talk to him as soon as he got back to the house, but he lay awake until way past dawn and Eric never returned.

  “It’s sixty-five feet long. There can’t be more than ten feet to go.”

  Eric’s smiling mud-streaked face appeared through the hole in the floorboards.

  “What’s that, a couple of weeks at the most? Then we dig up to the surface and away we go?”

  Tony handed him a bottle of beer.

  “Can’t be too soon for me. This place is driving me round the bend. If it wasn’t for this tunnel, I’d have gone out of my mind. Cheers.”

  “Cheers.”

  Eric drank with relish from the bottle, wiped the froth from his lips and hauled himself out of the hole. He reached down and grabbed his clothes before carefully replacing the wooden planks and treading them into place. As he flung himself into an armchair he flicked the rug back over the concealed entrance with his foot.

  “We need to clean this place up a bit, the bloody mud’s getting everywhere. A bit of a give away, eh?”

  Tony stared at the ceiling and said nothing.

  “What’s the matter? You’re not still angry with me over the other night are you?”

  “Well …”

  “Oh, come on Tony. The bastard can’t have been out there for more than an hour. He was immediately taken to the sick bay at Ballaquane and I hear he’s going to be sent to hospital on the mainland. He’s fine. It was no worse a beating than I’ve dished out many times before. He’ll have a few weeks taking it easy then he’ll be as right as rain. Buck up, Tony, at least we’ve got rid of the sneak. Kept our little secret safe, didn’t we? Cheers.”

  “No, it’s not really that.”

  Eric scrutinized his friend carefully, he could usually guess what he was thinking, at least he used to be able to.

  “You worrying about that letter?”

  Tony looked away and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t know what you expect. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything’s wrong. You can’t seriously believe people love us, what with a war on and all that, but it doesn’t mean they’re having a go at Emily. Journalists are a bunch of Red sympathizers in the main, we’ve never had a fair hearing from them since Rothermere abandoned the good ship “Mosley” after Olympia back in 1934. Yellow’s the word more than red.”

  Eric laughed to himself.

  “The yellow press read by Reds.”

  He coughed violently, spraying beer across the room.

  “Watch out, you bastard, what a waste.”

  Eric leaned forward in his chair and thumped himself on the chest.

  “You’re telling me. At least it brought a smile to your face.”

  Tony sat down in the other chair and raised his bottle.

  “There’s two more of these, let’s get…tipsy.”

  “Good egg Tony, spiffing idea.”

  “Chin, chin.”

  They both drained their bottles and threw them on to the mattress in the corner. Sitting in silence, they could hear Ray whistling as he dug the garden.

  “He never stops, does he?”

  “He’s a driven man.”

  “Aren’t we all? Sit there, I’ll get them.”

  Before Tony could move the back door slammed and Sid rushed into the room. He was red-faced and could barely utter a word as he gasped for air.

  “What ho, Sidney.”

  He raised his hand and looked pained as he struggled to speak.

  “I’d say take your time, but I can see you’re in a hurry,” laughed Eric, “here take a seat.”

  Sid lowered himself gingerly into the chair, clutching his side.

  “You’re not going to bloody believe this.”

  Tony motioned with his hands.

  “Believe what?”

  “Stone me, you haven’t a fag have you? I’m…”

  “Gasping. No, get on with it.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Sid looked pleadingly at Tony and Eric, who stared back at him in blank incomprehension.

  “Who?”

  “Patrick, Pat, you know.”

  “What our Pat?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  Sid was beginning to breathe normally again. He wiped his face with a sepia handkerchief and lay back with his eyes closed, his open mouth a gaping black hole in his flushed face. Eric shook his head in disbelief and looked over at Tony.

  “Can you believe it, he’s going to sleep? A bearer of important news and he nods off.”

  “Give me a bleeding chance. I’ve run all the way from the sodding prom, uphill an’ all.”

  He opened his eyes and pulled himself upright.

  “Did you know about this?”

  He looked suspiciously at Eric.

  “I wouldn’t put it bloody past you.”

  “Know about what, for Christ’s sake?”

  Eric was becoming irritated.

  “He’s escaped.”

  “Pat?”

  “Yes, Pat and two others.”

  Eric and Tony stared at Sid in astonishment.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Bloody positive mate, everybody’s talking about it.”

  “When?”

  “Today, after…”

  “Who told you?”

  “I heard it first from, what’s his name, Bill Griffiths, but it’s all over the camp.”

  There was silence as the news sank in. Sid was pleased that for once he had something over Eric, but it was not for long.

 
“Well, bugger me. He was here this morning and he said nothing. Who else?”

  “No one we know – a Martin Quinn and Giles Halesoaken.”

  “How did they do it? Not another tunnel? They’ll be all over the place if it was.”

  “Steady on, mate. No it wasn’t. They were at that concert, you know, the one they have nearly every week at lunchtime in that little hall along the prom. After it finished the three of them had it away, ’cause they weren’t there when they counted ’em back inside here.”

  Sid cackled to himself.

  “Good on ’em I say, hope they make it.”

  “They’ll have taken a boat, Pat always said he had one stashed away.”

  “Dunno about that, no one said nothing about a boat.”

  “Hold on, let me think. Where does this leave us?”

  “With one less person digging…”

  “Yeah, yeah. They’ll step up security for sure and I’m a known associate of good old Pat. This is bloody awkward. Look we’d better stop all work till this blows over. I’m going to find out what the fuck’s going on.”

  Eric angrily grabbed his clothes and began dressing.

  “Tony, you come with me, Sid, you tidy things up here. Act as if nothing has happened. Oh, and tell Ray and the others when they get back, but keep it quiet, no arsing around on this one.”

  Grinning, Sid raised his hand in salute.

  “Sir.”

  Eric lunged at Sid, then thought better of it, he was shaking and fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. He looked rattled.

  “Sid, you get right up my nose sometimes.”

  “Oh ta very much, that’s the last time I bloody make an effort for you.”

  “Eric, leave it. Come on, let’s go. Here have a fag, it’ll calm you down.”

  Glaring Eric took a cigarette from the battered tin Tony held out to him and thrust it into his mouth. Tony searched his pockets for a light, before noticing a box of matches sitting on the mantelpiece.

  “One thing.”

  “Sid, don’t push it.”

  “No, no wouldn’t dream of it mate. No I was just going to say you should wash before you go out, mud ’n all that.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  Sid and Tony smiled at each other as Eric rushed out of the room. They heard him overhead seconds later, swearing and stamping around.