Escape from Alcatraz

by J. Campbell Bruce

  One morning in the brush shop, after the guard had made a half-hour count and left, a coworker handed Morris a small flat bottle and said, “Hold it a second.” He expertly filled the vial with white glue from a half-gallon jug, recorked it and slipped it back in his pocket, under the coveralls. “Just cork and glass,” he said. “It’ll go through the Snitch Box.”

  “What if you’re frisked?”

  “Ten days in TU. Figure the odds: about once in thirty times I’m pulled out of the line. Maybe I’m clean, so that jumps the odds sky high. Same with snitchin’ from the mess.”

  This led to talk of the security-tight cellhouse, and the convict chuckled and said, “There’s a way out if anybody had the nerve. What block you in?”

  “B.”

  “Well, there’s a shaft right over your head you can climb out of onto the roof.”

  He then related what was common knowledge among older prisoners. Willard Winhoven, released in 1959 after serving twelve years on The Rock for robbery, had been an inmate-electrician. In 1957 he removed a fan motor from a ventilator shaft over B Block, and no replacement was made.1 The guard supervising the work had commented after removal of the blower: “A good way to get out.”

  For a moment, this revelation seemed to alter things. A daytime break under cover of a fog held the hazard, with the half-hour counts, of alerted guards swarming with rifles. That tower guard’s target practice on a drifting log had had an unsettling ring. An after-dark departure had the advantage of getaway time, perhaps half a night. Fine, except the shaft was out of reach: bars ran to the ceiling, and the steel door to the top of the block was always locked.

  “How do you get up there?”

  The convict grinned. “Ask the bull for the key.”

  1 Willard Winhoven related the story of the removal of the shaft motor in 1957, along with the guard’s comment, to a reporter for the San Francisco News Call Bulletin.

  Chapter 17

  IF THE VENTILATOR SHAFT, an escape hatch just thirty feet above his head, had tantalized him at first, Morris doubtless put it out of mind once he had explored its possibilities. He was a plotter who picked over minutest details before acting, and there simply was no way to reach the top of the block except on a detail with a guard. At night, impossible. Only way off The Rock was still in a thick fog, outside the cellhouse.

  On a fall evening in 1961, Morris sat clipping his fingernails. The clip, two inches long, had a pair of pivoting arms that lay, one upon the other, on its surface. The longer arm, with a tapered tip, swung out and doubled back to serve as a lever to snap the nail-clipping jaws. The shorter one had a file, and a pointed end to clean under nails.

  Morris clipped the last nail and swung the lever back in place, pulling out the other to clean under a nail. Then, as a man in a musing moment might absently open and close a penknife, he kept swinging the file-cleaner out and in. At length, he snapped it back in place and gave the clip a little toss. As he caught it his eyes fell on the air vent below and to the right of the wash bowl. He stared, fascinated. And then, still staring, he slowly slid the cleaner out again and ran his thumb over the sharp point. He got up, scouted the corridor, then went swiftly to the rear and knelt at the vent. He picked at the concrete at the edge of the metal grille. Nothing. He picked harder … very hard. A few grains fell to the floor. He tried the opposite rim, a firm grip, a stiff jab. Bits came off. He chipped at the top. Miniature flakes tumbled down the black grille. He jabbed at the bottom. Tiny fragments gave way.

  He stood up, trembling. A weary prospector had stumbled onto a rich lode. He knelt again, inspected the gouging. Small scars showed. He wet his thumb, gathered a thumbload of fallen particles and pressed them into the tiny gap at one side of the grille, then smoothed it out, his thumb a trowel. He did this all around, then moistened a corner of his blue handkerchief and wiped the grille and the powdery residue off the floor. He stood back. The vent looked untouched.

  Then began the wrestling. It’ll take time to loosen that grille, maybe a week, maybe longer. How to hide the work? Let the towel sag? West’s accordion case! But West was still in solitary. He’d buy his own. What kind? Size? He couldn’t say: Oh, big enough to cover the vent. Wait for West. Ring him in on it? He’s a talker. The Anglins? Too impulsive: Okay, what’re we waitin’ for? Let’s go! This called for planning.

  Details, details. Once the grille came out, what? Crawl on through? Too small. How thick was that wall? How big a hole did he need to squeeze through? Could he do it alone? The hole—he’d be digging in the hole. No lookout. And the bull comes by. He had to ring in West, after all. The Anglins? Clarence had a real knack for breakouts. But not yet, not yet. John’d stand watch for Clarence, Clarence for John. Away they’d go. He’d wait for West—and pray he left his heels alone.

  Next morning he cased the end of the cell block, the width to the utility door, the depth of a cell. He gauged the wall’s thickness at maybe a foot. He cut a two-foot length of wood, reed-slender, in the shop and stuck it in his belt at the back. That night he angled it through the grille, touching the side wall until the tip slipped off the far edge. The wall was about eight inches thick. A drill? He glanced up at the light hanging in the center of the cell. Out of the question. He’d need a motor.

  He checked the library catalogue and next morning left a request for a book on structural engineering. He studied up on concrete and mortar. He learned that damp concrete, if heated suddenly, tended to spall or chip out in cone-shaped flakes as the steam escaped. Enough heat might cause the concrete to crumble even if dry. But there were drawbacks here: this concrete did not seem damp; in either case, there was no means, short of a welder’s torch, to apply sufficient heat.

  Details, details. How big a hole—to squirm through at an angle? Shoulder width sixteen, maybe seventeen inches—he’d need an exit about ten inches high, fourteen wide. The vent was now six high, ten wide. He chipped at the concrete again. Damn tough. Take weeks. What if they shook down his cell some Saturday? And looked behind the accordion? Hell, he’d be playing it down in the basement! This thing needs more planning.

  How to hide the hole … how to hide the hole … he climbed out of bed to go to the toilet. Those hiding places in the base—covered by paper painted white! Very simple. A sheet of paper pasted over the hole, a black grille painted on it. Paste …? Glue! Snitched from the brush shop. As the con said, the odds were with him.

  Paper? Over an air vent? Rumple sure as hell. Make a bull curious, a rumply metal grille. Take something stiffer than paper. Cardboard. Must be some around the shops. He’d ask one of—uh, uh, let’s not go asking a lot of questions.… He’d make his own, by God! Papier-mâché! He’d made it as a kid in grade school—a Halloween mask, a Christmas crèche, something like that.

  Details, details. Once he scooted, what? Christ, the screw’d find him gone on his first patrol. The siren’d let go before he got off the roof. He’ll need a dummy. Up near the bars, have to be goddam lifelike. Maybe switch sleeping habits? He hated his head next to a toilet, but—no good, the bull might reach in to shake the dummy’s foot. There goes the siren.

  For the dummy, what? Head and neck, pillow and peacoat under the covers. Where’d he get stuff for a head and neck in this joint? Hair was easy—bristles from the brush shop. Bristles, hell. With Clarence a barber? Maybe he’d better ring the Anglins in—after he got things set up. He’d need raincoats for a raft, and John works in the clothing room. That dummy. Hair, okay. The rest …?”

  It popped up late one night. Like raw material fed into a mill, worked over, and out comes a bright red convertible. And so simple: He would order what he needed, through the prison’s purchasing officer!

  West got out of solitary early in 1962, and Morris ordered an accordion exactly like his. It came over from the city in a couple of days, and he was set. The dining room now resembled a large cafeteria, the long tables replaced by table sets seating four, the sets in varying bright colors. Morris, West, and the Anglins
shared a table. Once he had his accordion, Morris sprang his plan.

  “Well,” said Clarence Anglin, “what’re we waitin’ for? Let’s go!”

  “This is Alcatraz,” said Morris, “not a road camp. We don’t walk away from here. Starting tomorrow morning, and every morning for a while, we order all the magazines we can from the library.”

  “I sure fell behind on my readin’ in the Hole,” said West.

  Morris shot him a hard, level look, and West shrugged apologetically. Before bringing him in on the plot, Morris had laid down the law: keep his speech at a minimum, lest an unwary word spill the works.

  “Why magazines?” asked John Anglin.

  “For cardboard,” Morris said. “Cut out only the pages with ads on both sides, and close in, so they won’t be missed.”

  “So what?” said John. “They’ll think it’s the censor.”

  “We don’t want them to even think,” said Morris. “We take no chances. Clear? No chances. Slip the pages under your mattress. I’ll fill you in on each step as we go along. That way, nobody jumps the gun.”

  “That a crack?” asked John.

  “Nope. I’m after teamwork. That’s what this needs. Also a brush and paints. Who wants to become an artist?”

  “Why not borrow ’em?”

  “Less in on it the better,” said West.

  “That’s right,” said Morris. “We’ll order our own supplies from the purchasing officer.”

  “Man, that’s real brass,” said Clarence. “Four breaks, and I never once thought of askin’ ’em for tools. I’ll take up painting’.”

  “Okay, we’ll need white, pink, and black paint, and—”

  “Black? A bull reaches in and pats John’s crew cut and it feels bald, Jesus, man. Look, I work in the barber shop.”

  (Prisoners were assigned to barbering as to any other household chore: professional experience unnecessary.)

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be filling your pockets. Get turpentine and a canvas—and slap a little paint over it, out of each tube. We’ll make our own plaster for the dummies—bits of this and that, thickened up with soap, maybe a little glue.”

  “What about the stuff we dig out—flush it down the toilet?”

  “And clog it up? We don’t want any plumbers nosing around. West and I’ll carry it out and scatter it on the way to the shops.”

  A guard came up. “What’s keeping you men?”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Morris, and they filed out.

  On Monday, after lockup, Morris gave his light cord a tug, then sat a while to accustom his eyes to the dark. No lights shone in deserted A Block across the way, and that was fine: it meant no prying eyes. The reflection from other cells in his tier bank, along with the house lights, soon turned the darkness into a twilight gloom.

  Then, with West standing watch next door, he removed the accordion case and set to work. He turned his peacoat inside out, to avoid telltale dust, and laid it folded along the floor below the vent, to deaden the sound of any large fragments that might break loose. He knelt and began chipping. It was slow, tedious work. He switched to the larger blade, the one that served as lever for the clipping jaws, and found it sturdier, more effective, though there still wasn’t enough of a handle for a real grip. He decided to dig just enough each night to fit in his pockets without a bulge.

  After about an hour’s labor he felt the gouged side of the grille, then the tiny pile of rubble on his peacoat, and estimated he had a big enough load to carry outside. He gathered a handful and placed it in a pocket, checking an impulse to pat it with his dusty hand. He was scraping up another fistful when he suddenly let it drop. He picked up a few particles and rubbed them with his fingers. Bits of this, bits of that … plaster! Some of what he had dug out, the surfacing on the concrete, was already plaster.

  He sat back on the floor to consider the idea. Where would he hide it? In his ditty bag? The bag wasn’t large enough to hold all the stuff he would have to scoop out to enlarge the vent to a body-size hole. Hole … Perfect! He would store it in the hole itself as he went along. He would conceal tonight’s rubble in the bag.

  He fell to again. He chipped close to the grille, to speed the job of loosening it and maybe leave enough bite to hold the metal frame temporarily. When his legs cramped under him, he changed position and kept on. His fingers ached gripping the small tool, and he sweat with the pace and the tension. He had no way of gauging the time and that began to worry him. He got stiffly to his feet, rubbed his legs and went up front, working his fingers to ease the ache. “What time do you think it is?”

  “Must be getting close to 9:30,” said West. “Better knock off.”

  He returned to the rear, scooped the concrete flakes off his peacoat and put them in the ditty bag. Then he ran his fingers probingly over the coat for particles that might scatter over the floor when he picked it up. Satisfied, he gathered it up with care, as if it were a baby. He held its folds funnellike over the wash basin and gently shook the jacket, then ran a hand down to brush off the remaining dust. He turned the peacoat right side out and hung it on a peg. He moistened a piece of paper and wiped the grille softly and the floor beneath it. Then he set the accordion case back against the wall.

  He stepped to the center of the cell, pulled the light cord and surveyed the rear wall. It appeared just as it had at lockup. Not a sign—except the basin. He ran the water and swished down the concrete dust, then washed his forearms and face. He reached for the towel, remembered his hair—it might be gray with dust. He doused his head, dried himself, and went up front.

  “All’s well,” he said.

  “Good,” said West. “Must’ve had a workout.”

  “Pooped.”

  His hand was blistered but that was a small discomfort compared to the ache in his fingers. With so little dug out in one night, the task ahead—eight inches of concrete—looked formidable. He needed an attachment of some sort for the nailclip, to provide a handle, a better grip. Perhaps he could turn a handle for the clip on the lathe in the brush shop.

  “How’d it go?” he asked the Anglins at breakfast.

  “Part way down one side,” said Clarence. “Sure tough digging. That clip ain’t like grippin’ a pick handle.”

  Morris, eating oatmeal mush, became aware, curiously aware, of the spoon in his hand: an institutional spoon, about the size of a household tablespoon, perhaps a trifle larger. It had a heavy handle, a nice heft. He took a grip on it: a real nice feel.

  When he returned to his cell from the shop for the pre-lunch count, the magazine he had requested was there. And when he came back to his cell for the post-lunch count, a spoon was in his pocket. He opened his accordion case and tucked the spoon in a fold of the bellows.

  That evening after lockup he sat for some time trying to figure out what, if anything, he could do with the spoon. The spoon itself was useless for digging: it took an instrument with a point to chip the concrete. He liked the handle, the feel of it in a firm grip, but there was no way to attach the nailclip to the bowl; he saw it was even ridiculous to try. And even if he could fasten it to the other end, the bowl section would make an awkward handle. He decided it would be useful in mashing the magazine pages into pulp for the cardboard, and let it go at that.

  He yanked the light cord and sat down to adjust to the darkness. As he waited for the corridor light to have effect, he toyed with the clip. The lever arm suddenly came off. It startled him at first; he had forgotten this blade was removable. Abruptly, he jerked on the light and held the loose blade against the spoon handle, down near the bowl. He put the piece from the clip aside and began bending the spoon handle back and forth. He held the bowl under his shoe and tried it that way. After a great effort, he managed to break off the handle. He laid the nailclip blade against the spoon handle at the broken end. Welded, they’d make a damn good tool.

  Fine, except for one serious drawback: there was no way to get the tool welded. The welding shop was in an isolated structure
near the powerhouse on the north shore. Convicts once did welding, but no longer. All right, why not weld it in the cell? Take a real hot flame. Maybe snitch a soldering iron—no, it wouldn’t get hot enough. Plug a pair of elements in the lightsocket, hold them close for an arc? Too risky—might blow a fuse.

  Brazing …? Brass required less heat than steel. No, silver brazing! Silver, softer, required even less heat; just a quick, intense fire. Fire, fire—those fires set off in the shops by the little drum with rubber bands that snapped match heads ablaze. A bunch of matches, properly shaped … But the silver—where, on Alcatraz, would he come by silver? He needed only a very small amount. Sometimes a shop guard shed his coat on a hot day—and before long a convict had a few extra cigarettes, perhaps a penlike flashlight that clipped to a breast pocket, maybe a coin or two.

  Morris went up front, whispered to West, “Got a dime?”

  West, startled, took a moment to reply: “What for, a cup of coffee?”

  “I’m serious—an experiment.”

  “Wait a second.” He left the front, soon returned, handed around a dime. “A panhandler in this place!”

  “Now let me have all your matches.”

  “Huh? What’ll I do for a light?”

  “Keep a few.”

  West came up with three full books. “What’s cookin’?”

  “Something, just keep an eye peeled.”

  Morris laid a sheet of paper on the table and scraped the dime with the sharp points of the nailclip’s curved jaws. He gleaned a tiny pile of minute specks and shavings of silver. He clipped at the edges and chewed off slightly larger particles.

  He now searched his own pockets—pants, jacket, bathrobe—and collected another five matchbooks, some complete. He pulled out fifty matches, bunched them tight with a rubber band, gently tapped the top level. He then poked in the heads with infinite care to form a cone—a very precise cone, so that no heat would be dispersed by any unevenness. This was the principle of the “shaped” charge: the exploding force concentrated at a point.