by Tom Becker
As Major X led the musicians out of the hall – studiously avoiding eye contact with Adam – their ranks had been swelled by the two missing Tally-Hoers, whose faces were now streaked with dust. Wherever they had gone while the orchestra had been playing, they had been busy.
Adam and Doughnut left the empty theatre and wandered over to the exercise yard, where they sat on the sunlit benches with Mouthwash and Paintpot and played cards. Doughnut was flourishing yet another winning hand when Adam sat up and swore loudly.
“What’s wrong?” asked Paintpot.
“I left the Inmate’s Handbook in the theatre,” he replied. “Bookworm will kill me if I lose it.”
Adam hurried out of the yard and back across the walkway towards Wing VII, muttering to himself under his breath. As he climbed the stairs, he became aware of music floating down from the theatre – not the painful clatter of the orchestra, but a soft, sad piano melody. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and looked towards the stage.
The hall was now completely empty, save a girl sitting at the grand piano. It was Jessica. She was completely immersed in the tune, her head bowed low as her fingers drifted across the keys. Adam felt like he was intruding upon something private, as though he had accidentally opened someone else’s diary. Spotting his book lying on a nearby windowsill, he crept over and picked it up, only to knock into a chair on his way out. Jessica looked up, startled. At the sight of Adam, her cheeks flushed.
“What are you doing spying on me?” she snapped.
“I’m not spying!” protested Adam. He held up the Inmate’s Handbook. “I forgot this. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Oh.” Jessica looked down at the piano, her long hair falling in a tangled waterfall over her face.
“You’re really good,” said Adam, cautiously approaching the piano. “At least I think you are. I don’t really know much about classical music.”
“It’s Für Elise,” Jessica replied. “By Beethoven.”
“It sounded nice. A bit sad, though.”
“I used to play on my mum’s piano. It reminds me of home.”
“I didn’t see you up here earlier,” said Adam. “Why don’t you play with the orchestra?”
Jessica shrugged. “I prefer to play on my own.”
“You should really think about it. For their sake – they’re bloody awful.”
There was an awkward pause, and then Jessica finally smiled. “Why are you so nice to me, Adam?” she asked, quietly tapping a piano key with a finger. “I haven’t always been very nice to you.”
Adam took a seat next to her on the piano stool. “I don’t know what it is,” he said slowly. “You’re not like the rest of them. Everyone around here just gets on with stuff and acts like it’s all normal, but it’s not. It’s crazy, and sometimes I think you’re the only other person who feels the same way. And that’s . . . I don’t know . . . kind of nice.”
“I’m sorry I was rude to you,” Jessica said. “It’s just that when people try to talk to me I end up hating them because they don’t understand. Everything about this is so wrong, Adam: don’t you see? These monsters have kidnapped us and locked us up and sentenced us to hundreds of years in prison. I feel like I’ll go mad if I spend another week here, let alone another. . .”
Her voice trailed off.
“Hey, it’s going to be all right,” said Adam, gently touching her shoulder. “You’ll get through it. I promise.”
He leaned forward and kissed her. For a brief second, their lips touched, and then Jessica pulled away. She scrambled up from the piano stool and fled across the hall.
“Wait, Jessica!” Adam called after her. “I’m sorry! Come back!”
But she disappeared down the staircase without looking back, leaving behind only the accusatory echo of her fleeing footsteps.
Though Adam would never have believed it when he was shivering beneath his blanket in the depths of midwinter, conditions on the Dial only worsened with the onset of summer. As the blazing red sun scaled higher into the sky, the barren landscape beyond the prison walls cracked under its cruel inquisition. Within the Dial, the air curdled with the smell of sweat, and the walls of the prisoners’ quarters seemed to close in around them. The inmates squabbled constantly, the pettiest disagreements and smallest imagined slights sparking fights. Beneath the latrines at the edge of the exercise yard, flies rose in great clouds from the manure heap, and the stench was so thick it had a physical quality.
By midday, the fierce heat sent the prisoners retreating inside their quarters, leaving the luckless guards in the watchtowers to maintain their parched vigil. The sun didn’t relax its grip until late afternoon, when the inmates emerged into the light to stretch their legs in the exercise yard and play the occasional rumble of Bucketball.
Conditions were at their most bearable just after daybreak, making the eight o’clock roll call an unexpected highlight of the day. One morning, as the prisoners were waiting for the Wing II gates to open, Adam was scanning the crowd for a friendly face when he noticed Major X standing apart from the rest of his men, looking out over the chasm. He was bareheaded, in a grudging concession to the heat, revealing sandy hair combed into a neat side parting. Realizing he was being watched, the Major caught Adam’s gaze and gave him a sharp look.
“Heads up, dozy!”
Adam turned to see Doughnut waddling towards him. Even this early in the morning, the fixer’s chubby face glistened with sweat, and his uniform was stained with damp patches underneath the armpits. He dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.
“All right, Doughnut. How’s it going?”
“Peachy.” The fixer nodded meaningfully up at the sun. “Going to be a right scorcher today.”
“Any chance you could get your hands on an ice cream or two?”
Doughnut sarcastically patted his pockets. “Looks like I’m all out. Maybe if you asked Mr Pitt nicely?”
The walkway gates creaked open, and the prisoners began trooping across to the exercise yard.
Finely tuned to the mood of the Dial, Adam soon became aware of a subtle change in atmosphere beneath the normal chatter. A rumour was rustling among the inmates like wind through the trees, passed on with winks, nods, and raised eyebrows. The air was taut with anticipation. Major X marched impassively at the heart of the throng, hands thrust into his pockets.
Adam tugged Doughnut’s sleeve.
“What’s going on?”
“I guess there’s a run on. Crazy fools.”
“A run?” Adam hissed, his eyes wide. “What, now?”
“If I were you, mate,” Doughnut murmured, “I’d keep your voice down and your questions to yourself. You’re not the Tally-Ho’s favourite inmate, and they can get a bit testy with people who give the game away.”
Adam swallowed and hurriedly looked down at his feet. As the procession reached the other side of the walkway and filed into the exercise yard, he tried to look as nonchalant as possible, cracking stupid jokes and chatting with Doughnut. But for some reason his stomach muscles had clenched like a fist, and his pulse was racing. In six months on the Dial, Adam had never had prior knowledge of an escape attempt. He wondered which prisoners were making a break for it – whether it was anyone he knew.
“You want to repeat that?”
Adam looked up to see Corbett and Fletcher – respectively, the largest and the second-largest members of the Tally-Ho – squaring up to each other, each with a fistful of the other’s shirt.
“I said,” Fletcher repeated through gritted teeth, “go and stand somewhere else – you stink so bad you’re making my eyes water. Are you deaf as well as stupid?”
Corbett snarled and hurled a punch at Fletcher. Within seconds the two boys were rolling around in the dirt, surrounded by a mob of screaming inmates. The guards hastily elbowed their way forward, only to find themselves suck
ed into the melee, and in the confusion it took them a couple of minutes to drag the combatants apart. Corbett and Fletcher were unceremoniously dragged to opposite sides of the yard, still spitting insults at each other. Flashing the two Tally-Hoers dark looks, Major X cleared his throat and called for order.
“Enough of the nonsense, lads,” he shouted. “Let’s get into line and get this roll call over with. It’ll be noon at this rate, and I’m bloody hot enough as it is.”
Adam had to hand it to the Major – when he spoke, people listened. Immediately the prisoners began shuffling into the roll call formation: eight rows of inmates, one behind the other. As he took his place in the third row, at the far left-hand end of the yard, Adam noticed a sizeable gap between the prisoners standing next to him. Wondering why they didn’t move up, he flashed Doughnut a questioning look.
“Not a word,” Doughnut breathed back. “They’re doing a covering run. Some of the lads must have done a runner during the fight.”
Adam glanced around the flat gravelled expanse. There seemed no room to hide behind the tiered benches, and every side of the enclosure was surrounded by high wire fencing with barbed wire running around the top. Even the latrine doors at the edge of the yard were wide open. If some of the inmates had managed to hide themselves away, he hadn’t the faintest idea where they could be.
The guards had begun walking along the front row of the prisoners, counting heads. As they reached halfway, Adam heard footsteps racing along the space between his row and the row behind him. Two boys were running down from the right-hand end of the line – the end that had already been counted. They skidded into the gap close to Adam, breathing heavily. Both whipped off their caps and stuffed them into their shirts, presumably to stop the guards spotting that they had already counted them. Adam stared straight ahead, barely daring to blink. He didn’t breathe again until the guards had passed them. To his reflief, they barely gave the two runners a second glance. Maybe it wasn’t that surprising. After weeks, months and years of counting heads, Adam thought, all the prisoners must look the same.
With the counting at an end, the head guard nodded at Major X, who snapped to attention and saluted. The guard was just about to give the order to dismiss when the siren wailed again, and with a plummeting heart Adam saw a group of officers striding across the bridge towards the exercise yard. They were led by two unmistakable figures, one rotund and flabby, the other lean and wiry: Mr Cooper and Mr Pitt.
“Uh oh,” whispered Doughnut.
As the officers entered the exercise yard, the guards snapped to attention and saluted. Major X broke away from the prisoners’ ranks and walked forward to greet Mr Cooper.
“Good morning, sir,” he said stiffly. “I didn’t think you were inspecting us this morning.”
Mr Cooper nodded. “I thought we’d pay the prisoners a surprise visit. Like to keep you on your toes, Major. Has the roll call been taken yet?”
Major X saluted briskly.
“Yes, sir. All present and correct, sir.”
“Really?”
As Mr Cooper raised an eyebrow, Adam felt Doughnut tense up beside him.
“He’s on to ’em,” the fixer hissed, out of the corner of his mouth.
Mr Cooper did seem strangely amused by the brief exchange. He folded his arms and tapped a finger against his cheek. Then he glanced at Mr Pitt.
“Apparently the roll call has been taken.”
“Apparently so, sir.”
“According to Major X, the prisoners are all present and correct.”
“All due respect, sir, but Major X is a lying little toerag.”
“Would you be so good as to check for me?”
Mr Pitt saluted, and then marched past the inmates and straight over to the latrines at the end of the yard. To audible gasps, he kicked over one of the toilets and dropped down through the large hole beneath on to the underground manure heap. Swatting the flies away from his face, Pitt raised aloft his bayonet and began stabbing downwards into the dung.
Mr Cooper eyed Major X with interest.
“Anything you’d like to tell us?”
Indecision flashed across the Major’s face. Then he stepped forward and called out to the manure heap.
“Game’s up, lads. Better come on out before you get skewered.”
There was a movement amongst the steaming piles of waste to Pitt’s left, and two boys rose up like zombies from the grave, their hands held aloft in surrender. They were smeared from head to toe in brown. Pitt grabbed them by the scruff of their necks and hauled them back up on to the exercise yard. As the boys were ushered at bayonet length across the exercise yard, a terrible smell filled Adam’s nostrils, making his stomach heave. There were groans of revulsion around him.
Doughnut shook his head in awe.
“Crazy fools,” he said once more.
As the two prisoners were herded across the bridge and towards the punishment cells, the murmurs died down until the yard was swathed in silence. Mr Cooper gave Major X a knowing smile.
“Now we’re all present and correct.”
By way of reply, the Major clicked his heels together smartly and stood to attention. Then he brought his hands together and began a slow handclap – a tribute to his men’s honourable failure. At first the Major was alone, but then Corbett and Fletcher joined in, and then the rest of the Tally-Ho, and then the rest of the prisoners, and the clapping speeded up and swelled until the exercise yard rang to the sound of a riotous ovation. The smile on Mr Cooper’s face faded. Adam found himself clapping furiously, his heart swelling with pride, and he was still shouting and applauding long after the failed escapees had disappeared from view.
Afterwards, Adam felt strangely drained, as though he himself had taken part in the failed escape. He went back to his bunk to get away from the stifling heat, his eyelids drooping shut almost immediately. He woke with a start to find a blade biting into his neck and a pair of strong arms pinning him down to the bunk. Adam looked up to see Corbett’s grim face staring at him.
“I wouldn’t say anything if I were you, sunshine,” Corbett whispered. “I might slip and slice you open.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Adam could see the Tally-Ho Escape Committee lined up against the far wall of his dormitory, their arms clasped behind their backs. Major X was pacing up and down in front of them, his footsteps beating a tattoo on the floorboards. Eventually he came to a halt and looked at Adam.
“Four months our lads have been planning that. We went through the plans over and over again. Fixed every minor detail. They were foolproof.”
The knife bit deeper into Adam’s throat, cutting off his attempted reply. Major X ran a hand through his blond hair.
“Do you have any idea the sort of pluck needed to hide in the manure heap at the height of summer? To lie completely still, breathing in that disgusting stink, feeling it in your mouth and in your ears and up your nose. Do you have any idea?”
Adam slowly shook his head.
“No, you wouldn’t. The guards were too busy breaking up Corbett and Fletcher to see those lads getting in there – I was watching. But then Pitt turns up and tries to turn them into pincushions. He couldn’t have found them by chance. Someone told him. You saw Cooper’s face when he was talking to me. He knew. Someone told him. There’s a rat in the ranks, and I’ve got a nasty feeling it’s you. And if you can’t persuade me otherwise, Corbett here’s going to slit your throat.”
“I’m waiting.”
Adam’s first thought was that this was just a sick prank, the Tally-Ho trying to intimidate him. No matter what the Major said, they wouldn’t really kill him – they couldn’t! Then he looked up at Corbett. The older boy’s eyes were grim, and his face was glistening with sweat. If Adam didn’t know better, he would have said that Corbett was nervous.
“It wasn’t me!” squeaked Adam.
<
br /> Major X raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, sorry to bother you, then,” he replied sarcastically. “You’re going to have to do a bit better than that.”
“I’m not a rat! Honest!”
The Major pulled a chair up to Adam’s bunk and sat down.
“Listen carefully,” he said, his voice low. “Ever since you showed up here, we’ve been having problems. Guards smirking like they know something we don’t. Mr Pitt turning up every time we’re close to breaking out. Now some of our papers have gone missing – maps, plans, diagrams. And every time I turn around, there you are. Watching. Eavesdropping. Sticking your nose in. I’ve been in this place long enough to know when there’s a rat running around it, and everything’s pointing to you.”
Adam was desperate to protest his innocence, but it was hard to think with a blade digging into his throat, Corbett’s rank body odour overpowering his senses, and the rest of the Tally-Ho lined up in the background like a firing squad. What could he say that would change their minds?
“Ask Doughnut, if you don’t believe me!” he tried desperately. “He’ll tell you I’m not a rat!”
Major X snorted.
“Doughnut? That boy’s too busy thinking about his next meal to spot an informer. I couldn’t give a monkey’s what he says.” He leaned in closer. “You’re starting to try my patience.”
There was an exclamation of surprise from behind the Major. Adam’s eyes flicked up to see Jessica’s slim frame in the doorway.
“What’s going on?” she asked slowly.
Major X quickly rose from his chair and saluted her.
“Tally-Ho business. It doesn’t concern you.”
Jessica took a step into the room and peered over towards Adam’s bunk. “What are you doing to Adam? Oh my God, is that a knife?” Her hand flew to her mouth.
