by Jan Needle
Masters said nothing. He was going to go, he had to. But he understood the feelings of disaster and mortality. Within a few hours terrible things were going to happen, and he’d be at the heart of them. He pictured Cynthia’s Beam, lying easy, moored at the towpath, fringed with trees, near a lovely pub perhaps. He pictured Sarah, whom he strangely imagined as having grown wan and sad with fear, and loneliness, and disillusionment. Like fading vapour, his thoughts of tracking down the culprits, exacting his revenge, slipped from his soul. He wanted now to get to her, and hide, and hold her and be held. To make a new life, to forget the people who had ruined him. For the moment, that would be enough. And more. Fuck the guilty ones, the great betrayers, let it be.
Let it be. He would go out with the others, but not for mayhem and destruction. He would get out and see his Sarah, and love would triumph after all. He would be with her always, he would marry her, they would have children. He had a plan.
Outside the cell, the plan went wrong.
*
The landings. First death
The meltdown started gently, and accelerated beyond human control. A mere twenty minutes before the first fire was due to start, a prison officer came to the door of the cell that Angus McGregor shared with Mickie White and the simple boy. He needed Brian Rogers. It was urgent.
The screw, called Jerry Kaye, was already suspicious because Billy Ford, who had told him where Rogers might be, appeared to be half-drunk, and had something hidden in his hand that could have been a knife. Kaye, a nervous, gangling man with a perennial money problem, was the bearer of bad news, in any case. White and the boy weren’t in the cell, but McGregor and Rogers were, and jovial, which didn’t reassure him. He expected Rogers to get angry, fast. Charles Lister was also in the cell.
‘Jerry,’ said Rogers, smiling. ‘What can we do for you? Come into our parlour.’
Kaye stepped across the threshold. The wet-eyed Englishman and the muscular American reminded him of bears, the smaller Scot some vicious, poison snake. He swallowed. He came straight to the point.
‘It’s bad news,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Brian, there’s a fuck-up going on. It’s a big fuck-up, I’ve had to pull the phone. It’s finished. There’s been appalling trouble.’
Angus McGregor, smoothly, moved around behind him. He stood between him and the door. Kaye felt panic rise.
‘What trouble?’ Rogers said. ‘What d’you mean? Has someone mentioned names?’
‘Oh no,’ replied the officer. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘But there’s something going on. Tomorrow, there’s going to be a total lock-down. The whole caboodle. Everyone’s going to be banged up. No privileges. There’ll probably be a search.’
He heard a click behind him. The Scot had closed the door.
‘Have you been talking?’ he said.
‘No! Look, McGregor – you shouldn’t have done that! The lads are nervous! They know I’m in here! You shouldn’t have closed that door!’
As he said it, there was a hammering outside. McGregor sprang forward, spun him round, seized him by the throat.
‘You cunt,’ he said. ‘You fucking stupid cunt.’
‘No! They’re not here yet! They’re on the other landing!’
From outside came a shout: ‘McGregor! Let me in, you Scotch prat! What’s going on?’
‘Fuck!’ spat Brian Rogers. ‘It’s Mickie White! Mac, for fuck’s sake let him go!’
McGregor pushed the prison officer away and wrenched the cell door open. Mickie White stood outside, belligerent and stupid. Across the hall, two officers had started to move. There was no doubt of their intention. They were coming round.
Inside the cell behind him, Angus McGregor heard a movement. He spun, and caught Kaye as he tried to barge past him to the balcony. He hit him, hard, in the stomach, and the officer fell back. Then McGregor grabbed Mickie White, hauling him backwards to block the entrance. As he did so, glancing right, he saw the officers speeding up, although still not running. They had the end of the hall to negotiate, then sixty yards of corridor.
‘Rogers!’ he said. ‘Out! They’re on their way. It’s going up.’
‘The fires!’ said Lister.
‘Too fucking late,’ McGregor said. ‘For fuck sake go!’ He and Rogers, pushing White before them, moved on to the balcony. They turned the old man towards the officers and propelled him with a shove in their direction. Below them, they could see upturned faces. It was early, but it could still work. If they could spark it before the screws got wise. If they could clear this floor and spread the word, the panic.
In the doorway of the cell, Jerry Kaye appeared, white-faced, his arm pushed up his back. They could not see Lister, but they knew he was there, assessing the situation. As the officers broke into a trot, Rogers shouted.
‘Charlie! They’re on their way! Do it, Charlie!’
God knows what was in Rogers’ mind, but Charlie did it. From the twisted face of Jerry Kaye there came an utterly appalling, bubbling scream. His lanky body abruptly shot across the narrow balcony, and jack-knifed across the iron rail. As it did so, a gush of blood sprayed from his neck, out into the open body of the hall, through the suicide net and down, down, down, catching in the strings, hanging, dripping, splashing on the tiles three floors below. And all the time he screamed, the choking, dreadful scream.
As Mickie White turned back towards his cell, Charles Lister hit him carefully underneath his chin and broke his neck. He then lifted the old man’s body and bounced it off the wall into the running prison officers. As one of them fell, his shoulder flipped Mickie onto the iron rail, where he balanced grotesquely for a moment before plunging into the net. Like a child on a trampoline, he progressed inelegantly from its outside edge into the middle in four or five short hops.
Then Lister, exhilarated, threw his fists above his head and shouted.
‘Come on, you guys! Let’s go!’
EIGHTEEN
The Mincing Machine. Lister leads
The response to Lister’s cry was instantaneous. The split second of shock produced by the sight of the old man’s body bouncing absurdly in the net gave way to a release of manic energy. Dozens of prisoners began to run about, to slam into each other, to shout. In unlocked doors, men in shirt-sleeves appeared, surveyed the chaos, and joined in. For most of them it was purely automatic, they knew no details. The pandemonium spread at terrific speed.
As the officers Charlie had knocked over began to clamber to their feet, they were overwhelmed by at least half a dozen prisoners. Despite the bleeding form of Jerry Kaye crumpled by the railing, the excitement was still sufficiently muted for their lives to be safe. At Lister’s direction they were stripped of their keys and locked into White’s cell.
Two other officers, who had rushed out of a corridor onto the same balcony, were similarly trapped. These, also, were lucky.
The speed of events made the officers’ task basically impossible. If AIan Hughes had been watching he could have taken satisfaction from the fact that at least one of his premises was totally correct. While McGregor and Rogers raced to rendezvous with their chosen teams, the sheer weight of aimless numbers meant the officers could not communicate, could not move fast enough, could not assess what needed to be done. The noise level was so high, the disorientation so great, that they were overwhelmed.
In the seconds before they could retrench, mentally and physically, it was often too late – they were seized, manhandled, thrown into cells. This aspect was far more successful than had seemed likely in the planning stage.
In C-hall alone, seventeen officers were locked up. Worse, from the control point of view, was that their keys were put to use immediately. For a short while, the prisoners worked in high spirits, and fast. Brutality was not on the agenda.
The spread to other halls and wings was also instantaneous. The moment the racket signalled a premature blow-up, the cadres of conspirators went into action. Here though, violence quickly became inevitable. The officers realise
d at the same time as the men that something had gone up, and moved fast and hard to prevent it spreading. A-hall was closed off before a single prisoner escaped into the main body, while in D and F-halls the officers were confronted with knives and other weapons. Through extraordinary courage they managed to face the prisoners without bloodshed, but inevitably they dropped back. In F-hall, as the officers gathered all their forces to protect the door and isolate the wing, they were charged from the front, then from the left. In three minutes of hand-to-hand fighting three officers were stabbed and four were badly slashed. All but two of them were taken hostage and locked into a single cell, where one of the stabbed men later bled to death.
It was not until about this point that the alarms began to ring. At the same time, fires were breaking out, and men were going on the rampage. Not only officers were potential targets any more. Some prisoners, when their doors were unlocked, were confronted by snarling men they did not want to see. In the segregation block, the nonces and inadequates, the VP’s who were in constant danger from the ‘normal’ prisoners, listened to the row in trepidation. The smell of smoke, in some of them, induced incipient panic that spilled easily into terror.
Hughes and Masters were alone in the Brain Cell when the riot started. As the noise grew they faced each other, almost unbelieving. Jerrold had left them ten minutes before, to see an acquaintance in the kitchen who owed him some big favour, to try and bum a cake or two from the supper batch. He figured they’d never get distributed, and he figured he and Hughes might go hungry when the place went up. He’d intended to be back well before the action started.
‘It’s happening!’ said Alan Hughes. ‘Something’s gone wrong! Christ – Jerrold’s out there!’
They hurried to the doorway and looked out. Men were thundering along the balcony and its twin opposite. Below them every balcony was swarming, every open cell disgorging prisoners. The main floor, far below, was a mass of grey and blue.
‘Fucking hell!’ said Masters. ‘There’s no fires, nothing! It’s anarchy!’
In the doorway at the end of the balcony they saw officers. There was a roar as more inmates raced to tackle them.
‘You’d better go the other way,’ said Hughes. ‘Mike, you’d better get your skates on, feller. Go.’
For one blinding moment, Masters thought he’d stay. The noise was rising by the second. There was madness in it, lunacy.
‘It won’t work,’ he said. ‘The skull beneath the skin.’
‘You can get out. You can escape. It’s what you wanted, Mike. For God’s sake, go.’
In the main hall there was furious fighting. The number of men involved seemed far higher than they had expected. It seemed impossible that the officers could hold it. Masters felt the pistol in his pocket and nearly gagged. He thrust his arm out and they shook hands almost passionately.
‘I won’t use it, Alan,’ he said. ‘The pistol.’
‘No,’ said Hughes. ‘Where’s Matthew? Where’s Matthew gone?’
He was distraught. As Masters began to move along the balcony, expecting to be challenged or seized at any moment, Hughes went to the edge and gripped the rail. The last words Masters heard from him were shouted into the howling void, lost, pathetic: ‘Matthew! Jerrold! Matthew!’
Matthew was in the servery when Lister’s shout set off the riot. He was not precisely welcome, but few prisoners would ever dare to cross him. The officers in the hotplate area, when they realised something was going on, also knew they were especially vulnerable. There were knives, cleavers, pans, skillets, open spaces. There were also gallons of hot water in the boilers, in preparation for the last tea serving of the day. The people in the cooking area were hand-picked for docility, but nothing could be relied on. Without much thought the officers began to clear the area, driving men before them urgently.
It might have worked. About half the kitchen staff went through the door, and most of the weapons were behind the officers’ lines before disaster struck. It came in the form of a concerted rush of inmates from D-hall, who had finally broken free of the wall of officers trying to contain them. The kitchen and servery were between them and the admin block, which was behind the main gate. D-hall contained some of the most violent and determined men. The kitchen implements would not be left behind.
As the phalanx of furious, excited inmates came sweeping into the servery, Jerrold recognised his danger. D-hall was a ‘white wing’, with many inmates who attacked or verballed black or Asian prisoners on sight. A whoop went up from ten or fifteen throats when he was spotted, and a chair originally destined to be hurled at screws was redirected at his head. Jerrold ducked and ran towards the officers, but their faces were contorted also, in fear or hatred, and he leapt sideways before he reached them, vaulting through a hot-plate hatchway.
He was in the preparation room. Behind him were three rows of shining stainless steel tables, flanked by tall, polished cupboards. There were few men left, and they were panicking, blundering among the tables, trying to reach the doors. But to one side officers charged through to cut off Jerrold, and at the cooking end, D-hall men seized pans and steels and heavy trays, and hunted him with joy. As he ran towards a high cabinet which he hoped to climb, he passed a butcher’s cleaver. As he fell, under raining, savage blows, it crossed his mind how appropriate it would have been for him to use it, as he was meant to have done at Buckingham Estate. He died quite philosophically, dazed then dulled by the crashes to his skull. He wished he had not left the company of Alan Hughes.
*
Admin block. Richard Pendlebury
It was more than four minutes after the riot started that the governor knew for certain his disaster had finally occurred. Throughout the afternoon, and especially since tea-time, most officers had been aware that there was trouble not far below the surface, that could erupt. But for many reasons, the men who might have warned Pendlebury did not care to. In some ways, it was a case of getting even, of being able to show him, yet again, as out of touch with the realities. But it was more than that. He and Christopher Abbey were at the point of open enmity, and Abbey could not have borne it if he had warned of trouble, and trouble had not come. When Kaye and White were murdered, when Lister raised his arms and yelled, Abbey and his fellows had been simply swamped.
As Pendlebury listened to the growing hubbub, Deputy Governor lan Serple knocked briefly and looked in. The noise grew louder.
‘Sir,’ he said.
Pendlebury ran past him, through the outer office, and opened the door. There was a long corridor in front of him, carpeted in green. There were stout oak doors at the other end, and to the sides. The noise was frightening, reverberant.
‘Sir,’ repeated Serple, at his elbow now. ‘It’s a riot. Should I…?’
Other members of the admin team appeared along the corridor. Pendlebury made a gesture with his hand, a stupid, pointless gesture. He noticed that there were no women staff, and he was glad.
‘We mustn’t overreact,’ he said. ‘It’s not the first one we’ve had. There are no alarms yet. Go into your offices, please, and – no, forget that. Come into the conference room. There’s a fire-escape from there.’
One of the five men said purposefully: ‘Sir, we ought at least to check.’
He began to move towards the farthest door, but slowly, as if he’d rather be called back.
‘Bennett!’ snapped Pendlebury. ‘There’s a procedure! The officers will not thank you to interfere. Come. Now.’
As Serple led the admin staff into the conference room, Pendlebury returned to his office. His mind felt dulled, stupid. Where were the officers? Where were his reports? He reached for the internal phone, to ring the duty room. Ridiculous; nobody would be there. Over the noise of shouting, the drumming on cell doors, the alarm bells started, sharp, insistent, and he reached for another phone. He began to dial the number of the local police. It was agreed procedure. They would alert the main station, thirteen miles away, and cars would be despatched immedia
tely. But how many were needed? How bad was it? Would the sight of policemen just make things worse?
He put the receiver down and pressed the button marked E on his automatic phone pad. E for Emergency. The number of the nearest Army and Royal Air Force bases snapped into view, with the codeword to activate their responses. Serple was re-entering the room when they heard the door at the far end of the block crash open, and Arthur Probert burst in, followed by an officer called Les Rix. Both men were an odd, pasty colour, Probert looking old and sick. He had only been back on duty for three days.
‘Sir! It’s a... it’s…’
Pendlebury, breathing shallowly, flapped his hand to shut him up. He began to tell Serple to lock what doors he could, but his call connected. A young, efficient- sounding voice announced a name and rank, and asked his business.
‘This is Richard Pendlebury. I am the governor of Bowscar Jail, at Bowscar, Staffordshire. Do you know the meaning of the codename Operation Cicero?’
There was the briefest of pauses.
‘Yes, sir. Is it go?’
‘Thank you,’ said Pendlebury. The relief was unbearable. ‘Thank you, yes it is. Should I talk to someone else?’
‘No, sir, that’s unnecessary. Just hang on one moment.’
Across the table, the governor met Probert’s eyes, which were wide and frightened. He looked like death. Pendlebury tried to smile, to be reassuring, and failed. The voice came back onto the line.
‘Are you in a position to give details, sir? It’s a matter of knowing what to send. Is it a full alert?’
At the far end of the corridor there were shouts, crashes, screams. Les Rix dashed to the office door and back again, like a caged animal. Probert said, ‘For God’s sake, sir! There’s murder being done! They’re killing us!’
