The hut door swung open with a loud bang. Into the room came a strong, cold draught of damp air, a few icy snowflakes, and a tall, thin man dressed in heavy jacket, gloves, hat and a scarf.
A group of men were huddled in a corner next to the heater. It wasn’t much of a heater, but in the current weather conditions, it was like a roaring open fire. A sign on the wall said “welcome to Colditz RDC”.
The men stopped their whispering, and looked up to see who had entered.
“I say chaps, it’s a bit nippy out there tonight,” said Ginger, who had just entered the room.
“Shut that bloody door” replied lofty “it’s taken us 3 hours to get this heater working.”
“Any goons about?” asked Nobby.
“Nah” replied Ginger “they are all in the canteen stuffing their faces”
“Righty ho!” said Roger “let’s get this over with before they come back. Now is everyone here?”
“All except Smithy, he’s doing a stretch in the cooler, apparently he offered to go and unload his own truck” answered Lofty.
“Right then” said Roger “let’s start, as chairman of the escape committee, I call the meeting to order. Now chaps, anyone got any news on chalky?”
“Yes” said Nobby. “I got a postcard from Spain in the last mail shot”
“Oh I say! Spiffing good news what, cracking wheeze of Chalky to steal one of the goons uniforms, and smuggle himself out driving on of their trucks” Said Roger.
The windows rattled in the wind, and an icy blast spread itself around the room reminding them that they were still stuck in the winter of northern Europe, and they each imagined chalky sitting on a beach in Spain, surrounded by young nubile maidens.
The hut was littered with old coffee cups, some newspapers and magazines that had that well-read look were scattered around the tables, and there were a few cheap chairs in various states of disrepair and an overflowing bin in one corner.
“Now lofty how is Annie coming on?” asked Roger. Annie was the code name for the tunnel that had been started from the toilet block.
“Problems I’m afraid Rog, we are still about 30 yards from the fence, and Charlie miscalculated the direction as we were digging underneath the guardhouse. We’ve had to start off at an angle to avoid the underground fuel tanks” Replied Lofty.
Ginger helped himself to a coffee, and wrapped both hands around the cup. The coffee machine gurgled loudly. Ginger took a mouthful of the lukewarm liquid and grimaced, it was called coffee, but it certainly didn’t taste like it.
“Listen Roger, I’ve an idea” said ginger. “It’s along the lines of chalkys escape method only we don’t need to steal uniforms”
“Tell us more” Said Roger.
“Well, I reckon if we could get hold of some ink, we could use it to dye our uniforms the same shade as the goons. Now I was talking to Alfie a while ago, he was telling me how he used to be a tailor and he reckons he could knock up a few badges that would fool the goons into thinking we were one of them from a distance. And Billy used to be in the printing trade, he thinks, if we can get hold of one of the goons I.D. badges, he could whip up a few passable copies.”
“OK” said Roger.” And how do you plan to get out?”
“Well, we wait until the shift change, the security guards don’t know all the goons by sight, and I’ve never seen them being counted, so maybe a few of us could infiltrate them. If we do it when the old shift goes off, they are always in such a hurry to get down the bar, I’m sure no one would notice” Said ginger.
“Not sure I like the idea, what do the rest of you think? “Asked Roger.
“Well it’s worth a try, maybe just a couple of guys” said Nobby. “I would like to try the roof top route again”
“Hmm, that didn’t go too well last time we tried” said Roger. “Remember how old biffo got his braces caught on the barb wire”
“yes” replied Nobby, “but this time I want to try something different. If we can get the lads to bring in pieces of those old pallets stacked outside, we could build a glider and fly over the fence.
Just then, the door crashed open and a familiar face entered the room.
“Chalky!” They all exclaimed. “What the flip you doing back here?” asked nobby.
“Well it was like this; I made it as far as Almeria, with a couple of drops in Barcelona on the way, and was headed back when I got caught just outside of Paris. Collect a load of golden delicious for Tasburysons in colditz, just my bleedin luck!”
Just then a hatch in the wall slid open, and a bored sounding female voice was heard.
“Driver on bay 14, here’s your keys and paperwork” Shouted the female.
For a moment no one reacted. It was such an unusual event for someone to be released. Ginger suddenly brightened up, it was his bay number, he was free, finally he was able to leave the supermarket RDC and get on his way!
