Jack Laurence

Luckily, though, David had essentially managed to buy himself a much quieter room with just a few cellmates.

So he has his room of somewhat trusty cellmates, but he would only have the help of one of them, a Swede named Sten, who was initially supposed to go with him on the escape, but would back out after seeing what had happened to another group who had been caught escaping a separate prison.

Before plan B, it was time to put into action plan A. At midnight, David got started on his escape and instantly realises this is going to be harder than he thought.

Finally, David was out, his face looking up into the night sky.

An instant feeling comes across him that he is no longer one of them.

He is no longer an inmate.

In fact, he looks back into the cell he's just escaped from, looking at those men's faces as if they're strangers.

But of course, he's still an inmate, and there is still a long way to go, and time was running out before daylight.

He uses the cell's bookshelf, which was just an old building plank, and pokes it out into the night sky.

He would need to slide across this to get far enough out so as to avoid an extremely delicate and crumbling awning below.

He slides down the army webbing to the ground below, flicks it clear of the plank.

As Sten, the Swede, pulls it back into the room, he calls down to David.

Send me a postcard.

None of the men in that room ever thought he would get very far.

But off into the night he goes.

He has a rough idea of where the guards were and had a few dummy runs as best he could.

However, the trouble was these had to be done previously during the day.

Woof, woof, woof.

The world is a much different place at night.

So off he goes.