Escape Read online

  The group’s escape plan had been only days in discussion. Included were three whose cases were sure to bring death penalties. Their leader, a muscled Thai experienced with running street gangs, had practiced terrorising others of their dormitory. Another Thai was included not only for supplying a saw and wire cutters but for the certainty he would otherwise talk. Most importantly a Chinese-Singaporean; a man with money. Of the five he had been the last to have his chains removed, just one week earlier. Quan had been buying services and favours since the day he found himself in the New Petchburi Road police station. He had every reason to believe that if anything went wrong he would be able to pay his way out of trouble. Even so, his earlier failure to buy off the Thai trial court should have told him something.

  A week before the big night Quan had engineered a high-stakes dice game in the dormitory to include the least-trusted trusty and the keyless key boy. He’d let them win for a few nights to make them careless. Then when they lost, they lost big. Quan promised to forgive their THB9,000 debt and to reward them with five times that amount if they co-operated. Quan would have said fifty times but he had feared they might then doubt his word.

  All prisoners in Bumbudt are locked in their dormitories by five in the evening. On the day of the jump, four hours later, from behind a huddle of blankets, the cutting began. With top prisoners it was not unusual to see a blanket tied to the window mesh and the other end tied at forty-five degrees to the floor making a one-man tent. These tents were more often occupied by two and dormitory etiquette ignored sounds of straining from within.

  By ten that evening the mesh had been cut but it would be another three hours before the second of two bars could be hacksawed through. Those few who noticed the five whispering prisoners creep beyond the narrow gap were so paralysed with fear that they then willed themselves into an exhausted sleep.

  Over the weeks leading up to this night Quan had extracted enthusiastic promises of help from criminal acquaintances in Bangkok. More than one promised to drive to Klong Prem and park near the highway flyover to wait throughout the weekend nights. In addition two of the Thais had promised to arrange a mobile phone to co-ordinate the pick-up. Despite these assurances Quan felt certain that nothing and no one would materialise. Nothing had and his private plan was to separate from the others at the first dark corner. Then to speed to his girlfriend’s house by taxi. He, after all, had the money. The others should be grateful he was getting them out, especially the younger of his case partners who Quan thought was responsible for their arrest at the hotel, way back when.

  Yet there remained the wall.

  The group moved quietly behind the prison kitchen. They began crawling over an old two-metre plank that bridged the sewer canal. The heaviest among them cracked the plank causing the final crawler to fall with a mucous splash into the septic black water. He climbed out spluttering and retching with slime and wrinkly plastic bags clinging to his clothes. In his haste to climb from the sewer the young Thai had waded back to the jail-side bank, so had to step back through the mire.

  By then at the wall Quan peered up to the electrified runs of barbed wire atop the wall. They had brought a blanket to shield themselves from the current. A blanket now wet. A blanket Quan could now see would serve only to catch the barbs and make the climb more difficult. The team leader decided to cut the blanket to make their rope longer. He soon gave up, frustrated with the dull knife and wet blanket.

  For fifteen minutes the team wandered along the wall boundary searching for long poles or a ladder. The older among them knew that this was the most unlikely place to find such things. The questions began.

  ‘Quan,’ growled the large Thai. ‘What time do the kitchen workers begin, mister know-it-all?’

  ‘Six,’ Quan guessed. ‘Do you think you can take two on your shoulders?’

  ‘Two? Easily. But what about me?’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll pull you up by the blanket!’

  The moment soon arrived when the emptiness of promises and assumptions echoed with danger. Such words had once been a comfort. Now they were ever so pointless.

  With the strongest forming a base and the combined height of two more shaking and grabbing at air, their human scaffolding reached no more than half the height of the wall. After trying a few more combinations, the five found themselves breathless and panting, huddled below the final barrier. One spoke for them all:

  ‘Okay. Now at least we know what we need. Better we get back inside and try again tomorrow night.’ The speaker was praying for the dull simplicity of a morning doughnut and coffee, as would happen any normal day.

  Without further words the group began walking along the roadway back to their dormitory. The prisoner caked with shit paused near the kitchen to run his head under water from a tap. From the distance came the unmistakable sound of a key unlocking a gate. The group reacted to this without speaking and oddly slowed in their mournful return walk.

  Arriving at Building Four they saw the night guard sitting up on his night-duty bed, smoking the first of the day. He stared ahead, oblivious to the creatures that should not be there. They looked at the tree they must climb to their dormitory. They should have been thinking about the rope that needed re-attaching to the window ledge but they were not. They looked at the cut stumps of the bars and thought of the questions and calamity from their former roommates.

  Quan kept his eyes on the sleepy guard as he spoke softly to his confederates. ‘It’s up to you guys what you want to do. I’m going to talk to Samang.’ To himself Quan said, ‘This is going to cost me.’ He hoped he could now separate himself from the others. Drained by fear the others would not easily separate themselves from Quan, the one with the money.

  ‘Sounds good,’ murmured a voice.

  ‘Looks better if we turn ourselves in,’ seconded another.

  ‘I’m with you,’ joined a third. ‘I’ve got to wash. I stink!’

  A minute later the five stood silently before Samang, the guard. The images of cut bars and twisted mesh fogged in their minds but not to Samang whose eyes widened in shocked pulses. He looked at the gang in disbelief, yielding to fear as daylight rose.

  ‘Samang. Something crazy’s happened,’ Quan reasoned. ‘I’ve got to talk to you. I know you’ll want to help ...’

  Samang was not listening. The moment of uncertainty had passed. The guard knew that even after wringing every last coin out of Quan, he would barely survive this treason with his small world intact.

  Big Bill got out of bed and dressed. That meant standing up from the floor and pulling on a T-shirt. He then felt under his blanket for the yellow form he had been worrying about as he fell asleep the previous night. It was a questionnaire from Amnesty International.

  ‘Dave, take a look at this, will you?’

  ‘Just a moment.’ I was at the dormitory bars trying to find out why we were an hour late being let out. Trouble in another building was all the key boy would say.

  Bill had put the forms aside as I sat next to him. He was inspecting his ankles for damage, a leper’s daily routine. ‘Look at those questions: Can you name the person who tortured you? Give the location and address where this took place. These people want names! I’ll bet the Thais would like me giving names. And to think of the trouble I had sneaking my letter out to Amnesty.’

  ‘You weren’t tortured, were you Bill?’ Calvin asked.

  ‘No. But, you know.’

  We didn’t and Bill was disappointed to hear that Amnesty International did not involve itself easily in individual cases. It wanted data for its reports. The lobbyists would not fund his legal representation.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Calvin reassured Big Bill. ‘If the Thais kill you for sending back the questionnaire, Amnesty’s sure to be severely critical in its next report. Every little death helps.’

  It was almost eleven that morning before we were allowed downstairs. The cooks began speeding about, not just to make up for lost time but in unspoken fear of some sud
den end to the day. I found the Captain already lounging on his beach recliner. The Captain was a Thai skipper scooped from the Gulf by the navy with his fishing trawler loaded with almost a tonne of heroin. Already five years under trial with no sign of an end. He told me of the escape attempt from Building Four.

  ‘They’re crazy guys,’ the Captain spoke to the sky. ‘They turned themselves in. Better they died on the wire. They’re upstairs in the soi.’ The soi referred to the five-foot long, two-foot wide steel boxes that lined the corridor of the top floor. The term soi, meaning street, came from early days when punishment cages were kept in the jail’s open streets. These days too many outside visitors passed within those streets.

  ‘They give them elephant chains. Then they kick the shit out of them till they no shit.’ The Captain let a hand drop to the ground in waves of defeat. He rarely sat upright and mostly let his arms complete descriptions.

  Soi prisoners could spend up to three months in the lightless boxes, trying to survive on a bowl of rice each day with a litre of water for drinking and washing. A one-gallon paint tin was a toilet, supposedly emptied every third day. Rather than the soi, most prisoners would readily accept an alternative of even some humiliating, painful and often permanently damaging public torment by cane, boot or truncheon. Such options were not available to these would-be escapers. For them the very worst of everything was considered too good for those threatening the livelihoods of the guards.

  Any fascination with torture is utterly exorcised from those exposed to its reality. Describing its detail becomes an anathema as prospective torturers listen keenly from a million black corners of the earth. Yet as with a sudden car crash, the shutter may fall on the images but the sounds remain. The image carries only haunting dread. On the soundtrack, a warning calls.

  That morning an intrusive quiet rippled through the hundreds massed at ground level. The escapers had been brought to the soi boxes above Building Two. We heard the sound of a boot on the thin steel wall of a soi box. Then, a rising triple tap with a club on box One. Then upon Two through to Five. Whose turn would it be? Key sounds: the drop of a padlock then a steel creak and the clunking drag of heavy iron links. Links scraping over the doorframe of a box. Some muted words. Silence.

  Then the air being cut with a cane: a wide, low whistle that only the longest sticks create. A breathless pause before the scream.

  Down among us there are whisperers. Coffee sipped quietly. Workers working smoothly, not wanting to mask the top-floor sounds with the clatter of the bosses’ industry. I can see pity in some workers’ hands. They fold their paper boxes with a special speed and care. There is a system to it and so there can be an end.

  The key boy—a trusty who has given many punishments and witnessed many more—steps lightly downstairs. He sits on a step almost at the bottom. He looks aside and then inspects his keys. Even he has been sent away.

  The sounds of both impact and scream change. The cane no longer makes the handclap or the slapping sound. It is muted as though sharply angled, striking with tip into something soft. The report multiple, divided, close to a mashing. The scream high-pitched, so high it must go beyond our range. But I’m wrong, it does go higher, then becomes strangulated, and then ceases. Now only blows are heard. A silence arrives although hard to say when.

  Professional boot steps. A kick and a thud at once. Again the same. Then a last slicing of air from the cane. No scream, although there was some living sound.

  I looked to Calvin. He was white with rage and fear. I felt bloodless and heavy. The key boy is called up and springs to his feet. The guard has met him halfway and whispers instructions. The trusty strides upstairs, his long fingers gripping his keys. I moved closer to Calvin. He spoke first.

  ‘Jeez, Dave. It makes you sick.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do. It’s Thai business they’ll say.’ It seemed right just to babble at Calvin. A familiar voice. ‘This is different from normal. Remember last week with Martyn and the picture?’

  ‘Yeah. Scumbag was gonna deck him and he hadn’t done a thing.’

  ‘Sure. Mostly just happened to be there when the big picture fell over. Only scratched the lacquer. Not his fault anyway. He hadn’t touched it. A few baht and all’s forgiven. This—this is different. They embarrassed the guards. Holy wars have been fought over embarrassment.’

  Calvin stared at me blankly and then raised his eyes to the upper floors. ‘One of them was Quan, the Singapore guy.’ Calvin had played a chess game or two with the clever one of the escape team.

  ‘Maybe that’s good, an embassy and all,’ I suggested. ‘Except back home they would have hanged him by now.’

  ‘Fuck you, too, Dave!’ But Calvin wrenched a wan smile from somewhere looking for a cause.

  Of the five only Quan would survive. He had begun bargaining and paying from the outset but only as the others began to die did his keepers listen. Ultimately all he bought himself was a death sentence in Bangkwang.

  Quan’s misfortune provided an excuse to speak of ways out with Dean Reed. With those foreigners who live in Thailand, the more sophisticated the home country compared to the chosen land of exile, the weirder becomes the expatriate. American Dean was stranger than most. He claimed to have taught at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University and he must have been close to someone who had. Dean understood the confusion many Asian students feel when asked to write essays arguing against existing customs. Their sense of unfairness at having to devise ideas that had not been taught. Dean’s conversations would flutter from tree stump to garden post so it was difficult to steer him onward. Even so he was the one foreigner I was sure would soon be released. He knew the people of Thailand and had local contacts, even if they might happily lynch him for whatever blatant swindle he had last pulled on them.

  ‘I try to tell people but they don’t understand,’ Dean would usually begin. ‘That Quan. There won’t be much fluff left on his blanket. But anything’s possible in Thailand. You know the judges used to drive their Mercedeses to court but too obvious in the car park so now those big, curtained buses are for their Honours. Now don’t worry about how guilty everyone looks in court in chains and bare feet. It’s who’s standing behind you that counts. Be careful about royalty, too. You know even ministers had to crawl out backwards from His Majesty until the 1930s. Born not far from me in Cambridge before the War. Married in Switzerland then came back here to the palace and his brother was shot. All the servants locked up then executed. So you see? Don’t do anything embarrassing. Some tourist was arrested for lèse-majesté for spilling a drink on a plane near the princess. Did I tell you I had dinner once with a judge? At the Oriental. French chef, you know, and I’m sure it has two courgettes in the Michelin Guide. I know I can fix your case, even bail. It’s only money. Not my lawyer, you won’t want to use him. You’ll need a fixer. Can you be sick? The doctor here can write reports for the court. Doesn’t cost much.’

  From the stairs a thin, grey-skinned prisoner staggered down. Paint tin of shit in hand, he had no energy to lift the chains that dragged around his feet. This sight presented a break in Dean’s presentation.

  ‘Isn’t that one of the five?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Just a soi boy. One of the regulars.’

  ‘Dean, do you know of anyone who’s succeeded where they failed?’

  For the first time Dean’s pace slowed. ‘No, David. That doesn’t happen here. There was something a couple of years ago from the court but that was a disaster in the end. Now look—don’t worry. It’s Thailand. Everything’s possible with money.’

  The soi boy was, by then, over by the water tanks, cleaning his paint tin. Some of the foreigners were examining him from a distance. His skin was a dry rubber, the tattoos of Buddhist luck phrases faded to a smudged blue. From my compatriots’ faces I could see thoughts of escape had been buried. Eddie came over to remark upon the soi boy declining any food or help.

  ‘He wouldn’t even answer me,’ noted Eddie.


  ‘Oh, that one,’ Dean said of the grey prisoner, ‘he hasn’t spoken a word for months. I don’t think he ever will.’

  4

  Another day of a court appearance began as usual standing in a queue to have chains fitted. Ahead, a brawny Thai sat on a low stool surrounded by a pile of half-metre lengths of rusting chains. Beside him was a box of C-shaped ankle rings.

  Prisoners would sit opposite, looking away as the chain-man hammered tight the ankle ring resting on a small anvil. His aim was usually true and improved when given a few cigarettes.

  There was a brief delay in the line while arrangements were made for a one-legged man. A compromise was finally settled with the real leg chained to the artificial limb, although he was then permitted to use his crutches so that he could walk. Unfortunately this caused such difficulty he then had to remove the prosthetic leg and carry it under one arm. To the guards this seemed a stretching of the rule but he was allowed to go, providing he promised to keep one end of the chain attached to the leg carried under his arm.

  A packet of Krong Thip filters bought me a set of polished chains and by eight in the morning I was with the others waiting for transport, squatting at the internal roadway. I was seated with Daniel, the only other foreigner due for court that day. Daniel, when he spoke at all, would talk of distant and irrelevant things. Today it was of the sour week held in the police station. He was speaking of a small grill that covered a lightless window high in the cell.

  ‘It had some bolts holding it in place,’ Daniel said as he stared at his feet. ‘Rusted, of course, and unmoved since being tightened what, thirty years earlier. They were covered in a fuzz of dust. Held there—the dust I mean—by the oils from body heat rising over time. Never touched in all those years. Never brushed.’

  ‘Well, they’re not big on cleaning in police cells,’ I said before moving back on the guttering to allow a heavy sand truck to pass in front.

  ‘That’s not what I mean,’ Daniel began.