right,â I said. âIâll go down and spring him when Dave brings him out again.â I turned to Tommy Dugdale. âTommy, you grab his keys and lock the gate after Iâve pushed him out.â Tommy agreed to the nomination. A second later Dave came out of his cell and walked over to the TV room door and said: âHeâs locking the poxy gate now. Iâve checked it.â From behind Ray I said: âFor fuckâs sake, tell him itâs not right and go back in and fix it again. When you come out grab him to stop him locking it again. Iâll be right on you as you do.â Dave couldnât back out with all the eyes in the TV room on him. âYouâre sure?â he said. âIâll be there, Dave. Donât worry.â Dave nodded. Then he walked off back to the gate. When Ray told me that Dave and the PO had disappeared into the office I left the TV room and strolled down to Georgeâs cell, which was about eight feet from the catwalk. It suddenly struck me as I got near to Georgeâs cell: there wasnât a sign of a screw on the landing. I looked up. The Threes were deserted as well. But there was no time to sort the implications because I heard Dave and the PO start to leave the office. I dodged into Georgeâs cell. Lenny Monks was waiting in there with him. Their eyes nearly dropped into their trays of bread pudding. âWhat the fuckâs happening?â George said. âChange of plan,â I said. âSo whatâsââ âFor fuckâs sake, George,â He shut up. The footsteps stopped. The keys jingled. Then the lock was turned. Now the door was open. I pounded out of Georgeâs cell screaming my bloody head off. The screaming had the desired effect; the PO froze and stared at me as if heâd never seen anything like it in his life. I was vaguely aware of all the other cons streaming out behind me but I was so intent on my own business that the racket they were making was as faint in my ears as the sound of the sea in a conch-shell. Dave grabbed the PO. Then the PO unfroze and with hardly any trouble at all threw Dave off his back. Dave hit the floor kidneys first. All the breath flew from his body. But luckily Dave had chopped the POâs wrist with a canteen knife before heâd wrestled him and the PO had let go of the keys which were attached to his belt. The PO scrambled for them and he was halfway to the lock when I got to the gate. I didnât slow down. I angled myself and grasped the bars and kept going. The edge of the gate smashed the POâs fore-arm against his chest. He turned green but Iâll give him this, he still tried to make it. He grabbed one of the bars with his free hand just as I hit the gate, so he didnât go over the way Iâd intended. Instead he clung on to the gate and tried to pull himself up even as I was coming through it. He was wasting his time. I twisted round the gate and picked him up by his middle, pinning his arms to his sides. I slammed his shoulders against the wall. âBehave your fucking self,â I said. âDonât forget your nice supperâs waiting for you in the oven.â By now the others were stampeding across the catwalk. Tommy was first through the gate and began to rip the keys from the POâs belt. Everyone started pouring through the gate, faces like hysterical gargoyles. When Tommy had got the keys I began to push the PO out. Iâve seen films of salmon swimming upstream against a strong current and thatâs just how the PO went through that gate, swimming. Any help I gave him was superfluous. I doubt if heâd ever wanted anything as badly as he wanted to get through that gate before it was locked. His arms were flailing against the surging cons as if he was trying to do the breast-stroke. As the last of the cons were getting in and he was getting out I saw the vanguard of the heavy mob streaming down