The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill

one of the shift squatted in front of the pump and started the rhythmic rowing action. Two men whipped off their clothes and changed into filthy long woolen underclothes. One of them lay on his belly on the trolley and wheeled himself up to the working face with a dog-paddle motion of his hands. The other hauled the trolley back by the rope and paddled himself up to the face. The fourth man back at the base of the shaft hauled the trolley back, clipped the sand boxes on, and the rear man in the tunnel hauled it back up to the face.
    There was no room to turn around in the tunnel or lie side by side. Digger No. 1 lay full length and dug into the face, and as the sand piled up by his head, he pushed it down past his hips until Digger No. 2 (lying facing the other way — toward the shaft) could scrape it toward him and load it into the boxes on the trolley. When the boxes were full, he tugged on the rope and the man in the base of the shaft hauled it back, whipped the boxes off, and emptied them into kit bags stacked in the dispersal chamber. He put the boxes back on the trolley, tugged the rope, and Digger No. 2 hauled it back to the face.
    The man in the shaft spent most of his time finishing off the slots and tongues cut by the carpenters in the ends of the bedboards stored in the workshop chamber. When a new shoring frame or piece of air pipe or fresh fat lamp was needed, Digger No. 2 sent a note back on the trolley, and back came what he wanted.
    They worked without a break below till evening appell. If they wanted any lunch, they took it down with them. Mostly they didn’t. Lunch was usually a slice of black bread and a couple of potatoes; at its best it still tasted like black bread and potatoes, and seasoned with sand it was even worse.
    Now and then they switched jobs to ease the muscles and the tedium. Digging was the worst. You had a fat lamp by your head, you sniffed the fumes all day, and when you came back up again you did nothing but spit black. The pumps relieved this a lot. At the end of the air line there was a transferable nozzle which led up over the shoulder of the digger, gave him plenty of fresh air, and kept sand out of the air pipe itself. When another section of pipe was being fitted, the nozzle was taken off, the new pipe laid under the floor, and the nozzle put back.
    Lightly-built diggers changed places by one lying flat and the other crawling over him, but with hefty characters like Tom Kirby-Green they had to wheel themselves back to the shaft to change over. It was surprisingly warm below, and the diggers were in a constant sweat.
    Sometimes a ferret wandered near the trap, and then the alarm tin in the shaft gave a soft rattle. Everyone froze where he was because sometimes muffled sounds of work below could be heard on top. They lay there without moving until the tin rattled again as the ferret moved away and they carried on.
    The warning tin hung from the roof of the dispersal chamber. There were a couple of little pebbles in it and a string from it led up the shaft through the hut floor not far from the trap. It needed just a gentle tug from the stooge above whenever a ferret was approaching to rattle the pebbles.
    About four-thirty the tunnelers changed into their ordinary clothes below and tried to comb the sand out of their hair. Above, the stooges drifted along to keep guard, and a German speaker stood by to lure away any ferret hanging about the trap areas. When they got the all clear the trapfuehrers opened up, the tunnelers came out, and the traps were shut. The tunnelers washed off any telltale sand in their huts and went on appell with everyone else.
    After appell Block X’s searched their huts again, the duty stooges kept watch, the traps were opened, and the second shift went below. They laid new rails, replaced any shoring frames that needed it, swept surplus sand out of the tunnels, and checked the fat lamps and the pump.
    Travis had made two spirit levels, and every evening they