40

A Rope of Knickers

The next evening, Jack was sat up on the top bunk in his bedroom. Under his pillow he had hidden a large serving spoon he had swiped from the school cafeteria at lunchtime. He had stuffed it down his trousers, which made him limp like he had a wooden leg.

As his model planes dangled around his head, the boy felt torn. He had promised his grandfather he would make another of his secret visits to Twilight Towers later that night. However, even with a bigger spoon, Grandpa had a less than zero chance of escape. The only point the boy could see of carrying on with the whole charade was so that the old man would not lose hope. Because without hope Grandpa would have nothing. Perhaps Grandpa could live out his days digging his tunnel, dreaming of an escape that would never come? thought Jack. As much as he hated Twilight Towers and the sinister Miss Swine, the boy didn’t have another plan. Talking to his parents again had been no use. They believed their son had an overactive imagination after spending so much time with his dotty grandfather. To them, this sounded like just another one of their fantasies.

So, regular as clockwork now, the boy waited for night to fall. Then he grabbed the serving spoon and climbed out of his bedroom window. But when he arrived at Twilight Towers, he noticed something worrying. The drainpipe that he had used before to climb up to the window of Grandpa’s dormitory had been yanked off the wall. It was now lying in bits on the gravel. Were Matron and her army of nurses on to him? This was his only means of scaling the building. Frightened he would be walking into a trap that might land his grandfather in deeper trouble, the boy decided to leave immediately. But just as he was crawling back across the lawn, Jack heard a noise coming from the roof.

CREAK…

It was the sound of a little wooden door opening. Was it Miss Swine or one of her nurses? Had Jack been busted?

Looking up, he spied a figure on top of the building clambering out of a tiny hatch.

It was Grandpa!

Still in his pyjamas, the old man was trying to squeeze himself through the hatch hole. The opening was small. As he forced himself through, his pyjama bottoms slipped down, exposing his saggy behind.

Grandpa crawled on to the roof and stood up. As soon as he had regained his balance, he hoisted up his pyjama bottoms.

The roof had quite a slope to it, and as a wicked winter wind blew across the moors, the old man wobbled on his way down to the roof edge.

Jack called up to his grandfather as quietly as he could, “What on earth are you doing up there?”

The old man looked puzzled for a moment as to where this voice was coming from.

“Down here!”

“Oh! Squadron Leader! There you are! But I think you mean, ‘What on earth are you doing up there, SIR?’ Let’s not forget our manners, just because there is a war on.”

“Apologies – what on earth are you doing up there, sir?” the boy called.

“The Kommandant suspected something was up. Had the whole camp searched from top to bottom. One of the guards found the tunnel I had dug in the basement. Well I say ‘tunnel’ – the scrapings on the stone floor I had made with the spoon. Now they know there is an escape afoot. Earlier, guards burst into our cells and ripped everything apart. Darn and blast them all. Smashed up furniture, upturned beds, looking for clues.”

“Did they find the spoon?”

“No! I just managed to hide it by clenching it between my buttocks. It was the one place they didn’t look! But I couldn’t hold it there any longer. So I had to make a new plan. I escape tonight!”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, Squadron Leader.”

“But, sir, how are you going to get down from there? You are four floors up.”

“Yes. Shame I didn’t pack my parachute. But I did manage to tie together this!” With that, the old man scuttled back to the hatch, and pulled out what looked like a rope of some sort. On closer inspection it wasn’t a rope at all. In fact, it was thirty or so pairs of frilly knickers Grandpa had tied together.

“Where did you get all those knickers from, sir?”

“They’re not mine, Squadron Leader. If that is what you are trying to say?!”

“No, sir!” replied the boy. Still it was an awful lot of knickers, or to use the correct term, ‘knickerage’.

“I found them all hanging up to dry in the laundry room!” continued Grandpa. “Dozens of pairs of ladies’ knickers, there were! All in extra-large sizes. Most queer!”

The old man began to uncurl his makeshift rope and let it out slowly until it reached the ground.

Oh no, thought Jack, my elderly grandfather is going to abseil down a building using only some frilly knickers.

“Please be careful, Grandpa, I mean Wing Commander, sir.”

From his position on the ground Jack watched as his grandfather tied his end of the rope of knickers around the bell tower at the top of Twilight Towers.

“Make sure the knot won’t come undone, sir!” called up the boy.

The old RAF officer didn’t appreciate being challenged like this. “I know my way around a pair of ladies’ knickers, thank you very much, Squadron Leader!”

Grandpa tugged on the rope of knickers a few times to make sure it was secure. Next he held on tight with both hands, and started to lower himself down the side of the building. The silk of the knickers was surprisingly strong – it held his weight easily.

Little by little he descended to the ground.

For a moment, it looked like disaster had struck when Grandpa lost his footing. One of his slippers slipped on the wet bricks, and fell off his foot. It hit Jack on the head on the way down.

THUNK!

“Sincere apologies for that, Squadron Leader.”

Jack picked up the slipper and held on to it –mightily impressed by the old man’s strength and agility – until Grandpa reached the ground. The boy saluted him as he always did, and handed over his slipper as if it was a medal.

The man unbuttoned his pyjamas to reveal he was wearing his blazer and slacks underneath.

“Thank you, old boy!” said Grandpa, as he pushed his foot back into his slipper.

Jack looked across the grounds of Twilight Towers. The searchlights were circling at the far end. If they moved quickly, they had a chance of not being seen and making it over the wall and to freedom.

“Right, we have to get going straightaway, sir,” whispered the boy.

“Oh yes, Squadron Leader, there is one small thing.”

“What’s that, Wing Commander?”

“Well, there are now quite a few of us on the escape committee.”

“What do you mean, ‘escape committee’?” asked Jack.

“Psst!” came a voice from above.

The pair looked up. There were a dozen or so elderly people standing on the roof. All were in their pyjamas and nightdresses. More and more were joining them by the moment, as they squeezed themselves through the tiny hatch.

This was now a mass breakout.