فصل 36

CHAPTER 36

A SECOND BOWL

MOLLY LAY SHIVERING in the grim darkness of her cell, listening to the endless drip-drip-drip of water in the tunnel outside. Aside from being cold, she was weak from hunger and aching from the effort she’d put into using the plank to pry the tunnel support.

Over the past two days she’d loosened it a good deal. She stopped when she felt that the next hard yank or two would bring down the post and, in turn, the overhead beam. She had set her trap; now she had to be patient, to wait for the opportunity to use it as a means to escape. She prayed it would come soon, before she was too weak to take advantage.

She heard footsteps in the tunnel. She stood, grunting with the effort, and peered through the bars into the yellowish light cast by the string of electric bulbs. A guard was coming, carrying a bowl. Mealtime: lukewarm brown slop, perhaps some moldy bread. She thought this might be breakfast. Or was it dinner? She’d lost track.

She prepared to take the bowl. If she didn’t grab it as it came through the slot, the guard allowed it to fall, dumping it into the mud. More than once, compelled by aching hunger, she’d eaten a meal with pebbles and sand crunching between her teeth.

The tin bowl pushed through. Molly grabbed hold tightly.

“Thank you,” she whispered to the guard, desperate in her loneliness to engage in conversation with someone, even her captors.

The guard, as always, ignored her. Talking was not permitted. She watched him leave, and was about to sit and eat her meager meal when she noticed something unusual: the guard turned and went on down the hall. After delivering the food, the guard always went back the way he’d come. But this time he continued along the tunnel to her right. Molly pressed her face against the bars to follow his progress. She caught a glimpse of something in the guard’s hands.

A second bowl.

She watched intently as the guard stopped about thirty feet down the hall. He turned toward the wall and pushed the bowl forward. When he pulled his hands back, the bowl was gone. The guard came back along the tunnel, passing Molly’s cell, then disappeared around the corner.

Molly sat on the floor, chewing the spongy slop and thinking about what she’d seen. Clearly there was another cell. And clearly it was now occupied by a prisoner. Was it one of the workers, being punished? Or someone new to the tunnels? If so, who?

She didn’t dare shout out; that would only draw the guards.

She looked around the cell and found a rock. When she was a girl, her father had taught her, among many other specialized skills, Morse code. She’d complained that it was boring, but he had insisted. “You never know when something like that could be useful,” he said.

Molly closed her eyes and searched her memory, recalling the dots and dashes that represented letters.

She raised the rock to the cell bars and began tapping.

h-e-l-l-o…