“Get a pal to have a yarn with the man on the gate — it’ll be near dusk — I’ll be able to slip through all right — the rest of the guard sleep most of the day. They start in rounding us up for the night about six, locking us in our own blocks and doing a sort of inspection round.”
“They will miss you at once then? That’s a pity.”
“We’ll be unlucky if they do. The inspection they have in this place would give the Governor of Dartmoor fits. I’ll leave a bundle of stuff in my bunk. Ten to one they’ll never realize it isn’t me!”
“Where will you go when you get outside?”
“Down to the north-west corner of the prison wall. That’s to the right going out of the gate, get me? And for the Lord’s sake don’t forget to bring me boots — if you do my toes’ll drop off under the hour in this cold. Say, Simon, you haven’t by chance got any food on you, have you? I’m that hungry I’d pinch peanuts off a blind man’s monkey.”
Simon searched his pockets and found a decrepit bar of chocolate. He proffered it dubiously.
“Thanks!” Rex seized and bit into it ravenously. “My, that’s good and no mistake. I guess I’d eat ten dollars’ worth if you’d got it. Now tell me about the Duke.”
“He drove the sleigh for seventeen hours yesterday. He was about all in last night”
“Did he though? At his age! I’ll say he’s the greatest man in Europe, is our Duke, and you’re a close second, Simon!”
“Don’t be silly — I’ve done nothing.”