Just plain ran. Cut and ran, scattering as they went.
"Wait!" screamed O'Leary, but they weren't waiting. Cursing himself for
letting them get out of hand, O'Leary salvaged two guards and headed on
the run for the Old Building, huge and dark, all but the topmost lights
of Block O.
They saw the medic and his escort disappearing into the bulk of the Old
Building and they saw something else. There were inmates between them
and the Old Building! The Shops Building lay between--with a dozen more
cell blocks over the workshops that gave it its name--and there was a
milling rush of activity around its entrance, next to the laundry shed--
The laundry shed.
O'Leary stood stock still. Lafon leading the breakout from Block A. The
little greaser who was a trusty in the Shops Building sabotaging the
yard's tangler circuit. Sauer and Flock taking over the Greensleeves
with a manufactured knife and a lot of guts.
Did it fit together? Was it all part of a plan?
That was something to find out--but not just then. "Come on," O'Leary
cried to the two guards, and they raced for the temporary safety of the
main gates.
The whole prison was up and yelling now.
O'Leary could hear scattered shots from the beat guards on the
wall--_Over their heads, over their heads!_ he prayed silently.
And there were other shots that seemed to come from inside the
walls--guards shooting, or convicts with guards' guns, he couldn't
tell which. The yard was full of convicts now, in bunches and clumps;
but none near the gate. And they seemed to have lost some of their
drive. They were milling around, lit by the searchlights from the wall,
yelling and making a lot of noise ... but going nowhere in particular.
Waiting for a leader, O'Leary thought, and wondered briefly what had
become of Lafon.
"You Captain O'Leary?" somebody demanded.
* * * * *
He turned and blinked. Good Lord, the governor! He was coming through
the gate, waving aside the gate guards, alone. "You him?" the governor
repeated. "All right, glad I found you. I'm going into Block O with
you."
O'Leary swallowed and waved inarticulately at the teeming cons. True,
there were none immediately near by--but there were plenty in the
yard! Riots meant breaking things up; already the inmates had started
to break up the machines in the laundry shed and the athletic equipment
in the yard lockers. When they found a couple of choice breakables like
O'Leary and the governor, they'd have a ball!
"But, Governor--"
"But my foot! Can you get me in there or can't you?"
O'Leary gauged their chances. It wasn't more than fifty feet to the
main entrance to the Old Building--not at the moment guarded, since all
the guards were in hiding or on the walls, and not as yet being invaded
by the inmates at large.
He said: "You're the boss. Hold on a minute--" The searchlights were
on the bare yard cobblestones in front of them; in a moment, the
searchlights danced away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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