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“We’re the Stasi of the heavy plant operators, we know
exactly what’s going on and how to deal with it.”
    He made a shudder at Klaus and
growled theatrically in his face. “We’re ruthless!”
    He threw an arm around Klaus’s
shoulder. “Look Klaus, no cunt’s worth it. Send for her later if
you want. OK, let’s get working. I’ll start digging and you fill
the bags. How about getting us some coffee, Kai?”
    Working in shifts as before they
made good progress, opening up over a metre of the tunnel by late
Sunday evening. Kai, smaller and slighter than the others and with
a desk job, found it harder. By the time they stopped his muscles
were aching, he was drenched with sweat and it was with difficulty
that he was able to stand upright. He groaned and tried to
stretch.
    “Ugh! I don’t think I can survive
another fortnight, maybe more even, of this! You’ll have to carry
me through the tunnel when we finish, I think. But, seriously,
guys, I’m excited about it. We’ve only got evenings now till next
weekend but I’m going to take a day off, maybe Wednesday, say I’m
sick or something. How about one of you doing the same?”
    “I guess I could.” said Bernhard.
“Not Wednesday, though. Maybe Friday when we’re less busy, or
Thursday. I’ll sort something out, get one of my mates to cover.
I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
    All the bags had been filled by
midday and they’d been forced to start building a spoil heap of
excavated earth in a corner of the room. Bernhard walked over and
looked at the mound, then dropped into the hole and looked over the
tunnel start.
    “I don’t like this, though. We’re
going to run out of space well before the end. We can reduce the
tunnel dimensions a bit, maybe. A metre 75 height is nice but we
could get away with a metre, I think, maybe a metre 20, and, what,
maybe three quarters wide, less if we can stand it. Can’t not
doavoid the shoring up either. I don’t fancy being buried by a roof
fall.”
    “Well, we’ve tried carrying the
stuff out to the van and that’s hopeless.” said Klaus. “That woman
caretaker was watching me when I carried the bags out and when I
did the second lot she was on to me, asking what I was up to. Told
her I was helping you clear out old junk, Kai, but she’s not going
to believe that, day after day. Something will go wrong and we’ll
be caught.”
    “Room nine is empty.” said Kai
suddenly. “I’m sure of it. That’s three doors down the corridor
from this one. It’s the old couple on the floor below me. They find
it hard enough getting up three flights to their apartment so they
almost never go out, let alone down here. I know them a bit and
they’re OK so I’ll find out what the score is. That one's got a
padlock, not a mortice, so that's good. Bernhard, can you get some
bolt cutters and a new padlock and we’ll start moving the stuff in
there.”
    They dug on through the following
week starting each evening at seven and putting in four and
sometime even five or more hours. On the Friday both Kai and
Bernhard called in sick to their work and by the end of the evening
they’d hit the ten metre mark. They had been forced to change
direction twice, once because of a water pipe exactly in their path
which forced them downwards another half metre, and then because of
a huge slab of rock too big and hard to break through and which
seemed endless as they dug round it. Kai and Bernhard had bickered
about whether to go left or right. They’d tossed a coin, dug to
their right for a couple of metres without success, bickered again,
and Bernhard had finally broken through by going a metre to the
left. At least, the consoled themselves, they now had a large,
roomy chamber about half way along, useful for storing tools and
bags.
    But now it was getting
increasingly difficult. There was little air in the tunnel and
hardly any room to manoeuvre. Wary about Frau Schwinewitz’s
snooping they’d decided to wait to the Saturday