The Tunnel by Eric Williams

the room seemed smaller, ãnd he had to fight down a moment’s panic, hold back an impulse to hammer at the door and demand to be released.
    Dinner was two thin slices of black bread and a cup of ersatz coffee.
    After dinner the gaoler came in and asked him for his boots. As he watched him put them down outside the door, he laughed again at his original impression that they had been put out to be cleaned.
    Shortly after this the light flickered twice. He thought that perhaps there had been a failure, or that they were changing over circuits; and he was unprepared when five minutes later the lights were extinguished for the night. He undressed in the darkness; but the next night, and for every night that he remained in the cell, he understood and obeyed the signal.
    The next day, after breakfast, the gaoler again offered him the broom. Again he refused, and again the cell remained unswept.
    One of the things about the cell that worried him most was the obscured glass of the window. The light came through it satisfactorily, but the thought of what lay beyond it – country, town or further prison - tantalised him. He tried peering through the uneven surface from every angle, but could see nothing. The window had been locked with a square key and he could not unfasten it.
    The long weary day was punctuated by the meals, which served only to exacerbate his hunger, and his periodic visits to the toilet. He was rested now, and the close confinement was getting on his nerves. He remembered Pop Dawson, knew that this was being done with a purpose; but still he could not prevent himself from getting rattled. If only he had something to read. If only his eyes could follow the printed lines. Anything, anything at all to take his mind outside this box of grey encroaching plaster.
    It was on this, the second day, that he learned that it was necessary to turn the knob on the wall at least half an hour before he needed to go to the toilet.
    So the long days dragged on. Restless days now, days in which he blamed himself for not escaping when he had the chance, days in which further escape seemed impossible, and the future stretched out as an infinity of similar days; enclosed by narrow walls, fed like an animal in a cage. As far as he could tell, no one but the Feldwebel and the gaoler seemed to know that he was there. Each time the gaoler brought him food he demanded to see the officer in charge, but the man merely looked at him blankly and shrugged his shoulders.
    He awoke suddenly. It was night, the blackout shutters were still up, but the electric light was blazing in his face. The cell was very hot, and the light brighter than it had been in the evening, burning itself out as though with too much voltage. He lay wondering what had happened. There were voices in the corridor - then silence. Then, inexorably, the lights went out again. He tried to sleep, but could not settle down. The cell was so hot that he threw the blankets off and lay there in his underclothes.
    He must have slept, because when he awoke the lights were on again. The cell was hotter than before. He was sweating. He lay and listened but he heard nothing. Suddenly, inexplicably, the lights went out again.
    The following morning, after the blackout shutters had been taken down, he tried to rationalize the events of the previous night. Had he been dreaming, or had the light really been on and the cell heated almost beyond endurance? Perhaps there had been some new arrivals, which would account for the light, and he had imagined the heat. Perhaps there had been new arrivals, and the heat had been an accident. Perhaps the temperature and the voltage always built up during the night … Perhaps they were trying to break down his morale.
    At last, on the fourth day, as he was waiting for his lunch to arrive, the door was opened wide by the gaoler who then sprang stiffly to attention. After a dramatic pause a young, blond, very English-looking Luftwaffe officer entered the