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MARCHING POWDER

noise of the storm. He kicked harder and harder until the door was dented and the whole frame shook, sprinkling concrete dust over me and onto the floor.

'Samir, basta! I'll give you the coke. You can have it all.' He stopped kicking. 'Here, take these,' I said, holding the empty cans wrapped in a plain T-shirt up to the flap. 'Get rid of them and I'll give you the stuff.'

'Give it to me first!' he shouted, banging his fist against the metal again. More chunks of concrete fell on my head. I thought I heard a door opening and closing out in the exercise yard, but I kept my nerve.

'No. Throw these out first. Then I'll give you all the stuff,' I said, squeezing the bundle through the flap. Samir took it and then put his hand through for the coke. I gave him the whole lot.

'Are you sure you don't want to come with me?' he asked, changing back to his normal tone of voice.

'I can't.'

'English coward,' he muttered, then turned and walked down the cell block, banging at each door and trying to persuade its occupant to escape with him. The others pretended to be asleep.

'You're all cowards!' he yelled at the top of his lungs, before heading off to escape.

Even though the storm was in full force, I could hear Samir throwing things around in the kitchen again. He was smashing bottles and singing something at the top of his voice in Portuguese that sounded like a national anthem. Then I heard him jumping about on the bathroom roof. There was nothing more that I could do. I cleaned up the mess around my door, drank some water and chewed my last piece of gum. Then I lay in bed, wondering when the guards were going to come and what they would do when they found Samir trying to climb the wall.

I kept listening, but I didn't hear anything more after that - only the rain pelting down against the metal roof and the doors rattling as the wind sent blasts of cold air along the corridor. I figured that Samir had given up and crawled back into his cell. But he hadn't. He was still out there, trying to escape. The only thing that saved him from getting caught straight away was the weather. It was so cold and wet that night, that the guards decided not to leave their station for their regular patrol. The exercise yard they had to cross was ankle-deep in