The noise echoed through the entire building and could be heard in all 640 cells.

‘He’s always making a row, the old bastard,’ growled Kufalt. ‘Something upset you, Ruschy? . . . If I only knew what to do when I come out. They’ll ask me where I want to be sent . . . and if I haven’t got a job, my earnings here will be handed over to the Welfare Office, for me to draw a bit every week. Nothing doing! I’d sooner pull off a job with Batzke . . . ’

He looked abstractedly at his jacket, the blue sleeve of which was adorned with three stripes of white tape. This meant that he was a ‘category three’ man, in other words a prisoner whose conduct promised ‘permanent improvement and continued good behaviour on release’.

‘And how I had to crawl to get them! And were they worth it? A bit of tobacco, half an hour more recreation, wireless one evening a week, and my cell not locked in the daytime . . . ’

True: the cell doors of category three men were not locked, merely left ajar. But it was a strange sort of favour; he was not to push the door wide when he chose, go out into the corridor, or walk even a couple of steps along it. That was forbidden. If he did that, he would be degraded. The point was that he knew the door was open; it was a preparation for the world outside where doors are not locked . . . a gradual acclimatization, devised by an official brain.

The prisoner stood under the window again and wondered for a moment whether he could climb up and look out. Perhaps he would see a woman across the walls . . .

No, better not—save it up for Wednesday.

Restlessly he picked up his net and made six, eight, ten meshes. As he did so it occurred to him that he might wangle some polish as well as tobacco from the nets orderly—he dropped the wooden needle and walked to the door.

For a moment he stopped and wondered whether he should try. Then an idea came into his mind: he quickly unbuttoned his trousers, went to the bucket and laid his morning egg. He tipped some water over it, closed the lid, did up his trousers, and grasped the bucket in both hands.

‘If he catches me, I’ll say they’ve forgotten to empty my bucket today,’ he said to himself; and pushed the door open with his elbow.

II

He glanced over his shoulder at the glass cubicle in the Central Hall, where, like a spider in its web, the chief warder usually sat and watched all the corridors and all the cell doors.