rounds twice a day before leaving the facility to go to the dump. They had heard that, before the lorry was permitted to leave the grounds, guards would stab each rubbish bag with a spear, to make sure nobody was hidden inside. But the IRA had cultivated its own intelligence network inside the prison, and these informants suggested that lately the guards had not been bothering with the spears.
On the day in question, Hughes climbed into the centre of an old mattress while others helped to roll it round him. With the assistance of Thomas Valliday, he ended up on the back of the lorry, which proceeded to rumble around the camp, stopping periodically so that rubbish could be dumped on top of Hughes. All he had to do was wait. But the cheap prison mattress was filled with sawdust, and it was everywhere: fibrous, itchy, smothering. Hughes had brought an orange that he could suck for fluid and blood sugar, and he kept it jammed in his mouth, but the sawdust was getting in his nose, making it hard to breathe. The lorry trundled around the camp, in no particular hurry. Then it stopped, and Hughes heard Valliday whispering to him. They could not leave the prison yet, Valliday said. The lorry was going to stay to collect more rubbish. He advised Hughes to get out and sneak back to his cage. There would be a head count at 4 p.m. If Hughes was missing, the guards would lock down the facility and raise the alarm.
He stayed put. Valliday had disappeared, but Hughes was well hidden, and the lorry had to leave at some point. Inside the mattress, he couldn’t see what was going on around him, but now he heard the unmistakable accents of British soldiers. The lorry had ended up in the British Army compound, where the soldiers lived. Rather than take him through the gates to freedom, it had conveyed him directly into the most dangerous part of the camp. The sawdust had crept into his eyes, irritating them so much that he couldn’t open one of them. Hughes lay quietly, hoping nobody would discover him.
After a small eternity, the lorry began to move again and made its way towards the exit. Hughes knew exactly what to expect at this point: there would be two ramps, and then the lorry would make a right turn and leave Long Kesh. But just before they reached the ramps, it stopped again. Hughes lay very still. Then, suddenly, a giant spike plunged down through the refuse, just to the left of his body.
Apparently his intelligence had been off. Hughes lay there, frozen. Then a spike impaled the bags on the other side of him. Now he decided he would just stand up and shout, just surrender, because to lie still would be suicide. If the spike came down again, it would surely kill him. He pictured it: the spike running straight through him. What a ridiculous way to die, harpooned in the back of a dustbin lorry, covered in sawdust, with an orange in your mouth. Hughes had two young children back in Belfast. This was madness. He was just about to identify himself to the men above when, with a rumble, the lorry began to move again. It passed over one security ramp. Then it passed over the next. Finally, Hughes felt it make a right turn, and that was when he knew they had left the camp.
As the lorry moved along the open road, Hughes pulled out a small penknife he had brought with him and endeavoured to cut himself out of the mattress. But the knife was not up to the task, and the blade simply bent back. He clawed and kicked his way out of the mattress, knocking some rubbish onto the roadway in the process. He feared that the driver might notice it in the rearview mirror, but the lorry kept moving.
At the top of the Hillsborough Road, Hughes knew there was an area where they would make a sharp right turn, followed by a sharp left. This seemed like the optimal moment to jump out of the back undetected. So as the lorry made the turns, Hughes hopped down to the street. He watched the lorry as it drove off, nervous that the driver might have spotted him. But it continued in the direction of the dump.
Hughes stood there, caked in filth, one eye swollen shut. Gerry Adams had arranged for a car