Our initial euphoria of foiling his ambitions was soon displaced as with passing time reality set in. We took stock. Our case of water bottles, down three from the original two dozen would need to be rationed. We carefully examined our as yet untouched food supply. Most were easy to open plastic containers but six cans of baked beans were without an opener. There was a single mattress in one corner and a thin blanket. I cringed at the thought of who might have spent their last nights on earth on that pallet. A bucket, quickly smelling of excrement, occupied another corner.
I felt panic when I noticed our kerosene lamp, our only light, was but half full of fluid. There was no additional supply nor could we ration it as there was no way to reignite it. The thought of us residing in utter blindness petrified me! Never the less, I forewarned Molly and she accepted the situation bravely. Together we paced out our quarters carefully and committed to memory exactly where everything was located. We knew we had but hours before we'd be permanently thrown into darkness.
We looked skyward. The ceiling above us offered the only remote possibility of egress yet it was far too high for us to touch, much less attempt to breach. The work bench, on which our tools were stacked, was beneath the concrete half of our enclosure. Even standing on it, I was an inch or two from touching the top of the room. It was Molly, not me, who devised a possible solution.
"Let's cut up the work bench and make a ladder," she said, with the enthusiasm of youth.
The boards constituting the top of the bench seem long enough for side of what Molly proposed but sawing the remaining boards for rungs would prove arduous. We set about demolishing the table-like counter and had just completed it when our light began to fail. We held one another and allowed ourselves to cry.
Determination slowly replaced melancholy and we returned to work. Neither of us was proficient at using a saw and we'd managed only two rungs when exhaustion caught up with us and the light faded for permanently. Hard work made us thirsty and hungry as well. We agreed to stop, eat and bed down for our second night in captivity. We hacked open a can of baked beans with a screwdriver and ate them cold. We slept fitfully, spooned together on the thin mattress.
Absent our labors total abandonment would have driven us to utter despair but our work and incredibly slow progress kept us going. When we were not working, we held hand constantly. The two of us took breaks and walked together, six paces, turn, six paces, turn, six paces, turn. We told stories, sang songs, laughed and almost never tolerated silence.