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And, of course, he had the rock-hammer. I remember thinking when I got him that gadget 

back in '48 that it would take a man six hundred years to burrow through the wall with it 

True enough. But Andy went right through the wall -even with the soft concrete, it took 

him two rock-hammers and twenty-seven years to hack a hole big enough to get his slim 

body through four feet of it 

Of course he lost most of one of those years to Normaden, and he could only work at 

night, preferably late at night, when almost everybody is asleep - including the guards 

who work the night shift. But I suspect the thing which slowed him down the most was 

getting rid of the wall as he took it out He could muffle the sound of his work by 

wrapping the head of his hammer in rock-polishing cloths, but what to do with the 

pulverized concrete and the occasional chunks that came out whole? 

I think he must have broken up the chunks into pebbles and... 

I remembered the Sunday after I had gotten him the rock-hammer. I remember watching 

him walk across the exercise yard, his face puffy from his latest go-round with the sisters. 

I saw him stoop, pick up a pebble ... and it disappeared up his sleeve. That inside sleeve- 

pocket is an old prison trick. Up your sleeve or just inside the cuff of your pants. And I 

have another memory, very strong but unfocused, maybe something I saw more than 

once. This memory is of Andy Dufresne walking across the exercise yard on a hot 

summer day when the air was utterly still. Still, yeah ... except for the little breeze that 

seemed to be blowing sand around Andy Dufresne's feet. 

So maybe he had a couple of cheaters in his pants below the knees. You loaded the 

cheaters up with fill and then just strolled around, your hands in your pockets, and when 

you feel safe and unobserved, you gave the pockets a little twitch. The pockets, of course, 

are attached by string or strong thread to the cheaters. The fill goes cascading out of your 

pantslegs as you walk. The World War II POWS who were trying to tunnel out used the 

dodge. 

The years went past and Andy brought his wall out to the exercise yard cupful by cupful. 

He played the game with administrator after administrator, and they thought it was 

because he wanted to keep the library growing. I have no doubt that was part of it, but the 

main thing Andy wanted was to keep cell 14 in Cellblock 5 a single occupancy. 

I doubt if he had any real plans or hopes of breaking out, at least not at first. He probably 

assumed the wall was ten feet of solid concrete, and that if he succeeded in boring all the 

way through it, he'd come out thirty feet over the exercise yard. But like I say, I don't 

think he was worried overmuch about breaking through. His assumption could have run 

this way: I'm only making a foot of progress every seven years or so; therefore, it would 

take me seventy years to break through; that would make me one hundred and seven 

years old. 

Here's a second assumption I would have made, had I been Andy: that eventually I would 

be caught and get a lot of solitary time, not to mention a very large black mark on my 

record. After all, there was the regular weekly inspection and a surprise toss - which 

usually came at night - every second week or so. He must have decided that things 

couldn't go on for long. Sooner or later, some screw was going to peek behind Rita 

Hayworth just to make sure Andy didn't have a sharpened spoon-handle or some