John Norman Read online

  “No!” she cried. She felt his hand on her arm. His grip was not tight, but it was firm, and strong. She knew herself held.

  “You must not, of course,” said Herjellsen, “think of the location of the missing implement.”

  Immediately the location of the hidden fork flew into

  Brenda Hamilton’s mind the inevitable response to the psychological suggestion of Herjellsen’s remark.

  She felt herself helplessly, uncontrollably, pull away from its location.

  “It seems,” said Herjellsen, “that it is on this side of the room,” indicating the direction she had pulled away from.

  Brenda Hamilton moaned. She tried to clear her mind.

  “We must, find it, mustn’t we, my dear?” asked Herjellsen.

  Again its hiding place darted into her mind.

  Herjellsen guided her in the direction she had pulled away from.

  She tried to relax her body, her arm, to think nothing. “Please,” she said.

  Herjellsen stopped. “Excellent,” he said. “We must not be tense.”

  Immediately Brenda Hamilton’s body, helpless under the suggestion, tensed.

  “Ah,” said Herjellsen. He led her to the corner of the room.

  She trembled. She stood in the corner, where the two walls joined. There was only the bleakness of the white plaster. “There was no fork,” she said. “You see?” She looked at Herjellsen, her lip trembling. “There is nothing here,” she said.

  “Get the fork,” said Herjellsen to the black, the large fellow. He came to where they stood.

  Herjellsen released her. Brenda Hamilton ran to the center of the room.

  The black reached up to where Herjellsen indicated, where the walls stopped, and the sloping, peaked, tin corrugated ceiling began, with its metal and beams.

  He took down the fork, from where Brenda had thrust it, at the top of the wall, under the tin.

  He put it in his shirt pocket.

  “Lie down across the cot,” said Herjellsen to Brenda Hamilton, “head down, hands on the floor.”

  She did so.

  “At the least sign of insubordination,” he said, “you must expect to be physically disciplined.”

  Herjellsen turned away. “Two strokes,” he said to the guards.

  He left the room.

  Brenda Hamilton fighting tears, felt the dress thrust up over the small of her back, heard the rustle of the heavy belt pulled through its loops. It was doubled. She was struck twice, sharply.

  Then they left her.

  Brenda Hamilton crawled on the cot and stretched out on it, red-eyed, humiliated.

  The room was now half dark as the dusty afternoon faded into the dusk. She heard insect noises outside.

  She did not turn on the electric light bulb.

  It was an unusually docile Brenda Hamilton who was served her meal that evening.

  When the black had left the room she lifted her head and sped to the tray.

  Her heart leaped. There was again both a fork and spoon with the mug and tray.

  William, if the usual routine obtained, would pick up the tray.

  She washed her body and her face, and even the garment and put it quickly back on. In the hot Rhodesian night it would dry in minutes on her body. She combed her hair, and brushed it until it was glossy. Then, a few minutes before ten P.M. she bolted down her meal. She thrust the fork into her mattress.

  At ten promptly, as was usual, William entered the room. He didn’t look at her.

  “You heard what happened?” she asked.

  “I heard you were foolish,” said William.

  “Look at me, William,” she said.

  He did so. She smiled.

  He seemed angry with her. She flushed slightly. Doubtless Gunther had made his report.

  But she smiled her prettiest and lifted the spoon left on the tray.

  “I tried to hide a fork today,” she said. “And now look,” she pouted, “I have only this spoon to eat with. I feel silly, eating meat with a spoon. They treat me like I was a child.”

  “Oh?” asked William. He looked at her, closely.

  “See if you can’t get them, tomorrow, not tonight, to let me have a fork again.”

  “You don’t need it,” said William.

  “Don’t be cruel to me, William,” she said.

  “Herjellsen must have given them their orders,” he said.

  “See if you can get him to change them tomorrow, when he is in a better mood,” she wheedled. She smiled at him.

  William basked in her smile.

  “You are quite beautiful,” he said, “when you smile. Very well, tomorrow I will ask Herjellsen to permit you to have the proper utensils.”

  “Thank you, William,” she breathed.

  “But no knife, mind you,” laughed William.

  “Oh, of course not,” she laughed, “-Master!”

  “You make a pretty slave, Brenda,” said William.

  Brenda Hamilton fell to her knees before him, and put her head to his feet. “The slave is grateful to her master,” she laughed.

  William looked down at her. “I see,” he said, “that it is a social misfortune that the institution of female slavery was abolished.”

  Brenda looked up at him, deferentially. “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Last night,” said William, suddenly, angrily, “you were on your knees before Gunther.”

  She looked up at him, agonized.

  “Don’t get up,” said William.

  She put her head down.

  “Beg me to fuck you,” said William.

  “Please, William,” she whispered.

  “Do it,” he said, “you little whore.”

  “No!” she wept. “I wanted to be had by Gunther. I wanted it! I needed it!”

  “And you don’t need it from me,” said William.

  “Please, William,” she said, “I like you-you’re the only one who is kind to me. I like you. I do like you!” She lifted her eyes to him.

  “Say it,” said William. “I want to hear it.”

  “I-I beg you to fuck me, William,” whispered Brenda Hamilton.

  “Slut!” said William.

  He picked up the tray and mug, and spoon, and angrily left the room.

  He did not look back.

  Elated, Brenda Hamilton ran to the light switch and turned it off, and went to the mattress and took the fork from it. The first check, she knew, would not come until eleven o’clock. She counted the minutes, as carefully as she could, while she worked in the closet, as silently as she could, digging at the plaster, flaking it away. Giving herself a margin of safety she went and lay down in the cot, as though asleep. She hated each wasted minute lying there, but, at last, some ten minutes after she had lain down, she sensed the flashlight in the room, through the window, and falling on her apparently sleeping body. When it had left she leaped to her feet and began her work again. It was shortly before midnight, and the second check, when she came to the coating of stucco that formed the outside of the hut. She returned to the cot, a sleeping prisoner. When the light had passed again, she returned to the work. It took only some fifteen minutes to work away enough of the stucco to make a hole large enough for her to crawl through. This would give her, if she were successful in escaping the compound, a lead of only some forty-five minutes. She slipped from the building. She looked back. She must leave the hole exposed. There was nothing with which to conceal it. She hoped it would not be noted. The compound was lit by the four lights on poles, illuminating the dirt grounds, making them seem hard and yellow. The hole was on the side of the building, away from the light. She hoped it would not be noticed.

  She went to the end of the small building. Then she fell to her stomach in the shadows at the side of the building.

  Between her and the fence one of the blacks was walking his rounds, his rifle over his shoulder.

  She remained lying there for some minutes. She counted the seconds between his rounds. She was in
tears. She would not have time to get to the fence and tunnel under the wire. Then, in her counting, the guard did not pass when she expected him to. Her heart leaped. Perhaps he had stopped somewhere, to relieve himself, or drink, or smoke, or chat with his partner, perhaps at the gate.

  She scurried from hiding and began, with her hands and her fork, to dig frenziedly at the wire. The ground was dry and soft, powdery. In a matter of two or three minutes, on her stomach, she slithered under the hanging wire. A barb ripped through the shoulder of her dress and she cried out half blinded with sparks and pain. There had been a crackling, and her inadvertent cry of terror and pain. She scrambled to her feet, stunned, sick, her vision swimming with blasts of light, and vomited in the dust, and then, stumbling, fled into the darkness.

  Apparently her cry and the crackling of the sparks had not been heard.

  Outside the compound, sick, some hundred yards away, she collapsed in the brush and looked back.

  No one was coming. There was no pursuit. The compound was large. No one had apparently heard her.

  She threw up again from the shock of the fence. She wanted only to lie down and rest.

  She staggered to her feet.

  She began to stumble through the brush.

  It had been a nightmare of running, but Brenda Hamilton, at three forty in the morning, reached a road, her legs bleeding, dust in her hair, her body coated with dirt.

  She lay beside the road, gasping, on the side away from the direction from which she had come.

  She could scarcely breathe, she could scarcely move her body.

  The dress was half torn from her.

  What now if there were no vehicle? There might not be any. This was not a commonly traveled road. It was late at night. When she had been with Gunther and William in the Land Rover, in all their driving, they had passed no vehicle.

  She moaned.

  She would die in the bush, without food and water. She feared leopards, and snakes.

  She knew no way to a village.

  She could walk the road. It would lead somewhere. But she, having stopped, found it almost impossible to get to her feet. She closed her eyes.

  Then, from the distance, she heard a vehicle, coming down the road.

  Her heart leaped, and she crawled to the side of the road.

  She saw the two headlights. She heard the engine. The vehicle was coming with rapidity.

  What if it would not stop for her?

  Painfully she stood up, on the surface of the road, gasping. The gravel hurt her feet.

  They must stop for her!

  The headlights were approaching rapidly.

  They were hurrying. They would not stop!

  But they would! She would flag them down! They must stop! They must!

  The headlights were now looming, like eyes. She heard the grinding of the gravel under the wheels of the vehicle, the thick roar of the engine.

  She stood out, almost in the center of the road, and lifted her hand.

  She waved wildly.

  She lifted both of her arms and ran toward the headlights, weeping.

  They must stop!

  To her joy she heard the driver remove his foot from the accelerator and heard the scattering and crunching of gravel under the tires as the vehicle began to slow down.

  She ran toward it, illuminated in its headlights, as it ground to a halt.

  “Help me!” she cried.

  She stopped.

  The Land Rover was stopped now, the motor still running. Gunther leaped out, onto the road.

  She screamed and turned, and_streaked into the brush. She ran and ran.

  She heard the Land Rover start again, turn off the road. She saw it plowing after her.

  She darted through the brush, crying.

  It dodged small trees, suddenly bright in its headlights, it rode over brush, through dips and high grass, jolting, falling and climbing.

  Running, she heard the engine behind her, the breaking of brush, the sound of the tires.

  Suddenly she was illuminated in the headlights.

  She was terrified they would run her down. Then the Land Rover turned to one side, her left, as she ran, and was behind her and on the left.

  She ran, stumbling. She felt herself caught in the blaze of the hand searchlight mounted near the front, right window.

  “Wir haben sie!” she heard Gunther cry, elated. He almost never spoke German.

  She heard the crack of the compressed-air rifle and was suddenly stung in the side. She was knocked off her feet by the impact and rolled for more than a dozen feet. Then she scrambled to her feet again, and began to run again, stumbling. She heard the Land Rover following her, slowly. She ran for perhaps a hundred yards, and then fell, and got up and, slowly, began to stumble away again. The Land Rover seemed to move almost at her very side. She was conscious of the headlights on the brush. She was aware that she, herself, was illuminated in the hand searchlight at the side of the vehicle. With her fingers, reeling, she felt the dart sunk in her side. It had penetrated the thin cotton dress and had fastened itself deeply in her flesh. She stumbled, and fell. She heard the Land Rover stop. She tried to crawl away, and then fell to her stomach. She fought to keep conscious. She knew she lay in-the light of the hand searchlight. She heard the door of the Land Rover open. She heard booted feet leap to the ground. She heard the booted feet approach her. Her right hand, first, was dragged behind her body and snapped in a handcuff, and then her left. She lay cuffed. A hand forcibly jerked out the dart. She heard it placed in the pocket of a leather jacket. Then she felt herself being lifted lightly to a man’s shoulders, her head over his back, and carried to the Land Rover.

  She moaned, and fell unconscious.

  6

  Dr. Brenda Hamilton awakened.

  She lay on her side on the cot. Her left hand, extended, lay under the curved iron bar at the top of the cot; her right hand lay beside her face; she looked at the slender, small fingers it seemed so small, so delicate compared to that of Gunther, or William, or Herjellsen, to a man’s hand.

  The half light of late afternoon, golden, hazy, filtering, dimly illuminated the room.

  The white-washed interior seemed golden and dim. She looked up at the arched roof, its beams, the corrugated tin. It was hot, terribly hot. She remembered that she seldom spent time in her quarters before sundown. She remembered that she had, once, awakened similarly. She remembered then that she was a prisoner.

  She tried to move her hand, her left hand. Something jerked at it. She beard a steel cuff slide on iron. She sat up. She was handcuffed to the iron bar at the head of the cot.

  She sat wearily at the edge of the cot. She wanted to relieve herself. She looked across the room to the wastes bucket.

  She got up, to pull the cot to the side of the room. It remained fixed.

  It had been bolted to the floor: It was aligned with the floor boards designated by Gunther. She smiled. The alignment of the cot was no longer her responsibility.

  She considered, briefly, urinating on the floor, or soiling the mattress.

  She would not do so.

  She knew she was, at the slightest sign of insubordination, subject to physical discipline, and that it would be, unhesitantly, administered. She wondered what they would do to her for having attempted to escape.

  How foolishly she had run to their arms. How easily she had been recaptured.

  She remembered the Land Rover pursuing her, terrifying her, loud and roaring, through the midnight bush, the glare of its lights, the sting of the anesthetic bullet, Gunther’s cuffs.

  She looked at the girl in the mirror, facing her, sitting on the edge of the cot, a steel cuff confining her to it. The girl was weary, filthy, her dress torn, her hair awry and filled with dust; her face was dirty; her hands were dirty, and there was dirt, from digging, black, under the fingernails; her legs were covered, too, with dirt, and scratches and blood.

  They had brought her in as she was, from the bush, thrown her on
the cot, handcuffed her to it, and left.

  She was hungry, and thirsty, and wanted to relieve herself, and clean her body.

  She lay back, on her side, her legs drawn up on the striped mattress, on the cot, her left hand under the curved iron bar at its head.

  She smelled her body. She smelled, too, fresh plaster. The hut, she conjectured, where she had broken through it, through the closet, had been repaired.

  She closed her eyes against the heat.

  Then, almost against her will, she opened her eyes, wanting to look again in the mirror. Lying on her side she regarded herself, her head and hair, her figure, the curve of her hip and waist, the dress well up her thighs, the curves of her legs and ankles. She looked at herself, sullenly. She did not jerk at the handcuff. She lay quietly, secured. She had not escaped.

  At six P.M. the door was unlocked.

  The large black, who had beaten her, entered. His companion entered behind him.

  Behind them came Herjellsen, and Gunther and William.

  Brenda sat up.

  Gunther came to her and unlocked the cuff from her left wrist.

  Hamilton rubbed her wrist.

  Herjellsen motioned for Dr. Brenda Hamilton to lie across the cot, as she had before, her hands on the floor, her head down.

  The smaller black then dragged the dress up over her body, and half over her head, confining her arms in it.

  “Beat her,” said Herjellsen.

  While the men watched the larger black, with his belt, doubled, struck her, sharply, below the small of the back, fifteen times.

  The beating, Hamilton knew, was not intended to be physically punishing. It was intended to be emotionally humiliating. It was. But, too, it stung, terribly. She could not keep tears from her eyes. She felt like a child. She knew it was not a man’s beating, but a woman’s beating. In tears, she realized it was more in the nature of a severe rebuke for naughtiness than anything else. It meant, clearly, that they were not particularly annoyed with her, that she had not worried them, that her escape attempt had not been, and was not taken seriously. Her effort, to herself, though foiled had been momentous desperate. Now it was being punished, sharply, but trivially. She supposed she was being punished at all only because she had been insubordinate, and they felt that something in response, however trivial, should be done to her. She asked herself if this was all her escape attempt was worth to them, all it had earned her.