THE SLAVES IN THE DESERT

Chapter Nine

Where is Clarissa?

“Feeling better, Stella?” asked Megan as they worked at the rock-breaking, three days after their release. This was the first day they had been fit for work after being stretched out in the sun for five days. They had been taken in the new truck which had arrived to replace the one taken away by Clarissa. By this time they had quite lost hope that the escapee had survived.

“A bit, Megan. I’m not as strong as you three. I wonder how Miranda and the others are. The poor girl in the cage looked close to dying when I left this morning. It must be terrible to be cooped up like that all the time, but you survived it I suppose!”

“Yes. I survived. But I did get let out to stretch myself every few days, thanks to Wanda. Without that I think it would have sent me mad. That poor thing will be permanently bent double when they let her out. I heard one of the guards say they’ll keep her there for a year and then throw her in the solitary cells.”

“Poor girl! She’d be better off if she did die!”

“Get on with your work, you two! No talking!!”

This injunction from the guard with the twisted smile was accompanied by a vicious cut from her whip which whistled angrily through the air, with all the woman’s considerable strength behind it and cut Megan’s back open across the shoulders. She uttered an agonised squeal and got on with her useless and exhausting toil, not anxious to be lashed again. She tried to ignore  the pain, which was severe, and the anger. How much more of this was she going to have to endure?

Even at her most downcast and pessimistic, she hardly imagined this nightmare, which had taken her friend’s life, was going to last for all of thirty years. The bunch of lunatics running this remote neck of the woods would be found out one day, although when she took on board the fact that the prison had been operating for fifteen years already, she realised she might be here for a year or two.

When the truck deposited the tired and dust-covered women back at the prison, Megan and Stella were about to relax in one of the few bits of shade available before going inside to eat when the Warden saw Megan’s back, which still hurt badly and had barely stopped bleeding.

“How did this prisoner get that cut on her back?” she shouted at the guard.

“She was talking, Madam and I gave her a good hard lash to shut her up!”

“Was she? Well! I hardly think one silly little flick across the shoulder is enough for that. Let’s see a lot more red marks! - I’m getting really tired of the girls in that cell! One escapee who disobeyed my orders and another who had to be put in the cage on her first day and STILL hasn’t learned the virtues of obedience and hard work! Give her a really good taste of the whip and have all the others made to watch!”

Megan knew it was useless to plead for mercy and allowed herself to be led towards the whipping station. Then the Warden had an idea!

“Bring her over to the cage! We may not have room inside it for her, but she can stand underneath it!”

So Megan’s hands were tied and she was secured to a rope which was run through one of the bars at the base of the cage, which was raised enough to bring Megan up on to the tips of her toes.

“Now whip the bitch!” shouted the Warden, whose behaviour seemed to be growing more insane by the day. “Give it her on her front as well as her back. Whip her all over from top to bottom! Then we’ll think what more to do with her!”

The Warden then walked off, presumably to find refreshment - she was reputed to be drinking heavily since Clarissa’s escape. The grinning guard was also tired after a long day in the sun and the task of punishing Megan was given to the one who had been left behind at the prison all day. This woman was much less thorough in her chastisement of Megan than the Warden would have liked to see if she had been there. When she had finished, Megan bled from twelve cuts to her back and half a dozen to her stomach. The guard had rounded off her work by bringing the whip down across both breasts. Long before this had reached the half way stage Megan had ceased resisting the impulse to scream and her tortured shrieks rang around the compound. How Clarissa had endued her much more severe whipping in silence, Megan would never understand. Stella swore she could hear the screams echoing all night!

Megan was cut down and taken to be fed on bread and water and brought back to the cage, once the occupant had been lowered to be fed and then raised again. She was told she would be left underneath the cage all night.

“She’ll be peeing and crapping right on your head!” sneered the guard before leaving her.

“How is it up there?” Megan asked the poor captive, as soon as they would not be overheard.

“I’m going mad up here! I can’t take much more. I want to die!”

“I know the feeling! I was up there like you for three months! It’s no picnic, I know!”

“I’ll try to hold out until they take you away. It’s not as if I get that much to eat and drink and it’s so infernally hot up here, I hardly pee at all most days!”

“Don’t worry! Being crapped on from a great height is something I’m used to by this time, figuratively at least! Get some sleep if you can! It helps, as I had plenty of chances to find out!”

“I know I should get some sleep. But it’s such a wonderful change to have a friendly person to talk to, after all this time. I wonder if your friend might still get help? I hope so, because I can’t last much longer!”

Then the caged prisoner did fall asleep. Megan hurt too much for sleep and her semi-suspended position made her even more uncomfortable. By the time morning came she was in agony both from the continuing pain from her wounds and from her shoulders which felt as though they had been dislocated by this time. An hour before the prisoners were due to be taken off to work the Warden came over to her, accompanied by two guards.

“I hope your punishment has taught you a lesson. Has it?”

“Yes, Madam.”

“And what lesson has it taught you?”

“That I am here to work hard and not talk, Madam”

“Good. You are nothing but a piece of shit! What are you?”

“I am nothing but a piece of shit, Madam!”

“Will you tell this to the other women when they are all lined up?”

“Yes, Madam!”

Twenty minutes later the women were all made to stand in line and the Warden spoke to them all.

“This prisoner thought, yesterday, that the working day is a time for chatting and other social pleasantries, but it isn’t and she had learned her lesson! You are here to work and even this idle and useless piece of shit who came here four months ago, half naked along with her even more shameless whore of a friend has been taught that. She will now confess her misdeeds to you all and rejoin you at work. Listen carefully to what she says and mark well her whipped body so that none of you suffer the same. Tell them what you told me, Prisoner!”

“I was whipped for talking and laziness and I am a useless piece of shit who deserved her whipping.”

Then Megan, still sore physically and devastated mentally by the humiliation she had just endured, was released and got into the truck with the others, still hungry and thirsty after not having had a morning meal and only a cup of water and slice of bread the night before.

“Clarissa would NEVER have given them the satisfaction of saying what you did!” muttered  Stella. “They could have kept her there till she died but she’d never have let herself be humiliated like that - or Miranda. I wonder what it is those two have? Because I would have been just like you! I’d have screamed and I’d have said anything it took to be freed!”

Neither girl said another word that day. By mid morning Megan was getting more and more dizzy, scarcely able to lift the hammer, let along pulverise rocks with it, and she received three more lashes before finally collapsing. Stella brought her a drink at lunch time and she was able to get to her feet and carry on working for three more hours before again fainting under the combined effects of the strong sun, her continuing thirst and the lashes from the guard’s whip. Stella had to carry her to the truck when that dreadful day was finally over.

Once again the Warden came over to look at Megan’s body. She counted the raw and still weeping wounds.

“I see you got another six lashes today. Still don’t like work?”

“I love work, Madam. But I was dizzy from heat, hunger and thirst. I did as much work as I could. I swear I did, Madam!”

“Whip her again, Guard! But make sure she is properly fed. She can spend the night in the punishment cell.”

Addressing Megan, the Warden said.

“If you work hard tomorrow, these punishments will cease. It’s up to you. Take her away!”

Once again, Megan was tied up under the cage and her whole body cruelly lashed, this time under the Warden’s gaze, so her torments were even worse than the previous day. Once again she tried not to scream and once again, after a dozen lashes, she uttered a piteous scream of pure pain as the lash cut into her. But this time she heard a voice coming from inches away.

“Be brave, Megan! I didn’t scream like that! Nor should you!” said Clarissa’s voice. And Megan closed her mouth and forced herself to keep quiet until they had finished with her.

When they cut her down she folded up and collapsed. Even cold water thrown over her quivering raw body failed to revive her.

“That mad bitch has killed her!” thought the guard with the twisted grin. But Megan was not dead, merely exhausted and dehydrated. After they had taken her inside and given her food and drink she revived and was put in the punishment cell for the night. Next day she was not beaten again and after a week had almost recovered.

With Megan feeling better, she and Stella started again to think of escape. But with both of them denied clothing they would not be able to smuggle the water bottle out of the prison. And having lost one truck, the prison staff would be guarding the replacement very zealously. It was agreed that they would have to wait until the weather cooled and hopefully it rained.

“If we came across a few pools of water here and there - that would be all we needed” said Stella.

Meanwhile the days dragged on until Miranda had been tied down for two long weeks. As for the girl in the cage and her helper, they had already become fixtures, scarcely looked at by the other women, all of whom had plenty of troubles of their own now that the Warden’s insanity, aided by drunkenness, was causing so many backs to be torn to shreds each day.

Megan and Stella had all but decided to make a run for it one night, when they were finally rescued and the nightmare was over.