The Man in the Street

by Martin Howe

  The Doctor’s breath smelled faintly of whisky as he scrutinised Tony, a bemused expression on his face. His fingers tasted of rubber as they probed and searched. Tony stared back into the dark unblinking eyes and fought the temptation to bite the man’s hand.

  “Tongue out. Good. Head forward.”

  Fingers raked back and forth through Tony’s hair, before roughly squeezing his neck. Muttering to himself the Doctor ran his hands over shoulders, armpits, chest, and stomach, before leaning forward and slipping a grasping hand beneath Tony’s scrotum. As he straightened up Tony moved forward to relieve the uncomfortable pressure but was stopped by a firm hand on his chest. The Doctor appeared vacant.

  “Cough.”

  Unembarrassed at his nakedness until that moment, Tony suddenly felt acutely vulnerable. His fate had never seemed so arbitrary and so dangerously out of control. Anxious, he broke out in a fine sweat, shivering uncontrollably. The pressure in his groin increased.

  “Cold? Well the sooner we get this over with the sooner you can get something on, so cough.”

  Tony obeyed.

  “Once more.”

  He coughed again, his mouth filling with phlegm. Spitting it out, debased as he was, seemed a foolish act of defiance and swallowing he winced with disgust. The Doctor released his testicles and stepped back, his lips mouthing words, forming silent sentences. He passed the back of a gloved hand over his forehead and spoke out loud, a slight rasp in his voice.

  “Turn round and bend over.”

  As Tony reluctantly changed position the Deputy Governor shifted slightly in his seat, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. The guards seemed to have moved closer and all to be staring at Tony, while his three fellow prisoners, pale and diminished in their own nakedness, averted their gaze.

  “I said, bend over.”

  Intensely self-conscious Tony closed his eyes, his body vibrantly alert to any approach, skin susceptible, a heightened appreciation of his defenselessness raising the hairs on his bare limbs. His exposed back tensed. He felt the Doctor’s hand rest on his left buttock, then apply outward pressure. A tingling anticipation, then the violation: the thrust of two fingers, the flinching of muscles, the probing search, the tearing, the withdrawal, then the stinging aftermath.

  “Straighten up and face the front.”

  As he spoke the doctor wiped his fingers on a discoloured towel hanging on the back of his chair. He nodded at the Deputy Governor. Tony brushed tears from his eyes and gently touched his buttocks.

  “Buck up man. Right, time for your bath.”

  A guard grasped Tony by the arm and led him to the tin bath in the middle of the room. It was empty.

  “Get in.”

  He stepped into the bath, the metal felt warmer on the soles of his feet than the stone flagstones. The Deputy Governor, meanwhile ticked the medical and bath boxes on his record sheet and handed it to the Doctor for initialing.

  “Get out.”

  Tony was then ordered to walk to a door at the far end of the room and to stand to attention. Sensing everyone was watching him, he seethed with hatred at his tormentors, but prayed that outwardly he showed nothing.

  “Basil Greatrix step forward. What sort of name is that?”

  Averting his eyes, Tony stared at the tired yellow wall opposite – slowly traced the jagged crack in the bricks that snaked from the ceiling to slither from view behind the shoulder of a guard – closed his ears to the barked orders, and silently humming, attempted to disappear. He quickly discovered there was nowhere to hide. A gasp, an intake of breath, a whimper forced his return, weaving him ever more tightly into the fabric of humiliation that blanketed the prison. He would discover over the coming months of his detention that this stuff was the only covering in the institution able to keep him warm. But for now the ritual of abasement seemed unremitting to Tony.

  “The bastards.”

  A novice in the art of self-negation he had no idea how much of this treatment he could withstand – it was an agonizing assault. A siren, loud and close, wailed in sympathy. There was frenetic movement around him, close to panic. The prisoners buckled as the pandemonium engulfed them, fear being mutual, the tumult only calmed when the lights suddenly failed, plunging the room into darkness.

  “Switch them on for Christ’s sake, we can’t see a bloody thing.”

  The bulbs flickered back to life.

  “Get the detainees to the cells,” yelled the Deputy Governor, as he dashed out of the room, followed by the doctor. The door slammed as another swung open behind Tony. Bent double and breathing heavily a red-faced guard struggled to speak. All activity ceased as attention focused on his efforts. He straightened up and babbled, “It’s an air raid, they’re overhead. Get to the shelters.”

  Handcuffed, the prisoners were frog-marched down a long barely illuminated corridor, which grew appreciably brighter and less stuffy after they turned a corner and approached an open door that led into a walled yard. The party halted and the guards peered out, looking upwards. The sky was a paler grey than the black undifferentiated shadow of the prison building, a pink essence frosted the top of the boundary wall. It was an unheralded visual confection, stunning to the eye. The fresh air too was an elixir, warm and faintly cinder-scented and Tony greedily inhaled as they were hustled across the exercise yard. The pathway worn in the sparse patch of turf by generations of inmates was sodden and gritty, the protruding stones painful for their bare feet. The keening of the siren ceased and as the echoes died away there was calm. Then everyone tensed as they heard the monotonous drone of aircraft. Standing in the open, vulnerable and exposed, the bombers sounded to be upon them.

  “Bugger this,” hissed one of the guards, “Run.”

  The group broke up in disarray – the prisoners standing rigidly still, uncertain what to do – as their escorts sprinted towards a dark shadow in the wall over on the right. A bright orange light flashed in the slate-streaked space above the wall, followed by another and another. They heard the dull crump of a single explosion and felt the tremor beneath their feet, it was instantly superseded by another distinct crack then the percussive sounds merged into an ugly rolling dissonance as the bombardment tore up the neighbouring streets, the ground quaking. In panic they followed the guards, who could be dimly seen disappearing through a door ahead of them.

  “Hey, wait for us,” screamed Ray.

  The prison shook and the ground bucked as bombs exploded close to the walls. Fiery columns erupted high into the air as houses burst apart and gas mains ruptured. Acrid dust billowed everywhere materializing from the shaking walls and cracked earth in roiling clouds, searing lungs and lacerating eyes. Blind and choking, Tony’s alarm at being a target of the German aircraft was accentuated by a powerful sense of his imminent death, inducing a state of pure terror. Acutely aware of a growing inability to act, a sinking down, he was saved by the crashing animal momentum of his companions, which overrode individual paralysis and swept them all forward. Maddened they coalesced – it was difficult to stay upright as they scrambled with hands cuffed behind their backs – their bodies colliding and stumbling. Tony grazed his knee on the gravel as he struggled to keep his balance, the sharp pain penetrating the fug of fear, clearing his mind. He heard Basil repeatedly muttering, “Oh God,” as he overtook him and cried out, “This way, over here.” He stopped, stepped back and touched Basil on the shoulders, offering fake reassurance as he hauled himself to his feet. Together they shuffled forward.

  At the doorway the guards were agitated. The heavy tang of seared metal hung in the air.

  “What the fuck are you lot playing at? You may want to get you heads blown off, but we don’t, get over here.”

  Weak torchlight illuminated a dusty corridor, strewn with debris. Shards of glass glinted as the beam swept from side to side in the smothering gloom.

  “Stick them in the f
irst one you come to and then we can get to the basement,” shouted a guard from the doorway as desperate hands grabbed the prisoners, pushed them roughly into a cell and slammed the door. The precise turning of the lock was heard above the compressive thud of the bombs. It was pitch dark and the terrified men blundered around blindly, recoiling whenever they came into contact with a grimy body, before they each found the wall and settled on to the ground. The floor was granular to the touch and uncomfortable to sit on. They shifted as the room shook and the sound of explosions grew louder. Tony searched the darkness above his head for any sign of a window, a slight change in the quality of the blackness, an escape, but could see nothing.

  Dust drifted down, stinging eyes, irritating noses and filling mouths. Coughs and sneezes punctuated the incessant thumping of the bombs. Tony shook his head, the uneven tempo of the blasts, the threat they posed was beginning to possess him. He counted the detonations. They occurred in clusters of eight, then they would stop, raising hopes that the raid was over. But they would start again. On and on. The building never stopped shaking.

  “One, two, three, four…”

  A massive explosion plucked the words from Tony’s mouth and sucked the air from his body. The cell physically moved, plaster and bricks showered down, pressing the prisoners to the floor. A flash seared the torn blackout curtain covering the window high up in the wall, illuminating for a moment their wrecked surroundings. There was a sound of falling masonry and the faint echo of a scream. The roar faded into the distance. In the lull, Tony heard a sobbing, disconnected voice, one he didn’t recognize.

  “Oh Lord Jesus, oh good Lord.”

  That was not the last raid on Liverpool that night, for several more hours the Luftwaffe bombed the city, but Walton prison escaped further damage. Guards and volunteer firemen fought the blaze that raged through part of D-Wing. They had only a couple of hoses and one functioning water-hydrant and made little progress. Five prisoners had been killed when a bomb hit their cell block, two others escaped with minor scratches and burns. The four detainees cowered in their cell listening to the hubbub outside. The darkness heightened their senses – the acrid smell of burning filled the room, every cry and shriek cut through them. Fear obliterated hunger, the savage cramps in their bound wrists and arms, and all shame. No one slept.

  A naked bulb brought them round, the light piercing dust-encrusted eyes like needles. Blinking they heard the guards cursing as they struggled to open the encrusted lock and shift the rubble-jammed door. It gave way after much hammering.

  “Look at these bastards. They’ve got nothing on. Sam, you’d better go and find their clothes.”

  “Right ho.”

  “Come on, you lot get up. Count your blessings it wasn’t you that burned up eh? Some poor sods weren’t so lucky.”

  The prison officers tentatively kicked the hunched naked figures, their hair and bodies coated in a thin dusting of white powder, faces marked by a darkening around watery eyes and moist traces of saliva dribbling from the corners of open mouths.

  “Come on, rouse yourselves. We’re moving you, it’s not safe in here. The ceiling could come down at any time.”

  One of the guards blurted out, “Oh Christ, who left them in cuffs?”

  “We was in one hell of a hurry last night. There was no time to look after this bunch and make it to the shelters. Sod it, who’s going to find out. Corkhill’s not going to give a damn about this lot, is he?”

  “Steady on lad, we won’t breath a word. Have you got the key?”

  “No, they aren’t mine. It’ll take a bit to sort this out. We was all over the shop when the bombing started. I really don’t need this.”

  He stormed out of the cell in search of the keys.

  “You’re already making a lot of friends, aren’t you?”

  Another guard stood above Tony and stared pitilessly at him, before nudging him in the side.

  “Up all of you, I’ve been here all night and I wanna’ go home, come on stand.”

  He bent over and hauled on Basil Greatrix’s arm and he rose groggily to his feet.

  “Ughhh you’re in a state.”

  Basil struggled to reply, but could only manage an abusive croak. The others staggered up unaided. As their eyes grew accustomed to the bright light, they saw that the room was a shell, empty except for a pile of dirty rags heaped in a corner. The floor was strewn with plaster and brick fragments, the walls stained and scuffed. Mould flourished verdantly on decaying plaster peeling from a segment of brickwork near the door, sustained by a ruptured pipe seeping rusty water that constantly flooded a quadrant of the cell.

  The prisoners’ stupefaction elicited sympathy.

  “Not up to your standards? Well things are better on the upper floors, which is where you’re going. You’ve got beds, running water and, oh yes, your very own chamber pots. You boys are lucky you’re the first to be put up in there. The old women’s quarters are being opened up.”

  “Re-opened you mean.”

  “Of course I do, re-opened specially for you. Keep all your lot in one place, where we can keep an eye on you. You’ll have cells of your own for a while. But I hear they’re bringing a good number of your friends up here, from down south.”

  In the corridor there was a strong smell of charred wood and as they were led up a dusty flight of stone stairs the prisoners could hear the distant disparate sounds of picks and shovels removing rubble. The lower steps were splattered with bird droppings and they stepped forward gingerly. The corpses of emaciated pigeons littered the floor of the stairwell – broken feathers scattered everywhere – the birds trapped by the metal grill that lined the stairs from the ground to the third floor of the building. A window on the first landing hung open on broken hinges, letting in a warm breeze. The courtyard was carpeted with broken bricks, roof tiles and splintered timbers and there were piles of sodden clothes and footwear heaped everywhere. The pages of a discarded newspaper fluttered across the debris, slowly opening and closing, catching on broken pipes, guttering and a washbasin untouched by its fall from an upper floor.

  A thin plume of blue smoke rose from the shattered remains of D-wing. The end of the building had been completely destroyed, the interior of the cells, some with pictures pinned to the walls, stood out starkly against the scorched brickwork. On the third floor a swaying bunk hung by a single chain. A gang of prisoners was clearing a blocked doorway, their exhausted escorts sitting on large slabs of masonry nearby, smoking. The sun was bright and a number of the prisoners had taken off their shirts, their grimy sweating bodies glistening in the clear morning light. Tony caught sight of the Deputy Governor standing in the shade on the opposite side of the courtyard talking to another man in a dark suit – was that the Governor he wondered? Last night’s bombing wouldn’t help their chances of an early release.

  “Damn it.”

  “Poor sods, most wouldn’t have known what hit them. Come on, move away from the window, we haven’t got all day.”

  They climbed the remaining half-flight of stairs to a dingy landing.

  “Here we are,” called out one of the guards, “Take your pick.”

  The four prisoners stood indecisively, looking up and down the corridor.

  “Only joking,” the guard grabbed Tony and pushed him into the first open cell, “in you go.”

  He was greeted by the crack of wings and a flurry of feathers, as a panicked pigeon crashed through the bars and out of the broken window. No one followed Tony.

  “Thank God,” he thought, “I’m on my own.”

  There was a cry from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hold on, don’t lock them in. I’ve got the keys and Pete has found some uniforms.”

  Seconds later a breathless young man appeared at the door of Tony’s cell. Behind him another guard, who tossed a grey washed-out tunic onto the floor and disappeared, only to r
eappear seconds later with a pair of lace-less black shoes, which he threw against the wall. Tony flinched as the shoes bounced across the room. The boyish guard frowned.

  “I hope this is the right key.”

  It was dark when Tony woke up. He was lying on soft musty bedding and he was clothed. It was deathly quiet and the air was frigid. He thought of his wife and children, would they sleep through the night? Would they be undisturbed? Get a lie-in in the morning? A cup of tea in bed? It felt like the weekend. He fell asleep.

  He sat bolt upright. It was light. There was a commotion in the corridor outside the cell.

  “Slopping out lads, buckets at the ready. You’ve got five minutes for that early morning shit, make the most of it.”

  The voice faded away and the rattling and hammering diminished. Dazed, Tony stared at the rusting metal door, its scuffed mute solidity demoralizing. Outraged as he felt at the injustice of his incarceration and at the indignities he was suffering, he was too drained to move. He dutifully sat and waited until he heard the guard returning, then grabbed his bucket and stood by the door. The twisted metal handle cut into his fingers and he lauded the return of feeling to his hands. The day before when his handcuffs had been taken off, his upper body had been numb. Relief forced a smile to his face.

  “Someone’s happy this morning. Privvies are at the end of the corridor, wash up, straight back here and no talking. Grub in half an hour.”

  Basil and Ray were already in the washroom with two other prisoners Tony hadn’t seen before.

  “Wash up, there’s no fucking water,” one of them snarled as he came in, “and there’s even more of us. I really am fucking fed up with this. How many of us are there on this fucking wing? How many more are they going to cram in here?”

  “Shut up will you, you stupid,” Basil hissed, “We’re all in the same boat. The last thing we want is some thick …”

  “Basil keep it down for Christ’s sake, we’ll get it in the neck if they hear us.”