by G. F. Newman
The two other warders in white coats ran forward to assist their colleague. As they tried to take hold of him, Lynn hit one of them – Warder Evans – splitting his nose, causing a fountain of blood. At the first sign of the disturbance getting out of hand the watchful discipline warder hit the alarm button. The clanging bell drowned out the noise, but didn’t deter Lynn, or Bobby Mark, who jumped up to help him. It took no time at all for a dozen warders armed with heavy batons to answer the alarm call.
47
SITTING BEHIND HIS BARE DESK in the adjudication room, Maudling looked a picture of self-righteousness and Lynn hated him, standing toeing the line in his over-large carpet slippers, warders either side of him. He was aware that everyone here was watching him, waiting for an excuse to pound him some more.
With cuts and bruises, his face was barely recognisable, the open flesh over his lips and around his eyes was puffy with bruising. This wasn’t something the screws in the workshop had done, nor would have attempted in front of other prisoners, most of whom would certainly have stepped in. Instead he had been dragged off to the block, where eight screws set about him, then Bobby Mark. All he had tried to do was defend himself, knowing that to have put himself about and done more damage would have made things worse. Losing consciousness twice during the beating hadn’t stopped the screws. With one of their own hurt they had gone on until all their anger and hostility towards him and Bobby Mark, and prisoners in general, was spent. He hadn’t seen Bobby Mark following their removal from the workshop yesterday, but doubted he had fared better than himself.
The governor didn’t bat an eyelid at his condition, but mostly avoided looking at him anyway.
‘It’s beyond my scope to hear this case,’ he informed Lynn, having listened to the three warders, each of whom corroborated the others’ evidence. ‘Regrettably, I lack the authority to punish you sufficiently.’ His guilt already decided upon. ‘I am going to refer your case to the Visiting Committee to deal with, though I doubt even they have sufficient authority to punish you as you deserve. Personally, I should like you flogged – the only punishment you’d understand. However, the Home Office in its wisdom has ruled against such practice.’ The governor sighed through his nose, making it sound more like an angry snort. ‘You will be confined to a cell in the punishment block pending your hearing. Take him away.’ He made a dismissive gesture with his hand.
‘About turn,’ the chief ordered. ‘Outside!’
Lynn shuffled around, trying not to increase the pain such movements caused. There was no case to be made here, having put a screw in the hospital. As he was escorted out he heard the governor say, ‘Keep him away from other prisoners, Mr McClean. No contact at all until he goes before the Committee.’
Out of the adjudication room, Lynn was taken to the holding cell, where his shoes were returned to him but he couldn’t bend to put them on and shuffled out in his socks.
The escort marched him along the block to the section gate. Beyond it Jordan stood in the familiar stance that some screws adopted, legs apart, arms folded across their chests. He made no attempt to unlock the gate but simply grinned. This was the first he had seen of him, having been off duty when he had been brought down yesterday.
‘The man who likes to beat up warders,’ Jordan said. ‘You didn’t do much of a job.’
Lynn stared back, not daring to say a word. This uniform would be looking for an excuse, too.
‘We got your mate down here. He didn’t do any better, simple fucker.’ When Lynn didn’t reply, he unlocked the gate and curled his index finger at him.
Jordan stopped him at the open cell door and leant close enough for Lynn to feel his damp breath on his face.
‘Try it on with me,’ the blond screw warned, ‘what you look like now is a beauty contestant compared to how you will look. Understand?’ He didn’t wait for a response. ‘Inside.’
Lynn stepped into the cell and stopped with his back to the door, waiting for it to slam, the grille shutter to slap open and close a short while afterwards. Finally, now he was alone, he let go, letting the pain wash over him. There was even more pain – if that was possible – when he lowered himself to the bed, and he bit down on his tender lip to stop himself crying out. He was determined not to give those bastards the satisfaction of hearing him cry with pain. He wanted to report sick and seek solace and release in painkillers but didn’t for the same reason.
Lynn eased himself on the bed, trying to find the least painful position. He was bone-weary from both the punishment and the fact that he couldn’t sleep last night. His back and ribs had taken a lot of stick. As he found a tolerable, unmoving position he wondered about Bobby Mark, feeling a pull of affection towards him for steaming to his aid as he had.
#
Two days and nights crawled away in his tender state, when he was aware of nothing other than pain. Tiredness forced sleep upon him, then he would wake suddenly in a paroxysm, soaked with sweat and fearing another beating. He missed the meals that were pushed into his cell as eating was painful, nor did he exercise and slop out; finally the pain began to ease and become bearable and he found the more he moved the easier movement became.
The third night he slept only to be awoken by cries from Bobby Mark in the next cell but one. The brief respite from pain caused him to momentarily forget and he sat up too quickly, bringing a stabbing through his kidneys. He expected to get more of what Mark was getting and was disconcerted when nothing happened. He watched his door, but there was no one outside as far as he could tell. He waited and listened, growing more uneasy.
‘Bob?’ he called through the silence of the block. ‘Bobby? You all right?’ There was no reply. He launched himself cautiously off the edge of the bed, and hesitated before pressing his finger against the bell, wondering if it was wise to remind the screws he was still around. He didn’t want any more stick, but he needed to know if Bobby Mark was getting another beating, even though there would be nothing he could do to stop it.
With no response to the bell, and no further sound from Bobby Mark, he thought about springing up to the window and calling along the block. He knew that, even if he had the energy to jump and catch hold of the bars, he wouldn’t have the strength to hang there for long. So, reluctantly, he pressed the bell again. Still there was no response. Eventually he went back to bed, back to sleep, hoping that it was nothing more than a nightmare Bobby was having.
While on the block prisoners were supposed to get an hour’s exercise in the yard each day. If you got twenty minutes you were doing well. It wasn’t convenient for staff to exercise prisoners properly: too many prisoners and too few staff. Even so, when he was escorted through the block and into the yard he was surprised to see he was the only one there, apart from a warder with an Alsatian outside the wire. There was no immediate reason why others weren’t out. It wasn’t raining.
‘Where’re the others?’ he mumbled through slightly puffy lips.
‘No talking,’ the warder said, ‘or you’re back inside. Just walk like you’re s’posed to.’
That puzzled and disturbed Lynn. Something was up, he didn’t know what, but he wasn’t about to answer back to try and find out.
In the early days of this current stretch in solitary, he didn’t even see the trusty, so had no chance of finding out what was going on, or how Bobby Mark was. The food tray was handed to him by a screw. He hadn’t long been eating his evening meal when there came the sound of crashing from another cell. A tray was flung against the wall. He knew it was Bobby before his muffled shout, ‘I’m not eating that shit,’ confirmed it. A scuffle ensued; a cell door slammed; then silence. Lynn waited for a long while before rising to the bell, but then he stopped. He thought about the possible consequence, and questioned whether he could do Mark any good by getting involved. Finally, he decided that he couldn’t. He turned away.
After eating his food, he sat at the end of the
bed, his back against the wall, his legs drawn up to his chest, imagining the screws were going to rush in and tell him to stop thinking about Bobby Mark. He felt guilty about Bobby; he should have helped him. Bobby hadn’t held back when he had been in trouble. He bloody well should have done, Lynn argued with himself, as you had no chance against all them warders. They always got back at you somehow, even if they had to wait months for their opportunity. He decided he ought to try and find out how Bobby was at least.
He rose decisively and went to the bell-push and stabbed his finger against it. He’d have no problem if old Reg Allison answered it, but didn’t think he’d get any response at all. He was startled when the shutter on the grille slapped open and the fleshy face of Oliver Dorman appeared on the other side.
‘What are you ringing the bell for now?’
Lynn hesitated. This screw was one of those who had worked him over when he had first been brought down to the block. ‘I want to go to the library,’ Lynn said.
‘That any way to ask?’ fatty Dorman said in a reasonable tone. ‘Say it properly.’
‘Yes – I’d like to go the library, please, Mr Dorman.’ Lynn saw the mocking smile.
‘The library’s closed.’ He slammed the shutter.
Anger burst out of Lynn. ‘You no-good bastard!’ he shouted, heedless of the consequences.
The shutter slapped open again immediately. ‘What did you say?’ the warder asked.
His even tone seduced Lynn a little. ‘Bobby Mark? How is he?’
‘What, you mean the big fella? He’s as good as gold. Released this morning, he was. I expect he’s home by now. Wouldn’t be surprised he’s not humping his old lady.’
With great difficulty, Lynn managed to check the rage he felt rising.
‘Anything else?’ Dorman asked, smiling.
‘Yeah,’ he said calmly, ‘get cancer, you slag.’
It might have been a particularly sensitive point. If it was, he knew he would be made to suffer, but for now the warder simply slammed the shutter.
As he hurt less and less, so he began exercising, then increased the duration. It helped to move the stiffness that lingered from his bruises. He could feel himself getting fit again and found it a good feeling compared with how he had been a week ago.
‘Keeping in shape?’ Reg Allison said as he opened the cell for Lynn to slop out after his last meal of the day. ‘That’s the idea. It doesn’t do to mope around, getting depressed.’ He waited as Lynn rose and wiped the sweat off his face. ‘Put your slops out, son.’
‘What’s the chances of going to the library, Mr Allison?’ Lynn asked. He had nothing to read apart from Gideon’s Bible.
‘You’re s’posed to be denied all privileges,’ Allison said, slightly embarrassed. ‘What sort of books d’you read? I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Anything’d be handy. That. Bible’s getting a bit thin.’ He went to the recess with his piss-pot.
Lynn was surprised when Reg Allison opened his cell later that evening and gave him a book. He decided this was the single screw with any feelings, until Jordan opened his cell door later that night. Oliver Dorman stood behind him, his arms folded across his chest.
‘Where did you get that?’ Jordan demanded. ‘Give it here.’
‘I brought it down with me,’ Lynn lied instinctively, to protect the man who had given him the book, then wondered if he hadn’t been set up by Allison for what was to come.
‘Stand up when you address an officer,’ Dorman ordered.
Lynn complied. He didn’t want to fight them.
‘All right, where d’you get this book?’ And when Lynn didn’t answer, ‘You’re on report.’ They took the book.
To his surprise they proceeded with the charge and a report was pushed under his door. In the morning, he was taken for adjudication. After changing into over-sized slippers, he was led in front of the deputy governor, who found him guilty and gave him three days’ solitary as if that was something different from what he was already doing. The only true difference it made was the extra black mark on his prison record should the need arise for him to go before the Parole Board.
As his bruises and cuts diminished, so the screws relaxed the instruction about keeping him isolated. Brian Lang, the block trusty, was first to make contact with his food. There was little opportunity to pass on information, as the warder stood at the door as the food was handed over.
‘Forgotten the condiments, Bri,’ Lynn said cheerfully one evening. The warder on duty took no exception to such exchanges. He moved back along the block.
‘What d’you hear about Bob?’ Lynn whispered, leaning close to the trusty.
‘Give him a right good spanking last night, they did.’
Lynn had heard some of it, having hurled himself up to the window and called along to Bobby Mark, but not got any reply. ‘What was the upset over?’
‘That no-good slag put dirt on his grub again –’ Lang stopped abruptly.
‘What’s this, a love affair?’ Dorman said, filling the doorway.
‘Don’t make yourself sick on that lovely grub, son.’ Lang laughed as though taking the piss.
Later that night, when most of the other prisoners were in bed asleep, their lights out, Lynn was sitting on the floor reading the few pages that were left in the Bible. He looked up suddenly, hearing two people out in the corridor. For a moment he thought perhaps one of the screws was checking through the Judas hole. Something was going on out there, but what he couldn’t guess. Cautiously, he rose to the door and listened at a tiny gap where the grille in the door wasn’t closed completely. At the acute angle he could see the corridor in the direction of Bobby Mark’s cell as the screws stopped, then saw and heard no more until Bobby Mark shouted, ‘Fuck off, you bastards. Leave me alone.’ His words were clear enough to have been spoken in the corridor. There was no way he could be, Lynn reasoned, as he waited, pressing his cheeks harder into the door to sharpen the angle of his view through the crack.
The lights clicked off in the corridor and he heard giggling as someone scuffled past. An anxious, frustrated silence followed as he tried to work out what they were up to; then he got it, seeing Bobby Mark caught in the beam of a flashlight. The dirty bastards had opened his cell door!
‘Bobby! Bobby!’ he called, but the warning was too late. The screws were onto him.
‘Where d’you think you’re going?’ Dorman demanded. ‘You trying to escape, you fuckwit?’
There was a sound of running feet, followed by swift blows and cries. It was clear who was getting the worst of it. The scuffle continued for a few moments, then silence. Either they had knocked him unconscious or he’d managed to get back to his cell. Whatever the outcome, Lynn knew he had to help Bobby Mark get a result of some sort before he wound up topping one of those screws, if not both of them.
48
HAVING SPENT FIFTEEN DAYS IN solitary he then got to go in front of the Visiting Committee. The procedure was the same as adjudication. First, his shoes were removed and he was given slippers; then the charge sheet was taken back from him. The charge of gross personal assault on a Prison Officer Evans was boldly stated but Lynn chose not to reply.
The Visiting Committee comprised two male JPs and a woman with CBE after her name. The three members present was the minimum for an adjudication. The chairman, Edward Wykes, a lean, glassy-eyed pillar of the establishment, wasn’t someone Lynn would want to talk to if they were on a desert island together. He sat behind the small desk, with the other two either side of him. Maudling was present also, sitting off a little way, as if to suggest not influencing them. Besides his escort there was Chief Officer Carne, po McLean, the two assisting warders from the mailbag shop and Officer Evans, who had a huge plaster across his busted nose. Lynn was sure the dressing was larger than it needed to be, if necessary at all now, as it signalled how shocking the as
sault was.
This procedure was no less of a farce for the supposed independence of the Committee and everything about it favoured the screws as he had no representation and no right to call witnesses. The Committee could confine him in solitary for a couple of months, add extra time onto his sentence or send him out for trial by a judge and jury, but it rarely took the latter course. From the start, he knew there was no chance of him winning and he simply stated what had happened, telling how he was upset after a visit from his wife and that there was no justification for having assaulted the screw, who hadn’t been attacking him personally, rather it was the system which got to him. He was sure this little firm saw nothing wrong with the system. He was removed while they decided what to do with him and didn’t for a moment imagine they would consider any alternative to guilty.
They needed less than five minutes to reach their conclusion.
On calling him back in, the chairman said, ’Having deliberated on the evidence , and taking into consideration your emotional state at the time, this committee finds the offence proven. No matter how distressing a visit from your wife might be, it does not mitigate assault, much less the type of gross personal assault to Officer Evans. Such behaviour is barbaric. If you were beyond the confines of this prison and appearing before my bench, I wouldn’t hesitate in seeking for you the maximum sentence.’
Lynn caught a glimpse of po McClean across the room. The prospect seemed to please him.
‘Prison officers have emotional problems also. At times these can be as acute as any prisoner’s. They don’t relieve their frustrations by assaulting prisoners,’ he said.