Sunset

by Christopher Nicole

  One of them answered him, asking a question, smiling, as were his companions.

  The officer hesitated, again staring at her, his face also smiling. Oh, my God, she thought. Oh, my God. This question she could understand.

  The officer shrugged once again, and turned, and walked aft, away from her.

  Meg attempted to sit up, and her shoulders were seized to hurl her flat again, once again leaving her breathless. While she gasped her wrists were grasped and a man was also kneeling on her hair. She gazed at their grinning faces, and attempted to kick, realized her mistake as her ankles were in turn seized and pressed to the deck, pulled as wide apart as her arms. The man who had asked the question knelt between her thighs, reaching forward to dig his fingers into the neck of her gown and rip it down, slowly, as a child might peel the wrapping from a sweet. She stared at him, wishing she could summon all the force of her mind to strike him dead, but the gown was at her waist, and another man was leaning forward to fondle her breasts, giggling with anticipated pleasure as he did so.

  Then the man between her legs jerked away, and threw the gown into the air, while his companions cheered. She was naked, on the deck, in front of twelve men. Twelve men.

  But it was only the first who mattered. He had dropped his breeches before she knew what he was doing, was thrusting at her with a tremendous lance, burning into her flesh, no caresses here, jerking back and forth. She tried to raise her bottom, and was thrust against the deck again. She tried moving from side to side, and was hit a blow in the stomach which had her head swinging and made her think she would choke. And as if to add to her misery, the engine had commenced its putt-putt again, sending throbs through the deck, through her, through the penis upon which she was impaled.

  She tried screaming. Her breath was back and she opened her mouth as wide as they had opened her legs, and screamed and screamed and screamed, and lost her breath again as his weight lay heavily on her belly and chest.

  But there were twelve men. She had not, after all, escaped the rats. They crawled on her, they played with her, they investigated her, looking into her mouth, thrusting fingers into her ears, rolling her on her face to practise she knew not what upon her, for always there was one between her legs, caressing and hurting, thrusting and gasping. For a terrible moment she felt a build-up of passion, the ecstasy bubble which lurked in her belly. No, she prayed. No. I cannot have an orgasm while being raped. And the ecstasy soon enough faded in pain and horror. She could only lie there, and pray for death, and think, I am Margaret Hilton. I am Mistress of Hilltop. Oh, my God, then I am being punished for being Margaret Hilton. For being mistress of Hilltop.

  She discovered that she was alone. Relatively. There were still men all around her, but they were going about their duties, coiling warps, preparing canvas fendoffs. She lay in a huddle against the wheelhouse, each throb of the engine still seemed to travel right through her body. She ached, from her toes to her head. She smelt. Her hair was a tangled ruin. She could tell, as she attempted to lick her lips, that her face was bruised and swollen. Had they hit her there? She could not remember. But she could remember someone trying to kiss her, as she twisted her head to and fro, and finally holding her jaw between his fingers. She could still feel their imprint on her flesh.

  But it was the imprint on her mind which mattered. She had been raped, by twelve men. She had revelled in sex, in the enjoyment of her body, in the indulgence of her belly desires, for more than a dozen years, ever since that night in the mountains with Cleave. Her body, her sensuality, had been her weapon, far more than the wealth of Hilltop or the aura of the Hilton name, which she had used to dominate all Jamaica. Now it had been torn from her hand, and defiled. She wondered if she would ever have the courage, or the wish, to pick it up again. If she would ever be granted the opportunity.

  The thuds through the deck were slowing, and again she saw feet. She raised her head, stared at the officer. He held a blanket, which he now dropped on her. Then he turned away without a word.

  The cloth was filthy, but it was some protection. She pulled it about her shoulders, managed to sit up, discovered that they were in a small harbour and about to come alongside a dock. The officer turned, and said something. She did not understand the words, but she did not wish to be kicked again, and hastily scrambled to her feet. The blanket hung from her shoulders but only reached her thighs. She took it off and wrapped it around her like a sarong, hiding her breasts and her groin, leaving her shoulders and legs exposed. Her muscles shook, and her knees touched each other. She discovered she was shivering, despite the afternoon heat.

  The boat came alongside the dock, and the engine died. The officer jerked his head, and she saw the gangway had been opened. She stepped across, onto the wood of the dock, gazed at the soldiers and policemen waiting there, at the crowd of people, men and women and children, gathered in the dust road beyond, some Negroes, most mulattoes, at the cluster of ramshackle buildings.

  The officer pushed her shoulder and she staggered forward and tripped, and all but released the blanket. Hastily she hugged it tighter, regained her balance, walked up the street, feeling the dust between her toes. Once she had liked to roll in the dust. Now she was going to be made to do more than that. She had no doubt of that.

  The peons stared at her, and she bowed her head. What a treat for them, she thought. A white woman, being mistreated. And they would have no doubt as to what the sailors would have done to her.

  They came to a gateway, where there was a sentry. She turned through without being pushed, discovered herself in a square, surrounded by barracks. There was a flagpole from which fluttered the red and gold ensign of Spain, and beside it a cannon, pointed directly at her. Perhaps it will go off, she thought, and all this will end. But the cannon did not go off and she was being pushed forward again, towards a shallow flight of steps which led to a verandah on which there was a cluster of soldiers, while other soldiers had now appeared to left and right, gazing at her, laughing and joking amongst themselves.

  She stumbled up the stairs, across the verandah. The door in front of her was open, and inside was a desk, and a bookshelf, and a hat and stick stand, and a chair. Without thinking she sank onto the chair, and received a clout on the side of the head which sent her scattering to the floor on her hands and knees. She realized she had lost the blanket, and that there were men at all the windows looking into the room. Desperately she regained the cloth, hugged it across her body. She would not look at them. She could not acknowledge that they were there. If she did not grant them existence, then in time they would have to disappear, and return to the atmosphere from which they had been conjured.

  Feet, clad in riding boots, stamping on the wood. Heels clicking as officers and men saluted. She raised her head, stared at the officer. A senior officer, certainly, judging by the amount of gold braid he was wearing. An elderly man, with a face which seemed a series of ridges and valleys in the brown flesh. His eyes were also brown, and absolutely devoid of life.

  'Get up,' he said in English.

  Meg hastily scrambled to her feet. The commandant went round his desk and sat down. The chair in front of the desk remained vacant, but she was not invited to sit.

  'You are from the schooner which was sunk,' he said. 'Some of your companions have also been taken.' He shrugged. 'They are all dead.'

  Oh, God, she thought. Oh, God. But he said some. Yet to ask might be to betray Alan.

  'One or two escaped,' the commandant said. 'I wish you to give me their names.'

  Meg licked her lips. '1 do not know their names,' she said. And was surprised at the evenness of her voice.

  'I also wish to know who supplied the weapons and ammunition you were trying to deliver to the insurgents,' the commandant said, as if she had not spoken. 'I wish to know who paid for them and where they were delivered to you. I wish to know these things.'

  'I do not know,' she said. ‘I do not know anything about it.'

  The commandant gazed at
her, and she realized it was necessary to say something more.

  'I am Margaret Hilton,' she said. 'I am the owner of Hilltop Plantation in Jamaica.' She paused, but he did not seem interested. 'My husband,' she said, desperation beginning to take hold of her mind, 'is a member of the Jamaica House of Assembly'. How remarkable that she should be attempting to hide behind Billy.

  The commandant pointed with his pencil. 'You are the woman of the captain of the schooner,' he said. 'He is a white man. What is his name?'

  Would they ask that if they had him ? If he was dead? It would not matter, if he was dead. But he could not be dead. Not Alan. She licked her lips again. 'I will not tell you that,' she said. 'I am Margaret Hilton. I...'

  'You are nothing,' the commandant said.

  She went on speaking, because to stop would be to burst into tears. 'I have been raped by your people. I intend to prefer charges. I wish to see the English consul.'

  'You are nothing,' the commandant said again. 'But you are guilty of gun running, of supporting insurgents against the Crown of Spain. This island is under martial law. I would be within my rights were I to have you hanged, now.' He leaned back in his chair, and smiled. 'My men would enjoy seeing a white woman hanged.'

  Oh, God, she thought. Her knees gave way and she sank into the chair.

  Someone moved to her shoulder, but the commandant waved him away. 'But I will not have you hanged, white woman, at least, not for a while. You are going to tell me the answers to the questions I have asked you.'

  She shook her head. 'I do not know,' she said. 'I do not know.'

  The commandant looked past her, and nodded. Hands immediately seized her shoulders, dragged her to her feet. Other hands had gripped her wrists and she could no longer control her blanket. Oh, God, she thought. It is going to happen again.

  Naked, she was taken outside. The crowd of soldiers seemed to have grown, and they were laughing at her and exchanging comments. And they had been joined by their wives and daughters, dark-skinned girls with flashing eyes and equally flashing teeth. The presence of the women was much harder to bear than the presence of the men. But it was necessary to shut them all out, to pretend they did not exist, to insist to herself that she was suffering some very private nightmare, some personal hell into which she had been pitched for years of determined arrogance.

  Dust between her toes. She was once again being forced across the courtyard, close to the flagpole. Then she was halted, and her arms were taken above her head. The men surrounding her talked, constantly, to her and to each other, and smiled, and stroked her breasts and pinched her nipples and squeezed her buttocks and her groin. But she could not understand them, she could only feel.

  Her arms were being secured to a rope above her head; she saw that it was suspended between two poles, like a washing line. Oh, my God, she thought, I am going to be left here to hang by my wrists.

  But there were other hands scrabbling at her ankles. Men, kneeling, their arms around her legs. She wondered she did not kick them in the face. But she was too afraid to kick them in the face. She had not been afraid since the first night of her honeymoon. And then she had had no real cause for fear. Now, she knew, there was cause for fear.

  Her legs were being pulled apart, and secured. She looked down and discovered that where she had been made to stand there were steel hooks, driven into the earth, about two feet to either side of the rope from which she was suspended. Now her ankles were each made fast to one of the hooks, so that she was stretched taut, legs spread, her weight taken by her wrists, which were already commencing to burn. She wondered if she was about to be flogged. There was no other reason for her to be tied in quite such a fashion.

  But these people, these scum, could not possibly mean to flog Margaret Hilton. She wanted to scream to the world her name, her rank, her position. Instead she said nothing. Because this world would not understand.

  The crowd was gathered close now, and when she opened her eyes she saw the rope. So she was, after all, to be flogged. She braced herself. She had not given Oriole the satisfaction of hearing her scream; there was no necessity to give these people any satisfaction either.

  She gazed at the rope, suddenly aware of how exhausted she was, aware that the heat was leaving the sun, so that it must be not less than six hours since the sinking of the schooner, and therefore nine hours since last she had eaten, or drunk. Her throat was parched, her belly rumbled, and she was about to be flogged.

  She gazed at the rope, her brain still flickering despite its despair, its exhaustion. For if they were going to flog her they were going about it in a very strange manner. The end of the rope was being made fast to a cleat in the pole facing her, some six feet away. Then it was brought towards her and carried underneath her; the man doing so gave her a squeeze on the inside of her thigh. She sucked air into her lungs, and gazed at the commandant, who had joined the throng.

  'Now you must answer my questions,' he said. 'First, the name of the man who brought the guns. The white man. Your lover.'

  She gazed at him.

  'If you do not answer,' he said. 'I will have them lift the rope, and I will not ask you again before morning. The name of your lover.'

  She gazed at him, wishing she had the courage to spit in his face, able to summon no more than the will to resist passively.

  The commandant shrugged, and turned away. He spoke in Spanish, and she felt the rope brush her leg as it was tightened.

  Meg sucked air into her lungs, attempted to hold it there. She knew now what they were about to do to her. The rope brushed the inside of her thighs, then rode into her crotch, and was still dragged tighter. She attempted to push herself up with her toes, but her ankles were securely held to the ground, and she could not rise no more than an inch. And by now the rope was eating into her vagina, seeming to saw back and forth as if it would cut her into two.

  Then it was secured, and for a moment the relief was so great she wanted to shriek with joy. Her muscles relaxed, and her body sagged; the rope above her head had several inches of give. And immediately the cutting began again, forced her back onto her toes. But her toes were already beginning to curl with cramp, and the pain spread upwards into her calves.

  The evening became dim with agony. Which was as well, she reflected with the part of her brain which continued to work. For if the commandant had returned inside, his men had not. Nor had their women. They clustered around her, giving full vent to their antagonism. She had no rights, in their eyes. She was a member of that hateful band who supplied the guerrillas with arms and ammunition, enabling them to lay in wait and murder husbands and brothers, sweethearts and sons. No fate was too bad for her. And so to the steady pressure of the rope they added their own torments. Some pulled the rope to and fro, causing it to saw, so that Meg was sure she must be bleeding. Others sat on the rope and then got up again, causing it to drive into her tortured flesh like a knife blade. Others fingered her flesh, pulled nipple and nose, stuck their fingers in her eyes, smeared her with honey and left her to the insects which rose as the sun went down.

  And to all of the man-created torments were added those of her parched throat and rumbling belly. She wondered she did not go mad, wished to go mad, prayed to go mad, or to die of heat stroke or exhaustion or heart failure. Or despair.

  Then she realized she was alone. Of human beings. It was dark, and there was a moon, and the fort was quiet, save for a snatch of music emanating from an open window, and accompanied by a clink of glasses. Oh, God, she thought, what would she give for a sip of liquid. Any liquid. She thought she could drink her own urine, which from time to time gathered between her legs.

  And if she was alone of human tormentors, the insects remained, clustering around the honey, picking at lips and chin and nipple and navel, satisfying their hunger upon the exposed body presented to them.

  Perhaps she slept. Afterwards she could never remember if she had slept. She was cocooned in a corset of pain, which began in her toes, stretched up
into her calves and thighs, rose to a crescendo where the rope cut between her legs, but extended onwards to her shoulders and arms, now drained of most sensation as they had been drained of blood. And if she slept, she awoke again to the intense, mind-consuming throbbing, sometime in the early morning, and she knew she could stand it no longer.

  Meg screamed, and again and again. 'I don't know,' she shouted. ‘I don't know where we got the guns. I don't know the name of the crew. I only knew the name of the captain. Alan McAvoy. Oh, God. His name is Alan McAvoy.'

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE PRISONER

  CLANG, clang, clang. The noise ballooned through the cell block, only partially deadened by the earth walls. And was greeted by another noise, the gush of baying voices which all but drowned the clatter of the tin pans.

  Meg preferred not to lift her head. Lifting her head was a lengthy, painful business. It involved using her brain, trying to connect with her worn muscles. It involved realizing the gaping void that was her belly, and from that beginning, the steaming cesspit that was her body, the filthy matted undergrowth that was her hair. And after that, it involved realizing where she was, how long she had been here, what she had become.

  Besides, Jamie would look after her.

  The noise rose to a crescendo, punctuated now by the crack of whips, as the guards drove the too eager hands and fingers back through the bars. It surrounded her like a hurricane breeze, but she was safe in here. Her cell might be no more than six feet long and three feet wide, but it was hers. When first they had dragged her down here, pulling her by the wrists, her bottom bumping on the stone steps - she had been unable to control her muscles sufficiently to walk - she had been terrified. Then, she had had sufficient feelings left to be terrified. She had assumed herself about to be thrown into the midst of the baying men to either side, reaching for her through the bars. She was a woman, and they had been left here to rot, or until someone signed an order and they were hanged.