Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [45]
On the way back to the hammocks, someone clipped him round the ear, mistaking his sobs of frustration for sobs of relief.
His torturers soon became bored. After his fifth session, they left Pettigrew chained to a metal bedframe with a muslin hood over his head. At some point, he heard shouting. The sounds of people running around. General activity of men doing their jobs. Slowly, the ship’s anchor came up.
A little later, he heard the door to the cabin open. Excited youthful voices gathered by the door. Then they brought in a woman and he heard them chain her to the bed next to his. Then they argued over who should go first.
Apart from a few shadows moving across the bottom corner of his field of vision, he couldn’t see anything because of the hood over his head.
But he heard her screams.
Maybe he had died; died and gone to Hell. The sounds were bad, but the smell was worse. He lost count after the fifth time they raped her. Most were quick about it, but one man seemed to take an eternity. ‘Hurry up, Julio,’ one of his companions squealed. ‘We’ll find you another one later.’
‘You can do him,’ someone else said, kicking Pettigrew’s bedframe so hard that it bounced off the floor. ‘Just flip him over, you won’t know the difference.’ There was laughter and he felt spittle spray across his chest.
Another voice, closer this time, said to him: ‘How would you like that, priest? You can be next. If you’re still tight enough, that is.’
Finally they left. After the cabin door slammed shut, he listened to her sobs.
And then her whimpering.
And – finally – her silence.
Much later, he moved his head in the direction of the woman. Their beds were less than six inches apart. She was nearly close enough to touch. If he flexed the fingers on his left hand, he imagined that he could almost brush her right forearm. He tried to ignore the beating of his heart, the rasping of his breath and the buzzing in his ears, and instead concentrated on listening. There was nothing to be heard. Maybe it was his hearing – they had hit him on the ears many times. It was a torture technique called ‘the telephone’ and perhaps he had taken one call too many. Either way, the silence was a blessing. He hoped that it meant that his unknown companion was gone. That Death had finally shown her its soft heart. And he hoped that he would soon be shown the same mercy.
The hours passed with his body encased in a gentle rhythm of pain. At some point Pettigrew imagined that he was floating on the ceiling, looking down on the two beds: their bare frames, no mattresses, no blankets, no pillows; nothing else in the room but their naked, bloodied, bruised pulps.
He wanted to cry, but no tears came.
He wanted to scream, but no sound came.
He wanted to leave this place, but he could not move.
After a while, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see a messenger from the celestial court close by. Dressed only in a loincloth, he had the concerned expression of a man. With a warm, sincere gaze, he looked deep into Pettigrew’s eyes as he hovered above him.
‘I am Dismas, your guardian angel,’ said the vision.
The priest smiled. He knew that Dismas was the Good Thief who had been crucified with Christ on Calvary, and then accompanied Him to Paradise. Dismas was the only human to be canonized by Jesus. He was also the patron saint of condemned criminals.
‘Take me with you,’ Pettigrew sobbed.
‘I cannot.’ Dismas stroked his ragged beard with one hand, and pointed at Pettigrew’s body, lying on the bed below them with the other. ‘You must go back to face the torment of your own creation.’
‘B-but this is not my doing!’ Pettigrew stammered. ‘How can you say that it is?’
‘My son,’ Dismas smiled sadly, ‘you betrayed the Church. You have to accept your fate.’
‘No!’ Now he felt an anger uncoiling within him that his torturers had never yet unleashed, igniting the life-force that he thought had been extinguished forever. ‘I have followed in the footsteps of Jesus. I have served the poor. That is why I am here. That is why I did not run away when I had the chance!