Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [55]
It was like a scene from hell she’d once seen a picture of at Sunday school in Fowey, the men demonic in their lust, some women spurring them on with gleeful shouts, others screaming in terror. She saw one woman get up unsteadily from the ground as her rapist left her, so thickly coated with mud she had no features, only to be leapt upon by a second man, while another stood waiting for his turn.
Mary didn’t know what to do. To run from the tent would be folly for she would surely be caught by someone, and if she took Charlotte with her she might be dashed from her arms and killed. Yet the tent offered no protection. Even as she hesitated, another flash of lightning revealed a band of men coming along the rows of tents looking in each for new prey.
Grabbing Charlotte from her crib, she wriggled under the back of the tent and cowered there for a moment, considering which direction would be the safest. Going inland appeared to be the best choice, with luck there might be bushes to hide under, so hitching Charlotte under one arm and holding up her dress with the other, she ran for her life into the shelter of the trees.
She stubbed her bare feet against stumps of felled trees and tripped over dead branches, but somehow she managed to hold on to her baby. Just as she thought she was well away from the mayhem on the beach, however, she saw two men in front of her.
‘Lookee here,’ one of them shouted. ‘Fresh meat.’
‘Don’t hurt me,’ Mary screamed out in terror, for she knew whichever way she ran, one of them would catch her. ‘I’ve got a baby with me.’
‘We ain’t after hurting a baby,’ one of them said. ‘Just put it down and be nice to us.’
Mary screamed and clutched Charlotte even tighter to her. But one of the men grabbed her shoulder and pushed her down to the ground.
Flat on her back, still holding Charlotte who was now screaming too, Mary fought with the only weapons she had, her legs and feet. It was too dark to see, but she felt the heel of her foot land in a soft place and the yell that followed it suggested she’d struck his belly.
‘Get off me, you brutes,’ she yelled. ‘There’s plenty of willing women back there.’
One man pinned her down by the shoulders, the second one grabbed her by the knees and forced them apart. She could smell their sweat and rancid breath.
‘Damn you to hell,’ she screamed out, still bucking frantically. ‘Help me, someone!’
The man who held her legs apart was pulling her on to him as he knelt in front of her, the other one was still holding her shoulders in a grip of steel. She heard someone crashing through the bushes even over Charlotte’s screams, but that increased her terror further as she thought it would be another man wanting to join in.
‘Let her go,’ a male voice bellowed out, and to her shock she recognized the voice as Will’s. She saw nothing more than a dark shadow, then heard a crack, and the man about to rape her toppled back on to the ground.
There was another loud crack and the hands on her shoulders fell away. ‘That’s my woman,’ Will roared out, and all at once he was pulling her up and holding her in his arms.
‘There, there,’ he said gently, disengaging himself slightly so Charlotte wouldn’t be crushed. ‘You’re safe now.’
Taking her arm, he led her away. Mary had to suppose he had knocked the two men out with some kind of cudgel, but she didn’t turn to look.
‘Did they do it?’ he asked breathlessly.
‘No,’ she gasped out. ‘You were just in time.’
Will took her much further into the trees, and when they came to one that offered some real shelter from the heavy rain, he stopped and made her sit down.
‘Are you or the babby hurt?’ he asked, sitting down beside her and putting his arm around her.
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied, rocking Charlotte in her arms to soothe her.
All at once she was crying as she had never cried since her trial. All the hardships, deprivations, the cruelty