State Sponsored Terror

by David Carter

  Once inside, the single door and many windows were locked, though these too would not have prevented a determined break out. Martin wasn’t alone in thinking he could kick the door down, if it ever came to it. Each man grabbed a bed and glared at the others and brooded, and they didn’t have to wait long.

  Some time between half seven and eight, they didn’t know exactly when, because all their personal possessions had been removed, including their clothes, rings and watches, things began to happen. They each now wore navy trousers with elasticated tops, light blue shirts, and darker, short, almost black jackets, and cheap slip-on shoes. No ties, shoelaces, or belts.

  They heard the heavy footsteps approaching the door long before the key slipped into the lock. Everyone automatically stood when the door opened, and two uniformed guards stepped in. They could have been prison officers, or coppers, or junior SPATs, known behind their backs as SPOTs, as in teenage, though none of the prisoners could be certain who the hell they were.

  The shorter, fatter of the two spoke.

  ‘Stand by your beds!’

  Everyone did so.

  ‘Now then, ladies,’ he shouted, ‘I would like to introduce myself. My name is Sergeant Devlin, and this is Corporal Evans.’ Devlin nodded briefly at his cohort. Martin wasn’t alone in noticing the sergeant carried a long ebony truncheon in his right hand. It hung at his side, almost touching the floor.

  Were these prison officer ranks? wondered Martin. Sergeant and Corporal? They didn’t seem like that to him, but if they weren’t prisoner officers, who the hell were they? They wore dark, almost black uniforms, set off with polished silver buttons that could have been police, prison officer, or something else entirely. Somehow they did not look like SPATs, and that was something.

  ‘During your time here you will do exactly as we tell you. You do that, and we will get on fine. Do the opposite, and not only will your stay here be extended indefinitely; you will find that it gradually becomes more uncomfortable. Clear?’

  ‘Yes, sergeant,’ they mumbled, in vague unison.

  ‘I didn’t hear you, ladies!’

  ‘Yes, sergeant!’ they bellowed, and as they did so, the guy opposite Martin began smirking at him. Martin daren’t look at him, focussing his eyes a couple of inches above his head. He guessed the smirking might provoke trouble, and he was right.

  ‘Something funny, fairy queen?’ bawled the sergeant, is he strode down the centre of the hut, tapping the truncheon against his leg.

  ‘No, sergeant.’

  ‘Why laugh then, faggot?’

  The officer turned about and closed on Martin.

  ‘Did you see anything funny, fart-face?’

  ‘No, sergeant,’ said Martin, not looking into the sergeant’s face either.

  ‘You weren’t sticking your fat tongue out, were you?’

  ‘Certainly not, sergeant!’

  The sarge showed his back to Martin, and glared at the grinning idiot.

  ‘What is your name, girly?’

  ‘Weston, sir.’

  ‘Well, wild Weston, you and me have got off on the wrong foot, and that ain’t good,’ he shook his head slowly. ‘That ain’t good at all.’

  ‘Sorry, sergeant.’

  ‘Mmm, we shall see how sorry you are.’

  He ambled back to the doorway, to his comrade, before turning about.

  ‘Do any of you have any questions?’

  Silence.

  Please please remain silent, thought Martin, but one man spoke. It was the nearest guy to the officers, on the opposite side.

  ‘When do we eat, sir?’ he said weakly through his effete voice. ‘We haven’t eaten all day. I am famished.... we all are.’

  The guy speaking was tall and willowy with surprisingly long wavy hair. Don’t these people ever watch prison movies, thought Martin, for it is always the fool who asks the stupid questions who ends up grovelling and spitting blood at the keeper’s feet.

  ‘What did you say, Oliver Twist?’ growled the sergeant, turning toward the questioner.

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ he said, still not realising his situation, ‘but we really are most hungry. We’ve had nothing on the trip, we haven’t eaten since breakfast.’

  ‘We really are most hungry!’ mimicked the officer in a voice bordering on Donald Duck. ‘We don’t always get what we want in life do we, fanny-face? I might want an eighteen year old girl for the weekend, but I bloody well won’t get one, will I? No!’

  ‘I might be able to help you out there,’ muttered Weston, winking at Martin as he spoke.

  Martin grimaced. The sergeant turned about.

  ‘Who said that?’

  Weston nodded toward the guards. ‘I just thought....’

  ‘Shut it you! Wouldn’t you just know it, the troublesome peach who can’t keep his gob shut for more than a minute at a stretch,’ and as he spoke, the sergeant made his way slowly down the hut. ‘I have warned you already! You don’t get a second chance in my hut. No one gets a second chance in my domain!’

  He stood in front of Weston and brought the truncheon high above his shoulder. In a whirl and blur he crashed it down on the side of Weston’s face. It seemed to happen in slow motion, or like in a movie, as if it was unreal. But it was real all right, for Weston was on his hands and knees, gasping for breath, and spitting out shattered grinding teeth. The sergeant ignored him as if he was invisible; leaving him there, spluttering on the polished floor. He turned back to the man now known as Oliver Twist.

  ‘So, Oliver,’ he teased, ‘you want some grub, eh?’

  ‘That would be so very nice,’ said the guy, unable to resist a smile.

  This time the officer brought the truncheon back to his side and thrust it forward in a stabbing motion, into the guy’s midriff. Everyone heard the thudding contact. Everyone saw Oliver gasp for breath as he doubled over, before falling to his knees, and when his head was close to the floor, he vomited, splashing the sergeant’s shiny shoes.

  ‘Jesus H Christ!’ yelled the sarge.

  ‘Sorry sir,’ Oliver muttered and spluttered, spitting again.

  The sergeant grinned round at his captives.

  ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I breed boxer dogs, and when they pup, the little ones sometimes have to be house trained. Occasionally, one of them might mess the floor, and do you know the best cure for that?’ He glanced at each man in turn. ‘Do you know?’

  ‘No, sir,’ two or three of the prisoners mumbled together.

  ‘Well, it’s easy; you simply have to rub their freaking faces in it. Unpleasant I know, but it has to be done. Teaches them a lesson. A little like this....’

  He grasped a handful of Oliver’s shock of hair and thrust his face down into the vomit, forcing it this way and that, as if he were washing a large deposit of bird shit from the bonnet of his car. Martin could see Oliver’s nose bending one way, then the other. He guessed in a moment it would snap, and it did. Everyone heard it. Crack! By then the guy’s face was covered in Technicolor sick.

  ‘He couldn’t have been that hungry,’ said the sarge, grinning at his charges, ‘to produce that amount of mess. Full stomach ya see?’

  Oliver remained on his knees, and in that position the back of his head revealed the full extent of his locks.

  ‘Look at his hair!’ screamed the sarge. ‘Just look at his sodding hair!’

  Everyone stared down at the mousy wavy barnet, now tousled and mucky. The sergeant grabbed a handful, pulling the man roughly to his feet.

  ‘Are you gay, son?’

  ‘No, sergeant,’ the man managed to say, through filthy clenched teeth.

  ‘Get that bloody hair cut by tomorrow night. Every last bit of it, I want to see your entire head like a fresh turnip. Make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes, sergeant.’

  ‘What is your name, Oliver?’

  ‘Owens, sir, Ronnie Owens.’

  ‘Well, Ronnie Owens, in future, you answer to the name Oliver, you get me?’
>
  ‘Yes, sir, whatever you say, sir.’

  The officer leered around the hut at each man in turn.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ he grinned, ‘a bloody good haircut would suit the lot of you. By this time tomorrow night, I want to see a dozen turnip-heads. Clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ came the loud reply.

  ‘Excellent, ladies, and with that, I shall leave you to your thoughts.’

  Everyone watched the officers leave, and heard the key turning in the lock, before they were able to relax. Two of the men went to Oliver, and another two to Weston. Martin lay on his bed on his back and closed his eyes and thought of Liz, and how nice it would be at that very moment to hold her in his arms.

  That night, no one was fed.

  IN THE MORNING, LONG before breakfast, they were led to the barbershop, where in turn, each received a roughly dispensed Yul Brynner.

  You will go to Blackpool for 180 days.

  You will go to Blackpool for 180 days.

  Those words would haunt Martin for every day he spent there.

  Twenty-Four

  Joss’s journey to Harlingdon Hall was accomplished with less stress than expected. The ever-tighter personal mileage allowance, together with the newly introduced £5 per litre petrol price; had combined to keep all but the most essential traffic off the road.

  That left the highways clear for legions of trucks carrying essential goods the length and breadth of the kingdom, emergency service vehicles, and a surprisingly large number of army convoys that hacked around as if they were engaged on permanent and essential manoeuvres. Once or twice, the travelling and curtailed Cornelius family was stared at by grumpy bystanders, as if to say: Who the hell do they think you are. What are you doing on the road when we can’t take our car out? or maybe Colin and Jemima imagined it.

  After an early start, and a break for a picnic lunch somewhere outside Bedford, Joss Cornelius and her parents arrived before the impressive high metal gates of Harlingdon Hall, just before two o’clock.

  ‘Some place,’ whispered Jemima, peering through the entrance, and up the long drive toward the grey stone mansion.

  ‘S’pose,’ muttered Joss, already thinking of home, and Frank, and her friends.

  There was a guy on the gate wearing some kind of dark uniform and peaked cap. On seeing them he stepped forward and half smiled, and tugged the gates open and waved them through.

  The car park was set to the left of the main building and was almost full. Everywhere, excited families jumped from their vehicles, escorting teenagers, boys and girls alike, hauling their cases and bags toward the main entrance. It all reminded Colin of his days at boarding school, not so very far away at Wolverstone Hall, and just like those times from long ago, he knew there would be tears before bedtime, and he prayed that Joss didn’t breakdown. He wasn’t expecting her to. She always posed a hard image to the world, though he was clever enough to realise that sometimes that could be a façade. Beneath it all, he suspected she was made of sterner stuff. She was, after all, a Cornelius, and that meant something.

  Inside the hallway, a queue of people had lined up before a light oak panelled counter. Colin stood on tiptoe for a better look and saw four, maybe five, young women in white blouses and black skirts taking the details. They were popping data into new looking blue and chrome mini computers that bore Union Jack stickers, and a silver sign that proclaimed Made in Great Britain! complete with exclamation mark, as if it was a surprise that anything worthwhile might be. The girls were issuing the confused arrivals with instructions of where to go, and what to take.

  Then it was Joss’s turn. The three Cornelius’s leant over the counter; desperate to see all there was to see.

  ‘Cornelius,’ said Colin, ‘Josephine Haley Cornelius,’ nodding at Joss.

  ‘Thanks,’ said the girl behind the counter. She must have been about twenty-five; quite pretty as it happened, and the quasi forces uniform did something for her. Colin wondered who employed her, and what her title was, and how much she was paid, and how much did she know, and what else did she have to do to earn her paycheque, though he never once thought of asking.

  ‘Do you have a mobile phone?’ she asked Joss.

  ‘Yep,’ smiled Joss, thankful she had remembered to fill up the credit.

  ‘Hand it over, please.’

  ‘I am not giving up my mobile, no way,’ Joss sulked.

  ‘All handheld devices have to be registered. You’ll get it back later. Now if you don’t mind.... ’ and the young woman held out her hand.

  ‘Come on Joss,’ said Colin, ‘do as the young lady says, you are keeping everyone waiting.’

  ‘Oh-what! Let ’em sodding wait!’ exclaimed Joss, before digging the phone from her handbag. ‘I’d better get it back!’

  The woman didn’t answer; too busy was she logging the phone’s details into their whirring machine. Head up, regulation smile through unbelievably white teeth, and then: ‘Upstairs, along the corridor, room six,’ she said pleasantly enough, as if she had said it a hundred times already that day. ‘Next please!’ she shouted, peering over Colin’s shoulder.

  Room six was huge, with a high ceiling displaying an unbelievable glass chandelier. The lights were already on, and through the triple bay window there was a spectacular view out across flat open countryside, laid to pasture, cows and sheep grazing.

  There were four beds in the square room, one pushed flat against each wall, though there was enough room for twice that number. Two were already occupied by smart looking girls, similar to Joss who were whispering to their parents. Joss took the third and a moment later, a fourth bewildered looking kid, followed by a rapidly aging father, shuffled into the room.

  ‘Isn’t this nice?’ said Jemima, ‘much better than I imagined,’ she said, sweeping her hand over the counterpane on Joss’s bed to remove a solitary crease, as mothers are wont to do.

  ‘You can stay in my place if you like it that much,’ moaned Joss.

  ‘Don’t be like that, darling,’ said Colin, striving to keep the peace. ‘Chin up, confidence in all things.’

  Attention please! Attention please!

  The metallic voice burst from a large wooden framed square speaker that sat against the wall above the door.

  Will all parents and guardians responsible for delivering cadets now please leave the building. And in case it hadn’t been understood, the announcement was repeated.

  Will all parents and guardians responsible for delivering cadets now please leave the building.

  ‘Cadets, eh?’ said Jemima smiling at her daughter. ‘You’re a cadet already; I have a funny feeling you will love it here, Joss. You might well rise up the ranks quicker than you think,’ and she did that thing where she raised and lowered her eyebrows in rapid time, as if to emphasise: Know what I mean, love? Know what I mean?

  Parents began hugging girls. Late twenty-pound notes found their way into daughters’ grasping hot little hands, as if a little extra money would cure all ills. True to form, the last nervous looking kid burst into tears, only for her father to say spitefully: ‘I’ve done everything I can for you! You’ll just have to make the best of it!’

  He turned and fled the room, seemingly eager to be out of there, leaving the girl in tears, sitting on her bed staring at the floor. Jemima broke away from Joss, and went over and sat with her for a moment, whispering something that seemed to placate her, though what she could have said, Colin had no idea. He certainly wasn’t going to interfere.

  ‘Make sure you write as often as you can,’ he said, smoothing down Joss’s hair.

  ‘Damn right, I will! You will write to me, won’t you dad?’

  ‘Course I will. Send you a bit of money, know what I mean?’ winking at her. ‘You behave yourself, you little minx.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Time will fly, you’ll see. You’ll be home before you know it.’

  ‘So you keep saying.’

  ‘I think you’ll like it here,
you might even learn things - you see if you don’t.’

  ‘Doubt that dad, go on, leave me alone, will ya, before I start crying too.’

  All parents and guardians must now leave the building!

  All parents and guardians must now leave the building!

  ‘That’s telling you,’ said Joss, forcing a grin.

  ‘Watch out for the tides,’ said Colin.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  Time for one last hug and kiss, and after that, the cavernous room seemed quite empty, as the four young women sat on their beds, staring at one another, not quite knowing what to make of it.

  ‘I’m Joss Cornelius,’ said Joss, standing and making toward the others. It broke the ice, for they all stood and introduced themselves, and in the next minute they were all staring from the window, waving at their parents, as they jumped in their cars, with a final wave, and drove way. The girls were alone, just as the boys were, in other parts of the building. Their EWP service had begun, and all of them wondered where it would take them, and what it would entail, and what precisely they had done to deserve to lose their liberty in such a way.

  They didn’t have to wait long.

  Less than half an hour later, the same white-bloused women entered the room, nervously glancing down at clipboards. Gone were the forced smiles painted on for anxious parents.

  ‘There seems to have been a mistake,’ the leading one shrilled, still staring at her flattened papers, as if for inspiration.

  ‘This is not your accommodation at all. Pack your things immediately. Be ready to board the green bus outside.’

  She pointed through the window at a double decker bus below that had materialised, as if by magic.

  ‘You have ten minutes to be on that bus, with your luggage. Whatever you do, don’t miss it!’

  Twenty-Five

  Martin had never seen his bare scalp before, leastways not that he could remember. He thought it looked hideous, not to mention the three ugly scars, revealed from long forgotten childhood head injuries, and he took little comfort from the fact that Weston and Owens looked worse. It was surprising how cold it was, being hairless. How did bald people manage? It was freezing.