Whispers Through the Pines

by Lynne Wilding

  ‘Let’s see ’er tits, Elijah. I bin longin’ ter get me hands on ’em,’ Dowd, dribbling with anticipation, urged their leader.

  She heard her camisole rip and felt the material being pulled back to bare her fullsome breasts to the cool night air and their evil glares. Hail Mary…She tried to say the prayer, but she couldn’t think. Fear was numbing her mental abilities. What was she to do? How could she sway them from their lecherous intent? Waugh’s hands ran lightly over the swell of her, almost in a caress, but then she watched his features harden and, taking one of her nipples between his fingers, he squeezed and then twisted the flesh until she cried out in pain. She saw his satisfied smile as he stood back to let the others look their fill. Bile rose in her throat as she listened to their excited comments.

  ‘What beauties!’ McLean’s deep voice echoed admiration.

  ‘Oh, gawd, let me get me hands on ’em,’ came Dowd’s coarse response.

  Only Cavanagh was silent. Sarah looked at him and, for the life of her, she thought he was about to faint. He quickly averted his gaze, and his eyes darted nervously to each of his comrades. Clearly the youth was half-terrified at what was occurring.

  ‘Please, Timothy. You’re not like these…animals. Help me,’ she beseeched. ‘Run for help, oh, please be doin’ it. If you have an ounce of humanity in you, you will, if not for me, for my Meggie.’ And then, as Cavanagh refused to look at her, the tension built to an unbearable degree and she screamed, just once.

  Elijah backhanded her across the mouth. ‘’Tis a waste o’breath, Sarah. No one can hear yer this far from the settlement. I don’t mind yer screamin’—I kind of like it—but the noise grates in me friends’ ears. Therefore, ye’ll be doin’ it no more.’

  With her cheek stinging from his blow, she raised her hand and rubbed the skin gently. Her gaze darted to each of them and, between Cavanagh and Waugh, she suddenly glimpsed a gap, a space of almost a yard. The other two, she noted, still stared lustfully at her naked torso. So…could she, if she were quick enough, scurry through the gap, escape into the dark of the forest and hide?

  Heartbeat accelerating, Sarah forced herself to breathe in a deep, sustaining breath. She thought it through. It was possible! She just might, with the element of surprise, make it. Dear God, she had to try…it was her only chance.

  Arching her upper body tauntingly at Dowd and McLean in the hope of further distracting them, she began to gather her skirts in both hands. She bunched the material above her ankle. And then, just below her knees, exposing her drawers to them. She almost smiled as their attention became riveted on her body when she rose to a sitting position. In the next instant, with breathtaking agility, she scrambled to her knees and, before they had the sense to realise her intent, she crawled between the breach, her shoulder knocking Elijah sideways and off balance as she went.

  Her heart pumped fit to burst through her chest as she got to her feet and began to run as she had never run before.

  ‘Shit! The bitch’s getting away! Damn her eyes!’ Elijah’s rage erupted and he thumped his good arm down onto his thigh. Not again. He couldn’t let it happen again. ‘Quick, yer fools, after her!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Twisting and turning, unmindful as her clothes snagged in small branches, Sarah ran the race of her life. Her lungs strained against her chest as if they would burst through the ribcage from the effort, but fear at what they would do to her if they recaptured her urged her on. She sprinted, her skirts bunched up in her hands, not down the slope as she hoped they’d think she would do, but across it towards the ocean, praying that, slender as she was and not as well-muscled as they, she could evade them by intellect if not by stamina.

  Gasping for each new breath, her ribs ached and her muscles throbbed with pain from her exertions until she spied a fallen pine whose roots were exposed to the elements. She raced towards it and, scrambling over its rough bark surface, flattened herself on the other side, as close to the timber as she could. Her breathing sounded laboured to her ears, and she greedily grabbed mouthfuls of air as she tried to quieten the noise.

  She could hear her tormentors threshing about, cursing volubly as they tried to find her. Then, the next instant, a twig cracked softly on the other side of the log. Her heart started to beat wildly inside her breast, and soon she could feel the throb of it through her entire body. Perspiration trickled down her forehead, onto her cheeks and down her chin. She dared not move a muscle. One was close and, by the assorted sounds from the others, she knew they were very angry with her.

  Sarah held her breath, though the effort almost made her faint, and pressed back hard against the log, praying for a miraculuous cloak of invisibility to keep her safe.

  ‘Where is the bitch?’

  Elijah! He sounded furious. She dared to breathe a little breath, her hearing now acutely tuned to the noises around her. The shuffling of feet, heavy breathing, an occasional cough. Then, as time passed, she almost fainted with relief when all she could hear above the occasional night-time sounds of the forest was silence. Thank God. Whoever it was had moved away. She made herself count to thirty, then forty, before she dared to move and, nervous as a rabbit, she tentatively lifted her head up over the log.

  ‘Got you, you sneaky little witch!’ Elijah’s voice roared with triumph as he lunged forward, grabbed a chunk of her hair and pulled so hard that she screamed.

  ‘I’ll be teachin’ yer, Sarah O’Riley,’ and he slapped her once, twice, across the face with his free hand. ‘Ye’ll not be escapin’ me. Not tonight, me lovely.’ Then he called to his partners, ‘She’s ’ere, lads, come on now. The fun’s about ter begin.’

  He pulled her roughly over the log and held her hard against him and each time she tried to wriggle free, his hand grabbed another fistful of hair and twisted it cruelly. He smiled as she moaned with pain. One hand holding her prisoner, his other hand began to stroke her body, reaching down to her knees and bunching up her skirt so he could get to her drawers. ‘Oh, Sarah, I’ve waited so long,’ he growled, his voice husky with lust, ‘and dreamed every night fer months o’ doin’ what I’m gonna do to yer.’

  ‘Please, Elijah, no…’ Sarah looked into his eyes and, in the moonlight, saw his pupils dilate. Staring deeper, she saw the evil that lurked there. The strength of it made her gasp, for in his piggy depths was not a skerrick of compassion, of morality. The man was in league with the devil, she could no longer doubt it. And if, once he’d been capable of pity, that capacity was now long dead.

  Panting, wheezing, their faces streaked with sweat, the other three soon found them.

  ‘You bitch!’ McLean, who’d come up limping, said as he slapped her across the head. ‘Because of you I’ve sprained my ankle.’

  Dowd pushed her so hard that she fell backwards and sprawled on the ground. ‘Thought ye’d get away from us, did ye?’ he taunted as he took his jacket off. ‘Well, we’ll be teachin’ yer different.’ He looked at his companions, ‘Won’t we, boys?’

  Only Cavanagh remained silent, reluctant to join in with the others.

  ‘We’ve wasted enough time,’ Elijah muttered impatiently. ‘Hold her down.’

  Before she could offer resistance, Dowd and McLean grabbed a foot each and pulled her legs wide apart. Elijah looked at Cavanagh. ‘Get her arms, lad. I don’t fancy the she-cat leavin’ ’er scratch marks on me.’

  ‘I…can’t. P-p-please. I can’t do this. Let me go back to the barracks.’

  Elijah muttered a foul oath and punched him square on the nose.

  Cavanagh’s head shot back, his blonde hair, lank with sweat, clung to his forehead. He howled with pain and grabbed his nose as he took his hand away, saw the blood and moaned again.

  ‘Don’t go soft on me now, lad.’ Elijah took a small knife out of his breeches’ waistband and pointed it at Timothy. The metal glinted wickedly in the moonlight. ‘We’ve all gone too far to back off now, lad. Yer either with us or agin’ us. An’ if yer agin us, well.’ He
brandished the knife threateningly at Cavanagh’s throat.

  ‘Come on, Tim, hold her hands, for Christ’s sake,’ McLean entreated. ‘If I don’t poke her soon, my dick’s gonna explode.’

  ‘Yeah, me too…’ Dowd confirmed and stroked his crotch. ‘Jesus, do yer know ’ow long it’s been since I’ve ’ad a woman?’ He sighed. ‘Too bloody long.’ Then his tone hardened and he laughed. ‘Do what Elijah says, or I’ll stick yer meself.’

  Holy Mary, Mother of God…Sarah, spread-eagled like a sacrificial lamb, thrashed in vain. ‘You’ll all be burnin’ in hell fer this.’

  ‘Oh, we expect to,’ Elijah muttered uncaringly and punctuated it with a malicious chuckle. He waited until Cavanagh had reluctantly captured her hands and then, using the knife, began to cut the clothes from her body.

  ‘Aahhh, she’s a beauty all right,’ McLean whispered, his tone almost reverent as his gaze roamed over Sarah’s pale nakedness.

  Elijah knelt between her opened legs and stretched forward to run his calloused hands down the length of her body. He laughed when she tried to squirm away from his touch, but she was too well held for much movement. A moan of pleasure erupted from him as he touched her breasts, her flat stomach and cupped her dark woman’s mound. Then he released his engorged shaft from his breeches, and his grin turned malevolent as, staring at her face, he watched her eyes widen with fear. She screamed once, until his coarse hand covered her mouth to stifle any sound as he fell on top of her.

  ‘Give it to her good, Elijah,’ Dowd encouraged, his eyes glistening with lust.

  Sarah took a last look at Cavanagh, saw his eyes wild with panic and closed her own eyes tight as she attempted to block out the pain while Elijah rammed into her again, and again…

  She was floating outside her body, though she knew it was not possible to do so. Be that as it may, she was, and looking down through the branches of the big pine, watching what the beasts were doing to her. Again and again they attacked her, as if they could never be satisfied. Soon she went beyond the pain of their brutality to a private place in her mind where they could not reach her, physically or emotionally. All she thought of was surviving this…outrage being committed upon her. For Meggie, her dear, sweet Meggie. Eventually, she reasoned, though her thoughts were almost beyond coherence, they would be done and leave her be.

  Yes, that’s what she must concentrate on, not what they were doing to her body. Soon they would stop. Dear God in Heaven, they must!

  ‘Is she dead?’ Dowd asked, his tone indifferent now that he was satiated. He watched Rupert poke a finger in her stomach. There was no response. His hand moved to the side of her throat.

  ‘She’s alive.’ Rupert bestowed an unrepentant grin on each of them. ‘Guess she’s just worn out, lads.’

  Elijah chuckled as he hoisted his breeches up and tucked his shirt in. He stared down at Sarah O’Riley, his gaze raking her from her head to her feet. In the filtered moonlight shining through the pines, he could see that she was bloodied, and already blue-black bruises were forming around her upper thighs and torso, where Rupert had roughed her up some. She’d not be high and mighty any more. The thought pleased him. He’d chosen his cohorts well, all but Cavanagh. It ran through his mind that maybe he should stick him and throw him in the ocean. Of all of them, he was the weak link, the one most likely to spill his guts. Waugh’s gaze moved to Dowd and McLean. They mightn’t go for that action. The two had an absurd fondness for the weakling, and treated him as one might a pet dog.

  Cavanagh removed his hands from where he’d imprisoned Sarah through her ordeal and wiped them repeatedly on his tunic, as if he couldn’t get the touch, or the stigma of what he had participated in, off his skin. Then he put his face in his hands and wept like a girl.

  ‘Don’t worry ’cause you couldn’t do it.’ Dowd put an arm around the younger man’s shoulders and winked at Rupert. ‘We did an extra one, just fer you, mate.’

  ‘I’m going to be sick,’ Cavanagh said. He lurched upright and staggered into the forest, where he could be heard heaving his supper all over the grass.

  Elijah nodded and then stared with special meaning at Dowd and McLean. ‘Yer two are gonna have to keep an eye on him.’

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ Rupert said offhandedly, but he, too, was frowning as if he held some concern about Cavanagh.

  ‘When she wakes up, kin we do it agin?’ Dowd asked.

  ‘You are a randy bugger, aren’t you?’ Rupert said, laughing as he thumped his mate on the arm.

  ‘Yer know, we could, kind of keep ’er. I know of a cave down by the water, it’s above sea level. We could keep ‘er there and anytime we felt like it, she’d be there waitin’ fer us.’ Warming to the idea, he went on, ‘We could shackle ’er there or build a rough gate to keep ’er in. What do yer think, boys?’

  ‘Are yer daft? Even if we could do what yer suggest without raisin’ anyone’s interest, what do yer think she’d do? She’d probably lie in wait fer us with some kind of sharp instrument she’d made herself to stick in our gizzard,’ Elijah replied, shaking his head at Dowd’s pee-brain notion.

  ‘And how would we keep her quiet? She’d scream her head off every chance she got. Eventually, someone’d hear,’ Rupert pointed out.

  ‘Oh,’ Dowd reddened with embarrassment, ‘I hadn’t thought about that.’

  ‘You don’t think much at all, old mate. That’s the trouble,’ Rupert shot at him with a chuckle.

  Elijah, who’d wandered off to get his jacket, came back and handed his flask around. They drank the rum until not a drop was left. Their leader was thoughtful as he prodded Sarah with the toe of his boot.

  ‘She playin’ possum agin?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘No matter.’ Elijah looked at each of them in turn. ‘We’ve had our fun, lads. It was grand, wasn’t it?’ All but Cavanagh nodded obediently. ‘Now it’s time to end it.’

  Dowd looked down at Sarah, whose half-naked body was tangled up in the remnants of what had been her second-best gown. ‘We gonna just leave ’er here, like that?’

  ‘What do you want to do, Elijah?’ Rupert asked.

  ‘What I don’t want is ’er pointin’ the finger at any of us. Agreed?’

  ‘Wh-what do you mean?’ Cavanagh’s question was hesitant, his expression fearful of Elijah’s answer.

  ‘We’ll swing fer sure if the commandant learns what we’ve done,’ Elijah pointed out, matter-of-factly. ‘So,’ he bent and peered closely at Sarah’s inert body. ‘Sarah O’Riley is gonna disappear, forever.’

  A heavy silence followed Elijah’s statement.

  ‘No-o-o…’ Cavanagh broke the quiet. He stared accusingly at the other three. ‘I’ll not be a party to it.’ And before they could apprehend him, he ran off into the darkness.

  ‘Will I go after him?’ Dowd asked.

  ‘No, he’ll be all right once he settles down,’ Rupert said, matter-of-factly. ‘’Tis best he’s not here anyway.’

  A moan brought them to attention.

  Sarah tried to move, but could not, and even taking a breath was difficult. Eventually, and at a snail’s pace, she gathered enough clothing about her to cover most of her nakedness. Only then did she open her eyes to stare at her rapists. In turn, she stared them down. Dowd dropped his gaze almost immediately and half-turned away. McLean was bolder for he, like Waugh, had little sense of morality. And Elijah. To her he was the reincarnation of the devil himself. He had orchestrated this attack from beginning to end. But…she almost smiled. She had survived the worst they could do to her. Her spirit was strong, in spite of the humiliations they’d heaped upon her…many too bestial to dwell on.

  ‘Not so cocky now, eh, Sarah?’ Elijah said softly. He fingered the knife under his waistband. One horizontal slit and it would be ended. A small measure of regret seeped into his conscience, but he swiftly obliterated it. There was no other way, not if he wanted to save his own skin, which he surely did. If…if only she’d agreed to wed him
when he’d asked her to…

  Though it even hurt to raise her chin, Sarah answered through cracked and bleeding lips, with some of her old spirit. ‘You may have used my body, you evil vultures, but my mind and my soul are still intact. God or someone will punish you for what you’ve done this night. You,’ she glared up at Elijah, ‘may you rot in hell!’ And summoning a last act of defiance, she spat full in his face. ‘There, you devil’s spawn, I curse you and yours, wherever you may be.’

  Rage erupted in Elijah. He’d planned to curb her spirit, to break it completely, but he had failed. Those eyes, the way they looked at him, with scorn and loathing, as if he were lower than the lowest form of life! Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the rock, and his claw-like hand closed over it. He raised it high above his head so she could see it, as his other hand wiped the spittle off his face.

  Sarah didn’t move a muscle. Exhausted by her ordeal, all she could do was look at him, her blue eyes burning with a hatred so intense that she did not recognise his intent. Without conscious thought, she dared him to do his worst.

  ‘Die, bitch!’

  McLean and Dowd flinched at the sound of rock striking bone and flesh.

  Twice Elijah hit her, and then she lay still. He looked at the others. ‘Get a move on, lads. Scoop out the earth, make a grave. Hurry! I’ve got to get back to the infirmary before the guard wakes up.’ There was a note of urgency in his voice now, as if he wanted to be done with it all. As they bent to the task, he shook his head to rid himself of the memory of the way she’d looked at him. Something which he would not acknowledge as fear set low in his stomach and had a feeling of permanency to it. Christ, would he never be rid of her presence? Even now, that last look was imprinted in his mind, and he knew he’d not forget it, no matter how long he lived. It was as if, even in death, she had this power over him…

  While the other two made a depression in the damp soil with a flat rock and the branch of a tree, Elijah rolled Sarah up in her clothes.