The Penal Colony (10 page)

Having tied Routledge’s wrists with an old
length of twine, Martinson led him along the main street and
towards his hut.

Routledge had spent all the intervening hours
in the hotel, being questioned by Peto and his henchmen. They had
wanted to know everything he had seen and heard in the Village, and
then they had interrogated him on his life and background and on
news from the mainland. Several other men had come in from time to
time to watch, listen, or pose questions of their own. The
questioning had dwelt at length on the disappearance of Gazzer and
his companion, Tortuga. Routledge maintained throughout that he
knew nothing whatever about it, and insisted that he had found
Tortuga’s club by chance on the clifftop.

Nobody believed him, and apart from one negro
who heatedly swore revenge and had to be ejected, nobody seemed to
care. In this respect at least, Martinson and Obie had been making
fun of him.

For a time Routledge had hoped that the
proposed auction was also one of Martinson’s jokes, but no. It
became evident that, where profit was involved, Martinson lacked
all sense of humour. He was not a homosexual, nor did he want a
slave; therefore he had no use for Routledge. What could be more
logical than to sell his new acquisition to someone who did? The
idea, apparently, broke new ground, and Peto said he wished he had
thought of it himself. During much comment and speculation the name
“Jones” was mentioned. If Jones won the bidding, Routledge could
expect to be the subject of a “party”, which he understood to mean
a multiple rape.

It could have been very much worse; the
auction could have been held immediately. Had it not been for
Martinson’s desire to raise as much interest as possible, and had
he not been called away to finish his errand for Peto, the sale
might already have taken place. The delay introduced an element of
hope. Thoughts of evasion and escape were taking form in
Routledge’s mind. For now, he allowed himself to be led along, the
model prisoner.

Martinson’s hut stood on rising ground at
some distance from the hotel, commanding a broad view of the town
and the beach below. Turf and slates covered the roof, which sloped
back from the doorway. The rear and two side walls were sturdily
constructed of stacked rocks and solid timbers – driftwood pallets
and packing-cases and old joists and floorboards – while the front
wall, with its single window-aperture and doorway, was made of
wattle and daub. Near by was one other hut, quite derelict; behind
it rose the slope.

“Just in time for cocoa,” Martinson said.
From his tunic he took an oddly-shaped sliver of wood, a key which
he used to unfasten an ingeniously carved wooden catch holding shut
the wattle-and-daub door. Satisfied that his domain had not been
entered during his absence, he motioned Routledge inside.

There was no floor; in the middle of the main
chamber the rock had been dug out to make a hearth from which,
presumably, the smoke escaped as best it could. A large, blackened
cooking pot – a saucepan which had neither lid nor handle – stood
on one of the shelves which covered the whole height of the
left-hand wall. Martinson took the pot down, together with an old
plastic measuring-jug.

“Sit on that box, where I can see you.”

Routledge complied. Apart from this wooden
beer-crate, the furniture in the room comprised a makeshift table
under the window, another, larger, crate, and, in the far corner, a
peculiar low sofa made of goatskin stuffed with heather.

This main chamber occupied the front half of
the hut; the rear had been solidly partitioned off into two small
rooms, each with its own narrow doorway.

The interior of the hotel had been squalid
enough, but this was worse. Martinson’s possessions, heaped on the
shelves or merely thrown down against the walls, appeared to
consist mainly of the rubbish he had collected from the tideline:
tangled nylon mesh, potentially useful lumps of wood, assorted
articles of plastic like yogurt pots and fishing floats, and bolts,
nails, brackets, strip metal and similar bits and pieces saved from
packing cases or other wooden objects washed ashore.

Routledge suddenly noticed, among the many
small fittings heaped in a polythene tray on the shelf beside him,
a rusty woodscrew about seven centimetres long. He immediately
looked away, resuming his examination of Martinson’s kitchen.

In the corner stood the water tank, a large
translucent drum which might once have held industrial chemicals.
There was no tap, only a length of water-filled plastic tubing fed
through a hole in the lid, one end touching the bottom and the
other fitted with a clip which allowed small quantities to be
siphoned off, as Routledge now observed.

“Want some grub?”

“Yes. Please.”

“It’ll be cold. I can’t be bothered with no
fire.”

Routledge did not object. During the whole
time at the hotel, he had been offered nothing to eat or drink. He
watched, almost in disbelief, as Martinson began preparing an
evening meal. Many of the ingredients were wrapped in thick white
polythene, sections cut from an old fertilizer sack that must have
drifted ashore from the mainland. From one of these Martinson
produced a lump of goat’s cheese.

“Have a bit of this while we’re waiting.”

Routledge did his best to restrain himself.
The cheese was rank, unrefrigerated, the sort of thing Louise would
have buried in the compost heap. It tasted fantastic.

“You can tell me,” Martinson said. “Secret,
like. Which was the first to get it? Gazzer or Tortuga?”

“I kept telling them at the hotel, I don’t
know anything about it.”

“Do you want some supper or not?”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“You croted them two tossers all right. Cut
them, I reckon.” He emptied some oatmeal into the pot. “How you
done it is a mystery, but you done it. Good riddance, that’s what I
say. Congratulations, Roger. It’s earned you with Peto. Earned you
with me and all.”

Martinson turned his back to find something
on his larder shelf. It was the first chance Routledge had had.
Reaching out both his bound hands, he took the rusty woodscrew and
just managed to insinuate it into the top of his right
trouser-pocket before Martinson turned back, holding a medium-sized
polythene bag.

“Dried puffin,” he said. “You’ll like it.
This is my special scoobie-doo.” He added a generous portion to the
pot: dehydrated flakes of dark meat. From a jamjar he sprinkled
crystals of sea salt and stirred them in with a stick. The
resulting stew he poured into two ill-assorted bowls, one an old
aluminium pie-dish, the other a plastic tub still marked
PUTTY
.

Routledge devoured a second helping,
Martinson a third. During the course of the meal, which he spent
sprawled on the goatskin sofa, Martinson asked about Routledge’s
past life and the reason he had been put in Category Z. “They all
say that,” he said, when Routledge protested his innocence. About
his own history, Martinson divulged nothing.

The evening cloud had become heavy and low.
By the time they had finished eating, the light had begun to
fade.

Martinson arose. “Beddy-byes now,” he said.
“I’m going to have to tie you up. I know you’ll understand. You’re
a valuable property, see?” He jerked a thumb at the left-hand door.
“You can have my room. Don’t bother getting no ideas about breaking
out of it, not unless you’ve got an axe. I’ll sleep out here. I get
up at first light. I like lots of sleep and I don’t like being
disturbed. Right? No noise. Don’t even fart.” He took a handful of
nylon cord from a low shelf, and from his belt drew Routledge’s own
knife. “First of all we’ll get rid of this,” he said, and carefully
cut through the knot of Routledge’s bonds. He then began to bundle
Routledge’s arms behind his back.

“Wait,” Routledge said. “I ought to go to the
lavatory first.”

“Good thinking, Roger. Can’t have you wetting
my bed, can we?”

“It’s not just that. I think I want to … to
…”

“Do big potties? Why didn’t you say so,
then?”

Martinson chose him a place a few metres from
the doorway.

“Do you have to stand there watching me like
that?”

“I don’t get no thrill out of it, if that’s
what you mean. Just get on with it.”

“Can’t you at least stand by the door? I
won’t get far with my trousers round my ankles.”

Martinson shrugged and moved back. Routledge
squatted for half a minute or so, knowing full well there would be
no result.

“Hope this in’t no criticism of my puffin
porridge.”

Routledge had already transferred the
woodscrew to his right hand. As he stood and pulled up his
trousers, he tucked in his shirt and simultaneously slipped the
screw beneath his underpants and between his buttocks. He had only
a moment: the position had to be just right, neither too low, so
that he couldn’t reach the screw when the time came, nor too high,
so that he would be unable to grip it inconspicuously as he
walked.

It felt as if the act of keeping the screw in
place was altering his entire gait. He was convinced Martinson
would notice and become suspicious.

“Remember what I said. I don’t appreciate
being woken up.”

He tied Routledge’s hands behind his back,
tied his ankles, and tied both sets of bonds together. When he had
finished, Routledge, lying on the noisome feather-filled mattress
which served his host as a bed, could hardly move.

The room was a bare, timber-lined cubicle a
couple of metres across, with no window. As the door shut behind
him, Routledge heard something heavy being wedged into place.

What little light there was gained access
through cracks in the walls and round the door, which was also made
of solid planking. Even as Routledge’s eye dwelt on the doorframe,
he heard Martinson hanging a curtain on the other side and the
cracks there were abruptly obscured.

By raising his feet as far as he could,
Routledge was just able to free his hands enough to get at his
shirt-tail. Fraction by fraction, able to use only the tips of his
thumbs and forefingers, he struggled to pull it from his trousers.
As he worked, he listened intently to the noises coming from the
other side of the door. He heard the dishes being picked up,
objects being returned to the shelves. He heard water trickling
into a vessel and the sound of Martinson washing himself. Presently
the outer door was pulled shut. The goatskin sofa creaked.

“Sweet dreams!” Martinson called out.

Routledge did not reply. He had managed to
free his shirt-tail and was now trying to reach the screw itself.
The nylon cord bit deeply into his wrists. He grimaced, bared his
teeth, pulled his legs back even further. Finally, with both his
forefingers fully extended, and his thumbs forcing down the
material of the waistband, he almost made contact. With a supreme
effort, he pushed his fingers further and got a slender hold on the
threads: he had put the screw in the wrong way up, head
downwards.

He was concentrating so much on withdrawing
the screw without dropping it that he only half heard a faint
scraping sound from the adjoining room. He halted in order to
listen. Had Martinson lifted open the outer door just then?

No. Routledge thought he heard breathing,
which meant Martinson was still there.

He went on with his work.

* * *

The rain began just before dusk, a slow,
relentless drizzle drifting in from the west. By the time Martinson
had reached the cliffs above Crow Bay, his tunic and leggings were
drenched. He disliked this warm summer rain. It made the rocks
greasy. He would be coming back in the dark, on an easier section,
it was true, but on these cliffs there was no such thing as an easy
climb. The conditions tonight were too dangerous. Maybe he ought
leave it until tomorrow. But no. Now had to be the time. And
tomorrow might be wetter still.

“So what,” he breathed, digging in his
climbing-pick for the first hand-hold. “If I go, I go.”

Now had to be the time because of the
psychological element. After leaving the new meat with Peto for
questioning, as was customary, he and Obie and Jez had gone on to
the Village to check out Franks’s stock. Billy, of course, had not
been there, for the simple reason that Martinson had killed the
goat himself last night and tipped the carcase over the cliffs.

Martinson was pleased with his performance
today, especially at the lighthouse. The words had come of
themselves, sowing just the right seeds of suspicion and resentment
in Feely’s, and hence also Houlihan’s, mind. Obie, he was certain,
had been taken in completely. It was all turning out just the way
he had planned.

Houlihan might send an emissary from his
brain gang, demanding an explanation which Peto would be unable to
give. But that was unlikely. From past experience, Martinson knew
precisely what was going to happen. Today’s visit to the lighthouse
would have set Houlihan thinking. He would have perceived Peto’s
behaviour as initial weakness. Later tonight, or tomorrow morning,
he would discover how Peto – who else? – had changed his mind and
retaliated.

Houlihan’s indignant counter-attack would
come tomorrow afternoon, once he had assembled and armed his
troops. The towners would be taken by surprise. Peto would see the
assault as completely unprovoked, a further act of aggression to
add to the theft of Billy. His mistakenly feeble response to
Billy’s disappearance, he would tell himself later, had been
interpreted by Houlihan as a virtual invitation to step things up.
The battle would be violent, with several scraggings, and then the
war would begin again.

At bottom, neither Houlihan nor Peto would be
sorry. The peace had lasted too long already. It was just that Peto
wasn’t prepared to resume hostilities yet, and that would give
Houlihan the advantage.