Contributed by - Marabout
Prologue
“In my opinion, this is one of the most disgraceful cases I have ever
had to deal with and I fully intend to punish the culprit severely in
order to make an example of him for all to see!”
So said Judge Mary Kamanga, an imposing figure in the austere black robe
and white wig, which the judicial system of the central African Republic
of Azanga had inherited from British colonial days. In the hot, crowded
courtroom, hardly cooled by the slowly rotating ceiling fans, there was
a hush as the spectators waited eagerly to hear the sentence that Judge
Kamanga would pronounce on the sorry-looking white man standing before
her.
The prisoner also waited, though somewhat less eagerly, to know his
fate. The unhappy William Maze stood there before the judge, head bowed,
crushed with shame and remorse, bitterly asking himself for the
thousandth time how he had allowed himself to fall into this hopeless
predicament. Only two years ago he had arrived in Azanga to take up a
teaching post at the country’s elite boarding school. He had been well
received and had been happy in his work. He was enchanted with the
country, with its lakes, mountains, forests and friendly people. He had
learnt to speak Ciazangi, the language of Azanga. Above all, he was
enamoured of the lively, curvaceous women of the country. How could he,
an intelligent, educated man of forty-two, have let himself be trapped
into the drugs smuggling racket? Well, he knew the answer to that one.
Greed had been his downfall; visions of riches and a string of
voluptuous African beauties had lured him into a partnership with the
smooth-talking Lebanese, who was by now at least a thousand miles away,
enjoying his ill-gotten gains, leaving William to face the music.
Judge Kamanga, nicknamed popularly among Azangans ‘The Flogging Judge’
on account of her penchant for having criminals caned, male or female,
continued to enumerate William’s transgressions and character
shortcomings – “abusing his position of trust” – “corruption of our
youth” – “greed for lucre” – “immoral lifestyle” – and so on. The
spectators listened rapt to this litany of William’s delinquency,
interrupting from time to time with choruses of “Yes!” or “That is
true!” William himself could not have agreed more with Judge Kamanga
when she declared that he had only himself to blame for the predicament
in which he now found himself. He had pleaded guilty, expressed sincere
remorse and thrown himself on the mercy of the court, in the hope that
Judge Kamanga would be moved to treat show some degree of leniency in
his case. He hoped in vain!
“I will now pronounce sentence.” Judge Kamanga’s eyes gleamed fiercely
behind her brown-tinted glasses, her black skin shone with sweat in the
stuffy heat of the courtroom. The court fell silent. William,
white-knuckled, gripped the bar in front of him, hardly daring to
breathe. ”The prisoner will serve five years’ hard labour at the State
Penal Colony of Malembe.” The spectators burst into applause with cries
of approval. The judge rapped the bench with her gavel demanding silence
and getting it. “However,” she went on,” in cases involving narcotics
the law prescribes mandatory corporal punishment in addition to the term
of hard labour. In the case of this prisoner I have no hesitation in
availing myself of this clause. I only regret that the law no longer
permits me to have this prisoner flogged in public with the ciboko.
Therefore I sentence the prisoner to the maximum punishment allowed
under the law, which is fifty strokes of the rattan cane and I charge
the prison authorities at Malembe to ensure that this punishment is
administered with full severity. Remove the prisoner from the court!”
To noisy clapping and cries of approval from the spectators, William was
hustled away by two police officers to the cells adjoining the
courthouse. He was thrust into a small cell and left to ponder his fate
and await transportation to Malambe Prison, which lay on the shores of
beautiful Lake Malambe, some fifty miles from the capital city, Changani.
************
Azanga is a small central African state, situated on a plateau to the
west of Kenya and to the east of Congo. Its fertile soil permits the
cultivation of all the staple African crops as well as many kinds of
fruit and vegetables. In the eastern region of the country there is
dense rain forest, while in the north there are high mountains. Its
climate is healthy and its landscape stunningly beautiful, particularly
its lakes, which provide a habitat for a wide variety of fish and bird
life. Its one million or so inhabitants speak Ciazangi, a Bantu language
quite similar to Swahili. On the whole, the people are happy and
peaceful, and recently the economy of the country has taken a turn for
the better due to the exploitation of diamonds and important mineral
deposits in the northern mountains. The money derived from this activity
is used wisely by the president and her ministers to improve such areas
as health care, education and housing. In fact, Azanga is that rare
creature in Africa – a well-governed, stable and relatively prosperous
state.
This happy state of affairs is in no small measure due to the unusual
fact that it is mainly governed by women. Its president, Elizabeth Benda,
had been running the country for ten years up to the time of William’s
arrest, and more than half of her ministers were women, as well as a
number of heads of government departments. One of the priorities of this
female rule has always been the elimination of corruption, so often the
scourge of other African countries, through draconian laws and
punishments to which everyone is subject, without distinction of wealth
or position. Whereas in most other African societies women occupy a
subordinate position, in Azanga it has always been the opposite, Azanga
being a traditionally matriarchal society, where men learn from an early
age to defer to their mothers and wives, proof of which is the frequency
of newspaper reports detailing cases of husband-beating by wives rather
than the opposite, which is more often the case in the rest of black
Africa.. In fact, women are seldom prosecuted for beating their
husbands, whereas a wife-beater faces certain arrest and judicial
corporal punishment.
This then was the situation in which the hapless William was unwise
enough to allow himself to be caught committing what is considered one
of the most heinous offenses under the Azangan criminal code. Sitting on
the hard wooden bench in the sweltering cell, barefoot and clad only in
shirt and beltless trousers, still stunned by the severity of his
sentence, William inwardly bemoaned his foolishness and thought with
agonizing apprehension of the ordeal in store for him. Everyone in
Azanga had heard stories about Malembe and its harsh woman governor,
Captain Florence Nbembe. William knew that ‘hard labour’ could mean
working in quarries or fields ten hours a day under the hot sun. He had
also heard lurid stories of the effects of the rattan cane on a
prisoner’s bare buttocks. Hardly a week went by in Azanga without
reports in the newspapers of the sentences of corporal punishment handed
down in the courts – ten strokes, twenty-five strokes, forty strokes –
more frequently for male delinquents convicted of burglary, street
violence, drunkenness and the like, but also for females, usually
apprehended for prostitution, the eradication of which was another of
the president’s priorities. Yes, William was in deep trouble and he knew
it and he knew, as Judge Mary Kamanga had reminded him, that he had only
himself to blame.
Chapter 1
Malembe
William spent a fitful night in the bare prison cell. It was not only
the hard wooden boards of his “bed” that kept him from sleeping, but
also his thoughts of what awaited him. Over and over those words rang in
his ears – “Five years hard labour!” - “Fifty strokes of the rattan
cane!” How would he stand it? Over and over again he saw himself toiling
in a field under the hot African sun, urged on by guards with whips. In
his imagination he pictured himself being flogged, tied naked to a bench
or frame – he was not sure how floggings were carried out – screaming
under the cruel lash of the rattan. William was no hero. He knew that he
would be unable to behave with dignity and stoicism under such
treatment.
Dawn came, early in Africa, and a guard opened the cell door and ordered
William to bring out the bucket and empty it in the latrines. A little
later the guard brought William his breakfast, which consisted of a tin
mug of hot tea with a slice of bread. Then, at around seven thirty, he
was taken out into the yard by two guards, who handcuffed his wrists
behind his back and shoved him into the back of a windowless prison van
to transport him to Malembe. The journey would take about an hour and a
half over a bumpy road through lush, well-tended fields of maize and
sugar-cane, shaded by coconut palms and mango trees, but William,
sitting uncomfortably on the floor of the van, was hardly in a position
to appreciate the attractive scenery or the beauties of Lake Malembe,
along the shores of which the van trundled for some time before reaching
the prison. Eventually, William felt the van stop and heard the sound of
a gate opening. Then the car lurched forward again and finally came to a
halt. The van door opened and William, blinking and dazed in the bright
morning sunlight, was pulled out.
************
At approximately the same time as William was being thrust into the back
of the police van to be transported to Malembe, Captain Florence Ndembe
was talking over the telephone with her old friend, Judge Mary Kamanga.
“Yes, about that Englishman in the drugs case, William Maze,” the judge
was saying. “As you know, I sentenced him yesterday – five years hard
labour and fifty strokes. They’ll probably be sending him down to you
some time today.”
“In fact, I’ve just heard from Changani,” Captain Ndembe replied.”
They’re on their way now. They should be here in about an hour’s time.
Do you have any special instructions regarding this prisoner?”
“I do indeed. I trust you will make sure that he gets the punishment he
deserves, no special favours, no leniency. Let him suffer his punishment
in full. An example must be made of these drug traffickers!”
Captain Ndembe smiled. “Oh yes, Mary, I quite agree, but don’t worry. I
have something interesting in store for Mr. Maze. I am going to keep him
here in the female punishment block under Sergeant Mbenge’s tender
mercies for a while. She will know how to deal with him. Why don’t you
come down here for a visit and see for yourself?”
“I can’t make it this month,” said Judge Kamanga,”but I’ll certainly
come and see you next month – and yes, that’s an excellent idea. Shame
and humiliation as well as pain are what he needs! I’ll look forward to
seeing him get what he deserves.”
Captain Ndembe leaned back in her chair. “That was Judge Kamanga, Jane,”
she remarked to the pretty young prison officer who acted as her
secretary. ”She thoroughly approves of my ideas for our new arrival.”
The young woman smiled. She knew what Captain Ndembe meant, for earlier
that morning she had been present when the captain had outlined her
plans for poor William to Sergeant Patience Mbenge. The sergeant was in
charge of the women’s punishment block and was known as a formidable
flogger. A female inmate who committed an offense against prison
discipline was sent to the punishment block for a period of strict
punishment regime under Sergeant Mbenge’s charge... This meant a week or
ten days of hard manual work, stark naked and in leg shackles, around
the prison or even outside the prison grounds in the area where the
guards and their families lived, subjected to the mockery and derision
of the wives and children of the guards or even of other prisoners, with
the pleasure of a daily thrashing to look forward to every morning and
evening.
The sergeant, like Captain Ndembe, was tall and in her mid to late
forties, but whereas Captain Ndembe was slender and athletic looking –
indeed, she had played volleyball for Azanga when she was younger –
Sergeant Mbenge was built more like a female weight-lifter or wrestler,
wide-hipped with massive thighs and haunches, large breasts and brawny,
muscular arms. No woman dared stand up to her and few men. She had
chuckled when she heard what her chief had in mind for William. This was
just the kind of job she liked.
“Judge Kamanga has recommended special treatment for this prisoner,” she
explained, ”so I have decided to keep him here in the women’s section
until further notice and you will be in full charge of him. He will be
on full punishment regime, the same as the women inmates. – naked
parade, shackles, outside labour – oh, and he’s due for mandatory,
judicial caning – fifty strokes. This punishment will also be
administered here by you after Doctor Patel has seen him. And I will
arrange for some of the Presidential Party ladies and some of the
officers’ wives to come along and witness the caning. I’m sure they will
enjoy watching a white man get a flogging!”
The young secretary felt a thrill of anticipation when she heard these
words. It was part of her normal duties to attend canings and stand by
the punishment frame counting out the strokes, so she was sure to enjoy
a close-up view of the action. She was looking forward with curiosity
and no little excitement to the unusual and entertaining sight of a
white man stripped naked, bending over the punishment frame to undergo a
flogging at the hands of big Sergeant Mbenge to a chorus of humiliating
taunts and laughter from the assembled women spectators.
************
Immediately on arrival at the prison, William had been handed over to
Sergeant Mbenge, who had led him off unceremoniously to the reception
block, where, without more ado, he had been ordered to strip naked in
the presence of three younger women prison officers and a middle-aged
female inmate. The women had stared in silent mockery as he had shed his
clothes and had been subjected to a humiliating body search, carried out
by one of the young officers under Sergeant Mbenge’s direction. She had
carried out the search with great thoroughness, taking particular care
over the rectal probe, much to William’s discomfort and the amusement of
the other women. Following the search, he had then had his head and
pubic parts shaved by the female prisoner. This procedure had
necessitated the woman manipulating William’s genitals as she plied the
razor, which had provoked an uncontrollable and embarrassing erection
and more mocking laughter from the watching women. William had then been
marched along a corridor to the bath-house, where he had been required
to stand and be hosed down by the women prisoner and, finally, he had
been led back to the large reception room and made to stand exposed to
the amused gaze of the four women guards.
The unfortunate William stood stark naked, feet wide apart, hands on
shaven head, gaze fixed on the floor, in the centre of the long
reception hut. The room was bare except for a long table to one side, on
which lay William’s clothes and a couple pf chairs. Sergeant Mbenge and
the three women guards strolled casually around the room, examining
William’s naked body with an expression of amused boredom, giving him a
casual slap on his bare behind from time to time, causing him to wince
slightly. The female prisoner, shaven headed and clad in the shapeless
brown prison dress, stood against the wall, watching proceedings with
amusement. William stood there, dry mouthed and shaking with
nervousness, wondering what was in store for him. The women grinned,
relishing William’s humiliation. He certainly did not present a very
dignified appearance, standing there as naked as he was born with his
hands clasped behind his head, helpless and vulnerable. He was of medium
height with a thick roll of fat about his midriff, heavy womanish
breasts with rather prominent nipples, broad hips and ample buttocks,
which quivered at each slap.
After a while Sergeant Mbenge left the young women in charge of the
prisoner. They up a constant flow of humorous chatter in Ciazangi at the
expense of William’s sorry predicament, emphasizing their remarks with
smacks and pinches.
“Look how fat he is,” one of the women said, slapping William lightly on
the belly and squeezing the roll of fat about his waist. “I think he
drinks too much beer.”
“Look at his titties –just like a woman,” another guard said. She
squeezed one of his breasts, tweaking and twisting the nipple painfully.
“Maybe he is a woman,” said another. “Let us look!” She flicked
William’s genitals with her fingers, causing him to gasp and squirm more
in fear than in actual pain, which brought a gust of derisive laughter
from her companions.
“He has a fat bottom like a woman too,” another remarked, with a smack
on William’s buttocks. “The sergeant will have to cane him extra hard to
make him feel the strokes through all that fat!”
“Look how he is shaking! I think he is very scared. He is thinking about
that rattan cane! Oh, I hope I will be on duty at the flogging! It will
be very funny!”
Indeed, that was precisely what William was thinking about, as he stood
there, naked and vulnerable, submissively enduring his humiliation.
Eventually they tired of the sport and ordered him to kneel in the
corner of the room, hands on head, while they chatted in a desultory
manner about other things, totally ignoring William’s presence.
About half an hour later the Sergeant returned. “The Captain will see
him now,” she announced. ‘Handcuff him.”
One of the guards motioned to William to stand and placed the handcuffs
on him behind his back. Sergeant Mbenge than marched him out of the room
and across a yard towards a two-storey building on the other side. The
yard was shaded by tall trees on its four sides and as they crossed it,
Sergeant Mbenge urging him along with jabs of her rubber stick between
the cheeks of his buttocks, William saw a young woman prisoner, stark
naked, her head shaven, shackles on her ankles, sweeping leaves and
watched over lazily by a female guard who was seated under the shade of
a tree. William could not help noticing with alarm that the prisoner’s
buttocks were covered with swollen weals, evidently the result of a
recent beating.
They entered the building, where, in the wide entrance hall, another
naked, shackled prisoner was scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees.
The woman, a typical Azangan “market mammy” figure, looked to be in her
forties. Her fat, bulging buttocks and heavy breasts shook as she
vigorously rubbed away with the wet cloth. She was toiling under the
stern eye of a young woman guard who greeted Sergeant Mbenge and stared
mockingly at the wretched William, making a humorous comment about a
“nice boyfriend”. The sergeant laughed and prodded William up a flight
of stairs and along a passage. She stopped at a door which bore a plaque
marked “Captain Florence Ndembe – Governor”. Sergeant Mbenge knocked.
William heard a woman’s voice call: “Come.”
*************
At the same time as William was undergoing his “reception”, Captain
Ndembe had been at her desk in her office telephoning the government
doctor, Doctor Patel, who visited the women’s prison three times a week.
The doctor was of an Indian family, established in Azanga for several
generations. Captain Ndembe usually spoke to her in English.
“Doctor Patel, you are due to visit tomorrow, aren’t you?” … “Well, I
have a prisoner who is due for a flogging tomorrow morning at eleven. I
want you to give him a check-up first.” … “Yes, him – it’s a male
prisoner. You know, that Englishman who was convicted of drug
trafficking. I am having the punishment administered here in the women’s
block. I want you to be present at the flogging too.” … “Fifty with the
rattan.” … “OK, see you tomorrow.”
After that, she had made another call, this time to her friend Charity,
the head of the Presidential Party in the District of Malembe.
“Listen Charity, can you come over to see me here tomorrow morning? You
will see a good show!” … “Yes, that’s right, but there will be a special
surprise this time!” … “No, I won’t tell you now or it will spoil the
surprise. Get in touch with Anne and tell her to come too.” … “Eleven
o’clock but be here by ten thirty.”
After completing this call, she had turned to her young secretary.
“Jane, arrange for three or four of the senior wives to attend the
caning tomorrow. They will enjoy the show!”
Shortly after this, Sergeant Mbenge had arrived to announce that the
prisoner had been processed and Captain Ndembe had ordered her to bring
him to the office.
************
“Come!” The door opened and an unhappy William was propelled into the
room to stand before Captain Ndembe’s wide desk. He stood, head bowed,
feet wide apart, as he had been instructed by Sergeant Mbenge, fidgeting
nervously under the steady gaze of Captain Ndembe and the mocking smile
of her attractive young secretary. The Captain, clad in her crisply
ironed white uniform blouse and dark blue skirt, her hair combed back
and gathered in a tight bun at the nape of her elegant long neck, sat
straight-backed and tall behind her desk.
“The prisoner Maze, Captain,” announced Sergeant Mbenge briskly. The
Captain continued to gaze, still and silent behind her brown-tinted
glasses, at the naked figure standing before her. To William it seemed
even more humiliating to find himself in this spacious, bright and
well-appointed modern office of the kind he had known so well in his
previous life, standing stark naked and in handcuffs before these two
smartly uniformed women. He felt unreal, as if he was somehow living
through some awful nightmare from which there was no escape. Indeed,
William had often had disturbing dreams in which he found himself in
some public place, in a street or a supermarket, for some reason naked,
experiencing a feeling of deep shame, knowing that he should be clothed,
yet, at the same time, feeling that it was somehow normal to be nude.
Now the dream had come true; now the shame and humiliation were real.
Captain Ndembe addressed him in correct, clear English. “Prisoner
William Maze, I am Captain Ndembe and I am the overall Governor of
Malembe Prison. You have been convicted of an extremely serious offense
and you have been sent here to serve your sentence of five years hard
labour together with mandatory corporal punishment, in this case fifty
strokes of the rattan cane. Normally a male prisoner is sent to the male
section of this prison. However, in view of your background and
circumstances I have decided to keep you, until further notice, here in
the female block. I am placing you in the “special prisoner” category
under full punishment regime in the female punishment block. This means,
among other things, that you will not be allowed clothing. We believe
that the shame and humiliation of being permanent nudity is an effective
means of punishment which contributes towards making an offender
understand the true heinousness of his offense against society. So you
will remain completely naked, as you are now, for the duration of your
sentence, or until I decide otherwise. You will perform hard manual work
under the direction of my officers, who are authorized to administer any
disciplinary measures they think fit. You will also be required to work
outside the prison grounds as well as inside and for such tasks you will
wear leg-irons. As for the caning, this will also be administered here
in the female section by my experienced women officers and will take
place tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock in the presence of several
female witnesses after the doctor has seen you. At Malembe Prison we
believe that a prisoner is here to suffer punishment, so we will make
your life hard. We have three chief rules here. They are obedience,
respect and work. If you observe these rules, you will make your life a
bit easier. If not … well, we know how to deal with stubborn and
troublesome prisoners. That is all. Take him away, Sergeant.”
With another sharp prod from Sergeant Mbenge’s rubber stick, William was
marched out of the office and down the stairs. The two naked inmates
were still at work under the watchful eye of their guards. William
supposed that they were undergoing some kind of punishment. Indeed, he
was able to confirm this supposition later when, having been a guest in
Sergeant Mbenge’s punishment block for a while, he became quite
accustomed to the sight of naked female prisoners of various ages,
shapes and sizes on the receiving end of various forms of “corrective
treatment”. Furthermore, judging by what Captain Ndembe had just told
him, he feared that similar treatment was in store for him.
He was led back through the reception hut and out across another wide
yard to a smaller compound which was surrounded by a high fence topped
with razor wire. The sergeant unlocked the stout metal door and shoved
William through it and into the small yard. This was the punishment
block for female prisoners, where William was to spend the few
uncomfortable weeks of his new life as an inmate of Malembe Jail.
Chapter 2
The Punishment Block
William lay, naked, on the rough raffia mat, which, with a plastic
bucket, constituted the sole furnishing of the small cell into which had
had been thrust after entering the punishment block. The cell, some two
meters wide by three long, was ventilated by a small grille set high in
one wall. Opposite this blank cement block wall was the door, which
consisted of iron bars, leaving the inmate as if in a cage in full view
of anyone passing along the passage. This was a punishment cell.
Sergeant Mbenge had marched William across the yard and through the door
of the long, low cement block hut which was the punishment block’s only
building. Seated behind a wooden table in the entrance was a young women
guard, broad and tough-looking, who had eyed William with undisguised
contempt. She had taken down a key from a hook on the wall behind her
and handed it to the sergeant, at the same time making a joking remark
about the sorry-looking naked male prisoner who stood before her. She
had then opened a barred door to the left of the entrance and the
Sergeant, giving William a smack on the bottom with her rubber stick,
had shoved him into a long corridor flanked on either side by small
cells. She had opened the first cell on the left and, after removing the
handcuffs from William’s wrists, pushed him in.
“Welcome to your new home. You will be very comfortable here!” she had
said with a smile, slamming the door shut and leaving William to
contemplate his fate. He had never felt so entirely abandoned and
helpless in his life. The bright lights of the corridor had been
switched off and William was left in semi-darkness, the only light
coming through the barred door from the entrance where the guard sat.
William was not a very courageous individual at the best of times and
this was more like the worst of times as far as he was concerned,
sitting stark naked on the floor of this bare prison cell, unable to
think of anything other than the painful and humiliating treatment that
awaited him at the hands of these merciless African women. To calm
himself he tried to work out what the time could be. He supposed it must
still be before noon. Little by little he began to notice things. For
example, the cell smelled of disinfectant and was very clean, as was the
whole building. The cell opposite William’s was empty, but he was aware
that some of the other cells further along the corridor were occupied.
Though naked, he did not feel cold. The climate of Azanga is, in fact,
extremely pleasant all the year round, never falling below about 28ºC
and seldom rising above 35ºC. He felt thirsty, but dared not call out to
beg for water. He began to feel hungry and wondered what kind of food
they would give him. He thought about Captain Ndembe, of her air of
authority, of how she intimidated him with her still, scornful gaze. He
thought about Sergeant Mbenge, of her massive breast and powerful arms,
of the play of her broad, ample buttocks under her blue uniform skirt as
she strode before him across the yard. He saw himself strapped to some
kind of whipping apparatus, writhing and howling as she brought the
rattan cane down across his bare buttocks and, in spite of his dire
predicament, he began to feel an insistent and involuntary hardening of
his penis at these thoughts and allowed his hand to stray towards his
genitals.
William might have carried on with this exercise, had he not heard the
sound of voices giving sharp orders, the clank of shackles, and the slap
of a rubber stick on bare flesh followed by squeals of pain. Then the
passage lights were switched on and the door opened. William saw two
naked women prisoners being pushed past his cell by the guard and heard
the sounds of their cells being opened and locked further down the
corridor. He recognized them as the two he had seen at work, naked and
shackled, when he was being taken to Captain Ndembe’s office. Evidently
they had finished their tasks and were now being returned to their
punishment cells. The guard glanced in at him indifferently as she
passed his cell to return to her seat, switching off the main lights and
leaving the passage once again in semi-darkness.
Alone with his thoughts once again, William resumed his reverie, with
its confusing mixture of fear and pleasure, and again felt this
unexpected and, given his circumstances, rather incongruous hardening of
his penis. Some time passed – William had no idea how long – and then,
once again, he heard the sound of voices from the direction of the
entrance hall. Suddenly the passage lights were turned on and the barred
connecting door was opened. The tough-looking corporal appeared outside
his cell. Unlocking the cell door, she motioned to him to stand up and
come out. William hurriedly obeyed and was shoved roughly out into the
entrance hall where he found Sergeant Mbenge awaiting him.
“On your knees!” she ordered sharply. William clumsily obeyed.
“Now I am going to teach you the correct way to greet an officer when
she calls you out of your cell”, she said. “First, you will kneel down
and then you will kiss the officer’s boots. So, kiss my boots!”
William shuffled towards her on hands and knees and bent forward to kiss
her boots.
“Both boots!” she snapped. The corporal, standing behind him, gave him a
sharp smack on the backside with her rubber stick.
“Stand up! Do it again!”
William, breathing hard, obeyed and was obliged to repeat the exercise
about six times before Sergeant Mbenge was satisfied.
“Good! Now you will greet Corporal Mbaya in the same way!”
William was forced to go through the same drill for the corporal,
receiving several smacks from Sergeant Mbenge during the process.
“Now I am going to tell you what is going to happen tomorrow”, she
resumed. “After cell cleaning duties, you will be given breakfast. Then,
at ten o’clock I will take you to Doctor Patel for medical examination
to see if you are fit for caning. After that, at eleven o’clock, you
will be taken to the punishment room here, where Captain Ndembe and the
ladies will be waiting to witness the flogging. Do you understand?”
William, dry-mouthed, stammered a barely audible ‘yes’ and received, for
his pains, a smack across his belly from Sergeant Mbenge.
“Yes Madame Sergeant! Yes Madame Corporal! Yes Madame Captain! That is
how will speak to an officer! Yes?”
After William had assented to her satisfaction, he was ordered to stand,
legs apart and hands on head, while the two women studied his naked body
thoroughly, making sardonic remarks about its various features. Special
attention was paid to William’s posteriors, with which they both amused
themselves, squeezing and slapping the flesh and commenting on the
suitability of such a pair of buttocks for caning. William, with a
hollow feeling in his stomach, stood docile and dry-mouthed, shaking
from nerves and hunger, enduring the humiliating attentions of the two
women, hearing their mocking laughter and conscious of their derisive
comments.
After suffering a few more minutes of this treatment, William was
marched back to his cell and left to his own devices for a couple of
hours before the next interruption to his solitary reveries. A prisoner,
clad in the brown prison dress, wheeled a trolley into the passage to
distribute the mid-day meal to the inmates of the punishment block. She
was accompanied by Corporal Mbaya, who watched closely as she pushed the
tin meal dish and tin cup through the narrow slot at the base of the
cell door. This was done quickly and without any words being spoken.
William fell upon his food eagerly and even more eagerly on the cup of
sweet tea with milk which he was given, somewhat to his surprise. He was
also pleasantly surprised by the substantial meal, which consisted of a
kind of tasty stew containing some meat, rice and some vegetables in a
peppery sauce together with a large hunk of bread and a banana. He had
expected much worse. In fact, though William did not know this at the
time, Captain Ndembe had given explicit orders that he should be
especially well fed. This was not out of kindness of heart, however. Her
real motive was that she wanted to keep William strong and healthy
enough to endure not only the judicial flogging to which he had been
sentenced by the court but also the special treatment she had in store
for him. Captain Ndembe had plans for William.
The afternoon passed, and then the evening. William could sense that it
was evening because the dim light that came through the small grille at
the top of the wall darkened, so that now the only light came from the
barred door at the entrance to the cell corridor. William could hear
whispering from the cells further down the passage, where there were two
or three women prisoners. Evidently they did not dare to speak aloud for
fear of retribution. He lay on the rough mat, turning uncomfortably from
one side to the other, his thoughts focused mainly on the pain and
humiliation of his coming ordeal. At the same time, constantly intruding
on these thoughts was the image of himself, naked and helpless,
submitting docilely to these strapping, buxom black women, of the type
he had always admired when he was a free man. The thought excited him,
in spite of his fear, and this excitement was manifesting itself plainly
in the swelling and hardening of his penis.
How long this semi-dreaming state went on William did not know, but
eventually he heard sounds from the entrance hall and, once again, the
corridor lights came on. The barred door was opened and the same female
prisoner appeared, accompanied this time by a different but equally
formidable-looking guard, to hand out the evening meal, which, in
William’s case at least, was just as solid as the midday one. William
ate and drank gratefully, knowing that he must keep up his physical
strength to the best of his ability, whatever his mental state might be.
After about ten minutes the guard came along the corridor, checking each
cell in silence, and then all lights were switched off. William heard
the sound of the outer door being locked. Evidently the guard had left
for the night. The prisoners were left in complete darkness.
************
Lying naked on a rough straw mat on a hard floor, William did not sleep
well. He began to feel chilly as the night wore on and, of course, his
nerves were on edge as he dwelt on what lay ahead for him. Dawn comes
early in Africa and he was awake when light began to creep through the
grille at the top of the wall. He heard stirrings from the other cells
and whispered conversations and then the sound of the outer door being
unlocked. Evidently a guard had come to begin her day’s duty. After a
while, the passage door was opened and the guard walked slowly along,
peering into each cell, checking. There was silence from the other end
of the passage. Talking among prisoners was not permitted in the
punishment block.
An hour or so later two guards, the tough one from yesterday and a
fattish younger woman, came along the passage opening each cell. William
and the other prisoners were required to step out of their cell and
prostrate themselves in the regulation fashion before both guards. Then,
they had to pick up their toilet buckets and carry them, in single file
to the latrines and washroom, which were at the end of the passage.
William found himself walking behind three naked, shaven women, the two
he had seen the previous day and a third, a plump woman, whose large
buttocks bore the marks of a recent thrashing, as did the backsides of
the other two. After emptying their buckets into the latrines, the
prisoners had to wash them out with disinfectant and carry them back to
their cells. The female prisoners did not dare raise their eyes to look
at William. Prisoners were required to keep their heads bowed and their
eyes down. They were then ordered back to the washroom to be hosed down
by the young guard, who directed a jet of cold water at them as they
stood, all four together, in the washing area. The sight of William
standing there naked and shivering together with the three naked women
prisoners clearly amused the guards, who laughed and joked as they made
him turn several times so that they could aim the jet at his private
parts and backside.
When the prisoners had been thoroughly hosed down, each was given a
bucket of water, in which the guard poured some disinfectant, a cloth
and a brush, and, with resounding slaps on their still wet buttocks,
ordered to scrub out the cells as well as the passage and entrance hall.
Once again it was William who came in for the special attentions of the
two guards as he laboured clumsily on all fours with his brush, his
bottom in the air, receiving smacks and jabs up the behind with their
rubber sticks, all accompanied by crude jokes at the expense of his
nakedness. This cleaning routine, as William was to discover, had to be
carried out every day. Captain Ndembe was particularly insistent on
hygiene and disease prevention in all parts of the prison, and frequent
inspections ensured that her orders were obeyed.
By about eight o’clock the task had been completed to the guards’
satisfaction and the four inmates were returned to their cells sweating
with their exertions to await breakfast, which was delivered again, in
silence, by a clothed female prisoner under the supervision of a guard.
Again William hungrily ate the generous portion of “asida”, a kind of
millet porridge which was a staple food in Azanga, and drank the hot
sweet tea. Shortly after breakfast, the three female prisoners were
marched out of their cells and into the yard. William was left in his
cell, but through the grille high on the cell wall he could hear the
sound of staccato orders being uttered, as if in some kind of drill.
This, as he later learned, was the so-called “naked parade”, to which
prisoners on punishment regime were subjected daily. It consisted of
strenuous marching round the yard and various exercises, together with
the daily dose of whacks across the behind with the guards’ canes.
William could clearly hear the sharp crack of the cane on bare flesh and
the resulting squeal of pain from the recipient. He then heard the sound
of shackles being attached and the prisoners being marched off to
perform their daily tasks.
Not long after their departure, Sergeant Mbenge appeared, and William,
after carrying out the required prostration by way of greeting, was
handcuffed behind his back and led out of the punishment block.
“You must see the doctor now,” she told William. “All prisoners must
have medical check before flogging.”
She prodded him across another yard towards a low, white building. He
saw several women prisoners, clothed in the drab brown regulation smock,
and engaged in various tasks. They stared at William curiously as he was
led past, and he heard laughter. Sergeant Mbenge led William into the
medical building, where a female prisoner was at work washing the floor,
and knocked on an office door. Doctor Patel was sitting at her desk, and
showed no surprise at the sight of a naked white man. She was a short,
plumpish Indian woman in her forties. Under her doctor’s white coat she
wore a traditional Indian sari and her long, jet-black hair was drawn
tightly back in a chignon.
She surveyed William coolly through a pair of heavy horn-rimmed glasses.
“Good morning, Doctor,” said Sergeant Mbenge. ”This prisoner will be
flogged today so he needs medical check-up.”
“Ah, yes, the Englishman,” the doctor spoke in a musical Indian accent.
“Captain Ndembe has informed me. Remove the handcuffs, please.”
Sergeant Mbenge unlocked the cuffs. William stood before Doctor Patel’s
desk, awkwardly, his hands by his sides. The doctor turned to the fat
young African nurse who was standing to one side.
“Check his height and weight and blood pressure,” she ordered. While the
nurse carried out this routine procedure, the doctor, in a neutral,
professional tone, asked William questions concerning his general state
of health, making notes on a card as she did so. Then she stood up and
came round the desk to where William was standing in order to listen to
his heart with her stethoscope. She also tested him for hernia and,
telling him to bend over, checked the state of his buttocks.
“What is this prisoner’s sentence? Sergeant?” she asked.
“Fifty strokes with the rattan, Doctor,” replied Sergeant Mbenge
promptly.
“Hmm .. Well, he is fit to receive corporal punishment, but … well, I
will make a recommendation to Captain Ndembe,” the doctor said, writing
a note on a slip of paper which she handed to the sergeant.
“What time is the punishment to take place?” she asked.
“Eleven o’clock, Doctor,” said the sergeant.
“Very well, I will be there. Nurse, you will accompany me.”
“Yes, Doctor,” the young nurse replied, glancing all the time uneasily
at William. She was quite new at this prison job and was clearly nervous
and excited at the prospect of witnessing her first full judicial
flogging, especially one involving a white male prisoner.
Sergeant Mbenge, having handcuffed William again, tapped him on the
bottom with her stick.
“Thank you Doctor. Prisoner, turn, march!” she snapped, and shoved him
out of the office and out across the yard.
“Well,” she said, “the doctor said you are fit, so today you will get a
good, hard flogging with the rattan cane!” She smiled with satisfaction
at the prospect. “O, oh, oh … you will suffer! You will cry like a baby
and all the ladies will enjoy the show today! Yes!”
Punctuating her words with prods of her rubber stick between the cheeks
of William’s buttocks, she marched him back to the punishment block,
where he was ordered to stand facing the wall in the entrance hall.
Sergeant Mbenge and Corporal Mbaya sat at the desk opposite him and
chatted in Cizangi while they waited for the appointed time to conduct
him to the punishment room. William stood, handcuffed, head bowed,
listening as the two women laughed and joked about what was in store for
him. William understood most of what they were saying and their obvious
pleasure at the prospect of his coming ordeal did nothing to reassure
him. However, at the same time as he trembled with dread at the thought
of the pain and humiliation he was to suffer during the flogging,
William, once again, could not help feeling a strange, undeniable sexual
thrill which manifested itself in the swelling and hardening of his
penis. He could not prevent himself from wondering whether, in spite of
his present predicament and foreboding, he was not lucky to have been
retained here in the women’s section of Malembe Prison. What if Captain
Ndembe had sent him to the male section? He imagined having to share a
cell with perhaps a dozen other men, the brutal treatment from the
guards and other prisoners, sexual assault, back-breaking work digging
ditches in the fields or breaking rocks in the quarry. He was too
nervous and confused to think clearly, but he somehow felt quite sure
about one thing. He would submit docilely, almost with some strange,
inexplicable pleasure, to whatever punishment, whatever humiliation
these powerful, intimidating African women wished to inflict upon him.
