They’d beat me for minor infringements of the rules (which I never knew first or last), such as failing to stand up quickly enough, or answering a question, or any damn thing they felt like. They’d deny me food or water for what felt like days. They’d deprive me of clothing or bedding, and for three days even a bed, making me stand up, away from the walls, for a good ten hours. When that one was over, I experienced terrible muscle cramps that haunted me still.
But the pain made me stubborn and determined not to give in to them. Ever bit of pain told me that they were losing. Every beating let me know just how frustrated they were becoming. The more regular episodes told me of their desperation, and so increased my willingness to keep going. To be fair, my brain almost managed to switch off the pain, so I existed in a semi-comatose dream-world for much of the time. I knew I was going mad, and that made me laugh.
I almost felt sorry for him, for his masters in government were no doubt putting excruciating pressure on him to get the necessary information from me. My need to defeat them was stronger than anything they could do to me.
"So, it has come to this, Captain Carlisle. Are you ready to die so far from England, here in Vietnam?" he asked, in his faintly sing-song accent.
I stared over his head, saying nothing and unwilling even to meet his oriental eyes. I’d learned never to speak, even if that earned me a beating.
Quang pulled a piece of paper from his immaculate jacket pocket, unfolding it.
"This is an authorisation commuting the sentence to life imprisonment, already signed by the president. All I need to do is sign it as well, and you will be moved to more hospitable surroundings. There is even talk of allowing you to be transferred to the United Kingdom to complete your sentence."
The silence was deafening.
“Well?” he said; his voice shrill with anxiety.
"Then sign it," I suggested.
"Where are the diamonds?"
"I told the shambolic excuse for a court, I told the police and I told everyone who listened, including you many times, I didn't steal the diamonds."
"The court found you guilty, and no one outside this room cares whether you live or die," he reminded me, unnecessarily in my opinion. I was well aware that I was about as alone as anyone could ever get. My parents were dead; I had no siblings and no little woman waiting for me to come home. The British officials had washed their hands of me, seeing me more as an embarrassment than anything else. Yet, I had no regrets. Well, apart from getting caught and sentenced to death, that is. The single hope upon which I had clung for the last few months was now but a single thread, less even than a spider's web, and diminishing by the second.
"The court needed to find me guilty, as the police were inept and corrupt, so the real culprits have probably smuggled the diamonds out of the country by now."
"You persist in this pretence of innocence. You will die, Mr Carlisle, unless you tell me!"
"So, I'm no longer a Captain, eh? I told you that, didn’t I? Look, I'm going to die anyway, don't you think I would have told you if I knew?" I asked, meeting his eyes for the first time.
I saw the doubt flicker in those eyes. That flicker gave me the resolve to continue. Quang frowned, waving the paper in front of me.
"This is your last chance!"
"Life sentence, eh?"
"Yes."
"In here?"
"To begin with, yes, but then, I am told, there is a chance that you could be transferred to Britain."
“Fat chance,” I said.
He said nothing, just waved the paper in front of me.
"I'd rather die. Best we get it over with," I said, moving towards the door.
It wasn't far, but for me it took a supreme effort of will to put one foot in front of the other.
The gaol was an old one, reeking of fear, excrement, urine, sweat and death. Originally built by the French, several generations ago, but I think it had yet to be redecorated since those halcyon days. The cells were bleak and the finer ones were simply foul. There were a few westerners here, drug smugglers for the most part. Several, like me, remained on death row. It was possible to buy luxuries, if connections from outside managed to penetrate the bureaucracy to get funds through to the governor. I had no such connections, as Quang had been right when he said no one cared, so malnutrition could be added to my list of ailments.
Quang was an old North Vietnamese army officer who had no love of the South or of westerners. He particularly disliked Americans, as they had killed his family, but he disliked me because I wouldn't admit to what they alleged said I had done. Actually, he really didn't like the fact that when I died, he believed that the secret of the location of a several million dollars worth of what should be his government's diamonds would be lost forever.
They'd tried beating it out of me and they'd tried offering me all manner of nasty ways to die, as well as my virtual freedom.
The way I saw it, I had pleaded my innocence from the outset and could never go back on it now. Besides, there was little evidence to connect me to the actual crime, but then their courts weren't interested in justice, only results.
The result of an acquittal wouldn't have looked good, so they found me guilty.
I was so weak now, as in the many months I'd been here, my weight had dropped from over eleven stone down to below eight. The food had been enough to keep me alive - just. I couldn't recall a time when my muscles had been so skinny, I think I'd been about eleven. I had attempted to keep up a fitness regime, but the constant beatings and inadequate food caused me to give up. What was the point in keeping in shape if I was going to be shot?
They hadn't allowed me near a razor, in case I'd used it to escape, either by slitting the throats of a couple of hundred guards armed with AK47s, or by slitting my wrists. My hair and beard were like Robinson Crusoe's; matted and filthy. The beatings had spread my already broken nose further across my face, and I was certain that my jaw and cheekbone were broken. I'd lost about six teeth and several more were chipped or cracked, so in a way, death would relieve me from much suffering altogether. At least they didn't add insult to injury by giving me ice cream to eat and thereby causing me even more pain. If they'd thought it would help extricate the necessary intelligence, they might just have done it.
I shuffled past many of the cells, the inmates watching me with despair-laden expressions. In Hollywood movies, this is the point all the inmates bang their cups on the bars in a display of solidarity and support for the condemned man. Here, the other prisoners were all so wrapped up in their own misery to pay much attention to mine. Their only emotion was relief that it wasn't their turn - yet!
An Australian prisoner called Harry looked up and waved a hand at me.
"Happy landings, mate," he said, almost making me smile. He had been due to be shot last week as he'd attempted to smuggle several thousand Australian dollars worth of heroin. However, diplomatic efforts by the Australians looked like they were having some success. He had been told the sentence was under review, with a possibility of being commuted to life imprisonment, some of which could be served in Australia.
I’d heard that Garry Glitter, or Paul Gadd, depending whether you know him by his real name or not, had been in here somewhere for sexually assaulting a couple of little girls. He had then been moved to another prison after receiving death threats. Hell, I never met the bloke, but heard he claimed a media conspiracy. Like they could be bothered with dross like that. They caught me and convicted me without a great deal of evidence, so who knows, anything is possible. The difference was, I was guilty, even if they had little evidence, they knew it and I knew it, so there was little point in moaning.
Out into daylight, or dusk-light at any rate, was still enough to make me screw my eyes up. At the corner of a small yard, we passed the old guillotine that stood as a reminder of the French connection to this part of Indo-china. Fortunately, it was a monument only now, often displayed to tourists from the north and China as a symbol of the barbaric colonial days. The current regime liked to display this prison on tourist tours, it was astoundingly popular, or so they told me.