I suddenly realized that I was very thirsty. Not only had I not had a drink all morning, but the heat and tension had combined to make my thirst all the more fierce. I called to the guard. ‘You! Get me some water!’ I was in no mood for playing the part of the humble prisoner.
Fortunately, the guard, although little surprised at my forthrightness, appeared to comply with my demand. He wandered off down the corridor and came back a moment later carrying a plastic cup of water. His face broke into an ugly, malicious sneer as, deliberately dangling two fingers in the water, he passed the beaker through the bars.
I looked at it in disgust. The rim was cracked, chewed and dirty and a film of grease scummed the surface. God knows what bacteria were swimming in the filthy liquid ready to infest my already tortured guts. I grabbed the beaker from the guard’s hand, and shouted angrily, ‘You must be fucking joking,’ and threw it full in his face with all the venom I could muster.
He reeled back incensed and, with water still dribbling from his chin, said menacingly, ‘I’ll have you, I’ll have you my boy. No one does that to me and gets away with it. My mates at Stanley will deal with you, my boy.’ He would have been even more incensed if he had realized that I was not going to be incarcerated at Stanley Jail, that it would be all over in a few hours and that his mates would never have a chance to get near me. I strode defiantly over to the concrete block, stared fixedly at one of the prisoners sitting there until he reluctantly shuffled over to make room for me, and sat down to wait.
Late in the afternoon, a Black Maria with two Chinese warders arrived. The guard muttered a few more threats, prodded me in the ribs with a truncheon and handed me over to the warders. The warders frogmarched me up the stairs to the back of the court, out into the high-walled courtyard, where I quickly gulped in welcome lungfuls of fresh air, and into the Black Maria along with several other dangerouslooking characters. We drove in complete silence through the city streets, into the cross-harbour tunnel and over to the south side of Hong Kong Island.
The Black Maria backed into the courtyard of Stanley Jail, the door was opened and the prisoners filed out under the guard into the reception area. I was first in the queue. The other characters who had been brought with me watched somewhat sullenly as I was processed through the jail system. I was stripped naked and searched, all my valuables were removed, placed in a brown envelope and put into a locker, then my clothes were given back, minus belt and shoelaces. I was then stripped by the same two warders who had brought me there and marched across the courtyard. It was early evening. All the prisoners were lining up holding pitifully small wooden bowls to collect their supper of rice and scraps of meat. Far from feeling nervous about the impending punishment, I could focus my mind only on the size of the bowls. Thank God I’m getting out quick, I thought, I wouldn’t last six weeks here, let along six months. I’d starve to death!
We entered a building and walked down a long corridor. As we went along I imagined that the person who would administer the caning would be a normal-sized Chinese. Thank fuck they’re all small in China, I thought with relief. I pictured a diminutive figure with a copy of a holy book under his arm to prevent him from raising the cane too high – just as I’d seen at public floggings in the Middle East. I was in for a shock. There, at the end of the corridor, I saw him. Stripped to the waist, wearing PT shorts and pumps, with big muscles, broad shoulders, hands like shovels, his arms folded across a barrel for a chest, the monster was waiting. A mountain giant from north Mongolia. I felt the first shivers of fear clutch my stomach.
We turned left at the bottom of the corridor into a large, windowless room. At the back of the room was a long desk at which sat six sternfaced prison officials: governor, deputy governor, head warder, a psychiatrist, an Indian doctor and finally a nurse. Over the left stood a vaulting box with a thick leather strap dangling loose from each of the four legs. Behind the box there was a rack of solid rattan canes lined up like snooker cues. The monster went over to the rack and started to examine the canes. It was a scene straight out of some Dark Ages dungeon. The knot in my stomach drew tighter.
‘Prepare the prisoner.’ The governor had spoken.
The warder to my left ordered, ‘Strip down naked. Sit in a chair while the doctor examines you.’
Once more I suffered the indignity of standing naked in front of a row of officials. The Indian doctor came over and gave me a cursory examination. He looked at my eyes and my tongue, prodded his stethoscope over my chest and took my blood pressure. With my heart beating at a rate of knots, it was no surprise when the doctor exclaimed, ‘My goodness! Your blood pressure’s high! Have you been taking any sort of drugs recently?’
I saw my chance. I clutched at the straw. ‘Yeah, I’ve been on Mogadon and Valium for the last four months.’
The doctor stepped back in horror and went for a whispered conversation with the governor. However, it did no good. They saw through the ruse. The doctor returned, shook his head and sat down.
The two warders then hauled me over the bondage apparatus so that my legs were completely off the ground. As I lay spreadeagled I caught the ominous odour of stale vomit left by previous detainees. I screwed my nose up in disgust and started to breathe through my mouth to avoid the noxious smell. It brought to mind something I’d read about torture sessions in medieval chambers. When the prisoner, through the sheer weight of the pain, was beginning to lose consciousness and black out, the torturers, intent on extracting every last drop of suffering, would set light to a greasy rag and hold it below the prisoner’s nostrils. The acrid smoke from the flames would sting the unfortunate man back to wakefulness, make him vomit and thus revive him for the next round of torture. As the warders unceremoniously hauled me further forward on the box, I deepened my resolve not to show any signs of reaction to the punishment, not to yell out or show any emotion whatsoever. It would be stiff upper lip to the bitter end. This would be my way of resistance, of maintaining my dignity, of showing them they could not really get to me. I would end up winning this particular contest, this battle of wills, at all costs. They could beat my body but they could not beat my mind.
My legs were strapped in, then two canvas pads were placed across my back – one to cover the small of my back to protect my kidneys from any badly aimed blows and one across the top of my thighs to protect my testicles. As my wrists were strapped to the front supports, I thought, sod it, every day is a bonus after Mirbat.
The doctor came round, brought a chair and sat next to my head. He whispered almost apologetically, ‘Oh, for goodness sake make sure your tongue is well back, make sure you keep your teeth clenched, make sure you keep your head still. I will hold your head to keep it from whipping back.’ Experience had taught him that victims of this barbaric punishment are quickly broken by the beating rod, their reserves of willpower soon overwhelmed by the pain. And that the pain itself bites deeper with each stroke, giving greater and greater impetus to the overwhelming reflex action of jerking the head back.
The governor nodded his head. The chief warder, in a high-pitched, near-hysterical voice, shouted out, ‘Number one.’ The monster swished the cane twice in the air to build up momentum to let me know it was coming. The next second it bit into my flesh like a branding iron. My body jerked involuntarily upwards to try to relieve the pain, but the spasm fell back on itself. There was nowhere for my body to go. I was completely immobilized. The straps bound me tight and dug cruelly into my ankles and wrists.
The first stroke had been delivered with unnerving ferocity. It was as if the monster was taking revenge on me for some grave personal insult. With nowhere for my body to move, the agonizing pain simply stabbed deeper and deeper, with a strange shuddering motion like the aftermath of an earthquake. With the first strike the blood vessels immediately beneath the surface of the skin were completely ruptured. My lungs convulsed and sucked a sharp intake of breath through my clenched teeth. With my eyes watering and my head reeling, I was in a state of semi-shock. The intensity of the experience was beyond description. I hadn’t expected anything remotely like this. I needed something to focus on, something to hold my senses together. I began to count off the strokes, thinking, every one is one step nearer freedom.