Spoils of War

THE SPOILS OF WAR by Pete Brown. petebrownuk @ yahoo.com

Read all of Pete's stories in groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories

Part 23

I never knew what they did to Ahmed. In the morning we were showering together, still enjoying each others bodies, when the guards came, gave me my Gleeson's Gladiators shorts and T (freshly laundered) and ordered me to dress. Ahmed was left in our cell as I was taken back up in the elevator and out to the porte cochere at the back where I was told to wait for a limo to take me to the bus station.

It was some kind of transport centre for the White House, as there was a lot of coming and going - occasionally limos, but more often the pedicabs-, pulled by slaves that had become popular since the oil crisis - I guess that in a relatively flat town like DC, where most of the major buildings are pretty close together, it's viable to have the slaves pulling senators, civil servants and staffers around from one place to another - it wouldn't work in Raleigh, though, as everything is so spread out and no slave could run that far towing one of those little rickshaws. Still, it was interesting to watch, and it was good to see other guys sweating their balls off for a change, whilst I sat - or, more accurately, stood: I'd sat at first, until a guard came up and told me that slaves didn't sit! - in the shelter and watched.

Although it wasn't cold, it was a pretty vile day: it was already raining, and the slaves pulling the pedicabs looked pretty miserable as their shorts and Ts clung to them with the wet - I don't know why they didn't just let them run naked, or in Speedos or something, as it surely would have been more comfortable. At Gleeson's Gladiators training went on every day, irrespective of the weather, and if it rained we did it naked: it takes a bit of getting used to at first, as the rain on your bare skin can be very unpleasant, but, believe me, it's better than exercising hard in clammy whet Ts and stuff. After all, the human hide is built to withstand the weather, isn't it?

Anyway, as I stood there, the rain got worse and worse and soon there was thunder and lightning, as DC started to experience one of those massive thunderstorms that can strike on the East Coast. The rain sluiced down, and the lights started to flicker, then went out briefly, and came on again. But as I peered out through the downpour I could see that most other parts were no longer lit - traffic signals, and the street lights that had come on as it was dark under the thunder clouds, were all out.

I'd been standing to one side, near a group of staffers waiting for transport, and they were joined by another . "You'd better come back inside, guys", he told them. "This is serious. The storm's knocked out one of the main power feeders from the West, and the local supplies can't cope - there's been an escalating series of power trips across the whole East Coast, and some of the emergency supplies have failed, too: air traffic's in chaos and we're no longer able to track slaves as we've lost communications with the satellite..... We're OK here, as the building's on emergency power, but the President's calling a crisis meeting to sort out the rest of it... It's a real fuck up..."

I just stood there ,and then I realised this was my chance.... They couldn't track slaves (well, at least until they sorted things out, and that might take some time), there was chaos everywhere, and a slave jogging along was unlikely to be stopped as no one would want to venture out into the storm.... I knew the risks: there was only one penalty for escaping slaves, it was drilled into us: gelding and then flogging. Or was it flogging, and then gelding? But this had to be my only chance.... The Pennsylvania border wasn't all that far away, and that was solidly in the North!

When the guards' weren't paying attention, I slipped out into the storm, and was at once drenched. I walked calmly and slowly down the drive, and at the gate house tapped on the window. The guard looked out, and I shouted, to make myself heard, "Sir, please, sir let me out..."

"What are you doing out there, boy?"

"Sir, they told me to go to the bus station as the traffic's all snarled and they can't spare a limo, sir. And I have to catch the bus or my owner will beat me, sir. I don't want to be out in this weather, sir...."

"I don't have any orders about you, boy, but not even a slave would be walking around in this weather if there wasn't good reason.... There you go...." He pressed something in the gate house and the barrier raised, and I was free. Well, I was out of the White House, at least!

Like a lot of folk I'd been to Washington "to see the sights" in happier times, so I had some idea of the geography of the place. There was complete and utter chaos around today, though, as the traffic was all stalled with intersections blocked, and the very small number of pedestrians who had ventured out were, like me, soaked through and kept their heads down. I made my way to Union Station, and thought about catching a train North - but, of course, with the country now split, the few northbound trains there were seemed to be attracting a lot of attention from officers who were checking passports - and, even worse, there were large signs warning that slaves were absolutely forbidden on these services "whether accompanying their owners or not". I read on, and saw that in small letters underneath it said "Owners are warned that this train goes to areas where slavery is not allowed, and slaves would be freed automatically. Slaves are therefore forbidden on this service."

In one way that cheered me up - if only I could get North, I'd be free. But I'd hoped to somehow get on board and hide, and that didn't really seem possible. I saw one of the passport checkers looking suspiciously at me as I read the notice, so decided it would be best to get out of there before his suspicions were aroused about me: I didn't have a passport, obviously, and had never needed one to travel around in the USA. I left the station, and hugging the walls to shield myself from the rain as best I could, I slunk around the back - where there was some sort of goods operation. As I watched, I could see UPS trucks loading and unloading, and I remembered how the driver who had first delivered me in Raleigh had been a naked slave.

I stood there, shivering in the wet, then saw that they'd unmanacled one of the drivers and were making him unload - the men at the receiving bay didn't want to venture out into the weather, and so had got the naked driver to do all the work. This was my chance - I took off my T and my shorts, and went and joined him, carrying all the packages destined for elsewhere in the country from the truck into the station. "Thanks, mate", he told me as we finished. "It was good of those bastards to even think of sending another slave to help me."

"Well your luck is my loss - I'm fucking freezing in this rain - and you look half drowned, too."

"Yes, and I've got my whole shift ahead of me - this was the first drop."

"There's a slave feeding station a bit further along - I'll watch your truck if you want to cut along there and get a handful of chow - that might warm you up. My fucking owner hardly ever feeds me enough, and I'm glad to get down here where that slave charity hands out a bit extra..."

"Hey, I've never seen that before...."

"Yes, it's just around the corner", I lied. "But leave me the key in case they want the truck moved - I wouldn't want you to get into trouble..."

As he scurried off, I got in and drove away. I felt pretty safe - if the satellite that did air traffic control was out because of the power, it was unlikely they'd be able to track a truck, or me, for that matter.

It felt good to be in control again - well, not absolutely in control, but at least I was doing something to get my life back. I'd taken positive action to start to change things, and that always makes you feel good, doesn't it? As I drove, I was a bit worried that I might get stopped, but as I inched forward in a few traffic queues, the drivers around and about hardly gave me a glance, as seeing my nude torso they assumed I was a slave, and that's who drive UPS trucks, isn't it? It was tricky when I went past a cop who was attempting to unsnarl the traffic, though - he actually made me wind down the window, and asked me where I was going.

I lied again, and said "Virginia clearing station, officer, sir. We've got a whole lot of urgent stuff..." He peered in, saw me perched on the seat buck naked, and even reached down and felt my dick!

"Yup, you're a slave", he told me somewhat unnecessarily. "I thought you might be a free man trying to steal the truck, as there's something not quite right about you, but no free man would sit there like that and have his dick fondled!"

He was right, of course. I had become a slave. When I was a marine there was absolutely no way some cop would have touched my dick without ending up with at least a broken arm. I felt my anger rising as I realised what had happened to me, but managed to keep my cool. "Please, officer, sir, may I go? They whip me if I'm late...."

He waved me on, and I felt like reaching out of the window and giving him the finger, but good sense prevailed.

There was never a whole lot of traffic on the highways now, as I've mentioned, and what little there was got thinner and thinner as I drove north. There were new signs that I'd not seen before, warning me that I was entering the border zone - who'd have thought that would ever happen in the middle of the USA? And then one that said "Border one mile. Passports and bills of lading must be produced. Prepare to stop."

This hadn't really occurred to me - I'd been so glad to get out of DC that I hadn't planned this move carefully. I drove on, and saw the border - rather like when you crossed between some states in the old days with a big arch thing across the highway, but now there were wooden barriers, and armed guards. I pretended to slow, then, at the last minute, floored the accelerator and simply crashed through the barrier - I was almost thrown out of my seat as the barrier slashed across the front of the truck, the windshield shattered. And as I drove on, I could hear the sound of gunfire.

I once went to Mexico for a short vacation trip, and as you cross the border from the USA into Mexico, everything changed: the freeway turns into an ordinary road (and not a very good one, either), a whole mass of billboards and other stuff appears, the cars are all old and belching smoke, and there are beggars sitting there. Well, conditions in the South compared to what they used to be were not marvellous, but in the North, it was the Mexico thing all over again - the tuck started to jump around because of the potholes, everything was dark as there seemed to be no lights, and there was even less traffic. I drove very cautiously to the North border post, and it was just some sort of shack by the side of the road in a very run-down looking neighbourhood, and there was no one around, so I drove on. As I thought about it, I could see what was happening - the North was even worse off than the South, as it would have almost no oil at all, and without that, and with no slaves, there wouldn't be the resources to fix the highway, and to build, and get things started again after the war, would there?

At the next town I drove around, looking at the kids playing in the gutters and the few poor-looking stores. Still, I thought to myself, it may not be much, but at least I'm free! Then I saw it - right at the end of the street, almost the only smart looking building in the whole place: "US Army Recruitment Office", it said. I drove up, quickly strode across the sidewalk, and went in.

Like so many of those places it was staffed by an "old soldier" - well, a guy in his fifties, probably a sergeant or something, doing a job of selling the army to young guys like me! He sat stiffly behind a neat desk piled with material, and I stood in front of him, smartly at attention, and said "Marine Steve Masters, sir, reporting back for duty."

He looked completely amazed, told me to stand easy, then asked me why I was naked, and why a US Marine had a giant ring through his nose! "I knew they were relaxing the standards a bit, soldier, but that's just plain ridiculous!", he said.

I asked for permission to speak, and as soon as he heard that I was an escaped slave, his whole mood changed dramatically. He shook my hand, told me I had the right spirit, then went to a cupboard and found me a pair of Jeans and a T - it was the stuff he wore when he had to clean the place, he told me. It felt so odd to actually have stuff on me that covered my legs: I could feel the fabric of the Jeans brushing the hairs all down there, as this was the first time I'd worn anything other than shorts since I was enslaved. Then he used the phone to call the local base, and told me that he was going to shut up shop early and give me a dammed good meal!

He took me to his neat little house, and started to put a meal together - not much, and I couldn't help noticing that the cupboards were almost bare. "A sergeant's pay doesn't go far these days, you know", he told me. "What with the inflation, and the rationing, it's hard to keep going. But this is your first meal back home, and we'll do our best. But before you eat, do you want to get rid of that ring?"

"Oh yes! It's a vile symbol of being a slave.... I can never get rid of the tattoos, but at least that could go."

"Come on then, son.... Out the back to my workshop...."

It was really well equipped out there, but he didn't need most of the stuff - he just clamped the ring in a vice as I knelt there, then used a diamond wheel, very, very carefully, to slice through the ring so that it could be pulled out of my nose. It really felt great, but odd, all the same, to no longer have it lying there on my top lip. My tongue kept coming out and probing for it, as if it knew something was missing.

I never got to eat the meal, though, as a military jeep with two soldiers and a lieutenant in it pulled up just as we left the workshop. The recruiting sergeant and lieutenant exchanged a few words, then the lieutenant over to me "Are you the escaped slave, Steve Masters?"

"Sir, yes, sir. Marine Masters ready for duty again, sir."

"OK, in the jeep...."

I thanked the sergeant for his kindness, and leaped in, sitting beside one of the soldiers in the back whilst the other one drove, and the lieutenant sat in the other front seat. There was so much I wanted to ask... Were any of my old comrades still in the service? Had any more of them escaped, as I had now done? Could I have some leave before rejoining my unit? When could I try to call my folks?

I was about to start asking the questions, when the lieutenant turned around and said "Cuff him, soldier! You know how they try to escape...."

Before I could do anything, there was a cuff around my wrist, the other end of which was firmly attached to the Jeep. "Sir, there's no need... I'm not a deserter. I want to rejoin my unit, sir! I'm not escaping from the Marines, sir! I'm proud to be a marine - I was only escaping from being a slave in the South!"

The lieutenant turned around to look at me, and he seemed somehow sad. "Look, soldier, I'm sorry.... This is a shit duty I have, but you'll know that a soldier has to obey orders! We're a border patrol, and we have to return all escaped slaves to the South."

"No, please... I'm a marine...."

"No, you were a marine. You were captured, and enslaved. And now you're an escaped slave."

"But there isn't any slavery in the North, surely?"

"No, that's right. We're prohibited from keeping slaves here, just as we have been since 18-whatever."

"So why are you doing this to me, sending me back?"

"Look, Steve, that's what's so hard about this job. We all hate doing it. And we keep it a secret from the folks around here as otherwise they'd never notify us when one of you guys makes it back home. To end the civil war there was a treaty between the North and the South - both sides knew neither could win in the end, so it was best to settle. The agreement says that there would be no reparations on either side, and that each side could keep property and so on captured from the other - the so-called 'Spoils Of War' clause, that they're still arguing about. We'll never know if our negotiators were just stupid, or whether it was done deliberately just to make an end to the whole thing, but by that time all you captured guys were already slaves, and so you were 'property' under the terms of the settlement. So we respect the rights of the South, and we have to send you back..."

"You mean those bastards in Congress just signed away all our rights...?"

"As I said, it was tough, but they wanted to get an end to it all. And, I guess, they didn't want a lot of disaffected soldiers streaming back home, and finding the mess we were in. Without their families and such, they might have turned dangerous, turned on the government for getting into that mess in the first place... I can see why it was easier to let you stay down there."

"But you don't have to send me back. You could just pretend I never crossed the border..."

"No we can't, Steve! We got a message earlier alerting us to the fact that there's an escaped slave in our territory - the footprint of the tracking system extends up here for a hundred miles at least. So the South knows you're here, and they'll demand you back. So we have to send you - we can't upset them!"

"You can't upset them - people who enslave men? For fuck's sake...."

The soldier sitting next to me casually struck me with the butt of his rifle. "Keep a civil tongue in your head, slave", he snapped. "Be polite to the lieutenant..."

It wasn't just a gentle tap, either: I was lucky not to be knocked out. My head was ringing, and had I not been cuffed, I'd have struck him back. The lieutenant went on "No, Steve, we can't upset them We don't have much any more, but what we do have is mostly dependent on the South - all of our oil, for example. So if they say send the slave back, we do."

"Yes, and a good thing too", the soldier sitting next to me added. "It's bad enough finding a job here now, without a whole lot of slaves coming back and making matters worse! And there aren't enough proper houses that weren't damaged by the war around here, either - if the slaves all came back, the prices would skyrocket and decent folk couldn't afford them.... Not that you'll ever be needing a house - they cut your balls off, don't they? So that will stop you having a family...."

I was really pissed off with his attitude, and it was made worse when the lieutenant added "Yes, Steve, if there were a wholesale repatriation of the slaves, or if it became known that we were 'soft' on them and that they wouldn't be set back if they did make it across the border, there would be all those sorts of problems. I know it's hard on the individual, but for the greater good of the country, you've got to go back."

"Please, sir, just this once - make an exception. Tell them you lost me or something...."

"Shut the fuck up, boy! I've been too lenient with you, I can tell! I've been trying to deal with you like a soldier and explaining what the reality is. You've been a slave too long, it seems to me - just downright stubborn and incapable of seeing reason, so I'll have to start treating you like a dumb slave, and if I have any more nonsense from you, I'll stop this Jeep and have my men beat you up."

With that, he turned around and ignored me. I was seething inside now - these were my own countrymen, fellow soldiers! And they were going to send me back, send me back to be gelded and whipped. It just wasn't right. I know a soldier is supposed to obey orders, but some orders are just plain wrong, and it might have been OK for the Light Brigade centuries ago to follow orders blindly and get destroyed, but that's not the way today!

I was getting desperate, as we got closer and closer to the border. I was going back to absolutely certain mutilation, if not death. I just had to do something.

Look, I didn't like having to hurt fellow soldiers, but their attitude to me had been pretty shitty, hadn't it? Even though I was chained, and it was very risky, the alternative was certain for me, so it was worth taking:: I grabbed the soldier sitting next to me with my free arm around his neck, and simply crushed his windpipe, at the same time bringing my legs upwards and kicking out at the driver's head in front of me, that caused him to crash into the windshield and lose control of the Jeep. It careered all over the road, went into the ditch and ran into a tree. I was thrown forward, the cuff on my wrist cutting into me painfully, and as things recovered, I saw the lieutenant struggling to get his gun out. I was quicker, though: the dead soldier's gun was right next to me and was within my reach, and I pulled it out and shot the lieutenant square through the head, as he was still trying to free his.

It was awful having to fumble through the dead guy's clothes to find the key for the cuffs, but I did. Although my wrist was dripping blood, I could still use it, just about. I looked at the Jeep - it seemed that it might still be serviceable, so I pushed the three bodies out, and after a lot of revving and a whole lot of cursing from me, I got it back on the highway.

It's horrible to strip a corpse, especially as a guy's bowels let go when he dies, but I had to have something other than my Jeans and T to wear. So I took the combat jacket and cap from one soldier and the least awful trousers, and drove off - to a casual observer, at least, I was just a soldier now driving along on ordinary military business, and I sped along the highway, north, determined to get out of the tracking satellite's footprint as soon as possible.

I did about a hundred and fifty miles before the Jeep ran out of gas, and of course I couldn't risk going into a gas station - not that I'd seen many - to fill up. It was almost certainly rationed, and there were probably special procedures for military vehicles anyway. So when I was empty I drove it off into the forest at the side of the highway, tossed in the jacket and trousers, and trudged back to the highway in Jeans and T to try to thumb a lift.

There wasn't a lot of traffic anyway, and what there was was mostly trucks. Even though I stood there for a couple of hours with my thumb out, none of them stopped. So I started walking - always north. It wasn't so hard, as I'm a fit guy as you know, and I put on a good pace. Mind you, I was hungry - the military jeep had only wielded a couple of ration bars, and I was soon ravenous.

About ten miles down the highway I was fortunate in that there was a truck stop, with a number of trucks parked outside, and the appetising smell of burgers and fries drifting around. Now you may think that that's pretty tacky, but you need to remember that I had only eaten slave chow for ages. My mouth was literally drooling, and I had some cash, from the dead soldiers, I'm ashamed to say - no one likes taking from the dead, do they? But needs must.

I ordered a double burger, a double portion of fries, and a huge glass of milk, and had the dollars out when I got to the register. She took the money off me, and then said "And your ration card, please?"

"Uh?"

"Your ration card, sir. We're not allowed to serve food off rations here."

"Yes.... Of course....", I stammered. "Look, I forgot it, it's on my night stand at home.... I come this way every couple of days.... Can't I just bring it in next time I'm passing, and you can do it then...."

She looked almost pityingly at me. "Look, I'd like to help, especially for a nice guy like you. But you know the penalties for selling food without the right ration stamps... I'd not only lose my job, but I'd get at least a year in a labour camp. We were all warned only last week - the government is really enforcing the ration laws...."

"Here, use mine...." I turned around, and the trucker standing behind me was handing over a card with his photograph on. "...You can pay me back when you're next through."

"Hey, thanks...", I started to say, but the cashier was now insistent. "I'm sorry, sir, it's an offence to use another person's ration card. I can't accept this card, sir, for the gentleman's food. No ration card, no food - that's the law."

I couldn't believe I was hearing this. Ration cards and stuff in the USA! I mean, we were the land of plenty, weren't we? We'd fed the rest of the world when it was starving. What had things come to?

The trucker - a typical trucker, in my view - big, hairy, loud - pushed past me. "Well this is my food now", he said. "So take my fucking card, before I stick it up your ass!"

She did, with very bad grace, and the trucker and I went over and sat on a table together. I got out my bills to pay him, and he accepted them, then said "and the same again...."

"What?"

"You heard me! Off-ration food, twice the price! You don't think I believe that bullshit about you coming back next week, do you? You don't even look like a trucker! If you ask me, you're one of the renegades, some law breaker who's on the run, and who hasn't got a ration card. Am I right....?"

For some reason I distrusted this guy, and I didn't want to tell him my real story, so I just mumbled "Yes." And stuck my face into my burger. Man, was it good! And the milk! And there's something very special about fries, isn't there?

My whole attention was paid to the food, and I realised as I scoffed the last mouthful that I'd been going at it like a wolf - my whole body thrust forward my shoulders going up and down as I tucked in.

Then I looked up, and saw him looking at me.

"Yes, a renegade, for sure. When did you last eat?"

"Yesterday."

"And before that?"

"Well, it's hard to say..."

"A big guy likes you needs a lot of fuel, I reckon. You can't keep a body like yours going on thin air and water! Do you want another?"

"Won't you run out of ration stamps?"

He laughed. "Me, no! I mostly ship food on my truck, and I can always trade ration stamps for the odd case of stuff that is 'spoiled in transit'. I can easily sell off a case here and there in return for favours. So where are you heading?"

"Well, New York." I said the first thing that came into my head. But once it was out, it seemed like a good idea - it was probably far enough north so they'd lose me on the chip tracking satellite, and in a big city, there's always opportunities to make money, do deals, and such, isn't there?

"I'm going there. They always need food deliveries!"

"Can I ride along with you?"

"The law doesn't allow it, you know that. They stopped hitchhiking and casual pickups to make it harder for the renegades. I can be fined, sent to a labour camp....". So now I knew why none of the trucks had stopped.

"Look, I can pay you...."

"You might be a decoy, put here by the government to catch poor honest truckers like me...."

"No!...."

"...but then, I doubt that they'd get government snitches to starve themselves, like you were. So you can ride with me, but you will have to pay. If we're stopped, I can always tell them you're a relief driver - you have got papers, haven't you?"

"No... I left them on the night stand...."

He laughed. "We all know you don't travel without papers any more! That's a sure recipe for the labour camps. Where have you been, boy?"

"Uh, kind of out of it...."

"You are a renegade, I'll bet. But you're a nice-enough looking guy. And I reckon that with all the new laws, some guys have good reason to go renegade and try to dodge all that compulsory work at the weekends and such like. So come on...."

End Of Part 23