THE UNIQUE EXPERIENCE: PART XIV
After the former guard, a few minutes ago destined to become a galley slave like all of us locked up here downstairs, was dragged away to one of the cells at the other, dark, end of the corridor, silence returned. The chief apparently again sat down behind his desk, just a few paces to the right of my dungeon's barred door.
I stayed in my place, in the middle of it. After only a few minutes there were sounds once again at the far end of the corridor - the rattling of chains announcing the arrival of new slaves. These, so I thought, must be the two surviving Canadians of the second batch, who had given the guards some problems with restraining them upstairs, that had caused the failure of one of the guards, who by accompanying the third Canadian downstairs on his own had not been able to prevent that newly branded slave from escaping and committing suicide.
Or had the unhappy guy indeed thought that he could escape by swimming, although being heavily chained, and did he just drown by accident when his chains got entangled on that invisible underwater mooring-pole crossbeam? Perhaps a very good and strong swimmer - I myself wasn't really one - would be able to swim with so many pounds of irons riveted to his limbs. The chains as such didn't make the necessary movements really impossible, they would add to the ponderous weight you would have to cope with - the same as when trying to escape on land. It at least explained in part the chief's fury when he heard of the unforeseen loss of slave G-41.
I would never know - and in fact, it wasn't my problem. And I would never have the chance to try it myself, if I would have dared to do that: trying to escape by jumping chained into the sea.
Be that as it may, for the moment it was more important that new slaves were to be locked up. Two instead of the planned three this time. The first of both newbies apparently had relatively high numbers, as I never got a glimpse of him; he was already delivered to a cell before the procession had reached my part of the corridor. But the second of the two Canadian guys had a lower one and passed by, accompanied by two guards, who had to make some effort to get him moving on. He wasn't quite willing to become a galley slave, that became clear enough in the couple of seconds that the trio was in my field of vision. Well, who of us downstairs here would be willing? Perhaps a real, real masochist. But they hadn't chosen us for being really good masochists, but for being really good rowers. Both categories do not overlap necessarily.
Willing or not, however, the new slave was locked up in his own dungeon like all of us - out of my sight. The guards thereupon returned and passed through the corridor. This time they apparently didn't take the stairs to go up immediately, but continued on our floor to walk into the darker half.
At least, I could hear a lot of shouting far away, as they apparently opened the temporary cell of the future slave 41, to accompany him to the upper floor to turn him into slave 41 indeed. But of course, as the fallen guard will still have been handcuffed, he was no match for both his former colleagues, who until now hadn't shown the slightest scruples to help to turn a former comrade into a slave. Or had it to do not with a lack of scruples but with a big amount of fear? Fear for their own chief, who in case of insubordination might have decided to punish his other subordinates in a severe way too?
But why didn't they rebel in that case, knowing (thanks to the cruel punishment of the negligent guard) that their own fate also might so easily turn from good into evil? Or was there, if the whole unique experience - how I hated meanwhile this fallacious paraphrase, but I couldn't succeed in getting those damned two words out of my mind - would turn out to be successful, a lot of material profit waiting for all the guards? Well, what was intended with all? Were they just favoring their own sadism, was the whole caused by some bet, were there real economic reasons for organizing all this? I mean: who would think seriously about exploiting a galley for whatever practical purpose in the twenty-first century?
As I lay down on my back in the warm but fuggy straw of my dungeon, thoughts and questions like these crossed my mind, but I couldn't find a definitively convincing answer, and as no one was ready to shed light on it, all inevitably stayed a big question for me.
I don't know for how long I laid down on my back, thinking all over and gazing at the vaulted ceiling of my cell - half an hour, an hour perhaps? - but at some point there were sounds to be heard at the far end of the corridor again. Was the substitute-slave-G-41 brought back?
That indeed turned out to be the case. The inevitable chain-rattling and optional shouting accompanied him during his frog march to his cell. The new slave clearly hadn't accepted his fate yet. He was fighting back, and scolding at his former colleagues, who had now turned out to be his jailers. They (there were two, as usual) didn't say a word when they dragged him - yes, according to the sounds his chains made on the floor, he was dragged - through the corridor. The sounds became louder and louder as they came nearer and nearer. Just before coming into sight the trio must have passed the chief, who had condemned the failing guard to slavery. Would he have looked at his victim from his desk? Presumably. And would his former subordinate have looked back?
If so, at least not for very long, as they soon came into my sight, and I now could study G-41, who for now was silent. The former guard looked like all of us - as a perfect slave. Nothing of his outward appearance reminded anyone of his former status as a jailer. He was shaved the same way now, he was chained the same way now, he was collared the same way now - the light of the ceiling just for a moment being reflected by the slave tag underneath. I couldn't read his number in that flash of a second so quickly, but didn't doubt that there was 'Slave G-41' stamped on it. And yes, he was branded too - of course he was. He wasn't spared the branding iron, he had had to go through the same infernal pain of getting the skin of his left chest burned like all of us. Because he now was one of us - and one must grant that the slave guards were very honest in their treatment of their slaves and didn't favor anybody.
He looked exactly like all of us - and therefore I wasn't able to recognize which guard in fact he was, or better: he had been. I couldn't recognize if I had seen him ever before, and if yes, how he looked like until an hour ago. Knowing nothing about, for example, his former hairstyle, it was impossible for me to turn back with my mental eye to before his transformation from a free man into a slave to identify him. Although, because of his near number, slave G-41 would sit on the galley not far away from me, I would never know if I had seen him before as one of the guards, or if he as a human being was completely new to me, because he hadn't performed any visible role in my own enslavement procedure and had stayed offstage at those moments. The guards themselves didn't make any remark that could help me, as for them he wasn't a former colleague anymore, but just a new slave as all others - and therefore addressed as that. They didn't use his former given name for that. When one of them - they most of the time while dragging their victim forward had remained rather silent - in the end said something to their victim, he just started with saying: "Slave 41".
As was the case with all of us, our past was completely wiped out - but the difference, in a human sense, of course was that in the case of all other new slaves their past had been unknown to the guards, whereas the recent past of slave 41 was shared with the other guards. In a way this made me shiver - although I hadn't the slightest reason to feel pity for G-41, the fact that former comradeship could be that easily cut dead and totally erased from the mental records of those guards, who just did as if they didn't know their new prisoner personally, was alarming. Didn't those guys possess any human feelings at all?
I just told that the new slave had covered his last meters in the corridor in silence - in contrast to his first - and had let himself, by only passively resisting, be dragged to his dungeon. But now, when they arrived and he was about to be locked up, this changed. I was too far inside my own dungeon to see it - you will remember I had learned my lesson in that respect - but there was no chance to overhear it. When confronted with his dusky and dirty abode for the next days (?) slave 41 - as I just will call him from now on, as there is no reason to do otherwise, as he HAD become slave 41 meanwhile - apparently woke up from his stupor and started to resist actively and to shout again, after one of the guards had just opened the barred door of his cell and told him to get inside.
"You damned bastards, you can't lock me up here!"
The damned bastards didn't react verbally, but as slave 41 didn't do what they had told him to do - to move inside - they made no ceremony of it, and together threw him into his cell. That was even quite clear to me although I wasn't able to watch it. Whereas the shouting and scolding of the slave continued - I don't remember his words exactly, but they will have been the usual ones to use in such circumstances - I heard, how the barred door was shut and locked.
But although continuing didn't make any sense now any longer, as the two guards after having done their duty walked away, slave 41 didn't stop shouting and scolding. He was totally outraged. With his fists he battered with full force - well, his manacles and chains were no hindrance for that - against the bars of his cell, and his furious roaring must have been heard by all slaves from cell number 1 till those at the other end of the corridor. Apparently G-41 hadn't accepted his fate yet (who would?). His furious roaring made me wonder how it would have been, if he at our galley had not become a rower, but an overseer, as perhaps formerly was intended. His battering fists showed his strength - now it were his fists that were battering powerless against the iron bars, that didn't give way any inch, but in the alternative case he perhaps would have handled a bullwhip, and if he would have done that with the same furor and fanaticism, a poor slave would be the slave that would have got a stroke of the lash from him then! Or were all overseers to be like that, and perhaps even selected on the basis of their ability to hit hard?
The battering lasted for minutes and minutes, and the sounds were reflected several times by the bare stones of the floor, the wall and the ceiling of the corridor; each hit against the bars seemed to re-echo a thousand fold, and the non-ending tumult started to work on my nerves.
Not only on mine - luckily.
Suddenly I heard the chief, who until now all the time hadn't raised a finger, rise from his desk, to walk with big steps to cell 41.
"And now you are silent, slave 41! Immediately! Otherwise you will be whipped for half an hour so severely that the skin of your back will look afterwards like a deeply engraved street map of a densely populated town. And you know what that looks like."
To my astonishment the slave was silent now immediately. He apparently knew pretty well how that looked like indeed, because, in contrast to all other new slaves, he perhaps will have seen that before - or even created such an engraved street map on the back of some other slave.
Without saying anything more, and without deigning to look at one of the other incarcerated slaves, the chief thereupon returned to his seat behind the desk. Once he had spoken, silence was guaranteed.
We slaves meanwhile just had to wait to see what would happen - as we had to do all the time. What we now waited for were the last two of the Canadian eight. As they had come to Saudi Arabia on the same airplane as the first batch, to delay their arrival at the port their Arab companions really must have made a royal sightseeing tour with quite a lot of extra detours through the town of Djeddah. I had missed that opportunity, as I was brought in a rather direct way by my guide to Hell, I said bitterly to myself.
Well, we didn't wait in vain. This time there were no accidents - at least not as far as we knew - so in the end the last two of the Canadian rowing team turned up in chains and were delivered downstairs as planned. Both had higher numbers than I had, so I didn't get to see them pass by, but the clanking of their chains betrayed their arrival. The accompanying guards made no show of it, at least not here on our floor, so the delivery was accompanied by no more comment by them than necessary.
That was it for today - a very tumultuous day, with a stabbing in the morning and a drowning in the afternoon. No more slaves were coming in before bedtime. We were served our evening meal - exactly the same as yesterday - and that was that. And again I was seized with cramps in my bowels after finishing my dinner - presumably I wasn't the only slave who had to cope with that - as my intestines apparently still weren't accustomed to the disgusting tasteless slave chow we had to eat. But at least the burn of the brand started to become less painful - the spot yet still was very sensitive, so I didn't touch it - than in the beginning.
And was I getting accustomed to living in heavy chains the whole time already? Well, I at least now had some experience with managing them and getting them out of the way as much as possible when eating, drinking, shitting, pissing, sitting, standing, crawling, kneeling, lying down and sleeping (no other activities were available in my tiny place). Of course I still felt their immense weight all the time, as I felt the not less immense weight of my tight collar too, and if there were already yet some moments I forgot about the cuffs that were riveted to my limbs, the slightest movement I made, causing the clanking of the links of the connecting chains, helped to remind me of the fact that I would be wearing them permanently.
Well: although it wasn't easy to find a comfortable position for the night - in fact it wasn't possible to find a really comfortable one in those damned irons at all - I was, as the boring evening crept on, in the end tired enough to fell asleep and thus end my second full day as a slave. If I dreamed - I can't remember if I did so - it at least didn't leave enough of an impression for me to recall afterwards.
On the third day, everything already started to become routine. Such is life: the first time you go through something it's new, the second time you expect it, the third you don't expect otherwise. So I will not bother you with telling about my awakening, my breakfast, my lunch, my dinner - and all those endless hours without anything happening in between. Even the arrival of new slaves - and they were to arrive also on my third full day of being enslaved myself - started to become routine. At least, when nothing special happened and everything went in good order - from the viewpoint of the guards - and it did this day.
Five slaves in total arrived individually, with rather long intervals between them. No pairs or trios this time, let alone a whole rowing team of eight men. It had already become that normal for me, hearing new slaves - sometimes weeping, but most of them silently staring in front of themselves - arriving, or seeing them passing by in the corridor, that I not always took much notice of them. As all slaves looked, apart from their length and the color of their skin, exactly the same and were only distinguishable from each other by the unique numbers stamped on their slave tags and branded on their skin, after the nth of them had arrived there was not very much reason for curiosity from my side. It was a kind of endless repetition of the same, even more boring than in the case of seeing the nth repetition of a soccer play on television, as the outcome of each visible fragment of the 'play' was always the same too.
And the other slaves? The new one from yesterday, G-41, was clearly so much intimidated by the chief - did he knew him well enough for being that? - to behave really meekly like a lamb now. Without any word needing to be said to him, he ate his bread for breakfast and lunch and his slave chow in the evening. Well, better than all of us he would have already known the daily rhythm downstairs when he entered the corridor as a slave.
Most of the day he didn't show himself - only at feeding time was he present at the ordered position directly behind the bars of his cell in advance - and stayed in the invisible, dark back half of his dungeon. I wondered, what was going on in his mind, as he might have been the only one of us all who knew what kind of hell was awaiting us as galley slaves, once we were chained to the oars. But he apparently realized that he had no alternative other than to resign himself to his fate to prevent things getting even worse for him than they already were.
Cell 43 to the right of him was still empty, as was - of course - cell 45 right opposite mine; the fellow that belonged over there was still kept in the dark part of the corridor. In cell 47 I sometimes could distinguish my black rape partner, to call it like that, who didn't pay much attention to what was going outside, at least less than I had done until now. But who did know, how long he already was locked up inside, so perhaps even much more used to - and thus bored by - what was going on when new slaves did arrive? And cell 49 was still empty too. So there wasn't much opportunity for organizing a big slave conference from behind the bars for me in my section of the corridor yet. With every hour that crept by, I felt more and more that I was wasting my time. You may believe it or not, but in a way I even started to long for the galley - anything would be better than this.
Only in the evening there was to be some delight again. After having had dinner, I heard how, as with the day before yesterday, in the course of half an hour or so, a lot of guards gathered together near the chief's desk. They were just out of my sight, but I could hear them speaking, although this time they spoke rather softly, so I couldn't understand what they were saying most of the time. Nevertheless, it rather quickly became clear to me that they were planning to organize another gang rape. A bit of horror hit me. Would I be their victim again? Well, I was longing for some variety in my slave life, but not for this kind. Fortunately they wanted some variety too and thus decided to try out two other slaves. And regarding the number in stock already, there was choice enough.
Their choice, as became clear later, fell on slave 41 and on another one I couldn't see, having his home further to the left. The fuck benches were brought in again - I saw the pairs of guards bearing them passing by - and then installed in the corridor out of my sight, probably somewhere between the dungeons of G-41 and the other victim, of whom I never would learn who it was. So I wasn't able to catch a glimpse of what was happening to both slaves this evening, if I had longed for that - even with my nose pressing through the bars of my dungeon I wouldn't able to see anything, as I indeed later cautiously (not wanting to attract any attention again) tried out. But because the whole didn't go without a lot of inevitably accompanying sounds, I was able to enjoy the progress of the whole rape as a bystander in all its auditory details still.
First the fuck benches were installed, and only thereafter the two chosen slaves were told that they were destined for use on them at this evening party. How the unknown slave exactly reacted when he was taken out of his cell, I never learned, but in the case of G-41 I couldn't overhear it. For me it was a surprise that slave 41 was elected, as this time the guards had deliberated at the chiefs desk in a softer tone of voice than in my own case, so I hadn't been able to decipher from their words now on whom they had their eyes. For slave 41 it was a surprise too.
This time the chief himself gathered him up. He walked to the slave's cell and, after having arrived, ordered two guards who had followed him: "Get him out!"
Slave 41 immediately understood what was waiting for him when the guards opened the barred door and went inside to get hold of him. He protested loudly when they seized him, and shouted: "No, you can't do his. You fucking bastards! You can't fuck me that way! I'm not a fuck hole!"
"Silence!", the chief now intervened.
"Keep your bloody mouth shut, slave 41!" he shouted. "You ARE a fuck hole now! You will be fucked as you've never been fucked before! Your ass and your mouth at the same time. Deep throat, from the front and from behind. By ALL of us, you damned slave! And you will not resist being fucked in all your holes that way! Otherwise you will be severely whipped!"
Again, this apparently was enough to silence slave 41. Did he know the way the chief would whip a slave already pretty well from the past as a bystander?
Anyway, the two guards didn't much trouble afterwards in getting him out of his dungeon and transporting him to one of the two fuck benches, where he will have been stretched and bound the same way as I had been two evenings ago. As it all happened outside my visual field, I can't tell you more in detail about it. But he clearly didn't resist (very much), or at least kept his mouth shut. And also the other slave, who for me not only stayed nameless but even numberless, made not that much noise that I can tell you about his treatment before the orgy really started more in detail.
The first loud sounds were only heard again, when the band of guards - again a dozen or less - moved over there and started their communal gang rape indeed. I heard both slaves screaming regularly because of their harsh treatment, but I think G-41 roared more. As I knew how his voice sounded, I could recognize how his howling sounded too.
If he was to be heard more often because his fellow was more used to getting fucked in a crude way or because he himself was fucked in a more crude way by the guards, I of course couldn't find out, as I wasn't able to see what was going on, only able to hear how the results of what was going on were perceived by the victims. Perhaps both was the case: that G-41 was treated harder, as a kind of extra punishment for his failure, and that he at the same time was less used to it as such than the anonymous guy with whom he shared his fate of being reduced to a mere fuck hole for a couple of hours. Because, all must have lasted as long as that till they all had come into their own enough and were finished, although I hadn't a watch at hand to confirm my estimates regarding time.
Although I myself was rather tired and wanted to sleep, I didn't get a real opportunity for trying to do so as long as the gang rape in the corridor that caused so much noise was going on. Anyhow, also the endless seeming gang rape finally yet had an end. If also this time the chief was the last one to conquer the asses of both slaves, as had been the case with slave G-47 and me, I don't know. But after a lot of regularly screaming, roaring and moaning of both victims, suddenly vocal silence returned.
I thereupon could imagine how both slaves were unfastened, and were brought back to their respective cells - one completely out of my sight, the other to number 41. The gradually swelling sound of clanking chains announced his return. I was near enough to the bars of my own, to be able to watch how cell 41 was opened and G-41, staggering on his feet, looking as if he was completely used up and thus incapable of whatever kind of resistance anymore, was pushed by the guards with force into his abode, whereafter its barred door was immediately shut and securely locked.
Shortly thereafter, four other guards passed in pairs carrying the fuck benches with them, followed by the rest of the guys, wearing nothing, but now sexually satisfied, returning to their own stay for the night. After all were gone out of my sight, presumably most of them leaving the corridor at the far right end by ascending the stairs, the usual silence installed itself at our floor again.
Only a very few jailers - two, three? - stayed downstairs for the night, to keep an eye on the cells as was normally the case. Anyhow, night came soon, because within fifteen minutes after the majority of the rapists left the corridor, the light was switched off. After being thrown back in his cell, G-41 hadn't showed himself up, having immediately crawled to the back part of it, presumably to try to sleep, to recover from his anal and oral exhaustion. So, after the lights being switched off, tried I. Very soon after having found the least uncomfortable position in the straw I did fell asleep indeed.
This time I had very terrifying dreams again, about being raped and branded, and even some of the scenes of the dreams of my first night reappeared in nearly the same way. The guy with the apron was there again, my breathless running along the endless harbor to catch my rowboat just in time too. But contrary to the first night, at the same time while dreaming this, I in some way was aware the whole time that I indeed was dreaming. Was I in a way for a small part of my brain awake, to be sure that I wouldn't miss the steps of the morning shift bringing my breakfast, as I did after the first night?
I in fact don't know, but anyhow I WAS already awake when the lights in the corridor were turned on, and shortly after that the usual food cart with our bread bowls was slowly driven through the gangway. The fourth day of my slavery started, and didn't bring very much new to me, apart from the arrival of five new slaves, in one case two at the same time. The only other thing worth mentioning is that the cell opposite mine, cell number 45, shortly after lunch became occupied too. Apparently slave G-45, the one that I, when sitting together with the Belgian twins upstairs on the day of my arrival, had seen passing by and thus in a way overtaking us to be locked up because of his unmanageability in one of the special complete dark cells in the other half of the corridor, had calmed down enough yet to be granted the luxury of an average (not completely dark but just normal dusky and dirty) dungeon.
He was brought in by two guards, and apparently in the meanwhile indeed had accepted his fate for the time being, as he didn't protest or resist or show any sign of displeasure whatever. He seemed completely broken by those four days of isolation, as he let himself shove inside his new cell while behaving wholly passive. He was an impressively big, muscular slave, but because his spirit was totally gone, he seemed more a lethargic dummy to me now than a living man. Is that what being locked up in complete darkness does to somebody? Once inside his cell, just like G-41 two cells to the left of him, G-45 didn't show himself for the rest of the day, only appearing very shortly directly behind the bars when there was food to receive or dinner stuff to return.
So to suggest that now, after most cells around me being filled with other slaves, it became rather cozy in my part of the corridor, wouldn't be quite in accordance with the truth. Perhaps apart from this endless waiting and this wasting of time, especially this impossibility to talk to somebody else, this uninterrupted forced silence, made this imprisonment down here so hard to endure. The only human contact possible for us slaves, as talking to our direct neighbor wasn't physically possible and shouting to our neighbors across the way wasn't allowed, was with the guards - but we were not really on speaking terms with each other, and they already seemed not very communicative as such too. The most intimate contact with them in fact had been when they had entered my asshole one after each other, and I didn't have a very fond memory of that.
The only positive thing was that the pain of my brand and piercings again was less compared with yesterday, and that I gradually - very gradually - got at least a bit used to being in chains all the time. Irrespective of how disgusting I regarded my irons at the same time, like the enormous ring that pierced the gland of my cock so cruelly, they had started to become a 'regular' part of my body. Meanwhile, I also started to learn how to sleep in them without too many problems. And luckily for the first time I succeeded in digesting the slave chow without having to shit immediately afterwards.
The fifth day brought a row of new slaves, eight or nine in total, but as this had become mere routine already, I didn't pay much attention every time to that if one entered. Of course I moreover not saw them all passing by, as a big part of them had a higher number than me. Becoming lethargic myself because of the complete boredom of my stay, I mostly just looked rather indifferently through the bars of my cell when a fresh slave came into view for a few seconds.
The only exception was the arrival, on this fifth day, of slave 43, to occupy the last but one free cell inside my field of vision. As he because of his near number presumably at the oars also wouldn't sit far away from me, I was more interested in him than in most of the others. He was brought in rather late in the afternoon, and regarding the color of his skin he was neither a white European nor a black African, but something in between, I presume an Indian, or perhaps even an Arab. And he was rather small, which later would become understandable to me in light of his slave number, as soon as I got the system behind the numbering of the oarsmen in connection to the seats to be distributed among them at the galley.
For the rest, there was not much to say about G-43, as he after his transformation into a chained and collared galley slave looked exactly like all of us. And about the mental state of his mind I didn't get an impression at all, as one of the guards covered my sight the whole time during deliverance, and he himself, after being locked in, disappeared in the darker back half of his dungeon, as apparently most slaves did. But as soon as the guards were gone, I could hear him, I suppose while lying on his back in the straw, groaning rather loudly, presumably because of the heavy pain the branding had caused him just a couple of minutes earlier.
Much groaning there was also to be heard that evening when the guards for the third time arranged a rape orgy, still farther out of my sight than the second time. It must have been really at the far left end of the corridor, with two very low-numbered slaves. But the fuck benches brought in again made the guards' intentions clear to me immediately and thereafter they made enough noise to force the incarcerated slaves along the whole corridor to witness all involuntarily in an auditory way. Again a big part of the evening was filled with this apparently favorite kind of sexual pleasure - at least, pleasure for the guards, not for the slaves. One of the victims this time screamed like a stuck pig every time his asshole was rammed by the horny cock of the next guard - at least the regular intervals between his screams, that after some ten, fifteen seconds each time changed into predictable loud moaning, suggested this.
The sixth day was the day that a couple of Indians - already building a kind of group before, like the Canadian rowing team? - were brought in, about whom the chief and the guards had spoken on my second evening, before I was raped. They came in two batches, both consisting of three slaves, early in the morning, the first batch even already within half an hour after breakfast - they must have arrived at night at the airport, and for that reason, because of lack of sleep, looked rather fatigued, which of course had made it easier to enslave them.
There were, as far as I could see, no problems with the delivery of a bigger group this time. Apparently after the disaster of a few days ago, the guards had learned their lessons and taken extra safety measures to prevent any risk of repetition. Not all of the six Indians were as calm and meek when brought to his cell of course, but because of enough accompanying jailers, the organization managed to handle all without any big problems. And now there was no gate giving access to the sea open to offer a slave the possibility of escaping his fate.
Also several other new slaves were delivered that day apart from the Indians, all being white (as far as I would see them). The tempo of delivery today seemed to accelerate. Did the preparatory stage of the unique experience finally draw near to its end? One of the new slaves was the last one I was still missing explicitly, G-49, across the corridor just within my view far to the right. He arrived shortly after dinner, if I may call the standard slave chow that was our evening meal that. The guy was rather small and tiny, and looked very, very pale. He cried rather loudly the whole time during his arrival, and continued to do so after being safely locked up in his cell.
He hadn't really resisted when ordered to enter his dungeon, not cared for the smell of the fuggy straw that also in his case will have taken his breath away for a second, so that wasn't the problem, but one guard apparently had become rather unnerved by his crying (which he perhaps had done already all the way down) and thus shouted to him to shut up. The crying thereupon turned into sobbing. As was the case with his neighbors, he retired soon to the darker back half of his cell, and thus went out of my sight. Well, why should he stay directly behind the bars in full view, when any oral communication with other slaves was either impossible or forbidden? Only the clanking of his chains would tell me, as was the case with the four other slaves whose barred doors I had a look on, if he was moving through his cell, was lying more or less motionless down on his back or was even sleeping.
As I said, the tempo of delivery of new slaves seemed to accelerate this day. Even still very late in the evening this time three guys arrived, one black, one white and one unknown (as he didn't come into my sight), and I wondered how many cells downstairs after all yet stayed empty now, and thus how long we would have to wait before we would be taken out of our dungeons to the galley that was waiting for us. Well, it wouldn't be long now anymore. My seventh day as a slave wasn't to be a day of rest, but the first day of hard work.
That this seventh day was to become another kind of day than those before, I rather quickly recognized after breakfast, that gave me the first opportunity to study slave 49 a bit. A study, which, I must confess, by lack of personal points of contact, didn't result in much relevant extra information about him. It was the same as with slave 41 to the far left, and all others in between. Seen from my distance they were completely depersonalized. The only guy I had learned to know a bit to be an individual during this week was my fellow-sufferer at the fuck bench from the second evening, G-47.
However, our bowls must just have been returned by the guards carrying the food cart upstairs, when there was a lot of noise to be heard at the right end of the corridor. Not just one or two men entered, but quite clearly this time a whole group. And thereupon I heard, how far away, several cell doors were opened, accompanied by a lot of creaking. Although I couldn't hear exactly what the guards were shouting, according to the clanking of chains that was suddenly to be heard, the inhabitants of the opened cells were ordered to get out. Thanks to the clanking becoming gradually less, I could imagine how those slaves - probably those with the highest numbers - shuffled through the corridor, and, after the clanking quickly had disappeared, moved up the stairs. I didn't doubt it anymore: today we would enter the galley.
After some ten, fifteen minutes or so, the guards apparently returned - or other guards came in - to gather the next batch. How many slaves were taken out at he same time, I couldn't decipher, but regarding the uninterrupted clanking of all chains, together creating a kind of iron symphony, it was not just two or three. Again it took a few minutes to get the chained slaves hobbling to the bottom of the stairs, and then again some ten, fifteen minutes, before it was time for the third batch. So, this way, the dungeons gradually were emptied. And each time when guards returned, I could hear that they came nearer to my cell. With the seventh shift they must already have been very near. Meanwhile I could understand what they were shouting - after opening a cell it was each time more or less the same: "Get out, slave, the galley is waiting for you".
And now, when they were drawing nearer, I could distinguish all sounds better, and thus count how many slaves were taken out together each time, and how many guards were accompanying the new-built chain gang: six slaves each time, and at least six accompanying guards in total (but presumably quite a lot more), as every slave seemed to be taken out by another guard. Yes, there must have been many more guards indeed, as not all slaves were cooperating, and safety will have required two guards for each slave on the average.
A few of them - but rather a very few - apparently preferred the dark dungeon over toiling at the oars. But most of them will, after several days of doing nothing, like me have been so appalled by the total boredom of being locked up on a few square feet without anything to kill the time in their cell than straw, to prefer the latter. But the few who didn't threatened to cause problems and delay and, as the guards didn't like that, they didn't hesitate to use violence than. One guard in the sixth shift just trailed with a colleague a slave on my side of the corridor out of his cell, and regarding the cries of the victim, they meanwhile hit him with their fists straight in his face.
"No, no, I don't want to go to the galley", I heard him cry.
"Take your place in the chain gang without delay, you fucking slave", I thereupon heard one of the guards shouting irritably.
I could hear the unlucky slave sob afterwards when he was forced into the column.
As said, with the seventh shift they had become very near already. From my place in the back half of my dungeon I couldn't see anything, but also when moving to the front - as I now did - no member of the slave crew came into view. They just were too far to the right still.
But this would change when the band of guards returned the next time. Some of them came very clearly into view now, and whereas also five other slaves that were invisible for me were taken out, it was also the turn for number 49, the small guy who had only arrived yesterday. Two guards appeared in front of his cell, and whereas one unlocked and opened the grilled door, his colleague ordered G-49 to come out.
The slave until then had been hiding himself in the back half of his dungeon, but regarding the starting clanking of his chains, he rather quickly obeyed. When he entered the corridor, I could see him better; he seemed to me completely broken, as he rather apathetically shuffled between his two captors to the right to join the chain gang as the last one, just out of my sight. The mixed clanking of quite a lot of chains that started within a few seconds betrayed that the slave caravan now was moving. Gradually the noise diminished, till it completely faded away once the slaves had reached the bottom of the stairs. Silence returned for a couple of minutes, but I knew that I would be on the list next time.
This time for my feeling the interval lasted very long, as I so to say was counting off the minutes. Then, indeed, a band of guards was heard arriving at the far end of the corridor again. Not long after that they came into view - all of them, this time. There were twelve, accompanied by the chief, and all dressed in the same pseudo-Roman way. Within a few seconds they had spread themselves in pairs among this part of the corridor, each pair approaching the bars of another inhabited cell. The next batch of slaves to bring to the galley embraced the slave numbers from 43 to 48, three odd and three even numbers, three on each side of the corridor - I was to be one of them, and from my visible neighbors across the way only slave 41 was allowed to stay in his dungeon for a while.
So two guards - two guys I had never seen before - turned themselves toward my cell too, where I was waiting halfway - it had seemed to me better not to be already waiting behind the bars for them, as this might suggest some enthusiasm for joining the galley from my part, that in reality was nonexistent, however much I was fed up meanwhile with being locked up. I saw and heard how one of them unlocked the padlock, and then opened the barred door, which, as in most cases, was accompanied with a lot of creaking. In nearly the same moment - the twelve guards together made the impression of being a rather disciplined battalion - this will have happened with the doors of the cells keeping slaves 43, 44, 45, 47 and 48 secure, but I hope that you forgive that I didn't pay much attention to that, but concentrated on the opening door of my own cell.
"Get out, slave 46, the galley is waiting for you", the other guard commanded.