The Unique Experience

THE UNIQUE EXPERIENCE: PART VIII

To stand up from my seat and then start walking cost me more energy then I thought. I again felt the entire weight of my riveted chains, with them rattling loudly when I placed my feet on the cold floor, the rattling of my chains mixing with that of my fellow slaves G 17 and G 59, who tried the same thing. More rattling followed as we took our positions in the ordered sequence. There we stood in a short row, three heavily fettered, vulnerable young guys, still in a state of shock because of all the incomprehensible, horrible experiences we had endured during the last hour, still tortured by the soaring pain of the branding and the piercing.

Standing in the middle of the row, being G 46, I of course had to walk behind G 17 and in front of G 59. For the first time I got a good view of how G 17 looked from behind - and thus how I would look from behind, as all us slaves looked the same. The huge iron collar covered slave 17's whole neck. The flattened head of the long rivet that sealed both crenellated halves together at the back was clearly visible at the top of it, as was the crenellation itself. I also could distinguish the two hinges - that had now lost their function because of the riveting - at the sides of the thick band of steel encircling 17's throat. Above it rose his shaven head, with only the small cropped mohawk-like strip of hair left in the middle stretching from his neck to his forehead.

One of both 'Romans' positioned himself in front of us three, the other behind G 59.

'Walk!', the first one ordered, giving himself as a good example.

We tried to follow him, which of course resulted in a hellish hullabaloo, in a non-ending clamor of clanking chains. The sound reverberated against the naked stone walls and made it sound even more ominous to my ears. And this was only the noise produced by three shackled slaves - what would it sound like soon, when there would be at least a twentyfold of our trio toiling at the oars? All the decibels produced together must have a deafening effect on all those living at the galley, on slaves and slave drivers both.

I didn't have much time to think this problem over, as I had to concentrate on walking shackled, to prevent stumbling. I tried to discover how G 17 was managing this, as he apparently didn't have much of a problem: he moved a good bit faster than I was able to. But from behind I couldn't see enough of him to copy his walking tactics.

So I again grasped the upper ends of the chains connecting my manacles to my fetter to keep them in a straightened position, as in that case, by keeping the cuff encircling my right ankle as far upwards as possible, I could prevent it from going up and down with every movement and thus chafing my ankle-bones, which would be very painful. In this position I started to hobble in the direction of the door at the far end of the room, through which the refractory slave several minutes ago was dragged away several minutes ago and that gave access to the stairs we now also had to descend.

I had just taken a few steps when everything went wrong. G 59, the more dejected of the Belgian Twins, had less skill with walking in chains than I and - apparently not wanting to lag behind his handier brother - started a tempo that soon turned out to be much too fast for him. Already after his first paces he stumbled, then lost his balance and, being quite close to me, fell suddenly on my back. Unprepared for that, I lost my balance too, and within a second I found myself lying face down on the floor, feeling the whole weight of slave 59 crushing my fettered right ankle and leg.

I cried in alarm because of the torturing sudden pain, because the heavy cuff around my ankle, hit by slave 59, had moved in a very rough way a few inches downward, thus chafing my ankle skin and bones now in a very painful way. Ahwahwah! All my care to spare my tender limbs was undone within a mere second. Apart from that, I felt the sharp edges of one of his manacles cutting into the hollow of my knee. And by falling on my own chains, some links were doing the same to my kneecap. Taken all together it really hurt.

Above all: falling forward meant that I landed on my chest with a big bang on the floor - and so my freshly branded and still oversensitive skin there rudely grating over the unpolished stone. The same for my freshly pierced penis, the crude contact of my tender male member with that hard stone floor caused an infernal touch, as if the big penis ring was torn with force out of the gland. This all together was just too much for me.

'Wahhhhhhhh!!!', I cried out again. This stupid slave! Couldn?t that fucking idiot look where he was going?!

On this rare occasion, the guard walking behind us was exactly of the same opinion as I was.

'You stupid slave!', he shouted, and than I heard him hitting number 59 with his fist at what was apparently the poor boy's back, 'You fucking idiot, can't you look where you're going?'

I heard 59 cry out as the 'Roman' hit him again.

'On your feet, 59', the guard bayed.

With a lot of chain-rattling slave 59 rose again, and my right leg was set free - apart from the riveted fetter around my ankle of course.

'On your feet too, 46,? the guard bayed again, now to me.

Hearing my slave number shouted already was enough for me to react and try to follow his order immediately. As a slave, one had better do what one is told. That I had learned already at this very early moment of my slavery. But if the guard hadn't shouted at me, I would have got up anyway, as the stone floor was rather hard and cold, and not the kind of resting place I was longing for. So I rose, up as quickly as I could, but halfway up I could feel my brutishly attacked ankle aching, so I sat down on my buttocks to rub it.

But that was not to be - as I said, the moments that one of my captors would totally agree with me were to become rather rare in my slave life.

'On your feet, 46, the guard bayed, sounding very irritated now. 'Now!'

Then he kicked me with his boot in my back, and I cried again out of alarm and pain.

I couldn't contain myself this time, so I turned myself angrily to him, starting: 'Yes, but slave 59 hurt me rather painfully and ...'

Slap! This time - the moment that I recognized with shame that I had addressed my future fellow on the oars already and openly as 'slave' - the guard hit me right in my face. That apparently was a specialty of those guys, doing that.

'Keep your mouth shut, you bloody slave', he shouted. 'You're not allowed to speak unless ordered. And we are not interested if you suffer pain or not. That doesn't matter to us at all. Above that, you will suffer a lot of pain in the near future anyhow, so you better adjust yourself to that fact. But that's up to you. For now, WE are only interested in getting the three of you into your dungeons downstairs as quickly as possible and in good order. So get up now, and make it quick!'

Because I wasn't trying for another slap to my face, I got up on my feet very quickly, even quicker than I would have thought possible myself, ignoring the pain that the roughly moving and chafing heavy fetter produced in my ankle. Although groaning, within a few seconds I stood upright, my chains clanking.

'Well, slave, you will have noticed now that you are quite able to follow orders very quickly if necessary', the guard commented sarcastically. 'You better keep that in mind, as we have noticed this fact of life too.'

As I stood, not properly in line yet but partly turned back, I cast a short glance of hatred at him - and on my fellow-slave, who had inflicted this on me by not being careful enough. The last thing, slaves hating each other, of course is in the interest of the slave drivers, as I realized soon: the more slaves blame each other for their own suffering, the less risk there is that they will conspire together to rebel against their Masters.

That assumes, of course, that there is a real chance for rebelling successfully for them at all. All slaves as a matter of principle being kept in a naked state and in heavy chains, and thus extremely sensitive to the whip and strongly hindered in their movements, they would start such a battle against their overseers always with huge disadvantages. Until that moment I didn't know that extra measures would make such an uprising aboard the galley even more senseless, as we would not only stay chained all the time to ourselves, but also would be securely chained to our seats.

But at the moment that I was trying to stand erect again, all this belonged to the kind of worries that wasn't felt to be the most urgent to me now. At this time I had to concentrate again on walking in my chains in the least painful way, hoping that slave 59 this time would be careful in this respect as well, and above all would keep more distance.

Luckily, the 'Roman' had the same idea about that.

'And you, slave 59, now will keep enough distance! Understood?! We don't want to have this mess a second time!'

So we started to move forward again, hobbling in our chains - number 17, far in front of me, all the time had waited patiently for us both at the far end of the room, next to the door. The other Roman, to let us descend, now opened the door. The first who passed it, after this first guard, of course was slave 17. When he had disappeared behind the first spiral, it was my turn.

I don't know if you have ever descended spiral stairs barefoot while bearing the load of two heavy chains tugging downward on your manacled wrists and being connected to a painfully chafing fetter around your ankle. Well, at least I hadn't until now. And I presume slave 17, paving the way in front of me, and slave 59, waiting behind me to do the same, hadn't either.

I can assure you; it's not the branch of Olympic sport you want to practice more often than strictly necessary. In fact, for the entire route from the shackling room to the galley, this special kind of slow-motion hurdle-race - in this special case the participant bringing his own hurdles with him, inextricably riveted to his limbs - was the most horrible part to cover. I did it as carefully as I could and as I dared, being glad that another slave in between separated both guards from me. In fact, when going downstairs, I was even out of sight of both of them. Not that there was any risk in being that, from their point of view, as the spiral stairs just, without any interruption, went downwards, and there wasn't any alternative other than going either up or down. Halfway down there was, in theory, an alternative, as the stairs apparently crossed a corridor, but on both sides of the stairs a closed and locked heavy door blocked this corridor.

How I did know that it indeed was closed, and that I wouldn't be able to open if I had wished to do that? Well, a big old-fashioned padlock, attaching the bolt of the door to the doorpost, in both cases told me so. Apart from that, not knowing what would be behind them, and not being able to run away, the impulse even to try out if it perhaps would be possible to open it, and if so, to enter, was totally absent. I was so exhausted by all I had had to endure, that I was not longing for an adventurous flight but for a silent rest. And the guards, who would hinder me in trying the first and might help me for getting the second (at least for the next couple of hours), will pretty well have known that.

I tried to concentrate the utmost, however, not to repeat my falling down in the room upstairs, as on the spiral stairs this would even be more problematic and painful, perhaps even dangerous. For myself, I was not aiming at a Gold Olympic Medal for being the quickest of all galley slaves who descended this spiral stairs during this unholy day. And apparently the guards recognized the necessity of every slave doing it in his own way, as the tempo I had chosen didn't lead to any more shouting upstairs or some barked order that I had to hurry up. Well, the slave drivers might have shown themselves not to be very interested in the pain of chafed ankles, but of course they had some interest in keeping our bones intact. Slaves with broken legs or arms are not of very much use at the oars, as you will understand. Yes, even slaves with just broken legs aren't useful, because as a galley slave you need both your legs to put more power into rowing, as I was to learn soon.

The first step on the stairs in fact was the most difficult. I hesitated. Should I begin with my free left ankle or was it better with my fettered right? I first moved the left forward, then drew it back and tried the right, only to draw it back, too.

'Begin with your left feet, slave', I heard the guard (who saw me doubting) command behind me. He of course had experience with walking down stairs while in shackles or, even better, with slaves doing it, so he could give the best advice.

So I moved my free left leg forward again and lowered it on the first step. That indeed was the smartest way. By lowering my left foot, my body bowed automatically a little forward, which unbent the two straightened chains connecting my wrists to my right ankle. That created enough space for lowering my fettered right leg to reach the next step without stumbling. Then I could lower my left foot again, and then, carefully, also the right one. And so on. I needed all my concentration not to make a misstep, also because the stairs weren't bathed in bright light, to put it mildly. At some spots it was even very dark inside, and there I did have some problems with finding my way. We were somewhere in the middle of the building, and the stairs were only lit by small lamps which were placed at rather big distances of each other, as if to save electricity. I for myself above all tried to save my skin.

But however carefully I did it each time when it was the turn for my right ankle to search for the next step, it still was painful, as it was impossible to prevent the heavy shackle from moving up and down every time when I descended further, and thus to prevent the rough iron from abrading my skin. You can imagine that I did it all rather slowly, although, getting a little bit experienced meanwhile, after some twenty steps I reached the point that I could descend in a certain rhythm without the risk of stumbling and toppling over. But I assure you, my speed also thereafter was only a fraction of what I would have been able to if I hadn't had to wear those damned heavy slave chains.

Apart from that, because of the spill I had taken, the brand above my left nipple again burned like hell. My nerves at that tortured spot on my chest in the end had quieted down a little when we were waiting upstairs, but the stupid stumbling of slave 59 had been a kind of wake-up call for them. I tried to ignore at least that, as I tried to ignore the pain in my pierced cock that was hurting more again too, but ignoring all in fact was nearly impossible. Fighting with new pain at totally different spots of my body again, I tried to move as quick as I could, as mercy wasn't a word written in capitals above the doors inside this gloomy building.

So it was a hellish descent into Hell, and I was glad when after a lot of minutes - at least I presume it took a lot of minutes - I had reached street level. Ascending unchained - how long ago it now seemed to be for me! - after I had arrived in the building had been much easier....

I supposed it was at street level - I had nothing for comparison at hand yet, but I estimated that I had gone as far down now as I had gone up - that the spiral staircase ended. There was a corridor again. And again, as had been halfway, in theory there also was a choice to go to the right or the left. Only in theory, as to the left there was a locked door, and only to the right an open one.

So I turned to the right, where I saw slave 17 hobbling some thirty feet in front of me, guided by the first guard. I followed him, and after some feet and some seconds I could hear by the rattling of his chains, which intermixed with that of mine and G 17's, that slave 59 had reached the corridor in good order, too. Walking horizontally again was a real relief after the difficult and dangerous descent we had just made. At least it was easier now to prevent the fetter from chafing my ankle further. I could see my skin better in the improved light - the corridor was a little brighter than the spiral stairs had been - and I could tell it had become rather red and raw. Judging from the noise that slave 59's chains made, he was still clumsier than his twin brother and I were. We both managed to keep our chains straightened most of the time, thereby succeeding in reducing the rattling. The regular loud clanks I heard behind me made it clear that, in contrast to ours, 59's chains clattered on the stones of the floor when he walked, producing edgy sounds that were relentlessly echoed and multiplied by the walls.

It was a long, narrow tunnel-vaulted corridor with - again - walls of naked rough stone and a floor of the same material, that twisted at the end and made a turn to the left. Because of the endless winding spiral stairs I had completely lost my orientation, but the corridor after the turn had some small, high placed windows on the right, and through that I could see the blue sky. We even passed a small grilled iron gate that reached down to the level of the pavement; looking now shortly to the right again, I could obtain a glimpse of water, its surface perhaps six or seven feet underneath the floor of the corridor: apparently it was some hidden side arm of the harbor. So I was right in guessing that we had reached street level.

But our odyssey into Hell for today didn't end here. After quite a walk - in proportion to the distance we had covered upstairs - our quintet reached a door on the left. There, to my surprise, two new 'Roman soldiers' were waiting to receive us. How many guys, for God's sake, were involved in this enslavement enterprise?!?

Both our guards hadn't said a word while we were along the way, as there hadn't been any reason for doing so. None of us had lost our balance, also slave 59, who had been so clumsy in the beginning - I still felt the cut his manacle had made in the hollow of my knee when I bent it to move - and was reprimanded for that, apparently was a little trained now in how to walk while in shackles.

Now that we had arrived at the next point of handing over, the guard in front of us for the first time on our tour opened his mouth, just saying: 'Here are the next three slaves, 17, 46, and 59.'

One of the 'Romans' waiting at the door thereupon opened the door and entered.

His mate only said to us: 'Follow him, slaves.'

Meanwhile, both the guards who had delivered us here turned their heels to walk back down the corridor. I didn't doubt that they soon would be accompanying new enslaved boys down the stairs.

To my surprise, more stairs awaited us. Through the just-opened door I saw them rotating downward. The dungeons - I didn't doubt we were heading for them now - apparently were situated underground. So the difficult art of descending in chains had to be practiced again. Luckily I now knew how to do that, as the new guards didn't seem very helpful in this respect. Of all the guys we had met so far, they were perhaps the grimmest looking. Luckily, this time the descent was much shorter. We didn't have to go down till we had reached the middle of the earth. I presume, when we reached the next floor, we were not more than ten feet under sea level.

That we now had reached our destiny already had become clear the moment we put our first foot on the first step of those second stairs, as I heard a mixture of noises then, mounting from the depth. A mixture of noises - in the beginning it was difficult to distinguish the separate sources and kinds, but it was immediately clear that the noise downstairs was a mixture produced not just by one person but by a lot of them. In the meantime, I didn't doubt that already many, many future galley slaves were locked up there.

With every new bend of the stairs the noise became louder and louder, and when I was totally downstairs, again in a corridor with the possibility of choosing between going left and going right (and this time really, as there were no barred doors blocking the way), the fusion of noises was already clearly split into very different ones coming from different directions.

I heard shouting and roaring, far away to the left, in a part of the corridor that was nearly totally dark, accompanied by what sounded as if somebody was battering vehemently with his fists on a thick iron door. Was the intractable slave that was dragged downstairs before us inside there? I couldn't make out what the man over there was shouting, let alone recognize and identify his voice. Or were there even more guys over there, locked away in the darkness? It sometimes seemed as if there were more guys shouting, but I wasn't sure about that, as the thick iron door(s) in between muffled their vocal violence. Regarding the absence of any lights in the left corridor, he (or they) indeed must been locked away in complete darkness, unless the dungeons over there had some daylight entering from the outside or were all furnished with a floor-lamp, but I had enough reason to doubt that. For how long would that imprisonment be? I shivered.

The again tunnel-vaulted corridor to the right was better lit - at least it was lit. I mean: the whole atmosphere in this part of the building was gloomy, but here you could at least see something: the walls and the vault. Not that the walls or the vault as such were worth a sight-seeing tour for a guided travelling-company; they were totally made from the same bare stone as all the corridors and rooms we had crossed until now.

Coming from this direction other kind of noises reached my ear. I could hear the groaning and moaning of some slaves, who of course had gone through the same branding hell as we did, and apparently still were tortured by the soaring pain the brand on their left chest had caused. Apart of that, as a kind of never-ending basso continuo there was the continuous rattling of chains, far away and nearby. I only could hear it now, not see the slaves who produced this whole hubbub. In the corridor itself, that extended for perhaps two hundred fifty feet, and was about twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high, there were only three other guards, dressed like ours, two of them walking to and thro, the third sitting halfway down the corridor behind a desk.

We had to move inside this dusky corridor to the right, luckily not into the completely dark one to the left. Apart from the swelling noise, a fuggy smell of unwashed bodies drove in our direction, mixed with that of superannuated piss and a lot of other rather pungent, unpleasant odors I couldn't place immediately. Now I had to suppress a feeling of rising disgust - in a few hours I would not bother anymore, as I would already have become used to it then, having no other choice.

Directed this way, the clanking of our chains - those of slave 59 still being the noisiest of us as not being able (or not bothering about it) to keep them off the floor all the time, echoed by the walls - mixed with the more muted rattling of the chains of the other slaves, that clearly came from places to the right and the left of the corridor. After several paces the continuing blind wall to the left and to the right indeed started to become split up in small pillar-like pieces, separated, as we soon recognized, by heavy grated doors with thick bars that reached from the floor to a little underneath the base of the vault - which, as the vault itself was rather high and nearly semicircular, was rather low. A tall man would even have to bow his head to enter.

Those grated doors each gave access to a separate small cell for one slave. Looking at the first to the left I saw the number 100 written in big figures on the lintel above the grille. The cell was empty, as was the next, with the number 98. On the other side the odd numbers were located. It was quite clear to me that I had to bid farewell to the slave behind me once we had reached cell number 59 at the right, that I had to walk till cell number 46 would turn up at the left, and that the slave walking in front of me had to continue till he had arrived alone at the grilled door of cell number 17.

The first occupied cell in that row was number 86, which meant that the galley would at least would count eighty six slaves. Perhaps more (even a hundred?): as we marched on, it became clear that a lot of slaves still hadn't arrived yet. From what I have seen on the way to my own cell - of the than more than forty remaining cells of course I can't say anything about them being lived in or not - I estimate that only a third were already inhabited, so the majority of the future galley slaves were at that very moment still free men, unsuspecting and unaware of the horrible fate that awaited them. Of course, as I had to concentrate on my chains, and as the cells apparently were rather narrow but deep and - as to be expected - not supplied with own fluorescent lighting, I could not always be sure if a cell was already occupied or not. I may have missed some fellows.

In the first case, that of number 86, there was no doubt, as the naked slave inside - of course shaved, chained and collared exactly the same way as we all were - was staying directly behind the grilled door of his cell, with both his powerless hands holding the thick bars. The rather tall guy, whose mohawk reached as high as the lintel, gazed desperately - well, he had some reason for that - into the corridor. As his place on the oars because of his number would be rather far behind mine, I would never see him on the galley.

In other instances the incarcerated slaves were sitting or lying on the floor, sometimes close to the grill, sometimes farther away. In that case, as the lamps in the corridor were attached to the middle riff of the vault, and thus too high to throw their light far into the dungeons that contained slaves, it was not always easy to decide if there was already a slave secured inside or not. Some cells were darker than others, as the lamps were not evenly spaced - they were not put up there with the intent to provide light to the slaves inside, but to help the guards to find their way in the corridor. And for them to find their way, they did not need much light. But as the chains prevented me from running to my own private cell, in most of the cases I had plenty of time to find out easily if a cell was still empty or already occupied. Sometimes the rattling of chains helped me to discover this by ear in case it was to dark inside to do it visually, but some inhabitants were so exhausted that they didn't move at all, or perhaps even slept.

Just sleeping: that was what I was most of all longing to do for myself - somehow hoping deep inside that all this would turn out to be just a nightmare, and that I would wake up in my own safe bed at home in Amsterdam - although, by God, I didn't know if I would indeed be able to sleep, being loaded with those heavy shackles and chains, and above all wearing that fucking huge and ponderous collar around my throat.

When we reached cell 59, the guard in front halted our procession. Cells 61 and 57 were still empty, so slave 59 for the time being would have to do without neighbors. I heard the other guard behind me moving to the right, and then the sound of a key in a lock, followed by the creaking of turning ironwork as the grilled door of the cell was opened for one of the Belgian Twins.

'Inside, slave!', the guard commanded.

Apparently slave 59 hesitated to obey, as the guard shouted again: 'Go inside, slave! Immediately!'

I didn't dare turn round to have a glimpse of what was happening behind my back, as the other guard in front of our troop had turned around himself and looked very severely at us. His stern face told me, without the need for him to utter any word, that I was expected to stay totally silent and immobile at the spot where I stood. And I had had enough slaps to my face today not to try for another one by being disobedient.

Clearly slave 59 wasn't moving quickly enough into his cell in the opinion of the guard, as he repeated his commandment for the third time, and meanwhile apparently put force behind his words. The silence of our chains since we had halted - only undermined by the rattling of the chains of already incarcerated slaves further away - was suddenly broken by a furious noise of a lot of rattling and clanking. Without seeing it with my own eyes, I imagined that 59 more or less was thrown into his cell by the guard. I heard a body falling on the floor and a cry - that was 59 - and then the banging of the grilled door slamming shut. The creaking of a key turning in a lock followed, and then all was done.

'Move on, you two', our lead guard ordered shortly.

So we did. Number 59 now being safely stowed away, the other guard this time was walking directly behind me. We soon passed the table with the sitting guard in the middle of the corridor - it was placed against a blind wall between cells 52 (occupied) and 50 (empty) - and then it was my turn. A few paces further the guard in front stopped and turned his face to us. We had arrived at cell 46, at the left.

With horror I looked inside, through the big bars of the grilled door, into the darkness - yes, in my case the lights on the vault of the corridor were rather far way, so indeed it was rather dark inside. Regarding the sound of clanking chains and groaning that seeped through its bars, I already had a neighbor in cell 44, but that slave stayed too far back inside to be seen yet.

The guard behind me stepped up to the door, and put his big key into the hole of a lock. Having turned the key, after some tugging he succeeded in opening the door to the cell - MY cell. A lot of creaking followed - a lot more, in my memory, than in the case of slave 59. After a few seconds the gate was open, the cell being ready to receive me.

'Inside, slave 46', the guard commanded.

I made one step and thereupon immediately shrunk back, because the fuggy odor of old straw and the foul stench of even older piss drove out of the dungeon into the corridor and took away my breath. Was I supposed to stay in this smelly cave for the next days? Although I hadn't tested the other dungeons, it seemed to me that I had been assigned the most malodorous place of all.

So I hesitated, just as my predecessor had, although not for very long, as I was much too exhausted to resist any more for the moment. I wondered where 59 had had the energy from to do that. Or had he been - more probably - too apathetic to react at all? He had been much more in shock upstairs than was his twin brother, 17.

Apart from that, in fact I didn't have the chance to hesitate much longer. Earlier than in the case of 59, the guard shouted already to me: 'Now go into your cell, you fucking slave! We don't hours and hours to wait until you all have accepted the fact that you're slaves now. You will have plenty of time for that when inside, so don't waste our time any longer.'

Fearing to be thrown in my cell as had happened to 59 - fearing this even more because of the again soaring pain of my brand and piercing - I moved and hobbled into the dark cell. Immediately after I crossed the threshold, being still just a couple of inches inside, the door was slammed shut behind my back. Before I could turn myself into the direction of the guard, the key was turned in the lock that secured the grilled door of my dungeon, and the guard (after having taken just a few steps) disappeared out of my sight. I was locked up.