Contributed by - Marabout
Chapter 2 - The Punishment Block
The Punishment Block
William lay, naked, on the rough raffia mat, which, with a plastic
bucket, constituted the sole furnishing of the small cell into which had
had been thrust after entering the punishment block. The cell, some two
meters wide by three long, was ventilated by a small grille set high in
one wall. Opposite this blank cement block wall was the door, which
consisted of iron bars, leaving the inmate as if in a cage in full view
of anyone passing along the passage. This was a punishment cell.
Sergeant Mbenge had marched William across the yard and through the door
of the long, low cement block hut which was the punishment block�s only
building. Seated behind a wooden table in the entrance was a young women
guard, broad and tough-looking, who had eyed William with undisguised
contempt. She had taken down a key from a hook on the wall behind her
and handed it to the sergeant, at the same time making a joking remark
about the sorry-looking naked male prisoner who stood before her. She
had then opened a barred door to the left of the entrance and the
Sergeant, giving William a smack on the bottom with her rubber stick,
had shoved him into a long corridor flanked on either side by small
cells. She had opened the first cell on the left and, after removing the
handcuffs from William�s wrists, pushed him in.
�Welcome to your new home. You will be very comfortable here!� she had
said with a smile, slamming the door shut and leaving William to
contemplate his fate. He had never felt so entirely abandoned and
helpless in his life. The bright lights of the corridor had been
switched off and William was left in semi-darkness, the only light
coming through the barred door from the entrance where the guard sat.
William was not a very courageous individual at the best of times and
this was more like the worst of times as far as he was concerned,
sitting stark naked on the floor of this bare prison cell, unable to
think of anything other than the painful and humiliating treatment that
awaited him at the hands of these merciless African women. To calm
himself he tried to work out what the time could be. He supposed it must
still be before noon. Little by little he began to notice things. For
example, the cell smelled of disinfectant and was very clean, as was the
whole building. The cell opposite William�s was empty, but he was aware
that some of the other cells further along the corridor were occupied.
Though naked, he did not feel cold. The climate of Azanga is, in fact,
extremely pleasant all the year round, never falling below about 28�C
and seldom rising above 35�C. He felt thirsty, but dared not call out to
beg for water. He began to feel hungry and wondered what kind of food
they would give him. He thought about Captain Ndembe, of her air of
authority, of how she intimidated him with her still, scornful gaze. He
thought about Sergeant Mbenge, of her massive breast and powerful arms,
of the play of her broad, ample buttocks under her blue uniform skirt as
she strode before him across the yard. He saw himself strapped to some
kind of whipping apparatus, writhing and howling as she brought the
rattan cane down across his bare buttocks and, in spite of his dire
predicament, he began to feel an insistent and involuntary hardening of
his penis at these thoughts and allowed his hand to stray towards his
genitals.
William might have carried on with this exercise, had he not heard the
sound of voices giving sharp orders, the clank of shackles, and the slap
of a rubber stick on bare flesh followed by squeals of pain. Then the
passage lights were switched on and the door opened. William saw two
naked women prisoners being pushed past his cell by the guard and heard
the sounds of their cells being opened and locked further down the
corridor. He recognized them as the two he had seen at work, naked and
shackled, when he was being taken to Captain Ndembe�s office. Evidently
they had finished their tasks and were now being returned to their
punishment cells. The guard glanced in at him indifferently as she
passed his cell to return to her seat, switching off the main lights and
leaving the passage once again in semi-darkness.
Alone with his thoughts once again, William resumed his reverie, with
its confusing mixture of fear and pleasure, and again felt this
unexpected and, given his circumstances, rather incongruous hardening of
his penis. Some time passed � William had no idea how long � and then,
once again, he heard the sound of voices from the direction of the
entrance hall. Suddenly the passage lights were turned on and the barred
connecting door was opened. The tough-looking corporal appeared outside
his cell. Unlocking the cell door, she motioned to him to stand up and
come out. William hurriedly obeyed and was shoved roughly out into the
entrance hall where he found Sergeant Mbenge awaiting him.
�On your knees!� she ordered sharply. William clumsily obeyed.
�Now I am going to teach you the correct way to greet an officer when
she calls you out of your cell�, she said. �First, you will kneel down
and then you will kiss the officer�s boots. So, kiss my boots!�
William shuffled towards her on hands and knees and bent forward to kiss
her boots.
�Both boots!� she snapped. The corporal, standing behind him, gave him a
sharp smack on the backside with her rubber stick.
�Stand up! Do it again!�
William, breathing hard, obeyed and was obliged to repeat the exercise
about six times before Sergeant Mbenge was satisfied.
�Good! Now you will greet Corporal Mbaya in the same way!�
William was forced to go through the same drill for the corporal,
receiving several smacks from Sergeant Mbenge during the process.
�Now I am going to tell you what is going to happen tomorrow�, she
resumed. �After cell cleaning duties, you will be given breakfast. Then,
at ten o�clock I will take you to Doctor Patel for medical examination
to see if you are fit for caning. After that, at eleven o�clock, you
will be taken to the punishment room here, where Captain Ndembe and the
ladies will be waiting to witness the flogging. Do you understand?�
William, dry-mouthed, stammered a barely audible �yes� and received, for
his pains, a smack across his belly from Sergeant Mbenge.
�Yes Madame Sergeant! Yes Madame Corporal! Yes Madame Captain! That is
how will speak to an officer! Yes?�
After William had assented to her satisfaction, he was ordered to stand,
legs apart and hands on head, while the two women studied his naked body
thoroughly, making sardonic remarks about its various features. Special
attention was paid to William�s posteriors, with which they both amused
themselves, squeezing and slapping the flesh and commenting on the
suitability of such a pair of buttocks for caning. William, with a
hollow feeling in his stomach, stood docile and dry-mouthed, shaking
from nerves and hunger, enduring the humiliating attentions of the two
women, hearing their mocking laughter and conscious of their derisive
comments.
After suffering a few more minutes of this treatment, William was
marched back to his cell and left to his own devices for a couple of
hours before the next interruption to his solitary reveries. A prisoner,
clad in the brown prison dress, wheeled a trolley into the passage to
distribute the mid-day meal to the inmates of the punishment block. She
was accompanied by Corporal Mbaya, who watched closely as she pushed the
tin meal dish and tin cup through the narrow slot at the base of the
cell door. This was done quickly and without any words being spoken.
William fell upon his food eagerly and even more eagerly on the cup of
sweet tea with milk which he was given, somewhat to his surprise. He was
also pleasantly surprised by the substantial meal, which consisted of a
kind of tasty stew containing some meat, rice and some vegetables in a
peppery sauce together with a large hunk of bread and a banana. He had
expected much worse. In fact, though William did not know this at the
time, Captain Ndembe had given explicit orders that he should be
especially well fed. This was not out of kindness of heart, however. Her
real motive was that she wanted to keep William strong and healthy
enough to endure not only the judicial flogging to which he had been
sentenced by the court but also the special treatment she had in store
for him. Captain Ndembe had plans for William.
The afternoon passed, and then the evening. William could sense that it
was evening because the dim light that came through the small grille at
the top of the wall darkened, so that now the only light came from the
barred door at the entrance to the cell corridor. William could hear
whispering from the cells further down the passage, where there were two
or three women prisoners. Evidently they did not dare to speak aloud for
fear of retribution. He lay on the rough mat, turning uncomfortably from
one side to the other, his thoughts focused mainly on the pain and
humiliation of his coming ordeal. At the same time, constantly intruding
on these thoughts was the image of himself, naked and helpless,
submitting docilely to these strapping, buxom black women, of the type
he had always admired when he was a free man. The thought excited him,
in spite of his fear, and this excitement was manifesting itself plainly
in the swelling and hardening of his penis.
How long this semi-dreaming state went on William did not know, but
eventually he heard sounds from the entrance hall and, once again, the
corridor lights came on. The barred door was opened and the same female
prisoner appeared, accompanied this time by a different but equally
formidable-looking guard, to hand out the evening meal, which, in
William�s case at least, was just as solid as the midday one. William
ate and drank gratefully, knowing that he must keep up his physical
strength to the best of his ability, whatever his mental state might be.
After about ten minutes the guard came along the corridor, checking each
cell in silence, and then all lights were switched off. William heard
the sound of the outer door being locked. Evidently the guard had left
for the night. The prisoners were left in complete darkness.
************
Lying naked on a rough straw mat on a hard floor, William did not sleep
well. He began to feel chilly as the night wore on and, of course, his
nerves were on edge as he dwelt on what lay ahead for him. Dawn comes
early in Africa and he was awake when light began to creep through the
grille at the top of the wall. He heard stirrings from the other cells
and whispered conversations and then the sound of the outer door being
unlocked. Evidently a guard had come to begin her day�s duty. After a
while, the passage door was opened and the guard walked slowly along,
peering into each cell, checking. There was silence from the other end
of the passage. Talking among prisoners was not permitted in the
punishment block.
An hour or so later two guards, the tough one from yesterday and a
fattish younger woman, came along the passage opening each cell. William
and the other prisoners were required to step out of their cell and
prostrate themselves in the regulation fashion before both guards. Then,
they had to pick up their toilet buckets and carry them, in single file
to the latrines and washroom, which were at the end of the passage.
William found himself walking behind three naked, shaven women, the two
he had seen the previous day and a third, a plump woman, whose large
buttocks bore the marks of a recent thrashing, as did the backsides of
the other two. After emptying their buckets into the latrines, the
prisoners had to wash them out with disinfectant and carry them back to
their cells. The female prisoners did not dare raise their eyes to look
at William. Prisoners were required to keep their heads bowed and their
eyes down. They were then ordered back to the washroom to be hosed down
by the young guard, who directed a jet of cold water at them as they
stood, all four together, in the washing area. The sight of William
standing there naked and shivering together with the three naked women
prisoners clearly amused the guards, who laughed and joked as they made
him turn several times so that they could aim the jet at his private
parts and backside.
When the prisoners had been thoroughly hosed down, each was given a
bucket of water, in which the guard poured some disinfectant, a cloth
and a brush, and, with resounding slaps on their still wet buttocks,
ordered to scrub out the cells as well as the passage and entrance hall.
Once again it was William who came in for the special attentions of the
two guards as he laboured clumsily on all fours with his brush, his
bottom in the air, receiving smacks and jabs up the behind with their
rubber sticks, all accompanied by crude jokes at the expense of his
nakedness. This cleaning routine, as William was to discover, had to be
carried out every day. Captain Ndembe was particularly insistent on
hygiene and disease prevention in all parts of the prison, and frequent
inspections ensured that her orders were obeyed.
By about eight o�clock the task had been completed to the guards�
satisfaction and the four inmates were returned to their cells sweating
with their exertions to await breakfast, which was delivered again, in
silence, by a clothed female prisoner under the supervision of a guard.
Again William hungrily ate the generous portion of �asida�, a kind of
millet porridge which was a staple food in Azanga, and drank the hot
sweet tea. Shortly after breakfast, the three female prisoners were
marched out of their cells and into the yard. William was left in his
cell, but through the grille high on the cell wall he could hear the
sound of staccato orders being uttered, as if in some kind of drill.
This, as he later learned, was the so-called �naked parade�, to which
prisoners on punishment regime were subjected daily. It consisted of
strenuous marching round the yard and various exercises, together with
the daily dose of whacks across the behind with the guards� canes.
William could clearly hear the sharp crack of the cane on bare flesh and
the resulting squeal of pain from the recipient. He then heard the sound
of shackles being attached and the prisoners being marched off to
perform their daily tasks.
Not long after their departure, Sergeant Mbenge appeared, and William,
after carrying out the required prostration by way of greeting, was
handcuffed behind his back and led out of the punishment block.
�You must see the doctor now,� she told William. �All prisoners must
have medical check before flogging.�
She prodded him across another yard towards a low, white building. He
saw several women prisoners, clothed in the drab brown regulation smock,
and engaged in various tasks. They stared at William curiously as he was
led past, and he heard laughter. Sergeant Mbenge led William into the
medical building, where a female prisoner was at work washing the floor,
and knocked on an office door. Doctor Patel was sitting at her desk, and
showed no surprise at the sight of a naked white man. She was a short,
plumpish Indian woman in her forties. Under her doctor�s white coat she
wore a traditional Indian sari and her long, jet-black hair was drawn
tightly back in a chignon.
She surveyed William coolly through a pair of heavy horn-rimmed glasses.
�Good morning, Doctor,� said Sergeant Mbenge. �This prisoner will be
flogged today so he needs medical check-up.�
�Ah, yes, the Englishman,� the doctor spoke in a musical Indian accent.
�Captain Ndembe has informed me. Remove the handcuffs, please.�
Sergeant Mbenge unlocked the cuffs. William stood before Doctor Patel�s
desk, awkwardly, his hands by his sides. The doctor turned to the fat
young African nurse who was standing to one side.
�Check his height and weight and blood pressure,� she ordered. While the
nurse carried out this routine procedure, the doctor, in a neutral,
professional tone, asked William questions concerning his general state
of health, making notes on a card as she did so. Then she stood up and
came round the desk to where William was standing in order to listen to
his heart with her stethoscope. She also tested him for hernia and,
telling him to bend over, checked the state of his buttocks.
�What is this prisoner�s sentence? Sergeant?� she asked.
�Fifty strokes with the rattan, Doctor,� replied Sergeant Mbenge
promptly.
�Hmm .. Well, he is fit to receive corporal punishment, but � well, I
will make a recommendation to Captain Ndembe,� the doctor said, writing
a note on a slip of paper which she handed to the sergeant.
�What time is the punishment to take place?� she asked.
�Eleven o�clock, Doctor,� said the sergeant.
�Very well, I will be there. Nurse, you will accompany me.�
�Yes, Doctor,� the young nurse replied, glancing all the time uneasily
at William. She was quite new at this prison job and was clearly nervous
and excited at the prospect of witnessing her first full judicial
flogging, especially one involving a white male prisoner.
Sergeant Mbenge, having handcuffed William again, tapped him on the
bottom with her stick.
�Thank you Doctor. Prisoner, turn, march!� she snapped, and shoved him
out of the office and out across the yard.
�Well,� she said, �the doctor said you are fit, so today you will get a
good, hard flogging with the rattan cane!� She smiled with satisfaction
at the prospect. �O, oh, oh � you will suffer! You will cry like a baby
and all the ladies will enjoy the show today! Yes!�
Punctuating her words with prods of her rubber stick between the cheeks
of William�s buttocks, she marched him back to the punishment block,
where he was ordered to stand facing the wall in the entrance hall.
Sergeant Mbenge and Corporal Mbaya sat at the desk opposite him and
chatted in Cizangi while they waited for the appointed time to conduct
him to the punishment room. William stood, handcuffed, head bowed,
listening as the two women laughed and joked about what was in store for
him. William understood most of what they were saying and their obvious
pleasure at the prospect of his coming ordeal did nothing to reassure
him. However, at the same time as he trembled with dread at the thought
of the pain and humiliation he was to suffer during the flogging,
William, once again, could not help feeling a strange, undeniable sexual
thrill which manifested itself in the swelling and hardening of his
penis. He could not prevent himself from wondering whether, in spite of
his present predicament and foreboding, he was not lucky to have been
retained here in the women�s section of Malembe Prison. What if Captain
Ndembe had sent him to the male section? He imagined having to share a
cell with perhaps a dozen other men, the brutal treatment from the
guards and other prisoners, sexual assault, back-breaking work digging
ditches in the fields or breaking rocks in the quarry. He was too
nervous and confused to think clearly, but he somehow felt quite sure
about one thing. He would submit docilely, almost with some strange,
inexplicable pleasure, to whatever punishment, whatever humiliation
these powerful, intimidating African women wished to inflict upon him.
