William basked in her smile.
“You are quite beautiful,” he said, “when you smile. Very well, tomorrow I will ask Herjellsen to permit you to have the proper utensils.”
“Thank you, William,” she breathed.
“But no knife, mind you,” laughed William.
“Oh, of course not,” she laughed, “-Master!”
“You make a pretty slave, Brenda,” said William.
Brenda Hamilton fell to her knees before him, and put her head to his feet. “The slave is grateful to her master,” she laughed.
William looked down at her. “I see,” he said, “that it is a social misfortune that the institution of female slavery was abolished.”
Brenda looked up at him, deferentially. “Yes, Master,” she said.
“Last night,” said William, suddenly, angrily, “you were on your knees before Gunther.”
She looked up at him, agonized.
“Don’t get up,” said William.
She put her head down.
“Beg me to fuck you,” said William.
“Please, William,” she whispered.
“Do it,” he said, “you little whore.”
“No!” she wept. “I wanted to be had by Gunther. I wanted it! I needed it!”
“And you don’t need it from me,” said William.
“Please, William,” she said, “I like you-you’re the only one who is kind to me. I like you. I do like you!” She lifted her eyes to him.
“Say it,” said William. “I want to hear it.”
“I-I beg you to fuck me, William,” whispered Brenda Hamilton.
“Slut!” said William.
He picked up the tray and mug, and spoon, and angrily left the room.
He did not look back.
Elated, Brenda Hamilton ran to the light switch and turned it off, and went to the mattress and took the fork from it. The first check, she knew, would not come until eleven o’clock. She counted the minutes, as carefully as she could, while she worked in the closet, as silently as she could, digging at the plaster, flaking it away. Giving herself a margin of safety she went and lay down in the cot, as though asleep. She hated each wasted minute lying there, but, at last, some ten minutes after she had lain down, she sensed the flashlight in the room, through the window, and falling on her apparently sleeping body. When it had left she leaped to her feet and began her work again. It was shortly before midnight, and the second check, when she came to the coating of stucco that formed the outside of the hut. She returned to the cot, a sleeping prisoner. When the light had passed again, she returned to the work. It took only some fifteen minutes to work away enough of the stucco to make a hole large enough for her to crawl through. This would give her, if she were successful in escaping the compound, a lead of only some forty-five minutes. She slipped from the building. She looked back. She must leave the hole exposed. There was nothing with which to conceal it. She hoped it would not be noted. The compound was lit by the four lights on poles, illuminating the dirt grounds, making them seem hard and yellow. The hole was on the side of the building, away from the light. She hoped it would not be noticed.
She went to the end of the small building. Then she fell to her stomach in the shadows at the side of the building.
Between her and the fence one of the blacks was walking his rounds, his rifle over his shoulder.
She remained lying there for some minutes. She counted the seconds between his rounds. She was in tears. She would not have time to get to the fence and tunnel under the wire. Then, in her counting, the guard did not pass when she expected him to. Her heart leaped. Perhaps he had stopped somewhere, to relieve himself, or drink, or smoke, or chat with his partner, perhaps at the gate.
She scurried from hiding and began, with her hands and her fork, to dig frenziedly at the wire. The ground was dry and soft, powdery. In a matter of two or three minutes, on her stomach, she slithered under the hanging wire. A barb ripped through the shoulder of her dress and she cried out half blinded with sparks and pain. There had been a crackling, and her inadvertent cry of terror and pain. She scrambled to her feet, stunned, sick, her vision swimming with blasts of light, and vomited in the dust, and then, stumbling, fled into the darkness.
Apparently her cry and the crackling of the sparks had not been heard.
Outside the compound, sick, some hundred yards away, she collapsed in the brush and looked back.
No one was coming. There was no pursuit. The compound was large. No one had apparently heard her.
She threw up again from the shock of the fence. She wanted only to lie down and rest.
She staggered to her feet.
She began to stumble through the brush.
It had been a nightmare of running, but Brenda Hamilton, at three forty in the morning, reached a road, her legs bleeding, dust in her hair, her body coated with dirt.
She lay beside the road, gasping, on the side away from the direction from which she had come.
She could scarcely breathe, she could scarcely move her body.
The dress was half torn from her.
What now if there were no vehicle? There might not be any. This was not a commonly traveled road. It was late at night. When she had been with Gunther and William in the Land Rover, in all their driving, they had passed no vehicle.
She moaned.
She would die in the bush, without food and water. She feared leopards, and snakes.
She knew no way to a village.
She could walk the road. It would lead somewhere. But she, having stopped, found it almost impossible to get to her feet. She closed her eyes.
Then, from the distance, she heard a vehicle, coming down the road.
Her heart leaped, and she crawled to the side of the road.
She saw the two headlights. She heard the engine. The vehicle was coming with rapidity.
What if it would not stop for her?
Painfully she stood up, on the surface of the road, gasping. The gravel hurt her feet.
They must stop for her!
The headlights were approaching rapidly.
They were hurrying. They would not stop!
But they would! She would flag them down! They must stop! They must!
The headlights were now looming, like eyes. She heard the grinding of the gravel under the wheels of the vehicle, the thick roar of the engine.
She stood out, almost in the center of the road, and lifted her hand.
She waved wildly.
She lifted both of her arms and ran toward the headlights, weeping.
They must stop!
To her joy she heard the driver remove his foot from the accelerator and heard the scattering and crunching of gravel under the tires as the vehicle began to slow down.
She ran toward it, illuminated in its headlights, as it ground to a halt.
“Help me!” she cried.
She stopped.
The Land Rover was stopped now, the motor still running. Gunther leaped out, onto the road.
She screamed and turned, and_streaked into the brush. She ran and ran.
She heard the Land Rover start again, turn off the road. She saw it plowing after her.
She darted through the brush, crying.
It dodged small trees, suddenly bright in its headlights, it rode over brush, through dips and high grass, jolting, falling and climbing.
Running, she heard the engine behind her, the breaking of brush, the sound of the tires.
Suddenly she was illuminated in the headlights.
She was terrified they would run her down. Then the Land Rover turned to one side, her left, as she ran, and was behind her and on the left.
She ran, stumbling. She felt herself caught in the blaze of the hand searchlight mounted near the front, right window.
“Wir haben sie!” she heard Gunther cry, elated. He almost never spoke German.
She heard the crack of the compressed-air rifle and was suddenly stung in the side. She was knocked off her feet by the impact and rolled for more than a dozen feet. Then she scrambled to her feet again, and began to run again, stumbling. She heard the Land Rover following her, slowly. She ran for perhaps a hundred yards, and then fell, and got up and, slowly, began to stumble away again. The Land Rover seemed to move almost at her very side. She was conscious of the headlights on the brush. She was aware that she, herself, was illuminated in the hand searchlight at the side of the vehicle. With her fingers, reeling, she felt the dart sunk in her side. It had penetrated the thin cotton dress and had fastened itself deeply in her flesh. She stumbled, and fell. She heard the Land Rover stop. She tried to crawl away, and then fell to her stomach. She fought to keep conscious. She knew she lay in-the light of the hand searchlight. She heard the door of the Land Rover open. She heard