Oscar (8 page)

‘Just a little further, everyone.’ he shouted back, leading them off the road and into the cornfield.

‘You can’t be serious!’ one of the women squawked angrily. ‘You can’t expect us to sleep in this field for the night, think of the bloody children.’

‘I am thinking of the children, you stupid woman.’ he spat back. ‘There’s nothing but fields for miles, it’s getting dark, and the kids are tired—what the hell do you propose I do?’

There was no reply; she knew that he was right. Besides the fact that the children were tired, they were also hungry, and what could be better to feast upon than fresh corn?

Oscar almost salivated, pulling on the corn’s stem to claim his prize. The other children followed after him and pulled on a stem each, their rasping fingers trying to reach the food they needed. John could see that some were struggling. The women just stood there, watching and waiting for the children to concede and ask for their mothers’ help.

‘Don’t just stand there watching them struggle, go and help your children.’ he boomed in frustration. The women herded together like a flock of sheep and he became the sheep dog, ushering them towards their kids.

‘Get over there, the lot of you.’ he ordered.

#

Oscar and the rest of the kids ate their raw corn as they were watched by the adults, who refrained from eating anything. They sat drinking water from the canteens that they had found within the houses they had left behind, and speculated about anything that didn’t involve the day’s events. John sat watching over all of them, neither drinking nor eating; his thoughts lay elsewhere.

For most of the day, the only thing he had been thinking was:
what are my comrades doing at this precise moment?
He knew all too well what went on in the camps, and prayed that they had evaded any kind of resistance. He wanted to believe that they had gone into hiding until it was safe for them to surface again, but he somehow knew that they hadn’t been that fortunate. He had to rid himself of such thoughts in order to stay sane and able to get the others in his charge to the safe place he had talked about.

One of the women in the group stared into his sad, faraway eyes, wondering what was going on in that mind of his.

‘Can I ask you, John, what the matter is?’ said the woman. ‘I’ve been watching you all night, and you have done nothing but stare into thin air.’

‘Are you finding us too big a burden to shoulder?’ she added.

He snapped out of his trance-like state and smiled uneasily at her.

‘No, Grace—none of you are a burden to me.’ he cried. ‘The others are playing on my mind.’

He hung his head and brought his hands up to meet his face. Grace felt the urge to mother him, to take him into her bosom, to comfort him. She knew that he held himself responsible for what might have happened to Miriam and the rest, her husband included among them.

His hard exterior had all but melted away. Everybody in his presence was shocked by the sudden transformation. They had only ever known him as their no-nonsense leader, without an ounce of compassion. Even he didn’t know what was happening to him. Maybe he needed a situation like this to bring out the decency in him.

‘I’m sure they’ll be fine, John—they know how to handle themselves.’ Grace concluded before returning to the others.

#

An hour or so had passed, the children had laid their heads down for the night and the women were becoming weary.

‘I think it’s time you all got some shuteye.’ John said, a slight tinge of aggressiveness attached to his tone.

Nothing was meant by it, but he was as tired as the rest of them. He chose to watch over them instead of sleep; like a shepherd watching over his flock until morning, ready to ward off any danger that might be lurking within their corn field cubby.

In this day and age, you couldn’t afford to make a mistake—one slip-up, one word out of place, and the government would find an excuse to have you interned. He wasn’t about to let anything happen to his flock.

I
t had just struck six-thirty in the morning. Miriam hadn’t slept a wink, thinking only of her impending execution. There was a certain irony to her situation: today was the day that she turned forty, and today was to be the day of her death.

Her peace had been interrupted by the sound of the ear-piercing time siren screeching through the compound—a warning for the inmates to get up or face punishment at the hands of the guards.

She had no need to rush; she knew what time she would be taken away from the camp. She remained on her back with her right arm placed across her forehead, just waiting for the solid oak door to the Nissen hut to burst open. The guards would take her to London, for what would be the last day of her life.

A few minutes passed, the siren ceased, and her peace was shattered yet again. The guards had come.

‘Get up, Scarsberg.’ one of the guards snapped.

She stood from her metal slatted bunk and remained still, almost standing to attention.

‘Put your hands on your head, and place your forehead against the wall.’

She walked over to the adjacent wall slowly and did as she was told.

‘Spread your legs.’ was the final demand.

She complied.

The guard approached her and took hold of her hands, pulling them behind her back. He cuffed her wrists and pulled her close to him roughly.

‘Happy birthday, Scarsberg. We have a hell of a day lined up for you.’ he whispered unkindly, biting the tip of her earlobe in a perverted manner, just before pulling away.

#

Miriam’s tussled platinum blonde hair gleamed in the morning sun. For a split second she felt free as the cool breeze hit her face. She took a deep breath, and held on to it for as long as possible before exhaling.

The moment was ruined as the guards either side of her began to pull her violently towards the awaiting black transit. For once, she was frightened of what lay in store for her. She began to pull away from the van, digging her heels in.

‘It’s no use struggling, Scarsberg.’ The guard on her right side barked, as he signalled over another colleague who was waiting by the van. ‘Get over here, and get ready to lift her legs.’

The idle guard ran towards the group of three with another set of restraints—ankle cuffs. He jogged up behind Miriam, who had been subdued.

‘Get them cuffs on, and lift her legs.’ the guard ordered.

She began to kick like a mule, trying to prevent the guard from doing as he had been ordered. She was quickly forced to the ground face-first, and pinned.

‘Try now!’ he barked, digging his bony knee into her spine. She screamed out, half in pain and half in frustration. The ankle restraints were successfully placed, and she made no further attempts to struggle as she was lifted from the ground. She had all but given up and resigned herself to her fate: she wasn’t going to escape the punishment for her crime.

Tears brimmed in her eyes, and one by one they fell to the ground, making little dents in the sand. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that her emotions were getting the better of her, pushing through her hard exterior.

‘You can pack that in for a start.’ one of the guards screamed in her ear. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for crying when you’re burning to death!’ a maniacal cackle ensued.

‘Screw you!’ the usually refined, Miriam muttered defiantly under her breath.

The guard lifted her head with her hair in his fist.

‘What was that you said?’ he pinned his ear up against her mouth to receive his reply.

Almost instinctively, she bit into the guard’s ear and ripped the tip off with her teeth.

The guard screamed out as he grabbed the side of his head with his free hand.

‘Put her down.’ he shrieked in pain. ‘Have we got a muzzle or something? She’s bloody dangerous!’

#

It wasn’t so much a muzzle, more a leather face mask. But it would do the trick for the journey to London. The mask was placed on her face, so tight that it hurt.

The van was within reach, the doors were open and it was ready to receive its passengers.

‘Dump her in the van! Sit on her if you have to.’ shouted the lead guard, who had been watching the drama unfold from a distance.

Her escorts took their orders literally. All three men sat on her, crushing the air out of her lungs. The lead guard made his way round to the back of the van to close the doors.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he bawled at the others. ‘Get off of her,
now.
’

They jumped up quickly and took their seats for the journey, leaving her belly down on the cold metal floor.

She turned her head as much as she could and gazed upon her captors, her eyes seething. She was no longer frightened for her future—she was angry.

‘Keep your eyes down, Scarsberg—or I’ll pluck them out of their sockets.’ one of the guards squawked.

She turned her head back towards the floor. After a few seconds, she looked towards the other side of the transport’s interior. The van’s engine revved into action, shunting forward violently as it started its journey to London.

#

Miriam was being watched constantly. She hadn’t moved a whisker since the journey began. She stared at her metal surroundings with a look that could only be described as deadly, visions of mayhem circling her scarred mind.
If only I could move
, she thought to herself.

Her body had cramped up and all she wanted to do was roll onto her side. The ankle restraints were rubbing against the cloth of the labour camp-issued orange boiler suit, chafing the skin on her legs.

She began to shuffle around and grunted angrily, much to the annoyance of the guards sat over her.

‘Stop that!’ the senior guard shouted, giving her a vicious clip in the ribcage with the heel of his boot. She let out a muffled scream as she felt one of her ribs crack under the force of the blow.

‘Get back on your stomach, Scarsberg.’ he snarled. ‘Stay bloody still—or I’ll put a bullet in your brain.’

She fought her way back onto her stomach, not wishing to incur any further injury. What she had really wanted to do was make one of them snap, in the hope that they would kill her before her execution.

#

The journey to Hyde Park was coming to its end. The guards readied their prisoner for disembarkation on arrival. The crowds had already begun gathering in the distance to witness the spectacle of a high profile execution. She listened to them as they chanted faintly in the distance. She couldn’t make out what they were chanting, but it couldn’t be anything nice; they sounded like they were baying for blood.

‘Hear that, Scarsberg? That’s for you, that is.’ the lead guard sneered. ‘I have another surprise, a special treat for your birthday.’ he paused.

Her eyes widened in horror, her mind frantically wondering what could be worse than being burnt alive.

‘Your sentence has been changed slightly. You are now going to face the punishment for high treason.’

Miriam knew what that meant. There was only one punishment for high treason—and that was to be hung, drawn and quartered. The current government favoured medieval execution techniques over more lenient forms of punishment. She would be the first female to have to go through the painful procedure, and it wouldn’t be the quick death she had desired.

The van came to a standstill just beyond the crowd of people, the chanting even louder now. She stared at the rear of the van as two of the guards gripped her underarms, ready to lift when the doors swung open. The third guard stood behind her, ready to lift her feet off the floor. She would be carried out the same way they had carried her in. She could hear the words of the chant now, and it wasn’t what she expected: it was a defiant chant aimed at the government, and not at her. The people would regard her as a martyr after this day, and the chant reflected that.

‘Down with the government! Free Miriam Scarsberg!’ was the chant, and the patrolmen policing the event could only stand and listen; the crowd outnumbered them ten to one.

The doors to the van were finally opened and a bright light shone through, blinding Miriam momentarily. She tried to adjust her eyes to the brilliant sunlight as she was lifted out of the van by the three guards charged with taking her to her death.

The crowd roared to life upon seeing her, cheering for her as she was taken towards the stage. This encouraged her to make the guards’ job difficult, and she struggled with every ounce of energy she had left. The journey from the van to the stage was proving to be the single most exhausting trip that the guards had ever made, and the crowd screamed with every jerky movement that she provided. They were enjoying watching the guards struggle.

#

Miriam was faced with two pieces of thick rope: one, a noose attached to a pulley, and the other attached to the floor. She was placed on the stage for the first phase of her execution. To her left was a wooden table with restraints in each corner. It would be used to administer the second phase, as well as the third.

One of the guards stood behind her, unlacing the leather face mask that had prevented her from speaking or biting. The things she wanted to say on the journey to Hyde Park began to bubble to the surface. In one foul-mouthed sentence she said what she needed to say. The guard was beginning to regret taking the face mask off, and promptly placed it back on before turning her around to face the onlookers. She scoured the awestruck crowd, listening to their chants and drinking them in.

Her eyes widened as she recognised some of the faces in the crowd. John, Oscar and the flock of women and children in his charge had made it to London safely. He had heard about the execution from one of his colleagues during a checking-in phone call. It was he who had started the chanting, getting the crowd on her side.
Did he have a rescue plan? Would she be spared from this barbaric form of execution?
It was too late for the others—they had already been dealt with. Plumes of smoke rose in the distance from another point of execution. The wind carried the smell of burning flesh.