Chapter 19 - Broken

Ahahahaaaaah!!!

Noooooo!!! Please!!! 

Whore!!! 

Bitch!!!

The sounds from the abyss. Louder, harsher, more desperate with every cry... the devil’s song. 

Bang! Slap! 

The blows rain down, growing in force. I hear a kind of weeping I have never heard before. It is the cry of one staring death in the face.

The corridor stretches ever longer, the lamp shrinking, retreating into the distance. Sweat pours down my temples, trickling.

And then I hear it too, on the opposite side of my room: the wail of a final torment. Faint, but unmistakable. My Mwinda. I press my ear to the wall to catch it better.

“No… begging… don’t… please!!!”

“Shht! It’s only a game… we’re just having a bit of fun…” 

“No!!! Please!!! No!!!”

I cannot bear it any longer. I cannot endure. I fling the door open with violence. There is no turning back now.

What I see staggers me. Yes, I knew what was happening, but nothing prepared me for the shock of finding Louis, trousers round his ankles, about to force himself between the girl’s legs. Yet he is even more staggered than I am, staring straight at me with swollen, bloodshot eyes, vacant, senseless. His mouth gapes, but for a moment no sound emerges.

“What the…?” he mutters.

“What has possessed you?” I hiss. He doesn’t answer, just stares at me, as though I were his mother catching him with his first girl in the hayloft. “Is this how you were taught to behave? To rape innocent girls?”

“Oh, calm down!” he shoots back. “I’m not raping anyone here…”

 “Oh really? Do you think that girl is enjoying herself?” 

“It’s just a harmless game… a…”

He cannot finish. He looks like a fool, his face flushed red, eyes and mouth gaping wide, trousers resting on his feet, exposing a shrivelled cock beneath his shirt.

“Look at yourself, Louis! Just look at yourself! What has become of you?”

He drops his gaze, fumbling to pull his breeches back up. Mwinda has curled into the corner of the bunk, shrinking, hoping her dark skin will let her disappear into the wall itself.

“Nothing happened here… nothing, you hear?” Louis straightens, trying to regain composure. 

“Nothing? You call this nothing? Look at her!” I point at Mwinda. “You think she feels all right? That she’s having fun? Just look at her!!!”

Louis glances at the terrified girl. His red curls stick out in all directions, his moustache dripping with sweat. Then his gaze falls once more.

“But she’s only…” he whispers.

“An animal? Is that what you believe?”

“They’re not like us! They’re not!”

“So you think they don’t feel as we do? They don’t laugh as we do? They don’t speak as we do? They don’t feel pain as we do?” 

“No… it’s… different…” he persists, unwilling to lose face. But in his heart he already knows he is wrong.

“Louis… what we are doing is wrong,” I say, placing my hands on his shoulders. “We swore to protect the weak. This is not protection.”

“What would you know?” he suddenly screams in my face, shaking off my hands. “You’ve always been the favoured one! The instructor’s pet who always got what he wanted!”

“What? How dare you…” I gasp, stunned.

“Yes! Normally you’d never even have been admitted to the academy!”

“Oh really? And why not?” I demand furiously. “Go on! Courage! Say it!!!” 

“Because you’re…”

He stops.

“Well, you bastard, what are you waiting for? Say it!!!”

“Because you’re…”

“A bloody little Fleming? Is that what you meant, you bastard? Is it?” 

“The officer's academy is for francophones only! All right, you speak French, and well, but you’re still…”

I stare into his eyes, though not for long because he lowers them again.

“So you mean I too am an animal, because I am Flemish?” I ask calmly.

“No… forgive me… I didn’t mean…”

“It’s nothing. I forgive you. I heard it enough throughout our schooling, it no longer touches me. I only hope I have proved them all wrong.”

“Well…” he mutters.

“Don’t forget that I was so ‘privileged’ that it was I who had to cut that poor man’s hand off tonight, not you!”

Now he bows his head too. Shame engulfs him. Part of me wishes to embrace him, but the gulf between us is still too wide. I see before me Louis, hurling severed hands at bats in the tree for sport.

“Forgive me…,” he says, and that’s enough for me. He sounds sincere enough.

Iiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Noooooooooooooooo!!!

A piercing shriek, far louder and more dreadful than any of the others, suddenly tears through the other side of the barracks. I rush back into the corridor, Louis right behind me. Doors open all along the passageway as the sound was truly unbearable. It came from the far end, from Commander Rom’s room. I go to look, with Louis and Second Lieutenant Bourgeois close at my heels. Engineer Christensen and two others join us, and to my surprise Captain Roger’s door also opens. The captain steps out bare-chested, wearing an expression of calm, as though to ask us why we’re making such a fuss. It was only a scream.

We gather in front of the commander’s quarters, where silence now reigns. My knuckles rap anxiously at the door.

“Commander? Are you all right?” I call out. “Commander?”

Then he opens the door himself, utterly untroubled, lighting a cigarette.

“What’s all this commotion?” he asks. By now the major has joined us, and we let him pass.

“What happened?” the major demands.

“Oh, nothing,” the commander replies coolly, blowing smoke towards the ceiling. “I think I broke her, eheheh!”

Broke what? We all glance inside, and I curse myself for looking. There, sprawled across the floor in a pool of her own blood, lies the lifeless body of the girl unlucky enough to be chosen as the commander’s bedfellow that night. Her corpse is twisted at an unnatural angle and, to my horror, the commander is right. She is broken. Her eyes remain frozen in terror, staring upwards, and her mouth is still open around her final scream.

“What do you think?” the commander goes on. “I might cut off her head and stick it on one of the posts round my flowerbed, as a decoration.”

The major says nothing more and withdraws to his room, as though nothing at all had happened. But I can’t. I need to get out of here… my head is spinning. Pink spots are dancing before my eyes, my skull feels cold as ice, sweat pours from me. The strength drains from my legs… I have to escape! Now!

I bolt outside, holding myself together just long enough to clear the hut, before I collapse onto my knees and vomit everything, bile included. My stomach burns with agony but I cannot stop. Consciousness threatens to desert me, so I keep my head low. I mustn’t collapse here, not now. To my relief I am not the only one. Baby-face Bourgeois is retching just a few steps away, and Christensen the engineer is hunched at my side, bent double, legs spread.

“My God… oh my God…” he mutters.

After a few minutes warmth returns to my face and I manage to rise, unsteadily. The world still spins, but I gaze into the black distance beneath the glittering carpet of a million stars. The cool night wind blows pleasantly across my brow. Inside the barracks there is confusion aplenty, but I will not turn round to see what’s happening. I already know. Several FP guards have gone in to carry away what remains of the poor girl, with or without her head… I don’t want to know. I hear the coarse growl of Sergeant Fiévez among the onlookers. And then he starts laughing. Actually laughing!

“Clean it up properly!” comes the commander’s rasping order.

I retreat into philosophy, thoughts that distract me from a reality I cannot accept. The stars gleam even more sharply as my eyes grow accustomed to the dark, and suddenly I catch sight of a shadow leaning against one of the posts at the far end of the barracks. A small man, slumped there. When I draw closer, I recognise Mr. Harris. I hadn’t seen him again since breakfast that morning. He sits rigid against the post, just as he had yesterday at the station, shaking as though with a raging fever. I don’t recall seeing him in the commander’s room, but clearly he too witnessed the unspeakable. I sit down beside him. I wish I could offer him something strong to drink, but there’s no alcohol here apart from the major’s private whisky or the crates of beer shipped from Belgium, neither of which are for free use. There’s only the banana beer the locals brew, which everyone has warned me to avoid. All the same, I could use a stiff drink myself.

“A foul night…” Mr Harris mutters in English. “A bloody foul night…”

I nod. He’s absolutely right.

“What a bloody foul night indeed…” he continues.

His voice is strange, unnaturally flat. I try to peer into his face, though it’s nearly impossible in starlight, and something unsettles me. It’s as if Mr. Harris has lost his wits.

“Are you all right, sir?” I ask.

“A foul… foul… night…” he keeps repeating. He looks wretched.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” I try. “Do you need help?”

He suddenly stops mumbling and turns his head towards me. I can’t see him, but I can feel his eyes staring wide. He’s unravelling.

“Help?” he whispers.

“Yes, sir… it seems to me you’re not at all well.”

He turns back towards the horizon. Then, to my surprise, he begins to sob. First quietly, then aloud. His whole body shakes with it. I cannot remember ever seeing a grown man cry like this, like a child. We are taught that a man must be strong, that emotion is weakness, a privilege only women — lacking men’s physical and emotional strength — are allowed. But this small man cannot be strong any longer. He’s reached his breaking point, forced to abandon the rules society lays upon us. I feel deep sorrow for him and I realise that I too might break. I place my hand upon his frail shoulder, to let him know he is not alone. He doesn’t react, but I think he feels it all the same, if any part of him is still lucid.

“Sir, I know there’s nothing I can say that will make you feel better. I too am revolted by this tragedy, perhaps even more by the indifference and yes, the perverse delight these men take in making the weak suffer… innocent women who die for amusement, as though they were filthy beasts incapable of pain…”

I stop for a moment, seeking the right words. Then continue.

“I cannot in any way reconcile this with my human conscience. But we must be strong. You must be strong too, sir.”

He ceases weeping and nods.

“Yes, I know,” he answers suddenly. “I don’t know how to thank you for your gentlemanly words.”

“There’s no need. I only wanted you to know… you’re not alone.”

He clasps my hand, firmly, while meeting my gaze once more.

“Nor are you, Lieutenant.”

His words startle me. I would never have thought him capable of such courage, especially not after the collapse he just endured. Honestly, I had feared he was losing his mind. Was it all an act? Or did my words truly pull him back from the depths of madness? One thing I do know: he meant what he said. I no longer feel alone this night. A night that will indeed be a bloody foul night.