Paradise
A Victorian Adventure
By Grendel Butler
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Grendel Butler
Published by Strict Publishing International
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Briggs’ Story
An error at the Colonial Office – 1885
Arthur Briggs was asleep in his room at the Colonial Office when the messenger’s head popped round the door.
“Wakey-wakey!”
“Go away, Smithers!” he yawned.
“Message for you, sir.”
“Then chuck it in the bin!”
Smithers sucked his teeth hard enough to pull them out by the roots and shook his head. “Can’t do that, Mr Briggs,” he said loftily. “More than me job’s worth. This one’s from Sir Digby.”
Briggs leapt out of his chair in such a fright that he lost his balance and fell sprawling to the floor. “Sir Digby? Bloody hell!” He swallowed and peered gingerly round the corner of the desk at Smithers’ highly polished boots and his razor-sharp trouser creases, for he had been a spit-and-polish army NCO. “Do you know what it’s about, Smithers?”
“Can’t say, Mr Briggs,” the messenger smirked, truculently slapping the envelope onto the desktop. “You’d better read it, ’adn’t you, sir!” With that, he turned smartly and marched from the office.
Briggs re-seated himself and stared hard at the envelope lying innocently on the otherwise empty desktop. It was addressed by hand to Mr Arthur Briggs. He was sure he was the only Arthur Briggs at the Colonial Office, so it could be for no one else. He turned it round a few times at arm’s length as though it were an unexploded bomb, which in many ways it might be, though it looked innocuous enough. Had he committed some dreadful faux pas, Sir Digby would have delegated his punishment to an underling. God knows, he had legions of them, but why should the undersecretary write to him directly? His hands trembled as he tore open the envelope.
My dear Briggs,
I never realized you were connected to the Briggs of Dorset. First-rate people and all that. Anyway, I met Bunny Briggs at the club last night. He mentioned your name – can’t think why – never mind. Seemed to remember you. Had the feeling you were first rate and one of the chaps. So, having discovered you’re one of us, so to speak, I feel I ought to do something for you – spot of promotion and all that. Why don’t you pop along at 11 o’clock and we’ll have a glass or two and a little chat?
Yours etc.
Digby Dullervan-Dust, Bart
Undersecretary for the Colonies
Briggs blinked. So, Sir Digby had been unaware of his connection with the Dorset Briggs! That was no surprise, because he too was unaware of it. He had never heard of them – whoever they were – and he was not exactly sure where Dorset was. Someone had made a thumping error, but one man’s error is another’s opportunity, and opportunities came too rarely at the Colonial Office to be ignored. He glanced at the clock and it already read two minutes to eleven.
“Cripes!”
Furiously dusting his jacket, he flew down six flights of stairs to Sir Digby’s palatial office on the ground floor. A distant clock struck as he rapped the door with trembling knuckles. A manservant wearing a tailcoat and an ingrained sneer opened it, hoisted an eyebrow and glanced at him as though he were a dirty mark on the carpet.
“Your business?”
“I’m Briggs.”
The manservant sniffed and turned to address someone within. “A person calling himself Briggs is loitering outside, Sir Digby.”
“Briggs? Briggs? Who the blazes is - ? Ah! That Briggs! Show him in, man! Show him in!”
The manservant stood to one side and sketched a bow, though his sneer remained fixed. Briggs entered to find Sir Digby Dullervan-Dust lying in a deeply buttoned leather chair behind a desk the size of a working man’s cottage. He was small but overweight, with a florid complexion and a large pair of white Earl-of-Shaftsbury whiskers. A large crystal goblet of brandy was the sole occupant of his desk and a large cheroot protruded almost vertically from his upturned mouth.
“Ah! Briggs. Good man. Take a pew. Sneath?”
The manservant bowed fluidly and sneered once more.
“A drink for Mr Briggs. Nothing too strong, mind. Nothing too large. Office hours – what?” He took a swig from his large brandy glass and eyed Briggs rheumily for several seconds. “So, you’re the feller who’s related to Bunny Briggs of Devon!”
“Dorset, Sir Digby, sir,” simpered Briggs, suspecting a trap.
Sir Digby waved a flabby hand. “Dorset… Devon… all the same, my boy. Never been to either – wherever they are – though I suppose you have if ye’re related to Bunny.”
“Not for a great many years,” lied Briggs, treading carefully. “I vaguely recall a possible visit as a very small child, though I can’t swear to it. And I vaguely recall my father mentioning Dorset once – in a very vague sort of way.”
Sir Digby’s eyes widened a fraction. “I say! First-rate answer. Absolutely first rate. Good man.”
“Beg pardon, Sir Digby, sir?” queried Briggs, who had lost his superior’s drift.
“I said, first rate answer.” Sir Digby took another swig from his large brandy glass. “The vagueness, m’ boy. Top hole! Y ’re a born official. Impenetrable vagueness is required of a colonial administrator, y’ know. If he can’t avoid giving an opinion, he makes it so vague that no one can quote it against him. When he negotiates treaties with natives, he makes them so vague that he can crawl out of them at will. He makes his yeses so vague they might be nos, and his nos so vague they might be yeses. Understand?”
“Vaguely,” said Briggs.
Sir Digby laid down his large cheroot and his rheumy eyes regarded Briggs with an expression approaching awe. “By Jove! Good answer! First rate! Now, concerning Bunny. Y ’re his relation, so that makes you one of us – vaguely speaking – and as such you deserve a spot of promotion. More money – bugger all actual work – that sort of thing. I thought of moving you down a couple of floors. After all, we can’t have Bunny’s relations rotting up in the roof, can we! Not quite the ticket and all that. However…” He paused dramatically and his voice dropped a shade. “I now perceive what an exceptionally vague administrative brain you have. I’m thinking that perhaps more is required. A man of your admirable vagueness deserves better than a mere office move.”
Briggs perched anxiously on the edge of his seat as Sir Digby’s hand slid lazily into a desk drawer and withdrew a slim folder. He opened it and perused it awhile.
“Ever heard of the Paradise Islands, m’ boy?” he drawled, glancing up sketchily.
“Maybe,” said Briggs cautiously, though the name was already conjuring romantic images in his mind.
“By Jove! Good answer! No flies on you, m’ boy.”
Briggs preened. “So where exactly are they, Sir Digby?”
“Capital question. First rate! No idea! Point is, the governor got himself eaten by a shark – occupational hazard I suppose – so we need to replace him and - ”
Briggs leapt up in excitement. “Governor!”
“Now, now, m’ boy,” Sir Digby smiled indulgently and waved him back into his seat. “Don’t get too excited! First, let me tell you vaguely what the job entails!”
Consulting his folder, he informed Briggs that the Paradise Islands lay in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands – though neither of them knew where they were either. They housed two prisons, one for men and one for women, though Sir Digby gave no further details about these, saying vaguely that they were a Home Office matter and did not concern the Colonial Office. There was a small garrison, and supply ships called occasionally. Mostly, he dwelt on sun, palm trees, the warm tropical seas and other attractions.
“Think of dusky native girls dancing by moonlight under the palm trees, m’ boy. Grass skirts, no drawers, and nothing up top. And they only wear that much on ceremonial occasions. The rest of the time they go around completely starkers – not a solitary stitch, you understand. They have no sense whatsoever of propriety or virtue, and they’re generous to a fault. At least, I vaguely remember hearing so.” He winked hugely. “Any red-blooded young chap would give his hind teeth for a job like that, m’ boy. Interested?”
Briggs licked his lips and crossed his legs to hide the embarrassing swelling behind his fly buttons. “Vaguely,” he said as casually as he could manage.
Sir Digby roared with laughter. “By Jove! First-rate answer! You were born for the job, m’ boy. Born for it.”
He detailed the terms while Briggs’ mouth fell progressively open. They would quadruple his salary, give him an honorary rank equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel, house, clothe, feed, and water him free, provide servants, and award him a substantial pension. The term was four years. On his recall, he would retain his rank and status, and the Colonial Office would award him a senior post in London – on the first floor at the very least. Meanwhile, the dusky naked maidens would provide his nightly entertainment – or so Sir Digby’s many sly winks persuaded him.
He accepted in the vaguest terms, which impressed Sir Digby no end. He struggled out of his deep-buttoned chair, slapped Briggs on the back and told him what a fine upstanding fellow he was. Briggs thought it needful to mumble some regulation tosh about Duty, Queen and Country. This impressed Sir Digby so much that he choked on his cheroot and wiped his eye as he showed his rising star to the door – personally.
Into the Sunrise
That night, Briggs looked up the Paradise Islands in his school atlas. He was not greatly surprised when he drew a blank. The atlas was small and twenty years old. The maps of the Pacific were cursory and detailed only a few important islands such as Fiji and Hawaii. So, next day, he popped into the British Museum Library and took down the largest and most up-to-date atlas he found there. Another blank! He then consulted the largest and most up-to-date worldwide gazetteer, but that made no mention of the Paradise Islands either. He wondered if they were officially listed under another name, but an erudite-looking librarian informed him that they were more likely to be recent acquisitions.
“Atlases and gazetteers take many years to compile,” he said with withering superiority. “They’re always out of date. If we annexed these islands recently, no atlas will show them yet. The empire is expanding too fast for our cartographers, and we’re renaming places willy-nilly. Why, even the Colonial Office can’t keep track of our conquests, annexations, and protectorates, or tell you where most of them are.”
Briggs chuckled at this. Show a roomful of Colonial Office clerks a world map and they would struggle to find Great Britain on it. He considered asking Sir Digby how to investigate the idyllically named islands that were to be his home for four years, but all the grandees had taken off shooting, fishing and attending society balls, so none was on hand to approach. This did not surprise him either. The senior echelons attended the office only rarely, having many more important things to do, like shooting, fishing, and attending society balls. Therefore, he abandoned his quest and settled as contentedly as he could to await his departure for the Paradise Islands.
He was glad about the dusky native girls, for the posting would otherwise pose a problem. Like most young men, he had a highly developed libido, but social mores prohibited him from casually gratifying it with girls of his acquaintance. Gratification by marriage was even trickier. The girl must be of the right type, his parents must approve her and hers must approve him. This left the delicate question of income. Briggs had rubbed along well enough at the Colonial Office, but rubbing along was not good enough. The father of any girl his family might deem suitable would expect better than that. He had sometimes despaired of promotion and marriage, but this new posting transformed his prospects.
On reflection, he decided against grabbing a quick wife and dragging her off to the Pacific. She might die in the tropics (young Englishwomen had an annoying habit of doing this) and she would probably not approve of her husband consorting with the dusky native girls, who sounded rather more fun than a prim English wife did. Therefore, he deferred marriage, confident that when he returned trailing imperial glory in his wake, acceptable fathers would queue to fling their daughters at his feet.
Meanwhile, he slaked his lust in brothels. He had used them ever since moving to London. As he earned an adequate bachelor salary and was unencumbered with family commitments, he frequented the better class houses around St John’s Wood. They were expensive, but the girls were more attractive and also cleaner. Cleanliness was important as disease riddled the street whores in those days, and you had to be careful where you stuck your member if you wanted to avoid heavy doses of the pox.
The girls in the better-class houses offered every imaginable variety of sexual delight at appropriate rates, but Briggs’ interests took a turn when a friend introduced him to the Houses of Correction. Over the previous two years, he had frequented Mrs Welter and her Naughty Nieces, and he celebrated his promotion by returning there to thrash the living daylights out of them. Thrashing was his chief delight. He dipped his wick too, but he preferred a woman to warm his nether regions with her red-hot bottom while he poked her from behind. The nieces readily obliged his little quirk, so he thrashed them first and poked them afterwards.
He wondered what the dusky native girls would be like to thrash. He assumed their bottoms would be available. He was an Englishman, so no dusky native girl would deny him so reasonable a request, and as governor he would have first pick of the most inviting bottoms. What delights would they offer for a handful of pretty beads, let alone a silver sixpence? His imagination exploded and he gleefully pictured acres of nubile females writhing beneath a tropical moon while he wandered among them whipping a plump, wriggling bottom here, a pair of ripe quivering breasts there, and getting stuck into whichever juicy hole took his fancy whenever he fancied it.
* * * * *
Time passed, for urgency is a relative term in the Colonial Office. Meanwhile, he thought of nothing but acres of nubile flesh. What would the native girls look like? Were they beautiful, or merely ready, willing, and able? He discreetly questioned his friends, and to a man they called him the luckiest dog alive, telling me that the south-sea women were famously beautiful, generously proportioned and as randy as monkeys. His mouth watered.
Despite his burgeoning lust, he had to wait two long months for his departure date. He spent Christmas with his family, who were overjoyed at his promotion and started to talk excitedly about prospective fiancées. While he was there, he enquired about possible family connections with Dorset. Again, he drew a blank. His father was unaware of any living or dead relation there; neither was he sure where Dorset was.
At the end of January, Briggs visited Mrs Welter and her Naughty Nieces for the last time and gave all the girls an extra sound thrashing before quenching his manly lusts in their hot little holes, confident that his next thrash and poke would be even tastier and much less expensive.
His final duty was to thank Sir Digby, who had briefly returned from his important social engagements. Briggs had already thanked him several times, but you can never be too creepy in the Colonial Office, so he did it again.
“Don’t thank me, m’ boy,” rumbled Sir Digby, taking a slurp from his huge brandy glass. “Thank Bunny. I presume y’ ve thanked him.”
“Vaguely, Sir Digby, sir,” cringed Briggs, recalling that he had included this mysterious person nightly in his prayers.
“By Jove! Good answer! Keep it vague, m’ boy. The vaguer the better. Good luck!”
* * * * *
Briggs left Southampton on a grey February morning, on a passenger steamer bound for Australia. From there, he took a smaller steamer to Fiji, where he picked up the Paradise Islands’ supply ship. The captain informed him that he was carrying Champagne to replenish the cellar of Sir Algernon Grisleigh-Paget, the Paradise Islands’ garrison commander and Superintendent of its main penal establishment. Of course, everyone had heard of Sir Algernon’s imperial exploits in India, Africa and Afghanistan. It would be an honour to meet him, to serve with him, even to tread ground made hallowed by his boot prints, or so Briggs thought at the time.
They assigned him a cabin the size of a working man’s privy, smelling of cod liver oil and drains. For three days they ploughed northeast in a heavy swell through the vast watery wastes of the Pacific. When at last the swell calmed and the sun smiled, Briggs ventured on deck to drink the perfume of those distant coral seas. London’s chills and fogs seemed a world away, and he thanked God and Bunny Briggs for his good fortune. A week out from Fiji, he saw a blue smudge dead ahead that resolved into an island with several domed peaks hanging mysteriously from a thin skein of pink clouds. He caught his breath. The sun’s golden eye was rising between the peaks, the clouds turned from pink to gold to white and the sea shone like treasure trove. The effect was magical.
“What’s that?” he asked one of the sailors, pointing ahead.
“Paradise,” the sailor replied, and he spat over the side.
“Paradise?” The sun’s ray spilled over its hillsides. Briggs saw a line of succulent green and, below it, a strand of white where waves broke silently on a distant coral shore. He was too far away to see the native girls he was sure were dancing naked under the palm trees, waiting to present their quivering bottoms and open their legs to him. His member quivered. A flight of brightly coloured birds flew overhead, turned tail and flew back to the island. If ever a place was aptly named, this one was.
The sailor rolled his eyes. “Cor! Paradise! Some fucker had a sense of humour.”
Briggs dimly heard the irony in the man’s voice but he ignored it, for an ill-bred sailor is far below a colonial governor’s notice. Besides, he was dreaming of wobbling bottoms, writhing under his stern justice, of quivering breasts and succulent wet suits, all offered willingly for his pleasure. He would be happy for the next four years.
Paradise indeed!
General Grisleigh-Paget
The man screamed like a soul burning in hell, but General Grisleigh-Paget appeared not to hear him.
“Typical punishment compound,” he drawled as he strutted through the prison on Briggs’ first full day in the Paradise Islands. “Nothing abnormal. All the usual kit: stocks, posts, treadmills and gallows. All the usual sorts of things goin’ on.”
The sun beat down from an unblemished sky, and more brightly coloured birds littered the treetops above the blockhouses. Beyond the perimeter wall, warm tropical waves broke on a white coral and shell beach fringed with swaying palm trees. The birds screeched and scattered as the man screamed again under the whip’s rhythmical slashing. He hung from the post by his wrists. The balls of his feet just touched the ground and he danced from one to the other in a puddle of his own urine, and he twisted and screamed under the merciless lash.
Briggs felt sick. He had walloped Mrs Welter’s Naughty Nieces until they squealed, but that was different. He had never witnessed anything like this in his life.
“Why in God’s name is the man naked?” he blurted.
“Blood and piss rots fabric,” the general replied serenely, brushing his iron-grey handlebar moustache out of his mouth. “We’ve better things to ferry here on the supply ship than prison loincloths – my champers, for one. Ha!” He laughed and clapped Briggs on the back. “We’ll have a glass in a mo. What d’yer say? Cool yer down.”
Still the lacerated thing twisted at the whipping post. Briggs twitched and looked away. No Englishman should have to endure that, no matter what his crime. He had never dreamed that such things could happen in a British-run prison.
The whip fell silent. Despite the victim’s soft whimpering, Briggs heard again the blue and gold-tipped rollers breaking like crusty bread on the deep fringe of coral sand beyond. A gust of sea breeze ruffled the Union flag overhead, and for a moment the air smelled clean.
“Sergeant!” roared the general. “Give the bloody man another twenty-five to shut him up! Snivelling like a damned girl!”
At the whipping post, the sergeant snapped smartly to attention. “Sah!” He turned to resume the dreadful scourging.
Briggs cringed, but there was nowhere to hide his eyes. Suffering men surrounded him. Behind, six heavy treadmills groaned, a naked man manacled to each. Guards with whips stood over them. They straightened and looked alert as General Grisleigh-Paget turned their way. As they watched, one of the labouring men missed his footing and stumbled heavily.
The general’s arm shot out like a lance. “Flog that man!”
A guard snapped to attention. “Sah!” He uncoiled his whip, and the fallen man jerked and screamed under a tirade of merciless blows.
“Give him fifty!”
“Sah!”
Fifty! Dear God! Briggs had read about Nelson’s navy as a boy, and he had devoured the adventure stories of Captain Marryat and others. He thought he knew all there was to know about flogging at the grating, but he had never realised that men could squeal like this. Mrs Welter’s Naughty Nieces had squealed when he spanked them, but differently. This was unnatural and obscene. “God, the awful noise!” he groaned, cupping his hands over his ears.
“Ballocks!” drawled the general in the blandest military fashion. “A quiet prison is a slack prison. Yer’ll learn. In a month yer’ll see things my way.” He clapped Briggs good-naturedly on the back. “Let’s get that drink. I’m as dry as a prisoner’s piss pot.”
The simile was apt, for the heat was ferocious yet there were no water butts for the prisoners. “Is water so scarce?” Briggs asked.
“Irrelevant,” drawled the general. “This isn’t Claridges Hotel, yer know. This scum are here for punishment, and they outnumber us three to one. Rule one: keep ’em exhausted, underfed, and thirsty. Rule two: keep ’em flogged. That way they’re too bloody weak to try anything. And if they do…” He pointed grimly to a gallows with enough room for six men. “That’s what awaits any vermin who try anything.” His eyes narrowed. “And I do it the slow way. I make the bastards dance on air for the full half hour. And I give them regular demonstrations, just so they know it.”
Probably a welcome release even so, Briggs thought. He did not approve of flogging men. It was unmanly and degraded the executor as well as the victim. Of course, natives did not count, but no one should flog a white man without a bloody good reason, and never an Englishman, regardless of his social class. Women were another matter. It was perfectly acceptable to thrash their bottoms and thighs, even their tits now and then, but within reasonable limits. Mrs Welter had imposed limits, of course: the cane, the strap, or the tawse, and never more than a dozen strokes on any one girl during a session – but that was beside the point. No gentleman after a bit of fun wanted to flog a woman half to death as these poor devils were flogged.
* * * * *
The general stamped into the relative cool of his office, threw his pith helmet into a corner and stripped off his tunic. “Got to keep up appearances in front of the troops, yer know,” he grumbled. “Otherwise they’ll get slack and I’ll have to flog ’em too. And I haven’t enough to do the job properly.” He marched to his drinks table, the underarms and back of his khaki shirt sodden with sweat. The smell of it spiked the air, reminding Briggs of the stench of blood and piss outside. He brushed his moustache out of his mouth with the back of his hand. “So what’s yer poison? Champers? Hope so. Got bugger all else.”
Briggs dutifully accepted, and collapsed, exhausted, into a canvas chair.
“So what do the prisoners do here?” he enquired a few moments later as they sipped their cool champagne.
The general’s large moustache twitched and he blinked. “Do?”
“Well, they work, surely? They must do something.”
Grisleigh-Paget’s eyes popped. “They do as they’re bloody well told – that’s what they do, Briggs. Otherwise they go to the whipping post, the treadmill or the gallows. Between their regular punishments, they make new treadmills, new whipping posts and new gallows. We wear them out regularly – as you might imagine.” He chuckled at his own joke and refreshed Briggs’ glass.
Judging by the way his eyes sparkled, the general enjoyed his work, and Briggs supposed that his own attitudes might harden with time. War brutalizes, and daily exposure to the cruelties of this dreadful prison would brutalize too, but he doubted they would ever make a Grisleigh-Paget of him. He looked at the general, the tall upstanding hero of the empire, whose fearsome reputation had been worth a dozen crack regiments in India; the man who had quelled seventeen tribal rebellions in four years during his service in Africa. Briggs had thought him a lion. Now he saw a petty tyrant who enjoyed brutalising men who could not fight back. He wondered if there was any substance at all to the man’s dazzling reputation.
“So what are my duties, general?” he enquired coldly.
“Duties?” The general blanked as though his companion had spoken some unfathomable heathen tongue. “Duties, Briggs?”
“Well, I’m supposed to be governor. I must have duties.”
“Why, for God’s sake? I look after this pisshole, and the bloody Trefusis woman looks after the other one. There’s nothing else.”
Briggs was perplexed. “Then why send me here?”
“Why?” The general squinted at Briggs as though he were deranged. “Because the rules say that Crown colonies must have governors. It’s the way it’s done. Yer can’t run an empire without them, whether they actually do anything or not.”
“But isn’t it rather silly to have them and keep them idle?”
“Can’t think why?” The general looked seriously concerned for Briggs’ sanity now. “England’s full of idle people. It’s the enlightened British culture we’re imposing on the world. The vermin work themselves to death so the select few need do nothing. Surely you’re aware of this?”
Briggs laughed nervously. “Perhaps I never expected to be one of the lucky select few.”
“Then rejoice in your good fortune, my dear fellow.” The general refilled his glass. “So, how will you pass all your free time?”
Briggs scratched his head. “Well, I write, and I sketch.”
The bottle wobbled, spilling champagne on the floor. “Sketch, Briggs? Sketch?”
“Well yes. I paint too, in water colours and oils.”
The general spluttered. “Water colours?”
“Well, yes. I - ”
“Dear God, man! Ye’re not some sort of shirt lifter, are you?”
Briggs slammed his glass down, breaking the stem. “How dare you, sir! I’ll have you know that I came out here to… to - ”
“Ravish naked dusky maidens?” sniggered Grisleigh-Paget, who seemed impervious to another’s outrage. “That’s why they usually come. Silly sods!”
Briggs did not quite understand what he meant. Surely there was nothing silly about wanting to ravish naked women, but he was in no mood to invite more insult. “Actually, I want to paint them,” he said coldly, deeming it wise to present his robust heterosexual credentials all the same. “I hear these south-sea native women are dashed beautiful,” he added with a sly wink
“Perhaps they are,” Grisleigh-Paget blinked at him. “But – good God, man – didn’t they tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“There are no natives here, Briggs.”
“What?”
“Not any more, at least. There might have been once but God knows what happened to the blighters. No easy tit and pussy here, old man. Apart from a handful of ancient oriental servants, the only women on Paradise are up at the Bridewell, as we call it.”
“Bridewell?”
“The women’s prison up the coast, but you won’t get your end in there. The bloody Trefusis woman will see that you don’t.”
“The bloody what?”
“The Superintendent there, one Miss Trefusis. They shouldn’t have let that one out of the dogs’ home! No point looking for tit and pussy up there. She’ll rip yer nuts off, stuff ‘em in yer mouth and make yer chew thoroughly.”
Briggs slumped in his chair. No women? His dreams crumbled to ashes. No naked and generous women? He cursed Sir Digby for his vagueness, and he cursed himself as a fool for having lapped up his drivel without making bloody sure he knew what he was coming to. He did not yet suspect that Sir Digby had played him for a booby. But no available women? How could that be? He was crushed. How would he survive four years without a woman? He was as much a prisoner under torture as the poor devils outside.
Seeing his disappointment, the general softened and clapped him gently on the arm. “Look, forget what I said about the shirt-lifting. Y ’re obviously not one of those. Just go easy on the watercolours – that’s all I’m saying. The troops might get the wrong idea about that. I dare say oils aren’t so bad – got more of a masculine feel to them. But water colours?”
* * * * *
Briggs marched angrily from the prison compound. He scarcely noticed the men writhing at the whipping posts or the dripping thing the soldiers were carrying out for the sharks. He no longer smelled the blood, the sweat and the stench of the open latrine. All his lust-filled dreams of lithe maidens wriggling pleasurably in his bed and under his whip shattered, and nothing lay before him but an Arctic sea of grey abstinence.
He was also wobbly from the champagne. In the wake of his crushing disappointment, he had imbibed too much of it. The front gate wavered as he passed through it. The breaking waves seemed closer than before, and the sun’s heat cauterised his back. He tugged at his collar, gasped for breath, stumbled forward and abruptly collapsed onto his hands and knees. In full sight of the soldiers, he vomited on the sun-baked ground.
Doctor Chivers
“Feeling better?”
“Yes, thank you, doctor. Much better.”
A cool hand felt Briggs’ brow as he reclined in a canvas chair in the deep shade of his veranda. Beyond, ferns and palm trees swept down to the unblemished beach and the lapping sea. The sun was sinking into a vague watery horizon, the night insects were awake, and the evening softened him with cooling balms. It was impossible to believe that anything but peace could abide in the Paradise Islands.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with you – just the effects of too much booze and too much unaccustomed sun.”
“And too much bloody outrage.”
Doctor Chivers grinned, poured himself a fourth gin and drowned it in a dash of tonic. “So I take it you’ve met Grisleigh-Paget.”
“The man’s a blackguard.”
“He’s an undiluted bastard. But I’m afraid the empire needs a few, though it doesn’t admit it. So here’s to Paradise!” He raised his glass and downed it in one.
“Paradise!” snorted Briggs, remembering the sailor on the ship.
“Someone had a sense of humour, that’s for sure.” Dr Chivers swayed and dropped into the other canvas chair. Briggs thought him a strange looking fellow for a doctor, with his straggly moustache and silly little chin beard. His ribboned blazer had seen better days. Briggs supposed he wore it as some sort of reminder of the civilisation he had left behind in England. The straw hat that sat on the table next to his glass was battered and somehow he had broken the brim, but Briggs assumed it still served its purpose. Why stand on ceremony in this Godforsaken place?
“So no one told you what goes on here?” the doctor was saying.
“Not a word.”
“But surely they told you there was a prison?”
“Well, Sir Digby said there were a couple but - ”
“Didn’t you wonder why they’re in this pisshole when we have perfectly good ones at home? Didn’t you add two and two and realize what sort of hellhole this place must be?”
Briggs sighed. Sir Digby had seduced him with money, title and colourful tales of naked south-sea women sacrificing their voluptuous bodies to his unbridled lusts under swaying palm trees. The salary was real at least, but there was nothing to spend it on for four years, and the boredom and frustration would drive him insane long before they were up. There were not even the pleasures of Mrs Welter’s Naughty Nieces to look forward to. He had thought himself such a grand fellow for impressing Sir Digby and winning this delectable posting. Fool!
“I never expected this,” he admitted lamely. “How many people back home know the sort of abomination Grisleigh-Paget runs here?”
Chivers shrugged. “Quite a few, I imagine. But it’s bad form to talk about it so they pretend otherwise. We British are very good at pretending – it’s our besetting sin.”
“Even so.”
“Come off it, Briggs! We both know there’s official truth and unofficial truth. Officially, everything here is roses. Unofficially, why do you think they sent Grisleigh-Paget? Of course, if his excesses become public knowledge, some poor sod’s head will have to roll, and it won’t be his – which I fancy is where we come in.” He poured his fifth gin and continued. “You see, a Crown colony must have a resident governor and an English doctor. It’s the rules, and it provides two conveniently choppable heads if the whistle blows and our masters need scapegoats.”
“Merciful heaven!”
“Sole reason we’re here, old boy. Can you think of a better one, when you have no job at all and the prison orderlies do mine?”
“Then why send a monster like Grisleigh-Paget? Why run the risk of dreadful exposure in the first place?”
“Because of the prisoners they keep here – IRBs and Fenians, proto-revolutionaries, followers of Marx and Engels. The government don’t want them ‘infecting’ the prisons at home. Therefore, they quietly ship them here. It’s a small island and they keep shipping them, so they need a means of regularly thinning them out, which is where Grisleigh-Paget comes in.”
Briggs remembered the gallows and the body he had half noticed being carried out for the sharks. “Dear God! Why don’t they just - ”
“Hang them at home? It would be more humane, I agree, and a lot cheaper too. However, we have inconvenient laws, habeas corpus, Magna Carter and a free press. We can’t just string people up willy-nilly when the fancy strikes us. But there are five hundred miles of shark-infested sea between here and the next group of insignificant islands, and we’re a thousand miles from the nearest shipping lane. Hardly anyone knows we’re here at all, and the few who do are persuaded that these tropical climates are devilishly unhealthy.”
“Unhealthy?” A cold finger touched Briggs between his shoulder blades. “Is it really so unhealthy here, Chivers?”
The doctor chuckled. “Apart from Paget’s Pound, it’s a damn sight healthier than most of the slums back home. But the public perception says otherwise.”
“And the Bridewell – the women’s prison? Surely that’s not like this heathen place!”
Chivers shrugged. “No doubt, but I can’t swear to it because Miss Trefusis, won’t allow a man near the place. God! She’s a harridan-and-a-half, though I don’t altogether blame her, considering the scum we have here. Even so, it’s tough on you and me.”
He reached again for the gin bottle, upended it and tapped the bottom a few times to signal that it was empty.
“Lai-Ta!” shouted Briggs. “Lai-Ta! More gin!”
They waited only a few seconds before a floorboard gently squeaked and Lai-Ta, Briggs’ aged servant padded out with a fresh bottle, bowed and handed it silently to the doctor.
Sir Digby had told Briggs that the government would provide servants with the bungalow, and he had persuaded himself that they would be sultry maidens eager to fall into his bed and pleasure him nightly. In the event, there was one servant only, Lai-Ta, an ancient and wizened crone of oriental extraction. Briggs had not yet heard her utter a syllable other than to tell him her name. Chivers looked after her gingerly as she padded quietly back indoor carrying the empty bottle.
“And that’s the other problem with Paradise, by the way – short female rations.”
“None at all, I hear,” chimed Briggs glumly, for neither of them classed Lai-Ta as female rations. She looked ninety, and appeared to be fashioned from well-tanned leather. Poking her would be less fun than poking a worn-out shoe. He shuddered at the thought.
“Except at the Bridewell,” murmured Chivers, unscrewing the top of the new bottle and pouring himself yet another gin. “But you’ll never get past Miss Trefusis. God, she’s a hard piece! She’ll tear your balls off as soon as look at you.”
“And make me chew them.” Briggs shuddered. “Or so Grisleigh-Paget told me.”
“The bastard’s right for once.” Chivers mused awhile. “Even so, they must be as desperate for it as we are.”
“The women prisoners?”
“And the staff. Must be gagging for it. But they’re locked in and we’re locked out. Talk about buggers’ luck!” He gulped his gin and contemplated the empty glass. “I presume they told you none of this before they sent you here?”
“Not a word,” Briggs muttered glumly.
“Me too. They lured me here with tales of dusky maidens, dancing naked by moonlight, willing to do anything for a shiny silver sixpence. Bloody fool I was!”
“Me too.”
“God, I could do with a shag!”
“Me too.”
Meanwhile, down in the prison compound the dreadful screaming resumed. It went through Briggs like a jagged bayonet, and it reminded him horribly of his own mortality. He reached for the gin bottle. “I think I’ll join you, doctor.”
“I thought you might.”
A Dream
For many weeks, Briggs hid in his bungalow. The realisation that he was an expendable political stooge sickened him. All Sir Digby’s avuncular nonsense about vagueness and dusky maidens had been artifice. He wondered if Bunny Briggs really existed. God! What a bloody fool he had been!
They had sent him to The Paradise Islands as a scapegoat if the true nature of Grisleigh-Paget’s appalling regime became public knowledge. At least, Chivers thought so and Briggs had no reason to doubt his logic. He had heard of such practises during his time at the Colonial Office, but he had allowed Sir Digby to beguile him into believing that he was ‘one of the chaps’ and therefore protected. Of course, he was no such thing, merely an expendable clerk. Fool!
This sick realisation of his folly, the awful noises seeping uphill from the prison, and the hopelessness of his situation, drove him steadily to drink. He never knew where all the gin came from, but whatever he demanded Lai-Ta provided. He spent his evenings drinking with Dr Chivers, and his days lying on his bed drinking alone. He had judged Chivers a profound alcoholic when he first met him. Now, counting the empty gin bottles accumulating outside the pantry door, he realised that he would soon sink to the same depth of dependence unless he pulled himself together.
In his sober moments, the prospect terrified him, but how could he avoid it? He reviled the companionship of the garrison, who were the coarsest sort of common soldiery and with whom he had nothing in common. Then, there was the prison itself. Every time the wind blew up from the compound, he heard the crack of the whips and the bloodcurdling screams. He fancied he could smell the sweat and blood, like the stench of death. Every few days, soldiers carried bodies to a flat rock that jutted like a groyne into the sapphire lagoon, and tossed them into the water for the hungry sharks. Thinning out, Chivers called it!
During these weeks, his mind often wandered and he hallucinated. Sometimes he believed that he too was dangling from the whipping post in Grisleigh-Paget’s punishment compound. He screamed as the dreadful whip slashed and slashed and slashed, cutting his back to shreds and laying his bones bare. He writhed and twisted like a mad thing to get away from the merciless lash, but there was no escape. Through his agony, he heard the general’s voice bawling, “Give the bloody man another fifty t’ quieten him! Damned girl!” The dreadful whipping began all over again.
He lapsed into fever. He was vaguely aware of Lai-Ta bending over him, dabbing his forehead with something cool, and saying in a low crooning voice, “I will make you sleep, Ang-mo. Sleep. You must sleep. Drink this and sleep, long and deep.” There was a syrupy taste on his tongue and in his throat. He swallowed. Again he heard Lai-Ta’s low hypnotic voice, “Drink and sleep, Ang-mo. Sleep… sleep… sleep…”
He slept deep and long, and he dreamed the most vivid and memorable dream of his life. He lay on his bed and Lai-Ta bent over him, though his fever had left him now. She still crooned softly, but the burden of her song had subtly changed. She sang to the distant rhythm of the waves breaking on the coral beach below, the air in the room was heavy with spice, and its drowsy message crept into Briggs’ tortured soul.
“You are so angry, Ang-mo,” she chanted cooling his forehead with a damp cloth. “Very angry. So very, very angry.”
“Bloody right too,” he muttered, feeling soothed by her voice, the rhythm of the waves, and the coolness on his brow.
“Someone has hurt you very deeply, Ang-mo. Someone has used you. I can tell.”
“Bloody right again. The bastard gulled me.”
“Tell me about it, Ang-mo. Tell me everything”
“He told me it would be different. Nothing like this. There would be women. Many women - ”
“Young and naked women, Ang-mo?”
“Oh yes. Oh, yes.”
“Dancing for your enjoyment?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Offering themselves?”
“Yes.”
“Willingly pleasuring your manly organ?”
“Yes-yes-yes.”
“Happily submitting to your whip?”
“Oh, yes. Especially that.”
She sighed. “It is a tale that I have heard many times. It has lured young men to war, recklessness and folly since time began.”
Briggs felt her finger on his forehead, not leathery now, but soft, and yet it pierced his skin, his skull, and reached down into his brain and the essence of his being.
“Ah!” gasped Lai-Ta. “The wound is deep, and you fear you shall die?”
“I shall if I’m condemned to four years in this Godforsaken place with nothing but a gin bottle for company.”
“And yet you can be cured,” insisted Lai-Ta, “but not with spices and the poppy syrup – the wound is too deep for that. No, for this you need something else. Your soul needs a woman.”
“Slim bloody chance of that here,” Briggs laughed aloud in his dream. “Saving your presence, Lai-Ta.”
However, she was not offended. “It needs a special type of woman, Ang-mo, and I am not one. But wait here patiently until the next moonrise and I shall take you where you may find them.”
“Them?” Briggs gasped, but she made no answer, her finger withdrew, and she rose and quietly left him. Then, in his dream he slept the night and the next day through.
He awoke again at evening. The air was cool and there was no longer the thick heaviness to it he had felt before. He smelled no heady perfume of spice, joss or poppy, and no sweet taste lingered in his mouth, though he heard again the gentle rhythm of the waves on the shore. All about him was clean and new; he felt refreshed. He rose from his bed and looked through the window to where the moon hung high above the palm trees, larger and brighter than he had ever seen it before, bathing the sea ripples, the beach and everything around him with fragments of golden light, for though he knew it was night, yet he could see everything clearly. There were no shadows, no reflections and no mist; everything was sharp and luminous.
He heard soft padding behind him and turned to find Lai-Ta waiting patiently.
“Come. It is time,” she said, and he silently obeyed.
She took his hand in her dry leathery hand and led him out into the golden night. They crossed the veranda and descended the wooden steps to the cool grass. They did not make their way to the seashore, but inland. He had never ventured there before. They passed under trees and through forests of tropical fern that brushed against them as they went. He was barefoot and clad only in his nightshirt, yet he felt no discomfort. His feet floated on the dew-laden tips of the grasses and the fern fronds. The leaves around them sparkled with tiny drops under the golden moonlight like mountains of gems in a treasure cave, or a princess’s grotto in some tale of a distant fairyland.
Ranging inland, they climbed a golden hill and crossed its summit to descend the opposite slope. Briggs looked down into the valley below and he saw a forest of sparkling trees that swayed lazily in the night breeze. Among them flickered something brighter, a great fire with shadowy movement round it. They descended swiftly towards it, the sparkling trees lighting their path as they walked under the boughs, and at length they stepped out into a broad clearing.
At its centre, the huge fire burned, but it did not blaze. It twinkled incandescently as though a great Christmas tree clustered with tiny candle flames stood there. Briggs realised that the shadows they had seen from the crest of the hill were women dancing round and round it. Now he saw to his delight that all were lithe and naked; their breasts swayed and dandled like boughs heavy with fruit in a gusting wind. They saw him approach and their faces lit with unfeigned delight. Still they danced voluptuously; all were young and beautiful with bronzed skins and slim, generous figures.
Forming a chain, they peeled away from the fire and snaked towards him, rejoicing. Their laughing voices sounded like many peals of tiny bells. In the firelight and the golden moonlight, they pirouetted round and round him, open legged, hiding nothing of their wanton charms from his dazzled eyes. Nearer they spun, until they were dancing close like heavenly wraiths of garment, drawing their fingers across his body like cobwebs as they passed. He felt their warm, hard nipples through the thin fabric of his nightshirt; he felt their downy bushes rhythmically brush his thighs, coaxing his stiffened member until it waxed like the trunk of a great tree and thrust out from his loins like a god’s.
These were the dusky maidens of his dreams and hopes made fairylike. This was the vision Sir Digby has shown him. He smiled and put out his hand to heft their heavenly fruits. They were as he had always known they must be – firm, luscious, and willing to be plucked. He explored their breasts, their heavenly bottom cheeks and the soft down between their moist, eager thighs. Their velvet skin glowed like golden wax by candlelight. All was full and generous. They moved round him, they brushed themselves against him and they whispered in his ear, just as they had in his dreams of Paradise.
“Come, take and enjoy, my lord. All you see is yours to enjoy as you wish.”
He needed no further encouragement. He reached out to embrace the nearest. Willingly she yielded to his eager arms. Open-legged, she presented her welcoming cleft to his inflamed manhood.
“Here is Paradise, my lord,” she cooed as his fingers probed her wetness. “Enter and taste immortal bliss.”
Joyfully he surged forward, but Lai-Ta stayed him.
“Take her if you wish, Ang-mo, but she will soothe you only while your dream lasts. She is no more than a wisp of your lust made flesh by sleep.” She pointed to the further trees. “Beyond, are the women who will heal your wound to its roots. Come. Restrain your loins for just a few moments more and you will enjoy them.”
Trancelike, he released his prize and Lai-Ta took him by the hand once more. They passed from the twinkling fire and the dancing maidens, and through a small coppice of cool trees, beyond which lay a broad, glassy pool in whose placid waters the stars and the moon lay reflected like angels’ footprints. Two women waited before it, and they joined their hands to greet the newcomers as they approached. Both were wrapped in diaphanous shawls, and Briggs could see at first glance that beneath them they were naked, for through the gauzy fabric he beheld the dark shadows of their areolas, nipples and deep cleavage. Their full breasts thrust towards him, and their dark pubic hair peeped like mysterious secrets from their hidden places. They were barefoot and bareheaded; they wore no adornment and they needed none, though their perfume was heady. They knelt fluidly and made elaborate salutations, abasing themselves and pressing their foreheads into the soft turf at his bare feet, kissing them and moaning blandishments. Then, when they had grovelled before him, they rose again and one addressed him in a voice like liquid amber.
“I am Yoozi, my lord, and this is Weema.” She indicated her companion, who with one fluid movement slipped her shawl from her shoulders and stood before him proudly, turning round and showing him every detail of her glorious, glistening nakedness. “Weema represents all those who have grieved, your lordship, all who have frustrated you and given you cause for your just anger. She begs you to whip her for it.”
Weema fell to her knees once more and bowed her head in mute subjugation, while Yoozi produced a thick plaited whip from the folds of her own shawl, unwound it and placed it in Briggs’ hand.
“You can feel that the whip is heavy, my lord,” said Yoozi with a slow smile, as though she shared his satisfaction with its heft. “Its bite is sharper than the shark’s tooth. Weema begs you to use it mercilessly. I can tie her up if you wish, but it is not necessary. She well understands your tongue and she will hold any position you command her to, despite her pain, while you vigorously apply your cruel lash to every tender part of her nakedness that it delights you to punish.”
“Where?” Briggs asked askance, for this was the stuff of fables.
“Everywhere, Ang-mo,” said Lai-Ta, who stood sagely by his side, her arms folded inside her robe. “Whip her where you will: her back and buttocks, of course, but if it pleases you to do so, you will also whip her stomach, her breasts and her thighs. All these are yours to chastise at your pleasure – as is the delicate flower that hides in the moist cleft between her legs.”
“Even there?” he gasped, for he had only whipped a woman’s slit in his wettest dreams.
“But of course, my lord,” said Yoozi, bowing low. “That is the part of a woman that most often offends; the part that my lord seeks and has been cruelly denied. Womankind must suffer for my lord’s enforced abstinence, and Weema stands in the place of womankind to receive the just punishment for their sin. Alternatively, if you prefer Weema to writhe unfettered under the whip screaming for your mercy, you will give her no instruction but simply use the lash as it pleases you to. Of course, you will ignore her agonized pleas. However much she screams and sues for mercy, she will offer no resistance to your stern justice. She is yours to enjoy utterly.
“So much for Weema and those who have hurt you – now for their mothers, aunts, mistresses, and all who schooled and abetted them in their cruel ways. I represent these. So whatever you do to Weema, you must do doubly to me.”
Now Yoozi slipped off her own shawl, and stood wonderfully naked before him, turning round to show him every inch of her mouth-watering and dimpled flesh. Where Weema was slim and lithe with pert elastic breasts and firm buttocks, Yoozi was voluptuous. Her full breasts hung heavily and terminated in large puckered disks with nipples almost as dark as ebony. Her public bush was luxuriant and, as she turned round to excite him, her big bottom cheeks heaved and rolled like two heavily laden ships in a sea swell. Briggs’ hand twitched
Seeing his enjoyment, Yoozi cupped her big breasts in her hands and held them out towards him. “I hope you like what you see, my lord and master,” she said huskily
“Very much,” Briggs cried, dribbling like a loon.
“Then come and enjoy yourself with your whip.” Yoozi knelt before him alongside Weema, and bowed her head to the ground. “We have no other wish or destiny but to give you pleasure and satisfy your cruel lusts, my lord. Do absolutely anything you wish with us. Set no boundaries to our pain and suffering. We are your naked slaves. Use us and dispose of us as it pleases you.”
He stood motionless for a moment, like a child on Christmas morning who knows not which present to unwrap first. Then he felt Lai-Ta’s hand worm sinuously round his waist and unbutton the front of his nightshirt. Deftly she slid it from his shoulders so that he too stood naked in the moonlit dell. Her fingers slid to his engorged member and she started rhythmically to stroke it. Had he been waking, he would have spent his load there and then, but this was dreamland and though the pleasure in his loins soared beyond the imagining of waking mortal flesh, his staying power was superhuman.
“Do not be shy, Ang-mo,” she crooned in his ear as she stroked, her voice as seductive as the serpent’s in the Garden. “They are truly your naked slaves. Use your whip as you will, and enjoy their willing flesh without shame or embarrassment, for that alone will heal your grievous wound.”
Then she too knelt before him, moistened her lips with her tongue and started to suck his engorged manhood. Looking down, he saw that she was no longer a wizened crone, but young and lithe with copper skin. Her breasts were high and pointed and they stroked his knees as she sucked. Her mouth was succulent, and the tongue that wriggled round his swollen member was gossamer. His pleasure mounted further. His cock was master now and his inhibitions fled. With an explosion of pent-up rage and lust, he let fly with his heavy whip. He did not count the strokes he laid on the struggling slaves at his feet, or where they landed on their writhing flesh. He heard their shrieks of agony but distantly, as if through a wall of dreams. Afterwards, through a red haze, he became aware that his lash had fallen still and where it touched his bare legs it was wet, and two naked women lay thrashing like spiked serpents at his feet, hysterically screaming for mercy.
That gave him pause, but not for long.
“Do not stay your hand, my lord! Ignore their pleas!” urged his temptress, Lai-Ta, kissing and stroking his swollen member with her soft lips and tongue. “Think of the frustration you have suffered. Think of the devil drink that almost destroyed you, of the pleasure these slaves have denied you all these weeks, and everything you have suffered because of them. Now hand it back with interest. Whatever you do, you cannot punish them enough for their wickedness.”
“Yes, yes,” he murmured, dream-laden and unable to gainsay her sinuous words.
“Do not stay your hand, Ang-mo.” She smiled up at him eagerly, her face alight with terrible cunning and desire. “You have only just begun to punish your slaves. Strike on! Enjoy yourself. Make their suffering terrible!”
“Yes, yes,” he chanted in response, drained of any will to resist her seductive urging. He looked down at where Yoozi and Weema lay twitching and groaning at his feet, and even now he felt a vague qualm. “But -”
“Do not hesitate, Ang-mo!” cooed the temptress who knelt before him, exciting the tip of his knob with the tip of her prehensile tongue. “They writhe and scream only to enhance your delight. Take no notice of their importuning. They are meat for your pleasure whip – nothing more. Enjoy their pain! Gloat over their agony! Glorify in their unbearable suffering until you have sated your desire!”
Briggs stood as a man hypnotised. He had no strength to disobey her. He plied the whip again, with new vigour, less frenzy, and more accuracy. Seizing Weema by the ankle, he delivered six savage welts between her legs. Her pubic hair was black and downy but not thick, and he saw to his delight that the whip cut deep into her wet, open slit, and each time it slashed her body spasmed and she screamed in torment, her free leg kicking frantically in the air.
Meanwhile, Yoozi was on her knees, her legs apart her hands clasped behind her neck, rotating her full breasts before him.
“Whip these heavy breasts, my lord and master, the breasts that gave suck to those who denied you! They beg to be tortured for their unspeakable crime.”
“Yes, yes,” he murmured like one in a trance, obliging her with six strokes so that the delinquent breasts leapt this way and that under each monstrous lash. She gasped, she jerked and screamed like a banshee yet still she knelt before him, her hands behind her neck, rotating her voluptuous and savaged torso more vigorously.
“Do not spare the nipples, my lord,” she gasped. “Please torture the nipples that gave sustenance.”