upwards. A grubby hessian hood was over his head, tied loosely around his neck. He had been there long enough to discover the walls were metal, as was the floor, and added to that, the constant hum of engines and the occasional gentle bump of the entire room made it obvious to him that he was inside a boat of some kind, and not a small one either. The air was thick with the odour of diesel fuel and rotting garbage, competing occasionally with the smell of his own shit-filled and urine-soaked trousers. His captors had been less than considerate regarding his personal hygiene.
The hood filtered the light from a dim bulb that shone constantly in the centre of the ceiling. If there was a porthole in the room it was covered, but it seemed likely, considering the high temperature and close proximity of the engines, that the room was at or below the waterline.
Hank had explored with his legs in all directions and found what felt like a piece of heavy rope, a plastic bucket, a chunk of wood and a solid metal support welded to the floor, which was probably holding up a shelf somewhere above. He estimated he had been on board a day or so but it was hard to tell without a change in light. He had dozed off several times but for how long he wasn’t sure. He had kept an accurate count of the number of days for the first seven, until his only source of timing, daylight, was taken from him. The old garage filled with junk they had first kept him in had a hole in the roof. ‘They’ being the French people: Henri and the two apes who kidnapped him. Then after a drive inside a box for an hour or so he found himself in a dank room, which he presumed was a basement without any light other than the one that was switched on whenever someone came into the room. He estimated he had been in that place for three days but if he had been told six he would not have been surprised. A few years back he had taken part in an interrogation exercise in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was kept in a dark cell for two days with just food and water. Light and darkness were alternated, anything from minutes to hours between them, and when the exercise was over he thought he had spent three days more in the cell than he actually had.
Figuring out his surroundings was his only pastime. The thought of escape was always on his mind of course, but the opportunity had not yet presented itself. Not that he had a life-threatening, burning desire to escape. He would if he could, if it didn’t endanger him. His captors were very thorough and attentive though. The bonds they tied his hands and feet with were strong and whenever he was visited they were checked and if loose, retied. They had not removed his hood since he regained consciousness on day one, even when feeding him, which was a handful of bread, cheese or meat shoved under it and into his mouth, followed by a squirt of water from a plastic bottle. No one had spoken to him. Not a word. He’d heard voices on occasion but they were in another part of the building and muffled. When he was in the basement there were Irish and French voices. There was a woman’s voice once. English she sounded, but she could’ve been Irish. He thought she had fed him a couple of times. She wasn’t as rough as the others and her hands were soft. If he guessed correctly she was the one who had given him a piece of chocolate.
After the basement came the long drive in the back of a grimy van to his present location. They had carried him in a box from the van and rolled him out into the metal room and secured him to the pole.Those were all Irishmen, or at least the only ones who said anything were.
Hank felt low in energy, kept deliberately so by his captors no doubt. He was constantly hungry but his stomach had shrunk enough so that just a small amount of food would satisfy him for a while. The only plus side to not eating was that he didn’t need to take a shit, which he hadn’t done the last three days.
Oddly enough, being held captive had been one of Hank’s daydreams; however, he always saw himself in a cell and able to exercise every day and maintain his fitness. But being constantly tied up and hooded was not as bad as he would have imagined. There was something about Hank’s generally easy-going temperament and his ability to live within himself that helped him through the endless hours sitting in silence with only his thoughts for company. He had covered just about every aspect of his situation and the endless combination of outcomes. Kathryn had figured greatly in his thoughts, of course. He expected Helen and Janet had been told he was away on a long exercise. It was Kathryn he was most worried about.
A door opened and what sounded like several people stepped into the room. Hank wondered if it was feeding time, or better still, a trip to the toilet perhaps. The only positive thing about the shit in his pants was that it offered some insulation against the cold floor, once it had dried out a bit, even though most of it had worked its way up his back and over his thighs. A shower would have been unbelievable. He might have forgiven them for everything had they let him clean up and put on fresh clothes. It sounded like they were carrying something heavy as they shuffled across the floor.They dumped it unceremoniously a few feet from Hank. He could not make out the rest of the sounds accurately, but someone was doing something energetically enough to make them a little out of breath. Then the group made its way back through the door and it was closed.
No food, Hank decided. No toilet. And definitely no bath. He became annoyed. Fear had initially dominated all of his emotions, but as the days went by it melted into the background, for the most part, and he began to feel anger and impatience. It was not so much at being captured but the way he was being kept. In a strange way he had accepted being a prisoner almost immediately. He was a soldier and incarceration by the enemy was always a potential hazard of that occupation. He was annoyed at the way they treated him like an animal and decided the next time they came in he was going to voice his complaints. If the IRA considered itself to be a contemporary army, and indeed if it expected its enemies to think of it as such, it should act in as many ways as it could like one. That included the proper treatment of prisoners. What they were doing to him was torturous and uncivilised. Hank would try and make them see things that way the next chance he got. Then he heard something, close by, across the room. He wondered if it was a rat. Then he heard a sigh. It was a person.
Hank’s senses stretched to maximum sensitivity as he scanned for the slightest sound or movement. He moved his head, trying to get a glimpse of any change in the light. Another sigh, or was it a moan? Something scraped across the floor, like the heel of a foot, a leg straightening out, as if the person were sitting on the floor like Hank. It then went silent.
Hank waited an age for whomever it was to make another move. It seemed as if the person was asleep. The breathing had become rhythmic, quite loud, but it also sounded congested.
Some time later, as Hank was beginning to doze off, he heard the person start to cough and hack, trying to clear their throat.
‘Ah, Jesus,’ a voice moaned. It was a man.
Hank listened quietly, wondering when the man would acknowledge him.
‘Ah, God,’ the man said again. ‘Bejesus . . . Focken bastards,’ he cried out weakly.
It was obvious that the man was in pain. Hank wondered if he was a prisoner like himself. The man would surely be able to see Hank, unless he also had a hood over his head.
Hank deliberately scraped his foot across the floor. The man went silent. He’d heard him. Hank did it again. When the man spoke it was with a croaking sound, as if he had painful chest problems. ‘Why don’t you get the focken thing over with, yer bastards.’
He was Irish, Hank could tell that much, and he obviously thought Hank was one of them. That confirmed the man could not see him. Hank was about to say something but was suddenly suspicious. What if it was one of them? What if they were trying to trick him into talking? The first rule of imprisonment for a soldier is to say nothing other than name, rank and serial number.
‘Say something, you bastard,’ the man said. ‘Focken beat me up again if it makes yer feel any better.’
It seemed an extreme length to go to just to interrogate him. There was nothing he could think of that would be of any use to the IRA anyhow. Hank decided talking would be okay as long as he asked the questions.
‘Who are you?’ Hank said.
‘What do mean, who am I, you eedjit? You know who I am or I wouldn’t be here.’
‘I’m sitting on the floor with my hands tied to a pole and a hood over my head,’ Hank said.
The man was silent for a moment. When he spoke again the aggression had gone from his voice, although suspicion remained.
‘You a prisoner?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is that an American accent?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you’re toid op with a hood over your head?’
‘Yeah, I’m tied up.’
There was a long silence again, both men trying to figure out the other.
