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1834
- Thread starter Barbaria1
- Start date
Episode 3. “Intake”
We shuffle wearily through the gates of the labor camp compound. Looking back over my shoulder down the barren slope to the town and harbor below, I see HMS Malevolent pulling away from its moorings and turning out to sea. A sense of abandonment and hopelessness wells up inside me.
Following our flogging on the deck of the ship, our outer clothing was never returned to us, and Siss and I now shiver in our thin tattered and torn shifts as a stiff cold breeze sweeps in off the sea. We clutch at our shifts pulling them tight about us to close the large rips and gaps in the cloth.
Once inside the compound the prisoners are sorted quickly by our shouting guards into long lines, each facing a small wooden table behind which sits a grim-faced man with a pen and ledger. Siss and I become separated in the sorting process.
I wait my turn in line and eventually find myself standing in front of the table. The man with the pen and ledger looks up at me expectantly. When I do nothing, he barks, “put your hands at your sides and stand at attention.”
I do so, and the large tear in the side of my shift falls open revealingly. He stares for a long moment at my exposed breast and runs his eyes down the slope of my belly and over the curve of my bare hip; and then with a bored grunt he demands my name, birth date and place of birth, which he checks off against a list of new prisoners.
Nervously, I glance off to one side looking for Siss. Her long blonde hair is easy to spot; she is standing before a desk at the front of another line not too far away, and waves cheerily at me.
I am taken by the arm and shoved forward several paces to a low wooden bench before which I am ordered to kneel down.
A guard grabs me by the hair and slams my head down hard on the surface of the bench. I grimace as a second guard fits a cold metal collar around my neck and secures it with a bolt. To my collar is fixed a small metal disc bearing an identification number. As I am pulled shakily to my feet, I see Siss being manhandled over to another bench and similarly collared.
That finished, we are herded along to where the guards are lining everyone up in even ranks. Siss and I use the opportunity to reunite, taking our places in the second rank alongside one another.
She reaches over and takes my hand with a slight but worried smile on her face. I try to be upbeat saying, “So, how do you like the neck jewelry?” Never one to be reverent, Siss replies, “It’s a bit common, love but it’ll do till the shops open!”
We are left standing in place for a long time, wondering what next? The late afternoon sun is near setting, and the air is getting noticeably colder. We hold hands and shiver, and exchange worried glances.
In the distance we hear voices and tramping feet. The gates are flung open and hundreds of inmates, men and women, come marching in from the day’s labor. They quickly line up in ranks facing us.
I study them as they form up. Some seem strong, others weak and frail. Some are warmly dressed; many are in rags, much like us. Siss leans toward me and whispers, “Wonder what ya need to do around here to get hold of some of those warm clothes?”
When all are in place, guards run up and down the ranks counting heads to see that everyone is accounted for. A tall, self-important looking man – clearly the camp commandant – steps into the space between the ranks of inmates and new arrivals and begins to say something about “demerits” and punishments.
A moment later three inmates – two men and a girl – are dragged forward. I hadn’t noticed it at first, but off to our right is a row of upright wooden posts. It suddenly dawns on me that these are whipping posts and that these three unfortunates are about to be flogged for some infraction of the rules.
Beyond the posts, I also notice a large open space that is apparently some kind of camp punishment ground. It is littered with wooden timbers and various kinds of scaffoldings, including a gibbet with ominous-looking nooses hanging from it, a pair of garroting posts, some stocks and an assortment of rusting iron cages.
It all happens very quickly. The two men are stripped to the waist, and the young woman – a smallish girl with flaming red hair who protests loudly in a distinctive Irish brogue – is stripped naked. They are tied – arms over head – to their respective posts. The commandant orders twenty lashes, turns on his heel and strides away.
I close my eyes as memories of our own flogging on the deck of HMS Malevolent sear through my brain. I feel Siss’ grip on my hand tightening, as she murmurs, We’ll have none of that, today! Dear God.”
I listen as the air is filled with the – now all too familiar to me – sounds of cracking whips, the smack of leather striking bare flesh, and the grunts, cries and screams of the victims. I open my eyes for a second to see the elfish little redhead jump as a lash rips across her back and wraps around to slap against her small bobbing breast; and then I close them tight again, unable to watch. Tears stream down my cheeks, and I begin to shake uncontrollably. It is only Siss’ tight grip on my hand that keeps me from collapsing.
In a few minutes the flogging is over. The assembled prisoners are dismissed. Siss and I follow the others to an open-air soup kitchen to receive the evening meal. I glance back to see what happened to the victims of the flogging. They are still hanging limply from their posts.
Dinner consists of a watery gruel, a few little chunks of potatoes and leeks floating on the surface, and a piece of moldy bread to mop the gruel from the small wooden bowls in which it is served. Siss and I find a place some distance from the others to sit on the ground and eat. With an exaggerated sniff, Siss quips,“the grub on the ship was first rate compared to this swill.”
Half an hour later the guards round us up and shepherd us off for the night to the low wooden barracks buildings at the rear of the compound. I expect there to be a separate barracks for the women, but no, the quarters are common to all.
Siss and I enter a building – its interior dimly lit by a few candles – and claim a small wooden, straw covered bunk set off to one side. We fall into it together, huddling close, both to comfort ourselves and keep warm.
Lights are extinguished, the guards leave, and soon the place is buzzing with whispering, and after a little while the sound of snoring too. We hear something rustling nearby, and suddenly a small man is beside us. He makes a hushing sound and quickly whispers, “Don’t worry, I shan’t hurt ye. Newcomers, ain’t ye? Care to take a li’l friendly advice?” With that, he climbs into the bunk with us.
As our eyes adjust to the darkness we begin to make out his features. He is a short man, warmly dressed, with an earnest, but rodent-like face. Over the next few minutes, we learn from him a few of the basics of life in the camp.
First, that “getting on” in the camp – being warmly clothed, well-fed, and assigned the easiest work – depends on who you know. The place is terribly corrupt. Protection comes from being of “service” to the right people, including him.
Second, prisoners are assigned daily to work in the fields, the granary mill, the mines, or in the quarry. The fields are best, but because it is winter no one works there now. The mill uses prison labor to turn the great wheels that grind the grain – hard work, but at least it’s indoors and warm. The mines and the quarry are the worst – the labor is hard and the conditions and guards especially brutal.
Third, demerits are earned for breaking the rules, and are turned into punishments as we saw earlier today. The problem is that no one really knows the rules; the guards are sadistic, and make them up as they please.
Then he is gone, withdrawing as quickly as he came, leaving us to ponder what he has told us. Holding Siss close to me I whisper, “I don’t know what will happen to us, but we need to stay together and be smart; do what is necessary to please him and maybe some of the guards too; and above all we need to find a way to escape!”
Siss nods her head, "If we we play our cards right, we can have it just a wee bit better around here."
For the rest of the night we cling to each other desperately; sleeping little, cuddling and caressing, wondering what the morning will bring.
At the first signs of daylight, we are roused by our guards who shout at us to get up and moving. We crowd with the others to the door, stumble out into the compound, line up to receive our morning piece of bread and some barely warm tea, down it quickly and muster in straight ranks on the parade ground.
Heads are counted, and work is assigned. We shiver in the morning cold, hold our breath, and grin happily at each other when we learn we are to be sent to the granary mill. As we march out of the compound, I glance at the whipping posts. Yesterday’s victims are gone.
It’s a twenty minute walk to the mill, a large stone structure high on the hill overlooking the bay. We trudge along as rapidly as our shackled feet allow, and our spirits rise as the exercise warms our bodies against the chill air.
Our guards yell at us to move faster, and Siss sasses them, “Oye! What’s the bloody hurry.” Her impertinence earns her a stinging cuff on the ear. We quickly learn our handlers are humorless.
On entering the mill, we are led down a flight of stairs to a subterranean room. The room is warm. Glowing iron stoves in the four corners of the room are giving off plenty of heat.
In the center of the room is a large iron piston rising out of the floor. Heavy wooden spokes radiate out from the piston in all directions. Two pairs of iron handcuffs dangle on short chains from each of the spokes. The iron piston goes down through the floor, and through cracks in the flooring we can see that it leads to a set of gears that turn a pair of massive stone grinding wheels.
Siss and I are ordered to take our places at one of the spokes. One floor below us, other prisoners are already busy pouring sacks of grain between the wheels. The air is thick with rising dust and chafe from below; we begin to cough and choke.
The guards shove us into our places behind our spoke. Without warning they yank our tattered shifts down off our shoulders, stripping us to the waist. Our wrists are seized and locked into the waiting cuffs. Around us other prisoners are being secured to their spokes. “Shit!” I exclaim.
All is suddenly quiet. We wait expectantly, the choking dust rising from below settles on our hair and shoulders, and sticks to our skin. “God you look a fright!” says Siss with a smirk. I smile back ruefully.
Our work is about to begin. Knowing what is expected, I tentatively place my hands on the well-worn places where so many others before me have gripped the spoke, and take a deep breath.
As I do so my shift, which hangs loosely and somewhat precariously on my narrow hips, slips free, slides down my legs and gathers in a bunch around my ankles.
I stoop to pull it back up, but cannot reach it with my cuffed hands. One of the guards, comes forward with amusement on his face, and orders me to step out while he snatches the garment from the floor and tosses it aside.
“Ye won’t be needing that now me pretty, will ye?” he chortles as he ogles my nakedness. He nods toward one of the others who quickly steps behind Siss and rips her shift away. As he tosses it aside, he lands a playful slap on her bare bum.
Siss jumps, turns her head, spits disdainfully on the floor, glares at him and snaps, “that ain’t a Christmas joint ya know!!!”
From the other side of the room the mill boss strides over to us, his face red with anger. “Now see here, just what is going on?” he demands, looking first at the two of us, and then at the two grinning guards standing behind us. Reaching out, he grabs the metal disc hanging from my collar, squints at it and calls out my number to a man sitting off to one side behind a desk with pen and ledger book.
“Keep an eye on this one,” he shouts, hooking his thumb in my direction, “the li’l wench is surely lookin’ to earn some demerits today”. Grabbing Siss’ disc he shouts out her number too; looks her up and down contemptuously and stomps off.
Moments later he mounts a platform, places a whistle in his mouth and blows on it. A shrill piercing note echoes off the ceiling. “Now, push!” he commands at the top of his voice, “Come on now, put yer backs into it; get those wheels a grinding or there’ll be hell to pay, I promise ye all!”
TO BE CONTINUED
We shuffle wearily through the gates of the labor camp compound. Looking back over my shoulder down the barren slope to the town and harbor below, I see HMS Malevolent pulling away from its moorings and turning out to sea. A sense of abandonment and hopelessness wells up inside me.
Following our flogging on the deck of the ship, our outer clothing was never returned to us, and Siss and I now shiver in our thin tattered and torn shifts as a stiff cold breeze sweeps in off the sea. We clutch at our shifts pulling them tight about us to close the large rips and gaps in the cloth.
Once inside the compound the prisoners are sorted quickly by our shouting guards into long lines, each facing a small wooden table behind which sits a grim-faced man with a pen and ledger. Siss and I become separated in the sorting process.
I wait my turn in line and eventually find myself standing in front of the table. The man with the pen and ledger looks up at me expectantly. When I do nothing, he barks, “put your hands at your sides and stand at attention.”
I do so, and the large tear in the side of my shift falls open revealingly. He stares for a long moment at my exposed breast and runs his eyes down the slope of my belly and over the curve of my bare hip; and then with a bored grunt he demands my name, birth date and place of birth, which he checks off against a list of new prisoners.
Nervously, I glance off to one side looking for Siss. Her long blonde hair is easy to spot; she is standing before a desk at the front of another line not too far away, and waves cheerily at me.
I am taken by the arm and shoved forward several paces to a low wooden bench before which I am ordered to kneel down.
A guard grabs me by the hair and slams my head down hard on the surface of the bench. I grimace as a second guard fits a cold metal collar around my neck and secures it with a bolt. To my collar is fixed a small metal disc bearing an identification number. As I am pulled shakily to my feet, I see Siss being manhandled over to another bench and similarly collared.
That finished, we are herded along to where the guards are lining everyone up in even ranks. Siss and I use the opportunity to reunite, taking our places in the second rank alongside one another.
She reaches over and takes my hand with a slight but worried smile on her face. I try to be upbeat saying, “So, how do you like the neck jewelry?” Never one to be reverent, Siss replies, “It’s a bit common, love but it’ll do till the shops open!”
We are left standing in place for a long time, wondering what next? The late afternoon sun is near setting, and the air is getting noticeably colder. We hold hands and shiver, and exchange worried glances.
In the distance we hear voices and tramping feet. The gates are flung open and hundreds of inmates, men and women, come marching in from the day’s labor. They quickly line up in ranks facing us.
I study them as they form up. Some seem strong, others weak and frail. Some are warmly dressed; many are in rags, much like us. Siss leans toward me and whispers, “Wonder what ya need to do around here to get hold of some of those warm clothes?”
When all are in place, guards run up and down the ranks counting heads to see that everyone is accounted for. A tall, self-important looking man – clearly the camp commandant – steps into the space between the ranks of inmates and new arrivals and begins to say something about “demerits” and punishments.
A moment later three inmates – two men and a girl – are dragged forward. I hadn’t noticed it at first, but off to our right is a row of upright wooden posts. It suddenly dawns on me that these are whipping posts and that these three unfortunates are about to be flogged for some infraction of the rules.
Beyond the posts, I also notice a large open space that is apparently some kind of camp punishment ground. It is littered with wooden timbers and various kinds of scaffoldings, including a gibbet with ominous-looking nooses hanging from it, a pair of garroting posts, some stocks and an assortment of rusting iron cages.
It all happens very quickly. The two men are stripped to the waist, and the young woman – a smallish girl with flaming red hair who protests loudly in a distinctive Irish brogue – is stripped naked. They are tied – arms over head – to their respective posts. The commandant orders twenty lashes, turns on his heel and strides away.
I close my eyes as memories of our own flogging on the deck of HMS Malevolent sear through my brain. I feel Siss’ grip on my hand tightening, as she murmurs, We’ll have none of that, today! Dear God.”
I listen as the air is filled with the – now all too familiar to me – sounds of cracking whips, the smack of leather striking bare flesh, and the grunts, cries and screams of the victims. I open my eyes for a second to see the elfish little redhead jump as a lash rips across her back and wraps around to slap against her small bobbing breast; and then I close them tight again, unable to watch. Tears stream down my cheeks, and I begin to shake uncontrollably. It is only Siss’ tight grip on my hand that keeps me from collapsing.
In a few minutes the flogging is over. The assembled prisoners are dismissed. Siss and I follow the others to an open-air soup kitchen to receive the evening meal. I glance back to see what happened to the victims of the flogging. They are still hanging limply from their posts.
Dinner consists of a watery gruel, a few little chunks of potatoes and leeks floating on the surface, and a piece of moldy bread to mop the gruel from the small wooden bowls in which it is served. Siss and I find a place some distance from the others to sit on the ground and eat. With an exaggerated sniff, Siss quips,“the grub on the ship was first rate compared to this swill.”
Half an hour later the guards round us up and shepherd us off for the night to the low wooden barracks buildings at the rear of the compound. I expect there to be a separate barracks for the women, but no, the quarters are common to all.
Siss and I enter a building – its interior dimly lit by a few candles – and claim a small wooden, straw covered bunk set off to one side. We fall into it together, huddling close, both to comfort ourselves and keep warm.
Lights are extinguished, the guards leave, and soon the place is buzzing with whispering, and after a little while the sound of snoring too. We hear something rustling nearby, and suddenly a small man is beside us. He makes a hushing sound and quickly whispers, “Don’t worry, I shan’t hurt ye. Newcomers, ain’t ye? Care to take a li’l friendly advice?” With that, he climbs into the bunk with us.
As our eyes adjust to the darkness we begin to make out his features. He is a short man, warmly dressed, with an earnest, but rodent-like face. Over the next few minutes, we learn from him a few of the basics of life in the camp.
First, that “getting on” in the camp – being warmly clothed, well-fed, and assigned the easiest work – depends on who you know. The place is terribly corrupt. Protection comes from being of “service” to the right people, including him.
Second, prisoners are assigned daily to work in the fields, the granary mill, the mines, or in the quarry. The fields are best, but because it is winter no one works there now. The mill uses prison labor to turn the great wheels that grind the grain – hard work, but at least it’s indoors and warm. The mines and the quarry are the worst – the labor is hard and the conditions and guards especially brutal.
Third, demerits are earned for breaking the rules, and are turned into punishments as we saw earlier today. The problem is that no one really knows the rules; the guards are sadistic, and make them up as they please.
Then he is gone, withdrawing as quickly as he came, leaving us to ponder what he has told us. Holding Siss close to me I whisper, “I don’t know what will happen to us, but we need to stay together and be smart; do what is necessary to please him and maybe some of the guards too; and above all we need to find a way to escape!”
Siss nods her head, "If we we play our cards right, we can have it just a wee bit better around here."
For the rest of the night we cling to each other desperately; sleeping little, cuddling and caressing, wondering what the morning will bring.
At the first signs of daylight, we are roused by our guards who shout at us to get up and moving. We crowd with the others to the door, stumble out into the compound, line up to receive our morning piece of bread and some barely warm tea, down it quickly and muster in straight ranks on the parade ground.
Heads are counted, and work is assigned. We shiver in the morning cold, hold our breath, and grin happily at each other when we learn we are to be sent to the granary mill. As we march out of the compound, I glance at the whipping posts. Yesterday’s victims are gone.
It’s a twenty minute walk to the mill, a large stone structure high on the hill overlooking the bay. We trudge along as rapidly as our shackled feet allow, and our spirits rise as the exercise warms our bodies against the chill air.
Our guards yell at us to move faster, and Siss sasses them, “Oye! What’s the bloody hurry.” Her impertinence earns her a stinging cuff on the ear. We quickly learn our handlers are humorless.
On entering the mill, we are led down a flight of stairs to a subterranean room. The room is warm. Glowing iron stoves in the four corners of the room are giving off plenty of heat.
In the center of the room is a large iron piston rising out of the floor. Heavy wooden spokes radiate out from the piston in all directions. Two pairs of iron handcuffs dangle on short chains from each of the spokes. The iron piston goes down through the floor, and through cracks in the flooring we can see that it leads to a set of gears that turn a pair of massive stone grinding wheels.
Siss and I are ordered to take our places at one of the spokes. One floor below us, other prisoners are already busy pouring sacks of grain between the wheels. The air is thick with rising dust and chafe from below; we begin to cough and choke.
The guards shove us into our places behind our spoke. Without warning they yank our tattered shifts down off our shoulders, stripping us to the waist. Our wrists are seized and locked into the waiting cuffs. Around us other prisoners are being secured to their spokes. “Shit!” I exclaim.
All is suddenly quiet. We wait expectantly, the choking dust rising from below settles on our hair and shoulders, and sticks to our skin. “God you look a fright!” says Siss with a smirk. I smile back ruefully.
Our work is about to begin. Knowing what is expected, I tentatively place my hands on the well-worn places where so many others before me have gripped the spoke, and take a deep breath.
As I do so my shift, which hangs loosely and somewhat precariously on my narrow hips, slips free, slides down my legs and gathers in a bunch around my ankles.
I stoop to pull it back up, but cannot reach it with my cuffed hands. One of the guards, comes forward with amusement on his face, and orders me to step out while he snatches the garment from the floor and tosses it aside.
“Ye won’t be needing that now me pretty, will ye?” he chortles as he ogles my nakedness. He nods toward one of the others who quickly steps behind Siss and rips her shift away. As he tosses it aside, he lands a playful slap on her bare bum.
Siss jumps, turns her head, spits disdainfully on the floor, glares at him and snaps, “that ain’t a Christmas joint ya know!!!”
From the other side of the room the mill boss strides over to us, his face red with anger. “Now see here, just what is going on?” he demands, looking first at the two of us, and then at the two grinning guards standing behind us. Reaching out, he grabs the metal disc hanging from my collar, squints at it and calls out my number to a man sitting off to one side behind a desk with pen and ledger book.
“Keep an eye on this one,” he shouts, hooking his thumb in my direction, “the li’l wench is surely lookin’ to earn some demerits today”. Grabbing Siss’ disc he shouts out her number too; looks her up and down contemptuously and stomps off.
Moments later he mounts a platform, places a whistle in his mouth and blows on it. A shrill piercing note echoes off the ceiling. “Now, push!” he commands at the top of his voice, “Come on now, put yer backs into it; get those wheels a grinding or there’ll be hell to pay, I promise ye all!”
TO BE CONTINUED
Last edited:
Thanks Eul. More to come!
LittleSiss
Sorceress
Yay! Thanks Eul !!!!
xso
Tribune
Good story, like it a lot! You seem to get a lot of exercise at the mill, your bodies will be in extra good shape!
Some promising ingridients: You have to work naked, you plan to escape, you like 'bling bling' (your collars)
You seem to have an obsession with freezing........Just a little disappointed that you did not make a bigger impression on the man at the register desk.....are you losing your touch with men?......Looking forward to the continueation!
xso
Tribune
No, Barbaria, that is not the full explanation....it has been a theme in your stories for quite some time, before the latest vortex winter weather.....my guess is that you have been crucified naked in an earlier life, up in the Roman / Italian alps, when it was snowing........found a pic of you creeping on the way to your cross!
Tree liked the story but is appalled that the guards are allowed to make up rules on a whim. Tree would never allow such activity in one of his threads...
T
...what? ...no, Ulrika I do not read my threads, I write them. Why do you ask?
T
...what? ...no, Ulrika I do not read my threads, I write them. Why do you ask?
Hah, that is so unbelievable!
Damian
Governor
Splendid story so far. Barb, you should take up writing professionally, if you don't do it already, you have talent for this historical, deliciously erotic type of story, maybe we should collaborate! I have to come up with a couple more pictures that are suitable for this saga, although I am now a very busy bee doing other work to put out there, possibly on an "own" site.
I will have a look through my pictures for something to add to the thread soon.
Excellent pics for the story, where on earth do you find all these sources Admi?
i have a hugh collection...................build since 2000
Damian
Governor
Keep posting great stuff!
Thanks Damian. The credit for the story goes to both Siss and me....it's a team effort. Looking forward to any illustrations you may create for the story!!
P
Pia
Guest
Me too - it's great stuff!
xso
Tribune
In deed it is!
Hey, everybody....new episode of 1834 is coming soon. Will our two heroine's survive their brutal day of toil in the prison mill? Of course, they will
. But not without enduring the brutality of the guards, and earning enough demerits to make the coming night a horror of misery and suffering
. Stay tuned
.
. But not without enduring the brutality of the guards, and earning enough demerits to make the coming night a horror of misery and suffering. Stay tuned.