Hunt for White Gold

Chapter Ten





Peter Sam awoke much the same as he had done every day for the best part of a month. His hands were shackled in irons behind his back so he had become accustomed to sleeping on his front.

The stone cell had only one barred window, close to the ceiling. From the moss on the walls and the waving tufts of grass by the narrow vent of light he guessed that most of his confinement was below ground.

He had never seen the sun through the bars and was sure that the opening faced north, the knowledge of which gave him some sense of power.

I know that is north. I now know south, east and west. Little good whilst chained in iron but something to hope for.

He rolled up from the straw-packed sack. A grill in the slabs afforded him his morning relief. His leather breeches and jerkin had been replaced by a linen smock and he crouched over the grating to urinate over the centipedes and beetles that scurried through his faeces.

Once a week the Scotsman came in and threw a cask of water through the grating. Peter looked forward to that day but had cursed himself after he had offered thanks for it on the third occasion. The Scotsman with the enormous nose had paused at the door and smiled down at Peter Sam. Then he had slammed the door behind him and laughed his way up the stairs. On that day Peter began to hate himself.


He had woken in the cell for the first time seemingly months ago now. He had left Dandon and Hugh Harris to follow the white smile and black locks of a fair-skinned boy to a shack that was more curtain than wood. He remembered softness. He remembered dark drink. He remembered nothing more until he awoke with a rough sack over his head upon this same mattress.

And then the Scotsman had entered Peter’s world. For the first two days the sack, tied with leather to the shackles at his wrists behind his back, had remained over his head. Those first days were spent still in his own clothes. He was still Peter Sam, quartermaster to a hundred men who shrank from his dark glare.

Then he had knelt before the Scotsman with the sack pulled back from his face while he was spoon-fed the green soup that had become his only sustenance.

At that time he had thought only of death to the tall man with the hanging hair and bony face. He thought of grabbing the spoon with his clenched teeth, of springing up and ramming the end into his captor’s eyes.

Somehow the Scotsman could read his thoughts and always took away the wooden spoon and bowl before the perfect moment arrived.

Then there came the week of nakedness when the soup had contained something different and Peter Sam had fallen into a drugged sleep to awaken in his own flesh and shame.

That week was when the beatings began.

The Scotsman would come to the door whistling. Peter could hear the feet pad down stone steps from some hole above and the tune would begin. Not a sailing tune. Some disjointed theme from childhood, so merry and simple.

The door would swing open and the Scotsman would put the bowl down with a resonant rattle. Peter had come to hate the sound of that bowl, and found some solace when it sometimes failed to arrive.

When it did come the Scotsman would continue his whistling for a moment and then stop, looking at Sam with something like pity, his stupendous brow furrowed. The first few times Peter had met his gaoler’s eyes with hate and thought of steel and lead, of cutting flesh and breaking bones.

Two weeks further on and he looked at his knees while waiting for the kicks and elbows to his back to stop. The Scotsman never touched his face, nor anywhere he would bleed. Open wounds would require care and might fester. So just the back and haunches.

And after that the food. The soothing words. Always the reassurance that this would all end. That this was his duty to others. No malice was meant towards Peter. He was only doing what he was told. They were much the same as one another. Together they would get through this.

And after all, had he not brought him the smock to wear? Made the soup himself? Even smuggled some meat into it just for him?

Aye, Peter thought. When he did not beat him the Scotsman was not a bad man.

The bolt of the door rattled. A rush of cool air chilled the cell. Peter lifted his head to see Hib Gow standing in the doorway, wooden bowl in hand. No whistled tune had signalled his approach.

Worry was etched on Hib’s face. He had the look of a begging dog in his eyes and his chest was heaving beneath his shirt – his blood-caked shirt. Many times the Scotsman had returned with the same sorrowful aspect and Peter again noticed how the Estilete blade, sheathed naked in his belt, was always polished to a cold shine. Hib closed the door slowly, never taking his eyes from the kneeling figure of Peter.

Peter lowered his head as he heard the wooden bowl rap upon the floor. He hungered. His gratitude for the food would take the sting from the kick of Hib’s buskins.