The Adventure.
You fall in a dream. You wake. It stops. A spy in a fall. She falls and falls. She has no one to catch her. The fuel tanker ground through its gears as we weaved through the forest road that seemed to meander endlessly. Knowing we were heading for the border. I wasn’t following the tanker, I was not even driving the tanker, although I have a licence to do so. I was in the tanker.
Smuggling spies across the border is a tricky job, whether you are taking a spy from a country after they have revealed secrets about it; or if you are a spy being taken to a country to be tortured to give up your country’s secrets.
Listening to the last vestiges of oil swilling in the belly of the tanker, I felt tired and cramped. The drug they had administered to me left me in a half-conscious stupor. There was a bruise throbbing over my eye. The big brute sitting next to me had hit me with the butt of his pistol when I made a smart remark.
Thugs like him hate intelligent women.
It makes them feel even more inadequate and reveals them to be the stupid and ignorant bullies that they are.
Maybe it was the anger that was keeping me from feeling the cold. His twin was on the other side, he had smiled at my quip.
I was not thrown around by the truck’s movement as I was strapped to one of the ribs of the tanker. completely trapped. My mouth had been filled with what felt like a snooker ball. Whatever it was, it was hard and huge, my lips had been taped together by what I imagined was some form of masking tape.
The only way I could get all this off was being cut out.
They clearly did not want me to escape. I might have been a valuable cargo, but I was being treated like a sack of potatoes, chucked into the back unceremoniously and forgotten about.
The stench of fuel oil might have burnt my nostrils and the fumes might have stung my eyes, but I was wearing an old-fashioned gas mask, the rubber making my face sweat, the straps tugged at my hair. Where the tube led or if indeed there was a tube leading from it, I could not tell, the darkness was absolute.
Looking left and right, up or down, made no difference. It was best just to keep my eyes shut, measure my breathing so I did not start to panic and wait for my chance to escape. I was determined to get free.
My gluteus maximus ached, sitting in the bottom of a fuel tanker, is not easy, even though they had supplied some sort of cushion for my bottom, partly, I was convinced to keep my body out of the dregs of the oil, not to provide me with a comfortable ride. I was feeling more and more like freight.
I estimated we had been on the road for two hours.
Suddenly and violently the truck started to slow to a grinding stop, the sound of airbrakes and shuddering brake pads managed to pierce the steel shell around us.
My kidnapers were not as secure as me, the one on my left bumped into my shoulder, but there was no give, so I took the full force, I squealed in pain, but due to the ball in my mouth and the mask, which I wore over my face, it came out as a dull chirp.
I notched it up on the tally and imagined ways I would make him pay. I felt but could not see, the smiley one on my right move away from me.
The border, it had to be. This was my chance.
I imagined the frontier posts, the lanes for all the cars, the sunshine in daylight; the yellow light of a night stop. I imagined the dogs sniffing around the tyres and checking under the body. The soldiers with their torches probing the chassis of the truck and the subframe of the tanker attached to its back.
I imagined alerting them of my presence when they opened up one of lids to check the tanker was empty. Imagination is a powerful thing.
A tinny pinging signalled one guard’s ascent up the ladder, I mentally climbed the steps at his shoulder, counting each tinny step, there were nine.
I heard him scuffling about somewhere above our heads.
The echoing resonance meant it was hard to detect where it was coming from. I heard him using the strange tool that unlocked the top. The lid clanged on the roof, the sound cascading towards us in a resonant echo. There was a rush of air.
Immediately, I started drumming my feet on the bottom of the container, once, twice and then the pain.
He must have been expecting it. I whimpered; I heard my own cry as a whisper. My eyes filled with tears, the pain shot through my body, spreading in waves that made me nauseous. I wanted to scream but you need to be able to breathe to scream and I was too busy breathing; no panting, through the agony to cry out.
The pig had been waiting.
The handle of his pistol had assaulted me again; this time he had driven it between my legs as hard as he could. My anger and frustration grew as waves of pain washed over me.
As I recovered from the excruciating pain and tried not to choke on the ball and my tears; I could only whimper as I saw the torchlight sweep the hold, the small, shallow, oily pools glistened in the light, well away from his sweeps. He was looking for contraband fuel supplies not smuggled spies.
The border guard would not hear me, even my loudest scream would be a muffled moan undetectable to his hearing.
In my dazed state, I had suspected that they would choose to spirit me over the border at the dead of night, but that was so stupid of me. If I had been mounting a similar operation. I would have chosen a busy time, cars rushing by to provide noise to drown the sound of my drumming feet on the floor. It keeping the engine running to disguise any sound in the tanker. I might have even chosen a border crossing near an airport, if it was possible, to keep noise levels outside at a maximum.
The driver had turned the engine off as instructed, but as I realised while I was collecting my thoughts. He had turned the motor on, cranked it up, and, then. It had, of course, been a total waste of effort. When I heard the lid clinking back into place, the sound of someone walking along the roof and the official’s footsteps coming down the side ladder of the tanker, I knew that I had failed in my attempt to attract attention.
All I could do was wait, like a captured animal
I would lick my wounds, rest and hope that my captors would make some mistake.
Aching all over and with the blows throbbing still, I laid my head back against the cool, sharp metal of the rib and tried to sleep. Even so, I wanted to analyse the events of the last few days, still I did not allow myself the luxury, I had to rest, get ready for the next opportunity.
I willed myself to clear my mind; I meditated on all things good and dozed in my uncomfortable position in my echoing sepulchre.
In a dream, the truck ground through its gears, snaked through the roads and a distant sloshing of fuel oil soothed my ears and the noise, reminiscent of whale music; accompanied me as I fell into the arms of Morpheus.
A time when I could move my legs to walk; they were still bent. It was a time when my feet were dry and warm. The time when aches and throbs did not plague my body.
Every story has a beginning, middle and an end. It looked like it was the end of my work for the government, the kidnappers had succeeded in getting me across the border. I only had days, or weeks or months of torture to look forward to; though at the time; I was only focused on making a break for it. Dying trying to escape seemed the sort of noble thing I should attempt. I was a bit tied up in the tanker but there would be opportunities
ABOUT ME
A well respected author
Michael Fitzalan was born in Clapham, South London; where his mother had established a doctor’s surgery in a house which she filled with children.
With three sisters, two brothers and a library full of books; a love of literature was imbued in him from an early age.
Michael Fitzalan comes from Irish parents were doctors;they settled on the West Side of Clapham Common and had six children in quick succession.
A story by Michael Fitzalan
