The Work Camp, part 3: The Continuing Story

Part 1 / Part 2

'Here, what's this then?'

The grating voice came from behind the van. I wheeled around to find myself confronted with a swarthy, sweaty, crude-looking man who wore an oily moustache – more like Stalin's than Hitler's – and smoked a fetid smelling “roll-your-own” of dubious ingredient. He wore a colourless military cap slung at a slovenly angle and decorated with what – at first glance – looked like badges, but were in reality beer bottle caps. And not just Tui, but Speights, Heineken, Stella, Monteiths, Tasman Bitter, DB Canterbury Draught and many more.
At his side, tied to his belt by means of a cheap, third-world-country-manufactured green garden twine, was an empty Tui bottle. No, maybe the bottle wasn't empty after all. It was half-filled with what looked like bits of shredded coconut....
“It can't be!” I thought to myself. Choking back the rising nausea, I identified the bottle's contents – bitten off ends of finger nails; and perhaps even toe-nails – that large, thick sliver on the top (I could just make it out through the black glass and peeling label) looked as if it could once have belonged to a big toe. Needless to say, it didn't make things look overly hopeful in the way of constructive hobbies and pastimes in my new home. If the guards had to resort to fingernail collecting as an amusement, what did the detainees do?
Standing behind my new acquaintance, like one of the gargoyles on the old cathedrals in Europe – before they'd been destroyed – was my old friend, the Limper. An ugly leer of ugly intent decorated his ugly face.
I drew a sharp breath of consternation and frustration. “Now I'm for it,” I thought, “No chance to find Kit now.”
The new man spoke again, his voice was certainly not subject material for the romantic poets. “This won't do,” he rasped, “A male detainee walking free in the woman's camp? What's his number? Who's the dipsomaniac responsible for keeping him 'safe'?'
'Not thinking of running off were we lad?' he croaked at me. 'In these parts we don't take none too kindly to folks who go putting themselves forward. You're at Camp Kaiapoi now, and if you start any monkey business, then my name's not Superintendent Kronckendolf if I don't make it your hell. Understand? Good.'
'Hell? Dosen't he know that's a real place?' I tried to think up some suitably bitting remark, but was interrupted in what I confess is a unbelievably difficult exercise and not to be undertaken by those apt to be caught on the proverbial hop. Hopping is an entirely different form of work-out altogether. A milk of a different ilk.
'Here, Harry!' the repulsive superintendent gasped at the Limper, 'Get this boy back in the van with the others. He'll come to no harm there, I'll see to that personally.'
'Right you are, chief,' the Limper shrilled.
They made a good pair, the Limper and the Superintendent – a soprano and a wood-saw. A perfect duet.

Back in the bus with the other male prisoners, I tried to shrink inconspicuously into one of the back seats.
'You just come an' sit up the front with us, kid,' came the rasping command, 'I want to keep my eye on you.'
'Curse it,' I muttered, wondering if the circumstances would excuse me if, just this once, I used a much more potent expletive than was usually heard to issue from my lips.
The superintendent shoved me roughly into the chair next to him. As I hit the seat (bad springs – with the foam padding bursting through the faded coverings) my hand touched something small, hard and lumpy clinging to the underside of my chair. Why must they always stick their chewing-gum there?

One of the guards gave me a toothless, unsavory grin. Or was it a smirk? It's a peculiar thing that you become so distracted in times of trial by the smallest details such as application of word definition.

'Well now, me bonnie lad,' began the Superintendent. 'Bonnie...' he repeated, running the word over his tongue as if he relished the taste. That word has a distinct flavour of horse-radish to me – bitter. Over the coming weeks I was to learn that 'Bonnie' is synonymous with humiliation.
Chuckling in perverse delight – a sound not unlike a heavily asthmatic sheep – the Superintendent leaned over to the Limper. 'Where's Bonnie here staying?' he asked. The Limper grasped at a muddy Adidas backpack, from which he extracted a battered clipboard. Muttering the alphabet under his breath, he ran his finger down the list: 'Smythe, Andy; Admitted April 23 '07, No. 0065219, Sector 12, Block C, Hut 511.'
They already have everything planed, even down to the date I would be “admitted”. How long have they been watching me? How long has my name been on on their list?
These thoughts and more darted through my mind.
'What say we relocate him over to Sector 13, eh? We'll put him up in a nice, special place.' The asymmetrical leer returned to Limper's face as he heard these words. Across from me the other guard's eyes widened in excited anticipation.
'Sector 13, Hut 666, that's were we'll put you up in.' said the Superintendent, committing a gross prepositional solecism. 'You superstitious, Bonnie?'

The whinny of Limper and the drunken gulp from Toothless mingled with the incredible imitation of farmyard animals with respiratory trouble pushing furniture over concrete emitted from the Superintendent.