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For my fourth and final 'bonbon' I return to a work that featured briefly in Part 8. It differs from the stories of deliberate abductions of innocents because this man becomes a captive as a direct result of being a soldier. He's a Corporal, name unknown, a Prisoner of War, strictly speaking, but his capture is a less-than-glorious result of over-enthusiastic aggression against the inhabitants of a quiet village in poppy-growing country. You get a sense of his 'bad ass' character in the image above.
He loses contact with his comrades in the side streets and ends up surrounded by understandably hostile and armed locals giving him no option but to surrender. By the time his disappearance is noticed he is tied up and on his way to a distant place where his comrades wouldn't even think to look for him, there to be handed over to the dreaded local militia. Their first act is to make him strip down to his briefs. This has the multiple benefits of (a) humiliating him, (b) depriving him of his status as a soldier, (c) impressing on him how helpless he is and (d) turning his underpants into a prison uniform and low tech 'tag', making escape as difficult as if he were chained to a wall.
In Amalaric's picture he has a chance to reflect on his actions and his parlous position. You can almost see him thinking 'Oh shit!' and bracing himself for what comes next. The garb of his guard underlines the gulf between them, none of his body can be seen and the practical face-covering of desert dwellers gives him a sinister and menacing air. There's not even the comforting sense that he is just another soldier doing his duty.
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In due course the Corporal is indeed chained to the wall (of course!) and there he forfeits the last shreds of his modesty. He's put on display for locals to come and inspect. For some it will be their first sight of an American in the flesh, so naturally they prod and poke him, they tease and ridicule him, they show their anger and contempt too too and he has to take it all, impotent to defend himself. Trashing their homes doesn't seem so clever now and they haven't even started to interrogate him yet. His face shows his mounting fear as he wonders what it will feel like to be whipped, for that is what he has been promised.
The Corporal has little information to give to his captors, but they torture him anyway and grow to respect his resilience and courage. That's little comfort to him in his agonies but maybe it helps to save his life. Maybe the satisfaction they derive from testing his unbreakable spirit is just too good to end. The unexpected discovery of such a manly specimen from amongst the evil enemy warrants better. It makes him a trophy captive and so gives them kudos amongst friends and colleagues.
As you might expect they soon want to see and test the strong American for themselves and as his reputation grows payment can be demanded for his 'performances'. Given the intense bodily involvement that defines these encounters, it's to be expected that some men will want to conclude with sexual intimacy. It matters not whether it's his natural inclination, in fact divulging the existence of 'the girlfriend back home' only adds desirability.
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Unfortunately keeping him alive means another mouth to feed and he also has to be kept in peak condition for the 'entertainments' and allowed to recover from the extremes of over-enthusiastic tormentors. In the end someone has the bright idea of using him to pull the plough out in the fields. This enables him to earn his keep and get some fresh air while maintaining his strength and fitness. Using him as a substitute for a dumb beast reminds him of his still lowly status, popular though he might have become with some men. It's a sort of enslavement within an enslavement.
Needless to say he doesn't get his own clothing back, nor is he even allowed to wear the threadbare, filthy cast-offs of others. He's always tied up when he's not imprisoned, since he's still an enemy soldier and cannot be trusted. More importantly, if he runs off and falls into the hands of the locals then he'll probably end up worth nothing at all. For ploughing he's tied to a yoke improvised from a branch. It's similar to that used to restrain Kelvanus, thebarbarian Prince (in the previous post) and in a sense that is what he has become in his own right, a Prince of Pain, you might say. Whatever would his rural parents think of this?
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This is an exceptionally compact story but lacks none of Amalaric's loved ingredients. The imagery is attractive and richly composed, successfully invoking the 'stranger in a strange land' theme that was explored in Part 1 of this series. For a soldier, being cut off from his unit which is like a second family (sometimes more) and then plunged into a culture so utterly different from his own is a double shock. But more immediately than that, it is totally bewildering and you sense that in the images. In the narrative, Amalaric ensures that the Corporal's captors go out of their way to maximise his confusion and uncertainty, brutally imposing their mastery on him and their contempt for his impudence in invading their homeland.
Read 'Afghan Detour' at Telemachus12
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The military setting of this story leads us into Part 10 'Military Manoeuvrers' (pending)
Read the whole of this series from Part 1