INTRODUCTION

 

LIMBOURNE, where the action of this story is centred, cannot be said truly to exist. Except in the imagination of man. It is, in a way, rather like Swift's country of Lilliput ... a setting against which a way of life can be acted out, politics played, passions pursued. And where points of view may be made.

So there is no place where LIMBOURNE can exactly said to be. Sometimes one feels it might be a quiet English seaside town or, possibly, a large village; at others one feels one is amongst some pioneer American community, with its rough honesty, rigidity and Puritanical outlook allied to hard work. It is a strange mixture.

There is a timelessness about LIMBOURNE, too. It cannot be the present, though many things are of the present day. Mainly one seems to be living in the past, yet one cannot deny the numerous facets of the future which ever and anon flash upon the scene.

So one must be content with the fact that it is any place, at any time. Therefore, and rightly, one must call it a figment of fantasy, and yet ... and yet ... how often the reality of the place and people seem to grip one.

Here then, is a strange 'new world'.

But it is not a science-fiction world filled with bizarre beings and even more bizarre machines. One the contrary, it is filled with very 'ordinary' people who live in a familiar everyday world for a very good deal of their time. In that sense, it is a quite believable world. At least, so it is to be hoped.

It is a world some will find amusing. Some will enjoy it a great deal. Others may be rather appalled by it. If you are one of the latter, please do not persist. This is meant to be a form of entertainment for those who enjoy such things. It is not meant to be taken seriously. So if you don't like it, don't read it - simply dispose of it.

What then, makes this mythical LIMBOURNE different?

After all, it has been said that the people and the place have a familiar appearance.

It is simply that it is a place where society (even this microcosm of it) is based on a system of slavery. There are those who own and those who are owned. There are those who are served and those who serve. That, of course is something quite alien, indeed horrifying, to society today. Yet those in LIMBOURNE accept it as a natural way of life. For them, it is something that has been ordained - from 'on high', as it were. Complacent ease and privilege ... or bitter toil, humiliation and deprivation. One or the other has been decreed. How? Why? To what end? If there is any purpose in anything at all anyway!

Let us, then, in imagination, move into LIMBOURNE ...

CHAPTER ONE

 

The small train huffed and puffed its way through the bleakly brown landscape of an Autumn afternoon. Shuddering and hissing, it would make its way up some modest incline and then, more at ease, clatter down the slope on the other side. It was a rather old train. The sort of steam train one might have found on any one of the hundreds of British branch lines in post-war days.

There were four carriages in all. The first was a rather smart, green pullman-type with a restaurant car; then came a plain, squarely-built carriage, made of sepia wood, very third-class in appearance; finally there were two goods wagons.

Through the windows of the Pullman, a few figures might be observed - a considerable number of them in uniform - reclining easily or eating under the soft pink shades of the lamps on the restaurant-car tables. These people were of the privileged class known as State Officials. They were in charge of the administration and the ordering of the People of the Land. Practical men and women devoted to the pursuit of State Policies. No-one ever questioned those policies - especially people in their position. They were policies which, it seemed, had been in operation since time immemorial and had acquired something of the authority of the Laws of Mosses.

Theirs not to reason why ...

The second carriage was of far greater austerity. It was of open-plan type and had wooden seats and upright wooden backs. On these were lines of closely packed young men and women. At each end of the carriage were two guards in dark blue uniform, one man, one woman. They had very much the appearance of prison guards. No doubt because that was exactly what they were. To be more precise, they were guards attached to one of the State Slave Training Centres.

The rows sat in silence, young men and girls mixed indiscriminately on the seats. Most eyes were lowered, but some darted fearfully about the carriage or peered at the gloomy landscape. On a few girlish cheeks there was a hint of tears.

The young men wore a sort of plimsoll-shoe, coarse grey shorts and rough shirts. The shorts would have been more suitable for a ten-year-old boy and the shirts were, in fact, hair-shirts and exceedingly irritating in the heat of the carriage. The young women also wore the same plimsoll-like shoes and each had on a grey, sack-like dress of knee length. The hairstyle of each was similar. Uncut, it had been allowed to grow long but was plaited in a pony-tail which was fastened on the back or the top of the head. The ultimate arrangement of that hair was something that would be decided in the near future. It might all be shaved off, it might be trimmed and shaped, it might go into pigtails, or it might flow free. That was a decision for the girl's new owner.

As to who that owner was had already been designated by the label fastened around the neck of each young person by a piece of string. In black indelible pencil were scrawled names and addresses, such as:

'Mrs. Bracewell - Tanderville'.

'Mr. and Mrs. Crampton - Ramport'.

'Mrs. Campbell - Limbourne'.

They were all, indeed, like so many parcels ... and had no more say-so in their destination than the real brown paper-wrapped thing!

Some half-a-dozen of the labels bore the address of the town Limbourne. But only two were addressed to Mrs. Campbell. These were worn by a young man and a girl who sat alongside him. It was obvious, like all the others, they were either in their late teens or early twenties. The young man was, in fact, twenty-four years old and the young girl just nineteen. On the front and the back of the upper garments of these two was fastened the letter 'P' in yellow cloth.

There came a 'click' from the loudspeaker Tannoy in the carriage.

"The next station will be Tanderville," intoned a flat, official voice. "All those alighting there will now stand."

A half-a-dozen or so of the seated figures got quickly to their feet and stood swaying at attention. Two of the guards checked the labels against a manifest and, in about a minute, with a grinding of brakes and a hissing of steam, the train came to a halt at a small station. Those who could see out noted that it was scarcely more than a wayside halt. Two of the carriage doors opened.

"Out ... out!" shouted a guard. And, one after another, the figures stumbled down the steep step to drop to a wooden platform. There a burly male figure could be seen awaiting them.

"Sign for the consignment," yelled out another guard, extending the manifest. The burly figure checked the number of new arrivals against the list and put pen to paper.

"All correct," he said. "Right away ..." He raised his hand.

With an anguished snort, the engine tugged off its load again. Silent resignation, bred of despair, settled over the carriage again. For these were the doomed. Those of their generation destined to be slaves. It had been decreed and there was no escaping it. One simply had to accept the hideous facts of life. Fate could have dealt none of them a more cruel blow.

Yet, ever since childhood, each had been aware that it was a Fate that possibly awaited them. It was part of the pattern of life. Something they had had to learn to live with.

But oh ... oohh ... how they envied those for whom Fate had decreed a quite different existence!

A half hour later, the loudspeaker Tannoy clicked again.

"The next station will be Limbourne," came the voice. "All those alighting there will now stand."

If one had been close enough, one would have heard a sharp intake of breath from the raven-haired girl who bore the yellow 'P' on front and back. Her youthful male companion certainly heard it as he stood alongside her. Though he had not been able to study her properly, he was aware of the girl's attractiveness and the thought pleased him rather. For the girl was allocated with him. A kind of companion - even if a companion in servitude. He wondered what sort of figure she had under that sack of a dress. She certainly had a very pretty face. The young man stiffened as the face of one of the female guards came before him ... thin-lipped, hard-eyed. He recognised her as being from his own Centre.

"Name?" she demanded.

"Matt Dawson, Miss," he answered promptly.

The guard looked down at the manifest. "You are on Probation," she said.

"Yes, Miss ..."

"And you," said the guard, moving to the girl alongside. "Name?"

"Nancy Blake, Miss." The girl's voice was soft and low.

"Speak up!"

"Nancy Blake, Miss." At once the response was louder and firmer. The girl's small white fists clenched at her sides and her body trembled under the coarse gown. Oh God, would she ever get used to her new status? It seemed impossible that she ever could. She had endured three cruel and hideous months of training at one of the Centres. That was enough for a lifetime. Yet, in fact, it was but a beginning. The true horror was yet to come.

Like an iron chain, her existence stretched indefinitely out before her. Link after link. Servitude ... submission ... humiliation ... obedience. The links went on and on. To an awful infinity. The girl bit a full lower lip to stop it quivering. She had a wide soft mouth; a mouth made for sweet young kisses.

"I need hardly tell you," said the guard, looking from one to the other, "that, if you get a bad report from Mrs. Campbell - to whom you are allocated - you Training Overseer will make you wish you had never been born when you return to your Centre. Understood?"

"Yes ... Miss ..." said the two in unison.

The girl trembled again; the young man tried to square his shoulders and tried to look brave yet respectful. Only the day before, he recalled, his own Overseer had had him over a Flogging Bench and laid a rod across his naked rump. Ten strokes. But, as she pointed out, a mere fleabite compared with what she would give him if his behaviour was unsatisfactory whilst on Probation. Whatever this Mrs. Campbell is like, he thought, I must be humble and obedient. Oh yes, very obedient. Industrious, too. He must show all the merits a slave should possess. But, as Matt Dawson well knew, that was easier to think and to say than to do.

Once more the train ground to a halt and another half-dozen figures were decanted, Nancy Blake and Matt Dawson among them.

They had arrived in Limbourne.

 

***

 

It is very permissible to ask some questions at this early stage.

For example, in what kind of society - under what kind of regime - can such things be happening? What sort of system allows one set of human beings to treat another set as if they were a race apart?

A fair question. Or, fair questions. But one is not going to get any truly positive answers. For, as has been explained earlier, this is a world of the imagination. It takes some of its aspects from the past, some from the present, others from a possible future. A land of make-believe, if you like. But, if you are interested, it will pay to come to grips with it. To understand it better. After all, Professor Tolkein built a world of his own. One deep in the heart of the earth, where strange creatures lived an organised life of their own. It related to this world, yet was not truly part of it. This minor work does not attempt anything so elaborate. It merely asks the reader to put himself within a certain framework and live therein for the time being. That should not be difficult. Surely it will be simpler than the world of Professor Tolkein ... which many intelligent men have failed to comprehend even after nearly a lifetime of study.

May one, therefore, without being too boring, set out a few basic facts about the Society ... the Land ... and the System ... in which this story is set?

We are in a Land. And let us leave it at that.

The Land is ruled by State Officials. They are faceless and nameless ... and need not particularly concern us. Nevertheless, they are the founders of the whole System and are respected by those who live under it. Even if the average person does not come into contact with any but the more minor State Officials. It sounds a bit like Communism - or Fascism - doesn't it? And, to be fair, it has something of both extremes in it. That is the way our present society is progressing. Few would dispute it.

Under the System imposed by the State (and, after a long period, now accepted by all) there are what we might call 'winners' and 'losers' in Society. That is to say, those who are enabled to live a happy, self-satisfying - even self-indulgent - kind of life; and there are those who live an unhappy, deprived, subordinate, arduous and humiliating existence. That is, simply, how the State has arranged things. All one can say in the State's favour is that there are more of the former 'winners' than there are 'losers'.

But you cannot run such a system without there being 'losers', and the whole of this Society is conditioned from birth to accept such a System. Every child, as soon as it can understand anything, knows that it is at risk. That is - when it reaches young adulthood, it can either be a 'winner' or a 'loser'. All citizens accept this, because they simply cannot do anything else. That does not lessen their desire to be a 'winner', nor their despair if they happen to become a 'loser'.

Let us examine this System, and the Laws laid down, in a little more detail.

All males and females go into a State Lottery at birth. An ERNIE which no one can avoid! The draw is made and the luckiest - known as the Elite - are made exempt from slavery for life at once. Oh what a gift that is under this particular State! Better than any silver spoon in the mouth. The proportion of the populace thus exempted is ten per cent, or one in ten, if you prefer.

But what of the remainder?

Ah, there's the rub. For they have to go into further Lotteries ... and do so again and again.

The girls start to go into these State Lotteries at the age of eighteen and the young men at twenty-four. From these ages onwards they each go into a Lottery every year for six consecutive years. At each Lottery five per cent of the girls and five per cent of the young men are earmarked for slavery. A tragic, but pre-ordained, Fate for which the State is responsible ... and, force majeure, everyone has to accept. It is part of the 'Way of Life'. Thus it will be seen that a young person might escape five annual Lotteries yet be caught on the sixth. A cruel Fate indeed!

However, all those who escape the sixth Lottery are exempt from slavery for life.

It will be seen this that the years eighteen to twenty-four for a young woman, and twenty-four to twenty-nine for a young man are both crucial and nerve-racking. At each Annual Lottery their whole future is at stake. Are they going to be 'winners' or 'losers'? To live a life of relative ease or wretched misery? What a mental agony those years are for the young of this State!

Up until this crucial period, young people lead relatively normal lives - even though they are gradually made aware of what is coming to them. Their education and activities are much as they might be in any present-day system of family life. However, young women under eighteen - and young men under twenty-four - may not marry, even though they are permitted sexual intercourse, with parental permission.

Once having escaped six Lotteries, young people may marry and have families. Ah the same time they must work for State Institutions for prescribed periods. Girls from twenty-four to forty, men from twenty-nine to fifty. The work is concerned with the organisation, progress and practical running of the State. Such work is allocated, according to merits and skills - and there can be no appeal against State rulings. Whether one's work is unpleasant or not, one has to accept it. But, at least, all know that their lot is far better than that of slaves which, if the Lottery had gone against them, they could have become. This makes acceptance easier.

At the end of their working life - at forty for women, or fifty for men - people may retire to small village communities like Limbourne. In such places they are aware they will lead lives which are cushioned from financial worries and will have slaves to serve them. For many, such a prospect is most satisfying - if not to say exciting. Many endure their whole working lives just dreaming of such a retirement. There are some, nevertheless, who do not find such a prospect pleasing. They like the thought of ease, but they do not approve of slavery. Well, the State takes care of such people. They have to continue working a further ten years of their lives and then retire to a communal village where, mainly, they have to fend for themselves. It is a fairly tough life, but there are those who prefer it that way. The all-seeing, all-understanding, beneficent State arranges for their wishes to be granted. In their primitiveness, the villages to which such people retire are like villages such as Limbourne. The essential difference is the lack of slaves - who provide such excellent service and pleasure to those who desire to make use of them!

Chacun a son gout ...

Those who so opt can retire to a village like Limbourne where they have slave labour available to them. Slave labour provided by the State. Slave labour organised and trained by the State. It is an aspect of the System which the State realises many of its citizens fully appreciate. It gives them what they want. It keeps them content. The State never mentions this. It simply provides. And for this the State has its own reasons ... which it never reveals.

The motto of the State might, indeed, be - 'Never complain - and never explain'.

Thus far we have dealt with the majority of the citizens of the State. Those, that is, who are fortunate in the State Lottery. Let us now look at the unfortunate.

Those earmarked for slavery are sent to State Slave Training Centres. There they remain for periods of six months to one year in order to be conditioned and disciplined for the life of servitude which lies ahead of them. A dire and gloomy prospect indeed yet, strangely enough, one which is accepted by those who have to undergo it. For it is a basic part of the pattern of life set by the State. To rebel against such a pattern would have been like committing blasphemy in the Middle Ages. It was simply a thing one did not do.

Not, as has been said, that made it something any easier to endure.

After training, each slave is allocated to an owner in one of the villages. He or she becomes a virtual chattel - an object, if you like - of which the owner can make any use he or she wishes. Of course, there are some restrictions (and these we will hear of later) but any owner can virtually do no wrong as far as a male or female slave is concerned. Even violations of the State's basic code are seldom acted upon.

In short, the owner is Master or Mistress of the slave in the truest sense.

Slavery is for as long a period as that of the ordinary working life of those who have escaped slavery. That is to say, up to the age of forty years for women and fifty for men. Thus it is possible for a woman to endure twenty-two years of slavery and a man twenty-six.

What happens to them after this time?

They are sent to isolated communal villages to live out the rest of their lives. In these places, which are relatively comfortable after the sort of existence the slaves have endured, marriage and procreation are forbidden. On the other hand, unlimited sex is allowed. Life is rather brutish with the spoils going to those who have the most strength and will left after a lifetime of servitude and degradation. In some ways, ex-slaves may do as they wish - as far as they are able. But they must never leave their village or its immediate surroundings. To do so invites certain death.

Need it be said that a number accept such an invitation without any great regret?

Back now to the State Slave Training Centres.

Part of the system at such a Centre is that slaves should have a taste of their future existence outside the Centre by being sent on Probation. It is all part of their training - and such an arrangement usually occurs after about three months.

Matt Dawson and Nancy Blake are at precisely this stage of their training.

Already they have endured a lot. Already they have learnt a lot.

But it is but a beginning.

Now they are arriving at Limbourne.

Or, as some say, they are now 'In Limbo' ...