The Georgia Peach Pt. 02

"Aaarrrghhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Catherine writhed and squirmed on the wood, contorting before her back arched and her first unearthly shriek filled the room. The pain and terror combined to bring a brittle, razor-edged resonance to the sound.

This was totally alien to her. Catherine had never subscribed to the servitude aspect of slavery preferring to treat the slaves at White Orchard with respect and civility. She had never seen this room nor this contraption ... bastinado he called it ... put to real use. Yet now here she was suffering at its odious pleasure, begging for its unseen mercy.

Sampson's eyes shifted from the girl to Sergeant Oak, noting the surprise in his face. He waited to see what his response would be. The Sergeant's head was nodding and a smirk broke out on his lips. There had been real pain in her scream, genuine agony, authentic fear, and it had stiffened his groin.

Long before Catherine's shrieking cries deteriorated into a low, persistent keening, the pitter-patter of the sticks in the Lieutenant's hand took up their rhythm all over again. This time it was played out on the sole of her other foot, and with the beating of the sticks came the sound of his voice. Softly and persistently, taking full advantage of her vulnerability, he began to mock the poor, bound girl.

"How did you like that?" He asked. "Still reckon you can withstand this pain, do you?"

Shepherd's cock was feeling stimulated again. Despite his most recent conquest still sobbing quietly at her mama's feet, the scene being played out here was like nothing he could have ever imagined. He would play his part at some point, he simply must. Degrading this young, little bitch would be his ultimate pleasure!

For a few seconds Catherine struggled wildly, but the restraints binding her to the plank were secured too tightly, too firmly. In fact, the harder she struggled, the more the fetters seemed to tighten around her.

She soon gave up and, despite the discomfort of her deportment, lay quietly on the wood, trembling and whimpering softly as she waited for the pain to visit her again. Catherine could only move her foot an inch or so, and the sticks followed her relentlessly. The drumming began again. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.

This time he didn't keep her waiting quite so long, though the final slashing blow was delivered with equal ferocity. For a second time Catherine's body contorted in agony, and the block filled with her shrieking screams as Sampson quickly switched his attention back to her left foot.

Pitter-patter, pitter-patter. When Catherine began to babble, he did nothing to dissuade her; to him the sound of her pleading voice was sweet, like the taste of wild honey on the tip of his tongue.

"No," she whimpered, "please, no more. It hurts, it hurts too much."

All she could hear was his laughter; all she could feel was the sticks beating out their cruel rhythm on the soles of her feet.

"That's the point Catherine, it's meant to hurt ... to torture you, no point doing it if it doesn't. Are you ready to start talking to us yet Catherine? You know what we want to hear."

He knew she wasn't ready yet, not by a long way. He could see and feel her body tensing as she gritted her teeth and tried to resist. She was still trying to deny the inevitable, but already her breathing was coming in short, pained gasps as she tried to anticipate when the next blow was going to fall. That was the true beauty of bastinado; the anguish of the wait was every bit as painful as the blinding instant of agony when the next blow fell.

He looked across at the Sergeant and nodded. "Next time," he said, "Next time I hurt her she will start begging for it to stop. Next time she really will want it to end, and she will say anything just to put an end to the pain."

He kept her waiting a very long time. Pausing occasionally, and altering the pitter-patter rhythm of the sticks several times, he tempted her into that certain belief that the blow was about to fall. Watching her body as it tensed in anticipation and then relaxed slightly when the blow failed to materialise. He chose the moment she was least expecting it to drive the jolt home, the moment when the pain would be at its most intense. That was when Catherine really cried out. Screamed with the throbbing agony and she began to shake uncontrollably.

"Please, leave me alone. Do not hurt me anymore I beg of you. I won't give you any trouble, not one little bit ... just stop, please."

Every time she begged, Sampson came back at her with the same reply.

"Not yet Catherine, you can take a lot more punishment than this. Besides, we need to hear you begging for us to stop, and you are not yet begging with enough sincerity!"

So the torment continued, the remorseless tapping on her feet, followed by that blinding instant of white-hot pain that lost none of its potency with repetition. Steadily the desperation of her bearing increased in its urgency. Now her whole body was quaking, her eyes were wide and staring, and her lips drawn back over her teeth in an ugly grimace. Everything the Lieutenant had said, was happening, and finally Catherine began to beg them to stop.

"Please, please stop. I will do anything you want, say anything you want ... no more please, I beg you Sir." She groaned, desperate to feel relief from this perpetual torment and put a stop to the pain racking her body.

"For God's sake please ... STOP!"

Chapter 19 - The Upstairs Study at White Orchard Plantation, Around 7pm, May 11th 1864

The General was not aware of the actual time, but he was very conscious of what might well be happening in the block building.

He knew it would be fully equipped for handling ill-disciplined slaves and so he had pictured Catherine being bucked and gagged, or maybe hung by her thumbs or fastened to a cart wheel ... any of the options quite frankly turned his stomach.

He knew they couldn't flog her, that was too severe a punishment for a civilian whose guilt remained unproven, but his consternation was heightened when, in every one of his imaginings his young Goddaughter was naked!

He sighed, and once again paced to the window, but all he could see was the back few rows of the watching audience. How humiliated Catherine would be as they degraded her, making her submit in public ... her naked body subjugated ... STOP! Damn it!

Taking out his pocket watch Sherman saw that it was almost seven pm.

"They have had long enough with her," he muttered to himself, I shall intervene."

Making his way onto the upstairs landing the General was halted in his tracks by one of Sampson's Bummers.

"General Sir, we have found this."

"Can it wait soldier? I have other matters to attend to ..."

The trooper held out his hand and in it was a scruffy, loose-leaf piece of paper upon which was drawn a large square with smaller squares inside it. Inside each square was a series of letters and numbers, which at first glance made no sense at all.

Sherman studied for a brief moment and then said, "Is that what I think it is Private?"

The soldier nodded and answered, "Yes, Gen'l, Sir. I believe it as a Goddamn cipher square."

Sherman looked at the paper but his mind was already elsewhere.

"Coded messages Gen'l, the little bitch ... I mean, Miss McCown, must have been colluding with the enemy Sir."

The General felt sick. Had his worst fear just been realised? Was sweet little Catherine part of the Confederate intelligence network? His own Goddaughter a Rebel spy? They had no proof, not yet ... but in his heart Sherman knew that the evidence against the girl was becoming ever more substantial.

The war could be brought to a close if the plan that he and Grant had hatched and agreed with Lincoln was implemented swiftly and successfully. Nothing could be allowed to detract from its execution, so this new evidence raised the stakes somewhat as far as Catherine was concerned. If she was indeed conspiring with those damn secessionists, he needed to know all about it.

He steeled himself ... there was important work to be done, Goddaughter or no Goddaughter!

******

"Let me go please," Catherine was still sobbing hard. A quick look around the room revealed just how many of these men, both soldier and slave found her submissive predicament to be more than a little stimulating.

"Ask us nicely Catherine," Sampson said, interrupting as her babbling threatened to get out of control.

"My feet ... they are numb with this awful treatment, please stop!"

"No, no. Ask us courteously Catherine. You know what to say. I'm a dirty little Rebel spy and I deserve to be punished ..." he prompted, as the sticks continued to beat out their rhythm.

"I'm ... I'm ..." she hesitated.

"Go on, tell us what you are Catherine. Tell us what you want us to do."

She flinched visibly as she sensed his hand draw back, and suddenly the words came pouring from her mouth in a torrent.

"I'm a dirty little R ... Reb ... Rebel Spy, and I deserve to be punished." This time there was an air of desperation in her trembling voice.

Suddenly the pitter-patter stopped. Catherine had fulfilled his prophecy and had submitted to the pleading she had been so determined to shun. It was time for the pain to stop ... Sampson was smiling at Sergeant Oak, as he nodded to the burley Irishman, who, in turn stood up and began to unlock the fetters around her ankles and wrists.

"Roll over Johnny Reb bitch," he ordered when she had been freed, "So that we can all see you properly."

The poor girl groaned, and remained still. The sergeant, whose own breeches were tented by his erection, grabbed her hair and pulled her head savagely upwards. Catherine screamed.

"Did you hear me you Reb cunt, turn over!"

Resigned to obedience in fear of further torture, and with some difficulty on the relatively thin plank, she moved herself onto her back as ordered. All eyes immediately gazed attentively at her nudity. Her firm breasts, with hardened nipples, slender waist and smooth thighs with a tuft of dark hair at the apex of her virgin mound.

"Now, tell us Catherine. What is it that you have done, and who are you in cahoots with?"

The girl let her head rest back on the wood, her long hair falling to either side.

The Lieutenant grabbed her arm and pulled her off the wood. She automatically moved to put down her feet in order to stop her fall ... and screamed. The pain in her legs was unbearable. Catherine shrieked as her knees buckled beneath her, and she slumped to the dusty floor in utter despair.

"What's the matter?" asked Sampson. He didn't sound too concerned.

"I can't stand. My feet, my legs, they hurt too much ..."

"Who told you to stand?" he said, "I'm sure I didn't. Filthy Rebel Spies can crawl on all fours just as easily." He reached down and patted her on the head before ordering Oak to put the collar back around her slender neck.

Smiling as he watched Catherine once more being collared, the Lieutenant then slipped the leash chain back into place.

"Now we can continue our conversation over here, once you and I have led the way through this crowd of people., all eager to see more of you ..." She sensed the smirk on his lips without having to look up.

Sampson jerked on her chain and Catherine began to crawl across the room on all fours. As she shuffled past him, Sergeant Oak reached down with one hand and squeezed her bottom, allowing his index finger to lazily slip between the dark crevice of her firm cheeks.

Catherine cried out, her humiliation heightened, but knew that she could nothing to stop this from happening. They had her naked and beaten, collared and leashed, at their whimsical, perverted beck and call.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mercy ... sweet, sweet Mercy, on the floor crying and that brute of an overseer standing over her. He had raped her, that much was obvious. Just the very sight of him, knowing how much he would be enjoying this spectacle, made her want to retch.

Lieutenant Sampson brought Catherine's degrading journey through the crowd of people, many of whom were known to her, to a halt. Her feet were on fire, and it was a warped kind of blessing that she hadn't been made to walk.

As the officer sat down, the tortured girl collapsed onto the floor before him, her naked body curled in to as small a ball as possible.

"So little rebel slut, what have you got to tell us?"

"Stop this right now." Everyone looked up to see General Sherman in the entrance way holding the damning piece of paper in his hand, "We have further evidence to discuss."

To Be Continued ...