Free Eat Thy Neighbour by Daniel Diehl Page A

the Beanes had to range farther and farther afield on their hunting expeditions and lugging home the kills required the help of the younger and stronger members of the clan. To make the most of their forays across Galloway the tribe began organising its attacks with military precision. Guards were concealed on hillocks and behind dunes to alert other members of the clan when likely prospects were coming their way, or when there were signs of trouble lurking over the next rise.
    There were also rules of engagement. So long as there were enough Beanes in the hunting party, they could attack groups oftravellers as large as four or five if they were on foot, but never more than two if they were on horseback. When the unwary passer-by came within range, the ferocious, feral Beanes would rush out of hiding, swarm over their victim, slit their throat and drag the carcass back to the cave, leaving little or no evidence of their passing.
    It would seem likely that, over the years, someone would have seen this half-naked tribe scurrying across the landscape and assume these were the creatures responsible for the disappearance of so many innocent people. Undoubtedly this did happen. The only reason they did not report their findings is because they, too, became victims of the Beanes. For more than two decades Sawney Beane and his clan carried out their lonely, vicious guerrilla war against the people of the Galloway coast undetected and unsuspected.
    Inevitably, as long as the Beanes remained at large, the populace lived in mortal terror. Fewer and fewer people travelled the roads, businesses that relied on outside trade began to collapse and people moved away. Each time a person failed to return home their grieving family reported their disappearance to the local authorities, who duly reported it to the King’s Magistrates and from time to time soldiers came looking for the miscreants who were terrorising the area around Ballantree Bay. Sometimes they made an arrest. Strangers who still dared to come to the area were frequently arrested and taken in for questioning. If they failed to present a legitimate reason for their presence in the area, they were hanged, but still the disappearances continued. The occasional lynching by a fearful and paranoid mob brought no better results. Eventually, in utter frustration, the magistrates decided that the perpetrator had to be someone who lived in the area. The most likely suspects would seem to be the landlords of inns, who might follow any of their overnight guests on their travels, waylay them and dispose of the bodies. Consequently, a few of the moredisreputable innkeepers in the area were taken into custody, questioned and executed, but it did nothing to quell the rash of missing travellers.
    With so many mouths to feed, the Beanes’ biggest problem now became not how to procure food, but how to dispose of the waste. The bones were piling up and threatened to fill the cave. To solve the problem the Beanes began to make bone disposal forays under cover of darkness, tossing the remains into the receding waves to be carried out to sea. Naturally, some of the body parts washed back on to shore when the tide returned. It did not take long for local people to realise they were dealing with far more than murder and robbery. The embedded smell of brine combined with the obvious marks of knives and teeth led to the inescapable conclusion that a tribe of cannibals had been operating along the coast for years.
    The Beanes’ first – and apparently only – mistake came one day in the spring or summer of 1435 when they waylaid a young couple returning along the coast road from a village fair some distance away. The man and his wife were sharing a horse, probably the only one they owned. The man rode in front, his wife behind, her arms around his waist. As they passed the point where the Beanes lay in wait, the clan jumped out, whooping and screaming, and dragged the woman from the horse before her