Free Borstal Slags by Tom Graham Page B

his eyes. ‘It will do you good to see the System at work. And as luck would have it, Donner’s on work duty in the new kitchen block. You can interview him
and
cast your eyes over our new facilities at the same time.’
    ‘Stone me, I’ve just shat meself,’ intoned Gene.

CHAPTER SIX: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
    McClintock led the way, striding trimly ahead of them, a straight-backed, jet-black figure in shiny shoes and sharp-peaked cap who carried himself with the self-assurance of Napoleon.
    I don’t like him,
thought Sam, watching McClintock as he followed him.
The man’s a jumped up, self-important control freak. I’ll bet he’s a bully, too – a tin-pot commandant strutting about his private empire, playing God with the inmates. And yet – it’s not his personality that’s getting to me. There’s something else, something that turns my stomach.
    His eye was caught by a glint of light flashing across the gold fob watch at McClintock’s waist. For some reason, Sam’s attention kept coming back to it.
    What the hell is it about that watch that’s bugging me? And what was all that he was saying just now, all that talk about never being able to change the system? Didn’t I hear all that in a dream not so long ago? Or am I losing my grip altogether?
    No, he wasn’t losing his grip. He knew, all too well, that there was something out there, something dark and mean and unspeakably evil, and that bit by bit it was closing in. Whatever it was, it had its sights fixed remorselessly on Annie, and yet it was attempting to reach her through Sam. It found ways of manifesting itself, ways of materializing in Sam’s world, over and over; and every guise it took was a step closer, a step nearer, until, one day, one day soon …
    One day soon we’ll meet face to face.
    A voice echoed though his memory:
‘I make it my business to know my rivals. I’ll keep coming at you, you cheating bastard. I’ll keep coming at you until I’ve got my wife back –
my
wife –
mine
.’
    Sam clenched his fists.
We’ll see, you little shit. We’ll see.
    As he and Gene turned into another corridor, they were suddenly confronted by words in bright-red paint, three feet high, stencilled boldly along the wall.
     
SILENCE – RESPECT – DUTY
    ‘Now
that
,’ announced Gene, stopping and staring at it, ‘is exactly what I never get from my staff.’
    ‘And it’s precisely what
I
expect from every single inmate in this establishment,’ said McClintock. ‘Without fail.’
    ‘So you write it on the wall,’ said Sam.
    ‘And the boys see it every day. Perhaps, in time, these virtues might sink into their criminal minds.’
    ‘Slogans on wall? Don’t you think it’s a bit Orwellian?’
    Gene gave Sam a look of total incomprehension mixed with utter contempt. ‘Doesn’t he think it’s a bit
what
?’
    ‘It’s like
Nineteen Eighty-Four
,’ Sam said. And then, in an aside to Gene, ‘It’s a famous book, Guv.’
    ‘I know what it is,’ Gene snapped.
    With a curt, controlled gesture, McClintock indicated at the red letters dominating the wall. ‘Every boy here must learn silence, for it is golden. Then he must learn respect – respect for the warders, for his fellow inmates, for himself, and most of all for the System. And then – perhaps – he might start to grasp the concept of duty.’
    McClintock touched the gold chain at his waist, running his fingers along it until they reached the fob watch in its little pocket. He patted it.
    That watch – I bloody hate it!
Sam thought.
Why? Why do I want to rip the damn thing out of his pocket and smash it to pieces?
    ‘Silence, respect, duty,’ McClintock said, almost to himself. ‘The three graces.’
    And, with that, he continued along the corridor, Sam and Gene striding along in his wake.
    ‘You put a lot of faith in your System here, Mr McClintock,’ Sam said as they walked.
    ‘Of course. The System is what holds this place together. It’s what stands between order and