CHAPTER ONE

    'I'm still not sure about how you want us to treat you,' Evadne confessed. 'Do you see yourself as a horse, a pony, a donkey, or what?'

  The bulky young man sitting at the kitchen table opposite her sighed.

    'I don't care if you treat me as a draught animal or a beast of burden,' he replied softly, 'Just so that I'm made to do real, useful work over the ten days I want to spend with you.'

    'Well, what sort of harness do you have?' Evadne enquired, no doubt hoping his answer would give her a clue to what work would suit him best. She was to be disappointed, for he admitted simply that he had no harness, never having done this sort of thing before, and that he rather hoped we would provide one, at his expense, of course.

  Evadne glanced around the table at us.

    'I shall have to consult my colleagues,' she said, rather grandly, and Rebecca, Robbie and I followed her from the kitchen into the living room.

    'Any ideas?' Evadne asked us; a trifle desperately, I thought.

    'Real work...' Rebecca said thoughtfully. 'I can't think of any we want doing,' she confessed.

    'Nor me,' I chipped in. 'It's not as though we're running a proper farm, with crops to be brought in and so forth. He would be useful hauling cartloads of firewood back from the log pile, but we don't use that much as this time of year. Of course, we could use him to cart stone from the ruined walls on the moors, but the work involved with that would be as exhausting for us as for him.'

    'As exhausting for you and me, you mean!' Robbie grunted, gesturing at the grinning girls.

  I laughed. I could see his point; if there was heavy lifting to be done, one or both of us would be landed with it!

    'Well, somebody think of something!' Evadne snapped, aghast at the prospect of money slipping from our grasp.

  I racked my brains, but could only come up with a fantasy of driving our guest down to the village at need, and wondering what our neighbours would think. They already thought us eccentric, but I imagined they'd draw the line at the sight of a naked man harnessed to a cart being driven to the shops or the pub, and I almost burst into a fit of giggles.

  Next to me, Robbie stirred. He stopped drumming his fingers on the table, and leaned forward.

    'I've got an idea,' he said.

  Ten minutes later, we were back around the kitchen table where our prospective guest was waiting with bovine patience for our decision.

    'Yes,' said Evadne. 'We can cater for you. You'll be doing real, valuable work for us, and we'll be glad of your presence. We'll provide all the equipment, and make you an offer. We were going to ask for a thousand quid for ten days, but we'd much prefer you to come to us for a month, for the same price. That's how useful you'll be to us.'

  The young man smiled. He held up a hand, repeating he didn't want to know in what capacity he'd be working for us, providing it was authentic labour for a draught animal or a beast of burden.

    'When can I come?' he asked simply.

  Evadne looked at Robbie, who replied that everything would be ready in a week's time.

    'I can make a start now,' Robbie said, rising to his feet. 'Come over to my workshop, and I'll measure you for the harness I have in mind for you. You come, too, Ivor,' he said to me. 'And give me a hand with the tape.'

  Crossing the yard, I was struck by the sheer size and bulk of our companion. Robbie was a burly six footer, and I a lean six foot two, but 'Bill,' our client, towered over me by a good four inches. He seemed fit enough, and he said he was, and my confidence in Robbie's solution grew with every step we took.

  Taking Bill's measurements was a simple task, or would have been apart from Robbie's fanatical insistence on complete accuracy, and it only involved Bill stripping to the waist. I think he was as puzzled as me by the measurements Robbie chose to have me take, but he said nothing, and when we'd finished he returned to the kitchen to be told he'd be telephoned the day before we were ready for him.   

CHAPTER TWO

  With Bill gone, Robbie burst into activity into which he dragged us all. Our first job was to clear a path to the old Pump Shed, unused for years since water had been piped down from the tarn up in the hills behind the farm. It wasn't very good water, being a little brownish despite filtering, and it was hard water, causing soap to be difficult to lather, a cause of complaint from the girls, as was the fact that baths had to be strictly rationed in summer on account of the level in the tarn..

  Fetching a ladder, I held it for Robbie to climb up and inspect the huge tank on the roof of the shed. He said it was fine, dry as a bone and clean, and as watertight as new.

  In the shed, Evadne, Rebecca and I busied ourselves in removing the debris that tends to gather in unused buildings whilst Robbie went to the endless chain in the corner and looked down the hole in the floor through which it descended into the well deep below. The buckets that hooked on the chain were wooden, heavy, cracked and rotten, and he discarded them, saying he'd replace them with plastic ones.

Finally, we began to examine the central rotating column and the capstan bar that slotted into it.

  At once we hit a snag. The bar, set to the height of a donkey's neck, would need to be raised more than two feet, but Robbie was undeterred, Using a pair of steps and an oil can, he spent several minutes oiling the sprockets and transmission chain between the top of the column and the gearing of the endless chain. Announcing himself satisfied, he invited me to push on the capstan.

  Gripping the bar, which was at waist height, I dug my bare feet into the hard-packed earthen floor and pushed as hard as I could. Robbie's face fell when he saw I couldn't budge it, and he joined me, Evadne, too, whilst Rebecca stood by making sarcastic remarks about our strength and fitness

  Under our combined efforts, the column began to rotate with the grinding noise of long disuse. Then, as the oil worked its way into the crude machinery, pushing the bar became easier and a easier until I could rotate the column alone – although it was something I wouln't care to do for long.

But Robbie was optimistic. The apparatus was old; but he could replace most of it with modern equivalents, stronger and far lighter. And so he did, inviting us back to the shed a couple of days later to test the mechanism in its new guise.

  Sure enough, the bar, still set at waist height, was much easier to push, almost negligible, in fact. Robbie hooked a bucket to the chain, then another and another, until ten buckets were spaced equally apart. I noticed immediately the moment when, far below, the leading bucket filled and began to rise. Then the next, and the next, and the effort needed to keep pushing the capstan bar around the central column increased step by step. About thirty seconds after the first full bucket had emerged, dripping, from the well, I heard the dull splash from above as it discharged its gallon of contents into the big tank over my head.

  The work wasn't too difficult, soon developing into an unchanging routine. The endless chain of buckets reached equilibrium, five full and five empty, and I calculated I was continually raising fifty pounds of water with every step. Still, after twenty minutes my arm muscles were beginning to ache, and I wished Robbie would quit fooling around with his stop-watch and calculator and tell me to stop.

    'O.K!' Robbie announced. 'That'll do, Ivor. With ten buckets on the chain, we can pump a gallon a minute; sixty gallons an hour. It's not much, but our guest will be able to fill the tank in about three weeks, and keep it topped up for the last week of his stay. Baths for everyone whilst he's with us, and for a couple of weeks afterwards, too!'

  Robbie and I set about making Bill's harness, although, technically speaking, it wasn't a harness at all but a yoke of padded leather. Robbie had changed his mind about a harness, saying now that a yoke would be a better means of fully harnessing Bill's strength. It would be secured on his shoulders by stainless steel 'U' bolts under each armpit, bolted down firmly, and it had heavy steel rings sewn into at the back for the capstan bar to be clamped in place. We had mitts, of course, and an arm-binder, and he would wear thick cuffs, linked by a short chain, on his ankles. The bridle was next, a simple enough affair, but with wide, padded blinders attached. There was a steel bit, but that was mostly for show, as it wouldn't be used during his ordeal. The  ensemble would be completed by a collar, and we announced to Evadne that, for our part, everything was ready.

  Evadne had very little to do with it, Rebecca, with her degree in Nutritional Science, having taken on responsibility for his diet. She intended to feed him three or four times daily on high-calorie pig-meal on account of the energy she calculated he'd expend over a twelve hour day of drudgery; like an Arctic explorer, he'd need at least 6000 a day. Evadne, who'd been having second thoughts about her generosity in offering Bill a month's stay for the cost of ten days, moaned about the expense, particularly about the two second-hand cattle prods Robbie had insisted on buying.

    'When all's said and done, our guest is a big, powerful animal, and we must be able to enforce his co-operation,' he told us.

CHAPTER THREE

  Bill, whom we'd decided to call 'Hercules' on account of his size and strength, arrived two days later at nine o'clock on a mild, cloudy morning. Refusing tea, and saying he'd like to begin as soon as possible, he accompanied me and Robbie to the barn to be prepared.

  We began with the gag, which Bill inserted himself once he'd removed his clothes, and then the mitts and the arm-binder, a sheet of soft leather which was wrapped around his fore arms when they were placed parallel behind his back. In view of Bill's strength, Robbie had added two padded cuffs which we strapped around each arm just below the huge biceps, linking them with a steel rod. We didn't intend for him to be able to pull his fore arms out of the binder!

  The bridle came next, with the attached blinders which we closed over his eyes, securing them with a strap. This was by design, to prevent him seeing his yoke and perhaps realising the part he was to play for the next month. Then we lifted the yoke over his head, settling it around his neck and on his shoulders, securing it in place with a 'U' bolt under each armpit. He wriggled his upper body for a few moments, trying to work out what we'd done, but subsided as I bent and buckled the thick cuffs on his ankles. A steel collar was the last item, and we clipped a chain to it and buckled the leather loop at its end  around one of the uprights supporting the barn roof.

  Unconsciously, we both relaxed. We'd both felt somewhat oppressed by his size and bulk, and now his total helplessness reassured us. The giant had been rendered harmless, and now he would do what we made him do. We left him there, and went back to the kitchen to finish our interrupted breakfasts. Evadne and Rebecca looked at us enquiringly.

    'He's safe.' I told them. 'He's tethered, and probably wondering what work he's to be put to.'

    'He won't like it when he finds out,' Evadne said doubtfully. 

    'Nothing he can do about it,' Robbie pointed out, his mouth full of toast and marmalade. 'A few touches of a cattle prod, and he'll obey,' he added, with what I thought was a certain relish.

  I stared through the open door of the kitchen at the tall, pale figure standing so patiently in the barn. What was going through his mind, I wondered? He'd be puzzled by the yoke, and the absence of the harness, with its waist-belt and shoulder straps, he must have been expecting to wear. No doubt, as he waited, enjoyable visions of himself trotting along a track between the shafts of a cart were in his mind, and I wondered how long it would be before the reality of what he was made to do sank in. Several days, I thought; he wouldn't be expecting his monotonous labour to continue for a whole month. No, there would be no running through the dappled sunlight for this draught animal!

    'Time to make a move!' Robbie said, draining his tea. Leaving Evadne to clear away and wash up, Rebecca, I and Robbie left the house and crossed the yard to the barn.

  'Hercules' lifted his blind head at our approach, but Rebecca, showing a confidence I'd never seen in her before, untied the end of his leash. Robbie and I, our cattle prods switched to low power, took up positions behind him. What followed was something of an anti-climax. Rebecca, her diminutive figure dwarfed by that our 'ox,' reached up with one hand to seize his chain high up by his collar. She tugged gently, the chain held across her body. 'Walk on!' I heard her say, and the big creature meekly obeyed, shuffling forward in response to the tugs on its collar.

  Robbie and I lowered our prods and exchanged glances. This could be easier than we thought! But then, Bill would have been bored with being left tethered to the post, and he'd want to know what fate we had in store for him. I soon noticed how quickly he adapted to being led. At first, he'd been nervous in his blindness, a little frightened of any obstacle there might be in his path, but he very soon gained confidence in his handler, guessing that she wouldn't allow him to walk into any obstruction. Feeling a little foolish, we followed Rebecca and her charge the hundred yards to the Pump Shed.

  Once inside, we followed a routine we'd spent a lot of time practising. We'd argued about the best and safest way of putting Bill to work, and Rebecca, after halting him on the circular path around the central column marked out in white paint by Robbie, pulled down hard on his leash and told him to kneel, at the same time jabbing him in his stomach with the short stick she'd hooked on her belt. He hesitated; she tugged downwards on his collar again and repeated her command, at which he slowly and awkwardly fell to his knees before her.

  Robbie and I moved swiftly, pushing the thick capstan bar, already lowered to the correct height, until it bumped gently into the back of his bulky yoke. Quickly, we clamped the bar to the yoke and stood back in relief, knowing he was safely secured.

  Rebecca detached the leash whilst I went to the central column and began pumping up and down p the long lever protruding from it, at which the capstan bar began to rise slowly in the vertical slot Robbie had made. Slowly, the kneeling figure began to straighten, its weight no match for the inexorable upward pull on the 'U' bolts under its armpits.

  It was hard work pumping the lever, but it became much easier when the big body was raised high enough for its legs to support it, and I stopped pumping at Robbie's nod, making a careful mark on the slot for future reference. Removing the handle, I joined the others in looking at the big figure before us.

  By design, he wasn't entirely upright. Unable to straighten fully, he stood with his knees slightly bent until, after a few moments, he found the more comfortable position of straightening his legs and bending forward a little at the hips. There he stood patiently, unable to move, and no doubt wondering what was to happen next.

  Rebecca released the brake with a loud click. Shesauntered forward, uncoiling the short whip she took from her belt, and took a position behind him and to one side.

    'Walk on, Hercules!' she commanded, at the same time landing the lash across his right buttock.

  We all heard his little gasp of shock and pain, and saw a thin, red welt appear on his pale skin, and we all felt like cheering as he shuffled obediently forward. With no load on the capstan, he found it easy, but after a few feet, he slowed, uncertain of what his tormentor wanted from him.

   'Walk on!' Rebecca repeated, lashing him again with her whip, and once more he grunted with pan and resumed his slow shuffle.

  The man yoked to the capstan was, of course, infinitely more intelligent that his four-legged counterpart, and it was, after all, a simple lesson that he was being taught. Keep moving, or get a blow from the whip. They were a painful blows, too, despite the almost negligent way in which Rebecca moved her arm, for we could see the angry red welts of the lash on the skin of his haunches and hear his gasps of fear and pain.

  'Fear and pain.' I was surprised by the casual ruthlessness Rebecca was displaying, a side of her character I hadn't suspected. She was taming our guest as if he was an animal, and he had no recourse, ludicrously helpless despite his size and strength. It made me uneasy; this wasn't like Justin and Jason, whom, despite their condition, I'd still thought of as human beings. Would we all come, in time, to think of our guest as a beast?

  We looked over to the corner where the third bucket was even then vanishing downwards. It could only be seconds before the leading bucket rose from the surface below to add its weight to the big man's load. Deep below, the addition of the extra ten pounds to the load caused our 'ox' to falter, but Rebecca, quick with the whip, soon got him back to his slow, steady trudge. By the time the third bucket filled, he'd become used to the extra increment, and he plodded on steadily as the full buckets rose up the chain one after another and the empty ones continued to descend on the other side. Presently, we heard the splash of water in the tank above as the first bucket emptied its contents and appeared, now empty,on the downward side of the chain. We all relaxed, and continued to watch whilst our guest continued his endless, circular journey around the central column.

Robbie and I left Rebecca to her task, she having said she could manage alone. I returned within minutes with the table and chair she'd asked me to bring, along with a pile of fashion magazines to while away her time at the boring task of whipping on our guest whenever he slowed. We'd arranged to operate the pump in shifts, she and I. Robbie was too busy with the mysterious gadget he was making for the benefit of our would be piggy guests, and Evadne would often be out at work on the premises of her clients. Still, she'd said she'd help out when she could, and Rebecca and I had to be satisfied with that. Neither of us had very much work on hand, and we would be able to devotee time to supervising our guest. Rebecca had worked out how to feed and water him in situ, and said she would show me how to do it later. I went, leaving her leafing through a magazine and now and then glancing at her charge as he trudged along to the accompaniment of regular inrushes of water into the tank above.

  I had a small job to finish, but it wasn't urgent. Back in the house, I took it on myself to check whether there was enough water in the tank to fill the header tank in the attic. There was, for it was half full, and a steady trickle was coming it from the big tank over the Pump Shed, courtesy of the muscles of our guest. There should be enough for two baths by tonight, and I smiled as I imagined the excitement of the two girls at the prospect. As for me, I was happy enough with a shower, but I admitted to myself that showering in soft well water would be better.

CHAPTER FOUR.

  At noon, I stirred myself. It was my task to make lunch, and I went out into our big vegetable garden and picked a salad. I sliced ham to go with it, and cheese, and crusty bread with butter, Covering it with a cloth, I went out to tell Rebecca lunch was ready, meaning to summon Robbie from his workshop on the way back.

  Close to the Pump Shed, I paused to listen to the steady shuffling of Bill's feet and the water splashing into the tank. All seemed well, and, indeed, Rebecca was discovered peacefully reading at the table. On seeing my arrival in the doorway, she came to her feet.

    'Lunch already? I'll feed and water Hercules, and then come with you. He can rest whilst we eat, and then you can take over.'

  I watched her half-fill a bucket with pig-pellets from an open sack in the corner and then fill a large plastic bottle with water from a tap, sealing it with a big, bulbous rubber teat. She pulled hard on the brake lever, causing Bill, terrified by this seemingly sudden increase in his load, to try and walk on until he was finally dragged to a halt against the resistance of the brake. Dragging forward a box, Rebecca placed it carefully in front of him and picked up the bucket and the bottle.

    'We're not all lanky bean-poles like you!' she grinned, noting the puzzled expression on my face. 'I need to able to reach his mouth!'

  She mounted the box where her first action was to thrust the teat between Bill's half-parted lips. Puzzled, and a little afraid, he tried to draw back his head but was foiled by the iron grip of the capstan bar on his yoke. He soon realised he was being given water, and he began to suck and swallow noisily. Rebecca allowed him to drink half the contents of four pints, then withdrew the bottle, replacing it before his mouth by a cupped hand-full of pellets from the bucket. He sniffed at them suspiciously until it dawned upon him that they were food – of a sort. Under my fascinated gaze, he scooped hand-full after hand-full into his gaping mouth until Rebecca, by some means of her own, decided he'd been given enough. She gave him the rest of the water, then climbed down and replaced the bucket, the bottle, and the box where they'd been against the wall.

  She checked the brake was on, and turned away, picking up her magazines.

    'There you are,' she said lightly. 'All you'll have to do when you come back is to take off the brake and whip him into motion. He's given me no trouble: I think he's becoming used to it. In fact, I think he could be left for a few minutes now and then; I think he'll still be walking round and round when you return. I'll take over again at tea time, and feed him again ready for his last stint.'

  We ate lunch, and afterwards, when Rebecca and I had washed up, I went alone to the Pump Shed.

Bill stood there meekly, a puddle of water around his feet. I looked at it in confusion until I realised it was  urine. Held motionless as he was, he'd no choice but to relieve himself where he stood. And, I thought with a shudder of distaste, it could only get worse.

  He moved his head a little as he heard my footsteps, and he tensed when the brake came off and I moved to stand behind him with the whip Rebecca had left for me.

  An imaginative man, I winced at the pain I knew I was about to inflict at the defenceless body before me. I'd suffered a couple of blows from the whip myself, from Rebecca, at my own invitation, and I  remembered how it had hurt much more than I'd imagined. Steeling myself, I brought down the lash on the big, muscular left buttock of my target.

  Whilst he'd been standing, the buckets had emptied through the flaps at their bottoms, and the capstan was easy to rotate with only the residual fifty pounds of the transmission chains to overcome. As each bucket filled, just as earlier he tended to slow a little, and I flicked his haunches

with the whip each time until he finally achieved the steady pace of before, a slow trudge, bent into his yoke.

  I sat at the table and watched. The steady clank as each bucket went over the pulley at the top of the chain was hypnotic, and I kept yawning. I was resisting the temptation to fall asleep when Robbie arrived, bearing a spool of wire and two bottles of beer.

    'Going to run an intercom from the kitchen,' he grunted, taking the spare seat and passing me an opened bottle of beer. 'And an internet connection, so you can work from here,' he added, taking a swig from his bottle. Then: 'How's Hercules doing?'

    'Good as gold!' I replied. 'We've had no trouble with him yet.'

    'You probably won't,' Robbie said gloomily. 'Not until he realises what we've condemned him to.'

    'Surely not,' I protested. 'He wanted us to treat him as we desired, to do the work we wanted him to do. In fact, he insisted on it!'

    'All very well,' Robbie said stubbornly. 'But he hadn't counted on being made to trudge round and round in a circle under the lash, blind and hobbled, for hours on end every day.'

    'Maybe,' I admitted. 'But he can't do anything about, and he'll probably calm down by the end of the month.'

  Robbie looked dubious. He drained his beer and set to work installing the intercom and the internet connection. His hammering and banging disturbed 'Hercules,' who slowed in surprise, and I hurried over to bring down the whip on the small of his back. Robbie left, laying the wire behind him, and I resumed my previous occupation of doing nothing.

  I was bored. 'Hercules' continued his steady trudge, and the pulley up above continued to click as each bucket went over it. The sky had cleared, and the sun had come out, and the temperature in the wooden-walled shed was mounting rapidly.

  A sudden change in the sound of the capstan caught my attention, the sound of water splashing on the floor. It was 'Hercules,' emptying his bladder in a zigzag pattern as he walked. I looked on in fascination, realising he had no other choice. With no idea of how long he'd be made to plod onward, he needs must relieve his aching bladder without stopping his steady trudge. All the same, I couldn't help thinking it a little gross, reinforcing in my mind the impression of him being a real animal.

  I was dozing when the intercom burst into life. It was Rebecca, telling me that tea was nearly ready. I answered, telling her that I'd feed and water 'Hercules' to save her the trouble. She was doubtful, but agreed in the end, telling me to give him no more than half a bucket of pellets and half a gallon of water.

  'Hercules' drank thirstily, whimpering a little when I removed the half-full bottle. He quietened when I proffered a handful of pellets, snuffling them up greedily, his breath warm on my hand.

Checking that the brake was on, I left him and went for tea.

  After tea, a substantial meal, as dinner was to be only soup and sandwiches, I accompanied Rebecca to the Pump Shed to keep her company during her short, two hour shift. She whipped 'Hercules' into motion, and we sat and watched him trudge around on his endless journey. Rebecca enlivened the occasion by relating some of her previous experiences.

    'I was in a Commune when I was younger,' she told me. 'And we ran an old-fashioned farm. All very environmental, with 'organic' this and 'organic' that, and we actually used an ox to thresh and grind our corn for the bread we made and sold to tourists. Horrible stuff it was; heavy as lead and full of grit from the millstones! And we were all vegetarian, although you wouldn't believe it of me, not now! That's how I got to learn how to handle big animals, because as the youngest and smallest, it was my job to keep the ox working,' she finished.

    'Why did you leave?' I asked.

    'Oh! We couldn't make it pay. Our fruit and vegetables were no good grown without fertiliser, and we always lost half our crops because we wouldn't use pesticides on principle!'

  She laughed fondly, remembering the past.

    'Young and foolish, we were,' she said. 'But take it from me; you can't feed masses of people with food grown organically. Too labour intensive, and too unproductive.'

  As this chimed with my own viewpoint, I made no demur, and we chatted of this and that whilst keep an idle eye on the big man yoked to the capstan.

  'Hercules' was tiring. Even his great muscles, after so many hours of hoisting half his bodyweight to the top of the pulley from the well below, were giving out. He slowed down more and more often, bringing Rebecca swearing from her seat to ply her whip on him, and when seven o'clock came, she decided to call it a day. Calling on me to help, she pulled the brake on and stopped him in his tracks where he stood with his head bowed and his shoulders slumped.

  Rebecca clipped the leading chain to his collar and motioned me to spring open the heavy clamps attaching his yoke to the capstan bar. I pulled the bar back a foot or so, and stood ready with a cattle prod in case of any disobedience, But when his little handler tugged on the chain, he stepped forward quite meekly, following her to the pen Robbie and I had built for him against the far wall of the shed.

  It was a strong pen, though I say so myself, About seven feet long and two and a half feet wide, with gates at both ends, it was made of concrete posts with horizontal steel pipes passing through them up to a height of four feet. The pipes, two inches thick, were set a foot apart, and Robbie had welded wire mesh all the way around the lowest gap to keep the layer of straw covering the floor from spilling out.

  Rebecca led him into the pen through the gate on the left, and I closed it behind them. The gate in front stood open, and Rebecca, when she reached it, pulled hard downwards on the chain and told her charge to kneel, jabbing him in the stomach with the short stick she held in her free hand. He obeyed her as he had done that morning, sinking to his knees in the straw. Picking up the end of a short chain attached to a steel ring in the door-post, she clipped it to his collar and detached his lead-chain. As we'd rehearsed, I reached through the bars to clip the end of another chain, this one attached to the door-post of the door at the rear, to the 'D' ring on the thick cuff around his right ankle. Straightening up, we gazed at him with satisfaction, knowing he was chained and helpless.

  After closing and bolting the front gate, Rebecca fed and watered him in the way we'd done before. He seemed very glad of it, and I wondered vaguely just how much energy he'd been forced to expend during the ten and half hours he'd spent yoked to the capstan.

  Back in the yard, we found a jug of gin, tonic, and ice waiting for us on the table outside the kitchen, and we sat down for a pre-dinner drink in the last rays of the sun. Rebecca explained to me how she hoped to keep our guest amenable through his stomach.

    'Beasts like routine,' she told me, once again demonstrating her mental image of our guest as an animal. 'We'll have to feed and water him four times a day; when we take him out in the morning, then whilst we have our mid-morning break, again when we have tea, and lastly when we put him back in his pen. That way, he'll be more co-operative once he knows he'll be fed when he's yoked to the capstan in the morning and when he's back in his pen at night. But we have to talk about our shift patterns.'

  I groaned inwardly; I wasn't looking forward to the next few weeks. I'd been bored out of my skull supervising our human ox, and there was a limit to how much internet-surfing I could do in the Pump Shed to pass the time. But maybe it wouldn't be as bad as that, as Rebecca went on to explain.

   'On the farm,' she said. 'We rigged up a gadget like a bell. It would chime once if the beast slowed down below a pre-set speed, and if it hadn't sped up in a minutes, the bell would ring continuously. Then I'd rush back and beat it with a stick,' she added cold-bloodedly. 'He soon learnt to speed up at the sound of a chime, and it meant I could leave him for quite long periods and find him plodding around as usual when I came back.'

  That sounded more like it to me, and I said so. Rebecca laughed and said 'Hercules' would soon learn the meaning of the warning chime.

    'He's much more intelligent than the average ox,' she giggled. 'Anyway, I bet Robbie will know what I mean about the bell, and I'm sure he'll be able to fix something up,' she added lightly.

  Later, when everyone had gone to bed, Robbie and Evadne together, I took my cigar and whisky outside as usual. I strolled about for a bit, enjoying the mild breeze, and turned my steps in the direction of the Pump Shed, a gibbous moon lighting my way.

  At the wide, sliding door of the shed, I hesitated, unwilling to disturb the occupant. Robbie had oiled and greased the runners, and I thought I could slide it open enough to look inside without waking the man chained in the pen by the far wall. I did so, letting in a flood of wan moonlight.

  I could just make out the long, pale body, half-buried in the straw. He was deeply asleep, and snoring gently, but the moonlight must have disturbed him a little, for he turned over with a tiny, muted groan, his chains rattling softly. Closing the door, I left him to his slumber.

CHAPTER FIVE

  It seemed that no sooner had I gone to bed than Rebecca was shaking my shoulder. Already dressed and showered, she was telling me to get up. It was time to take 'Hercules' from his pen and yoke him to the capstan for the day. There was tea made, and I could take a mug with me, she said as she bustled from my bedroom.

  Groaning, I turned my bleary eyes on the clock. A  quarter to six, much earlier than I was used to!

At least I needed little preparation in the way of clothing, I thought ironically as I hurried across the yard in the first raps of the sun, a mug of steaming tea clutched in my hand.

  The door of the Pump Shed was wide open, and Rebecca was standing impatiently by the pen, the leading-chain in her hand. 'Hercules' was already kneeling in the straw, and I went at once to crouch at the side of his pen and remove the chain linking his ankle to the post behind him. Straightening, I picked up a cattle prod in readiness as Rebecca opened the gate at the front of the pen and stooped to clip the leash-chain the steel collar around the thick neck.

  The tether chain fell into the straw, and Rebecca pulled on the leash. He was reluctant to rise, whether out of a refusal to co-operate or out of puzzlement, and I held the end of the cattle prod close to his ear and squeezed the trigger. The hissing, crackling sound must have frightened him a little, and it needed only a gentle prod in the back from the switched off prod to make him climb clumsily to his feet.

  Rebecca led him as she had the day before, a hand grasping the chain high up by his collar, with me walking behind and giving the broad back an occasional prod. She got him in position on the now well-worn circular path around the central column and made him kneel. Swiftly, I pushed the capstan bar, already at the correct height until it bumped again the back of his yoke. Then I clamped it in place, and we both heaved a sigh of relief, oppressed by his sheer size and strength.

  I fetched his food bucket and water bottle, and Rebecca fed him, letting him eat as much as he wanted; an astonishing amount, I thought.  I used the lever to pull him to his feet, stopping it at the mark I'd made yesterday. As before, he stood bent forward a little at the hips, his muscular buttocks an inviting target, and we left him to digest his meal.

    'Doesn't pay to stint a working beast,' Rebecca said as we strolled back to the yard. 'We'll give him half an hour, then put him to work,' she added, then asked if I thought I could manage this alone. I replied that I could, and she told me she'd take over after breakfast, eaten at our usual hour of eight-thirty.

  In the event, after I'd had a smoke and another mug of tea, we both went back. Naturally enough, 'Hercules, immobilised by his yoke, was waiting patiently where we'd left him, and I noticed with distaste that he'd emptied his bowels whilst we'd been away. Rebecca noticed, too, and laughed at my expression.

    'What did you expect? That he'd ask to be allowed to use a toilet,' she chuckled.

  Walking over to him, she reached up a hand to either side of his head.

    'Ear-plugs,' she explained on her return. 'I borrowed them from Robbie. Makes him even more harmless if he can't her us as well as being blind!'

  Under her critical eye, I took up a position behind him and to his right, and Rebecca pulled off the brake.

    'Walk on!' I ordered, forgetting he couldn't hear him. But I flicked his haunches with the whip and, to my gratification, he began his slow trudge forward.

  He seemed to remember not to falter momentarily as the buckets filled one by one, and I only had to use the whip twice before he fell into his steady pace of yesterday. Rebecca, after telling me she'd call me for breakfast, left the shed, and I dragged a chair into the sunlit doorway and sat down, the whip on the table before me.

  It was as boring an experience as yesterday. But 'Hercules' seemed to have grasped his simple task, but I had to rise three times to whip him back up to speed when he unconsciously slowed down. Then the intercom buzzed, and Robbie's voice told me breakfast was ready. After braking the big man to a halt, I hurried from the shed.

  Rebecca and Robbie had almost finished eating, and they left the table after a few minutes, the latter to carry a small easel of Rebecca's into the Pump Shed so that she could work on her illustrating whilst keeping an eye on Bill. There was no sign of Evadne, and when I'd eaten I went to her room and asked sarcastically if she intended getting up today. With her curses ringing in my ears, I fled outside and lit a cigar, wondering how I was to spend the morning. But I needn't have worried, for Robbie latched on to me on his return.

    'Need a job doing,' he grunted. 'A modeller's job, right up your street.'

  I grinned infuriatingly. I knew what it cost my friend to admit to any short-coming in manual skill, but I, although I say so myself, was an excellent model maker, far more patient and accurate than the rather slap-dash Robbie.

  I went to my bedroom to fetch my modelling tools. I kept them there despite Robbie's generous offer of store room in his workshop where I had a tiny bench of my own. I knew very well that he'd lay his hands on them at some stage, and he was noted for using any old tool which might suit the immediate purpose, like all too many craftsmen. He was an untidy rascal, too, never putting tools back in the right places, and I often wondered how he ever found things when he wanted them. No way was Robbie going to get his hands on my tiny and expensive tools, or my magnifiers and the tiny, ultra-bright lamps I used for close work!

  I cleared a space on my bench where Robbie had encroached upon it (no flat surface was safe from him!) and sat down. Silently, he passed me an old and grimy leather dog-collar and a box of what looked like very thin wafers, each about a half inch square. I listened in silence to what he wanted me to do, and began work. Robbie hung around for a bit, and then went to potter about with one of his projects, probably the one I was working on, of whose nature I had no idea.

  After our mid-morning break I worked steadily till nearly lunchtime. Then I could do no more until the glue hardened, and I left the nearly assembled work, warning Robbie not to touch it under pain of death. I would, I said, finish it off tomorrow, for I had to supervise our guest's labours at the capstan in the place of Rebecca; a long shift, all afternoon and evening until he was put away in his pen for the night. It wasn't a prospect I looked forward to as I walked reluctantly the Pump Shed after lunch. Once there, I was just about to pull off the brake when Robbie came panting up with his toolbox.

    'Wait! I forgot to install that warning system Rebecca was on about,' he panted.

  Sitting at my ease at the table, I lit a cigar and watched Robbie at work, making would-be helpful comments now and then just to annoy him. All good fun!

  Robbie worked swiftly. After fitting some sort of gadget on top of the capstan bar, he quickly mounted a large bell on the wall by the door.

    'There!' he said, lifted the hem of his shift to wipe the sweat from his flushed face and displaying his panties and his hairy thighs in the process. 'That should work. You know what to do?'

  I recalled Rebecca's description of the device.

    'Yes,' I told him, and he disappeared, leaving me in peace.

  It took only a few minutes to whip 'Hercules' into motion from the puddle of muddy urine he was standing in. He'd fouled himself whilst stationary, I saw with disgust, and the backs of of his thighs and legs were covered in drying excrement which flaked off as he walked. I went back to my seat and sat there wondering how to spend my time. I was lolling back, idly watching our guest trudging steadily round and round, when Rebecca turned up.

    'May as well work in here,' she laughed, sitting at her easel. 'Evadne's working in the Study, cooking someone's books, and her language is terrible.

  We both laughed, and Rebecca  asked if the bell had chimed yet. I told her 'no,' and asked if our guest would hear it; the whole scheme would fail if he couldn't on account of his ear-plugs. She said that he would, the chime was quite loud, and then we'd have to teach him to understand its meaning.

    'The ox on the farm soon learned,' she grinned. 'And I think this one is more intelligent!'

  Perversely, our guest continued his pace. By now, he should be slowing more often, having been put to work nearly nine hours ago. Agreed, he'd had two breaks whilst we breakfasted and lunched, and a shorter one when Rebecca had gone for mid-morning tea, but he was showing no signs of undue fatigue. But we I continued to watch; sooner or later he'd slow down as he always did.

  I was wondering whether to go back to the house for more cigars when the bell chimed once, quite loudly, startling both me and my companion.

    'Wait!' Rebecca whispered. 'He doesn't know what it meant yet, and he won't speed up. It should take about thirty seconds for the bell to ring without stopping.'

  'Hercules,' like us, had been startled by the sound of the bell breaking in on the virtual silence of his existence. If anything, he slowed even more, but by then Rebecca was behind him, bringing down the whip in a series of vicious cuts on his back and haunches. Gasping with fear with pain, he increased his pace, and the bell stopped ringing.  Rebecca returned to her easel.

    'Your turn next!' she told me.

  We had to wait half an hour before the next chime. As before, 'Hercules' ignored it, and when the bell rang after half a minute, I was already in position with the whip raised. I lashed him three times, twice across his back and once across the backs of his grimy thighs, and he resumed his original pace instantly.

  At mid-afternoon, we stopped the capstan and fed him, giving him plenty of water, and after five minutes, we set him trudging around again. Almost immediately the bell sounded, but once again our guest didn't make the connection with what was to follow. The bell rang, and this time I noticed that he did increase his pace, but too late to prevent another whipping from me. We persevered, and by tea time he'd got the message, increasing his speed whenever he heard the warning chime of the bell.

    'Told you so!' Rebecca said proudly after we'd braked him to a halt and were walking back to the house for tea. 'Told you he was intelligent!'

  Sure enough, when I came back after tea and set him to work again, our guest had indeed got the message. He was tiring fast, however, and the chime was sounding more and more frequently, but each time he increased speed in terror of hearing the steady ringing of the bell. Finally, I grew confident enough to leave the shed altogether and go to the house to fetch a bottle of beer to tide me over the hour before pre-dinner drinks. The repeater bell over the kitchen door, installed by Robbie previously, remained silent, encouraging me to drink my beer there and then at the table. I was away twenty minutes or so, and when I returned he was still plodding onward.

  An hour later, Rebecca turned up to help me free his yoke from the capstan and lead him back to his pen. He went willingly, his shoulders slumped with fatigue, but knowing he'd be fed once he was safely chained up in his steel and concrete pen.

CHAPTER SIX

  I took the early shift next day, and by six o'clock was yawning as I watched the big figure trudge around, the new welts on his back still prominent on his dirty skin. The chime came within minutes, but he remembered his lesson of yesterday, stiffening in sudden fright as he leaned harder into his yoke. So confident was I in his training that I went back to the house and drank another mug of tea in the warmth of the kitchen, returning to the shed to find nothing had changed in my absence. After breakfast, Rebecca took over and I went to Robbie's workshop to finish the task he'd given me yesterday. Robbie was already there, working on some gadget or other. He grunted a welcome as I sat down at my bench and switched on my powerful working lights.

  We worked together all morning in a companionable silence, taking a break at eleven for tea made by Rebecca. The chime of the bell in the Pump Shed had sounded now and then, at rare intervals, but it hadn't changed to its insistent ringing yet. Indeed, I'd seen Rebecca pottering about, going in and out of the house and leaving her charge to his work for half an hour at a time. Our 'ox,' I thought, was becoming tame! However, I still wasn't convinced he'd yet realised his blind drudgery would continue for the whole of the month he was to be with us; I expected him to rebel when he did, and I said so to Robbie and Rebecca over tea in the sun at the table outside the kitchen.

  Robbie agreed, saying that our guest probably still clung to the thought that his present task was temporary. He'd only been doing it for two days, Robbie pointed out; almost certainly he still hoped and expected to be put to another task, that of a horse or pony once the work he'd been put to was done.

     'He'll cut up rough when it sinks in,' Robbie prophesied gloomily.

    'I expect he will,' Rebecca said with unconcern. 'When he does, it will be in the morning when he's rested. It's then, when we come to lead him from his pen and he realises he's in for another twelve or thirteen hours of boring labour. I expect him to refuse to be led, and then you'll have to use the cattle-prod, Ivor. And don't be sparing with it; an animal's disobedience should be broken brutally and at once!'

  I gulped. We'd all felt the prod on our own skins, and even at its lowest setting its touch had been agonising. On our guest, kneeling or standing on straw damp with his own urine, it would be even more so. A kindly man, I didn't look forward to having to torture him, and I wondered privately if I could bring myself to do when and if it became necessary.

  In the meantime, however, he continued to obey meekly, letting Rebecca lead him out to the capstan each morning and back to his pen at night without incident, and once he was whipped into motion he kept up the same steady trudge, the bell chiming only occasionally, allowing us to leave him at work when we took our meals. He was still fed and watered often enough, at about ten o'clock, one o'clock and five o'clock, and the only time he was closely supervised was between five and seven, when he was tired and forced us to bring the whip into play more often.

  At Evadne's urging, I began to clear out the piggery, working desultorily. Being naked, I had to be careful, and I wore boots and heavy work gloves for the task. But it was proving easier than I'd thought, and the piggery became tidier bit by bit. There was no urgency to entertain our would-be piggy guests, and there wouldn't be until Robbie's idea, which was somehow connected with the collar I'd altered for him, proved to work – if it ever did.

  On Friday, two days after I'd given him the finished collar, he called us all to his workshop to demonstrate his brainwave. Norman was there, fussing over some gadget attached to a loop of wire on a wooden frame forming a square about six feet on a side and four feet high.

  Robbie called for a volunteer, and I sighed as I felt all eyes swivel to me.

    'O.K!' I said resignedly, and got to all-fours on the square of carpet Robbie had thoughtfully put down inside the wooden construction. He gave me the collar, and I buckled it around my neck. Despite the row of tiny batteries I'd inserted between the inner and outer layers of leather it was still flexible, although a little heavy, and I could feel the momentary coolness on my skin of the brass studs, almost flush with the leather on the inside, connected to the batteries beneath the layer of soft leather I'd sewn on to cover them. Realising that some of the studs, in a double row all the way around the inside of of the collar, would be in contact with my skin at any time, I began to suspect how Robbie's idea would work.

  Robbie measured my height at the shoulder, and then at the top of my head when I held it in a normal position, slightly raised to enable me to look directly ahead of me. He kept calling out the results to Norman, who continued to fuss with the gadget at the end of the wire loop until the latter was satisfied.

  The gadget was switched on, and, following Robbie's instructions, I began to shamble back and forth on all-fours, feeling particularly foolish. He told me to raise my head preparatory to standing up, warning me to do so as slowly as I could and asking me to stop at once the instant I felt anything unusual. I did as he asked, slowly raising my head as I began to kneel prior to my feet. But, almost immediately, I stopped, feeling a strange, unpleasant crawling sensation on the top of my head, the highest point of my body at the time. I reported this to Robbie, noticing that he and Norman exchanged pleased glances at the news.

    'Early warning system's working!' I heard Robbie say to Norman. 'Now, Ivor, carry on trying to get up, but go very slowly. Is the power turned down as low as possible?' I heard him ask Norman. 'O.K. Ivor, go for it!'

  All four fixed their eyes on me as I raised my head millimetre by millimetre, trying to ignore the unpleasant crawling sensation on the top of my head. Then, without warning, a bolt of agony struck me, and I found myself lying flat on the floor, looking up at the concerned and awestruck faces of my companions.

    'Are you O.K?' Evadne asked anxiously.

    'Works better than I thought!' I heard Robbie say exultantly.

    'Poor Ivor!' Rebecca said sympathetically.

  Stunned, I lay there for some minutes before coming warily to all-fours, keeping my head low.

    'You bastard!' I said to Robbie. 'That bloody well hurt like Hell!'

    'Sorry,' he said, and he asked Norman if he could lower the power by some other means.

    'We need to experiment a bit,' he said, and Norman said he would lower the voltage to minimum.

    'O.K, Ivor,' Robbie said encouragingly. 'We'll try some other postures; it shouldn't hurt nearly as much now.'

    'Oh; shouldn't it?' I grumbled, but I did as he asked under the fascinated eyes of Evadne and Rebecca.

  Fifteen strenuous, and rather painful, minutes later we'd established the limitations on the positioning of my body the collar allowed me. Put shortly, it forbade any positions beyond standing on all-fours with my head lowered or lying down on my sides, stomach or back, punishing me if I tried to kneel or sit like a human being on my buttocks. Nor could I raise any part of my body, not a hand or a foot, above the pre-set height Robbie had worked out for me.

  Finally, I'd had enough. Not trusting Robbie to turn off his infernal contraption when I asked him to, I lay down to remove the collar and threw it from me with a shudder. Then, a little warily, I stood up and left the little enclosure.

  The soft-hearted little Rebecca took my arm to steady me en route to the kitchen where Evadne had made tea for us all. I sat down gingerly and took a reviving swig under their curious eyes.

    'Well?' Robbie asked at last. 'What do you think? Could anyone wearing that collar have disobeyed it?'

    'No!' I told him with a shudder, remembering the agony I'd suffered. 'Not a chance!'

  Norman and Robbie looked at each other in satisfaction.

    'We can tell Jason it's possible, then?' Evadne, as usual all business.

  Robbie paused awkwardly, and Norman looked even shiftier than usual, if that were possible.

    'Er,' Robbie began. 'Er...there is a snag.'

    'Yes,' said Norman nervously. He went on to explain that the batteries in the collar were the standard kind, obtainable everywhere, but that they needed re-charging every twelve hours, a task lasting a full six hours more.

     'Rules the whole thing out of court,' said Evadne. 'There's no way we can re-charge these collars without tethering the wearers. And that's just what they won't accept! They won't be happy on spending a grand for development with no return,' she added dolefully.

  Robbie and Norman exchanged guilty glances.

     'Er, it may not be as bad as that,' Norman began haltingly. 'There are other, better batteries, that can be worn and won't need re-charging.'

  Interested, I asked him how that might possibly work. With an air of relief at the change of subject, Norman explained that they charged constantly trickle charged powered by the slight difference in temperature between the skin of the wear and the air around.

  Evadne was becoming impatient. Norman ground to a halt and stared miserably at his hands, leaving further explanation to Robbie.

  'Well...it's like this,' Robbie began, plucking up his courage as he spoke. 'These new batteries are still experimental, and not yet on sale, if they ever are, because they're a military development. We can get them,' he assured Evadne, 'Norman knows a bloke who works with them, but they're going to cost. Effectively, this bloke will have to pinch them for us, and his job is at stake. To cut a long story short, we'll need twenty-five batteries for each of four collars: that's a hundred, and he wants a hundred pounds each; ten thousand pounds altogether.'

    'Oh well!' Rebecca sighed. 'That's it then! No way will they pay two and half grand each for their collars, wealthy individuals or not.'

    'Hmm!' Evadne said thoughtfully. 'All the same, I'll ring Jason and tell him we've solved the problem, I think. I won't mention money yet.'

  We all gazed at her, wondering what was going through her devious mind. In the background, the bell chimed softly, and both I and Rebecca straightened, both us silently counting down the seconds. But the bell didn't ring, and we relaxed.

  That night, I was honoured by Evadne inviting me to share her bed, and after our love-making, when we lay smoking in satiated contentment, she began to talk, to bounce her ideas off me as she always did.

  Boiled down, the gist of her plan was that we ourselves would buy the batteries. The collars would then be ours, and not the property of the 'pigs,' and we would, if all went well, be able to hire them out to others whose role-playing demanded a forced posture on all-fours. A little slow on the uptake, I asked her whose these would be, to be told that there were plenty of roles that demanded it; numerous would-be 'dogs,' for example. They would jump at the chance of being forced to stay on all-fours, Evadne claimed. As for myself, I wasn't so confident, but then, I didn't know what Evadne intended to charge, except that it would be the most she could get away with! But where she was to raise ten thousand pounds, I'd no idea.

CHAPTER SEVEN

  Our 'ox' made his pathetic attempt at rebellion on the morning of Sunday, the seventh successive morning on which we went to lead him from his pen and yoke him to the capstan. Blind and on his knees, he was unable to prevent Rebecca from clipping his leash-chain to his collar, but when she'd detached his tether chain and tugged on his leash, he stayed stubbornly where he was, refusing to move. I was quick to react. When I held the end of the prod near his head and pressed the trigger, he flinched at the crackling, hissing sound from the electrodes, but that was all. Firming my lips, I touched the electrodes to his back again and again, coolly watching him arch in pain at each jab. Finally, inevitably, he gave in, but when  we'd yoked him place and began to whip him into action, he refused to move once more.

  Rebecca, displaying a cold cruelty I hadn't before associated with her, broke his feeble resistance with a few hard blows, scientifically placed to cause the maximum pain, on his defenceless body. Strong as he was, the whip proved the stronger, and with a little whimper of defeat, he leaned into his yoke and began his endless journey once again.

    'We'll have no trouble with him in future!' Rebecca said knowledgeably.

  At breakfast, Evadne told us her plan for renting out the collars. She would ring Jason and tell him to come over and satisfy himself we'd solved the problem; then he could inform his piggy friends.

  Jason came over at once on hearing the news, and nothing would do but that he must experience the effect of a collar for himself, as we'd hoped. Removing his clothes, he went down on all-fours to be measured by Robbie, and then went through the same routine as we had, screaming with pain when the tip of his head broke the invisible barrier above him. As I had done, he lay half-stunned for several minutes before unbuckling the collar with trembling fingers. Still naked, and tottering a little, he accompanied me to the table outside the kitchen where Evadne and Rebecca awaited us, our cold beer already poured.

    'Good grief!' Jason exclaimed through a mouthful of beer. 'That was hellish! I wouldn't like to experience that again. It HURT!'

    'So we can take it you agree it would keep any wearer on all-fours whether they liked it or no?' Robbie asked, with a chuckle.

    'I'll say!' Jason agreed fervently. 'I wonder what it'd be like wearing one when I next use the oubliette?' he said thoughtfully. 'Well, never mind that for now,' he went on, bringing his mind back to the matter at hand. 'I'll ring my friends and tell them you've cracked it,' he continued. 'Up to them whether they'll accept the slight inauthenticity of wearing collars, though. But how much are you thinking of asking for the collars?'

    'Nothing!' Evadne replied promptly. 'We shan't be selling them, only hiring them. We can't make very many of them, and we'd like to hire them out to guests who need this sort of thing...to be kept on all-fours, I mean,' she ended.

  Jason's business brain soon enabled him to see her motive, and he looked at her with new respect.

    'So,' he said at last. 'How much will you charge them for a ten day stay?'

    'I'll try for six thousand pounds,' Evadne told him without batting an eye lid. 'That would include the hire of their collars, and the work we'll have to do preparing their sties to their requirements – which we still don't know, by the way! But you can tell them that it will be cheaper in the future,' she added.

    'Hmm,' said Jason thoughtfully. 'I see your point. It's no good,' he went on, 'I can't do all this at second-hand. They'll have to come over and see you. When would be the best time and day for you?' he finished.

    'Oh, eleven or so in the morning, any day but Thursday,' Evadne replied.

    'O.K,' said Jason. 'I'll ring their main man now.'

  Rising to his feet, he walked off across the yard in the direction of Robbie's workshop where his phone was in the pocket of his discarded jacket. We watched his pale back and haunches vanish into the interior of Robbie's workshop, then he emerged again, his mobile phone clamped to his ear and  came towards us. His conversation ceased as he went to sit down, and he put his phone on the table.

   'It's all arranged,' he said. 'Their leader, their 'boar,' as they call him, will be coming on a week on Monday. He'll explain their particular requirements much better than I could.'

  Reluctantly, he went and dressed, and then drove away. He would, he said, take time off whenever we asked and come over to help prepare the sties, bringing Justin with him to help if possible.

  The days passed without further incident. We had paid for the batteries with much of the sum borrowed from Jason, who was quite happy as long as he got his money back by instalments plus free use of a collar whenever he wanted. Our 'ox' remained placid, docile and obedient, being reconciled to his fate.  Sometimes I would sit and watch him, wondering what was passing through his mind as he trudged round and round in his permanent blindness. Nothing, I suspected. His mind, his thinking processes in hibernation, his world bounded by periods of labour and rest. Whether he'd any idea of how many days had passed, I doubted, which meant he didn't know how long he must endure his endless drudgery; not that it mattered. The level in the tank, despite the two baths we each took every day, continued to mount, but slowly, and Evadne, who much enjoyed the softness of the well-water, asked Robbie if he'd install an electric pump so that we could enjoy it on a permanent basis.

  We were all surprised when Robbie told us it wouldn't work, and we pressed him for an explanation. He looked at us in surprise.

    'I thought you knew,' he said. 'By the time 'Hercules' has pumped about five thousand gallons from the well, the cavern below will be half empty. The spring which feeds it is tiny, and will take months to replenish it. We daren't pump much more out of it, or the sides will dry out and collapse. Haven't you noticed those water-filled pits on the moor? That's the remains left by the windmills which pumped up water for the sheep years ago. The little caverns below dried up and collapsed.'

    'Oh!'I said feebly, but Evadne was not impressed.

    'So, how many gallons will be it be safe to pump up when 'Hercules' has gone?' she asked dangerously.

    'About three hundred a month until it's full again,' Robbie grinned.

    'Three hundred gallons?' Evadne screeched. 'You mean only six baths a month between four of us?'

    'Yes,' agreed Robbie sunnily. 'Or twelve showers,' he added helpfully.

  Rebecca giggled despite herself, but Evadne shot Robbie a look of disgust. As for me I thought it was a pity, as I'd enjoyed bathing in the soft spring water, but we'd still have the water from the tarn.

CHAPTER EIGHT

  As the day of the appointment drew near, by coincidence exactly half way through our present guest's stay, Evadne grew more and more nervous. It was one thing to lay down the law to bashful young men a decade younger than herself, and quite another to cope with some suave, middle-aged man of business, well-spoken, wealthy and experienced. She decided that I would sit in on the interview and take notes in my self-invented shorthand, and she still persisted even when I roundly refused to get dressed for the occasion.

    'He must take us as he finds us,' I told her firmly, and she sighed and remarked that she hoped Jason had prepared our visitor for the shock. At five to eleven on the appointed morning, a gleaming limousine purred up the track and came to a halt in the yard.

  The man who emerged from the big car was expensively clad in clothing more suitable for a senior executive in the City than a farmyard in the middle of nowhere, but he seemed unconscious of any incongruity in his appearance, or in that of me and Robbie for that matter, merely raising an eyebrow at the sight of the latter lounging in his satin slip in the doorway of his workshop, and raising it a millimetre higher at the sight of me, naked and barefoot, standing with his hostess waiting to welcome him. At his own insistence, we sat in the kitchen rather than the living room tidied and cleaned by Evadne and Rebecca for this purpose, and he accepted our offer of tea with enthusiasm.

  We chatted over the teacups before getting down to business, and I soon realised, with amusement, that instead of Evadne putting our client at ease, it was he putting her at hers. Finally, he put down his teacup, opened the slim, polished leather briefcase he'd carried in with him, and withdrew a sheaf of papers.

    'These,' he said, 'will make our particular requirements quite clear, I believe. They are simple enough, although you may find them exacting. You should know that we have discussed this interlude thoroughly over the past two years, and we will not be interested in anything less, unless you find anything we've missed. But I flatter myself that you won't. If you would care to read them, Madam,' he went on, 'perhaps this young man might care to show me our prospective future residence.'

  Looking a little dazed, Evadne murmured some sort of assent and drew the papers towards her. I rose to my feet along with our guest and accompanied him out into the sunshine, guiding him towards the long, low outline of the piggery. En route, he stopped and regarded me with a twinkle.

    'Do you never wear any clothing?' he asked lightly, running his eyes over my all-body suntan.

I told not if I could avoid it, he nodded, and we continued on our path.

  He was impressed by the clean and empty piggery, and seemingly glad to notice that the floor of each sty was six inches or so below the level of the floor of the wide corridor, although I couldn't understand why. He was pleased with the heat of the interior, which verged on eighty degrees due to the sun shining on the, mostly glass, roof, and asked how low the temperature fell at nights. I told him I didn't know,  and he said it was of no importance as all this was covered in the notes he'd given Evadne.  Standing in the piggery, he asked suddenly what I thought of the collars he and his friends were to wear.

    'Jason tells me they will be quite effective,' he said slowly. 'You've tested them, I'm told. Do you think they'll keep us on all-fours willy-nilly?'

    'Oh, yes!' I told him,with all the conviction I could muster. 'They'll keep you on all-fours all right. You'll try their limits, of course, that's only natural curiosity, but you won't try them twice, I can assure you of that!'

  I stared into space, wincing at the memory of the agony I'd felt, and I think he noticed and interpreted my feelings correctly, for he smiled at though at some pleasant discovery.

  We went back to the kitchen where Evadne had finished reading the thin sheaf of typescript and was making more tea. She brought it to the table, sat down and poured it out, and immediately they got down to business.

  It was an education to hear them. Evadne suggested six thousand pounds for their lodging, plus a rental, to be agreed, for their collars. Our guest smiled politely and offered two thousand, at which Evadne laughed softly. They haggled in the most polite manner until settling on four thousand, the price to include the collar hire, and since this was what they'd both been aiming at, or so it seemed to me, both parties were quite satisfied.

    'Very well,' said our guest, draining his teacup. 'We are agreed. Now, what about an appointment for three weeks today, to last until the following Thursday?'

  Evadne frowned, and I guessed she was thinking that a week after the departure of our 'ox' was not a lot of time to prepare. But only she knew the exact nature of their requirements, so I said nothing. Finally, she nodded in assent, and our guest closed his briefcase and came to his feet.

    'Excellent,' he said. 'Then we shall meet again three weeks today at ten o'clock in the morning? Splendid! It's a pleasure to do business with you, Madam. No, please don't get up. This young man will see me to my car.'

  After I'd said my goodbyes and watched him drive off, I returned to the kitchen to find everyone gathered around the documents on the table and reading them in silence, passing the sheets of paper around as they finished with them. I held my peace, intending to peruse them later in comfort, and set about preparing our lunch.

CHAPTER NINE

  We, Robbie and I, set to work right away to do what we could whilst waiting for Norman to bring the stolen batteries. It was mostly preparatory work; we bought the collars we'd need, and an expensive wireless maximum and minimum thermometer to check the temperature in the piggery. As I'd feared, although reaching a satisfactory eighty degrees in the day time, it fell as low as sixty at nights, forcing Robbie to consider various forms of artificial heating. In the end he settled for hot water radiators – 'we can pick them up for buttons' – and the requisite piping, fed from a water tank heat electrically by a diesel generator. We already had the tarpaulins we required, cut from a larger one, and we ordered and bought the one inch foam rubber we needed. Of straw we'd plenty, of course, but Robbie had to make what he called 'a chaff-blower,' a machine which chopped straw into tiny pieces and blew it out in a stream of chaff. There were so many things to take account of that I was losing track, and it was fortunate for us that 'Hercules' was now tame and well-trained enough to be left to plod around unsupervised; the bell would still chime now and then, but he very rarely slowed down long enough for it to ring.

  Our 'ox' was now being worked for nearly fourteen hours a day, with only three ten minute breaks to be fed and watered, but he continued to trudge docilely around, and the level in the tank mounted slowly as the level of the well dropped. Occasionally, during the afternoons when Robbie had gone off in his old van to fetch something or other from our local metropolis, I would slip into the Pump Shed for a rest, sitting in the open doorway to avoid the heat and the smell.

  It was with something of a shock that I realised suddenly just how squalid were the conditions in which our 'ox' existed. His bedding was a urine-soaked morass, matted with his excrement, and the circular track around the central column was a stinking mixture of mud and his trodden-in droppings, which he often deposited even whilst moving. As for himself, his body was caked with dirt, and he stank of old and new sweat, stale urine, and dung; looking at him, I wondered vaguely why I hadn't noticed his deterioration before. I said as much to Rebecca one morning, but she merely glanced at him and remarked that one could expect dirt and smell from a working beast.

  The days passed. Soon 'Hercules' was to be released in a week, then in three days, and then came the last day of the month.

  On that last evening, Rebecca attached his leading chain whilst I unclamped his yoke from the capstan as usual. She patted him on his grimy rump and called him 'a good boy' before leading him back to his pen where he submitted docilely to being chained at his ankle and neck. I watched her feed and water him, and we walked back to the house, wondering aloud whether he knew he was to be freed tomorrow and deciding that he didn't and couldn't.

  On that sunny Thursday morning, the first day of the new month, we went to him at ten o'clock and stood for a few minutes watching him trudge round and round, unconscious of our presence.

    'Well,' said Rebecca at last. 'Let's get on with it!'

  I think he expected to be fed, when we braked him to a halt, and I wondered what, if anything, was passing in his dulled brain as we led him away. Perhaps, in his muddled mind, he thought he was being put back in his pen, but he followed obediently as Rebecca led him from the shed and out into the sunshine for the first time in a month. Evadne and Robbie were waiting in the yard where the latter had installed a large bath tub over a drain, with water heating in an electric boiler close by.

  We'd discussed the procedure for freeing him, and decided to attach a chain from an upright to his collar with a lock, being uncertain of his temper once he was unrestrained. We did this, and, moving swiftly, removed his arm-binder, his mitts and his bridle as quickly as we could to give him no time to react, but leaving his hobble in place to gain the few moments it would take him to remove it..

  I'd believed the sudden influx of light, dazzling after a month of blindness, would immobilise him for a few minutes, and so it proved, for when we took up positions a healthy distance beyond his reach, he stood there unmoving, his arms still behind him, and his eyes screwed up against the glare. After an short interval, he sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands, and we watched with pity and concern.

    'It's all right, Bill,' Rebecca told him softly. 'It's over!'

  He came to his feet at last, and smiled at us uncertainly, his arms at his side. He lifted a hand and removed his gag, Then he spoke for the first time.

    'Thank you,' he said simply, and Rebecca bustled forward to unlock the chain from his collar.

  The first thing he did was to walk outside and stand in the sun. Then, without warning, he walked away, stopping a hundred yards out on the moor where he stood and looked around him as if seeing the world for the first time.

  Suddenly, he began to run, his limbs swinging freely in the sheer joy of being unrestrained. He ran up and down for some minutes before coming to a halt and falling to the ground where he rolled about in ecstasy.

    'I'll go to him,' I said quietly, and walked away, leaving the others pouring hot water and liquid soap into the bath.

  At my approach, our guest rolled over and sat up.

    'How are you, Bill?' I asked cheerfully. He grinned at me, saying that he was delighted to be free.

Getting to his feet, he accompanied me en route back to the yard, talking as we went.

    'Was I really kept in that role for a whole month?'

    'Yes! How long did you think it was?'

    'I didn't think of it like that,' he confessed. 'I lost count after the first few days, and then it could have been two weeks, or three, or even the whole month, but I didn't really know, and after a while I stopped thinking about it, as if I was to spend my whole life trudging around in the dark. And I didn't know – I don't know now – what it was I was being made to do, although all sorts of possibilities crossed my mind in the beginning, from grinding corn to generating electricity.'

    'You'll find out what you were doing for us later,' I grinned.

    'Was it useful to you?' Bill asked earnestly.

  I stopped and faced him.

    'Oh, yes!' I assured him fervently. 'Very useful! I can speak for us all when I say you'll be welcome back for a repeat performance any time.'

    'Not sure I want to be a blind ox again!' Bill laughed. 'But I'll definitely be back, and how you use me will be your own business,' he added soberly.

  By now, we were back in the yard, and Bill plunged at once into the steaming water where he lay soaking away the caked dirt on his huge body. Three times we changed the water, and then he took a long shower. Emerging pink and clean, he strolled to and fro in the warm sunlight to dry off before expressing a wish to see his late prison, which it took some effort for me to recall that he hadn't actually seen anything of the Pump Shed since being led in there a month ago. 

  He stood in the doorway and looked inside, his nose wrinkled against  the powerful stench.

    'It stinks in here,' he said quietly, walking slowly across to look into the steel and concrete pen where he spent his nights.

    'So that's what it looked like,' he said in wonder. Then: 'I expect I smelt as bad as my surroundings.'

    'You did,' I admitted, then added that I hadn't realise noticed after a time.

    'Because animals do smell,' he said flatly, and I was forced to agree.

  He picked up the whip that had caused him so much pain and looked at it. Rebecca, who'd slipped into the shed unnoticed, came forward to shyly apologise for her actions. But Bill only laughed, remarking that he couldn't complain his treatment at our hands was inauthentic.

  We went back to the yard and sat at the table. Evadne offered to cook him a fried breakfast, but he declined. Hungry though he was, he didn't yet trust his bowels to obey him after a month of them emptying themselves more or less whenever they were full.

  He was prevailed upon to eat some toast and drink some tea, and after resting for an hour he got dressed and left, but not before Robbie had remembered our guest was still wearing his steel collar and removed it for him!

    'If only we had two like him!' Evadne sighed as we watched Bill leave.