Now he would face Tasbrough!
But in the small room into which he had been taken — and he was confused, because somehow he had expected a large courtroom — there was only the Ensign who had arrested him yesterday, sitting at a table, running through papers, while a stolid M.M. stood on either side of him, rigid, hand on pistol holster.
The Ensign kept him waiting, then snapped with disheartening suddenness, “Your name!”
“You know it!”
The two guards beside Doremus each hit him.
“Your name?”
“Doremus Jessup.”
“You’re a Communist!”
“No I’m not!”
“Twenty-five lashes — and the oil.”
Not believing, not understanding, Doremus was rushed across the room, into a cellar beyond. A long wooden table there was dark with dry blood, stank with dry blood. The guards seized Doremus, sharply jerked his head back, pried open his jaws, and poured in a quart of castor oil. They tore off his garments above the belt, flung them on the sticky floor. They threw him face downward on the long table and began to lash him with a one-piece steel fishing rod. Each stroke cut into the flesh of his back, and they beat him slowly, relishing it, to keep him from fainting too quickly. But he was unconscious when, to the guards’ great diversion, the castor oil took effect. Indeed he did not know it till he found himself limp on a messy piece of gunnysacking on the floor of his cell.
They awakened him twice during the night to demand, “You’re a Communist, heh? You better admit it! We’re going to beat the living tar out of you till you do!”
