“Do you like to play games?” he asked.
Her lower lip trembled, but no words came out.
“I know pretty girls like to play games,” he continued. He lay a finger on the black patch over his missing eye. “They like to play this kind of game. Do you like to have fun tying a man to a pole and cutting off all his clothes? All that naked flesh unable to protect itself so you can do awful things to it. Do you laugh when the man struggles and cries out for mercy?” His face darkened in the shadows. “They did.”
“I was in the Boer War. Some of our soldiers captured a village and raped all the girls in it. When we left they cursed us and vowed revenge. I was a new arrival the next day, and was innocent. But that didn’t matter to them. When their soldiers captured me, they tied me to a pole, arms strai
