Arthur & George

Lewes Prison.’ He was accustomed to saying this, and paused for the usual effect. ‘Not that we have any members of the aristocracy, I hasten to add. Or,’ – with a glance at George’s file – ‘any Church of England ministers at present. Though we have had the occasional one. Indecency, that sort of thing.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Now I’m not going to ask exactly what you did, or why you did it, or whether you did it, or whether any petition you might forward to the Home Secretary stands more chance than a mouse with a mongoose, because in my experience all that’s a waste of time. You’re in prison. Serve your sentence, obey the rules, and you won’t get into any further trouble.’
    ‘As a lawyer, I am used to rules.’
    George meant this neutrally, but the Governor looked up as if it might have been a piece of insolence. Eventually, he settled for saying, ‘Quite.’
    There were indeed a large number of rules. George found the prison officers to be decent fellows, yet bound hand and foot by red tape. There was no talking to other prisoners. There was no crossing of legs or folding of arms in chapel. There was a bath once a fortnight, and a search of the prisoner’s self and belongings whenever the necessity arose.
    On the second day, a warder came into George’s cell and asked if he had a bed-rug.
    George thought this an unnecessary question. It was perfectly plain that he had a multi-coloured and reasonably heavy bed-rug, which the officer could not miss.
    ‘Yes, I do, thank you very much.’
    ‘What do you mean, thank you very much?’ asked the warder with more than a touch of belligerance.
    George remembered his police interrogations. Perhaps his tone had been too forward. ‘I mean, I do,’ he said.
    ‘Then it must be destroyed.’
    Now he was completely lost. This was a rule which had not been explained to him. He was careful with his reply, and especially with its tone.
    ‘I do apologize, but I have not been here long. Why should you wish to destroy my bed-rug, which is both a comfort and, I imagine, in the harsher months, a necessity?’
    The warder looked at him and slowly began to laugh. He laughed so much that a colleague ducked into the cell to see if he was all right.
    ‘Not bed-rug, number 247, bed-bug.’
    George half-smiled in return, uncertain if prisoners were allowed to do so under prison regulations. Perhaps only if granted permission. At any rate, the story passed into prison lore, and followed him down the succeeding months. That Hindoo lived such a sheltered life he didn’t even know what a bed-bug was.
    He discovered other discomforts instead. There were no proper conveniences, and a lack of privacy when it was most required. Soap was of a very poor quality. There was also an idiotic regulation that all shaving and barbering had to be done in the open air, which resulted in many prisoners – George included – catching colds.
    He quickly became accustomed to the altered rhythm of his life. 5.45 rise. 6.15 doors unlocked, slops collected, bed-clothes hung up to air. 6.30 tools served round, then work. 7.30 breakfast. 8.15 fold up bedding. 8.35 chapel. 9.05 return. 9.20 go to exercise. 10.30 return. Governor’s rounds and other bureaucracy. 12 dinner. 1.30 dinner tins collected, then work. 5.30 supper, then tools collected and put outside for the next day. 8 bed.
    Life was harsher and colder and more lonely than he had ever known it; but he was helped by this rigid structure to the day. He had always lived to a strict timetable; also with a heavy workload, whether as schoolboy or solicitor. There had been very few holidays in his life – that outing to Aberystwyth with Maud was a rare exception – and fewer luxuries, except those of the mind and spirit.
    ‘The things star men miss the most,’ said the Chaplain, on the first of his weekly visits, ‘is the beer. Well, not just the star men. Intermediaries and ordinaries too.’
    ‘Fortunately, I do not drink.’
    ‘And the second thing is the cigarettes.’
    ‘Again, I am lucky in that regard.’
    ‘And the third is the newspapers.’
    George nodded. ‘That has been a severe deprivation already, I admit. I have been in the habit of reading three papers a day.’
    ‘If there was anything I could do to help …’ said the Chaplain. ‘But the rules …’
    ‘It is perhaps better to do entirely without something than hope from time to time that you might receive it.’
    ‘I wish others had your attitude.