Sergeant major Harris was small in stature but big in everything else. He had a voice that could be distinctly heard from one end of the parade ground to the other and he had an ego to match. He spoke with a gravely voice and when he was annoyed there was a definite twitch in the grey moustache that adorned his upper lip. This was a nasty little man, and if he had not found a place with the army he would most likely have ended up in prison. He lived on the outskirts of the barracks in a small bungalow with his wife and two daughters. He had been married for twenty years and his eldest daughter had been named May, and when the second child, also a girl, came along they had called her June. He said at the time that it was in order to help him remember their birthdays. His wife was something of a timid creature brow beaten by her husband and made to bend to her husbands will. This had started one week after the marriage, when he had refused to let her see her parents, of course this was not a problem when he was posted to India and took his wife with him. This man was a bully, even the troops could see what he was, but he had made a nice little home for himself and as long as he kept his nose clean the army was prepared to put up with him.

There was an old soldier who frequented the camp, he had retired some three years earlier, but owing to the fact that he had no family in England, he was allowed to remain on the base and made money by doing odd jobs. No one knew his first name and so everyone, from the captain to the cook called him Smith. It so happened that one day he was doing a little gardening for the Sergeant Major's wife when her husband came home from duty. He saw Smith scratching at the ground with a hoe as he came through the gate. "Corporal Smith, what the hell are you doing here? Take your bits of rubbish and get off my property before I have you flogged". Smith was only being paid coppers for this work but even coppers were welcome to a retired soldier. Corporal Smith stumbled to find the words. "But, your wife, she". He was cut off by the sergeant major now going red in the face. "Don't you answer me back; get out before I flay you alive.

The corporal began to pick up his tools and started to leave. Once inside the house the sergeant major took off his tunic and pulled the braces from off his shoulders. "Where are you woman"? His wife came in wiping her hands on a towel. "Sorry dear I was just finishing your dinner". He glowered at her. "How many times have I told you to be here when I come in? Now get these bloody boots off". The sergeant major now sat down and held his foot in the air; his wife straddled his leg and he placed his foot on her backside. As his wife held the boot he pushed with full force with the other leg. His wife and boot made a dull thud as they collided with the opposite wall. "You know dear, you don't need to push so hard". "Shut up woman". He replied, but his wife had family business on her mind and was unable to keep her piece. "May has arranged to go walking with Private Johnson, if that is acceptable to you dear". He immediately flew into a rage. "What do I have to do to get it through to the lot of you; I will not have my family consorting with the ranks. Damn it to hell where is she? If she won't listen then I'll beat it into her. "No! Please for God sake no". His Wife pleaded with him and grabbing his arm tried to hold him back. With one great heave he threw his wife off and she careered face first into a wall. The blood ran from her nose and she slid slowly down the wall half unconscious. The sergeant major burst into the bedroom that the girls shared. The youngest was cowering in a corner, while the eldest was standing only half dressed. "When I say no it means no. Now girl I will give you something to remember the next time you feel like disobeying me. With this he pulled off his thick leather belt and made a grab for his daughter. She turned as she saw his chubby had come for her. Turning away she hugged the wall as if hoping that it would give her some protection. He grabbed at the back of her upper garment and ripped it from her body and in the next second brought the belt down against the skin of her back. Not content, he did it again, the girl screamed in agony and two wide angry red welts grew on the girls back. This would have been hard enough for a man to bear but this was a young girl. Feeling no shame, he shouted. "Now let that be a lesson to you". He turned and left the room.

There had been a witness to what had just taken place. Smith was holding his tools and standing silently outside an open window, a strange look had taken hold of his face. It was a look of someone who was looking into the dark past and feeling the hatred of another life. That evening Smith went to the stables where he procured a horse. He took the horse and hitched it up to a small wagon. No one saw, no one knew, he knew the barracks inside out, he knew who would be on duty and where; and how to avoid them. He then acquired some supplies and drove the wagon to the sergeant major's house. By now it had become dark and the only light other than the bungalow lights was that of the moon. It was one of those perfect nights, a warm gentle breeze, with the perfume of the flowers hanging on the air, this in connection with the music of the insects turned the night into paradise.

Smith approached the door and knocked, the sergeant came to the door, the females of the house were in the girl's bedroom consoling each other and tending to their wounds. "What is it Smith". The sergeant growled. "Sergeant major sir, a delivery for you sir. In the wagon sir". "What this time of night? Ok let's have a look". The sergeant led the way to the cart and the subordinate Smith followed. Once at the cart the sergeant said. "Smith, there is only junk in here". "Well so there is". Replied the corporal, and with that he brought the sergeant a mighty blow across the back of the head. Smith tied up the sergeant hand and foot and gagged him, threw him unceremoniously into the cart and covered him with a sheet. There was no hurry in any of this, no fear, no panic; it was as if Smith were just picking up a sack of potatoes for delivery to a shop. He then climbed onto the cart, took the reins and with a quiet. "Walk on". Set off along the road.

The road he took led him to Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan near to Jaipur; He travelled by the light of the moon for several hours, he turned off what was meant to be the main road and up a cart track. It was now nearing dawn and the sergeant had regained consciousness some hours ago and by the sound of it was becoming apoplectic with rage. Not that Smith cared. The track opened out into a clearing, at the far end of which was the mouth of a cave. He knew that no one came here, the cave was taboo to the locals who thought that the bats that came out at night were the souls of their ancestors, and it wasn't a good thing to upset the ancestors. Smith pulled up the cart outside the cave mouth, saw to the feeding and watering of the horse and then turned his attention to his passenger.

He pulled the sheet off the sergeant, and in a cool and calm voice, said. "Come on serge' lets have you off there, I need it. It will be my bed for the next couple of hours, you can have the floor of the cave for a bit". And so saying he grabbed the sergeant and threw him over his shoulder and carried him to the mouth of the cave. Once inside the cave mouth Smith just threw the sergeant off his shoulder, not caring how he landed or whether or not he was injured. He went back to the cart and brought some equipment into the cave, he threw a rope over an outcrop of rock that stuck out quite high up on the wall of the cave, and tied one end to the sergeant's hands. Since his hands were tied behind his back when the rope was pulled tight it had the effect of forcing the sergeant to lie on his stomach face down with his hands in the air behind him. Smith then tied the loose end of the rope to a stake that he had driven into the ground. "Now you just wait there till I've had a little sleep, and don't you go anywhere you and I have some business to see to". The serge howled something inaudible into the gag. "Yes I know". Said Smith. "You just want to thank me for making you nice and comfortable, well you don't have to. Right see you in a couple of hours". With this, Smith departed for his slumbers in the back of the cart.

It was about midday when he awoke and made his way into the cave, if it hadn't been that Smith was doing what he saw as a job of work, he would have really liked to explore this cave. Its entrance was covered up to the mouth with vegetation and once inside it echoed to the sound of running water, but this water was deep in the bowels of the cave. In the first thirty yards of the cave mouth, water dripped incessantly from the roof and ran in small rivulets down the walls. Smith brought into the mouth of the cave a number of things and continued to assemble a structure that had no meaning whatever to the sergeant major. Smith had chosen a point in the cave where the water dripped at a regular rate from the roof. He had cut down a young sapling from outside and jammed it firmly into a cleft in the rock, it was leaning at a forty five degree angle, and the tip was just below the dripping water. From the tip of this sapling hung a rope and tied to the rope was a wooden bucket, on opposite sides of the bucket Smith had strapped two sabres. The sabre points were hanging about eighteen inches from the floor of the cave.

"Well serge, I hope you appreciate the trouble I've gone to for you"? Smith said. He was now standing over the sergeant major; again he brought down a wooden stake onto the back of the sergeant's head. A swirling darkness took hold of him as slipped into the black hole of unconsciousness. When he came to he found himself lying on his back, spread eagled and the two sabre points just touching his lower abdomen. When he breathed in he could actually feel the prick of the sabres pressing into him, the first blade was just below his sternum and the second just above his groin. He also found that the gag had been removed from his mouth and he was now able to speak. "I'll have the flesh torn from your back for this Smith. How dare you treat a superior officer in this manor? By God I'll make you sorry for this, you see if I don't". All the time he was yelling there was a little tiny pin prick from the blades reminding him of there presence. In a very quiet and calm voice Smith spoke. "Now now sergeant lets not have any of that kind of behaviour. You can't threaten me like you can your wife. Let me explain what is about to happen". With this, Smith sat on a large boulder near to him and began, in a very calculating way to fill his pipe. "Now you see that sapling, well because it is green wood it will bend but it will bend a long way. Hanging from the tip is a rope, and as you can see it is attached to a bucket holding two sabres. The water that drips from the roof will collect in the bucket making it heavier, as a result the more water in the bucket the lower the sabres will go, The unfortunate thing is, at least for you, is that you are beneath the sabres, I recon that you have about three hours before those sabres go in your front and come out of your back". "Now Smith you just let me go and I won't say a word about this, this joke has gone far enough". The sergeant major was starting to get worried now.

Smith continued in a slow mater of fact kind of way, as though talking to some long lost friend and reminiscing about old times. "Come on serge, you disappoint me, here I am prepared to spend time talking to you in your last hours and you think it's a joke. What I really want to do, before you die that is, is tell you a story. The story is of a little boy, a little boy who had been beaten by his mother since he was old enough to understand what pain was. He had a younger brother who was also beaten. One day the younger brother was found at the bottom of the stairs, his neck broken. A tragic accident everyone said, but the older brother knew different. He saw his father come in at night, full of drink; this father met his son on the stairs and just picked him up and threw him down the stairs. The elder brother saw the whole thing from the bedroom door, but never said anything for fear that the same thing might happen to him". "What the bloody hell are you going on about man"? The sergeant growled. "You just cut these ropes and let me out of here. Now". The exertion of that last cry forced his belly up and the sabres broke the skin. A small red blob could now be seen on the tip of each sabre. In the same low calm voice, Smith said "Oh bravo sergeant, you've managed to draw blood. Anyway as I was saying". Smith had now lit his pipe and was happily puffing away. "Ah yes, later that year the mother was found at the bottom of the stairs, she too had a broken neck. This time it was put down to her missing her footing because of the drink. The elder brother was not that bothered because he was beaten at least twice a day by his mother, this had turned his mind, and he hated all women for the rest of his life.

By the time he was fifteen and had decided to leave home, you see the only neck left to break in that house was his, and he had taken a liking to it". Water was now beginning to collect in the bucket and the sapling was bending. The tips of the steel blades were now buried into the skin of the sergeant and two thin rivers of blood were running down his sides. "You damn fool Smith, this is murder, do you want to be known as a murderer". Smith could not restrain himself, he just laughed and laughed. "You know serge you say the funniest things". Then Smith continued. "The boy then got a job as an assistant to a doctor and learned quite a bit of the doctor's trade". Smith paused. "Now if you haven't already guessed: that young man was me, that is why I can tell you that it will take you some time to die. Those blades will not penetrate a vital organ, but force their way through the large and small colon and you will eventually die from loss of blood". It was easily seen that the sergeant was now in a state of distress, but the corporal showed no emotion. "Now to continue with this little story". The sergeant now spoke in a whimpering voice as the blades pressed deeper into his body. "For pities sake Smith you must stop this, for the love of God". Without emotion and in a calm manor, Smith spoke. "You mean the same kind of pity and the same kind of love that you showed to your wife and daughter? Now as I said, back to the tale. I worked for the doctor for some time and then, due to circumstances, found it necessary to join the army. I believe that was in the year of 1888 or was it 1889".The corporal paused at this point; he seemed to be assembling the facts in his mind. Then he spoke. "Does the name Mary Jean Kelly mean anything to you? No? Oh well let me enlighten you". The sergeant was now feeling much weaker; the steel points were doing their work, driving ever so slowly through his frame. Every breath he now took made a small river of blood run down his sides.

Smith carried on with his story. "Friday the 9th of November 1888, Mary Jean Kelly was found dead, and I have to admit that, yes, I was the one who killed her. You see it was my way of getting back at my mother. To make them pay. Of course my name wasn't Smith then, oh no I had another. Mind you it wasn't one of my choosing. No, the papers chose it for me. Jack the Ripper they called me. Now the reason I am doing this, is to aid the woman of your house. To, in some way, make amends for my miss spent youth". Smith was looking at the sergeant, a small gurgling sound came from his throat, and as he looked he saw the life disappear from his eyes. As Jack the Ripper rode back to the barracks he vowed never to do this again. Well at least not for a while anyway.

The End