The Females of Wadi Ya Noh.

"Now, David! Precious seconds of time are being lost - like grains of sand, slipping through my fingers. We must begin your 'A Thousand Suns' sentence: your punishment and rehabilitation - your chastisement - without delay!"

Claudia then translated to me, at intervals, as she addressed her village sisters - the poor, cruelly repressed females of Wadi Ya Noh. Attentively, curiously, and with mild inquisitiveness, the shapeless, all-black garbed, huddled mass of females listened to Claudia, as she explained the particular circumstances of why I had been brought to their village: just what, exactly, I was being punished for.

But, as soon as Claudia spoke the word: 'Englishman', an eerie silence descended over them. Suddenly, the atmosphere became super-charged: sparked, with crackling electricity, and they hung onto - clung onto - Claudia's every single word. Their dark, almond-shaped eyes never left my face. For many of the females, it had just got 'personal'.

The expressions in their eyes, as they had fixed unwaveringly upon my face had, at first, been merely curious. Mildly inquisitive. After all, the females of Wadi Ya Noh were quite used to having male prisoners brought before them, to suffer their own, particular form of ... justice.

But then, Claudia had let the cat out of the bag: told them that I was English.

And the merely curious, mildly inquisitive expressions in the females' dark eyes turned, on the instant. Turned, to hateful, spiteful, malevolent - vengeful - glares.

Now, the ululating wailing that the females of Wadi Ya Noh had, as one, emitted as they had emerged from their humble homes and shuffled towards Claudia and I, was as nothing. As nothing!

The females of Wadi Ya Noh, now emitted a deeply disturbing, yodelling-like, unholy chorus of discordant sound. It was such a keening, eerie wailing; such a God-awful, ululating hullabaloo, that it shredded my nerves, and froze the blood in my veins just to hear it.

For, my instinctive interpretation, of the meaning of the dreadful sound - thrumming with malevolence; resonating, with the palpable, vibrant undercurrent of violent threat - was clear and unmistakable ... Payback Time.

As soon as Claudia had finished addressing her village sisters, about me, as one, the all-black garbed, shapeless, now shrilly ululating females of Wadi Ya Noh, promptly fell upon me, in an irresistible maelstrom of female fury.

With an air of great satisfaction, Claudia stood back and watched. Claudia watched, as her village sisters - the betrayed and abandoned, vindictive and vengeful females of Wadi Ya Noh - set upon me with a vengeance. Claudia watched, as their brown, grasping, grabbing, gripping hands frantically pawed and clawed at me, roughly stripping me of (almost) all of my clothing.

The hysterically ululating females of Wadi Ya Noh frenziedly plucked my clothes from my body. My expensive (by my modest standards), brand-new suit; shirt, underwear, shoes and socks - the females of Wadi Ya Noh, literally tearing them off me. Angrily ripping them from my body, until they had left me without so much as a stitch on ...

Except, that is ... for my pale blue silk tie: The tie, that my fiancee, my Sandra, had chosen. The tie, that she had bought especially for my business trip with Miss Susan Smith. To make a good impression: "It suits you, David." The tie, that the fiendishly ululating females of Wadi Ya Noh were now half throttling me with: pulling me this way; dragging me that way.

The tie, that now made me look even more ridiculous, than if I was completely naked.

I looked on, horrified, as the females of Wadi Ya Noh then squabbled raucously. Their noise was terrible as, like squawking sea gulls scrapping over carelessly discarded food scraps at the sea-side, they greedily snatched up from the dusty ground the tattered remnants of my destroyed garments. Competed for them, in wanting to be the one's to tear what was left of my clothes, into strips; to shreds. To nothing more, than tiny tufts of fluff and fibres, that would blow away on the hot desert wind.

Sitting on the dusty, hard-baked, compressed-mud ground of Humility Square, I could only look on. Aghast, at what I beheld.

Throwing the ripped remains of my clothing to the dusty ground, the rampaging females of Wadi Ya Noh emitted their dreadful, terrifying, nerve-shredding ululating wailing as they angrily stomped, stamped and trampled them - as though they thought they were stomping, stamping and trampling upon the vulnerable, defenceless bodies and faces of the unfaithful wretches who had so cruelly spurned and deserted them.

One of the younger females - Nagga - spotted my shirt buttons lying on the dusty ground, and she contemptuously kicked them into Humility Hole.

I was so scared, by now, I did not even think to cover 'myself' up with my hands. After all ... it was the least of my concerns, at the moment.

Then, apparently satisfied that they had at last wrought the maximum possible destruction upon my clothing, the females of Wadi Ya Noh returned their full, wrathful attention upon me.

Howling horrendously, the females of Wadi Ya Noh shuffled menacingly towards me. They converged upon me, in an all-black garbed, shapeless, shambling mass. Crowding in on me, with openly hostile, vengeful intent.

In the face of their howling aggression, I soon found myself cravenly cowering as I was immediately overpowered and overwhelmed by the sheer, irresistible ferocity of the females' wrath.

But, caught, as I was: so utterly unprepared - shocked; frozen into defenceless immobility - I had received several kicks to my unprotected face, head and body, before my instinct for self-preservation somewhat belatedly kicked in. In a desperate effort to protect myself from the females' angry onslaught, I curled myself up into a tight, foetal-like ball, so as to make as small a target of myself as possible.

But, it was useless.

Brown hands angrily grabbed hold of my arms and legs and, despite my best, fear-fuelled efforts of resistance, those brown hands easily prised my arms and legs apart; pulled them wide open. Leaving me totally exposed; utterly defenceless ... The females of Wadi Ya Noh would not be thwarted; would not be kept at bay. Would not be denied.

I was half-deafened by their frightful, ululating wailing as, barefoot, the females of Wadi Ya Noh furiously kicked at my vulnerable head, face and body, in a frenzied free-for-all of flying female feet.

The females then looked around for and picked up the scattered-about shoes that they had so hurriedly kicked off: a motley collection of old, ratty, tatty, worn-out shoes.

Some of the females then stood over me; some of them knelt over me and, ululating all the while, they viciously slapped the length and breadth of my exposed and defenceless body with the soles of their worn-out shoes. It was a stinging, relentless rain of derogatory blows, that I thought was never ever going to stop.

When it did stop ... the females were kicking again. I was helpless, defenceless - totally vulnerable. I was, as Miss Withenshaw had put it: at their "tender mercies." Which was a contradiction in terms, if ever I had heard one: there was nothing tender; nothing merciful, about the females of Wadi Ya Noh.

I tried to turn my face away; tried to squeeze my arms and legs back together ... especially my legs. But, it was futile.

The brown, bare feet of the females of Wadi Ya Noh were inescapable, unavoidable. Kicking here, kicking there, kicking anywhere and everywhere ... Kicking, kicking, kicking.

Some of the females lashed out indiscriminately; as though quite indifferent, as to where they landed their punishing kicks - as long as they landed them.

While others took care - some, special, particular care - as to just where, exactly, they sadistically targeted my exposed anatomy. Just where, exactly, they got me with their snide swipes, with their cruel kicks. With their vengeful, stamping, stomping feet.

Then they were wielding their shoes again ... I tried to avert my face; close my legs. But, it was hopeless.

Brown hands had grabbed hold of my ankles, and roughly pulled my legs wide open. And kept them open. There was nothing I could do - nothing! No way to protect myself, no way to defend myself as, ululating triumphantly, the females of Wadi Ya Noh had subjected me to their frenetic flailing of female footwear.

Whack! Whap! Slap! Smack! Thud! Thunk! The females of Wadi Ya Noh gleefully lashed out, maliciously targeting my vulnerable body with their bin-worthy footwear: their worn-out sandals, slingbacks, flats, flip flops, pumps, mules ...

The only thing that stopped me from getting a truly hideous hiding, was that, in the throes of their great excitement, the females actually greatly hindered each other; got in each other's way, in their mad maulings of me. All of them wanting, all at the same time, to be the one's to get in the choicest, most punishing kicks; the best, humiliating shoe slaps. And, I was very lucky that that was the case, otherwise ...

Then one of the more mature, more heavily figured, and ... particularly malevolent, females of Wadi Ya Noh - Fatima - knelt over me; straddling me, with her back to my face. What now? I wondered worriedly.

As I pondered fearfully upon this latest, and decidedly unpromising development, I glumly stared at Fatima's broad back, and at her even broader bottom, draped, as it was, in the coarse cloth of her black burka. And then I gloomily looked at her bare, brown feet, positioned close by either side of my head. My God!

The top of Fatima's left foot rested upon the dusty ground, exposing the whole of her fleshy, wrinkled sole. I shuddered with revulsion. Fatima's hard-skinned heel, the ball of her foot, and her toe pads, were grimy with the accumulation of ingrained dirt from walking about barefoot so often.

I turned my head away from the revolting sight - only to see a close-up view of Fatima's similarly soiled right sole. The heel of her right foot was pronounced. The skin of her arch was stretched taut and smooth as she rested her toe pads upon the ground; pressing firmly down, as though to gain better purchase, extra leverage, from that foot.

Fatima then raised her right hand high above her head, and I saw the scuffed and scruffy shoe she was holding - wielding - by the toe end of the shoe. The extremely well-worn shoe that she was so tightly gripping in her right hand, I saw, was a mule. The heel; midnight-black, from the frequent contact with her grubby, grimy, filthy dirty heel.

With her left hand, Fatima then grabbed hold of my penis. And, none too gently, she pulled it towards her ... out of the way. And, to keep it out of the way, she firmly held on to it.

It was to my utter, disbelieving horror; my quaking terror, that my realisation of Fatima's unspeakable intention finally dawned upon me. But there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing! Fatima was straddling me; pinning me to the ground. I was trapped; helpless. Nevertheless, so panic stricken, was I, that I wriggled and writhed about under Fatima - until Nagga firmly placed the ball of her foot on my windpipe ... to 'calm' me.

Fatima's ululating wailing now took on another, much higher note. A shriek. That was the only word for it. And it was a shriek, of such malicious, malevolent portent; of such chilling, wicked glee, that I was all but wetting myself with dread, as she prepared to swing.

Even in my worst nightmare, I could hardly have dreamed up such a diabolical scenario as this.

I knew what was going to happen ... I saw Fatima's right hand disappear as she brought her shoe down, hard and fast - and accurately - scoring a direct hit on my exposed testicles with the chunky, flattened-out heel of her ratty, tatty, worn-out mule.

It was awful. The pain. Nothing could have prepared me for such incredible, all-consuming, mind-shattering anguish.

But, I was not quite so out of it as to not notice the reappearance of the mule, when I saw Fatima's right hand reappear above her head, still tightly gripping her shoe by the toe end.

I knew what Fatima was going to do ... And so did Nagga, who now threateningly rested the bottom of her bare heel on my Adam's apple, in case I got any 'ideas'.

To my right, I saw Fatima's grimy, filthy dirty right sole; saw her toe pads spread on the ground, gripping firmly. And then I saw her toe pads suddenly press down into the ground harder; for extra, thrust-supporting purchase and leverage and, I looked up, just in time to see Fatima's shoe wielding right hand disappear again on its high-speed downwards trajectory.

Maintaining her firm hold of my penis, Fatima swung her worn-out mule down again with all of the force and energy of her vindictive venom ... "Uuuunnngg!!" I groaned, as Fatima scored another direct hit, and as a dull, ugly agony flooded every cell of my body.

Oh, the agony! The anguish! It was literally all-consuming. Focusing the attention of my entire mind, to the exclusion of all else.

Eventually, I registered that Nagga was repeatedly slapping my face with the soles of her feet - in lieu of smelling salts - to bring me back to my senses.

The females of Wadi Ya Noh danced, demoniacally. They laughed, giggled, cackled, and whooped: as befitted their ages; their personal dispositions. But, most of all - they ululated. A raucous, ear perforating chorus of resonating, reverberating, yodelling-like wailing, that shredded my nerves, and froze the blood in my veins just to hear it.

Suddenly, all of the air in my body was violently expelled. It was 'pressure-pumped' out of me, in a single, whooshing exhalation of breath as, with a squeal of malicious delight, another of the younger females of Wadi Ya Noh - Kandi - jumped onto my stomach, heels first.

The effect was paralysing. I tried to gasp for air, but it was futile. I had forgotten how to breathe, it seemed. My respiratory mechanism simply refused to function - as if all of the wiring had been kicked in, by a resentful, malicious vandal on some benighted social housing estate.

It seemed to have frozen; to have become totally seized up. I willed it to work again - but it wouldn't. Couldn't. I couldn't draw breath. The longer it went on, the more I thought I was going to suffocate. I was actually getting scared. The seconds ticked away. No breath. Tick-tick-tick ... Still, no breath. I began to worry even more. Started to panic: if this went on, for much longer ...

It didn't help, of course, that Kandi was energetically mashing the soles of her brown, bare feet into my stomach, as if she was treading grapes in the south of France.

More of the females of Wadi Ya Noh followed Kandi's example. More and more of them stepped, barefoot, onto my supine body, as if I was their dance floor and they were joining a mini conga line. Swaying precariously, they held onto each other to assist their mutually uncertain balance - to prevent themselves from falling off me. All that was missing was the music ... but then, the females of Wadi Ya Noh made their own 'music'.

It seemed impossible, that so many of the females could 'climb aboard' me all at once. Yet, amazingly, more of them continued to do so. As if they were going in for one of those bizarre, off-the-wall World Record attempts, of the sort where the contestants cram themselves into a Mini Cooper; a telephone kiosk, etc., until every possible inch of room is taken up.

The pressure soon became enormous, horrendous, under the females' combined body weight: under the soles of their variously pounding, pummelling, pressing bare feet. Together, in their diabolical dance, they stood on me; jumped up and down on me, stomped me. Trampled me underfoot. Literally, as well as figuratively - they walked all over me.

I felt the ball and toes of a bare, brown foot pressing firmly into my left cheek as, ululating triumphantly, another of the females of Wadi Ya Noh - I didn't know who it was; I couldn't look up, couldn't see - forced my right cheek flat against the hard-baked, rough and gritty ground of Humility Square.

Tiny sharp stones dug painfully into my right cheek as, single-footed, she then stood on my left cheek, and rested all of her weight upon my helpless face. The crushing weight was terrible as, single-footed, she pinned my head to the dusty ground. She then brought her other foot to bear, too. And then I felt the pressure of the full, rocking to-and-fro, gently swaying motion of her body; the soles of her feet, firmly planted upon the left side of my face and head, gripping assuredly. And slowly, rhythmically - cruelly - she grinded my right cheek into the dusty desert ground.

After what seemed an eternity, I felt a wave of great, immense relief, when she finally stepped off my face ... only to be replaced, by another gleefully ululating female of Wadi Ya Noh.

From an outbuilding, some of the females brought a thick wooden pole (probably fashioned from an uprooted palm tree, I supposed), and they lowered it into the small, coffin-shaped, crude excavation at the centre of Humility Square - Humility Hole. As soon as the pole was in place, brown hands grabbed hold of my ankles, and 2 of the females roughly dragged me across the ground, over to Humility Hole.

Now, I got my first proper look into that awful pit. I saw my shirt buttons. They were lying in the dust at the bottom, where Nagga had so contemptuously kicked them ... Nagga: who had pressed the ball of her foot to my windpipe, to 'calm' me; Nagga, who had threateningly rested the bottom of her heel on my Adam's apple, in case I got any 'ideas', while Fatima ...

About 8 feet of the pole now protruded from Humility Hole. The dreadful hole, from where the 2 policemen had earlier pulled out the man of Arabian appearance. The haunted-looking man. The filthy dirty man. The appallingly-scarred man.

I then heard a sudden whistling, shrieking - whooshing sound. A sound of violently displaced air. I heard it again. Then again. I looked about me, in search of what had caused that fearful sound ... And I saw Claudia wielding it. Now rigid with terror, I watched, as Claudia took another practice swing ... Whoosh!

Claudia then stood before me. She was a fearsome sight. Yet magnificent ... in a darkly regal, sort of way. As if she was the Queen of Wadi Ya Noh.

Nemesis-like, Claudia was brandishing in her hands, an extremely wicked-looking cane. It was in fact, the official issue of the Arabian penal authorities and, such canes were routinely supplied to all such ... correction centres, as Wadi Ya Noh.

Just the very sight of that cane, was enough to instil a knee-buckling, quaking fear, in all but the most hardy of observers. For, it was the females of Wadi Ya Noh's appalling, terrifying instrument of chastisement - the Katang.

The Katang looked to be about 6 feet long. It was the convenient, easy-to-use diameter of a pool cue, at its handle, and so sat snugly in the palm of the hand of the user. The cane tapered gradually; becoming very whippy, and ending in a whiplash-like point. The evil-looking cane was very flexible - unbreakable, in ... normal use - and, as I had just heard, it made the most hideous, blood-curdling shriek as it scythed through the air.

With that dreadful cane, in her hands, Claudia's eyes shone brightly in gleeful anticipation. She watched my disbelieving, terror-struck face as I stood trembling before her. She watched me coming apart at the seams, as my fearful realisation dawned: My realisation, that what I had already been subjected to, so far, by the females of Wadi Ya Noh - the kicking, the shoe-slapping, the stomping, the trampling - would seem like a Women's Institute cucumber sandwich fund-raiser party, compared to what was coming next.