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EPILOGUE
Corporal Hargreaves had been put in charge of the prison, and she was sick to the gills. She stood with her guards in front of the old building, looking into the darkness, trying to guess how the war was progressing. They had heard the starting gun forty minutes ago, and since then, only a distant shout or two which could mean anything. Their flag was half a mile to the East. The enemy's was two miles to the North. They might as well have been back at school, and in bed, for all the action they had seen.
The cadets begun complaining of boredom. Anna nipped that in the bud.
'We'll just have to lump it, that's all,' she said. 'Something'll happen sooner or later. In the meantime, there's always the old Squaddie's Friend.' She produced a packet of cigarettes.
One cadet didn't smoke. Another did — sometimes — but wasn't yet sixteen, and Anna refused to be the corruptor of youth. So three cigarettes bobbed cheerily in the darkness, were smoked down to the filter, and put out under heavy army boots. All was still again. But presently came footsteps, and a figure in the darkness. The soldiers raised their rifles (antique .303s that hadn't fired in sixty years) and demanded identification.
'Cadet Officer!' called a voice.
'Approach!' said one of the soldiers, and there was laughter.
The Cadet Officer — this year's Cadet Officer — came up. She was the only member of the corps not participating in the game, acting instead as a roving referee.
They saluted her, and she returned it.
'How is it going, Corporal?' she said. 'No prisoners yet?'
'Not one.'
'I can't believe they stuck you down here, Anna. Your lot need their heads examined. Complete waste of ... of you.'
'I told them so myself.'
'Who else is here?'
'Cadets Markham, Seth, Lancaster and ...'
'...Smith,' prompted a voice.
'...And Smith.'
'And which of them has been smoking?'
Her voice was suddenly prefectorial. Unlike her illustrious predecessor, this new Cadet Officer often confused her military and civilian roles; even in the middle of a war.
'That would have been the coach-driver,' said Anna smoothly 'On the way over. Five fags in a row, one after the other, and we had to sit next to him. Horrid things.'
'Well, next time, tell him those horrid things will kill him.'
She hadn't bought it, of course, but she was going to let it go. Anna, after a polite pause, asked how the game was going, and the Cadet Officer told her as much as she could without prejudicing the other team, which wasn't much. The conversation broadened into general chat. By and by the Cadet Officer said, 'Do you hear from Emma much?'
'Emma' was last year's Cadet Officer, with whom Anna had been somewhat close.
'Now and then,' she said. In fact she'd had a letter only yesterday from Emma, writing in her latest incarnation as a teacher-cum-medical-officer in Uttar Pradesh. She was licking the kids into shape, she told Anna; had taught them about soap, toothpaste, and handkerchiefs; and had saved the entire village from a rabid dog. She sent her love, and signed off with a promise to get on the first plane back to England, clutching a mahout's stick, should she hear that Anna had relapsed into brattiness, snottiness, or general moral disgrace.
'And she's still in India, is she? Marvellous. Marvellous. Well then, I'll be pushing along. Want me to pull a few strings, and get you relieved after a while? Can't promise anything.'
Anna was tempted. But it wasn't her style to ask for favours.
'Thank you. For the cadets, perhaps. I'll stick it out.'
The Cadet Officer went away. Anna felt uncomfortable about the smoking thing. That was a bit bratty. This new Cadet Officer had always showed herself willing to trust Anna, and Anna was grateful, because she needed allies. Emma, and Richie, and Lou, and the rest of them, were gone for good. Their successors — girls in Anna's own year — gave her the cold shoulder, and who could blame them? They had worked three long years for promotion, after all, and Anna had achieved hers in one. Even so, on a night like tonight when she should have been in the thick of action, it was a bitter pill to swallow.
Her cadets now spoke up. If she was staying put, they said, then they would too. 'Very good,' said Anna. 'I've a feeling we'll get something out of this, one way or another.' The cadets thought so too. Things tended to happen around Anna.
*
The first prisoner arrived at midnight, and at last there was activity. One of the guards went inside to light the paraffin lamps, and the inside of the prison (an old outbuilding with half its roof missing) glowed a dim yellow. Anna informed the prisoner of her rights — which were none — marched her in, told her to sit down, take her belt off, and her boot-laces out.
The belt was to go around her ankles. 'Oh, you must be joking!' said the prisoner, although she didn't put up a fight. She was more unhappy about having her wrists tied behind her with the boot-laces. 'I'm not going to sit here all night like a supermarket chicken!' she said. 'That's exactly how you're going to sit,' said Anna. They had to use a bit of force. Anna herself did the tying. She was good with knots. Soon the prisoner was helpless.
'And now what?' she said. 'Are you going to tickle me?'
This was a deal too cheeky, even from a POW taken honourably. Everybody knew the story, but Anna didn't always like to be reminded of it. The prisoner got a gentle slap on the cheek, to remind her who was in charge.
Soon, however, she was content, and even enjoying the novelty of it all — the flickering lamps which illuminated first one face and then another, and the cigarette held to her lips by Anna, and (secretly) her bound wrists and ankles. She told them how the game was unfolding.
'Your team's way behind,' she said. 'I can't believe I'm your first prisoner! We must have twenty of yours!'
'Twenty!' cried Anna, with a glance at her guards. 'I bet it's not that many!'
'I bet it is. Fifteen, at least.'
'Who told you that?'
'I saw them myself!' said the prisoner. 'Because I caught one. We're putting you all in the old air-raid shelter.'
'That's a pretty stupid place!'
'Un-un. Because the guards can defend as well.'
'How can they? The flag's miles away.'
'There's more than one way to defend a flag.'
'Sounds daft to me,' said Anna.
All right then, it's daft. Wait till your lot get to the trees, and then see how daft it is.'
'You can't defend along the whole line of trees!'
'You can if you...'
Here the prisoner suddenly stopped talking. Anna grinned in the paraffin-light.
'Oh bollocks,' said the prisoner, disgusted with herself.
'Bollocks indeed,' said Anna. 'Now — what about your password? Tell me your password.'
'I'm not telling you our password!'
'Hmm — So your team has a password, does it? Interesting. Now, what could it be, I wonder...?'
The prisoner clamped her teeth shut.
'Funny thing you mentioned tickling,' said Anna. 'I wonder where you're most ticklish, Gill. Here?'
She poked the prisoner in the ribs.
'Against the rules!' cried the prisoner.
'What rules?'
' The rules!'
'Oh, those rules. Well, perhaps, but the night is dark, the hut is lonely, nobody will hear your screams ...'
Unfortunately, at that very moment she was contradicted by the sentry's cry: 'Who goes there?'
'Bonaventure!' came the low reply. (This was the team's password, which Anna had chosen. It was the only contribution she'd been allowed to make.)
Anna went outside. More prisoners were arriving, escorted by three soldiers. Anna told her guards to take them in and process them, and meanwhile passed on to the soldiers the information she had gleaned from the first prisoner.
'All along the trees?' said the soldiers.
'I think so.' Anna put her head around the door. 'Are they all along the trees, Gill?'
The prisoner swore at her.
'I'm not saying for sure, but it's likely,' said Anna.
'That would explain a lot,' said one of the soldiers. 'We must have lost about twenty of ours.'
'Twenty-five,' said another. 'I'd say at least twenty-five.'
'Well don't just stand there, you galoots! Hurry back and spread it around!'
The soldiers sped away into the dark.
Anna went inside to interrogate the new prisoners. They had submitted to their bonds readily enough, the precedent having been set. But the original prisoner warned them not to say a word to Hargreaves. She was sly as ten foxes, she said. Anna silently cursed herself. 'If I was sly as even one fox,' she thought, 'I'd have gagged that prisoner first.'
Over the next hour her little prison began to fill up. There were four captives, then six, then eight, then eleven. The soldiers who escorted them also brought news, and it was grimmer each time. They were being wiped out, slaughtered in droves. Their troops kept heading over into enemy territory, and disappearing for good.
'Then why do they keep going?' cried Anna, dancing with impatience.
'What else can we do?'
'Don't you see their game? They're holding back in defence, picking us off one by one, and when we're all gone they'll come strolling in and take the flag.'
'Well, what do you suggest? We've tried going wide, we've tried making a dash for it, we've tried sneaking through...'
'You always have ideas, Hargreaves,' piped up another soldier.
'My idea is, we use a bit of brain,' said Anna.
She ordered one of her guards to go in and remove the prisoners' armbands. Then she talked quietly with the soldiers and the other guards, laying out a plan and getting them to understand it. When the armbands arrived she gave them to the soldiers and sent them off.
She went back inside and the prisoners protested that all this was against the rules. Anna set them straight.
'The rules say we have to keep our armbands on at all times,' she said. 'They don't say we can't wear someone else's on top. Surely everyone spotted that?'
'Won't do you any good, anyway,' growled one of the prisoners — and the girl sitting behind her kicked her with both feet.
'Because of the password, I suppose. But you're going to tell me, aren't you?'
They laughed at her.
'Laugh now, little girls,' she said. 'You'll sing like canaries later.'
'So, Anna — is it true about you, last year, in the dormitory, and...'
'Silence, dog!' snarled Anna, 'Or I'll have you gagged!'
'Gag? Oh Anna! You haven't been shopping on the Internet, have you?'
'Oh Anna — we are so disappointed.'
Anna lashed out with a string of fine old military curses, and they replied in true spirit. It was a merry prison, and that was fine for now. Later they wouldn't be smiling.
Three more captives arrived under guard. One was a Sergeant who had always regarded Anna with high mistrust.
Anna saluted her high-ranking prisoner, and the Sergeant returned it. She was led inside. There she exclaimed at the bound hands of the prisoners — 'Is that really necessary, Anna?'
'Anna likes tying people up,' suggested one of the prisoners.
'Silence, captive!' To the Sergeant she said: 'Quite necessary. We had to tie their feet to stop them running away, and their hands to stop them untying their feet.'
'Well, you'll forgive me if I keep my boot-laces where they belong. I won't run.'
'I'm afraid I can't permit that, Sergeant. Prison rules. Same for everyone.'
'Well — If you must, you must,' said the Sergeant with a sigh, 'It'll be over before too long, anyway. Your side's doing terribly.' She sat heavily on the floor (she was a big girl) and submitted herself to her own belt and boot-laces, although without much good grace.
'Now,' said Anna, 'Which of you is going to tell me your password?'
'Arse!' sang a voice, and the prison rang with laughter. Anna's face, even by the dim light of the paraffin lamps, was suddenly black. She stood, with all the stillness of anger, and her eye swept the captives, looking at each in turn, and coming to rest at last on one — a pale and insignificant girl who had been brought in with the Sergeant.
Anna got down on her hands and knees, and put her face close to the cadet's, as if she were a dog about to lick the girl's face.
'Tell me the password, little girl,' she growled.
The girl shook her head, smiling.
'Tell me the stinking password!' shouted Anna.
'Oh leave her alone, for heaven's sake,' said the Sergeant. 'Stop being such an idiot, Hargreaves. No-one's telling you anything.'
'Very well.'
Anna clicked her fingers at her guards. Under Anna's directions they plucked the girl out of the mass of prisoners, lifting her by thighs and armpits, and lay her in the middle of the floor. The Sergeant clucked in protest.
Anna knelt by the girl.
'Name?'
The girl glanced at the Sergeant for permission, and then confessed she was called Natasha — Natasha Corkran.
Anna stroked Natasha's cheek with a finger.
'Well, Natasha, I expect you've heard all about me, haven't you? I'm notorious, in my own little way? Aren't I?'
Natasha nodded and smiled, timidly enjoying the game.
'Now, I know you know the password, Natasha. And I know you want to tell me the password. Yes, you do — deep down. So I've got to do a bit of persuading first, and then you'll tell it to me. See?'
'Just be careful what sort of persuading you mean,' said the Sergeant.
'Quiet, prisoner!'
The Sergeant smiled thinly.
'Now, normally,' continued Anna, 'I'd give you the whole song and dance. Slow build-up, turn down the lamps, a whole heap of psychological stuff. Only we don't have much time. So let's cut to the chase.'
She began untying the girl's hands. 'First things first, Natasha — when I've got your hands free, I want you to take your sweater and shirt off.'
Natasha looked at the Sergeant, and the Sergeant was indignant on her behalf.
'You will not make her take any of her clothes off!' she said. 'Anna, do you hear me? You will not get her to take off any clothes!'
'Quiet, please!'
'I'm giving you an order, Hargreaves.'
'My gosh I'm good at knots. No — there we go. All done!'
There was moment of silence. The entire prison waited to see what would happen next.
'Well come along, Natasha dear. You do know how to get undressed, don't you?'
'Natasha, do not listen to her!' cried the Sergeant, struggling at her own bonds. 'She has no right to make you do that! Will someone untie me!'
'This is my prison, Sergeant, may I remind you?'
'You there!' said the Sergeant, to one of Anna's guards. 'Untie me at once! That's an order.'
'Don't untie her,' said Anna.
Natasha looked from the Sergeant to Anna, and from Anna to the Sergeant. She wore a little smile, to say she understood this was all a game. But the rest of her face was not so sure. Anna's defiance of the Sergeant raised uncomfortable possibilities. The inside of the building was suddenly full of shadows.
'No? Need some help? Up we go, then!'
The prisoner's arms were lifted over her head by Anna, and one of the guards pulled the sweater off. The prisoner put up only a token struggle, apparently still resting her faith in the Sergeant.
'Anna, I'm warning you, as your superior officer...'
'You're a prisoner-of-war, Sergeant. You don't have rank.'
The guards held the prisoner's arms, and Anna undid the buttons of her shirt.
The more conscientious of the prisoners began to join the Sergeant in protesting. Others watched in guilty enjoyment. All were fascinated, as the shirt was removed, and Natasha was left in her bra. She was a short girl, a little plump. Her breasts were rather large, and there was a bulge at the edges of the bra. Her flesh shivered — or perhaps it was the light from the paraffin-lamps as it caressed her skin.
Anna stood over the captive, considering her with a frown, and running an eye over her flesh.
'No — not enough to work with,' she said. 'Boots and trousers, please, guards.'
The guards did their work, Natasha writhed, and the Sergeant shouted. Within half a minute, Natasha was sitting in her underwear. Her head was bowed.
Anna knelt between the girl's bare legs, and put a finger under her chin to raise it. Natasha's bright eyes reflected three paraffin flames. She was scared, it seemed, and soon she might cry. She had apparently realised that one game had ended, and another begun, and that this new game could go anywhere. She looked again at the Sergeant — the large and ridiculous Sergeant who sat bristling as her authority slipped away. There was only one person in charge now.
Anna spoke quietly to Natasha, and the indignant room hushed to hear her.
'No need to worry, my darling. Just tell me the password, and it'll all be over.'
Natasha's lip quivered.
'I know you want to. Don't you?'
'Sean Connery!' cried a voice from the back. 'The password's Sean Connery.'
There were grunts of agreement from the other prisoners.
'Is it Sean Connery, my darling?' said Anna.
Natasha nodded eagerly.
'Liar!'
She stood up, went behind Natasha, and asked for her wrists — 'please'. Natasha paused, and then laid them in the small of her back. Anna bound them.
'By the way, I should inform you all,' she said, 'That this knot is utterly undo-able, except by me. I know this, because I learnt it off a friend of mine, and she used to practice it on me a lot.'
Most of the prisoners had already discovered this grim fact.
'And now I'm just popping out for a second,' said Anna. 'Everyone behave!'
She left. The Sergeant urgently spoke to the guards. She was a Cadet Sergeant and a school prefect, and on both counts she was ordering them to untie her. Did they understand her? What did they think they were playing at? Hargreaves was in trouble, grave trouble, acting this way, but they, the guards, could save themselves if they untied her, right away. Otherwise, they'd be up in front of the Head first thing in the morning ... Did they understand her? ... Had they all gone mad ...?
'What's all this?' said Anna, reappearing at the door. 'Corrupting my men?'
In her hand was a bunch of nettles.
Natasha saw them and sat bolt upright, her arms instinctively trying to break loose, and she squirmed as if those wicked leaves had already bitten her. Her legs were still free, and as Anna approached, she scooted backwards across the floor, rolled onto her side, and tried to get to her feet, scrabbling nakedly and ridiculously.
The guards caught her and brought her, struggling, into the middle of the room. Anna told them to put the belt around her ankles again.
She dropped the nettles on the floor and rubbed the back of one hand. 'Don't you love it when clichés come true?' she said. 'Grasping the nettle really is the way to do it. Unfortunately one of them got me anyway. Look!' She showed Natasha her hand.
'She's only trying to scare you, Natasha' said a prisoner. 'She's only pretending. Don't tell her anything!'
Anna put her hands on the tops of Natasha's bent knees, as if resting them on a pair of gateposts. 'We agree it isn't Sean Connery, don't we, 'Tasha?'
'Oh please don't do anything, Anna,' whispered the girl.
'Will you tell me who it really is?'
A tear appeared in Natasha's eye. She wasn't very brave, it would seem. The room appealed to Anna again. It wasn't a joke any more, they said. The poor girl was petrified.
Anna ignored them. She gently rubbed Natasha's kneecaps, as if polishing them.
'Not going to tell me?' she said sadly. 'Let's get started then.'
She picked up a nettle. It was no more than six inches long.
'Nobody's going to tell you a thing,' cried the Sergeant, 'But if that nettle so much as touches that girl...'
'A touch is all it takes,' said Anna, inspecting her nettle. 'And the young ones are the best. Or worst, depending.'
The room watched in horror, and the same voice said, 'She isn't going to do it, you know.'
'I think your arms first, Natasha,' said Anna. 'What lovely round arms you have! Shall we start with this one?'
'Oh please don't, Anna!'
'She won't,' said the voice. 'It's a bluff.'
Anna brushed the nettle along the length of Natasha's arm.
Natasha convulsed. There was a dreadful, stunned silence. And then she yelped — 'Oh God!' — and gulped, and a sob burst from her throat. The prison rang with her noise.
Anna, kneeling, regarded her little victim with compassion.
'Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Poor little thing. Oh well. Needs must. Ready for side two?'
'Anna, if we tell you the password,' said a prisoner. 'Will you put the nettle down?'
'Like a shot,' said Anna.
All right then. It's Mel Gibson.'
Someone tutted. Others muttered their approval.
'Word of honour. It's Mel Gibson.'
'Mel Gibson,' said Anna, 'Or Brad Pitt, or Matt Damon, or ... or Harrison Ford. What do you think, Natasha?'
'It's Mel Gibson!' said Natasha. 'Oh, please!'
'I don't believe you!' sang Anna.
Natasha shrunk away from the nettle. Anna told her guards to hold her still, and lightly brushed the second arm from top to bottom, as if dusting it. Natasha's screams were terrible.
The prisoners blared out their own anger, and struggled in their bonds. Some tried wriggling across the floor, and had to be dragged back by the guards.
'Anything to tell me yet, Natasha? No? No advance on Mel Gibson? Because your legs come next, I'm afraid.'
'The password doesn't matter any more,' said the Sergeant. 'Because your team is now disqualified. I'll see to that personally. Now drop that nettle!'
'Why? This is a standard interrogation technique. The real army does it all the time ... What a pity your ankles are tied, Natasha! Because the inside of the thigh — here — is the best place. The skin is so tender. I tell you what ... If I undo your feet, will you promise not to scuttle away?'
Natasha looked at her, bubbling tears and snot, her face red, and perhaps not even comprehending what Anna was saying.
Anna took off the belt — 'Shame not to do things properly' — and two of the guards spread Natasha's legs wide. Anna selected a fresh nettle — 'Presumably they run out of zip, sooner or later' — and lovingly stroked it along Natasha's inner thigh, from knee to crotch.
Ghastly were Natasha's cries.
'Anna! ... Anna! ... Anna! ... Anna!' growled the Sergeant, desperately trying to stamp her authority again, and sounding rather like a dog-owner whose dog disappeared into the bushes several minutes ago, with no intention of returning.
Anna was deaf to her. 'Here's the thing ... Mel Gibson used to be hot, now he's ... mad. I mean, do you like him, Natasha? Do you? — Oh, I do wish you'd try and be a bit more helpful.'
'Anna! ... Anna! ...Listen!' shouted the Sergeant.
Anna attended to Natasha's other thigh. Natasha sobbed and bawled like a jungle of monkeys.
'A bus-full of teenage girls, brimful with teenage passion, and they pick Mel Gibson as their poster-boy? I don't buy it. They'd say, "Mel Gibson? Oh, pur-leeeease. He's like way past it..." And so on. But you're going to tell me. Aren't you, my sweet? And I'm going to help you. Shall we see what we have under here?'
She reached forward and unhooked Natasha's bra. The room exploded with outrage.
The bra was slid down, and Natasha's breasts hung out, plump and yellow, with rather large and very dark nipples. Natasha looked down at them in surprise, as if seeing them for the first time.
Anna picked up a nettle.
'Anna, stop this,' said the Sergeant in her most terrible voice.
'I'm not going to lie to you, Natasha,' said Anna, 'This probably will hurt. A lot.'
'Anna — I am going to tell you the password. I give you my word as a school prefect that I'm telling you the truth, if you put that nettle down. It's James Spader.'
Nobody spoke.
'James Spader?' said Anna. 'Interesting. Possible. Let's see what Natasha says.'
She swept the nettle across Natasha's nipple.
'Oh God!' said the Sergeant, and shut her eyes too. Others hissed, imagining the pain.
For the space of two whole minutes, Natasha writhed on the floor, doubled up in agony. Anna told the guards to leave her alone. At the end of this period she squatted by Natasha's head.
'Now they're saying James Spader!'
'It IS James Spader!' cried all the prisoners. 'Oh, please believe us!'
'I have my doubts,' said Anna, and squatted down to inspect the nettle-brushed nipple.
'Tch! Look at your poor old boob! What a shame. But what am I to think? First they say Sean, then it's Mel, now it's James. I'm completely confused. And you're not helping me at all. So there's only one place left for me to go. You do know where that is, don't you?'
It wasn't certain whether the sobbing lump of Natasha knew anything at all, at that moment, except pain. But she did at least register her knickers being slid down her legs, because a fresh bout of sobs erupted from her. She made no effort to fight, however. The knickers were taken off. They lay her naked on her back, and her legs were parted.
Anna selected five or six nettles, and put them in a bunch. 'Just like a feather duster,' she said to the crowd.
'It's James Spader' yelled a prisoner, 'Because Melissa Mayhew suggested it! It was Melissa's idea! You know how crazy she is about James Spader!'
'No,' said Anna, pausing to think about this. 'I don't know how crazy she is about James Spader.'
She knelt between Natasha's legs. — 'I don't know who Melissa Mayhew is, for that matter. Are you ready, Natasha?'
She was just about to do this vilest deed of all — the prisoners now screaming on Natasha's behalf — when she stopped, frowned, and straightened.
'Actually — I've got a better idea,' she said, and stood. Her eyes gleamed. 'Get the prisoner to her feet, please.'
The limp and naked girl was stood up, and propped between two guards.
'Take her out. No wait, let's get her into her boots.'
Her laceless boots were fixed to the prisoner's feet. Then the whole party left. It was heartbreaking to see the girl led — sobbing, clomping, and naked — into the darkness and its unknown torture. Only one guard was left to watch the other prisoners. The Sergeant made a final, desperate appeal to the girl's reason. She could still save herself. She could still do the right thing. She could still come to her senses. The guard smiled nervously.
And suddenly an ear-splitting scream came from the outside. The room fell silent.
Anna reappeared looking pleased. 'I didn't even do anything!' she said. 'I just showed her the nettle patch. It's a good thirty foot wide. Shouldn't like to walk it myself, with no clothes on. Tall, as well. Up to here.' She held a hand up to her hips.
'You know it might kill her?'
'What? No. Nonsense! Anyway, here's the deal. I said to Natasha, tell me the real password, and then I'll go inside and get them to tell me the real password, and if you both say the same thing, then I'll excuse her the nettle patch. She thought that an excellent idea. And — she very kindly told me the real password! None of this James Spader nonsense. All you have to do is confirm it...'
The prisoners looked at each other in amazement. 'But it is James Spader!'
'That's not what she said.'
'Because you've tortured her!'
'She'd say anything now, wouldn't she?'
'Yes, you do realise this is torture, Anna?' said the heavy Sergeant. 'We're talking about police and ... and everything!'
'So you're all sticking to James Spader, are you? Tch! Not very nice for Natasha. Did I say thirty feet? Make it forty.'
Out she went. The horrified room braced itself for Natasha's screams — only to see, after a few moments, Anna reappear at the door, and then Natasha herself, coyly covering herself with her hands, her tears replaced with smiles.
'James Spader?' said Anna to the prisoners. 'James Spader, did I hear you say? Oh, you frabjous asses!'
Still dazed by horror, the prisoners could now only gape.
'Didn't I say I'd have you singing like canaries? Natasha, my dear, take a bow!'
'When I've got some clothes on,' said Natasha, rather hotly. 'Nobody said anything to me about a striptease.'
Astonishment sat among the prisoners, and then the first gleams of awful realisation. The slow Sergeant began groping her way towards enlightenment. 'What do you think you are doing?' she demanded of Natasha. 'Are you helping them, or ... what? I'm confused.'
'She is us, Sergeant,' said Anna. 'Captured by her own side. I thought a mole might come in handy.'
'You did that to her...? Just to ...?'
Anna picked up one of the nettles and brushed it over her own face. 'There are stinging-nettles, and then there are nettles.'
The prisoners hurriedly set about cursing themselves, groaning, shaking their heads, and trying to think of names for what Anna was, and for what they were, too.
'But what a performance, eh?' said Anna. 'What an act! Oh my gosh!'
'It wasn't all, though' said Natasha 'I thought the nettles were real at first. I nearly wept.'
'You did weep. Beautifully. Now get a move on, my girl. You're not done yet. You've got a flag to pick up.'
'Me?'
'If these great asses don't know whose side you're on, neither will anyone. Excuse me Sergeant,' (the latter was hotly blustering again) 'I'll be with you in a minute, but time is of the essence. Here's the plan, Natasha...'
She sent her off within two minutes, and watched her disappear into the darkness.
'What a girl, huh?' she said, coming back inside. 'What ... an ... amazing ... girl!'
'You are utterly disgusting!' said the Sergeant. 'How dare you pull a stunt like that!'
She looked around for support. But on every other face sat amusement, chagrin, and admiration.
'It was just a game, Sergeant. Surprised you fell for it, really.'
'Do you call that a game?'
'This whole thing's a game, isn't it? The funny thing is, though,' — Anna was now speaking to the ceiling — 'The funny thing is, you let me torture both her arms, and both her legs, and she was screaming her guts out, too — before you told me your real password. It's interesting, isn't it?'
The Sergeant took a deep breath — and found this difficult to answer.
'Anyway — it's just a game,' said Anna again, irrelevantly. 'Might as well start untying you now, if you promise not to run. It'll all be over soon, one way or another.'
*
Natasha strolled into enemy territory, took their flag, and strolled out again. It was as easy as taking a tea-towel off a clothes-line. She was proclaimed hero and borne aloft. The whole story then emerged, but Anna refused to take credit for it — 'Natasha did all the hard work. I just tickled her a bit.' The top brass arrived soon after, to say that Anna's team had been disqualified. At once a chorus of angry cadets — Anna had primed them well — demanded to know which rule they had broken. It may be true, came the reply, that no actual rule had be broken, as such, but some members of their team had employed unallowable tactics, the whole team was therefore disqualified, and that was final. So victory went to the other team, but it was a stale sort of victory, while Anna's team were joyful in defeat.
'You'd have laughed like a parrot,' wrote Anna in her next letter to Uttar Pradesh. 'And you can spare me your mahout's stick, too, as I already got a dressing-down from Cadet Officer Kemp, the very next day, in front of just about everyone. She charged me with obscene and extraordinary behaviour, unwarranted conduct, blah blah blah, but she kept ruining it by smiling. "Just try and be a bit more military next time, Anna," she said. And sent me away. And that was that. Sergeant Bryson will hate me for ever, of course, but it can't be helped. So — how is life with you?'
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