Chapter 5: The rescue

As everyone was saying how lucky he or she was to have escaped the raid, a man was seen running from the direction we had come the previous day. Since it was obvious that the villagers were familiar with the runner they ran to meet him.

Apparently, the previous day his small village had been raided, the raiders had killed two men and taken their wives, as well as the runner's wife as hostages. The raiders had consisted of fourteen men and had been observed heading west. So working out that the twelve killed, had been members of the same raiding party that means that two men had been left to guard the prisoners, and no doubt were waiting somewhere towards the west to link up with the others.

Once Jane relayed this information to me, I told her if the man could lead us to the way the hostages had gone, we would come and assist in the rescue his wife. Of course whilst I had been speaking to Jane, the villagers had been telling the man (His name Jane told me was Ine and was a cousin of hers) what I had done since arriving in the village.

The three of us set out at a hot pace towards his village. It took four hours of hard running to reach the small village, and it could be seen that there was a good bit of damage caused by the raiders. Fortunate in one sense, most of the villagers had been out in the forest foraging, when the raid had occurred. Most of the men and women were quite old and would have been no match against the younger raiders.

We just passed right through the village, and took off in the direction the raiders had taken. The tracking ability of Ine was phenomenal; he was following the passage of the raiders at the run. We came to a cross path and he indicated that the party had split up and twelve had gone southeast. I was almost positive then that this was the party that had been killed at the village.

Two men and three women had proceeded west, and the pace had become much slower according to Jane. We kept up our steady pace though of following the hostages and their guards, until Ine held up his hand and indicated something in front of him. Sure enough we saw that the raiders had the three women, stripped naked and tied to trees. The two guards were standing leering at the women and teasing them. There were certain things that you see, that need no understanding of language as to what was actually happening, the body language of the guards and the women told the whole story.

I know I was going to like this, but I was not going to kill these men; there had been enough killing so far. I got Jane to stand in front of me, and I rested the rifle on her shoulder, aimed at the right forearm of the guard who was teasing one of the women with his spear, and using a ball round, put a round through his arm. The spear dropped to the ground. I repeated the same operation on the other guard, who just stood there in shock when he heard the first shot.

The loud screams could be heard quite a distance away. As I was walking up to them they were clutching their useless arms and crying like babies. They would never be able to hold a spear again. They never attempted to run away, but just stood there awaiting their fate.

I took out my knife, cut the thongs of the bags around the raider's necks, and put them in my pocket with the rest of them. I also picked up the two spears they were carrying and threw them behind me to collect later. I don't know why I was collecting these items, I just felt that I had to. I turned to approach the women, but by this time they had seen Ide and Jane, and realized that I was a savior and meant them no harm.

The thongs were cut from the women's hands, and the women's clothing was returned to them. When Jane was cutting the women loose, Ide was staring in amazement at her knife as it so easily sliced through the hide thongs. The women just could not work out what or who I was. At first they treated Jane the same way, but were soon speaking to one another in their gibberish tongue once they knew who she was.

I then asked Jane to tell the men to sit, and I would fix their arm. I don't think that they believed her though, but they sat anyway. I got a bunch of some small lengths of twigs about half inch thick, and using the leather thongs that were hanging from their belts, splinted their arms, I made a wrist sling with the longer thong to hold the arm to their body. That was all the first aid I was going to give them.

I asked Jane to again translate to them that all their friends were dead, and to pass the message on to whomever sent them, that if any future raiding party comes into this area they will be killed. I also told Jane to tell them the reason I took the bags was that they were no longer hunters, and would now work with the women of their village. After this I told them to go. They rose and I could tell they were in severe pain they ran towards the west.

Picking up the spears where I had thrown them, I noticed that the spearheads weren't flint but bronze.

The four of the women kept up this chattering all the way back to Ide's village, and every now and then one or all of them would turn and look back at me with a knowing or wondrous look.

When we got to the village and everyone said their thanks and appreciation for what we had done for them, Jane approached me. I knew she was going to ask me something, and it was going to be of some importance by the way that she approached.

"Chally can Hild come back with us to our village (she meant the van)?"

"Hild's husband of three week's was killed, and as you have savedher from her abductor, she is now your property, in fact all the women were.

I asked Hild to come and be your second wife, but I have to ask you first. Ine is prepared to take Eorman whose husband was also killed in the raid as his second wife, if you did not want her. Freawaru Ine's wife has agreed too. Will you take Hild?"

I was getting bombarded at this stage with all these strange sounding names, and at this time just could not put faces to names.

"There are no spare young men to take the women as wives. There is a shortage of unattached males in all my peoples villages."

"If that's what you agree with Jane its OK with me, but you have to clean her up, she's filthy. I hope you havn't told anyone where our village is."

"No Chally that is a secret."

I had to get back to our van quickly, uncertain if the raiders had found it whilst we were gone. I also wanted to get back and set up defenses, in case a raiding party does attack in the future.

"If Hild is coming with us, tell her to say her farewells, and bring all her personal things with her, we will leave very shortly to return to our village (van)."

In fact it was under five minutes when the pair of them was by my side. Hild had a rolled hide tied with leather thongs slung across her shoulder and nothing else. I handed both of them a spear each, again it seems I have broken another of their customs, women don't carry spears.

"Jane as you and Hild are my women, you can carry spears, I don't care what the custom is."

I could see that they were quite proud of the fact that they had spears, as to using them was another matter

We made our way out of the village and headed in a north by northeast direction. The villages stood at their doors and waved as we departed.

Once clear of the village Jane pulled my face down, gave me a real sexy tongue kiss.

"Thank you for taking Hild, she is a good woman."

I thought I knew women, but now I was at a complete loss, how was I going to take care of two wives.

We were soon at the burnt village and we then followed the familiar route back to our village as Jane now calls it.

The journey back was uneventful, and we found that the place was exactly as we had left it. We arrived back too at the right time as there was rain in the air and looked like a storm was on the way. I only hoped that it would keep away until Jane got Hild scrubbed up.

The first thing I did was light both the fires, the one in our boiler and the cooking fire, as I was beginning to feel a bit hungry. Whilst I was doing this Jane got out the 'Compo Packs'(for my American readers MRE Meals Ready to Eat packs), we were having no fresh meat or vegetables today it seems. I sat Hild down on the steps of the van.

"Jane tell Hild to sit there, watch, and not get in the way until we got everything going again."

I wasn't going to let Hild into the van until she was cleaned and the clothing she was wearing was destroyed.

It wasn't long before the water was warm enough to wash in.

"Jane the water is warm enough now to wash in. Take Hild and wash her thoroughly, her hair and body. Destroy the clothes she is wearing, and get her one of your dresses to wear."

I went and filled up the four gallon Jerry can filled it with cold water in preparation of filling up the 44-gallon drum so that Jane and I could have a bath as well. I then carried on preparing a meal for the three of us.