Chapter 4: Angela Has Time to Think

Francesca greeted Joanne's return with an enthusiastic report on her day's activity. Now that she was getting used to the sea temperature, her search underwater was becoming an obsession.

"I think we can get one of those cases out of the hold, Jo. I was over there when you were away, and I've moved it quite a way up. Should be only a half day's work with any luck. How's Annie?"

"She's OK, Fran! A bad girl for not obeying orders, for which she'll pay, but she's OK!"

"Any sign of the new prisoners, Jo?"

"Three arrived just as Annie and I were getting to know each other a little better! One of them looks a real spitfire and she's being punished right now. They put the poor girl in the cage - must be hell in there for her. I want her out, Francesca, and fast! I guess they aim on keeping her there for quite some time, judging by other factors."

She explained to a puzzled Francesca what she meant by her last words.

"When I was evil enough to make some clothes for myself they gave me twenty lashes and three weeks in the cage. That poor bitch was given forty, so I guess she'll be cooped up for maybe six weeks, unless we move and move fast! I'll show you how to use a gun, Francesca old thing! Impossible to do it for real, I'm afraid. Can't risk the sound of shots reaching the other side. Our attack, when it comes, will be more miss than hit I fear!"

She showed the eager girl how to load, fire and aim the guns, warning her of the quite fierce kick back that she must expect when she fired it for real. After a few hours of concentrated tuition, she made her way back to her dear Annie. She was beginning to have high hopes of Francesca. She was bright and picked things up very quickly. As for Annie, that young person was also shaping up quite well.

She just hoped that the new trio would turn out as well - some hardened rebels who knew a thing or two about fighting and hardship. One of these three, the prisoner in the cage, she already knew to be a female of the highest quality! She itched to meet this splendid lady who had taken such a wicked beating without a murmur, not once giving her despised captors the pleasure of seeing or hearing her cry out in pain.

Francesca was insistent that she could survive on her own for a few days and Joanne made her way back to the side of the sweet Annie, becoming more excited with every step she took.

Her little friend had heard approach a mile away and was waiting eagerly to greet her. It was a very long time before either of them was interested in speaking to the other. Finally, Joanne took her face away from that of her lovely companion and spoke.

"How does that poor woman in the cage look to be doing, Annie?"

"She's such a big girl, Jo. It must be bloody awful for her in there. It won't be so bad for me when my turn comes, because I'm so small, but that poor thing must be going through the most awful torture. Can't we do something for her?"

Joanne was silent for a while.

"I think we should wait, Annie. If they are bringing any more prisoners over, we should wait until they arrive. If nothing happens after a week, then we move in. Let's spend a nice night together, then I'll go back and send Francesca over. She's got to see the layout here sooner or later."

Maybe Annie was too preoccupied with thoughts of the girl in the cage, but their time together, though most pleasant, did not approach in sheer joy the experience of their last ecstatic discovery of each other.

A rather chagrined and disappointed Joanne left in the morning. She bestowed a loving and lingering kiss on her darling's open mouth and left without saying a word. Annie relaxed and looked across at the terrible cage and its poor tormented occupant. Of course Jo was not serious about putting her there!

Then it came to her with a terrible stab of pain and loneliness. Joanne was all too serious. After that awful revelation came comfort. Joanne was also paying Annie the compliment of treating her like a grown woman.

"Time I stopped being a child" said Annie to herself, as she saw Joanne walk away. "It's quite exciting, really - growing up - even if it does hurt! Look at that girl in the cage over there - so strong and defiant. No matter what they do to her, she's in control, because she has such inner strength. I want to be just like her, and I will be - come what may!"

Angela Landsberg groaned for the thousandth time as she tried in vain to ease her discomfort in the tiny cramped cage. That bitch, the gross Van Reisen, was going to pay, with compound interest, for what she had done to her!

In the helicopter, on the way over to the island the jeering Van Reisen had spelt out to her in unpleasant detail the rigours of her future existence as a prisoner at the mercy of the State and the victim of that thing she called "Tickler".

"Dirty rebel cow. We'll show you. I made that living legend, that so-called heroine, Joanne Esterhazy, plead for mercy and I'll do the same to you! Me and Tickler, here!"

At this, Angela had spat expertly into the jeering face of that gross bitch, forcing herself against all the fastidious instincts instilled into her by a genteel upbringing to land a slimy gob of phlegm plumb on the centre of that hideous mug! By the time the helicopter had landed on the island, her face had already been systematically reduced to pulp by the enraged Inspector.

When they had disembarked and Angela had been secured to the whipping post, it did not take too long for the semi-apoplectic van Reisen and her beloved Tickler painfully to take all the skin off her back. Then came the confinement in the cage - the worst thing that had yet happened to her, by a very long way!

Angela was not in the least bit happy and with very good reason. Had she had known that Joanne, far from being dead, was alive and well, and holding back on rescuing her, she would have been a whole lot less happy! Although the two had never met, Angela had heard a great deal about Miss Esterhazy, and as a consequence, she already held Joanne in the most profound contempt. Angela was a seasoned professional, hard as nails, and Joanne was merely an idealistic amateur - the worst kind of soldier as far as she was concerned. Angela had served in the Army before defecting to the rebel cause, working her way up from the ranks, and Joanne was a despised intellectual. If these two ever met, the sparks were sure to fly! And how!

The other two new girls, Frieda Brown and Josephine Solana, were trying to make themselves at home, unaware that they were being observed from above by Joanne and Annie.

"I used to like going naked all summer when I was a few years younger" said the twenty year old Josephine. "But that was a much further south than this! I'd not have fancied nudism in this part of the world even in the height of Summer, never mind this time of the year, and this shelter is no help at all. I'm sure we'll all get pneumonia before we've been here a week!"

Frieda was made of slightly sterner stuff, and quite determined that she would not let things get her down. Just as the water-loving Annie had done on her first day here, months before, she scampered down to the water's edge and plunged into the sea, swimming out a couple of hundred yards before turning to face the shore and shouting to Josephine to come in and join her. "Come on - you coward, it's lovely when you get used to it."

Josephine felt even colder, just looking at the crazy girl! She left Frieda to continue her swim and set about ordering their few possessions under the shelter. They had cooking utensils and plenty of tins of food. They had been assured that fresh vegetables were already growing on the island, thanks to its two deceased previous occupants. She walked around, searching for the vegetable garden and soon found it. She managed to warm herself up by pulling up a few potatoes and carrots. They were a little mature for her taste, but she supposed they would suffice. The sun came out and she began to feel better.

They had been told that the cave was not a safe place to be, since the previous prisoners had been there when a giant wave had flooded it, sweeping both out to sea. Even so, Josephine decided to carry some of the water containers in there, reckoning it would keep the fluid cooler.

She lifted them up onto a ledge, where the sea water would not reach it even if there was another storm. It occurred to her that Annie and Joanne must have been very silly not to have climbed up onto the same ledge themselves - there would have been room, she thought, but maybe they had been sleeping and taken completely by surprise.

She had known Annie slightly and was astounded to hear that the little girl had belonged to the rebels. Joanne she knew all about and admired tremendously - what a sad loss her death had been! The cause needed the kind of leader who was a thinker as well as a woman of action, and Joanne was both, unlike that courageous, but unimaginative martinet Angela, who as far as Josephine was concerned, had richly deserved her savage punishment - what a bloody fool!

Frieda continued her swimming for a few more minutes and came ashore. She looked up at the cage, high above. The wind was getting up a little and the cage and its occupant were swaying gently in the breeze.

Like Josephine, she had little sympathy for Angela, having, like her, had the misfortune to belong to her unit, the most tightly disciplined in the entire rebel army. She agreed that her show of defiance, as well as being quite disgusting, had achieved nothing. And she was a big girl now, being four or five years older than either she or Josephine. She could take what they were doing to her. By all means, let her stay up there for the next four weeks. Might teach her some sense and it kept her out of their hair for the time being! In any case both the other girls had been warned in the severest terms not to climb the slope that led up to their leader.

Evening came and Josephine and Frieda, like Annie and Joanne before them, found warmth in each others' arms. Angela, though, shivered as the heat went out with the sun and a fresh breeze blew over her. She gritted her teeth and mentally adjusted herself to her fate. It was going to be a very long four weeks and all she had to keep her warm was her hate and her anger! Somehow or other she too drifted into a disturbed sleep, waking a little after dawn as the helicopter settled on its hilltop landing pad.

The dust blown up by the swirling blades blew into her open cage and got into her mouth and eyes. One of the Inspectors, the lady who was such an ace with the whip, came over to her.

"Feel like getting out for a minute or two, to stretch those long shapely legs and straighten that handsome back for a while?"

The agonised girl was no longer too proud to accept favours even from this pig of a woman.

"Oh! Yes, please, Inspector!"