Chapter 3

Two extremely battered girls stood before the CO, after having spent the night in a bare cell. They were sure it would be the first of many nights of confinement! Francesca's right eye was almost closed and Frieda had a swelling like a golf ball on her cheek bone. They both knew that this was only the beginning of their woes!

"I have lost all patience with you two! I have a difficult enough job to do and half my time is spent dealing with the aftermath of your reign of terror and destruction! I see that your latest bit of aggression very nearly didn't pay off. For once you almost picked on the wrong girls! But the well deserved beating you got at their hands isn't all the pain you'll be getting! Not by a very long chalk! In fact it's just the beginning! Those backs will never be the same after today!

"I award nine hundred lashes. That should make you see reason! I'm going to beat the rebelliousness and insubordination out of you two if it's the last thing I do!"

Annie, the visiting General Officer, whispered into the Colonel's ear. She looked straight through her two former friends and got to her feet. Soon the two defaulters heard her staff car being driven away, taking her back to the Castle far away in the South. Francesca and Frieda stood rigidly to attention, waiting to be told to go and report for punishment. They had been given this many lashes before and survived - after a fashion, but if only they could just get fifty at a time - a moderate civilised flogging! Anyway, they were well over their objective by now and had no need to step out of line again!

The Colonel sat for some time after Annie had gone. She resented being overruled by higher authority, but had no choice. Annie would be sure to check and woe betide any CO who failed to carry out her orders!

"I have decided that even nine hundred lashes is quite insufficient to bring you two into line. I increase it to two thousand."

The shock on the girls's faces was palpable.

"Don't worry! I don't intend killing you! Mind you - you'll wish you were dead long before the floggers have done with you! It will be given in two stages. Between whippings you will both spend twenty weeks in the cage! After the second one you will be sent to the infirmary and when sufficiently recovered will spend eight weeks in the cage. Escort! Take the prisoners to be flogged and then put them straight inside. For the first thousand they will have no medical attention. I hope your bodies are strong enough to take this, but whether they are or not, you get every last lash and laid on by the strongest women we have to do the job. Take them away Corporal. Punishment to commence immediately and all personnel to witness it!"

"I'd no idea there was a cage here. We had one where I was stationed in the War." said Francesca, chatting to the Corporal as they made their familiar way over to the triangles.

"It's high up, way out of sight. Bags of room for two! Should be great fun for you two dykes! Food's pretty dire, mind you, and it gets bloody cold up there! But I think they'll get a couple of separate tiny cages for you in a few weeks. I also think there may be a nice surprise when they arrive."

"We'll probably freeze to death up there! I know we're plenty tough, but there are limits!"

"You'll cope! First of all, though, you've a thousand lashes to get through! That's pretty awesome stuff, girls! I've never heard of anyone getting so many! You two sure do like breaking records! You'll be OK, though! You're Naked Amazons, remember. You can take your beatings."

"Sure thing, Corp!" said Frieda, with a confidence she was very far from feeling!

They had arrived at the triangles and the blood-soaked patch of ground they stood on.Mainly Fran and Frieda blood! The Corporal became all official again, but she truly liked this pair and wished they'd stop fooling about and be the good soldiers they so obviously could be. "OK, girls, you know the drill! Put up your arms! You'll have a bit of a wait I'm afraid until we assemble all the women. Your punishments are a really popular attraction these days! If you want to chat during the whipping, to keep each others spirits up, it's fine by me! Just keep your lips as still as possible in case old Madam has her binoculars trained on you. Top brass are interested in you two poor buggers!"

Before they could be tied up, the medical orderly came to examine them again. She was due to end her military service in a few weeks, long before Francesca and Frieda were due to come down from the cage to get their stage two flogging. She kneaded the girls' fine muscled stomachs and sounded both chests. They were firm and warm to the touch. Both backs were free of breaks in the skin which was hard and leathery by this time. Terribly scarred, though! The plain medic looked into both sets of eye's staring calmly out of bruised faces. She realised that most likely she would never again get these two splendid bodies under her hands!

"Both prisoners are in wonderful shape, Ma'am! They are more than fit to be flogged."

As soon as everyone was gathered round, chattering excitedly and anxious to see how they stood up to this latest and worst punishment ever, the whip detail took their places. Francesca saw with a sick dread that the whips were different. They were made of thick leather. Not only that but they were very, very much longer. As if this was not bad enough she saw the sunlight glint off the thongs and realised that they were flecked with metal. This was going to slice them to ribbons before they'd had twenty! One thousand would kill them both ten times over!

The CO arrived and looked at the whips. She went pale and ordered the original ones to be brought over.

"Whose idea was it to use these devilish things?" she screamed at the Corporal.

"The General's, Ma'am!"

"She must have been mistaken. These would kill them. I can't believe you were even thinking of using them! You're their friend, aren't you? We'll use them for the last five only. There'll be no murder done here! Do your duty! Commence punishment!" The Colonel watched and heard the whips rising and falling for a while and then went back to her office. The sound of leather cracking loudly on skin was already changing into the sound of leather biting greedily into raw flesh. It was quite horrible and beginning to wear the Colonel down. And she had seen a lot in her time.

"What a waste of two fine, brave and talented girls!" she said sadly to herself. "The army needs their kind of courage. If only they'd stop getting into trouble. Anyone would think they wanted all this pain!"

And that was it! They did want these continual floggings! But why? They seemd sane enough - healthy, fun loving, hard working and hard playing, head over heels in love with each other and everything to live for.

And what had made the Army's youngest General, a busy woman, intervene over a minor disciplinary matter? Colonel Roberts pulled out the girls' records, for what seemed the millionth time. They'd fought in the war and been decorated, but there were few details. It seemed a lot of material had not been passed up to her when the two were posted. In those missing documents might lie some answer to the mystery! She put the records back in the filing cabinet and went over to the window, which she opened.

"Four hundred and twenty four!" sang out the Corporal, as Lieutenant Harrison stood smugly watching her two least favourite soldiers twitch and jerk under the continuing flogging. The CO could see the pain on those two faces even from this distance! They still remained silent. Would nothing get even a whimper out of this Stoic pair?

"You're not trying, Private! Put a bit of beef into it, unless you want to be next for a whipping. Get that lash coming down harder, the pair of you. Use your whole arm! This is an Army punishment, not a slap on the wrist. Hit them harder!"

This must have had its effect, because the sound of the girls' torment definitely got louder and stayed that way. The Colonel shut the window and the whipping was still audible. She sat at her desk and buried her face in her hands. Oh, God! Those poor, brave, wonderful girls! She saw that her hands were shaking and went over to her private drinks cabinet. Two whiskies later she was herself again. Time to get on with some paperwork! She worked away at her weekly report and got up to stretch herself. Once more she opened the window.

"Six Hundred and Eighty Five!"

How could she have given them such a wicked, savage punishment? Discipline was in her hands. How dare Annie overrule her and impose such unnecessary suffering? And the lash wasn't the answer. She saw this all too clearly. They would be back for more after this business was over. There must be a way to reach this pair and make something of them. Another visit to the drinks cabinet and several whiskies later, she was feeling better again. Although the sight and sound of that marathon flogging sickened her, she went to the window again.

"Nine hundred and fifty!"

Still the victims made no sound. They knew that the time was coming for the other whip to be used. Intense and almost beyond endurance as their present pain was, they guessed that the last five lashes would be the worst by far.

The Colonel came over to see the finish of the punishment.

"Corporal. You give Private Moroni her last five and Private Smith can see to Private Brown. I want them examined first. Fetch the medical orderly again!"

This time the pair's breasts were heaving as though both girls had run a half marathon. The orderly applied her stethoscope to Fran's sweating chest. The heart was beating fast, but strongly. She went to put the stethoscope on her back, but was too sick to do so. The instrument would have been clogged up in any case. She looked down at the gory mess on the ground and wondered again just why this couple courted trouble so recklessly. She went round and examined Frieda. Her face, too was shiny with sweat and her breasts were rising and falling rapidly. Her heart was beating strongly still.