Chapter 10: The Rescue Attempt

Katie O'Brien (See the Story called "Katie Punished") was not feeling terribly well. Angie had been particularly difficult these last few weeks. The persistent Steve had been taking up ever more of her time and she herself had found the attentions of the John, the widower Earl, increasingly difficult to fend off. It seemed that the Hampstead idyll with Angela was about to come to an end. In this end time of their relationship, both girls were preparing to become respectable married women.

She was not in a good mood when her phone rang and Gwendoline's voice sounded on the other end of the line, but quickly pricked up her ears at what the young Countess had to say and arranged for Gwen to meet her in her office later that morning.

Angela was also in low spirits. She too could feel the end of her love affair with Katie was only a matter of time now and was full of regretful nostalgia as well as growing eagerness for a life with Steve. She was pleased when Katie telephoned and a little disappointed to learn it was a business, not a social call. When she learned the nature of the business, she told Katie not to pass the story on to her colleagues at the paper and promised that Arthur, the Marxist troublemaker, would be heavily leant on and warned not to breathe a word to a living soul of his seeing Harriet. She was pretty sure that the rebels knew perfectly well that Harriet was a class enemy as well as white, despite which they had seemingly not killed her. But it was as well to take no risks.

After saying goodbye to Katie, she contacted the British High Commision in Zambekia and alerted them to the possibility that a British subject was in rebel captivity. Fat lot of help they'll be, was her thought - Harriet might still be alive, but she might just as well be dead. The poor girl would rot in that hell for years, if not for ever, as far as orthodox means of securing her release were concerned. The government were totally bogged down in their fight to eradicate the rebellion - never in a million years were they ever likely to rescue her - and these rebels refused to deal or negotiate with any one, even if HMG were in the business of paying ransoms - which they very definitely weren't.

And then a name occured to her of one person who had been useful in the past and might be able to help in this matter. She picked up the scrambler phone.
...

Gwendoline returned home after her visit to Katie more convinced than ever that diplomatic efforts to get Harriet freed were worse than useless. The only positive outcome of the trip up to Town had been a visit with Katie to the Gym and a chance to assess their respective worths in a fight to the finish, which she had won after thirty five gruelling minutes at the end of which Katie had been knocked out and had had to take the rest of the day off. An appointment with Angie had been booked for a similar encounter later on.

Harriet would be delighted to learn that one of her two school heroines had so decisively beaten one of that legendary pair, Katie and Angela. Gwendoline decided she would have to leave Angie until she came back home with Harry. Harry could have a ringside seat for that second massacre!

It was after this meeting that she phoned Jessica.

Jessica was sleeping. After two years of motherhood, she was beginning to appreciate the relief, now that Andy had insisted on employing a full time nanny to look after their increasingly boisterous son. She was rudely propelled into wakefulness by the peremptory sound of the telephone.

"Hi. Jessie here."

"Got all your jabs, Jessie?"

"Gwen? What the fucking bloody hell are you on about? I don't hear from you in months and now you phone me with riddles!"

"Cholera, Typhoid, Yellow Fever. If you haven't got them, then go and get fixed up NOW!"

"You really don't get any better, do you Gwen my love! Money, rank and power have finally driven you over the edge. I'd have handled it all a lot better, given half the chance!"

"Cut the smart-arsed crap! We have work to do. Go and get those jabs. I'll get back to you in a couple of days."

"You wouldn't even think of filling me in on what this all about of course - I mean who am I anyway? Only your oldest friend!"

"I've just heard Harry is still alive but a hostage! We're going out to find her and bring her home! Isn't it exciting?"

Jessica put down the phone, after telling Gwen she would get back to her and went to find Andy.

"You'll never gues what that crazy girl has just suggested. She wants us to out to Africa to look for Harry! Says she's heard she didn't die in that awful massacre after all but it a prisoner. What the hell does she think the two of us could do! Quite mad, that girl!"

Andy looked at Jessica and shook his head.

"I think you have no option but to go, my darling. Gwendoline may be a lot of tiresome things, but she definitely isn't mad and she even more certainly isn't stupid. If she thinks she has a better chance on her own she's probably right. And you three swore an oath once to come to the help of any one of you who was in any kind of trouble. Sorry darling, but you're going with Gwen and that's an order!"
...

After phoning Jessica, Gwen called Lord Wadeford, Harriet's father. The old Marquess had already been told via Angela that his daughter might well not have perished. The poor old fellow had for the past ten months been reproaching himself for having been such a poor father, giving his daughter all she wanted materially, but never really showing her his love for her, even though that love had always been very real.

She told him she was going to fly out to see what she could do, and he wished her God-speed regretting that his own poor health meant he could not be going as well. After promising to keep him informed, she put down the phone and made another call, but could get no answer.

Four days after Gwendoline's call to Jessica, the two girls were sitting in the First Class departure lounge, waiting for their flight to be called.

"I hate all this business of wearing clothes " said Gwendoline. "What with that trip up to London and the visit to Harry's father, I seem to be spending half my time dressed"

Jessica looked at her friend.

"I wouldn't call you exactly overdressed, Gwen. The average tart has a stronger sense of modesty than you. Just about everybody's staring at you - eyes popping out of their heads, especially those guys over in the corner"

This was fair comment. Gwen was dressed in a very brief pair of shorts, whose topmost extent was a good three inches under her navel and whose bottom did not entirely succeed in covering her twin luscious hemispheres. Her top left her shoulders bare except for straps of gossamer like thinness and terminated just below her breasts, giving all and sundry a splendid view of both her trim tanned stomach and a goodly part of her ribcage. She had a a pair of flip-flops which she had carried in her hand, rather than worn, since leaving home. Apart from a shoulder bag, this was her entire apparel for the trip. She had caused quite a few young men to suffer near heart failure and almost been responsible for at least one major traffic pile-up on her way here.

Gwen glanced down at herself in response to Jessie's criticism.

"Tarts shave their legs and armpits and douse themselves with cheap perfume - any one can tell I'm not a tart! And in any case it's a warm day and it's going to be even warmer where we're going. No sense in arriving there in furs and snowshoes!

"No sense in being an open invitation to commit rape either!"

"I'd like to see anyone try! I'd fucking well kill him, Jessica! You know I could too."

"And another thing, Gwen. You look more than a wee bit bruised around the eyes and ribs. Still finding people to fight with?"

"Yes, Jessica! None other than one of that legendary, dynamic, titanic duo beside whom we two were rated as pygmies! I had it out with Katie after I'd been to talk about Harry with her, and I bloody well wiped the floor with her! Another legend bites the dust!"

Jessica could not stop herself from cheering this bit of news, but was none too happy about Gwen's suggestion of a four-way contest between Angie, Katie, Gwen and herself to find an overall winner when the business in hand had been successfully despatched.

Twenty minutes later, the flight was called and Gwen and Jessica moved towards the departure gate, Gwen leaving her sandals, which she had never really liked, on the departure lounge floor under the armchair. Jessie failed to spot this until it was too late. She resigned herself to having to make the trip in the company of a friend who was now barefoot as well as at least seventy percent nude. Jessica groaned to herself. Would this girl never grow up?
...

The two were the sole occupants of the first class accommodation and a steward, who could hardly believe his eyes when the girls, especially the scantily dressed Gwendoline, boarded the aircraft, was attentive to the point that it became almost embarrassing, especially to Jessica, who was also rather put out at the way Gwen was getting so much more attention than she! After all, she thought, she, Jessica was respectably dressed - not got up like some brazen whore! Gwendoline accepted the young man's admiring looks and extreme desire to please with great and very smug satisfaction! By the time they had landed, this young gentleman was ready to follow Gwen to the ends of the earth.

During a period of solitude, Jessica asked her old friend to say a bit more about what was the next move.

"We have an appointment with a Mr Algernon Mboya, now Minister of the Interior. This gentleman is a friend of Harry's who feels responsible for her kidnap in the first place. He ought to have stopped all travel to the area in which she disappeared, but slipped up rather badly, the stupid prat! And his new wife, Alicia is one of our number, she was recruited to the London Lodge a few months ago when her father was High Commissioner. She is anxious to help in any way she can. I hope she will be able to come with us."

"I also tried to get hold of that Bernard character - I have a hunch he'd be bloody useful - but could get no reply from his home. He seems to have disappeared from off the face of the earth - probably on the run in connection with some shady deal or other."

"That's it, really. I think we'd best go to where she was thought to have died and play it by ear from there. In the meantime I suggest we relax and let this lovely handsome young fellow look after us. Another gin and tonic, please, you scrumptious hunk of man!"

"What does Jim think about your swanning off to Africa?" asked Jessica a little later on. "I mean you've always refused to go anywhere overseas with him since you married, and now you go all the way to Africa for the sake of Harriet."

"He doesn't like it. Neither do I - I hope I never have to leave England again! He sees Harry as someone he has to share me with, I suppose. He thinks I don't spend enough time with little James as it is, but we have two fantastic nannies and Mummy is coming over from Nice so he doesn't have to worry he'll be left holding the baby! What about Andy - to be honest with you, I thought he might veto your coming?"

Jessie smiled.

"It was he who told me I was duty bound to come. I know he's terribly worried for me, but he told me he couldn't endure a wife who didn't keep her word to her friends."

"He's a good fellow, old Andy. You're a lucky woman, Jessica."

"I'm sure you are too, Gwen."

Gwen made no answer to this last of her friend's comments. She loved Jim, in her own highly idiosyncratic way, but she loved Harry far more than any other human being, male or female, that she had ever known. The more she explored and experienced the depth of her feeling for that beautiful and strong redhead the more amazed and excited it made her feel. She would go to hell and back to save her and willingly lose own life if that were the only way to get Harriet free. Something inside her told her that this was precisely what she might be called upon to do and it made her feel strangely happy.

Alicia Mboya, Zambekia's sole Lady Mason, was waiting at the airport. She and Gwendoline had previously met in Hampshire and she was thus not too surprised to see the Countess wearing such revealing clothes - indeed this was the only time that she had ever seen Gwendoline wearing anything at all. She drove the couple to their hotel and thence to the Interior Ministry, where they were introduced to Harry's friend Gus.

Gwen could see why Harry had formed such a favourable impression of him. The man had been to Eton and Balliol and had the manners of a true gentleman. Gwen smiled to herself and reflected that Harry never could resist a real smoothie.

"I see you have Harriet's reluctance to over dress in our hot climate" was his greeting to Gwen.

"I assume that to have been intended humorously, Mr Mboya and I accept your observation in that spirit."

An uneasy silence ensued until Jessica tried to sooth the Minister's wounded feelings.