CHAPTER SEVEN
MARY did not have to wait long. There was an audible click ! and all the overhead lights of the gymnasium sprang to life.
To her horror Mary saw striding towards her none other than the athletic figure of Fraulein ! The German was in her dressing gown, and had, Mary supposed, been to the shower utility and was on her way back to her quarters when something had attracted her attention to the gymnasium. She came up to the helpless Mary and stood face to face with her, a s smile curving her lips.
Mary returned her glance and said, calmly as she could : "Good evening Fraulein!" . Her greeting was returned. "Good evening, Mary ! Now, perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me who has done this to you ?"
Mary thought rapidly for a moment. "Nobody, Fraulien !" she said, "I just wanted to see if it was possible to tie myself up - would you please undo me now ?"
Fraulein stepped back and shook her head slowly. "I think not - for the moment, anyway. Had you done this to yourself you would surely have been able to set yourself free, of that I am certain. And I do not think, in any case that you are a follower of the great and good Doctor Masoch ? No ?" A note of contempt came into her voice. "Bah ! You have
never heard of Masoch, have you ? He discovered that certain sick people actually enjoy being humiliated and made to suffer pain. 'Masochists' they are called. And you are one of these, hein ? I think not. No, someone has done this to you, and you are going to give me her name - or perhaps their names. But not here, I suggest. We will adjourn to my little room, shall we not ? There we will find it more convenient to share a little chat, I think !"
While she was speaking Fraulein had picked up the scarves used to gag Mary, and had re-applied them, this time tying the one round the girl's head far more tightly.
As she felt the ropes tieing her elbows and wrists being loosened Mary prepared herself for a great effort, intending to grab the German girl by the throat and force her to undo all the ropes. Alas for her hopes !
The instant Mary's arms and wrists were freed Fraulein dug her fingers into the girl's wrists and pulled them up and out so that Mary automatically bent forward at the waist, and in that position she had to stay until the German had swiftly and efficiently tied her crossed wrists together behind her, the palms outwards . As Fraulein pulled tight the last knot on the wrists she smiled at Mary again, and said : "You should tell your friends that it is always better to use a number of short ropes rather than one long one. Still I have a little pair of sharp scissors here in my pocket and with these - so - we will cut off all the bits of rope we need to make a neat package of our little masochistic English pupil, nein ?"
Athletic and healthy as Mary was, physically she was no match for the Olympic trained German girl, and in only as few minutes she found that she had been released from the wall bars, her ankles were fettered with a rope tie, allowing her only the briefest of shuffling steps, and her folded arms were securely tied behind her back, upper arm to upper arm, wrists to elbows, and the whole to her body. Not only was she efficiently gagged, but she had been blind folded as well, and now, with her head firmly gripped at Fraulein's waist level, Mary was being towed out of the gymnasium in a very undignified manner.
She was completely unable to put up the slightest resistance as the well-muscled Fraulein hauled her along the deserted courtyard to
the front door of the German mistress's bungalow.and hustled her inside.
Mary was left to stand in the living room for a moment while Fraulein placed a stout backed wooden chair before her - and then she bodily lifted the helpless girl so that she was kneeling on its seat, facing the chair's back. Mary felt that her legs were being tied just below the knees and at the ankles to the chair's legs, and then came the turn of her upper body., which Fraulein tied tightly and securely to the chair back. Not until the last knot had been pulled tight did the German girl take off Mary's blindfold, for her to find that Fraulein was sitting on another chair, her face just a few inches away from Mary.
"Now, my good English pupil !" Fraulein began. "If you are comfortably prepared for questioning perhaps we can begin, nicht ? You will now tell me the names of your friends - the ones who broke into the Gymnasium and tied you up so conveniently ! Yes ?" Mary shook her head violently. Under no circumstances was she going to betray her friends, even if it meant that she would have to take the whole blame for her trespass.
"Oh but, yes !" continued Fraulein. "I am sure you will co-operate - eventually. So, we will have to use a little strictness, perhaps ?" She got to her feet and walked behind Mary. The captive girl then felt - with sick apprehension - that the German was first drawing her pleated skirt up to her waist and tucking it in, then that her panties were being pulled down so that they lay across the backs of her bound knees, completely exposing her buttocks. Her hands clenched as she felt Fraulein's fingers gently caressing and massaging her plump rotundities.
Surely even Fraulein would not dare to strike her, helpless as she was ?
. The hands left her rear, and the German was in front of her again, To her absolute horror Mary saw that this time she she was holding a long and flexible bamboo cane.
"Now, you naughty little girl" said Fraulein Ursula. "The question you have to answer is - who are the girls who tied you up ? If you do not let me know that you are willing to tell me by nodding your head you will receive six strokes of the cane. You may count them. Then I shall ask you the question again. and if you do not reply, another six. And then
another - undt so weisser - I'm sorry - ' and so on', I should have said. We have all the night before us, so please take your time !".
With that she returned to her position behind the helpless girl, and Mary tensed herself for the first stroke. To her astonishment the first contact with the cane and her flesh was so light and gentle that she hardly noticed it ! Remembering the German teacher's fondness in the classroom for the humiliation of 'dunces' by the tieing of their wrists behind them, perhaps Fraulein was, after all, just going to give her a 'symbolic' punishment ?
Gently, so gently, the strokes of the cane tapped at her shrinking buttocks. Perhaps they were a little stronger now, and certainly they were becoming faster and faster.
Suddenly the blows reached a crescendo of speed and attack, and as suddenly they ceased. Mary gurgled as the tears flooded she heard Fraulein's voice again.
"Now, young Madame, that you have been prepared we can, I think, begin ! Here comes the first stroke !" . There was a pause of a second or so, and then again came the triumphant German voice, uttering the one word : "Eine !" The cane came down with brutal force across both of Mary' buttocks, searing into the tender flesh like a hot iron. Mary jerked convulsively against the ropes holding her and the chair to which she was fastened rocked on its legs. She forced out a high-pitched whine through her nostrils, and "Zwei !" came the second stroke of the cane, this time on her left buttock only. "Drei ! Fier ! and "Funf !" followed in quick succession. and then came the sixth and last cut of the first series. The tears were streaming down Mary's cheeks and she felt that she would do anything - anything - if only her punishment would stop. Fraulein had come into her vision again, and was speaking mockingly to her :
"So ! Now you will tell me what I want to know, perhaps ? Or do you wish for more - ah - 'treatment '?"
Mary fought down the temptation to give in to the sneering German girl and bravely shook her head.
Immediately she felt the gentle hands stroking her bruised
skin again, soothing and caressing the whelts which the brutal use of the cane had raised. The hands left her body, and poor Mary braced herself to receive the first blow of the second instalment of her 'persuasion'.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SUDDENLY there resounded through the area of the College quadrangle the shrilling of the recently-installed fire alarm, its wailing rising and falling like the scream of a banshee.
Fraulein swore under her breath, quickly checked that Mary's gag was firmly in place, and grabbed the hair at the back of the girl's neck and forced her head up. "Do not go away, my dear !" she hissed. "It is only a practice I, am sure - I must report to my place of duty,. Don't worry, I will not report your absence ! I will be back soon - and then we can continue !" She left the room slamming the front door behind her.
This was her chance, thought Mary. She clenched her eyes and bit down at her gag as she tugged with all her strength at the cords holding her wrists. Then she opened her eyes as she felt a pair of hands at her bindings. Had Fraulein come back ! She found, to her joyous relief, that she was looking at the concerned face of Evelyn who was busily undoing the knots that held the gagging scarf in place. With a sigh of relief Mary expelled the wad of sodden material from her mouth. She saw that her friend was holding a pair of scissors obviously intending to cut the cords tieing her, and Mary managed to croak out :"Don't - don't cut the ropes. Untie all the knots - I want her to think that I escaped on my own !"
Three sets of busy fingers - for Evelyn was accompanied by Ayesha and the little June Tuppenham - soon freed Mary.. The girls exclaimed with horror at the vivid red weals now crossing Mary's rear, and hurriedly and carefully pulled up and adjusted her underwear to hide them. As the last rope was loosened from her Mary stepped off the chair and hugged all three of her friends.
As they left Fraulein's place Evelyn explained that Ayesha and Sally had been hiding in the gymnasium, waiting to release Mary when they thought she'd had enough, when they'd seen Fraulein come in, tie up Mary, and take her away to her quarters. Ayesha had very sensibly sent
Sally to find Evelyn and tell her what was happening. It was the latter's brilliant idea to sound the College Fire Alarm. She was certain that the German girl, obedient to the law-abiding dictates of her race, would follow the Rules regarding Fire Drill, and go to her appointed place there to check on the girls who were in her charge.
The four of them hurried to the locations allocated to them in previous Fire Drills, and were not noticed, in the general hub bub and confusion. as they joined their chattering companions.. Mary took particular care not to be noticed by Fraulein, as the latter formed up her pupils and ran through the Assembly Lists. It was soon announced that it had been a False Alarm, and pupils and staff returned to their various dormitories and sleeping quarters.
In the privacy of the Ablutions Mary ruefully examined the marks left by the cane so deftly wielded on her by Fraulein, and applied some soothing ointment which did at least do something to ameliorate the considerable discomfort. She slept well that night, however, finding in the morning that she had, she thought, solved the problem of how to bring the spectacle of the punished and thoroughly humbled (she hoped) German girl to the attention of all those attending Speech Day.
Mary lost no time in assembling the Banbury Cross Sisterhood in the Debating Room so that she could reveal the fruits of her thinking in the night.
"What's been worrying me," she said, "is how we're going to make sure that everybody sees the Lady on her way to Banbury Cross - " ("That's Fraulein, stupid !" whispered one twin to the other.) "We know we're going to hurt her - I have a special reason for this, as some of you know - but above all we want to humble and humiliate her. Now, listen. Once her "hove" is finished we'll take her to the big shed on the far end of the quadrangle - there's a fairly steep slope there which leads down to the Fountain in the middle of the Quad, Well, the horse runs easily enough on its wheels now that we've cleaned it up and greased them, so we'll fasten her on it and deal with her in the shed, and then leave her there till the next morning. Now, just before the end of Speech Day, when we've all collected our prizes., and the Headmistress is droning on about how hard the Staff have worked and all that, one of us will sneak out without being seen and go to the shed and open the double doors wide enough for the horse to slip through. Then - as soon as everybody starts to come out of
the Hall, the horsewill be given a a good push. and it'll start rolling down to the middle of the Quad. As soon as it's on the way, that girl will have to nip out of the single back door of the shed and get back to the Hall as quick as can be - without being seen - so that she can come out with everybody else."
Followed a brief discussion, and everybody seemed to think the scheme would work. Indeed, Mary herself volunteered to undertake this dangerous and risky task.
Before the Meeting broke up, Ayesha (again) had a valid contribution.
"I think," she hesitatingly put forward, "that we ought to try to do something to make it difficult for dear Fraulein to be taken down from her horse. I believe the first people to reach her will immediately undo her straps and cover her up and all that. which means that most of the people coming out of the Hall won't see her in her full glory."
Mary had the answer. "I'm so glad you raised that point, Ayesha ! There's a simple solution. We've got - or we will have - a leather punch. We'll just punch two holes in the straps above the buckles, and slip a little padlock through them. So I'll just add - let me see - yes, six padlocks to the list of equipment."
No sooner said than done. Mary went off to her first meeting with Fraulein after her ordeal with mixed feelings, wondering how the German mistress would react to her appearance. To her surprise Fraulein appeared to ignore her almost completely, addressing her only when Mary had to take her turn in repeating some abstruse Germanic tense or other. Apart from a certain difficulty in comfortably seating herself - for obvious reasons - Mary quite enjoyed the session with Fraulein, picturing what was going to happen to the domineering mistress. as once again she made two unfortunates stand in the corners of the classroom for the lesson, tied wrists crossed behind their backs, each wearing a tall dunce's cap. It seemed to Mary that perhaps the German Mistress had realised that possibly she had gone a little too far in her treatment of Mary, and that there should now be a tacit agreement between the two of them that no further action would be taken on either side as regards
Mary's breaking of the Rules (for no pupils were allowed in the Gymnasium after hours) or Fraulien's completely unauthorised sadistic punishment of Mary.
CHAPTER NINE
THE next two weeks were devoted to the collection and sorting of the various 'props' that would be required for the Project, and gradually the locked chest which the Sisterhood stowed in the shed which had housed Fraulein's ' horse' began to fill with the requisite straps, ropes, chains, cuffs and whips, etc., the contents being checked by Mary or Ayesha at regular intervals.
In the final Meeting before the actual event Mary made a last proposal to her friends.
"I think," she said, "that before we get her ready for her fake execution, she should be in full possession of the facts of what is going to happen to her - and why. So I propose that dear Fraulen receives this -" she held up before her friends a strong parchment, engrossed with two dangling seals, and Mary then solemnly read aloud the beautifully calligraphed (by Sally Tuppenham) wording of the official-looking diocument..
WARRANT OF EXECUTION
BE IT UNDERSTOOD that the woman known as
Fraulein Ursula Battenburg
having consistently and without remorse knowingly and wilfully broken all the
Rules of Humanity,
and having been Tried in Fair Assembly but in Absentia by her Peers and having been found Guilty on All Charges brought against her, She is hereby sentenced to be hung by the Neck Until she be Dead, and may
The Lord Have Mercy on her Soul.
"In Absentia" having been explained to Ayesha as meaning "in the absence of", the Meeting saw fit to approve of the wording, and it was decided that Fraulein should find the document in her post pigeon-hole the morning of the following day.
"Do you think she'll take it seriously, Mary ?" asked Evelyn as they filed out of the Debating room.
"No !" responded Mary. "Not until she finds herself trussed up, blindfolded and gagged on her Execution Block. Meanwhile I shouldn't think she'll even tell anybody about it - after all, she'll know why she got the Execution Notice. And she wouldn't want to let anyone know that she's been torturing her little pupils and all that !"
The next morning none of the Sisterhood noticed the slightest change in Fraulein's demeanour to any of them .She was in fact, as strict and unfair as ever.
Ayesha, who had been appointed to keep a watch over the Mistresses' pigeon holes, reported that she had seen the German girl taking out the sealed envelope carrying her Sentence, had even watched from afar as Fraulein had opened it and read the missive contained therein - without the slightest change of countenance, Ayesha reported.
However, just before the end of the morning class, the German girl started to talk about her school in a place called Buckeburg in Western Germany. which, apparently was vey very dissimilar to St. Olave's, both in curriculum and - especially - discipline . "Yes," Fraulein told her fascinated listeners, "we were very strictly taught - and of course punished as strictly. The school has been in the same old historical Schloss - that is, a Castle ,for hundreds of years - it is famous - and it has many of the original features - dungeons, an oubliette, the Grand Torture Chamber, rows of tiny little cells and so
on, many of which are still used. It does not pay to be a 'slacker' at my old school ! You - Mary Leighton " - she swung round and pointed her finger at Mary - "you, I think, would appreciate a visit to my old school in the holidays ! I have spoken to the Headmistress about this - we both feel that two weeks' hard work at Buckeburg would make sure than you win that Oxford bursary you are so keen on - and I have already written to - and spoken on the 'phone to - your dear Uncle, who I understand is the Guardian of yourself and your brothers and we are all agreed that you should come and enjoy a little real German hospitality - as the honoured Guest of the College, of course ! Yes, what is it ?" pointing to one of the Tuppenham twins whose arm was in the air.
"Please, Fraulein Ursula" asked June "What is an - an oubliette ?"
"You will have to ask your very goood friend Mary when she returns from Buckeburg !" smiled the German. "In fact it is a large bottle shaped hole in the ground, about fifteen feet deep, and four feet or so in diameter in which a malefactor would be placed, probably in chains, and where he - or she - would stay for some time, resting on straw, and competing with the rats for the food and water which would be sometimes lowered down from the only opening. Anticipation of a short spell in the Oubliette always acted as a spur and a great encouragement to any of us who ever felt like 'slacking ! " Of at least one thing Mary was quite, quite sure, and that was whatever the Headmistress and her Guardian felt there was no way - no way - in which she was ever going to go to Germany as the 'guest' of Fraulein's old School ! Especially; with its oubliette and all the rest of it. Her dear aunt, Mary was quite sure, would back up any protest she might make.
Fortunately, she reflected, as she left the class room with her friends, fortunately it was not very likely that Fraulein would feel much like carrying out whatever she had planned, once her ride to Banbury Cross was concluded. Which reminded her she thought, tucking her books under her arm, that perhaps, under the circumstances, there was just a little more that should be inflicted on the German girl once she was mounted on her steed.
"Have you got any money ?" she asked Evelyn, who was at her side. "I mean real money - not pocket money !". "I have, as it happens,"
said Evelyn. "Why ?"
Mary, who had that day received her monthly Dress Allowance, passed over to her friend a couple of banknotes, and said :" I want you to go down to the Village as soon as you can, and buy some very sharp barber's scissors, and one of those electric hair clippers - you know the ones they use on the back of the neck. O.K. ?" "Is this for Banbury Cross ?" Evelyn asked. "Of course it is !" answered Mary. "Don't ask any questions - just do it !" Evelyn nodded, and put the money in her purse.
There were now three days to go until Speech Day.
The individual members of The Sisterhood practised their special roles with great care, and seemed to be mastering the specialised skills which each would be required if the German mistress was to be satisfactorily Taken and thoroughly subjugated.
Fraulein made no more reference to Mary's proposed visit to Buckeburg. apart from mentioning that she was looking forward to meeting Mary's guardian on Speech Day. to 'finalise the arrangements'.
To Be Continued...