CHAPTER FOUR

Lilly Carries out her Mission

Lilly tried not to gasp as the salt was rubbed roughly into her torn back. In front of the crowd and with Marina watching she had been able to keep herself from crying out under the cruel lashes. But here, in the infirmary, it was a different matter. She was unable to suppress the odd sharp intake of breath. In the ring she had been terribly hurt plenty of times and had fought bravely on, but the helplessness of being secured and unable to do other than receive whatever pain the flogger cared to dish out to her, had tested her in a different way. And Lilly had passed that test. And now she was passing this test!

Then the head jailer came and ordered the medic out of the room.

“You leave in five minutes, Lilly. You were very silly to run away. But sensible to give yourself up. If you had been caught you would have been killed. Good luck with the rock-breaking! At least those hands of yours are used to a bit of rough usage. Although the palms aren’t as hardened as the knuckles! You’ll adjust soon enough. And, as I said, We’ll have you back with us in a few months. Just work hard and be a good girl. I shall miss you, Lilly while you‘re away!”

“I will work hard. I have learned my lesson. Goodbye, Karl!”

Lilly would miss him. He had always been fair to her. And she knew he would done anything to spare her from the whipping. It was the filthy bastard Hargreaves who had insisted on that particular punishment. In another life she would have fancied  Karl, even if he was a guy! But even when her wounds had healed it was unlikely he would fancy her! She was doomed to be scarred for life, and she could have been on her way out of this stinking hell-hole of a country!

She did not regret her choice. Giving herself up was at least a step in the right direction along a very long road that  might lead to redemption. She suspected that the sacrifice of her own life might be required to complete the journey. She was not afraid to die. Lilly had come to see that a life’s worth was not to measured by its length but by the way it was lived.

Her legs were chained together at the ankle. No clothing was given her and she was glad of this because her back was terribly sore and she doubted she could bear for it to be touched by even the lightest garment. She would have been happy for her womanhood to be covered, though. But this was unlikely ever again. She did not know it, but in times to come she was to be proudly nude and suffer gladly for it.

Outside the prison she was made to get on an open truck and was driven slowly through the crowded streets where had to endure rubbish being thrown at her by the mob. Long before the truck reached open country she was covered with stinking refuse both solid and liquid. She prayed that her still bleeding back would not become septic.  But the salt stopped  any infection, although she was to stink for days to come. In fact she was not to smell all that sweet ever again. Water was only for drinking in the penal settlements and there wasn’t too much even for that! She had heard that thirst was the lot of all the poor overworked women with whom she was to spend the rest of her life.

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Marina was on her way to her protector’s house when she heard a commotion. She went in the general direction of the noise and saw an open truck approaching, going at less than walking pace. On it was Lilly, standing straight and tall and proud. People were throwing rubbish at her and she was hit several times. Her face was already bruised. With horror she saw the stinking contents of more than one chamber pot emptied on to her from some upper windows.

Looking around her she saw nothing but sympathy on almost every face in that crowd. These people were here to witness Lilly’s continuing agony because they had been ordered on to the street. The filth was being thrown at her, not by willing citizens, but by members of the secret police and  folk too scared to disobey.

This was not a bad country or a bad people. Marina saw that it was only brute force and fear that kept the regime in power. That and Anglo American help behind the scenes. She swore she would personally kill Hargreaves if she had the chance. She guessed that Lilly, whose calm dignity in the face of her continuing torment was causing  more than a few in the crowd to weep for pity and  collective shame, would be happy to reserve that particular pleasure for herself! Either way, the bastard deserved to die, and very slowly and unpleasantly at that!

“I hear we may have something to hope for, Marina” said Mr Marcelinus when she reached his home, letting herself in at the rear entrance and making sure she was not being watched. She was getting good at being a spy these days!

“Yes. A girl called Lilly, the great fighter, escaped. But she agreed to go back and pass a message to Angelina. Angelina will agree to fight again and be brought back to this town. Then we might have a chance of rescuing her!”

The old man nodded. If he could do anything to help his old friend’s great niece, then he would.

“And what about Lilly?” he asked sadly.

“No hope, I fear. She’ll still be there in thirty years time. Unless the people rise up and chuck this government out.”

“They are too cowed for that, Marina. Bravery does not come naturally to my people as it does to yours. Poor Lilly! And heroic Lilly!”

Marina was not so sure. You can push even the most peaceful and compliant people too far. She had seen great anger in many faces today. It would only take one man - a leader - to rally the populace and topple this gang of criminal lunatics. But where would he come from? Apparently most of the better class of people had been purged years and years ago. But good men and women were to be found in all classes. Some day a man would come and rescue this people from the horror they lived in. But when would that day be? Too late for poor Lilly, perhaps. She touched her bosom and the plain cross the monk had given her and prayed for Lilly.

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By the time she reached the work camp, Lilly was more dead than alive. She still stood up at the rear of the truck, but she was swaying and ready to collapse long before she arrived. The heat was appalling and it got worse and worse the farther north she went. The country was bare and flat, with not a single piece of vegetation to be seen for miles. Nobody could get far in this hellish desert without dying of thirst and nobody could be undetected for long. She saw more than one helicopter patrolling the desert on her journey.  And she would be here for ever!

Because she was clearly too exhausted to work, she was allowed a day to recover. Her back still hurt, but itching told her that healing was in progress. She felt it and noticed that the wounds had formed scabs.  In a week she would be well on the mend.

After just one day she was driven out with  seven other women to begin working. They removed her ankle chains and gave her a pickaxe. Soon she was breaking rocks in one hundred and twenty degree heat (at a conservative estimate). All of her companions were older than she by a long way - except for one. And that young woman had been badly flogged herself once - maybe three years ago?

It was four hours into the day before Lilly had a chance to talk to this girl. They were allowed a cup of tepid and foul tasting water before being sent back to work.

“Are you Angelina?”

“That’s my name. How did you know?”

“We were both pupils of Martha. Martha’s dead, by the way. They made us fight to the death and I won. God! How I hate myself for that!”

“I was told to fight to the death myself. I told them to go to hell and here I am in Hell myself. How did you end up here?

“I escaped and gave myself up when I met your friend Marina. I’m here to give you a message.”

“Marina? Marina Green? What possessed her to come to this ghastly country?”

“She’s come to take you home with her.”

Then the break was over and work resumed. Four hours later they were fed and the conversation resumed.

“How does Marina propose to take me home. You saw the terrain on the way up. She wouldn’t have a hope in hell.”

“I escaped from the prison. So could you if you got sent back there. She has a few friends who would help. They would smuggle you to a seaport and get you on a fishing boat. I was offered the chance myself but I gave myself up instead. I want to make up for killing dear Martha. Then I don’t care what happens to me.”

“I see they gave you a good whipping, Lilly. Was that for escaping?”

Lilly nodded.

“They flogged you, too, Angelina. Several times I should think. Was that for refusing to fight?”

“Yes. They gave me two hundred lashes over a period of time and then gave up on me! I don’t know about going back. I don’t want to fight anyone ever again. Not even in a sporting contest. Funny. I loved boxing once. Really loved it. And I was good at it. Beat the odd boy now and again! I punched well above my weight, the Games master told me!”

“You boxed at school! Wow! What sort of a school was that?”

“A boys school that allowed a few girls in. And my mate Marina and I decided to try to get in on a really male sport. We did pretty well, too and I was brilliant! But having to take part in these awful fights turned my stomach. Fighting with virtually bare fists and naked. Ugh!”

“I heard you were good, though!”

Angelina nodded.

“I was. Too good. I killed my first opponent. She hit her head when I knocked her out and she never recovered. That’s when I began to realise I couldn’t go on. I’d have become a savage.”

“If you tell them you’ve changed your mind, Angelina, then you might not have too many fights before Marina and her friends rescue you. She’s desperate to get you out. But if she can’t then she will give herself up and come to work side by side with you. She’s dead serious about that - believe me!”

“I don’t know. I need time to think, Lilly. And don’t get eaten up with guilt, dear! It was a toss up for a while whether I went down the same road as you. Cheer up! And let’s get back to work! You stink, by the way. I suppose you got the treatment  being driven through the town? Lots of garbage and excrement?”

“Indeed. Rotten vegetables and loads of piss and shit. But I had a funny feeling that most people’s hearts weren’t in it. There were some very sympathetic vibes coming from that crowd. It buoyed me up a lot.”

After eighteen hours work the still tired and weak Lilly was unable to talk. She fell asleep next to Angelina who looked down at the young girl and stroked her hair before falling asleep herself.

On the second night, the women were told that work would start three hours late next day. Every once in a while the overworked slaves were given this much-needed chance to catch up on their sleep. Lilly was getting used to this new life by now and her back no longer hurt too badly. The couple lay side by side and chatted.

“I used to love my country once,  Lilly” said Angelina. “I’d sing Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia! and God save the Queen and there would be tears in my eyes. Not any more! How could we  help prop up this despicable government knowing our own women are being enslaved and worked to death. I hate my rotten country now!”

“Hargreaves isn’t England, darling! If they knew back home what he was up to,  he’d be in prison , serving life, so fast his feet wouldn’t touch the ground! The government may be wrong to tolerate this regime because we need their precious metal - whatever it is - but they‘d not sink as low as Hargreaves has sunk. Never in a million years! If you can get out and tell the world what goes on, you‘ll see a better side of our country. It‘s just a few corrupt people that are letting this happen. We‘re not that bad, Angelina.”

Lilly put an arm around the older woman. Angelina responded and soon the couple were making love.

“I hope Marina won’t be jealous when she hears about this!” said Lilly shortly before they fell asleep.

“We were never that way, Lilly. And neither are the two of us, I suspect! Given the choice we’d both of us far sooner be doing this with a man!”

“You’re a very acceptable substitute right now, sweetheart!” murmured Lilly.