CHAPTER SEVEN

Freedom for Angelina and Lilly


"Angelina and Lilly are going to be at the market in ten days, Mr Marcelinus. Karl has something arranged. Don't ask me what - he's not saying anything! But he wants you to organise a departure from Port Bemba on the following day. I shan't be able to concentrate on their fight! If we do all get away, what happens to you?"

"I'll be fine, Marina. I am more or less immune from prosecution. My family are too popular for the government to touch us. I'll be put under house arrest if they suspect me of aiding the escape - no more. And I rarely go out in any case!"

Marina had just come back from a meeting with Karl. He had approached her in the street, in the middle of the mid day crowd and hurriedly told her what she had just passed on to her host.

Despite the excitement, Marina was looking forward to seeing her best friend in action against Lilly. It had been three years since the two had met. Angelina had been working in the quarries for the whole of that time. She had been a robust girl even before going into prison. Now she would certainly be far stronger. But Lilly was by far the strongest woman Marina had ever seen! And Lilly was not only a powerfully built young lady, she was lightning quick. Angelina might be a natural athlete who had taken to boxing with enthusiasm and developed amazing skill, but Lilly was at least as good as she remembered Angelina to have been. Lilly had a palpable killer instinct and Angelina had treated boxing as a sport - not a matter of life and death. Lilly, a violent young women even before her arrest, had always fought virtually bare fisted and Angelina had worn gloves. She feared for Angelina, even though Karl had made it clear that no one was being killed when the pair met!

Meanwhile Lilly was fighting in the prison against the woman who had destroyed Emma some weeks ago. It was now the fifth round and Lilly was well on top. Hatta, the big local prisoner, was bleeding from her nose and cuts over both eyes. She was a pitiable sight, but Lilly had no pity. All Lilly had in her mind was this girl's efficient destruction now that she had asserted her authority after some punishing exchanges which had left the white girl with a black eye and bruised ribs.

She liked Emma and had cooperated with Angelina in order to train the brave, strong but unskilled woman to become a good fighter. Emma might not know it, but she was destined to become the prison's top white fighter in ten days time! Angelina was full of pity for her protégé, but Lilly was totally callous. Emma had been a prisoner for just under a year and she, Lilly, had been in this dump for more than two. Lilly had survived - in fact she had thrived - and Emma would have to learn the same arts of survival. Of course it would be Emma's lot to brave the wrath of the powers that be after the escape! She would be in that market square a lot more often that Lilly and up against some brutal opposition. But she was strong and, thanks to Angelina and Lilly, very skilful. She'd survive!

Lilly finally saw her chance, took it and added another victim to her growing tally! Although Hatta had been her victim twice already!

"Good for you, Lilly!" said Emma before Lilly was led away to be caned again. "I bet you knock Angelina out in just over a week! You’re unstoppable!"

Emma had a crush on Lilly! She would miss her when the escape took place.

Mr Hargreaves had chosen a new Prisons Minister and had time to watch his least favourite prisoner destroy Hatta - again. He was too busy to watch more than a few strokes of her caning, though. Those five strokes hurt a lot! Then Karl ordered her to be freed and sent back to training.

"Don't be stupid, darling!" hissed Lilly. "They might suspect. We can't afford to slip up this late in the day. Let him carry on. You know me! I won't break!"

So she got the rest of her twenty, all viciously laid on. It did not help Lilly that the guard who was caning her had been silly enough to place a large bet on Hatta and was now flat broke until next pay day!

"They did a great job on your arse, Lilly!!" said Angelina later in the day as they were being fed. She was inclined to think Lilly was not averse to their inflicting a bit of pain on that part of her body, which was just as well in the circumstances! It had made her eyes water just listening to her lover getting the latest in a series of brutal canings that had kept that sweet posterior permanently on fire for weeks now! Karl had whispered to her one day that he could get her punishments reduced but that Lilly had asked him not to. Her reason was that it might attract suspicion, but Angelina and Karl both suspected that Lilly quite enjoyed a good caning now and then!

"It was a very professional job indeed, Angie! That man is the best. His canings are what I would call exquisite, Cordon Bleu affairs! As a connoisseur, I cannot recommend his work too highly! But I shall not miss him! I shall find fulfilment and happiness without his help!"

“What will you do for kicks when we are back in civilisation, Lilly!” asked Angelina a couple of days before their upcoming fight.

“Maybe I won’t stay in civilisation too long! This last few years have made me a good fighter. I have the skill, the strength and the killer instinct - alas for Martha - and they will all be put to good use in some shape or form. And I doubt the police or the army would have me. I’m far too wild and undisciplined, Angie. My father tried to beat it out of me but I think he just made me worse. This prison won’t be the last I see the inside of! Not by a long way!”

“Come home with me, Lilly! Or stay here and fight side by side with Karl in the resistance and maybe give your life for something fine and decent! There are plenty of good causes that cry out for your energy and courage! Don’t throw your life away for nothing!”

But Angelina knew she was wasting her breath. Lilly was hooked on fist fighting. She would find a way of indulging this very violent passion and that was that! And the lingering guilt she still felt for her friend Martha would always be driving her to look for and ultimately meet the woman who would do to her what she had done to her closest friend to save her own skin!

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Marina could hardly believe that the Day had finally dawned. She was at the market an hour before the fight was due to start.

She had a map of the route to the port and would set out from the town gate an hour before dusk and three hours after the fight was scheduled to end. A long duel was expected between Lilly and her friend. As Mr Marcelinus’s supposed servant she was sent out to a nearby village several times a month to collect vegetables from a friend of his. It would take her all day and all night to reach the port, but she had pored over maps and knew the way by heart. She had no idea how Lilly and Angelina would get there, but trusted Karl implicitly.

Finally the prison van arrived. It was belching exhaust fumes every bit as dense as in her dream. Would the actuality of this fight follow the course of the dream and see Lilly triumph? As the two nude women stepped out of the back of the truck and walked to the ring, she was shocked at the way Angelina had aged in three years. There were grey hairs - that was obvious even from a distance. But Angelina had hardened physically. She had filled out a lot and her shoulder and arm muscles were impressive - until she compared them to Lilly’s! Lilly was far stronger. If Angelina did not have vastly superior speed, she had no chance! And Marina knew just how quick Lilly was.

Once again Marina caught her breath when she saw what a magnificent animal Lilly was. She radiated aggression and zest for conflict. Despite her rather unfeminine muscularity, she moved like a cat.  Marina guessed, rightly as she was to discover, that Lilly had been a fighter all her life., wild, rebellious and impossible to control. The raven haired girl almost visibly grew as she stepped through the ropes and into the ring. She had been chatting  in a friendly way to Angelina as they came out of the truck but there was nothing but cold hate in her eyes now as she squared up to her lover and rival. Lilly had spoken of using the minimum of force to knock Angelina senseless, but anyone could see that nothing less than total destruction was on her agenda right now!

Marina had a chance to compare those two bodies, limb for limb and muscle for muscle and her heart sank. The golden haired, downy skinned Angelina was like a piece of porcelain next to the swarthy and very hirsute Lilly, her powerful legs and thighs covered by wiry black hair. This was not to be a fight, but a massacre. Both girls were beautiful but Lilly was still the Beast compared with Angelina! But Angelina looked calm and very purposeful. Marina remembered that look! She’d give Lilly a run for her money, even if the end result was a foregone conclusion.

Angelina tried to use superior footwork to keep away from Lilly’s awesome power. But the trouble for Angelina was that her footwork was anything but superior! Wherever Angelina was - there was Lilly. And wherever Lilly was, was not a safe place to be!

If Marina had thought Lilly to be no more than a ruthless fighting machine, she was wrong - but only partly wrong. Her life here had been one that offered plentiful chances to act out her aggression and she was grateful for that - her attempted escape notwithstanding.  And she did love Karl and Angelina. She would not make the escape needlessly difficult. And she was going to slaughter Angelina! Angelina was sharing a ring with her, so Lilly was honour bound to annihilate her! It was not easy even for a highly intelligent young woman like Lilly to keep all these needs in perfect balance!

It might have been this ambivalence that gave Angelina the third round - by a whisker. It might have been worry that a badly injured opponent might slow down the escape that gave her the eighth round. It was the resolution of all these internal contradictions in Lilly’s mind that caused Angelina to fly across the ring, hit the corner post and fold into a senseless, shattered and broken  heap at Lilly‘s feet.

The victor, scarcely marked and scarcely even breathing heavily, picked up her fallen victim and took her to the truck. Karl followed but broke away from Lilly to go to the driver’s cab. What followed was so bewilderingly fast as to be the subject of speculation and discussion as to what actually did happen for years to come.

Somehow or other, the senseless Angelina was tossed into the rear of the truck, two guards knocked out, one fatally so, the tailboard secured to stop an unconscious Angelina from falling out and the driver pulled out of his cab by Karl who drove off, with Lilly leaping into the seat beside him. It all happened in seconds.

Several police vehicles were around and their drivers soon realised something was wrong. Only one of the police vans started. The other two were immobilised by blowing out the tyres - the perpetrators melting into the crowd.  The third police car was prevented by the crowd from pursuing the retreating prison truck long enough for Karl, Lilly and a sleeping Angelina to be out of sight before they could be followed.

******************

“Rather a painful and humiliating way to be rescued!” thought Marina.

Marina was concerned that the town might be put under curfew, in which case her own departure might have to be delayed by days or weeks, even. That mattered not! Angelina and Lilly had made it!

Marina’s fears proved groundless and, footsore and tired out, she staggered into the port just after noon next day. The others were already there. Angelina had partially recovered but Marina could see that she was still a little stupefied after being knocked out the previous day.

“She needs rest” said Lilly. “The trouble with me is that I don’t know my own strength - that’s one of my very few faults, Marina!”

“I can think of many others, Lilly. Arrogance and a violent streak that scares the shit out of me are just two to be going on with! And I hope you have those legs waxed as soon as we get home. They really gross me out!”

Just before midnight the boat came to take them to freedom.

It is now common knowledge that their escape succeeded, that the furore caused by Angelina’s revelations led to the recall of Hargreaves and Potter. It is a matter of regret that both these crooks absconded with most of the loot they had accumulated and live in comfort to this very day!

In an effort to placate world opinion, the regime freed all white prisoners and compensated them generously. So Emma did not have long as chief fighter! She resumed her studies and never fought again, much to Lilly’s disgust. All that training for nothing!

Karl accompanied the three women. He had no job on the island now and wanted to be with Lilly ,at least until she was totally safe. He and Lilly lived together for a week or two after returning home until her vicious temper caused her to flounce out of his life. Angelina found an old school friend who asked her out a few times and then he moved in with her. And Marina found fulfilment as a trainee sales manager for a surgical appliance company.

Before Lilly was to find happiness and a resolution of her many personality defects, it was necessary for her to pass through many trials, including many months hard labour in a harsh penal establishment!

Three years after the escape, Angelina and Marina were invited to return to Bastania to take part in the celebrations marking final overthrow of the regime. Mr Marcelinus took them for a stroll to the famous market square. He smiled at them

“I think we need one more to make this little party complete!”

“Yes. Good old Lilly - she of the killer punch! I wish she would step into that ring again - just once more and put on a display of raw courage and white hot aggression1”

“Your wish will shortly be granted, Marina” said Mr Marcelinus!