Chapter 4

"How do you feel, Angela? It looks like those filthy bastards gave you a real working over!" Doris saw that the newcomer was awake at last. She pushed the newly wakeful and still amorous Marcella away from her. Some stirring of conscience told her that the dalliance with her lustful fellow captive had been a mistake and that the prisoners, all of them, must now look to find ways of escape.

The glances that the pirates were casting at them were getting more and more obvious by the day. Soon it would be impossible for the Captain to restrain his men and he would be forced to allow at least one of the lovely naked slaves to be used as sport in order to stop the lid blowing off. Doris was not to know that they were all granted regular shore leave and able to enjoy the services of a collection of whores all of whom were well paid and sworn to secrecy. Even so, the sight of these three (now four) nubile and eternally naked young women about the ship every day was beginning to arouse dangerous (for them) passions.

Angela tentatively rubbed her long and bruised legs. She only touched them tenderly but she still gasped in agony. She looked down at her battered ribs and reddened stomach, where those hard fists and harder boots had crashed into her so many times. Poor Angela wondered if she would ever recover and was very much inclined to doubt it. No point in being downhearted, though!

"OK, thanks Doris. They roughed me up pretty badly but they haven't done any lasting damage - except to my pride! I can take care of myself as a rule, but against those four big ruffians I didn't stand a chance. And in any case I had no intention of escaping - yet"

"You mean you are going to try? Can we come with you, Angela? It's not nice here, in spite of what you saw us doing just now! We just need to take our minds off things - that's all. I hate this place more and more and poor old Marlene will die if we can't get her away soon. She's very brave, that girl and won't kowtow to them at all, no matter what horrible things they do to her. And they have done some very nasty things to her - even more so than to me and Marcella."

She told Angela about the weeks turning into months that Marlene had spent in the hold and how she was still sick and pale even after being brought back up again. Angela felt her anger growing by the second as the details were related to her of all the vile things that all three girls, but especially Marlene, had suffered in the past year. She was proud of her future stepdaughter as the tale of her bravery unfolded. Proud of her and even more angry with Farr.

"That Farr is a notorious bastard, sadistic and sick. He was in the Navy for a time and I was at his Court Martial when he was finally cashiered. Even the Royal Navy draws a line when it comes to some unnatural practices! Since leaving the Service he has been up to the same tricks. He had a castle on a remote Scottish Island where he kept a number of girls, torturing and beating them just like he does you three. One of them got away and gave the alarm. The victims were saved but a couple were pretty far gone by the time they were rescued. There have been other things he's done, and finally he got hold of a piece of scientific research which he's using to keep you in another time and place."

Doris nodded. "That's what they told us a long time ago. That we were back in the past and no one could reach us to rescue us and if we did escape we'd still be no nearer getting back home again because we'd be in the same time as this."

"That's crap," replied Angela. "If we could get sufficiently far away from the ship we'd be back in our own time. I know. I've tried it with the equipment at the University and as soon as you're away from whatever force is keeping us in this limbo, we'll be back in the 20th Century!"

Doris looked thoughtful for a minute and said how they had experienced something odd once when ashore. "The ship seemed to vanish and come back again and I could swear that for those few seconds there were other boats in the bay."

"Stupid of them to try that," said Angela. "They were getting overconfident. I bet they've never did it again!"

Doris nodded and said, "They were really freaked out. Couldn't get us back to the ship fast enough!"

Angela laughed. "Yes. Did you but know it, but you were almost saved on that day. My guess is that the ray can be affected by the weather. Also it's possible the transmitter might have gone on the blink temporarily. The power supply on that island is none too reliable and they must have their own stand-by generator that will take a few seconds to come on stream. We were working through all the people known to have their own generators but drew a blank."

She changed the subject after a few minutes silence during which she struggled hard to overcome the pain she was still feeling. Doris and Marcella looked worriedly at her as she fought to continue and seemed again on the verge of passing out. But Angela had not been in the Navy for nothing. She pulled herself together and continued. "We've got to persuade Marlene to stop being uncooperative. It's vital we all be together for at least part of the time. I'm not leaving here without her, no matter what. If they stick her back in the hold we're really going to be in trouble. If you get a chance to talk to her or I or Marcella do, then we've got to make her see sense. OK?"

Doris nodded. She had always liked and respected Angela, even though many of the guys and girls in the office had found her remote and haughty. Now that she was here she felt sure they would pretty soon be out of this nightmare! One thing worried her, though.

"You say you were at Farr's Court Martial? Won't he recognise you?"

Angela nodded. "He might, Doris and if he does then God help me! But I've changed a bit since those days. My hair was much shorter then and I have, sadly, put on the odd pound or two since the days when I was a slim young Sub-Lieutenant! And with these bruises, my own dear Mother wouldn't recognise me! Also, he never got to see me naked before! Not my type! They said he was away for a few days. I wonder why he would risk going ashore."

"Maybe to get medical treatment," said Doris. "I'm sure he's not a well man - too much overweight for his own good. And you don't seem to have put on to much weight to me. You are a gorgeous lady! No wonder they abducted you!"

"Farr was overweight when I last knew him," said Angela, "gross in every sense of the word! Maybe he'll have a fatal seizure one of these days."

"I hope not," said Doris. "It's only because of him we haven't been raped a thousand times over. He won't let them touch us - not in that way anyway. They can beat us as much as they like, but they have to keep their cocks to themselves and they don't like it, I can tell you!"

"Why do you sound so happy, Doris," said Marcella. "You're a sweet girl and I love you a lot, but I yearn for a good length of solid honest to goodness cock up my yearning welcoming cunt and a big sweaty guy on top of me. Lack of a good fuck is getting to me. They won't need to rape ME, I'd be begging them to screw me! Let them queue up and take their turn! They'll be exhausted a bloody long time before I am!"

"How about putting this randiness to good use, Marcella," said Angela, trying to suppress her distaste, "if you could get one of those brutes on side, or at least obtain some kind of hold over him, it could be very useful. Have you anyone in mind?"

"Yeah! The one who chucked you in here earlier on! I saw him having a piss over the side of the ship once. What a mighty tool that one has. I wet myself at night imagining that one up me! I don't fancy its owner much, but the prick is a beauty!"

"Let's hope he feels the same about you, Marcella! From now on you give him the eye, good and strong! If Farr knew he had disobeyed orders, our chum would be for the high jump! Then we could put the screws on him. Just as long as you don't get sentimental about him, Marcella!"

"Fat chance of that, Angela! The guy's plenty good for fucking, but that's all. Not a future soul mate, that's for sure. I like a good rough time with a guy, mind you. There have been times when I've acquired even more bruises than you did earlier on - and loved it!"

"You're welcome to mine," said Angela dryly. She was beginning to wonder about Marcella.

After her first week as a prisoner, Angela was beginning to think that she might live. Her first sight of Doris and Marcella had not encouraged her to tell them too much of what she knew. Marcella in particular seemed too inclined to fraternise with the crew. Marlene was straight as a die of course, but that poor girl was, as often as not, stretched out on deck being punished. When Captain Farr returned she would be released, but until then she was out there all day and all night being burned to a crisp during the day and chilled during the nights, which were usually treated to the odd downpour. Poor Marlene!

It was Angela's lot to clean the decks and climb up into the rigging to perform sundry maintenance duties. The crew had soon realised her proficiency as a sailor and despite her bruises and continuing limp after the battering her long legs had endured during her beating up, she was worked from dawn till dusk.

Angela had not had a chance, so far, to talk to Marlene and this was her main anxiety. She must try to persuade this brave and obstinate young lady to cease her pointless defiance. The other two had spoken to her, but it seemed to have no effect so far. The only change to Marlene's condition had been for one of the crew to tighten the ropes that stretched out her young body so cruelly and make her pain and discomfort even worse. It was a good thing to be brave, but there must come a time when this poor woman would be broken physically by all this cruel treatment and Angela needed all the girls to be fit when the time came to escape.

Captain Farr returned eight days after she had been drugged and abducted. All the girls were locked in the cabin and expertly and very securely bound. In the morning the ship was at sea again and Angela once more sent up into the rigging. If this were a pleasure cruise, she would be having the time of her life. She loved sailing boats and this was one of the finest tall ships she had ever been on. But it wasn't a pleasure cruise. She was a captive and in great danger. Suddenly she felt Captain Farr's eyes boring into her.

"He's spotted me! Oh, holy fucking shit! I'm in for it, now!"

A furious bellow had her scuttling down the rigging in seconds and she stood to attention before the fat loathsome villain. He knew her, all right!

Chapter 5

"You! It's you. You bitch! The long hair had me fooled, but I see who you are now"

Angela's heart sank. This was just what she sure as hell didn't need right now!

"Tie the bitch up for flogging! Jump to it, you idle crew!"

Angela was roughly seized by two powerful ruffians and dragged across the deck... She was then tied, arms over her head and feet wide apart to the same grating at which the other three girls had all suffered before - particularly the defiant Marlene, now being reluctantly cooperative thanks to Angela's firm command, transmitted through the other two.

As the poor girl waited, stretched out taut as a bowstring, the near apoplectic Captain Farr stood with his face inches away from hers. She fought down the nauseous disgust she felt, both at the sight of his sweaty fat face and the stink of his atrocious breath.

"You thought you'd seen the last of me - EH? Thought you'd get away with ruining my career, just because of the say so of a whining, lying little bitch of a Wren!"  He slapped her hard several times, causing blood to flow from her mouth and nose. He stepped back, obviously near to a fatal seizure. As soon as he had recovered he ordered her to be given one hundred lashes.

"Oh, dear God," said Marlene under her breath. The most she had ever been given at any one time had been twenty and that had almost killed her.

"Won't that spoil her looks a bit, Captain. Damaged goods and all that?" she cried out.

The so-called first mate was standing near Farr. "She has a point, Captain." said the villain. "We need these girls to brighten the place up a bit. And you have promised we can all have them one day. The state her back'll be in after a flogging like that just doesn't bear thinking about! The men won't like it, Sir!"

"Take that girl," screamed Farr, pointing to Marlene, "to be tied down on deck for a week. I'll teach her to talk out of turn."

Marlene was dragged off. She hoped her words had secured some mercy for poor Angela!

"As for you," he turned to Angela, "you can have ten now and ten when you've healed and so on until you've had your hundred. In fact we may go on and on even after a hundred. That's it! We'll make your floggings a regular attraction! Take a look at that whip! You'll be getting to know it really well! Make her kiss it first - unless she wants the hundred all at once."

The leather thong was stuck in front of Angela's face. She forced herself to kiss the thin strip of dried leather that was soon to bite and sear its message of pain into her back. This day was turning out even more badly than the last ones!

In a better mood by this time he stood smiling happily as a strong member of his villainous crew did his cruel work raising his arm and bringing the leather down on Angela's back, which became steadily criss-crossed by a pattern of red welts, some of which began to ooze blood, much to his quiet satisfaction. He would have been happier if Angela had cried out a few times - or even once. But the girl certainly had plenty of courage; he was forced to concede that much. She let out a few involuntary gasps to begin with, but quickly got even this under control and endured the final seven lashes, all of them savagely laid on, in stoic silence.

Half dead and semi-conscious she was untied and dragged down to her bunk, onto which she was unceremoniously thrown. She passed out completely as they left her, and was still half out several hours later when the other two came down to see to her.

Doris put her hand under her head and sat her up in order not to have her sore back in contact with the rough blanket. She told Marcella to get her some water. As soon as she had complied, Doris put some to the suffering girl's mouth and Angela took a few sips, weakly murmuring her thanks. After a couple of sips and several long painful minutes, she spoke again. "Damned nuisance, being recognised. He's vindictive as they come - famous for it - and I had a hand in his dismissal from the Service. If I'd had my way, he'd have served time instead of just being booted out. As long as I'm here, my life is going to be rough - he'll take great delight in seeing to that! How long do think it will be for me to heal from this little lot?"

Doris rubbed her own back, the memory of the ten she had received coming back to haunt her once again. "Ten days and you'll be well and truly on the mend. Well enough to be flogged again. So, I guess you've a hundred more days before he's done with you, unless he meant that about going on after the hundred."

"He meant it," groaned Angela.

Doris shuddered. "I hope we can come up before then with something by way of an escape attempt - well before then! Just listening to that whip coming down on you time after time was enough to give me the horrors. As for you - why didn't you scream? I did during my flogging - I screamed like mad. And it helped, funnily enough!"

"Did Marlene scream when she got it?" asked Angela, becoming a little stronger.

"No. Not her. She's very brave - and stupid and obstinate."

Angela smiled weakly and painfully. ‘Good old Marlene,’ she said to herself. Every least movement was painful right now. "She doesn't want to let her father down. He's a great guy and I would be the same if I were her. Having a man like that as your father gives you a heck of a lot to live up to. I wish he knew where we are! He's probably going frantic by now, now that I've gone missing!"

Angela closed her eyes. She was still weak and in awful pain. It was more than five minutes before she could speak again. "When I've had my hundred, or whatever, he'll have plenty more nasty things to do to me. I know him! He'll never tire of tormenting me - never! What other little treats do you think he has lined up?"

Doris explained the staking out and the tying to the rigging, day after thirsty day and the ghastly darkness of the hold where Marlene had spent so many weeks in brave and lonely defiance. Angela sighed. Things had turned out badly for her, and no mistake.

"I still the say the worst part is having all those disgusting pigs staring at my naked body all the time. How have you two stood it for so long?"

"I still hate it," said Doris, "but you learn to cope."

"No problem for me," laughed Marcella, "let the buggers look, as long as they don't touch. The worst part is servicing that Captain's odd tastes. I literally vomit for minutes on end when I come out of that cabin after a session with him. I just can't believe anyone could be so vile."

"Did you hear what Farr said about him letting his pigs have us one day?" asked Angela. "I hope he's just stringing them along. Being too close to any of those stinking scum makes my flesh creep just to think about it. I'd take a hundred whippings rather than go through that!"

This met with agreement from Doris, who became rather thoughtful for a while. Finally Marcella spoke.

"I haven't had sex with a man for so long! Even one of those bits of human garbage would be acceptable the way I feel sometimes! Doris here is a honey and I love the taste of her sweet cunt, but a man is what I want! I'll try and see if I can't encourage one of them to risk Farr's wrath. Which do you recommend, Angela?"

Angela had become weaker during this last conversation and did not reply. The other two girls laid Angela so she that was lying on her front and left her to recover. They knew she would not be allowed to lie there for long, and sure enough, after two or three hours they came for her and dragged her off. When the pair came on deck first thing next day, they saw that the unfortunate girl had spent the night hanging suspended by her arms from one of the yardarms, swinging to and fro with the ship's motion. She looked to be unconscious and made no response when Doris spoke to her.

"We MUST try something, Marcella," said Doris, "at this rate those two will be dead pretty soon."

Marlene was also looking distressingly ill, stretched out on the deck, after an afternoon and night with only one cup of water. She had by no means recovered form her long weeks in the hold. Doris resolved that she must get a chance to speak to Angela and find out what she had been about to say to her.

The Brigadier was back in London. This was not to say that he had given up searching both for his daughter, and Angela. Anything but! However, after weeks of fruitlessly looking for the vanished Angela he had decided that he must once again speak to the Professor and his colleagues.

The last person to see Angela had seen her go off with a middle aged couple called the Wellings. This pair had left the island the next day and appeared to have disappeared off the face of the earth. They had sounded English but there was no record of them landing in the UK. With the trail gone cold, Jeremy knew he needed help from the scientific team who had produced this machine.

He knew there must be a transmitter on the island but could not tell the police. Even if they didn't dismiss him as a crank, it would risk alerting the villains and allowing them to give him the slip, probably condemning the girls to many more years - even a lifetime - of misery. There must be more the Professor and his associates could tell him, and he was determined to get it out of them.

At the same time as his plane touched down at Heathrow, - or rather, not at the same time - a barely healed Angela was being secured to receive the latest ten of her hundred lashes punishment. The disgusting Farr was looking happier than any of his subordinates could remember.

Jeremy phoned the Professor from the airport and soon a car was whisking him to the University building. The whole committee was waiting for him as he arrived. They looked happy and triumphant. The Brigadier felt hope for the first time in days.

Twenty minutes later he was booking a ticket back to the Island. The boffins had come up with something, something that was in his suitcase, stowed away in the aircraft hold. He prayed that it would not be damaged in transit!

Chapter 6

"CRACK!"

The whip hissed angrily down on poor Angela. She had been all too right about Farr not stopping at a mere one hundred lashes. It was a week since her punishment should have finished and here she was - being painfully whipped yet again. This time they had decided on a few subtle variations to the routine. Previously Angela had been tied to the grating with her feet apart and her arms high above her head. She had lost count of the times that awful thing had cut into her once tender skin - now mercifully hardened after the abuse it had suffered. She could take it these days a lot better than on that first terrible day.

Each time she was forced to kiss the whip, stained with her blood after all this time, before the next episode of torture commenced. She had refused to submit to this humiliation only once - never would she repeat that defiance, not after what they did to punish her. The ten lashes had been doubled, putting her in bed with delirium for a week. When the whippings were over she would always have to thank the pirate who had flogged her before being cut down. They'd make her go on her knees and thank him, kissing his dirty feet as she did so. And a refusal would only get her more lashes - a lot more.

This time, the ever innovative and vindictive Farr had decreed that his favourite victim was to be whipped upside down. Her feet were attached to a yardarm and her hands secured to a ring on the deck. As the lash fell onto her back, the crew had a wonderful view of Angela's pussy as it peeked out from behind her exceptionally generous golden bush. (More a forest than a bush, the humorous Marcella had once joked!)

The next lash fell and Angela jerked as if she had been electrocuted! Her whole body writhed and bent double, bringing her head momentarily level with her crotch before it fell back and her body went limp.

"Golly, Doris! Did you see that? It gets worse and worse. WE MUST do something before they kill her!"

"What happened, Marcella? I wasn't looking. I can't bear to look."

"He got the end of the lash to snake into her cunt - that's what happened, Doris! There she goes again! Poor Angela!! I mean! What kind of a sex life is she going have if this goes on much longer? Such a dishy girl, too! It's criminal, that's what it is!"

Marlene ran to join them. She looked excited.

"Just look what they're doing to poor Angela this time!" hissed Doris.

"Never mind that!. That oaf Farr left his cabin door unlocked. I suppose he's so excited about punishing poor Angela, he's getting careless! You start a diversion, Marcella! Doris! Come with me!"

The other two disappeared and Busty, Fun Loving Marcella was left alone to start a diversion. The three had managed to collect a few useful tools in the last few weeks, directed by Angela, between whippings, and they were doubtless going to use them to smash up the Captain's providentially unlocked cabin in the hope of destroying the receiver. She pondered for a moment on the best way of starting her diversion. Then she screamed at the top of her very powerful voice. "Leave that poor girl alone, you fat wicked pig! Leave her alone, Farr! You fucking devil!"

And she picked up the brush she had been using to scrub the deck and threw it with great force and incredible accuracy at Farr's head. Marcella had excelled at cricket at her Girl's School. She had been without doubt, far and away the best fielder of her year. Many an innings had come to a sudden and inglorious end by virtue of Marcella's stunning accuracy. Innumerable opposition batswomen had been run out as a result of her long throws from just inside the boundary! She had never been known to miss then - and she didn't miss now!

Farr dropped to the deck, stunned by the force with which that brush hit him. Marcella ran to the main mast and disappeared into the rigging. Being without any missile to throw, she opened her sexy legs and pissed on the first ruffian to follow her. He fell back with a disgusted cry.

"What's up, cunt? Don't you like my golden showers, you bastard," she shouted. And she climbed even higher. The next Pirate to get near her received her foot in his face. She had kicked with great force, despite the precariousness of her position, so high up. He fell to the deck and was killed instantly. The man immediately below was almost knocked of his perch by his colleague's fall and retreated, uncertain as to how to get at this unexpectedly agile bimbo. Busty and Fun Loving Marcella was a very talented girl on the quiet!

Farr had recovered by this time and had drawn a pistol that he aimed at Marcella. But Doris appeared from below and ran at him from behind and knocked the pistol from his hand. She was able to pick it up and throw it over the ship's side before she could be seized. Meanwhile, Angela still hung upside down and semi-conscious. She looked up and saw Marcella making her way with startling agility to just above her head. She untied Angela and pulled her up to join her in the rigging. By the time Doris had been subdued, both girls were out of sight.

"How you doing Marlene?

Angela, Marlene and Marcella were in Farr's cabin, which looked a mess! Marlene and Doris, before she had gone back on deck, had trashed it and trashed it big time!

Marcella was at the door, keeping guard and ready to fend off attackers. Her blood was well and truly up by this time and woe betide the first pirate to try and rush her! She'd been none to bad at kick boxing in her day, as one deceased pirate had already discovered, albeit too late for the discovery to do him any good!

"I think that high cupboard's where the receiver must be!" said a breathless Marlene. Let me climb up on your shoulder, Angela. I'll see if I can't smash it open. I'll try not to hurt your back!"

"Forget my back! Just smash that cupboard open! Marcella's damned good and I take back everything I've ever said about her, but even she can't hold them off for long!"

A few blows from the purloined hammer exposed what looked to be some kind of radio apparatus.

"Bingo," cried a delighted Angela, who recognised the receiver from her sessions with the Professor and his colleagues. She heard footsteps, heavy piratical footsteps. There was so little time! "Smash it, Marlene! Give it all you've got!"

Marlene did as she was told and soon reduced the receiver to a twisted mess. Bits of the equipment fell to the floor. Then the pirates stormed into the cabin, painfully delayed by some pretty deadly fist and footwork from the finally overwhelmed Marcella. Fists and feet slammed into all three. Then the ruffian, scurvy crew dragged all three bleeding but triumphant girls back on deck.

Bob and Eileen Fanshawe had been married a week and were already getting to feel like an old married couple. By which I mean that they were having a heated argument. Twelve miles off the honeymoon island on a hired boat, and on what ought to have been a day in Paradise, they were quarrelling about lunch and about which wine to have with the chicken in aspic. Bob insisted on the Riesling and Eileen on the Chardonnay. Then Eileen grasped Bob's arm. "Look, Bob!" Where in fuck's name did that ship appear from? We can't have been fighting that long!"

The couple forgot their quarrel. The question as to which wine to have with their lunch seemed suddenly to have assumed the very topmost height of irrelevance! What they saw made their blood run cold! About five hundred yards away was a sailing ship. And things were happening on deck that horrified both civilised and humane young Guardian readers.

"They're WHIPPING those girls, Bob! It's horrible. Get on the radio to the coastguard! AT ONCE!"

Bob obeyed. But the radio was on the blink. Before Bob had got it working, a fast motorboat had been lowered from the Merry Maid and Bob's boat had been boarded. The newly married couple didn't much care for the look of the villainous and murderous thugs who had boarded them, still less of the knives they were wielding. Soon the pair, Bob doing his best to protect his beloved bride with his arm, had joined the four girls as prisoners.

They were thrust into the cabin with the four newly whipped captives. Bob and Eileen were surprised at just how cheerful this quartet looked.

"Sorry you got dragged into this, you guys!" said Angela.

"So are we," said Eileen. "If our radio had been working, we'd have got on to the Coastguard. But it's not working."

"That's our fault," said Angela. "Your radio has been fucked up by other signals, which we have been responsible for - Sorry! - For which we have been responsible! The ether round here is positively seething with activity! But we are very glad to be back in the right century. Don't worry, you two! It's just a matter of time before they rescue us. Mind you! It might get a bit hairy before that happens!"

"You're just married, aren't you?" asked Doris.

"A week ago," said Eileen, who had stopped trembling by now. "We were having our first quarrel when we looked up and saw this ship and all you girls being whipped. Horrible!"

"First quarrel, eh," smiled Angela. "My Dad's a Rector. He always says that his advice to young couples coming to him wanting to be married in his church is 'Never let the sun go down on a quarrel!' So why don't you two kiss and make up now? I guess it's nearly dusk by this time. But, then! I daresay the priest who married you gave just that advice!"

"We got married in a Registry Office. Bit of a runaway affair," said Bob, taking his compliant bride into his arms and kissing her. "Eileen wanted a Church wedding but I didn't. I'll tell you this, though! If we get out of this, I'll let her have her wish. We'll have a proper White Wedding with all the trimmings!"

"Darling Bob!" said Eileen happily. It might have taken a very likely fatal disaster like this to change his mind, but she didn't care!

Chapter 7

The Brigadier had never been much of a sailor. And he had been living on this wretched boat for months! He still hated it every time the vessel rose and fell with the waves! If he were not a loving father and a silly old man who had become besotted with a girl less than half his age, he would have gone back to shore weeks ago!

He recalled those lines from The Tempest, "Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, anything."

He reflected, in the midst of his continuing battle with nausea, that few of the present generation of semi literate kids in our God forsaken wreck of a once great country had ever, in the whole of their rotten, useless, miserable and hopefully short lives, read these words! And thanks to the craven, traitorous gang of cretinous Europhiles who ran the UK these days with their crazed infatuation with disgusting metric units, none of the snotty nosed, spaced out little bastards (and that was literally the case with most of them these days) would have the remotest idea what an acre or a furlong were!

He was abruptly recalled from his curmudgeonly reflections by a high-pitched noise coming from the equipment he had brought back from London.

Thank God! Angela had come through! After all these weeks of waiting for something, the girl had done it! Splendid girl! True grit through and through! There was one young woman who stood firm and strong in the great tradition of her race! Pity she hadn't joined the Army, though! If the Brigadier had but known it, all four captives had had a hand in this deliverance! None of them were rubbish!

He was on the radio at once. But the radio was down. Of course it was! He had been warned of this. Only the special equipment on his boat could guide him to the Merry Maid. Thank God he had a few good men with him on the boat! And plenty of firepower!

The equipment the Professor had given him was a kind of detector, but one that would only function if either the transmitter or receiver were to be disabled. The damage would generate enough electro magnetic waves to pinpoint both pieces of equipment, the one at sea and the one on the island. The one on the island could wait! The Brigadier sped towards the Merry Maid, which was only just below the horizon.

There was no resistance. In their hearts the pirates had all known the game to be up as soon as the receiver had been smashed. It was only a matter of time before they were caught and they surrendered very meekly. Even Farr allowed himself to be led away to a life sentence with no protest.

A few days later the accomplices on the island were arrested after their house had been stormed. As the Brigadier had guessed, a few of the local police had been complicit in the enterprise - not his friend the Chief, though!

"Marcella was the true heroine," said Doris. The former captives were in the Brigadier's house. "The way she laid into those bastards. And scampered about the rigging like a monkey! I'd never have thought she had it in her."

"Angela saved us," said Marlene. "She risked her life for us by getting abducted like she did! And got her back cut open by that bastard's men. I vote Angela as the One!"

"Doris saved me from being shot," said Marcella. "I'd have joined that thug on the deck if it hadn't been for her! Good old Doris, that's what I say." She winked at her lover.

"Marlene spotted the cupboard. And she smashed the receiver! She's the real heroine. And she never gave in. Remember that everyone! She went through hell and she defied them. I vote for Marlene!" Thus spoke Angela very, very proudly of her stepdaughter of two days.

The other girls looked at Marlene and remembered her courageous defiance even when it must have seemed that there was no hope and that she was doomed to fade away and die in the stinking darkness. They all agreed with Angela. Marlene was the finest of them all. Glasses were raised and a toast drunk. Marlene blushed prettily.

"Well!" said the smiling Brigadier. "Might I propose a toast to FOUR wonderful heroines? You all did magnificently! You are a credit to our country. As long as girls like you are around, there's hope for us all. Admit it! You all relied on each other at the vital moment and you all came good. What was it that fellow said In Much Ado?

"Comparisons are odorous! Act three scene Five!" chipped in Busty, Fun Loving Marcella. The Brigadier beamed in her direction. She laughed back. "I went to a fucking good school, Brigadier! You'd be amazed at the shit they got into even this little brain!"

"Not a little brain at all, Marcella! You're nobody's fool," laughed Jeremy.

"I must be a fool A silly little rich kid. I mean to say, folks! My Dad's an Earl! All we aristos are inbred and half-witted."

"Not you, darling!" said Doris. She whispered into Marcella's ear very quietly. "I still vote for you. You were a real champ! My beloved heroine. And I hope we can continue a bit of unfinished business? Before we go back to fucking boys again, that is!"

"You bet, Doris," replied Busty Fun Loving Marcella. "You. bet!"

"Where are you two off for your honeymoon, Angela?" asked Marlene.

"We're hiring a long boat and bumming around on the canals for a few weeks. I'll get to mess around in boats, Marlene, but I'll be a long, long way from the sea!"

"Just as well, Angela. Just as well!" said Doris. "I'm definitely, but definitely not booking myself on another cruise as long as I live!"

All four girls laughingly drank to that one!

THE END