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Chapter
27
Katie’s Army
Katie led her little band out of the burning
city. Along the way they had
stopped in at the house of a wealthy Ullabomban to find clothes for Jia
Li. The cotton drapery
in this house served the Chinese girl just as well as it had served
Katie. There was only one
problem. The members of Kamba’s
harem insisted that they be clad in the same way as Katie and Jia
Li. This was despite the fact
that the wearing of clothes in Ullabomban society was completely
foreign. As a result, they were
forced to break into a second large house in order to get enough cloth to
outfit all of them. By this time
it was a little late in the day.
Katie did not fancy trying to escape through the forest at
night. She suddenly realized
that she was dead tired. She
had been running on adrenaline and the urgent need to rescue Jia
Li. Now she realized that she
was too exhausted to go any further that day.
The house they had entered was deserted.
“I think,” said Katie “That we better stay here for
the night.”
Jia Li agreed. “You and
I have been through too much to go without
rest. We will have to take a
chance that no one will come after us right
away. I don’t think anyone
knows where we are. This house
is right on the edge of the city.
It is a good place to start from
tomorrow.”
Katie nodded. She communicated
the decision to the dark skinned girl.
The girl seemed quite pleased.
She translated Katie’s message to the other women, and
Immediately, they settled down in the house as if
they had lived in it all of their lives.
Within a half-hour they had prepared a meal and served it to Katie
and Jia Li. Following the meal
they stripped off the two women’s garments and washed their bruised
and sweat encrusted bodies.
Refreshed, the two women slept while the members of Kamba’s harem
kept watch through the night.
The next day they breakfasted and set off early.
The Ullabomban city had returned
to some semblance of normal so all of the women were on guard for possible
contact with warriors from the city.
But their luck held. Except
for a few frightened blacks who fled before them, they encountered no serious
opposition.
A few hours march brought the expedition into territory that Katie and Jia
Li recognized. They were very
close to the place where they had first been ambushed and taken prisoner
by the Ullabomban raiding party.
That meant that they were no more than a few hours away from the base
camp.
Encouraged, Katie and Jia Li quickened their
pace. They would soon be back
in their temporary home, and although they had not succeeded in their mission
to find Larra it was possible that she had returned on her
own. They knew that she was
incredibly resourceful. The thought
that they might never see her again never entered
their minds.
Several of the women in the party were members of a tribe called the
Ansmara. They were apparently
quite skilled in woodcraft and Katie and Jia Li had allowed them to move
ahead of the group to serve as scouts.
One of these women now came running
back. She was clearly quite
excited. Since Katie and Jia
Li could not speak her language she spoke to the young girl who had guided
her through the city. As she
did so the young girl translated.
“There are many men up ahead.
Strange white
men. They are not like
Ansmara. They cover their bodies
with cloth like you.”
Katie nodded her understanding. She
motioned that the rest of the party was to stay where it was while she and
Jia Li investigated.
Slowly the two women crept up to where the advance scouts of their party
were waiting. One of the women
gestured that they were to follow her and got down on her hands and
knees. It was at this point that
both Katie and Jia Li realized how unsuitable their toga-like garments were
for any sort of rough work.
Reluctantly Katie stripped off her
toga. Taking out her knife she
cut two strips of material from the
cloth. The larger strip she tied
around her waist creating a short ragged
skirt. It was pretty revealing,
but allowed freedom of movement.
The smaller strip she used to tie up her heavy breasts in a form of
crude halter. Jia Li followed
her example. The scouts had already
discarded their clothes. Now
they could move through the forest more easily.
A couple of minutes crawling through the bush brought them to a small
clearing. There Katie saw a group
of heavily armed men. They wore
no uniforms, but Katie recognized their weapons as being of German
issue. Her suspicions were confirmed
when she was able to edge a little closer and pick up a few words of
conversation. They were definitely
Germans. This must be the rival
expedition that Larra had told them
about.
Jia Li nudged her. Katie followed
the direction of the oriental beauty’s
gaze. She caught her
breath. A tall German had just
exited one of the tents in the
encampment. The flap was only
open for a few seconds, but both Katie and Jia Li saw clearly inside the
tent. In that brief glimpse they
had seen a redheaded woman, lying on a
cot.
“Amy?” wondered Katie.
She looked at Jia Li. The
Asian woman nodded. This complicated
things. It appeared that Amy
had been taken prisoner by the Germans.
Katie edged back from the clearing, Jia Li
following.
“What are we going to do?” asked
Katie. “There are too many
of them for us to launch an
attack.”
“Yes,” said Jia Li, “but we could probably launch a
diversion. With a little luck
one of us might be able to get into the camp and rescue
Amy.”
“I suspect that any attack of the camp will result in the Germans
immediately placing a heavier guard on
Amy. But a diversion might be
useful as a last resort. I have
an idea. Why don’t we try
this…”
Jia Li crept catlike through the
darkness. Any slight noise she
made was easily masked by the sounds of the nighttime
rainforest. She had daubed mud
over most of her lithe body to make it even more difficult to see her and
was now only a few feet from the tent that housed
Amy. Taking out her knife she
approached the back of the tent.
She planned to cut her way in and then cut Amy
loose. With Any luck, Amy would
be alone in the tent. If she
was not… Well, the knife had more than one
use.
From within the tent came the sound of
voices. One she clearly recognized
as Amy’s. The other was
that of a man. He was speaking
English so Jia Li could easily understand what was being
said. What she heard astonished
her and caused her to completely change her plans.
She edged back to the rainforest and made her way back to
Katie. The tall blonde listened
incredulously.
“Amy is not a prisoner? She
has been injured and the Germans are looking after
her? You are sure of
that?”
“Very sure,” replied Jia Li.
“They were engaged in quite friendly
conversation. Very friendly,
if you know what I mean.”
Katie looked hard at her friend.
Jia Li nodded. “Well
I’ll be damned,” she said.
“We’ll give them an
hour. Then we are going into
the camp.”
“I think,” smiled Jia Li, “that they will need more than an
hour.”
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