Schooled for Service

by Lady Alice McCloud

  ‘Remain silent!’ the woman snapped as she finally let the girl up. ‘Imagine talking! Have you no awareness of your shame, your disgrace?’

  The girl got up, still snivelling as she hastily adjusted her clothes and took her seat again, now with her gaze fixed firmly out of the window. Puzzled by the woman’s remark, but not daring to speak, Thrift could only sit in shocked silence. She could not understand why the girl had had to be spanked, although it had plainly been necessary, but was painfully aware that but for her sense of social embarrassment she herself might have shared the same ignominious fate.

  Outside the windows the landscape was now heavily frosted, and the few people she saw among the fields heavily wrapped against the cold. She recognised the county signs as they passed, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Rutland, and the towns of each, the former group familiar from house parties and formal visits, the latter odd and slightly unsettling, making her think of trades people and workers. In Nottinghamshire the landscape changed, making her sense of unfamiliarity stronger still, although she knew that she was in a county where coal was mined for export to backward countries such as France and Germany. Low, conical hills began to appear, some grown with yellowish grass, some black and glistening, and strange frameworks of black iron supporting great many-spoked wheels, which she assumed to be mines, while the houses had taken on a drab, grubby character.

  Beyond Newark the car pulled off the main road, turning onto a wide and dirty concrete lane on which they were forced to slow behind a convoy of great rattling trucks. Other trucks were coming the opposite way, laden with a filthy looking black substance that could only be coal, the dust of which soiled every surface and set the ventilation system of the great car whining in protest. The clank and roar of machinery grew loud in Thrift’s ears, and as they entered a grimy village she pulled back from the window in shock at the sight of the coarse, rough clad people, some with openly dirty faces.

  For all the squalor of the place it held a festive air, with coloured bunting strung across the main street and the Union Flag in every window and outside every one of the shops selling pies and sausages, fruit and vegetables, hardware and household goods. The people were also moving in the same direction, that of the car, and many glancing towards it gave little righteous glances or passed remarks to their companions. At the end of the street the car turned and came to a halt on a flat area of cobble strewn with black grit. Another vehicle was parked beside a high stone wall, a heavy black painted Alvis van without insignia and with a single row of small windows set high in the side. There was more bunting, and various stalls, but the majority of people were in a throng that blocked Thrift’s view, all apparently intent on something on display. Only as the chaperone hustled her from the car did she realise what it was.

  At the far side of the cobbled area stood a low platform built of wood, and on it a frame had been erected, two boards, supported at either end and the middle, with a row of holes running its full length. From these holes protruded the heads and hands of two girls, no older than herself, but both so filthy and bedraggled as to be barely recognisable as human, never mind female. Indeed, had their laced bodices and chemises not been torn open to leave two pairs of large breasts hanging bare under their chests, she would not have been certain.

  Their bottoms were also bare, their skirts and everything beneath ripped wide to expose every detail of their rear views, although Thrift could only see the turn of each full bottom, and then with the pink flesh soiled and crusted. The same was true of their breasts, their faces, their hair, while what was left of their dresses was equally foul, smeared with the shell and white and yolk of broken eggs, the skins and pulp of tomatoes, bits of rotting vegetable of every description, the ubiquitous black dust and what looked unpleasantly like dung. Both had their eyes closed tight behind masks of filth, both had their hair a dripping, matted mess around faces that might otherwise have been pretty, and both had had a large, unwashed turnip forced into her open mouth.

  Thrift was staring open mouthed as she was hurried across to the black van, and the appalling sight was quickly lost to view. Another woman in bombazine stood with her massive arms folded stolidly across her bosom at the back of the van, and opened a door at her colleague’s approach. Thrift, then the small girl she had travelled with were helped up into the van, lifted with strong hands pressing up under their bottoms to overcome the restriction of their corsets, and incidentally sending the blood to Thrift’s cheeks.

  The interior of the van was Spartan, a wooden floor with an unadorned bench at either side and the narrow windows letting in a yellowish gloom. As the door shut behind her she found herself alone with the small girl. Despite guilt for unworthy feelings, she quickly allowed her companion to help her climb onto the bench and gave assistance in return, both of them immediately pressing their faces to the dirty glass to peer outside. The scene was as before, the two bedraggled girls trapped by their necks, the mess of egg and tomato pulp and worse dripping from their faces and breasts and hair.

  Nor was the girls’ suffering over, the crowd jeering and clapping as a well aimed egg burst full in one’s face. Now higher up, Thrift could see that before the soiling had begun both girls had been soundly whipped, their full bottoms criss-crossed with welts where the pig-pink flesh showed through the filth. Each also had a carrot sticking out from behind her, apparently inserted up her bottom, with the green of the foliage sticking up behind like a ridiculous tail.

  The women in black were walking forward, and after a last tomato had burst in the further of the two girls’ faces the torment stopped abruptly. One of the black clad women spoke, snapping an order to a villager, who promptly obeyed, tugging at his cap as he withdrew. A pump stood to one side, and man used it to fill a bucket with water, which he threw over the girls in the pillory. Others joined in, unlocking the device and lifting it clear of the girls’ necks. Both immediately spat out their turnips and reached back to tug the carrots from their bottom holes, almost in unison, and both bore defiant scowls on their faces rather than the expressions of misery and humiliation Thrift had expected.

  ‘They’re coming with us?’ The small girl queried, her voice full of shock.

  ‘I hardly think so, and yet...,’ Thrift began, forgetting her etiquette in consternation at the thought.

  It was evident that the girls were coming, but not willingly. More water had been thrown over them, to leave them spluttering and dripping wet, although only marginally less filthy. The two black clad women came forward, one barking an order. Both girls spat as one, catching the chaperone in the face. She came back at them, with a howl of anger, her companion close behind. Both girls were spitting insults and trying to bite and scratch and kick, but they had quickly been put in armlocks and were dragged from the podium.

  Thrift’s hand went to her mouth as the young girls were skilfully bent double, the torn rags of their dresses opened to bare their still filthy bottoms and leather belts hastily donated by the crowd applied to both. Even as their cheeks began to bounce and jiggle to the blows, both continued to fight, and to curse, using words that sent Thrift’s cheeks blazing scarlet. Suddenly her unsuitable companion seemed a model or propriety, and a badly needed friend.

  ‘Despite the difference..., ‘she began, and stopped. ‘Notwithstanding our... that is to say, as a formal introduction is clearly out of the question, perhaps we may be forgiven this once? I am Thrift Moncrieff, daughter to Sir Kincardine Moncrieff, who is Senior Assistant Secretary in the Foreign Office and younger brother to Lord Moncrieff.’

  ‘I am privileged to make your acquaintance, Ma’am,’ the girl responded with a curtsey. ‘Elizabeth Brunel Chesham, at your service.’

  Outside, the two girls were still being beaten, sturdy pink bottoms wobbling to the heavy belt smacks, hairy quims on full view to the crowd, yet cursing and damning their tormentors. The crowd were clapping and laughing, and a great r
oar of amusement went up, from men and women both, when one of the two’s bottom hole opened in a loud fart.

  ‘How uncouth,’ Elizabeth remarked with shudder.

  ‘Revolting!’ Thrift agreed. ‘I am sorry you were spanked, but at least you took your punishment with good grace.’

  Elizabeth responded with a nervous smile and went back to watching the beating. Most of the muck had been knocked off the girls’ bottoms, leaving their skin dirty and welted but with their rear contours on plain view. Both had full, egg shaped cheeks, remarkably similar in shape, as were their plump quims and big, heavy breasts. What could be seen of their hair and faces as they were at last permitted to stand was also strikingly similar.

  ‘Might they be sisters?’ Thrift conjectured.

  ‘They might, but the resemblance is superficial,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘Big and rough in any case, and so vulgar! I do not care for such people.’

  ‘Nor I!’ Thrift agreed fervently. ‘Why would they be travelling with us,’ she asked mentally labelling the two girls as the ‘twins’. ‘And in this dreadful wagon!’

  ‘I do not like to imagine,’ Elizabeth answered, ‘and what of our luggage?’

  For the first time Thrift realised that she could no longer see the Austin Baron in which they had travelled from London. Fresh shock hit her at the thought of her possessions, then relief as she realised the probable answer.

  ‘Clearly they have been taken on ahead,’ she stated with as much confidence as she could muster. ‘Although I confess I had not expected such harsh treatment, nor to be told so little.’

  ‘Nor I,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘I have not even been informed of our destination, save that it is in Yorkshire.’

  ‘I was told still less!’ Thrift responded. ‘While I realise that a measure of secrecy must attend our entry into the Imperial Diplomatic Service, I can not see the need for such treatment as this.’

  ‘The Imperial Diplomatic Service?’ Elizabeth queried.

  ‘Indeed, are you not...,’ Thrift answered and faltered as a horrible thought occurred to her, ‘...not to be trained with me?’

  ‘No,’ Elizabeth answered, ‘I know nothing of this, only that I am to be taken to somewhere in Yorkshire.’

  Thrift made to answer, with indignation and fear beginning to boil up inside her, but her attention was pulled back to the two girls. They were still struggling, despite their cherry red bottoms and the efforts of a good dozen villagers to hold them in place as their hands were lashed behind their backs with cord. Even with their arms helpless, they continued to spit and curse and kick, but the chaperones worked with a brisk, cold efficiency, first using more cord to make short and efficient hobbles between each girl’s ankles, and then strips of dirty cloth torn from their ruined underwear to make gags. The girls wore no underskirts, nor petticoats, but simple split seamed drawers, already ruined, and no more than soiled rags around their hips by the time their mouths had been stuffed and the gags tied off.

  ‘This... This can not be!’ Thrift exclaimed. ‘There has been some terrible mistake! I can not be intended to go to the same destination as these... These dreadful, common people!’

  ‘Nor I!’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘And yet...’

  She stopped, looking scared. The chaperones were approaching. Defiance still blazed in the eyes of the two girls as they were led stumbling towards the van, and both Thrift and Elizabeth hastily sat down. As the doors opened Thrift desperately wanted to speak, but didn’t dare for the awful prospect of being given a spanking, an unendurable shame in front of the two working class girls, let alone the men outside. No comment was made to her either, the two girls simply shoved roughly into the van and the chaperones climbing up behind. A moment later Thrift felt a faint shudder as the van began to move on the rough ground.

  No longer able even to see the passing world, and far too scared to speak or even meet the eyes of the others, she sat prim and stiff as the van gathered speed. Uncertain even where she was going, she could only wait, now with the added embarrassment of gradually increasing pressure in her bladder, which she could only hope did not become intolerable before they reached their destination.

  Elizabeth sat equally still and silent, the chaperones also, save for occasional hard glances towards their charges. The two colliery girls were scowling sullenly behind their gags, both with their big breasts still hanging out of the soiled and torn remains of their dress fronts, a sight Thrift found it increasingly difficult to keep her gaze away from. When one of the girls noticed, Thrift was given an angry glare, and after that rode with her gaze directed firmly at the opposite wall.

  By the time the van stopped again Thrift had no idea how far they might have travelled or in what direction, the smooth power of the van’s Collins Electrical Engine making it impossible to judge speed. She was beginning to feel hungry, and was sure it was well past the hour she might have expected lunch to be served, so was pleased to see the sign of a country inn when the doors were opened by a third black-clad chaperone who she guessed to be the driver.

  Tantalising smells were evident on the cool spring air, frying onions and sausage, with a hint of some exotic spice, but rather than allow them out, or bring food in, the doors were held open only long enough to push yet another girl into the van. Thrift cast a surreptitious and astonished glance as the newcomer sat down opposite her, and moments later the van was underway once more.

  Like the two girls from the collieries, the new arrival had her wrists bound, but in front of her, while rather than active malice she wore an expression of sullen misery on a face which would otherwise have been pretty in a pig-like way, and was framed by luxurious brown curls. Her dress was a dull gold and voluminous, but she had no bustle, and no corset, with her huge breasts straining out her bodice in a thoroughly indecent fashion. Each breast was perhaps the size of Thrift’s head, and yet they were not out of proportion to the rest of the girl’s body. She was larger than even the biggest of the chaperones, with wide shoulders and a waist narrow only in proportion to her massive chest and hips. She added a faint whiff of beer and hops to those of coal dust, rotting vegetables and Thrift’s own expensive scent, and was presumably a taverner’s daughter, common, if not so common as the colliery girls.

  Again they moved off, with Thrift’s embarrassment rising with the pressure in her bladder, until she had begun to debate in her mind if it would be worse to ask for a halt and risk a spanking for speaking, or simply wet herself and hope that her underclothes soaked up the pee. Yet if she was caught, it would undoubtedly mean a spanking anyway, and in her wet clothes, which meant yet greater humiliation. At last, when she knew she could bear the pain for only minutes more, she gingerly raised a hand. One of the chaperone’s turned to her with a look of annoyance.

  ‘Yes? You wish to speak?’

  ‘Please, er... Ma’am, yes,’ Thrift answered, speaking as if to a teacher despite the woman’s evident social inferiority.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I... ah...,’ Thrift managed, blushing furiously, ‘hoped that we might halt for a while, at your convenience, naturally.’

  ‘You want to piddle, use the pot,’ the woman snapped back with a look of utter disgust.

  Thrift’s cheeks were burning, but grew hotter still as the woman reached in under her bench to pull out a wide brimmed china potty, which she kicked across the floor. Unable to find words to express her horrified embarrassment, Thrift could only stare at the hideous thing, completely unable to do what was required of her. Yet the pain in her bladder had grown to the point she was wiggling her toes and clenching her belly to prevent the pee coming, and she knew the choice was to use the pot or wet herself.

  In an agony of embarrassment, her face burning, the tears starting in her eyes, she moved forward on the bench and began to rummage under her skirts. Twice she managed to go up between layers of petticoats before finding the
right hole, and then she was forced to lift her bottom to open her corset panel and her drawers, all the while with her fingers shaking and her thighs clamped hard against the waves of pressure in her tummy. At last her bottom and quim were bare, and she squatted down on the pot, wiggling until she felt the cool, hard china against her flesh. Sobbing with humiliation, her eyes downcast, she let go, her pee erupting into the china vessel with a hiss and splash she was sure could be heard by all of them, including the driver.

  It could certainly be heard by those around her, and as it gurgled in the pot beneath her she caught a glance of mockery and contempt from one of the colliery girls. She looked down again, blushing too hot to speak, but unable to do anything save continue releasing what seemed to be an impossible volume of pee. When it finally did stop, she was forced to wiggle her bottom to shake the last few drops free, drawing a stifled giggle from the big tavern girl.

  Even then her ordeal was not over. First she was obliged to rearrange her clothes, and then left with the pot in front of her on the floor, its golden contents and rich smell glaring evidence of what she’d done. A questioning glance at the chaperones received neither information nor interest, and she was forced to push the pot in under her own section of bench. A bare minute later the van came to a halt and the doors were once more thrown open, to reveal bare trees, stark in the afternoon sunlight, a frosted lawn, and a large, high-gabled house of green encrusted stone.

  ‘Empty it in the nettles,’ one of the chaperones instructed, and for the first time showed a trace of emotion with an ironic chuckle.

  Thrift got out, feeling thoroughly ashamed of herself, and emptied the pot as instructed, into a bank of withered nettles besides the track on which the van was parked. The air was cold, and the steam from her pee rose in a tell-tale column above where she’d dumped it, adding a last touch to her humiliation. Unsure what to do with the empty pot, she stayed were she was as the bound girls were helped down from the van.