THIS STORY IS INTENDED FOR ADULT READING ONLY
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Three British girls arrive at the stables to collect their horses for a day's fox hunting. What they don't know is that the anti-blood sports league is waiting in ambush for them. There are two packs hunting today, and both them have their tongues hanging out. -----------------------------------------
We arrived at the riding school on a bright summer's morning, Sandra, Melissa and myself, Kate. We're all instructors at the school but we had no pupil appointments that day because the local hunt was meeting, and we were riding with it. In England, horse riding and fox hunting are so intertwined that not riding to hounds would cut us off from most of our business contacts.
Sandra was driving a Landrover and I had my old Landcruiser because we needed to tow two horseboxes to take our three horses to the hunt rendezvous. Nothing had seemed unusual until we opened the stable door. Inside, hanging from the wooden beams, was a long banner with hand painted red lettering on it: "THE LEAGUE AGAINST BLOOD SPORTS".
"What the hell is that doing here?" Sandra had demanded angrily. Tall, strong, and always the dominant one, she led us inside the stables.
We all knew about the league. They're violently opposed to fox hunting and game bird shooting. We also knew they'd been active around the district for a while, mainly spreading false scents for the hounds during the hunts. That wasn't something which bothered us personally, but what had upset us was finding some tripwires tied between trees where the fake scents had been laid. It seemed strange behavior for so-called animal lovers to set traps to kill and injure our horses, let alone the people riding them.
So that was why Sandra was so concerned about finding the banner in our stables. It wasn't the league's attitudes towards fox hunting which worried us, it was the fanatical and dangerous lengths some of them were going to in promoting their cause. If the ones who had broken into our stables overnight were as plain nutty as the wire riggers there was no telling what damage they might have done. But somehow it never occurred to us that maybe they hadn't gone away after putting up their banner. I suppose we were too concerned about what might have happened to our horses.
It wasn't until we were well inside the stables that we realized our mistake. Somebody shouted out, the top and bottom doors of the nearest loose boxes were thrown open and a whole crowd of people came charging out, each of their faces hidden by a party mask shaped like a fox's head and all of them wearing identical blue overalls as if it was a kind of uniform. They looked -- and acted -- like a bunch of bank robbers working to a pre-arranged plan. As they surrounded us they grabbed our arms, dragging us towards the tack room. I could hear Sandra shouting with anger and Melissa squealing as well, but none of our assailants took any notice.
It seemed there were perhaps eight or nine of them altogether. Most of them were males, young strong ones, but at least two of the blue overalls were also covering what were obviously girls' bodies, though they seemed to be holding onto us just as tightly as the boys were. At any event the three of us were completely surprised and overwhelmed by the totally unexpected assault. It just seemed so organized that it was unbelievable -- right down to the odd fact that each of the overalls had a number painted on the front and back, numbers which seemed to have been put on with the same paint and brush used to write the banner.
We were pushed and shoved towards a big table which had been moved to the middle of the room and now had some horse blankets spread out on top of it. The gang clearly intended we should bend over the table, but we finally started resisting as much as we could. Sandra was making the most determined efforts to get loose, aided by her height and strength. She's almost six foot tall, a horsewoman so good and so athletic she has a genuine chance of riding in the next Olympics.
One of the men, taller even than Sandra, appeared beside her and did something which made her yelp.
"Bend over you stubborn bitch" he snarled. Sandra whimpered and then leaned forward over the table without the slightest sign of any further struggle.
It seemed incredible to me to that she could have been dominated so easily. Then I saw the shiny pair of pliers in the hand of the man standing next to her. The kind of pliers with long thin pincers that electricians use. The man was gripping Sandra's left earlobe with them and that was why she'd had no choice but to obey him. I soon found that out for myself, because one of the anti-hunting people next to me held up another pair of pliers and pinched my own earlobe with them.
"Bend over the table, you fucking apology for a human being." The sheer venom in the voice was almost as shocking as the steel biting into my flesh. Perhaps even more unsettling was that the voice was feminine.
Having no choice I did as Sandra had done, lowering myself beside her with my forearms resting on the coarse blankets. The table creaked under our weight, then again as Melissa leaned over it as well. Another pair of blue overalls came close to me at the side of the table as the female behind me let go of my ear. It made no difference to the situation though, as yet another pair of the pliers was immediately applied to my left earlobe by the other thug.
Although I wasn't in much pain right then any real pressure on the pliers handles would certainly cause me instant agony. And I'd seen three pairs of pliers already, each apparently brand new, as if bought especially to use on us. Was everybody involved in this lunacy carrying them? What the hell did they think they were going to do, and how many real crazies were standing around us right now?
I was frightened, badly frightened, and I wanted to look around yet I couldn't move my head because of the grip of steel on my ear. From the corners of my eyes I could get a glimpse of Melissa's face. She'd lost her riding hat in the struggle and some of her dark curls were sticking to her sweat streaked forehead. She also looked as totally shocked as I felt, and no wonder. We couldn't have been more knocked out if the roof had suddenly fallen in on us.
"Good morning, girls," a jeering male voice said. It was coming from behind us, close behind. A sound of a sharp slap came next, with Sandra gasping and cursing.
"Tut, tut, well bred young ladies like you shouldn't know words like that", the man answered. Presumably he was the one who'd just slapped Sandra's bottom and I'd have bet he'd never have dared to do it under any other circumstances, for all his contemptuous attitude.
I tried to see Sandra's face by squinting sideways in the other direction but my view was blocked by the body of the man - woman? - holding the pliers on me and standing close to the table.
"Before we go any further, perhaps I'd better tell you that I phoned the Hunt Master's house this morning and apologized on your behalf for not being able to attend the hunt today. Apparently some of your horses aren't feeling quite the thing, so you've got to baby sit them until the vet arrives. I think I sounded convincing enough to be sure that nobody is going to come looking for you when you fail to arrive at the meet. Oh, and we've padlocked the road gates to the stables as well."
Like everybody else in England, I can usually tell pretty closely from the way another English person speaks what class they belong to, what education they've had, even what income they earn. If some working class yobbo with a back streets accent had phoned a message like that through to Sir Roderick's house it might not have been believed. But this guy talked as if he was out of the top drawer. With a sinking heart I had to accept that such a message would almost certainly been taken at face value.
