Stories of Tie Up Games

So, there I was, minding my own business and checking the back catalogue for no special reason and I noticed a story that I thought I had already posted. Having checked the chronological order, it seems OK top post it.

Here it is:

“It’s alright. No kidnapping, no tie-ups, no torture. Promise. We just need to talk.”

Jamie looked around the classroom for an escape route. There wasn’t one.

“On my honour, this is not a trap.” Action Man extended his left hand and Jamie and he exchanged Scout handshakes.

Evan extended the same pledge and handshakes were exchanged. The tied games were important and the Scouts and the Sea Scouts were sworn enemies in their on-going feud but anyone who broke his word of honour would be ostracised by the rest of both Troops. Jamie relaxed slightly but he wondered what this was all about.

Action Man and Evan had waited for his teacher to be finished with Jamie, who had blotted his copybook big time, at the end of the day and, once she had left, they approached him.

“It’s important. It’s about the games. Can you spare a couple of hours this evening?“

“Nah, she’ll kill me if I don’t get my English coursework done and she’s already rung my mum. I’m already in deep shit when I get home and, if I’m late, I’ll get grounded for the next four weeks.”

Even if they were “sworn enemies” the other two boys sympathised with Jamie and they knew that what he said about his mother’s way of dealing with such matters was certainly true. After a short discussion they managed to arrange a meeting on Sunday as long as Jamie could placate his mother by then.

As time was limited, Jamie still didn’t know what it was all about by the time he started to run home.


Evan’s phone rang. “’S Jamie, what gives?”

“Can you come round to the Log Cabin?”

Jamie already had the word of the Sea Scouts that he wouldn’t be tied up or tortured but he didn’t really want to enter their premises in the customary state for a captured enemy. “Fair enough – No – You won’t have to strip down like a prisoner. But we need to talk.”

“What time?”

“Action Man’s here with me now. We’d like to be gone by mid-day.”

“OK. I ’m on my way. Be about half an hour.”

“See y’.”

Jamie was intrigued. The only times he’d been to the Sea Scouts’ Log Cabin previously was when he was a prisoner in their tie-up games and the most he was usually allowed to wear was his underpants, shorts or swimming gear. This must be something of considerable importance. He’d tried ringing Long Tom to see what he knew before starting out but could get no answer. All sorts of things ran through his mind concerning what might have gone wrong with the arrangements for their own inter-Troop version of the Olympic Games that they were planning.

Jamie reached the gate. “Permission to come aboard?”

“Permission granted.” Action Man and Evan came out of the cabin to meet Jamie with their left arms extended in greeting. Following the handshakes, the three boys entered the cabin.

“Fancy a Coke?” asked Evan just as Jamie noticed an angry Long Tom’s head sticking out of a chained security sack in the middle of the floor. “Don’t worry, we’ve given our word and we’d be pretty bloody pissed off if you didn’t accept it. It’s just that the big guy didn’t want to come and meet with us. Shut up Farmer Boy, and we might remove that gag.”

Tom still didn’t seem to want to be there and rolled around the floor in the yellow canvas sack unable to stand or even remain upright for very long. His fingers kept protruding from the top of the sack, where the chain had gathered the heavy canvas round his neck, in a vain attempt to rip the tape, that was forcing a fair-sized rubber ball into his mouth, from his face.

“Take the weight off your feet and we’ll explain. After that, if you can persuade Long Tom to calm down, we’ll let him out of the bag.”

“Why have you captured him but left me unbound?”

“We need to speak to both of you but your General here didn’t trust us and declined our invitation. Not only do we need to speak to both of you, we’re pissed off that he wouldn’t accept our word of honour. You both know we’d never break it.”

Jamie laughed at his increasingly furious mate as he rolled around the floor trying vainly to free himself. Jamie enjoyed the Coke and sat on the old sofa between the two Sea Scouts.


“You know those Warband kids that are always kidnapping one another just like we do? Well, they want in. They reckon that our Olympic Games will be a bit special and they reckon they’d be an asset to the event.”

“Yes, but the Limewood kids hate the Broadhurst boys and vice versa and there aren’t enough of either Warband to make a single team.”

“They’ve agreed to forget their feud during our Olympics just as we forget ours for the tied games.”

“How do you know?” Jamie turned to address Long Tom, “Shut up a minute, mate; this sounds interesting. Stop rolling round the floor like a Weeble.” Long Tom didn’t appreciate that from Jamie but, by now, he was getting exhausted and lay still and quiet for a while.

Evan said, “We need to know what you think but, if you’re just going to run off as soon as you’re released, you won’t get a say. Now you can see that we’re treating Jamie well so how about shutting up for a while?”

Jamie helped him to sit and Long Tom started to see sense. “Like I said, “How do you know?””

“Come outside. There’s something we want you to see.”

The three unfettered boys left the Log Cabin and went round the back passing an untidy pile of paddles much to Jamie’s surprise until he saw the paddle cage.


There wasn’t much room in the paddle cage for both the boys but Jamie couldn’t help laughing when he saw them. Aiden and Will had been stripped down to their swimming shorts, bound hand and foot, blindfolded and gagged and jammed closely together inside the cage on the back of the canoe trailer. It was one of the conditions they had to meet if their petition to join the games was even to be considered.

“Jamie, may I introduce Will from the Limewood Lads.” The one with the very long, very blonde hair nodded and made a sort of “Mmm-mm” noise. “And this is Aiden from the Broadhurst Boys.” The muscular kid made similar noises. “Which one do you want to speak to first?”

Jamie asked for a few minutes to try to talk Long Tom round without anyone else being present. He knew that, if he couldn’t do so, there was no point in continuing discussions in any case. Action Man and Evan saw the sense of this and said they’d wait until Jamie called them.

About five minutes later Jamie called them in to find Long Tom free from his gag and sitting calmly in the security sack.

“I think he’s prepared to take part now.” asserted Jamie so Action Man unlocked the chain. Long Tom gradually unravelled himself as he emerged from the sack, fully dressed but wringing with sweat from his exertions and with his clothes clinging closely to him. He accepted the proffered Coke and joined the other three on the huge old couch.

Now that Jamie had placated Tom and persuaded him to debate sensibly, the traditional left-handed handshakes were exchanged.





“OK, which one first?”

“Let’s have Blondie, he’s usually the more articulate,” suggested Evan. It was agreed.

Action Man grabbed the keys and he and Evan went, leaving the visiting Scouts to discuss the situation while they released Will from the cramped paddle cage. They didn’t bother untying him; Action Man just slung him over his shoulder and carried him round to the front of the Log cabin, through the door, dumped him on the floor, and pulled him into a kneeling position. Evan cut the tape that was holding a wadded neckerchief into Will’s mouth and snagging his long hair. Evan quite enjoyed pulling the tape away. He knew Will was in no position to complain.

Will explained again that the two Warbands wanted into the “Olympic Games” that the Scouts and Sea Scouts were planning. He was aware that they would involve a lot of tying up and that Limewood and Broadhurst had agreed to join as a team. “If you lot can forget your feuds for the sake of your tied games, why shouldn’t we be able to?”

That was fair enough and both Troops knew that the Warbands were as deeply into their TUGs as they were themselves. Jamie asked what the Warbands could offer and Will outlined the various talents of his own Warband and also some of Aiden’s. “And besides, if we weren’t serious about this, why would Aiden and I have agreed to be humiliated like this?” That seemed fair enough too.

Various questions followed which Will fielded with some skill in spite of his being firmly bound and in some discomfort from kneeling on the floor and having previously been tied up with Aiden and jammed into the paddle cage for about an hour.

“Any more questions?”

After a round of “No’s”, Evan gagged Will again using a knotted neckerchief but without the tape this time. Action Man shouldered him and carried him out to the paddle cage accompanied by the others. The cage was unlocked and Aiden was pulled out and shouldered by Long Tom who took him into the Log Cabin while Evan and Action Man replaced Will and locked the cage. When the Sea Scouts returned, they found Aiden kneeling with his gag removed and ready for his interview.

The interview covered very much the same ground as the previous one but with a few more details of what his mates could offer as participants. The nature of the games was explained but it was obvious that both Will and he already had a pretty good idea what they entailed.

“OK, Aiden, we need time to discuss this,” said Long Tom, “You and Will can go free now and forget joining in or you can go back to the paddle cage while we come to a decision. Which is it going to be?” Aiden agreed to be gagged and to be taken back to join Will in the cage. That must have indicated some sort of determination to join in.

With both the Warband ambassadors locked in the cramped cage again, the four others made no attempt to hurry their discussions.

After about half an hour the snag became apparent.




 

My thanks to @blackbound for pointing out the real clanger in the title.
Oh well, nobody will know about it now, will they?

And even if, a well-applied gag, such as in this chapter, would keep them quiet.

Looking forward to these Games.

An exciting start. Can't wait to read more!

If you knew Will, @blackbound, you'd want a well-applied gag!

Thanks, @Carnath good to hear from you again.

Although the Sea Scouts were, on average, older than the other Troop, the games could be arranged so that the smaller boys could play an equally valuable role as the older ones but there were no younger kids (twelve- & thirteen- year-olds) amongst the Warbands. Even If Matt and Max were “persuaded” to join in, their youngest member would be fourteen.

The four boys took their time making a decision, the two applicants seemed to be in no hurry to go anywhere and, after some consideration, it was decided that perhaps they’d care to discuss it between themselves. The reaction to that from the two cramped, bound and, more importantly, gagged boys can easily be imagined.

“Still want in?” asked Evan. The two Warband boys nodded, not an easy thing to do without bashing their heads and one-another. Evan said that they’d remove their guests’ gags and leave them to discuss it for a while. “Want to go now?” Both caged boys shook their heads.

Action Man was about to unlock the cage but Long Tom thought it would be more entertaining to make the applicants wriggle until their gags could be undone from the outside of the cage. After a few entertaining/embarrassing minutes depending upon which side of the mesh the boys were on, the visitors were once more able to speak.

“OK, we’ll just leave you to it.” said Jamie as the Scouts and the Sea Scouts retired to reminisce and discuss past feuds and tied games.

Discussion is rather difficult when one’s correspondent is occasionally, if inadvertently, kneeing one in the balls and one’s feet are often poking him in the face but, after about thirty minutes, the “hosts” reappeared to receive the results of the deliberations.





“Right, still want in?”

The reply that, after having to put up with the way they had been treated this morning, they weren’t going to back out now caused an unexpected, “Yes!” from Long Tom as he clenched his fist and pumped his arm.

“Come on boys, let them out.”

Some unstructured “discussion” followed in which Will’s and Aiden’s contributions didn’t seem to count for much but before long they had been conveyed into the log cabin and left sitting back-to-back on the floor with their blindfolds removed.

Action Man and Jamie helped the Warbands ambassadors to mugs of water while Evan explained that the next hour was to be their audition to see if they were going to be good enough to add anything to the games. What he meant was that they had an hour to free themselves.

Although both boys were used to trying (with varying success) to escape from ropes, they weren’t used to helping a member of their rival Warband to do so. Will started outlining the problem and making suggestions. Typical Will.

“Shut up! Lie face down on the floor.”

Will was somewhat taken aback but he did what Aiden had suggested. He didn’t, however, stop holding forth as Aiden’s teeth sought out the knots holding the blonde’s hands firmly behind his back. Having spent about five minutes loosening his first target, Aiden felt the need for a rest. He looked up pleadingly.

“Hey, for Christ’s sake, one of you gag this gob-shite artist, please.”

“Hey!” said an indignant Will in spite of the fact that he was certainly used to similar reactions from his mates by then.

“Seriously?”

“Nah, he was only joking.”

“No I wasn’t!”

“OK, OK, zzzzzzip!” and Will did his best to belay the suggestions while Aiden got back to work.

After another more peaceful five minutes Aiden, had loosened about a foot of rope and asked Will to try sitting up again. With his wrists and ankles still bound, Will found that far from easy but eventually both he and Aiden were sitting back-to-back once more. Aiden did his best to get a look at Will’s bonds as both boys moved their wrists as far to one side of them as they could. In spite of his somewhat bulky fingers, Aiden was quite dexterous and soon had all the rope that had been wound between Will’s wrists released. Will was still unable to slip his wrists out of the remaining loops of rope which had been applied by Action Man in his most efficient manner when Will had no incentive to resist. He did, however, soon manage to manoeuvre his wrists so that the rope gradually unwound itself sufficiently for him to slip his wrists free.

Despite his best efforts, Will couldn’t resist a gasp as his wrists became free followed by a running commentary on his rope marks and the satisfaction he was getting form massaging his wrists. “Oi! Now what about me?” came the long-suffering voice from behind him.

“Oh, sorry Aiden, won’t be long, hang on while I have a look. Who’s got my specs?”

After certain attempts by the Sea Scouts to convince Will that his glasses had become misplaced, Action Man produced them but not until after Will had found the, “I thought you’d left them with his clothes,” from Evan to be somewhat concerning,

Once his squarish and virtually rimless glasses were in place, good as his word, Will soon had Aiden’s wrists freed and both Warbands boys started working on freeing their own ankles.

Whilst the other four boys relaxed on the sofa and Aiden and Will sat on the floor enjoying the proffered Cokes, further details were hammered out. The “hosts” had no intention of making their guests too comfortable nor even of allowing them to dress fully. If they wanted to withdraw, they were quite at liberty to do so. Although he didn’t usually take part in activities any more, Sam had already worked out the programme and competitors for the various games but, as not everyone was fully involved, Evan was pretty sure he could work the Warbands competitors in but they’d have to agree to take whatever roles they were given. Will guessed that they would probably be playing under a handicap.

The only concession that Aiden had managed to win was to allow Tom, who couldn’t attend in the daytime, to help his team-mates in the evening.

With arrangements finalised, Evan said that he’d see Aiden in school and let him know who was playing whom and that everyone had better go home now. The nonchalant way in which the Scouts and Sea Scouts went about things from then on didn’t betray in the slightest the fact that they were aware that Will was still clad in only his long white swimming trunks and Aiden in his short, loose black ones.

“Come on, boys, where’s our clothes?”

“Clothes?”

“I thought you arrived like that.”

“Ah, fuck!” Aiden feared the worst.

“Oh please, I can’t go home like this. My bloody brother’s home. I’d never live it down.”

“It’s OK, Will, they’re around – somewhere.”

“Yeah, you should find them round and about.”

“You bastards.” said Will, grinning and shaking his head. He knew he just had to put up with searching the surrounding woodland for his togs and, with wry smiles, Aiden and he left the premises.

The clothes had been distributed all round the woodland surrounding the premises but were reasonably easy to find and it didn’t take Aiden and Will more than an hour to find them all and start on their way to their respective homes.





“Hallo, Mate. Here it is.”

Evan gave the piece of paper that Sam had printed out to Aiden who examined it carefully.

“I didn’t think Sam played the tied games now that he’s at college?”

“Oh, he saw that your Simon was playing. He said, ‘I hate that kid. I’ll take him on,’ so they’re pulling against one another.”

“Who’s Den, the one I’m pulling against?”

“Oh, he’s our ‘pie-man’. He’s younger than you . . .”

“Good.”

“. . . but he’s heavy and solid, bit of a rugby player.”

“Oh, thanks for that!”

“Thought you’d like that. How did you persuade your little brother and his speckly mate to play?”

“Easy. They’re quite into the tying up, it’s just their big brothers, me and Karl, they don’t like. Who are these kids they’ve drawn?”

“They’re two of the Land Farmers; Little Steve’s a swimmer, good shoulders but he’s not too tall, but Scott’s a maniac, he’ll put up a hell of a fight.”

“Oh come on, swap them round so that my brother gets the maniac. What’s this ‘Catching the Greasy Mush’?”

“Yeah, there weren’t any really little kids left so Sam took the three next biggest of yours against our youngest ones. It’s sort of one-on-one wrestling; the older one has to get the younger one out of the ring.”

“That should be easy enough.”

“Not when the little one’s coated with grease!”

“Eughh!”

“Yes, have you all got proper swim briefs?”

“Yes, Speedo were selling them cheap on line, we ordered two pairs each and got them even cheaper. At least we’ll look like a proper team, unlike you lot.”

“Watch it!”

“What’s this? Pick on the Yank? How come JT’s got to fight tag team all on his own?”

“That’s the way we do it: one big kid versus two younger ones. You’re right though, because we’ve run out of little kids, one of his opponents is nearly as big as him.”

“Oh well, it’s a hard life being the token foreigner.”

“Are you sure your lot are OK with the bound swimming?”

“Yeah, you know Mike from our lot? Well, he’s rich and his folks have a pool. Ever since we knew about the event, we’ve been practicing when his folks have been out. Shit! I didn’t need to do it! Oh well, those three will be glad they know how not to drown. Hey, did you get that site you were after?”

“What Pound Farm? Yes, as long as there’s adult supervision.”

“What the hell are we going to do about that?”

“Leave that to us. We know a man - - - or two. An important event like this needs referees, doesn’t it?”

“S’pose so but . . .

“Worry not! Leave it to Sam. Right, that’s the main daytime games. The others and the evening ones can be arranged at the time. There’s a list of possible events on the bottom.”

Then the school bell went for lessons and the two boys parted.

On the appointed morning, and by a complicated process of terminological inexactitudes, the Warbands boys had persuaded their parents to ferry them and their borrowed camping equipment to Pound Farm. When the parents caught sight of Mark (ex-Sea Scout) and Martin (former Scout), they were convinced that there was to be responsible adult supervision. How easily the two smoothies could charm the mothers! Little did they know that, with Mark, they stood no chance. Ben, a chef, (also ex-Sea Scouts) had also agreed to turn up to organise the catering just for old times’ sake.

As the Warbands boys arrived, they were shown to the camping field. The owners were away with their horses and had deliberately not let out any of their facilities for a week until Sam talked them into “lending” the place to responsible local members of the Brotherhood of Scouts. There seems to be something about a woggle that makes otherwise sensible people trust Scouts.

The Scouts and Sea Scouts had already set up their tents the previous evening and were currently engaged in pitching and equipping the supply tent-cum-cook tent and the large marquee that was to serve as a meeting room-cum-mess tent.

By the time the Warbands had pitched their tents, large ones with external poles, everything was ready. Max and Matt had been invited to sleep in the Limewood Lads’ tent, an offer they immediately accepted; it would keep them out of the way of their brothers. Even if they were supposed to be on the same team, experience told them that Aiden and, especially, Karl should not be trusted.

The camp was pitched and equipped and everyone went into the marquee to demolish their packed lunches and go over the rules. Ben already had dinner preparations underway.





Martin was a tall, dark-featured man with a prominent chip out of his front teeth where, he always told people, he’d tried to catch a cricket ball in his mouth. He was an early participant in the feud between the Scouts and the Sea Scouts and, as an adult, was now a Scouter, which was so useful as far as the tied games were concerned. He knew the games were consensual and often kept a surreptitious eye on things to check out the safety of the participants.

He announced that the first game was to be a two-way pull and that the participants should strip down and get ready. As the sixteen competitors returned to their tents to get into their swim-briefs, Mark took the chalk bottle and marked an oche and two more lines parallel to it, one on each side of it and about twenty metres away. It was decided that the inter-troop bouts would inter-leave with the Warbands v Scouts matches.

First up were Simon and Sam. Simon wasn’t exactly delighted with the team decision to buy those black Speedos; he was tall and they didn’t cover much of him. He had good pecs and square shoulders, toned by being an obsessive kayaker. His was naturally dark-skinned but even so his wet-suit had left him with tan marks round his neck and wrists. Sam was a skilful rock climber and wind-surfer whose fondness for his shortie wet-suit had left bizarre tan lines round his slender biceps and just above his knees. Wearing just his black and blue briefs with the white detailing, he obviously had nothing to be ashamed of, another cause of embarrassment to his opponent. He had grown taller lately but had retained his wiry physique. Simon thought he was on to a certain winner against the lighter boy as they prepared for combat.

Martin tossed a coin and Simon called correctly. It was then down to one of the Sea-Scouts to square-lash Sam’s elbows to a pioneering stave so that it sat behind his back. The tying was always done by a member of the contestant’s own team to make sure that he was less likely to be disqualified for becoming untied. Action Man asked Simon, “Outside or inside?” but, being new to the games, he didn’t understand the question. Alex explained that, having won the toss, Simon had the choice between having his elbows tied between Sam’s or outside them. He chose “outside”. Action Man tied Sam’s right elbow to the stave while Alex tied his left one while they ensured that his elbows were forced quite closely together. With Sam secured to the wooden pole, Simon backed up to him and hooked it between his own elbows and his back. The Warbands had a bit of a problem; if Tom had been present, he would have been asked to secure Simon in place but Aiden and Jonny stepped up to the mark and soon had their team-mate securely tied.

Both contestants soon found their wrists rope-cuffed in front of them and Martin declared that they were ready for the contest to begin. The contestants were helped to stand with their heels against the oche and Martin’s voice announced, “Take the strain,” both boys braced themselves, “Ten minutes. - - - Pull!”

That’s when Simon got his first shock. Sam leaned forwards with Simon more or less mounted on his back and made a good ten metres’ progress before Simon managed to dislodge himself and regain his footing. This was going to be harder than he had thought. Simon tried the same manoeuvre but the more experienced boy simply wriggled his way out of it before he could regain any ground. The next few minutes, as the contestants simply pulled against one another, allowed the heavier boy to make some progress but nowhere near enough to return to the starting point. Then Sam tried another tactic. It could have been risky if both players had ended up on the ground but it was worth a try. He hooked one of Simon’s feet off the ground and ran as fast as he could in the circumstances as his opponent tried to regain his footing. Every so often from then on, when Simon managed to get a secure foothold, he managed to regain some ground but never enough to stop the wily Sam from eventually dragging him across the mark. The spectators thought they had been robbed because the contestants had managed to avoid disintegrating into a shambling heap on the ground.

The conjoined boys at last allowed themselves to collapse and each one sat regaining his breath before Sam was untied. Simon had a price to pay. Final “sentence” would, however, not be determined until after the other seven bouts. Until then, he would be left in the shade, still tied to the stave and with his ankles crossed and held in place by a belt.

The next bout was one that all present agreed should have been a real humdinger. T-Boy and Long Tom were tied up ready to pull against one another. T-Boy had no great muscle definition but he was very strong and possessed great stamina. Long Tom was very tall and had a very well-defined body. In his black Adidas briefs, and with his boyish face, he could have passed for a model. T-Boy had a fondness for the rather skimpy plain blue swimming trunks that he chose to wear at the pool in spite of the fact that he tended to get ragged about it by his friends who all favoured long shorts. It was, indeed, an epic battle. For the first five minutes, neither player had managed to gain any noticeable advantage, then they fell. There was a lull while both boys did little other than breathe heavily. They agreed to co-operate with one another while they stood up again by pushing against their opponent and Martin agreed to referee the situation until both had regained stability. More twisting and turning, pulling and pushing and grunting and swearing preceded another collapse but this time the contest continued. With neither boy being a novice, there was no attempt to roll towards one end but there was much exhausting scrambling around on their bums. But the duo had not managed to move more than about five metres from the oche at any stage.

“Time!” announced Martin, “The result is a draw. Put it to the vote: should we release them or keep them tied?” As if there was any doubt. In spite of all their pleas, even those to team loyalty, the erstwhile contestants were helped to their feet, allowed to walk crabwise to the shade where they were made to sit, still back-to-back, with their ankles crossed and bound. Ben made sure that all three bound boys were given water.

The match between Aiden and Den and the one between Evan and Vic were total pushovers. A resentful Vic was simply steam-rollered by the larger and more solid Sea Scout and left to sulk in the shade and, in spite of his weight, Den was out-muscled by Aiden and had to wait clad in just his white swim briefs and still bound to the stave. Max had a relatively easy victory over Little Steve due to a considerable height advantage and in spite of Little Steve’s upper body strength. That did Max’s fragile ego no harm at all.

Jamie and Action Man were next. Jamie was the younger contestant, a very muscular, dark-skinned boy with a longish “pudding basin” haircut and who favoured black “Arena” briefs. He was slightly taller than his opponent but Action Man’s leaner, muscular body and his belligerent determination were expected to yield an interesting contest. In the end an exhausted Action Man was made to sit in the shade although Jamie couldn’t help wondering whether he hadn’t thrown the bout in the last minute.

The “fixed” bout, the one where Matt had been put up against Scott, was one of weight against sheer manic energy and focus. Matt was a somewhat “bulky” crew-cut blonde who was Max’s TUG buddy; he was slightly shorter than Scott, whose lean, athletic figure was disporting itself in multi-coloured briefs with light blue hems. He’d obviously recently been to the hairdressers to get his rather straggly hairstyle highlighted again. Neither boy having been able to gain any real advantage over his opponent, they both ended up sitting in the shade still sharing a stave. At least Scott, always the Scouts’ bondage pig, didn’t have to throw the bout to ensure that he stayed tied up.

That left Alex and Zac to compete. Alex had put on quite a bit of muscle over the past year but Zac was heavier and taller. The red-headed Sea Scout, who wore his inevitable bright red Speedos, looked like a contestant in a novice body-building contest with many freckles but without the hideous exposed veins. After a considerable tussle, and only just before time ran out, Zac was surprised to see the white line over which he had managed to wrestle Alex before Martin announced that he was the winner. Even though he was unable to shake his victor’s hand, Alex congratulated the sweat-soaked blonde. He was then consigned to the shade with his ankles crossed.

Everyone took a drink break and the fate of the losers (and those who had only managed to draw their matches) was sympathetically discussed and announced by Mark, “OK! Losers stay tied up for an hour, T-Boy, Long Tom, Scott and, what’s ‘is name, Matt, listen up.” That really wasn’t necessary because the two pairs of bound lads could hear exactly what the others had been discussing even though their opinions didn’t appear to have been taken into consideration. “First pair to get both members to touch the oche goes free, the other pair stays tied up. Go!”

The candidates for freedom, who still had their ankles bound, struggled on their bums to make their way to the chalk line. The other boys, even those who knew that they stood no chance of being untied, considered this to be quality entertainment. Matt couldn’t help thinking that his efforts were not exactly being matched by those of his erstwhile opponent in spite of Scott’s hurt-sounding, “Oh, how could you think that?” type protestations. Long Tom and T-Boy were soon freed and it took four people to carry Scott and a somewhat dischuffed Matt back into the shade.

In his role as enumerator Mark announced that the scores between the troops was Scouts five points and Sea Scouts three points. Even Little Steve joined in the cheer from his position in the shade. It was the Warbands boys’ turn to cheer next when Mark announced that the score was Warbands five, to the combined Scouts’ three.

The next hour passed quickly even for the losers as they sat awaiting their release while the winners used the campsite showers and the others just lazed in the sun or sat in the shade. By the end of the hour Matt had forgiven Scott and they were getting on like strawberries and cream even though they couldn’t face one another during their conversation. After all, hadn’t Matt really come along for the tie-ups even if he was occasionally to be on the receiving end?

As the one-hour penalties came to an end, (Mark even insisted that each loser was released exactly an hour after his bout had finished. He can be annoying like that!) the newly released boys made for the shower and it was decided that it was time for a swim. With more or less half the party suitably dressed already, Mark decided to do his “Responsible Adult” bit. He pointed out that the site owner could get into serious legal trouble if there were any unfortunate accidents and he suggested that Sam and he, who both (amongst others) held their RLSS Award of Merit, go and get their red shorts on.

With life guards appointed and on duty, the next hour was spent playing British Bulldog and a bizarre sort of rugby in the pool. The games continued until Ben called Mark on the walkie-talkie (Remember that there is very poor mobile coverage in the Forest) and announced that dinner was served. A happy but exhausted band dripped their way to the mess tent and made very short order of one of Ben’s speciality chillies and several individual fruit pies each.

Managed to miss the previous part somehow, so I had two to catch up on!

Looks like things are heating up already, and lessons about underestimating one's opponent are being learned...

I think the two Scout Troops always underestimate their rivals or else the feud would not have continued for so long but I believe that the presence of the Warbands might be a bit of a dark horse.

Ah, but it's all in fun - - - I think.

Tom, from the Broadhurst Warband, always had a good sense of timing and managed to arrive in time for dinner and to learn that the first of the evening’s activities was to involve the ancient martial art of bonditsu. The Scout Troops already knew the rules which were easily explained to the Warbands and everyone went to get into their shorts and to collect a single sock. Sam had already worked out a rota for Mark to read out and everybody knelt in a circle while Martin allocated everyone a number. He made sure that none of the Warbands boys would get called for the first couple of bouts so that they could see how things worked. The first four contestants were called to the “mat” or, more precisely, the grass in the middle of the circle, where they knelt on the ground, each one having a single sock fitted over the front of his right foot. The silly bowing to “Grand Master, Mark”, to the spectators and to their opponents was solemnly observed. Then the clapping started.

Each spectator clapped his hands on his thighs twice and then together once to the rhythm /1,2,3,-/ whilst chanting “Bon-dit-su” repeatedly. This wasn’t an “official” event, it was just for entertainment and for the opportunity to tie one another up on any pretext. After all, wasn’t that what the whole event was about? As the first four competitors shuffled round on their bums whilst trying to remove a sock from one of the others, the chant persisted. T-Boy soon had his sock removed and retired to the circle and, until the supple Sam was the eventual winner, no one was deemed to be in default so Mark called the next four contestants.

The chant started again but, before any socks had been removed, the chanting stopped and the crowd accused Scott (there’s a surprise) of lifting his bum from the ground. That allowed the other three players to declare themselves undefeated and, more importantly, to tie Scott up in any way they wished.

“Shorts off, Scottie.” demanded Evan as Action Man, Little Steve and he prepared their ropes. Scott didn’t resist. While the next bout started, the three of them worked as a team, even though Little Steve was the only tying Scout, to get Scott accommodated. A Sea Scout tied each of Scott’s wrists to the outside of his ankle on the same side leaving his knees high in front of him and, once they were satisfied, the little Scout wound several loops of his rope around Scott’s forearms and gradually pulled the coils tight. Scot was actually quite glad that little Steve got that job because he didn’t think Evan would have been quite so gentle as he pulled the coils tight round the arms of a member of his rival Troop.

By the time Scott had been secured and left facing the action, the next bout was nearly over. Being members of other Scout Troops, both Aiden and Simon had met the game previously and played with some practiced skill. GP and Den, however, thought, “Sod loyalty” and attacked one another. As good friends would, they soon got carried away and were both called for having their bums clear of the ground. As they rolled around, there could be no doubt of the outcome and the Warbands kids prepared to secure their prisoners while the next bout got underway.

GP and Den were busy blaming each other for getting them tied up but neither boy seemed to holding any serious grudge in spite of the nature of their invective. Aiden grabbed a cricket bat from stores and announced that there was a decision to make. He spun the bat in the air and it landed “flat-up”. “OK, that’s fronts then. Shouldn’t you two be getting your shorts off?” GP and Den looked at him and Simon ruefully whilst remarking that they seemed to be picking up on the conditions quickly as they removed their shorts.

“OK, you two, cuddle up.” The two friends cottoned on quickly and the shorter read-head made some disparaging – and untrue – remarks about not being able to reach as Den lifted his arms out of the way. In spite of his protestations, GP’s wrists were soon rope-cuffed behind the bulkier boy’s back. Being a Queen’s Scout in his own Troop, Aiden made a good job of the cuffs and Simon did nearly as well when tying Den’s wrists behind the smaller boy’s back.

“Feet apart.” The two Sea Scouts reluctantly did as they were instructed as Simon looped a rope between Den’s wrists and passed it, doubled, between both boys’ legs and brought it up between GP’s wrists and pulled down tightly. Both boys said something like, “Oh bother!” at that stage and Simon returned the rope between their legs again and secured it round Den’s wrists. It’s a good job the two Sea Scouts were good friends!

Simon and Aiden inspected their work. Simon was happy with it but Aiden thought it lacked something. He clicked his fingers and pointed as though something had just dawned on him and collected one of the belts that had secured someone’s feet earlier. “That’s better.”

GP and Den begged to differ as the belt was pulled tight round their necks forcing them to rest their chins on one another’s shoulders. “OK, cope with it.” declared Aiden as Simon and he just abandoned their prisoners and returned to the group of spectators. Den and GP were left struggling to find the least uncomfortable and least personally embarrassing position available to them. They owed those two kids one!

Jonny was also used to this game and so were Vic and Zac; there was one obvious route of attack; JT stood no chance, not only did Jonny manage to remove his sock in very short order but he had lifted his arse from the ground in his attempt to retain it. The spectators called for a penalty.

“OK mate, Shorts off.”

“But I’ve not got my speedo on.”

“Tough tits.”

“You’re wearing underpants, aren’t you?”

JT had to admit that he was and was soon wearing just his customary short, baggy, white boxers. He even managed to look outraged as he adjusted them prior to surrendering himself to his opponents’ tender mercies.

Vic took charge. He was good at giving orders. “Sit down. Hands between your legs. Now outside your shins.”

JT was soon locked into a ball with his wrists rope-cuffed in front of his shins. Being fairly slender, he knew that, if he could cross his ankles later, he would probably be able to slip his feet behind the rope and very quickly free himself from there. Too many home-bound chickens were counted too soon.

Zac rocked JT onto his back and the treacherous Jonny tied his big toes together with a length of para-cord. Once Vic had wound another of the now redundant belts twice round the American’s ankles and buckled it tight, all JT’s hopes evaporated. Well, when I say hopes, you know what I mean. In context it wouldn’t do for the “victim” to show too willing and honour demanded that, if he was able to, he should try to escape. - - - IF he was able to! Honour was satisfied as Zac returned him to a hunched seated position.

Relating the events during this activity is very difficult. They did not take place serially. A bout would take place, someone would be tied up or not, the tiers would return to the group of spectators but at any time during that process another bout would be taking place, etc.

Alex’s number was called and he readied his sock and knelt to bow to “Grand Master, Mark”. So did his opponents.

“Oh, come on, boys!” He’d noticed that the other three were all Warbands players although, in the light of recent treachery, he probably had very little justification for his appeal. Not that anyone was going to take any notice. It was about time the Sea Scouts’ ginger hard-man got his come-uppance – in the nicest possible way. In spite of his protestations, Alex soon pulled Karl’s sock off, that was probably an easy target and, after a prolonged scuffle, Tom managed to defeat his friend, Mike. No-one was in default so there were no tie-ups from that bout and the players returned to the chanting and clapping (but now somewhat depleted) circle.

Mark called seven combatants for the next bout and, as is usually the way, there was a quick early result as George forced Jacob to lose his seat in an effort to avoid defeat. The Grand Master called the bout to a halt and the remaining combatants sat waiting while the spectators made their decision: George would get to tie Jacob up and the bout between the others would continue. Tarzan was the smallest of the remaining contestants but he was also strong, experienced and determined; he soon defeated Big Steve and the two shook left hands while Will and James fought one another. The muscular little Sea Scout soon took advantage of Will, who was concentrating only on bettering his best mate, and removed his sock and then went on to defeat James and Joe as well. What a boring bout, there was no one in default and so no one other than Jacob was tied up.

George always lacked imagination except in the manufacturing of excuses to get him out of trouble with his parents and he simply trussed the slender, and rather pale red-head into a none-too-friendly hog-tie. He simply couldn’t resist mudging Jacob’s long corkscrew hair in with a rather melted chocolate bar from his pack. That wasn’t in the rules but Jacob had no recourse to justice all the while the others were enjoying the spectacle. In the hypocritical interests of “peace and quiet” (some hope) George rolled Jacob’s discarded running shorts into a tidy bundle and forced them into his mouth in mid protest. Another of the discarded belts soon held the rapidly moistening garment firmly in place.

The last bout involved the remaining younger Scouts and Sea Scouts along with Max and Matt. A psychologist could have made a study of treachery throughout the bonditsu event and the tiny but supple Frenchie soon had Rusty and Braniac sockless. Brain being quickly subdued by speed gave Braniac no chance and, predictably, Matt and Max set about one another instead of trying to steam-roller the smaller kids. Both of them, along with Budgie were soon sockless with Frenchie beating Luke into second place.

The games could have gone on but the “Grand Master” called time and announced that there was a serious breach of protocol to deal with. Braniac explained that to Frenchie.


All spectators adopted a seated posture and George was called forwards. The dimpled grin was looking rather tentative as he knelt in front of the Grand Master shooting nervous glances to either side. Martin “read the charges” and called for “Exibit One” to be brought forward. Will and James lifted up the hog-tied and gagged Jacob, carried him into the centre of the circle and dumped him beside George.

There was then rather more cod legalese than was strictly necessary for such a forgone verdict but all present knew that it wouldn’t do for due process of justice not to take its course.

“Does the defendant have anything to say?”

“Yes. He’s a ginger. He asked for it.”

“Exhibit One?”

“Nnngh mmph gnngh!”

“I thought so. Verdict?”

There was no surprise about the verdict but sentence now had to be decided. The stupider suggestions, such as releasing Jacob and allowing him to torture George, were quickly dismissed as being non-inclusive and the unfortunate red-head was carried to the sidelines once more and left to struggle in the dust. The injustice of leaving the injured party like that didn’t seem to bother anyone except Jacob.

The decision was quickly made and the guilty man was asked if he had anything to say.

“Brother Scouts, Warbands friends, Come on, . . .”

“OK, that’s enough. Get ‘em off, George mate.”

George knew when he was defeated and removed his football shorts leaving him wearing only his favourite boxers, the long, faded, dark blue ones with the large stars on them. The condemned man returned to his knees with his hands on his head and waited for the hanging jury to reach their decision, becoming more alarmed at each increasingly “creative” suggestion.

After about ten minutes, the decision was made. George was to run the gauntlet. That wasn’t the news he wanted to hear, even if he had brought a box with him, there was no way he could keep it in place in those boxers. His subsequent abject pleadings and attempted apologies to Jacob fell not so much onto deaf ears as onto ears that had had enough of his snivelling so Martin rolled his discarded football shorts into a tight roll and offered them up to George’s mouth. George realised the futility of refusing the gag; he was a guilty man and was honour bound to accept his punishment. By the time Martin had, with some difficulty, stuffed the dark blue garment completely inside George’s mouth and his bulging cheeks, Ben had raided the first-aid kit for a large adhesive dressing which he pressed meticulously into place over most of George’s lower face. George knew that with even his sparse, incipient moustache, the removal of the white dressing was going to hurt; at least they hadn’t used Elastoplast. Last time that really hurt as he removed it from the hair on the back of his neck.

So George was still kneeling, gagged and with his hands on his head, while four boys went for two tug o’ war ropes and the bound losers, even JT and Scott, tried even harder to escape so that they wouldn’t miss out on the chance to punish George. Isn’t friendship a wonderful thing?

It was decided that the Sea Scouts ought to tie George ready for his torment and Action Man and Alex volunteered for the job. George didn’t look too pleased about that as they set about their task and everyone else went to get themselves ready to administer punishment. Action Man demanded that George present his hands in front of him about twenty centimetres apart as he wound hanks of a half-inch rope about five times between his wrists and tidied up his work by evening out the loops. Alex explained what would happen to George if he didn’t keep the ropes tight while his colleague wrapped the free ends neatly round between his wrists forming something resembling a hangman’s noose. George kept the ropes tight! Even when Action Man had finished and tied off the rope, there was plenty of rope left and George let his hands drop. He knew that was too good to last and Alex ordered him to lift the rope-cuff over his head so that it sat behind his neck. Once George had complied, Alex took the free ends, that were hanging from George’s right wrist, and passed them across in front of his neck. Once he had looped them around the cuff again near George’s left wrist and brought it back across in front of his neck again, he secured the ends. With his hands pointing backwards there was no way George could reach the knots and he was left completely defenceless with his elbows raised and unable to protect his body.

Even once he had been taken to where his punishment was to start, there was still more pre-punishment psychological torture to endure. Should the tug o’ war ropes be closer? Should George be hobbled? How many times should he have to run the gauntlet? Was it better to soak their towels first or to leave them dry? While the decisions were being made, everybody practiced snapping their towels and Jacob still harboured the vain hope that one of his Warband mates would release him so that he could join in with punishing his recent attacker.

With some difficulty, Martin called the rabble to order and reminded them of the “rules”.
• All feet behind the ropes. Anyone who touches them has to run the gauntlet himself. (It was so important to be absolutely fair!)
• Towels only. No missiles.
• If he falls, let him up – unless he tries crawling.
• Be careful, he’s got no box on. (George wasn’t sure that he wanted them reminded about that.)

George was positioned at the end of the “course” and noticed that the boundary ropes were about two metres apart. He’d seen them closer in the past. He also found out that, although he wouldn’t be hobbled, he would have to run to the other end of the ropes and then back again. All the free boys positioned themselves along the ropes and Martin ordered George to run. George ran. He quickly made it to the other end with many stifled yelps and amidst various shouts of triumph as towels, both wet and dry, whipped his unprotected body. He fell to his knees to give himself some recovery time and, after his breathing had steadied itself, George tied pleading for a remission of sentence but, because nobody seemed to understand him, he was given ten seconds to stand up and start running back. Following a long exhalation of breath through his nose he staggered to his feet and braced himself. He thought that at least his fellow Scouts would go easy on him but he never was too quick on the uptake. He started, he felt the sting of his tormentors’ towels and he collapsed on the ground having reached the end. He’d suffered no real harm, except for the pain from a couple of “low blows” which would soon wear off and at least he would soon be untied.

“OK George, stand up.” Surely Martin was about to untie him? “And now the good news: we’ve decided to leave you tied up until Jacob can untie you. How’s he doing, mate? Oh, sorry, George, mate, he’s still quite firmly hog-tied; I wonder who did that. Oh well, perhaps he won’t be long now.” That pathetic look could have melted rocks but it had no noticeable effect on the hearts of the other lads.

I wonder how ancient this tradition of bonditsu really is.

Either way, it's important that infractions be punished! Can't have complete chaos, after all.

I'd like to know myself but I promise you that it is an established part of certain ODP activites when trapped indoors.

The tug o’ war ropes were stowed away, towels were hung from improvised washing lines, some boys put on footwear and t-shirts and the bonditsu losers were untied by their “conquerors” who didn’t seem to be any hurry to do that. It was just too entertaining watching GP and Den trying to coexist without embarrassment.

Eventually, Scott and JT were freed followed not too long afterwards by GP and Den who quickly grabbed the fronts of their swim-briefs and rushed off to change. Jacob seemed to think the others had forgotten something.

“Uumf ooor oyy, o’ own ngee?” (“Come on boys, what about me”)

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Aa-u’ uun.” Delicacy prohibits my translating that.

“Oh, you want to be untied?”

“George will do it.”

By this stage the irate Jacob was even redder than usual. He knew that, having been subjected to Action Man’s and Alex’s ministrations, there was little chance of George’s hands being of any use to him any time soon. It took Jacob about another hour to free himself without help so that just left George. Jacob feigned ignorance of his plight while he made himself comfortable, took a drink, exercised and massaged his aching muscles. JT and Scott, who might be a total pillock but he really cares about other people, took pity on George and set out to try to free him. They were prevailed upon not to do so unless they wanted to be found guilty of “contempt of court”. JT was intelligent enough and Scott was experienced enough to take the hint so all they could do was express their sympathy and leave him to his suffering.

Having been completely ignored for some time, George had to bite the bullet, or at least his footy shorts, and face up to begging Jacob to release him. By that time, other than having started the inevitable altar fire, everyone had collected a chair from the poolside and made himself comfortable. Initially, Jacob pretended not to notice the abject George as he knelt by his chair and tried to touch his nose to the ground; not an easy task with his arms bound as they were. Then, with mock surprise he asked “Yes?” George made a desperate attempt to beg for release. “Sorry, don’t understand.” George tried again.

Even Jacob, now that he had showered the chocolate from his tangle of ginger hair, knew when not to let things go too far and agreed, as long as George promised to kiss his feet once his gag was removed, to untie him. George promised and, sure enough, he was right about that dressing hurting when it was pulled off. He paid his forfeit and Jacob untied him in time for Ben to announce that the traditional dixie of drinking chocolate and box of biscuits were ready.

George was without a seat but he was content to sit on the ground as the light supper started. Then Mark announced the next official event.

“OK, Sea Scouts, who’s your hard man?” There was some discussion; it had always been Action Man but his ginger protégé wasn’t far behind him. Alex and Action Man played one hand of scissors, stone and paper and Action Man “won”.

“Scouts, who’s your man?” The enormous Long Tom would have been the obvious choice – as long as you didn’t know him, so the lot fell to Jamie. There was obviously something unpleasant about to happen and he pulled rank over Scott who predictably wanted to lay down his life for his Troop.

Simon was about as brave as Long Tom so the Warbands kids offered Aiden for sacrifice. Still no one really knew which event was about to take place.

“Now you get to pick a member of another team. Try to pick a wimp.” This was sounding ominous. After some discussion as to whether the Scouts and Sea Scouts should nominate Karl (the obvious choice) or Max (the unknown quantity) from the Warbands, the Scouts went for Karl and the Sea Scouts nominated Max, neither of whom was exactly thrilled to have been chosen. Mark made it quite clear that the youngest boys were safe from being nominated. If only they’d known Long Tom better, the Sea Scouts would have nominated him but, at a muscular six-foot-plus and with the reputation of being the Scouts’ finest Field General in the normal tied games, he got away with it and the Sea Scouts chose Vic instead. The Warbands’ choice of Little Steve, just because he was small, was probably not so wise. The choice from the Sea Scouts was difficult once Mark had embargoed choosing any of the thirteen-year-olds and Alex was an obvious non-choice so, almost by default, the Scouts nominated GP (he wasn’t having a good day!) and the Warbands chose Evan.

Mark announced that all nine competitors would compete at once, although they didn’t yet know what that would entail, and it was decided that, other than the obvious choices of Aiden and Action man as the “hard men”, Little Steve’s and Karl’s results would count in the match between the Combined Scouts and the Warbands. Then Mark produced the bulldog clips. Even Action Man and Aiden didn’t look delighted at that sight. Jamie just braced himself and the others suddenly remembered urgent dental appointments that they had forgotten. No one believed them.

Most of the boys knew what was to follow but Martin explained for the sake of the Warbands’ contestants. It was to be an endurance contest and, as an official event, the “rules” would be strictly enforced. Obviously, the contestants would have to have their hands tied behind them so Sam, T-Boy and Alex volunteered to bind the group of three best friends from their own Troop. If they tied their own team mates, they were less likely to become mysteriously untied during the contest causing them to be disqualified with all the subsequent consequences. Stakes were hammered into the ground and the contestants were prepared. Long Tom, Scott and Zac got to tie for the Scouts and Simon, Jonny and Tom for the Warbands.

Preparations were quite sophisticated and the Warbands’ tiers needed a considerable level of instruction from Mark. The first stage, after the players had stripped down to their swim briefs, was easy enough while the contestants had their hands bound behind them and hoisted up until their forearms were more-or-less horizontal using ropes that were fed up under their armpits and tied off behind their necks. Each team then had to stand in a small circle facing away from one another and close enough to be touching the team-mate on either side. The binding continued with the tying of elbows to the person next round the circle. Then the trio had to sit down. That required teamwork and provided considerable entertainment as did the poorly co-ordinated bum-shuffling to get into position. Once seated, legs were spread and the right ankle of each player was tied to the left ankle of the person to his right. What were the stakes for? To prevent movement, of course. The contestants’ ankles were pulled towards the stakes so that they couldn’t bend their legs. The result was a trio of three-pointed stars of wriggling humanity making vain attempts to make themselves comfortable.

The Warbands players looked like a proper team in their matching black Speedos but the others looked a little less organised. Jamie looked like an escapee from the Warbands with his black full briefs while Little Steve wore his light blue swimming team training briefs and Vic wore his black “Arena” costume with the asymmetric day-glo pink panel on the front. The Sea Scouts’ team was just as much of an assortment: Action Man in his plain royal blue full briefs, GP in his bright red ones and Evan in a strange brown costume with gungy green hems.

No one was allowed to apply the bulldog clips to the nipples of a team mate but there was a queue of applicants from the Scouts to put the clips on GP. What goes around, comes around. Ben announced that, if anybody needed any, there were a few ice cubes in his little gas fridge. Nine faces looked at him with a burning hatred that is difficult to imagine*. Long Tom went for a couple of ice cubes and stood menacingly in front of Action Man who just returned the look, defying the giant to put those cubes where he thought he would once he had finished with them. For once in his life Long Tom thought: oh well, you can only die once, because this was too good an opportunity to pass up. Let’s just say that Action Man wasn’t the only player with freezing nipples, a very cold dick and an expanding wet patch on his cossie. There was nothing against it in the rules!

On Mark’s count the little bulldog clips were flexed and two were applied to each player. Of course, it was a matter of honour not to yelp but no one seemed to have explained that to Karl and Max, and Vic had no concept of how to suffer in silence to start with. Of course, as each contestant wriggled and bumped himself up and down to the limited extent of which he was capable, he joggled the rest of his team mates causing a veritable gob-fest of foul language and threats.

Mark was keeping time and Martin prepared himself to record the times when each contestant begged to have the bulldog clips removed. It was a close thing between Karl and Vic for first to submit but Karl just beat Vic to it. For some reason no one was in a hurry to relieve them of the bulldog clips but eventually Mark insisted and JT gently relieved Karl but Scott was rather more brutal to his best friend, just tugging the little metal demons clear without easing their jaws apart first. What else would you expect?

The straining noises, swearing, imprecations and constrained body-rocking contortions continued until, just after Mark’s call of, “Two minutes, thirty,” Max admitted defeat but at least he’d outlasted his big brother. His good friend Matt could, of course, be guaranteed to come to his aid. Alright then, could be almost relied upon to do so.

“Hard or soft?”

“Oh, come on, - friend, - pal, - best friend, - - King Matt.”

“OK, one of each then.” Max’s scream as Matt dragged the still un-loosened clip from his right nipple was almost enough to make him regret doing it. Almost! The skinny freckle-faced lad was already planning his revenge as he sat there waiting for the contest to end.

“Three minutes, thirty”

The next contest was personal, neither GP nor Evan wanted to be beaten by his good friend; they both knew that their other best mate, Action Man, would be in a different league. He was focussing. He was “ignoring the pain”. So GP and Evan tried psyching one another out. Problem: when you know someone as well as they knew one another, all such attempts will be futile. Eventually, GP’s determination gave way to the pain and he gave in. Almost immediately Evan capitulated as well. Evan’s language, even after the clips had been removed, was just as ripe as it had been during his actual torment.

That left Action Man as the only Sea Scout left in. The Scouts still had Jamie and Little Steve, and Aiden was the sole remaining representative of the Warbands. Most of the boys who didn’t know him were amazed by Little Steve’s fortitude but the Scouts were glad that someone had made a mistake when choosing him as a potential wimp. He had a lot to carry on his broad swimmer’s shoulders and had walked far on his comparatively stringy little legs. Jamie spoke to him reassuringly and encouraged him to “fight your way through the wall.” Little Steve tried to control his breathing.

“Five minutes.”

Finally, the blonde swimmer could take no more but he did earn a generous, and by no means sarcastic, round of applause from the assembled spectators.

“Sorry, Jamie, I . . .”

“Don’t worry, mush. You done well. Really well.”

At the call of “Seven minutes, thirty.” Each trio still had an active participant. The players who had already dropped out did their best to encourage their team-mate to further endurance but at nine minutes, Aiden gave in. There was no disgrace in that but there seemed to be an awful lot of cheering as he dropped out.

The grunting and cheering-on continued and the Warbands’ request to release their team was denied on the grounds that there were still penalties to be decided. Karl wasn’t best pleased as he was facing away from the action and his mates couldn’t move themselves so that he could get a better view even if they had been inclined to do so.

“Ten minutes.”

“Gag me, gag me!” Jamie’s request was denied and even Action Man’s breathing had lost its controlled regularity.

“Eleven minutes, thirty.” And about ten seconds later the dark-skinned, muscular Scout submitted leaving Action Man supreme. The Sea Scouts went wild. Jamie leaned against his smaller team-mates revelling in the relief of having the bulldog clips gently removed by Long Tom. After, that is, the initial agony as the blood flow returned.

It didn’t take long to decide that, as loser of the inter-troop competition, Vic should remain bound. A knotted necker quickly forced into his mouth and tied behind his neck did at least do something to moderate his protests and he soon gave up and sat quietly when he saw Ben approaching with another dressing from the first aid kit.

“How many of those things have you got?”

“Get ‘em from work. We got loads.”

“Way to go, Ben.”

When Karl was identified as the person to be tied as a result of the contest with the Warbands, he wasn’t sensible enough to be quiet so he ended up not only with a knotted neckerchief in his mouth but also with Ben’s dressing closely adhering to his lips, cheeks and chin.

In an unusual act of clemency, Max was spared any further torments and everyone else was released. Jamie immediately made for Action Man and shook his left hand. Then they both went to Aiden and exchanged conventional handshakes. Little Steve revelled in his hero status and everyone, except two, seemed to be in celebratory mood.


*To give at least some English readers an idea of the intensity of those looks: remember the looks on the Surrey bowlers’ faces that time when the Hampshire batsmen left the field on the first day of a 4-day County Championship match with the score at 401 – 1? For American readers, just think of the word, “socialist”.





“Alright, you lot, listen up.” Mark’s voice called the meeting to order as Action man pulled on his disreputable, nearly knee length, blue cotton shorts.

“Ventilation” he explained as people remarked upon the state of them.

“Why do they call you Action Man?”

“Is it the muscles?”

“No. It’s ‘cause he’s got no dick.” Evan really should have been more prepared but he was totally unable to avoid the back-handed gut-punch from his best mate and sprayed his customary mouthful of junk-food across the field.

“Come on, Listen up!”

It was now quite late and there were decisions to be made.

“Right, that’s better. Now . . .” Mark announced that, with a tally of two golds and two silver medals each, the scores between the Scouts and the Sea Scouts were tied. There were some vaguely disappointed noises. When he announced that the same situation prevailed between the combined Scout Troops and the Warbands, there were noticeable sounds indicating relief from the non-Scouts. Aiden once more received congratulations from nearly everybody.

“Before we break up for the night, what are you going to do with these two?” Vic and Karl looked completely abject as they sat on the ground with their wrists bound and their mouths impeded. It was obvious that, if they were to remain bound and gagged overnight, someone would need to watch over them. If they were not to be released by their mates, it was soon decided that the guardians should be from the Sea Scouts.

Mark offered to take first shift because he had always been a night-owl and T-Boy knew he’d get up at silly o’clock as usual so he offered to take over from him later. Now all that was left to be decided was how they should be tied. Scouts being Scouts, including the ones in the Warbands, there were many “interesting” suggestions but eventually common sense prevailed – nearly. There was the voice of reason that demanded simple spread-eagles near the altar-fire but Aiden’s suggestion that they should be tied together in some way held sway. That dented his usual “Mr. Nice Guy” persona.

At Aiden’s direction, six hefty marquee stakes were driven into the ground in two rows of three about two metres apart while Jamie wondered whether he couldn’t prevail upon Aiden to transfer to his Troop in future. It has to be said that the Sea Scouts would have liked to make the same offer to Jacob.

Vic and Karl were brought to their resting places and Karl found his right wrist and right ankle tethered firmly to two of the outer stakes.

“Same way round or opposite?”

“Let’s try opposite.”

Vic was tied similarly but his left foot was near Karl’s left wrist and his left wrist was near Karl’s left ankle. The spread-eagles were completed simply by looping ropes round the middle stakes and tethering the nearest limbs to them. The boys didn’t have their limbs drawn too tightly towards the stakes but, if either one tried to move, he pulled on the other one’s limbs. Neither Scout Troop had seen that arrangement before and all agreed that it was even more kudos to Aiden. The bound losers had their carry-mats slid underneath them and they were each given improvised pillows and Mark made the last announcement of the day.

“Right, listen up. We need to be up ready for the Olympics tomorrow so here’s the rules: no kidnapping, no sabotage and anyone out of his tent before what T-Boy thinks is a reasonable time of the morning (Including the Sea Scouts) had better be going directly to the bogs. Any questions?” There was none but there were many furtive looks. “And anyone found to be breaking those rules: it’s field punishment number one for two hours. Understand?” Everyone nodded.

Last minute biscuits were scavenged, the brew was re-heated, conversations became subdued and boys gradually departed for their tents.

“What’s ‘field punishment number one’?”

“Fucked if I know.”

“Take the chance?”

“Have you met Mark before?”

Resigned nods saw the boys off to their beds.

As he staggered his way out of the tent in the morning on the way to the loo, still in just his grey boxers and flip-flops and enjoying an early morning scratch, Big Steve looked down and then up at T-Boy in amazement.

“What’s up with him?” He knew that there was no point in asking his twin because, among other indignities, he’d been subjected to a gagging with one of Ben’s medical dressings.

“Field punishment number one,” replied T-Boy, “You were all warned.”

“Fsss!” Big Steve’s intake of breath seemed to indicate that he was glad it was Joe and not he who was suffering the punishment. At least now he knew what it was. He then laughed at the plight of his smaller twin and went on his way to the toilets.

Other than that, the morning routine was fairly boring: T-Boy helped Ben produced an enormous fry-up, the dirty people showered, Tom left, Vic and Karl were released, and everybody got themselves ready for the events of the day. Eventually Joe was also released. The first event was to be the swimming race so they delayed the start so that the contestants wouldn’t have to swim too soon after breakfast. An informal kick-around started – light ball, bare feet, - and a game of frizbee. Some boys chose just to relax.

After about an hour, Martin called the contestants to get ready and the ad-hoc games broke up.





Now in his mid-thirties, Mark was getting boring and started banging on about safety but he insisted, in his role of “Responsible Adult”, that the contest would be run as three separate events so that the “life-guards” could get in the water too next to their charges. He had changed into just flip-flops and the “official” red shorts and it was obvious to anyone seeing him that, even in his “old age” as the boys put it, he still retained the superb muscle definition that had enabled him to earn his living as an underwear model throughout his twenties. Also being a proud 198 centimetres tall made him someone with whom not many would argue.

Mark sat himself in the poolside high-chair ready to supervise and the contestants got into their swimming costumes. Sam, Simon and Aiden got the red shorts on ready to get into the pool. Sam had followed the Scouts’ and Sea Scouts’ tradition of being proud of their RLSS qualifications and had brought his shorts with him but the two Warbands boys had to borrow. Simon came out of the situation quite well, even though he did look as though he could have got lost trying to get out of the shorts he’d borrowed from Long Tom but Aiden, who had to borrow from the more compact Action Man, proclaimed the shorts to be “a bit tight under the armpits” as he tried to ease the crotch down a bit. Once the ropes had arrived, preparations were complete.

The contestants were ready and the Sea Scouts looked quite patriotic with their red (Alex), white (Den, who’d had to be “persuaded” to do the swim.) and blue (Tarzan) swimming costumes. The Warbands contestants (James, Jacob and Will) were, of course, in the black team Speedos and the Scouts (Jamie, Scott and Little Steve) dressed as they had the previous day.

Martin told the contestants to seed themselves from strongest swimmer to weakest so that the swimmers would be well matched. He would then send the weakest swimmers off first. Alex thought he’d got a raw deal. He was a strong swimmer but, having been pitted against Little Steve, he didn’t give much for his chances. He thought he could beat Jacob, though. That was the “elite” match and would go off last. First off were to be Den, Jamie and Will who prepared to be tied up. Will was glad of those practice sessions in Mike’s pool even if it was quite short.

The first swimmers were instructed to put their hands palm to palm behind their backs where they were simply bound and cinched off. Their ankles were also simply tied with very little scope for relative movement. The swimmers were helped to bunny-hop to the edge of the pool and supported while they waited for Martin to give the “Go” and the “Lifeguards” jumped into the pool after which Aiden made a further attempt to ease his shorts.

“Take your marks - - - Go!” came the call and the three boys made the best dives they could into the deep end of the pool. Progress to the other end was facilitated by dolphin-like undulations which Jamie, although the weakest swimmer from the Scout contestants, found relatively easy due to considerable past experience. This time, he even got a proper pool to swim in; it was even clean! Will’s practice had paid off even if he couldn’t rake the long, blonde hair from his eyes but, by the time he had got to the shallow end of the short pool, it was obvious that swimming just wasn’t Den’s thing. The swimmers then had to turn round (Aiden took pity and helped Den to do so) and return to the deep end where their team-mates pulled them out of the water. When he had recovered, Den did manage to remind his team-mates that he told them he’d look like a beached whale once he’d been pulled out.

Jamie had won easily and had even been untied before Den finished and Will came a very creditable second but was denied release until the “judges” had spoken after all the swimming events had been completed. He was helped across to a pool-side chair while the unfortunate Den was lifted to the side of the pool and left in a loose hogtie. “Why don’t you guys just stick a flag in me? At least then Geenpeace might come to my rescue.”

“Good one, Pieman. Well done, mate.”

“You OK?”

“Yea, I’m good. I did it for the Troop.”

“Good man. Maybe they won’t torture you too much.”

“Thanks, ‘friend’!”

Alex ruffled his hair and turned his attention to the next event.

Tarzan, Scott and James presented themselves to the tiers and Scott immediately tried to lodge a protest. “Is he allowed them?” He was referring to Tarzan’s square leg swimming costume. “They’re not briefs.”

“Oh, shut up and put up with it, Scottie.”

“Good try.”

“Maybe you can take it to the court tonight.”

Having had his stir, Scott allowed himself to be bound ready for the competition. The three competitors were a disparate lot: Scott, lean and athletic; James, dimple-cheeked and upright with a Tin-Tin haircut and seemingly with only just enough skin adequately to cover his muscles and Tarzan, the little pocket Hercules with the helmet of straight hair.

James had taken to the event very well in the back-garden practice sessions. Among the Warbands kids only Jacob could beat him consistently. Tarzan’s upper body strength was more or less negated by not being able to use his arms and, in the end, he was beaten into a good third place by Scott who narrowly beat James. Tarzan was congratulated on having done so well against the older boys but he still ended up next to his team-mate, Den, by the side of the pool in a loose hog-tie. That was one of the rare occasions when Scott didn’t try to ensure that he would be the one to be tied up but, like Den, he had to do it for his Troop. James, of course, was helped to a chair to watch the final swim. Being seated and bound like that with his arms behind the back of the chair seemed to emphasise, James’s normal upright posture.

The battle of the titans should have been the last swim. Little Steve and Alex were real swimmers. Little Steve’s shoulders had powered him to success in sprints and Alex’s dedicated training had built up incredible stamina and increasing muscle. The slender Jacob, being a member of another Sea Scout troop, was used to swimming in spite of what he claimed about being too good a sailor to need to do so.

Result: easy! Little Steve well in the lead, Jacob well in the rear. Alex would have been justified in feeling hard done by because he could certainly have beaten any of the others except Little Steve. However, he had to take a seat and await the “judges’” decision while Little Steve went free and Jacob was hogtied alongside the other two losers. He started to wonder why he didn’t just ask to be hog-tied at the start of any other event in which he was to take part and save himself the trouble of competing.





Before the swimming contest could be considered complete, there were decisions to be made. Obviously, Tarzan, Den and Jacob would remain bound but they could not be left hog-tied beside the pool. The assembled company decided that they should be tied to poolside loungers and transferred to a shady position on site for a couple of hours. That was the easy decision.

There was much contention over who should do the tying but eventually Matt and Max got to tie Tarzan: it just wasn’t his day. These two were becoming very experienced tiers not only through their mutual games but they had also learnt a lot of techniques from their brothers and their friends in the roles of unwilling victims. The muscular little kid was lifted onto a lounger and the hog-tie rope was removed. He was given the opportunity to turn over onto his back and the slats in the lounger were used to secure him efficiently. His ankles were untied and then square-lashed separately, about thirty centimetres apart to one of the cross-slats. They were then secured by a loop that was passed round the bindings of his right ankle, under the seat and round the bindings of his left ankle. Once that rope was pulled tight and tied off using a reef knot, it was looped round the right-ankle lashings again, pulled tight and knotted with another reef knot and a few overhand knots for good measure.

Similar ties were applied just below Tarzan’s knees, drawing them towards the sides of the lounger. Even though he wasn’t happy about the exposed pose, the mop-headed boy suffered in a stoical silence except when the ropes pinched as they were being tightened. He was then given the “choice” of lying on his arms for the next two hours or co-operating while his arms were tied over his head to the top of the lounger. The two TUG Buddies had quickly decided that it wouldn’t be effective to try to tie his arms to the arms of the lounger. Very soon Tarzan’s wrists and elbows were tied in a very similar manner to his ankles and knees while his captors debated the necessity of tying his waist and/or his neck to the plastic lounger. Matt was all in favour of binding their subject’s waist tightly to the item of furniture, tying the rope off underneath and returning it up between the slats and tying it to the waist ropes again. Tarzan didn’t exactly want to suffer the resultant constrictions against the front of his cossie and decided to let stoicism go to the winds. The others thought that someone who had acquitted himself so well in his event shouldn’t suffer so much and Max and Matt reluctantly agreed. But they had planted the idea in other, less sympathetic minds.

The Twins, other than for Joe’s field punishment number one, hadn’t been involved much in things so far so they got to tie-up Den. They weren’t the best at the job but eventually he was secured well enough to keep him out of trouble for over an hour. They started by lifting their hefty “client” onto a lounger and releasing him from the hog-tie. They left his ankles bound and tied him in the standard way above and below his knees. They then tied a rope between his ankles and threaded it down and under the lounger before bringing up again between his calves, over the rope below his knees and back down again. Once the process had been repeated once more, Den’s legs had been more-or-less sewn onto the lounger. Then the Twins made their mistake: having released Den’s wrists, they tied his wrists and elbows to the arms of the lounger. Den was behaving himself until they had finished but, once he was free to struggle, he was going to find it relatively easy to work his wrists free. After applying a rather clumsy tie that looked like a rope bra round Den’s chest and shoulders, the Twins declared themselves satisfied. Den was biding his time.

Budgie and Luke won permission to tie Jacob. He was quite happy about having the two little kids trying to tie him up but Luke had had a good teacher. He’d received no formal instruction but too many Saturdays spent at the mercy of Scott, his big brother, had allowed him to learn much by experience and Budgie was prepared to do as he was told. They’d both been watching Max and Matt in action and made a very good facsimile of the way Tarzan’s legs had been tied. Not being bothered to untie Jacob’s wrists first, they didn’t offer him the chance to avoid lying on his arms and just tied his elbows down. They DID use the waist tie they’d heard being discussed earlier and Jacob thought himself lucky when they made sure the ropes didn’t pinch his privates before pulling them tight and threading them back down through the slats again. Budgie lay on his back and tied the ends off underneath the lounger. Jacob gained very little relief once he had done so. His threats seemed to have little effect on his grinning Tormentors. They just didn’t stop to consider their possible future prospects.

The finishing touch was a rope to hold Jacob’s chest down. Luke doubled a rope and tied it to a slat leaving a loop for later use. He pulled the knot tight and passed the two free ends across to his oppo who threaded them down between two slats and up again behind one of them. He pulled tight and looped the rope ends round the slat again allowing hardly any slack before returning the ends to Luke who threaded them through the initial loop, pulled tight once more and tied off several times. Jacob was less happy now about having the two little kids to tie him up.

The next decision for which Martin called wasn’t so straight forward: what was to happen to the second-placed swimmers? It must have been something in the water. First the assembled company had had mercy on Tarzan and now they decided that Alex, who could have beaten anyone else except Little Steve, should be released. James and Will presented a more difficult decision. After considerable disorderly debate it was decided that they should stay bound but only for an hour at most. Will’s attempt to point out the unfairness of the decision immediately got his sentence extended to two hours and one of the ubiquitous neckerchiefs was knotted, forced into his mouth and tied behind his neck. Even he accepted the futility of further dispute, not only because he couldn’t make himself understood but because he was aware of Ben’s “loads” of medical dressings.

“OK boys, before we go back to camp, there’s just one more thing.” Mark was attempting to, shall we say, tie up the loose ends. “Look at that kid.” Everyone looked at Tarzan. “Who thinks they ARE briefs?” Most of the Sea Scouts and even some of the Scouts put their hands up. This was going to be close. Most of the Warbands were in a generous mood and subsequently Tarzan’s royal blue square legs were deemed to be briefs and therefore proper clothing to be worn for the Tied Olympics. “Who thinks Scottie’s a winging, cheating, sneaky spoilsport?” Mark looked round. “My politics lecturer told me that that’s what’s called ‘nem con’. Two of you tie him up. GP, think of something to do to him.”

Scott protested volubly as Evan grabbed him but he was really thinking, “Score!” He’d managed to engineer himself into a tie-up. However, upon reflection, he wasn’t quite so sure about the lad who had been given the “think of something . . .” instruction.

The last stage of the swimming event was, of course, the scores. Martin called for silence for the scores, well, there’s always hope, I suppose. “With three golds to the Scouts and one silver to the Sea Scouts, the scores are now Sea Scouts seven points, Scouts, - - - twelve points! Following some noisy disorder Martin also managed to precede the next bout of disorder with the announcement that between the combined Scouts and Warbands the scores were difficult to decide but anyone who argued could wrestle with Mark. That was probably an abuse of power but there didn’t seem to be any takers. “We’re calling races one and two ties and awarding silver medals to each team. Race three, though, the Scouts get gold and Warbands get Bronze.” Mark stood up straight. “Any questions?”

Even without the “threat” of having to wrestle Mark, the Warbands thought the decision was fair and Martin announced that the score stood at ten-eight in favour of the Scouts.

Ooh but you're teasing us with Field punishment number one...

I? A tease? How could you say that, @blackbound ?
Well, any ideas what Field Punishment Number One might be?
=============

Sorry I've been away but I needed a break from here.
I shall get in touch with the other admins (hopefully I can get an answer from @Chadmc90) to find a way forward.
Back tomorrow.
Play nicely, folks, temper still very short.

Porters were organised. T-Boy, Action Man and Alex lifted one lounger, complete with Den, and carried it carefully to the trees in front of Ben’s kitchen where he could be safely left in the shade. The rules allowed him to start struggling so he did so. He was free in less than an hour. Sam took one end of Tarzan’s lounger leaving Budgie and Luke to take the other. He was soon placed next to Den and started his escape attempt. The Twins were looking rueful; Max and Matt were looking smug. Tarzan had made very little progress by the time the two hours were up. Simon, Aiden and Mike transported Jacob, who was appealing not to be made to lie on his arms for all that time.

“Want it put to the vote?” Jacob was suspicious: would he, like Scott, have to suffer a penalty if his appeal failed? He decided not to pursue it. By the end of the two hours, he’d managed to free his wrists but his bound elbows rendered his hands effectively useless except that, whenever he tugged at the waist rope, he only succeeded in causing himself even more discomfort in his more intimate area.

Will and James had their ankles freed and had to drag their chairs, using their bound hands, to the trees. Long Tom took the precaution of looping a rope round Will’s neck and he and Zac escorted him to his imprisonment where he was made to sit with his arms over the back of the chair. Zac soon had his wrists bound to the slats in the plastic chair-back and used the rest of the rope “just to make sure you don’t slip”. He brought the ends of the rope round in front of Will’s waist and tied them once before looping them round both his waist and the slats again. He pulled the waist rope as tight as he thought safe and tied it several times. I don’t think the words escaping Will’s gagged mouth as the knots were tightened were anything like, “Thank you, Zac, that’s very cosy.” But one of the words was certainly “Zac” and the last one did begin with “c”.

Zac pretended not to understand. “Don’t mention it, Blondie. Now, what am I going to do with all this rope I’ve got left?” The way Zac was examining his prisoner left very little doubt in Will’s mind what the stocky, short-haired blonde was considering.

“N-nngh! Ooo a-auu”

“No, my parents are married actually.”

“Ngggh”

“I wouldn’t want you to slip so . . .” and Zac asked Long Tom to lift Will, just a little bit, while he slipped the quite extensive rope ends under his bum and just left them. Will had braced himself for something that, it appeared was not about to happen. Long Tom dropped Will the few centimetres to the seat of the chair and knelt down. Will had expected to have his ankles and knees bound to the legs of the chair but instead Long Tom square-lashed his ankles. Now Will understood. The tallest of the Scouts pushed Will’s ankles back so that his colleague could thread his rope-ends between them. Zac pulled the rope tight. Will screamed.

“It’s alright, I don’t think he’ll slip now.”

“Ngeee!”

“I’ll just finish off to make sure.”

“Ngee-ee!”

Zac pulled on the rope-end once more and tied them off to the bindings round Will’s wrists.

The two Scouts hadn’t been too careful to avoid the bulge in Will’s Speedos and he was now obviously begging for help.

“I’m not touching him there.”

“No, nor me.”

“Anyone?” There were no takers and Will was left to wriggle as best he could to gain relief and his best wasn’t much good. At least Jamie undid the crotch rope after about half an hour, leaving Will’s crossed ankles swinging free. He then used the now redundant rope-ends to bind his knees uncomfortably to the chair-legs.

James fared better at the hands of Jamie and Vic. He had his wrists bound to the chair-back and his waist secured to it but he was spared the crotch-rope. Vic bound his ankles and knees to the white, plastic legs and Jamie warned him that, if he toppled over in his struggles that he was entitled to commence, he would be left there.

That just leaves Scott’s fate to detail here. GP had one of his “ideas”. Round the campsite there were several simple benches for people to sit on; just simple blocks of thick timber about forty-five centimetres wide and a metre and a half long and raised off the ground by two hefty timber supports not far from each end. Evan frog-marched Scott over to one of them and told him to kneel on it. GP took a rope and tied his wrists in a very secure rope cuff behind his back. Scott wondered why his wrists had not been bound closer together and thought he stood a chance of escaping such a long and therefore somewhat flexible cuff. Once that was done, Evan bound his ankles with a rope that was too long for the purpose.

Once he’d been positioned seated against one end of the bench, Scott’s fate started to become clearer. He was “threaded” onto the seat of the bench so that he was lying with his back on the bench with his hands underneath it like being tied to a stake but horizontally. Scott’s legs still hung over the end. But not for long! He felt Evan pull on the ropes that secured his ankles until his toes touched the seat above his head and his knees were touching is forehead. Evan secured the ends of the rope around the leg of the bench leaving Scott bent double and unable to move. It also left his garishly swimming costumed arse in the air. He could guess what would come next. He just had to hope that he hadn’t pissed off too many people lately. For an intelligent fourteen-year-old, Scott could be naïve at times. Oh well, at least five of the others were tied up and would be unable to join in and surely his mates George and Vic wouldn’t torture him? I told you he could be naive.

GP passed sentence. “OK boys, get your mugs; two swipes each, nothing too severe.” If anything, Vic and George gave him the worst “beats” of all but it was well understood among the Scouts and Sea Scouts what “nothing too severe” meant and the Warbands kids, even those who weren’t in the Scouts, cottoned on quickly. Even though the pain wasn’t much more than very annoying, Scott gave full vent to his voice. The others seemed happy with that as their reward.

Once most people had taken their turn to beat Scott (and his brother had been round twice!), Evan checked up on their prisoner and left him for a few minutes thinking he’d been abandoned. No way was anyone going to leave a prisoner like that for too long in spite of Luke’s entreaties that they should do so and, following a couple of healthy swats to his backside, GP released his feet from the bench. Scott unfurled and yelped as his backside hit the bench. Evan pulled him from the end of the bench and laid him face down upon it. In less than five minutes Scott’s bound feet had been hooked into the rope cuffs and he’d been fastened into a very tight hog-tie. Once more, he was glad of his flexibility. With a warning about falling off the bench, GP and Evan gave their prisoner a token tickle on his feet and left him struggling and swearing copiously. Scott was freed well before James was.

There was just time before lunch for all those wished to do so to go for a swim. Den, Tarzan and Jacob were especially grateful for the hydrotherapy. Eventually, mess-call dragged everyone to the marquee where Ben and T-Boy had laid out chocolate bars, crisps, fruit juice, fruit, the makings for sandwiches and even some healthy options, not all of which were ignored.

During lunch, the next event was discussed.





When the games were first being organised, those who were to contest the next event was one of the first things to be decided. The event seems to be best with one larger person against a much smaller one. The little guys do better as the “greasy mush” than larger ones, they seem to be much more difficult to keep a grip on. The obvious decision was that the youngest boys, Rusty, Frenchie and Braniac, all of whom were “Land Farmers” should take on any three of the Sea Scouts. In the end, the lot fell to the “Three (un)Wise Men”: Action Man, Evan and GP. Once the Warbands boys had been accepted into the games, there were not many options left. Simon and Aiden had already done the two-way pull so Jonny, Karl and Mike were nominated but, with all the Buzzards already involved, Tarzan, Budgie and Luke were “volunteered” to play them. Luke was not given much hope of beating Mike but Tarzan reckoned his chances against Jonny. The match between Budgie and Karl was likely to be closer according to the “pundits”.

“OK, here’s the running order.” Announced Martin. “No arguments; greasy mushes, get ready.” He then read a list that seemed to have been arranged to alternate Warbands and non-Warbands matches and to get the presumed push-overs out of the way first. Those “mushes” who had not already put their swimmers on went and did so and they then went over to an old groundsheet that had been laid out as a “dressing room”. In the middle of it was a large can of olive oil, something else that Ben had “won” from work. In the old days at fairs, the competition would be to “catch the greasy pig” but, with the animal rights lobby having recently been so successful, fetes have had to find some creatures whose rights people care less about than they care about those of animals. The choice was obvious!

The little kids soon had themselves covered in the olive oil, even their faces and necks. The best soaps seem to be made with olive oil so it was naturally assumed that they would come to no harm. The campsite had decent showers and the “mushes” had been promised that they would not have to clean them afterwards. By the time they had finished, only Budgie hadn’t got the stuff all over his hair as well.

The circle of hay bales had been positioned previously and the game was about to start. The rules were simple:
• The larger boy had to pick up the smaller one and dump him outside the bales.
• No punching, kicking, biting, etc on either part.
• No gripping the greasy mush’s swim-briefs (or the catcher’s).
• The bout would last for a maximum of ten minutes. If the mush was still inside the ring, he won.

“Bout One. Evan versus Frenchie.” Evan was a somewhat bulky lad with reddish brown hair which was already snaking up to his navel. Fenchie was the smallest participant in the whole games. He decided to goad his opponent in French punctuated with the odd English abusive term. It worked. Evan became annoyed and made a complete bog-up of trying to lift the curly-headed little guy off the ground for long enough to lift him out of the circle. By the time the bout was over and the winner started parading around the ring in victory, Evan’s torso looked as though he’d applied the oil to it deliberately. His legs and arms weren’t much better. He rather hoped that the oil would make it easier for him to escape the inevitable tie, especially as he expected the tiny kid to apply it. By the time he’d found his ankles and wrists square lashed and pulled into a none too strict hogtie, he’d changed his mind. After all, there was nothing in the rules to stop George helping Frenchie.

The second bout found Jonny with hardly a square inch of his flesh or his Speedos exposed to the air and Tarzan standing on the straw bales, hammering on his slimy chest and emulating his namesake. GP said that he’d help Tarzan to secure his trophy.

Jonny didn’t realise quite how bad that news was! Jonny’s wrists were tied behind him, palm to palm and then GP forced the slightly-built boy’s elbows together so that the victor could tie them as well. GP then suggested that Tarzan might as well get his money’s worth. Soon, one of the free ends of the elbow rope had been passed over Jonny’s right shoulder and returned under his left armpit with a symmetrical arrangement made with the other end. The free ends were then pulled tight, and with Tarzan pulling they were “quite” tight, and tied off between Jonny’s shoulder blades. That elbow rope was going nowhere even before GP insisted that Tarzan finish off by tying the ends off between his elbows. The looks passed from Jonny to GP didn’t bode too well for the crew-cut Scout if roles were ever reversed. It was all he could do not to not to squeal too much at the hands of the younger boy.

Jonny was expecting the customary hog-tie to be completed but Tarzan had other ideas. He was led over to the trees where prisoners were kept and Tarzan slung the end of a shortish rope over a branch about two metres from the ground.

“Not round his neck!”

“No way, watch this.”

By the time he’d finished, Tarzan had added even more rope between Jonny’s elbows after having pulled it tight. Jonny was forced to bend slightly at the waist and was unable to move more than a few centimetres in any direction without putting strain on his shoulders. Tarzan didn’t even need to tie his feet, which he thought was generous of him. Jonny disagreed.

When Braniac defeated GP, Jonny only hoped that he would be made to suffer at least as badly as he was suffering. Too bad: Braniac just wanted to practice his hog-tying and GP was left in the shade alongside his friend.

Neither Karl nor Budgie, another wearer of black swim-briefs, was the most athletic of boys but the contest, like the previous ones, went to the smaller player. Budgie wasn’t an experienced tier yet but he COULD tie a rope cuff so that’s what he did. Karl was suspicious: surely that’s not all there is to it, my hands aren’t even behind me? It wasn’t – they weren’t. He was soon commanded to sit down and pass his knees up between his arms. He knew now what was about to happen and this little bastard hadn’t needed any help. Someone gave Budgie a pioneering stave and Karl was soon sitting on the parrot perch. He only hoped they wouldn’t let the still rather tubby little sadist hang him from the stave. He asked. They wouldn’t let him.

Action Man wasn’t quite as tall as the previous “oldies” and Rusty was the largest of the youngest Scouts but Action Man had been thinking: just trying to grab his opponent was useless, he’d always slip out of his grasp. He needed a hold that used the limitations to the human anatomy. OK, that was the theory, now all he had to do was catch the red-head. After about five minutes, Action Man managed to trip his opponent and flip him onto his face. Before Rusty could slide out from underneath his opponent, Action Man had him in a full nelson hold. As long as he could keep his fingers linked behind the orangey-red mop, Rusty’s arms should keep him imprisoned. Rusty already felt the shadow of the Grim Reaper pass over him by the time Action man had hoisted him to his feet.

In spite of what has been written above, Rusty was still much smaller than the Sea Scout and, with the appliance of science, Action man started to rotate and, sure enough, the younger boy’s feet flew outwards. At an appropriate time, he found himself released and his feet landed outside the straw bales. That in itself was enough to lose him the match but, just to make sure, Action man pushed him forcibly off the bale where his backside had landed and he tried to stop his world revolving.

A giggling red-head soon took his proper hog-tied place in the shade.

The last bout was to be between Luke and Mike. Luke wasn’t the most supple of players and Mike had been watching. By the time he’d locked his left arm round Luke’s neck using his right bicep and the back of his head, even a well-greased victim wasn’t going to slip out. The hold was painful but the other boys knew it was also dangerous. Mike was careful, he applied pressure and gave Luke the option of submitting or . . . as he applied pain but tried to avoid cutting off the boy’s air supply. They shuffled over to the straw bales and Mike lifted. Luke’s feet ended up on the bales but that wasn’t good enough for Mike to win. After a little more persuasion, Luke shuffled himself off the bales and Mike released him.

Luke loosened himself up and assured Sam that he was OK but what he thought of Mike doesn’t bear repeating. Mike actually felt quite sorry for his defeated opponent, who’d had to be persuaded to be a greasy mush due to the late inclusion of his team, but Luke knew he had to submit to being tied up and went over to Mike, turned his back and presented his wrists. Mike cross-lashed the proffered wrists, grabbed a longer rope, hung it round his prisoner’s neck and headed for the trees with Luke in tow. He stood Luke against a large beech tree and picked up a piece of beech-mast. He rested a wrist on each of Luke’s shoulders. “Right or left?”

“What?”

“Right or left?” Mike tapped the appropriate shoulder as he repeated himself.

“Oh, right, then.”

Mike opened his hand by Luke’s head and he could see the beech-mast in it.

“OK, you choose: facing the tree or back to it?”

“Back to it, of course.”

“Watch the lip or I’ll go for some more rope.” Luke held his tongue. “OK, turn round.”

Luke turned to face his captor and Mike relieved him of the rope. Mike halved the rope and shifted his hands about a metre along it. He looped the rope twice round Luke’s right elbow, took one end round behind the tree and looped it twice round his left elbow. He made a knot in the free ends having pulled it a little tighter. Luke’s arms were under very little extra stress but the knot would stay out of range of his hands unless he could undo the square-lashing. Mike tied a double figure of eight in the free ends that, when he dropped it, fell to within about ten centimetres from the ground. One end of the rope was then looped round each of Luke’s feet and secured snugly leaving Luke’s feet a not too uncomfortable sixty centimetres apart.

“OK. One hour, I think.”

Martin confirmed that and anyone else involved in either the contests or in helping to tie the losers headed off to the showers.

“Oi!” use the pool showers, they’ll be easier to clean than the cubicles. Anyone who’s afraid of anyone else “seeing” them can wait till the end and clean them afterwards.” Martin’s ultimatum helped the boys to decide that they didn’t have anything that the others didn’t have (or wouldn’t have sooner or later) and they all headed happily for the pool changing rooms with their toilet bags and their changes of clothes. NO ONE wanted to stay in their olive oil saturated clothing.

Protracted showering done, there were two items of business before “Catch the Greasy Mush” could be closed for the games: 1, the scores and 2, who was going to clean the showers. The meeting was convened.

Obviously, some of those who were currently tied would have to clean the showers. Luke had been granted immunity so he was out of the running. If Luke had been granted immunity, or so is friends argued, why should Rusty have to clean up? That might not have been logical but Rusty was also let off. The next argument ran that the Scouts and the Sea Scouts had set up the event and pitched all the headquarters tents and so on. Jonny and Karl could see where this was going. When the decision was made, even Karl thought it was fair and the two Warband boys accepted the task.

All that was left was to know the scores. Frenchie and Braniac were hailed as heroes when it became clear that the Scouts’ lead over the Sea scouts had now increased and that the scores stood at sixteen to nine. With a score of fourteen to ten against the Warbands, Budgie and Tarzan high-fived but it must be said that Tarzan’s triumph call was rather more impressive than his oppo’s.

It wasn’t long after that before everyone had been released and Jonny and Karl set about starting the word record soap-suds mountain. It’s strange: even though all the recently released boys had been quite content to shower together in the nude, both Jonny and Karl wore their second pair of Speedos to clean the showers. It took them quite some time before they were able to join most of the rest of the boys in the pool.

I hope you're alright; it would be a crying shame to lose you as an author.

Thanks for the support, @blackbound.
I still have some stories that I might post, but I need to get my mojo back. Too many considerations.

With his usual immaculate timing, Tom arrived just in time for dinner. Even though Ben was a professional chef, there was no way he was cooking from fresh when he could open two A4s of bolognaise sauce and heat them up in his second largest dixie. The largest one was reserved for the pasta. He did tweak things a bit and knew that he could render it at least half way edible especially if the others took his hint about sprinkling enough grated “mousetap” over it first.

He gave mess-call over the walkie-talkie and the still-dripping diners arrived. Most were towelling down as they arrived when Martin said, “OK, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. First the bad news: the food’s shite. Now the good news: there’s lots of it!” Ben knew it was just the usual sort of robust joke that everybody would expect but he did wish he’d made mash (known affectionately as “wallpaper paste”) so that he could have flicked a large gobbet of it into Martin’s wavy dark hair.

“It’s alright guys, it could have been tinned stew and tinned potatoes. Now that really IS dog-food!” reassured Ben. “But don’t worry, you don’t get that ‘til tomorrow.” The resultant gratifying, theatrical groans followed from the majority of the boys. “Now, where can I find a door to test this spaghetti?” Not many of the boys got that one.

Whatever he said, the food disappeared with indecent haste and it was a good job that two of those catering tins was more than enough because there was none left at the end. Tinned peaches and squirty cream followed and gallons of pre-mixed squash.

It dawned on Aiden that all the meals so far seemed to involve dead animal and he asked Jamie what happened if there was a vegetarian taking part in the games. “It’s good having a vegetarian. If all else fails, the rest of us can always eat the vegetarian.” Aiden was starting to feel that he ought to change Scout Troops. But no, how could he handle two feuds at once?

As was becoming customary during meals, Martin announced the next game. Like the “Bulldog Clip Endurance” event, the competitors had not been selected beforehand and, other than Mark and himself, no one knew what it would involve.

“OK, each team, line up in order of size.”

There was much scrambling around with a number of boys claiming to be taller than they were but soon the order satisfied the 'Responsible Adults'. “I need the tallest, the shortest and the man in the middle of each team.” Still none of the team members knew what was going to happen. “If there’s two men in the middle, we’ll decide who takes part by Indian Wrestling. Winner takes part, loser gets tied up until after the event. And just in case anyone feels like throwing the result deliberately, two members of another team will get to tickle them right up until the last team finishes.

Long Tom and Frenchie were the obvious Scout “bookends” but Big Steve and Vic would have to fight it out. Even the Sea Scouts hadn’t found a way of tying up the contestants in an Indian wrestling bout so Vic and Big Steve lay on their backs, right hips touching, arms linked and right hands rested on opponents’ right shoulders. Mark’s count started, “One, two, three” and their right legs were raised to the vertical on each count. On “three” Big Steve’s longer legs gave him an advantage over Vic who found himself forced into a sort of undignified summersault as their legs tangled. Vic was a bit quicker next time and scored over Big Steve who made sure that wouldn’t happen again.

“Who’s going to tie this loser?”

“Oh no, PLEASE! Not him.”

“Brace yourself, Shorty.” Vic’s big brother approached him with a truly cat-like grin on his face. Sam was going to enjoy this! He set about his task while the next bout got under way. Scouts, even Sea Scouts, can always find creative uses for pioneering staves and Sam was no exception. As soon as Vic had his wrists lashed separately to the pole behind his back, he knew what was about to happen. He wasn’t anywhere near as skinny as his brother had been at his age but his suppleness was going to be put to the test. Sam forced his brother’s right ankle up against the pole and, while GP held it in place, lashed it carefully against the top of it. Once Sam had finished, Nic was left in a sort of hog-tie with his legs uncomfortably spread and completely unable to roll over. Sam could have been more merciful but it was Vic he had at his mercy.

“Shall I start tickling you now?”

“NO! Pleeease! Boys! Help me! Please!”

“OK then, I’ll wait until the contest starts. I need to go and get something in any case.”

The Sea Scouts had Sam as their tallest, although he swore that T-Boy cheated, and Tarzan as their shortest even though he tried to rise to his full height to get the advantage over Budgie. Den and Action Man were going to have to fight it out for the middle place. Den decided that it would be better to take part in whatever the game was to be rather than to be tied up again for some time almost immediately. He had the advantage of weight but Action Man was always a tough competitor.

The contest was over in two rounds which left the smaller muscular guy rolling on the floor. His good friend GP, having finished assisting Sam immediately went to start tying up his good friend (anything for a mate!) but Mark Called him off demanding that one of the Warbands boys ought to do it. The lot fell to Tom (the expert) and Mike, the sturdy blondish boy with the curly hair. As far as the Sea Scouts were concerned, they were an unknown quantity but their master roper was soon to find out that there was no lack of skill on their part.

“Can we use parcel tape?”

“If y’ got any.”

“Got any?” asked Tom incredulously, “Voila!” and he emptied several rolls of the shiny brown tape from his back-pack. As the tape appeared, Action Man was wondering if they’d be as good as himself or Alex. They were! And they didn’t spare the tape.

Action man was told to grab his opposite elbows behind his back, a job that was not as easy for him as it would have been for the others due to his somewhat short upper arms but he wouldn’t subject himself to the shame of not co-operating during his forfeit. Nearly an entire roll of tape was used to fasten his forearms together and special attention was given to his hands before his heavily shrouded fingers were tied down as well. The rest of the roll was wrapped round his upper arms several times so that he was unable to move his elbows apart.

“More tape!”

“Catch!” Tom caught the new reel and used quite a lot of the tape to fasten his prisoner’s arms to his torso. There was very soon no visible pale flesh from Action Man’s shoulders to the tips of his elbows. Mike just couldn’t resist decorating the front of their work with a marker pen. Action Man soon had pecs and nipples showing once more. He was given the opportunity to lie down on his back voluntarily or to be assisted. He chose not to be assisted and, soon after he’d stumbled to the ground, he found his feet pushed up against his bum. While Tom held his left foot firmly in place, Mike wrapped tape all the way from the top of his thigh to his fully bent knee and back again. With the treatment repeated on his other leg, Action Man was rolled over and his protruding feet were subjected to “a little test”. All his attempts at “ignoring the pain” were known to be completely ineffective against prolonged tickle torture. He wasn’t looking forward to this and was sure that he was going to need his spare swimming costume as soon as his torment was over.

Mike and Tom left their victim to see what was happening next. They were quite happy to wait until the start of the mystery event, returning once or twice in the interim, just to be annoying. The other boys were impressed by the tidy job the two Warband boys had made of packing Action Man; anyone who has tried using that flexible tape will know how intractable it can be and how it always seems to do its best to adhere its own sticky surface to itself before it can be applied to the package. These two were obviously experts.

That left the Warbands boys themselves to form their team. Simon was easily the tallest and Matt the shortest. That would make two physically strong contestants for whatever the contest was to be. The middle place was to be decided between JT and Tom. Poor Tom, he couldn’t win. If he lost the Indian wrestling, he would be tied up and tickled and, having done the preparation work on Action Man, would then have to miss out on torturing him. If he won, he’d have to take part in the mystery game and still miss out on torturing the Sea-Scout.

“OK mate, remember, you’re tickling for two.” Tom shook Mike’s hand and laid himself down to wrestle with JT. JT couldn’t lose, either way he got tied up. It was just a question of doing his bit for the team. Should he try to take part in the game without knowing what it entailed or should he “let” Tom play? In the end, he gave it his best attempt.

“One – two – three.” Tom was flipped over. “One – two – three.” JT was sent into a summersault. “One – two – three.” Tom was still lying in place and the slender American had lost. It can’t be said that he looked too unhappy about that even when George and Zac went to get the ropes. He even knelt with his hands on his head while they got themselves sorted out.

The two Scouts discussed tying JT the same way Scott had been tied earlier: on a bench with his arse in the air and his feet pulled down to the bench. JT didn’t think he’d mind that but Mark suggested that he’d be tied up for rather too long to be left like that. “OK”, thought the others, “the event’s going to be quite a long one.” That was about the only clue they had.

“Now, we want his feet to be available . . . I know, come over here.” George had taken his selection of ropes over to a Scots pine tree. Its trunk was bare up to about two metres from the ground and was about thirty centimetres in diameter. “OK, Yank, kneel down, back to the tree.” JT did as he was ordered. “On your face.” Once more the supple boy made no complaint. George asked Zac to “Give us a hand with his legs.” And his two tormentors pulled him along the ground until JT found his knees against the tree with one on each side of the trunk. The Scouts soon had their prisoner’s ankles raised in the air and lashed to opposite sides of the trunk in true pioneering style leaving their unfortunate victim’s feet completely vulnerable.

“Right, reach back. Hold your ankles. Even the supple young American needed a bit of help to achieve that but he was soon holding onto is ankles above the rope securing them to the tree and George tied one of his wrists to one ankle while Zac echoed the tie on the other side. All the while JT could hold onto is ankles, he could alleviate some of the discomfort caused by the rope. But that put more strain on his spine. “Your choice.” as Zac pointed out. JT thought that these new TUG buddies were going to be another thing that made having to live in England not so bad.

Martin called Zac and George over and they spoke quietly. There was much nodding of heads. Of course, they would keep an eye on their prisoner even when he was not being put to the tickle torture and yes, they would give him a safe-word.

“Oh, come on Martin, we wouldn’t even cause a Sailor Boy too much pain, and compared to them, this guy’s innocent.”

George was grinning, “Yeah, all he’s got to do is say, ‘Brits are best,’” and we’ll release him.”

JT thought he could handle it and matters proceeded towards the mystery game.

Mark did his “Health and Safety” bit and sent the competitors for their boots. When they returned, they were still no wiser about what they were about to have to do.

“Teams ready?”

“For what?”

“Line up in your teams.”

“How?”

“Up to you.” Martin was being really annoying. Should each team line up in order of height? Should the tallest boy be in the middle?

“Give us a clue.”

“Nope. Not yet. Take a chance.”

“Whaaaa’?”

“OK then, I’m feeling kind. You’re going for a little run. Together!”

The boys soon thought that the tying aspect would just be having their ankles tied together for a “four-legged race” and all the teams lined up with the tallest member in the middle. The middle runner of each three then had each of his ankles tied to the nearest one of the boy on either side of him using neckerchiefs. The tiers didn’t want to fasten the ankles too close to one another but neither did they want their team-mates to come undone for the usual reasons. When the tiers had finished, there wasn’t really too much slack but at least no one’s ankles were grinding into anyone else’s.

The three teams started planning their tactics when Martin said, “There’s just one more thing.” An unaccustomed silence fell upon the company. “You need to have your wrists tied . . .” That didn’t sound TOO bad, “. . .to one another’s.”

The teams were puzzled to say the least so Martin explained what he wanted. The tallest runner spread his arms behind his team mates’ backs and held their outside hands and the outside runners held inside hands behind his back. Having explained the situation, Martin left the boys who were not running to tie up their team mates. Very soon the wrists were all secured with very short rope cuffs, which seemed to be the easiest way to ensure the security of the ties. There was obviously no need to put the knots out of reach because nobody would be trying to escape the cuffs. The smallest boys, especially Frenchie, who had to reach up quite some way even to reach Long Tom’s hand, didn’t seem too happy with the resultant situation. But the teams tried to get some practice in before Martin explained the course.

There was a deep pond on the Pound Farm site and a wide stream called “Withy Gutter” that were to be the obstacles round which the teams should navigate. Mark had set out a course indicated by stakes with day-glo stars between which the teams had to pass. The course was about three and a half k and went over various different surfaces: the camping field, a track, boggy riverside shade and rough pasture. The boys thought they’d be glad of their boots.

There were still some chaotic attempts to practice but eventually the teams were called up to scratch. The best matched trio appeared to be the Warbands team but the contrast in height between Long Tom, who was the tallest boy in the event and the comparatively minute Frenchie, who was easily the shortest, looked as though it was going to hamper their progress considerably. Aiden asked if they could help their runners back to their feet if they fell. It was decided that each team could take two monitors round with them on the understanding that they could ONLY help the competitors up and nothing else. T-Boy and Alex went for their boots, and returned stripped for action as did Jamie, leading from the front as usual, with Scott, Will, and James. Will had shed his specs and tied his hair back. It was only then that Sam realised he was going to miss out on torturing his little brother. Never mind, he could always rely upon GP to do a good job while he did his best for his Troop.

While the monitors were getting their boots on, the practice continued but it didn’t seem to be having much effect while everyone appeared to be shouting at once. At least the first monitors to be ready also managed to get some practice in when their team tripped as they tried to make too rapid progress.

There came a time when there could be no further delay and Martin set the race off.

Simon, Tom and Matt made good progress across the site and along the track and managed to ford the gutter with little difficulty. In the meantime, Long Tom settled for trying to more or less carry Frenchie in his left arm. He couldn’t maintain that for long due to having to lean over uncomfortably but it gave the Scouts a good second place at the ford. Sam, Den and Tarzan had decided to take a more measured approach and Sam was still counting, “One, two, one, two, etc” rather like a cox. At least it kept him from wondering why he’d come out of “retirement” to be treated like this.

The next stretch was the shade alongside the stream. There were many roots and the ground was boggy underfoot. The Scouts soon ended up face down in the mud but sustained no damage. By the time they had been helped up again, the Sea Scouts, who seemed to have found their rhythm, passed them but The Warbands boys were still well ahead by the time they had to cross the gutter again.

Tom was a boy who didn’t approve of strong language but he was about to hear plenty. His trio came to the place where they had to cross the stream again and Simon and Matt realised that it wasn’t a ford. Mark had positioned himself there; perhaps it was to ensure the teams’ safety or perhaps he’d just come to watch the fun and listen to the outrage of the competitors. There was plenty of that too.

“You can always withdraw.”

That was a stupid suggestion, even from an adult and Tom rallied the troops and suggested that they all jump on the count of three. They became aware of the rapidly approaching Sea Scout team and pulled themselves together. Will and James climbed rather carefully down the bank and pointed out the rather muddy nature of the stream floor. At least the free-range cattle wouldn’t have made a contribution to it here – much.

“OK, this time, yes?

“OK.”

“Alright”

“Remember if one goes, all go. Right?” Tom wasn’t convinced of the advisability of his plan. “One, two, three.” The boys jumped and with a spectacular splash, managed to retain their footing as they sank uncertainly into the mud. Without proper use of their arms and with the effect their miss-footings were having on one another, the wading across the four metres or so of more than knee deep water proved far from simple. How to climb the opposite bank posed a new problem, especially with Mark there to make sure that Will and James didn’t help.

“Over here!” James, who had gone some way downstream, had noticed a silver birch that had fallen. Its top was in the gutter and its roots were still anchored in the bank. Mark couldn’t see anything wrong with James’s input but he made a personal note that it might be useful later if there was no one else to bring before the “court” during the evening’s entertainments. Being bound to one another, there was no hope of “tightrope walking” along the trunk of the tree but, after some discussion, they sat on it side by side and gradually shuffled along it on their bums. There was a bit of a scramble to get to their feet again, regroup and head for the two markers before making for the pond.

Sam, Den and Tarzan were also rather taken aback when they saw where they were supposed to cross the water but they were rather more stoical about it. They too jumped on “Ready, set, jump.” And Tarzan would have washed his hair if Sam hadn’t been able to hold him up. They spent less time crossing than the Warbands had and decided that the best way was to crawl on their bellies up the bank. Sam and Den would have to drag Tarzan somewhat but it ended up being quite an efficient way of solving the problem, especially as Mark turned a blind eye as T-Boy gave Tarzan a sly lift by the waist-band of his briefs to help him. That might be someone else’s name to bring up in court later. As they turned towards the pond, the Warbands team was only about fifteen metres ahead.

Long Tom, Big Steve and Frenchie encountered the stream crossing and at least the appalling language of the smallest boy didn’t cause much offence; he often found it convenient to swear in French. Long Tom didn’t fancy jumping and they wasted quite some time discussing what to do. In the end the boys struggled to sit down and slid as gently as possible into the more than knee deep water. More than knee deep to Long Tom, that is; poor little Frenchie was at least goolie deep most of the time. They could see the traces of where the Sea Scouts had climbed out but couldn’t figure out how to do it and, with Frenchie in tow it would have been difficult without cheating and they hadn’t seen the other teams cheat before them. They couldn’t see James’s tree from the crossing and decided to go upstream to see if there was an easier place. Fortunately, the gutter took a little hike to the south just inside the farm boundary and the resultant little gravel bank gave just the hope of a relatively easy exit from the peaty water. A fairly well co-ordinated effort between Den and Long Tom started the climb-out well and the little kid was more or less yanked out by the giant.

The Scouts were well in last place but they knew the consequences of not finishing. At least with Scott as a monitor, there was no shortage of vocal encouragement and support.

The boggy ground between the pond and the gutter caused several falls from all three teams and the only ones who were not now comprehensively coated in mud were Scott and Jamie. All the teams had now worked up fair rhythms and not a lot exciting happened as the teams rounded the pond. Crossing the rough pasture, and trying to avoid the inevitable reminders of the cattle who had recently been turned out onto the Forest, caused a few stumbles but the result was inevitable: the Warbands won easily from the spectacularly bedraggled Sea Scouts and the Scouts were well in the rear.

Action Man was grateful that most people had been engaged in the cross country for the last hour or so. That way not many people saw him running in sweat, panting, grunting, squealing and begging for mercy as Mike went about his duties. Tom, as a member of the winning team, who were immediately untied, even had the chance to accept his friend’s offer to “have a go” with the prisoner before both the other teams had finished. Vic was still suffering torments at the hands of GP who had blindfolded his prisoner to increase the surprise effect of his intermittent tickle torture.

JT, however, had been granted some relief from his extreme bindings and, although his feet were still raised alongside the tree trunk and being given their due attention by George and Zac, they’d had the “mercy” to use some of the Warbands’ unused tape to stretch his arms along a pioneering stave and left him face down with his unprotected armpits also subject to their tender mercies. With his arms spread and his feet in the air there was no way the young American could raise his torso from the ground by more than a few centimetres for a few seconds at a time.

“Who’s best?”

“No, A - ah h h h, no, never, aaiiiee!”

“All you have to do is admit it.”

“Aa-aa-aah!” JT was beginning to wonder if it would show if he wet his black Speedos.

Once the Scouts had finally arrived, it was time for forfeits and scores. The scores were obvious: Warbands v Combined Scouts: two-nil, Sea Scouts v Scouts two-nil; leaving the running scores as Sea Scouts 11, Scouts 16, and Warbands 14, Combined Scouts 14! Following the boasts and derogatory remarks, it was time for forfeits. The Scouts obviously had to remain tied up, it was just a question of how. Should the tickle victims be released or should they have to wait until the Scouts were released?

I think you’ll be able to guess what decision was made about the tickle victims. Action Man’s groan was enough to destroy his “hard man” reputation for ever on the spot. Sam hoped that he’d now get a chance to torture his brother. JT couldn’t quite “lie back and think of England” but he did wonder how long he could hold out. The others thought the Sea Scouts had done well enough not to have to stay tied up. Once they were released, Sam went for that toothbrush. An hour was considered a reasonable forfeit and the boys with all the mud rapidly drying on their bodies headed for the showers.

Martin gave the usual instruction to use the swimming pool showers and Jacob, Max and Alex, as the cleanest survivors, got to tie the losers. When he saw Alex homing in on him, Long Tom’s day went from bad to worse; why couldn’t ANYone else tie him? At least he could be grateful that it wasn’t Action Man. The tiers freed their victims’ wrists but left them seated on the ground and tied together by their ankles. Alex forced Long Tom’s arms up his back and cross-lashed them so that they were high up between his shoulder blades. He then wound a rope quite high round his biceps about four times before tying it off in front of his chest. He had some difficulty threading one free end under Long Tom’s left armpit before pulling it tight and using it to cinch the chest rope. Once he’d repeated it on the other side, Alex was reasonably happy that the tall Scout was adequately restrained.

“Alright if I . . .?” Alex asked his fellow tiers if he could untie Long Tom’s, and by implication their prisoners’, feet. Jacob was ready to complete the simple hog-tie he was applying to the smallest boy and was playing with his victim, who was certainly very ticklish, while he waited. Max was also ready to do the same to Big Steve, whose “hippy” style long hair was almost brittle with the greying mud that was almost dry now and which covered his entire body leaving a spooky pink colour round his eyes and mouth. Once he had completed his task, Max did at least give the tall, slender boy a drink. Alex forced Long Tom to cross his legs and tied his right foot to just below his left knee and vice versa. He thought that would be enough to secure the legs of the muscular giant but he hadn’t finished yet.

“What’re you doing?”

“Well, he always takes up too much room.” Alex appeared to be trying to get his over-sized victim into the smallest possible space as he carefully tied a none-too tight non-slip noose round his neck, threaded the free ends under his lower legs and pulled them until Long Tom thought he couldn’t get any lower and begged for mercy. “OK, I think that’ll do.” Said the grinning ginger kid as he tied off the rope to itself. Long Tom was left with no scope for movement at all. It was going to be a long hour especially if Alex was going to sit on him like he was the whole time.

As boys gradually returned from the showers, which now gave a very realistic impression that the Battle of the Somme had just been fought in there, Martin asked for volunteers to clean them. With both Tom and Mike now giving him their undivided attention, Action Man would have preferred to have to lick them clean rather than have to suffer any longer so he thought he saw a way out.

“OK, offer accepted but not yet, the three mud men haven’t showered yet,” said Mark, indicating the defeated Scouts.

“Ah, shit, PLEASE! Make them stop!”

“OK then, you get to clean the showers but not until those three have finished in there but those two Warband kids have to stop the tickle torture. All in favour?”

Mark’s suggestion was accepted by most of the boys. They’d rather not do a cleaning job, that looked as though it would have to be done with a spade and a wheelbarrow, themselves. Tom felt vaguely cheated. Action Man nearly got religion. He did notice, though, that the packing tape didn’t seem to come unstuck in the presence of the sweat of the innocent. He’d remember that.

JT and Vic also made desperate offers to clean the showers in return for not being tortured for the remainder of their term of confinement. JT’s wish was granted and he thought he might not have to find out whether a wet patch would show on his black Speedos after all. George and Zac even congratulated their prisoner for holding out for so long and gave him water to drink but they made no attempt to free him and left him crucified and face down in the dirt. He expected nothing more. “But Brits are best, you know.” JT kept his counsel.

You know when I said earlier how important it was to ensure that justice should be administered fairly? Well, it seemed to apply somewhat selectively and Sam’s plea not to be short-changed on torturing his little brother sounded reasonable to the other lads. At least GP left him to it.





Eventually everyone, even Vic, was released and JT and Action Man even finished removing all the mud, moss and grass from the showers but Sam kept Vic tied to the stave until they’d finished the job. Ben had been to get ice-cream for everyone and Martin called the meeting to order. As the drinking chocolate and squash started to slide down and another large container of biscuits gradually disappeared, he asked if there was anybody who needed to be put on trial. After about thirty seconds there seemed to be no one in need of punishment so Mark brought up the matters of James and T-Boy. They knelt and T-Boy tried for the sympathy vote. “Come on, boys, who got up to help Ben get your breakfast ready? You don’t want to punish me overnight. Do you?” Silly question.

James was more realistic, “Just shut up, mush, you know it’s no use begging. OK you lot, let’s get this over with.”

The impartial jury gave due consideration to the evidence for about one minute before delivering the “guilty” verdict. The boys did appreciate T-Boy’s logic and decided that, whatever punishment they should suffer, it should finish by midnight. James and T-Boy accepted. As the Scouts had not succumbed to such dastardly cheating, it was decided that they should be responsible for sentencing the miscreants and for carrying out that sentence.

Long Tom persuaded the others that the convicts should be tied to the tree that had recently accommodated JT so T-Boy stripped to his usual rather skimpy briefs, white ones this time, and James was left in just a pair of white boxer briefs with the letters PUMA emblazoned across the front. They trudged somewhat warily across to the Scots pine and knelt down against opposite sides of the trunk. Both prisoners had their left ankles lashed to their fellow sufferer’s right one before they were anchored to the tree. It was now impossible for either boy to sit down. The difference in height between the two boys stymied Long Tom’s idea that their elbows should be pulled uncomfortably back and tethered to the other boy’s but the Scouts did manage to tie each boy’s right wrist to his companion’s left. The wrists were then anchored to the tree trunk. Not being able to sit, there was no way that either James or T-Boy were going to be able to use their fingers to free their ankles and the ends of the ropes that tied their wrists together had been tied off to the rope anchoring their ankles to the tree. Now the victims couldn’t even kneel up a bit every so often to ease their discomfort. GP congratulated the Scouts on such an evil torture.

Eventually all the boys retired to their tents leaving the adults to chill by the altar fire over a couple of beers. Ben confessed that he missed the old days when Paul would tie him up and make him do all the work when they were camping and reminded Mark that it was Keith and he who had started the practice of “naked hiking”. The three young men lamented the fact that the younger members could not enjoy that freedom in the contemporary climate. As it was getting towards midnight, things started to settle down and Mark called out, “Joe, remind us all what will happen to anyone out of their tents before I think they should be.”

“Field punishment number one,” came the rueful reply which was accompanied by jeers from his “friends”.

“Suppose I need a piss?”

“Straight from your tent to the bogs, then straight back. Any “straying” towards anyone else’s tent and you get to be the focus of interest until after breakfast. Oh, and no pissing in the hedge.”

Come midnight, Martin went to release an aching pair of “cheats” who had become friends in adversity and who had decided to shower to ease their woes before retiring. Mark said that he was quite prepared to use his expertise to remind Ben of past times. Ben accepted, went to his tent, stripped and waited while mark did a round of “goodnights” to the tents. Martin and Mark soon completed their tasks and returned to the “staff” tent where Ben was kneeling in anticipation of the pleasures to come. He couldn’t help displaying his “enthusiasm” but the others had been used to such situations since they were involved in the tie-ups as youngsters. “It’s alright,” reassured Mark, “I’m used to it. Now take your hands away and put them on your head.” Ben grinned and blushed all over his tanned body.

There was some discussion about how Ben was to be bound. He was in favour of a more strict tie than Martin and Mark thought was a good idea. They wanted him to be fit to fix breakfast. Ben had a solution, “Get that T-Boy kid to do it. He’s always up at the crack of sparrow’s fart. He’s a good cook and he enjoys doing it.” Martin went to check with T-Boy, who was just returning from the showers with James, who agreed to help his new friend.

By the time he’d got back to the tent, Mark had already started accommodating Ben. His recent “modelling” work had taught him a thing or two about tying someone up. In his thirties Ben was no longer as supple as when Paul used to put him to bed at night but Mark knew techniques that could cope with that. He took a long rope and doubled it. It takes skill to form a retied figure of eight in the correct part of a rope that has been doubled but Mark had that skill and Ben soon found himself with a secure noose round his neck that would neither tighten nor loosen and which was not tight round his neck nor was it big enough to pass up over his head. Ben started breathing heavily.

Using the rope like that meant that Mark had left a bight in the rope just near the knot in case he needed to return to it. He worked the free ends steadily down from just below Ben’s elbows, which he pulled as close as he thought would be tolerable, to his wrists, tying his forearms twice in between. Ben’s chest was thrust forward. The free ends were then worked back up to the bight that had been created for the purpose. On the way up, Mark carefully incorporated the loops round Ben’s forearms, adjusting their tightness according to Ben’s reactions. Ben was trying to be stoical but Mark easily picked up on the intakes of breath that Ben tried unsuccessfully to suppress. With Ben’s arms being so bound, the rope could neither be worked down over his hands nor upwards because of his upper arms. Mark certainly had greater skills than Paul had.

Mark checked to see if his prisoner was OK and, upon being told that he was, he secured Ben’s feet with a standard cross-lashing leaving his knees wide spread. Ben realised that, tied in such a manner, there was no way he could give himself any of the relief of which he thought he would soon be sorely in need. This man was good!

“Makes a change for me not to be in that situation,” commented Mark, “And at least there’s no cameras. You alright, mate?”

Ben, somewhat breathlessly, assured him that he was.

“No, still too much freedom.”

“Nghh ooooah”

Mark took the free ends of the cross-lashing and completed the kneeling hogtie by passing them up between the rope loops securing Ben’s forearms and hitching them off to the bight just below his neck. By now Ben couldn’t even lift his bum from his heels.

“I know: we need a finishing touch.”

“What?”

“Hang on a mo’.” Mark left Martin laughing at his old rival kneeling embarrassingly exposed on the tent groundsheet. It was just like old times.

Mark returned with one of the surgical dressings from Ben’s cook-tent. “I thought this would be appropriate.” Ben nodded in a mock-resigned fashion and Mark pressed it meticulously round Ben’s eyes. “You’re going to feel that when you take it off.”

“What, only one?”

“Yeah, that’s usually enough.”

“What about my mouth.”

“Not safe, mate, I intend to get some kip. Ni’ nigh’.”

Mark then stripped to his loose boxers and climbed into his sleeping bag. Both Martin and he were soon asleep and Ben was reliving fond memories. After a couple of hours, he was surprised not to be in more pain. The tall guy WAS good. Now all he had to do was work out a way of surviving overnight.

My inattention results in me having two chapters to catch up on! Sounds like everything is proceeding apace, I hope for Ben's sake that there's not too many critters out there...

My chapters should be shorter than yours

Touche!
Plenty of critters, among which we have false widow spiders and the dreaded sheep tics.
The adders tend to pack and go away on holiday at the first sign of disturbance.

“Naughty, naughty.” Said Joe. Then he clicked his tongue as he looked down at Budgie. Budgie’s reply was indecipherable. Joe was glad that it wasn’t him undergoing field punishment number one this time.

Gradually all the boys, even Luke, surfaced and made for the showers and/or the loos. No one seemed to have much sympathy for the rather tubby little dark-haired guy struggling to look up at them as they passed. He still seemed to be in his favourite shiny black budgie-smugglers that gave him his TUGs club name but surely he would soon be too big for them.

T-Boy and James had got up early and taken over the cook-tent and were using Braniac as a galley slave. He’d had the choice between being the galley slave or suffering field punishment number one alongside Budgie. It wouldn’t have been justified as he was only on his way to the toilets but any excuse was good enough and the cooks soon put their KP to work.

As it came towards time for breakfast some boys asked why Ben wasn’t on duty but they were told that he was a bit tied up so no one asked any more about it. The restaurant where Ben worked didn’t open on Mondays and, only working one day of any weekend, meant that he’d only had to take one day off to help out his old Troop but now he was definitely otherwise engaged. Mark had woken up and released him from the extreme bondage after about three hours. He asked whether Ben wanted to go for a pee and, by then, Ben was certainly in need of some privacy. Mark understood that but he wasn’t ready to let his old friend off the hook just yet.

Mark undid the hog-tie rope from the bight near Ben’s neck and Ben’s ankles were freed with an unmistakable, involuntary yelp whereupon Martin woke up and mumbled something about why didn’t Mark gag him in the first place. In spite of the rather complicated procedure as Mark tried to undo some of Ben’s ropes, Martin was snoring again inside thirty seconds. As Mark unthreaded the free ends of the rope holding Bens forearms in place, the loops round them gradually became less strict. Ben started the heavy breathing again. His wrists were then freed and so were his forearms but Mark made no attempt to free his elbows. Instead, he coiled the redundant rope loosely round Ben’s neck and helped him to his feet. Ben slumped so Mark shouldered him and carried him towards the edge of the field. The coiled rope unravelled and trailed behind them.

Once on his feet again, Ben stumbled and had to be supported by Mark. After a couple of minutes Ben managed to stand unaided. “OK, mate, let go.”

“Aren’t you going to take me to the loos?”

“Nah, you’re facing the hedge, just make with what you’ve got.” With his elbows still bound reasonably closely behind him, there was no way Ben could get hold of himself to aim. He recognised his situation and just gave up, spread his legs and released. This WAS just like the old days.

Mark stood well clear until his friend had finished and then asked him if he was OK to walk back to the tent. Ben said that he was and Mark lifted him under the armpits and put him down again straddling the trailing rope. Ben wondered what was going on. He soon found out as Mark gathered the rope and pulled it firmly bringing it up under Ben’s crotch and leading the still blindfolded young man back to the tent. “Be reasonable, mate, shut up; some people are trying to get some sleep.” Said Mark chuckling quietly. Once more poor Ben’s body demonstrated his enthusiasm but at that time of the morning there was no one, other than Mark, around to see.

Upon their return to the tent, Ben assumed that he would be required to kneel again ready to have his arms bound once more but Mark thought that would be unreasonable so he told Ben to stand so that he could tie his ankles and knees. He adjusted the loops and told Ben that NOW he could kneel. Ben remembered how unpleasant that procedure could be when one’s legs were bound but he did manage the manoeuvre in comparative silence. With the rope still looped round Ben’s neck, there was still no way the rope round his elbows was going anywhere that Ben’s elbows weren’t going so Mark looped the rope from Ben’s knees through the loop `in front of his neck and shortened it just enough to prevent Ben from being able to straighten up. He then opened the smaller man’s sleeping bag, lifted him onto it and told him to straighten out as much as possible. Ben was then zipped into the bag and told to try to get some sleep.

“Mark . . .”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

Mark just grinned and climbed into his own sleeping bag.

“ . . . Oh, and Ben, no rubbing yourself against the ground sheet.”

“Oh, ha ha.” In the semi-crouching position he was in there was no way Ben could give himself any relief of that sort at all.

Breakfast got underway and Braniac started the kitchen washing up before he ate his and, before the end of the meal Ben appeared in a pair of cargo shorts and a white t-shirt to claim his breakfast. The boys were quite impressed by the splendid collection of rope marks he was displaying. Ben had been glad to have found a few minutes privacy before making his appearance.

Budgie was released and told to take over from Brainiac and do the REALLY mucky pans after he’d eaten. There was no argument; he didn’t fancy the alternatives so generously offered. Ben noticed that up till then the old courtesies were still being observed and that he had not been expected to do any washing up. Someone else had always stepped up to do it.


After the customary (and rather ill-timed) swim and roughhousing, Martin called everyone to get ready for the tag-team contest. He also said that, as long as everyone pulled their weight afterwards, they could fit in another game as well. He suggested that it should be put to the vote of anyone who wasn’t tied up. Most people seemed to be in favour with the exception of the boys who were about to wrestle. He stressed once more that following the extra game, all traces of their non-Scouting activities must be eradicated ready for the return of the site owner, Gill, and her family from their equestrian event.

The first bout was to be T-Boy, who had at least worn a rather more extensive pair of royal blue swim briefs for the event and the Twins,
who wore basically white (Big Steve) and mainly red (Joe) Arena costumes. Joe wasn’t particularly looking forward to this.

The straw bale circle was to be the ring and two marquee stakes had been hammered into the ground on opposite sides of the ring. The tag-ropes were attached to them and each one was about a metre shorter than the radius of the ring. The inactive tag partner could hold whichever one he chose at any time but he could only tag his partner if he was holding one of them. Once a tag had been made, the solo wrestler had to release the active tag-team wrestler. Generally, as long as each of the pair was considerably smaller than the solo wrestler, the rules provided good competition.

“OK, best of three pins, lifts, outings or submissions. No girly stuff and keep your hands off the other guy’s bits. If it’s a draw after ten minutes, the tag-team wins. Time out. Wrestle.”

Big Steve looked death in the face with a nervous grin. Joe held one of the tag ropes watching carefully. Steve dodged and ducked successfully for about a minute before T-Boy got a good hold on him. Unfortunately for him, by the time the taller boy had got the larger Twin in a good full nelson grip ready to lift him for the required three seconds, Joe tagged his brother and T-Boy had to release Steve. Joe was even better at avoiding being caught than his twin but eventually he found himself caught and being lifted under the armpits. T-Boy lifted and swung his opponent round a bit only to have his partner tag him on his flailing foot before he could be moved out of reach. He dropped Joe as though he was red hot.

Big Steve didn’t manage to avoid T-Boy for more than about thirty seconds this time and soon found himself looking the taller boy in the face from a supine position. He wriggled, trying to turn himself over but, with T-Boy sitting on his midriff, it was a forlorn hope. He struggled valiantly for a good half-minute before T-Boy released his wrists and simply lay on him with his arms across the smaller boy’s chest and forcing both his shoulders to the ground. That was more than enough to score the first fall.

Martin called T-Boy to a “corner” where he sat on the hay-bales while Big Steve gathered his breath. He had to re-start. A clever bit of evasion enabled him to tag Joe. T-Boy wasted no time. He soon had Joe by his left arm and applied an arm-lock. Holding on with his left hand and dropping to one knee, he grabbed his surprised opponent’s left ankle with his free hand. He stood up and started to rotate, causing Joe to fly round noisily. By the time Big Steve had reached the tag rope nearer to the other two boys, T-Boy had not only moved out of range but he’d also held Joe aloft for the required time. Just for good measure, he dropped Joe onto the straw bales and pushed him over the edge just in time. After T-Boy had stopped rotating, - some time after -, so did his head!

The Twins submitted to being tied up and, once T-Boy’s head had stopped spinning, he gathered some equipment and made his defeated opponents take it over to the trees. The next bout started while T-Boy and his new friend, James, set about exacting their penalty from the Twins. JT’s tree seemed to be becoming a favourite.

T-Boy told the Twins to face the tree so that he could tie Joe’s right wrist to Big Steve’s left. Being an experienced Sea Scout, T-Boy decided to use a classic shear lashing. First, he tied a clove hitch round Steve’s wrist and then continued with four turns of a round lashing and two frapping turns between the two wrists to cinch the round lashings finishing off with another clove hitch round Big Steve’s forearm. A few turns of gaffer tape over the ropes ensured the inaccessibility of the knots even if the Twins’ fingers could have reached them. James was a sailor who had his own techniques although neither technique was particularly comfortable for the victims. He started with a clove hitch round both wrists which he pulled tight and secured with a reef knot. A few round lashings followed and the end of the rope was fastened off to the remaining end of the reef knot. It wasn’t the tidiest piece of work. James took a hint from his colleague and used plenty of tape not only to cover his roping but also to immobilise the Twins’ fingers against one another’s forearms.

James and T-Boy examined their work and congratulated one another. Because the Twins’ arms hadn’t been pulled tight, James questioned whether they would be able to use their teeth to strip the tape and wondered what they ought to do about it.

“Good job I got these then.”

“Oowah, good idea.”

By the time he had got as far as, “No, please, not that. No one else had to be . . .,” T-Boy had twirled one of the neckerchiefs into a roll, tied a large knot in the middle of and drawn it over Big Steve’s head and forced it into his mouth in mid plea. There was no way Steve could bite anything other than the fabric now and it was soon tied off tightly behind his neck.

“But couldn’t he still scrape the gaffer tape off with his teeth?”

“Suppose so. Good job we’ve got a lot of this stuff.”

“Ngggg! Eeee!”

“Sorry, mush, my friend here and me wouldn’t want you getting free before your time’s up.” The zipping sound of more gaffer tape being loosened from the roll made Steve give up the effort. He was soon wearing a grey mask from his chin right up to his nose. T-Boy didn’t bother avoiding Steve’s long hair. Joe, as usual, was more stoical and just submitted without complaint.

“Right you two, sit down.” If looks could kill . . . The Twins struggled to be seated and sat straight-legged, unable to avoid one another’s splayed legs as they sat. T-Boy and James discussed what to do next. They could make the Twins sit on one another’s feet except that Steve’s legs couldn’t be made to meet on the opposite side of the tree let alone Joe’s. In the end they decided to tape their lower legs to those of their twin; with their fingers taped, that should be safe enough. T-Boy went for the tape and forced Big Steve to make fists before encasing each of them in enough tape to wrap a beach-ball. Big Steve knew that T-Boy was gradually dropping out of the games now that he was working in a kitchen but he really hoped that he would keep playing long enough for him to take his revenge.

Another roll of gaffer tape was produced and Joe’s left leg was taped to his brother’s right one from ankle to knee. A few more rounds just below knee level and the tape was wound back down to the ankles again leaving the Twins’ bound shins vertical and their knees in the air. The legs on the opposite side of the tree proved more difficult as they had been drawn nearer to the tree but James eventually managed but once more his binding was untidier than T-Boy’s had been. By the time he had finished, the twins had been forced so close to the tree that there was very little scope for movement.

James and T-Boy inspected their work.

“High fives?”

“High fives!” James and T-Boy went to watch the tag-team wrestling. The Twins started struggling and indecipherably blaming one another for being numpties or worse.

By the time they had finished accommodating the Twins, T-Boy and James saw Long Tom marching the defeated Budgie and Luke across to the trees. It just wasn’t Budgie’s day. But why was Luke grinning?

Long Tom had noticed that, although he was one of the youngest of the “Sailor Boys”, Budgie was also becoming a skilled tier. He warned the little kid that, if he didn’t do a really good job of securing his partner, field punishment number one would seem like a trip to Disneyland in comparison with what he would do to him. Budgie believed him; Luke was trying to suppress a smirk. Under instruction from the Scouts’ field general, Budgie secured Luke’s hands in front of him leaving just a few centimetres of rope between them. He needed very little instruction.

“OK, Shit-head, sit down.” Luke was used to being addressed like that by his elder brother but he resented it even more from Long Tom and crossed him off his Christmas card list. “Stick your knees up between your arms. No, don’t cross your ankles.” Luke did as he was told and Budgie was told to bind his ankles side by side and then to use a length of paracord to make sure his toes stayed together. Luke wondered what was next: was he just going to have his wrist-cuffs tied to his ankles or . . . Oh shit! He saw Long Tom handing Budgie a stave. Luke knew that, without a stave holding his knees above his forearms, he still had sufficient flexibility to escape the tie. His little grin became somewhat rueful as Budgie threaded the pole between the backs of his knees and his arms.

“Not all the way. Leave room for somebody else.” Budgie knew whom Long Tom meant. “Good. Well done, Tubs.” Budgie didn’t appreciate that and that was another Christmas card that Tom needn’t expect. “Sit down and tie your own ankles and toes. Make sure you knot the rope behind your ankles.” Budgie dutifully did what he was told. It dawned on even him that Tom’s strategy was quite a clever one; if he managed to escape his own tying, it was like signing his own death warrant. Budgie regarded Long Tom through slit eyes and maintained his silence through narrowed lips. Vengeance must surely be his.

Long Tom tied Budgie’s hands in front of him. Putting two and two together (and getting the solution correct) Budgie sat facing the same direction as Luke and forced his knees between his arms. Long tom threaded him onto the same stave as Luke. “OK, little birdies, on your feet.”

Long Tom lifted the boys by the armpits until they were balanced precariously on their toes. “Ah, the little birdies are singing.” They certainly weren’t being quiet. “OK, little birdies, hop around.” That was probably outside the rules but the victims thought they’d be wise to try and soon ended up on their backsides again. “Yes, I thought so, we need a little more rope.” decided Tom, not entirely relevantly. He took a rope, doubled it and hitched it round the stave just against Budgie’s right leg, he drew it across above both boys’ knees and hitched it tightly round the stave again near Luke’s left leg. He returned it below the seated boys’ knees and wrapped it several times round the stave beside Budgie’s legs once more. Having debated with himself the desirability of using the plentiful remaining rope to secure the recent bindings in the middle of the stave, Tom decided that he couldn’t be arsed and simply knotted it off. Not that Luke and Budgie had much remaining scope for movement, Long Tom used the remaining rope to tether them to a nearby tree.

Budgie knew that Luke would be content to sit and wait out his sentence but he resented the fact that he was more or less de-barred from trying to escape his own tying. Long Tom departed to watch what was left of the last tag-team match.

At the start of the bout, it was apparent that JT had drawn the short straw. He might well have been sixteen, just, and athletic with square shoulders, well-defined pecs and a narrow waist but he was somewhat elfin in appearance. George, who was still fourteen, fifteen next month, was as tall as JT and Rusty was the largest of the Buzzards. Martin decided it would be fairer if Rusty took the ring first for the tag team even though Rusty himself failed to see the fairness of the decision. George, who was wearing Speedos (fourteen cm fluidsprint allover briefs if anyone’s interested), grasped a tag rope and waited.

JT soon managed to get hold of Rusty but it was like juggling eels trying to maintain his grip securely enough to pin or lift the cackling red-haired demon. Rusty was enjoying himself and George saw no reason to be tagged. JT was simply not nasty enough to take full advantage of the younger boy but, you know him, he wouldn’t really mind losing if it wasn’t for his team. After about four minutes Rusty found himself clasped by the waist with his legs over JT’s shoulders and being carried round the ring. First fall to JT. Rusty recovered quickly as soon as his opponent had lowered him gently to the ground and soon came up to scratch ready to go again. JT made a grab, made brief contact and Rusty dodged past him and tagged George.

George didn’t have the same athletic figure as JT but he was a reasonable match for height. The two boys engaged and fought what passed for a good display of ground-wrestling. After nearly another five minutes, JT found himself on his back with one of George’s heels on his neck and his other foot in his armpit. That of itself wasn’t so bad but the associated arm-lock was certainly a submission hold. Martin called, “Break” and George retired to a “corner”. George obviously had to re-start and there was about a minute left. As long as he could prevent JT scoring, his team would win.

“New rule!” JT looked at Mark with some incredulity. “The normal rule is fair when the tag team wrestlers are smaller than the solo wrestler, yes boys?” There was general assent. “As these two aren’t too much different, I reckon the red-haired kid ought to start. Anyone against?” There was no dissent, not even from Rusty. So he came up to scratch and Martin announced, “Time out, wrestle.”

Both boys feinted a few times and JT lunged. Rusty was simply too quick for him and JT suffered the embarrassment of having the smaller boy duck to the ground and shoot between his legs as he staggered to retain his footing. Rusty headed straight for George who tagged him. In the remaining time neither boy was able to score (this wasn’t like that WWF rubbish) and Martin called a break before announcing that the Scout team had won. The “adults” didn’t really think that JT had a fair crack of the whip but rules is rules (unless no one’s looking) and they didn’t think they should stretch things too far. In the end, it was decided that only Rusty should actually tie up JT but that George could act in an executive capacity.

Equipment was collected and JT had to take it to his place of imprisonment. George asked Rusty what he wanted to do to their defeated opponent. Just because he was young doesn’t mean that Rusty lacked imagination when it came to restraining people and George set to helping his team-mate with a will. Rusty wanted to tie JT’s hands in front of him so George advised him that the best (and least painful) way to do it was to start with a doubled rope made into a noose. As with any novice, Rusty started threading the free ends of the rope through the “lark’s head” until George showed him that it was easier to hold the rope a few centimetres down from the loop, push your thumb and finger up through it, separate them and bring them back down over the doubled rope. Once the lark’s head has been moved down the rope a bit, a double loop appears easily. Rusty tried it a few times and became quite adept at it. When he was happy, he demanded that JT present his wrists back-to-back and his arms straight. He fed the loops over JT’s hands and tightened them before wrapping the doubled rope about four times round JT’s wrists before, under George’s direction, feeding it through the lark’s head again. A few frapping turns and a couple of rather ill-defined knots finished the job but left Rusty with quite a lot of rope left over. He’d obviously been watching some tutorials and, although the other Scouts might have considered taking paracord and tying a victim’s thumbs together, none of them would have thought of weaving it between the rest of JT’s fingers as Rusty was doing before securing it round his little fingers. There was no way JT was going to be twisting his wrists in the rope. Being a fan of tie-ups, JT never held a grudge against his captors but he thought he might make an exception for this cackling upstart.

George used the “mouse” technique to feed the ends of the rope over quite a high branch and suggested that it was not a good idea (let alone an engineering nightmare) to try tying the ends round JT’s feet leaving him suspended. Being a reasonable man, Rusty was prepared to compromise and, sitting on George’s shoulders, he looped the ends between JT’s wrists and tied several knots underneath the previous binding. That left JT with his feet fairly stable on the ground but Rusty hadn’t finished. He took a shorter rope and tied it round JT’s right ankle. Holding on to the end of the rope, he climbed up onto his helper’s shoulders once more and threaded it between the ropes by which JT was hanging. He pulled! JT objected. It was to no avail and the pale American was soon left standing on one foot and oscillating uncontrollably.

“Good one, kid. You’re learning,” congratulated George. He did, however, notice the redness that had spread over the prisoner’s body during the morning. Unlike the typical George, he had a quiet word with Mark who insisted that JT needed sun-block if he was to be able to stay like that for an hour. George retrieved a tube of factor twenty from his pack and handed it to Rusty. “Look after your prisoner.”

Rusty explained what was going to happen and started applying the substance liberally. JT’s reaction to having someone rubbing something into his torso was predictable but he reassured Rusty that it was nothing to worry about and that, in a tie-up game, no one would take any notice. The feud was different. Rusty was no longer interested in tickling the greasy prisoner, which is one of the reasons he’d decided to tie him in the way he had. Oh well, win some, lose some. He settled for giving JT a welt to the backside and abandoning him to his thoughts.

Before the competition was over, the scores had to be announced. An inconclusive two points each to the Scouts and the Sea Scouts left the Scouts still in the lead but with a score of 18 – 13. The Combined Scouts had drawn into the lead against the Warbands, 16 – 14.

The group broke up for informal games and simply dossing around and the Sea Scouts were determined that, whatever extra game was fitted in, they needed enough individual competitions to allow them to make up their deficit. Lots of boys put on both their thinking caps and their sun-block and T-Boy left for work.