The Battle Begins

by Nicholas H.

        “Mphhhhhhfff!” I squirmed involuntarily. An early cold breeze –strange for this time of the year – had blasted against my bare chest, sending shivers up my body; and there was nothing I could do to prevent it, for my arms were tied behind my back at wrists and elbows.

        My captors, Gus and Klaus, sat on a log facing the cozy bonfire, engaged in a blissful chatter with some other boys while I remained securely bound to a tree a few meters away.

        I mmmphhhed again, this time louder. Despite all my efforts to gain their attention, they just pretended they didn’t hear me, occasionally doing that silly giggle which clearly showed how much they were pleased by my helplessness. The scoundrels.

        They had been acting like this since an hour ago, after Gus’ –I’ve got to admit – cunning morning joke. When they’d finished lashing me to the a pine’s trunk, they joined the others around the fire and relished in devouring a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches. Of course, that prompted some ‘mmpphs’ from poor me as there was no indication they’d save me even the bread crump. The hospitality from the day before I’d been so thankful for was nowhere to be found; no wonder people say war does bring the worst of people. In minutes, the boy finally grew tired of my whining and came up to me, a sandwich in hand, which he waved at my face.

        “Wanna eat Nick?”

        I nodded heartily.

        “Oh, why didn’t you say so before?”

        I rolled my eyes.

        “Hehe, let’s get that gag off.”

        Maybe he’s not so much of a jerk after all.

        Uh… wrong again, Nick boy. As soon as the knot was tackled and the cloth in my mouth removed, Gus reached for the sandwich and crammed half of it into my mouth, before I could even utter a word! He then clamped his hand over my lips. The other kids just laughed at my WTF look.

        “Well, you wanted to eat, so eat!” Gus told me, obviously amused. By then, I was fuming, my eyes launching murderous glances at them, but I knew I had no choice; it was that or having an empty stomach for the rest of the morning. Therefore, feeling like a grazing cow, I slowly chewed the little I could at the sides and not without much effort managed to swallow the huge piece. At least they had added a guava jelly that was delicious. The remaining portion was fed in the same extremely polite manner.

        “Now, how about something to drink?” Without even waiting for my approval, Gus grabbed my chin and held it up with one hand, squeezing the sides of my face so my lips opened and using the other hand he poured a bottle of juice into my mouth.

        “There,” Gus said and wiped my mouth with a napkin, “breakfast over.” With that, he replaced my gag tighter as ever.

        “Mmmphh!!”

        “What. You’re still hungry?” I shook my head.

        “Mppphhhhhh.” I’m freezing! I need a t-shirt!

        “Need to pee?” No.

        “Mmmm-mmmhhhh!!” Just a t-shirt, for Christ’s sake!

        “What then? Rope’s too tight?” No again.

        “Ah, good then, if it’s not one of those, it can wait,” he concluded.

        Grrr…  

        Adding to my already precarious psychological condition of coldness and despair, Gus drew a scout handkerchief and blindfolded me. Great. They kept me like that for what it seemed a full half-hour. Then they untied me, leaving my hands and elbows bound, blindfold and gag on, and marched me through the woods, a hand on my shoulder guiding me all the way. We stopped after a good 15 minutes where, judging by the familiar voices, Adrian and Mike’s team had arranged to meet.

        “Here he is – as we promised,” Klaus said and pushed me, which made me stumble clumsily forward.

        Half-laughing and taken aback at the same time, “Oh my god! You didn’t keep him like that all night, did ya?” Phil asked.

        “Sure we did. But we had to,” Mike said.

        “Yeah, Nick here just wouldn’t stay still last night and he talks too much!” Klaus chimed in. “We warned him,” he carried on, matter-of-fact, “but he left us no choice.” Everyone chuckled.

        Those goddamn liars! I started mphhhfffing loudly through my gag. Well, at least I was not giving those coward boyscouts the chance to humiliate me further. It wasn’t true! But they didn't - I mean, as if I could have... they were the ones who “persuaded” me to take my shorts off and began trying all kind of knots on me! I knew it was part of the game, that they were trying to give the “tough guys” impression in front of their enemies, but nobody likes being embarrassed in front of their friends.

        The boy removed my blindfold and I was able to see Tyler, Adrian, Chris, Phil and Adam, grinning at me. As it was revealed to me the day before, they were the ones who had conned me into this whole tie-up club thing and thus becoming the boyscouts’s prisoner.

        “Hi there Nick, enjoyed your night?” asked Adrian.

        Enraged, I shouted, “You traitors!” but it sounded more like, “Mphhhhhfff!!” which was the reason they all laughed back.

        To my right stood the boyscouts, all ten of them (i.e., Mike, Klaus, Scott, James, Justin, Gus, Doug, Collin and the twins Billy & Dan) in their typical brownish uniforms with light-blue scarves and several badges neatly aligned on the left side - dorks -, all of them except Collin. Quite surprised, I saw him just behind the other kids, on the floor, tightly bound and gagged with his own scarf; he had no uniform but a white t-shirt and blue PE gym shorts with white stripes on the sides.

        “Look, Adrian, to make things even,” said Mike, “one of our guys is gonna switch to your side. Try to be reasonable. There’s ten of us, eleven in fact with my little brother Robert, and it’s no fun if we squash you too easy.”

        I could tell by the look on Adrian’s face he didn’t like the idea of receiving aid at all – conceited and cocky boy, what can you do – and was just about to say something in return, but stopped. I think he realized that, precisely, pride was at stake and little chance of victory could be seen in playing against that many rivals, so he accepted reluctantly with a slight nod.

        “We’ll let you have one of the twins. Dan, what do you say?”

        The well-built twin looked at Mike, answered okay and before grouping with Adrian he glanced back mischievously at his brother, saying,
“Watch out lil’ bro! Now it’s me ‘gainst ya.”

        To which Billy, the other auburn-haired kid, replied, “Yeah, but it’s you who’s gonna get caught, bro.”

        “Ha, wait and see,” Dan sneered.

        “Ok, anything else?” Adrian said, impatient.

        “Hmm… on second thought, you can take this worthless piece of… traitor too,” Mike said and two kids dragged Collin to the other side. The boy sweated profusely and seemed exhausted, exactly alike one who minutes before has suffered a relentless tickle torture.

         “What did he do?” said Chris.

        “Ask him.”
 
         A boy untied Collin’s gag. Utter shame was printed on his face.

        “I… uhhh… fell asleep when I was supposed to be watching Nick… but please Mike! I’m so sorry – it won’t happen again – I promise – please take me in!” Oh my, how piteous he looked with those pearly black eyes! Mike must have had a wholly different pity scale, though, because he merely turned his nose up as the boy’s pleading were muffled away with the same piece of cloth he’d been gagged.

         “Awright, it’s all settled for the game then,” Mike announced. “Can someone please explain the rules so we can move on?”

        Chris continued, “Sure. Very simple guys, the goal is to capture as much members of the opposite team as you can. The group holding the most prisoners by noon wins. It’s 7.30.”

        “Is there like a… specific way of capturing, or we’ll just have to beat each other up?” Tyler asked.

        “Well, the only ‘legal’ way to capture an enemy is to shoot him with a squirt gun - that everyone must carry, by the way,” answered Adrian.

        “Of course you can wrestle him down too; but if you get hit by the water you HAVE to surrender. Get it?” Tyler nodded.

        “Then he’ll become your prisoner, and it’s up to you to make sure he doesn’t escape,” added Mike, smiling at that last sentence.

        “No need to say that if you wanna interrogate him, you can, also using whatever method to get the info, as long as you don’t hurt him or cause pain of course,” Adrian concluded.

        These general rules were accepted by everyone, mainly because it ensured a safe game while allowing great tie-up fun; disobeying them proved to be stupid, for you lost trust and could be banned from further games – something which nobody was willing to jeopardize.

        “Okay, now give us Nick,” Adrian demanded.

        “And you, Robert,” came Klaus’ quick answer. Without ado, the exchange of prisoners was carried out.
 

        We flipped a coin to see who’d get the campsite and the clearing as their base. Probability wasn’t nice to us this time; our base would be right there, that vulnerable clearing right in the heart of the woods, while the boyscouts got to keep the camp located East, where it barely touched the forest’s outskirts and had a single attack flank. Getting there would take them a while, so it was convened that they’d blow a whistle to let us know they had arrived, and the game would begin right away.

        Not wasting any time, and just a derisive, “good luck, you’ll need it,” as a goodbye, the boyscouts moved out en masse, leaving us to discuss the course of actions.

        “Mmmpph,” I finally said after a few seconds to let them know they could untie me if that wasn’t much trouble.

        “Oh yeah.” First of them to help me was Tyler, who undid the knots binding my hands and elbows. Phil removed the gag. Freedom! It felt so good to be able to rub some of my aching limbs.

        “Everything alright?”

        Even though an urging desire of revenge against my pals – especially, my cousin Ty - was building up inside me, I did not confront them; it suddenly dawned on me that they did not know I knew about the set-up yet! Mike had told me about it only last night.

        “Yeah, fine.” I would play along, pretend not to know anything, and when they least expected it – sweet payback! Brilliant.

        “So, what’s the plan?” I asked with the most enthusiastic tone I could feign. Nobody answered.

        “Guys? Guys… please tell me there is a plan.”

        “Duh, of course we have one… don’t we?” Phil asked in an increasingly despairing voice.

        “Well… I… uh…” Adrian stammered; then he was quiet and goofily whistled, turning around.

         I threw my arms up in the air. “Oh, that’s just great Adrian! There are 9 of them; they know this forest hell of a lot better than we do - and you show up saying there’s nothing planned?!” They remained silent.

         “Couldn’t you come up with something yesterday? What the hell did you do all night anyway?!”

        Phil then chipped in with a devious smile, “Oh, in that one, I gotta say, Adrian did show a great deal of interest.” He, Tyler, Adam and Chris burst laughing while Adrian blushed.

        “You better shut up, Phil. What happens in the tent stays in the tent!” Adrian snapped at his brother. Although I was dying of curiosity, I did not enquire further – there was no time to lose.

        I sighed. “Hey guys, listen up. This is what we’re gonna do: we’ll split up in groups of 2 – we’re 8, so that makes 4… um, let’s call them ‘squads’. This way we can cover more territory and also prevent the whole team being captured at the same time. But we shouldn’t leave the base unprotected, so only three of the ‘squads’ is going to hit the woods - in different directions of course. One stays hidden here, in case the scouts show up.” The boys nodded their assent.
“What about the prisoners? Where do we bring prisoners? Here too?” asked Adrian.

        “Don’t think so, no. You see, if we have one or two prisoners in more than one place then it’ll be harder for the scouts to find out where they are; but if they’re all, like, just in the base, it’s way obvious and the chance of them all getting rescued at the same time is always there. Also, it may be a good idea not to tell the others where you left the guys you captured, ‘cuz if they in turn get captured by the scouts and interrogated, they won’t be able to give in anyway.”

        “Right. And what are we gonna do with him?” Adam pointed towards bound and gagged Collin. “Should we set him free?”

        “I don’t know…,” Adrian said. He was not altogether sure of letting a former enemy with a laziness record inside our team. “Maybe we should just keep him tied up until the game’s over.”

        “MMMMMPPHHHHHH!!” Collin began shaking his head mightily; he even dropped to his knees and whimpered imploringly.

        “C’mon, look at him! He’s miserable enough like this!” I said. Adrian pondered, looked at Collin and then back at me. “It would definitely help to have one more,” I then added on the boy’s behalf. Inversing the roles, I sure wouldn’t have wanted to spend 5 hours tied up either and lose all the fun!
“I wonder if we can, or should, trust you,” Adrian said.

        Collin hurriedly swung his head up and down; and when Dan untied the cloth impeding his speech, the bright-haired boy cried, “Dude, you’ve gotta let me play!”

        “Actually, no we don’t.” Adrian smirked.

        “Please, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do! I’m not going to doble-cross you, I promise!” Easy to tell, Adrian wasn’t convinced. He knew better.

        “And, and - I can be of great use to you too!”

        Skeptical, “Yeah, like what?” Phil asked.

        “Uhh… what you said about prisoners! Best strategy is to have them in one place, seriously, um, because then you can… uh… torture info out of them at the same time. Another plus is you won’t need as much guards.”

        “Not enough, kid,” Adrian bluntly said. Collin desperately scanned his mind for something that could bail him out.

         “Then I could like… uh, I can tell you all their strategies, I can show you how they’ll play!”

        Dan, the other scout on our team, stared at him dumbfounded.

        “Dude, Mike’s so gonna kill you if you do that!”

        “Fuck Mike. I’ll tell.”

        “He can’t be serious,” Phil cut in, “he’s just saying anything to save his ass.”

        Adrian folded his arms. “I don’t buy it either. Gag him again.”

        Collin jumped.“NO! Wait! Adrian, please, Nick—mphhhhffff!!” He was cut in mid sentence by a rag shoved inside his mouth as he grunted and writhed against his bonds.

        Then Adrian suddenly chuckled and grinned.

        “Just kidding! Of course you can play,” Adrian tousled the younger kid’s hair. Collin was then released and helped on his feet.

        “Thanks,” he shyly answered.

        Each boy was then given a water pistol (nothing fancy, much like a compact semi-automatic Smith & Wesson .45 or 9mm, transparent and small enough to fit in one’s pocket or inside waistband). We decided carrying 2 coils of rope was enough – if we captured someone we would use the kid’s supply anyway; and one roll of duct tape per squad, which might – if not always – come in handy. In case we ran short of binding material, an extra-supplies bag was left behind hidden inside the bushes.

        After common agreement, the squads were formed as follows:

        We made sure Dan & Collin were not in the same squad, just in case they were planning to desert and return to their former group. Therefore, we sent both in completely opposite directions. Collin teamed up with me; we would retreat North and hide at safe distance from the base, as a fallback squad in case Tyler & Chris were invaded and occupied. Same thing for Dan & Phil, only they would take South, where, according to Collin, Mike would try sending a scout or two. As for Adrian and Adam, the two being the most experimented and agile, they were to storm the front and quickly detect –and hopefully capture- arriving kamikaze enemies. It made no sense sending someone west, as the forest ended just a hundred meters ahead and beyond that it was considered out of the game’s limits.
 
        Collin was giving us some last advices when a low-pitched, acute noise echoed in the woods.

         “That’s Mike’s whistle. The game is on,” Adrian announced.

         “We stick to my plan. You all know what you have to do,” I said hastily. “Be careful and try not to do something stupid like getting caught!”

         “Yeah, and if you do, lie about everything they ask. It’ll buy us time,” Collin winked and smiled.         

        “Okay, go go go !” We’d been playing Counter Strike a lot over the last few months, so I just couldn’t resist saying this, to the amusement of the whole team.

        Thus, we split up. Collin and I headed up a steep trail leading to the top of a small hill, from where we could look over the clearing, until it descended again and disappeared into the heart of the forest. From now on, we would make our way through with utmost care, but swiftly, avoiding branches or twigs that could alert enemies of our presence. Feeling like a Commando team, we continued in his manner for a couple of minutes, until a blood-curling scream had us dead in our tracks.

        “HEEEeeeeeeelp!!”

        My mind was racing. Collin and I looked at each other. We were sure it came from East, but who was it? It could be either Phil or Dan… or even one of the enemy scouts. But this wasn’t right, it sounded too creepy. Somebody might be hurt. It seems not so far away.

         “Let’s go check that.”

        “Okay.”

        But as soon as we left the bushes which had provided us perfect cover from the main path, we heard close steps behind us.

        “Get down!” Collin hissed and we both dropped to the ground immediately, our hearts pouncing.

        “Did they see us?”

        “Dunno.”

         “Get your gun ready.”