The Prussian Girls (8 page)

Three minutes later Anna Erland was presenting these to the Duty Mistress in her dreaded chamber. This today was Mademoiselle Bellais, the French mistress, a neat, smiling woman in her early thirties who looked fashion personified in her ultra-short white silk costume and almost crease-less leather boots. A contrast to the Matron in every way. As she surveyed the wretched expression of the pretty little underschool above her flexed cane, it was all she could do not to burst out laughing. With a bit of luck the silly thing would burst out crying in a moment.

“How would you like the first five, Anna?” she chaffed, and, receiving for answer but a finger twisting at a chain-ring, went on briskly, “Let's try them across that fidgety little bottom of yours, shall we. Come here.”

These 'Zettel were meant to be deterrent, but not intolerably severe. Each Duty Mistress could pay them off as desired, and only a lighter, or “classroom,” cane was employed. This was a flicky, whippy instrument, rather than one that bruised deeply. Its sting was considerable, however.

Anna was bent over a stool, her hands on its far edge and her legs straight behind but at an angle- her feet positioned some yard to the rear. Divested once more of its underclothing, her rump quivered in apprehension. Jacqueline Bellais was highly grateful to the Prefect who had strapped those cheeks downwards like that-the well-reddened undersides would react well.

“Who gave you those?”

“Seckendorff, Miss.”

“Good for her.”

“Hhrsss!”

“Ooooo…”

The mistress cut up quickly into the underfat. It was not a very hard stroke but it finished in a stingy flick that made the skin of her victim cringe in. Four more wristy cuts and Anna was in agony. She was given five minutes' pause and took the second 'Zettel in an unusual way. Sitting on the stool, with her bottoms over its edge, she was made to bend right forward, head between her knees. Then the French mistress cut sharply down, in a rigidly vertical stroke that bit in deeply. Anna had never been corrected like this and was squirming like a cut worm on the stool before it was over. And then her chits were signed, as effectuated, and she had to hurry back to her classroom and present them to her teacher, trying not to show her suffering. The latter made her stand for the rest of the period, and had her do so with knickers down and skirt up, exposing her weals-five nice and high, five nice and low- “Lots of room for some more in between,” as she commented to the snickering class.

And thus, it was-as little Anna was already rapidly learning. You were never free of that beastly biting cane. It hung over your head like a Damoclean sword, descending with that awful tingly dread that took your breath away and yet set you on edge and made even the youngest clit stiff, throbbing in anticipation.

At ten thirty each morning there was a break period, of a half-hour, when the girls performed calisthenics in the yard outside, under the eagle eye of Frau Dick, gym mistress elect. They did these in rows, with maximal vigor, not simply because punishment awaited the slovenly, but since for most of the year it was bitterly cold outside, certainly in the tiny tunics, and also since the girls enjoyed the exercises. These only, in any event, lasted some ten minutes or so, after which they ran back in, hugging their friends, laughing and joking, their faces red and ready for the glass of hot milk each had to take in the Hall.

It was here, daily, at approximately a quarter of eleven that the Headmistress addressed the gathered school. The girls lined either side of the Great Hall by classes, the mistresses sat in front on a dais, from which Frau Grumkow gave out the letters (already, of course, perused), made various announcements about coming activities, and in general encouraged that wholesome fidelity to duty for which the Schloss was celebrated. It was usually a moment of camaraderie and affection, for though all looked up to the Frau Direktrice they did so with an admiring glow. This period was also, however, that allotted to “Head's corrections,” namely by the birch.

So far this term there had only been one of these but it had been, as always, a salutory spectacle. It had involved a sturdily built seventeen-year-old, one Joyce Hall, daughter of the British Ambassador to Pomerania (now ceded to Prussia), and with a niece of Charles XII of Sweden one of the most distinguished foreigners attending the academy. In brief, Joyce had been found secreting cakes from the dining-table in her knickers and eating them under her sheets, after Lights Out.

These birchings were notoriously elaborate, involving much ritual, so much so that after Frau Grumkow's long lecture even the most steel-hearted were longing for the cuts to begin, and to get it over with. For the Schloss endeavored to harden and prepare their charges for life in ways both mental as well as physical. Even an experienced Senior could be reduced to a jelly of nervous emotion by one of the Headmistress's addresses. Joyce, a generally liked girl despite her nationality, endured hers phlegmatically, and stark naked in the center of Great Hall, save for high heels and smoky stockings, high-tethered by her garters. Perhaps this was partly due to the fact that German was not her native tongue. She had thin fairish hair which must have been bleached in the sun since her bush was a short crisp curly black, flattened to her belly by her wearing of panties. Her thighs were particularly well-muscled-she was a strong runner-and her arse-cheeks solid; she was a girl, most would have said, destined to grow stout later in life, altogether an appetizing specimen to flog with the birch, and more than one eye of those watching this flesh which seemed to challenge the rod was bright. But her sentence produced no less than a gasp around the hall; it was thirty-five strokes with the birch, plus five of the celebrated “master's stripes,” and three days' solitary confinement. The girl's eyes blinked unbelievingly when she heard it. After further preliminaries she was bent over the block-“All ass,” as Ingeborg Untermacher remarked to her friend Maria Daunitz after-her thick cheeks awaiting the achingly long twigs which Fraulein Katte, allotted the first dozen, drew dripping from a tub.

These branches stung like fury and it was not long before little spasmodic clenchings were visible testimony of their bite. They hissed like asps in the silence. The hands, manacled behind, fisted and scratched. But she endured her first dozen without a sound. A second mistress came forward for the second and, anxious to show her mettle, soon drew up lively wales and grazed blisters of skin. The twigs dug in pitilessly on the right as the punishment began to be worthy of the name. Each cut now drew a violent jerk and a strangled gasp. The buttock masses tightened frantically and the mistress was able to draw out the strokes considerably. A skilful bircher could keep a girl at the summit of pain with no more than four a minute, though the pace was usually faster than this in order to effect that psychological and most absolute victory of correction-when the whipped girl simply could not get her senses to believe she could take another. This final stage of utter absolution was effected for Joyce by the third mistress, who delivered the last eleven after the girl had been thoroughly revived for the ordeal with smelling salts and a bucket of brine emptied over her buttocks.

These were now, on the right at least, a hatched crisscrossing of purplish wales and weals, flecked with ruby pearls where the skin had broken under some particularly toughly pickled bud. These final strokes, of supreme severity, drove all color from the faces of the junior classes watching. They ended in a flurry of passionate tears from the victim, a sudden sobbing that broke out as much at the degradation of being made, at last, to show her pain as anything. The whole birching had probably taken six or seven minutes and after it was over, the Headmistress came down to inflict her five master's cuts with the whalebone. These were quite excruciating on the tenderized flesh and each drew a cry from the Amazonic English girl. Finally, let down and restored with salts, she had to stand on a dunce's stool at the door while the school filed out past her ruined cheeks in silence.

A wry smile fled over the lips of the mistress with the birch as she supervised there that each girl had a good look at the effects of punishment-the chest still heaving with sobs and pulled back by the fettered hands, the purpled bottoms quivering as if terrified, huddled together-before turning to curtsy to the Head and return to work. The mistress noted the gleam in the eyes of the Seniors, as, connoisseurs of the rod, they observed such details as drops of blood on one sturdy calf-such lively glances were followed by the ashen faces of the younger. Finally, the girl herself was hurried off in chains to the cellars for her three days of Solitary Confinement where, if she was lucky, she would have to face no more than bread and water, bondage, and a morning beating.

The noon hour, then, was a free one. It was a happy moment of the day when the girls gathered in groups before luncheon at one to exchange stories, make friendships, renew old ones-discuss the com-the idea of discipline had lodged deep within the mnemonic processes of these impressionable maidens, each of whom felt especially privileged to be accepted at Schloss Rutenberg, and much chitchat entered on what school slang knew as klitschklatsch! Gossip was rife. Was it true that the young Prince Frederick was now his father's prisoner, no less? That his best friend was to be executed? That Austria were being as insolent as ever? Well, was the common assent, to much tossing of puerile shoulders, the Austrians would have to learn their lesson, that was all. Like the English, and the French, and the Russians… heavens, didn't everyone?

There was but one flagellatory feature of this noon recess; any girl who had received Detention, and was due to suffer it that afternoon, might get dispensation from the Duty Mistress to pay it off in stripes. Five for an hour, ten for two-and all ten had to be taken together. The character of this little amnesty was more light-hearted than most whippings in the Schloss, and close to some athletic activity. For it was really incumbent on any Senior (at least) awarded an hour to show her Prussian pluck by taking a simple “fiver” with the light classroom cane. Should she not do so, she would hardly rate. Moreover, Detention was extremely unpleasant in these parts.

Accordingly, when the list for it went up at noon, a group of excited younger girls-many with “crushes” on their older colleagues-could be seen clustered in the hall outside the Duty Room. The door of this was left open and any girl could tap on it and enter. The chattering would shush and cease as some Senior strode in and made her request. Then, with hot-gripped hands, the listeners would strain excitedly in the silence so that each single biting snip of the cuts came clearly to them, each dry rap like the snapping of a twig of wood. Then the Senior would emerge, red-faced perhaps but not seriously the worse for wear, though walking rather fast. If forced by pain to grasp and puff she would grin at her audience, and probably take to her heels. But if she could saunter controlledly out, a burst of applause would greet her. And she would blush, and signal to her special friend among the scum to follow her, for a little gentle relief.

This regimen of the rod was thus naturally effected day after day, week after week, throughout the term. The girls accepted it unquestioningly, as prideful part of their special training. Indeed, with the number of them there were, the canings were not too intolerably common. Their presence existed in the mind continually, however. During the afternoon sports, and the evening pre-Prep recreation, where round games and dances were indulged in, the rod was publicly put away-so a visitor might conclude. There would, however, be those destined to make corrective trips to individual mistresses' rooms, and then three or four unfortunates a day, whose names had appeared on the Duty List, could be seen with anything but happy expectations on their anxious faces. These were those who had been told to put themselves in The Book-as the black-bound Bible of Duty corrections, standing on its lectern outside that dreaded chamber, was known.

The following will attend the Duty Mistress at 9:00 p.m…

Those who had been deemed sufficiently naughty to join this wretched rank were, by late afternoon, when the list was posted, in a perfect tizzy of internal butterflies. For the daily Duty punishment was the most dreaded moment in the lives of these pretty pensionaires; it was both ordeal and duel-one fought against the frightful penal cane, longer than most, whippy yet tough enough to make a flugleman cry out. Since Maria Daunitz had already experienced this heartless weapon, it is with her we shall logically visit its application in the Duty Room.

“Is it really true, Head, that we have a platoon of these colossal foot guards quartered nearby?”

“Yes, with the Fifteenth Dragoons?”

“It's not only true,” said Frau Grumkow, stretching back contentedly in her chair. “But the Count has told me these positive giants need strenuous servicing. I hope you ladies are game. I may be required to send a delegation.”

The mistresses exchanged glances. It was some days later, and this moment after dinner, in the Frau Direktrice's study, was always a pleasant, relaxed one for them all. Only the Duty Mistress for the day, and those taking special assignments in Hall and Prep, ate with the girls. The rest dined with their Head, upstairs, and they dined very well. After dinner, they repaired as now, with great brimming beakers of brandy, to her study to talk and smoke. The Duty Mistress alone was not allowed to drink during her day. On this occasion there were some six mistresses present and, after standing until their almost diminutive-looking Principal had first seated herself facing the fire, they all took low leather chairs around her.

She herself had on a tight, ruffled shirt and a becoming pair of stone-colored velveteen trousers, belted low. She smoked a thin, dark cheroot. Maria Theresa Daunitz, watching from a seat at the side, looked at her with a new respect. That chunky, cheerfully squared off face was really resolution personified.