01 - The Cops and Robbers Gang
Story index at the bottom
By Dan
Saturday October 7th 2000 08:35:32
Part 1
During my early childhood my family lived in a large house on the border of a forest in the South of England. My father was seldom home as he was a long distance airline pilot and thus I enjoyed a liberal and relaxed upbringing under the benevolent management of my matronly mother.
I had a circle of about 6 pretty close friends, boys and girls, who usually gravitated to my house at week ends, largely due to the happy and free environment and the proximity to the magic playground which the adjacent forest afforded.
Needless to say, most of the games I and my mates played were of the "cops & robbers" variety, some of them lasting for days on end, interrupted only by meals and bedtimes. These breaks were often made entirely at my house on a parentally authorized "sleep-over" basis and, therefore, my home became the headquarters of our frequent adventure games.
At first, our games tended to take the form of wild, unstructured chases involving little other than squirting each other with water pistols and playing "dead" when shot. However, things changed for the better one summer morning during the school holidays when our "gang" was augmented by two newcomers to our village, twin brothers who came from Canada. These two boys, Jon and Cam, aged 9, were a year older than the rest of us and, as it turned out, very much more experienced in matters of action play.
In no time at all, Jon and Cam had organized our group into two teams of four, he and his brother in one team with one boy, Jimmy and a girl, Suzie, from our old group and me, my best buddy Doug, Henry and the only other girl, Jenny, on the other team. Also, for the first time, set rules and objectives were set.
Team 1 (Jon, Cam & Co) were "cops" and would occupy as their HQ an old wood shed in the forest, which had long been our "fort". The other team, of which I appointed myself leader, were the "fugitives", more dramatically described by Jon and Cam as guerillas, and would be hunted by the other team. Those of us who were caught would be taken to the wood shed and held captive. Our team could try to release our team mates as best we could. We, in turn, would try to capture as many cops as possible. Obviously, the team who managed to capture the whole other team were winners. The cops were not allowed to "sit" at their HQ and capture would be effected by a direct hit by water gun. Each team member was issued with two lengths of rope (cut from several hanks found in the garage) and a couple of not all that clean rags (for gagging). The rule was, if captured, your materials would be used to tie you up and not those of the capturer. That way, no one would run out of binding materials.
At this point I must point out that tying up had never been a strong feature in our games up to this point and most of the "gang" were pretty inexperienced when it came to ropecraft. However, Doug and I had both discovered a mutual enjoyment of tying each other up and had become quite expert, at least for our age, in restraint techniques.
For this reason I paired with Henry while Doug and Jenny made up the second group, thus sharing our binding expertise between the two groups. We all ran off into the woods, our two groups remaining apart so that we wouldn't all be caught together, but maintaining distant visual contact.
Henry and I concealed ourselves in a shallow dug-out which the gang had created behind a huge oak tree to await the inevitable arrival of one or more of the cops. We didn't have to wait long before we observed Jon and Jimmy approaching from the direction of the wood shed, Suzie and Cam presumably having been left to guard their HQ. We knew Jimmy knew about the dug-out and would probably have told Jon of the likelihood of us being there as it had always been a key strategic point in our forest playground. Using the big tree as cover, we stealthily crawled away from the dug-out to a point about 20 yards away from it where we could observe it without being seen.
As we expected, water pistols at the ready, Jon and Jimmy charged up to the dug-out, only to find an empty pit - and to be shot in the back by Henry and I!
Having immobilized them (it was agreed that once "shot", you had to drop your own weapon and stand motionless with your hands up) we went up to the two cops and retrieved their water pistols. As Henry didn't have much of a clue about tying up, I undertook the task of binding our prisoners. Taking one of his ropes from his pants pocket, I pulled Jon's arms behind his back and tied his hands together, pretty tightly, using Doug and my preferred criss- cross method, drawing the rope horizontally then vertically around his crossed wrists, tying the rope off in a double reef knot at the top of his wrists where he couldn't reach the knot. Having finished with John, I then tied Jimmy's hands in the same manner with a piece of his rope. I then used their strips of cloth to gag them, stuffing one strip into each of their mouths and holding the gags in place by winding the other piece several times around their mouth and head. We then led our disarmed, gagged and bound prisoners deeper into the forest undergrowth to a small clearing, well off the beaten track, where they were unlikely to be found by their team mates.
Now, one of the rules of our game was that you could tie up a prisoner any way you liked but not TO anything, i.e a tree, post, chair etc. You could also only use the materials your prisoner was carrying. Placing the captives about three yards apart, lying face down on the leafy ground, using the second of their ropes, I tied their legs together, winding two loops round their ankles and cinching the bond tight by pulling another couple of loops round the horizontal binding, between their ankles and tying the whole thing off in the usual double reef knot in a position which couldn't easily be reached by searching fingers. Finally, I applied my coup-de-grace, pulling their bound ankles up behind their buttocks and joining the free ends of the ropes which tied their feet and hands in a close "hog-tie" (of course, we didn't know the meaning of the word then but Doug and I had practiced the technique having seen it done in many of the Saturday matinee cowboy films of the day).
Having secured our prisoners and reduced the "enemy" strength of numbers by half, we set about forming up with Doug and Jenny to mount an assault on the wood shed and capture the remaining two cops.
TO BE CONTINUED
Dan
argenaut@hotmail.com
UK
Part 2
Within the first half hour of our war game, Henry and I, both aged 8, had captured half the other team, Jon (9) and Jimmy (8), leaving them securely bound and gagged deep in the woods behind where I lived.
Though they should have been within a hundred yards or so of us, according to our rules of battle, there was no sight of the other two members of our team, Doug and Jenny. Ever cautious of the risk of ambush, Henry and I made our way stealthily through the forest towards the enemy HQ, presuming that our two team mates had observed us capturing Jon and Jimmy and had proceed with our plan to capture the wood shed headquarters and the remaining members of the opposing team, Cam and Suzie.
As the wood shed came into view, there was still no sign of Doug and Jenny. We could see no activity from or around the wood shed so we decided on a full scale frontal assault on the other team's HQ. Pistols at the ready, we ran up to the old shed and barged through the rickety door. The shed was unoccupied, except for a dejected looking Doug who lay bound hand and foot and gagged on the dusty floor. Though not actually hog-tied, Doug's bound ankles were tied to his upper thighs in a tight "jackknife" position and his cross- tied hands were bound securely to the small of his back by a loop of rope round his waist. No way he could reach the jackknife-tied leg bindings or get his hands past his buttocks. As Henry started loosening Doug's gag, I noticed he was staring, wild-eyed, past us and "Ummmmmfing" into his gag. Too late, Henry and I both felt and heard the jets of water striking our backs. We had been neatly ambushed by Cam and Suzy.
Cam took charge of the situation and immediately proved his awesome expertise in tying up. In the same way he had bound Doug, Cam tied Henry's and my hands behind us in a cinched cross-tie, tightly securing them to our torso simply by tying the free ends of the wrist tie rope round our waists, knotted in the front where we couldn't get at the knot. He then tied our feet to our thighs in a most uncomfortable and totally inescapable jackknife, as he had done with Doug. Unlike Doug, though, he didn't bother to gag us. There was no need - he had captured three out of four of our team. Only Jenny remained unaccounted-for.
During the rule-setting prior to the commencement of the game it had been agreed that "torture" of prisoners was permissible, with the proviso that there would be no injury, no blood drawn, no hitting and no hazardous stuff like suffocation. Having captured the three of us, Cam was concerned about the whereabouts of his mates, Jon and Jimmy. He guessed that we had captured them and had immobilized them somewhere in the forest - but where? It would take him and Suzie hours to search the extensive wood together and they couldn't risk splitting up for fear of being ambushed by Jenny, our sole remaining free team- mate. The only alternative was to torture the information out of his prisoners.
Cam decided to start with me, presumably as I was the smallest of the three captives and, therefore, the more susceptible to physical persuasion. Cam untied the rope which bound my ankles to my thighs and freed my hands from my waist. Then he untied my wrists and re-tied them, palms together, tightly cinching the bond in the middle. Squatting on my buttocks, he forced my elbows together so that they were actually touching behind my back. Holding them in place with his knees he then tied them together with the rope that had previously bound my ankles, cinching the bond off between my elbows and jerking his masterpiece into a tight double knot. Finally, joining the two cloth strips from my pocket, he re-tied my feet in a close hog- tie to my wrists.
Altogether, this was by far the most uncomfortable position I had ever been tied in, though not unbearably painful as, at 8, I was pretty scrawny and lithe. I really couldn't move a muscle, apart from my head: every limb was stretched to the limit and any attempt to flex my aching arms just hurt too much. I soon found that if I lay completely still, my arms just went numb from the elbows down and there was no real pain. That was until Cam began to jerk my feet backwards and forwards, alternately applying and releasing the tension on my elbows and wrists. THAT was sore!
While my torture session was in progress, Henry just lay on his side, watching my agony, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He knew I wouldn't break down (I was the dumb hero type) and that soon he would be on the receiving end. Doug, on the other hand, the toughest of us all, seemed to have no qualms about being tortured and just looked on, an amused expression in his eyes. I, in turn, could see that being tied up in the same way I was would be a far more serious matter for Henry as he lacked my wiry physique, to the point of plumpness, and his arms would really suffer from such treatment. When Cam eventually gave up on me and, as I expected he would, moved his attention to the fearful Henry, I decided to spare my buddy the ordeal I had suffered and I told Cam that we would reveal the whereabouts of his team-mates.
After some thought, Cam decided to leave Doug and me in the wood shed, tied up as we were, and take Henry, as hostage and guide, to where we had left Jon and Jimmy. Henry was released from his bonds, apart from his hands which Cam left tied behind his back and the two of them set off to rescue Jon and Jimmy. The little, but ferocious Suzie was left to guard Doug and me.
I figured we had about 15 minutes before Jon and Jimmy were located and freed and the group returned - not enough time to make any meaningful escape attempt. Just as I was beginning to give up hope of winning the game, I spied a movement outside the slightly open door of the shed. Our supposedly "weak-link", Jenny, had crept up to the enemy HQ, forgotten about and unnoticed. In order to divert Suzie's attention, I started to roll about on the floor (painfully!), demanding to be released and cussing at the top of my voice. It worked a treat and as she came up threatening to squirt me with her pistol, Jenny came charging into the shed and "killed" the surprised and indignant Suzie with one well aimed jet of water.
We knew we didn't have much time so I told Jenny not to bother trying to untie our arms, just to release Doug and my legs and feet. We could do the rest later. Having accomplished this, with some difficulty in my case since tightly knotted cloth is not easy to untie, I told Jenny to collect up the materials with which Doug and I had been tied, grab Suzie and make a dash for the forest.
When we were well away from the wood shed, we stopped running and Jenny took it upon herself to tie Suzie's hands behind her back, a task which - to my surprise - she performed with commendable professionalism. With a forlorn Suzie propped up against a tree, bound hand and foot, Jenny set about freeing Doug and me from the ropes which still tied our wrists and, in my case, elbows.
TO BE CONTINUED
Dan (Argenaut)
argenaut@hotmail.com
Wednesday October 11th 2000 05:50:48
Part 3
By the time Doug, Jenny and I had escaped from the enemy HQ into the safety of the forest, I was taking strain. Tied as I was with my elbows bound tightly together with pretty thin cotton wash line and having run, thus bound, some 200 yards through the undergrowth, my arms were beginning to hurt quite considerably. As Jenny loosened the rope which secured my elbows I felt the warm surge of blood flowing through my upper limbs again. She untied my tingling hands and, with fingers still half numb, I tore off Doug's cloth gag while Jenny freed his wrists.
With our sole prisoner, Suzie, bound hand and foot at our feet, we took stock. Except for our fourth team mate, Henry, who was still in the hands of the other team, we were intact again. We had one of their members, Suzie, and they had one of ours, Henry. I privately figured that each had about the same "value" to their respective teams as the other - both being somewhat weak links, Suzie being a mere girl and Henry being pretty useless at anything. Doug and I sat down on the soft, leaf covered forest floor and discussed tactics.
Obviously, the newcomers to our social group, the Canadian twins, Jon and Cam, were much more experienced than us at action games, as well as being a year older than the rest of us. On the other hand, Doug, Jenny and I knew our forest playground like the back of our hands, so had an advantage there. Physical size was not an issue as water pistol craft was the decisive factor in combat, so the bigger Jon and Cam had little if any advantage in their larger physiques.
All things considered, we decided that our team probably had the overall advantage. All our members had intimate knowledge of the combat zone, we were all expert pistol shottists and, finally, we were all "buddies", whereas the newcomers, Jon and Cam's team consisted of two of our playgroup, Jimmy and Suzie (presently our prisoner) in whom they felt they probably couldn't completely rely. If we were to capture the remaining members of the enemy team and, thus, emerge victors of the game, we would have to use our geographical knowledge of the forest to our advantage.
At this point, our prisoner, Suzie, became dangerously noisy by struggling violently against the restraints of her bonds and cussing loudly at Jenny. Jenny promptly solved the problem by gagging Suzie with the two cloth strips which Suzie had tucked in her jeans waist band and tying her bound feet close up to her wrists. No more cussing, just a series of muffled "Mfffffff"s, which soon ceased.
From our position, some 200 yards away from the wood shed which served as the enemy HQ, the old wooden hut was not visible to us but we had to assume that, by now, Jon, Cam and Jimmy would have discovered our escape and realized that their third member, Suzie, was our prisoner. We assumed that they would most probably elect to mount a search for us without delay. As the rules of the game precluded their "sitting" at their HQ for more than 10 minutes, they would almost certainly take their captive, Henry with them as they wouldn't risk leaving him unguarded in the wood shed. The advantage was swinging in our favor!
We released the now still and silent Suzie's hog-tie and freed her feet. Leaving her securely gagged and her hands tied behind her back, we all moved off into the forest, Jenny firmly pushing the prisoner ahead, tightly clutching the free end of the rope which bound her hands. We headed for a small stream which ran the length of the forest and whose winding course and, in places, high banks, offered a host of hidy-holes, many of them known only to my best friend Doug and me.
Following the stream, we selected a point where a tight bend had eroded a deep hollow in its bank which formed an almost invisible cavern, overhung with grass and weeds, which would afford us pretty secure temporary accommodation. Brushing the dense overgrowth aside, we crawled into the earthy cave, ensuring that no evidence of our presence was left in the soil outside. Once secreted from outside view, Jenny tied Suzie's feet together again and secured the end of the rope to her wrists in a very loose hog-tie, just sufficient to prevent her from standing. The gag remained in place, much to Suzie's displeasure!
Doug and I were keen to pursue our objective of capturing the rest of the enemy team and it was decided that we would leave Jenny in the cave to guard the prisoner while Doug and I would return to the vicinity of the wood shed in the hope of securing a captive or two. Though we would be outnumbered by the other team, Jon, Cam and Jimmy would be handicapped by Henry, their accompanying prisoner. We were pretty sure that Henry would hamper their progress as much as possible and make stealth difficult for them. This meant that we retained the tremendous advantage of surprise as we would undoubtedly hear the approach of the enemy before they became aware of us.
We quietly made our way back in the direction of the wood shed, ears and eyes on red alert. Using the trees and undergrowth as cover, we got about half way to the other team's HQ before we heard the unmistakable sound of breaking twigs ahead of us. Hastily concealing ourselves behind a thicket of brambles, through which we could see but not be seen, we observed the less than silent approach of Jon, Cam, Jimmy and our team mate, Henry. Henry was firmly gagged, his hands tied behind his back, being prodded ahead at the end of a sharp pointed stick by Cam. A narrow pathway dictated that the route of the approaching group had to take them right past our hiding place. A perfect ambush opportunity!
As they came nearer, Doug and I moved silently round the thicket so that, as they passed us, Jon, Cam and Jimmy's backs would be presented to us as perfect targets. We held our breath, pistols at the ready: fzzt ! fzzt ! fzzt ! our pistols spoke! Three jets of water found the exposed backs of Jon, Cam and Jimmy. Crowing loudly with glee, we leaped out onto the startled trio, roughly pushing them down onto the thick grass which surrounded our bramble bush. Yanking the ropes from their shorts pockets, we quickly tied John, Jimmy and Cam's hands behind them and freed Henry who, by this time, had had his hands bound for at least an hour. He tore away the cloth strip which held his now sodden gag in place, shrieking revenge at Jon and Cam who had, it seemed, subjected poor Henry to some less than gentle treatment when they had discovered our earlier escape from their HQ.
Prodding our prisoners along with pointed sticks as they had done with Henry, we marched them to the cave where Jenny was anxiously awaiting our return, the forth enemy, Suzi, still tied up and under Jenny's guard. According to the rules of battle, we had, in principle, won the game. All four of the "cops" had been captured and tied up. However, I wanted to exact my revenge on Cam for having subjected me to the pain and discomfort of the manner in which he had previously tied my arms and so it was decided that we would give the other team a chance to vindicate their defeat. Except for Suzie, who we would take as a "hostage", the remaining three, Jon, Cam and Jimmy, would be left tied up in the cave in the same way I had been bound. If they managed to escape within an hour, a draw would be declared and the cops could emerge from the campaign with their honor intact. If they couldn't get loose within the prescribed time period, our team would be declared winners and the price of defeat paid by the vanquished team - an hour of "torture" (within the defined limits).
Doug & I lay Jon, Cam and Jimmy face down on the soft floor of the cave. We re-tied their hands, palms together, the horizontal loops of the rope tightly cinched in the middle, between their wrists. Then, using the "knee-squeeze" technique, we forced their elbows firmly together, securing them in this position with three or four coils of the second rope, also cinched in the middle as we had done with their hands. All three of them were slim of build and their elbows met quite easily behind their backs. Their restraints would not cause undue pain unless they attempted to free themselves. After removing their shoes and socks and hog-tying their bare feet right up to their bound hands with their gag cloths, we dragged them as far apart as the shallow but quite wide cave would allow and we returned, elated and content, to the wood shed. As she presented no threat to us disarmed and on her own, we untied Suzie's hands but kept her on a "leash" tied round her waist.
As none of us had a watch, we waited for what seemed a reasonable "hour" before returning to the cave. Though they had made a pretty valiant attempt to free themselves, we found our captives in pretty much the same position as before. Cam, the most adventurous and persevering of the three, had literally ripped the cloth strips apart that secured his feet to his hands but had not progressed any further, while the other two were exactly as we had left them. All their arms and hands were blue and the ropes were deeply gouged into the flesh above their elbows. Very satisfactory! I had had my revenge.
We untied our prisoners' feet and led them, arms and hands still bound, back to the wood shed. Time for us to claim the spoils of victory!
Dan (Argenaut)
argenaut@hotmail.com
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Dan's stories
- 01 - The Cops and Robbers Gang (m/f, f/m)
Index of all stories in the "Archive for Everyone" section