CHAPTER NINETEEN
Since the forest camp had fallen to the Drongs life for the Leaf Children had been miserable. They had been subjected to taunts and abuses, some of them had been mistreated physically, and they had all been ordered about by Kerry and his gang of thugs as though they were slaves.
Kerry stayed up in the central tree with each of the other four trees they had taken being held by one of his soldiers. The rest of the Drongs paraded around below issuing instructions, pushing and shoving the children for no reason and generally making life unpleasant.
One of the first orders Kerry gave was to have all the toys in the main chamber taken out. They were removed by two of his soldiers and thrown from the platform to the ground. There they were placed in a large single pile and a Drong was posted near them as a guard.
“Anyone who touched them will be severely punished,” Kerry warned. “And every time one of you Leafies causes any trouble, any trouble at all, a toy will be thrown into the river down there.”
He was apparently a man of his word when it came to carrying out such threats. On the first day six toys had been lost. And five boys and one girl had been punished. The boys were whipped around the legs with vine and then tied to trees. Each time a Drong passed the tree he punched the boy in the stomach. The girl was not whipped but she too was fastened to a tree. As she was passed by a solider her hair was tugged hard. The other children could not help noticing how often the Drong soldiers walked by those trees, and the pleasure they got from the punches and the hair pulling.
All the while Kerry sat in his tree looking down from the platform. Often he smiled or laughed out loud as one of the Leaf Children was pushed to the ground or grunted from a blow. On one occasion he had actually pointed to a boy and shouted to one of his soldiers to teach him a lesson. The offensive behaviour had been nothing more than a glare in Kerry’s direction.
But if the children were unhappy Kerry and his Drongs were delighted with the way things had turned out. The soldiers who had been sullen and bordering on rebellion had recovered their dreadful happiness and once more had no thoughts of going against their leader.
For his part Kerry was jubilant. He was in total charge of the present situation. At first he had been disappointed not to find the girl Gabrysia and then others in the camp when he took it. But they would return sooner or later and then he would have absolute power. He had had to alter his plans though. Instead of the Drongs staying in the camp with a messenger running back to the tunnels the next morning with the good news, they had all had to stay where they were for the moment. He needed the numbers until he was certain they could not be counter-attacked. So he decided to wait one more day. Two at the most. If Gabrysia and the others had not come by then he would risk the messenger to bring out the rear guard of Drongs.
For now though he would enjoy the fun of getting back at those Leafies who were there for what he considered the insults he had been subjected to when he had had to leave the forest.