"Do you think the Captain knows?" asked Audrey Marshall anxiously as Ruth came to collect her as planned.

"Bound to," said Ruth, "or else why would she want to see us outside of band practice?"

The two young women made their way to the Citadel, self-conscious in their Army uniform and bonnet; one or two passers-by jeered or sneered but most smiled warmly and Ruth noticed that a few young men openly eyed them up and down; clearly some still appreciated the old-fashioned look.

"Look at it this way," said Ruth, "all she can do is kick us out!"

When they reached the Citadel the heavy front door opened to their tentative push and there to greet them was Captain Brookbank, an angry and worried frown on her face. Some people assumed that Beryl Brookbank was a prison wardress, and they were not too far wrong in that she was actually the headmistress of an approved school to which Lancashire County Council sent its delinquent girls, and was therefore well able to deal with disciplinary problems within the close-knit community of the Salvation Army and its young band members. Her methods of maintaining order at the approved school were direct and time-honoured; new girls would be warned that corporal punishment was on the agenda, and that each mistress was not only allowed but encouraged to use the strap on the hands of any girl who failed to show an improvement in attitude; repeat troublemakers would find themselves in Miss Brookbank's office touching their toes for six of the best with a stout cane. Her reward was not in the punishment regime itself, but in the steady stream of young women who'd passed through her hands and were later to be found holding down responsible jobs, courting amiable young men and preparing themselves for wedlock and motherhood in that order; she often got invited to their weddings. If Ruth had known all this she might have, with hindsight, been more circumspect.

"You girls have missed band practice two weeks running, and when I contacted your parents they had no knowledge of your whereabouts. So where were you?" she asked.

"Oh, there's a new disco in town, " said Ruth nonchalantly, "so we thought we'd try it out." She knew that Captain Brookbank would have an image of Audrey and herself gyrating invitingly to an audience of depraved long-haired louts, their passions inflamed by the voodoo rhythms of guitar bands.

"And were you drinking?" persisted the Captain.

Audrey began to mouth fervent denial, but again Ruth spoke first, in a leisurely, offhand manner:

"They wouldn't serve Audrey any booze, she looks too young; I had a couple of ciders though!" And, having committed one of the gravest sins possible for a Salvationist, that of letting a measure of alcohol, however small, pass ones lips, Ruth leant against a balustrade to await her expulsion order. But it never came.

"Audrey, go over to the Mercy Seat!" commanded Captain Brookbank. The Mercy Seat was an old park bench lovingly restored and painted green. Audrey made her way across the floor, wondering what would come next.

"Now bend over, and stay there until I tell you otherwise!" Audrey cast a wide-eyed appeal to Ruth, who was suddenly feeling a lot less clever, and slowly bent at the waist across the back of the bench. Captain Brookbank had had the foresight to bring one of her canes along, and retrieved it from behind the lectern where it had stood hidden until now. She had no compunction about using the Mercy Seat, a symbol of God's grace, as an aid to punishment for there was, in her opinion, scant mercy in allowing vulnerable young girls to carouse and ruin themselves in a drunken stupor.

"I'm sorry, Captain," ventured Audrey Marshall.

But it was too late for sorry; Captain Brookbank raised the girl's skirt to reveal standard uniform black stocking tops, white panties and a strip of untouched pink flesh in between; Edwin Marshall was clearly far too easy-going with his daughter! The cane whipped down across the taut bottom, Audrey yelled and straightened, grasping her striped rear.

"Back down this instant, or you get extra!" warned the Captain, and Audrey slowly, painfully and tearfully resumed her position. Two minutes and five swishing strokes later she was dancing again, a hopping war-dance of pain. Ruth felt her legs threatening to give way; as the older girl and the cider-swigger she knew she was in even deeper trouble! Captain Brookbank pointed the cane towards her, and she half-staggered towards her own appointment at the Mercy Seat. She bent over the back of the seat without having to be told.

"Drinking, and leading younger girls astray, demands a sterner punishment!" declared the Captain, and Ruth looked at the whimpering Audrey and began to fear for her own well-being, the more so as she felt her knickers being tugged down to her knees, from whence they slithered to her ankles.

Miss Brookbank had one extreme punishment which she held in reserve at the approved school, a final sanction beyond which lay the secure Borstal and the women's prison. Those girls who considered themselves to be really hard, and acted accordingly, were taken to the gym and restrained across the vaulting horse whilst Miss Brookbank, using her most vigorous arm swing, administered a dozen strokes to the bare posterior with the thickest cane in her possession. Few girls could take that without breaking down completely, their hardened attitude and surly composure in sobbing ruins well before the completion of the thrashing. She had only brought the medium cane to the Citadel, but realised that would be quite sufficient as she beheld the wide red belt marks already covering most of Ruth's bare buttocks and thighs. Maybe her father had smelt the alcohol on her breath, or she had committed some unrelated misdemeanour, but at least there were some parents in the congregation who weren't afraid to discipline their daughters.

She brought the cane down in a practised manner, hard and accurate, spacing six dark parallel weals on the bare reddened bottom, and Ruth yelled and grasped the slats of the seat back. Then she surveyed her work for a moment, and began at the topmost weal, overlaying with repeated cane strokes which would ensure that Ruth was black and blue for days, if not a couple of weeks. Ruth writhed and howled, but she was a big girl, nearly eighteen, and knew she was expected to submit.

Finally Ruth's ordeal was over, and she was allowed to recover her modesty and stand painfully alongside Audrey as Captain Brookbank gave her final orders:

"I need hardly say that I expect to see you both here for band practice tomorrow evening; furthermore I am going to speak to your parents and insist that for the next month you are grounded apart from school and Army work, and that the belt should be used on both of you at every opportunity. Do I make myself clear?"

Both girls nodded tearfully, and were dismissed. Captain Brookbank collected her cane and flexed it thoughtfully; they weren't really bad girls, of course, a good hiding to remember, reinforced by a few follow-up spankings, would straighten them out. She locked the Citadel door and went home.

Audrey and Ruth were, needless to say, at band practice promptly the next day, though Ruth spent the practice session standing. There was a lot of giggling and whispering going on amongst the younger members, and even Captain Brookbank had a hard time keeping order, though Ruth's behaviour was, for once, impeccable. After the practice Audrey's sister Joy sidled up to Ruth in a conspiratorial manner:

"Got it hard last night, didn't you?" Joy said, though she didn't look the least bit sympathetic.

"Audrey tell you, did she?" replied Ruth, knowing that Audrey couldn't be trusted to keep mum about anything!

"No, we saw it all," explained Joy with a grin. "That is, me and Stuart Kirby. We were up in the balcony when we heard the captain come in, so we lay flat and watched over the edge!"

Ruth was mortified - the Marshalls also had a key to the Citadel, but what on earth were those two doing in the balcony, and what had they seen? And, in a moment, she knew the answers to her questions and blushed deep red as she caught the knowing grin of Stuart Kirby.