England, 1943

Goniff burped and then stumbled out of the closet he had recently occupied with Maddog. He was greeted by a trio of smiling faces. Chief, Casino and Actor had been looking around for the little thief all morning.

"So Goniff, 'nother rough night 'eh" Casino inquired.

Goniff sniffled, "Yeah, real bad! Didn't understand why Feral and Rastro kept warning me about Maddog."

"Too much woman for you to handle old boy?" questioned Actor.

"Na, too many bloody dairy products!"

Goniff promptly found himself alone in the room.

"Hey, where did everyone go?"

He hadn't noticed the looks of horror upon his fellow cons' faces at the mere mention of dairy products and Maddog. They had overheard the horror stories being swapped one night by Maddog's fellow cohorts in crime over one too many bottles of wine. Feral and the Lieutenant were quite descriptive on the aftereffects of dairy products on Maddog. Something was mentioned about ending the war by sending the short explosives expert behind enemy lines with a gallon of milk. Unfortunately, the aftereffects were starting to have an effect on Goniff.

It was two hours later and Maddog still couldn't find her favorite Gorilla anywhere. She also found that she couldn't ask any of her fellow monkeys as every time she went near them, she was greeted with snickers and even hysterical laughter. 'One day I'll have my revenge on them,' she thought as she searched the second floor for the twentieth time that morning. Her efforts were finally rewarded upon seeing Goniff emerge from Garrison's private bathroom.

"Hey, what happened Goniff?" Maddog asked, concern on her face.

"I should have listened to them," the slightly green con mumbled under his breath.

Maddog stumbled toward Goniff trying to aid him as he slowly staggered down the stairs. "Maybe you should cut back on the Juice if it's gonna make you this ill," the short stocky one advised.

"Cut back on the Juice!" Goniff bellowed. "Cut back on the Juice!" he repeated. "How 'bout cuttin' back on the bloody dairy products!"

"Oh sure, take their side! I can see I'm fighting a losing battle here. See if I ever go off drinking with you anymore!" Maddog shrieked as she tripped down the stairs. Her 2.0 landing at the bottom was met by much applause.

"Hey Maddog, can we see that again? But in slow motion this time?" requested Feral.

"Walk much Maddog?" Rastro quipped.

"Nah, Miss Graceful doesn't need to walk, she trips by!" the short Lieutenant added.

"Fine, be that way," glared a very unhappy Maddog.

"Man problems again?" Captain Buck inquired as she entered the room with Actor in tow carrying numerous boxes and bags of the latest styles.

"I still don't understand how you can afford to buy all these clothes on a Captain's salary Buck," Maddog replied snidely.

"Hey, I need the money," the short Australian explained. "I need to buy some new knives, I don't understand how I keep losing them. One minute they're there and the next they're gone."

Rastro's impassioned plea was answered with the sound of various cutlery being dropped loudly on the floor. Rastro couldn't turn around fast enough to determine which of her low-life cohorts was attempting to annoy her this time. This tactic was a sure fire way of rousing the small redheads temper, and also sharpen her knife throwing skills. The other monkeys were careful not to be seen doing "the dirty deed" as they were all aware of Rastro's deadly skill and of the numerous knives hidden about her person.

The annoying habit started shortly after Rastro and Garrison started playing "Hide the Knife" up in Garrison's quarters. At first the other monkeys couldn't quite figure out what the noises coming from upstairs were...one thunk, followed moments later by another thunk...followed by another...then another...until a veritable parade of knives came crashing down to the floor followed by audible sighs of relief. Rastro was not happy with the other monkeys interpretation of her evening's diversions.

"I told you primates to quit that! I don't appreciate it at all," the Australian huffed.

Rastro's reply came via a quick flick of her wrist and a rapidly propelled knife aimed at the short blond woman's head.

Luckily the Lieutenant knew this was coming and dove for cover as did the other occupants of the room.

Unfortunately Maddog, dubbed A.P. for Accident Prone by her fellow monkeys, wasn't as quick or graceful in heading for cover. The flying weapon embedded itself just inches above Maddog's head in the wall beside her. "Whew," announced Maddog, "that baby narrowly missed me!"

"Well, almost Maddog," Buck pointed out to the quivering marshmallow on the floor. "So your hair is a little shorter on one side, you could be a trend setter for a new hair style," the ever-helpful Captain pointed out.

Maddog looked again at the knife embedded in the wall inches above her well coiffed hair and noticed the brown and gray hairs also embedded in the wall. "Do you how long it took me to get my hair to poof just the right way this morning!?!" the irate woman announced. "Aaahhhh!!" Maddog shrieked as she bolted off the floor in search of revenge on someone, on anyone, that she could reach.

Chaos erupted as a free-for-all broke out. The monkeys had been kept too quiet for too long. They needed a mission, or some other release for their devious energy, or the Allies were in serious danger of losing this war!

Garrison grimaced in pain as he arrived on the riotous scene with Chief, Casino and a grim faced Major who'd had orders to inspect the two teams. Somehow the Army managed to send inspectors at the absolute worst times.

Chief and Casino spotted Actor sitting at a table outside the room that the fighting sounds were coming from, successfully killing a bottle of Scotch. Then they spotted Goniff, sitting underneath the same table watching the ruckus from a safe distance.

Actor looked eagerly at Lt. Garrison. He was hoping...no praying...for a mission for at least one of the groups. What he had just seen and overheard in the last couple of minutes had left him a little shaky. He now truly understood why the army had recruited these women for dangerous and suicidal missions. They wanted to get rid of them!

Under different circumstances, Actor may have even agreed with the military's logic, but he, along with the rest of Garrison's crew had grown somewhat attached to the bizarre group of women.

He looked into the room again and remembering what he had just witnessed, decided that they all must be insane.

"What the Hell happened in here Actor!" Garrison was not in a good mood. Not only did he have Major Mitchell to deal with today, but he had just received the bills for the renovation of his quarters that Rastro had begged for. It seems that there was now a running joke regarding cutlery. Even his men were involved. Everyone was greeting he and Commander Astro each morning with cutlery dropping loudly onto the floor. Garrison couldn't figure out what the significance was to this act but it was driving Rastro crazy. She had been considering some rather lethal actions as retribution. He wondered if maybe she had started those actions this morning.

"I think you should speak to the Captain about that," Actor answered, his eyes dropping to the bottle in front of him.

"Well I'm asking you! Who started this fight?"

Actor was saved from answering by the sound of a door slamming very hard.

"All right, let's go in and see who's left standing, if anyone...or anything," Garrison ordered. "Casino, Chief, you two see what you can find out from Feral and the Lieutenant. Actor you try Captain Buck. Any questions?"
Garrison's answer was dead silence.
"Okay then, let's go."

Garrison entered the room first. "Rastro?" he called.

"Over here," came the slurred reply, "under this lump of decomposing dairy product."

Garrison walked over and found Rastro trapped under a very unconscious Maddog.

"What happened?" Garrison asked as he moved the grayish-green body off her.

"That one," Rastro pointed at Feral, "did a hip check to the Mad Bomber here and sent her flying across the room. Hey, what took you so long to get in here and help me?" she glared at Garrison.

'Great, just what I need right now,' Garrison thought as he looked around the room taking in the damage, painfully aware that Major Mitchell was doing the same thing.

Casino was helping Feral remove a painting that was wrapped around her neck. A little over an hour ago that painting was hanging on the west wall of the room. Someone had apparently decided that it would be more useful as a necklace around the tall thief's neck.

Actor was helping Capt. Buck who seemed to have gotten rolled up in the once elegant draperies that had until recently adorned the windows.

"Oh God," moaned Buck, "these colors are all wrong for me...and the fabric, definitely a polyester blend...how tacky!"

"Great, absolutely wonderful. Okay, so who wants to explain this little fiasco, hmmm?" Garrison looked at the monkeys.

"Captain," Garrison inquired in his best officer tone, "do you have an explanation as to what happened here?"

"Yeah," Buck replied as she continued to brush off her new outfit, "it's all Maddog's fault. She started it!"

Garrison looked down at Maddog, still completely oblivious to everyone. "Goniff, get her upstairs and awake. I want to talk to her later. The rest of you have just fifteen minutes to clean up and then get back down here, I want to talk to all of you!"

Goniff whimpered as he attempted to lift the unconscious monkey. 'This isn't going to be easy,' he thought.

Finally, after several unsuccessful attempts on his own, Chief helped Goniff lift Maddog and the two managed to carry her upstairs.

The others limped out of the room leaving Garrison to provide some explanations of his own to Major Mitchell. And it didn't look like the Lieutenant had any either.

"Major," Garrison started...and stopped when he saw the look on the Major's face.

"Don't bother Lieutenant, I've got eyes, I can see what's happened here. We'll give those...those .... "Mitchell stumbled over an appropriate term, "...females their fifteen minutes and then I'll deal with this Lt. Garrison."

Garrison silently moaned and prayed that Actor would come up with a really good con for this situation. A really, really good con, or else the monkeys were dead meat.

Fifteen minutes later the monkeys, still minus Lt. McDonough, and Garrison's men, minus Chief, entered the room.

"Alright then, you," the Major pointed to Feral, "what really happened here? I want an explanation and I want it now or you're all going back to prison!"

Feral looked up at the Major with an innocent expression on her face. She really didn't like officials of any kind, and this one had interrupted her little session of "Kiss the boo-boo" with Casino.

"Who me?" she asked innocently, "I have no idea what happened. One minute I was having an interesting conversation with Rastro, the next minute she was throwing a knife at Lt. McDonough. If you want the truth, I suggest you talk to the Lieutenant sir."

Now she hoped that the Major would leave her alone so she could go back to enjoying Casino's company. 'These little battles could be useful after all,' she thought. Feral was always a sucker for the old hurt-comfort routine and right now she wanted some comfort.

She was saved from further questioning by the arrival of a very irate Lieutenant Blood & Guts McDonough.

Blood & Guts was furious, the scum buckets had tried it again! Somehow, in the middle of the fight, the odds became four against one. McDonough being the one. And those pond scum derelict pinheads from another dimension had attempted to paint her blue again. She couldn't believe it! After the deed had been half done, the others left Blood & Guts alone for a moment to go after one another. A grievous tactical error on their parts! McDonough hitched up her pants and began her campaign of revenge. She bundled the Captain up in the tacky curtains (managing to wrinkle Buck's brand new outfit in the process), she diverted Feral's bank shot of Maddog into Rastro, killing two birds with one very large stone, and deposited that ugly painting of Sherwood Forest that she'd always hated onto Feral's unsuspecting head. She then stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. She managed to lose herself for a while until Chief showed up.

"Down by the lake...and it wasn't easy getting her back here Warden." Chief limped over to a nearby chair and sat down, exhausted from the battle of getting the short blond back to their quarters. He couldn't believe that the other monkeys managed to do it again! He'd seen the tell tale blue spots on the rug the first time they'd entered the room. Chief hated it when Blood & Guts got painted blue, she would rant and rave for hours and it took Chief a long time to calm her down enough to play "Doctor".

"All right Lieutenant," Major Mitchell asked as he stood rigidly tall in front of the angry nurse, "would you like to explain what happened here this morning?"

"I could have you court martialled for this you know," Major Mitchell threatened.

"So go ahead," the Lieutenant replied mutinously. Right now, she didn't care what happened. The lepers were definitely better than riding herd on these cons.

Her attitude was not going over well with Major Mitchell. He hadn't realized yet that this attitude was developed after her blue posterior was hung out of a "damn tank" to scare some "damn Nazis".

"Look Lieutenant, your career could be over! What happened?" Major Mitchell was ready to shake the answer out of her.

"Why don't you ask Maddog and Rastro? Why don't you ask them about that first mission...and the tank column...and the Germans fear of blue butted baboons?" Blood & Guts tirade increased in volume and hysteria as her thoughts traveled back to that fateful day.

Major Mitchell merely stared at Blood & Guts trying to figure out why the Lieutenant was telling him about blue butted baboons. 'Hell,' he thought, 'they're all off their rockers!'

He was even more startled as the Lieutenant turned around and headed for the door.

"I'm not through with you yet! Get back here now!" the Major thundered.

His orders fell on deaf ears as the Lieutenant walked up the stairs to her room. "Too damn bad Mitchell, I'm requesting a transfer back to the leper colonies...if you don't have the guts to court martial me!" She slammed the door to her room shut, effectively ending the conversation--and her career.

Mitchell himself stormed out the front door, trying to figure out where the lepers fit into this picture.

The next morning Garrison's Gorillas found a squad of MP's escorting the Monkeys out. Mitchell pressed charges against all of them. If found guilty, the cons would go back to prison and the Lieutenant and the Captain... well, probably the firing squad.

A week later, they were found guilty by the tribunal courts: gross dereliction of duty, destruction of Army property, endangering the lives of others...just to name a few of their crimes.

Sentence was announced: Death by firing squad for all five women, tomorrow at 0800 hours.

The next morning he was awakened by what sounded like cutlery dropping in the bathroom. He jumped out of bed and ran towards the sound. He was greeted by Rastro emerging from the shower, shock and relief showing on his face.

Rastro looked up from her retrieval of six of her knives that had fallen to the floor when she grabbed a towel. "Anything wrong Garrison, you look as if you just saw a ghost."

Chief paused as they walked past the Warden's door listening to part of the conversation going on.

"Nah, nothing that really makes sense," Chief replied. "Any idea where Goniff's hiding?"

As if by request, the closet door in the room the trio had just reached opened up allowing Goniff to stumble forward.

Upon seeing the condition of their fellow con, they left the room in a hurry. They quickly left the house, each taking one of the monkeys with them. Chief had a bad feeling about letting the monkeys spend the day in the house together...

THE END????

NEVER!!!!