'Nicky! Nicky! If you don't get up soon you'll be late for school!' 13-year-old Nicholas Kempton yawned and enjoyed a few more moments of bliss in his warm and cosy bed before forcing himself to get up. Taking off his striped pyjamas he donned his white cotton singlet and Y-front briefs before going to the bathroom for his morning ablutions. Nicky was already ten minutes behind schedule, thanks to that pleasant little lie-in, and he knew that he had better not waste a single minute if he was not to risk being late for school.
At the beginning of that week the headmaster had addressed all the boys after assembly. They realised from past experience that another 'purge' was on: that the headmaster had taken it into his head that particular rules were being flouted and therefore needed to be strictly enforced. There were three weeks remaining until the end of term and the 'reign of terror', as the boys called it, would last until then, souring the atmosphere in the school and breeding a climate of fear.
'It has been brought to my attention that two of our most important rules are being broken every day,' the headmaster had droned. 'First of all the rule on punctuality. Boys must get to school on time in the morning. In other words by nine o' clock for registration at ten past nine sharp. Is that clear? In future any boy arriving late without a good excuse - and it had better be a very good excuse indeed - will be punished.
'Secondly the rule on caps. The cap is part of the school uniform of all boys below the sixth form. Yes - that includes you lot in the fourth and fifth forms! You must wear your cap when travelling to school and whenever you are out of gates in uniform - for instance at lunchtimes. Any boy reported for breaking this rule will be punished.'
At this point the head turned around to have a few words with his assistant who seemed to be handing him something. There was a sound of whispering and muttering among the assembled boys but this immediately ceased as the headmaster turned to face them again and they saw that he was brandishing a long whippy cane. 'Now a word or two about punishments. Any boys who are late for school or are reported for not wearing their caps will not be given lines; will not be given detentions. Any such boys will be caned, do I make myself clear?' The headmaster swished the cane through the air a few times to great theatrical effect and the display almost seemed to hypnotise some of the short-trousered juniors in the front rows. The headmaster had made himself very clear indeed!
Memories of that morning were running through Nicholas Kempton's mind as he hurriedly dressed. He pulled on his long grey woolen socks with their blue and gold bands encircling the turnover tops. His mother had put out a fresh grey shirt and he hastily buttoned this up, quickly knotting gold-striped blue tie. Then he donned his grey flannel shorts, and fastened the regulation snake-clasp belt. He picked up his satchel and rushed downstairs for a quick breakfast, then grabbed his royal blue blazer with its decorative gold piping from the hook in the hall. Time to go!
'Mum - where's my cap?' 'Isn't it on the hook with your blazer?' 'It doesn't seem to be...' Nicholas's heart began to beat faster. He must get going right away if he was not to miss the bus and risk a caning. But if he left home without his cap that was also a caning offence! The agitated boy's mother appeared in the hallway. 'Oh, I remember now. Your cap got wet in that shower yesterday, didn't it? I put it in the airing cupboard to dry out. It's still there.'
Nicholas turned quickly on his heel and ran to the cupboard. Yes, there was his school cap - a redundant item of clothing in this day and age, as far as many boys were concerned, but it did come in useful when it rained. Ramming the vital accessory on his head, Nicholas strapped his satchel on his back and then shot out the door like a human cannonball, running as fast as he could towards the bus stop. If only that over-friendly dog from next door hadn't decided to follow him, yapping at his ankles! Before he knew it, the schoolboy had tripped over the stupid animal - more precious time wasted!
He could see the bus in the distance, already at the stop. 'Please wait for me - please!' he muttered under his breath, but despite putting on an extra burst of speed he missed the bus by seconds. Well, he had missed the eight twenty but he could still catch the twenty to nine. He had done this on occasions in the past and had managed to get to his form-room just as registration was starting at ten past nine. He sat down on a bench for the twenty-minute wait.
One disadvantage of taking the later bus was the fact that it was used by a couple of boys of his own age from the local comprehensive school. Nicholas was a grammar school boy and although he didn't necessarily feel any different to other kids, his 'posh' uniform did set him apart to some extent. The comprehensive school kids wore long trousers, even in the junior forms, with nondescript plain black blazers, and caps had been done away with long ago.
'Oh dear, here come those yobs,' Nicholas muttered to himself as he saw the two roughs ambling towards the bus stop. He always felt self-conscious about his cap with its somewhat garish gold ribboning and wondered whether to secrete it in his satchel. However, there was always the chance, however remote, of being seen by a master driving by (or even a prefect coming to school by bicycle) and he decided that the risk wasn't worth it. At first the boys ignored him and Nicky thought that he would escape their attentions altogether, but then they turned his way, staring rudely. Nicholas gazed down at the pavement.
'Look at the grammar school snob in his posh cap and blazer.' 'He must be a bit of a baby. He still has to wear shorts, after all!' Suddenly one of them grabbed his cap and placed it on his friend's head. 'Fancy having to wear one of these! It looks stupid!' 'Please give it back to me...' 'Only if you beg for it - come on - beg!' 'Please, please give me my cap back. I'll get into trouble at school if I don't have it...'
The approaching bus could be seen in the distance. 'Please let me have my cap. The bus is coming!' 'Go and fetch it then!' The boy who had been wearing the cap threw it up as high as he could into the branches of a nearby tree. Try as he might, Nicky could not reach it and had to watch despairingly as the bus drew away without him, the leering faces of his tormentors staring down from an upstairs window.
Eventually, after removing a long branch from another tree, Nicky managed to dislodge his cap by jumping up and poking it free. He was really in trouble now: there was no way he could get to school in time! The miserable schoolboy boarded the nine o' clock bus and came within sight of the school at nine twenty. He had missed registration and boys would already be filing in for assembly! Perhaps he could creep in by a side gate, but he knew how efficiently these reigns of terror were conducted. There were likely to be prefects stationed at all entrances.
Nicholas hurried towards the main gates and noted that there was indeed a prefect there, equipped with a clipboard. 'Name?' 'Nicholas Kempton, third form. I'm sorry I'm late, but I have a good excuse...' 'That's what they all say - there have been a couple of others already this morning. No doubt you'll meet them after assembly. I shall be relieved of my duties here soon and I shall then take this list along to the headmaster. I suggest that you get along to assembly as fast as you can.'
Nicholas was in time to join in the opening hymn singing. Most of the staff were already seated on the stage but the headmaster himself had not yet arrived. However, it was not long before the great man swept in, resplendent in mortar board and gown.
'You weren't there for registration this morning - we thought you must be off sick,' whispered the boy next to Nicky. 'I wish I was! But I had the rotten luck to miss two buses.' 'Looks like you're up for a swishing then...
Nicholas was already feeling sick in the pit of his stomach. What a terrible way to start the day. If only he had not spent that extra ten minutes in bed. If only his mother had not put his cap in the airing cupboard. If only...if only....
Towards the end of assembly the prefects who had been on perimeter duty mounted the stage and passed on the names of latecomers to the headmaster. The magisterial voice boomed out: 'The following boys will see me directly after assembly: Haig, S D; Albery, B C; Fairston, S N C; Brodie G K; and Kempton N R. I also wish to see two members of the fifth form whose names were taken for not wearing their caps, namely Faulkner J W and Watts C J R.
A dispirited queue of seven boys were to be found in the gloomy, depressing corridor outside the headmaster's office not long afterwards. The 'old man' had not yet arrived and Nicky had time to look at his fellow victims. There were the two unkempt fifth formers - the type of natural rebels who were often in trouble at such a school. There were two other seniors amongst the latecomers - both from the fourth form - and two junior boys. Everybody stood in absolute silence, a silence which seemed to intensify when the headmaster appeared.
'You two fifth formers - follow me!' The door closed and the remaining boys immediately clustered around it, trying to hear what was going on inside. Occasional words could be made out - 'caps', 'rules,' 'cane', 'bend over' - and then there was a series of muffled cracks like distant pistol shots which they all knew to be the sound of the cane descending upon a boy's seat. Two lots of six were counted out and the pair of fifth formers emerged, looking rather sorry for themselves.
'I'll see the other senior boys now - one at a time in alphabetical order.' Albery B C was dealt with first, followed by Haig S D, and each time six cuts of the cane were counted. The headmaster was not sparing the rod!
Now it was the turn of the juniors. 'Alphabetical order once again!' intoned the headmaster. Nicky was last in the queue, an unenviable position since the waiting was almost as bad as the actual punishment. Brodie G K, a boy in Nicky's own form, entered the execution chamber and this time four strokes were counted.
'At least we're not getting sixers like the big boys,' noted the slightly built Stephen Fairston, a first former. Gareth Brodie made his exit, clutching his seat and grimacing, and Fairston was beckoned in. 'What was it like, Gary?' 'It stung like hell! I'm really glad he stopped at four - I don't think I could have taken any more. The old man really knows how to handle a cane. I was whacked at my junior school but it never hurt half as much!'
Three strokes were counted out as Fairston's ration, but despite this relatively merciful dispensation the 11-year-old emerged from the headmaster's office with an anguished expression. 'The head says you're to go in at once Kempton,' said the distressed youngster.
Plucking up his courage, Nicky pushed open the heavy wooden door and shuffled into the oak-panelled study. 'Ah, Kempton of the second year. Your name was taken for being late for school. Do you have any valid excuse to offer me?' Nicky looked at the curved-handled cane lying on the headmaster's desk and at the stout oak 'whacking stool' placed out in the centre of the floor. Yes, he did have plenty of excuses and he would tell them to the head. So out came the tale of the misplaced cap, of the too-playful dog, of the subsequently stolen cap (but not of the ten minute lie-in). It all sounded a little unbelieveable when related in this way, but it was all true!
'Do you really expect me to believe such a far-fetched tale, Kempton? If you had come in here and made a clean breast of it - apologised for being late - I would have given you four strokes of the cane. Since you have seen fit to concoct such an unlikely tale I consider that you deserve six-of-the-best!' 'But sir - it's all true - honestly!' Nicky squealed. 'I should hold my tongue if I were you, Kempton. Now get yourself bent over that stool.'
Resigning himself to his fate Nicholas assumed the required position over the black oaken stool. This piece of furniture was reputed to be several hundred years old, having been employed for birchings in previous centuries. Nicky had found himself bent over the headmaster's stool several times before in his school career, but had never suffered more than three or four strokes – six of the best would be an unwelcome new experience.
The headmaster picked up the long, springy cane and swished it through the air a few times. The rod had already done some sterling work that morning and he was now well into his stride. He prided himself as a hard, accurate caner, able to put the fear of God into any boy, whatever his age. This boy bent over the stool right now deserved a _d_a_m_n_ed good thrashing, coming along with such a farrago of lies about why he had been late.
Standing well back and taking careful aim the headmaster brought the punishment cane down sharply across the tightly stretched grey flannel covering Nicholas Kempton's trembling buttocks, landing it dead centre.
It was a real stinger and Nicky gritted his teeth as he felt a red hot line of fire ignite across his backside. Before the horrible burning pain could subside a little, stroke number two landed, doubling the schoolboy's discomfort. Then came stroke number three – a real scorcher! - and Nicky groaned in agony, wriggling and writhing on the penitential stool.
'Keep still there boy! You are getting just what you deserve. I should hope that you're now sorry for those brazen lies you told me!' 'But it was all true sir....' 'You need to be taught that lying will not be tolerated in this school. Stand up and then take down your short trousers.'' 'B-but sir,' mumbled the terrified Nicky. 'Do as you are told boy!'
Shaking with fear and embarrassment, the wretched schoolboy fumbled with the clasp of his elasticated snake belt. He unbuttoned his grey flannel shorts and let them drop to his ankles, then bent back over the stool. 'You can have these last three across your underpants for lying to me. Push your backside well out, boy.'
Nicky gritted his teeth as he awaited the first stroke. The cane had stung like fury across his flannel shorts - how much worse would it sting across his thin cotton Y-fronts? He soon found out; there was an ominous hissing noise followed by a terrible 'CRACK!' as the hard springy cane lashed sharply across his buttocks. The hot burning stinging felt well nigh unbearable. 'Now you're learning a proper lesson, I hope,' intoned the headmaster.
'SWISH - CRACK!' The cane scythed through the air once again, and the salty tears began to flow freely down Nicholas Kempton's cheeks. 'SWISH - CRACK!' The final stroke and at last the boy's ordeal was over. 'Get your shorts pulled up and cut along to your lesson. I hope I won't have to deal with you again in the few weeks which remain of this term, Kempton.'
Nicky staggered out of the headmaster's study. His backside was still throbbing with pain as he headed along to the toilets to wash his tearstained face. He found his classmate Gary Brodie in the toilets busy examining his 'stripes' in the mirror above the washbasins.
'Just look - I've got four real corkers here, Nicky. What about you?' 'The sadist gave me six - he said I was getting the extra ones for lying.' Nicky was too embarrassed to admit to his friend that he had been obliged to take his shorts down for three of the strokes. 'Poor you! Let's have a look at the damage.'
Grimacing with discomfort, Nicky carefully lowered his shorts and pants. 'Christ! You've certainly got some damage there. Does it still hurt?' 'Yes, it feels very sore...' 'You've got six beautifully spaced ridges - the old man certainly has a good aim!'
Nicky directed his backside towards the mirror and crained his head around to inspect the six angry red tramlines which emblazoned his buttocks. 'I wonder who will be the next victims of the reign of terror', said Gary. 'Well, I know that I for one shall be using an alarm clock in future!' said Nicky with conviction.