I supported the ideas behind the meeting and the drive to get control of the boys one hundred percent, but I had to confess I never thought I would have to use corporal punishment on Chris - not like those lads who got it at the meeting. Chris was really getting into his running and that was giving him a good deal of the discipline that the other boys were missing. I was prepared to give him a bit of a hiding that night, like all the dads were going to, but I never thought it would have to go beyond a bit of a tanning with a slipper. Which goes to show how misguided parents can be sometimes.
"What did you think of that?" I asked him as we walked home from the meeting.
"It was cool when Luke got The cane," Chris said, "but Stu Hawthorne getting it like that. was scary."
"Did they deserve it?"
"Luke did. And Mark, I suppose. I don't know about the others." I was surprised he was being so direct about his feelings, but then it was only what I would have expected.
"And what about you? Do you deserve the hiding I'm going to give you?"
"Not as much as Luke or Mark got, but I suppose I ought to get something."
"Why? What have you been up to that deserves a whacking?"
"I was horrible to mum yesterday." He had been - I had forgotten it, but Chris obviously hadn't. "And I nicked a pound out of her purse last week. That's the worst thing. And I had a drink of cider with some vodka in down the garages last Saturday. And I smoked a fag too."
"That's terrible. You're meant to be in training."
"I know. And you know that horrible sweater that gran gave me for me birthday? I threw it in the skip last week."
I didn't know whether to be outraged or amused. My mum had laboured over the sweater, knitting away for dear life - but the result really was horrible. But I had to admit the catalogue of crime was worse than I had expected. Chris was building up to a more serious beating than I had reckoned on.
"Anything else? You might as well tell me everything and clear the sheet."
I looked down at Chris, who was seriously searching his brain for other things he needed to confess. "That's about it," he said at last.
"And what about school?"
"I bunked off last Wednesday." Chris looked up at me and grinned, but it wasn't returned.
"Why?"
"Me and Paul Luscombe were caught chucking chips in the dining room and Mr Francis was going to tell us off. And I've got a detention next week for swearing. And I didn't do French homework and copied it from Giles. Oh, and I got sent out of geography yesterday." He tried grinning again.
I walked In silence for a moment or two. We were nearly home. It was worse than I expected, but none of it was really serious, except maybe the bunking off. I'd got an old gymshoe ready to whack Chris with, but I also remembered that I had a fairly heavy leather belt that I could use, and out in the garden shed were a number of bamboo canes. Maybe I should use one of them instead.
"So," I said as we turned in at the front gate, "what sort of whacking do you think you deserve?"
"Don't know."
"Well, I've got a gymshoe, like young Michael got; there's my old leather belt, or I can use a bamboo out of the garden, like Stuart and Luke got." Chris was silent. The reality of what was happening was sinking in. I opened the front door and ushered him inside. "And then we have to decide whether you deserve it on your bare backside or not."
Jean was sitting watching television in the front room: with no daughters to bring up, she wasn't at the women's meeting. Chris was suddenly much more embarrassed about what was happening. The last thing he wanted was to discuss his coming punishment in front of his mother. To have her watch it would destroy him. I sensed his discomfort.
"Go on up to your room, and get undressed for bed. Ill be up in a minute."
Twenty minutes later I climbed the stairs carrying the gymshoe and a good stout bamboo from the shed. I had made up my mind. As a boy, I had only once been caned. I couldn't remember what it had been for. But the Akela of my cub pack had kept a big plimsoll in the cupboard and I had been whacked with that lots of times. Once the whole of Kingfisher Six had been paraded outside our tent in nothing but our pants for making a noise after we were supposed to be asleep. Akela made us touch our toes in a line, then pulled our pants down and slapped our bare bottoms three times. I remembered how my bottom had gone on stinging for nearly an hour, how that had faded to a nice glowing heat in the sleeping bag, and how the other boys who had listened to our whackings were almost envious.
Chris had stripped off to his boxer shorts. That was all he wore in bed: it seemed to be the fashion. He stood up when I came in and grimaced when he saw the bamboo. He had still been hoping to get nothing more than the slipper. He was a well-built boy for twelve, a good chest on him and solid muscles in his legs from the running. His curly ginger hair needed cutting.
"Right," I said. "Here's what I've decided. Bunking off and throwing your gran's birthday present away deserves the cane. You can either have that tonight with the bamboo, or wait till I get a proper cane off Mr Hawthorne."
"Tonight," said Chris.
"Good boy," I said. "For the rest of it, the plimsoll will do. But - you're getting both with nothing on. So get your pants off."
"Da-ad," Chris pleaded. "Please not me bare bottom."
"I'm sorry, Chris. It's what you deserve. Let's get it all sorted now, and then, if you behave yourself, you'll never have to have it like this again."
Chris knew I was right. He had felt guilty about his gran's pullover, and now he realised that bunking off school had been stupid. And that still left the stealing from his mum's purse. The rest wasn't serious but it added up to a good deal of naughtiness. Better to get it over with. He pushed his shorts down and stepped out of them. I hadn't seen him naked for several years and was surprised at how grown the boy's genitals looked and the wispy bush of red hair.
I sat down on the bed and pulled Chris towards me. Chris knew what was required, even if it had never happened before. He lowered himself over my lap, letting his head drop almost to the floor and bracing himself with his hands flat on the carpet. His bottom was solid, without an ounce of fat. He clenched the muscles against the pain he knew was coming. I lay the sole of the gymshoe on the target area, covering most of both buttocks at once.
"How many are you going to give me, dad?" he asked.
"I don't know."
I lifted the plimsoll high and brought it smartly down. The slap it made was louder than I expected. I felt Chris stiffen, but otherwise there was no reaction. I lifted it again and the skin of his bum had turned dark pink. I slapped it down on the same area a few more times and the pink turned darker. It was obviously stinging, but he wasn't reacting much. I brought it down with as much force as I could and this time he gasped in the back of his throat.
"Did that hurt?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, and there was a kind of choke in his voice. So I hit him like that another four times. The problem was I couldn't get much of a swing with him over my lap. But the last one made him yelp quietly, so maybe it was doing the job.
"Get up," I ordered and he scrambled to his feet. His hands went to his bottom, rubbing the fresh stinging pain the plimsoll had created. I remembered how, after Akela had slippered the whole of Kingfisher Six, two boys hadn't been allowed back into their tent. They were made to stand outside in the cold, until what seemed a long time later, Akela made them touch their toes again and whacked them some more. This time it was with the short little bamboo that he often carried, and that made both of them yell loudly.
"Go and stand in the corner," I said. "You can wait a bit for the cane." He did as he was told, standing with his face to the corner behind the door, his hands still rubbing at his bottom.
When I came back again half an hour later, he was still in place, facing the corner behind the door. His bottom was still red and in a couple of places it had turned to bluish bruise.
"How's it feel now?" I asked. "Still a bit sore," he said, and his hands went briefly to the throbbing place again.
I had the cane in my hand, but now I couldn't face the thought of hitting him with it - not with nothing on anyway. But we'd talked about this in the meetings. How important it was not to weaken.
"Let's get it over with then" I said. "You can put your shorts back on for the cane."
He retrieved his pants from the floor and pulled them on, hurrying so that I wouldn't change my mind. I made him lie down over the end of his bed. The footboard was quite high so his bottom was perched up in a good position. His boxer shorts were a bit too small for him and stretched tight over the muscles. They wouldn't be much protection, but at least I wouldnt have to see what the bamboo was doing to him.
The first one was a bit soft, just to get the feel of it. It caught him about half way down his bum and he shuffled his feet a little bit, so I knew he'd felt it. Then I took aim a bit lower, lifted the bamboo a bit higher and brought it down smartly, so it made a bit more of a crack. He went "Ow," so I knew I was starting to get it right. The next one I aimed right at the same spot, but stepped back and swung the cane really fast like John Hawthorne had done giving Stuart his hiding. It was like a gun going off and a second later he reared up off the bed and his hands started reaching for his bum. He didn't yell or anything and lay down again before I had to tell him, but there was no doubt that I was making him feel it. I could tell that he knew he was getting what he deserved. He was a good boy really and I felt almost proud of him, the way he was taking his punishment but it had to be done. I hit him another three times, just as hard and each time he wriggled and his head came up. It was getting harder. and harder for him not to yell. I thought, Right. Let's see if we can make the little bugger sing. I stepped back as far as his chest of drawers, took a good aim and launched myself across the room. It was a cracker. This time he shot upright, both hands on his bum, giving out with a kind of strangled yell through his gritted teeth. I thought I'd gone too hard on him, but then he just bent over the bed again, got a grip on the duvet cover and was ready for another one.
"Up you get," I said and he pushed himself upright and his face was a mixture of hurt and gratitude that he wasn't getting any more. "How was that?" I asked.
"Horrible," he said.
"Worse than you deserved?"
"No. S'pose not."
"Better than being grounded or losing your pocket money?"
"Don't know."
I told him he could come down and watch telly, but he didn't want to. I suppose he didn't want to face his mother having just had his backside walloped. Jean watched me put the bamboo outside the back door.
"Is that all you're giving him?" she asked. "I thought itd be a lot more than that."
"That was enough," I told her.
Next morning, he came down to breakfast and was a bit ginger about sitting down. I didn't say anything. When his mum was out in the kitchen he said to me, "Thanks dad, It's much better than being grounded. But I don't want it again in a hurry."