Next morning was like waking into a different world. From the window we could see trees and fields with cows in and sheep. We were up long before Mr Poole arrived to officially wake us, exploring the room and peering at this strange new landscape. London seemed as though it might be on another planet.
Mr Poole arrived and told us what was going to happen: in half an hour Colonel Hackett would be up to inspect us. Before then we had to be washed and dressed and all our kit laid out for inspection. He told us how the kit was to be arranged on our beds (which also had to be made), and then he left us to get on with it.
At home I had washed some days, but not others, and it had always been in cold water. I had a bath most weeks, but not if I'd been swimming. Here, we discovered, hot water came out of the taps if you turned them on. The bath was a fixture, not a tin tub on the scullery floor. We were awkward and unsure, but somehow we washed ourselves – at least our faces and hands – and then pulled on the same clothes we had worn yesterday. Why not? The same clothes would last us at least a week at home. And in any case, I only owned one spare set of underclothes, socks and a shirt.
None of us had ever made a bed before. How did you do it? We did our best, but we couldn't remember what they had looked like before we slept in them, and didn't have a clue about how to achieve what we could remember. When we were finished we knew that we hadn't got it right, but time was passing and somehow we didn't want to disappoint the colonel and Mr Poole.
We tipped all the stuff out of our cases and tried to lay it out the way Mr Poole had said, but, again, we weren't sure we had remembered everything he said, and in any case it proved impossible to square our nondescript bits and pieces into the kind of display he had seemed to be talking about. Mark and I had just about got it reasonable tidy, but Luke's was still in a rough pile in the middle of his bed, when Mr Poole came back.
"Stand by your beds, lads. Colonel's inspection."
We stood at the foot of our beds and I couldn't help feeling apprehensive about what was going to happen. But I didn't have time to worry too much because the colonel arrived almost immediately.
"Atten-shun," said Mr Poole and we tried to straighten up into what we had seen in the pictures of soldiers on parade.
The colonel came in looking immaculate in a blazer and fawn trousers. He stood by the door and looked us over.
"Morning, chaps," he said.
"All present, sir," said Mr Poole. "Partly correct."
The inspection took a long time. He examined each display minutely after first inspecting behind our ears and our fingernails. He ordered each of us a haircut; sent me back to the bathroom to get rid of the dirt behind my ears; Mark had to scrub his fingernails; I had to re-fold my spare shirt – and then he came to Luke's bed.
"This is a poor show, Pritchett," he said.
"Sorry, sir."
"Did Mr Poole show you how your kit was to be laid out?"
"Yes, sir."
"So why hasn't it been done?"
"I couldn't do it, sir." Luke was really worried now.
"I see. Poole."
"Sir?"
"Do you have some jobs that this young chap could do?"
"Yes, sir. Ready and waiting, sir."
"Should you like to start your time here with a spell on defaulters, Pritchett?"
"No, sir," Luke whispered. None of us knew what defaulters meant, but it didn't sound good. He stepped back to the fireplace and looked at all three of us.
"When I inspect you, chaps, I expect to see everything squared off and army fashion. This week you're learning the ropes. Next week there'll be a penalty for every default. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," we chorused.
"Get that rummage seen to, Pritchett. Breakfast in ten minutes, Poole?"
"Ten minutes, sir."
The colonel strode out and we relaxed a bit. Mr Poole informed Luke that he'd be doing the washing up after breakfast, and we all stacked our meagre belongings into the little lockers beside our beds. Then we all went down to breakfast.
And now the colonel was completely different. He wanted to know all about us – where we came from, what our families were like, about school, what we were interested in, and on and on. Mr Poole ate with us and it was like a weird kind of family, but with no mother or sisters. We had more eggs and bacon and glasses of milk to wash them down. (Later that day we discovered that there was a farm belonging to the house and so we were able to have food that other people, because of rationing, could only dream about). We had to help clear away the food and the dishes and then Luke had to do the washing up.
And then we were free to do what we liked. The colonel had said that we could have the rest of the week to get used to the country before we went to school, and we took advantage of it. Those few days, we were like explorers arrived on another continent, or another planet. We roamed across the fields. Everything was new, so everything was interesting. Every night at supper the colonel asked us what we had done and we told him. He was mightily amused by our greenness and our amazement at all the normal country activities that we had come across. We made, with the colonel's approval, a kind of headquarters in an old boathouse on a lake. There was a small boat inside it and we asked if we could take it out, but he said no, it would sink after being out of the water so long.
The house itself was huge. The day that it rained we explored indoors and found more and more rooms on four floors and fresh interesting things in all of them. In the attic, there was a space with nothing but junk, the most wonderful junk in the world. And then we found out how to get on to the roof and from there we could survey the whole area.
At the back of the house there was an enclosed courtyard: the house took up one side of a square and the other three sides were stables and tack rooms and other outhouses. To our disappointment there were only two horses, a large chestnut creature and a smaller grey pony.
It was like a paradise. London was at the far end of forever. School and my father's whackings seemed like a nightmare that I had woken up from. We had seen the colonel take cigarettes out of a silver box in what he called the drawing room. It was easy to thieve a few fags and we sat in our boathouse headquarters smoking them and thinking we were the lords of creation.
I don't know how Mr Poole found out about our theft and smoking, but he did. We were, as he put it, on a charge – lined up at attention in front of the colonel, who sat behind his desk in his 'office', looking sadly at us with his one good eye. We tried to deny it, but Mr Poole knew exactly how many fags had been in the box and then he produced the dog ends from the boathouse. We were bang to rights.
"Well, chaps," said the colonel. "This is very serious, you know, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir," we muttered.
"Not just stealing, but smoking stunts your growth. Young lads like you don't want to be sucking filth into your lungs. Old hands like Poole and I, it isn't going to make much difference. But you're too young to be doing things like that. I shall have to punish you, shan't I?"
"Yes, sir." Thinking of what kind of beating he'd got planned for us – a stick? some sort of strap?
"Two days bread and water and confined to barracks. Take them upstairs, Poole."
Mr Poole explained as he herded us up to our bedroom: for two days we would have to stay in our room and we'd get nothing but bread and water to eat and drink.
The evening sun was shining through our window and we lay on our beds dejectedly. The two days stretched out ahead of us. We had no idea of the time, but it must have been seven o'clock when Mr Poole brought up the tray with three slices of bread for each of us and a jug of water. We sat and ate in silence. After one slice of bread I couldn't eat any more. Three more unhappy boys it would have been hard to find.
"I thought he'd have whacked us," said Mark.
"Me too," I said.
"Two days!" said Luke.
"Bread and water!" said Mark.
"I bloody hate this bread," I said.
"Me too," they said.
We were silent for about a minute.
"Remember that caning we got off Evans?" Mark said.
"_f_u_c_k_ing hell! Do I?" I answered.
"I'd rather have that again than sit here like this for two days."
"Me too," I said. "Though not on our bare bums."
"No. I'd sooner have a hiding any day than this. What about you, Pritch?"
"Yes. Any day."
In the end they decided that I was the man for the job, and I set off down through the house, looking for the colonel, to ask him for a beating instead of the punishment he'd given us. He was in his office, working on some papers with Mr Poole.
"Please, sir," I started, without much idea about how I was going to put this.
"Yes, Dormer."
"Please, sir, we've been talking, sir, and we're very sorry for what we did, and we were wondering, sir, if you wouldn't mind whacking us instead of making us stay in our room."
"Well ...."
"Sir, that's how our dads punish us, and we've all had the cane at school, sir."
"I see. So how does your father beat you, Dormer?"
"He used to whack me with the back of me mum's hairbrush, sir. On me bare bottom, sir. Though, if you was going to cane us, sir, please could it not be with nothing on, sir?"
"Well. Poole, do we still have that cane we got for Michael?"
"Yes, sir. Out in the tack room, sir."
"And what do you think, Poole? Would a caning be a suitable penalty for these three rogues?"
"Very suitable indeed, sir."
"And you'd be prepared to administer it?"
"Certainly, sir."
"Very well. So be it. Cut away, Dormer, and fetch your fellow criminals while Poole and I discuss what's to be done."
I ran all the way up to our room and panted out the successful outcome of the meeting. We tidied ourselves up and scampered down to the office. Once again we were lined up in front of the desk, at attention, waiting to hear our fate.
"First of all," the colonel started, "I want to say that I think you're showing a good deal of bravery by suggesting this change to your punishment. Boys with less courage would just have accepted the punishment and simply moaned about it amongst themselves. That you have found the guts to come and talk about it shows your calibre. So well done all of you, and well done Dormer for coming to talk to me.
"But –" and he paused to let it sink in, "that isn't going to mean that Poole goes easy on you. So, this is your last chance to change your minds. If you decide that you don't want a caning after all, you can go back to your room, and I shan't think any the worse of you. But if you want to go through with it, you'll have to accept whatever I say you're getting, and in future there'll be no choice. If you're up to me on a charge, it'll be a caning that you get. Now – what's it to be?"
We didn't even have to look at each other. "The cane, sir, please," I said, and the others joined in. I tried to sound brave saying it, but my heart was beating and my throat had gone dry.
"Very well. For stealing, the sentence is four cuts of the cane; and for smoking, another four cuts, which makes a total of eight."
I gulped. It was going to be bad, and I didn't like the sound of calling it 'cuts'.
"Take them away, Poole."
Mr Poole ushered us out. Looking at the faces of the other two, they were feeling much the same as me. We wouldn't have been human if we didn't have doubts about what we'd let ourselves in for. Mr Poole was still a young man and very strong-looking, not a character that you would want to mess with.
He led us out through the kitchen and scullery into the courtyard, across it and up the few steps to the tack room. Inside were stored about a dozen saddles and various horsey bits and pieces that we didn't know anything about, though it didn't take much working out what the collection of whips and riding crops was for. There was a big table in the middle of the room and down at the far end a kind of wooden bench with splayed legs. It was less than a foot wide on top and there was a saddle resting on it. When we were exploring we had pretended that this was a horse and we were cowboys riding the range. The whole room smelled of leather and horses. Mr Poole hoisted the saddle off the bench and put it up on a rack: that was where we were going to be caned!
He went to a tall cupboard near the door and took out the cane. It was almost the same as Mr Evans's, back at school, the same length and weight as far as I could tell and when he slashed it through the air the same sharp WHUP! that told us how much it was going to sting.
"Right then," he said. "Who's going first?"
We hesitated. "I will," I said. I wanted to get it over with, and also I was kind of the leader and therefore ought to go first. He led me down to the far end where the bench was. I thought he would make me bend over it sideways, but instead he fetched a blanket, rolled it up and placed it over one end. Then I had to lie along the top with my loins perched over the rolled up blanket and grip the far legs as far down as I could reach. Then he made me hook my knees outside the near legs so I was spread-eagled over the length of the bench with my bum good and high for the cane to get to work on. He pulled my shirt out of my trousers and smoothed the cloth down over my bottom.
"That's how you bend over when it's your turn," he said to the others. "Now, go outside the door and wait till you're called." I heard them go out and I was alone with him. He came and stood behind me and I thought I felt the end of the cane just touching my right buttock. "This is for the stealing," he said.
And that was the moment when the thought hit me: Michael? Who the hell is Michael?
Then WHUP!
The cane sang through the air and cracked across my tight little backside. And, just like being caned by the headmaster, a second later the pain sliced across my flesh. I'm pretty sure I yelled a bit. The sting of the first cut was always too much to take in silence.
The second was a long, long time coming. He let me lie there with the stinging of the cane eating into my bottom. Then, without warning, the second stroke landed, lower than the first, and another line of fire erupted. I felt my head jerk up, but I kept the yell that wanted to escape locked up inside my head.
Another long pause during which it felt as though nothing existed but the burning tramlines across my rear end. The third landed right in the middle, between the first two and now the stinging fire was like a band eating into the meat.
I must have moved too much because he told me to get my knees back round the legs, and I had to arrange myself once more, spread open so the cane could do its work properly. The fourth landed right on top of one of the previous cuts. The pain shot up my spine and out of my mouth in a yell. And my knees had come off the legs again. It was more than I could bear, but I lay there ready for the next cut.
"Get up," he said. Painfully I hauled myself up off the bench and stood clutching at the seat of my trousers like a mad thing. "That's your first instalment," he said. "Go outside and send the next one in."
I hobbled out and Luke went in. I shut the door and started rubbing myself again.
"How was it?" asked Mark.
"All right," I said. "Not much worse than Quackers." But it was still bad enough, and now I was thinking about the other four of those cuts that I still had coming.
We could hear the cane cracking across Luke's bottom and his yells of pain. "Show us your bum," said Mark.
"Wait till we've finished." I wasn't ready yet to display the effects of that terrible cane, though I knew from the intense stinging in my rear end that they were going to be spectacular.
Luke came out and Mark had to go in. Luke was hopping up and down from foot to foot and clutching at himself. His face was twisted up in a grimace that said more than anything about the fire the cane had created. Mark didn't yell much, but his face showed the same agony when he reappeared and it was my turn to go in again.
I tried to look brave as I faced him again, but the sight of the cane flexed into a semi-circle between his fists almost broke me. I wanted to turn tail and run out of the tack room and never stop till I was back in London. Instead, I went to the bench and lay down over the rolled up blanket again. The first four strokes had separated out into one incandescent line of fire, where two had landed together, and two intensely burning satellites.
Mr Poole planted the remaining four cuts precisely in the area already outlined by the first dose and it was like my backside was exploding. Wave after wave of intense stinging fire surged through the muscles. No boy could take this without yelling and I fairly lifted the roof. But somehow I lay there and let him do it. Even at the height of the agony I knew that this was a better punishment than being shut up in our bedroom and eating nothing but dry bread.
Walking to the door, I no longer cared about looking brave and I rubbed at my erupting flesh with abandon. My feet felt about ten feet away and I had to force them to move. But then, miraculously, the punishment was over, the slate was wiped clean. I stood on the steps in the sunshine listening to first Luke's howls and then Mark's sharper yells. And then all three of us were free and clear, with no more than the slowly fading pain in our bottoms to remind us.
In the boathouse we examined each other's bottoms. The marks were almost the best we had ever seen. Not quite in the same league as those after Mark and I had been caned with nothing on by Mr Evans, but still unbelievably painful and they looked as though they would last a fortnight at least. Luke had never had such weals and despite the horrible pain he was obviously quite proud of the fact that he had taken the same punishment as us two desperate characters. When we went in to supper we expected the colonel to say something about our beatings, but there wasn't a word from him, nor from Mr Poole when he put the lights out that night.