By the time Michael arrived we had found out from Mr Poole who he was and why we had not seen him until now. We were all a bit apprehensive about his arrival, which threatened the idyllic life we had made for ourselves in the colonel's house.
The colonel had joined the army less than a week before the end of the Great War and then, as a raw lieutenant, had been sent to India, where he had lived for the next fifteen years. Mr Poole was his batman; as an Anglo-Indian this was almost the best position he could hope for. The colonel had been promoted rapidly and by 1926 was able to marry the daughter of the local railway superintendent.
Her photograph was on the colonel's desk and on a table in the drawing room, and she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen apart from film stars. Eighteen months later, Michael was born. Five years after that, when his wife was pregnant again, there had been an accident in which their car swerved off the road and hit a tree. The colonel lost an arm and an eye: his wife and their unborn child were killed.
Mr Poole nursed him through his convalescence and then came with him to England. He had inherited the house and farm where he now lived. They brought up Michael together until he was old enough to go away to school, when he was seven – and now he was coming home for the summer.
We were worried. A boy, just a year older than us, the son of the man whose house we lived in, from a very different school from anything we knew about. I was convinced. He was going to be a toffee-nosed git and our wonderful life in the country was about to be spoiled.
I couldn't have been more wrong. He was a tall, powerfully-built boy with sandy hair and blue eyes. His expression was serious which at first confirmed our fears. I was convinced I was going to have to fight him, because that was how all relationships with other boys worked until the ascendancy had been worked out. We were formally introduced to him by Mr Poole, and almost immediately his seriousness was split by a great grin and he held out his hand to shake and we were won over straight away.
I noticed that he too addressed Mr Poole formally. He wanted to know all about each of us and what we had been doing round the farm and the grounds. The boathouse was a favourite place of his also and we sat there and talked as though we were old friends. The only thing which would have improved the moment was a fag. He said that we would have to get the boat back in the water. We told him that his father had forbidden it, but he wouldn't hear of it.
That night after supper, he said, Mr Poole was going to cane him. His report was bad and that morning his headmaster had given him six on his bare bottom, and there was a letter in with it, suggesting that his father might like to repeat the treatment. He showed us the marks across his bottom, which were as bad as any I'd seen.
"Will Mr Poole do it with your pants down?" Luke asked.
"Don't know. He does sometimes. At school it's always on the bare arse if you're up to the old man. Have you chaps had the swagger from Mr Poole yet?"
We told him about the cigarettes and he laughed. I told him about Mr Sayer's canings and the slipper club and he was very sympathetic.
"I bet father went down and sorted him out. That's why he doesn't slipper you any more."
Mark told him about the beating he and I had been given for our exploit at the swimming pool, and he laughed uproariously, and for the first time I was able to laugh about it too.
At supper you would never have been able to guess that he had a beating hanging over him. He made all of us laugh, even Mr Poole, with his stories of what had happened at school that term. Most of them seemed to end up with him or his friends or somebody else being caned and the notion I had that posh schools were even tougher than the ones I had been to was confirmed. The colonel was in a good mood too and he told us stories of his own schooldays. Then Mr Poole told us about the school he had been to in India.
But suddenly, the mood changed as the meal ended and Mr Poole stood up.
"Bedtime," he announced. "Go and get into your pyjamas, and Michael, come down to the kitchen when you're ready for our appointment."
We all rose from the table, Michael went to his father and kissed him – something I had never ever done to my father, or heard of anyone else doing.
"There, there," said the colonel. "Go and take your medicine and let's have a better term next term, eh?"
"Yes, father," said Michael, and kissed him again.
"And it won't be long," the colonel said, "before you three will be getting your reports, so you know what you'll get if they're not good, don't you?"
Michael's bedroom was on the floor below ours so we didn't expect to see him again that night. We thought of him going out to the tack room in just his pyjamas to face Mr Poole and his cane. It was going to be hard on him, especially when it was his second dose of the cane that day. And then there was the worry about what we would get if our own reports weren't good. I thought mine would be all right, because I had started to enjoy schoolwork and was doing well. Mark wasn't going to be so lucky. Batty, our form master, was having to whack him three or four times a week, and he was always threatening to send him up to Mr Sayer. Luke had been in trouble a couple of times as well.
Nearly half an hour passed, thinking about this new friend and what he must be going through, when there came a knock at the door. It opened almost immediately and Michael tiptoed in.
"Only me, chaps," he whispered.
"How many did you get?" Mark asked, sitting up in bed.
"Eight. Two for each bad comment. Mr Poole canes nearly as hard as the old man at school."
"Give us a show," I said, climbing out of bed. The light had not gone completely and by the light coming from the window he showed us the dark swollen weals that the cane had left across his bottom. They were in a band no more than three inches wide, overlapping and crossing the earlier ones from his headmaster. I was very glad not to be in his shoes, but he seemed completely oblivious to the pain he must be feeling.
"Was it on your bare bum?" asked Luke.
"No, he let me keep my pyjamas on, but there's not much protection in them. It wasn't much better than on the bare arse."
Suddenly the door opened and Mr Poole was there in the doorway. "Michael, you should be in your own room, not up here showing off your stripes. Do I have to cane you again?"
"No, Mr Poole." He pulled up his trousers and disappeared off to bed, leaving us to contemplate his arrival in our lives, and the prospect of further canings when we brought home our own reports.
We had two more weeks of school to get through before our holidays started, and it was really hard to leave Michael at home having fun already when we had to go in and sit through Newby's boring lessons. And the cane was in almost constant action. Twice he caned the whole class because we were rowdy. It was three solid whacks and I could feel the weals burning across my bottom for the rest of the day.
The very next day, Stu Hathaway and I went down over the bank at the end of the yard to look for a hedgehog he said he'd seen there. We didn't hear the whistle so we were very late for afternoon school. It wouldn't have been too bad except that Mr Sayer caught us sneaking back in. As far as he was concerned, we were playing truant.
"You first, Hathaway," he said, fetching his cane from the stand and swishing it through the air. "Trousers down and over the chair."
Stu did as he was told. I don't think he was wearing the same ripped pants as when we were caned for fighting, but they were pretty similar and offered very little protection from the six scorching strokes that he laid on.
Then it was my turn. It felt almost as bad letting my trousers down as it had stripping naked for Mr Evans in London. The first was the worst; like a sudden squirt of intolerable fire across my rear end. I managed to keep silent though, and after that the build up of pain was more endurable. The last was bad too; he put his full strength into it and it felt as though the cane was biting deep into my muscles.
"Did you deserve a caning?" the colonel asked as I stood in front of his desk. The letter from Mr Sayer was lying on the desk in front of him.
"Yes, sir," I said – but thinking, Not as bad as the one he gave us.
He nodded. "Mr Sayer suggests that you ought to be beaten some more. Do you think you deserve another caning?"
"No, sir. He gave us six of the best with our trousers down, which was more than it deserved really."
"What do you think, Poole?"
"I agree, sir. Six of the best is enough, especially with the trousers down."
"Very well. But I don't want to hear of you being caned again, is that clear?" He signed the letter and handed it over to me.
"Yes, sir."
"Right, off you go."
But three days later I was in the head's office again. It was raining at playtime so we had to stay in the classroom. He was patrolling the school and caught me standing on a desk doing an imitation of Batty and holding his cane, pretending to give somebody a whacking.
"Disgraceful behaviour," he said, giving a vicious swish to his cane. "Bend over." I went over the chair and he pulled my shirt clear of my trousers, then smoothed the cloth down over my bum. It was four this time, really hard, but not really in the same class as the previous one. The third stroke caught a particularly tender line, where the cane had landed before. It took me by surprise and I yelped a bit.
The colonel was less sympathetic this time. "Couldn't you stay out of trouble for more than three days?"
"I'm sorry, sir," I said, and meant it.
"Should Mr Poole cane you again?"
"I don't know, sir."
He looked at me sharply. "A very honest reply," he said, squinting his eye almost shut. "What do you think, Poole?"
"A few extra cuts would do no harm, sir, if you ask me."
"I agree. I'm disappointed, Dormer. Four cuts when you're ready for bed."
So that night, after supper, I went downstairs to the kitchen in my pyjamas. Mr Poole led me out to the tack room. The bench was ready for me with the rolled-up blanket on one end. I lay down and gripped the legs with my knees. The cloth of my trousers was pulled taut and felt no thicker than tissue paper.
He took his time and lay on the four strokes really hard. I could hear his shoes shuffling on the wooden boards of the floor, so he was standing well back for each stroke and throwing himself into it. Michael was right: pyjamas were no protection at all from this sort of caning. He might just as well have had me naked. The first stroke made me yell and burned across the full width of my bottom. I lay there telling myself that I had to keep silent for the rest. I couldn't count the time but it must have been a full thirty seconds before the second lashed into me. It landed right on the same line as the first. I thought it had cut into me. I couldn't help myself.
"Aagh!"
But I held on tight and waited for the next. It seemed as though it was never coming. I had time to think that spacing the strokes out like this made the punishment ten times worse. The third landed a fraction of an inch lower, just where I was tender from a couple of the headmaster's strokes. My teeth were clenched together, but I felt my head jerk up as the pain lashed through me and I heard a kind of strangled wail – "Grrenggghh!" - come out of my mouth. The fourth, when at last it sliced into me, was the worst of all. He must have stood back about three paces and launched it into me.
"Arrgh! Oh _f_u_c_k_!" I couldn't help myself. It was like all the pain in the world concentrated into a line across my bum.
I knew instantly what I had done. What would Mr Poole do? I lay there dreading what was coming next. He was right behind me and then I felt his hand on my bottom, his fingers tracing the flaming stripes, already starting to swell up across both buttocks.
"And what d'you think the colonel would say about language like that, eh?"
"Don't know, Mr Poole," I said.
"Young Michael got six last holidays for saying his headmaster was a bastard. He's very particular about bad language. What d'you think you'd get for 'Arrgh! Oh _f_u_c_k_!'?" And I knew from the way he imitated my cry of pain that he was laughing at me and that I was safe.
"Don't know, Mr Poole."
"Ten across your bare backside, I shouldn't wonder. All right, get up." He helped me up off the bench and at last I was able to rub myself. It felt as though the cane was still lashing me; the pain hadn't diminished one bit. "Are you going to go getting the stick off that headmaster any more?"
"No, Mr Poole."
"Well, you'd better not. I won't answer for what he'll do if you come home with another letter, this side of the holidays."
Back upstairs, Michael, Luke and Mark were waiting for a show of my wounds. I was happy enough to oblige. They were like a soldier's battle scars, and we all wore the stripes across our bums with pride. But later, lying on my belly with the sheet pushed back and my trousers round my knees so that some cool air could get to my backside, it seemed as though the fire would burn for ever. At least, this time I had to admit that I had deserved the beatings I'd received. But that didn't make the stinging any easier to bear.
It wasn't until we were walking through the school gates next morning that I remembered. The colonel hadn't signed the letter; I didn't have the slip to give to the head. Maybe it wouldn't matter. But I knew it would.
He came to our classroom soon after playtime. He strolled over to Batty's desk and surveyed the class. A kid called Wilson was standing in the corner with his hands on his head.
"Why is this boy in the corner, Mr Newby?" he demanded.
"He was over-excited after playtime, headmaster. He's cooling off for a few minutes."
"It's not cooling off he needs. One bit of him needs heating up. My office, Wilson – now. Wait outside."
Wilson left his corner and padded across the room with every pair of eyes following him. The head looked round till he spotted me.
"Dormer. Do you have something for me?"
"No, sir. I'm sorry, sir. I forgot it. I'll bring it ...."
"Tomorrow will not do, Dormer. Go to my office." I got up from my desk and followed Wilson out. We stood together outside his door, not daring to talk. I felt more sorry for him, really. He hadn't done anything and now he was going to get the stick. I might still be able to persuade him that I'd delivered the letter as required. One look at my backside should persuade him that I'd done what was needed.
He ordered both of us inside and, as usual, hooked the cane out of the stand as he passed it. He wasted no time in talking. "Wilson. Over the chair." Wilson was no stranger to the cane, and went straight to the chair and stretched over the back of it. His trousers were worn in the seat and he'd grown out of them. Right in the middle of his right buttock there was an L-shaped rip with a triangular flap sticking out. I could see the white of his skin through the rip: he wasn't wearing pants.
Each of the four strokes made him yelp. Of course, the bastard aimed right for the rip and twice I thought that the tip of the cane landed smack on the unprotected flesh. "Up, Wilson." The boy stood up and rubbed at his bum, his face showing just how painful it was.
"Dormer. Chair please. Trousers down."
"Please, sir, I did take the letter home, 'cause Mr Poole caned me last night. It's just that the colonel forgot to sign it, sir."
"Don't you lie to me, boy. If you haven't got the letter this morning, signed by your guardian as required, the only reason can be that you thought you could get away with hiding it. Now, let down your trousers and bend over the chair."
"I can show you the marks from Mr Poole's cane, sir. I took the letter like you said, sir. Honest."
"I'm beginning to lose my patience, Dormer. It is patently obvious that you thought you could avoid the extra punishment that you richly deserved, and so you threw the letter away and –"
"No, sir."
"Don't you dare to interrupt me, you disgusting little guttersnipe. Get those trousers down and bend over before I get Mr Newby in here to hold you down. Then you'll see what a real dose of the cane is like."
He had caned me twice in the last three days and been the cause of me getting a third, much worse, caning from Mr Poole, and now he was threatening to cane me again, completely unfairly, and simply because he didn't like me. He was never going to listen to anything I might say. To try and argue with him was a complete waste of breath. But in that moment I came to a decision: I wasn't going to give in to him.
I turned and made straight for the door. "Get back here," I heard him shout, but then I started to run. "Dormer!" came another shout, but then I was out of the building, racing across the playground, through the gate, down the lane, over the stile that we took into the manor's grounds.
Michael was by the boathouse, which was where I went to think about my next move. Now that a few minutes had passed I knew that I was in deep trouble. It was all right making a brave gesture like running out of the head's office, but sooner or later I would have to pay.
Michael listened to my story and whistled. "Well done, old chap. I'd have done the same. But you'd better tell my father as soon as possible. If you leave it it's going to look worse for you."
I knew he was right. Somehow I had to get the colonel on my side – and I was far from sure that he would be.
"Shall I come with you?" Michael asked, and I gratefully accepted.
We found the colonel round the back of the farm buildings. He and one of the labourers were trying to mend the old binder that would soon be needed for harvest. As briefly as I could I told him what had happened and his face became grim.
"Can you manage here, Weeks?"
"Yes, sir."
The colonel led the way indoors, kicking off his boots and padding down the passage to his study. Michael waited outside the door and I stood in front of his desk, like we did when we were on a charge. He made me tell him the story again in more detail and then he stood up, went to the window and perched on the sill. "There are two issues here, Dormer." Oh, how I wished that he would call me Jack. "Firstly, there is the business of the letter, and I will deal with that. Mr Sayer obviously misunderstood what you were telling him, and I can clear up the problem very quickly. I think I can promise you that you will not be caned for that. The other matter is more difficult. Do you know what happens to a soldier who deserts his post in wartime?"
"No, sir," I said, but I kind of knew what was coming.
"He is shot. And you can understand, I'm sure, why he is shot. He has deserted his post and left his comrades undefended. In this war, Dormer, all of us are soldiers and all of us must be steadfast and stay at our posts no matter what. And where is your post, Dormer?"
"At school, sir. But –"
"No buts, Dormer. Your post was at school, and you deserted it. Every boy's duty is to go to school and obey his masters, so that in due course he can serve his country as an upright soldier and citizen. Aren't I right?"
"Yes, sir. But if I'd stayed he'd have given me the stick when I didn't deserve it."
"Two answers to that. First, do you think that all the young men killed or captured in France deserved what happened to them? But still they stayed at their posts. Secondly, which is worse: a few strokes of the cane that weren't deserved, or to run away from your post like a coward?"
"Don't know, sir."
"Well, I'll leave the matter in your hands. I will get Poole to talk to Mr Sayer about the letter. But now you have disobeyed a direct order and played truant, and that was wrong. Will you go back to school, face Mr Sayer and take your medicine, whatever it is?"
"Do I have to go now, sir, or tomorrow?"
"You don't have to go, Dormer. The decision is yours. But in any case, not until tomorrow. If you decide not to return to school, I shall put you to work on the farm. No penalties – but you will have lost my respect. You will go down in my estimation by a huge amount. I can't tell you not to discuss it with your pals, but don't let them influence you. It must be your decision."
Of course I went back. I went straight to his office and asked the secretary if I could see him. He could hardly contain himself when I walked in.
"I'm very sorry I ran off yesterday, sir," I said. I'd been rehearsing my speech all the way. "It was wrong of me and I'm ready for any punishment you think I should have."
"I'm glad to hear it, Dormer. Mr Poole has been to see me and I understand that your failure to bring the letter was a genuine oversight and may not have deserved as severe a beating as I was going to give you."
I had to bite my lip to keep silent. The _f_u_c_k_ing nerve of him, I thought.
"But now, for your rudeness and truancy I see no alternative to a serious thrashing. I believe I should not be doing my duty if I gave you less than six strokes on your bare bottom."
I gulped.
"Fetch me a cane from the stand, please." This was cruel! I crossed the room and pulled out the bone-white cane that he always used. "Not that one. Bring me the longer one." I felt the length and weight of it as I took it across the room to him, thinking of the atrocious pain this thing was going to cause in my poor backside. He took it from me and whipped it through the air, letting me hear how much it was going to hurt. I discovered later that this was the cane he normally reserved for the big boys of thirteen and fourteen who were soon to leave school. I was tall and sturdy for my age, but I was still only eleven.
"Now, let your trousers and pants down and bend over the chair." I went to the chair. Through the window I could see a field of cows and down in the road a boy was cycling past: I thought, that lucky sod hasn't got to go through this ever again. I unbuttoned my trousers, eased them and my pants down over my bottom, down to my knees and let them fall. I had to raise myself on my toes a little, but then I draped myself over the chairback – protected with the towel in case I wet myself – letting my head drop right into the seat. My bottom was hoisted high and, when he pushed my shirt clear, I was naked from the middle of my back to my ankles, and I could almost feel the heat from the beatings of the day before yesterday throbbing along the lines of bruise still. I knew how spectacular they were: the two sets of thin, dark lines that he had created, some of them slightly fading now, and through them and across them the four thicker, darker tramlines of Mr Poole's caning.
The first stroke seared into me without any warning and it was as if my body lit up. I couldn't help myself. The agony came rushing out of my mouth in a great shout. And then I heard him stomping around the room. I heard him go to his desk: he was making me wait for every stroke. The line of fire across my bottom burned and burned without the slightest fading away. I couldn't imagine what he was doing, but all my concentration was focussed on the pain.
At last I heard him limping back to me and I braced myself for the next stroke. This time I heard it a fraction of a second before my bottom exploded for a second time, yanking me to fresh heights of unimaginable pain. I yelled again, unable to stop myself.
And so the beating ran its full, excruciating course. Every stroke landed across the area that was already as tender as hell, and every stroke wrung a yell of pain from me. And the long, long, long wait between each stroke so that I could appreciate each one to the full before it was eclipsed by the next. No-one could have taken such a thrashing in silence, I told myself. And maybe I was right. When it was over, my bottom felt destroyed, as though I would never be able to sit down comfortably again and the welts would be there for the rest of my life. The admiration of my classmates was only slight compensation. More comforting was the fact that there was no letter to take home, and Mr Newby took pity on me and let me work standing up.
Michael whistled when he saw my wounds – and wounds was the right word because the tip of the cane had broken the skin and I had scabs of blood down the right hand slope of my bottom. Mr Poole saw them too. He made me show him as we were getting ready for bed. He made no comment, but I guessed that he was going to report back to the colonel. Nothing further was said about it and gradually I started to forget it too.
A week later, school broke up for the summer. Our reports were sealed in envelopes so we couldn't know in advance what they were like. We had to present them to the colonel in a formal session with us standing at attention in front of his desk.
He opened mine first and I could feel my heart beating against my rib cage. I thought it would be good, but you could never tell after the last fortnight. He read it in silence, but then looked up and smiled.
"Apart from the number of whackings you've had, this is very good, Dormer."
"Thank you, sir," I said.
"Did you never take a scholarship exam, Dormer?" I didn't know what he meant. "To go to a grammar school."
"No, sir." The idea was absurd. Boys from our school didn't go to grammar schools. No-one ever took the exam. I wasn't sure what an exam was.
"A shame." He turned to Mark's report, breaking open the envelope and reading in silence, but there were no smiles when he looked up. "This is very poor, Hendry. Nearly every comment is bad. You seem to have made no effort at all. If Michael brought home a report like this I should expect his headmaster to have caned him and I'd have Poole give him a thorough caning to go with it. Is that what you deserve?"
I heard Mark gulp beside me. "Yes, sir," he said very quietly.
"Very well. Two for each bad comment is the tariff I use for Michael. That would mean –" he flicked his finger down the paper, counting – "sixteen cuts." He paused to let that sink in. Sixteen of Mr Poole's cuts would be enough to kill him. "I won't have him giving you that many. It's too much. Eight cuts on his bare breech, Poole."
"Very good, sir."
"Now, Pratchett." He picked up the last envelope, opened and read. He looked up at last and I could almost hear Luke's apprehension. "Too many whackings, Pratchett, and it seems you can't pay attention or learn your tables properly. It won't do, will it?"
"No, sir."
"Four cuts, when you're ready for bed."
I was almost sorry that they were to be caned but I was escaping. But I pushed the thought to the back of my mind: I'd had more than enough cane across my backside, and we'd all be together when they came back from the tack room.
When we were all in pyjamas and ready for bed, the two of them set off down for their appointment with Mr Poole. Michael was determined to witness their punishments, and I wasn't against the idea, so we followed them down the back stairs and out through the kitchen.
"I say, Mr Poole," Michael said as he was going up the steps. "Can we come in and watch? There ought to be witnesses, you know."
I thought there was no chance that he would allow us in, but after a moment's thought, he just said, "Come on then." I don't think Mark and Luke were unhappy about it either. There was something quite terrible about being all alone with Mr Poole and his cane.
Luke went first. He mounted the bench and spread his knees in the way we were now used to. His pyjamas were quite baggy and Mr Poole pulled them up tight and then smoothed the cloth down over the round muscles of his bottom. He picked up the cane and took aim with the last foot of it against Luke's bum. He didn't stand back, or take a run at it or anything, just whipped it down across the fleshy target with the strength of his arm and shoulder behind it. Luke yelled for all four strokes, but he lay still and took them bravely. When he got down off the bench he was trying to grin at the same time as he was rubbing furiously at his rear end.
Mark had to take his trousers off completely before he bent over. It was just over a year since we had had our bare bottoms caned by Mr Evans. Then I'd been unable to watch as Mark was whipped. Now, with Michael standing beside me, I was able to take a bit more interest. He had muscles like whipcord, not an ounce of fat and hard as nails. We could see the marks of a couple of previous beatings, just faint blue lines across the white of his skin. Mr Poole lay on with the cane just as hard as if he'd been wearing trousers. Each stroke made an instant red line across both buttocks, as though the blood was rushing to the spot because it sensed the chance to escape. But then before the next one was delivered it started to swell up into a proper weal with a white centre and dark tramlines either side. All eight landed in a band less than two inches wide, down low where he'd sit on them. Every one raised a yell, and his cries became louder and more frantic as the beating went on. He wriggled a bit towards the end, but he could hardly be blamed for that.
And then it was over. We were on our way back to bed. We were on holiday, and the warm summer days of freedom stretched ahead.