This ominous summons bode no good. Basil had heard it often enough to know whay it meant. Slowly he shuffled up the steps to the dais and stood before the master who regarded him with obvious disdain.
"Boys like you should be soundly flogged," he opined, looking down at the trembling child. "And you will be, my boy, I can assure you. I have special instructions from the director as to you, and you won't like it. No, you won't like it a bit. Take down your shorts. NOW!" he added when he saw the boy hesitate.
Basil went through the usual ritual and found himself bent over the master's large desk. He had to stand on the tips of his toes to be able to reach the desk's edge. There were some murmurs in the classroom as Basil's striped and bruised backside was being fully displayed to them,
"I see you've been well disciplined," Mr. Graham chuckled. "Good, good. That's the only way to deal with chaps like you." He walked over to a cane-stand and leisurely selected one. He seemed to like the heft and swish as he decided on the long, yellow one with which he now approached the prone boy. He stood behind him and playfully tapped the wealed buttocks. "A dozen to begin with," he said calmly. Then he stood back and raised the cane.
The boys watched the process carefully, especially young William whose eyes were wide and mouth slightly open. It was the first time he had seen another boy whipped. He hadn't even been sure whether other boys were beaten at home the way he was. Now he was finding out and he didn't know wether to feel relief or anxiety. Not long after, anxiety had won. He had never thought a boy could be caned as hard as this boy was.
Mr. Graham caned with great relish. Each juicy cut thwacked deeply into the boy's fleshy little backside and each time the boy's posterior jumped and quivered. Each stroke left a deep red welt that gradually turned purpe at the edges. After the third stroke Basil, feeling his backside on fire, rose with a yelp and grabbed his injured behind.
"That will not be permitted," Mr. Graham said. "You will remain in position or the stroke is repeated. If this happens three times, the count will start at number one again. Is that clear, boy?"
"Y-yes, sir," the weeping boy mumbled and quickly bent over the desk again.
"If the count has to start more than twice, you will be tied down," continued the master. "Is that also clear?"
"Yes, sir, the boy said.
After the sixth ferocious cut, Basil bellowed with pain but Mr. Graham was undeterred. On the contrary, the louder the boy howled, the harder he applied the cane. Number seven and Basil's head jerked up high, his body arched and his feet performed a little dance in the air. He almost slipped off the desk but caught himself in time. Numbers eight and nine were aimed carefully across the fold between buttocks and thighs where most of the bruises were from previous punishments. The boy sobbed and roared, wailing, "Oh, please, sir, no more! Please no more! It hurts, oh, it hurts!"
Mr. Graham snickered. "It's supposed to hurt you, child. That's the whole purpose of the exercise. And it will hurt more and more unless you decide to dedicate yourself to your lessons and learn proper behaviour. Now stay down and don't make so much fuss about a few strokes of the cane. You should be ashamed of yourself, crying like a small child." And he whipped the cane across the boy's lower buttocks with all his strength. "Two more to go, boy. So get your head further down and spread your feet wider. These last two will be quite painful."
And that they were. Basil screamed and writhed, but held on to the desk edge for dear life. Then it was over. Mr. Grahamn left the blubbering little boy bent across the desk for a while.
"Boys," he addressed the class, "you have just witnessed how a boy is punished if he fails his lessons. Let that be a lesson to you, as well." Then Basil was allowed to rise, pull up his shorts and return to his desk. This time it was Basil's turn to lower himself gingerly onto the hard seat next to the sympathetic William.
That evening, during supper, William and Basil sat together, both shifting their behinds in obvious pain. For both the day had passed like a bad dream. Lessons, lessons and more lessons, always interrupted with some boy being ordered up front, instructed to lower his shorts and bend over the desk, a chair or just touch his toes. Then it was twelve or more hard strokes of the cane and back to his desk. Between the mornign and afternoon lessons, there were exhausting bouts at the playing fields. For this they had to change into their PT kit of white singlet and skimpy little shorts that always seemed to ride up between the buttocks. So there was considerable pulling at the seats of shorts during most activities while the gym teacher busied himself applying a thick, three-tailed tawse to boys' lazy bare legs.
Now they had bathed and dressed again and had to sit quietly and eat their supper. After supper was another "punishment period" he had been told and Basil wondered what would happen at that time. He was soon to find out.
When supper was finished, all too soon for the tired little boys, a master stood by his table on the platform and addressed them.
"I will now read the list of the boys who are to report to the Director's office in exactly five minutes."
He read from a list the names of some seven or eight boys, Basil and William among them. The groans from those boys were quickly quenched by a stern voice from Mr. Pryor. "You will be quiet and comport yourselves properly while marching to my study. No talking, no whispering. I will deal with you later. Now go."
The seven pale-faced boys obeyed and formed a line, turned and smartly marched out the door towards the dreaded Director's study.
Jack Pryor enjoyed these periods and had instituted three of those during each day. One in the morning after breakfast and before lessons started, another at noon after lunch and this one in the evenings after supper. It was always an invigourating exercise thrashing those bare little behinds soundly and thoroughly.
The seven small culprits trooped into the Director's study and stood silent and palefaced. Their bare legs were shaking and they fiddled with the seats of their tight shorts. There would be little sleep for these youngsters when they were sent to bed.
A few minutes later Pryor strode into the room and sat behind his massive desk. He took his time surveying the sorry lot that was waiting to have their backsides thrashed yet again.
"Let's start with Henry who seems to be intent on making me angry. I see a note here from Mr. Rutherford that you threw something at another boy when the master had his back turned. You like playing pranks, boy?"
"No, sir," the miserable ten-year-old mumbled, his eyes already filling.
"Oh? And you always do things you don't like?" Pryor asked sarcastically. "Do you like being flogged?"
"No, sir," was the whispered reply.
"But that won't prevent you from being soundly whipped, will it, boy?" Pryor drank in the boy's misery.
"Yes, sir," young Henry said.
"Excellent, then let's start with your getting those shorts down and off."
The boy obeyed with trembling fingers, placed the small garment on a nearby chair and stood, naked from the waist, waiting while Pryor inspected him. "Bring the bench," Pryor added. When the boy had followed those instructions, Pryor continued, "Now kneel on the becnh lengthwise so you can spread your knees properly and place your hands on the floor."
When the boy was in position, his bottom was the high point of the scenario, buttocks gaping widely. No privacy was allowed in such a position. Pryor eyed those parts for some time, then went to the cupboard and brought out a tawse. Slapping its tails lightly against the palm of his hand, he slowly approached his victim. The other six lads stared at the fearsome punishment instrument. It was abot 75 cms long and 6 cms wide, slit into 3 tails. But it was the thickness of the leather. most noticeable at the tips of the tails, that impressed the six. They licked their lips.
Pryor stood behind the kneeling boy, a bit to his left, and tickled the open cheeks with the tawse. Then he raised it, held it there for a moment, and brought it down in a swinging arc. There was a swoosh of air as the tawse hissed down followed by a noise like a pistol shot. The 3 tails curled around the boy's left buttock, the tails biting accurately into the cleft.
Young Henry tried to rise and simultaneously clutch his buttock and fell off the bench. There he lay mewling pathetically, still holding on to his damaged buttock.
Pryor was not amused by this display. "Get back on the bench, boy. For this insolence you will get 3 extra strokes. The next time it will be six extra."
Slowly Henry scrambled back onto the bench, crying softly. Pryor changed his position and gave the boy another, similar stroke across the boy's right buttock, the tails again snapping sharply into that sensitive spot in the cleft. The boy tried desperately not to move but found the pain unbearable. Again he reached back although this time he managed to keep his knees on the bench.
"Very well," Pryor snapped, "six extra."
But he hadn't given more than the first 3 extra cuts when the wailing boy rolled off the bench again. Pryor put the tawse down on his desk and returned to his cupboard. He returned with four thin straps like tiny belts. With these he fastened the boy's wrists to the bench's legs and his knees to the edges where small brackets had been installed for just such purpose. The knees were spread to the limit and when the tawsing resumed, those thick leather tails cracked relentlessly into the cleft.
As stroke followed stroke, the six members of the audience stood wide-eyes, hands massaging small buttocks, some already crying as they watched one of theirs being so severely punished. Pryor, on the other hand, was in his element. He tried to extract as much pain as possible from each stroke - "the most pain with the least effort" was his motto - and was visibly annoyed when the tawse landed not with that pistol-shot crack, but a more subdued slap which indicated the stroke had not been fully effective.
The six boys watched as the seventh knelt, howling, on the bench, his buttocks and upper thighs turning an ever darker red, then gradually purple. When the tawse whipped into the inner thighs, the walls echoed with the boy's screams and that was where Pryor liked to concentrate his strokes when not landing in the cleft. Poor Henry twisted and writhed but could do nothing but wiggle his darkening behind to Pryor's great amusement.
"Next time," Pryor said, whipped the tawse full strength across the lower buttocks, "you will remain in position without being fastened, or it will be even worse for you. Is that understood?" CRACK! went the tawse across and into the inner thighs.
It took several seconds before Henry, his face ever closer to the carpet as his arms tired of his position, managed a small "Yes, sir."
Another six heavy cuts across a well-bruised bottom and Pryor reluctantly made an end. He undid the boy's straps and told him to get up. He looked down at the half-naked boy as he stood blubbering his heart out, his bottom spectacular in its colour and shape. The full swelling would not become noticeable until an hour or so later.
"Take your shorts and hold them above your head by the wall," Pryor told Henry and when this was done, he turned his attention to the next young culprit. His name was Neil, a tall, slender, blond chap almost twelve years old, a small, freckled, upturned nose and a wide mouth, the lips of which were quivering. His big blue eyes were anxiously drawn to that horrrible black tawse and his fingers tugged at the brief hems of his shorts.
His crime was read to him and sentence pronounced. "Two dozen in the touch-toes position. At your age, you should be able to take it without moving. If you do move, so much as take your fingers off the carpet, you will be tied down and be given four dozen as you have just observed with that boy over there. So be warned. Shorts down!"
And the process was repeated. Neil took it rather well, he wobbled and swayed after the first dozen, but managed to retain his position even when he was bellowing in agony. At least in this position, the cleft was reasonably safe. The strokes were just as fierce and the burning of his bottom unbearably hot, but the boy was a fighter and he held up to the last - to Pryor's disappointment. He would have liked to give this boy another two dozen tied to the bench. Well, he still had five more victims.
Basil and William were left to the end. Five boys, all bare from the waist down, holding their shorts above their heads, were lined up against the wall, most of them still silently weeping, yearning to rub their throbbing backsides.
"You two," Pryor said, turning to the two fully-dressed boys, "are my problem cases. Your parents have instructed me to be extra severe when you merit punishment. The reputation of this school depends on my following the parents' wishes and I will do so now. I will not spare your fat little bottoms so you needn't scream and howl in an attempt to shorten your ordeal. I will concentrate on my duty as your teacher and as such instruct you in the matters of obedience, hard work and good comportment at all times. You two have failed in all of them. You, Basil, look at your shorts. They are not braced up properly and there is a smudge at the waistband. And William, I have been told you have failed your exams on several occasions. Both of you will suffer for these infractions. And suffer greatly, I daresay. Shorts off, both of you!"
The two boys had been terrified as they watched the others being so mercilessly beaten. They had hoped to be dealt with early so as to get the ordeal over with quickly, but were disappointed. They had to watch each whipping at close range, hear the crack of leather across bare skin, the screams of pain, and had suffered greatly during these repeated operations. And now it was their turn, so in part there was some relief that all this was coming to an end. but they trembled at what lay in store for them. They quickly unbuttoned and lowered their brief shorts, stepped out of them, folded them and placed them on Pryor's desk. Then they stood, their faces rigid with fear. Pryor smiled and let them wait. This initial period of expectant apprehension was exceedingly salutary, a required precursor to the main event. It put the boys in the right frame of mind: leather, buttocks and pain. The triumvirate of punishment.
"William, I'll start with you. On the bench, boy, on your back!"
The trembling boy obeyed. "Raise you legs towards your head, knees by your ears. Move!" Pryor stepped up to the boy, took hold of one of his legs by the back of his knees and pulled them towards the boy's face. He took two of the small straps that were still on the floor and tied the boy's ankles to each side of the bench, near his head, so that the legs were spread wide and the buttocks well up and split open. Then he did the same with the wrists against the sides of the bench. It was the most shaming position ever devised for a boy's thrashing as it negated all his sense of privacy. Realising how exposed he was, William started to cry.
Pryor took up the heavy tawse and stood by the boy's head looking down at the boy's split bottom. "We will start with the strokes down the center," he said with relish. "It will hurt, as all punishments should."
The tawse cracked down, between the spread thighs and buttocks, landing forcefully right across the small opening between the bottom cheeks. The pain was so hot and intense William saw stars. He gasped in a small breath and screamed.
"Be quiet, boy," Pryor admonished, raising the tawse again. "This is the first stroke and you will take the rest with some self-control or we'll be here all night." The next stroke landed on the same spot and the jack-knifed boy almost choked on his suppressed howl. The next strokes landed lengthwise along the thighs onto the buttocks. William tried to throw his backside from side to side but that didn't accomplish much except to get the tails across his flanks.
Pryor counted two dozen before he put the tawse down. He inspected the boy for a moment, his finger running down the inflamed parts, drawing more tears when his fingernail scratched those inflamed welts. He walked over to the cupboard and returned carrying a heavy cane, a long, yellow rattand which he swished menacingly through the air. The cane was very pliable and Pryor knew it could cause extreme pain when properly handled and he would handle it properly, he promised himself.
This time he positioned himself at the side of the boy, tapped the neareast buttock a few times and then swished the cane hard across the already deeply discoloured buttocks. William howled, his body twisting about. The bare skin of bottom and legs was now covered with perspiration. His face peered out pleadingly between his spread legs. He could now watch as Pryor raised the cane and tried to close his eyes, not to be able to see the cane coming down. But somehow he always opened them again just as the can rushed towards his naked behind. The pain seared into skin and muscle, a d white-hot burn that penetrated deep. After a dozen strokes of the cane he felt all whipped through and yet Pryor continued for a second dozen.
The five boys by the wall and Basil who stood close, watched the operation in rigid terror. If they could sleep at all tonight, they would surely have nightmares visualising these dreadful punishments.
When the second dozen had been complete, young William was limp, moaning softly, tears streaming down his face. He was panting and shaking in exhaustion but at least it was over. God, how his bottom burned and throbbed! He wouldn't be able to sit down for several days without extreme discomfort. He didn't want to think about sitting on the hard school desks all day long tomorrow. He waited for Pryor to release him. He wanted to get back into his shorts, although the thought of this tight garment compressing his swollen buttocks made him shudder, and get to his bed to nurse his wounds. He watched as Pryor carefully placing the tawse and cane on the table by the window. But from there Pryor went to the cupboard again. This time he held a dripping birch rod. The twigs were green, long, and the tips covered with thick, hard buds. William gave a little squeak.
"Oh, sir!" he squealed in his terror. "Please, sir, no more!"
But Pryor was unimpressed. "This is the third stage, my boy, and you better keep quiet or there will be a fourth - with a whip!" Pryor held the rod, long and heavy with seven twigs, so the boy had a good view. "Four dozen," he said with undisguised amusement. "That should make that backside of yours pay attention. What they used to call a sound swishing." He chuckled.
"But, sir," William moaned pitifully, "I'm so sore already."
"No doubt, but soon you'll be even sorer, I can assure you."
Six boys watched, mouth agape, eyes saucer-sized, as the birch did its bloody job. The hard buds scratched the skin, the twigs left deep welts across the buttocks and thighs and all the parts in between. Pryor watched dispassionately as boy writhed and twisted in pain. He was enjoying himself.
After the first two dozen, the boy's backside was a mass of weals, some were already bleeding slightly, just superficial little scratches, but during the second two dozen these effects were greatly increased. William was lying limply on the bench, his knees spread next to his ears, eyes closed. Tears flowed silently, lips trembling, face twitching. In a word, a well-punished little boy.
Pryor put down the worn-out birch. Bits of twig were spread on the floor, most of the buds broken. He looked down at the boy and smiled. Yes, this was the way he liked his boys. Whipped and crying. He untied him. William had trouble lowering his legs as his buttocks came in touch with the bench. He had even more trouble sitting up and getting off the bench.
"To the wall, boy, shorts above your head," Pryot instructed as the boy stumbled first to the desk to retrieve his shorts and then to the wall to join the others. Now only Basil was left. Pryor turned to him.
Basil was trembling and he could hardly stand. His bare legs were covered in goose bumps all the way up his thighs. His fingers plucked at the centre seam that, as always, cut into the cleft between his buttocks. He was damp with sweat and he itched, but he couldn't remove the seam. The fingering had become habitual even though he never succeeded in relieving the pressure.
"Basil, my boy," Pryor looked down on the terrified youngster, "now I'll deal with you. As you know, Miss Walker is away. She met your parents during her stay in Paris and she sent me something. I'm sure you'll appreciate your parents' concern." With that he turned once more to the cupboard and returned with a parcel wrapped in brown paper covered with stamps, seals and labels.
"Go ahead and unwrap it, Basil," Pryor said, handing him the package.
With trembling fingers Basil started to untie the string, then tore away the brown paper. It was an oblong object now wrapped in mounds of tissue paper. When he finally extracted the object, he gave a little gasp. He was holding a gleaming, wooden handle, almost black, from which dangled five thick leather thongs with a small, tight knot at the end of each. He held it up, looking questioning up at Pryor.
"That's the martinet your mother promised you," he grinned. "How do you like it?"