Next morning Justin was back to his normal friendly and affectionate self. He raised the question of my telling his father about the incident, and accepted with a heavy heart that I now had no choice but to do so.
After breakfast I again got the child to take down his pyjama trousers to let me see the results of the beating I had given him, and was rewarded with the sight of a thoroughly well-whipped 11-year-old bottom. I gently ran my palms over the punished buttocks, and Justin informed that they didnt hurt too much except if I sit down hard.
A day or two before his fathers return, the boys spirits seemed to sink: he became quiet and withdrawn. I took the little fellow on my knee and suggested that he tell his father what had happened, not me, and that he did it immediately. I intended to be present at the confession, though, as I know naughty little boys have a habit of confusing the meaning of accidentally and deliberately when the time of reckoning approaches.
Justins greeting of his father was stiff and formal, and the boy flashed me a look as if to say Now?.
Mr Howard sensed the awkwardness. Has something happened?
Mr Benson caught me stealing twice, said Justin looking his father in the eye. A look of deep anger flashed across the man face then subsided. Coldly, grimly he elicited the details of his sons misdeeds.
Go to the barn and get ready, was his verdict. Then he turned to me and said: Justin knows what I think of his thieving habit, but I want you to see what I think of it. Lets go.
As we walked to the barn I explained that I had already thrashed the child severely. (It was, I realized afterwards, the first time in my adult life that I had pleaded for a young boys bottom to be spared the rod of correction!) Good, but not enough, was his reply. This will be fathers thrashing – no mercy shown.
Justin had moved an old trestle into the centre of the barn and laid a blanket across it. He stood in front of it with his shorts and underpants round his ankles and his T-shirt rolled right up. He was holding the whip and looked pale and terrified - I realized immediately that a savage beating was about to occur.
Mr Howard took the whip and the boy mumurred Please, Daddy....
Silence, was the curt reply. Get down!
The boy climbed over the trestle, grasping a low strut with both hands. I noted with a professional interest that the little chaps buttocks were beautifully presented for punishment, the bottom skin perfectly taut.
I stood at the side of the trestle to give Mr Howard room to move as he flogged his thieving sons bare bottom. The boys eyes were tightly closed, his teeth clenched and he was sobbing softly even before the first lash fell.
There was no lecture, no preamble. The angry man raised the whip well behind his back and brought it down with frightening force on the pale buttocks of his child. (The weals I had inflicted on him had faded almost completely.) I expected a scream of pain, but there was only a gasp – he must have been trained not to cry out.
The lash fell again and again. The man worked with no particular system that I could detect, simply thrashing vigorously and relentlessly. The childs tender thighs took punishment occasionally as did his lower back. Within 5 minutes no area of his bottom was unmarked. At one point I considered intervening, but the look on the mans face brooked no interference.
Justins ordeal end as abruptly as it had begun: Mr Howard simply stopped whipping the half-naked lad, rolled the lash neatly round the handle and returned the implement to its cupboard. He walked out and a couple of minutes later I heard the car engine – the man was due at a Board Meeting that evening, I knew.
Being a methodical creature I had counted the strokes. The lash had fallen very hard 28 times on the 11-year-olds bare-skinned bottom. I helped him to his feet and decided his shorts and pants had better come off completely – attempting to raise them across such a badly beaten backside would have been agony to the little boy. I helped him to his room dressed only in his T-shirt and laid him on his bed. I sat with him for a minute gently tousling his mane of silky light brown hair, which I knew comforted him.
All for a few pence worth of sweets, I whispered, but I doubt if he heard me. Then I left him alone with his thoughts and his flaming rear-end and went downstairs to put some wet tea-towels in the freezer. They would be needed later.