It had been a scorching day. Mr Robson was off sick and Mr Evans had gone off duty, leaving me on my own in the porters office. It was Sunday – an easy day for us: teatime – the boys were all in tea, and after tea they all had to write home. We usually spent the evening reading the paper, but there was no real work to be done till the dorm prefects collected up the letters and brought them down to us for the post.
Id just put my feet up with the Sunday Pictorial when there was a knock at the door. I went to it, not expecting anything unusual – and there were eight boys standing there. Two were older, lower fifth-formers, and the rest were third formers.
I knew immediately what this was. I recognised one of the lower fifth-formers, and one of the younger ones. Then the ginger-headed lower fifth-former handed over a letter. My heart went over. Why does this have to happen when Im here on me own? I thought. I knew what the letter would say.
I opened it.
There was no Dear anything.
15th June 1949
Please administer eight strokes of the cane in the usual way to the following:
Form 3: Davis, Downey, Lawford, Pole, Shelley, Skinner.
Please administer twelve strokes of the cane in the usual way to the following:
Form L5: Ashford, Passmore.
Please ensure that the Form 3 boys witness the caning of the L5 boys.
It was signed: G Starling.
Oh _f_u_c_k_, I thought. Why cant these things happen when Mr Evans is here? Hes used to it. But it would never do to let my thoughts get through to the boys.
"What have you lot been up to then?" I asked.
"Swimming in the old quarry, Mr Johnson," said the one I knew was Ashford.
I shook my head. "Youve got it coming then, havent you?"
The boys shuffled uneasily. A couple of the younger ones looked to be on the verge of tears.
"Right then," I said, in what I hoped was the business-like way that Mr Evans did it. "Go to the lavatory – a crap if you can; fetch your towels and meet me down at the cricket pavilion in fifteen minutes."
They went off in different directions and I closed the door. I was shaking. This was the most serious punishment that boys got in the school, and I was going to have to hand it out without any backup from the older men. I was going to whip (as it was referred to, by the boys, and us) eight boys on their bare backsides, and I was going to do it so hard that they would bleed.
I had still not decided whether this was horrible and barbaric, or whether stripping boys off and whipping their bums was a perk of the job. Maybe it was both.
Eight! And the most Id ever seen whipped in a single session before was five.
I sat down in my armchair and picked up the paper again, but I couldnt think of reading it. All I could remember were the times Id helped Mr Evans with the whipping of boys sent to him, and then later, after Id been in the job about six months, doing the odd one myself.
I knew about how lads were sent to us for caning right from before I got the job, but I never took it very seriously. I thought it couldnt be true that the headmaster wouldnt do it himself. But Mr Evans assured me that the worst punishment a boy could get was to be sent to the porter with a letter saying how many strokes of the cane he was to get. Dr Heffer, the headmaster, and his deputy, Mr Starling, did cane boys – and pretty severely too, judging by the marks I saw on lads backsides in due course - but it was obviously thought that it wasnt the done thing for a gentleman to whip a boy with his pants down, so they were sent to us. Also, I suppose, it was kind of more humiliating to be beaten by someone so low in the school hierarchy that not even the youngest boys called us sir.
And one of the weekly jobs I had to do was to oil the canes. They were kept in a special locker in our room, with a small bottle of linseed oil and a rag. Every week I had to give each cane a good rub down. They were a dark brown colour from all the oiling and as flexible as a riding crop. You could bend them almost into a complete circle. Every one was bound at the end with waxed thread, so the last six inches was tightly wound with it. I asked what that was for and Mr Evans said that it stopped them from splitting so you could make a cane last a good long time rather than replacing it like the ordinary ones were. He also said that it gave them that little extra bite that made sure a lad would remember his whipping.
I made the mistake of saying they must hurt once about three weeks after I started in the job. Mr Robson and Mr Evans got me down over the table and gave my arse a good swipe with one. It _f_u_c_k_ing hurt, and if I hadnt had a couple of good thrashings in the navy I could never have imagined what it would be like with nothing on. I didnt mind too much because it was like an initiation, and in any case I was still younger than some of the lads in the school. The stripe across my bum lasted more than a week.
The first boy I saw whipped was called Rouse. He was about fourteen and I never found out what hed done. "Dont worry about what theyve done," Mr Evans said. "Were not their judges; were just the executioner who carries out the sentence." I walked down with him to the cricket pavilion and Rouse was waiting for us on the verandah. Mr Evans unlocked the door and we went inside.
"Right, lad," he said. "Go in the changing room and take all your clothes off. Go to the lavatory and then come through to the tea-room."
There was this big room that took up most of the front part of the pavilion. There was this old school desk there and Mr Evans pulled it out into the centre of the room. We only had to wait a minute or two and then Rouse appeared. He was naked and kept his hands in front of him to hide his prick. He had ginger hair and like lots of ginger-haired people his skin was very white, but he was a strongly-built kid with a good chest and flat belly on him.
"Youve been ordered six strokes," said Mr Evans. "Do you want to be held down on the desk?"
"No," the boy said. His voice croaked a bit, but I think he just wanted to get it over with.
"Good. Then go to the desk and bend over the top of it." He did it without any further argument or delay. He lay himself down on the top of the desk, spread his feet a bit and held on to the legs. He was slim in the hips and his bottom was firm and lean. I couldnt help remembering the times Id been stretched over the butt-end of the old cannon in the gym at Amaryllis. "Mr Johnson. Stand at his head please and put your hands on his shoulders. If you move too much, lad, youll be secured to the desk. Theres no shame in that. Do you understand?"
"Yes," the boy said.
Mr Evans said no more, but stepped back about six feet and took aim with the cane. It was one of the medium ones that fourth and lower fifth boys got, about three feet long and as thick as my little finger.
Suddenly, he launched himself into the first stroke, swinging the cane back behind his shoulder and whipping it in faster than you could see and horizontal so it struck home just below the mid-point of Rouses backside. It sang through the air and the crack it made against the boys bare flesh made me flinch. He yelled aloud and his head came up, but he made no attempt to avoid the rest of the punishment.
It was done slowly but not so as to lengthen it out unnecessarily. He actually managed to take a couple without a sound but there was no doubt at all that this was a _f_u_c_k_ing serious thrashing handed out by an expert. The last one really made him yell, a sort of high-pitched wail that was trying not to be a scream.
"Dont get up yet," Mr Evans said. "Just stay where you are a minute and think about how youre going to avoid getting sent to us again."
I came round from where Id been standing and looked at his backside. All six weals were exactly parallel and very nearly touching. There was a little dribble of blood down the right side of his right buttock and the weals were coming up into swollen bruises right across the full width of both cheeks. It was as bad a beating as any Id seen in the navy. I thought, he wont be able to sit down for a couple of days after that.
"Up you get," Mr Evans said after a minute or so. Rouse pushed himself upright and his hands went to his bottom to rub at the pain. "Now, you can go and have a shower and then have some witch-hazel on your bruises, or you can just get dressed."
"Can I have some witch-hazel, please?"
"Go and shower then, and come back in here. Well wait for you."
Rouse limped off, still rubbing his backside and very soon we heard the shower running in the changing room.
"What did you think, then?" Mr Evans asked.
"Hell-fire," I said, "you lay it on pretty hard, didnt you?"
"Listen, if youre going to cane lads of this age theres no point pussy-footing around. You do it as hard as you can. Hell be sore for the rest of the day now and hell be reminded every time he sits down for three or four days. Hes lost a bit of blood, but thats not serious. Thats what a caning should be like if you want to have any effect. Also its got to be worse than anything they get from the masters – and some of them do a good job, even if they dont make em drop their pants. Course, hell be a bit of a hero in his dorm tonight with a good set of stripes to show off, but once he gets into bed and its still sore, hell know that weve done the right thing by him."
"So is that the worst they get?"
"Christ, no. Six is about the minimum they come to us for. Eight, ten or a dozen is the normal. Smoking gets an automatic ten. I once had to give a sixth-former eighteen. And there was one lad once who bullied some other boy into coming for his whipping instead of him. He got six every day for a week – and served the little bugger right, if you ask me."
Just then Rouse reappeared. He was still naked but carried his towel. I noticed that he didnt bother to hide his prick any longer and leaned over the desk again when Mr Evans asked him too. The stripes were still swollen and now black and blue. The bleeding had stopped. Mr Evans took out his little bottle of witch-hazel and, using his finger, painted it along each of the six weals.
"What does the witch-hazel do?" I asked when Rouse had gone to get dressed.
"They all think it takes the stinging away. It doesnt do that but it brings the bruises out quicker and just starts them healing. You see, the point is to hurt the little buggers as hard as you can, but not to harm them. It does no harm to help them get over it a bit quicker."
"What happens if they dont just bend over like Rouse did?"
"Then it gets very nasty. I hate it when that happens. But they still have to have their whipping. Theres no getting out of it." And that was all he would say.