Four days later, on the Sunday afternoon walk, the talk turned to the whackings they had received. They were in the old barn where they sometimes played if they were confident that no prefects would come that way. The barn was out of bounds.
"But what does the cane feel like?" Davey asked.
"What dyou mean? What does it feel like The same as it always does," said Scully.
"Yes, but how's that?"
"Are you saying you've never had it?" demanded Poole.
"Never. I always seem to have got away with it."
"But what about that time about eight of us got it from Patterson?"
"I wasn't there that time."
"Well, _f_u_c_k_ me," said Poole, and that seemed to sum it up.
"Your arse must be soft as _s_h_i_t_," said Dorney. And they all laughed.
"So how many times have you all been caned?"
"Loads," said Poole.
"When was the first time?"
DORNEY'S STORY
I had this tutor because my old man thought it'd be better than going to school. He was terrific and taught me a load of stuff, but not what he was supposed to. It was all about science and nature and stuff, but I wasn't learning any Latin or French at all. And he'd never have dreamed of hitting me. I used to love having him for a tutor.
Occasionally the old man would find out when I'd been naughty and he'd put me over his knee and smack my arse. But then he got someone to test me, to see if I'd pass common entrance. Of course, I couldn't get anywhere near passing it. So the tutor was sacked and another chap came to cram me through it. And with me watching, father gave him a cane and told him to use it, every day if need be, just to make sure I passed.
Well, he was a good teacher but he didn't half lay into me with that cane. Nearly every day he found some reason to do it. He never caned me with nothing on, but he often made me drop my trousers and gave it me with just pants on.
Once he had me stretched over the desk, trousers down, and I had to recite all the tenses of esse, active and passive, and every mistake he flicked me with the cane. My bum was a mass of blue lines by the time he reckoned I knew it all. And he did it again the following day to check that I'd really learnt it.
SCULLY'S STORY
The prep school I went to was strict, but not terrible. Not like this place. There was no caning with nothing on, though the PT master used to slipper our bare bottoms if he felt like it.
A couple of masters had canes in their classrooms, but the rest used to send us up to the head. The cane he used most of the time wasn't very big, but it stung like _f_u_c_k_, and he never gave less than six.
The first time I was sent up to him I was wetting myself, because I'd heard about the whackings he dished out. I think I'd forgotten a maths prep or something.
Anyway he made me bend over the back of this armchair, pretty much like the old man here, and then he gave me a dozen, and it really stung. You know, the pain was really deep into my arse 'cause he landed nearly all of them on the same place. And of course I was blubbing when he let me up and rubbing at my arse. And he said, "Rub as much as you like; I don't think you'll rub that off in a hurry."
POOLE'S STORY
The first time I was caned was the night we went up to the big boarding house from the little infants place, where this nice woman had looked after us. I was nine.
When we were in bed the head came up and he had a cane with him - just a little one.
"Does anyone know what this is?" he said. Of course we all knew what a cane was even if we'd never seen one. And then he said, "Can anyone tell me what it's used for?" Well, we all knew but didn't like to say. So then he says, "Which of you is Poole?" I put my hand up, and he says, "I hear you're a naughty boy, Poole. Is that true?"
"Sometimes," I said.
"So tell us, Poole. What is a cane used for?"
"Whacking naughty boys," I said without thinking.
"And you say that you're a naughty boy. You'd better come here to me so I can show everybody what happens to bad boys now they're m the big house."
I still never thought he was really going to cane me, 'cause I hadn't done anything, so I go out to him where hes sitting on a bed and before I know it I'm upended over his knees with my arse m the air. He smoothed the cloth down and gave me three good cracks with the cane. I suppose I yelled a bit. But he didnt let me up.
"Can anyone think how I could make the cane hurt a bit more so it's a better punishment?"
And some stupid bugger said, "Take his trousers down. "I suppose Id have been enjoying it just as much if it was someone else on the receiving end so I can't complain, and I know he'd have done it just the same if no-one had said a word. But anyway, he yanked my trousers down and set about caning my bare arse.
I just about lifted the roof, but after that he caned me just about every week for the next four years, and it was on my bare arse every single time. Even if it was some trivial little thing, he'd make me drop my pants before I bent over the back of his settee. I reckon the only times I didn't have a set of weals across my bum was during the holidays.
There were tears in Poole's eyes at the memory of all those beatings he had endured, but a minute later all thought of sadness had vanished.
"I think," said Scully, "that the sooner you manage to get yourself swished the better, young Davey."
They all laughed, but there was a serious point lurking behind the laughter. Davey knew that he needed - wanted - to earn himself a swishing in the very near future. And if he was going to do that, it might as well be a bad one. From the old man. Maybe with his pants down. If that was the only way to show the others that he could take a beating as well as them, then that was what he was going to have to do.
By the time they went in for tea, he had formed a plan. On Wednesday, the day they were allowed into the village, he went boldly into the shop where the owner was willing to sell boys cigarettes. He came out with a packet of ten Woodbines and a box of matches. The shop was out of bounds and he'd have been slippered if a prefect saw him, but his luck held.
On Sunday morning he had a rather peculiar conversation with Hodge, the prefect who wouldn't whack him, during which he managed to drop several hints about what he was planning, and where he was planning to go. Obviously, for his plan to work, he had to get caught, and he set out for his walk, with heart pounding and the Woodbines nestling guiltily in his trousers pocket.
He had only gone a hundred yards when there was a shout behind him and there were Dorney, Scully and Poole chasing after him. Now it was more difficult. If he carried through his plan, his friends would be caned too - and it would be his fault. But maybe the business would be easier if he was with his friends: they would support each other. So he consoled himself and determined to go ahead with it.
Down by the river they sat on a log in one of the little sandy bays that the river had gouged out of its bank, watching the flow of the water and idly lobbing pebbles into the stream. Davey pulled the Woodbines from his pocket and offered them as casually as he could. All four of them had actually tried smoking before, but never at school. They lit up and puffed self-consciously on their fags, holding them cupped in their hands, vaguely hiding them from any passers-by.
It was a prefect called Evans who saw them. From the other side of the river where he was walking with his girlfriend (enough to earn him a much more serious flogging than smoking would have done). Understandably, he didn't reveal himself to the four smokers and they didn't spot him, so Davey returned to school at the end of the walk convinced that his plan hadn't worked. He hid his cigarettes and matches under the biscuits in his tuck box.
But at the end of tea, Evans ordered them to his study, confronted them about what he had seen and informed them that the old man had already been notified and they could expect to be caned before the night was out.
"And where did the cigarettes come from?" he demanded.
"They were mine, Evans," Davey confessed.
"Where did you get them?"
"From Legg's." Evans raised his eyebrows. The kid really was in trouble. He almost regretted telling the old man. Davey was a cute little lad and he'd have got away with swishing him himself - but there was no doubt the kid deserved what the old man would hand out.
Sunday evening was letter-writing time. Davey couldn't concentrate. Telling his folks about cricket practice and what they'd had for lunch was hard when his head was full of the beating he was about to receive at any moment.
It was Patterson who fetched them. Hauled them out of the common room, leaving the rest wondering what the old man wanted them for. Ten minutes later they were lined up in front of his desk, hands behind their backs, trying to look as brave as they could. Patterson stood grimly by the door, as though to foil any escape attempts.
"None of you deny, I take it, what Evans has told me"
"No, sir," they muttered.
" And you provided the cigarettes, Davey?"
"Yes, sir."
"You surprise me. I had taken you for a boy with more sense. And where is the rest of the packet?"
"There weren't any left, sir." For a moment the headmaster held the boy's eyes. Unnoticed, Patterson slipped out of the room.
"I see. You must expect a rather more serious punishment than your friends, mustn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well. I intend to give all four of you six strokes of the cane. Davey, you will receive your punishment over the bare breech."
His stomach lurched. He'd never heard a backside called a breech before but it was obvious what was meant. He was getting six of the best on his bare arse! He didn't know whether he would be able to take it. But then he thought of the whacking his dorm-mates had given him. That had been with nothing on and he had got through that all right.
"Dorney, I shall cane you first. Hang your jacket on the back of the door and come to the armchair."
Dorney had hung his jacket on the hook and stepped up to where the armchair had been turned towards the window so that its back was facing the centre of the room. "Shirt out of your trousers, Domey," said the head, and the boy pulled his shirt tail free. He leaned forward over the chairback and gripped the wooden ends of the arms. "Tighter than that, boy. Head right down in the seat." Dorney did as he was told, pushing his head down, the head stepped up to him and lifted his shirt tail, and there was the target. Dorney's trousers were smooth and tight across the rounded shapes of his slim but meaty buttocks.
Davey's heart was in his mouth as he watched the beating. Every stroke landed with a sharp CRACK!, far louder than Davey would have imagined. Every one made Dorney jerk upwards a little, but then he forced himself back into position. The head whipped the cane in fast and low, almost horizontal, and Davey could see how close together they were landing, almost on the same spot every time. The fourth made Dorney yelp a little; the fifth made him yell a little louder; then the old man stepped back and really lashed the cane down with what looked like all his force, and Dorney cried out.
"Get up." Dorney had to push himself up with his hands on the back of the chair. His hands went to the back of his trousers and then he turned and Davey could see the tears standing in his friend's eyes. He walked back across the carpet to the door,
The headmaster had come round the desk and now went to the umbrella stand behind the door. He selected a cane from the selection whose hooked handles showed above the stand. The canes clicked ominously and then he whipped the chosen implement through the air, making it sing.
Dorney retrieved his jacket and then back to the bookcase where the others were standing. His hands still clutched at his bottom. There could be no doubt that it had been a most serious beating.
"Poole."
The next boy, the most experienced of them where caning was concerned, removed his jacket, pulled his shirt clear of his trousers and draped himself over the chair. The other boys knew how badly wealed Poole's bottom already was and weren't really surprised when the first terrible stroke of the cane made him yell aloud. But then he took the next three in silence. Their eyes were fixed on Poole's backside as the old man stepped well back and launched himself into the last stroke. The boy gasped and his back arched in a spasm, but then he lowered himself again, offering his bottom for more if the old man should decide he needed it.
"Get up."
As Poole was straightening up, something happened that made Davey's blood freeze. The door opened and Patterson came in. He closed the door, crossed the carpet to the old man's desk and placed something on it. It was the packet of Woodbines. The old man saw them. The boys saw them. Davey saw them and his knees almost gave way for sheer terror.
"Davey. Did you not tell me that you had no cigarettes left?"
"Yes, sir." His voice croaked in the sudden dryness of his throat.
"Then explain to me what these were doing in your possession. Where were they, Patterson?"
"In his tuck box, sir."
"In your tuck box, Davey."
Davey was silent. There was nothing he could say to exonerate himself. In fact he didn't want to even try to talk his way out of it.
"Very well. Your punishment will, of course, be more severe than I intended just now. You must hope that I am less angry by the time I have finished caning Scully. Get ready, Scully, please."
Scully hung his jacket behind the door, tugged his shirt free of his trousers and lowered himself into position over the armchair. In the centre of each slim buttock there was a shiny worn patch in the dark cloth that was stretched tight over the flesh. The old man took aim, stepped back and launched into the beating. The second made Scully yell aloud. By the fifth he was howling as the cane sliced into the weals left by Patterson's cane. The sixth, as always, was the worst, and Davey noted again the tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks as he retrieved his jacket and stepped back into the line, his hands rubbing uselessly at his bottom.
"Now, Davey. Jacket on the door, please, and come to the chair."