The decision is made. It is irrevocable.
Before proceeding along the chosen path I shall outline the alternative and explain why from a story telling perspective it is the less satisfactory.
Smith heeds his intuition. He suspects that someone may have blabbed about his activities; it doesn't occur to him that he may have been spied upon. He fears that the evening session of oppression will be raided, perhaps by Dr de Ville himself. He knows that if anyone had burst upon any of the sessions he had held in the dorm he would be without convincing explanation (though he did have one or two prepared just on the off chance they might work.) He decides to convene the evening session anyway.
Later on, the hidden observers are perplexed. They see the boys gathered around three chess boards. Smith, an excellent player, is giving a tutorial on opening chess moves. Then he gets three games going where he is on one side in each and the others boys, allowed to confer, are collectively on the opposing sides. After an hour Smith wins all three games and the group breaks up. Smith is somewhat reassured that nobody had burst in on them but resolves to stop oppression for a week or so and then to set up an early warning system.
Mr Dawson walks off in disgust and henceforth has a low opinion of Aubrey and Beamish.
Maybe the prefects will confront Smith. Maybe they will secretly punish Smith. Yet Smith is trusted by Dr de Ville and the prefects have no means of undermining that trust. Smith will be able to reinstate his oppression. He may find ways of marginalising the head boy and other prefects though he can't do anything as dramatic as that which he did to Wilkins.
Thus the narrative along this fork would boil down to a series of descriptions of Smith abusing fellow pupils. There would be no obvious way of ending the tale. Actually there is one: that is to allow Smith to get caught. That, however, is what the other fork does. It follows then that this path is either a path in its own right that fizzles out or it ceases to be an alternative and becomes merely a digression in what was the only path anyway.
Smith, sitting at the head of the table, was just about to acknowledge his intuition when Dobson, to his left, said "Is there a training session on the is evening?" Smith turned round to follow Dobson's gaze to a point behind Smith. Several junior, middle-school and senior boys were making their way out of the refectory. He recognised most as being in one or other of the Thistletop rugby teams. He remembered that Mr Dawson sometimes helped coach the junior team. Also, next Saturday morning and afternoon Thistletop was hosting intercollegiate junior and senior matches.
Then Petreson rose from his seat further down the table, came up to Smith and said softly "May I be excused please Smith. I have to finish a letter to my mother. I won't be late coming to the dorm." Smith waved him on. The nebulous intuition had evaporated.
Twenty minutes later Smith and his team had assembled in the dorm; Smith's playthings were beginning to gather in line outside the door to the dorm. Standish and Mr Dawson were peering through the peepholes from the closet next door; Aubrey was sitting on a rickety chair.
Smith ordered Johann to bid the waiting boys enter. They filed in looking glum. Smith got straight down to business and bade Chapman strip. He did this because he knew Chapman's inhibitions were deeply seated and he would hate disrobing in front of others even though he had suffered that and worse humiliations before. That done, the others were commanded to strip too and made to assemble in line with their hands on their heads and facing the far wall.
Mr Dawson, in the closet, whispered "I am beginning to see your point Aubrey."
Melrose was sent out to refill the shaving mug and clean the razor, Smith was a stickler for cleanliness. The "Torpedo" was still in its place and Blenkinsopp was told to lie on the bed next to it. Blenkinsopp knew that the proceedings were unlikely to be interrupted for a while yet; he had drawn the short straw; he must endure for the sake of nailing Smith; he visibly shook as he slowly made his way to the bed. Smith ordered Pearson to turn round and watch the proceeding. Pearson shook too not because he was the imminent victim but because he knew that if relief didn't come soon he would be next.
Melrose returned and Smith directed Chapman to another bed. He said "Melrose, my demon barber, you shall do the honours for Chapman." Melrose smiled and Chapman quaked. Even a couple of hours after his previous beatings Chapman's buttocks felt raw; he knew he would have difficulty not squirming to ease the tenderness which was exacerbated where his ample bottom came into contact with the counterpane; his head was right back and he could see Melrose only in his lower peripheral vision; he grasped the possible consequence of moving whilst Melrose wielded his shiny piece of finest Sheffield steel. This was beginning to feel like the greatest humiliation so far: to have his penis and balls handled, by a junior boy at that, and his pubic hairs systematically shorn. The facial redness that had started when he had been made to strip became livid and spread onto his neck and chest.
Blenkinsopp tried to wriggle sideways out of the way as Smith sought to apply an electrode to his penis. This was to no avail, Smith grabbed the organ and clamped the electrode on firmly. Next he grabbed Blenkinsopp's right ball and attached another electrode. Smith turned on the power at a low setting, the metal bar being mostly out of the coil. Smith's disciples, other than Melrose who was otherwise happily engaged, watched as the inevitable began to happen, helped along by gentle strokes from Smith's left hand.
Standish, from his vantage point in the closet, was puzzled as to what was going on. The box was obviously associated with something electrical but he hadn't divined its exact purpose. Also, his view of the proceedings was obscured by the boys clustered around the bed.
Mr Dawson was getting agitated and was debating with himself whether any more evidence of Smith's depravity was required. He looked away to whisper something to Aubrey but didn't get a chance. There was a muffled scream from the dorm. Mr Dawson looked back in time to see Blenkinsopp collapsing back on the bed after arching his back, one each of Smith's team holding an ankle or wrist.
Smith didn't wait more than five seconds before applying full current again. Another scream, a tense body held in place.
Pearson felt sick.
Mr Dawson, almost began to shout to Aubrey and Standish, remembered the situation, and instead whispered "This must stop now! I must stop it now."
Aubrey, himself sickened by what he could hear, whispered back "Sir, Dr de Ville must see this for himself. He must interrupt Smith doing it. Only that way can we be sure he will acknowledge Wilkins' innocence."
Mr Dawson thought for a moment, his cogitation momentarily interrupted by another muffled scream. He made a moral calculation. In later life he sometimes wondered whether that calculation had been correct. He reasoned that the electrical apparatus, though vilely applied, was incapable of causing physical damage (his calculation inexplicably omitted psychological damage which was why he later came to doubt it) and that the other humiliation being inflicted by Melrose was in the same category. As an aside it should be mentioned that, if asked, Chapman would have expressed a different opinion: the blade of the razor was currently slicing hairs at the base of his penis and he had great difficulty keeping still.
His decision made, Mr Dawson whispered "I am going to get Dr de Ville."
Aubrey softly responded "Thank you Sir, please go very quietly."
Mr Dawson wanted to dash out of the closet and run down the stairs. He restrained himself. He tip toed out, after very slowly opening the door, and left the attic by the back stairs. Once down, he rushed to Headmaster's House.
He rang the doorbell. An infuriating wait that seemed ages: forty five seconds in fact. However, the wait gave Mr Dawson time to collect his thoughts and emotions; he wouldn't go rushing into the house in a panic. He heard footsteps and then saw a shape through the semi-frosted glass in the upper half of the door.
Dr de Ville's maid opened the door. She was a pretty girl, aged seventeen, from the village. Before Mr Dawson could utter she said "Sorry to keep you waiting Sir, I was in the scullery."
Mr Dawson said "I must see Dr de Ville, it is most, I stress most, urgent."
"Please step inside Sir and I will try to find Dr de Ville."
Mr Dawson was kept waiting five minutes in the hallway. He became more and more agitated. The maid returned and said "I am sorry Sir but Dr de Ville doesn't seem to be in."
Mr Dawson thought a moment then said "Do you really mean he is in but is not receiving visitors?"
The girl blushed and said "Oh, no Sir. I've checked his private study where he often is this time of the evening and I looked in the back garden in case he was pottering about with his plants. Then I asked Mrs de Ville and she said he is definitely out but she doesn't know where. She suggested you try his school study."
Mr Dawson hurriedly thanked the maid and dashed off. She stared at his back puzzled. Happenings at Headmaster's House were usually more staid.
Mr Dawson ran to the Headmaster's study. It took him five minutes, some wasted because he had forgotten that the side door to the school building was locked at this time in the evening. Boys watched curiously as he dashed down the corridors.
He was panting when he reached the study door. He knocked. No answer. Dispensing with ceremony he opened the door to check inside: no Headmaster.
Dispirited he didn't know what to do next. Then suddenly he did: he must, alone as now seemed necessary, stop the awful torture taking place in the dormitory; he should have stopped it in the first place and not come on this wild goose chase.
He started dashing toward the stairway. He almost knocked into a passing senior boy. A sudden thought, he stopped. "Hetherington, do you know the whereabouts of the Headmaster?"
Hetherington paused, looked back, and said "Yes Sir, I saw him enter the cricket pavilion a few minutes ago."
Mr Dawson started running again, shouting back thanks. It took him five minutes and more to reach the pavilion. The door was closed. Mr Dawson's hopes were on the point of being dashed. He tried the door, it was not locked. He entered. No one was in sight. Mr Dawson's heart plummeted.
As he was about to leave he heard a noise from the far end of the pavilion. The sound, as of something being dropped, had come from the store room which Mr Dawson had not thought to check. He rushed over shouting "Headmaster, are you there?"
He rushed into the store room and stopped, completely breathless. Dr De Ville was seated on an old wicker chair surrounded by the paraphernalia of cricket. Dr de Ville looked a trifle sheepish. It was an occasional habit of his, which he thought nobody knew about, to sit in the store room, handle the paraphernalia and fondly reminisce the glories of his cricketing days: he had been a cricketing blue at college and as a young man had served his county as a gentleman player.
"What is it Mr Dawson?" enquired the Headmaster. Mr Dawson, still breathless, couldn't answer. He was aware of time ticking away.
The Headmaster could see that Mr Dawson was out of breathe so he said kindly "Take your time Mr Dawson, I wasn't planning to go anywhere. I happen to enjoy the silence here, the presence of bats, wickets, balls, pads and things that remind me of the game that I once so much enjoyed playing."
Despite the urgency of his mission Mr Dawson found time to smile at yet another instance of the humanity of the man he so respected and so wished to emulate.
Finally, Mr Dawson collected his wits and informed the Headmaster that terrible things were going on that he really must see for himself if he were to fully believe them. He made no mention of Wilkins or the letter; he had decided not to cloud the issue; once Dr de Ville was aware of the horrors continuing under his roof, horrors once attributed to Wilkins but continuing after his expulsion, he would be more able to assess the whole with an open mind.
The Headmaster wasn't sure he understood what Mr Dawson was getting at but Mr Dawson was clearly agitated and sincere in his expression of the urgency of the matter. Together the Headmaster and Mr Dawson walked at a brisk pace back to the main school building. Mr Dawson requested that they approach the door to the dormitory quietly, Dr de Ville agreed.
Smith was, of course, not aware of Mr Dawson's departure from the closet. Thus he couldn't know that the time left for his depredations was running out as surely as the last grains of sand in an hour glass must fall through the narrow neck of the vessel to the chamber below. Even had he known it is hard to imagine that he could have used his borrowed time to greater effect than he actually did.
Smith had administered five shocks to Blenkinsopp. He smiled, one of his beatific smiles, and let it fall in turn on each of the four boys restraining Blenkinsopp's limbs. Finally, the full force of the smile fell upon Blenkinsopp and lingered. Blenkinsopp, his head raised slightly the better to see Smith, shuddered; he knew deep down that this smile, so alluring in any other context, must mean that he was about to be propelled deeper into hell.
Smith detached the electrode from Blenkinsopp's right testicle. Blenkinsopp's hopes, against all rational odds, began to rise: perhaps this was the end of his ordeal, perhaps, may God forgive him for the thought, it was someone else's turn.
Blenkinsopp's hopes were dashed when it was apparent that the penile electrode was not to be removed. Instead Smith's right hand went into the box and withdrew grasping a wand-like electrode; it was a thin flexible metal rod attached to a long flex that Smith began securing to a terminal in the box. Smith detached the penile electrode from its terminal but left the clamp in place on Blenkinsopp's penis.
"Lie on your front" Smith ordered.
Pearson, who was obliged to look on, grasped the point of this manoeuvre before Blenkinsopp. He gasped.
However, Blenkinsopp caught on rapidly and refused to budge. Instead he said "No Smith, you can't do that."
"I can and I shall" Smith retorted. "Do as you are told!"
Blenkinsopp still showed no sign of turning over.
Smith menacingly said "Blenkinsopp, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. It makes no difference to me but it will make a big difference to you."
Blenkinsopp gasped and said "What do you mean Smith?"
Smith, looking very determined and dangerous, said "Try me." Even Johann and his fellow helpers felt apprehensive despite knowing that they themselves were not at risk of abuse this evening, though there could always be another time.
Blenkinsopp knew from his viscera outwards that Smith does not bluff. He realised that if he refused something very nasty indeed would be done to him and he would still have to undergo the proposed new torment. Should he play for time? Surely Dr de Ville would come soon? If not, wouldn't the observers in the closet put an end to this torture? On the basis of "better the devil you know" Blenkinsopp turned over and lay on his belly with his arms by his sides and his legs stretched out behind.
"Get your legs far apart and place your arms beside your head" ordered Smith.
Very reluctantly, as slowly as he dared, Blenkinsopp complied.
Smith took the loose end of the penile electrode and threaded it between Blenkinsopp's legs so that it could more easily attach to its terminal; the attachment was made.
Before Smith was a pair of basically milky white, temporarily blemished through earlier corporal punishment, firm, rounded and well separated buttocks. Blenkinsopp's anus was just visible but not as Smith would like.
Smith gestured to Atkins and asked him to pass over a pillow. Smith placed the pillow under Blenkinsopp's crotch taking care not to displace the electrode clamped to Blenkinsopp's penis. He stepped back and reassessed the view. Perfect, Blenkinsopp's bottom was nicely raised, in other circumstances a good spanking position, and his anus was clearly delineated.
Smith asked Thorpe to bring over the butter dish and applied butter liberally to the wand electrode. He then put on his glove, to the index finger of which he applied butter from the dish in Thorpe's hand.
The audience in the closet gasped inaudibly. They were wondering how long Mr Dawson was going to take. Events in the dorm were getting worse by the minute.
Next, Smith gently inserted his gloved finger into Blenkinsopp's anus. Alongside his finger he inserted the wand. Smith had decided on this as a means of positioning the wand without risk of perforating Blenkinsopp's rectum: Smith did not want hospital cases, scandal and disgrace. As it turned out he was spared the former but not the latter two.
During this procedure Blenkinsopp was gritting his teeth, holding his breath and trying not to writhe about. The metal next to the finger felt cold, he felt chilled with fear; sweat broke out on his back.
Satisfied that the wand was inserted as far as practicable, Smith slowly withdrew his finger leaving the wand in place.
Pearson looked on in horror knowing that his turn would come next unless someone in authority put an end to these vile acts.
Smith switched on the "Torpedo". Four boys took their places with hands placed gently on Blenkinsopp's wrists and ankles; they were well practiced to apply a firm grip in an instant.
Initially Blenkinsopp felt nothing. Then he became aware, as before, of tingling in his penis. Finally, there was a new sensation from his anus and rectum. The sensation in his anus and its immediate vicinity inwards was recognisably tingling. Further inwards there was definite sensation but it was less defined, more visceral (to be pedantic one could say literally visceral).
This went on for a while and Blenkinsopp could feel his penis stir. The rearwards sensation also was not particularly unpleasant either. Blenkinsopp, from unhappy experience, knew that something dramatic and near unbearable would happen soon. It did.
Blenkinsopp arched his back, he tried to rear up and draw in his knees but was held firmly in place. A shaft of agony passed through him, intense in the vicinity of his anus and, though no less unpleasant, ill defined further inwards. This pushed into insignificance the pain he felt in his penis and with which he was now familiar. He emitted a scream, a fearsome scream despite the partial gag. The pain seemed to go on and on, indeed it did a bit as Smith was so fascinated by the result that he left the Torpedo on full power for longer than usual. Suddenly the pain stopped. Blenkinsopp's sweat drenched body ceased near convulsing and settled back on the bed in a peculiarly relaxed state.
Smith was delighted. The sensible part of his brain nagged that perhaps this procedure should not be done too frequently. A swift vote among the elements of Smith's cognition came to the unanimous decision that one more dose to this boy was all he could risk giving. Smith ordered a second handkerchief be added to the impromptu gag and then shoved the metal slider in the coil firmly into its core. Blenkinsopp's reaction, gratifyingly, was identical to before.
The denizens of the closet were shaken, almost as if they too had been connected to high voltage. Neither could speak, or, rather, whisper. Each was deeply shocked. Neither had imagined such depravity possible at Thistletop, even from Smith. The two prefects were each in his own moral turmoil. Should he put an end to this now or should he wait for Dr de Ville?
Smith detached Blenkinsopp from the "Torpedo". Slowly the youth stood. He was shaking in manner reminiscent of high fever just before the crisis. Whatever the physical damage, which actually was negligible, the effect on his mind had been profound. Smith understood this. This was what Smith wanted. Tortured bodies were, to Smith, merely a means to the end of torturing a mind.
Blenkinsopp was gently guided by Johann towards the wall where he was to stand. Blenkinsopp's body shook. He started sobbing, long slow almost silent sobs, sobs which seemed like they might never end. This youth had been truly, deeply hurt. Hurt in a way that even Smith would not understand.
Johann had for many weeks been caught up in Smith's world of abuse. A world in which sometimes he was victim, sometimes bystander and sometimes partly willing helper. Johann hated and feared Smith, yet he loved him too. These conflicting emotions were too much for somebody of his years to understand or bear; such emotions would confound most adults. Johann did grasp that what he had witnessed this evening had gone too far. Johann also felt shame at his realisation that he was to a degree complicit.
Thorpe was thoroughly enjoying the occasion as was Melrose. They had started as victims but ended up as willing collaborators: in that, they were victims too.
Atkins and Drummond, victims, bystanders and occasional helpers like Johann, felt fear, felt trapped. They grasped that great wrong was being done, had been done. They realised it was getting beyond control. They felt utterly powerless. For these boys too their victimhood went far deeper than any physical abuse they had endured.
Of Smith's band of, initially reluctant, followers Dobson was the one least close to redemption, much less so than Smith himself. Smith could be thought of as the worm in the otherwise excellent apple that was Thistletop. A better analogy is Smith being the serpent in the Garden of Eden; the serpent had a key role in triggering what was to become an epic running for millennia: the serpent was a player in a predestined drama, not merely an idiosyncratic upstart; another analogy is Judas Iscariot, the, foolishly maligned, man without whom the protagonist of a sub-plot of the principal drama (initiated by the serpent) could not have fulfilled his promise. Indeed, Smith had all the qualities necessary for ultimate reconciliation with that which is right: intelligence, insight, a (presently vestigial) capacity to empathise and, at heart, a good nature that had been hidden by circumstances that allowed Smith to indulge his darker side. Whether or not Smith was a "Saul on the road to Damascus" shall not be revealed in this tale.
Returning to Dobson, the picture is dark. Not dim but not overly bright, sums up Dobson. Easily led because he is too lazy to use what intellect he has to distinguish the right from the wrong. Moreover, he lacks insight into the nature of torment and what it should achieve. His approach is not subtle, he would gain satisfaction from cruelty to dumb animals. Though Dobson's contribution to the sins related in this tale was minor and though his initiative played little part in the whole, it is Dobson's soul, assuming souls to exist, that is at most risk. Those of a praying disposition should pray for Dobson for the odds are that everyone else in this drama will, in a moral sense, come out very nicely given enough time. Of course, the cat will come off best because, being a simple beast, it started off with the least original sin.
Just as the Bard had to sweeten his plays, dramas which essentially were an exploration of ideas, human relationships, emotions and history, with simple bawdy humour for the groundlings then so must I, Pettigrew, commander of this tale, return to portraying the degradation of one human by another because some of my readership lack the imagination to create such constructs within their own minds. How much simpler the tale would be to write were it necessary only lightly to sketch the abuses and concentrate on the cognate interactions of the players and the consequences these lead to.
Smith ordered Pearson onto the bed just vacated by Blenkinsopp. The youth was trembling. He was in a state of abject fear. He whimpered. He turned but shrunk back to the wall.
Johann saw the glint of anger in Smith's eyes. He went over to Pearson and whispered "Come, it will soon be over." He put his arm gently on the boy's shoulder and guided, rather than pushed, him towards the bed.
Smith decided to dispense with the top side preliminaries. After connecting the penile electrode he bade Pearson turn over. The rectal electrode was soon inserted. Pearson was in a deep sweat already and his trembling did not ease.
Smith turned to his entourage and said "Come now, we have malefactors standing idly by the wall when they should be receiving punishment. Dobson, give Robinson twelve of the best with the senior cane. Atkins, black Chapman's crotch."
Smith then ordered the remaining boys standing by the wall, including Blenkinsopp to get into press up position. He ordered Thorpe to give them encouragement with the junior cane, spreading his attention among them. That left Petreson, Drummond and Melrose to hold down Pearson.
Smith began his ministrations to Pearson. While he made his preparation there was the sound of slowly paced cuts of the cane fiercely administered to Robinson's backside by Dobson; each cut elicited a loud yell. Also there were grunts from the boys doing press ups and at every cycle a yelp from one or other as the junior cane made contact. Even the blacking of Chapman's hairless balls and penis generated sound: Chapman's sobs.
The onlookers from the closet next door were as drenched in sweat as any of the tormented they were viewing. Both were in a quandary. Mr Dawson had been gone a long time, too long. Matters in the dorm had escalated beyond belief. They must intervene: no they must wait. The sheer effort of inaction caused as much perspiration as a cross country run. Simultaneously the observers decided that they could not procrastinate any longer. They looked at each other, nodded, descended from their respective ladder and chair and made for the closet door.
Suddenly there was a hideous scream from Pearson; it was concurrent with a loud thump.
The door to the dormitory flew open and pounded into the wall, the door knob cracking plaster. Dr de Ville was framed by the open portal.
Time stopped.
To be continued. (reminder: the author retains all rights on all sections of this story)