Remembering Son of Scarface

Son of Scarface was a dotty schoolboy story that appeared in The Hotspur boys’ story paper, starting in its very first edition in September 1933. By this time the older, traditional school stories (e.g. Billy Bunter) in papers such as The Magnet and The Gem were looking decidedly old-fashioned. Both those papers would be closed by 1940.

The Hotspur looked for new “angles” on old story formats. Some of them were decidedly unrealistic. Step forward Son of Scarface. Be ready to suspend all disbelief as you read on.

The improbable background to the story goes like this. Tom Shale is eighteen years old and the School Captain (Head Boy) at St Ardens School, “one of the most famous boys’ schools in England.” He doesn’t know that his father Scarface Shale is the boss of  the Grizzlies, “the most successful [criminal] gang in Europe.”

But they can’t be that successful because Scarface is shot by police during a raid on a jeweller’s shop in Paris. Before he dies he tells the gang about his son.

The gang are evenly split over who should replace Scarface as their leader. Naturally, they decide to make Tom Shale their new boss. They think because he goes to a boarding school that houses sons of millionaires there will be lots of opportunities to kidnap pupils and get huge ransoms.

Tom doesn’t want to be their leader but they tell him they will kill him if he doesn’t and then let the world know that his father was a renowned crook, thereby disgracing the family name. Tom reluctantly agrees but decides he will try to thwart them in their crimes without them knowing he is doing it. Naturally, Tom is described as “by far the biggest and strongest boy in the school” and without enemies

Now, we are told, “One day he would be leading the school eleven [at cricket] and the next day a pack of crooks! It was fantastic!”

Fantastic indeed. It’s not exactly your typical English boarding school story. But it does have many of the hallmarks: the grim-faced headmaster and masters in gowns and mortarboard caps carrying whippy crook-handle canes.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper English school story without someone getting six-of-the best.

In a detailed plot that needn’t detain us, Tom is forced to go out with the gang one evening and he returns to the school at 3 a.m. covered in mud and scratches. Naturally, he finds Dr Lumley, the headmaster, waiting in Tom’s room.

The story continues:

“Well so you’ve come back at last, Shale. I thought maybe you were making a night of it.”

Tom could only open and shut his mouth like a landed fish. What was the use of saying anything when he was in that state, with his boots around his neck?

“I ... I ...”

“I suppose you are going to explain where you, the captain of the school, have been? Well?”

Tom cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t do that. It was private business of my own, and I was – was detained. I had only intended going out to post a letter.”

“Ah! That’s why you were not in your room when I came to discuss the new Second Eleven just after ten,” snapped the Head. “Private business! A nice thing when the captain of my school sneaks out at dead of night on private business. Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

He was taking in every detail of the lad’s appearance, the mud and the scratches.

“Have you been fighting?” he demanded.

“No – er – yes sir, I was forced into it!” stammered Tom. “But I can assure you sir that it was nothing dishonourable. I did nothing to shame the school. It was forced on me.”

Dr Lumley looked at him keenly. They had always had a good respect for each other, and he saw the agony in the boy’s eyes. There must be something behind it all.

“Can’t you tell me, Shale?” he asked more kindly.

Tom bit his lips. That was the last thing he dared do. He had not even told his best pals a word about the amazing thing that had happened to him. How could he tell the Headmaster that his father had been a master crook, and that he was now being forced to lead those same gangsters? It sounded too fantastic and impossible.

So, Tom tightened his lips.

“I’m afraid not, sir!”

“Well, Shale, I suppose I ought to look for a new captain, but that would mean a big scandal in the school, and would do us no good. I cannot trust you in the future as I have done in the past, but I still believe you have the honour of the school at heart.”

“Yes, sir, I have. I wouldn’t do a thing –”

“Yet you broke out of bounds in this amazing manner and came back here in this state. You have risked discovery by any boy in the school. Has any other person here seen or guessed what you have done?”

“No, sir, I’m sure of that.”

The Doctor sighed with relief. In his heart he was very fond of Tom Shale.

“Very well, then I shall deal with the matter privately between us. You will take a thrashing from me alone, and then you will give me your word of honour that nothing like this will ever happen again. In consideration of that I will say no more about the matter.

Tom’s lips worked without a sound coming from them. He did not mind the licking so much, although he knew that in the Doctor’s present mood it would be a severe one, but how could he give his word that it would not happen again? The gang would put pressure on him, would make demands which they would force him to comply with. It was not fair. He was dragged in two directions at once.

“Of course, I’ll take the swishing, sir, but as regards the promise, I –”

“I shall flog you until you give me that promise,” snapped Dr Lumley, losing his temper. “I’m going to my study to wait for you. Get out of those filthy clothes and into some pyjamas. I’ll attend to you at once.”

“Very well, sir, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

The Doctor went away, and Tom changed.

He got into his pyjamas and dressing-gown, then left the room feeling like a prisoner leaving the condemned cell on the way to the scaffold. Only once in the history of the school had the Doctor swished a Sixth Form boy, and that had been an event to talk about. He knew he was due for the licking of his life and all because he had become mixed up in the Wexburn necklace affair.

The Doctor’s study was at the end of a corridor away from the dormitories. A faint grey light was just coming in through the window as Tom neared the door and tapped.

“Come in!” growled Dr Lumley, and Tom Shale felt his knees shaking as they had never done since he had been in the Third.

The blinds were up, and there was only that grey light in the room. Dr Lumley looked tired and drawn but he would not be too tired to use that cane he waved in such a business-like manner.

“Well, Shale, take off that dressing-gown and get over the end of the settee. To thrash a boy of your age and intelligence hurts me as much as it will you, but you deserve all you’re going to get.”

Tom’s face was crimson as he bent over the end of the leather settee, which had been the foundation for so many swishings at St Ardens. He had never expected to have to go through this in his life again. 

It was ridiculous that it should happen to him, and only a few hours earlier he had been battling with the Grizzlies against their enemies, the Crawford Gang.

He heard the Doctor lift the cane, waited for the swish with clenched hands, then nearly rolled from the settee in amazement when there came a crash of glass behind him.

Had the Doctor knocked something off the desk with the cane? He half-turned his head, saw that it was the lower part of the window which was smashed, and gulped when he noticed a hand levelling a revolver which protruded through the broken window.

“Stop that! Let the kid get up!” snarled a harsh voice, and Tom Shale felt that he really must be dreaming, for it was the voice of Slim Dolan, one of the Grizzlies.

The cane dropped to the doctor’s side.

Extracted from The Hotspur, No. 3, 16 September 1933, available to read online or download free here.

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