Asking for the sack

Slowly, sullenly, reluctantly, Tunstall bent over the chair. Up went the ash, and it came down, laid on with the scientific precision that came of long practice. – Extracted from Asking for the sack, by Charles Hamilton (a.k.a Frank Richards), Schoolboys Own Library, Issue 371, 1939. Available to download free-of-charge here.

Eric Tunstall of the Fifth Form, a new boy at Oakshott School, is trying to get himself expelled. He has locked himself in his study so that he may smoke cigarettes. When Pie and other of his study mates arrive and find the door locked they hammer on it fit to knock it down. That draws the attention of Campion, the Head Boy.

Now read on.

“Stop that row!” he roared. “What the dickens do you think you’re up to? Do you know you can be heard all over the House?” Gone mad or what?”

The battering at the study door ceased. Campion arrived on the spot, glaring at the four. He had his ash under his arm. It was uncommon for a prefect to whop a Fifth Form senior. Nevertheless, Campion looked extremely inclined to do so at this moment.

Smokey swab as Tunstall was, nobody wanted to hand him over to the tender mercies of a prefect. But the fat was in the fire now. As none of the four answered, Campion slipped the ash down into his hand. Then, no doubt realising that the Fifth Formers had not been banging on the door simply for amusement, he turned the door-handle and divined the trouble.

“What’s the door locked for?” he snapped.

No answer. Then the prefect gave a sniff. A scent from the locked study smote him. With a very grim face, he tapped on the door.

“You in there, Tunstall?” Open this door!”

A Sixth Form prefect was not to be denied. The door opened, revealing Tunstall, standing in an atmosphere thick with cigarette smoke, and with a half-smoked cigarette between thumb and finger. Campion stared at him dumbfounded. Pie & Co. and a dozen Fifth Form men stared at him. There were other fellows at Oakshott who disregarded rules. But cool impudence like this was the limit. There was a moment of deep, tense silence. Then the head prefect spoke quietly:

“You locked these fellows out of their study while you smoked here?”

Tunstall made no answer to that. He dropped the cigarette from his fingers and put his foot on it. Every fellow there had seen it, however.

Campion of the Sixth stepped into the study. The new fellow moved back with a sullen face. Pie and his friends stepped in after Campion. The prefect’s presence saved Tunstall from what was due to him. Pie and Banks and Harvey gave him grim looks. Len watched him curiously. Tunstall’s face was sullen, his eyes furtive; he was uneasy and scared. Yet he had asked for this – deliberately asked for it. Why?

“You rotter!” Campion spoke in quiet, measured tones. “A silly fag might put on a cigarette, but,  this ...”

He glanced around the study. It was not a matter of one cigarette, or of two or three. A dozen stumps lay on the fender, with as many burnt matches. The room was in a haze. The fellow had sat and smoked and smoked till he must have smoked himself almost sick. Campion was angry and contemptuous; but he was as much surprised as either. This was a new thing in his experience.

“If you weren’t new here, I’d take you straight to the Head!”

“I’m ready to go to the Head!” muttered Tunstall.

Len’s gaze, fixed on his furtive face, grew more concentrated. Any other fellow thus caught would have been glad to get through with six from a prefect’s ash. From the headmaster he had something much more severe to expect. Yet Tunstall preferred to go to the Head. What in the name of wonder, was the fellow’s game? Eric Tunstall, sacked from Higham, had barely scraped through at home by protesting his innocence. Sacked from Oakshott after that, he was booked for disinheritance. And he was heading for the sack about as fast as a fellow could!

Campion was swishing his ash. He intended to deal with the matter himself; he did not want to take a fellow who was only a few days at Oakshott to Dr. Osborne.

“Shove that chair over here, Porringe!” he said. “Thanks! Tunstall, bend over that chair!”

“Look here ...”

“I don’t usually speak twice!” said the head boy.

“I’d rather go to the Head!”

“You silly ass!” Cayley spoke from the passage. “The Beak would take the hide off you if he knew this. He might sack you, you dummy!”

Len, watching, saw the momentary glint that came into Tunstall’s eyes. A fellow could not want to be sacked – especially a fellow who was going to be disinherited if he came a second mucker. Why was this fellow asking for what he could not possibly want?

Campion pointed to the chair with his cane.

“If you’d been a bit longer at Oakshott, Tunstall, you wouldn’t be keen on going up to the Head,” he said. “I suppose you don’t understand what it means. Anyway, I’ve told you what I’m going to do. Now bend over!”

“I said I’d rather ...”

“It’s not what you’d rather, but what I’d rather! Bend over that chair this minute!” roared Campion.

Slowly, sullenly, reluctantly, the  new fellow bent over the chair. Up went the ash, and it came down, laid on with the scientific precision that came of long practice. The “whop!” sounded through the study like the crack of a rifle. It was followed by a fearful howl from the unlucky recipient. He wriggled and howled and squirmed.

The Fifth Formers looking on exchanged glances of contempt. The fellow had asked for it, begged for it, but he had not the nerve to stand it. A fag of the Third would have been ashamed to make such a fuss over a licking. A fellow who was wildly reckless, and at the same time wanting in courage, was rather a phenomenon.

Howling, wriggling, and squirming did not save him. Six whops came in steady succession. Campion of the Sixth put his beef into it. By the time he had finished there was little doubt that Tunstall was sorry that he had asked for it.

“That’s that!” remarked Campion, tucking the ash under his arm again. “Next time, look out for a real whopping. Better not have any next time.”

He walked out of Study No. 8, leaving Tunstall wriggling and gasping.

Picture credit: Sting Pictures

 

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