School captain and tyrant

Wingate is sentenced to a prefects’ beating! He will bend over a chair and take six cuts from every prefect present. That is the rule; and six is the maximum allowed in such cases. – Extracted from Captain and Tyrant, by Frank Richards, The Magnet, 21 November 1925. Available to download here.

George Wingate stood erect, quiet, composed, standing at the table in the prefects’ room. His face was a little flushed, but that was all. He had steeled himself to go through this bitter ordeal, and he was quite calm.

The prefects were sitting down, two or three of them looking very uncomfortable.

Gwynne and North, Wingate’s own pals, were exceedingly discomfited. They had no choice about attending the meeting called by the head-prefect, on the instructions of the headmaster. They had to sit in judgement on their old friend. It was an unhappy position for them, especially as, in the circumstances, there was little they could say in his favour. They liked Wingate, and they disliked Loder intensely; but they could not take up the position of supporting a fellow who had thrashed the captain of the school. A breach of discipline of that extent had to be dealt with severely; and Wingate was, in fact, condemned beforehand. The meeting intended to ask him if he had anything to say for himself; but no excuse he could offer was likely to make any difference. No pretext could be admitted as justifying laying hands on the captain of the school.

Loder sat with a smile on his face. It would have been more judicious on Loder’s part to conceal the satisfaction he felt. But Loder was too puffed up with success and self-importance to think of what was judicious. Short as his period of supremacy had been, so far it seemed to have made him almost indifferent to public opinion in the school.

Wingate stood waiting.

He had to wait.

Loder was speaking in low tones with Walker, and seemed to have forgotten Wingate for the moment.

As Loder was presiding at the meeting, the proceedings could not proceed, so to speak, until Loder gave his attention.

He was in no hurry.

It pleased him to keep his old rival standing like this, awaiting his pleasure. Wingate was nobody in particular now, and the fact had to be impressed upon him and all others. His cup of humiliation was to be drunk to the very dregs.

Gwynne of the Sixth spoke up, “Look here, Loder, is this a giddy Quaker meeting, or are we going to get to business?”

“I’m about fed-up, Loder,” said Tom North.

Loder felt, perhaps, that the exhibition of the culprit had gone on long enough. He stopped his cheery conversation with Walker.

“Yes, let’s get on,” said Carford major. “We can’t waste the whole evening on this, Loder.”

“Quite so,” agreed Loder. “Now, Wingate, we’ll deal with you,” said Loder as he might have spoken to some fag of the Third called up for judgement. “You can get out of your head any idea that you’ll get special treatment here, because you used to be a prefect yourself. You’re just a Greyfriars man who has forgotten his place and cheeks those set in authority over him, and the sooner you understand it the better.”

Wingate’s only reply to this exordium was a contemptuous smile.

“The Head’s given you the choice of being dealt with by the prefects, or bunked from the school,” went on Loder. “You’ve chosen to come before us. Now, we needn’t go into details. It’s known to all present that you attacked the captain of the school in this very room and struck him.”

“Thrashed him!” said Wingate.

Loder flushed.

“It’s no good asking you if you have any excuse to offer, because you have none.”

“I admit it!”

“Oh, you admit that!” ejaculated Loder.

“Fully!” said Wingate. “I disregarded the rules of the school, which I had always enforced when I was captain. I’m bound to take my punishment. That’s why I am here: not because I’m afraid of being bunked from Greyfriars. But you wouldn’t understand that.”

“I shouldn’t; and I don’t believe it now,” sneered Loder.

“You can please yourself about that.”

“Any fellow, not being a prefect, who strikes a prefect, is liable to a prefects’ beating,” went on Loder. “What you have done is just the same as if it had been done by a fag of the Remove.”

“I know that!”

“Then it only remains to pass sentence,” said Loder, looking round at the other prefects.

“Quite!” said Carford major.

“And the sooner the better,” said Lawrence.

A cane lay on the table. Loder rose to his feet, and picked it up.

“Hold on a minute,” said Gwynne.

“What have you got to say?”

“This. Nobody can uphold what Wingate did; but we’re bound to take into consideration the fact that only a few days ago he was a prefect himself and captain of the school. He does not uphold the action himself. He admits that he was in the wrong. I think, therefore that if Wingate expresses his regret for what he did, the matter can drop.”

“Hear, hear!” said North of the Sixth at once.

“Yes, something in that,” agreed Carford.

“I agree!” said Lawrence.

Loder bit his lip.

“If you fellows think that an apology would meet the case ...” he began.

“Cut that out,” interposed Wingate. “I shall not apologise, and I do not regret what I did. I told you at the time, Loder, that I thrashed you because you were a scoundrel, and that stands. Because you happen to be captain of the school I was in the wrong, and that is all. But in the same circumstances I should do the same again.”

“Oh, gad!” murmured Gwynne. He had failed in his effort to save his friend from the last humiliation.

Loder shrugged his shoulders.

“That does it!” he said. “There is no question, then, of an apology, or even an expression of regret.”

“None,” said Wingate quietly.

Loder gave Gwynne a sneering look.

Gwynne shook his head with a discouraged look. He had done his best, and he had failed. There was nothing more to be said.

“Then we shall proceed to judgement,” said Gerald Loder. “Wingate is sentenced to a prefects’ beating! He will bend over a chair and take six cuts from every prefect present. That is the rule; and six is the maximum allowed in such cases. I think this case calls for the maximum. If any fellow thinks differently, I’m willing to hear his opinion.”

“Oh, get on with it!” said Wingate before anyone else could speak.

Loder pointed to a chair with the cane.

“Bend over!” he said.

His face fairly gloated at Wingate as he gave the order.

Many a time, in the course of his plotting and scheming, Loder had pictured himself sitting in judgement on his old rival, and giving that order. Now his visions had come to pass! There he was, captain of Greyfriars, ashplant in hand, ordering Wingate to “bend over.” Loder’s cup of triumph was full to overflowing at this moment.

“Bend over!” he repeated.

Wingate quietly, composedly, bent himself over the chair, as many a fag had done to his order in his days of captaincy.

His face was a little pale now, and set, but he was perfectly cool. Loder stepped towards him.

The ashplant sang in the air.

Whack!

It came down hard.

That hefty stroke rang through the prefects’ room.

Stroke after stroke rang out until the six had been administered.

Not a sound came from Wingate.

Certainly he was hurt, for Loder was a powerful fellow, and he put all his “beef” into it.

But Wingate might have been made of bronze for all the sign he gave. Loder was disappointed as he stepped back. He would have given a good deal to draw a cry of pain from the fellow whom he disliked intensely, and feared, for even at this moment of triumph he was conscious in his heart of hearts he feared him. But that gratification was denied Loder; there was no sound or movement from the punished Sixth-Former.

Loder handed the cane to Walker.

He accompanied it with a look which conveyed his desire that Walker would lay it on hard, and break down some of the composure of the victim.

But Walker was very far from sharing Loder’s bitter malice. He laid on the cane with an indifferent hand, heedless of Loder’s angry looks. Carne came next, and his performance did not come up to Loder’s desire. As a matter of fact, the rest of the punishment was a mere form. Gwynne and North had to take their share, but they simply flicked with the cane, and so it went on to the end.

Wingate’s punishment, so far as caning was concerned, was merely the “six” he had received from Loder, the rest was negligible. But his real punishment was not the physical one; it was the bitter humiliation of bending over and being thrashed like a fag. From that reflection Loder drew solace and satisfaction.

 

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