Five in a Fix

 

You might recognise this drawing; we see it all over the Internet illustrating articles about public (elite) schools or corporal punishment.

It originally comes from a story called Five in a Fix, by Frank Richards and published in The Magnet boys’ story paper on 2 July 1938.

The Five in question are Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry, Frank Nugent, Johnny Bull and Hurree Jamset Ram Singh. They are otherwise known as The Famous Five of the Remove class at Greyfriars School. They appear regularly in the famous Billy Bunter stories.

In this story, after ragging a sixth-former the Famous Five are called to the prefects’ room.

Now read on ..

The Prefects’ Room presented quite a solemn aspect when the Famous Five arrived there.

The whole body of prefects were present, sitting with grave and serious expressions on their faces. On the table lay a cane – ready for use!

The delinquents were going to be judged before they were punished; but it looked as if the cane was expected to be wanted.

Gerald Loder’s eyes gleamed at the chums of the Remove as they walked sedately in. His pals Walker and Carne, gave them grim looks. They, like Loder, had their little roubles with the heroes of the Remove. Other prefects, who were quite indifferent to them personally, looked very serious – even good natured old Wingate wore a frown. All the more, perhaps, because he did not like Loder personally, the Greyfriars captain was going to see strict justice done.

The fact that all the prefects were present, sitting round like solemn owls, as Bob Cherry described it later, showed that it was going to be what was called a “Prefects’ Beating!”

This was a rather more drastic affair than “six on the bags.”

When a prefects’ beating was administered every prefect in turn took a swipe, laying it on as hard or as soft as his fancy dictated. As there were a dozen prefects, it was “some” whopping!

The solemnity and the severity, added together, were expected to produce a lasting effect on the guilty!

“Oh, here you are!” rapped Wingate. “If you’ve anything to say, before you’re whopped, you can say it! Sharp!”

“If it’s not troubling you too much,” said Harry Wharton politely, and with gentile sarcasm, “we’d like to know why we’re being whopped!”

“Just as a matter of curiosity, you know!” said Bob. “I’m sure you wouldn’t mind letting us know, Wingate.”

Gwynne of the Sixth grinned. Being an Irishman, Gwynne was bothered with a sense of humour, and was liable to grin at the most solemn moments. But the other prefects frowned.

“Don’t you be cheeky!” said Sykes warningly.

“Is it cheeky to inquire why we’re to be whopped?” asked Harry, with the same polite sarcasm. “Quelch always lets us know.”

Wingate knitted his brows. He gave Gwynne a warning look, then he fixed his stern eyes on the culprits.

“You ragged a Sixth Form prefect this afternoon on Courtfield Common!” he rapped. “You could be taken before the Head for it, as you know very well. Loder has left it in the hands of the prefects! You’re not going to deny what you did, I suppose?”

“Not at all,” said Harry. “But we didn’t rag Loder, Wingate. We never knew he was there when we ran down the bank and fell over him.”

“That’s false!” snapped Loder.

Wharton’s eyes gleamed. “If that cad’s to be allowed to call me a liar, Wingate, I’d better shut up,” he said.

“What!” roared Loder, jumping to his feet.

“Sit down, Loder!” snapped Wingate.

“You heard what he called me!” roared Loder. “Why, I’ll take the skin off him___”

“You’ll sit down!” hooted Wingate. “You’ve placed this matter in the hands of a prefects’ meeting, and it’s too late for you to handle it yourself. Sit down!”

Loder, with an absolutely ferocious glare at the captain of the Remove [Wharton], sat down.

Wingate gave Wharton a grim look. “You’d better be careful what you say here,” he rapped.

“I’m quite careful, Wingate,” answered Harry coolly. “If any fellow here, prefect or not, calls me a liar, I shall tell him what I think of him. I shall be careful to say exactly what I think.”

“Hear, hear!” murmured Bob Cherry.

“Silence! You say that it was an accident, then, Wharton?” asked the Greyfriars captain.

“Of course it was an accident,” answered Harry. “We ran down the bank to get rid of Bunter, who was sticking to us like glue, and hadn’t the faintest idea that anybody was sitting under the bush there.”

“Not the foggiest, Wingate!” said Bob.

“There’s a track runs along the bottom of that bank on the common,” said Wingate. “Anyone going that way might sit down to rest. You might sit down to rest. You might have landed on anybody. If it were an accident, you acted thoughtlessly and recklessly.”

The juniors did not answer that. They had to admit that it was true. In bounding down the steep bank, they certainly had overlooked the wisdom of the ancient proverb: “Look before you leap.”

“It was no accident,” snarled Loder. “They knew perfectly well that I was there, and that was why they did it.”

“You feel certain of that?” asked Wingate.

“Absolutely certain!”

No doubt Gerald Loder did feel certain. He was helped to certainty by the fact that he disliked the Famous Five.

George Wingate looked rather worried. He was prepared to deal very severely with juniors who ragged a prefect, and from Loder’s account he had no doubt that this had been a particularly rough and disrespectful rag. He was prepared to make an example of the raggers.

But the juniors’ claim that it was an accident, even a thoughtless one, that ought never to have happened, worried him. Loder had no doubt that the young sweeps were trying to lie themselves out of a scrape, having realised what a very serious matter it was. But Wingate doubted it very much.

“Look here, Wingate, we give you our word that we never saw Loder,” said Harry Wharton. “I admit that we ought to have been more careful; but we never knew anybody was there.”

“Loder couldn’t possibly be seen from the top of the bank,” said Bob. “He was sitting under a bush that quite hid him. I hardly knew what was happening when I jumped over that bush, and landed on him.”

“And then we were all going too fast to stop!” said Johnny Bull.

“Oh, cut all that out!” snarled Loder. “It’s no use to tell untruths about it. I know what happened.”

“Nobody here’s telling untruths, Loder, unless you are!” retorted Harry Wharton.

“Silence!” roared Wingate. “Now listen to me! You did it – you’re not denying that at any rate.”

“Oh, no! We did it!” agreed Harry.

“Well if it were an accident, it shouldn’t have happened! Loder thinks it was done intentionally. You get a beating for it! If it were an accident, that will be a warning to you not to let such accidents happen where Sixth Form prefects are concerned. Now shut up, and bend over!”

There was nothing more to be said. All the prefects nodded assent to Wingate’s judgement. If it had been an accident, it was one that ought not to have happened – if it had been a rag, still more it ought not to have happened, and in either case, a beating was due – in the opinion of the prefects, if not of the juniors.

All that remained was to bend over and take the beating with as much philosophy as was available!

Five fellows bent over. Wingate took up the cane and delivered a whip each. Probably Wingate believed the juniors’ explanation, for his whops were very light – merely flicks. But Loder came next – and his whips were far from light!

The Famous Five were fairly tough, and they had been whopped many a time and oft. But as Loder laid on the cane, they almost repented then that they had not taken Billy Bunter’s advice and “packed.” Loder made that cane fairly ring.

Luckily, according to the rules of a prefects’ beating, he was able to give them only one each! But he passed the cane to his pal Carne, who emulated Loder – laying it on as if he were beating a carpet.

Frank Nugent gave a gasp – immediately suppressed. The other four uttered no sound.

Carne passed the cane to Walker! James Walker swiped, though not quite so severely as Loder or Carne. But the whopping was having a cumulative effect by this time. Two of the sufferers emitted gasps under Walker’s whops.

Sykes came next, with mere flicks. Then Bancroft, hardly touching them, and then Tom North, with airy lightness. But two or three who followed seemed to feel it their duty to make the swipes felt, on a serious occasion like this – and they did! It was getting quite painful. By the time it was over, the Famous Five were feeling that “six” from Mr. Quelch would have been quite pleasant in comparison. But it was over at last.

“Now cut!” said Wingate.

And the juniors cut.

Loder grinned as they wriggled out of the Prefects’ Room.

They had determined to take that whopping in their stride, as it were, and shut their teeth on it, and give no sign. But they could not help wriggling. A prefects’ beating, in fact, was a severe ordeal, and the toughest man at Greyfriars must have wriggled after going through it.

They wriggled away.

They did not return to the Rag. Until they felt a little better, they did not want to meet the public eye. Wriggling was a rather undignified process, and they preferred to do it in private. They retired to Study No. 1 in the Remove, where they wriggled and gasped, and told one another what they would like to do to Loder of the Sixth.

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