Rebels of the school

 Original Fiction – for adult eyes only

(A St. Francis Independent Grammar School story)

School rebels get public thrashings and a scholarship boy takes on his maths master with extremely painful consequences

New sixth-former John Allison quickly settled into the routine of school life. He had always enjoyed his studies and this was no different at St Francis Independent Grammar School. But, even after a month, he was still ill-at-ease. It was the stifling conformity that pervaded everything.

As far as his eyes could see there was a sea of boys in green blazers and hooped caps. It was as if they had been mass produced. Which, he was beginning to realise, in a sense they had.

It was hard to credit. Across Europe at that very moment university students and school students (and they were called ‘students’, not ‘pupils’) were on the streets demanding their rights. They wanted control of their schools; they would decide what they would learn. In France, there had very nearly been a revolution. John was not the only boy who didn’t get it. Wilson, a fellow sixth-former, wanted the whole rotten social system destroyed. As might be expected of the son of a police superintendent, he ran with the International Marxists. “What do we want! Workers’ Revolution! When do we want it! Now!”

“It’s the school caps,” John said. “If only we could get rid of the school caps,” he told Wilson, who really did not need telling.

“Oh, and the short trousers, of course. Ordinary school uniform wouldn’t be quite so bad.”

Wilson grimaced. It was true; he had heard it all before. But, unlike, his new pal Allison, Wilson knew St Francis was a ‘fascist state’ where rebellion was ruthlessly crushed.

It had happened two years ago, he told John. There had been a revolt of sorts that summer over the wearing of school uniform. England had its hottest summer for many years and some older boys at the school wanted to be allowed to wear short trousers. Dr Henderson-Smith forbade it and expected his word to be final. But there was a protest by the boys. A protest, as if St Francis Grammar were some kind of democracy. At this school the headmaster’s word was final and that should be clear to the boys and to the masters as well.

Dr Henderson-Smith had personally beaten thirty boys who had demonstrated. Administering mass canings can be an exhausting job, so the boys were instructed to attend the headmaster’s study four at a time throughout the day. In that way, Dr Henderson-Smith was able to ensure that each of the miscreants received his full attention.

The following day, four sixteen-year-old boys who attended school wearing grey short trousers were also caned by the headmaster. They had claimed that there was no rule that stopped older boys from wearing short trousers at the school where they were compulsory uniform for all first-, second- and third-form boys.

Then, he beat three of the ringleaders publicly in morning assembly. Public canings were rare at St Francis, it was only the second such in the past twenty years. The thrashings took place at the end of a normal morning school assembly. At least it was as normal as could be when all the school knew they were to witness the spectacle of a public beating. It can be jolly difficult for boys to sing their way through Fight the Good Fight when such a delightful prospect was in the offing.

The three boys were marched into the hall by the senior prefects and led onto the stage where, following a brief speech about rebellion and obedience from the headmaster, they were required one by one to stand in front of a large oak table, previously placed on the stage especially for the purpose. They then had to stretch themselves forward and await their fate.

Dr Henderson-Smith lustily laid his cane into the boys’ backside. Hundreds of boys were hushed, which only accentuated the echo of the CRACK!! that resounded around the assembly hall as the stick landed across and then dug deep into trouser-covered flesh.

Two of the boys took their thrashings well, managing to stifle their need to yell out blue murder by chewing on the sleeves of their blazers. They rose from their public humiliation red eyed with buttocks throbbing agonisingly, as if a steam iron had been rubbed across them. Each boy was in great distress and helped away immediately by Forster, the head boy.

Alas, not all the ringleaders took the punishment like men. Parkinson, a strapping lad of nearly six feet and something of a star on the rugby pitch, disgraced himself and his school. In trepidation, he had laid himself across the desk and like the others he bit deep into the fabric of his blazer sleeve, ready to receive the first cut. But, when the cane fell with a SWOOSH!!! he let out a blood-curdling yell and jumped to his feet, clutching his bottom between his hands and jumping up and down on the spot.

Parky refused all further demands to place himself across the table for further chastisement. It took all of the strength of two junior masters to force the boy down and keep him still long enough for the headmaster to complete his duty.

Once he was eventually released, Parkinson had to be half-carried from the hall.

John Allison, hearing the story and knowing he was about to be sick, dashed from the hall in search of a lavatory.

2

Billy Adkins shuffled down the passageway that led to his housemaster’s study. He was in no hurry to suffer the consequences of his actions. He still had a few seconds more before he faced that humiliation.

He stopped outside the study door and pulled from the pocket of his school blazer a green-and-gold hooped cap. He plonked it on his head and then adjusted it so it would fit neatly over his short-back-and-sides haircut to the satisfaction of his housemaster. He was in enough trouble as it was: he did not want to annoy Mr Durrant any further.

The fancy headgear summed up the school to Adkins. It was so full of itself: which schools still made their pupils wear caps? He was glad he was fifteen and in the fourth form; all the younger boys were forced to wear grey flannel short trousers.

He stared for a while at the heavy oak-panelled door. This school was out of date and so damn ancient; this was 1968, everything should be fresh and new. But not St Francis Independent Grammar; here it was 1968 going on 1908.

His heart beat faster. He knew what would happen after he knocked and Mr Durrant bade him enter and he did not relish the prospect one little bit. How he missed his old secondary modern school. He had friends there; people like himself. He hated St Francis; he wished he had never won that damned scholarship last term.

Taking a deep breath, he raised his fist and with more confidence than he really felt he rapped on the door.

…

“Enter!”

I know who it is, it’s that guttersnipe Adkins; the scholarship boy. What the hell are boys like him doing at my school?

I blame the new Socialist Government. They are forcing good schools like St Francis to take on boys from the working classes. They have no right to be here. No right at all. Adkins. What does his father do? He’s a postman, and his mother cleans offices. A charwoman! What right have they to send their son here? They should know their place.

I do not care if he has the top marks for mathematics in the county examinations; he will never amount to anything. He does not have the breeding.

Now, I am supposed to deal with the brat. He is on a charge of insubordination: answering back to Mr Jenkins, the maths master. Well I know how to deal with that, all right.

“Stand there boy! Right in front on my desk.”

…..

Adkins closed the door and took up position on the slightly worn rug, as instructed. Usually a boy in his situation would stand eyes cast down at is feet, desperately trying not to catch the master’s eye. But, Billy Adkins was no ordinary boy.

He stood, hands clasped firmly behind his back and stared intently at his housemaster. What a ridiculous specimen, he thought. He must be sixty years old at least with a balding dome, white goatee beard and a pot belly. He wore a waistcoat buttoned tightly across his stomach with a gold (or at least a gold-coloured) watch-chain tucked into a pocket. On his back he wore a rather tattered black academic gown. When he joined the school two months previously, it was the first time Billy had seen “masters,” as they had to call teachers here, dressed in such absurd gowns. They reminded him of Batman.

The housemaster’s study was from a bygone age. All the buildings at Bracewood Secondary Modern had been made of concrete and glass and the rooms were full of up-to-date furniture. St Francis was all cloisters and ivy-covered walls. The study was huge and dominated by the housemaster’s desk and three comfortable armchairs. The desk was so big and heavy it would take four people to move it.

Cabinets and bookshelves dominated two of the oak-panelled walls and a third contained an open and as yet unlit coal fire. A row of picture glass windows made up the fourth.

Billy stood silently waiting for the inevitable lecture to begin.

…..

I shall wipe that faint but irritating smirk from his face: is he daring me to use the cane on him?

I should lecture him about his bad behaviour and the need for good manners and how he should obey the instructions of the masters at all times. It is the lecture he should receive and I shall give it soon, but my heart will not be in it.

Nothing I say or do will turn this son of a charwoman into a gentleman. He was born and raised as an oik and he will continue to be an oik long after he has left this school to take up a job in a factory somewhere.

Why is this Socialist Government so envious of our kind of people? We have produced the leaders and the administrators that built the biggest empire the world has ever known and we did not need scholarship boys to do it.

In a few moments, when my lecture is completed I shall thrash him and send him on his way. I enjoy the sense of power I hold over him, knowing that I could give him real pain if I so desire. Let the Socialists make of that what they will.

….

Billy stood impassively only half listening to his housemaster. He did not want to hear the words. He never wanted to come to this rotten school and he did not care in the least if, as Mr Durrant claimed, he had let down the house with his behaviour. His behaviour? All he had done was to question the maths master’s answer to a quadratic equation. The maths master was wrong, Billy was still sure of that, but at this school, a boy never, ever, questioned a master: about anything.

The lecture over, Billy watched, his heart now thumping, as the housemaster rose from his seat and waddled across the study to a tall, thin cupboard. Billy had never been in this study before, but instinctively he knew what it contained.

Mr Durrant’s body obscured the boy’s view, but Billy heard the rattle of six or seven thin rattan canes rolling around inside the cupboard as his housemaster selected the one he would use to beat him with.

Satisfied, Mr Durrant closed the cupboard door and turned to face the boy.

Billy had ever seen a cane before. It was never used at Bracewood and he could not believe that a teacher there would ever dare to order a fifteen-year-old boy to bend over and show him his arse. He would probably get a punch in the mouth for his trouble.

But, Billy knew that on this day he was at the complete mercy of his housemaster. He must obey his command and subject himself to the injustice of corporal punishment.

….

I have selected a rather stout, but still extremely whippy, dragon cane. It is a bit thicker and longer than some in my collection and it will deliver a sting that this guttersnipe will feel for a long time to come.

It is a pity that the governors only allow us to deliver a maximum of six strokes and then only to the seat of a boy’s trousers. It was not that long ago that we were permitted to deliver a whacking on the underpants. Heavens, forty-five years ago, when I was at school we were thrashed on the bared buttocks. I myself was punished this way several times by Winny Wilommin, my old housemaster. He would beat us this way right up to the sixth form. Gosh, now I think about it, my old friend Hampster got six on the bare only a few days before he was due to leave school; he must have been eighteen, going on nineteen, then. It was something to do with a parlour maid’s knickers, but I do not recall the details.

Yes, given the opportunity, I should very much like to give young Adkins here six of the very best across his naked buttocks. Just like I got it at school. It did me the world of good.

But, instead, I must deliver six swipes across his trousers. That will have to do. I have developed a reputation amongst the boys for the efficiency of my beatings. I believe they are in the habit of comparing their marks after canings and compiling a sort of league table on which master lays on the cane the hardest. I am pleased to believe that I head the table, but it is said that Featherstone of Churchill House is running me a close second.

I swish the cane through the air a few times. There is no need to do this, but I hope it intimidates the boy somewhat. I want to give him time to contemplate his fate. In a few moments this fearsome rod will be whipping into your outstretched buttocks and the agony you will feel will be intense, is the message I hope to convey. And, you deserve it. Never again will you question the authority of your betters.

Adkins’ eyes have widened. I do believe my intimidation is working.

“Take off your cap and blazer and place them on my desk!” I bark out the order, as if we were on a parade ground. I want this experience to be awesome, something that he will never forget.

Slowly, he fumbles with the buttons of the green school blazer and pulls it off. He seems unconcerned about what is about to befall him. I suppose he is putting on a brave face, as they say.

“Cap off too boy!” It seems he may have forgotten he had it on his head.

Suitable disrobed, I order him to turn one of the armchairs around so that its back is facing into the middle of the room.

I thwack the cane down hard against the chair.

“Bend over boy!”

….

Billy hoped he could hide the contempt he felt as his housemaster swished the cane through the air. He would not be intimidated, he told himself. He would submit himself to the beating, but only because he had no choice. If he refused he would be expelled from the school and that would give the odious snob Durrant far more satisfaction than he would get from simply beating him.

He had never been caned before, but he had enough imagination to suppose it would hurt a very great deal indeed. That was the point, surely. But, the purpose of corporal punishment also was to ensure compliance in the beaten boy; to make certain he obeyed the rules in future. But the only rule Billy had broken was to question the wisdom of his maths master. And, the teenager resented him for reporting the matter to the housemaster.

He suppressed a sneer when Durrant ordered him to remove his blazer and cap. So, we are nearly there. Any moment now, he would be expected to show his arse to his master. What a farce. He could not understand why his hands shook so much as he unbuttoned his blazer.

His heart raced, as he pulled an armchair round; but not because of the physical exertion it entailed. Suddenly, it dawned on him that this was no picnic. However, defiant he might feel inside, outwardly, his body, and more specifically his backside, was about to be attacked by a man more than three times older than himself. Submissively, he must present himself to this man and allow him to whip his buttocks as hard as he wished; there was nothing, absolutely nothing, he could do to prevent it.

With blood racing through his body and temples throbbing, he lowered himself over the back of the chair.

….

He presents his bottom perfectly for the thrashing he is about to receive, but I want to make him suffer a little more.

“Head further down, bottom higher, legs further apart!”

It is all entirely unnecessary, but I enjoy watching him wriggle over the chair trying to comply with my demands.

Eventually, I decide he has been kept waiting long enough.

I give my usual lecture to boys I am about to thrash. “You must keep perfectly still. Do not wriggle or try to get up before I give you instruction to. If you do so I will award extra strokes.” It is a lie; the damn governors only allow a maximum of six.

“I hope that is clear!”

“Yes, Sir!” he responds in a clear voice. Is he daring me to whip him as hard as I wish because he can take it?

But, now Adkins is breathing heavily. This is more like it. It is common among boys about to be beaten; even the repeat offenders fear the cane.

I slide the cane from middle to top, from top to middle and from middle to the crease between buttocks and thighs. I can hear the increased tension in the yob’s breathing before I lift the cane away, raise it to shoulder level and swipe it down, landing it with awesome accuracy across the very centre of his buttocks.

I tap again, twice actually, draw back and give the next cut lower, but not harder. This time his body flinches a little, but his head does not move. He does groan and I appreciate his mettle. The ability to stay still and not move or cry out does not come naturally to most boys, certainly not ones new to the cane. How I hate him for his fortitude.

I will not allow this wretched boy to get the better of me. I lash him harder than I have ever thrashed a schoolboy. His bottom dances under my strokes, twice I have to remind him not to struggle. The empty threat of extra strokes makes him comply. After the full six strokes have been given, he lays sobbing over the chair; he is a very sorry boy. Which is how it should be.

….

Billy shuddered when he felt for the first time in his life, the sensation of the cane being placed lightly across the seat of his trousers, to warn him the punishment was about to begin. He knew he had to go through with it now. He wanted it to start so that he could get it over and go home. He tensed and un-tensed his young behind in fear of the pain of the first stroke.

Swish! It propelled a lung-full of breath out of Billy’s mouth, and left him gasping and grunting inarticulately. The cane rose again and landed once more on almost the exact same spot, emptying Billy’s lungs for a second time, and making him gasp in desperation. It rose up again for the third time and swooped lower down to thwack into the crease between buttocks and thighs, eliciting for the first time an audible cry from the boy.

The final three landed rat-a-tat-tat! like machinegun fire, lashing deep into his fleshy globes, around about where the cheeks meet the thighs. He could not help it; he yelled fit to bring the oak-paneled walls of the study crashing down. He clung onto the seat cushions, his fingernails biting so deep he feared they might break.

Huff! Huff! Huff! Desperately, Billy tried to catch his breath. His heartbeat was racing and phlegm rose in his throat. Any second now he feared he would spew a stream of vomit across the armchair.

The intense agony which started in his buttocks travelled through his whole body. His face and neck were as scarlet as his backside probably was. Tears flowed down his cheeks to meet the snot pouring from his nose.

The pain mixed with his humiliation. This awful man had forced him to submit his backside to him and he had whipped it to shreds. And, he had enjoyed every moment of it.

When he rose from his bended position, how Billy hated Durrant and his school full of snobs. He hated his shiny bald head and tubby beer-gut. He hated, above all, his poisonous attitude.

As he walked from the study, his body stinging, he resolved to go to war with Durrant and the whole lot of them. He declared with all a teenager’s power of self-importance that a state of war existed between Billy Adkins and St Francis Independent Grammar School. This would not be the end of it.

Picture credit: Unknown

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