Appropriate Attire

Chapter 1

The key action of this story, takes place towards the end of December in the first year of the reign of Augustus Caesar. No, Dear Reader, I am not referring to the first Roman Emperor, who reigned over Rome, from BC 27 to AD 14, but to a severe disciplinarian, an Englshman named Augustus Caesar, the late Victorian Headmaster of Churton College, located in the village of Great Churton, near the cathedral city of Hereford on the Welsh border.

Churton was, and for that matter still is, a very up-market public school, noted both for its academic excellence – most of its boys went, and still do go on to either Oxford or Cambridge – and for its stricter than strict discipline enforced by the liberal – too liberal in the eyes of the recipients – use of both the cane and the birch, augmented, on occasions, by sundry other implements of corporal punishment.

In the long headmastership of Augustus Caesar, hardly a day went by without  some boy leaving his study bearing that painful hallmark of a public school education: a well-beaten arse. Augustus Caesar was a keen believer in the maxim: he who hesitates is lost. And when it came to beating a boy, Augustus Caesar never hesitated and, as many a lad could confirm, when he beat – always on the bare – he really did leave his mark. The transformation of a pair of unsullied and unblemished buttocks, into a passable but painful imitation, albeit temporary, of an impressionist painting, held no secrets for him.

Augustus Herbert Cecil Caesar, to give him his full name had, at the remarkable young age of 27, in the Year of our Lord 1885, been appointed Headmaster of Churton, a public school of some 480 boys, Need one say that his appointment had been as surprising to him as well to the existing teaching staff, most of whom were old enough to be their new superior’s father and viewed the appointment of a whippersnapper, as they thought of him, with disgust. They felt that they had all been passed over for the Headmastership; which, quite justifiably, indeed they had!

The family name Caesar is not common in England, but there are several prominent families bearing the surname, which, needless to say, raises some peoples’ eyebrows as being on the fringe of credibility.  However, Augustus Caesar, the hero, or rather the anti-hero of this story, given the unattractive, negative aspects of his character, could trace his lineage back to the reign James I, when Sir Julius Caesar, son of one of Queen Elizabeth’s physicians became Master of the Rolls, under James I. Devoid of any titles nobility transmitted from, his earlier forebears, Augustus Caesar – Gus to what very few friends he had – was a died-in-the-wool, somewhat sadistic, homosexual disciplinarian, who had imposed his extremely stringent draconian rule on Churton from the very first day of his appointment as Headmaster.

Caring not one whit for what his colleagues thought either of him or his ways, as a new broom, he swept clean, riding rough shod over an entire establishment, in which, truth to tell, had been allowed to lapse into a comfortable torpor in the declining years of his predecessor, who had finally been forced to retire at the age of 70; not a moment too soon, in the view of the board of Governors! Under his 30 year tenure of the Headmastership, in the last few years the School had been allowed to become lazy: academic standards had slipped as he had gradually lost his grip on the strict discipline, which had characterised the earlier part of his career.

All that changed, with a vengeance, with the arrival of Gus Caesar. I really must stop myself referring to him as Gus, as that nickname was used by only those very few of his close, rarefied friends, with whom he had the sort of intimate relations, the nature of which he preferred both colleagues and boys alike to remain totally ignorant: a wise precaution in view of the strongly homophobic society of the times. Universally, to both teaching staff and boys, he was known as Sir. You could almost hear the capital S of Sir in the obsequious tone of their voices when anyone, including his older colleagues, addressed him.

Everybody feared him; especially the boys, whom he flogged mercilessly with both cane and birch, not to mention sundry other scourges, on the slightest pretext or provocation. With Sir, the concept of the second chance did not exist; he always struck while the iron was hot; and a very forceful and, it has to be admitted, accurate, striker he was. No boy ever left his study without that sine qua non, that quintessential insignia of a public school education: an extremely well-striped arse. Sir prided himself on his artistic ability with the cane. When a boy left this study his arse normally resembled an abstract painting. Its owner usually took considerable pride in showing off this transient masterpiece of flagellative art to his school-mates in the traditional post-flogging viewing.

Chapter 2

Augustus had served his apprenticeship to the rattan cane, of which he was to become a dedicatedly proficient, life-long user, as head-boy of Rigby School, a boys’ public school near the city of Lincoln, to which his parents had sent him to be educated and of which he had been appointed head-boy in his final year. Rigby was noted among public schools for its exceptional devotion to rigid and regular discipline, which then characterised most English public schools worth their salt.

But the quite exceptional Rigours of Rigby, referring to the frequent merciless beatings, which complemented the brilliant academic record of its pupils, had become a byword among English public schools.  Rigby Rigour, as it was known, was maintained by the frequent and vigorous application of both the rattan cane and the birch to the bare buttocks of it pupils. But then, what would the key English public schools have been without the frequent bare-buttock floggings, which were then seen as an indispensible auxiliary part to daily life in the education of the male offspring of the British upper-classes?

A cynical answer to that question, proffered by one sixth-former at Rigby, was that it would be a less painful place. Overheard by his housemaster, the boy in question had been first birched by the then Headmaster, for the facetiousness of his remarks and then, by way of emphasis, as if to underline that fact that discipline was taken seriously at Rigby, the unfortunate lad had been given a further six strokes of the senior cane on his freshly birched bare buttocks by his housemaster. Yes, indeed, the Rigours of Rigby were very real and very painful and had a nasty habit of rearing their ugly heads on the slightest provocation.

From his early teens, Augustus had always been a keen and brilliantly successful tennis player. Later at Cambridge, he was to compete as a leading member of his college tennis team in the intercollegiate tennis matches, where he was noted for his sizzling backhanded returns. Thus, it was not at all surprising when, aged 18, as newly appointed head-boy at Rigby and faced with his maiden beating of one of his school-mates, as he picked up the cane for the first time ever, it seemed totally natural to him to apply the implement backhanded to the naked buttocks before him. He, therefore, always stood on the right of any boy, whose trembling, naked arse he was about to chastise.

To any acutely analytical observer of caning techniques, the less common, backhanded swing of the cane is considered much better than the almost universally adopted, forehand method. In holding the cane in his right hand, raising the cane above his left shoulder and bringing it down on the bare buttocks of the unfortunate boy being beaten, the beater’s movement is in one graceful, downward curve, uninterrupted by necessity of his arm to cross the body, as in the forward swing. Also, the right hand holding the cane in its raised position over the beater’s left shoulder, naturally adopts a horizontal position with the beater’s hand at right angles to his arm. Thus the cane is automatically given that final flick of the wrist just before making contact with the naked arse of the unfortunate waiting recipient, thereby adding that very desirable increase in dynamism to the blow.

The downside of the backhanded technique, compared with the more conventional approach to area beating, as Augustus was about to find out in his first backhanded attack with the cane on some poor boy’s undeserving – as it turned out – arse, is that it is much more difficult to accurately place each stroke on the target buttocks. However, when perfected, the technique gives superior results, in terms of the intensity of pain delivered, to those obtained by the conventional forward stroke.

Chapter 3

Augustus’s first beating as head-boy had been to the bare arse of one, Rodney Smallwood, a first former, whom he had caught, on the second day of term, the lad’s second day at Rigby, straying just outside of the school gates, which was strictly forbidden. Now it must have been evident to Augustus that Smallwood, a new-boy, had no intention of wandering off into the town; nor was the lad aware that he was technically out of bounds, which, in itself, was a beatable offence, punishable by six-cuts of the cane; he had simply inadvertently just stepped out beyond the gate. So Augustus could have reminded him of the error of his ways and reprimanded him verbally.

However, as the newly appointed head-boy of Rigby, hell-bent on finding an arse – any arse – on which he could perform his maiden beating, the unfortunate Smallwood’s inadvertent, minor delinquency had provided him with a pair of pristine buttocks, on which he could inaugurate his punitive powers. Thus, on being aggressively bearded by Augustus, although the unlucky lad did not yet know it, his arse was already toast.

Not knowing the offender’s name, Augustus said sternly, in a hectoring voice, designed to put the fear of God into first former, who had no idea that he had figuratively crossed the the Rubicon, by stepping outside the School gates into the big, bad, dangerous world outside: “Boy, are you aware that you are breaking one of the most sacrosanct rules of Rigby School, which you have just had the privilege of joining?”

Mistaking Augustus, who was formally attired, for a master, the lad timidly answered: “No Sir.”

“What is you name, boy; and to which house do you belong?” Having elicited that the lad’s name was Smallwood and that he was one of the new intake of Derby House, Augustus continued in a withering tone of voice, talking down to the boy: “Smallwood, it is clear from the way you have just addressed me with the honorific of Sir, that you are unaware of who I am. Allow me, forthwith, to correct that unfortunate ignorance. My name is Augustus Caesar and I am the present head-boy of this School. As such, the correct form of address when you replied to me just now should have been; No, Caesar.  You address me by my surname, in same way as you address any of your fellow school-mates by theirs, of which, in spite of my elevated position of authority over the likes of a miscreant like you, Smallwood, I am still one.”

Confronted with such an imperiously overbearing introduction to the head-boy, and being told the manner in which he should have addressed him, not to mention Augustus’s unusual, and somewhat intimidating surname, Smallwood was, not unnaturally, somewhat bewildered and nonplussed. Not surprisingly Augustus’s manner had instilled the fear of God into the young lad leaving him surprised and confused that he was unsure how to react. After a pause, allowing him to collect what was left of his native wits, he timidly ventured: “Sir, as your surname is one which I have never heard before, forgive me for asking but is your name Caesar, written spelled the same as in Julius Caesar?”

“Smallwood, you have again addressed me as Sir. I am not sure whether you heard me correctly or not, or whether you are just being obtuse. I have just told you the correct answer to my question about your going out of bounds, which is strictly forbidden, should have been No, Caesar, which incidentally is a perfectly good English name which I happen to share a well-known historical Roman figure.  Smallwood, rather more to the point, what explanation are you able to give me for your flagrant disregard for one of the key rules of this School, on only the second day after your arrival at Rigby? Rules are essential part of the smooth running of this school, which is contingent on their being obeyed; and to the letter. Come on, Smallwood, let’s be hearing from you.”

By now Augustus had reduced Smallwood practically to tears as the boy now realised that that he was a on a sticky wicket and that his arse was on the line. He had already lived through six years of prep school swishings and knew the general fondness of recourse to the cane, which was used, at the drop of a hat, by anyone authorised to use it.  In his experience, the cane had always been seen as the first option, rather than a last resort, which had kept it more or less in daily use at his prep school. Listening to the bullying tone of the head-boy, Smallwood sensed that he was out for blood: his blood! 

But what was the lad to do in an attempt to save himself from the head-boy’s ire?  He told Augustus the only thing he could, which was perfectly true; that he had not known, as a new boy, that in just stepping outside the School’s gates he had broken a rule and that he had never had any intention of venturing further afield; but to no avail. And so, one hour later, he found himself nervously waiting in the corridor outside the head-boy’s study, awaiting the arrival of the great man himself.

What the unfortunate Smallwood did not know was that he was to be the fall boy; the first boy – of many, we might add – to be beaten by the head-boy that school year. Also he was to have the unknown distinction of being the first boy the head-boy had ever beaten. So the occasion was by way of being a double first.

Smallwood knocked timidly on the door of the head-boy’s study only to find that he was not there. Augustus was partaking of the traditional afternoon tea and cake, a prefects’ perk at Rigby, served in the prefects’ common room, purposely making Smallwood wait, so as to heighten the apprehension and fear of the unknown that the young lad was already feeling. It was one of Augustus’s several traits which testified to his sadistic character, which had within one month of his appointment as head-boy, already led to him being known to most of his fellow pupils as a right bastard.

When he finally regained his study, he brushed past Smallwood as if he was not there, making the lad wait still longer before he was called in to his fate. Eventually he opened the door and called in the highly nervous Smallwood. He began: “Smallwood, as you will by now have realised some of us (meaning himself) do take the rules of this School seriously, which you apparently do not. Boys, like you, Smallwood, who break the rules, must bear the consequences, which at Rigby, are inevitably painful.  I propose to beat you for your disregard of one of this School’s key rules, to teach you a lesson in obedience, which you will never forget.”

Smallwood had already seen a low backed chair had been placed in  readiness in the centre of the room and had noticed two straight handled canes canes hanging threateningly, one each side of the chimney piece, which was, in those days, the only means of heating the room. He saw, given the head-boy’s obvious determination to exact his pound of flesh for what he had built into a major contravention of the rules, that to complain would be to no avail; the head-boy’s mind was already made up; to change it would be tantamount to attempting to draw blood from a stone. So, he remained silent, waiting further orders from his tormentor.

Augustus looked balefully at the trembling  lad, who was big for his age, went across unhooked the heavier of the two canes,, swished it through the air a few times for effect and said: “Well, Smallwood, what are you waiting for? Surely you know the drill? Take off you coat, your trousers and underpants and go and bend over the back of that chair there and present your bare arse to me. Place your hands on the seat of the chair and keep perfectly still until I have given myself the doubtful pleasure of correcting you. So that you realise the grave position in which you find yourself, Smallwood, in view of the seriousness of your offence, combined with the fact that you are big for your age, I have decided although you are only in your first year at Rigby, that you merit the six strokes of the senior cane.  Come along boy; be quick about it and sport me a bare arse over the back of that chair there; I have more important things to do than spend my time correcting rule-breakers like you.”

Poor Smallwood could hardly believe what he had just heard and what was about to happen to him and was practically shitting bricks with fear. It was not that he unfamiliar with the cane; indeed, quite the contrary, having endured numerous swishings at his prep school; but they had always been on the seat of his pants and with a junior cane. What he had just heard exceeded his worst fears: six strokes, and to boot, with a senior cane on his bare buttocks; it was just horrifically unimaginable. Yet he knew that it was not only real and was about to happen to him and, moreover, there was absolutely nothing whatsoever he could do to avoid it. Not surprisingly he was almost pissing himself with fear as he took of his clothes as ordered and prepared himself for his ordeal.

As Smallwood fumbled to undress himself, Augustus became ever tetchier and snarled: “Get a move on, Smallwood, I haven’t got all day; be sharp; get your clothes off and your bare arse across the chair, right now, unless you want me to add strokes for dawdling to those you have already earned.”

This harangue, accompanied by the head-boy’s repeated swishing of the cane through the air, served to heighten the severe tension between the two of them, which, at a period before the general availability of electricity, could nevertheless only be described as being electric. Finally Smallwood was in position over the chair, his hands firmly on the seat and his bare arse held high awaiting the first kiss of the cane.

Truth to tell, in spite of his external, blustering braggadocio, Augustus was also feeling somewhat nervous as he had never before beaten anyone. However his ever present sadistic streak made him allow the unfortunate Smallwood to suffer over the back of the a chair, in silent, agonising anticipation of the first stroke, for a full half minute – an absolute age for the poor lad – before positioning himself to the lad’s right and preparing himself for his maiden stroke with the cane.

Smallwood, meanwhile, braced himself, gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, praying that he would not disgrace himself by being a wimp and crying out in pain at the first cut. He had no idea why the head-boy had waited so long before beginning his onslaught. But when it came, it was much worse than he had ever imagined a beating could be. 

Augustus first laid the cane gently across the midpoint of his victim’s buttocks and then, with a gentle, unnerving, to and fro, sawing motion, drew a figurative line across the lad’s arse where he intended his first cut to land.  Smallwood, not unexpectedly, was trembling with fear was about to happen to him and reflexively flexed his buttock muscles, which he was sharply told by the head-boy to relax unless he wanted to receive extra cuts.  The next thing he knew was that the cane was swishing its way down through the air at high speed, on a collision course with his arse, where it landed in an abrupt stop, with crack resembling a pistol shot, converting it kinetic energy into excruciating pain.

Poor Smallwood was in absolute agony. He had been swished many times at his prep school, but never, ever had it been like this.  He felt as though his arse had been cut in half; and this was just the first of six cuts; how was he going to bear the rest? But bear them he must; and bear them he did, as the head-boy pressed inexorably on with his maiden beating, without any thought of the extreme, over-the-top pain he was inflicting on his victim; For let us be in no doubt; Smallwood arse was being sacrificed to satisfy the whim of the head-boy to achieve his maiden beating. Any other boy would have done. It had been unfortunate for Smallwood that he had been the wrong place at the moment when Augustus was looking for his first candidate on whom to perform his maiden beating,

The net result of is first effort was that the unfortunate Smallwood finished up with am extremely well-beaten and exceptionally painful arse, which he did not deserve; an arse on which the six deeply etched stripes, flecked with blood where the skin had been broken and which were already turning from crimson to blackish-blue, ran every which way rather than being parallel to each other. Matters had been made even worse for Smallwood by the fact that several strokes had crossed one another, leading to increased levels of pain. Visually, not mince matters, Smallwood’s arse looked an utter mess.

The fact that he had left Smallwood with a very painful arse did not entirely please Augustus. He was sorely disappointed with the visual results of his maiden effort with the cane. Before he had begun, he had seen beating a boy as easy as falling off a log. But with his natural backhanded technique, with its unbroken arm sweep, although he had delivered quite exceptional pain to Smallwood’s arse, he had found it well nigh impossible to place each cut precisely where he wanted it to fall.  The result, as he saw for himself, was, from the aesthetically artistic point of view, a ghastly, unruly, higgledy-piggledy mess. In his personal view, he had failed to deliver an aesthetically pleasing. well-beaten arse; and, for the moment, that is what really what counted for him.

Chapter 4

As head-boy of Rigby, in view of his of personal pride, he could not countenance to be thought of as an incompetent beater of arses. At Rigby, beating was to be part of his stock in trade; something to which he would have regular recourse. Boys misbehaved and, ergo, had to be beaten for their misdeeds; it was his duty to beat them and beat them he would. But he, Augustus Caesar, had to measure up to his illustrious immediate predecessors, whose rigorous expertise with the cane he had, several times in his earlier years, had the salutary misfortune of experiencing on his own backside. He was saved from the ignominy of immediate criticism by his fellows, by the fact that Smallwood was a new boy, in a dormitory of new boys, none of whom had any direct, what might well be called first-arse experience of his immediate predecessor’s technique against which to judge his performance.

He told himself that Rome was not built in a day. He knew, however, that he had a lot of work to do to achieve for himself, the refined artistry of the well-beaten arses, produced like clockwork by several of his immediate predecessors, whose masterly handiwork he had seen many times first hand at the traditional, post-beating wake, at which the lad just beaten, showed his stripes to his pruriently curious school-mates. Augustus’s desire to improve his technique boded ill for his fellow pupils, especially for the younger boys, who would regularly furnish, often on some trumped-up charge, the necessary arse to beat.

That he was up to the challenge and would succeed, he had no serious doubts. But at that moment he became aware that the appendage between his legs had been aroused by his beating of Smallwood and was stridently demanding the tender loving care he so regularly gave it. And so, he turned the key in the lock of his study door and treated his rock-hard member to a hand- induced orgasm in the privacy of his study.

Of course, Augustus quickly refined his technique with the cane and became, within a few weeks, the most feared and most hated head-boy in the memory of his fellow school-mates. Beatings delivered by him, became extremely frequent, as even the slightest infraction, if discovered by him, led to  a severe bare-arse beating, He gained the enviable reputation as being more severe than the Headmaster himself, who was no slouch when it came to wielding both the birch  and the cane, as he frequently did.  Yes, the Rigours of Rigby, which are still spoken about today with bated breath in the profession, were very real in the late 19th century.

Augustus quickly realised that in thrashing the bare buttocks of his fellow pupils with a rattan cane, he had found his vocation in life, an act which allowed him to satisfy his sadistic character in a, by the standards of those days, more or less acceptable way. The regularity and speed with which his cock became erect whenever he beat one of his fellows brought home to him the even then, well-documented, strong relationship between corporal punishment and sexual arousal. He found that each time had beaten a boy– a increasingly often occurrence as it gave him enormous satisfaction – he had to relieve his own sexual tension, by jerking himself off behind the privacy of the locked door of the his study.

Like many boys of his age, beginning with their sexual awakening in the fifth and sixth forms, Augustus had experimented with anal sex and was not averse to shafting any of his class-mates who was willing to allow himself to be buggered – such an ugly word for anal penetration by one male with another male’s penis. And so it became known, to some of the older boys, who had the misfortune, as many did, to find themselves in front of the head-boy for what, in Rigby speak, was known as correction, a mealy-mouthed word expression for a flogging, that a part of their punishment might be commuted to something less painful than the cane biting into the bare flesh of their buttocks, if they allowed the head-boy to shaft them.

Such sexual experimentation – buggery – was was common in all boarding schools, where boys, many of whom were really young men, were confined in an environment from which all females were totally excluded. And so, anal or oral intercourse, essentially between males, an offence punishable by law, was quite common among older public schoolboys.  It was not that most of the boys were homosexual, or would become so through by buggering each other; but sheer sexual frustration motivated many boys to indulge in anal sex. With the odd exception, they were simply temporary buggers, who would, once freed from the male confines of their school, ultimately lead perfectly normal, heterosexual lives and go on and marry and have children,

However there was always the odd boy, who was born a gay and would become a practising homosexual for the rest of his life. Such was the destiny of Augustus Caesar. But he combined what was then generally considered a perversion to be stamped out, with an unfortunate sadistic streak, which made him a very unattractive character. He was summed up by one of his contemporaries in the upper sixth form, who had a way with words, as a fucking sadistic sodomite: which expression exactly describes him perefectly

Given his sexual proclivities and the sexual satisfaction he obtained from thrashing boys naked arses, it is not surprising to find that Augustus, then aged 18 going on 19, had decided, well before he left Rigby for Cambridge University to read classics, that the profession of public school teacher beckoned.  Just before he left Rigby, he announced his intention to pursue a career as a schoolmaster to his Headmaster at Rigby. As a strict disciplinarian himself, the then Headmaster of Rigby, a Dr. Anthony Adam Rhys, who was unbeknown to Augustus, of the same same sexual persuasion as the head-boy,  had secretly quite taken a shine to Augustus, whose flagellative contribution to keeping order in the ranks during his tenure as head boy he had greatly appreciated.  Seeing him as future kindred spirit, in more ways than one, on learning of Augustus’s ambition to be a school teacher, public school, told him that he would be welcome addition to the staff at Rigby, once he had graduated from Cambridge.

Chapter 5

Augustus, who was intellectually quite clever, graduated, aged just 22, from Cambridge with first class honours and duly rejoined Rigby as Junior Classics Master. The Headmaster of Rigby was still the same Dr. Anthony Adam Rhys as when Augustus had left to go to Cambridge. The Headmaster was handsome man of some 40 years, who, as we learned earlier, was of the same sexual persuasion as Augustus, to whom he had been strongly sexually attracted whilst Augustus had been head-boy. He immediately persuaded the Board of Governors to make Augustus, assistant housemaster of Lincoln House, one of the six boarding houses of the school. Dr. Denning the long-standing housemaster of Lincoln House, was in seriously failing health and had requested that he be seconded until his retirement by an assistant housemaster.

Dr Denning, who still taught mathematics, had in his day, been as strict a disciplinarian himself as Augustus now was. In his heyday he had contributed in no small way to the development and maintenance of what was now universally referred to in the community of public schools, as Rigby Rigour. He was delighted to have Augustus as young and vigorous assistant to whom he could hand over the disciplinary aspects of running his house, which due to his failing health he realised he had allowed to slide for the past three years.

Given Augustus’s devotion to the cane, it was a match made in heaven. From his very first day, Dr. Denning left the entire question of house discipline to him. Augustus revelled in the freedom to beat the living daylights out of the denizens of Lincoln House, with the approval of both Dr. Denning and the Headmaster, Dr. Rhys, who was was soon to become Augustus’s lover, and who was himself a regular user of both the cane and the birch, which was strictly the Headmaster’s jealously guarded preserve. Within one month of his appointment, Augustus had taken his first positive steps to re-establish the reputation of Lincoln House as one of the strictest of the six houses of the School and was hated by the boys, due to his excessive and merciless use of the cane.

But a key aspect of Augustus’s  early life teaching at Rigby was the rapid development of sexual intimacy – birds of a feather flock together – with Dr. Rhys the Headmaster; Tony, as he came to call him private, although he retained the formal Headmaster when he addressed his lover in public. It has to be said that, in spite of his austerely unappealing character, Augustus was physically a handsome and well-set-up,  visually attractive young man, who had caught the Headmaster’s ever roving eye, when he had been head-boy, three years earlier. It did not take them long to see that they were both singing from the same hymn sheet when it came to sex.

Theirs was a harmonious coupling between an older and a younger man, who admired each other. Love would have been too strong a word to use for their liaison, which was based purely on mutual physical attraction and the satisfying sex they had together.  But it satisfied both of them, as schoolmasters, and stopped them from importuning – such is the insatiable impulsion of sexual lust – any of the senior boys, many of whom were both well equipped and sexually attractive; and very amenable to solicitation.

Augustus gave not one iota for convention and was prepared to ride rough-shod over anyone who got in his way.  House discipline at Rigby was strictly in the hands of each housemaster, who was sovereign in his own House. Dr. Denning had passed the entire responsibility over to his assistant, the very willing Augustus. There were three prefects, one of whom was head-of-house, all of whom were authorised to beat their fellow house-mates and whose job it was to maintain order in what were referred to in Rigby speak, as the non-commissioned ranks. Thus in Lincoln House, as in all other five houses, there were four persons who wielded the dreaded cane: the housemaster himself, the three prefects, one of whom was senior and was head-of-house.

One of the daily jobs of the head-of-house and the two prefects was to see that the young occupants of the first and second form dormitories, of which there were four, all cheek-by-jowl on the same corridor, strictly respected the Lights-out order every night. After the prefects had turned off the gaslights, no further talking was allowed. The prefects were then supposed to patrol the four dormitories periodically until 10 o’clock, to see that all was well, essentially to stop the mice playing while the cat was away, so to speak.

As you can imagine in August, when the school year began, it was not yet completely dark by 8 o’clock, the putative lights-out time. The dorm lights were not yet on, so the prefects had to content themselves with telling the occupants of the four junior dormitories to get into bed and stop talking. Later in the evening neither prefect nor head-of-house had bothered to check the junior dorms, which it was their duty to do. And so it was that Augustus, on an unexpected prowl in the corridors, looking for potential cannon fodder for his inaugural blast as assistant housemaster, heard a shindig emanating from one of the first form dorms. He opened the door to find a candle-light pillow-fight in progress. Needless to say, a pillow had split open and feathers were falling through the air like snow in summer.

Augustus surveyed the mayhem for a few moments, unnoticed by the boys. Suddenly, realising they had been caught in the act, the ten occupants, all ten of whom were out of bed, fell silent, looking sheepishly at their assistant housemaster. With a characteristic look, resembling the wrath of God, on his face, which boys throughout the School were quickly to come to know as preceding what was the equivalent of pronouncing of a death sentence on their arses,

Augustus said: “Get this mess picked up at once. I shall be back in 15 minutes by which time I expected to find you all bending over the bottom of your beds, presenting your bare bottoms to me for correction. If there is one feather left on the floor by the time I come back then all of you will wish that your bottoms belonged to someone else. You have had your bit of fun, boys, and you must now pay the price for your disregard of the rules: a price, which I am afraid you will find is going to be very painful.”

When he came back, it was with a junior cane in his right hand, a sight which made the new boys occupying the dorm shudder with fear.  The 10 beds in the dorm were arranged along the two long walls, five on each wall, facing each other. Over the bottom of each bed, supported by a pillow, were the ten first-formers, their night shirts pulled well up out of the way to expose their as yet unmarked, bare arses. They were all trembling in fearful anticipation of what was about to happen to them.

The question running through the minds of most of the young lads, none of whom was a stranger to the cane, was how bad their first beating could be. All of them, before coming to Rigby, had run the gauntlet of an English prep school education, where swishings were a daily occurrence. However, never had any of them been part and parcel of such a mass caning as was now about to be visited on their bare backsides; it was just too awful even to bear thinking about.

Knowing Augustus as we already do, the young lads were to have their worst fears realised, as the sadistic, assistant housemaster strode between the two rows of beds, mercilessly giving the lads on the right their first swingeing, backhand stroke of the cane. Arriving at the window which dominated the end wall of the dorm, he then proceeded to give the boys on the left, one after another, what was their first stroke of the cane. If the boys had thought that he had then finished, they were painfully disappointed, as Augustus repeated the same procedure another five times.

Thus each and every one of the plump little arses had received six swingeing cuts before Augustus told the now sobbing. ten young lads to get back into bed. There was no doubt that the boys’ behaviour had merited a beating; but whether or not they deserved to have their backsides so savagely striped was questionable. However, given Augustus’s attachment to the rattan cane, it was the first example of over-the-top beating, which the boys of Lincoln House would, in future, come to accept as par for the course. As one wag, having seen next day the state of the new boys’ backsides, jokingly put it: “From now on, in this House, pain is the name of the game.” Many a true word is spoken in jest and time, alas, was to prove that he was right!

One might have thought that Augustus, having figuratively slaked his thirst for blood with a ten-boy, mass dormitory beating, would have been satisfied for the moment with a job well done; but not a bit of it! In his view, the two prefects, Lodge and Sefton by name, together with the head-of-house, Alexander Parry, had all shirked their duties in patrolling the junior dormitories. The way things were supposed to function was that after lights-out, the two duty prefects were supposed to make hourly patrols of the junior dormitories in the course of the evening. This had clearly not been the case, otherwise had the prefects been doing their job, they would have nipped the pillow-fight in the bud almost as soon as it had begun.

In Augustus’s eyes, the three senior boys in the House, whose behaviour should be an example to the others, were guilty of a dereliction of their duty towards their housemaster, for which they must pay the price. Whether they would have necessarily detected the pillow fight, remains a specious argument, as it could have started between two of their rounds.  Augustus had also no positive proof that the prefects had neglected making their rounds. But as he was out for blood, he brushed aside as irrelevant such lack of concrete evidence.

I was not quite ten o’clock when Augustus finally found the three prefects together in the prefects’ common room, playing at cards, a strictly forbidden activity. Yes, in those days of intense class distinction and pecking order, in all six houses at Rigby, the three prefects were provided with a small common room as a perk of their high office. Augustus was curt, ordering the three of them to report to his study on the double. His unfriendly, disagreeable manner towards them had already raised the red flag of danger in their minds that he was on the warpath against the the three of them; but why or for what reason?  They were soon to soon find out and make their first painful acquaintance with their new assistant housemaster’s insatiable thirst for using the cane.

 With Augustus sitting at his desk the three of them were told to stand before him. With a senior cane lying in front of him, transmitting at first glance, its clear, unspoken message to them, they all instinctively knew, before he had uttered a single word, that their arses were on the line, for some reason, at present, unknown to them.  It could not be true, could it? Their elite, elevated station as prefects surely meant that they were above such things as being beaten. However, they were so very mistaken as was made clear to them, when Augustus began his fulminating diatribe.

“Gentlemen, would it be true to say that this evening the three of you did not make the usual control round of the four junior dormitories to see that all was in order and that the boys were all asleep?”

He knew immediately from the guilty look on their faces and the glances they mutually threw at each other that he had hit the nail on the head. Alexander Parry, the senior prefect and head-of-house, tried to explain, only to be interrupted by Augustus, knowing full well that the three of them had been so engrossed in their card game that they had completely forgotten their policing duties.

Matter got considerably worse for the trio, as Augustus continued aggressively: “Gentlemen, you neglected your duties as prefects in favour of a playing an illicit gamer of cards, in which you were so engrossed that you gave not one thought to the fact that you had your duties to perform. That is how, when I myself took a turn around the dormitories, I found a pillow fight in progress in one of the two first- form dormitories, which led to me thrashing all ten boys in that room. They paid painfully for their misdemeanour, as you three gentlemen are now about to do for your misdeeds. You have, together, committed two offences.”

“First you neglected your duties as newly appointed prefects, the most senior boys in the House, whose behaviour should be an example to the others.  Second, engrossed in a game of cards, which as you know are forbidden by the School rules as they lead to gambling and God knows what else, you neglected to make your rounds of the junior dormitories to see that nothing was amiss with your younger school-mates. So all three of you jointly have a great deal to answer for And answer for it you will, in the traditional, time-honoured painful way, with which I am sure your are no doubt all familiar.”

“You Parry and Lodge, go stand and face the wall over there; put your hands on your heads and leave them there; do not move or turn around until I tell you to do so. Sefton I will deal with you first.  Take off completely your nightshirt; then go across and bend over the back of the chair in the middle of the room, put your hands firmly on its seat and remain perfectly still in that position until I tell you otherwise.”

Not unsurprisingly, on hearing these draconian instructions, Sefton broke out in a cold sweat. He automatically tried to explain what he saw as the situation, in a vain attempt to save his arse from the painful depredations, which the new assistant housemaster clearly had in store for him. The other two prefects, who could not fail to hear  what was being said to Sefton, were both, vulgarly put, figuratively shitting bricks at the thought of what was in store for them.

Sefton attempted to explain what he saw as the injustice of what Augustus, was proposing to visit on all three prefects, by attempting to explain how things were done in Lincoln House; “Sir you are new to your post of assistant housemaster and I think you do not understand quite how things are done in Lincoln House. Dr. Denning has, for the past several years, ceased beating any members of the upper and lower sixth forms, relying on their senior status as young gentlemen to guide them as to what is good behaviour. Indeed, sir, under Dr. Denning the use of the cane has practically disappeared from life in Lincoln House and the use of the birch has ceased completely.  And, sir, if I comply with your request to take off my nightshirt, I shall be completely naked, sir, which does not seem right sir; and additionally sir…”

 He was here cut short in his oration, by Augustus, who laid out for him –in fact, for all three prefects – the  the new facts of life, under which all boys, from the first form through to the upper sixth forms, would henceforth have to live.

“Sefton, first allow me to disabuse you of a misconception you seem to have concerning the removal of your nightshirt before presenting your bottom to me for the traditional punishment with rattan cane; this was not a request, but an order; and an order which I expect to be  obeyed , even by you as a perfect. I always apply a cane to a boy’s bare bottom, and I find that a voluminous nightshirt gets in the way. Hence I insist that it be removed, in the interests of giving the  offender, what is vulgarly referred to as a well-beaten arse, which, allow me to assure you,  is what all three of you will possess when you finally leave here.”

“What you said about the decline in the corrective use of the cane over the past few years in Lincoln House is quite true. But that has not because of a change in attitude concerning the beneficial effects of the cane on public schoolboys’ behaviour, but purely because of the declining health of Dr. Denning. Acutely aware that due to his declining grip, standards at Lincoln House were slipping, Dr. Denning himself requested the Board of Governor to nominate an assistant housemaster to attempt to bring this House up to its former high standards. So as of now, I personally am totally responsible for all discipline in this House.”

“Thus, I have total authority for discipline in Lincoln House, and, under my direction, things will gradually be restored to the way they were a few years ago, before Dr. Denning’s  illness allowed Lincoln House to slip into decline. The Rigours of Rigby, a byword for the strict discipline which made this School famous and sought after as an educational establishment by the elite of this country, will again reign in Lincoln House. As the three prefects responsible for keeping order in this House, the joint dereliction of your duty this evening, has already led me to beat the ten occupants of one of the first form dormitories.”

“You Sefton, together with your two partners in crime over there, whom I hope are both listening to what I am saying to you, (how could they not be?) are now about to pay the traditional, painful price for neglecting your official duties whilst playing a card game, an act, which is strictly forbidden under the rules of this School. Allow me to assure all three of you that I shall ensure that you all leave here this evening with painful souvenir which will remind each of you, whenever you sit down for the next several days of the error of your ways.”

“Sefton, take of your night shirt completely and go and bend across the chair as I told you previously and let us get on with this lamentable affair. Sefton, prepare yourself to receive 12 cuts of the senior cane, which you see lying on my desk in front of you: six cuts  for neglecting your duties as a prefect, and a further  six cuts for playing cards which is strictly forbidden. I will apply ten cuts parallel, of which six will be on the lower part of your buttocks, followed by two final diagonal, gating cuts.”

Sefton finally realised that he had no option but to discard his nightshirt, thereby exposing himself completely naked to Augustus.  He was a tall young man, aged 18, muscular for his age and was not surprisingly given the aggressive verbal prologue to his beating, sporting a magnificently enormous erection: a testimony to the ever present, strong relationship between corporal punishment and sex. Augustus made as if he had not seen Sefton’s sexual arousal, as the lad bent over the chair and attempted to arrange his kit as comfortable as possible for the coming onslaught, with his balls and cock stowed out of the way of the cane.

August knew full well that he had been an utter sod in the callous way he had made the lad strip naked in front of him for his beating. He could have simply pushed the nightshirt out of the way once Sefton was over the chair; but he had chosen to humiliate the lad, who had no control over his embarrassingly large erection, on which under radically different circumstances, he would have willingly lavished a generous amount of TLC as in his sex life he was a totally different person. But whenever he prepared, as was often the case, to wield the cane, that ever present sadistic streak was always to the fore. It was this permanent disregard of any feeling whatsoever for his victim, which made him one of the hardest of hard caners and one of the most efficient and feared of floggers of public schoolboys’ arses.

The fatidic moment arrived. Sefton felt the cane laid gently across his unsullied arse, which in a couple of minutes was going to be striped by a series of excruciating painful, livid furrows, each with two well-defined, parallel edges, etched into his flesh by the cane, that one could actually feel; that is, if Sefton could bear anyone to touch his welts In his time at Rigby, he had seen enough freshly beaten, striped arses to know exactly how his own was going to look. He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth and waited, trembling with fear, for the first cut. All three prefects had been normal boys at Rigby; like all normal boys, they had from time to time misbehaved, for which they had all been duly beaten. So the cane was no stranger to any of them. But waiting for that first stroke to land, Sefton somehow divined that this time would be different; and he was right.

Augustus did not hold back – he never ever did – as he brought the cane flashing down through the air, at a speed rendering it invisible to the eye, it finally mated with a resounding crack with Sefton’s expectant buttocks.  Prepared as he had been for the worst, when the worst actually arrived, it was much worse than Sefton had ever imagined a caning could ever be. His arse felt as though it was on fire; as if it had been cut in half by a red-hot poker. There was no doubt about it at all; the new assistant housemaster knew what he was doing, when it came to delivering the goods with the cane; and deliver all twelve biting, furrow-producing strokes with the same venomous force he did.

After the third stroke, Sefton could no longer hold back his tears which streamed down his face and fell onto the seat of the chair, making quite a pool, by the time Augustus had finished.  Told by Augustus to get up and make himself decent again by putting on his nightshirt, the poor lad had difficulty in heaving himself vertical from over the back of the chair, so painful was his backside.  It is worth noting that Sefton had bent over the chair sporting a massive eight inch rigid boner.  By the time he was told to get up thanks to the not so TLC which Augustus had lavished on his arse, the poor lad’s most important asset had been reduced to a miserable, four inch, wrung-out weenie, dangling dolefully between his legs; Augustus had truly, indirectly knocked the stuffing out of what was the lad’s proudest possession.

But even now, there was to be not the slightest respite for Sefton. As Augustus called Lodge forward to receive his punishment, he did not even allow Sefton to attempt to alleviate his suffering in the traditional way, by allowing him to massage his burning buttocks. Sefton was ordered to stand with his hands on his head, alongside head-of-house, Parry, where he was to remain in agony and be forced to listen to the horror of his two co-prefects being beaten.

The unfortunate Lodge, was also made to strip off his nightshirt, and bend across the same chair, where he received the same punishment as Sefton had endured. He then was ordered by Augustus to rejoin, with his hands on his head, the other two, who were were still standing by the wall.

Parry waited to be told to step forward to receive his beating. However when the order finally came to turn round and take his hands off his head, he found Augustus was again sitting behind his desk, with that malevolently painful rattan cane lying again tellingly on the desk before him. He made Parry strip off his nightshirt and stand embarrassingly stark naked in front of him, with his hands again on his head, unable even to attempt to cover his sizeable erection, which was, totally unaided and uncontrolled, pointing accusingly directly at Augustus.  If Parry had thought that he was to receive the same punishment as his co-prefects, Augustus soon disabused him of his wishful thinking.

Augustus began, in a tone of voice situated somewhere between pious regret and severe pomposity: “Parry, as head-of-house, you personally bear a particular heavy responsibility to lead by example, to ensure that all occupants of Lincoln House toe the line; that goes also for your two co-prefects, to whom you are supposed, to set a shining example of probity as their leader. In this, and I think you must agree with me, you have failed miserably. Earlier this evening, in indulging in an illicit card game instead of doing your duty and inspecting the dormitories, constitutes an inexcusable dereliction of a important aspect of your duty, for neglect of which, your partners in crime, if I may be permitted to describe them as such, have already paid a painful price for their part in this lamentable affair. However, you, Parry, as head-of house, bear an even graver responsibility for what has just occurred and I would not be doing my duty as housemaster, if I allowed you to escape without a punishment which reflects the gravity of your astounding laissez-faire attitude.”

By now, poor Parry was almost climbing up the wall with embarrassment at his forced nakedness, coupled with the fear of what was going to happen to him. And he had good cause to be frightened, as Augustus continued on relentlessly and sadistically announced to the head-of-house what his punishment would be:  “Parry, your two co-prefects have each suffered twelve cuts of the cane for their part in this unfortunate affair. As head-of-house you bear an increased responsibility for what has happened; as such you will receive 18 cuts of the senior cane across your bare buttocks, of which twelve will be applied parallel and six as crossing diagonals. The chair eagerly awaits you young man; so please assume the appropriate position and keep completely still, until I tell you to stand up again and don your nightshirt.”

Parry could not believe his ears at the severity of the beating he was to receive. He could remember no precedent for such a severe caning. Dr. Denning, when he had been well, had been a noted disciplinarian himself; but his beatings, which had been very frequent, were rarely more than six strokes. But here, new man has already thrashed an entire, ten-boy dormitory,  given his two co-prefects each twelve cuts with a senior cane and was no proposing to give him, the head-of-house yet, eighteen cuts across his bare arse. It did not bear thinking about. He had no idea how he would even survive such as ferociously sadistic beating as he bent across the chair and waited for the first stroke to land.

But survive it, of course, he did, as a boy’s buttocks have have a remarkable power to accept very severe blows and easily recover from being beaten, which at English public schools at that time, they frequently were. It was of small consolation to the head-of-house, when Sefton, his friend and co-prefect, told him, immediately after August had done his evil worst on his backside, that he was sporting the most mind-boggling, well-beaten arse of all time.

The three of them were not demoted as result of this incident and served as prefects until they left Rigby to go on to university at the end of the school-year.  A corollary of this incident was that the three of them, who were mandated to beat their housemates for their misdeeds, took a leaf out of Augustus’s book and never hesitated to lay on the cane severely. Thus, they indirectly contributed to the disciplinary renaissance of Lincoln House of which Augustus Caesar was prime mover and stopped it sliding into the anarchy of indolence.

The sun shone on Augustus, when just one year after he had been appointed assistant housemaster of Lincoln House, the ailing Dr. Denning died suddenly of a heart attack.  The Headmaster of Rigby, with whom Augustus enjoyed a close sexual relationship, not surprisingly, recommended his protégée for the vacant post. Thus it was that Augustus Caesar, aged only 23, became the youngest housemaster ever at Rigby School. He had been appointed assistant housemaster to lend a disciplinary hand to stem the descent into complaisant mediocrity which had gripped Lincoln House. He had made a good start; but now as housemaster, whose word was law, began five years of what can best be described as autocratic, percussive rule.  His word was law; his word was harsh and the crack of the cane mating with the bare flesh of numerous pairs of firm buttocks became a regular sound emanating from the housemaster’s study.

In his first term as Housemaster, Augustus thrashed more boys in Lincoln House than were thrashed in the other five houses put together. The members of his house quickly came to dread a summons, to see him, as he put it, before bed, dressed only in their nightshirts. Such visits always presaged a very uncomfortable and painful night for the lad concerned. The drill, which very quickly became the norm, was that any boy, who had an appointment to see the housemaster, first showered and put on his night shirt and bedroom slippers then went and waited outside the housemaster’s study until ordered to enter.

Even for the most trivial of offences, Augustus never gave less than six cuts, a more appropriate word than strokes for his caning technique, as he always left the recipient with deep, livid furrows cut deeply into bare flesh of his arse. But irrespective of the number of strokes awarded which could rise to two dozen, for what, in the housemaster’s book, were considered really heinous offences, no boy ever left Augustus’s study with other than a visually artistic but excruciatingly painful, well-beaten arse.

As time passed, Augustus, with the aim of making the punishment fit the crime, developed a number of imaginative ways, in which the twelve cuts of the cane could administered. Each each successive option was more horrifically painful than the last. Augustus subscribed totally to the philosophy that corporal punishment had to be very painful for the recipient; otherwise it was a waste of time. It was in abandoning this mind-set due to illness, that Dr. Denning had quite unintentionally allowed the raison d’être behind beating to slip to such a low ebb that the boys  no longer feared the cane, which when applied, had largely lost its bite. However under the new rule of Augustus, Pain is the Name of the Game, again became the byword to describe the draconian way in which Lincoln House was run.

With the cane, figuratively, firmly between his teeth, Augustus’s imagination ran riot with the ways in which he could administer twelve strokes of the cane to a boy’s bare arse with ever increasing pain. The simplest and most direct way was twelve cuts, strictly parallel across a recipient’s bare buttocks, from the bottom of his back to the top of his legs. This was the least painful option – purely a relative term – as it nevertheless hurt like hell; especially if the lower part of the lad’s buttocks, the so called sit-spot, was the target for a greater proportion of the twelve cuts.

But then there was a whole range of options where one stroke was laid direct on top of another. The simplest option, which was more painful than its straight homologue, was to apply six strokes parallel and then to apply the remaining six strokes over the top of the original six. This doubling of the cane strokes led to a dramatic increase in pain felt by the poor recipient. The ultimate, nec plus ultra of agony ever delivered by Augustus, was to give the recipient two sets of six cuts each on just two part so his anatomy. Just try to imagine what it might feel like, to have a cane thrash down six times on exactly the same spot on your bare arse. It is just too horrible to envisage even thinking of.

However, even Augustus himself, who derived great sadistic pleasure, not to mention personal, sexual satisfaction from thrashing the living daylights out of his pupils’ naked backsides, baulked at the ultimate twelve cut beating: the laying on of all twelve strokes in one single furrow. That was one step too far even for Augustus. But make no mistake, however administered by Augustus, twelve cuts on the bare with a well-seasoned, rattan cane, is a salutary, very painful, not-to-be-sought-after and strongly-to-be-avoided experience.

Dr. Denning’s unfortunate demise was lamented by the boys for two reasons. First, he had been a well-liked, severe, but extremely fair housemaster. Second, in his declining years, his use of the cane in Lincoln House had fallen to a stage where it was no longer seen by the boys as a threat their normal mischievous activities. In Dr. Denning’s last three years, the regular use of the cane gradually diminished and no boy in the sixth form was ever caned for his sins.

Anyone, who knows teenage boys, will be aware that in those private study bedrooms, there was plenty of sinning frequently taking place. Smoking and drinking, both strictly forbidden, were, if not exactly rampant, nevertheless regular activities; as was illicit sex. Buggery, committed out of sheer sexual frustration, was a common pastime among certain more adventurous of the sixth-formers. Not surprisingly, given the laissez-faire situation which had been allowed to develop, several successive years of sixth-formers of Lincoln House considered themselves beyond and above the law.

All this changed with a vengeance within the first few days of the arrival of Augustus as assistant housemaster, when, in addition to beating the ten boys in the first form dormitory, he had then gone on and beaten the two prefects plus the head-of-house, thereby putting a painful end to the cherished illusion held by sixth-formers that their arses were inviolable.

Spurred on by his experience in his first few days as assistant housemaster of Lincoln House, when he had beaten all ten new hoys in one of the two first form dormitories, full dormitory beatings became a regular feature and fixture of life in Lincoln House. Each year as housemaster, he managed to find some excuse to beat all the boys of one of the two first form dormitories, within the first two weeks of their arrival at Rigby.  But not content with one mass beating a year, he made sure in the second and third terms of the school year, that he beat the occupants of one of the older dormitories. Such ten-boy, mass beatings were limited to boys up to and including the fifth form as once the boys entered the lower sixth form they were each allocated a shared study bedroom, whilst in the upper sixth, each young man, had his own study-bedroom.

Over his years as housemaster, Augustus took to prowling the corridors off which the sixth-formers’ bedrooms were located, in search for more robust cannon fodder to satisfy his penchant for beating older boys. The entire sixth-formers, about 40 boys in all, were aghast at what they saw as the diabolically underhand liberty, of their housemaster spying on them. Was nothing sacred anymore? But as we know, they had to lump it; their indignation, if it had ever been voiced, which it never was, would have fallen on deaf ears.

As a result of his nocturnal prowling, Augustus was regularly able to find, in flagrante, many sixth-formers, committing eminently beatable offences, of which the commonest was illicit smoking and drinking, for which he never hesitated to give the culprits 18 cuts of the senior cane on the bare. The whole house came swiftly to realise that the good old days, as they thought of them, were over and they had a strict disciplinarian to contend with.

Thus it was that Augustus spent the next five years of his life as housemaster of Lincoln House, beating his way through successive intakes of boys. Surprisingly, in view of his sadistic reputation in Lincoln House, which was well-known throughout the entire school, he was an exceedingly popular teacher of Latin and ancient Greek, both of which dead languages and their associated cultures, he managed to suffuse with inhabitual life.

The reader will appreciate that in the late nineteenth century when the action of this story took place, in such public schools as Rigby, the curriculum concentrated essentially on the past and was heavily weighted towards the classics. Other than mathematics, which was seen as a worthy intellectual exercise, the average public schoolboy, tended to leave school and go onto Oxford or Cambridge, where he was fed more of the same stuff.

And so his education, far from fitting him to earn his own living – a thought beyond the pale for many gentlemen – preparation for a life of indolence was encouraged in a country where class-distinction ruled supreme. True gentlemen did not work for their living, which was, in many cases handed down to them on a plate. The words he’s in trade were were almost as bad as being excommunicated from the Church.

Chapter 6

 It was sometime in Augustus’s fifth year at Rigby that he saw in a tri-monthly journal called The Schoolmaster, an advertisement inviting applications for the headmastership of Churton College, a public school as prestigious as Rigby, located near Hereford on the other side of the country. Age only 27 at the time, Augustus, in whom ambition knew no bounds, showed the announcement to the Headmaster of Rigby, Tony as he called him, who, as we know, was also his clandestine lover, seeking his opinion.

“In my view, Gus,” said Tony, who was one of the very few people close enough to Augustus to call him by his nickname, Gus: “You are too young even to be considered for such a post. You have not the proverbial cat in hell’s chance of even being invited for an interview. But, in the spirit of nothing ventured, nothing gained, if you want to fly a kite, then who am I to discourage you?  However, I am afraid, I quite selfishly hope, for the sake of our personal relationship, that you will not be successful. But who knows?  Stranger things have happened; you might just become the youngest man ever to be appointed Headmaster of an English public school. Should you be fortunate enough to be invited for an interview, I will, of course support you in any way I can, as your present Headmaster and closest friend.  I see that the advert contains the words: strict disciplinarian. No one, who knows of your achievement here at Rigby, could deny you that distinction.”

But, against all odds, the unexpected miracle did happen; after endless toings and froings between Lincoln and Hereford  and interviews too numerous to mention, at the ripe old age of just 27, Augustus found himself appointed Headmaster of Churton College, a prestigious public school of some 500 boys. He was the master of all he surveyed, which he had every intention of ruling with a rod of iron. Discipline, such as had hitherto never been known at Churton, was to become the order of the day.

After he had been offered the post, in a private dinner later with the chairman of the School Board of Governors, Colonel Ripley, a retired army officer, Augustus had delicately raised the subject of why the advertisement in The Schoolmaster had mentioned the need for applicants to be firm disciplinarians. He learned that the Board of Governors, composed in the main of retired military and naval officers, had noticed a gradual of the standards of general behaviour in public of the boys, over the last few years. This, they had concluded, was due to the advanced age of the retiring Headmaster, who had already extended his tenure five years beyond the normal retirement age, Now aged 70,  he had still wanted to continue in a post he had held for over 30 years, before being forced to retire.

“I really should not tell you this,” said Colonel Ripley, “But the reason we finally decided that, in spite of your young age, you were the right man for the post, was reinforced, in no small measure, by a glowing testimonial from your present Headmaster, who explained, in graphic terms, the sterling job you had done over the past five years as housemaster at Rigby.  He told us how you never hesitated to hold the boys to task for even the slightest deviation for the accepted norm, which is precisely the attitude we need here at Churton at present.”

“You will, however,  need to be very thick skinned to overcome the opprobrium you will face from your new colleagues, especially from the older ones, who, to a man, resent having been passed over for the Headmastership by a man young enough to be their son. However, just from the steely glint of determination in your eyes, I am sure you will not be deterred from the harsh task facing you, of knocking this School into shape again. Be assured that you have the firm support of the entire Board of Governors behind you, so you will be free to introduce whatever measures, however draconian, you feel necessary, without let or hindrance from anyone.”

“Do not flinch from using the cane and the birch, which as I am sure you are already aware, are indispensible accoutrements of ensuring compliance with the rules. In my view, the prospect of a soundly thrashed, bare bottom is an amazing deterrent and works wonders on general behaviour. In a word, my dear Caesar, you really are king of all you survey.”

Augustus could not have been more pleased with what he had learned from the Chairman of a Board of Governors which, if he had read the colonel correctly – which, in fact, he had – was composed mainly of likeminded, reactionary, authoritarian, retired military and naval officers, all with the same hunting-shooting-fishing-flogging-hanging mind set. It could not have suited Augustus better than to be supported by a Board of Governors, who approved of regular birchings and canings and gave him a free hand to whatever he wanted.

Once in charge, he ignored the views of his colleagues, over whom he rode roughshod, not giving a damn what they thought of him. He rapidly became a true despot, who was feared by everyone. His word was law and for the next 40 years, until he retired in 1921, he ruled Churton with a rod of iron; or rather with the cane and the birch, both of which remained in regular use – too regular, in the view of the recipients – throughout his long Headmastership.

His appointment was first greeted with amused incredulity by the boys of Churton, who found it hard to believe that their new Headmaster was truly called Augustus Caesar. Incredulity quickly transformed into fearful respect as they quickly saw the character of their new Headmaster. A tentative nickname of Uncle Julius quickly bit the dust and Augustus soon became known as Sir, to all and sundry. As remarked earlier, you could almost hear the capital S whenever the denizens of Churton, masters and boys alike, addressed him; it was always with profound respect, inculcated by fear.

In spite of his immediate new broom sweeps clean frame of mind Augustus found much to like about Churton, not least of which was the fact that the 500 or so boys each possessed an arse, which could potentially be beaten, a considerable increase in potential cane fodder over that which he had enjoyed hitherto as housemaster at Rigby. He had also noticed, directly next to his study, a door bearing the legend Birching Room, which gave the very easily sexually aroused Augustus, almost an instant hard-on, just thinking of the new pleasurable experiences he would have there.

Whilst an inveterate and expert user of the cane, he had never used the legendary birch. His only encounter with this fabled instrument, had been the one unique occasion when, as a 15 year-old pupil at Rigby, he had had the misfortune to be birched by the then young Headmaster, who years later, had become his lover. At Churton, as in most public schools, the birch was administered exclusively by the Headmaster.

Unlike the ubiquitous rattan cane, which could be purchased in all its many forms from  school supply houses and had a long, useful life, the birch, in view of the exigencies associated with its production,  storage, the need for it to be used  freshly made and short service life, was usually reserved exclusively for use by the Headmaster. Augustus found himself quite elated by the fact that now he was Headmaster, this most terrifying of all implements of corporal punishments would be in his hands. He could barely wait for the first occasion to arise to use it.

Chapter 7

Augustus had inherited with the job, a more or less a permanent fixture, in the form of his secretary and general factotum, named Miss Doris Edith Forsyth, who looked as though she had been around since the the beginning of time She was one of those rare omniscient, educated upper-class spinsters of indeterminate age, without whose help, Augustus would have found himself floundering in his first few weeks at Churton.  She was the exception to the rule; female secretaries were as rare as a hen’s teeth in the late nineteenth century. But on rare occasions as was that case at Churton, a member of the so-called, fair sex had, somehow, made herself indispensable in the running of the school.

She obviously thought of Churton as her School and treated the new young Headmaster as the son she had never had. She became totally protective of Augustus with whom she, nevertheless, maintained a strictly formal relationship; he called her Miss Forsyth and she always addressed him respectfully as Sir or Headmaster. She tactfully explained to him what was what and pointed him in the right direction, for which guidance he was to be ever grateful. She skilfully explained to him what the previous Headmaster had done and left it to him to decide whether he would do the same. Her tactic was to ask Augustus a question, which revealed how the previous Headmaster had run the School. It was obvious, from her remarks that she thought that strict discipline with the boys was the only path to follow.

It was the end of the afternoon on Augustus’s second day only in the job, when Miss Forsyth came to him in his study with her first revelation, which she put to him in the form of a question: “Headmaster forgive the intrusion, but I wondered if I should continue to prepare the daily list of boys who have received a punishment note from one of the masters?”

Seeing from the look of mystification on Augustus’s face that he had no idea what she was talking about, she continued: “Sir, your predecessor always dealt personally, with boys requiring correction at 4:30 p.m. daily, in his study, after classes had finished for the day.  Of course there were not always boys needing correction every day; but usually there were. I prepared the list of names and put it, together with the relevant punishment notes, signed by the master referring the boy to the Headmaster, on the his desk by 11 a.m.each day so that he knew by noon, if his corrective services would be required that day. But you may wish to change the system.”

This was the first Augustus had heard of his predecessor’s daily bouts with the cane, for that was what he had understood – quite correctly, as it transpired – the word correction meant. Having learned that his predecessor, clearly dealt personally, on a daily basis, with all hoys who had misbehaved in class, he probed his secretary further to learn more details of the unusual punishment system, which was still in place until such time as he, the new Headmaster, changed it. Even at this stage, given his own unslakeable thirst for beating boys’ bare arses, changing a system, which provided him with a regular flow of subjects to beat, was the thing furthest from Augustus’s mind.

Having imparted to him the salient features of the present arrangements and having obtained Augustus’s confirmation that, until he had had time to consider matter, the present system would remain in place, Miss Forsyth became more expansive about the general way punishment was organised at Churton and who was authorised to do what and to whom. She began by explaining how the quite unusual, almost daily thrashings dished out by the Headmaster had come about.

“Some three years ago, your predecessor decided to ban all use of the cane in the classroom. He imposed, not without considerable opposition, I might add, the system of punishment notes, about which I have just told you. The teaching staff felt that in denying them the right to use the cane, he had deprived them of what they considered the God-given right of every public school master to correct the boys he was teaching. In effect he had, emasculated them. But as at Churton, the word of the Headmaster is law, they had no option but to accept it. But I can tell you, Sir, that the teaching staff – especially the older members, - were and are still today, totally disgruntled about the way they were treated.”

“How the system now works, is that any master wishing to see a boy punished, must issue a punishment note, which the boy in question must deposit the same day in the box outside my office. I collect the notes after the close of classes each day and next morning prepare a list of the boys who must see the Headmaster at 4:30 that day. I post a copy of the list on the general notice board and place a copy, together with the notes, which detail the boys’ offences and suggested punishment, on the Headmaster’s desk by 11 o’clock each day.”

“You will have gathered, Sir, that a boy is punished for his offence committed one day, at 4:30 in the afternoon the following day. So your predecessor deferred the misdeeds of Friday until Sunday, after chapel, but before lunch.  After the chapel service, which, as Headmaster, your predecessor conducted and which I imagine you, Sir, will be conducting as of next Sunday, he announced the names of the boys who had received punishment notes on Friday, who already knew they would be punished before lunch on Sunday.”

“But every other boy in the School was on tenterhooks, hoping that his name would not additionally be called out. If he was required to present himself to the Headmaster, it meant that the he had learned of some some undefined misdeed the boy had committed, for which he would have to answer, which usually presaged an uncomfortable lunch, standing, rather than sitting, at table.  Of course, Sir, this is the existing system, which you can change if you are not satisfied.”

Augustus could hardly believe his ears when he heard the legacy that his predecessor had bequeathed to him. He was to be supplied via a system of punishment notes, issued by members of the teaching staff, who had themselves been forbidden to beat boys, with a regular flow of arses to beat. Things could hardly have looked any better for an addict to the cane, which Augustus had become as housemaster at Rigby. He would have found felt deprived not to have bare arses to beat on a regular basis. 

The system as it described by Miss Forsyth was absolutely perfect; disgruntled staff be damned; he could live with their continued disapproval. And anyway, he was simply continuing with a system which had been in place for several years, for which the opprobrium had been born by his predecessor. What his secretary had just told him was manna from heaven in his ears. He had no intention of changing anything at all which might disrupt a regular flow of boys whose arses needed beating; things just could not have been better!

He thanked his secretary for her detailed explanation and told her that the status quo for dealing with the boys’ classroom misdeeds would stand until further notice. He was gratified to receive the approval of Miss Forsyth, who said: “If I might be permitted to observe, Sir, I think you are very wise to leave in place a system which functions like clockwork. Sir, today is only the second day of term; but I have already received punishment notes for two third formers, both regular miscreants who probably deserve to be corrected for their misdeed. Reading the notes, I see, sir that the two of them brought stink bombs into the classroom, which had to be evacuated as the smell became too overpowering.  So the two of them caused considerable disruption, for which you, Sir, will tomorrow have the distressing task of correcting them.”

Augustus’s heart jumped for joy when he heard what two boys had done. Distressing task? fiddlesticks! Miss Forsyth did not know him yet. He could – and more to the point would – quite justifiably go to town on the lads’ two naked arses tomorrow afternoon. He could barely wait to make an example of them.

But in the event he did not have to; fortune smiled on him, providing him, there and then, with two eminently perfect backsides on which to conduct his maiden flogging at Churton. And once again, the offence of the two lads’ in question, justified an extremely severe beating. But when in Augustus’s book was a beating not severe? He espoused completely the maxim: pain is the name of the game.

Chapter 8

As Augustus and Miss Forsyth emerged from his study, two athletic looking fourth formers, came running, for some unknown reason, as if their lives depended on it, hell for leather down the corridor. One of the youths collided with and would have bowled over the elderly Miss Forsyth, who would have fallen, had Augustus not been there to catch her. For patently obvious reasons, running anywhere inside the school buildings was then as it is still today, strictly forbidden at Churton, as it was in the vast majority of schools, both public and state. Miss Forsyth expressed herself as unhurt, in what could have been a bad accident and insisted in going home unaided.

However, Augustus, never one to let grass grow under his feet when an opportunity to beat arse arose, looked at the two boys, who stood ashamed and trembling with fear at what was probably going to happen to them; and they had good reason to fear the consequences of their precipitate actions, which, but for the presence of Augustus, might have led to a serious accident. The previous Headmaster had been earlier known for the vigour of the beatings he dispensed. But the new Headmaster was to them an unknown quantity. They would have been petrified as they entered his study, had they known of his reputation at Rigby of never turning his back on an golden opportunity, like the present, to deliver an extremely severe beating, after which they would hobbling, and ask themselves, if they would be able to sit down comfort ever again.

Augustus turned, opened the door to his study and coldly told the two lads, whose names he did not yet know, to enter and stand before his desk, behind which he seated himself. As the two boys stood trembling in front of him, his stern demeanour said it all: grim-faced as a judge about to pass sentence of death on some unfortunate, who had just been found guilty of murder by a jury. But there the similarity ended, for Augustus as Headmaster when it came to thrashing arses, held not only the functions of judge and jury, but also of executioner all rolled into one. Like the Holy Trinity,  he was three in one; his word was law; his decisions were final; he could flog as he wished; and he knew it, as he prepared, quite justifiably, given the gravity of their offence, to throw the proverbial book at the two boys.

Augustus began in his usual pompous way: “As we have not yet had the pleasure of being introduced, first let me tell you that I am your new Headmaster, Mr. Augustus Caesar. As I have not yet had the opportunity of presiding over an assembly of the full School, I am still unknown to the vast majority of the boys in this establishment. I see from the blue piping on your waistcoats, that you are both members of Nelson House. (The six boarding houses of Churton, each with its own housemaster and distinctive colour, were named after historical British military and naval figures or prime ministers.) So, perhaps you should begin by identifying yourselves and explain why you chose to break one of the key rules of this School and were running in the corridor. Had I not been there and managed to catch the elderly lady, my secretary, Miss Forsyth, into whom you bumped, you would have knocked her to the floor, with potentially disastrous consequences. Gentlemen, kindly explain your excessive haste.”

The boys gave Augustus their names, Paul Harris and Jeremy Whitfield. Harris spoke for both of them, apologising profusely and trying to explain why they had been running, in a wordy sentence richly interpolated with that word of obeisance, Sir.

“Sir,” he began, “We were late for tea, Sir, which ends promptly at five o’clock, Sir.” (Churton was unique in providing its boys with tea and a bun each day, from close of classes between four-thirty and five o’clock, to allay their hunger until supper at seven.) “And so, Sir, as we were late, Sir, we were running down the corridor as we did not wish to miss tea, Sir.  And, Sir, both Whitfield and I, but especially I, Sir, the one who actually collided with Miss Forsyth, Sir, are very, very sorry indeed, Sir. Sir, it was just an unfortunate accident, Sir,  for which we are both extremely sorry, Sir,  And, Sir, I can promise you on behalf of both of us, Sir, that we have learned our lesson, Sir, and that will never again run anywhere inside of any of the School building, Sir”.

Both lads, looking at the grim unrelenting look on Augustus’s face, should have known that Harris was sowing his seed on barren, dry ground, with little hope of a successful harvest. Crudely put, Harris had been pissing into the wind, from the moment he had begun his explanation; the fate of the two lads’ had been sealed before they even entered the Headmaster’s study. In this present case of a flagrant breaking of the rules, Augustus, was quite justified in his decision to take to the naked arses of the two lads to hell and back,

But over and above the delivery of justice, unbeknown to the two boys, he was personally looking forward to appeasing his own pressing, sadistic desire to thrash arse, which he had not done since leaving Rigby at the end of the summer term, six weeks ago. He was suffering, like all addicts, from severe withdrawal symptoms, which would only be relieved by administration of his drug: the act of beating some boy’s bare arse with a rattan cane.

Harris and Whitfield stood trembling before their irate Headmaster, hoping that their sincere apology would suffice and that they would escape severe retribution. Their hopes were alas,to prove in vain as they had unfortunately, been caught, in flagrante, breaking the rules in the wrong place at the wrong time – and by the very wrong person! Certainly they deserved to be punished for their misdeeds; but did they deserve to be punished so dramatically severely as they were about to be Augustus?  They waited nervously for their Headmaster, who, as yet unknown to them, was the strictest of strict disciplinarians, to speak. They hung onto everyone of Augustus’s, pompous words; what they were about to hear, would confirm their very worst fears; they were both in for the highest of high jumps.

“In putting your obvious desire for self satisfaction before consideration for others, you decided to break one of the golden rules of this School. In so doing, you showed a distinct contempt for the orderly environment in which you are privileged to live. The smooth and harmonious running of this School – indeed of any school – depends upon everyone sticking to the rules, all of which are there for a purpose, however inconvenient they might seem at any particular moment. It is only by everyone obeying the rule that schools such as Churton function smoothly. If everyone decided to break the rules whenever they like, liked, then utter chaos would result.”

“In this country, people, who are caught breaking the law of the land, are punished for it. And so it is in this School; if you are caught breaking a rule you must expect to suffer consequences. In this particular case, which I view as very serious, thankfully no one was injured; but they might have been. So, although you have apologised profusely for your actions, I am afraid that is not enough. I would not be doing my duty as your Headmaster, if I allowed you to escape without considerable traditional, painful retribution. I therefore propose, here and now, to give you both a very sound beating. Although you will find what you are about to experience extremely painful, I think you will later find peace of mind in that you have truly expunged your sins.”

This, the two future recipients of the Headmaster’s painful largesse, digested what they had just heard. When they heard what their Headmaster had in store for them, had they been incontinent, they would surely have wet themselves with fear. But there was nothing they could do to mitigate what was about to happen to them. So the two lads had no option but to lump it.

Augustus now came to the crux of what he intended to do to the two boys: “I understand that the standard tariff for boys sent to my predecessor for correction was six strokes of the cane on the bare. From my long experience as a housemaster at another school, noted for its rigorous approach to correction of errant boys, six strokes were not enough of a deterrent to successfully discourage recipients from recividism. Consequently, as of now at Churton, the standard tariff for any boy sent to me for correction, will be twelve strokes with the rattan cane.”

“You will appreciate that when I speak of twelve strokes, I am referring to the casual sort of offence, which merits correction. However in the case of more serious offences, such as yours, I feel that even twelve strokes may not suffice; not only must the offender be corrected for his offence, but he must also suffer retribution for what he has done. In your case, which I view as very serious as it threatened both life and limb, I have really no option but to award each of you 18 cuts of the senior cane on the bare. So, gentlemen, if you would kindly bare your bottoms for chastisement, I propose to put this unfortunate affair to rest here and now.”

Preparing their bare bottoms for chastisement, as the Headmaster had just put it, was a rather laborious process. You must remember that the action of this story takes place in late Victorian times and that Churton College, being that highly conservative place that it was,  the boys were still wearing a uniform which had which had been designed about 1850.  The boys all wore a tail coat under which was a white shirt with a stiff Eton collar, a waistcoat, with piping the wearer’s house colours. This cumbersome ensemble was finished off with a somewhat foppish, floppy, hand-tied bow tie of a preceding era; again the wearer’s house colour.

The long black trousers – shorts were were forbidden, even for the first formers – were held up by braces over the shoulders, which were in turn hidden by the waistcoat. Only the colour of the boy’s tie, together with the matching waistcoat-piping, relieved this sombrely funereal, black outfit. By way of underwear, all boys were required to wear a vest or undershirt, and in terms of underpants – Y-fronts were yet to be invented – the boys wore loose fitting long-johns. So dressing and undressing was a somewhat laborious business.

Whilst the two condemned lads were shedding the necessary items of clothing to allow them to present their bare arses to the bite of the cane, Augustus opened the handsome, wall-mounted, two door cane-cupboard,  Behind its elegantly simple doors was housed the inventory of implements of punishment, which the previous  Headmaster had bequeathed to his successor.  With its two doors fully open this cupboard resembled a medieval, religious triptych, intended as an altar piece for a church. With its two doors fully open, instead of the customary religious image on the centre panel, was displayed a graduated series of straight-handled rattan-canes.

Augustus selected the heaviest, senior cane, an implement just under  a half inch in diameter and therefore weighty enough to deliver  considerable pain, but still flexible enough to bite deep into the recipient’s bare buttocks and leave him with the stripes of a well-beaten arse.

Turning to the two lads, who had by now shed their clothes, he said: “Harris, you first; come over here, boy, and bend across the back of this chair. Hold your bare bottom high, put your hands on seat of the chair and keep them there. You may not touch your bottom whilst I am applying the cane. I you do so, I will give you extra strokes for disobedience. Then do not move until I tell you you may do so.”

“Whitfield, I will deal with you later. However, you have heard what I have just said to Harris, which applies equally to you. So, when your turn comes, which it will, don’t make me repeat myself, otherwise I might find myself giving you extra strokes for inattention. Meanwhile, you, boy, now go and stand facing the wall over there, place your nose against it, your hands on your head and remain that way until I tell you to bend across the chair to receive your caning.”

Augustus much preferred beating lads aged 15 and above, to beating younger boys. They were, by that age, well into their first maturity as young men, and had much firmer and more muscular buttocks, on which he could exercise his flagellative expertise to the limit, which is precisely what he now intended to do to both of them, starting with Harris.

He looked down, almost salivating at the prospect of shredding Harris’s arse, which was, as yet, in a pristine, unblemished state, due solely to the long summer vacation, which had erased all traces of any previous encounters with the cane. Neither Harris nor Whitfield was a stranger to the cane. In fact, quite the contrary; the previous school year, the two bosom partners in crime, let us call them, had together been beaten on the bare – there had never been, nor would there ever be any other way at Churton – no less than six times: three times by the head-boy: of which, twice for running in the corridors; twice by their housemaster; and once by the previous Headmaster.  The two of them, in spite of their assertions to the contrary, were a pair of inveterate rule breakers  and deserved everything which Augustus was about to visit on their bare arses.

It seemed poetic justice that Augustus’s two maiden beatings as newly appointed Headmaster should be of two boys who clearly were repeat offenders of the selfsame, serious misdeed. Patently, neither of them had learned from their previous experience, about which Augustus knew nothing as he prepared to beat Harris. However what neither of the boys realised was that which they were now about to experience at the skilled hands of Augustus, would be the most painful experience of their lives Churton to date, knocking all previous beatings into a cocked hat.

Augustus stood to Harris’s right and laid the cane gently across the midpoint of the tremblingly expectant buttocks before him. At the first gentle touch of the cane, the lad automatically flexed his muscles to protect himself from the oncoming onslaught. He was immediately told by Augustus to relax if he did not want to receive extra cuts.  It is a well-known fact that tense buttock muscles cause the cane to bounce on impact, rather than biting into the relaxed flesh and producing the pictorial stripes of a well-beaten beaten arse.

Augustus gently sawed the cane to and fro a few times, as if finding the right place. Then suddenly, with no warning, the cane was whistling shrilly downwards, from over Augustus’s left shoulder, to land with a resounding crack in the exact place it had left, just a brief moment ago. Harris had been caned many times previously at Churton and from that first stroke, somewhat of a connoisseur, he realised that this was to be no ordinary beating, painful but bearable, such as he had experienced many times in the past. The new Headmaster had moved into a totally different league to anything he had previously experienced; and his three years at Churton, he had experienced a lot, as he was one of those boys, who simply could not keep himself out of trouble

The rattan cane, wielded by a variety of persons: Headmaster, housemaster and prefects seemed to have a remarkable affinity with the lad’s arse, which it had visited quite often; but never before quite like this. With that first cut of the cane, Harris felt as though his backside had been cut in half by a red-hot poker; the pain was absolutely excruciating; far worse than anything he had ever experienced before. He had promised himself as he bent over the chair to be caned that he would not give the Headmaster the satisfaction of hearing him cry out in agony. It was a promise he broke on the third stroke as he howled out loudly with pain. By the fifth stroke he was crying out, in vain, for for mercy.

Augustus was of the firm opinion that a beating should be as painful as possible if it was to be effective; needless to say, he practised what he preached. As stroke followed swingeing stroke, with that all important, appreciation pause between strokes, gradually a series of strictly parallel, well-defined, livid furrows developed across Harris’s arse, from the small of his back to the top of his legs Augustus placed nine evenly spaced cuts, a appropriate word for the welts he gave the lad and then told him to get up and go and stand with his hands on his head and his nose against the wall, alongside Whitfield. 

If Harris had thought that his plea for mercy had been answered, with nine strokes of the cane, he was shortly to be sorely – literally and figuratively – disappointed, as Augustus had decided to split the promised 18 strokes into two session of nine cuts each. But while it lasted, his own mental delusion was a brief respite for Harris

In a stentorian voice he now ordered the nervous Whitfield to assume the position over the chair and delivered him his first nine strokes. He he was then again ordered to resume is uncomfortable position against the wall, whilst Augustus delivered the balance of nine strokes to Harris’s arse. By the time he had finished with Harris, the lad was sporting a supremely well-beaten arse, which was a livid, bruised mess. The same applied to Whitfield, who was ordered to reassume the position over the chair to allow his punishment to be completed. By the time Augustus had finished with the two lads, they were both in excruciating agony, the likes of which, as two habitués of the cane, they had never before experience even vaguely the like. If Augustus intention was to teach the lads a lesson, it had certainly been learned by the two miscreants.

Augustus stood back and surveyed his handiwork and silently congratulated himself on a job well done. Harris and Whitfield meanwhile felt that they would, never again be able to sit down comfortably. Certainly for the next few days, meals for them would be taken standing, rather than sitting, at table. But in class, the same unrelenting mentality reigned among the teaching staff. The boys were given no quarter by any of the masters and were forced, all day, to sit on the hard wooden seats of their desks and grin and bear their pain. Together, they silently thought that their new Headmaster was true sadist and a master beyond compare with the cane. If the two thoughts had ever been verbally vouchsafed to him, he would surely have treasured them, whilst reinforcing their jaundiced view of him, by beating them again. 

As Augustus closed and locked his study door behind the two departing boys, for him it was mission accomplished. He could now, in private, sink back into the comforting arms of the manual self-abuse of sexual gratification, as he assuaged his rock-hard cock already leaking pre-cum, due to the strong sexual arousal  he had experienced from perform his first beating since he had left Rigby, now  several months ago.

It is quite amazing the shot in the arm effect that his self induced orgasm had on relieving the sexual tension which always developed whenever he beat boys, but which due to his forced abstinence since he had left Rigby, had risen to an untenable level. Post-flogging masturbation was, in fact, an integral component of the enjoyment, which, Augustus derived from beating boys on the bare.  For him the combination of arse beating, followed by a session of masturbation, was a toy which never failed to please; but then, when did a sexual orgasm, even if self produced, ever fail to please anybody?

What Augustus had not foreseen, was that the news of his ground-breaking, precipitate action to thrash Harris and Whitfield would flash like greased lightning around the School. Thus, more or less from his first day at Churton, he had established a reputation as the hardest of hard-line disciplinarians, a fact which pleased him greatly, and which, in the coming years, he was to reinforce by his actions.

Chapter 9

Augustus inspected again the Birching Room next to his study between which was a communicating door. On inspection he saw that although there was a birching frame on which the unfortunate boy receiving this most dramatic and feared of all punishments could be strapped, the dreaded implement itself was nowhere to be seen.  On questioning Miss Forsyth about this, he learned that his predecessor had indeed been a regular user of the birch, particularly for the older boys. She then went to explain that the reason for the absence the rod itself,  was that as the School had been closed for the summer vacation, the birch-rod, being of limited useful life, had been discarded and required  replacement.

Ever helpful, she informed him that the assistant gardener, a man called James Prior, was in charge of fashioning the implement and that he had, in the past three years, regularly replaced it due to its limited useful life. “If you wish, Sir, I can arrange for Prior – in the class-ridden society of the time, Miss Forsyth subtly placed James Prior in a class lower to her own, by referring to him as Prior, rather than Mr. Prior – to come to see you and then he can explain to you the exact arrangement he had with the previous Headmaster for the regular supply of birch-rods. Personally, I only know that the birch-rod, to be effective, needs to be replaced regularly as it deteriorates rapidly;  but that was something  your predecessor arranged directly with Prior.”

Efficient as ever, just before lunch Miss Forsyth informed Augustus that Prior would come to see him at 5 o’clock that very day. In her delicately tenuous way, she reminded him of his engagement at 4:30 when he was scheduled to administer his first beating to the two boys who had received punishment notes on only the second day of term. “I thought, Sir, that in telling Prior to come to see you at five o’clock would allow you ample time to deal at your ease, with the two boys, who are on today’s punishment list and will present themselves at your study 4:30.”

Augustus had not forgotten that he would conduct his inaugural beating of the two boys at 4:30 today:  an act, to which he was looking forward enormously; but then when did he ever not? Beating boys’ arses on the bare had become, for him, like one of those favourite toys, which never fail to please, no matter how often they are played with. But over and above the personal satisfaction, not to mention the sexual arousal, which he always got out of wielding the cane, today’s inaugural beatings had taken on a special significance. Not only did he wish to announce to the entire school, on only the third day of term, that the time honoured system of the Headmaster’s punishment note beatings at 4:30 each day – that is how he already thought of them – was alive and well, but that under his new administration, they would be reinforced by raising the standard tariff from six to twelve cuts of the cane.

He saw beating the two boys, whom he did not know from Adam, as his example to the whole School that the new Headmaster was a force to be reckoned with.  The two lads, both left Augustus’s study, each with a tear-stained face and sporting an excessively well-beaten, painfully striped arse, which would testify, in the ritual, post beating, wake-like, prurient viewing by their class-mates of the new Headmaster’s handiwork, of his prowess with the cane and dedication to discipline. And so it was in a very contented frame of mind, having flogged the two haplessly ill-fated lads quite mercilessly, for no other reason, other than that they were the first boys to be thrashed by him as Headmaster that Augustus prepared to meet James Prior, the fabricator of that legendary rod of justice, the birch.  

For some reason the very of mention of the birch made most boys quake in their boots, at the thought that it might one day be used on their own naked backsides.  Being objective and laying myth aside, in competent hands – and Augustus certainly had competent hands – the cane was just as excruciatingly painful as its fabled, corrective partner. The cane left its victims with a longer, more painful souvenir, than the birch, by virtue of its incisive, cutting nature. One even spoke of cuts of the cane, which produced well-defined, long-lasting, painful welts. However, whether produced by cane or by birch or, as we shall see, a combination of both, the infamous, well-beaten arse was seen by the boys as something to be avoided like the plague.

Unfortunately, boys being boys, with headmasters like Augustus, beating was a regular feature of life at Churton and other public  schools. In late Victorian times the maxim: Spare the rod and spoil the boy was taken very seriously in disciplining boys and with Augustus, the rod was never, ever spared!

At precisely five 5 o’clock Miss Forsyth ushered James Prior into Augustus’s study. Augustus was visibly taken aback, well-nigh thunderstruck, by the appearance of James Prior, who was an extremely handsome and attractive, muscular young man, whom he guessed was about the same age as himself, or even possibly a year or two younger. He had been expecting a grizzled, hoary old gardener, who looked as though he had been around since the foundation of the School. Much as Miss Forsyth, a spinster of indeterminate-age, was the archetypal institutional, private secretary, Augustus had built a picture of the head-gardener in his mind. It somehow did not seem quite right to Augustus that he would be dealing with such a young man about the fabrication of that most emotive instruments of corporal punishment: the birch.

Augustus’s surprised, reflex reaction on first seeing him, had not escaped James Prior, who had also similarly been taken aback by the youth of the new Headmaster. He too had a preconceived concept of the typical public school headmaster, as being a mature man, of forbidding, stern-looking appearance, capable of giving any boy, who deserved a beating, absolute hell with the birch. He had not anticipated the new Headmaster being the handsomely attractive, young man in front of him Augustus, as has already been remarked was a very good-looking man, in spite of his sadistic traits.

Augustus, you will remember, for the past several years at Rigby as housemaster, had satisfied his natural homosexual tendencies in a harmonious sexual relationship with an older man, the then Headmaster of Rigby, Dr. Anthony Adam Rhys. It had been wrench for Augustus – in fact, for both of them – to break off what had been the only stable, satisfying, sexual interlude in his live.

However, fired by ambition to further his career, Augustus had accepted his present post as Headmaster of Churton. However, as Churton was on the other side of the country, that sexual relationship had, perforce, been allowed to wither. As Augustus had not had sex for about two months, as an active gay man, to use a word, which that time had not acquired its present day, exclusive meaning, to describe a homosexual man, he was feeling severe withdrawal symptoms, which he knew he had to satisfy regularly, if he were again to feel comfortable in his skin. Vulgarly put, he was in need of a fuck.

Sexual attraction is not anything which man is able to control; it is just something which happens. Looking at James Prior standing there before before him to discuss the future regular supply of the all-too- fragile birches, Augustus became aware that his cock was already stirring, at the sight of his attractive young man. He attempted, with no success, to dismiss the thought from his mind, but sexual attraction is such a strong and all-controlling force, when it gets a grip on a guy’s mind, that it is not so easily banished.

Augustus realised that it was quite absurd, for him, the Headmaster of Churton, even to think of having sex with Prior, one of the School’s employees, a mere gardener, and a man of a lower class then him. Augustus had already shown to himself his inbuilt class-prejudice in by thinking of James Prior as Prior and a mere gardener. Class distinction in Victorian Britain was so rigidly observed that such liaison were totally in thinkable and just did not happen; did they? Well, in fact, they did; and, to boot, quite often. But with typical Victorian high-minded hypocrisy, they were never even mentioned, let alone discussed in polite society and were systematically brushed under the carpet.

However, immediate sexual attraction is often mutual between two people. At that moment, unbeknown to Augustus was the fact that like himself, until he had been forced to break off his sexual relationship with Tony Rhys on his own move to Churton, James Prior was a dilettante, unattached, sexually active, homosexual man himself, who frequently dipped his wick into a variety of village sources. James Prior had, at first sight, been as sexually attracted to the Augustus, the new Headmaster, as Augustus had been to him the head-gardener. Augustus, who had become a keen observer of human behaviour, after several years as a housemaster dealing with boys, thought he discerned a glint of sexual arousal in James Prior’s eye, mirroring his own.

Being less inhibited by class-distinction than Augustus, and being sexually aroused by looking at his new Headmaster, when they had finished discussing the future regular weekly supply of birches to Churton’s Birching Room, James Prior flew a kite. “Headmaster,” said Prior: “Over the past three year since assuming the post of head-gardener, I have been making so-called birch-rods for the School’s  Birching Room. As we have discussed, the rod, which is in fact a bundle of twigs, is a very fragile and short-lived implement of punishment, which demands a great deal of work to maintain a regular stock of viable examples.”

“In use, as the old Headmaster told me several times, one rod is often insufficient to thrash even one boy properly for his sins. This set me thinking; and so, for the past year, I have been experimenting, of course, in my own time, Sir, with different sources of twigs which make up the birch-rod. I have a number of prototypes in my workshop, one of which I consider superior to the present birch which I would be happy to show you if you wished. You could come around to my workshop to see my work, any time you wished, Sir.”

Augustus was almost pissing himself with joy as he saw that the attraction he had felt on first sight for James Prior, was mutual. The young man had taken the initiative and was intent on exploring their obvious, but as yet unspoken, mutual attraction, the one for the other. Prior had intuitively divined that they had been sexually attracted to each other on first sight  and was extending an invitation to Augustus to a place with an ambience more conducive to a relaxed discussion of their mutual attraction rather than the formal surroundings of the Headmaster’s somewhat imposing study.

Not wishing to appear too eager to accept the invitation, ostensibly to view the gardener’s inventive handiwork, Augustus said: “Well Prior, your dedication to duty is exemplary. Thank you for your invitation which I would gladly accept if I were sure that I would not be disrupting your family life.”  

The gardener answered quickly: “Sir, you could come whenever you wished, Sir, as being a bachelor; I am always alone in the evening.”

Just to allow himself discuss thing with James Prior, would have been considered a grave mistake in the eyes of his peers. One did not talk to one’s servants other than about matters directly related to their work. The received wisdom of the day was that the best relationship between master and servant was for the master to give the order and for the servant to execute it. To have a discussion with a servant the way Augustus had just done and even to think about accepting an invitation to visit his workshop was unthinkable.

Prior’s invitation had made Augustus aware, that the head-gardener was a foot-loose and fancy-free young man, who lived alone in one of the School’s bothies,: one of numerous rudimentary dwellings, which the School provided and in which unattached members, of the outdoor staff, all of whom were now under the direction of the young head-gardener, could live.

Augustus, never one  to let grass grow under his feet when he wanted something; and there was nothing he wanted more at that moment, than to pursue what he sensed was the germ of a sexual relationship with this handsome young man. So he picked up his diary from his desk, turned it to the page for the day, surveyed what, in fact, was blank page. He then turned around again towards Prior and said: “Well I see that I am free this evening, as I have a cancelled appointment, so if that would suite you, I could come along and view your handiwork after supper, at say half past eight.”

“That will be absolutely fine, Sir. And so I look forward to showing you, Sir, what I think are the significant improvements I have made to the traditional birch, Sir. But you can judge that for yourself, Sir, once you have tried it out on someone. So eight-thirty it is, Sir; I take it you know where I live, Sir? But in case you are in any doubt, I will draw you a little plan, which shows the location of my bothy and workshop in relation to this main School building, where we are right now, Sir. So I look forward to seeing you again this evening, Sir.”

Augustus did not quite know what to make of this conversation with Prior who was obviously as keener than mustard for him to see his new birch and visit his dwelling. Augustus hoped that Prior’s eagerness would extend beyond showing him his handiwork. But what was Augustus to make of Prior’s remark that he could judge for himself, once had tried it out on someone. Was Prior intending to order some hapless, half-wit member of his junior staff to allow his arse to be birched by way of a demonstration, to allow the new Headmaster, the new master in charge of the School, to judge the superiority of the newly designed implement of corporal chastisement conceived and produced by the head-gardener?

Augustus dismissed that idea as being totally ludicrous, but we are in an age of strict, bowing and scraping, and forelock-tugging respect for authoritarianism, where everyone knew his position in life. So it was not totally inconceivable that Prior could have ordered one of his junior underlings, a lad of 15 or 16, to offer his arse as a sacrifice in the name of the so-called greater good.  But what really happened when the Headmaster arrived at Prior’s abode would also have defied the imagination of any normal, rational-thinking man. But then neither Augustus nor James Prior, as it turned out, could be described as normal, rational-thinking men  the way their minds were working, for the moment quite independently.

The meeting began in the gardener’s workshop, attached to the bothy in which Prior lived. He initially took Augustus, whose knowledge of botany was nil, through the variety of tree species from which he had taken samples in his search for the perfect quality of twig from which to fashion the so-called birch-rod; in itself a misnomer as the so-called rod, consisted not of a single, flexible switch cut from a tree, but of a bundle of fine twigs, which together gave that most dreaded of all implements of punishment it unique quality. Prior explained to Augustus that the birch tree itself after which the dreaded implement  was named,  had long been abandoned by most public schools as a source of material for its namesake instrument.

As Prior warmed to his subject, it soon became obvious to Augustus that the search for what he saw as perfect birch had become for him as head-gardener, an obsession rivalling that of Jason’s mythical quest for the Golden Fleece.

Prior explained to Augustus that the more sturdy hazel had replaced the birch tree as a source of raw materials for its namesake implement of punishment. Birch twigs were just too fragile; they had been suitable for only one thrashing; and even that was at times the limit; often two birches were needed to give a single boy twelve stroke birching, which at Churton had long been par for the course. Thus it was that the present birch-rods, which Prior made for the School, were fashioned from the stronger hazel twigs. But even these had a limited life. He was obliged, on an almost weekly basis, to replace the two hazel birches, which stood in buckets of water in the Birching Room, in readiness for their next victim.

On and on went Prior showing his profound knowledge of, and obvious fascination with the whole business of birching and caning of public schoolboys. He finally came to the point of the meeting as he produced, what in his eyes, was the nec plus ultra, the holy grail, so to speak, of birch-rods, which, it transpired, was made of the wiry twigs from a Japanese maple.

Prior now waxed lyrical about his new birch-rod. “You see, sir, I found, quite by accident, the stump of a Japanese maple, which had been cut down by mistake by a young garden boy, for which he was given a clip behind the ear and immediately dismissed. The stump had thrown up a thicket of dead-straight, wire-like shoots, all of which I cut off and from several of which I made the present implement, Sir. Since I cut the twigs, the maple has already re-sprouted, Sir, and I see it, if correctly managed, as an almost continuous source of material superior to any other that I have been able to find. And believe me, Sir, I have been looking for over a year, for the perfect raw material from which to which to make a birch with a longer useful life.”

“It is my considered belief, Sir, that the Japanese maple provides the best raw material, from which to make birch-rods, Sir. And, if I may be permitted to observe, Sir, I think that the birch-rod I am now showing you is capable of producing more intense pain than any other birch you have ever used, Sir. Sir, the birch will inevitably remain an implement of relatively short useful life, as unlike the rattan cane, which is made from seasoned materiel and has an almost indefinite life, the birch is made from live twigs, which inevitably dry out and become brittle, leading to a need for constant renewal.”

“But what would a public school be without this most traditional of British punishments. Sir? To abandon the birch, because of its inconveniently short life, would to me, as an observer and admirer of the British way of life, be to emasculate that most British institutions, the public school, which I, humble workman though I be, admire profoundly and am glad to serve. In my view, such places as Churton are the source of educated true gentlemen from whose ranks the leaders of our country and Empire are chosen”.

Then, as if to emphasise devotion to the birch, he brought the newly made rod rapidly down through the air. It emitted a shrill, swishing sound, sure to put the fear of God into any boy unfortunate enough to have to expose his bare buttocks to this, the most frightening of all punishments. 

Of course what Prior did not know, was that the new Headmaster, had never used the birch in his career to date. The birch at Rigby, as in most other public schools, was reserved strictly for use by the Headmaster alone. Augustus’s only experience of this the most traditional of punishments, had been when, as a pupil at Rigby, he had been birched by the then young Headmaster, who was, years later, to become his lover. What neither Augustus nor Prior had realised was that at that moment, history was more or less about to be made; the great class-divide between the two of them was about to disappear.

Augustus, much less of a patriot than was evidently Prior,  to judge  from the somewhat emotively mawkish, flag-waving  words had just uttered, was nevertheless impressed by the gardener’s obvious dedication to the birch. More astonishingly, as a working man from the lower classes, was his surprising empathy with the ethos of the British public school.  Was it his fringe association with upper-class life, which propelled him to his next act, we shall never know.

Out of the blue, Prior unexpectedly said to Augustus; “Sir, I made the birches for your predecessor for past three years and as I have told you, for the past year, I have been actively searching to improve on the hitherto standard implement, both from the point of view of its longevity and the increased degree of pain, which, in the right hands, I believe it can deliver to the unfortunate recipient. After all, Sir, it seems to me that the whole purpose of birching a lad is to punish him for his wrong-doings and leave him with a long-lasting painful backside to remind him of the error of his ways.  Sir, with the maple-birch I have just shown you, I think I have succeeded in the aim I set myself.”

“Now I appreciate, sir, that the birch is an instrument of punishment used in schools such as Churton, exclusively for the chastisement of young gentlemen of quality and not for the likes of a working-class gardener such as me. However, I wonder, Sir,  in view of the development work  I have done over the past year, if you would accord me the single honour, Sir, allowing me to be first person to experience the success, or otherwise, of my efforts?”

Augustus could hardly believe his ears. Prior had just requested him, the Headmaster of Churton, to do the unthinkable: to birch him, his head-gardener, a paid servant in the employ of the School. Prior had quite wrongly thought – or better put – had assumed that the new Headmaster was expert in wielding the dreaded rod of punishment, when nothing, in fact, was further from the truth. Had Prior any idea at all, of just how painful a birching was?

Augustus thought back with an inward shudder, to that one day, all those years ago, when as a teenager himself at Rigby, he had been ordered to bare his backside and offer it to the Headmaster for birching. Now more than ten years later, he could still remember the excruciating pain he had endured. Had Prior any idea at all, what he was requesting?

However, reflecting back over what Prior had said when issuing the invitation to visit him to see his handiwork, Augustus surmised that Prior had always intended to ask to be birched himself. He had said: “But you can judge that for yourself, Sir, once you have tried it out on someone.” Augustus now concluded that the someone, to whom Prior had alluded, had always been himself. He had known from the moment he invited Augustus to visit him that he would ask for himself to be birched. 

Reading between the lines of Prior’s fine and complimentary words about English public schools, they now took on a different significance. The poor young man had deluded himself into thinking that in sacrificing his own arse to an act that he saw as being the preserve of young gentlemen, he, a humble gardener, would, albeit in the few moments of agony, followed by the long-lasting, painful aftermath, be their social equivalent. At least for a few brief minutes he would be elevated to their station life. And for that he was prepared to extremely painful price. As the saying has it: there’s nowt as queer as folk!

As we all know, nothing – well, perhaps just one other thing – gave Augustus so much pleasure as thrashing a naked arse: any arse: but especially one possessed by such a handsome young man as James Prior was so utterly enticingly offering him on a plate. The fact that Prior was labouring under the misapprehension that the man whom he was asking to birch him, was an expert and regular wielder of the very implement he wished to experience himself on his own arse, did nothing at all to deter Augustus from agreeing to carry out the young man’s wishes – indeed not !

By the time that Prior had finished his longwinded and circuitous request for Augustus to beat him, Augustus himself was already sexually fully aroused with his cock leaking precum into his pants as if there was to be no tomorrow.  Now, ever since he had been head-boy at Rigby and beaten his first arse, whenever he beat anyone, which, as head-boy, was pretty often, he always became sexually aroused. Post-beating, he normally locked himself in his study and attended manually to the needs of his cock.

But never had he been as aroused as he was today at the prospect of beating any arse, as he now was by the anticipation of birching James Prior.  The thought of conducting his first birching on the arse of a man, to whom he had been sexually attracted at first sight, was just too good to miss. Thus, although he realised that he was sailing into unchartered, potentially stormy  waters by flogging one of the School’s out-door staff, who was way below him in the then all important social pecking order, he agreed to birch Prior.

The reader should be aware that we are in an époque when class-distinction was rigidly observed and even talking to a social inferiors, as Augustus had done, in discussing Prior’s activities with him, as distinct from giving them an order, was unheard of; it simply was not done. Already, by agreeing to visit Prior in his dwelling and listening to the young man’s long and varied disquisition, Augustus had taken his first step down the slippery slope to perdition. But such is the power of sexual attraction, which no knows no social barriers and leads men and women alike, to do what the society in which they live considers foolish.

It goes without saying that Prior was beside himself with joy that Augustus had agreed to birch him. Whether he would be quite so happy with the pain, both during and after the birching, was another matter. However, as things developed, he would have other things to distract him from the very real pain of the flogging. Augustus, having thrown caution to the winds, saw no reason to apprise the young man of his misapprehension that was an expert with the birch. In one way it was again a double first: Prior had never before had his arse birched and Augustus had never before birched and arse. So it was unknown territory for both of them.

Chapter 10

When Augustus had agreed to birch Prior, they had been together in the gardener’s workshop, a shed adjacent to the bothy where Prior lived and into which they now moved. The place consisted of two rooms; a living room with a few bits of furniture, including a table across which Prior would, in a few minutes stretch himself and present his bare arse to the not so tender attention of Augustus, wielding the new, improved birch-rod.  Augustus was impressed at the cleanliness and neatness of the place, which indicated to him that Prior had a great deal of self-respect, a rare trait for a young man living alone.

The second room, into which Prior now disappeared, Augustus supposed was the bedroom. As Prior was going into the other room, Augustus reminded him that the birch was applied to the bare buttocks. (He had not yet become sufficiently familiar with Prior to use word arse, to refer to that all-important, target area.) Prior replied: “I know that, Sir, and I just going into the bedroom to prepare myself, Sir. Leave it to me, Sir; I know the drill, Sir.”

When a few minutes later, Prior re-emerged from the bedroom, he showed that he certainly knew the drill as he had put it. Augustus had expected Prior to divest himself of his lower clothes and bare his backside. But never, in a month of Sundays, had he expected to see Prior emerge totally naked as he now did. Augustus was totally dumbstruck, but also enchanted, by what he saw. When he had first seen Prior in his study, he had been immediately attracted to the young man. Now in all his naked glory – and glory is not an exaggeration to describe what he saw before him – James Prior can but be described in the idiom of today, other than a perfect hunk.

Beauty, as ever, is in the eyes of the beholder. August was completely entranced by what he saw, which in his eyes was the most perfect and sexually desirable specimen of male manhood he could ever have imagined. James Prior was a handsome muscular hunk, with a sizeable and attractive penis, who exuded male sexuality in spades from every pore of his muscular body, which was hairless apart from his head of light brown hair, which he wore long in the fashion of the time.

He was just short of six feet in height; and as befits a man who worked every day at a physically demanding job, he had not an ounce of fat on his perfectly balanced, beautifully muscled body. But his pièce de résistance, on which Augustus’s eyes immediately focussed, was the package between his legs. Over a generous pair of balls, held close to his body, Prior’s well-proportioned, rubbery cock, at present flaccid, but by no means limp, descended in a graceful curve at least seven inches long. It ended in prominent cock-head, which was, surprisingly, fully exposed. Circumcision was not then a common practice in England, as it still remains today.  But the fact that Prior’s cock had been expertly cut – not one scrap of foreskin remained to spoil the profile – rendered him even more sexually desirable in Augustus’s eyes.

He was not at all embarrassed by his nakedness and made no attempt whatsoever to hide his masculinity from Augustus. In fact, quite the contrary; for encouraged by the look on Augustus’s face and the reality, plain for anyone to see, that Augustus was almost dripping at the mouth with lust, Prior boldly flaunted his rapidly hardening cock which totally uncontrollable, had already commenced its inevitable upward journey, directly in Augustus’s face.

For a moment, astonished by what was happening, Augustus stood there, transfixed to the spot, holding the birch, the true pièce de résistance of the occasion, in his right hand. He quickly saw that Prior’s outrageous behaviour had been designed to arouse him sexually. It confirmed what Augustus had divined and hoped for when they had first met in his study; the sexual desire he felt for Prior was, in reality, mutual. 

Augustus was both pleased and exasperated by Prior’s antics, offering himself to him, quasi on a plate as it were. Even though he was delighted about Prior wanting him as much as he wanted Prior, he felt that the young gardener had gone just a step too far in his presumptuous behaviour towards him as Headmaster.

Although Augustus desperately wanted to fuck Prior, somehow he could not divorce himself so easily from the rigid, social attitudes of the time, with which he had grown up and to which he had hitherto wholeheartedly subscribed. According to the then inbred attitudes, Prior, was his social inferior, a premise of the time, which Prior himself would readily have accepted. As such his presumption towards Augustus, who was the head of the School, smacked of lèse majesté. 

Naturally, given his inbred, uncompromising  attitude towards class, Augustus  felt that he had to regain the moral high-ground and retrieve his superior position, which he felt he had lost due to Prior’s bold, unequivocal action, saying  “Fuck me!” Quite how he was going maintain his notional feeling of superiority, when push came to shove, as it inevitably soon would, given the grip that sexual attraction for Prior had on him, was another bridge to be burned  when he finally ahd crossed it.

For the moment he adopted a somewhat commanding tone of voice, as he ordered the naked Prior to bend across the table.  Prior, who had requested the birching, did not take amiss Augustus’s authoritarian tone and did as requested. He wisely sandwiched his now fully erect cock together with his balls, uncomfortably between his belly and the top of the table, thereby keeping his crown jewels out of reach of the depredations of the birch.

Viewing Prior’s beautifully muscled buttocks, Augustus felt a sight flutter of uncertainty as he prepared to deliver his first ever stroke with the birch to Prior’s, as yet unmarked arse. He felt an inner moment of regret that he was about to deface a pair of such pristinely beautiful buttocks. However, he had no intention of giving Prior a soft ride; but when had he ever given any boy a soft ride, when it came to beating arse?

After the first stroke, Augustus breathed an internal sigh of relief, as he saw that due to the composite nature of the birch-rod, he did not need to be so accurate in placing the cuts as was the case with the cane. By its naturally spreading nature, the birch-rod distributed its painful message over a considerable area. By the time Augustus had delivered the standard tariff of twelve strokes, Prior’s previously unmarked arse was completely covered with hundreds of fine cuts where the maple twigs had bitten into his bare flesh.  Just looking at the first arse he had ever birched, Augustus asked himself how Prior had supported such painful onslaught without emitting a single sound, as he had in no way held back.

Once the final stroke had been delivered, Prior remained bent over the table.  In keeping with his obvious desire for sex, he now spread his legs, showing his tight anal pucker ready for penetration.  It was a case of actions speaking louder than words; it was patently obvious what Prior now wanted Augustus to do. Augustus, who, even before delivering the birch, had been so sexually aroused that his cock had already been leaking precum in spades, was now totally in the grip of sexual desire that he could not help himself. He issued a totally unnecessary order to Prior, telling him not to move from his present position. He then went into into Prior’s bedroom, to emerge a few minutes later, as Prior had just previously done: stark naked and with his cock fully primed and ready for action.

The two of them had had no discussion about sex; they had arrived quite naturally, by force of the strange circumstances, which had brought them together, at a position where Augustus’s cock was, perforce, top to Prior’s bottom. So as they took their first sexual step towards sexual union, they had no idea at all of each other’s sexual preferences. They were even unaware of the fact they were both cut from the same cloth and preferred men to women.

There was neither seducer nor seduced; the only thing, which they both knew from the moment they had first met, without a word passing between them of their mutual desire, was that they both desperately wanted to fuck each other. At end of the day such unanimity of mind, is a good a basis as any for starting intimate sexual relationship between two men.

Augustus looked longingly at Prior’s inflamed arse and the anus, which he was about to penetrate. Since leaving Rigby and saying a fond and drawn-out, active farewell to Tony Rhys, the Headmaster of Rigby, his long-term, in-situ sex-partner, he had not had sex for several weeks.  Augustus had known when he had accepted the Headmastership of Churton, a school located on the other side of the country practically in Wales that he would be breaking off the only shared sexual activity in his life and that he would initially be alone with only his five-fingered lover for sexual gratification.

The relationship between Tony and Augustus had been based more on mutual need rather than on passionate love.  So when the break came, as it, perforce, inevitably had, it was accepted by both participants with regret rather than the disastrous break-up of a couple initially united by a deep love, which had soured over time. Each one went his own way without the feeling that he had lost the love of his life, which neither man most certainly had not.

Augustus, to whom, like most men, sex had become a necessity of life, had been well aware, since leaving Rigby, of the need to find a new regular sex partner, as he had been temporally reduced to the lonely act of masturbation for sexual relief. Since leaving the embrace of Tony Rhys, Augustus, loner though he was by nature, not given to close personal relationships, had quickly realised that wanking was no substitute for the pleasure of fucking another warm body. In fact, he missed having sex with Tony, his old long-term partner, more than he had ever imagined he would. But then, even before had begun to search for a new partner, like manna from heaven, James Prior had appeared, a young man, to whom he had been instantly attracted, in a way which he had never before experienced with any man.

Now here he was, later the very same day that they had first met, gazing down on an arse, which had been offered to him voluntarily for punishment, with his cock rock-hard and dripping precum, like a leaky tap, preparing to penetrate what looked like a muscular anus... Could things ever have been better? He had just been handed a beating and a fuck on a plate, by a very willing partner, whose arse he had just birched red-raw. One way, what was about to happen now mirrored his former sexual activity: Headmaster and Augustus Caesar the subservient housemaster, copulating together. Now, however, he was the Headmaster and the subservient member of staff was his head-gardener.

There was, however, an important social difference. Augustus’s relationship with his Headmaster, although it would have been frowned upon by the society in which the pair moved, was nevertheless, socially acceptable. They were two males of the same social class fornicating together; so their peers, in as much as any homosexual act was considered acceptable or even mentioned, would have turned a blind eye on what was an illegal act. However, in the class ridden, double standards society of the time, in preparing himself for sex with his lower class head-gardener, Augustus was skating on very thin ice. One just did not do such things. But the fact of the matter was, sexual attraction being quasi irresistibly strong, that one did.

Such homosexual – unnatural , was the polite word used to describe them – liaisons were strictly against the then law of the land; if taken in flagrante, or even simply seen with intent, both parties to such acts, could face a prison sentence with hard labour and a flogging to boot. The feeling of the time, irrespective of social class, was that homosexuals were criminals in the eyes of the law and were to be denounced, hunted down and punished for their supposed crime: which in many cases was an act of love. But whether for love or for lust, between consenting adults, the law was iniquitously inflexible; however, it would not be changed until almost a century later.

He had already gone further than would have been considered acceptable among his social equals in talking to Prior and agreeing to thrash him at his own request. If he had thrashed Prior, in master/servant context because he deserved to be beaten for misconduct, then that would have been quite another matter. But for a master to lower himself and depart from what was considered appropriate behaviour and pander to a servant’s wishes to be beaten, was something unthinkable.  In the eyes of his peers, he was lowering himself to Prior’s level: or, alternatively, from Prior’s point of view he was requesting his master to do something to him which was way above is station.

But now that he was poised cock-ready to fuck Prior, Augustus knew that he he was definitively crossing the Rubicon of social acceptability; if his peer group every found out what he had done, he would be treated as an outcast. But as he thrust this penis into Prior’s anus, he cared not one whit for what his peers would think, if they were ever even to find out. He was in that vice-like grip of sexual desire, which could rarely been gainsaid; and as was presently to prove the case, usually emerged victorious.

Augustus, in spite of his sadistic character, was not, and never had been, a sexual philanderer. He had never yielded to the temptation, quite common among public school masters, of sexually importuning any of the boys whom he, as their housemaster, had frequently thrashed on the bare: even when it was clearly offered to him. He had, in fact, had only a few sexual partners in his entire life, preferring, at any one time, the sort of monogamous type of relationship he had had with the Headmaster at Rigby.

Augustus had never played the field as many young men of quite distinguished social backgrounds, often do. In a word, Augustus was not a sower of wild oats. In sexual relationships he had never developed any real feeling for his respondent partner. Even in his long term relationship with Tony Rhys, the Headmaster of Rigby, had been for him – for both of them, in fact  – and act of necessity; of satisfying their own libidos, rather than one of love.

But now all that changed. As he slid himself inside of James Prior, his cock needing no lubricant other than his generous, spontaneous emission of precum, he suddenly knew that this was different to anything which he had ever experienced previously.  He was already so aroused by the birching he had just given Prior, that within a few powerful thrusts of his cock, he was no longer able to hold himself back and shot his load deep inside of his new partner. 

As soon as the ever fleeting, but wonderful sensation of orgasm had passed, he realised, for the first time in his sex life that he had a partner, who also needed to be satisfied. In his sexual encounters to date, when he was topping, as he now was to James Prior, once he had satisfied himself by climaxing, even in his long term relationship with Tony Rhys, the Headmaster of Rigby, he had not cared one iota for how his partner felt. When topping, he had, hitherto, treated Tony as a warm body with a convenient hole, into which he could thrust this cock and satisfy his lust. And when bottoming for Tony, he had expected to be treated in the same way. Theirs had been an undemanding sexual liaison of convenience, which had rendered their breakup easy, when he had left Rigby; there had been no mutual recriminations.  

But with James Prior, from the first moment he had seen him, it was quite different. He realised with a shock, that although he hardly knew the man he was fucking – he had known him only for the few hours since five o’clock that very day –he had already developed feelings for him. Sexual attraction is like that; it quite often does not develop gradually, but suddenly takes you unawares by force. It holds you in its inescapable grip so that you are powerless to do anything but follow its diktats.

Augustus, intoxicated by what he had already done to Prior, was now determined to show his partner that he had not been abandoned. He continued to batter Prior’s arse forcefully with his cock, until, by dint of sheer hard work, he succeeded in bringing Prior to orgasm without him having to work his own cock manually while being fucked; itself no mean feat.

Bringing Prior to orgasm, simply by fucking him was a revelation for the young man, who had never before experienced the like. But it was even better than that; for as Prior’s body shook violently beneath him in the the automatic reflexes of his own orgasm as he shot his load deep inside of Augustus, Augustus, with that last mighty thrust of his cock, which had taken Prior into that state of utter ecstasy, which is orgasm, suddenly climaxed himself for a second time. So in their first sexual union, Augustus had, by accident, stumbled up the holy grail of gay anal copulation; the simultaneous orgasm of top and bottom partners, the significance and rarity of which neither partner to the act had been aware, until it had actually happened. 

But they did not have to know anything about sex, to recognise that, sharing each other’s bodies, as they were, they had both just lived through a few moments of quite exceptional pleasure, unequalled by anything either of them had ever experienced to date; and they were both men of considerable previous sexual experience. It was this uniqueness of their first fuck that cemented the bond between them, which was itself the inevitable sequel to their first instantaneous, visual, mutual attraction.

Augustus, with his own cock still embedded deeply in his partner, having, successfully fucked Prior through to orgasm, was left somewhat in a quandary at what was to happen next; he certainly did not want the evening to end there. Although Augustus was a confirmed gay, with several years of regular anal copulation under his belt, it had been exclusively monogamous, with a rather staid, older partner, Tony Rhys, the Headmaster of Rigby. He was unaware of the pleasures of uninhibited sex as commonly practised between young men of his own age, where no holds were barred and nothing, however outrageous, was taboo. In this respect, James Prior was much more worldly wise than Augustus, who had, nevertheless, just given him the most intense orgasm of his life. Thus each of them brought different talents to what was rapidly to become a permanent relationship.

As for James Prior, he too had no intention of letting what had started as a uniquely promising occasion to peter out without exercising himself on his partner, an act which he was desperately determined to accomplish. Powerful and decisive young stud that he was, he pulled himself up from the table and extricated himself from the anal embrace of his Augustus’s cock. He then took Augustus by the hand and led him into the bedroom, where he literally pushed him flat on his back onto the bed. Knowing exactly what he intend to do, he then laid himself down alongside Augustus, who was trembling with anticipation of the unknown and gently initiated him into the pleasures of oral sex and act which in all his  years with Tony Rhys, neither of them had never indulged,.

He began by kissing Augustus fully and firmly on the mouth. Augustus was at first shocked by this, which seemed to him an act of of lèse majesté: an act more intimate than sexual intercourse itself, as it brings both partners, somehow spiritually nearer together. For Augustus, it was the closest anyone had ever been to him in his life; it was, for him, at that very moment, the very first intimation of love from someone else, of which he had been unaware, until that very moment. Until now, it was something which had been lacking in his life. With that kiss, Prior had come closer to Augustus, whom he hardly yet knew, than Tony Rhys had done in several years of anal sex. That kiss was a revelation: a wake-up call to Augustus, who, from that moment on, relaxed and allowed James Prior free reign to do what he wanted to his body.

After that long intense, initial kiss, Prior detached himself from Augustus’s lips and kissed his way lovingly all down his body until he reached his penis, which he commenced to lick with his tongue, thereby introducing Augustus gently of the first time to the pleasure of fellatio. With Tony Rhys, they had confined themselves strictly to fucking each other and had never indulged in oral sex of any kind; between them it had been a strictly anus-penis arrangement. James Prior showed himself to be an expert at oral sex and quickly aroused his partner, first by sucking and licking his cock and then taking it fully into his mouth. Augustus, who had never before experienced the like, was enraptured and was not able to stop himself climaxing for the third time.

But Prior’s sexual talents had not yet been totally revealed, as he now pulled himself up and knelt between Augustus’s legs which he held vertically against his shoulders, while he unhesitatingly thrust his iron-like, circumcised rod full-length into  Augustus’s tight anus. He did not mess around preparing Augustus for penetration but thrust himself vigorously as deeply as possible inside his partner, until he could go no further. This brutal, totally unforgiving start presaged the rough fuck, which followed. Gone was the gentlemanly approach to anal copulation, which had characterised Augustus’s former liaison with Tony Rhys, to be replaced by the brutally vigorous hammering of his hole with a sledgehammer of a cock, wielded by James Prior.

Augustus was totally gobsmacked in the nicest possible way, by Prior’s approach to sex, which was diametrically opposed to anything he had ever before experienced.  Prior’s lack of finesse, was amply compensated for, by his vigorous, no-holds-barred approach to anal copulation. It was exhilaratingly different to anything Augustus had previously known. He was blissfully euphoric and completely exhilarated by what was being done to him. To say that he had been transported into seventh heaven by Prior, was not an exaggeration.  Prior himself finally managed to climax deep inside of Augustus. With one final, powerful thrust of the full length of his cock he archived his own orgasm and shot his load, in a classic series of violent, reflex jerks, deep inside of his partner. As Augustus had just previously done to him, each of them had now been inoculated with the other’s semen, which somehow, drew them closer to each other.

However, in spite of his vigorous, everything-goes attitude to sex, Prior now showed himself not insensitive to the needs of his partner, whom he had figuratively just battered to a glorious death with his cock. After a short pause in which he composed himself after his attack on Augustus’s anus, he knelt over his partner and orally sucked him to orgasm, the copious emission of which, he partly swallowed, whilst taking the rest across his face. Augustus, who had never experienced oral sex until now, basked enraptured in the feeling of the ultimate consummation of their first union.

Any reservations between the two of them having now been definitively banished, as two lovers, which is what they now had become by deed, if not by word, they spent the next two hours together in Prior’s bed, gently exploring the most private places of each other’s bodies; and, as lover’s do, intermittently copulating. It was a sort of premature honeymoon, as the two of them had only just met. But their first union, ignited by that the spark of interest which had flashed between them on first sight, before they had even exchanged a word with each other, had convinced both of them that they were destined by fate to be together.

When Augustus finally left, sexually drained, it was two o’clock in the morning. He and James Prior, now Jim and Gus to each other in private, had known each other for precisely nine hours of which five had been spent at Prior’s bothy. In those five hours only God had kept count of the number of times that they had fucked each other. By the time Gus left to go to his own bed, the two of them were inseparable; hopelessly in love. It was union of opposites; yet each of them filled the other’s heart’s desire. The success of this unlikely union of two very different personalities from different social classes, was that they did not try to change each other; both of them accepted his partner as he was and for what he was.

Throughout their long and successful sex life together, Gus remained the courteously restrained lover he had always been, in contradistinction to the merciless way in which he continued to beat the boys at Churton. Jim, meanwhile remained the vigorous dynamo of robust sexuality he had shown Gus on that first occasion. But they were wise enough to accept each other exactly as they were, for better or for worse, warts and all. They became a devoted a couple, although the then benighted law did not permit them to be officially committed to each other.

They had both realised that important fact: a leopard cannot change its spots. To jump ahead and conclude this chapter on Gus’s sex- life with Jim Prior, the union formed that night never wavered and was destined to last a lifetime, When Gus finally retired in 1921 after 38 years as Headmaster of Churton, during which time he never hesitated to do his duty and thrash the boys in his care, whenever they merited it – a pretty frequent occurrence, Jim Prior retired with him and they moved to Dorset, Gus’s home county, where they lived out their lives in complete harmony. Theirs was truly a match based on love.

Chapter 11

Miss Forsyth proved invaluable in drawing Augustus’s attention to the ways Churton worked. Wisely, he usually followed her suggestions, imposing his own strict disciplinary ideas on the traditional procedures of the School.  For instance, he increased the standard tariff for any boy seeing the Headmaster – a euphemism for being summoned to the Headmaster’s study for a beating – from six to twelve strokes.

This was the initial announcement he made at the first full assembly of the School, over which he presided daily. His announcement was met by a generalised audible groan. Did it in anyway inhibit the boys from their normal mischievousness? Of course it didn’t! What it did do, however, was to give Augustus greater personal satisfaction and sexual arousal when he beat boys: as time passed, an ever more frequent occurrence.

He tightened the screws on the boys by allowing not even the slightest misdemeanour to go unpunished. Indeed, punishment quickly became the name of the game at Churton. To this end he introduced the concept of a demerit diary, in which even the slightest fault could be noted in the form of a demerit mark. But the sting in the tail, figuratively and actually, was that any boy with ten demerits was honour-bound  to present himself at five o’clock on Friday afternoon to the head-boy, for a mandatory-no-questions- asked-twelve-cut caning, of course on the bare,. The entire system was like asking a turkey to vote for Christmas.

For those boys who forgot to keep tabs on their diaries, thereby missing a visit to the head-boy; or as occasionally happened, decided just risk being caught,  the direst off dire consequences ensued. Policing of the diaries was in the hands of the prefects, who, with characteristic, maliciously sadistic diligence, descended, without warning on a given class and conducted a detailed examination of the diaries.  For any boy who was found, let us call it, cheating, either by design or accident, the consequences, non-negotiable as ever, were very painful. The offending boys were called verbally by name in chapel on Sunday and requested see the Headmaster before lunch, when they had the misfortune to experience the newly introduced Double Whammy.

The Double Whammy was is something which Augustus had introduced to supplement the maple-birch developed by James Prior, which he used principally on older boys. His predecessor had more or less stopped beating sixth-formers, with both cane and birch, judging incorrectly, in Augustus’s view, that as young men they should know how to behave themselves. Augustus’s experience as housemaster at Rigby, told him a different story. The sixth-formers were just as capable of misbehaving as their younger brethren. He did however subscribe to his predecessor’s view that the sixth-form young men should, in principle, know how to behave better than their younger school-mates; but their transgressions should, therefore, in his view, be punished more severely than those their younger brethren.

To this effect he insisted that the housemasters of all six houses at Churton to be hyper-vigilant and refer directly to him, any sixth-former whom they caught in the act of breaking any of the many rules and regulations which governed life at the School. After all, why should he delegate the job of birching older boys to his colleagues: an act, which, anyway, many of them found distasteful, when it gave him so much satisfaction? Augustus’s strategy worked and he was able to satisfy his lust for beating older boys; always, it has to be added, for a justifiable reason. Any boy submitting his naked arse to the bite of the Headmaster’s birch knew that he deserved what was coming.

Augustus was new to the birch. Having been birched just once himself as a boy at Rigby, his maiden use of the fabled rod had been  when he birched his now permanent lover, James Prior, who was a prime example of a man, who had been hoisted by his own petard, having himself developed the very implement with which he was being thrashed. However, taking like a duck to water to using the birch, after birching a few sixth formers for their misdeeds, Augustus wondered if the fabled rod was truly as fearsome as its reputation.

Certainly it delivered intense immediate pain; but was it pain which lasted? By its very nature, composed of a bundle of light twigs, the birch is capable of giving its victim an arse which is painful over its entire surface. But as its individual twigs do not deliver deep individual cuts, the pain, although excruciating at the time of its delivery, is relatively superficial and soon diminishes to no more than a not-unpleasant, warm, tingling feeling.

It was this realisation that led Augustus, wishing, as ever, to leave the recipient of his efforts with a long-lasting, painful souvenir of his misdeeds that led him to develop what was to become known as the Double Whammy: a series of strokes of the rattan cane applied to a boy’s already painful, well-birched arse.  The cane, by its very nature, concentrates it venomous message one narrow furrow with each stroke. If applied to a well-birched arse, it delivers not only excruciating pain on impact, enhancing that just delivered by the birch, but long-lasting pain, which reminds the recipient of the folly of his ways, for several days each time he sits down.

Doubtless, the technique of supplementing a birching with additional strokes of the cane, had been used elsewhere, as Augustus was not alone among public schoolmasters of the period to treat his pupils excessively severely; he was also not alone in enjoying thrashing boys across their naked arses. But Augustus published his thoughts on the whole subject of the cane as a desirable supplement to birching, in an article which appeared under the heading The Double Whammy, in the trimestral journal called The Public School Master.

The technique, which in those harsh and unforgiving times, quickly became widely adopted in other public schools, became known as the Churton Double Whammy, which placed Churton School firmly on the map as an original and progressive thinker on the role of corporal punishment:  a subject which exercised the minds of many public school teachers at a time, when severe caning and birching of public school boy was considered de rigueur.

The first sixth formers at Churton to experience the joy of the double whammy were named Alastair Mercer and Jonathan Small, whose housemaster had caught them smoking and drinking together and had rightly handed them over to the Headmaster, while at the same time feeling disgruntled at being deprived of the opportunity of administering a very sound caning himself.  To be caught smoking OR drinking, was bad enough; but to be caught smoking AND drinking at the same time was a near to a capital offence as a Churton beating ever came. It was automatically punished by a fifteen stroke birching. Therefore the offence of Mercer and Small qualified them right royally for the latest innovation in punishment: the Double Whammy.

Both young men knew that having been caught in flagrante that they were almost certain to be birched. Therefore they were not surprised to be told by their new Headmaster to wait at the appointed hour outside the door of the Birching Room. Augustus, however, really put the psychological screws on the two young men, by making them stand around for almost a half hour in the corridor before he called them in to face what then passed for justice. Exceptionally, Augustus granted their joint request to be flogged together.

However, by the time they enter the Birching Room to face the music, which was essentially percussive given the nature of the instruments involved in its execution – the birch, the cane applied sequentially to two muscular arses – the two lads were in a very nervous condition. Had they known what was in store for them, they would have been paralyzed with fear. They had no idea at all they were to be the first Churtonians ever, to suffer the Double Whammy for their sins: first the birch, followed immediately by the cane.

Augustus was at his jaw-jaw, pontifical worst as he addressed the two trembling young men before him: “Mercer and Small, you are both senior boys, young men in fact, beginning your final year. Well, all I can say is that you have chosen to begin it in fine style by breaking two of the most sacred rules of this School. I would not be doing my duty as Headmaster if I allowed you to escape from your misdeeds without exacting severe retribution from both of you. I wonder if either of you understands the gravity of the situation in which you find yourselves. I could justifiably expel the pair of you; however to do so would blight your future careers, which I do not wish to do.”

He now ranted on at is wordy best, laying laid it on in spades,  as he outlined the magnitude of their crime to them, making it sound like murder, when for them it had been a pleasant interlude having a fag and a drink  which had, alas, been discovered. He eventually came to the crux of the matter: “In smoking and drinking together, you have violated (an emotive word!) two of the most sacred rules of this School, for which as you must be aware, is reserved either expulsion or the most severely painful of punishments. As I have decided against expelling you, there is (surprise, surprise!) only one option now available to me: to give you both a very thorough flogging on your bare buttocks, which is what I now propose to do.”

“Both of you take of your coats, waistcoats, shoes and socks, and divest yourselves completely of your trousers and lower under- garments. I will deal with you first, Mercer. While I am dealing with your partner in crime, you, Small, will go and stand facing the wall over there; put your hands on your head and do not move until I tell you to do so”

Given the excessively cumbersome clothes, which all boys at Churton were at that time required to wear, the two lads took several minutes to bare their backsides. Watching them disrobe for punishment gave Augustus the germ of the idea, for what would be put into effect, at the end of the term, under the name of Appropriate Attire, for boys awaiting a thrashing; thrashings, which under Augustus would become an ever more common occurrence; by the end of Augustus’s first year as Headmaster, the birch and the cane would reign supreme and be in regular use at Churton

Augustus motioned to Mercer to prostrate himself across the frame and offer his bare arse for birching. He made as if to strap Mercer down. The young man then uttered his first words since he had entered the room and listened to the Headmaster’s violent tirade: “That won’t be necessary, Sir; I do not need to be strapped down, Sir. I will remain perfectly still whilst you birch me, Sir.” It was a matter of pride for the young man to behave with dignity like the young gentleman he knew he was. He knew he merited to be punished for the error of his ways and was ready to accept it. But did he merit to be punished quite so severely?  He was about to be birched and then caned, by an inherently sadistic Headmaster?

Augustus looked done at the unflawed, muscular buttocks before him as he raised the dreaded maple birth to deliver his first stroke. The birch delivered its painful message no less than fifteen times, leaving Mercer with an aptly named, well-birched arse, before Augustus ordered the hapless lad to get up and make way for his partner Small.   Whilst Small was preparing himself for the onslaught on his arse, Augustus, ordered Mercer to go and stand facing the wall, with his hands on his head. He did not even allow the lad the somewhat futile, but nevertheless, comforting gesture of being able to massage his painful buttocks in a vain attempt to assuage the pain he was enduring.

Small received precisely the same treatment as Mercer and was duly sent to join him, sporting an already painful arse, in a similar hands-on-head position against the wall.  Augustus, meanwhile, installed himself magisterially behind a table, which served him as a desk, allowing Mercer and Small, to luxuriate in the misery that is the inevitable aftermath of any percussive assault on a subject’s bare arse. 

Forbidden also to talk to each other, they each silently wondered why, as they had taken their punishment, they were not being allowed to get dressed and leave, to calm their naked backsides in the traditional way, with cold water in the lavatories. They knew they would have to exhibit their wounds to their house contemporaries of the upper sixth, who, in spite of their age, were still as pruriently curious as the younger boys to view a recently assaulted arse It seems to be a universal fact that the arse of a boy of any age, who has just been beaten, attracts viewers from his peer group, in much the same way a cow-pat attracts flies.

Augustus allowed the two lads to stand there, in their naked misery, for a full ten minutes before ordering them to come and stand to attention before him. The immediate hopes of the two, that their ordeal was over, were quickly dashed, as Augustus informed them that the birching was just part of their punishment, of which there was still more to come: “Mercer, Small, in view of the gravity of your offences, it is my sad duty to have to tell you that I do not view the birching you have just received as punishment enough. Indeed, I am sure that the immediate, painful effects of the birch are already beginning to fade to a dull, aching glow in your buttocks. However, I do not consider that as adequate retribution for your offences.”

Now came the final coup de grace, which made the two lads breakout into a cold sweat as they heard what the Headmaster still had in store for them; they were scared shitless by what they heard was now to happen to them as in his long-winded, pontifical manner, Augustus now informed the lads what he proposed to do to them.

“I have, therefore, decided that both of you need a supplementary punishment to leave you with a longer-term souvenir of the error of your ways than that achieved by the birch alone. As I have already remarked, the effect birch alone, painful though it is at the time of its administering, rapidly fades. I feel that you both need a longer lasting, more painful souvenir to remind you of the error of your ways and to discourage – I would like to have been able to say – to STOP you from doing the same again; but I suspect that would be wishful thinking on my part.”

The blade of the guillotine finally fell: “I have decided to bring up the total of your beating to 24 strokes in all, 15 of which you have already received from the birch. I now propose to give each of you an additional nine strokes with the senior rattan cane across your bare buttocks. I think you will find that this supplementary caning combines the property of being extremely painful at the moment of impact, with a longer-term souvenir of its passage. And let me just add, that if either of you is ever caught again either smoking or drinking, let alone doing the two together, I shall have no hesitation in giving you an enhanced, repeat performance of what you  will have received today. I leave it to your imagination as to what might happen of either of you is ever again caught smoking AND drinking at the same time.”

The two lads were almost wetting themselves with fear as they heard what was about to happen to them. If shitting bricks had been physical possibility and not just a vulgar expression for fear, there is little doubt that Mercer and Small would have performed the act there and then.  Can you imagine how they felt? They had just been birched for their sins and now were facing another, even more painful assault on their already painful arses. And so it was with tear-stained faces that the two of them left the birching room later that afternoon.

Each of them was supporting a well birched arse, embellished with nine, deep, parallel furrows, flecked with blood, etched by the senior cane. Their stripes were already turning from crimson to blue-black as they limped towards the potentially soothing cold water of the lavatories, the both agreed that new Headmaster was beyond the pale; and they did have a point.

But the lads’ woes were not yet over. Their housemaster, who had caught the pair red-handed smoking and drinking, felt very disgruntled; dispossessed, by the new Headmaster, of what he considered his God-given right to flog members of his own house for misdeeds committed under his roof, he had, until the arrival of Augustus, been a liberal user of the cane, as befitted a housemaster in an establishment like Churton with a reputation for strict discipline. He saw, in Augustus’s action, the thin end of the wedge, where gradually all flogging power would be concentrated in the hands of the Headmaster. As he saw things, the housemasters would eventually be reduced to issuing punishment notes, referring all wrongdoers to the Headmaster for correction.

To show his implicit disapproval of what he considered the Headmaster’s authoritative, overbearing highhandedness, he decided to make a stand, which unfortunately for them involved his giving a supplementary thrashing to Mercer and Small. However, for yet another sadistic master who enjoyed and got a sexual high when he beat boys on the bare arse, there was an added incentive to seize on any excuse to beat the two again. There was no way in which Mercer and Small merited a supplementary thrashing after what they suffered under Augustus. The news that they were to be thrashed by their housemaster arrived like a bolt from the blue, just one week after their painful visit to the Headmaster’s study. The peremptory order to report that evening to their housemaster’s study, wearing only their nightshirts, left no doubt as to the purpose of their  visit; they were to be caned! But as they had done nothing wrong, had they been they to attend their housemaster for one of his painful command performances?

The housemaster told the two lads when they stood trembling before him, that he had decided that their delinquency had brought his house into disrepute in the School, which reflected badly on him as responsible.  Therefore, he had decided, in view of the seriousness of their offence, to beat them again – ten strokes each of the senior cane on the bare – to show the whole house, and by implication, the whole School, that in his house, no misdeeds, if detected, would pass unpunished. Rules were there for a purpose and must be obeyed!

The two lads were dumfounded to learn that they were to be caned again for the same the same offence for which, by any measure, they had already suffered excessively at the Headmaster’s hands only one week ago. But they had no recourse; the housemaster’s word was law in his house and they were obliged to obey him.

As was customary with the pupils at Churton, Mercer and Small had been together in the same house with the same housemaster since their arrival. On several occasions over the years they had experienced their housemaster’s ire and expertise with the cane applied across their bare arses He was, in many ways like Augustus, and never missed an opportunity to thrash arse, if the slightest justification for such an action presented itself.

The housemaster said imperiously: “Mercer, I will deal with you first. Meanwhile, you, Small, will wait outside in the corridor until I summon you.” 

Once Small had left, Mercer was told to bend over the back of a chair, to raise his nightshirt, thereby exposing his naked buttocks to the not so tender care of the senior cane. Twelve times, rather than the ten promised, the cane rose and fell on his bare buttocks, refreshing the by now fading, but still sensitive, nine cuts if the cane given to him by the Headmaster a week ago, thereby adding another  three painful cuts to his misery. When Mercer left the housemaster’s study that evening, he was again supporting the searing agony of a twelve-cut, freshly beaten arse. The only thing positive that could be said about the housemaster, was that he was expert with the cane, a fact that he loved to demonstrate on any arse, which even vaguely required attention. “And, Mercer, as you leave, tell Small to come in.” added the housemaster.

As Mercer limped from the study, his tear-stained face said it all to his waiting friend. They exchanged but a few words. Small asked: “How many?” “Twelve,” came the reply:  “The old sod upped his promise by two. And I can tell you, he’s truly on form today, so, the best of luck until I see you later in the bogs.  Oh, and before I forget, he told me to tell you to go in.”  Small alarmed by the state his friend was in, made an effort to put on as brave a face as he could muster and entered the lion’s den to face his fate.

Later in the lavatories, under the all-too-brief, palliative effects of cold water, the two lads examined each other’s horrific stripes. The cursed as a pair of sadists, the Headmaster and their housemaster, both of whom had barely concealed the enjoyment they obviously got from the task of seriously striping two senior boys’ arses. And you know, objectively, the lads were right; along with lots of public school masters, both Augustus and the housemaster were both closet sadists, who enjoyed inflicting pain on boys.

To assuage their misery and relieve their feelings, Mercer and Small now did what thousands of public schoolboys have done over the years and would continue to do for over a century more when they have had a flogging; they jointly jerked themselves off and wallowed for a few moments in the pleasure of the self-induced orgasm, which momentarily allowed them to forget that they each had a seriously painful backside that would be with them for many days to come.

Any do you know what? Unbeknown to them, their housemaster pervert that he was, was in process of doing exactly the same thing solo, behind his locked study door. He had hardly been able to wait for Small to leave, as by that time, after administering a total of twenty-four cuts of the cane to a pair of alluring bare arses, he was so sexually aroused that he was fast reaching the point of not being able to control himself any longer. As he divested himself of his trousers and cum-soaked underwear – his penis had been leaking precum as if it were going out of style – he suddenly burst forth in an uncontrollable, automatic, reflexively produced orgasm, ejaculating his own semen all over the floor of his study. Messy though it was, he thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Chapter 12

Miss Forsyth had a knack of communicating to Augustus, the standard punitive schedule undertaken by his predecessor, of which she evidently approved, and which she clearly saw as part and parcel of running a major public school. She imparted the facts to Augustus in the form of  questions, implying that he was already aware of the point she was actually raising with him and that she just wanted confirmation. To cite a most important example: “Headmaster, before I forget, will you be continuing with the the usual post chapel beatings before Sunday lunch?”

She continued: “This coming Sunday, as it is the beginning of term only two boys have received punishment notes in class; but I am sure they will expect to hear their names called out as  boys you wish to see immediately after Divine Service on Sunday. Headmaster, the tradition is that they expunge their Friday’s sins before lunch on Sunday. Your predecessor also availed himself of the occasion to deal with (a euphemism for to flog) boys whom he had himself caught misbehaving during the week.” Then with a distinct tone of disapproval in her voice, she continued:  “Of course, Headmaster, now that you are in charge, you can, if you wish, make other arrangements.”

This was possibly the most hated occasion of the week by the boys, at which the Headmaster exercised his manifold talents with the cane on the bare backsides of those members of his flock, whom he thought would benefit from his personal attention. The horrible thing about the whole procedure was that, other than the Friday punishment note boys, who knew that they would meet their Waterloo in the Headmaster’s study after chapel, until the he actually announced the supplementary names of boys whom he wished to see, every boy in the chapel – the entire school, in fact – was on tenterhooks, wondering if, for some unknown reason, his name would be announced. It was just this unknown element, which added a distinct element of piquancy, for the Headmaster of course.

So why should Augustus change what seemed like a regular and successful fixture in the workings of the School? After all it gave him the opportunity to beat arse, a favourite pastime of his, as we all know, before Sunday lunch. He thought of it almost as an aperitif to the meal which, unless he had invited a guest, would be served to him in solitary splendour, by a butler old enough to be his grandfather.  Anyway, Miss Forsyth’s disapproving tone of voice said it all; he ought to leave things as they were; and that is precisely what he did. In the modern idiom if it works, why try to fix it!

Among other occasions, all involving the thrashing of boys, revealed in the form of questions by the indefatigable Miss Forsyth were:

The monthly Headmaster’s beating of boys, who had received bad report cards due to idleness, which was not tolerated and was punished severely. Obviously the Headmaster could not read 480 report cards. Each form-master read the monthly report of every boy in his form in detail and passed any questionable ones to the boy’s housemaster. The housemaster read the unsatisfactory reports, decided on a course of corrective action, usually involving an encounter of the bare arse of the unfortunate owner of the bad report boy with his housemaster’s cane.

However, any boy guilty of recividism – Laziness terminans, was what the Augustus called it, found himself facing a Headmaster’s birching.  It was quite common for boys at Churton, who were suffering from the well-known disease: terminal idleness, especially prevalent among the offspring of the stinking rich, landed gentry, to find themselves flogged twice in quick succession; first  by their housemaster and then  by the Headmaster in an attempt – often futile – to galvanise them into action. Needless to say, Augustus thoroughly approved of and participated wholeheartedly in this procedure.

Then there was what Miss Forsyth referred to as the ETT, which stood for End of Term Top-up, which was laughingly referred to by the boys as the End of Term Treat. However, when faced with the reality of the situation, most lads found that it was not much of a treat to be given a well-beaten arse by the Headmaster to accompany them home the next day. The ETT was awarded to any boy, who had had three beatings during the term, as a reminder to him to mend his ways in the coming term.  Augustus saw no reason to change this procedure, especially as it gave him his last opportunity to thrash a number of bare arses, before the every vacation, during which he would be deprived of a key activity, suffer withdrawal symptoms and become irritabl.

The ever diligent Miss Forsyth, as a matter of routine, collected and collated the signed records every single beating: This was no mean feat. The Headmaster, the six housemasters, the head-boy and 18 prefects (three per house) were all permitted to cane the boys, a mandate which they all took very seriously and exercised regularly. She kept every boy’s record up to date and had no difficulty in furnishing the Headmaster with a list of those boys, who having been caned at least three times during the term, were now the unfortunate beneficiaries of an invitation to attend the ETT.

The lucky lads were named on a list posted the evening before the last day of term on the central notice board. They all already knew that they would be summoned to see the Headmaster. It’s not rocket science for a boy to know that he has been beaten three times during term and would, therefore receive an initiation for to the Headmaster’s ETT. The unfortunate ETT lads were beaten by the Headmaster starting at 7 p.m. on the last day of term, to ensure that they all took a well-beaten arse with them on their journey home. Needless to say, Augustus upped the ETT to twelve strokes of cane to ensure that the recipients had an as uncomfortable journey home as was possible.

Under Miss Forsyth’s watchful eye, which practically verged on tutelage, Augustus successfully adapted himself to the standard punishment regime of his new school and flogged his way through his first term in his customary merciless way. By the end of term, he had established the enviable reputation, shared by the whole School, that in their new Headmaster, they were lumbered with a sadistic sod. And, you know, they were probably right! 

But in addition to his disciplinary activities that first term, he consolidated his sexual relationship with James Prior, the School’s head-gardener and maker of the dreaded maple-birch. They were lucky to have found each other. Their sexual techniques were as different as chalk and cheese, but somehow they seemed to have been made for each other. Whoever was playing the lead role when they had sex together, which was at least twice a week, completely satisfied his partner. It truly was a match made in heaven. James Prior provided Augustus with a willing arse to flog, as he never wavered in his desire to feel the bite of the birch regularly across his own bare backside. He was a godsend to Augustus during the vacations; Augustus needed to beat arse in the way a drug addict needs to take drugs.

Augustus’s first term as Headmaster ended with a bang on the evening of the last day of term before the Christmas break. Augustus was beside himself with joy, when Miss Forsyth, in her role as compiler and self-appointed guardian of the Consolidated Punishment Register, informed him that no less twelve boys – a round dozen – had qualified for the ETT.  It was the best Christmas Present he could ever have imagined; and it had been given to him by the boys themselves, thanks to their misdeeds during term.

Needless to say, that last evening of term, Augustus excelled himself, as one boy after another presented his naked arse for punishment. Each time the cane fell twelve times on two trembling buttocks, etching its Christmas message in the form of twelve, strictly parallel furrows, from the bottom of each lad’s back to the top of his legs. By no stretch of the imagination was this a message of good will, as each lad left the Headmaster’s study sporting an excruciatingly painful, well-beaten arse, which would remain with him for well into the Christmas holiday.

Augustus completed what for him had been a gloriously satisfying, sexually-arousing, end of term evening of flogging arse, by a visit to James Prior. As he was sexually psyched up, his immediate enthusiasm for sex transmitted itself to his lover and the two of them gave each other absolute sublime hell, until the early hours of the following morning.

Chapter 13

But it was not the twelve boy beating of the ETT, exceptional though that had been, which established Augustus’s formidable reputation for his implacable mercilessness in wielding the cane and the birch. Earlier in the month, his reputation had been well and truly established by what was to go down in the annals of Churton as the biggest blood-bath – metaphorically speaking, of course – of all time.

As Headmaster, Augustus took the Sunday chapel service, which every boy at Churton, who was not in the sick bay, was the forced to attend. After the usual religious service, came to the announcement of the names of the boys who had receive punishment notes on the preceding Friday; they already knew that they were to be beaten immediately after the service. But then came the most hated and tense moment of the week; seemingly pulled out of the blue, the Headmaster announced supplementary names of boys whom he also wished to see. As the names were announced, every boy held his breath, hoping against hope that this name would not be called, to answer for some offence he had committed and for which he was now being asked to pay the painful price before the best meal of the week: Sunday lunch.

Hated by the boys, the Sunday chapel service retained the sting in its tail and commenced like clockwork every Sunday at ten-thirty to end punctually at eleven thirty. This allowed an hour before lunch, which was served at twelve-thirty, in which the  Headmaster could conduct his pre-prandial thrashing of the boys on his list, whilst the rest of the School socialised, relieved that their own arses were not today on the firing line. Post-chapel on Sundays, there was a definite aura in the air among the boys of there but for the grace of God go I.

And so things continued as they had always been, until suddenly, on the first Sunday in December of Augustus’s first term at Churton, the boys received the surprise announcement at breakfast, that today the chapel service would begin an hour earlier than usual: at  nine-thirty rather than ten-thirty. No explanation was given for this sudden change, leaving the boys agog with speculation as to what this meant. They found out as soon as the Headmaster came to announce the names on his hated Sunday list of boys he wanted to see immediately after chapel. Lunch was also moved from its usual time of twelve- thirty to one o’clock

The unusual appendages to the Ibbotson names need a word of explanation.  It was and still is de rigueur to use only surnames in public schools. However when two sons of the same family, Smith, for example, are present together, the elder is normally referred to in public school speak, as Smith major, and the younger as Smith minor. However at the time of this story, quite exceptionally, there were four Ibbotson brothers at Churton, which posed a problem of nomenclature.  There had been much discussion among the classics staff on the arrival of the two younger boys, on how to refer unambiguously to the four Ibbotson brothers.

Until the arrival of the two younger Ibbotson boys, the two elder boys had been known as Ibbotson major and Ibbotson minor. This would no longer suffice now that there were four members of the Ibbotson clan at Churton. To make matters worse, the two younger Ibbotson boys were an obstreperous pair, always in some scrape or other. Moreover, they were identical twins; another source of a potential identification problem.

The senior classics master had finally decided that the words, maximus, major and minor leading eventually to the unacceptable appendage, minimus, which had insulting connotations, for the fourth, and youngest member of the tribe were unsuitable. He came up with an alternative that in future the four Ibbotson brothers would be referred to, by appending the Latin ordinal numerals from first to fourth to their names. Thus, in descending order of age, the Ibbotson quartet was henceforth referred to as Ibbotson primus, Ibbotson secundus, Ibbotson tertius and Ibbotson quartus.

The whole school went completely silent for a moment, as it digested the fact that both the Ibbotson twin brothers were to be thrashed. But Augustus had by no means finished as he continued to announce, by name, a seemingly endless list of boys, whom he wished to see after chapel. It now became evident, as the list grew ever longer, that chapel had been brought forward by an hour to give him ample time to thrash no less than 20 boys before lunch. He had obviously prepared two lists of boys, who were to have the distinctly dubious privilege of graduating to that painful state of possessing a well-beaten arse before lunch that very day,

Augustus, reading from a prepared list, intoned eight names in alphabetical order: “Appleby major, Atkins, Bamforth, Harris, Harrison, Ibbotson secundus, Tomlinson and Whittaker.”  He paused for a minute before continuing as if to let the significance of the list sink into the congregation; all eight boys were members of the lower sixth; but they were spread across the six Houses of the School; no younger boys were included.

“I also wish to see the following gentlemen: Hanson, Grattan-Smith, Jordan and Kendrew.” The whole School suddenly pricked up its ears. The four lads whose names had just been announced were all members of the upper sixth; moreover, Jordan and Kendrew were also prefects, who were authorised to beat their school-mates. But now, in spite of their elevated status, their names were on the Headmaster’s list of boys to be beaten.

Then the penny then started to drop, so that soon, by whisper, the whole School knew; the boys just named were all members of the Churton College Rugby XV: the team which represented the School in the inter-public schools rugger matches. They were all to be beaten for some reason.

Augustus, fully aware  the dramatic effect of his announcement was having on the entire School, waited for a full minute – an absolute age –  before pronouncing the final three names to a School, which had fallen into pin-dropping silence, waiting for confirmation of what it already knew: the names of the three final members of the Rugger XV. The whole school gasped at the enormity of what was about to happen, as Augustus said “I also wish to see the following gentlemen: Ibbotson primus, Makin and Siswick.” Makin was a prefect, and the rugger team-captain to boot; Siswick was a prefect and head of his house; Ibbotson primus, in addition to being a key member of the Rugger XV, was head-boy of Churton College.

So there it was; today promised to be the bloodiest Sunday in the annals of Churton; no less than twenty boys were to be thrashed by the Headmaster Five first formers, with punishment notes carried over from Friday, were each to receive the standard tariff of twelve strokes on the bare; that much was certain. But the most incredible thing – almost unbelievable – was  that the entire Rugger XV, made up exclusively of lower and upper sixth-formers, including two prefects, the team captain, Makin, who was himself a prefect, Siswick, a prefect who was head-of-his-house and, to crown it all, Ibbotson primus, the head-boy the School, were all to be flogged. And to cap it all, both Appleby brothers and all four Ibbotson brothers were to be among those to be caned.

Augustus now became very specific: “The five first form boys with punishment notes: Appleby minor, Bates, Carruthers and the two youngest Ibbotson Brothers, will assemble at half past ten precisely in the corridor, directly outside the door of my study; I will deal first with those five boys, all of whom have punishment note carried over from Friday.”

“The eight gentlemen from the lower sixth: Appleby major, Atkins, Bamforth, Harris, Harrison, Ibbotson Secundus, Tomlinson and Whittaker, will similarly assemble in the corridor outside my study at eleven o’clock precisely. Hanson and Grattan-Smith from the upper- sixth, you will join your younger team-mates from the lower sixth at eleven o’clock and wait with them. And you, Ibbotson primus, as head-boy of Churton, will also join your team-mates from the lower sixth, together with Hanson and Grattan-Smith, again at eleven o’clock precisely.”

Jordan and Kendrew, as prefects you will join your senior team-mates Makin and Siswick and wait in the corridor outside the Birching Room at twelve o’clock precisely.

A buzz went round the assembly like greased lightning, as the Headmaster concluded his first round of announcements, dividing the 20 boys into three separate groups for chastisement. The question on every boy’s lips was why the head-boy, Ibbotson primus, had not been included in the senior group of prefects, who were obviously in for that direst of punishments: the birch. It seemed grossly unfair to the assembled boys that head-boy was, apparently, to escape the worst of all floggings; the birch. Only a few boys had suffered the bite of the maple-birch, made available that term for the first time, by the courtesy of head-gardener, James Prior; but they were unanimous that once was enough. It really was a case of once bitten twice shy, for those who had been unfortunate enough to taste the new version of the traditional, fabled implement of public school punishment

This was to be a painful tragedy for the 20 participants; but a sort gala for the observers. It would give would give rise to a great overt outpouring of sympathy and equally a deal of covert Schadenfreude, at the traditional, post-flogging viewings by the peer groups of those, who had been unfortunate enough to be obliged to present their bare arses to the chastising merciless bite of the Headmaster’s cane and birch.  What no one appreciated, including the fifteen members of the rugger team, was just how ruthlessly unforgiving the Headmaster could be when he really tried; and today was one of those occasions when he really intended to try.

He intended to make punishing of the fifteen members of the rugger team into a piece of high drama. The preliminary punishment-note beatings of the five first formers, was really very day, run-of-the-mill stuff and not anything for the School to get excited about.  Although if he had troubled to ask the five first formers their view, after they had each received twelve cuts of the cane across their bare arses, he would probably have heard a different story. But although the five young lads had not yet been beaten, and when the moment arrived and he was wielding the cane, he knew he would enjoy striping five unmarked sets of buttocks, they had already faded into insignificance in his mind, as he thought of what he had in store for the fifteen members of the rugger team: that truly was the stuff, which gave birth to legends.

But Augustus had yet another dramatic announcement to make to the assembled School, whose members were figuratively salivating with anticipation of what was about to happen. There is always a prurient tension in the air when a beating is about to take place. Today the tension was so electric that you could cut it with a knife.  What he was about to say to the entire School would eventually find its way into many of England’s public schools, especially those where discipline was strict and beatings were frequent.

He addressed the entire School and said, pompously and with great seriousness, as if to emphasise the gravity of the situation: “By now, you will all doubtless have realised that today is no ordinary Sunday. No less than twenty of your school-mates are to be corporally chastised in retribution for their misdeeds.  This has imposed an exceptionally heavy burden on me, your Headmaster, to whom it falls to administer what is an extremely severe, but nevertheless, a justly deserved punishment.”

“I have therefore decided to lighten my burden by making access easier to the nether anterior parts of a boy’s anatomy to which the traditional punishment with the cane is applied on the bare. All boys, whom I have named for today’s proceedings will present themselves for punishment, at the appointed hour, wearing only their gym shorts and singlets. This form of attire will henceforth become obligatory, for any boy who presents himself to me for a beating. You will all see that this attire is more appropriate for occasions when a boy is obliged to remove his cumbersome normal clothes to bare his bottom, which is to be beaten.”

This was possibly not the first time that a schoolmaster had required boys to present themselves to him for a beating, wearing only the flimsiest of skimpy clothes. It was, however, the first time that such attire had been formalised as a rule. What was soon to be known as Appropriate Attire had been born at that precise moment, From the point of view of the punishment, it made not one whit of difference to the beating to be dleivered, whether the lad bared his arse by slipping off a pair of gym shorts or by the laborious removal of the then common, cumbersome school outer clothing, However, psychologically, it made the boys feel more vulnerable standing there, tantamount to naked, waiting to be called in to have their naked backsides thrashed.

Chapter 14

But the burning question remained; why was the whole rugger team, the pride and joy of the whole School, whose members were idolised by many of their younger school-mates, who saw themselves, in a few years, playing rugby for Churton College, being thrashed?  What had the team done to merit being named as a group and humiliated in front of the entire School? They had just, Saturday afternoon, returned victorious from an away-match with another public school, Frogmore near York and were riding on a wave of victorious euphoria.  And therein lays the source of their present downfall from grace.

The team, accompanied by the senior PE instructor and his assistant, had travelled to York and back by train. On the journey home as might well be expected they were very jubilant to have thrashed the Frogmore side. It was whilst they were waiting on the platform in Hereford for the branch line train to take them to Great Churton station, from where they could walk back to the School, that the PE master overheard a mention of some celebration which was apparently to take place at eleven that at evening in, of all places, the cricket pavilion. 

The idea of the rugby XV celebrating its victory in the holy of holy’s dedicated to the gentlemanly game of cricket was just ludicrous; but there it, apparently, was. The game of rugby, considered by most public schools as a sport for gentlemen, who could not possibly descend so low as to play football, which although a game of much greater skill than rugby, was played by the hoi-polloi. With its brute force, rugby is the absolute antithesis of cricket, that other game, which is considered by public schools as the true game for gentlemen. The cricket pavilion with all its connotations was therefore a most inappropriate place to have rugby shindig; but as the pavilion was remote from any of the School’s main buildings, it was the ideal place to have a rave-up, the true concept of which was well over a century in the future.

So the senior PE instructor, who likes many of his breed was a sadist and himself a vigorous user of the cane and slipper, aware the consequences of his action, with malice aforethought, duly brought to the Headmaster’s ear, that an illicit party was planned for that very night. Augustus, never one to miss an opportunity to collect cannon fodder for his cane, duly went around to the cricket pavilion around around midnight and found the whole team making merry drinking and smoking and already three sheets to the wind.

Augustus was both elated and appalled; elated because he had caught fifteen sixth formers breaking the rules (and how!) which meant the he could exercise his sadistic percussive skills on fifteen, muscular. naked arses, to which he was already looking forward with pleasure; but, simultaneously appalled to think that five of the upper sixth formers were prefects, of which one was team captain, one was head of his house and, to cap it all, one of whom was head-boy of the School were all taking part in this illicit celebration. Needless to say, his appearance brought the jollifications to a juddering halt.

All the team members, having been caught in flagrante, by the Headmaster himself, breaking God only knows how many rules, they knew that they were in for a rough ride;  but just how rough the Headmaster could be when he put his mind to it – as he intended to do – they had no idea. It was for them as great a surprise, as it was to the whole School, to find that Sunday chapel had been brought forward by an hour.

But when they heard, with no prior warning, their names announced as on the list of boys to be seen by the Headmaster before Sunday lunch, they knew their goose was well and truly cooked. The four prefects, who had been told to wait outside of the Birching Room, were especially shit scared, as Augustus had shown himself merciless whenever he birched a boy. But when was he not merciless whenever he beat arse?

10:30 saw a very nervous group of first formers, wearing the newly minted appropriate attire assemble in the corridor outside the Headmaster’s study. The five boys with punishment notes: Appleby minor, Bates, Carruthers and the two Ibbotson Brothers, had good reason to be nervous, for as thirteen year olds, having survived their first term at Churton without a visit to Sir’s study until now, were facing a draconian twelve stroke beating on their bare bottoms for their sins. Not surprisingly they were all almost wetting themselves with fear.

Sir, which is how they thought of and referred to their Headmaster, now called them altogether into his study and addressed a few frightening words to them about their fate. He then said:  “Appleby, I will deal with you first; the rest of you will wait in the corridor until I call you in”.

Poor Appleby minor, left alone in the formidable presence of Sir, was, not at all surprisingly, petrified with fear of what was about to happen to him; and with good reason for a twelve cut beating on the bare is not anything to be shrugged off lightly by anyone, let alone a thirteen year old schoolboy; it cannot be considered as the equivalent of a flea bit! In keeping with his normal philosophy, Sir did not spare Appleby’s feelings as he built up the psychological pressure on the young lad by opening up his cane cupboard, exposing the full armoury of weapons of punishment to his view.

Sir now showed the worst side of his sadistic character. He was subjected the lad to an agonising wait, as her made as if he was hesitant about the right cane for the job, when, in fact, he knew exactly which one he would use to thrash five lads.  For effect, he fiddled with selecting cane, which he swished down through the air under Appleby’s nose, psyching up even more, the already terrified lad, before finally picking out the one which he had known all along he was intending to use. Finally, he said to Appleby: “Well I think we are now ready to begin. Step out of your shorts and bend across the beating horse over there.”

Beating bare arses had become, under Augustus as Headmaster, such a regular activity at Churton, that he  had ordered for his study a special beating chair, of which the top back rail, heavily padded and covered in leather, was adjustable in height, to ensure that the buttocks being beaten were in the perfect position to receive the cane. The unfortunate subject, who was being beaten, was required to bend, arse naked, over the back rail of the chair and place his hands firmly on the chair seat under his nose. This was the position, in which the unfortunate Appleby found himself, after having been told brusquely by Sir to take off his shorts and bend across the chair.

“Appleby minor, in retribution for your misdemeanours in class, which were serious enough for the teacher to issue you with a punishment note. This automatically means you will be subjected to a twelve stroke beating in retribution for your misdeeds in class. It is my unfortunate duty, as your Headmaster, to administer this punishment. I will first give you ten parallel cuts, followed by two diagonal gating cuts. Brace yourself, boy, for this is going to hurt. Do not move until I tell you to do so, otherwise I shall give you additional strokes or disobedience.”

Sir had not been exaggerating when he said that the caning was going to be painful. Appleby minor had been swished many times during his earlier years at Churton Court prep school before entering Churton College at the beginning of this school year. But never before had he experienced anything even vaguely approaching the excruciatingly searing pain, which Sir had managed to inflict on his arse.

When finally told to stand up, to put back on his shorts and leave, he could only waddle. He felt like most boys, who had ever benefitted from Sir’s undoubted expertise with the cane, as if he would never again be able to sit down. As the first boy of twenty to to be beaten that Sunday, he left bearing the hallmark of a bare-buttock public school beating: a superbly striped, well beaten arse. As he left Sir’s study, with his face stained by tears, Sir said: “And Appleby, as you leave, kindly tell your partner in crime, Bates to come in”.

Bates and Carruthers were quickly despatched; despatched but when it came to the Ibbotson identical twin brothers, Augustus told them both to come into his study together, as he intended each lad to see his brother beaten. Custom was that if a series of boys were to be beaten they were dealt with in ascending order of age: youngest first, eldest last. The two boys were a pair of mischievous imps, a born pair pranksters; it had been their impish behaviour in class, disrupting a mathematics lesson several times, which had so exasperated the mathematics master, that he had issued both of them with punishment notes. However, even faced with a certain beating as they now were, they had still not learned their lesson.

Chapter 15

Unable to tell which was which, Sir asked: “Which of young two young gentlemen is Ibbotson quartus?” The two lads, not realising that they were playing with fire and liable to get burned, both answered, almost giggling: “I am, Sir.” Then to the amusement of Augustus, followed a piece of obviously pre-rehearsed repartee, in which both accused the other of fibbing:  “No you’re not quartus, I am; you’re mistaken.”  “No, no, it is you who are mistaken; I am quartus and you are tertius.” On and on they merrily went, accusing one another of being the other twin, inferring that they were both mistaken as to their identities.

It was all a game to them. But what they did not did not seem to realise was that they were already in hole, into which, with every word they uttered, they were digging themselves in ever deeper. Augustus allowed them to go on with their piece of theatre for half a minute before he brought the matter to an end.

“A neither of you two gentlemen seems to know precisely who he is perhaps a little extra attention with the cane to your posterior will help restore your lost memories, which I am sure are only temporary. You are both holding punishment notes, which carry a mandatory tariff of twelve strokes of the cane applied to your bare bottoms. I think I have just enough time before my next appointment to stretch to giving you each a further six strokes of the cane. It is quite amazing what a restorative a medicine the rattan cane can be if applied soon enough and the malady has not progressed too far, which I suspect is the case with you two gentlemen. So I propose to render you a service by giving each of you six additional, therapeutical strokes of the cane to nip your temporary memory loss in the bud before it becomes total.”

Realising now just how drastically wrong their farce had gone and faced with extra punishment, the lads, not surprisingly, did a complete about turn and attempted to back pedal to retrieve the status quo on the cane. They now agreed to agree on who was who. The putative tertius said: “Whilst you were talking, Sir, we suddenly discovered that our memories had become clearer, Sir. I am, in fact, tertius, Sir, and this is my brother quartus, Sir.”

“And do you agree, Ibbotson quartus, with what your brother has just said?”

“Oh yes, indubitably, sir, I have fully remembered that I am Ibbotson quartus, Sir. It appears, Sir, that our lapse of memory was just temporary, Sir. Under the changed circumstances, Sir, I don’t think the additional strokes of the cane are necessary, Sir. They would do no good, Sir”

Augustus smiled inwardly to himself at the boys’ attempt to save their arses from extra punishment, from which he was, of course, not going to allow them to escape. They had had their fun with him and now they must pay the painful, price.

He said to the boys: “Well, now that we have sorted out who is who, I think, nevertheless, that it would be pity to deprive yourselves of six extra strokes of the cane as a therapeutic measure to consolidate your restored memories. After all, you would not wish to forget your identities again and not know who you are. No, I think you will find that six extra therapeutic cuts of the cane are just what the doctor would order if he were here The will prove a sound investment against any future memory loss and consolidate your restored memory, for which we should all thank providence for having smiled on you so graciously. And as I am prepared to deliver each of you six extra strokes,  free, gratis and for nothing, so to speak, my advice to you, boys, is not to look a gift horse  the mouth.”

The look of anguish on both their faces told the whole story; they now knew that what had been intended as a joke had gone horribly wrong and that there was no way that Sir was now going to allow them to escape those six extra, so-called, therapeutic strokes of the cane. They had made their own bed and were being forced to lie in it.

“Gentlemen, now that that is settled, I suggest you both take off your shorts and stand against the wall over there and face me. Put your hands on your head and remain that way until I tell you otherwise.”

The two brothers, both now visibly trembling with fear of what they had brought upon themselves by their stupidity, correctly interpreted the suggestion as a order – which it had been – and complied with it. They both realised that they had no chance of saving their bums from the worst. The two thirteen-year-olds stood there embarrassed, with their nether regions naked. They had not yet commenced puberty and their tiny penises, as yet unencumbered with pubic hair, showed not the slightest sign of life.

The two boys watched with obvious nervous apprehension, as Sir went over to to his desk and picked up the dreaded cane, with which he had just warmed the backsides of the other three first formers. He pointed the cane at Ibbotson quartus and said: “As the younger, I’ll deal with you first, boy; approach the chair, bend across its back, place your hands on its seat, keep perfectly still and remain in that position until I tell you otherwise. If you move or try to touch your buttocks, whilst I am beating you, I shall begin your punishment over again. I trust I have made myself clear and that you have understood the unfortunate position, in which you now find yourself.”

Ibbotson quartus was already in tears before the first stroke incised its first venomously painful message into his hitherto unblemished buttocks. But Sir soon changed all that as stroke followed stroke, each applied strictly parallel to the previous one and with a few seconds pause between them to allow the poor lad to appreciate what was being done to him. Ibbotson cried out in pain after each stroke, and after six cuts was begging Sir to stop. But in view of the trick they had played on him, Sir was intent on making each stroke worse than the preceding one and the lad’s pleas for mercy went unheard. Finally, with twelve parallel welts, running from the bottom of his back to the top of his legs, Ibbotson quartus was told to get up and go stand beside his brother, hands on his head and prohibited from touching his agonisingly painful buttocks.

Both brothers hoped that as Sir had stopped at twelve strokes having promised eighteen, he had relented and that he no longer intended to deliver the six, so-called, therapeutic strokes. They were soon to find that they were living in cloud cuckoo land, if they thought that Sir would renounce the opportunity to thrash the living daylights out of anyone, least of all two first formers whose impudence knew no bounds. The boys deserved additional punishment for their stupid behaviour; but what Sir had proposed was out of all proportion to the offence. 

But hope springs eternal and as Ibbotson tertius took his position over the chair to receive his twelve cut thrashing, both lads were still optimistic that they had escaped the worst.  Their hopes were finally dashed when the tearstained Ibbotson tertius regained his position alongside his brother and Sir said: “Ibbotson quartus, if you would now like to resume your former position, over the beating chair, I shall be happy to give you the six additional, therapeutic strokes with the cane. That way you will feel certain that your recent temporary loss of memory will not recur.”

“Doubtless you and your brother will be required, as tradition demands, to exhibit your stripes to your class-mates. With that in mind and to enable you to distinguish and explain the difference between punishment and therapeutic stripes, I propose propose to place these latter six stripes as two gating diagonals of three cuts each. That way you will easily be able to explain to your class-mates which stripes are which. I would hate them to get the idea that your Headmaster increased your punishment because of your disobedience in class, when nothing could be further from the truth. You may tell your class-mates that if any of them have trouble remembering things, I find that shock therapy applied to the bare buttocks is most useful and that if any of them feel in need of it, they have but to come to me and I will be happy to oblige.”

It was a very doleful pair of boys who left the Headmaster’s study to return to their House and put back on their normal school clothes

That group of five first-formers, comprised of Appleby minor, Bates, Carruthers and the two youngest Ibbotson Brothers, had just had the doubtful distinction, which, had they been given the option, they would surely have declined, of being the first group of boys to present themselves for corporal chastisement to the Headmaster, wearing what was henceforth to be the Appropriate Attire to wear for any boy, destined to see the Headmaster for what was the standard bare-bottom beating. The dreaded words of the Headmaster from now on became always be the same: “The following boys will present themselves at the appointed hour at my study, wearing the Appropriate Attire for the occasion.”

Chapter 16

Having effectively dealt with the five first formers, Augustus now had much bigger fish to fry and turned his attention to the fifteen members, who together made up the disgraced rugger team. He opened his study door at exactly eleven o’clock, to find a group of sixth formers, all wearing the appropriate attire, waiting nervously there. Quite frankly, they had good cause to be nervous, for they had heard through the door, the Ibbotson twins being caned and it was obvious that the Headmaster was on form today and was pulling no punches. T his had been reinforced by the sight of the Ibbotson brothers limping from the Headmaster’s study with doleful looks on both their tear-stained

The group waiting to have their arses shredded was composed of lower sixth-formers, Appleby major, Atkins, Bamforth, Harris, Harrison, Ibbotson Secundus, Tomlinson and Whittaker. Upper sixth formers, Hanson and Grattan-Smith had been added to the group, as they were the only two upper sixth-formers on the rugby team, who were not prefects. Finally the group was completed by the presence of the head-boy of Churton, Ibbotson primus. No one, not even Ibbotson himself, knew why he had, apparently, been included in this group,                                                                                                                                                                                            when his co-prefects had been told to assemble at a later hour at the            Birching Room door. But why had the head-boy not been included in                                                                                                                                                  the birching group? That was the question burning a hole in everyone’s mind at the moment. It all appeared to be totally unfair that the head-boy should escape the same birching as his peer group. But as we all know, things are not always as they appear to be.

Headmaster Augustus surveyed the assembled group with a menacingly malevolent eye, thinking of the sadistic pleasure to come (no less than ten arses to thrash) before saying: “Ibbotson primus, would you kindly step inside my study”.  The head-boy did as he was bidden and found himself standing in front of a very irate Augustus, who proceeded, quite justifiably, to tear a strip off him.  He hung his head in shame as he listened to his Headmaster, totally justifiably, berate him for his behaviour. He knew that he deserved what he was hearing and knowing Augustus as he did, that the ultimate outcome for him, which he deserved, would be physically very painful, even if he did not lose his elite position as head-boy.  But things were as they were. He accepted that no one but himself was responsible for his present predicament and that he would now have to bear the consequences for his actions. 

Augustus had to balance two diametrically opposed sentiments as he was addressing the head-boy. Outwardly he was seething with rage that the head-boy, along with other prefects should have abandoned their duties and joined in an illicit gathering which broke several of the School’s cardinal rules – smoking and drinking, for a start – when their duty as prefects was to stop such antics. Augustus was well aware that he depended upon the prefects to keep order among the boys, when they were not in class, foot-loose and fancy-free and prone to mischief like boys the world over.

Inwardly, unbeknown to anyone but himself, Augustus was secretly pleased that the head-boy and other senior prefects had succumbed to temptation to celebrate the rugger team’s victory and had temporarily abandoned their duties and joined in with the boys.  They had inadvertently provided him with a perfectly legitimate reason, which when it came to beating sixth formers was as rare as a hen’s teeth, to shred their muscular, young-men’s arses with both birch and cane,

For the head-boy he had something special in mind, which had he known what his Headmaster was planning to do to his arse, he might well have opted to be left to die in peace.

Nevertheless, Augustus felt it his duty to show his very-real disgust at the head-boy’s behaviour. He berated him in no uncertain terms, so that by the time he had finished battering him verbally, the young man was thoroughly ashamed of what he had done. By the time he had finished verbally beating berating Ibbotson, the young man was feeling that he had been well and truly degutted, like a fish before being hung out to dry. 

He waited for the inevitable conclusion, in which he saw himself being reduced to the ranks: the stripping from him of his post and privileges as head-boy, particularly of his mandate to beat his school-mates. Like many boys who are elevated to power as prefects, Ibbotson primus, after one term as head-boy of Churton, had become an enthusiastic beater of boys’ bare arses as his Headmaster. So he waited for the verbal coup de grâce putting an end to his role as head-boy. No one was more surprised than him, when it did not happen.

Having verbally castigated his head-boy loud and long, almost, but not quite, reducing him to tears for his actions, Augustus now adopted a gentler tone of voice as he reveal to his head-boy what would now happen:

“Ibbotson, you must appreciate that a public school headmaster must rely on his team of prefects, under the direction of his head-boy, to keep order in the school out of class hours. In any public school worthy of the name, that is why prefects are permitted to beat their school-mates if they get out of hand. Without the threat of punishment hanging over their heads, leaving boys to their own devices would lead to anarchy.”

“You and your team of prefects have, until your fall from grace yesterday evening, done a good job, which is why I have decided, after much thought, not to demote any of you from your elite posts as prefects in this school’s hierarchy. Quite simply, the School cannot function without you.  To sack you now, would mean choosing replacements for the most senior prefects in the School, which in my view would be a major mistake and lead to unforeseen difficulties. The only good thing I can say about last night’s shindig is that you limited it to team members only.”

Ibbotson primus was mightily relieved to hear that he and his co-prefects were not to be reduced to the ranks. He offered excessively profuse thanks to his Headmaster for his understanding of the situation and promised that it was a one-time event, which would never again be repeated, at least on his watch, 

However, there was a severe sting in the tail of the Headmaster’s clemency: “Do not think, for a moment, Ibbotson, that my decision to allow you and your co-prefects to keep your elite posts, exempts any of you from the severe retribution which everyone who attended the party yesterday evening will suffer. Every boy, including all prefects, and you too Ibbotson as head-boy, will be soundly thrashed before lunch today. That is why the chapel service today was brought forward by an hour, to allow ample time for me to complete the unfortunate, heavy task of beating all fifteen team members and put to bed, once and for all, this unfortunate incident.”

“That brings me to the reason why I asked you as head-boy, to join the group of your team-mates, who are now waiting in the corridor to be called in to be beaten. You will have noticed that none of them has the rank of prefect. It is partly due to you neglecting your duty as head-boy and preventing the party taking place that these young men now find themselves in the unenviable position of facing a severe beating.  Whether you would have been succeeded in stopping the party is open to question; but the simple fact of the matter is that neither you nor your co-prefects even tried. Instead you abrogated your responsibilities as prefects and threw in your lot with theirs.”

“You, Ibbotson primus, as head-boy, bear the ultimate responsibility for what happened. Had you led rather than followed, you and the other team member would not find yourselves where you are at the moment. So you now see that as result of your action, or should I rather say, inaction, I find myself faced with the daunting prospect of beating fifteen young men, including you, Ibbotson.”

Augustus was of course laying his verbal onslaught of Ibbotson, on in spades, making him feel doubly guilty for what had happened. He also was putting the fear of God into the young man, by harping on the fact, of which Ibbotson was only too acutely aware: at the end of the day, come what may, his own arse would not be spared.

“I have, therefore, come to the conclusion, that to redeem yourself as head-boy, you will assist me in beating your team mates. Not only will it relieve me of part of the strain – and believe me, Ibbotson, to beat fifteen young men thoroughly, non-stop, one after the other, which is what they deserve and indeed, which is what they are going to get, would be a taxing task for anyone.”

“Now, as you are aware, in your capacity as head-boy, having implemented it several times this term before last night’s deplorable incident occurred, the standard tariff for a run-of-the-mill beating is twelve cuts of the cane. I feel sure that you will agree with me, when I say that for such a grave offence as this, twelve cuts of the cane, even when well applied on the bare, would be woefully inadequate.  These young men must be made to realise that in celebrating a win at rugger against another school by smoking and drinking at a party, they have committed a very serious breach of the School rules, for which they must now pay the price.”

“I have, therefore decided that each of the lower-sixth formers, at present awaiting their fate in the corridor, will receive twenty cuts of a senior cane; the two upper-sixth formers, Hanson and Grattan-Smith, will both receive twenty-four cuts: double the standard tariff.  You, Ibbotson primus will be given the opportunity to redeem your prestige as head-boy, by first giving the unfortunate sixth formers half of what they are to receive, after which I will intervene and complete the second half of their punishment. After all, it is one of your duties as head-boy to thrash any of your school-mates who have deviated from the straight and narrow path and broken the rules. Here you have a prime example of group of young men, who have done just that.”

The head-boy had listened silently, but with growing trepidation, to this long-winded summary from Augustus, analysing how they had got to where they now were. He realised that the Headmaster held him, as head-boy, largely responsible for the present situation. If he had exercised his authority as head-boy, which he had not, none of this would ever have happened. As a member of the winning team, he had allowed the euphoria of the moment, to override the fact that he and his co-prefects, by their elevated status, were no longer like the rest of their school-mates. He knew that they all shirked their duty in allowing the party even to begin. And, to make matters worse, he and his co-prefects had participated in the very event which they should have stopped before it even started!

The Headmaster was allowing Ibbotson primus to keep his post of head-boy. In his first term as head-boy, he had had a great deal of sexual pleasure from applying the cane to the naked arses of his school-mates, and had hitherto, this term, never missed an opportunity to thrash any lad he caught in the act of even the smallest of infractions. However, now faced with an order to thrash his team mates, this normally attractive task had suddenly lost is allure. He foresaw himself being considered as a turncoat:  someone, who was both running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Yet he could do nothing to avoid it. The Headmaster, knowing exactly what he was doing, had placed his head-boy in an invidious position; he was forcing him to cane his team mates for taking part in an illicit party in which he himself had participated.

Ibbotson primus found that he could not do other than go along with the Headmaster decree and beat the team members. Thanks to him – as head-boy, he should have kiboshed even the notion of a party – the entire team, his co-prefects and he included, were now to have their arses shredded with the cane. On that score, Ibbotson hardly dared to think what was in store for his own backside. To take completely out of context the statement, first to be uttered over half a century later: the buck stops here, Ibbotson knew that, wielded by the Headmaster, the cane – or worse – would, before lunch that very day, come many times to a sudden, inevitably painful stop against his own bare arse. As head-boy, knowing the Headmaster as he did the buck, that day, was certainly destined to stop against his own arse.

However, for the moment, he dismissed from his mind, the horrifying thought of what was certain to happen to his own backside before lunch that day, as he had other more pressing worries at that moment. He had been told that he would required to participate in caning members of the team of which he himself was a member and had participated willingly, in the very event for which he was now being forced to punish his team-mates. Moreover it suddenly hit him, that his own younger brother, Ibbotson secundus, was also a member of the rugger team and that he would be obliged to skin his own brother’s arse.

It was hard for Ibbotson to stomach what his action – or rather inaction – had brought in its wake. The whole team, head-boy, prefects and all, were as guilty as hell and the members all knew that they deserved to be punished for their disregard of the rules. As young gentlemen, they would all accept and suffer without demur, what was to be a draconian punishment of twenty strokes with a senior cane on the bare. They might later, licking their wounds among themselves, with some justification, call the Headmaster a fucking, sadistic sod, which he was., When came to shove for Ibbotson, as it inexorably would, Ibbotson was sure that the Headmaster would not spare his head-boy’s arse He did not resent the fact that he would probably be beaten harder than the rest of the team, for his part in the affair. But he deeply resented the way, in which the Headmaster, with clear malice aforethought, had forced him into participating in the beating of his own team-mates.

To be released from the obligation to beat his team-mates, he would gladly have accepted twice the as yet undefined punishment which, he himself was to receive from the Headmaster.  But faced with the inevitable, what could he do but comply?

Augustus, never one to allow grass to grow under his feet, said: “Well, Ibbotson, now that’s settled – that presumably referring to the division of the beatings between the two of them – I think we might call in the boys and put them out of their misery by telling them what we have decided.”  It would have been more accurate to say: “To tell them what I have decided,” as Ibbotson had had no option but to go along with the Headmaster’s decision. “Call them in, Ibbotson and I’ll tell them what is going to happen to them. We’ve quite a lot of work to do between us, so let’s get on with it.”

Ibbotson opened the door and told the assembled team members that the Headmaster wanted to address them and that they should, therefore, all come into to his study. The eight members of the lower sixth, augmented by Jordan and Kendrew from the upper sixth, trooped nervously, into the room and stood in a line in front of Augustus, who was sitting magisterially behind his desk, looked witheringly at the assembled young men.

He said in his most sanctimonious and pontifical manner: “Gentlemen, words cannot express the disgust I feel in looking at you members of the School’s rugger team, an elite group, which many younger boys look up to for aspiration, hoping one day to be members of the same team themselves and represent the School. You have jointly well and truly shattered their illusions. (Had they really?  I think not as he was exaggerating.) You have let the side down badly, by breaking two of this School’s inviolable rules, in throwing a party, in which you all indulged in smoking and drinking, both of which, in addition to being bad for your health, are also strictly forbidden.”

“I am sure you will all agree with me that I would not be doing my duty as your Headmaster if I allowed such a flagrant disregard for the rules of the School to go unpunished; that is why you are assembled here this morning. Make no mistake, gentlemen; have no false illusions; you are all shortly to be caned severely in retribution for your sins. Now, as you all know, the standard punishment for any boy, who is sent to me to repent for his misdeeds, is twelve strokes of the cane on the bare. I think you will all agree with me, that in view of the enormity of what you have done, twelve cuts of the cane would be woefully inadequate. Therefore, each member of the lower sixth now standing before me, will shortly receive twenty strokes of the cane on the bare. However Jordan and Kendrew, as members of the upper sixth, you will each receive twenty-four strokes.”

“You will all be conscious of the fact that your actions have forced a very onerous, physically strenuous task upon me. I have, therefore, co-opted the assistance of a somewhat reluctant head-boy, who has agreed to share this extremely disagreeable task with me.”

Quite how Augustus had managed to keep a straight face as he enounced the word disagreeable, when he was, in fact, looking forward, as ever, to thrashing the arses of so many young men. Ibbotson was relieved to hear the Headmaster say that he had co-opted his reluctant assistance to relieve him partially of the physical burden of beating, quasi non-stop, ten young men. It was thus clear to his school-mates that he had not volunteered his services as co-flagellant for the occasion. He desperately hoped that this, together with the fact that, as a team member and attendee at the party his own arse was to be scourged, would result in his continued acceptance by his peers. He did not wish to become treated as a pariah, because of the Headmaster’s actions.

Augustus glanced own at a list of names he had on his desk and said: “Gentlemen, you will be beaten in alphabetical order, beginning with the lower sixth-formers. Hanson and Grattan Smith, as upper sixth-formers, you will be beaten last. Appleby major, it falls to your backside to initiate this tragic occasion. You, sir, will remain in the room; all others will now leave and wait in the corridor until called.”

He turned to Ibbotson, took him across to the still open cane cupboard, from which each of them selected one of numerous senior canes, under the terrified eyes of Appleby major, whose arse was first in line. He told Appleby to take of his shorts and bend across the beating chair, which the lad, tremblingly did. It was only at this moment, when they were looking at Appleby’s bare arse that Ibbotson was made aware of the inappropriateness of the role he was to play in the beatings.

Augustus said to Appleby, who was already bent across the chair: “Appleby, you will now receive the first ten parallel cuts of your twenty-cut beating, after which you will rejoin your team-mates in the corridor to await the other half of your punishment. You punishment will begin with five parallel cuts delivered by Ibbotson, in his role of head-boy, to be followed immediately by a further five cuts, administered by me. You will then rejoin your team-mates in the corridor to await the completion of your twenty cut beating. Whilst you are being beaten, you will relax your buttocks and refrain from touching them. If you choose not obey these instructions, then you will receive extra cuts. Brace yourself, boy, for this going to be very painful, which it is intended to be.”

“Ibbotson, I suggest that you place your first five cuts across the upper part of Appleby’s buttocks, beginning at the small of his back, and descending to the crown. I will then deal with the lower part, descending the top of his legs. Do not hold back at all.”

Ibbotson had noticed that the Headmaster had spoken of cuts, rather strokes, of than the cane. As the two canes mated relentlessly ten times with  Appleby’s naked arse, Ibbotson saw that the word cut was the most appropriate word to use to describe the result of the cane. By the time they had finished with the first half of Appleby’s punishment, the lad’s arse was lined with ten deep, well-defined parallel furrows pulsating with pain, cut deeply into his flesh. When Appleby was told to get up and rejoin his team-mates in the corridor to await a second onslaught on his arse, it was obvious that he was experiencing excruciating pain.

By splitting the punishment into two sessions, Augustus had shown his sadistic bent, which was to characterise his entire professional life as Headmaster of Churton. Making the team members wait for more of the same was truly psychologically malicious, adding to the real physical pain they were enduring. The punishment was, by any standard, severe; but to make the recipients endure a long wait in real agony, knowing that more of the same was still to come, was beyond the pale. However Augustus Caesar, as Headmaster, was in absolute charge and that was the way he worked. The fact of the matter was that he, like many of his profession, was a sadist and was in a position to exercise his sadistic bent on the backsides of the boys of Churton College, which he was to do, with impunity, for his entire career.

And so successively, Atkins, Bamforth, Harris, Harrison, Ibbotson Secundus, Tomlinson and Whittaker all received the same treatment as Appleby major and were sent back to stew in their own bitterly agonising juice in the corridor. The head-boy, Ibbotson primus, had to face the unfortunate task of beating his brother, Ibbotson secundus. Being only one year apart the two elder brothers were much closer to each other than they were to their first-form twin brothers, whom they looked upon as a joint nuisance. The head-boy would have had no compunction in skinning his twin brothers’ arses; in fact he would have enjoyed making the mischievous pair squirm under the bite of his cane.  But to be forced, as he had been, to beat a brother t whom he was so close, both in age and spirit, was something else.

Under the eagle eye of the Headmaster, he had not dared to do other than thrash his brother in the same way as he had been forced to cane his other team-mates, which is to say as hard as he could.  This fraternal thrashing had been made easier as his brother had been the fifth of his team-mates to have his arse shredded. So by the time came to address his brother’s arse, he had become somewhat immured by what had initially been a distasteful task thrust upon him by the Headmaster.

However, to his horror and self disgust, he had found that he was actually relishing inflicting pain on his friends and team-mates – including his own brother – even though he knew that he was ultimately going to receive worse himself from the Headmaster. By the time he had finished caning Whittaker, the eighth of the lower sixth to have his arse beaten, the crack of rattan mating with bare flesh had become as music to his ears.

This caning episode, which had been initially forced upon him, had now, inadvertently,  revealed to him a side of his nature, which he had hitherto not realised existed: that he had a hidden sadistic streak and enjoyed inflicting pain on boy’s bare arses. In spite of his inner disgust at himself for enjoying what he was doing to his team-mates he could barely wait to address the backside of the two upper-sixth formers, Hanson and Grattan-Smith, both of whom he shared lessons with and sat together.

Finally, all ten team members had received the first round of their punishment and Appleby major was called back in and told to reassume the position over the beating chair. His first ten cuts, which had been given quite some time ago, were ageing into a composition of red and blue bruises, the usual characteristics of an arse, which has already been well-beaten. Notwithstanding the agony, which Appleby was clearly enduring, the Headmaster was adamant that each boy receive the full twenty in retribution for his sins.

The Headmaster now said to Ibbotson: “In this second round, Ibbotson, I want you to give each boy a further six cuts, which you should attempt to place wherever possible over six of the previous strokes, to heighten his appreciation of the care being lavished upon him and to ensure that he reaps the maximum benefit from his punishment. I will then complete each boy’s penance by awarding him his four final cuts in the form of two double gating strokes, before allowing him to leave and enjoy what will truly be the very best of a well-beaten backside.”

And that is exactly what they did, before the Headmaster dismissed the eight lower six the formers to commiserate among themselves and nurse their wounded arses One thing was sure; none of them would be able to sit down to Sunday lunch today nor probably to sit down comfortably for several days sure,

As for Hanson and Grattan-Smith, the two upper sixth young men, together with whom Ibbotson sat daily on class, each of them received the full 24 strokes of the cane. The first dozen were delivered strictly parallel, but on the second twelve, the Headmaster, knowing that the two were Ibbotson’s direct class-mates, insisted, with malicious  malevolence, that he give each of them eight doubling cuts, before bringing their beatings to a close himself with his customary gating strokes.

One thing was sure, as Ibbotson was able to confirm; his two class-mates left the Headmaster’s study each with an agonisingly painful, well-beaten arse, which was a visual triumph. It is doubtful whether Hanson and Grattan-Smith appreciated that their arses had been etched with albeit transient, artistic masterpieces of the art of flagellation. They were more concerned at the moment with calming the raging pain to which they had just been subjected.

I anyone had told Ibbotson that he would be looking forward – practically licking his lips – to the prospect of completing a series of beatings, in which he had, barely an hour ago, been forced to participate against his will, he would have told them that they were mad. But his new-found discovery of his own character, had led to a radical change in his attitude towards corporal punishment. He had undergone what might best be described as a Damascene Conversion, in his attitude towards corporal punishment, which was to characterise not only his participation in the final beating of his team-mates, but was to extend to the rest of his tenure as head-boy of Churton during his final year.

If Augustus Caesar enjoyed the reputation of the most feared and hated Headmaster ever, in his final year as head-boy, Ibbotson primus became similarly feared.  Boys dreaded being summoned for correction to the head-boy’s study: an ever more frequent occurrence, as Ibbotson primus never let pass an opportunity to beat arse. He was, in the Headmaster’s view, his ideal head-boy: he had become a stricter than strict disciplinarian. This was, alas, a view the entire school, many of whom experienced his painful largesse with the cane, did not share. They all thought of him as having suddenly become a sadistic bastard, which was a fact.

The beating of the eight boys from the lower sixth and the two upper sixth-formers had taken almost an hour. Had the boys been wearing their normal school clothes rather than just gym shorts and singlets the whole business would have taken twice as long. There was no doubt that the Appropriate Attire, as it came to be generally known, had enabled throughput to be increased.

One might well ask if this was the first example of what we today know as mass production.  However, the Headmaster congratulated himself – there was no one else there to congratulate him – on his foresight in having avoided a throughput problem before it had become apparent. It was an example of necessity being the mother of invention. What was sure was that the Appropriate Attire, giving instant access to the all important, bare arse was here to stay.

Chapter 17

Just as Hanson and Grattan-Smith left the Headmaster’s study, the chapel clock struck noon, announcing the quasi apocalyptic moment for the four senior members of the rugby team, prefects Jordan, Kendrew, Makin and Siswick to learn their fate. The Headmaster and the head-boy, found the four prefects in the corridor outside the Birching Room wearing, as instructed, only their gym shorts and singlets, shivering with fear of the unknown.

They no idea what was about to happen to them for their part in the previous night’s proceedings, other than the fact that as they were assembled in front of the Birching Room door indicated that they were most probably going to be birched. But had they known what the Headmaster had in store for them, they would probably have been already pissing themselves with fear.

If they had been surprised not to find the head-boy with them on their journey into the painful unknown, they were now astonished to see the head-boy, attired as they all were, approaching them down the corridor, accompanying the Headmaster, each with a cane on his hand. They had no idea that, as head-boy, he had been tantamount to press-ganged by the Headmaster to assist him in flogging the rugby team and that he would shortly participate in the polishing of their four naked arses.

They were also ignorant of the fact that like them, he too was waiting with bated breath to learn what his own punishment would ultimately be. The fact that the prefects had been singled out from the rest of the team indicated that they were in for special treatment; and just how horrifically special, they were now about to learn.

The Headmaster called  them all into the Birching Room, a visually rather daunting place, furnished in addition to the dreaded birching frame, with just a large desk and a chair, in which the Headmaster now magisterially installed himself. As if to heighten the tension and instil fear into those about to undergo the painful rigours of a birching, along one wall, a number of other implements of corporal punishment were hanging from hooks. Several maple-birches were soaking, quite unnecessarily, in fact, as the maple twigs were flexible and strong enough to deliver their painfully enhanced message to numerous deserving backsides, without the traditional soaking in water.

The Headmaster tore a verbal strip off the four prefects before telling them precisely what was about to happen to them: “Gentlemen, I cannot express strongly enough my disappointment and disgust, to find you five prefects – yes, the head-boy of this School, even though is standing here at my side, is included in my comments – waiting here in front of me, like a group of junior boys, who know no better, to learn their fate for the part they played in last night’s illicit celebrations in the Cricket Pavilion.  I would draw your attention to the fact that three of you are not only prefects, but hold senior positions in the School. You, Makin, are Captain of the Rugby Team; you, Siswick, are Head of your House; and you, Ibbotson primus occupy the most prestigious position in this School that of as Head-boy.” You could almost hear the capital H as he emphasised word Head-boy, as if in defiling it, Ibbotson had committed a capital offence.

On and on the Headmaster went, belittling the behaviour of five prefects. By the time he came to the crux of the matter, his tirade against them had almost reduced the five of them to tears. He then said: “However, as I have already told the head-boy privately, I am loath to let this one lamentable incident, this fall from grace, ruin the careers of five otherwise fine young gentlemen.  I have, therefore decided not to expel you. Moreover, you will all be allowed to keep your rank of prefect as this School depends on its prefects to keep order among the younger boys.  However, you will not escape the punishment which you merit for your part in this affair.”

“All your eight younger team-mates, together with Hanson and Grattan-Smith, the two team members from the upper-sixth who are not prefects, ten boys in all, have already been severely punished. To assist me in this formidable task, I enlisted the help of the head-boy, who will also give me a hand in dealing with the four of you.”

“Gentlemen, in view of your seniority and gravity of your offences, the head-boy will first give each of you six preparatory strokes with the razor strop you see hanging over there on the wall. I shall then follow that by giving each of you twelve strokes of the maple-birch on the bare, after which the head-boy will again intervene and complete your beating with twelve cuts of the senior cane on your freshly birched buttocks. The razor strop and the birch will be applied sequentially; there will then be a pause to allow you to appreciate to the pain of the birching and to realise the gravity of your offences, before the head-boy applies the cane.”

To say that the four young men were gobsmacked, when they heard what was to happen to them, was the understatement of the year. In his brief tenure as Headmaster of Churton since the beginning of the school year, Augustus Caesar had already had established a reputation among the boys of being a died-in-the-wool, implacably strict disciplinarian, whose word was law. Bur this was something else: to birch or cane a boy thoroughly – even excessively – was a common enough occurrence in many public schools at that time. But to birch a boy whose naked buttocks had already been pre-conditioned by a beating with a leather strap and then to go on and cane him to boot, was unheard of.

However, as Augustus was in total charge of the School and had the backing of the Board of Governors there was little they could do but accept it. They could of course, refuse to accept the flogging, and risk expulsion. But they would never do that; expulsion would ruin their careers and to be expelled for refusing to accept a flogging would brand them as cowards. Also, the Churton rules did not limit the maximum number of strokes with either birch or cane, which the Headmaster could administer at any one time; nor did the rules exclude the sequential use of either implement.

The proposed flogging – the strop (unique to Churton), followed by the birch, followed by the cane was certainly excessive; but it was not illegal; the use of the birch and the cane would not be banned by law until well after the middle of the next century. So the four prefects had little they could do to avoid what was, by even the standards of that time, a horrific fate.

The fear of the four potential recipients of the Headmaster’s largesse was shared by the head-boy. Ibbotson had been unaware of the major part he was destined to play in the flogging of his four co-prefects until Augustus had revealed to all of them the severity of the punishment and the depth of his involvement. Even though he had discovered that he had enjoyed thrashing the members of the lower- sixth, what Augustus was now proposing they jointly do to thru prefects was just beyond the pale.

He was destined not only to initiate the flogging of his friends – they were his co-prefects, but they were also his friends – with the razor strop, itself a very painful introductory experience for the recipients, but he was then also to award each of them twelve cuts with the senior cane on their freshly birched bare arses.

The Headmaster had knowingly placed him in a very invidious position. The excruciating pain, he was being co-opted to administer, was unimaginable; but to refuse to comply with the Headmaster’s instructions would surely lead to severe sanctions, in the form of his own expulsion, which in turn would wreck his prospect of  going on to Cambridge and potentially ruin his future career. If he complied, which he was more or less forced to, he would regret what he had been compelled to do to his friends against his will and better judgement. There was no easy way out of the situation for the five prefects; they were all to suffer a very severe flogging. The Headmaster had all five of them, head-boy included, by the short and curlies; and he knew it!

But Ibbotson had additionally a growing fear for his own fate; what exactly did the Headmaster have in mind for his arse? He had seen the way which Augustus, immediately on his appointment, had doubled the standard tariff for run-of-the-mill offences, Headmaster’s run-of-the-mill beatings had been increased from six to twelve strokes with the cane and he had ratcheted up the severity of the present beatings, to reflect the increasing seniority of the recipients.

So with some justifiable fear, Ibbotson asked himself what indignities his own arse was likely to suffer at the hands of the Headmaster. He was the most senior of the prefects of the School, and what the Headmaster intended to inflict on him did not bear contemplation.  But come what may, he knew he had no alternative but to submit to what he knew would be a sadistic beating by the Headmaster. And make no mistake; Augustus Caesar was a full-blown, sadist, when it came to beating the boys in his charge.

The Headmaster said: “Well gentlemen, I think we are ready to proceed; Jordan, we will begin with you; Kendrew, Makin and Siswick, you will kindly step outside and wait in the corridor, until I call you in.”  The three prefects left the Headmaster’s study, leaving Jordan trembling with justifiable fear, at the the thought of what was about to happen to him.

“Well, Jordan, what are you waiting for? Take off your shorts completely, adopt the usual position on the birching frame and present your naked buttocks for punishment.” 

He motioned to Ibbotson to strap Jordan in place on the frame; but the young man demurred, saying that he was a gentleman and did not need to be strapped down like a criminal.

Augustus motioned to Ibbotson to unhook the razor strop from the wall, saying to him: “Ibbotson, you will have the honour of initiating Jordan’s posterior to a most richly deserved punishment. What I want you to do is to give each of Jordan’s buttocks three firm swipes with the strop. To ensure that he derives the maximum benefit from this initial pre-conditioning phase, you should not hold back and use maximum force. I will then take over and give his rump twelve, well-justified strokes of the maple-birch.”

Ibbotson surveyed the results of his handiwork and saw that thanks to him, poor Jordan’s arse had already taken on that angry-red inflamed look rendering it sensitive to even the slightest touch.  The Headmaster, undeterred by what he saw, then proceeded to give  Jordan’s arse a thorough roasting with the viciously painful maple-birch  By the time he had finished, including the pause of fifteen seconds between each cut, the birching had taken almost three minutes to deliver. Jordan’s buttocks were etched with dozens of small welts left by the bite of the birch’s fine twigs. He was, judging from his tearstained face, already in absolute agony, by the time the Headmaster told him to get up, put back on his shorts and go and stand with his co-prefects in the corridor.

He then successively called in Kendrew, Makin and Siswick, each of whom received the same painful treatment. He allowed the four prefects to stand around in agony in the corridor for a full ten minute before calling in Jordan to receive a twelve cut caning delivered by the head-boy. Ibbotson shuddered at what he was now being forced to do, as Jordan again took his position across the birching frame and exposed his pre-birched arse for yet further punishment. The birch is usually considered the most painful of school punishments, when, in fact, a well applied senior cane does much more damage and certainly delivers more lasting pain than its traditional, senior homologue.

The birch, by virtue of its fine twigs, deliver pain which, with each successive stroke, gradually builds up and up, until it eventually becomes quasi-untenable.  However, as we all know, untenable or not, it has to be borne by the recipient, as the birching goes inexorably on and on. However the excruciating immediate pain of the birch rapidly attenuates itself to a dull, not unpleasant glow.

The rattan cane, in contrast, by concentrating its unbelievably, poisonously painful message in the form of discrete, well-defined deep furrows, so aptly defined as cuts, is, in the long run, much more effective that the birch. Twelve strokes of the cane applied strictly parallel to each other, from the bottom of a subject’s back to the top of his legs, ensure that he will be unable to sit comfortably for many a long day and that he will bear the marks of his ordeal for several weeks. To gild the lily and apply an additional twelve-stroke caning to an arse, which has just endured a twelve stroke birching, has to be considered one of the most painful punishments ever visited on a public schoolboy.  But that is precisely what was about to happen

The head-boy saw that the scenario in which he was now forced to participate was excessive. He nevertheless was obliged to apply the cane vigorously to Jordan’s arse, under the ever-watchful, mercilessly unrelenting eye of Augustus.  As he delivered one swingeing stroke after another, the full horror of the agonising pain of an excessively pre-prepared, pre-birched, well-caned arse gradually built up before his very eyes, he suddenly realised the enormity of the excessive spectacle of retribution in which he was now participating. Yes, he freely admitted to himself that he had just today discovered that enjoyed beating arses; but not to the extent that he was now being obliged to do.

As he continued, caning successively Kendrew, Makin and Siswick, his fear of what was in store for his own backside mounted. He asked himself what Headmaster could conceive of which could be worse than what he was now inflicting on this four friends. However, being realistic, he knew that due to his prestigious position as head-boy of the School, the most senior of all the prefects, that Augustus would not allow him to escape without an exemplary flogging, which would be worse than that suffered by the four other prefects.

The Headmaster had shown himself to be a man of great imagination when it came to flogging. And just as Ibbotson himself, as head-boy, enjoyed beating the older boys rather than the run-of-the-mill, mischievous, first and second formers, who provided most of the cannon fodder for prefects’ beatings,  he sort of guessed that the Headmaster would take particular delight in having a legitimate reason to beat his head-boy. He shuddered to think of the Headmaster literally going to town on his arse, which he knew would be the case. He just knew that he personally would be held up as an example of equality under the law; the head-boy was not exempt from the direst of punishments if his misdeeds justified it.

Siswick was the last to feel the bite of the head-boy’s cane and to be permitted to rejoin his friends to commiserate with them and to attempt to to assuage the pain raging in his arse. As Siswick left, Ibbotson had no illusions that the moment had come when he would finally have to face the music himself; music which would be played on his naked arse by an expert percussionist.

You can imagine his surprise when Augustus said to him: “Well, Ibbotson, I feel I should congratulate you on a difficult job well done. I think, before you and I go on to address weightier matters, you deserve a little reward for your performance, which cannot have been easy for you under the circumstances. Allow me to tell you, that was an absolutely first rate performance; you acquitted your duties as head-boy impeccably, which leads me to believe that I was right, in spite of your major transgression, to allow you and your co-prefects to retain your positions, with the right still to beat your school-mates if you think it is necessary.  I am a great believer in the persuasive power of both the cane and the birch in correcting boys who have strayed from the straight and narrow as I think today’s events have  shown.”

“Too bloody true they have.” thought Ibbotson to himself.

“But I digress; I spoke of a reward in return for your services rendered. If you would like to accompany me back to my study, I think my butler will have put out a decanter of sherry, of which I normally take a glass before Sunday lunch and I would be glad, on this occasion, to offer you one in recognition of your sterling effort, which eased my personal load considerably.”

In his study, Augustus poured two glasses of sherry, handed one to his head-boy and motioned him to take a seat in one of the easy chairs in front of the fire. The Headmaster obviously treated his study partly as a sitting room, as the long rectangular room, with three windows down one side, was divided into two distinct parts; at one end was the fireplace around which were grouped a number of easy chairs, in two of which they were now sitting. The other end was less pleasant and was furnished with the Headmaster’s desk and against the wall, on which hung the dreaded cane cupboard, stood the dreaded beating chair.

Augustus exuded faux bonhomie for only a few minutes, before he brought the conversation back to the matter closest to his own heart, which was still worrying  Ibbotson: the immediate fate of his own arse.

“Ibbotson, I am sure you will understand that in spite of your invaluable assistance in correcting your school-mates, I cannot ignore the fact that you abandoned your obligations as head-boy and allowed yourself, misguidedly, as I am certain you now realise, to participate in the unfortunate incident, which, this morning, has led to the flogging of the entire rugby XV. I am sure you appreciate that to allow you to escape scot-free of punishment for your part in this affair, would place me in an untenable position. It would imply one law for the boys and another for that elite group known as prefects, which is why your four co-prefects have just been severely punished, and which is why you too must be punished. In this school, under my direction, all boys must be seen to be treated equally under the law. When I say equally, you will understand that dome misdemeanours merit more severe punishment, which is why your co-prefects were treated more severely than their team-mates as their position demanded a higher level of behaviour and responsibility.”

“Ibbotson, though it pains me to say this, you as head-boy of this School, bear the greatest responsibility for the unfortunate affair of last night. As such I am sure you will see that I have no option but to treat you, in your elevated position, more severely than anyone else. Reluctant as I am to beat you, I am afraid I must, Everyone involved in last night’s affair, including you as head-boy of this School, must be seen to have answered appropriately for his part in this unfortunate happening .I suggest you drink up your sherry, young man, and that we return to the Birching Room,, where I will do my unpleasant duty as your Headmaster and bring this affair to its close.”

Ibbotson listening to this wordy, long-winded monologue from Augustus, fully understood the invidious position in which the Headmaster would find himself if he were to allow his head-boy to escape unscathed. Ibbotson knew he deserved to be punished for allowing the party to take place; and not only to take place, but to participate himself in the celebrations. But he doubted very much the Headmaster’s protestations of his reluctance to beat his head-boy. Knowing Augustus as he now did, he guessed that was secretly salivating at the prospect of thrashing him. And he was, of course, right.

Knowing Augustus as we do, he was looking forward to possibly one of the rarest and most satisfying occasions of his entire career, when he could truly justify beating his head-boy. It was a unique occasion: one to be savoured and enjoyed to the full. Quite justifiably, Ibbotson, in the light of the over-the-top beatings that had been dished out to the rest of the team, had every reason to fear the worst for his arse; and he was not to be disappointed, as Augustus, with the malign intention aforethought of inflicting severe pain, had the clear objective of fulfilling his head-boy’s worst fears. 

Back in the Birching Room, Augustus said to Ibbotson, in a sombre, preachy tone of voice, which implied regret rather than anger, neither of which remotely reflected his true feeling, which was one of elation at being able well and truly to shred his head-boy’s arse. “Well. Ibbotson, you do not need me to tell you what to do; so, if you would assume the appropriate undress and position yourself over the birching frame, I will get on and finish this unpleasant business once and for all.”

“Ibbotson, I will not insult your intelligence by pretending that the beating I am about to give you will not be very painful for you, as it obviously will. But I would be doing you a disservice if I, your Headmaster, neglected my duty and did not inflict considerable pain on you, to enable you to reflect on your actions and repent for them. However, once it is over, I venture to think that in spite of the pain you have experienced, you will feel more comfortable with yourself, knowing that you too, as head-boy have accepted punishment commensurate with your rank, as have all your team-mates.”

As Ibbotson stepped out of his shorts and bent across the birching frame to accept his as yet, still undefined punishment,  his fear was intensified by that last remark of the Headmaster, when had mentioned; punishment commensurate with your rank. And, when one considers what followed he had good reason to be. How he withstood what the Headmaster considered a punishment commensurate with his rank, God alone knows; and as God remained his normal uncommunicative self, we shall never know.

The Headmaster never did tell Ibbotson what the punishment commensurate with his rank would comprise. The first thing Ibbotson felt was the razor strop laid gently across the upper part of his buttocks. Then followed, without any warning, twelve smashing blows with this unusual but effective implement. Being flat it spread its painful message over is entire bare arse; after its passage, there was not one square inch which was not extremely painful to the touch. Ibbotson realised that this as foretaste of what was to come could  not to be taken lightly.

But then came eighteen agonising strokes with the maple birch. This was the first time in his life that Ibbotson had been birched. As stroke followed stroke, he saw that the mythical tales surrounding the birch were all quite true; realities in fact. The first two strokes were not all that painful, but thereafter as stroke followed stroke, the intensity of the pain became well nigh unsupportable; by the eighteenth stroke he thought he was going to faint on the next stroke which, in fact, never came. He could not see his own arse, which felt to him as if all the skin had been scoured from it by the birch. In fact, it was completely covered by a myriad of fine cuts made by the repeated strokes of the maple twigs, leaving his backside feeling as if it was fire. His birching was finally finished; but his punishment was far from over.

After a five minute pause, allowing him to vegetate in agony, he felt the Headmaster lay a cane gently across his buttocks. Just the touch of the rattan against his inflamed flesh was enough to make him automatically reflexively flex his muscles and cry out in pain. He was now subjected to eighteen swingeing strokes of the cane across his already inflamed buttocks. Sixteen cuts were applied parallel, from the small of his back to the top of his legs, leaving Ibbotson’s arse in excruciating pain everywhere. The final two cuts were applied in the traditional diagonal gating strokes. The Headmaster, surveying his handiwork, felt satisfied that he had left his head-boy with a magnificently well-beaten arse, which to give him his is due, he truly had.

When he was finally told his punishment was complete and that he could get up from the birching frame, over which he had been bent for fifteen minutes whilst the Headmaster had been shredding his arse, he was in such severe pain that he could hardly walk. One thing he knew for certain was that he would, for the next few days, have difficulty in sitting down at all, even on a soft cushion.

As limped away to find his co-prefects and join them in their collective misery, the Headmaster said to him: “Well, Ibbotson, I am sure you feel mentally better and proud of yourself, for having endured the most severe beating of anyone involved in this unfortunate incident, which was brought about by your own failure to act as you should have done as head-boy of this School.  You, Ibbotson, have only yourself to thank for the pain which you are now enduring, and will, if I have done my job properly, which I believe I have, continue to endure for several days. Let this incident, which is now closed, be a lesson to you and your co-prefects, all of whom have been severely punished for their lapse in judgement. Tenure of high office in life, often involves making unpopular decisions/”

Ibbotson, in spite of his pain, had to agree with what the Headmaster had just said. He and his co-prefects on the rugby team were guilty of abandoning their duty and attending an illicit party, which they should have stopped before it had even begun.  Everyone attending the illicit party had deserved to be punished; but need the beatings, which he had himself reluctantly been forced partially to administer, have been so severe?  Thus in reluctantly admitting to himself that the Headmaster’s moralising  was right and that the whole rugby team had deserved to be beaten, did not stop him thinking that the Headmaster was a sadistic sod, who took pleasure in beating boys’ bare arses. And of course he was right. Augustus Caesar, the all-powerful Headmaster of Churton College, was a sadistic homosexual, who took great pleasure in beating boys.

The head-boy went back to his study, which was at the end of the corridor, to find his four co-prefects already there waiting for him. They were all arse naked, examining each others’ wounds. Ibbotson, being partly responsible for the parlous state of the four, excessively well-beaten arses, which were being inspected, was somewhat embarrassed to greet his co-prefects who, he desperately hoped, would still be his friends after what he had just done to them.

However, the four of them understood that the Headmaster had press-ganged Ibbotson him into wielding the cane. And when they saw the appalling mess the Headmaster had made of his arse, they all realised that as head-boy, Ibbotson had received the very worst beating ever. None of them was in a position to sit down for Sunday lunch, which what was usually the beat meal of the week. And, although unbeknown to the Headmaster, his thoughts on the relative merits of the birch and the cane, were confirmed by the five prefects, who had received both. The cane left its victims with a more lasting and painful souvenir of it passage than did the birch, whose initial unbearable excruciating pain  quickly attenuated d itself into a not unpleasant glow.

As for the Headmaster, he went back to his study, feeling very contented with his morning’s work, served himself another glass of sherry and sat in front of a blazing log-fire, waiting for his butler to summon him to luncheon. He ate his meal, as usual, in solitary splendour in the dining room of his apartment, which led off his study. He looked forward to easing his own sexual tension, which today had been heightened by beating so many, attractive naked arses by in his customary Sunday afternoon visit to his lover, James Prior.

James Prior, the head-gardener, also looked forward to spending his Sunday afternoons wits the Headmaster, which were usually spent in several hours of mutual anal copulation. Their Sunday afternoon sessions were always sexually exciting, as the Headmaster was usually on top form having beaten several boys before lunch. However, what Prior did not know was that his lover had, that very Sunday, beaten no less than twenty young arses before lunch, as a result of which he was sexually super-psyched up. In the event, that particular Sunday afternoon descended into a two-man orgy of gay sex. So the pair of them had an absolute ball, fucking and sucking each other off as if there was to be no tomorrow.

Chapter 18

The exceptional beating of twenty boys, was sort of commemorated by the Headmaster in an article he wrote, which was published in the magazine, The Public Schoolmaster, in the April issue of 1884.

Under the long-winded title, but graphically explicative title:

A Suggestion for the Appropriate Attire to be Worn by  Public  Schoolboys prior to being Beaten on their Bare Buttocks..

He wrote in his excessively pompous, wordy style:-

 From time to time, the unpleasant duty of beating boys for their misdeeds falls to every public school Headmaster. Here at Churton  College, of which I have the privilege to be the present Headmaster, such beatings  are always given on the bare buttocks of the unfortunate boy concerned, as I believe is the case in many other public schools in this country.

In early December last year, it was my lamentable lot to find myself obliged to beat no less than twenty boys on one occasion for their sins. Such a formidable task would, under normal circumstances, have taken considerable time to complete, what with the cumbersome removal of a boy’s regular attire necessary to gain access to that part of his posterior lower anatomy to which the cane was to be applied. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention and I suddenly had an idea, which I am sure many of my readers will have had before me, for facilitating access to a boy’s naked buttocks for punishment, to  which I, nevertheless, thought to draw readers’ attention.

I ordered all twenty boys, to present themselves at my study at the appointed hour, wearing only their physical education shorts and singlets. The access to each boy’s naked buttocks was thereby reduced the removal of his shorts and I was thus able, in a much shorter time to complete my unpleasant duty of beating twenty boys sequentially.

I can but say, that at Churton, the wearing of gym shorts and singlet  only, which have become known as the Appropriate Attire, has, since January of this year, been made mandatory for any boy sent to me for correction. I can but commend its adoption to all my readers.

Augustus H. C. Caesar

Headmaster

Churton College

Great Churton., near Hereford

Epilogue

In spite of his sadistic treatment of the boys, Augustus Caesar remained Headmaster of Churton College for 38 years, from his appointment at the very young age of 27 in 1885, to his retirement aged 65 in 1921. In his tenure, he caned and birched hundreds of boys, making Churton probably the most severe of all English public schools, at a time when both cane and birch were in regular use throughout the public school system. Brutality was then a fact of life in manyt public schools, at headmaster, housemaster and prefect levels and was never questioned by those suffering from its excesses. It was part and parcel of a public school education, where beating was was rife..

The one happily positive  note about Augustus’s sadistic life was that the mutual love, which had been more or less instantaneous between him and James Prior, the head-gardener of Churton, never wavered. They had found in each other, although from different walks of life and totally different social classes, when class distinction was de rigueur, the love of their lives. For nigh on 40 years, Gus and Jim as they called each other, managed to keep their extraordinary, illegal, homosexual relationship secret. No one ever knew, or even guessed, that the Headmaster of Churton and his head-gardener were, in fact, regularly fucking each other in the gardener’s bothy.

When aged 65 Augustus was forced retired from his post as Headmaster, James Prior retired with him. Augustus bought a village cottage in his home county of a Dorset village, where no one knew either of them. I wish I could say that Augustus somehow, finally got his comeuppance for the excesses he had visited on the boys at Churton for almost 40 years; but that was not the case. He and James Prior were just made for each other; and, as Prior liked the odd taste of the birch himself, Augustus was only to pleased to oblige him. Thus he did not feel completely deprived of one of his two favourite activities in his retirement,

James Prior and he lived together in total harmony for another twenty years, as what we call in modern parlance, an item. They lived together as sodomites, to describe their relationship in the cold terms of the then law, for which, if exposed, they would not only have suffered the opprobrium of their neighbours, but could also have been prosecuted and sentenced to prison.  In fact, in many ways Augustus was happier than he had ever been thrashing boys at school. Here he had a partner, who willingly offered himself to be chastised; and, the cherry on the cake: Augustus could immediate go on and fuck the very arse which he had just birched; he was in seventh heaven!

They kept their secret to themselves and it died with them. They never gave anyone the slightest inkling of their sexual activities. In those now, thankfully long-gone, benighted days, they would have suffered the opprobrium of the general populace as pair of sexual perverts.  So this story of the career of a sadistic schoolmaster ends, totally unexpectedly, on a happy note.

THE END