A sticky problem

Chapter 1

“In conclusion, Headmaster, I blame myself entirely for the unfortunate situation I have just outlined to you. The question is, can you help me in what I suppose might best be termed, my hour of need.”

This concluding remark to what had been a long story, was addressed, in early January 1900, by Colonel Sir John Reginald Thomas Sefton-Browne of Her Britannic Majesty’s Bengal Regiment, stationed in Calcutta, to the Headmaster, Dr. William Greatorix-Smyth of, to give it its full name, The Grantley Academy for Boys of British Commissioned Officers; more usually referred to simply as Grantley.

Grantley was named after its founder, one William Grantley, a mid-nineteenth century Admiral of the British Royal Navy. Admiral Grantley had realised that regular serving naval and army officers too, often on assignment overseas in the then many outposts of the British Empire, needed a school which could, when required, offer year- round care of their male offspring. 

Grantley was essentially an up-market English public school, but with an important difference from its homologues.  It took boys from the tender age of eight into what was essentially a preparatory school. Then, at age eleven, they moved into the public school proper.  But boys, who entered aged eight, were immediately assigned to one of the six boarding houses, which became their home, until they left as young men aged eighteen. But the big difference, which truly set Grantley apart from other public schools, was that fact that out of term, Grantley still cared for those boys whose parents were abroad, running the British Empire. So parents could safely park their offspring at Grantley, in the secure knowledge that, provided they paid the eye-wateringly large fees, their sons would be housed, clothed and fed, and given a rigorous education as befitted the sons of gentlemen.  And like most rigorous educations at most English public schools, at Grantley, the regular vigorous use of both the cane and the birch were – to put it succinctly – de rigueur!

It was precisely this; let us call it, unique one-stop aspect of Grantley, which had led to the meeting now taking place between Colonel Sefton-Browne and Dr. Greatorix-Smyth. What the colonel had referred to as the unfortunate situation was the culmination of a series of equally unexpected events, which had occurred over the years. The colonel, born as plain, untitled John Sefton-Browne had succeeded to the baronetcy, as the fifth baronet, aged only eighteen, on the accidental death of his father, the fourth baronet, in a riding accident As his mother had died of natural causes a few years earlier, the young man was left with no parents; and as both his late parents had also been only children, he found himself without any close relatives, such as aunts, uncles and cousins. In a word, the young Sir John Sefton-Browne had no close family.

Having decided to make a career in the army, he had sold off the family house and more or less severed ties with England. And so it was as a second lieutenant that Sir John Sefton-Browne, then aged twenty, had first joined the British Bengal Regiment, stationed in Calcutta, a place which he gradually came to think of as home. Some twenty-five years later, the by then Major Sir John Sefton-Browne, whom everyone thought of as a confirmed bachelor, a career officer in the Regular Army in India, suddenly, on one of his very rare returns to England, had married a lady some twenty years younger than himself. Aged then some forty-five years old, he had wasted no time, for together with his new wife, they had produced a son within ten months of the marriage.

As his wife was rather frail, he had left her, in England during her pregnancy in the hands of her widowed mother. However, fate was unkind, to the Sefton-Brownes, as when the child, a son, was born, his mother died shortly after her confinement. So within less than a year after his marriage, the newly wedded Major Sefton-Browne was left a widower with his regiment in Calcutta, with a new-born son, whom he had not yet seen, in England. The boy was christened Cedric John Sefton-Browne and the major made, what had seemed to him at the time, an admirable arrangement with his widowed mother-in-law, leaving his son in the care of his maternal grandmother, to whom, having lost both her own husband and only daughter, Cedric became her most precious possession. So Cedric Sefton-Browne, who would in due course inherit his father’s title as the sixth baronet, was left in the care of his grandmother, his only close relative other than his father.

However, what Major Sir John Sefton-Browne had not reckoned with, was that his mother-in-law, a lady of considerable financial means, unilaterally decided that her grandson should be educated privately at home. And so until his sixth year, little Cedric was comforted and cosseted by a nanny, who became, as many such maiden ladies so often did, his surrogate mother. However, when he came of an age when he should  have been sent to some infants’ school, his grandmother decided that he would be best off educated privately at home and engaged first a young governess, followed, when Cedric reached the age of eight, by a live in tutor, called Edward Farrer.  And it was this young man, who allowed his only pupil to call him Edward, an unheard of liberty at that time, who was Cedric’s sole source of instruction.

With his son, out of sight and out of mind, so to speak, Sir John thought very little about his only child and saw him even less.  So it is safe to say that like many other boys, whose parents were away somewhere in the British Empire, waving the flag and serving King and Country, (Queen Victoria had, by now, passed on and Britain had a King, Edward VII) it is a sad fact of life that little Cedric and his absentee father, barely knew one another.  As a result, the bond, which normally exists between father and son, was never really established, given that Sir John was thousands of miles away in India, and his son in a country town in West Sussex in England. In fact, Cedric was one year old before his father saw him for the first time. So gradually, as time passed, Sir John thought less and less about his only son, whom he saw only on one of his rare trips to England, where, having no longer a family house, he stayed at his club in Pall-Mall.

However, all this had changed with a vengeance when the now commander of the Bengal Regiment, Colonel Sir John Sefton-Browne, as he had in the meantime become, received a telegram from England, informing him that his mother-in-law had, quite unexpectedly, and for him personally inconveniently, died of a heart attack, leaving his son practically an orphan, as he had no relatives on either side of his parental families in England.  So Colonel Sir John, had been forced to apply for compassionate leave, and return to England, which is what had brought him to Grantley. As the boy’s father, even though he barely knew his son, he had to make arrangements for the lad’s life and education in England, as it was unthinkable for him that he take his son back to live and be educated in India.

From the little he knew of his own flesh and blood old, he thought that the cosseted and comfortable environment, in which Cedric had been brought up by his grandmother, had turned his son into something of a milk-sop. It has it be said that the colonel, like many of his ilk, was an irascible sort of man and the strictest of disciplinarians with his men; so even the thought that his only son and heir might be a softy, was a complete anathema to him. What, in his mind, the lad now clearly needed was to be sent to a strict public school, where he would receive an education befitting the son of an English gentleman and be introduced to the rude realities of life. Whether Cedric wanted to be sent to a public school or not, was not up for debate. After his arrival in England, his father blankly told him that from now on his future would be at a boys’ boarding school: end of story!

Chapter 2 

“As I say, Headmaster, I should have put my foot down when Cedric reached the age of eight and insisted that his grandmother send him to a good prep school.  But I did not do that and now you see the mess, in which my weakness has landed me.  The totally unexpected, early demise of his grandmother, my mother-in-law, has, to say the very least, made life difficult for both Cedric and me. Her death has more or less rendered the boy, who is now aged eleven going on twelve, a quasi orphan.”

What the colonel did not say to the Headmaster was that he and his late mother-in-law had had a reciprocal love-hate relationship with each other. In one way he was pleased that the old bird had taken Cedric off his hands, for deep inside himself he knew that the last thing he had actually wanted, as a career soldier in India, was a hands-on relationship with his son with all the bother of attending to the needs of a young child. And so, in one way he was grateful to her for having taken Cedric off his hands, more or less from birth.  On the other hand, however, he deeply resented that fact that she had consulted him on absolutely nothing concerning Cedric.

His one and only consolation was that he knew that his mother-in-law adored her grandson and that in her doting care he was safe from harm. Additionally, as she was, to say the very least, well-off (actually, she was stinking rich with old money) he had never been asked, nor had he ever offered, to make any financial contribution towards the upkeep of his son. So over the years he had allowed himself to slip into being a father in name only; so much so that he had, much to his mother-in-law’s disgust, on two occasions forgotten the boy’s birthday. However the untimely demise of Cedric’s grandmother had radically changed all that, which was why the colonel was figuratively on his knees in front of the Headmaster of Grantley.

“I am myself now aged fifty-five and have still ten more years to serve in the army before I retire. As my military career has been spent entirely in India, I have come to look upon the place as my home and I have no wish for my son to be brought up there. Clearly, I cannot leave an eleven year old, to his own devices.” The colonel’s next remark showed the Headmaster how totally self-centred and selfish the man in front of him truly was: “If only his grandmother had lived until Cedric was eighteen and was his own man, then I would not be in the pickle in which I find myself at this moment. But there is no point in crying over split milk; a solution must be found, and found immediately, for the boy’s future.”

The Headmaster, listening to this, was unsure of who the colonel thought had spilled the milk. Was it he himself in not insisting that his son be sent to a prep school at the age of eight, in which case he would have been in the English public boarding school system? Or was it the fault of his grandmother, who had, as implied by the colonel’s tone of voice, not only decided that her grandson should be privately educated without reference to his father, but had then had the inconvenient effrontery to die before her time?

“So Headmaster, I am forced to ask you, if you would be willing to accept my son as a pupil at Grantley under these quite exceptional circumstances. I appreciate that it is not the beginning of the school’s academic year, or even start of the winter term, as we are already in the first week of January.  But, as things stand at the moment, I see no alternative to Grantley, as a means of killing two birds with one stone.”

“A most unfortunate choice of words,” thought the Headmaster to himself.

“You see Headmaster, Grantley alone offers the unique combination of an excellent public school education, with its customary discipline which all boys need, though they may not much like it, coupled with a safe refuge for boys like mine, whose parents cannot always take care of their offspring out of term-time. It gives parents the peace of mind that, come what may, their son is in good hands and in no danger.”

The Headmaster again thought to himself: “You really just want to get your son off your hands and go back to India and don’t care two hoots about him. You just want to run your regiment in Calcutta. Out of sight, out of mind; that, my dear sir, sums you up completely.”

“So, Headmaster, if you could agree to accept Cedric under these quite exceptional circumstances, I would, be eternally grateful; of course. I would be willing to pay the full year’s school fees. And in addition, in view of the fact that my son has never been in a school environment, I am quite willing to pay for additional tuition to – how shall I put it? – bring the lad up to speed, as I suspect that he may be woefully lacking in many subjects.”

Before the colonel had finished speaking, the Headmaster had already made up his mind that he would accept the boy.  He had never even met Cedric, but he already felt sorry for the lad; sorry, but also in a way glad for the boy, that his unreal, idyllic life with his grandmother had come to such a sudden sad end, sooner rather than later; sorry also that the boy had not been sent to prep school to interface with and integrate himself into his peer group; and sorry for the boy when he thought of the sharp shock he would experience at being thrown in at the deep end of the hurly-burly of life at Grantley, which was not at all a bed of roses.

The Headmaster, Dr. Greatorix-Smyth, was not by nature a sentimental softy; in fact, quite the contrary, as he ruled the school with that figurative rod of iron. So it was not to be thought that his sympathy for the boy would in any way influence his treatment as a pupil at the school. Given the school’s historical antecedents, discipline was based on rather harsh navy and army practices, The birch and cane were in regular use in the school proper, but also in the six houses where the boys boarded; too regularly in the view of most of the boys, whose backsides were frequently warmed by the vigorous application of both implements by the Headmaster, the six housemasters and prefects, none of whom ever shirked doing what they considered as their corrective duty.  In fact, the Headmaster himself was an enthusiastic and efficient wielder of both the birch and the cane, as many a lad could testify. So from the time they got out of bed in the morning until lights out in the dormitories in the evening, the threat of the cane and the birch was ever present.

Cedric would have a lot to learn and a lot of catching up to do. Given the strict discipline which was enforced at Grantley, the Headmaster knew that the lad would have quite a few painful experiences learning the ropes and would, like most boys, probably, times without number, sob himself quietly to sleep, nursing a very sore bottom, before he finally felt that he had arrived and fitted in at Grantley; but that was something Cedric would have to come to terms with as being part and parcel of life at a public school. But that was all in the future; the first thing was to get Cedric installed in the system and kitted out with the considerable paraphernalia necessary for life at the school.

“Well, Sir John, I think that the school can accommodate you under what are truly quite exceptional circumstances. I think that we can place your son in the care of Commander Thresher, who is the housemaster of Wellington House and who takes a no nonsense approach to the boys in his care. Before joining us as a teacher, Commander Thresher was in charge of a Royal Navy training facility for young cadets, a post he had to relinquish due to ill health.  We count ourselves fortunate to have him with us, as his strict naval training, particularly in the matter of discipline, has been an inspiration to us all. He is exactly the right person to take charge of a boy who hitherto has been allowed to do much as he pleased and who will have to learn to toe the line, which I regret to say your son might find a painful experience.”

“So my suggestion is that you take the next week to kit out your son with the necessary school uniform, other clothing and all the various requisites which he will need for life at Grantley. We are very strict when it comes to dress, as we are in all things, as befits a school for boys of military and naval officers. So it is important that your son lack for none of what we here consider as the essential trappings for life at Grantley. Matron will provide you with a complete list of everything your son will need, together with a list of approved suppliers in central London.”

“I suggest that we make an appointment here and now for the date and time at which you will bring your son here to the school, so that you may meet Commander Thresher, who will be Cedric’s housemaster, and see him safely installed in Wellington House, before you return to your duties in India. That way you will have the peace of mind of knowing that your son is settled for the most important his formative years of his life., in what will essentially become his home, with Commander Thresher as his father figure, It is our aim to turn out well-educated, young gentlemen, who can go on to assume important roles in the life of this country, when they finally leave Grantley. And I assure you that even though your son is a late starter, with extra help, I am certain that we will turn out a young man who will be a credit to you.” 

Chapter 3 

Readers will have noticed, that so far in this narrative, other than his name, we know nothing  about Cedric himself, the hero of this story, other than that he barely knew his father and what little he knew of him, he feared and, quite frankly, disliked.  Cedric, who had been brought up by his maternal grandmother, was heir to the hereditary title of a father, whom he barely knew, and had been educated privately until now. He was already a rich young man in his own right, his grandmother having left him the sole beneficiary of her entire, quite considerable fortune and the house in which he had lived all his life.

His grandmother, who had died at the young age of sixty-five, had left her affairs in perfect order. It was almost, as if foreseeing that she might herself die before her grandson reached his majority, she had covered every eventuality. The executors of her estate, her solicitors, were instructed to sell the house and invest the proceeds together with her other assets on behalf of her grandson until he reached the age of eighteen. She had clearly seen that it was his absentee father’s responsibility to fund his son until he reached that age. But from age eighteen onward, he would received a generous monthly allowance from his inheritance until he attained his majority, which was twenty-one in those days, when he would be able to touch the totality of his inheritance.

The old lady’s fortune had amounted to a total of just over £1 million at the time of her death in 1900. Today in 2020, the purchasing power of his inheritance would be that of around £125 million. So Cedric, aged eleven, was already fabulously wealthy, a fact of which he was totally unaware. But his grandmother, conditioned by the knowledge that in the event of her death, her grandson would be left with only one living relative in the world, her son-in-law, his largely absentee father, had made provision that if Colonel Sir John Sefton-Brown should also die before his son reached eighteen years of age, leaving his son a minor and an orphan, albeit a very rich one, her solicitors who were controlling Cedric’s inheritance,  would appoint a guardian, who would see his ward through his schooling, when aged eighteen, he would be allowed  full access to his fortune. 

The fateful day and hour arrived and the colonel, accompanied by his son, arrived at Grantley late in the afternoon the second Friday in January. After the registration formalities had been completed, Commander Thresher, the housemaster of Wellington House, arrived and tea was served in Dr. Greatorix-Smyth’s study. The colonel was surprised to see that the ex-naval commander was much younger than he had anticipated and looked fit and well and not at all as if he had been invalided out of the navy, as he had hitherto been led to believe.

Shortly after tea, the colonel departed, leaving his son and heir to the tender, loving care of the school and more specifically in the hands of Commander Thresher, whom at first sight the colonel had recognised as being of a character similar to his own: someone who was used to being in charge; used to having his orders carried out smartly and to the letter; and if they were not, then God help the offender; and in that mysterious way in which God moves, his wonders to perform, he rarely, if ever, did!  As Cedric was rapidly to learn, in Wellington House, under the aegis of Commander Thresher, the cane and the birch were in regular use. In fact, other than the Headmaster himself, Commander Thresher was alone among his fellow housemasters still to use the birch in addition to the cane. But use it he did; and quite frequently; particularly on the older boys, whose misdemeanours often justified, in his eyes, what his victims called the double whammy: the birch followed by a several cuts of the cane.

“Yes,” thought the colonel to himself as he left the school, “This is exactly what my milk-sop of a son needs: a good dose of naval discipline to bring him into the real world, after the years of mollycoddling by his grandmother.” He then allowed himself to think the unthinkable: “Thank god that the old girl died when she did; not a moment too soon, otherwise my son would have been lost forever, if he had stayed under her wing. Ah well; all’s well that ends well; Cedric will now get the sort of education he needs. Thank goodness I was able to persuade the Headmaster to accept him in the middle of the term and take the boy of my hands.”

These private thoughts showed the colonel for what he, in fact was: a selfish, bullying  man, whose only pleasure in life was lording it over his over his regiment, which, like Dr. Greatorix-Smyth and Commander Thresher at Grantley, he ruled with a rod of iron. Basically he cared not two hoots for his son’s future. In his own eyes he had done his duty as a father in placing Cedric in an establishment where he would be cared for and given an education fit for the son of a gentleman, such as he saw himself. He was quite content to pay the expensive school-fees and out-of-term living costs for his son, if the only effort required on his part was to sign the cheques.

Grantley was a school of strong tradition and boys entering were assigned to the same house as had been their fathers and even their grandfathers before them. The house system also created hero worship among the younger boys, who admired certain of their older brethren and hoped desperately that they too would one day be the same. Thus they developed complete loyalty to their house at a very early age. But the sense of belonging and family was taken even further, for in each house, the ten boys of the yearly intake were assigned to a single dormitory. Then as they passed through the school, they slept together as a group, until the lower sixth form, when two boys shared a study bedroom. In their final year in the upper sixth, each boy had his own study bedroom and slept alone for the first time since entering Grantley. 

Installing Cedric in Wellington House had been a no-brainer for the Headmaster as it just so happened that the Wellington, eleven-plus dormitory, the senior dormitory of the lower school, had commenced the winter term that January one boy down. For reasons best know to themselves, this boy’s parents had decided to withdraw him from Grantley in December and place him in another school elsewhere; so conveniently there was a spare bed in the ten-bed dorm. Thus the Headmaster had had no problem in helping the colonel out of his dilemma.

So Cedric, with no experience of life with other boys on a daily basis, found himself, by default, in dormitory of nine boys of his own age, all of whom had lived together as a group since their entry into Grantley aged eight. Not only was the lad thrust, as an outsider, into an existing group of boys, but he also found  himself in what everyone at Grantley considered to be the strictest of the the six houses. The housemaster, Commander Thresher, had a justifiable reputation as the strictest of strict disciplinarians; a fact, which was well known throughout the school.  Given his total inexperience of communal life, not surprisingly, Cedric found himself very much the square peg in a round hole.

Not for nothing was Commander Thresher known as The Thrasher, the obvious nickname which the boys had immediately seized upon for him, for given his devotion to regular use of both the cane and the birch, it was entirely apposite. An appointment to see The Thrasher in his study was one which filled every boy, from the youngest to the oldest, with fear. In fact, it was, well, let us call it his overenthusiastic use of the cane – in a word, brutality, and not illness, which had led to his leaving that hotbed of corporal punishment, for which any Royal Navy cadet training establishment is justly notorious.  An appointment with the Thrasher was generally considered something to be avoided like the plague; but like the plague, as boys discovered, such appointments were not easy to avoid. So the characteristic sound of the cane or the birch, especially the former, mating with the firm mound of some unfortunate  boy’s naked buttocks, accompanied by vocal expressions of appreciation from the recipient, were regularly to be heard emanating from the Thrasher’s study.

But, as Cedric was eventually to find out, total avoidance of that dreaded invitation was well nigh impossible to achieve. It seemed as though one way other another, the Commander wanted to familiarise himself with the topography of each and every one of his charges’ naked arses. And it is true that the Commander could have identified many of the older boys, to whom he regularly offered communion with the cane, by their arses, in what might have been described as an arse identity parade, if such had ever taken place. So familiar with the topography the backsides of certain of the boys, which he regularly addressed with either the birch or cane, or sometimes both, that they had become as recognisable to him as their owners’ faces.

It was around five in the afternoon when the Headmaster finally handed Cedric over to his Housemaster, who having shown Cedric to the dormitory of which he was to become a member for his entire career at Grantley, promptly left him in the capable hands of the present house-captain, the eighteen year-old upper-sixth former, Roderick Havers, to show him the ropes. Havers, like so many boys who were elevated to the status of prefect, took his duties very seriously, especially when it came exercising the beating privileges which came with the post.

He, like the Commander, on whom he modelled his behaviour, never hesitated for even a moment before correcting – a euphemism for caning – any of his schoolmates, no matter what their age, if he felt they deserved it; a feeling to which he gave way very frequently. Such was his fondness for the cane that by Christmas, the end of his first term as the senior house-prefect, he had become the most hated and feared house-captain of Wellington House in recent history. And it was this strict disciplinarian, with a strong sadistic streak in his make-up, who introduced Cedric to his new surroundings and gave him a few perfunctory remarks about life at Grantley.

The senior prep dormitory, in which Cedric was destined to spend his first year at Grantley, was a long, bare, rectangular room with a window at the far end.  Along each of the long walls, jutting out from them at right-angles, were five identical metal-framed beds, separated from each other by a custom made cupboard-chest of drawers combination, in which the occupant of the adjacent bed stored his clothes and personal possessions. Havers pointed to the second bed on the right, at the foot of which was already standing Cedric’s brand-new school trunk containing all the clothes and paraphernalia necessary for life of an eleven year-old boy at Grantley.

Stating the obvious, he said: “That’s your bed, Sefton-Browne; so I suggest that you unpack your things and change into your school uniform in time for supper which is at seven. I’ll be back in half an hour and take you to the junior common room where most of your house-mates probably are at the moment and introduce you to everyone as a new boy. Now I advise you to get on with things, as we don’t like boys who mess around and never get things done. So you have half an hour to unpack your things and get into your school uniform.  I shall be back at five-thirty, sharp and I expect you to be fully dressed ready as do not want to be kept waiting. Is that clear, Sefton-Browne?”

For Cedric, this was the first time in his life he had been addressed as Sefton-Browne, which he found totally unfriendly and unnerving; and so he was too nonplussed to reply.

“I asked you if that was clear, Sefton-Browne and when I ask you a question, I expect an answer.  So let me ask you again, boy; is that clear?”

This was said by Havers in a menacing way which brooked no dissent; so Cedric, making his first mistake, meekly answered: “Yes, sir.”

Havers then corrected Cedric, somewhat harshly saying, “Sefton-Browne, I don’t know where you were at school before you were inflicted upon us here at Grantley, but you clearly have a lot to learn. Are you unaware of the fact that when you address a prefect, you address him by his name and never call him sir? Sir is reserved uniquely for when you address a master or another adult. So the correct reply to my question should have been; Yes, Havers. Is that clear, Sefton-Brown?”

Cedric, somewhat disconcerted by the tone of Havers’s voice, meekly replied: “Yes, Havers.”

But Havers was not content to let matters rest there as he continued, intent on making a mountain out of a molehill and making poor Cedric even more nervous than he already was: “Sefton-Browne, you have got off to a very bad start on your first day at Grantley. So don’t make matters worse by being late.  I expect you to be fully dressed in your school uniform and your things to be stowed away in your locker when I come back here in half an hour. And to make things quite clear, Sefton-Browne, here at Grantley, a half hour is precisely thirty minutes. So, unless you wish me to take immediate corrective action to show you that I mean what I say, I expect you to be ready and not to be kept waiting.  Have I made myself clear enough, Sefton-Browne?”

Cedric replied: “Yes, Havers, I have understood what you have just said and I will try my best to be ready on time.” He paused, as if wanting to add something, but then thought better of it and said nothing more.

But Havers was intent on having the last word and as he left, leaving Cedric to unpack and dress, he added: “Sefton-Browne, I have better  things to do other than holding  you hand; so I expect you you to be ready when I return. Trying your best to be ready and not succeeding will simply not do; so if you keep me waiting on my return you will bear the consequences for wasting my time, brought on by yourself through your lack of application to the task at hand; consequences, which allow me to assure you, will not be at all pleasant for you. Half an hour is ample time for you to dress and put your things away. If you are not ready when I return, I shall be obliged to introduce you to a less pleasant aspect of life in this house; one much less pleasant than introducing you to your house-mates.”

Chapter 4 

Finally left alone in the empty dorm, Cedric looked around the fairly bleak room where he would be sleeping with nine other boys of his age.  He saw that there was a name card in metal holder on the door of each cupboard. So eager to know the names of his future house-mates, he spent a few moments passing from one bed to the next, looking at at the name of each occupant in turn.  Typical of the discipline of a military based establishment, the boys had been allocated their beds in alphabetic order, starting with the first bed on the left, running down the five beds towards the window and then returning in the opposite direction from the first bed to the right of the window.  Cedric was blessed with an almost photographic memory and one pass was enough for him to have the names of all his nine dorm-mates in his head: Adams, Crombie, Firth, Hammond, Johnson, Sedgewick, Vaughan, Sefton-Browne – his name card had already been inserted by someone into its holder – Williams, and finally Younger.

Cedric saw immediately that he himself was the only boy with a double-barrelled name. He also saw that his advent had upset the strict alphabetical order in which the dorm had originally been configured. He hoped that this would not become a bone of contention between himself and his new companions, as it, coupled with his double-barrelled name and the fact that he had been thrust as a new-comer into a tight knit group of boys, who had been together since they joined the school aged eight, made him very much the odd man out. His arrival in the dorm, had, for better or for worse, through no fault of his, destroyed the old order. He sensed already that his arrival might be resented by the others and feared that he would forever be considered by his dorm-mates as square peg in a round hole: someone who did not fit in.

Then, as he walked back along the room towards his bed, a shiver of fear ran down his spine, as he saw a rattan punishment cane hanging from a hook on the wall by the door.  Cedric’s arse had never been given even a slap in its life and was therefore still a punishment-virgin; but he had read stories about boys at boarding school being whacked for their misdeeds. And, as he was shortly to find out, the painful reality of Wellington House was that its boys were regularly subjected to both the birch and the cane, which were a fact of life with which the boys, including himself, had to live.  And although Cedric did not know it then, the cane he had just noticed was one of several to be found in each of the prep-school dormitories. Their ubiquitous presence enabled the house prefects quickly to correct any bad behaviour in the dorm without having to go off in search of their own personal instrument of correction; a procedure, with which Cedric was soon to become painfully familiar.

But time was flying and he still had to put on his school uniform and unpack his things.  The sight of the cane, hanging there, just waiting to be used to warm the backside of one or other of his dorm-mates, brought home with a vengeance the reality of the threat made by Havers to introduce him to a less pleasant aspect of life in Wellington House if he were to be kept waiting. Cedric was already sufficiently aware of the realities of life at Grantley to realise that his backside would be on a collision course with the dorm cane if he were ever to be displease Havers; so he diligently applied himself to unpacking and donning his school uniform.

A word about the school uniform: as befitted a school with military roots, the tunic of the navy-blue uniform, was void of lapels and high collared. It was buttoned up with a series of some ten, highly-polished brass buttons down the front, all of which, as Cedric was to learn, had had to be fastened at all times and which had to be maintained by the wearer in a gleaming state of pristine cleanliness. Above the high collar, the uniform was completed by a white shirt, changed every day, and a hand-tied bow-tie. All boys, from the earliest age, wore long black trousers and highly polished black shoes on their feet, which, like the buttons had, under pain of death or the Wellington House equivalent, which, as Cedric was to find out, was a painfully sore arse, to be maintained by their wearer, in a gleaming, mirror-like state: In brief, the boys from age eight to eighteen were expected to look like well dressed young naval officer cadets at all times.

Cedric had finished his unpacking and was fully dressed apart from the bow tie, which he had no idea how to tie.  He hoped above hope that the arrogant Havers, would unbend sufficiently and get down off his high horse to show him how to tie his tie. As he had said, Havers arrived punctually half an hour later. He looked witheringly at Cedric and said: “So I see you don’t know how to tie a tie; so I suppose you expect me to show you how it’s done.”

“If you would be so kind, Havers, please show me how it is done, as I have never before worn a bow tie.”

“Sefton-Browne, it is my job to keep order, both in the school and in this house in particularly and I do not take kindly to have to mother new boys such as you. However, I suppose as you are an exceptional case, coming to us halfway through the year, I must compromise my principles and help you to complete your dress. Stand over there in front of the looking-glass with your back towards me and I will put my arms around your neck and show you exactly how it is done. Now Sefton-Browne I will show you once and once only. After that you are on your own and if you value your backside, young man, I expect you to appear with a tie correctly tied on all occasions when you are wearing your uniform.”

With his tie finally tied, Cedric was taken by Havers to the junior common room, where most of the Wellington House prep school boys were present, playing various games and, as boys do, talking to each other. Cedric saw that the boys had automatically segregated themselves by age group, as the senior boys, to which group Cedric would belong, wanted nothing to do with the first and second year boys aged eight and nine. Havers had the sort of presence, which, either through fear or respect, probably the former, made everyone stop what he was doing and fall silent. It was obvious from the icy reception he had received that Havers presence among them was unwelcome.

Cedric, standing at Havers’s side, was very nervous at the thought of being thrust into a group of boys, all of whom had lived together for some time, and none of whom he knew. Havers began: “Attention, all of you; I want to introduce to you a new boy, who had just joined us today. His name is Sefton-Brown and he will be in the senior prep dorm, where he will replace Walters, who left Grantley at the end of last term. Sefton-Brown, the boys over here are the ones you will be joining in the senior prep dorm, of which you will complete the happy family, depleted by the unforeseen departure of Walters.  Now Adams, as dorm monitor, I will hand Sefton-Browne over to you and allow you to introduce him as the latest recruit to the rest of your band of merry men.” Then turning his attention towards another member of the same group he went on: “Oh Hammond, as I am here, I may as well remind you that you and I have some unfinished business to complete his evening. So I will expect to see you, wearing your pyjamas, in my study, immediately after showers at eight o’clock sharp. Kindly don’t be late, Hammond, as I hate to be kept waiting.”

An obviously downcast Hammond, reminded of an appointment he would clearly have preferred to forget, simply replied: “Yes, Havers: I haven’t forgotten.”

And so, Cedric was introduced by Adams, his dorm monitor, to the eight other boys, all of whom who would henceforth be his companions throughout his career at the school. It was a new experience for all of them; both for Cedric, the newcomer, and equally for his new dorm-mates. Cedric felt akin to the biblical Daniel; totally alone in what seemed to him at that moment like a lions’ den of nine boys who had been together since the age of eight, when they entered Grantley.

There is a world of difference between a group of new boys, flung together on their first day at prep school, with none of them knowing any of the others and a newcomer being thrust into a well established group. That first day at prep-school, the boys begin to exchange names and identify those among their peers to whom they are most attracted and those who will just become classmates rather than close friends. But the scene, which was now being played out in the junior common room, was totally different.

Obviously in a group of ten boys who had been living and sleeping together for several years in the same school dormitory, the original group had already splintered into sub-groups, whose members had found they had a special affinity.  It was into this established structure, which Cedric somehow had to fit. Already disadvantaged by the lone life he had hitherto led, with little or no contact with anyone of either sex of his own age, it is not at all surprising that he felt nervous and ill-at-ease.

But his nine dorm-mates were equally disconcerted, by the arrival of a new-comer. Here was a new boy, an outsider, an intruder, whom they nevertheless knew that they had no option but to accept as a member of their dorm, but who risked upsetting the established order.  Although they knew that they had to integrate Cedric into the existing structure, the boys of the senior prep dorm, they were no different from the majority of people in this world; they hated change.

And so it was to Adams, the dorm monitor, that fell the somewhat delicate task of introducing Cedric to his future companions. Cedric, who had hitherto always been called by his Christian name by everyone he knew, had to accustom himself to the rigid formality of surnames, imposed on even the youngest boys at Grantley. So as Adams did the round of the senior prep-dorm members, Cedric put faces to the names had already memorised: Crombie, Firth, Hammond, Johnson, Sedgewick, Vaughan, Williams, Younger, and of course, dorm monitor, Adams.

Introductions over, it was supper time and everyone moved into the Wellington House refectory, where Cedric discovered that members of each dormitory sat together at their own table. Each dorm had ten members and the long, rectangular dining tables each accommodated all the members of one dorm, who always sat together. But the sense of order was absolute; as Cedric found that his place at table was fixed and mirrored the position of his bed in the dormitory. He was fast learning that most of the rules governing his life at Grantley were figuratively carved in stone. And as he was soon to learn, breaking even the most minor of the myriad of rules, if detected by a prefect, usually led to the most painful of consequences; the cane was alive and well and in more or less daily use both in and out of class time.

“You must not leave your napkin lying there loosely on the table like that,” said Adams, helpfully. “You absolutely must always roll it up and put it into your napkin ring. If a prefect sees it lying there, you will get your arse swished for untidiness.” Arse was the first coarse word which Cedric had ever heard; but he was, like most boys, rapidly to learn the vulgar lingua franca of the public school, that, inventory of words used by schoolboys in general; and, after his first beating, by a prefect, he rapidly learned when and in whose hearing he could safely use them without the risk of incurring a sore arse.

After supper the boys were free until bed-time, which for the members of the senior prep dorm was eight-thirty. Here again Cedric was confronted with a situation with which he was totally unfamiliar as he had, until now always slept and bathed alone. But now he found that he had to come to terms with nudity, which seemed not at all to bother his dorm-mates, who stripped off their clothes and headed naked down the corridor towards the showers, each on carrying his own towel; showers, which, as Cedric was about to learn, were de rigueur before going to bed and again, on getting up in the morning. Cleanliness was at least equal to godliness at Grantley.

The nightly ablutions of the junior boys were staggered as the shower space was limited and were supervised by one or other of the prefects. Cedric faced his first challenge as he had never before been naked in front of anyone since he was seven years old. He had from then on, having developed that sense of prudery as many boys do, shy to appear naked in front of anyone, always washed himself in private.  Unlike his dorm-mates who had been together for several years, he had never, until now, been faced with what for him was the very embarrassing situation: stripping off naked in front of others.

The supervising prefect said:  “Get a move on new boy; you’ve not got all night; get your clothes off and into the showers with the others. If you continue dawdling around as you are at the moment, I’ll give you some encouragement to get a move on, by warming your arse with the dorm cane hanging there by the door. It’s there for a purpose, you know, and is used regularly to encourage boys like you to get a move on. So, Sefton-Browne, unless you want to go to bed with a very sore bum, get undressed and into the showers immediately. I shan’t tell you again.”  And with that, by way of reinforcing what he had just said he took down the cane from its hook by the door and waved it in Cedric’s face.

This was Cedric’s first true threat of Wellingtonian authority, which as he was quickly to learn, relied heavily on the strongly persuasive powers of the rattan cane, which seemed to rear its ugly head everywhere in Wellington House. As he was soon to learn, that very evening in fact, the cane was rarely silent for long and was used regularly to keep order, delivering, at the hands of The Thrasher himself and the two house prefects under the hated Havers, its painful message to the naked backsides of the boys. From youngest to eldest the all-inclusive, non-discriminatory, ubiquitous cane spared no one.

Having overcome the embarrassment of his maiden stripping and showering with his dorm-mates, Cedric returned to the senior prep dorm, donned his pyjamas and prepared himself for bed.  Lights-out was at eight-thirty, so the boys had a half hour where they could converse and do the things young lads do together, before finally turning in.

It was already ten past eight when a scowling Havers entered the dorm, looked straight at Hammond and said: “Hammond, I may be imagining things but as I recall, it was only late this afternoon that I reminded you our appointment in my study, which if my memory serves me correctly, which it infallibly does, was for eight sharp this evening.. Now here it is already almost a quarter past eight and I find you still playing around in the dorm with your friends. On your feet, boy and go to my study and wait for me there when I shall give myself the pleasure of teaching you a lesson in punctuality you will never forget. And the whole lot of you; you lot, learn from Hammond’s bad example. I mean what I say, and when, as captain of this house, I give you an order, I expect it to be obeyed, unless you give me good reason not to do as I say.”

A very nervous Hammond got to his feet and made of the door, saying: “Sorry, Havers, I had not realised what time it was.”

It was all of twenty minutes later, five minutes after the fateful time for lights-out, when a sobbing Hammond returned to the dorm, lowered his pyjama trousers and showed his school-mates what Havers had visited on his backside. This was Cedric’s first encounter with the ravages of the cane. He had no idea why Hammond had been flogged, but his first encounter with a well beaten arse, visual as it was, just looking at the livid stripes which Havers had cut into Hammond’s arse, filled the virgin Cedric with a sense of foreboding fear, that his own backside would one day look exactly the same.

But the horror of the evening was not yet over, as Havers, the wrath of god written across his face for no clear reason, unexpectedly came back to the dormitory, to find the traditional, post-mortem viewing of Hammond’s arse still going on. His sudden and totally unexpected arrival sent a chill down the spines  of the boys, all of whom  knew that as it was past eight thirty, the lights should have been out,  which they patently were not.

“And what do you gentlemen think you are doing at this hour, swanning around when lights should have been out a good five minutes ago.” Then turning to Adams, he said pompously: “Adams, as monitor of this dormitory, responsible for turning off the lights, perhaps you would explain to me, why the lights are still on at this late hour?”

“Well, Havers, we all thought that it would be all right on this occasion to wait until Hammond came back from your study, before switching off the light. But now that Hammond is back, we will all get into bed and I will turn off the light.”

“Ten minutes late, Adams; ten minutes late, boy.” And then with the clear intent of making a mountain out of a molehill, he continued: “I come in here ten minutes after lights out, to find the whole lot of you out of bed, ogling Hammond’s arse with that prurient lascivity so characteristic of boys of your age, when all of you should have been in bed with the lights out.”

Poor Adams, at whom Havers was directing his wrath, tried desperately to explain: “Well Havers, I thought that it would be better to leave the lights on and let Hammond get back to his bed and then I would have switched them off.”

“Your job, as dorm monitor, is to see that the rules are obeyed to the letter. I was not for you to decide to leave the lights on. Hammond could have switched them on himself on his arrival and once in bed, it would have been your duty then to switch them back off again. No, Adams, your motivation was not as you have claimed and your explanation does not hold water. Your motivation was to enable yourself and the other members of this dormitory, to conduct the traditional post-beating viewing of Hammond’s backside, to see if I had done my job properly and that he had been well and truly beaten for the offence he had committed.” 

Listing to this tirade from Havers, Adams’s heart fell to the bottom of his stomach as he watched Havers take the dorm cane from its hook beside the door. The lad knew that Havers was out for his blood; that   his own backside was doomed and that there was nothing more that he could do to save it from the depredations he house-captain  clearly intent on visiting upon it.

 “The lot of you, get into bed immediately.” And then as he saw that Adams, in one last vain attempt to save himself from the cane, had taken him at his word and was also intent of getting into his bed, Havers barked:  “No, not you, Adams; you have to answer for the conspicuous neglect of your duty this evening as dorm monitor, a position of trust, which you have broken. You, young man, will place your pillow over the foot of the bed, lower your pyjama trousers and present your bare backside to me for the punishment which you richly deserve for dereliction of your duty as dorm monitor.”

Poor Adams could do none other than obey his house-captain, whose word was more or less law and did as he had been bidden.  Cedric, who had already been horrified just at the sight of the livid stripes of Hammonds well-beaten arse, which had already caused a stirring of that indicator of erotic arousal between his legs, a sensation which he had never before experienced, now discovered, as he saw Adams’s naked arse about to be beaten, that his little cock had become rock-hard. The lad was experiencing bis first true erection, which he was soon outlearn was referred to as a boner by his dorm-mates, thanks to the the erotic stimulus of watching one of his mates prepare to be thrashed.

And for his trivial offence, if one could even call it an offence, Adams’s arse was well and truly thrashed in front of all his dorm-mates by a vindictive Havers. Havers, who to give him his due, wielded the cane like the seasoned professional he had become since being nominated house-captain, did not stint on his delivery. Cedric winced as the cane landed six times with a sharp crack on Adams’s naked buttocks leaving the bruised furrows, each parallel to the preceding stroke, placed from the bottom of Adams’s back to the crease. To his credit, whilst Havers was satisfying what was clearly his lust for administering pain, Adams did not let out the slightest sound, thereby depriving his house-captain of the satisfaction of reducing his victim to tears.

How Adams succeeded in maintaining his composure as he was being flogged, God alone knows. Havers finally left the dorm with a dissatisfied scowl on his face at having his satisfaction thwarted by Adams’s the sang-froid, which he had not succeeded in breaking. He finally left, with the curt instruction to Adams to turn off the light and get himself into bed. For Cedric it had been a graphic introduction to the brutal way in which boys were treated at Grantley. He had himself  on his first day – no, his first afternoon – at Grantley, been menaced with the cane by Havers for no real reason reason at all, other than the desire of the house-captain to show the new boy who was boss in Wellington House.  And then he had witnessed that Havers could do much more than just threaten, as he had, in his study, beaten Hammond for some offence, unknown to Cedric. But he had then gone on to flog the living daylights out of Adams on his bare arse in front of his peers in the dormitory, for some flimsy offence meriting, at most, a verbal reprimand.

The whole dorm, Cedric included, was full of admiration for Adams for not having broken down in front of the universally hated Havers, thereby depriving him of the satisfaction of reducing his victim to tears. They could all hear Adams sobbing himself to sleep, now that Havers, the hated purveyor of pain, had departed. But none of them dared even to say one word of comfort to him, lest Havers return and exact to vengeance for breaking another strict rule: no talking whatsoever after lights-out.

But for Cedric, it had been a frightful learning experience. Any thoughts he might still have been harbouring that Havers’s bark might be worse than his bite, had, by now, vanished. Naïve and inexperienced though he was, the events of that afternoon and evening had brought home to him with a vengeance the harsh conditions under which he was to spend the next seven years of his life; an environment from which he would finally escape only when he reached the age of eighteen and could possibly go on to university and some sort of career. He still had no idea at all that he was a very rich young man, thanks to being is maternal grandmother’s only legatee to her vast fortune.

But at the moment, it was the immediate future which exercised young Cedric’s mind. As a boy who had never even been slapped for disobedience, let alone been given a spanking, the events he had just witnessed filled him with the fear that someday soon, he might find his backside as the target, if not of Havers himself, then of one or other of the prefects or even his housemaster, the formidable Commander Thresher; or possibly, God forbid, the Headmaster, Dr. Greatorix-Smyth himself. Reflecting on his thoughts, from what he had seen on his first day, he knew that sooner or later the day would arrive when he would have to offer his naked bottom to the caress of the cane. He prayed that he would not prove himself to be a wimp and would take the punishment, whether merited or not, in exactly the way Adams had just done.  Unbeknown to Adams, Cedric had become the dorm monitor’s greatest admirer; his role model for how to behave in adversity.

But lying there in bed, with what for him had been the tumultuous events of his first day at Grantley churning around in his head, Cedric suddenly realised that he had never before ever felt the stirring of that little appendage between his legs, which he always called his willy. He had first noticed the feeling when he had seen Hammond’s striped backside; and then, when he witnessed Adams having his naked arse beaten, his willy had gone quite stiff.

Until today, he had seen his willy only as being much the same as a bathroom tap, which he could switch on and off when he needed to pee. But now, lying under the bed-covers as he was, he found his willy was still quite hard and, uncontrolled by him, was exuding drops of a slimy liquid, which was certainly not his usual pee. Frankly it was all very disconcerting. Tomorrow he would ask Adams if he knew what was happening to him. And with that thought in his head, he eventually fell asleep to awake next morning to his first day as a pupil at Grantley; the first time ever that he would sit in a classroom with boys of his own age. It would be a far cry from the private tuition he had hitherto received from the gentle Edward Farrar.

Chapter 5 

Cedric now had to face his first day ever in a classroom with other boys. As befitted a prestigious school such as Grantley, classes were limited to twenty boys and Cedric found himself in a form, in fact, one the last three forms of the prep school, as next year its members would all move to one of the first forms of the upper school and be exposed to the rigours of a very serious public school education, not to mention the strict discipline.

His form-master was a Mr. Collins, who as is usually the case in prep schools, taught a variety of subjects to the younger boys. Mr. Collins was youngish man, who, as Cedric was soon to learn, ruled over his class with that figurative rod of iron so characteristic of many boarding schoolmasters.  Cedric realised that like his dormitory in Wellington House, this was also a place where discipline was taken seriously and strictly enforced, as the two rattan canes, hanging one each side of the blackboard, silently testified.

Mr. Collins began: “Boys, we have with us today a new boy, Cedric Sefton-Browne, whom I hope you will make welcome in the usual way. Do not treat him as an interloper to be ignored, as he is now a member this form, exactly like all of you and must be treated as such. Sefton-Browne, please stand up so that your classmates can see you.”  Cedric obeyed and saw that among the boys in his form, were three of his dorm-mates from Wellington House, among whom, with an internal feeling of great relief he saw Adams, whom he already thought of as a friend.

Adams immediately attracted the attention of Mr. Collins, as he found sitting still on his hard wooden seat somewhat uncomfortable as his backside was still suffering from the effects of the beating he had been given the previous evening by Havers. As Cedric himself was many times in the future to experience, when, as was inevitable, his own bum was swished, there are swishings and swishings. And as Adams discomfort was now demonstrating, Havers was a master swisher, landing his strokes where they hurt the most. He had placed four of the six cuts he had given Adams, low down on the lad’s crease, the so-called sit-spot, the most sensitive part of any lad’s lower rear anatomy backside and the part which, when seated, is inevitably  in contact with the hard wood of the seat. So it was not surprising that Adams was fidgeting as he tried, in vain, to find a totally elusive, indeed, non-existent, comfortable position to sit.

“Adams, kindly stop fidgeting and sit still when I am talking to you all or I shall be obliged to give you something to fidget about.”

“Sorry sir, but my bottom is so sore, sir, that I cannot find a position in which I can sit still for long, sir.”

“Adams, am I to understand that at this early hour of the day, your bottom is already suffering from the effects of a swishing which you received before coming to class? I think, boy, that you had better explain yourself.”

“Well, sir, it wasn’t a swishing like you give us when we’re naughty, sir, but more a proper beating, which Havers, my house-captain, gave me on my bare bum last night just before I went to bed, sir. And sir, it really hurt a lot at the time, sir; and it still hurts a lot even now, sir; so that’s  why I cannot sit still for very long, sir.”

“I see, Adams; all is now clear, But what exactly had you done to deserve a thrashing from your house-captain? You surely must have broken some golden rule to merit a proper beating on the bare just before bed-time.”

“Well you see, sir, Havers had been beating another boy called Hammond, who is also in my dormitory and as I am dormitory monitor it is my job to switch of the lights at eight thirty. But we had all decided to wait until Hammond got back from Havers’s study, before I turned off the lights, sir, so that he could find his bed.  And then Havers came back and saw that the lights were still on and told me I should have turned them off at half past eight, sir; and, sir, that is how I came to be beaten sir. And it really did hurt a lot sir, as Havers really did lay on the cane very hard sir. So please, sir, could I stand up sir, at least until the morning break, sir, as I find it still just too painful to sit down sir.”

But Mr. Collins was, for some reason, not willing to let the matter drop, and, looking bleakly at Adams, said: “No Adams, you may not stand up because I am not sure that you are telling the whole story leading up to your beating last night.  What I think happened is that you left on the light on until the unfortunate Hammond arrived back from his beating in Havers’s study in order that you and the rest of your companions could indulge your habitual, prurient, curiosity gazing at the stripes on one of your dorm-mate’s backside and sympathising with him. That, boy, is the truth of the matter, isn’t it? So, if I am right, which I know I am, your action in not turning off the light at the appointed time was not so altruistic (not one boy listening to the form-master, understood the meaning of the word altruistic) as you would lead us to believe. It was essentially motivated by that ever present, insatiable desire to see what one of your dorm members had just suffered.”

Poor Adams was devastated and deflated by his form-master’s remarks, which had, of course, revealed the whole truth of the matter. He desperately tried to save the day; and knowing his form-master as a stickler for the truth, made a valiant attempt in the form of a strategic, rearguard retreat on his previous statement, in the faint hope of protecting his backside from further depredations, which he sensed – which in fact, the whole class sensed – was the most likely outcome of this clash with his form-master,

For an eleven-year-old menaced with an as yet unspoken of, further punishment for having told the truth as he saw it, Adams made a fluently eloquent plea to save his skin:  “Sir, it is true that we did spend a few minutes sympathising with Hammond as the lights were on when he came back from Havers’s study. But, sir, it really was only a minute or so; and then Hammond was going towards his bed, sir, and I would then have turned off the lights, but Havers came back and decided to beat me in front of the others, sir, all because I had not turned off the lights at half past eight as I should have done, sir.  So please, sir, now that you know the whole story, may I stand up at least until after the morning break, sir as my bottom is still too painful, and sir?” 

Cedric sat on the edge of his seat, listening to this verbal drama unfolding in the first few minutes of his very first day in a class with other boys. Of course, he had no idea that Adams, and indeed the rest of his classmates, were well aware of the short fuse and trigger-happy nature of their form-master when it came to using the cane. So except Cedric, it is safe to say that Adams himself  as well as everyone else knew by now that Adams’s arse was on another collision course with the cane,  wielded by this time Mr. Collins.

“Now listen to me carefully all of you; and very specifically you Adams, I have told you all numerous times that when I ask a question of any of you, I want a truthful answer.  And when I say the truth, I mean the whole truth, including those parts which you would prefer me not to hear, You, Adams, guilty of gilding the truth about what happened in your dormitory last night. You know as well as I do, as did Havers and the rest of your dorm-mates and as, I suspect, does the whole of this class, that you left on the lights on because you all wanted – as  boys of your age always do – to see the damage that Havers had done to Hammonds backside with his cane. When Havers unexpectedly came back, he saw immediately that you had ignored the rules about the lights and, quite rightly, in my view, beat you, Adams, as dormitory monitor for not performing your duty.”

“And that would have been an end to it, Adams, had you told me the whole story exactly as it happened. Havers punished you for your mistake last night, and that sufficed as a warning to you and the others that the school rules, whatever they say, must be obeyed to the letter. However, Adams, you chose to tell me only half of the truth when I asked you what had happened last night and for that I regret to say that I am now going to swish your bottom again. Had you told me the events as they actually happened, you would not now be facing a swishing for not having told only that part of the truth you wanted me to hear. Come forward to the front of the class, Adams, as I intend to make an example of you as warning the rest of the class.”

“Oh please, sir, please not another caning, sir: my bum is just still so sore from last night I don’t think I could stand it, sir. So please, sir, not the cane again, sir: please, please, not the cane again, sir!”

“Adams, I have just told you to come to the front of the class. And don’t forget to bring your bum, as you choose to call that part of your anatomy with you when you come, as it is to pay an important role indeed, the most important  role, in  what I have in mind for you,. Now get a move on, Adams; on your feet, boy, and come to the front of the classroom right now, before I completely lose my temper with you.”

Poor Adams himself and the whole class, Cedric included, felt that he was being badly treated as he reluctantly and with leaden tread advanced to the front and stood, trembling, in front of his form-master. “Well, go on boy; get on with it; you know as well as I do what the procedure is; so what are you waiting for? If you are hoping for divine intervention to save you from the inevitable, then you are hoping in vain. So take off your tunic, drop your trousers and underpants and present your bare bum to me for punishment by bending across this front desk here, which Benson will now kindly vacate for you. Benson, if you please; stand up, boy, and move to the side until I have finished dealing with Adams.”

But Adams made one last vain plea for at least a small concession from his form-master. “Oh please, sir, do I have to take my trousers down, sir. Couldn’t you just beat me with my trousers on this occasion, sir. My bum is just so sore, sir, that I don’t think I will be able to stand another beating on the bare right now, sir.”

“Adams, you are beginning to repeat yourself.  We have already established the fact that you feel your bum is too sore to stand another beating right now. Let me tell you, young man, that most boys faced with a beating would rather avoid it as they feel it will hurt too much. But pain, Adams, is unfortunately what you are about to feel today. The whole point of a beating a boy is to leave him with a long-lasting painful souvenir of the occasion, which hopefully will act to deter him from committing other nefarious acts in the future.  As for being too sore to stand another beating, that, young man is wishful thinking on your part, A boy of your age and build, can easily withstand a twelve stroke beating on the bare, It will be very painful; but, as I have just said, that is the whole point of the exercise; a caning has to hurt, otherwise what is the point of it?  And you can forget keeping on your trousers. All beatings, in this and every other respectable public school in this country, are always applied on the bare.”

“So,  Adams, now that that is all clear to you, and Benson has I see already vacated his desk in your favour, I can but tell you for one last time, to take off your tunic, drop your trousers and underpants  and bend across Benson’s desk so that we can proceed with the matter at hand.”

Cedric was transfixed by all that he was seeing and hearing. He had had no idea that school would be anything like this. And moreover, as had been the case last night, that thing between his legs, his willy, was again acting up, so much so that by the time Adams had got his pants off and was presenting his bare bum to Mr. Collins for his inspection, Cedric found himself with the second ever erection of his life. He could not understand why this thing was happening to him or why he was unable to control his thingy, which had hitherto been use only when he needed to to pee and had never before acted up in such a strange manner.

But his thoughts on what he would soon come to learn was known as sexual arousal were brought suddenly back to the reality of the classroom drama he was witnessing, by the crack of the the cane mating with Adams’s bum, as Mr. Collins expertly applied the first of six swingeing strokes, diagonally across the six parallel stripes with which Havers had endowed the same battlefield the previous evening. The six strokes were placed in the form of two crossing diagonals, thereby endowing Adams’s posterior with an albeit temporary, visual effect rivalling a piece of modern art.

And by way of a example to the rest of the class, who would normally have had to wait until the morning break to make the usual post-mortem assessment of the state of Adams’s posterior in the lavatories, Mr. Collins obliged them by making a sobbing Adams stand, hands on his head, with his striped posterior towards the class for almost a minute; I seemed like an eternity for poor Adams,  who was, not surprisingly by now in absolute agony, as Mr. Collins had not attenuated his blows. Finally the whole drama was over and Mr. Collins told Adams to pull up his trousers, put back on his tunic and regain his seat. Adams had the temerity to ask, yet again, if he might be permitted to stand, to be met, yet again, with a refusal.

“Adams, you have to learn that when you are punished with the cane, the pain, which if the cane has been well applied, should linger on for several days as part and parcel of the punishment, the receiver, you in this case, has to live with the pain as a consequence and a constant reminder of his actions..  So, Adams, no, you certainly may not sit down to ease the pain you are feeling. Sitting on a hard seat will remind constantly of the error of your ways and, hopefully improve your general behaviour.”

“Moreover, Adams, I expect you to sit still and not fidget as you were doing. Let us be quite clear, boy, if I see you fidgeting again I will conclude that I have not done enough to convince you of the error of your ways and I may feel that you need an additional taste of the cane to convince you to improve your behaviour.  Make no mistake, boy, I will have no hesitation in caning you again if I see you fidgeting. Now, Adams, go and sit down at your desk; sit still and do not fidget unless you wish to be invited to drop your pants for a second time in front of the entire class. Now, boys, please open your geometry book at page 10 and we will continue looking at the definitions and properties of the different types of triangle, which we started yesterday.”

So began Cedric’s first lesson at Grantley. He found that the private lessons he had received from Edward Farrer were at least as rigorous as those at Grantley and in most subjects he had no difficulty at all in integrating himself into the class. But that first morning after having witnessed Adams take his second beating before the lesson had even begun, the properties of different types of triangle were furthest from his mind. He could barely wait for the break to ask Adams why he had experienced that strange stiffening of his willy both times  he had seen Adams being beaten.

Adams had no immediate explanation, other than that he too experienced the same phenomenon whenever he watched on of his dorm-mates being swished, which, to his horror, Cedric learned was a pretty regular occurrence in Wellington House. Adams left Cedric with the promise that they would that evening, consult with that fount of all knowledge, his elder brother. The Adams brothers were both members of Wellington House and the elder brother, now aged fourteen, was in the upper school and, according to his younger sibling: “Knows absolutely everything about everything! He’ll tell us all we need to know”

And that is how the two eleven-year-olds had their first lesson about the facts of life and the ever increasing role which their willies, which Adams major informed them they should henceforth each call their cock, would play in their daily lives. Far from being just a convenient way to pee, they learned that this appendage would be a toy which never failed to please, if they gently rubbed it when it grew hard.

As Adams major bluntly put it: “When your cock gets hard, as it does when you watch someone getting his arse (another new word for the two eleven-year-olds) beaten, or even when you are just looking at someone else’s stripes, it’s telling you that it wants attention from your hand. It’s what is known as wanking or jerking off; and if your cock is hard enough and you do it long enough, you will eventually have a most delicious feeling like nothing you have ever had before, run through your body and your cock will, spurt out what we call spunk. So if you wank in bed, which you probably will, I advise you each to get yourself a wank rag – an old handkerchief will do – in which to catch your spunk unless you wish to sleep in a sticky mess of your own making,”

Readers today may be amazed at the lack of sexual knowledge of the two boys’, even concerning their own bodies, which were already beginning to change with the onset of puberty. But one has to remember this story is set in 1900 and in those days little knowledge about sex matters was available; so the naivety of the two eleven-year-olds was more or less par for the then course. The whole subject of sex was taboo and was for the most part kept under strict wraps; swept under the carpet; treated as if it did not exist.  But, of course, it existed then; and even if not spoken about, was as alive and well then and was exactly the same motivating force as it has always been. It was the key force conditioning young men’s actions in 1900, just as much as it is today.

So Cedric and his new friend, Adams minor, whose first name Cedric did not even know, let alone call him by it, thanks to the information from Adams Major, had been verbally launched into the undoubted pleasures of masturbation, which was the first tentative step towards their future sex lives; lives which would inevitably be conditioned by their own personal preferences, which need no prior, book knowledge as they are totally instinctive and come quite naturally. In fact, a boy’s sexual preferences are usually already clear to him by the time he reaches the age of fourteen.

However, due to conventions of society, even if he is not coerced into conforming to the prevailing view of what constitutes so-called normal behaviour, he may himself choose not acknowledge the fact that he is attracted more to members of his own rather than to those of the opposite sex. But the die is usually already cast at quite a young age and to ignore its implications long term can lead to a catastrophically unsatisfactory life. Sex plays such an important role in a man’s life so that to ignore the writing on the wall and hope that it will go away is to play with fire. In short, the truth will out and one has to play the hand which one has been been dealt by nature.

Although Cedric had found no difficulty in integrating himself into the teaching methods at Grantley, other than Adams minor, he found that he really was still the new-boy in his dorm at Wellington House.  It was not that his dorm-mates treated him badly, but he had been thrust into an environment where the boys had, quite naturally, formed themselves into a number of cliques over the years they had been together and it was difficult for him to be truly accepted.  All this changed however, after Cedric received his first beating at Grantley: in fact his first ever encounter with the cane.

It was the end of January, Cedric’s third week at the school and he had not himself personally encountered the wrath of Havers, his house-captain or of either of the other two prefects who kept order in Wellington House. However as the three prefects exercised their authority ot control the members of the house with a zeal which bordered on the obsessive,  Cedric had already witnessed several beatings both in his dormitory and in the junior common room. No fault, however small and insignificant, escaped the cane if it was detected and the three prefects never hesitated for a moment in using their power to beat the offender. So Cedric quickly realised that it was just a matter of time before his hitherto unsullied buns would be treated to their first taste the dreaded rattan.

He had come to accept that there was no way as a member of Wellington House, where the cane was more or less in daily use, that he could permanently avoid surrendering his virgin arse to its bite. But he fervently hoped that whenever that fateful first occasion arose, he would have sufficient backbone and sangfroid, not to disgrace himself by crying too much at what he knew would be a very painful experience. In the event, the pleasure – and most of the eighteen prefects at Grantley took great pleasure in applying the cane to the arses of their school-mates – of introducing Cedric’s arse to the rigorous delights of the cane fell not to be of the three Wellington House prefects, but to the head-boy of the year, a young man called Simon Carver.

As in many other public schools, running anywhere inside the school buildings was strictly forbidden and to break this rule, which many boys nevertheless did, was an offence punishable by a beating. And it is probably safe to say that among the provincial public schools, the attitude of Dr. Greatorix-Smyth, the Headmaster of Grantley towards boys, who broke this rule, was particularly “generous”; indeed excessively generous, in the view of most of the boys, who, having been caught, then found themselves invited to bare their backsides to take communion from the cane. And, make no mistake, this was not the equivalent of a sip of wine and a biscuit at the altar rail by a confirmed believer, but a serious mandatory, non-negotiable beating on the bare: six cuts for the first offence, nine for the second, and a full dozen for any boy stupid enough – and there were always one or two – to be caught running for a third time in any school year, inside the school buildings.

Catching and pouncing on any boy who even vaguely appeared to be running was par for the course for most of the prefects. It was their most fruitful source of arses to beat, without which they became tetchy and exhibited effects of withdrawal symptoms. Beating their younger brethren’s naked arses in retribution for their sins, real or imaginary, was an act, which most of them particularly enjoyed. Let’s face it and call a spade a spade; most prefects saw their final year as a pay-back period in recompense for their own painful experiences as they had progressed up through the school and left no stone unturned if they suspected hidden beneath it, was a boy, whose arse even vaguely justified attention from the cane. To use an analogy, they were, in the main, like trigger-happy cowboys, who shot first and asked questions afterwards; to the very last one, they were all happy to exercise their right to use the cane on the flimsiest of pretexts.

And so the honour of introducing Cedric’s arse to the cane, to give it its maiden beating and introduce its owner to the brutal realities of life at Grantley, fell, quite by chance, to the head-boy, Simon Carver. The head-boy’s study at Grantley was at one end of the main corridor on the first floor of the main school building, off which was a series of class-rooms. That fateful day when Cedric’s arse was destined to surrender its virginity to the cane, thinking he was late for his next lesson Cedric, without any thought, ran down the corridor towards the class-room and had the bad luck to be caught red-handed – or better put, caught hot-footed – by the head-boy, who, by chance, emerged from his study at the same moment.

“You, boy, you who are running down the corridor, stop immediately, turn around and walk back to me.”

As Cedric heard this order, he experienced the dramatic jolt of that horrible, automatic release of adrenaline, which so often presages disaster. Already trembling like a leaf and with his heart pounding in overdrive, he turned around and walked towards towards the foreboding figure of the head-boy, Simon Carver, who, in his first term as head-boy had already established a reputation as being an absolute killer when it came upholding the rules, however insignificant.

“You’re the new boy, Sefton-Browne aren’t you? Well, new boy, perhaps you would like to explain to me, why you were running down the corridor just now, a practice, which as you know is strictly forbidden and which carries a rather painful penalty for the infractor if caught. To be quite clear, Sefton-Browne, at the moment you are the infractor and have been observed by me, apparently breaking one of the school’s strictest rules.  I say apparently, as there may be extenuating circumstances of which I am unaware which may mitigate the seriousness of your offence and the mandatory punishment it automatically incurs. So speak up, boy; explain your actions; I am all ears and you have my undivided attention.”

Faced with such a pompously hectoring harangue from the head-boy, poor Cedric was now trembling with fear. He  had only half understood what the head-boy had said to him, for the words, infractor,  extenuating and mandatory, meant nothing to him. But he had understood enough from the tone of his voice and the way the head-boy had addressed him that he was, through his actions, in deep trouble.  So he tried his best, as any boy in his position would have done, to escape from the clutches of the head-boy, who, he had quite correctly divined, was out for his blood.

So Cedric diplomatically ate humble pie and attempted to pour oil on troubled waters, as he launched himself into an explanation which did, in fact, contain elements of truth: “Well, Carver, you see, I was not really running; you see, I did not want to be late for my next class. And so although you thought that I was running, I was just walking very quickly, as Mr. Collins – he’s my form-master – does not like late arrivals. So, please Carver, now that I have explained it all to you, may I now be excused and got to my class, as I really do not want to be late?”

The head-boy fixed Cedric with a look of disbelief, though Cedric had been telling the truth that he was running late for his class and Mr. Collins, it was true, did not like boys to be late for class. However, as both he and the head-boy knew, he had been running down the corridor, and his arse was definitely still on the line.

“So tell, me, Sefton-Browne, if someone is late for one of his lessons, what does Mr. Collins say to the late arrival.”  The Head-boy knew full well, as did Cedric,  that Mr. Collins had a justifiable reputation as being the strictest of strict martinets and that the cane was rarely at rest for very long in his class-room.

Cedric took a deep breath and told the head-boy that any boy who arrived late for one of Mr. Collins’s lessons, normally received and immediate swishing from the master in front of the whole class.

“Well, Sefton-Browne, far be it for me to hold you up any longer, as I would hate to think that I was responsible  for making you late for your next lesson and thereby expose your  bottom to the depredations  of Mr. Collins’s cane. So yes, Sefton-Browne you may go to your next class.”

Cedric had no idea what the word depredations meant. But he heaved and inward sigh of relief that he had managed to escape with his arse intact.  However, his relief was short-lived as the head-boy added: “But, Sefton-Browne,  I shall expect to see you in my study at four- thirty precisely, straight after your last class of the day has ended, when I will attempt to instil into you the need to obey all the rules of this school. I should also tell you that like Mr. Collins, I too do not like boys to arrive late for their appointments with me. So, young man, you have been warned; if you value your backside, don’t be late.”

That afternoon as he sat through the lessons, Cedric found it hard to concentrate on anything other than the fatal appointment with the head-boy. He knew now that he was going to have his arse whacked for the very first time; and if the rumours about the head-boy’s ability with the cane were true – which, unfortunately for him, they turned out to be – he feared he was in for a very painful first encounter with reality of life at Grantley.

It was with heavy tread that he made his way to keep his dreaded appointment with the head-boy, only to see a boy from the upper school, whom he did not know, entering the execution chamber, which was how he had come to think of the head-boy’s study. Cedric waited before the door, not daring either to knock or enter.  The door had been left slightly ajar by the boy he had seen entering, who, Cedric supposed like himself, would shortly experience the head-boy’s expertise with the cane. And sure enough, after a short pause in the talking. Cedric’s blood ran cold, as he heard the characteristic crack of the cane as it delivered its first stab of pain to its victim’s bare buttocks. Then at appropriate intervals, five more, unhurried strokes delivered their painful message to the unfortunate lad’s buttocks, each being acknowledged by a howl of pain from the receiver.

A few minute later a sobbing twelve-year-old boy, obviously in his first year in the upper school, massaging his buns with both hands in that ever vain but natural attempt to mitigate the pain he was obviously feeling, was shown out by Simon Carver. The head-boy began with that effusive, false bonhomie, as if he was greeting a long lost friend: “Ah, Sefton-Browne, the new boy as I recall; well I am delighted, Sefton-Browne that you remembered our appointment and I must apologise to you for keeping you  waiting out here in the cold.  But as you can see, I had an unexpected urgent call to duty which had to be dealt with immediately.”

As the head-boy continued with his little piece of meretricious persiflage, Cedric wondered what misdeed his predecessor had committed, which necessitated his arse to be dealt with so urgently. Simon Carver wet on: “But, as the saying goes; better late than never; so since you are now here, do come in and allow me to make amends by promising you that you will now have my complete and undivided attention.  Now let me see, I seem to remember that I caught you running n the corridor earlier today, which, as you surely must know, is considered an extremely grave offence in this school and carries a mandatory penalty, decreed by the Headmaster, of six strokes of the cane on the bare. I am sure that you will find this beneficial, especially as you must be feeling the chill after standing around so long in the cold corridor. I always think that a good, old-fashioned beating on the bare has a warming effect, which wards off any chill the recipient might be feeling. And I am sure, Sefton-Browne that you feel exactly the same.”

Poor Cedric had no idea what to say in response to such a preposterously orotund load of claptrap from the head-boy, who had, in the course of talking, now regained his seat behind his desk, on which, in full view to Cedric, lay the cane with which his naked arse would shortly be well and truly warmed. But it was clear that the head-boy expected him to say something. So Cedric dropped the bombshell, which the head-boy had no idea was coming: “I’m not sure at all how I feel about being warmed by a beating, because, you see, I have never been beaten.”

Simon Carver was never short of words, but Cedric’s statement had clearly winded him. “You mean, Sefton-Brown, that you have not yet committed any misdeed sufficient to provoke your house- or form-master or any of the prefects, to incur an act of retribution from any of them?”

Attempting somewhat unsuccessfully to keep a misguided note of triumph from his voice, Cedric pressed to what for him could not be other than a pyrrhic victory as he figuratively trumped Carver’s ace by saying: “No, Carver, I mean exactly what I said; I have never every been beaten in my life. So if you beat me now, for walking quickly in the corridor, it will be the first time I will have had my bum beaten.” Cedric knew he was being cheeky to the head-boy but he had not been able to resist deflating him a little.

A note of incredulity crept into Carver’s voice as he said: “You really mean to tell me, Sefton-Browne, that at your previous prep school, before you arrived here, you never, ever had your bum swished. You must have behaved like Little Lord Fauntleroy to have escaped with your bottom intact for so many years You know, Sefton-Browne, I suspect you are leading me up the garden path, telling me a tall tale to garner my sympathy and if I find you have been fibbing to me, well after I have finished with you, believe me when I say that you will not be able to sit comfortably for a full week.”

Cedric now played his key card and deflated Carver completely by saying:  “But that is just the point, Carver; I never went to a school before coming here. You see my mother died soon after I was born and as my father  was, and still is, serving in the army in India,  I lived with my grandmother, my mother’s mother, and was educated privately at home in my grandmother’s house. She engaged a private, live-in tutor to teach me.  But then my grandmother died quite unexpectedly  and as my father is still in India, he decided to send me here to Grantley as it is the only public school which takes care ot boys like me both in term time and also during the holidays.  So Grantley has become more or less my home as I have no relatives in England. So Carver, I was not fibbing; everything I told you is absolutely true and if you cane me now, it will honestly be the first time I will have ever been beaten in my entire life.”

Simon Carver now saw that having caught Cedric running down the corridor, he was faced with a unique situation. He now had the opportunity to introduce a new boy, who had never before been beaten, to the painful realities of life at Grantley. I would be a first for both Cedric and himself.  Cedric had never before today been beaten and he would be relieving the boy of one aspect of his innocence. But it was also an exciting moment for him personally as he had never himself been the first person to initiate a boy to the unique and painful bite of the cane.  Every boy he had thrashed –and there had been plenty, who could testify to his expertise with the  cane since he had become head-boy at the beginning of the school year in September, had been previously been beaten by someone else before he himself had lavished his not so tender, loving care on the naked buttocks in front  of him.

But here was a unique opportunity:  a hitherto untouched blank canvas, on which he could – and indeed would – take great pleasure in etching with the cane one of his painful, pictorial, if somewhat transitory masterpieces, thereby introducing Cedric to the harsh reality of life at Grantley. Let us be quite clear about the motivation of Simon Carver when it came to using the cane.  He enjoyed immensely inflicting pain on his school-mates as it turned him on sexually. Now, for instance, just the thought of what he was about to do to Cedric, had already aroused him sexually, before he had even started on the boy’s arse with his cane. His cock was, as ever on such occasions, already rock-hard in his pants and oozing the first drops of pre-cum, already demanding its own moment of fulfilment. So, as soon as he had finished dealing with Cedric and sent him on his way to show his well-beaten, trophy arse to his class-mates, he would lock the door of his study, drop his own pants and underwear and satisfy the strident demands of his own cock by jerking himself off.

“Well, Sefton-Browne, this truly is a unique occasion and I can promise you that your first ever taste of the cane will leave you with an indelible memory of your maiden beating. It is unfortunate that the traces of what I now intend to visit on your bare bottom are so transitory. But they will have served their purpose if they have made you realise that here at Grantley, painful retribution always follows for boys like you, who are caught breaking the rules. And to be quite clear, Sefton-Browne, you do deserve the beating I am about to give you, as we both know that you were running down the main corridor. So although I detected a glimmer of hope that I might relent when you said  If you cane me,  I am afraid that there is no  if about it; I am going to cane you. So let’s get on with it as we have already wasted enough time discussing the matter.”

Cedric saw that the fatidic moment had now arrived when he was about to be given his first beating. Being realistic, he knew in his own heart that the head-boy was quite right. He had broken a golden rule and deserved to be beaten for it. But the fact that what he was about to receive was totally justified and in no way detracted from the feeling of terror at what he was about to experience.

The head-boy got up from his desk, picked up the cane the cane and then  towering over Cedric said; “Right, Sefton-Brown, take off your tunic and shoes and then take off completely your  trousers and underpants. Then go an bend across that armchair over there, put your hands on the arms of the chair and stick your bottom as high into the air as you can and keep perfectly still whilst I initiate you into the pleasures of the cane.”

Cedric made one last valiant attempt superficially to alleviate the very worst of what was about to happen to him;  not that being allowed to keep on his underpants  would have made much difference to the pain he was about to experience. But he nevertheless tried one last rear-guard action, before finally capitulating: “Carver, as it’s my first time, please do you think that I might at least keep on my underpants.”  This request was met by a resoundingly withering refusal from that arch-purveyor of pain, the head-boy:  “Sefton-Browne, in this school, every boy, including you, who is beaten, from the day he enters until the day he finally leaves, is always beaten on the bare.  So get your pants and underpants off and go and bend across the back of the chair this instant.”

As he finally assumed the fatal position to have his backside experience its maiden beating, Cedric was trembling with fear and praying that when the cane descended, he would not show himself to be a wimp.  As he gazed down at the cushion on the seat of the chair, which he saw was stained with the tears of many boys who had clearly been in the same position as he himself now was, he vowed to himself and hoped that he would prove that he had sufficient backbone to keep his vow, that he would not add a single tear of his own to the already large stain before him. Then he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth and waited nervously for the first cut to land on his bare bum. But no blow landed.

“Sefton-Browne, I think for a boy of your height, the back of the chair is just slightly too high for you comfortably to hold your bottom in the right position for me to give you a satisfactory introduction to the rigours of the cane. Now, as you will appreciate, thinking only of you, I would not wish you to be uncomfortable on this your maiden introduction to discipline practised in this school. So stand up boy, fetch that foot-stool over there and place it against the back of the chair and stand on it. Yes. I think will do the trick nicely and satisfy both of us: you will be comfortable for your first ever beating – an occasion to remember for you – and your bottom will be at the perfect height to ensure that I can do my duty correctly. So as I see it, it’s a win-win situation for both of us, as I am sure you will agree.”  Cedric remained silent; but did not share the head-boy’s fatuous comments.

Carver made haste slowly, dragging out the business of giving Cedric his beating, to well over five minutes. He first tapped around gently with the cane on Cedric’s naked arse as if deciding where to place the first cut. And when it finally came, cut was an apt description of what Cedric actually felt, as the cane mated with his naked flesh with a sound resembling a pistol crack: a sound which he would never, ever forget. For a split second, poor Cedric felt nothing as the cane delivered its initial greeting to his naked arse. But then he experienced the true agony, which a well seasoned rattan cane in the hands of an expert could deliver; and as Cedric was now learning, the head-boy was an undoubted expert.

It felt as though his backside had been cut in half at that first stroke by a red-hot knife. Cedric had divined from watching others being beaten that a caning was a painful business, for which only a serious masochist would ever volunteer; but he had not counted on the very first stroke in his life to being quite so excruciatingly agonizing.  But with grim determination, he managed to keep his vow to himself and let out not the slightest murmur. His determination to remain calm and silent whilst he was being beaten had the effect on the head-boy somewhat akin to waving a red-flag in front of bull.

Head-boy, Simon Carver prided himself on being able to break any boy, by his second or third stroke. To make him howl with pain gave Carver a sense of superiority, which his ego craved. But in Cedric he had met his match. Not that Cedric realised that by remaining silent he was inciting an ever more enraged Craver to attack his arse with increasing force in his attempt to break his silence.  And so, Cedric, in keeping his vow to himself, inadvertently made Carver exceed his normal vigour in an attempt to assert his mastery over his victim and give himself the satisfaction of hearing his victim cry out with the pain he was inflicting.

By the time Carver had finished with him, Cedric’s backside was badly bruised and sported six blue-red, parallel stripes, most of which were spotted with blood, where Carver, true to his name, had broken the skin. Carver did exceed the bounds of acceptability when it came to beating Cedric in trying to make him break his silence. After landing his first cut on the equator of Cedric’s two buns, he then proceeded at intervals of thirty or forty seconds, to give Cedric five more brutal cuts, each of increasing force, of which he placed four in close, parallel, proximity to each other on Cedric’s crease, thereby ensuring that his victim would be unable to sit comfortably for several days. Poor Cedric really did suffer excessively at the hands of the head-boy.

However, every cloud has a silver lining and although Cedric’s maiden encounter with the cane had been a horrifically agonising experience, that evening when his dorm-mates viewed his damage arse, he was treated as a hero by them and was accepted as a bona-fide, dues-paid-up member of the senior prep dormitory. That first beating by the head-boy proved to be his entry his ticket to becoming a full member of the dorm and also of Wellington House: In his eyes, both had suddenly become his dorm and his house! He suddenly realised that he was no longer treated as the new boy. And as he lay in bed that night blissfully happy, the throbbing pain in his arse did not matter one wit. The excruciating agony he had endured to be now accepted by the others leading to his present state of euphoric nirvana was worth all the tea in China. He knew that he had now finally arrived. He was no longer alone. He finally belonged. He was now one of them.

THE END