MOULTON MIDMARSH REFORM SCHOOL
Its creation, rise and demise in a ten year period
An imaginary homoerotic story set in the early twentieth century
by Jason Land
CHAPTER 1
My name is Martin Fairweather. I am professor and head of the History Department at the Fenwide University, one of those institutes of higher learning created in that push by the governments in the 1980s and 1990s, when the aim – quite mistakenly in my view – was to ensure that every child in UK had a university education. How a university education benefits would-be plumbers, carpenters or, for that matter, any other trade, which we desperately need to make things in this country, escapes me; but mine, as a historian, is not to reason why, but to observe and comment on the follies of our leaders; so as you might imagine, we historians have no end of material on which to comment!
Fenwide University, located near the provincial town of Ely, sits in shadow of its ancient and august neighbour, Cambridge and will probably ever remain there. But, with no false modesty, I can say that the history department, which I was recruited to create, has, under my direction, attained considerable renown in the academic world. I am, myself a product of that other nearby place. I was a working class scholarship boy from the industrial north, but I excelled at history, in which subject I took a first, as a result of which I was offered a research fellowship at St. Jude’s College, which I held for some five years. I felt myself highly honoured when, aged but twenty-eight years, I was offered the job as the first professor and head of the history department at Fenwide, which I, of course, accepted and where I have been ever since.
It was my position at Fenwide and the fact that my own special area of interest was in the English school system through the ages, that in late 2008, I was approached by the board of governors of a local public school, Midfen College for Boys, and asked if I would be willing to undertake the production of a short book to commemorate the centenary of the founding of the school in 1910, a task I accepted with pleasure. Midfen College was and still is, for that matter, an unusual public school for England. But before I go on, just let me explain, for the benefit of my foreign readers, that an English public school is precisely the opposite of what its name implies; a public school, is in fact, a fee paying school where wealthy parents send their offspring in search of a better education and from which members of the general public are excluded, unless they are willing or can afford to cough up the necessary fees. What are in fact public schools, schools to which the general populace are obliged, by law, to send their children, are called State Schools in the UK.
But to come back to Midfen College; this is a relatively young institution, having been created by the generous endowment of a number of Edwardian philanthropists in 1910. As such, in the eyes of the class obsessed British upper classes, it is not considered as the equal of the great old schools of the country, such as Eton Winchester, Rugby, or Harrow and many others. But this was precisely the “relatively young” institution about which I had been commissioned to write about to celebrate its 100 year existence.
I started my research, which was not too difficult, as there was a great deal of detailed information available in the school archives, which had been very well kept over the past century. So, my job became one of pulling together enough detail to produce the desired centenary commemoration book. As I went through the material, I was struck by one strange fact; the school had been started in its present buildings, back in 1910, and these buildings had been purchased by the School’s founding fathers from the Department of Education of the day. My curiosity was promptly aroused, for prior to the actual founding of the school there was nothing at all in the archives, other than the fact that the school had been installed in an existing building, and a large building at that, which predated the foundation of the School. I pressed my researches further into the period prior to 1910 and uncovered an interesting story, which, totally unrelated to Midfen College, I think you might enjoy.
It is the story of the creation of the most modern of reform or approved school of its day, by a group of late Victorians; and how, after a glittering start, its demise was rapid, leading to its closure less than ten years after its foundation; with the result that the building was sold and acquired to house the new Midfen College, where it is still located, in what are buildings now a century old.
CHAPTER 2
Up until the end of the late nineteenth century, convicted young offenders aged as low as fifteen years, had been sent to the same prisons as older criminals. There had been a growing feeling that this custom was exposing young offenders not only to hardened criminals who could lead them further astray from the straight and narrow, but also left them open to sexual abuse by the older inmates. One has to remember that at that time, and indeed until late in the twentieth century, male homosexuality was a criminal offence, leading to imprisonment; as the much publicised trial of Oscar Wild, the playwright, at the end of the nineteenth century, leading to his imprisonment for sodomy, testifies. And so, there was a gradual move to develop individual establishments where such young men could be confined, and where they could be given the rudiments of an education and perhaps learn a trade, so that on their release they would better fit into the society as upright citizens. In short, there was a general do-good spirit about the age.
In this context, under the guidance of the Education Department, several different types of school were set up, so-called approved schools, where young offenders could be confined and rehabilitated. Thus it was, right at the end of the nineteenth century, the year before Queen Victoria breathed her last, the Government decided to build and run the most advanced of such schools and plumped for a small town called Moulton-Midmarsh in the fens of East Anglia, as the site for its great experiment.
Moulton-Midmarsh was and for that matter, still is, a miserable sort of town, stuck in the watery wastes of the fens, which were less well drained then than they are today; for as its name so graphically describes it, was located more or less in the middle of a great watery wasteland. Its attraction to the powers that be, had clearly been the fact that in those days, where movement from place to place was by no means easy, it was, to all intents and purposes, practically isolated from the outside world, as, surrounded almost completely by the road-less fenlands, it was accessible by only one paved road. Even that great Victorian preoccupation, the railway, had not arrived at Moulton– Midmarsh and the nearest station was at Great Moulton, some five miles away. Thus, with the risk of absconding being a real problem from such correctional establishments, the school’s remoteness meant that escape from Moulton-Midmarsh was minimal: there was just nowhere to go or to hide.
The worthy burghers of Moulton-Midmarsh were less than delighted to learn that their town had been chosen for this great educational and rehabilitation experiment and there were vigorous protests against the scheme; no one wanted to have a large school of delinquent, semi-criminal youths sitting on their door step. But protests were in vain, for the government had acquired, from a local landowner, a large tract of land just on the edge of the town and had started to build the school, which by the time this story starts was virtually completed. No money was spared on the building and its equipment, which was destined to show the rest of the country the future way. But, to add insult to injury, having been landed with the school with no recourse available, the town Council was informed that the school on its opening would be filled with the worst type young offenders, culled from the normal prisons around the country. In short some 200 recalcitrant, delinquent youths of the worst kind, would be dumped in the school, more or less from day one.
And so, one afternoon in November in the year 1900, we join the steering committee set up by the Town Council to deal with the details of the school and its staffing. It was characteristic of the Department of Education of the day, to leave the final details to someone else to deal with. The local council ran the local schools, for education was already obligatory, and should therefore, be quite capable of dealing with the staffing and other day to day matters of the school; that was the logic employed by the Department of Education.
At the meeting at which we join the committee, the pressing question of the moment was the appointment of a headmaster, or Warden, to give him his official title, for the school was scheduled to open at the end of the of the following year and the entire staffing problems had to be settled by then. The committee had, by way of advertisements, already interviewed several potential candidates for the post of Warden, and had more or less decided, subject to this a final interview, which was just about to take place, to appoint a forty-five year old ex-Naval Commander, one Reginald Douglas Pratt-Mainwaring to the post.
There had been considerable discussion within the committee as to the type of person most suited to the task but all the members were agreed that a strict disciplinarian would be needed. As they saw things, the school would cater for unruly and recalcitrant youths and corporal punishment seemed be the one sure way of maintaining order. So they wanted to be sure that the person in overall charge not only believed in the maxim, Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child, but also acted upon it. Well, they could not have opted for a better choice, for Commander Pratt-Mainwaring was the ideal man for the job; he was a ruthless martinet and strict disciplinarian, who enjoyed wielding the cane across the buttocks of wayward boys, or for that matter any boys, wayward or not; nothing gave him greater pleasure than the sound of a lissom cane landing firmly across a set of naked buttocks; it was as music to his ears!
Commander Pratt-Mainwaring was a bachelor, who had, until recently, been in charge of one of the naval training ships for young recruits, where he had a reputation as being a harsh man; the cane was in regular use on the young cadets, who found themselves put across a beating horse for even the most minor of offences. Many of the officers under the Commander thought privately that he was too harsh and too ready to inflict corporal punishment on his charges, but his word was law on board the ship and the cane was in regular and vigorous use.
But there was another side of the Commander’s character, about which nothing was ever said aloud but which simmered there just below the surface: the Commander was, in fact, a covert homosexual. Victorian England never gave voice to the word; and polite society to all intents and purposes, pretended that it did not exist; but male homosexuality, which was a criminal offence and if discovered could, and often did, lead to a prison sentence for the offenders was as common then as it is today. It is, however, a fact that the powers that be can legislate all they wish, but the sex urge, either male-female or male-male or even female-female is so strong that all the tea in China will not stop people succumbing to that most natural of all urges: to fuck.
It was a generally acknowledge, but unspoken fact that all exclusively male institutions were hot-beds of homosexuality; a practice which was, and probably still is, quite common in English public schools; and the cadet training ship run by Commander was no exception. Some one hundred young men, all with hormones surging through their bodies and with no female company to hand, had no other recourse to relieve their sexual tensions than to resort to what the Victorians in a mealy-mouthed sort of way called lewd and unnatural behaviour. So anal intercourse or buggery was a common occurrence among the young recruits, who, if caught in the the act, were soundly caned and admonished not to do it again.
Of course this was all as water off a duck’s back for, as pointed out above, sex is beyond legislation; so, the staff on the training ship, simply whacked the young offenders’ arses as hard as they could and let matters rest at that. It never crossed their minds to bring such practices to the attention of higher authorities, Thus it was, that homosexuality, the forbidden act, was tolerated, by the very act of ignoring its existence; it went on, but did not exist officially.
The Commander himself was no different from any other man; he wanted to fuck; he wanted to fuck arse, as hard and as often as possible as he was totally incapable of controlling his own innate libido. So once or twice a week, he would seize upon some muscular young cadet for a piffling minor offence; not a difficult job for the Commander had the aptitude of finding fault and if no fault existed, of inventing one. He summoned the offender to his quarters, made him drop his pants, bend across a chair and proceeded to thrash his arse with one of the many canes he always kept to hand. Then, with the young unfortunate still across the chair, he would say to him that he thought he now needed a little relaxation after his ordeal; and an ordeal it always was; for the Commander applied his cane with vigour. Telling the young man to spread his legs, he would then apply a little lubricant to his own cock and give the young lad’s anus a thorough fucking.
Truth to tell, many of the recipients of the Commander’s largesse actually enjoyed having their arses reamed. The Commander then warned his partner in crime as it were, that it would be unwise to mention to anyone what had just taken place, as he could be sent to prison for having taken part in an illicit sex act. The Commander himself realized, of course, that he was sailing dangerously close to the wind; but like many before and after him, his sex urge was so strong that there were occasions, many occasions to be frank, that with the best will in the world, he was unable to control it.
But, on this one occasion, a young offender, John Makin by name, retiring from just such an ordeal, was jostled by his mates, who insisted on examining his arse to see just what it looked like after a dozen hard cuts of the cane. The worldly wise Alpha Male of the group, a brash young man called Timothy White, then asked John what had happened after the caning.
“What do you mean, what happened.” Said John.
“Oh come on,” said Timothy, “Don’t act so dumb. What else did the old boy do to you? Did he offer you an arse fuck as a consolation? Did he, in fact, fuck your hole?”
All the boys were all ears to hear the full story, which, of course, now came out.
“Well,” said Timothy, “Welcome to the club.”.
“What club are you talking about?” Asked John.
“What the fuck do you think, you blockhead? The Pratt-Mainwaring Buggered Lads Club’. Listen, John, you don’t think that yours is the only hole into which the Commander has stuck his cock, do you? It’s a regular occurrence; whenever he decides to beat one of us privately, it always ends up with him fucking the guy he has just thrashed; that, old son, is the way life is here. Look at the six of us, we’ve all had the same treatment as you; some of us several times. And, don’t get me wrong, some of us, me included, quite enjoy having our holes reamed. Come on John you know that we all do it among ourselves; what the fuck; it’s the only way we can relieve our sexual urges; it’s all part of life our present life.”
“So, what should we do about it?” asked John.
“Nothing, my friend, nothing at all! Just let sleeping dogs lie.” Concluded Timothy.
But, one day, the Commander truly overstepped his remit, when he had a young recruit flogged with a whip, an implement strictly forbidden by the navy rules. He had already buggered the lad in his quarters in several of his private beating sessions, so why he should suddenly have gone over the top and really broken the rules, was difficult to understand. But that was the end of Pratt-Mainwaring’s naval career. His colleagues, who were fully conversant with the sexual mores of the training ship, thought that he had, this time, gone just one step too far. His behaviour was brought to the attention of the higher powers at the admiralty and shortly afterwards he was gently eased out of his post and told to look for another job, which was how he came to be at the interview today.
It is worth noting that with the typical hypocrisy of the times, the Commander suffered no sanctions and no criminal charges were ever brought against him. And so, it was with an ostensibly clean slate, that he found himself at the final interview for the job of Warden of the new reform school in Moulton-Midmarsh. After his dismissal from the Navy, the chairman of the admiralty committee which had fired the Commander gave voice to his thoughts saying he wondered what type of post he would find and what his new employer would make of him. “Caveat emptor,” said one of his colleagues, adding, by way of an explanation, “Let the buyer beware; it’s up to them to make sure that they know what they are getting.” And with that, the Navy washed its hands of Commander Pratt-Mainwaring, Please note, however, that he was not stripped of his rank of Commander and was still able to style himself as such; which, of course, he did.
But now, to come back to the steering committee in Moulton-Midmarsh, the chairman began.
“Commander we appreciate that you have had a great deal of experience in charge of a naval training vessel for young cadets, but the post we are trying to fill today is somewhat different to that which you have just relinquished. Let me explain; the naval cadets you had in your charge, were basically willing recruits, wanting to join the navy; although it is clear that like all young men they needed discipline, they were not basically against the world as it were; not against society in general and habitual creators of disorder. Now the type of youths you will have to deal with in this new approved school are exactly that: young miscreants, who have, in one way or another, rebelled against social conventions and are often intent on creating mayhem. How do you think you will be able to deal with that?”
“Mr. Chairman, you need have no worries about my ability to maintain order in any, and I stress the word any, repeat any, situation. I am known as a strict disciplinarian and have no qualms in dealing with a group of miscreant youths. Believe me, sir, when I say that if I am appointed the post, the school will be run like clockwork; rules will be strictly enforced and the slightest deviation from the straight and narrow will immediately give rise to severe punishment. I am, sir, a great believer in the therapeutic virtues of corporal punishment; I practised it in my previous post and would propose to continue here, if I have the honour to be appointed. Let me say, sir, that even the most recalcitrant and defiant of youths, quickly realizes with me, that he must tread the straight and narrow; once he has been treated to a good dose of the cane across is bare buttocks, the effect on his behaviour can but be described as magical!”
“Whilst it is not my intention to mistreat the young detainees, I nevertheless believe in making them all toe the line and those who do not do so are punished immediately; and, I might add, quite severely. I do not believe in a few mild slaps across the buttocks; if boys merit a beating, which they often do, then I think that they have to feel real pain and the cane has to be applied with vigour, otherwise what is the point? So, Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that I am a stickler for discipline and the cane and the birch will reign as the prime implements of punishment during my tenure. I do not, in any way, subscribe to the views of the present day would-be reformists, who are increasingly trying to force the views on us, that it is better to adopt a gentler approach and try to rehabilitate the boys by kindness. Give them an inch and they will take a mile; I have seen it time and time again in my naval career; so my approach is to hold strictly to the rule and to punish anyone who breaks it. Can I say more than that about my philosophy?”
The chairman, relieved to have found someone who sounded as though he could and would do the job, nodded his head in approval and said: “ We are all of us here delighted to hear that there is at least one sensible voice out there in that chaotic wilderness which has been created in the name of reform and rehabilitation; we were all afraid of appointing someone of the new wave, if I may express myself that way, who looks upon this new type of school as a sort of orphanage for disadvantage boys, when, in fact, they are a set of miscreants who deserve to be kept away from the public for as long as it takes to beat some sense into them.”
He now turned to his fellow committee members and said: “Well, gentlemen, you have all heard Commander Pratt-Mainwaring’s philosophy, with which I suspect we all agree. I would remind you that the purpose of this final meeting was to assure ourselves that the new Warden would hold fast to the traditional and proven methods of discipline used for so long and, I might add, so successfully, in our school systems. I think I can say that he has certainly put rest any fears we might have been harbouring, that he shared the modern philosophy of the soft approach to the rehabilitation of these young delinquents, who will shortly be visited upon us, So, unless anyone has any objections, I would like to propose that we offer the post of Warden of the new school to Commander Pratt-Mainwaring, which I earnestly request him to accept. And finally, let me say, that if Pratt-Mainwaring accepts our offer, I suggest that the title of the post be officially Commander, in recognition of the rank he holds.”
The extraordinary thing in all this was that no one on the committee ever thought of asking the Commander, why a man as young as he and in a senior naval position had left his post and was now available. As we would say in modern day parlance, the Commander had passed under the radar undetected.
So, that was that; the Commander had the post and was given free rein to run the school as he saw fit. His appointment was immediate, as much organisational work remained to be done to ensure, that on the arrival of the first wave of boys, programmed to arrive less than twelve months hence, everything was in place for the institution to function efficiently. Once the contract was signed, sealed and delivered, the members of the steering committee breathed a collective sigh of relief, that they had now pushed the whole awful business of this accursed and unwanted school onto the shoulders of someone else. The whole problem of uneasiness that the arrival of the school had presented was simply swept under the carpet and no longer their concern; the state would foot the bills, but the problems would be dealt with by someone else; they had appointed a man whom they thought would be an excellent Warden: Commander Pratt-Mainwaring, and matters were now up to him.
The chairman felt pleased that they had clearly appointed a martinet, which was, in his view, exactly what was needed: someone who was not afraid to thrash living daylights out of the miscreants who were about to be lodged there. But, the committee had endowed Commander Pratt-Mainwaring with more or less absolute power and as we all know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So, the steering committee, by its action had, effectively abandoned any control whatsoever of the school. I am sure, had they been questioned just that point, they would have hotly denied it; but the simple fact of the matter is that they had handed the school over to a bombastic autocrat who was moreover, a homosexual with strong sadistic tendencies,
CHAPTER 3
The Commander was highly delighted to have been appointed to his new post. He had already divined from the previous contact with the committee, that they were relieved to have rid themselves of any responsibility for running the school, other than wielding a rubber stamp now and then; so he felt confident that he could do exactly as he wished; and as a died in the wool disciplinarian, it was his intention to see that the cane and the birch were kept in regular use. Like many men, more than would like to admit it, he thoroughly enjoyed seeing boys have their arses thrashed and was not at all averse to wielding the implement of punishment himself. At the end of the day the Commander kept his sadistic streak carefully hidden; but as his charges at the cadet school had discovered, he was never slow to wield the cane on their naked backsides. And so, having been more or less cashiered from his naval post, he found himself, as he put it to himself: “The king of all I survey”
Before we go any further with the story of the Commander, something has to be explained about the structure of the new school. The staff was divided into two quite distinct and separate groups. There was the teaching staff, which was responsible for all lessons and the warders, who were to handle discipline and all physical activities, gym and games included. The teaching staff was to have a day function only and as at a normal day school they would come and go each day. The warders, on the other hand were, like the inmates, to be permanently present, and housed on the school premises in much same was as are the pupils and Housemasters at a typical public school. In terms of their appointment they were called warders; but in the school as they ran the four houses into which the school was divided, they had the title Housemaster and assistant Housemaster.
The school building was in the form of a letter E, except that it had four rather than three cross bars. The main school, where all formal instruction took place and meals were served, occupied the long building linking these four wings together and the wings were, in fact, conceived as separate houses, in much the same way that our great public schools have houses, where the pupils actually live. Each house had its own Housemaster and he and his assistant had private studies and living accommodation in their respective houses. In the same way that the Commander’s word was law in the entire school, so each Housemaster was totally responsible for the running of his house, where his word was the law.
In addition to the professional staff, there was the support staff of school secretary, cleaners, cooks, launderers, grounds-men etc. all of whom, except the cooks, were present only during the day, whilst the cooks by the very nature of their job had to live in the school. The Commander was provided with a secretary, who was in that classic mould which seems to accompany this post. Miss Cruickshank was her name; and she was a typical dried up old trout with one of those faces which a smile never crossed; her job it was to do the Warden’s bidding, which she and many others like her throughout the British school system did without question. So every day after classes, the school and its charges were entirely in the hands of the Commander and his warders; everything was possible and there was no outside control at all!
The Commander set about sorting through applications for the various teaching posts, which were easy to fill as it had been decided to provide married quarters for them and their families outside the school premises. The Housemasters presented a different problem, as being lodged in the school buildings with the boys they had to be free of family ties. The Commander was particularly careful to select only muscular young men, who at the interview had expressed their willingness to maintain order with the use of the cane, whenever necessary. The Housemasters had no formal teaching duties, but were entirely in charge of all physical education and games, as well as maintaining discipline throughout the school day. Only these eight men and the Commander himself were to be allowed to administer corporal punishment to the boys.
The Commander took great care in selecting these eight men, as he wanted to be certain that they were all men who had the same philosophy as himself about discipline; corporal punishment had to reign supreme; not only during the school day, but also in the four separate houses where the boys lived and slept; the Housemaster and his deputy had to be ready and willing to wield the cane at any time. The Commander review his choices and felt that he had done well, as all eight young men seemed as eager as he himself was to thrash errant arses. Although he did not know it for sure, he felt in his bones, that they were all, very probably like him, that is to say homosexual, or if not, certainly willing to bugger their charges.
A school environment, especially an isolated one such as Moulton-Midmarsh offered, was just the sort of backwater that attracted men of that bent. Why, otherwise, would any normal, heterosexual man cut himself off from pretty well all female company and settle in such a remote place? When he had finalized his choice, the Commander felt well pleased with what he had accomplished.
As ever, staff apart, there was in what was, to all intents and purposes, an all male environment, a strong, but hidden thread of homosexuality running through the place. The boys were all adolescent, aged fifteen to twenty and it is not surprising that deprived of female company, they had to rely on their fellow inmates for for sexual relief. But, this was never spoken of, although everyone knew it existed; and the Commander knew full well, that the attraction to the young Housemasters was to work in a sexually charged all male environment; in a word, it was a classic homosexual situation.
The law might forbid sodomy to give it its official name, euphemistically referred to as lewd behaviour or gross moral turpitude or call it what you will, but all the legislation in the world will not stop young men exercising their sex urge. So, even though male-male sexual relationships, or buggery, another unspoken word, was a criminal offence, punishable by a prison sentence lots of homosexual activity still went on and Moulton-Midmarsh school, like so many other boarding establishments, simply accepted it. Legislation was legislation but it could not ultimately stamp out that most primeval of human urges: to fuck. But it was to be well over half a century later that parliament finally came to its senses and homosexuality, an unspoken word at the time of this account, was decriminalised, when the legislators finally realised that they, like King Canute, could not command the waves.
CHAPTER 4
Now that the basic organisational matters had been more or less settled and the staff appointments made, the Commander felt free to give his undivided attention to the question of discipline and punishment; both subjects dear to his heart. The Commander was at that time, more or less, alone at the school other than for the support staff, and a cook, as the official opening of the school was still several months away. One rainy Saturday afternoon he sat, alone as ever, at his desk and read through the pages in the catalogue of the school supplier devoted to instruments of corporal punishment. These were to be found under the imposing heading of Disciplinary Accoutrements; he found the whole thing totally riveting.
Under this heading, someone in the company had written a short introductory paragraph before going on to detail items it stocked, with which errant pupils could be beaten; it was quite illuminating and held his entire interest. Whoever had written this introductory piece was clearly of the old school and it was quite obvious from his tone, that he advocated frequent and severe thrashings as the only sure way to turn out a set of gentlemen. The writer concluded his introductory remarks by saying:
“It is not, of course, for us, as purveyor of quality school punishment requisites, to comment on the desirability or not of the continued use of traditional corporal punishment in our schools; but we can affirm that our sales figures of disciplinary accoutrements show a year on year growth, which seem to indicate that the practice is alive and well”.
The Commander then moved on to the description of those disciplinary accoutrements in detail. He was amazed just how much space was devoted to the detailed description and methods of use of the various accoutrements the firm had to offer; he found the whole thing totally absorbing, so much so that he realized he was himself becoming aroused just by reading the descriptions of what was on offer. He felt his cock hardening and soon a gentle flow of pre-cum started to manifest itself; he was absolutely beside himself with the pleasure he was obtaining just from reading this highly descriptive catalogue; it was almost as good as administering a thrashing to some lad’s arse – but only almost; for there was no substitute for the real thing; the crack of the cane as it landed on the recipient’s naked arse; the pleasure in applying the strokes to paint a pleasing picture of welts on the lad’s buttocks and the howls of pain which so often accompanied a beating, all gave the Commander great pleasure as he wielded the cane.
Of course, the catalogue was not aimed at school like Moulton-Midmarsh, but at the British public schools, where beating was akin to breathing: a way of life! And it was at just such a school that the Commander had enjoyed his own education; so it was not surprising that now in sole charge of this new school he modelled it on his own public school experiences, which, truth to tell, had been pretty painful.
Here are some of the items in the catalogue, which especially caught his eye.
The junior hand cane: A three foot long slender rattan cane, equipped with a rounded handle for a good grip. Specially conceived for use on boys’ palms. This cane offers a stinging blow, with no danger of physical injury to the recipient. Greatly used in preparatory schools and in most of our state schools where caning of the buttocks is limited. Highly recommended for boys aged eleven to thirteen years of age. Sold in bundles of 24 canes.
The senior hand cane: Similar to the above in all ways, except being slightly thicker and therefore capable of causing more pain. The cane of choice used in most of our state schools for older boys aged fourteen and above. Sold in bundle of 24 canes.
The general purpose long rattan cane: This is a three foot long, half inch thick, flexible rattan cane, used for general discipline throughout the day. This cane is the choice of masters, who use it to maintain order in their classrooms. It can be applied either to the clothed or to the naked buttocks. State schools prefer to administer corporal punishment through the trousers of their pupils; whereas public schools usually administer all punishment to the naked buttocks of the miscreant. Correctly used, this cane is capable of creating real pain for the recipient. Highly recommended. Sold in bundles of 24 canes.
Our unique speciality cane – the rod in pickle: We are pleased to be able to offer what we consider as the nec plus ultra of buttock canes; a specially selected cane unique to us for making the celebrated rod in pickle concept a painful reality. The expression rod in pickle has come to mean an instrument of punishment waiting to be used when the occasion arises rather than the implement itself. However, with our speciality cane, the rod in pickle has become a reality, probably the most painful of any type of cane.
The slender canes for preparing this masterpiece of corporal chastisement, supplied by us in the form of three feet long, thin canes is imported directly and only by us from the Far East, where it grows only in limited areas. It is cut from a unique type of rattan vine, which has the unique characteristic of being able to absorb its own weight in water. When correctly prepared, with a minimum of two weeks soaking in brine, the result is the most flexible and heaviest of all canes, and the one with which the greatest pain can be inflicted on the naked buttocks of the miscreant; whilst always avoiding any permanent physical damage. As such it is the most flexible and painful of all canes currently on the market. Many of our users consider it the equal of the birch. Sold dry, ready for soaking in brine, in bundles of 24 canes.
Handle for the above: As the cane itself is rather thin and when correctly soaked, difficult to grip firmly, we offer a special wooden handle into which the end of the soaked rod fits and where it is held in place with a knurled thumb-screw. The user has thus a firm grip on the rod at all times, which enables him to apply it with vigour to the miscreant. Sold in packs of five handles.
Special soaking tubes for the above: We offer a light metallic rust-proof cylinder and stand, specially designed to accept the full length of the above canes. Filled with a strong brine solution, it is the ideal recipient in which to soak and keep the above rods ready for use. Sold individually.
Numerous testimonials as to the efficacy of the rod in pickle cane were entered below the description, of which two are reproduced below.
A headmaster, a regular user writes:
“I have nothing but praise for this most innovative approach to the rod in pickle concept. It is incomparable when applied to the naked buttocks of an errant boy; its flexibility is such that when correctly placed across the buttocks, the cane produces the longest cut I have ever seen. Pupils go in dread of it and those who have once felt it never ever wish to renew its acquaintance. I can reduce even the most hardened and recalcitrant boy to tears with three strokes of this cane. I have abandoned all other forms of punishment in its favour.”
And a second testimonial said:
“As a teacher of the old school, I had long maintained that the traditional birch rod was the best way to give a boy a thorough and painful thrashing. However, I realize now that I may have to revise this view, for I find that with this new rod, I can achieve practically the same results but with much less effort. The birch has always posed a problem in that it needs to be freshly made for maximum effectiveness, which constraint has now disappeared, as the rod in pickle has handsomely taken its place. This is the greatest advance in corporal punishment of the last fifty years. I can but recommend its general acceptance.”
The Commander could barely contain himself reading about these instruments of discipline and grew even more aroused as he read on.
Adjustable beating stool:: Traditionally, boys have been made to bend across the back of a chair in order to offer their buttocks for punishment. Our adjustable, purpose-made stool ensures that boys of all heights can be correctly positioned with their buttocks tightly held in the perfect position to receive the cane. The back of this stool, with its padded top cross-rail, is easily adjustable according to the height of the boy to be punished. Thus the buttocks of the errant youth are always correctly positioned to accept the punishment. Suitable for all boys aged thirteen to twenty. Sold individually.
Adjustable beating horse: This horse, like the stool above, is adjustable to ensure that the buttocks of any boy can be positioned perfectly for the application of the punishment. Its use is recommended for any severe beating or birching where the errant youth needs to be restrained as the punishment is administered. Our simple hand and ankle restraining straps ensure that once in place, the recipient is held immobile. Particularly recommended where one master alone has to administer a beating, as no additional help is required to restrain the subject completely. Sold individually.
Special deep birch buckets: Whilst we cannot supply the birch itself, for this must be freshly prepared and used within a few days of the cutting of the twigs, we do offer a special deep galvanised bucket, some three feet in depth, which enables a full birch rod to be thoroughly soaked before use. The ordinary household pail, so commonly used for this purpose, is not truly deep enough to give a totally flexible birch rod. Users tell us that the results of total soaking produce a much more flexible implement, with which greater pain can be visited upon the miscreant’s buttocks. A full twenty-four hour soaking of a freshly cut birch is recommended to produce the perfect implement; the gold standard of all corporal punishment instruments still widely used in many British schools.
By this time the Commander was in such a state of erotic arousal, that he was forced to relieve himself by the use of that age-old friend: the five fingered lover. He stood in front of the mirror in his private bathroom and breathed a sigh of relief as he arrived at his climax and his sperm splattered the face of the mirror.
The Commander then set about trying to decide exactly which of these highly attractive “accoutrements” – he smiled to himself as he re-read that word – he wished to acquire to equip the school. He had already decided that all formal punishments would be administered either by himself or by one of the eight Housemasters; the teaching staff would not be allowed to use the cane in any of their class rooms, but would, when required, fill out a punishment slip which would mean a visit to the Commander’s study for the unfortunate recipient. He saw no reason to disperse the task of formal beatings across the entire staff, preferring to keep the overall control in his own hands. But he realized that between classes and in their free time, as well as in the gym and on the playing field, his charges would inevitably need disciplining, so he decided that each of the eight Housemasters should, at all times, carry a general purpose rattan cane for the administration of on-the-spot chastisement.
The Commander’s official quarters consisted of a spacious office with another side room and its own bathroom. Beyond that were his private living quarters consisting of a large sitting room, a dining room, a kitchen, two spacious bedrooms and a second bathroom; all in all the Commander’s quarters were, by any standard, generous. So he decided to turn the room off his main study into a punishment room which he equipped with a couple of the adjustable stools and an adjustable beating horse. His thinking was, that as he truly enjoyed the process of roasting boys’ arses, why deprive himself of the pleasure by leaving it all to someone else. He then added a rod in pickle set and a couple of the deep buckets specially conceived for the soaking of birches; he believed in maintaining all punishment options open.
He then realized that the senior Housemasters of the four houses, would also need the ability to beat errant boys at home so to speak in the Housemaster’s study. To this end he decided to equip each study with a complete set of the rod in pickle package and an adjustable beating stool. Armed with that potent combination plus the normal everyday rattan cane, he felt that each Housemaster would be well enough equipped to administer beatings to his charges. He hesitated for a moment, thinking about the birch, but decided that this, the most iconic and fearful of all implements, he would reserve for his own study and for the formal punishment room.
He then designated one of the rooms of the school as the general punishment room and likewise equipped it in the same way as his own private room. However, after some thought, he ordered two of the beating horses, feeling that it might occasionally be useful to beat two boys simultaneously; he felt that it added a degree of drama to the whole process of corporal chastisement, a process which, unless you have not by now understood, was very dear to his heart; the Commander was a totally ruthless martinet and as you have probably realized by now, was intent in moulding the Housemasters into his own image! The Commander then completed his preliminary preparations by adding a substantial quantity of general purpose and rod in pickle type canes to his order. When he had finished, he sat back and surveyed what he had ordered and decided that few schools would have the equal in disciplinary accoutrements, which he was sure and certain would find regular use,
CHAPTER 5
The one thing that was missing from the Commander’s chastisement artillery, was, of course the birch rod itself. As the school supply catalogue had remarked, the birch itself could not be ordered in the normal way like the rattan cane, but needed to be made regularly on the spot and used within a short time frame, before the the thin twigs used in its makeup became too fragile. He remembered the one occasion when he himself had been birched as a schoolboy, some thirty years ago. There were broken bits of twig littering the room after his beating was over and the master who had administered the punishment had used no less than two new birch rods in the course of a fifteen stroke beating; he still shuddered when he looked back on that occasion and the excruciating pain he had suffered. The pickle-rod might well be painful; but the birch was a frighteningly painful implement which struck fear into every boy’s heart at the thought that he might one day be on the receiving end of it.
Perhaps a word of explanation is needed about the birch rod, usually expressed in the singular when, in fact the rod is comprised of a bundle of flexible twigs firmly tied together with twine. Soaked in water for a few hours before use, this admirable implement has long been considered as the ultimate sanction to control over-ebullient, errant youths. At first sight, with its thin twigs, on asks oneself if it truly is a painful instrument of chastisement; to which the answer has to be a resounding Yes. With each successive stroke the pain builds up until it becomes well nigh unbearable for the recipient. But the great advantage of the birch is that due to the light nature of its structure, it does not lead to physical damage to the naked arse of the recipient; a well birched arse is something akin to an impressionist painting, as the entire buttock area is covered with small ridges, which change in colour as they mature. Overall, the birch, correctly wielded by an expert, is a truly frightening instrument of corporal punishment, which is precisely what attracted the Commander to it.
The Commander then remembered reading somewhere that although called the birch, implying the use of twigs from the tree of the same name, some experts felt that a better and more durable instrument could be made using the fine straight upper twigs of the hazel, which as a suckering large shrub or small tree, was admirably suited to the cut and come again philosophy needed for the regular production of birches. But, wondered the Commander, who is going to make these switches for me and where is he going to get the raw materials? This was a question which had to be addressed and a solution found, before the school actually opened for business; a school, without the birch was unthinkable for the Commander.
The Commander then had a bright idea. He had recently appointed as head grounds man a muscular young fellow by the name of Thomas Barraclough. Barraclough was about twenty-five years old and unmarried and lived in the school grounds in one of those buildings provided for the male outdoor staff, and usually called a bothy. As head grounds man, Tom as everyone ultimately called him, had his own private bothy, as did also the head gardener, whereas the general outdoor staff had shared accommodation. It is difficult for us to day to realize just how primitive were the conditions under which these lowly paid manual workers were then expected to live; but live there they did and not unhappily. The Commander decided that he would ask Tom if he could undertake the task of making the birches for the school and to this end he went to Tom’s bothy one evening; he had to go there personally as there were no telephones at that time.
To his great surprise, the young man was enthusiastic about the job, which he agreed to try to do in his spare time for a very small increase in his emolument of one shilling for each birch he made. Tom told that Commander that he knew where there was a good stand of hazels on the estate and would go there during the week; as he saw it, the raw materials were there for the taking; and so, Tom Barraclough made his first attempt at making a birch.
The following Friday evening, the Commander again made a sortie and went to Tom’s bothy to see how the young man had got on with his new task. He was amazed at the excellent looking birch which Tom had put together from his first cutting of hazel twigs. This young guy really had got the feel of what was needed, for he had formed a three foot long implement of a dozen or so finely selected hazel twigs, which was both well balanced and had all the makings of a great birch. The Commander complimented the young man on his effort and then began a long dialogue which led him into homoerotic pastures he had never even dreamed of when he commissioned this young grounds man to make the first birch.
“That is a masterly first attempt you have made of that birch, Barraclough.” said the Commander. “You know, it really does look like a professional job– as if you had been doing it all your life-and yet here you are an absolute novice.”
“Everyone calls me Tom, sir” replied Barraclough, “So why don’t you just do the same, sir? I have to confess that I truly enjoyed this little job you have had me do, probably because of something you do not know. At school up north, I had my arse beaten, naked, I might add, so many times that it got to the stage that I finally came to enjoy the pain; so much so that when I left school and was no longer subject to school discipline, I felt totally deprived of an act of which I had become quite fond”.
“My God,” thought the Commander; “This young fellow is a masochist; he actually enjoys being beaten.”
“Anyway, sir, when I started work, I realised that I needed to find someone who would give me what I had become used to and so I started going to what, I suppose in polite society are called “houses of ill-repute” – brothels in fact, sir, – where ladies, for a fee would thrash gentlemen across the arse. So when I took this job, I found myself again someway cut off from what had become to me a necessity. So, as you can see, interested in corporal punishment myself, I have found working on this birch a tremendous pleasure as at least I was engaged in something which was near to my heart.”
“You should know, sir that the example you see before you, is in fact the fifth one I have made this week, trying to get what I thought was the perfect flexibility and the balance in an implement that was not too heavy to wield. And well, sir, I have been wondering all day, knowing as how you were coming here tonight to view my handy work, what my birch might feel like were it put to it intended use.”
“ Good God,” thought the Commander, “Is this young fellow actually asking me to give his arse a thrashing with his birch? This is getting better and better.”
But with a certain caution, the Commander then said: “Well, Tom, I don’t know about this particular example you have just made, but I can tell you that when I was a boy at school; a long time ago, I might add; I was once birched by my headmaster and believe me, it was not an experience that I ever felt I wanted to repeat. And I am glad to say that I finished my school days without another taste of the birch.”
“That’s just it sir, I know exactly what the cane feels like across my naked arse and I really enjoy that, but I have been wondering just how the birch might compare with that. So, I was just wondering if you might…” His voice tailed off.
“You were just wondering, what Tom?”
“Well, you know sir, as you have not yet tried out the birch I have made on anyone; well I was just sort of wondering; well, you know, sir, I am sure…”
“Are you, Tom, in fact asking me to try out your birch on your arse, young man? Is that, in fact, what you are asking?”
‘Well, sir, now that you have put it so bluntly, I guess that I have to say yes. To be honest sir, I’m really hot to have my arse whacked with this thing I have just made. It will be a new experience for me and for you too, sir, as you will be able to judge if what I have made truly fits the bill. So, sir, as I see it, we shall both gain from the experience.”
“Tom, I am sure we will, so if you are absolutely sure, it will be a pleasure for me to oblige you. But you are absolutely, absolutely sure that you know what you are asking; if I birch you, you will think that your arse has been stuck in a fire. The birch is a very, very painful implement of corporal punishment; probably the most painful. So, I repeat, are you sure that that is what you want?”
In fact, the Commander was just as keen to flog Tom’s arse as Tom was apparently to have himself flogged. In modern parlance, the Commander would have said that this opportunity was manna from heaven; but in his position, he did not want to appear too eager to thrash the young man’s arse.
“I’m dead certain that that is what I want sir.” Said Tom as he started to unbuckle his belt and drop his trousers and underwear.
The young man then bent across the table and pushed up his arse into what he clearly thought was the best position for the Commander to address his backside. What the Commander saw before him was a flogger’s dream; a beautiful pair of unblemished cheeks: an arse to be dreamt of in dreams!
“Go ahead, sir, don’t be shy. Just whack me hard; it’s exactly what I want you to do.”
The Commander paused for a few seconds, admiring the prospect in front of him, raised the birch and brought it down with a good blow across the middle of Tom’s arse. The quality of Tom’s handiwork was immediately apparent as the individual twigs of the birch rod fanned out beautifully and covered more or less the young man’s entire arse; the mark of a really well made birch rod.
“Go on, sir, don’t hold back; hit me as hard as you can; that’s exactly what I want. I want to feel the full pain that this implement is capable of; go on sir, just do it: give it to me good and hard.”
So the Commander obliged and gave young Tom’s arse a twelve stroke roasting with his own birch. “My God,” thought the Commander, “I wonder that he can stand it without so much as a murmur.” The twelve strokes given, the Commander, who by this time was totally hard and almost climaxing with the sheer eroticism of the occasion, put down the birch and told Tom that he thought that he had had enough for now.
“That was bloody great sir; exactly what I needed; I haven’t had such a good thrashing in years; it was truly exhilarating.”
The Commander was astounded at Tom’s enthusiasm for what had just happened to him. Any other guy would, by now, have been begging him to stop, but not Tom. It was clear that here was a serious masochist: a man who truly enjoyed pain and wanted to have his arse beaten. True he had said earlier, that he had enjoyed being beaten at school and had occasionally gone to a brothel and allowed one or other of the ladies there to tend to his needs; but the Commander had never dreamed of the utter enthusiasm Tom would show for this masochistic orgy of pain; the birch took the whole business to another level, a much higher level and Tom clearly loved it.
As Tom stood up, with his trousers still around his ankles, the Commander became acutely aware that he was being faced with a magnificent erect, rock-hard cock, which the beating had induced in Tom. Tom looked over at the Commander; his gaze was fixed on the Commander’s crotch, from where the Commander’s erection was clearly straining to be freed.
“You know, sir, after a beating, it’s sometimes very relaxing if some sort of soothing is administered to the flaming buttocks. I don’t know if you have ever thought about that sir, have you?”
The Commander suddenly realised what Tom was angling at; he wanted the Commander to fuck his arse, but so far had not actually put his wish into words; but by now, it was as plain as a pikestaff where the whole thing was heading.
“I am not sure that I quite understand what you are getting at.” Said the Commander, with great understatement.
“Oh, I think that you actually do sir,” Said Tom with his eyes focused even more sharply on the Commander’s crotch. I really think that you do sir;, and I am sure sir, that you would like to help me.:
Tom now turned away from the Commander, bent across the table again and spread his legs, giving the Commander unimpeded access to that all important entry point, his anus, which was now so beautifully and irresistibly presented that any hard cock would have found hard to resist. Like many young muscular men, Tom had a very tight anus, just the thing the Commander loved, for a good, tight hole, made for a great fuck.
Tom then said: “There you are sir; surely you must be able to help sooth my pain; surely you can see what I desperately need; surely you can sir. Please sir, give me what you can see I am asking you for.”
The Commander thought to himself: “My God, this is getting better and better. First he wanted me to beat him; and now he is offering me his hole to fuck. Can things ever get better than this; and this on our first meeting!”
So the Commander now himself completely overcome by the sheer homoeroticism of the occasion dropped his own trousers and advance on Tom with his own cock rock hard and ready to penetrate the young man’s anus, when Tom suddenly said: “There’s a bottle of oil in the cupboard over there sir; it might help, don’t you think; I find oil so soothing.”
Tom had been amazingly circumlocutive about what he wanted the Commander to do to him. He had never, in fact, actually put into words that he wanted the Commander to fuck him; but by innuendo, this young man had twisted the Commander round his little finger and now had the Commander reaching for a bottle of oil with which to anoint is cock before actually penetrating the young man’s hole. So the Commander applied a liberal amount of oil to his cock and proceeded to shaft young Tom. Tom’s sphincter was good and tight and it took a good thrust from the Commander to give Tom his full shaft length; but once inside, he wasted no time in pumping the young stud’s butt as vigorously as he could, to the accompaniment of exhortations from Tom to give it to him as hard as he could. He eventually climaxed and ejaculated, in a series of jerky spurts, a huge quantity of his sperm into the young man’s rectum. Tom also climaxed and sprayed the kitchen table with a liberal quantity of his own thick, creamy seed. The Commander collapsed on Tom’s back and clung to him for five or so minutes until both men had calmed down after what has been an exhilaratingly hard fuck.
When both men had calmed down after what had been a vigorous session of sexual activity, the Commander withdrew his still hard cock from Tom’s hole, stood up, wiped himself off and started to dress.
Tom looked at him with an admiring gaze and said: “You really are a great guy, sir. I’ve been fucked by quite a number of different men over the years, but never with such vigour, leading to such a huge climax as just now. You really are the tops, sir, And, I hope that you enjoyed soothing me as much as I did being soothed. You know the combination of the birching you just gave me together with that monumental fuck has left me in such a state that I think I must be in heaven. Again sir, thank you, thank you sir, so very, very much.”
The Commander was quite overwhelmed by the words of praise lavished upon him by his young grounds man. He reflected for a moment on the totally unexpected course of events which had just taken place. He had gone to Tom’s bothy purely to see how the young man had got on in making a birch rod and had finished up thrashing the young man’s arse with the very rod he had just made; this had given both of them the greatest of pleasure, for he truly adored administering the cane to the naked arse of any young fellow, just as much as Tom clearly enjoyed being thrashed.
But then again, totally unforeseen, Tom had more or less led him by the nose into an act of intense anal sex; this again, had led to a moment of extreme pleasure for both of them; it had been, for both the grounds man and the Commander, an impromptu evening of extreme pleasure. Young Tom clearly knew what he wanted in life, for at the end of the day, it was he, and he alone, who had orchestrated the whole evening. But a slight shadow of doubt flashed through the Commander’s mind as he realized that what they had just done together was considered a criminal act by the law.
“You do know, Tom, don’t you, that what we have just done together, the sex, that is, not the birching, is a criminal offense under the laws of this country and that if our illicit liaison ever saw the light of day, we could both be tried for sodomy and sent to prison for several years. Don’t think it does not happen; why, just a few brief years ago, the playwright, Oscar Wilde was found guilty of doing exactly what we have just done together, and was sent to prison for two years. So, young man, never a word to anyone about what has just happened here; it has to remain between you and me; agreed?”
Agreed, sir; I’ll never mention tonight to anyone; why would I ever what to upset the apple cart, to kill the goose which lays the golden eggs?
The Commander realised from the tenure of Tom’s last comments that he somehow saw the nascent relationship they had just forged, developing further and so he wondered where Tom and he could now go together. Tom clearly did not want to stop what they had just started but what should the next step be? He really liked the young man, who offered the twin attractions of a tame arse to thrash, as he clearly wanted to be punished on a regular basis, but with the added attraction that he craved a post-flogging fuck. This was truly a combination made in heaven and one to be nurtured, for the Commander loved both aspects of the affair as, obviously, did Tom. There was no question of any coercion, as this was an affair between two consenting adults; but nonetheless; in the eyes of the law: an illicit affair. The Commander decided that the greatest discretion was needed.
“Well, Tom, you certainly appear to have mastered the art of making birch rods; your first attempt has been a great success and I do not see that you have anything more to learn. As you know, this particular implement has a relatively short life, for its efficacy depends upon the flexibility of the twigs from which it is made, and these very quickly dry out. So, as I intend to see that the birch is in regular use once the school opens this autumn, here is what I suggest. I think you should make a fresh rod every two weeks and then on Friday night, after supper, bring it round to my study and we can, if you wish, test it out. I imagine you understand what I am proposing.”
“Indeed I do sir, and I think that it is a very good idea. So shall we say sir, that my first visit with a new rod will be a week from today?”
“Agreed.” Said the Commander and with that he left Tom and his bothy and returned to his quarters back at the school with the birch tucked under his arm
The Commander could not believe his good luck in having found in Tom, a young man, whom he liked and who was willing, indeed anxious, to be disciplined on a regular basis and have his arse fucked into the bargain; truly a unique opportunity, which would never again present itself. So, thought the Commander, I must make hay whilst the sun shines, for all good things have a habit of coming to an end; which of course they eventually did.
CHAPTER 6
A week later, Tom Barraclough knocked gently on the door of the Commander’s study, carrying with him his second birch rod. Entering the study, he was amazed by the sheer space that the Commander had at his disposal. The Commander showed him his newly furnished and equipped punishment room and Tom was duly impressed by the way that the place was fitted out with the latest and most modern equipment associated with the corporal punishment of boys.
“This,” said the Commander, picking out a slender pickle-rod from it brine bath, wiping off the water and fixing it in its handle, “Is reckoned by the suppliers to be the equal of, if not better than the birch itself for the intensity of pain it can deliver. As you can see, the cane is very thin and flexible, made even more so by it long soaking in brine, which also imparts additional weight to the implement. I am sure I don’t have to spell out to you Tom, that the added weight adds greatly to the efficacy of the cane; this is reputed to be the greatest stinger ever. Of course, the difference between it and the birch is that being one single cane, the person administering the punishment can target individual places on the arse being punished, where the birch covers more or less the entire surface with each stroke. But, I suppose each implement has its place in the punishment stakes; it all depends what you are wanting to achieve.”
Tom took the cane and flexed it, before giving making a few swift swishes through the air.
“I wonder sir,” what it feels like in practice, he said, ‘But I don’t suppose you have tried it out yet as the school internees have not yet started arriving; but, you know, sir, I really do wonder how it would actually feel when it cuts into the naked cheeks of a bare arse.”
“You are quite right, Tom” I have not any any chance to try this particular type of cane out so far, “But I can tell you that I am pretty sure that I will be able to make the lucky lads to whose arses I apply it, metaphorically see stars.”
The Commander could already see where all this was leading. Tom was dying to have a taste of the cane applied to his own arse. So, this time taking the lead, as he fully knew what Tom was angling for, the Commander said: “I don’t suppose that you would like me to give you a taste of this rod here and now, would you? You know it would be a bit like our first encounter in your bothy with the birch: a first for you and a first for me. It would be sort of a repeat performance, but with a different implement.”
“I really was beginning to think sir that you might never ask. I am just dying sir, for you to give me a taste of that delicious looking cane across my arse.”
So Tom dropped his pants with alacrity and bent over one of the beating stools. The commander looked at him and made a slight adjustment to the height of the back to ensure that Tom’s essential anatomy was correctly positioned and stood over him with the cane ready in his hand.
“These people really have thought of everything, sir; even an adjustable padded back rail across the top to ensure that the poor sod’s arse is in the right position to cane. Go ahead sir; go to it; don’t hold back; you know me now; I really enjoy pain; so just lay it on as hard as you can.
The Commander never ceasing to marvel at Tom’s deep masochistic streak, gave him one good stroke across the middle of his arse. The cane was so flexible that it bent itself to the contours of both buttocks and produced one long, livid, wrap-round cut, which rapidly began to turn red. Urged on, as before , by Tom, the Commander went on to give him another eleven cuts, twelve in all, by which time Tom’s arse was a mass of bruises.
“That was absolutely great sir,” said Tom, “I enjoyed that every bit as much as the birching you gave me the other week. Now, sir, are you going to sooth me as before?”
“Oh, knock it off now Tom; let’s call a spade a spade. You wanted me to beat you, which is why you are here and now you want me to fuck your hole. So, let’s drop all pretence. You want to have your arse whacked hard on a regular basis and then have your hole fucked and I am happy to do both for you. So, stay where you are, spread your legs a bit so that I can get my cock into you and away we go. Oh, and I have taken a leaf from your book, in that I have some oil here to help us on our way.”
And so, the Commander again fucked his young grounds-man and they both enjoyed every minute of it. When it was all over, the Commander again impressed on Tom the need to remain silent, repeating what he had already told the young man about the criminality in the eyes of the law of the sex act they had just indulged in.
“But sir, we are only doing what lots of other men do together, and men I might add, in public life.”
“Quite true Tom; but the fact remains that under the law we, and they too for that matter, are committing a crime, for which we could all be imprisoned. So please, this relationship has to remain strictly private, just between you and me as we have agreed. Now, as this is a school and as I am a master and as you are, sort of, a pupil, I will now do what masters in public school traditionally do, when they have just thrashed a boy.”
“And what would that be sir?”
“I shall make you a cup of cocoa!”
Tom Barraclough laughed.
Thus began a summer of encounters between the Commander and Tom. What had been foreseen as a meeting every other Friday quickly turned into a weekly event. Neither the Commander nor Tom could get enough of each other. But the Commander refused to beat Tom other than every alternate Friday, as he thought his arse would never recover from the thrashing it received. He continued to be amazed by the masochistic attitude of the young man towards punishment; Tom could not get enough of either birch or cane and revelled in letting the Commander ream his hole on each occasion.
“Tom,” said the Commander, “I know it is I who have to do the thrashing and that that is what you want, but have you ever thought that you might like to give me a return bout with your own cock? Have you never had any desire to fuck me in much the same was as I do to you? Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy doing what I do, but I just thought that you might like to exercise your own cock for a change.”
“Oh no sir;I think not. It would be quite disrespectful of me sir, to attempt to do to you, sir, what you do to me. You are an older man, sir, whom I respect enormously and you have truly given me all I want. One day, I will perhaps find a partner more of my own age with whom I feel I can explore the full gamut of a male partnership; but for the moment, sir, I prefer that we keep things as they are. I am really glad you are able to beat me, which I much enjoy; and the sex we have together is great for me. But, sir, for the moment I cannot honestly, with the best will in the world, bring myself to switch roles. I do hope that you understand sir; so please sir, let’s just leave things as they are; there is no point in upsetting the applecart!
Tom had always been most respectful to the Commander and never addressed him other than by his title and always peppered his remarks with the word sir. Tom was not quite so obsequiously humble as Dickens’s Uriah Heap, but he certainly knew his place in the highly structured British class system of the day. The above conversation took place just after the Commander had finished thrashing Tom’s arse with a pickle-rod. He reflected for a moment before continuing and then said: “Listen Tom; I know that I normally fuck with you bent over the chair, but tonight I want it to be different; I want us to be closer together as we have sex, so come to bed with me and stay the night with me here, this time.”
Tom did not seem to object; so the Commander led him from his punishment room into his private living quarters and into one of the bedrooms. There he stripped the young man totally naked and saw for the first time what a magnificent stud Tom truly was. Tom had a very muscular physique and was well endowed with that most important piece of male equipment which resided between the legs; Tom had, in fact, a truly magnificent cock, long and thick and, totally unexpected for an Englishman at that period, his cock had been beautifully circumcised, which drew attention to his large knob, set off by an excellent rim. All in all, Tom was sexually a highly desirable young man; the Commander was literally drooling as he pulled the young man into bed with him.
Well, the upshot was that the Commander could not keep his hands of Tom and spent the entire night with him exercising his own meat on Tom’s arse until he could cum no more. It was, for the Commander, one of the best sexual encounters he had ever had.
But, as the Commander had foreseen, all good things must eventually come to an end and the liaison with Tom no exception; but, it came suddenly and abruptly without warning.
One Friday evening, Tom arrived as usual at the Commander’s study, knocked and entered, but this time he was not alone; he was accompanied by a tall, well-built muscular young man, whom he introduced to the Commander as my friend David Sykes.
The Commander looked at David and said laughingly: “Don’t tell me Tom, that you have brought me another candidate who wants his arse roasting.”
“Oh, no sir, nothing at all like that at all; indeed, sir, quite the contrary. You see I wanted you to meet David, with whom I have become very friendly these last few weeks. David works as a farrier in Mr. Jenning’s smithy on the edge of town and well, we two met a couple of months ago in the local pub and since then we have become very friendly; inseparable in fact; I’m sure you know what I mean sir.” Tom concluded, sheepishly, with a faint air of embarrassment.
The Commander could already see where this conversation was leading, but said nothing and allowed Tom to continue.
“Well sir, it’s like this sir, as I was saying;, Dave and I have become really very close, if you see what I mean sir; so much so that we are thinking of moving in together. You see, sir, to be frank, we have now been lovers for the last two months and we now both want to be together on a regular basis. And sir, since I met Dave, my masochistic urges, which are what brought you and me together, sir, have totally disappeared. You see, sir, now that Dave and I are having regular sex together, I no longer feel the need to have my arse beaten; that desire has totally vanished. And now that we are together as equals, in that we both share identical sex experiences with each other. In other words sir, it is now as you suggested, to me once some time ago, that Dave not only serves me but I do the same for him’ and so sir, both he and I feel totally fulfilled.”
And so it would have gone on, has the Commander, who now understood completely the situation, not cut Tom short.
“Tom, I am very happy for you that you have found a partner with whom you feel you can live your life to the full. I have been very happy with our unique relationship; to put it very crude; you being beaten and fucked and I being the beater and the fucker. Ours cannot in any way be described as having been an idyllic relationship, but one which I, like you, have enjoyed enormously these past few months. I always knew that our time together would one day come to an end and that day seems now to have arrived; arrived somewhat abruptly;, but arrived nevertheless.
“Oh sir, I am so sorry sir, too have sprung this on you so suddenly; I really am sir; but now you know and I truly think that our relationship has to end and my Friday visits to your study have got to stop. I truly do sir; but I do hope, sir, that you understand. It’s just that things have changed so much for me these last couple of months and I didn’t know how to tell you what had happened. Don’t worry sir, about my making the birches; I’ll still go on doing that as long as I am working here as head grounds-man. And as far as the bothy is concerned, if it’s all right with you, I’ll still keep the use of it and be there every day from eight until six; but next week, I am moving in with Dave in his rooms above the smithy.”
“Tom: go no further; it’s all fine. You are a young man and you seem to seem to have found your partner in life, so you must do what you think is right. Dave, I do not know you, but you look like a decent sort of chap and I hope that you and Tom will be happy together. So, there it is; go with my blessing. But just one word of warning; the life you are contemplating together, which is based on a homosexual relationship, is, as I have repeatedly told Tom, strictly against the benighted laws of this land and if you are caught together, in what the law describes as an unnatural act, then you risk being sent to gaol. So, boys, please, please, be discrete in what you do and don’t flaunt your relationship in front of other people. Remember, the saying, discretion is the better part of valour. Just keep that thought in mind.”
To anyone who knew anything at all about the true character of Commander Pratt-Mainwaring, this speech was an eye-opener, for it showed that there was a softer side to him, when he wished to reveal it. It was clear that he had truly liked Tom and his extraordinary relationship with him; but he had known all along that that they had had together would someday end; ti was just that the end had come so abruptly; but he now quite genuinely wished the two young men well. And so it was that the brief interlude between the Commander and his grounds man came to an abrupt end; happily with no acrimony.
CHAPTER 7
With the opening of the school now scheduled for September, the Commander had just too much work to allow the demise of his liaison with Tom Barraclough to detract him from his labours. He arranged for all the teaching staff and the eight warders to come to the school for a pre-term orientation session. On this occasion, Commander Pratt-Mainwaring made it abundantly clear to all present that he and he alone was in charge and that his orders were to be followed with no deviation. As he pointed out to those assembled, they would collectively be responsible for the education and well being of some 200 boys aged sixteen to twenty; moreover for a group of boys, who to say the least, were all in some way delinquent; boys who had not conformed to the normal code of conduct in the society in which they lived, and for that reason they have been sent to this institution, in an attempt to set them on the right path in life.
“Gentlemen; I do not know if you are aware of the fact, but in its infinite wisdom, the Department of Education has decided to intern in this very school, the worst offenders who are at present distributed throughout this country in various other correctional establishments. Therefore, as our first intake this autumn, we are dealing not with the normal run of young offenders, who have been sentenced by the courts to a spell in an approved school, but what might well be described as the scum de la scum of juvenile delinquents. That, gentlemen, is what we are going to have to contend with.”
He wnet on: “These boys, in general, are the worst young rebels against society: tear-aways, who have no respect for the law or for the people around them and as such must be under constant control and supervision. They have to be taught to toe the line of what is generally considered acceptable behaviour in this country. If they so much as deviate by an inch from the straight and narrow; if they break the rules in any way; then they will be severely punished. I am myself, a great believer in the old maxim, spare the rod and spoil the child and that will be our guiding light in this establishment as long as I am in charge. So, all of you, please forget any thoughts you may have of gentle rehabilitation. This school will be run on lines of a military establishment; the cane and birch will be used, without question, on any boy who needs correction. And when I say used, I mean applied with vigour to the miscreant’s naked buttocks. If a boy is to be beaten, then it must be done thoroughly and it must hurt. A few light taps with a cane are totally unacceptable in the environment in which we find ourselves today.”
“As for the administration of formal corporal punishment; this will be exclusively in my hands and those of the eight warders. Those of you in the teaching staff who feel a boy has overstepped the bounds and is need of correction will be required to fill out a punishment citation which will be brought to me by the errant youth in question. Boys with slips will be either punished by me personally in my study, or will, on Friday evenings after supper, go to the general punishment room where they will be beaten either by me of by one of the senior warders.”
“Now, as you, the teaching staff will have no recourse to the cane yourselves, to correct the minor infractions which will inevitably arise in your classes, if you feel a boy is out of line, simply send him out of the room. I am talking here about really minor infractions, which do not merit a written citation, but which must always, and I repeat here the word always, be met with some form of immediate sanction, otherwise order will give way to chaos. I am a great believer in the maxim Give a boy and inch and he will take a mile. Well in this school not a single inch will ever be ceded to a boy. The rules will be strictly obeyed and if broken, punishment will be automatic.”
“So, any boy sent out of the classrooms for any kind of misbehaviour whatsoever is obliged immediately to go and stand in the corridor, outside the punishment room door. At each change of period, where there is a five minute recess, one of the warders will be present at the punishment room and the miscreants waiting there will automatically be caned. There will be no questions asked and no answers called for; the boys will automatically be caned.”
“There will be a simple standard procedure; each boy will drop his pants, bend across he beating stool and the warder on duty will give him six good cuts across his naked buttocks with the pickle-rod. So, gentlemen, as you can see, the cane will be in use the entire day; at each change of period; four times in the morning and three times in the afternoon. And woe betide any boy who has been expelled from a class and who then fails to present himself at the punishment room; for he will be dealt with by me personally and I can tell you that six cuts will seem as the touch of a feather compared to what such deceitful boys will get from me by way of retribution.”
“So, gentlemen, there you have it; the cane will be at your disposition via the strong arms of the warders, throughout the teaching day. And so, gentlemen, I see no reason why you cannot maintain perfect order in your classrooms and I shall expect nothing less from each and every one of you.”
“Now, in addition to this formal punishment schedule, the warders, who over and above their duties as Housemasters, are also responsible for physical education and sports as well as for general discipline around the school, will always each carry a cane and will be able to apply instant, on the spot correction to any boy who deserves it. Gentlemen, let us be quite clear; the cane and the birch will be in regular use in this establishment and good manners and behaviour will be inculcated into these delinquent boys in the time honoured English way; they will be thrashed. As for evenings, when classes are over and the boys are in their respective houses, then discipline there will be entirely left to the discretion of each Housemaster, whose study is well equipped for the purpose. Now, are there any questions?”
The Commander’s authoritative manner was such that it completely discouraged any questions at all and after he had finished his speech, there was dead silence; there was a clear understanding by everyone present, that Commander Pratt-Mainwaring was in charge; firmly in charge; and that the staff had to do his bidding; the Commander was not a man to be crossed; that was very clear! This was not an establishment where discussion as to actions took place; the word consensus was not in the vocabulary of the moment; the Commander alone decided and that was that. As remarked earlier, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and here was an example of this maxim taking place before everyone’s eyes: Commander Pratt– Mainwaring ruled as an absolute monarch!
The meeting was quickly closed. What the teaching staff thought of this, we shall never know; but I imagine that many of them were disappointed that they could not wield a cane themselves; for there is always among the teaching profession a certain element which enjoys beating its pupils and indeed, well into the middle of the twentieth century, it was quite normal for a master to thrash boys in front of their peers in the classroom. As for the eight warders, well they were delighted with their authority and looked forward to exercising it with vigour; which as we shall see later, they did; for in their own way the four senior warders, each of whom headed up a house, were as ruthless as was the Commander.
CHAPTER 8
September soon arrived and with it, the first intake of delinquents. The Commander had organised the four wings as separate houses each run by two warders, in order to facilitate the keeping of order in the school. Each house, which he had named after one of Eastern counties, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridge, was intended inculcate into its member a sense of belonging and loyalty and, in the time honoured methods of the English public schools, as a means of fielding four competitive teams on the sports field. As the boys arrived, they were separated alphabetical into groups by age and were then assigned randomly to one of the houses, the only criterion being to give each house approximately the same age distribution. By the end of the month, the school already had its full complement of 200 boys and was settling down into its daily routine.
The Commander brought his eight warders together and told them that, in order to show the boys the way the school would be run and discipline enforced, it would be a good idea if at least five or six boys received a good caning in the first few days of their arrival.
“I think that we need to show the whole school that we are serious about obedience; so take even the slightest misdemeanour as an excuse to wield the cane. There is nothing, absolutely nothing at all, in my view like the crack of the cane across a boy’s bare arse to make him come to order and as a warning to the rest. So, do not hesitate; if in doubt, just whack butt and if you can do it so that the other boys are aware of what happens when rules are disobeyed, all to the better.”
The warder who was Housemaster of Norfolk, a muscular twenty-five year old called Marcus Selby and his assistant, of similar build, by the name of John Summers, together formed a formidable team. They rapidly came to be known and feared as S and S by the boys in their house and were very thorough in their execution of the Commander’s wishes. For them it was going to be a pleasure to thrash a good number of their charges in the first few weeks of their arrival; pour encourager les autres as the French would have said. As did all the warders, both men always walked around carrying a cane and were not slow to give an odd whack to the arse of any unsuspecting youth whom they thought had overstepped the line.
“Pick up that piece of paper you have just dropped, you untidy boy.” Followed by a couple of whacks of the cane cross his trousers.
“Walk boy, when you are in the building. This is not the playing field or a race track.” Whack, whack.
“Stand up straight boy; don’t slouch.” Whack, whack
“Don’t talk so loudly boy.” Whack– whack.
You can see the sort of piffling offences which Selby seized upon to justify administering a few short sharp, but nonetheless painful cuts to any errant boy’s seat And it was just the same in the other three houses. The Housemasters and their assistants, with the authorised rattan cane glued into their hands so that it seemed almost an integral part of their bodies, cracked down on boys for the slightest of reasons; it was instant retribution for any offence, so often imagined rather than real; no discussion; no explanation; just a few short sharp painful cuts given on the spot.
But this was not the level of punishment the Commander had envisaged; what he wanted was a more dramatic scenario, with the errant youth being beaten first subjected to verbal chastisement before eventually being thrashed. He wanted all the boys to realise that if they broke the rules that they would suffer excruciating pain for it; and this realization had to come from the fate of a few unfortunate lads who were to be made examples of. And so, the Housemasters had to find upon some real offences being committed so that they could haul the offender off to their studies and give him a proper naked arse thrashing, with all the due process and ceremony. Thus, to meet the Commander’s wishes, the Housemasters forced themselves to become extremely vigilant, in their attempts to find fault with their charges.
Selby and his assistant Housemaster took to inspecting the dormitories every evening, both before and after lights-out: gas lights that is, for we are here in an age before the general availability of electric light. In fact, modern though the school was for its day, in 1899 when the building worked was commenced, the school had no electricity at all; some would have said it was that mythical period, the good old days. Today, we could think it rather primitive, but that is the way it then was. Anyway, Selby’s detailed inspection of the four separate fifteen bed dormitories which his house contained proved a treasure trove for the offence seeking S and S duo. They were amazed by what they discovered and just how inventive the boys were.
Selby himself quietly entered one dorm some fifteen minutes after lights out, to find that two of the boys, Johnson and Sefton, had somehow obtained matches and were reading some book or other by candle light. They were promptly marched off, in their pyjamas, to Selby’s study and subjected to a severe verbal dressing down before being thrashed.
“From where did you get the matches? You could have started a fire and burned the place down.” Said Selby.
Sefton, who seemed to wish to act as spokesman for the pair, said: “We had them when we arrived here, sir, and we saw no harm in lighting the candles in order to read.”
“Hand over immediately any matches you still have; you know the rule; lights out at 9 p.m. and no talking or other activity thereafter. You boys are there to sleep, so that you can stay awake during your classes next day. And, I am very surprised at you; you are both nearly eighteen years old and should be setting an example to the younger boys and here you are flagrantly breaking the rules in front of them; and for that I propose to beat you.”
“Please sir, we promise we won’t do it again. It was only once that we did what we did and we really meant no harm. It was just the first time.”
But, as you can well imagine these words fell on deaf ears.
Selby walked across to the pickle-rod container, withdrew a cane from the brine, wiped of the excess liquid, placed it in its handle, swished it through the air and said.
“Now, the pair of you; do you know what this is?”
“It’s a cane sir, isn’t it?”
“Very observant of you to realize that fact; but have you any idea what kind of cane this is? Just take a closer look at it and you will see that it is thin and flexible; much thinner and much more flexible than the normal rattan cane which Mr. Summers and I carry around with us during the day. Moreover, you will have noticed that it has been soaking in water, in fact in brine: a solution of salt in water. And do you know why? Probably not! Well, let me explain to you young miscreants; this cane is made of a very special type of rattan which absorbs its own weight in water from the soaking, which makes it twice as heavy as a normal cane. But that is not all, for being thin, it is also much more flexible. Do you two lucky lads know what all this adds up to? Probably not! Well let me enlighten you further. This cane, which we call a pickle- rod because of its soaking in brine, can be considered the nec plus ultra of canes for administering corporal punishment to the behinds of errant boys like you. Do you know what nec plus ultra means? Probably not! Well let me enlighten you still further. It means the best or most extreme example of something. So there, boys, you have it, your backsides are going to be treated to the very best and extreme example of the cane. Quite simply, as you are now going to find out, this is just the most painful of all canes; indeed it is considered by many as the equal of the birch, of which I am sure you have both heard, or even possibly experienced in your previous tearaway careers.”
Of course. Selby had really no idea whether what he was telling these two boys about the painful attribute of the pickle-rod were true or not, for neither he nor Summers had ever used it seriously on anyone. But, by treating the boys to a verbal tirade; telling them what it was and what it was going to do to them, he hoped that when they went back to their dormitory after the beating he was now going to administer, that they would, by relating what had happened to their house mates, inculcate a feeling of dread into their dorm mates.
“Johnson; you first. Drop your pyjama trousers and bend across the back of this stool.”
Now it is a fact that for all their braggadocio, working class boys, such as Johnson and Sefton, are much shyer about exposing what they refer to as their privates to other people, even to their classmates. Public school boys, in general, have no inhibitions about flaunting their all before anyone and everyone, as they have, from a tender age at prep schools, been pushed in at the deep end of a rigid education system where nothing at all remains private for long. Any public school boy having been given the order which Johnson had just received would have obeyed forthwith and bent across the chair to receive his punishment; it was all part and parcel of his world. But not so Johnson, who was aghast at the thought of having to expose himself to his Housemaster and to his friend. And so he started to protest.”
“But sir, you are not going to make me drop my pants here, in front of you and Sefton; you are not going to cane my bare bum, are you? I don’t want that!”
”Johnson, you are arguing with me and I suggest that you stop right now. What you want or do not want is a matter of no concern to me; just do as I say; for if you persist, then I shall give you six extra cuts, which will bring your total up to eighteen stokes of the cane. So, boy, for the last time, drop your pants and do as I have told you; bend across the chair and present your arse to me boy, for punishment.
Johnson finally did as he was told, but with great reluctance and the Housemaster noticed, as is often the case when an adolescent knows he is about to be beaten, that Johnson was sporting a rock hard erection. And it has to be said that Johnson was a well set up young stud, who would, eventually make someone very happy; the boy had nothing to be ashamed off; indeed, quite the contrary!
Sefton, meanwhile had said nothing at all, but was clearly frightened by what he knew was also going to happen to him; Selby noticed that Sefton too had a pronounced erection, brought on just by watching and listening to what has transpired so far. It was a very homoerotic moment for all of them; Housemaster, assistant Housemaster and the two boys, for both S and S were sporting their own erections, which they tried, somewhat unsuccessfully to hide.
Selby, adjusted the back of the special beating stool to ensure that Johnson’s arse was in the perfect position for his assault with the cane, swished it around a few times to heighten the drama of the proceedings and then began to tap Johnson’s cheeks, preparatory to making his first stroke.
“Sefton; perhaps you would be good enough to count the strokes for your friend; I would hate to give him too few or, on the other hand, too many. You will call out the number, there will be twelve cuts in all, and I will then make the stroke after each call.”
“One,” said Sefton.
“One what?” bellowed the Housemaster.
Poor Sefton had not the faintest idea what he had done wrong, but he was quickly apprised of his error by his Housemaster.
“Sefton; where are your manners? You are totally and utterly disrespectful in the way you just addressed me and I can see that I shall have to teach you an additional lesson. You have to understand, boy, that you do not address any master in this school in the way you have just addressed me. It is not One; it is One, sir. Do I make myself clear? For your insolence I shall give you three extra strokes when I put you cross this chair after I have finished correcting your friend here.”
And then Selby started to beat Johnson’s arse in earnest. He was amazed just what the pickle-rod did to the boy’s buttocks with each stroke. The cane, due to its flexibility, wrapped itself right around the boy’s cheeks and each stroke produced a long, thin livid welt, which rapidly turned red.
So each of the next eleven strokes of this truly awful cane landed with a resounding crack on Johnson’ arse. The Housemaster measured every stroke carefully, placing each of them side by side so that both cheeks were crossed with angry red furrows. The final stroke, he placed cross-wise, to hold the preceding eleven cuts together, as it were. It was a virtuoso piece of beating with a vicious implement and poor Johnson could hardly get up from the chair after the twelfth stroke had finally landed across his arse. He had not let out any sound during this entire time and hobbled silently across to stand at the side of his friend, Sefton, who was now on the verge of tears at the thought of what he was now about to happen to him.
Johnson stood there silently, wondering what was about to happen as the Housemaster was looking at him with a truly baleful expression, which somehow boded ill for the young man.
“Johnson, where are your manners? I am already going to correct Sefton for his lack of respect in addressing me; but where, boy, on earth, are your manners. And this in an ever more hectoring tone of voice.”
Johnson hadn’t the faintest idea of what he had now done wrong and looked enquiringly at the Housemaster.
“Johnson; when a master has had the generosity of spirit to correct you, it is customary, no, it is mandatory, for you to thank him for his diligence. I did not hear any such thanks from you and I see you need to be taught a further lesson. Resume your position across the beating stool immediately.”
Johnson looked incredulous, and unwilling, but he had by now realized that it was best to obey his Housemaster without question. So he again lowered is pyjamas and was given another three cuts of that horrible implement across his already battered arse.
“Sefton; assume the position and prepare to take your punishment. You Johnson, will now count the strokes: fifteen in all. And I heartily recommend you to learn from Sefton’s mistake as the three additional strokes I am going to give him will remind him.”
The Housemaster then went ahead and gave Sefton the same treatment as he had just meted out to Johnson. Poor Sefton did not have the same stiff upper lip as Johnson and wept copiously as blow followed blow. When the Housemaster had finished, he told the boys to get back into their night clothes and go back to their beds.
Once the boys had left the study, Selby turned to the assistant Housemaster, Summers and said: “Well I think that went very well, don’t you? I have to say that until tonight I had never ever used the legendary pickle-rod on any arse; but, let me tell you it gave me great satisfaction to see those two you miscreants shudder as I brought the cane down on their posteriors. I think that we are onto a winner here. My God, it looked bloody painful and I should think that the arses of those two lads will get a great deal of admiration from their dormitory mates. Now, my friend, if you are not too tired, how about we take a look at another of our dormitories and see if we can catch any more fish?”
So the two of them went very quietly to the second of the four dormitories under their care and listened quietly at the door. There was a strange noise coming from within, and Selby flung the door open, to find a pillow fight going on in the almost complete darkness.
“Stop what you are doing, immediately.” roared Mr. Selby. Mr. Summers, could I trouble you to go back to my study and bring two of the very excellent pickle-rods here, for I see we have a great deal of work to do before the night is out. Right, boys, while we wait for the canes to be brought, I want all of you to take off your pyjama trousers and bend over the end of your beds. Now, the lot of you, jump to it or it will be more painful for you than you are all probably now thinking; and don’t think, any of you, that what is shortly going to happen to you will be painless; nothing could be less from the truth.
“A loan voice piped up and said, Please sir, do I have to do it as well as I was not involved in the fight.”
“No exceptions; the whole lot of you, innocent or guilty, are going to have your backsides thrashed. Ah, here is Mr. Summers with the necessary equipment, which I can assure you is very, very painful when correctly applied, as you are all now about to find out.”
Selby turned to his colleague and said in a low voice: “Listen, Summers; I suggest is that we each wield a cane and give each of six boys ten good hard cuts across their naked arses. That should teach them a lesson they will not forget in a hurry. Let’s begin at the far end, with each of us taking one side of the room and, for the sake of drama to strike the fear of God into the lads as we roast their buns for them, let’s try to synchronise our strokes so that two boys feel the cane across their arses simultaneously. And, by the way, don’t hold back; lay the cane on good and hard so that they know they have had a proper beating; it’s got to be painful for them otherwise we are wasting our time.”
And that is exactly what two Housemasters did. The boys were all aged between fifteen and twenty and some of the younger ones were quickly reduced to tears, for, as we have already learned, the pickle-rod is a very potent and painful tool. But justice, if justice it was, was done quickly and when the the whole thing was over as some twelve chastened lads pulled back on their pyjamas, lined up to thank the two masters for their punishment and climbed back into bed, where they all spent a fairly uncomfortable night.
“All in all a very satisfactory evening’s work, I think,” said Mr. Selby to his assistant Housemaster, Mr. Summers, “Very satisfactory indeed.”
So literally in their first week at the school no less than fourteen of the boys in Norfolk House had had their arses thoroughly beaten, a fact which would make the Commander very happy once he learned of it.
“You know,” said Mr. Selby to his colleague, “I think with a bit of luck we can find enough misdemeanours so that by the end of the month we can have lavished the painful delights of this magnificent implement on most of our little flock.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Summers, with a hint of Schadenfreude in his voice, “I wholeheartedly agree with you; it shouldn’t be too difficult and it will give the two of us something to work towards: a goal: an objective; not to mention the pleasure one gets from thrashing a pair of good firm buttocks. I can hardly wait: I get hard just thinking about it! Now, I think that for tonight we have done enough and I just wondered if you would like to relax with me.”
“Sounds a great idea. What exactly had you in mind?”
“Well, I thought that you might enjoy a little, how shall I put it delicately, anal stimulation; I know I would.”
“That sounds absolutely perfect. I always say that there is nothing like a good hard fuck to round off a busy day”
And with that the two Housemasters went off to together for an evening of intensive copulation.
CHAPTER 9
The events of the previous chapter, describing what happened in Norfolk House during the first few days after the boys arrived at the school were, in fact, replicated in the other three houses, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridge. The wardens acting as Housemasters and assistants were just as perspicacious as had been Selby and Summers in finding fault with enough of their charges to ensure that a goodly number had their arses beaten within the first week of their arrival at the school. The honours undoubtedly went to Cambridge House, where the two Housemasters in charge were particularly zealous in their task and managed to find excuses to beat no less than half of their inmates during the first five days of the term.
The Commander, reviewing the results at a staff meeting at the end of the first week, expressed himself highly satisfied with the way the each house had produced an adequate quota of boys who had been beaten; they served as an example to the rest of what they could expect if they broke the rules; even the minor ones. So the cane reigned supreme at Moulton-Midmarsh more or less from day one of its opening. And not a day went by but some poor lad’s arse was subjected to a painful dose of the cane.”
As yet, the Commander himself had not had the pleasure, and let us not mince words, for he considered it a pleasure, as did all the warders, to beat anybody; there was a strong sadistic thread running through the entire supervisory staff of the school, from the Commander on downwards; and the Commander himself was already beginning to feel that he was missing out by allowing the warders such a free hand with the cane. But then he realized that this was the end of the week and he could collect the punishment citations filled in by the members of the teaching staff who, you will remember, were not themselves allowed to administer corporal punishment to their pupils.
He was delighted to see that he had no less than ten referrals of boys to be dealt with. Most of the cases were for relatively minor misdemeanours and could be dealt with rapidly with a few cuts of the pickle-rod, which he duly did that Friday evening after supper, when all the boys on referral lined up outside his study and waited to be beaten; and beat them he did; never less than ten hard cuts across the naked buttocks and often twelve, if he felt a boy really deserved it.
But among the names on that first list was one referral, of a boy called Colin McGregor, who had grossly insulted his mathematics teacher. So, the Commander, having read that master’s citation, referred to McGregor’s file to find that he was a hardened dissenter and had caused trouble in two other institutions where he had been confined since he was fifteen years old. This boy, now approaching eighteen years of age, thought the Commander, is the ideal candidate for a good birching, as he was eager to try out the latest birch rod delivered by Mr. Barraclough just that morning.
CHAPTER 10
McGregor had been made to wait until his classmates had been thrashed and left before being called into the Commander’s study, where he now stood in front of the Commander, who was seated behind his desk.
“Don’t slouch, boy. Stand up straight when you are in my presence. McGregor isn’t it? Are you a Scot then?”
“No sir, I’m a Londoner. My grandfather was from Glasgow and moved south and my father and then I were both born in London. In fact, sir, I have never been to Scotland, in spite of my name.”
“I suppose you know why you are here in front of me this evening. According to Mr. Carruthers who was trying to teach you elementary mathematics, you were constantly disrupting his class and when he told you to behave yourself, according to what I read here in this citation for punishment, you threatened him in with some quite disgusting language. Perhaps you would care to repeat to me here and now exactly what you said to Mr. Carruthers, so that there is no misunderstanding between us; for this, let me tell you, boy, is a very, very serious matter which I propose to deal with in an equally serious way.”
“I can’t remember any more sir, what I said in class to Mr. Carruthers sir.”
“I suggest you try to refresh your memory and recall, here and now, what you said McGregor”
“Sorry sir, I don’t know what I said; I just can’t remember sir.”
“McGregor, I do not believe you. Take of your clothes; get stripped boy and I will try help you remember what you now claim to have forgotten.”
“Take of my clothes; what, now, here sir, in front of you?”
“No time like the present, boy. So, just do as I say; strip off and don’t argue!”
“I’m not arguing with you sir; but why do you want me to take off my clothes sir?”
“McGregor; arguing or not, you do not seem to understand that when I tell you to do something, you jump to and do it boy. Yours is not to reason why, but to obey; that is the way things are done around here; now, boy, for the last time, get stripped; and button up your lip; I can tell you now, that you are just making things worse for yourself.”
McGregor finally realized that the Commander meant business; really meant what he said, so he very slowly started to take of his clothes. The Commander looked at him balefully.
“McGregor, I do not have all night; get on with it boy; strip off and I mean everything; I want you naked in front of me in the next thirty seconds; just get a move on boy; you are trying my patience to the limit.”
“But, sir, you don’t really mean everything, do you. You don’t want me…”
McGregor’s voice tailed off as it finally came home to him that the Commander meant exactly what he said and finally his last piece of underwear fell the floor. And with the embarrassment of finding himself naked in front of the Commander, with that reflex, so typical of men in the position he now found himself, he placed his hands in a cup, to cover his crown jewels; a simple act of modesty; a means of retaining what scrap of dignity he might still have. But the Commander was having none of it.
“McGregor, pick up those clothes you have thrown on to the floor, fold them and place them neatly over that chair behind you. I cannot and will not tolerate your sloppy ways in my study: and when you have done that, face me, put your hands on your head and stay that way until I tell you otherwise; and then turn around so that I can get a good look at you; I always like to see a boy’s arse before I beat it.”
What the Commander finally saw, now that he had got the young man naked in front of him, was a fine young body, well muscled and proportioned, with a large cock – nothing at all to be ashamed of – and a superb arse, sporting a magnificent pair of buttocks, just made for thrashing. The Commander felt himself getting hard with anticipation of what he now intended to do to the boy.
‘Now, McGregor, for the last time, repeat to me what you said to Mr. Carruthers.’
‘I’ve already told you twice sir that I don’t remember. How can tell you something I don’t remember sir?’ This was said in a rather truculent manner which did not help matters,
“‘McGregor; how dare you adopt such an insolent tone of voice with me; have you no manners at all? Have you any idea of whom you are addressing? Let me tell you boy, that I do not believe you; you, boy, are a liar and in a moment I shall expose you as such. Now, you see that stool over there, boy; bend over it and position your buttocks so that I can start to jog your memory.”
McGregor looked at the beating stool with trepidation;, but by now conscious of the fact that he could do nothing but do as he was bidden by the Commander, he went across to the stool and positioned himself across it. The commander walked across and selected a pickle-rod from its bath, fixed in it in its handle and stepped across to the chair, where he made a slight adjustment to the height of the back rail, thereby setting the boy’s buttocks in what he considered the perfect place to apply the cane.
Ready now to start applying the cane to McGregor’s arse, the Commander paused for a moment and admired the two luscious globes of unmarked flesh which the young man was now presenting to him for punishment. As he gazed upon this delightful prospect, getting ever harder himself at the thought of what he was now going to do, the Commander saw that this boy had not had his buttocks beaten for quite some time, for they look so virginal; not a mark on them; but that was just about to change; they would be a colourful picture by the time the Commander had finished with them.
“McGregor, do you know what this is?” asked the Commander, waving he cane around in front of McGregor’s face.
“Yes sir; it’s a cane sir; isn’t it?
“And when exactly, Mcgregor, was the last time your arse had an encounter with a cane?”
“I don’t remember exactly sir; but it was in my previous school before I was transferred here sir.”
“Well, let me tell you McGrego;, this is a very special cane; it’s been soaking in brine for two weeks to make it very heavy and supple and if a few strokes of this across your buns don’t jog your memory of what you said to Mr. Carruthers, I’ll eat my hat; it’s what I like to call percussive recall therapy.”
And with that the Commander gave his full attention to the naked flesh before him. He carefully tapped McGregor’s buns, deciding where to place the first stroke and then, with no warning, suddenly raised the cane and brought it down with a resounding crack across McGregor’s naked arse. The boy let out a howl of pain.
“Sir that really hurt; truly it did sir.” Howled McGregor
“That my boy, is precisely the point; a beating without pain is an utter waste of time and in this case useless; for remember McGregor, we are trying to help you recollect what you said to Mr. Carruthers.”
The Commander ended his words by bringing the cane firmly down again across McGregor’s naked buns, where two fine red furrows were already visible.
“Do you feel, boy, that the therapy I am giving you is bringing your memory back McGregor; or is your mind still a blank”
Receiving no reply from his patient, the Commander quickly gave McGregor two more hard cuts, by which time the boy had realized that either his memory had better come back or the thrashing he was taking was going to continue.
“Sir; I think I am beginning to remember what I said to Mr. Carruthers sir.”
“You think you are beginning to remember,” repeated the Commander with incredulity in his voice, “Or do you actually remember?”
While McGregor was trying to think what to say next, the Commander profited from the pause to place two more agonisingly painful cuts of the pickle-rod across McGregor’s arse, which was now looking pretty dreadful, lined as it had become with the cuts of the cane.
“Sir, sir; please stop there; please no more sir; I do now remember what I said to Mr. Carruthers.”
You see my boy, what a wonderful restorative effect the cane has on the memory.” said the Commander; his voice filled with irony. “Now, stand up, boy, in front of my desk with your hands on your head and repeat to me exactly what you did say to Mr. Carruthers.
McGregor stood, stark naked, hands on head, cock now fully hard, clearly totally embarrassed (But, frankly, who would not have been, given the circumstances?) McGregor realised that the moment of truth had arrived and that he could no longer beat about the bush; he had to deliver or he would again be across the chair taking even more cuts from that accursedly painful cane.
“Well sir; I’ll try to tell you as best I can, what I said to Mr. Carruthers.’he began only to be cut short by the Commander.
‘McGregor; you just told me that your memory had, miraculously, returned; an event as noteworthy in its own way and just about as credible as the biblical miracle of the turning of water into wine. Now, McGregor, let us understand one another once and for all; either you remember exactly what you said and repeat it to me here and now; or it is clear that you need a little further therapy with the cane to enable you to crystallize your thoughts. So, which is it? Can you repeat to me verbatim what you said to Mr. Carruthers that day in class; or do you want to bend across the chair again and allow me to give you a little more therapy to help you further with our memory?”
McGregor realized now that he had to deliver; there could be no more beating about the bush. The boy standing there naked in front of the Commander had no means of further defence; but he found great difficulty to give voice again to the actual words he had said to Mr. Caruthers; and when you hear them, you will see why. They were words spoken in anger at the time, and which now, in the cold light of day, sounded even more awful than they had done then. But utter them to Mr. Carruthers he had, and now he had to repeat them to the Commander. So, screwing up his last ounce of courage and completely defeated, he finally told the Commander what he wanted to hear.
“What I said sir; and I really, truly, honestly did not mean it sir; and it was said in the heat of the moment and I would never ever say such a thing again, sir, was……,” And here his voice tailed off as he steeled himself to repeat what he had actually said. What I said sir, was: “Fuck off you old fart or I will kick you in the balls.” Sir; I am so very, very sorry I said it, and I truly did not mean it sir; honestly I didn’t!”
By this stage, poor McGregor was practically in tears. In a certain sense one had sympathy with the boy, in the way he had been treated by the Commander, who in wringing those fateful words from him, had, metaphorically, made the boy jump through the hoop. McGregor, already in agony from the cuts he had just received, was nearly dying with embarrassment at his nudity and the fact that he had had to repeat what he had said to Mr. Caruthers. But what little sympathy one might have had for him was lost, when one realized just how vicious and aggressive this young man could be. The Commander looked over his glasses at McGregor, who stood there hands on his head, stark naked and said nothing.
“Is it all right sir, now that you have beaten me, if I put my clothes back on now sir, as I am beginning to feel cold.”
“With shades of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Bracknell, the Commander laughed and replied: “McGregor, I shall inform you when you are feeling cold; but just let me tell you, you are not going to feel cold much longer; and no, boy, you may not put your clothes back on, indeed, far from it, as I have not yet finished with you; in fact, I have barely begun.”
“But sir; you have just beaten me and I have told you what I said to Mr. Carruthers; so please can I get dressed and go back to my house; please sir?”
“McGregor my boy; you are deluding yourself; let me repeat what I have already told you; the caning you have just received was not a beating in the true sense, but a therapeutic application of the cane to help you recover your lost memory; as such it seems to have been a great success. But now that I have heard what you actually said to Mr. Caruthers, I can well see why he gave you a punishment citation. McGregor, you can try to excuse yourself as often as you wish, but your words to Mr. Caruthers are totally and utterly unforgivable. They show us a vicious side of your character; a trait which I have traced through your file over the several years you have been in an approved institution. What you said cannot be let pass unpunished and it falls to me to administer that punishment. Turn around, boy, and tell me what you see against the wall over there.”
McGregor tuned his head, looked at what was obviously a beating horse and said to the Commander; “ It looks, sir, like a horse, over which a boy is put to take a beating.”
“Quite right boy; but did you notice that there are straps to hold the legs and hands of that unfortunate lad in place? Well let me tell you why they are there. Sometimes a boy needs a very thorough beating and, to ensure that he remains still throughout, his arms and legs are strapped down so that he cannot move. Now, McGregor, your remarks to Mr. Carruthers, put you in just such a category. You boy, deserve and I am going to give you, the hardest beating you have ever had. So boy, go and put yourself across the horse and wait for me.”
The Commander watched as McGregor slowly approached the horse and finally bent over it, allowing the Commander rapidly to attach the straps to his arms and legs. As be bent across this contraption, the Commander adjusted the height so that the boy’s arse was in the perfect position for punishment. He looked with a certain satisfaction at the neat parallel cuts he had given the boy during what he nonsensically had dubbed his therapy session. The cuts were already bright red and beginning to turn a bluish shade and the Commander knew full well that McGregor was already in great pain. But that was nothing compared to the pain he was now going to experience as the Commander prepared to beat the hell out of his backside with the freshly made birch.
“Sir please sir; what are you going to do to me? You have already given me one beating and now you want to begin again. Please sir, I don’t deserve any more; please sir, I really don’t.”
“McGregor; button our lip boy; it is I and I alone who decide what you deserve or do not deserve; and let me tell you boy, that after what you said to Mr. Caruthers, if the cat of nine tails were permitted then I would have no hesitation in using it on you. You boy, are the worst type of miscreant that society finds itself obliged to put up with; you, boy, are an utter disgrace; you have no consideration for anyone and if you continue your life in the way you have led it to date, then you will, in all probability, go from this juvenile correction establishment directly to prison; which frankly, may be the best place for you. I can tell you here and now that unless you change your ways, civilized society will have no place for you.”
“You have asked me what I am going to do to you; well let me just tell you. In that tall bucket over there is soaking a freshly made birch and I am going to use that on your arse. If you think that the caning I just gave you was painful, then all I can tell you is that you have no idea of what you are now going to experience. I hope I have made myself clear; I am going, in the terms you and others of your ilk would probably use, to roast your arse. And McGregor, you will doubtless be delighted to know that you have the honour of being the first person birched by me since the opening of this school earlier this year. Here, boy, bite on this cork; it will help you stand the pain, like a man.”
The Commander picked the birch out of its bath, shook off the excess water, thrashed it threateningly a few times in the air and then prepared to give McGregor’s arse the attention it so richly merited. And, although corporal punishment was used to excess in the Moulton-Midmarsh school, one has to say, as an independent observer of this little scene, that if ever a boy needed a good birching, then that boy was surely McGregor; he had all the makings of a really nasty and dangerous young man, as his threat to Mr. Caruthers had shown.
As an instrument of punishment, the birch is unique, in that as it discharges its bounty across the naked arse of the recipient, it fans out and, unlike a single cane, creates a widespread field of pain. The immediate impression of the recipient, as the first stroke lands on his naked flesh – and the birch is always applied to the naked flesh – is that this has not the makings of a particularly awful experience; the pain is there, but at first appears slight and superficial; but as stroke after stroke lands, the pain quickly builds up to be totally excruciating and the birch truly merits its reputation as the king of school corporal punishment implements; it is the one most feared and to be avoided at all costs.
The Commander applied the birch with as great a force as he could muster and each stroke left those small bruise marks across the buttocks, which when the punishment is complete, colour up and begin to look like some modern impressionistic painting. Stroke after stroke fell on McGregor arse, and he began to emit moans of pain as the beating continued.
Then after the fifteenth stroke the Commander stopped and said: That’s your lot boy, until the next time, that is! And I suspect there may well be several next times with a lad like you!
CHAPTER 11
The Commander left McGregor still strapped over the beating bench and it was obvious from the moans he emitted, that he was clearly in great pain.
The Commander thought for a moment and then said; “McGregor; do you know what the word buggery means?”
“I think so sir.”
“Well then; why don’t you enlighten me and explain to me in simple language, what you understand the word to mean.”
“McGregor, who like many boys of eighteen who had spent much of their time in rough company and indulging in pastimes of a doubtful nature, was very street wise and knew full well what buggery was; but here he was being ordered by the Commander to explain what it meant! It was one stage worse than having to repeat those embarrassing words he had uttered to Mr. Carruthers. But he knew that the Commander would ultimately force an answer out of him so he frantically searched his brain to find a suitable reply.
One has to realise that to a relatively uneducated and unsophisticated boy, with little knowledge of other than the most basic English, to attempt to explain to a man who had the power over him, if not of life and death, but to certainly enough to make life for him very, very unpleasant, was a task approaching in its magnitude the first ascent of Everest.
“Come on boy, you say you know what buggery means; just untie your tongue for once and explain it to me.”
“Well sir; I really don’t know the proper words to tell you what buggery means; sir; it’s really very difficult for me to explain it to you.”
“Well McGregor; if you do know what buggery entails; then why don’t you just explain it to me in the words you do know and I will try to understand.”
The Commander was being very cruel to the poor boy; for he knew full well that McGregor was fully conversant with what the act of buggery entailed; but in the same way as he had found it excruciatingly difficult to repeat the crude words he had said to Mr. Carruthers, so now he had the same difficulty in putting into any form of words, what the act of buggery actually involved.
“McGregor, if I have to wait all night, you will remain strapped over that horse until you give me an explanation.”
“Well sir; what actually happens is that one bloke with a hard on sticks his cock up the arsehole of another bloke and fucks him. It’s sort of the same as a man does with a woman, you know, he fucks her, but as you know a man is built differently to a woman and the only hole where he can stick his cock is the other guy’s arsehole; so that’s what he does and that’s what buggery is, sir. The guy with the cock pumps his spunk into the other guy’s hole sir.”
‘Well done McGregor! You see you can describe things in your own words, and very graphically, if I may say so. And with that the Commander went over to the horse, untied McGregor and allowed him to stand up.”
“Get up, McGregor and go and lean across that table there. I’ll get some salve and apply it to your buttocks and you will find that it eases the pain.”
The Commander went into his bathroom, found the salve but also a bottle of oil, for he had more on his mind than just easing the pain raging in the lad’s arse. He came back and started to massage the pomade into the lad’s wounds and as he did this he went on with the previous theme.
“So, McGregor, you are really very conversant with the act of buggery. How is it that you know in such graphic detail what it involves? It really does sound, from the way you talk, that you speak from firsthand experience. Come on, lad, out with it, have you indulged in the act yourself?”
McGregor, who was finding the Commander’s massaging actions on his arse really quite pleasant; it certainly eased the pain quite a bit;– but, again, the Commandeer was pursuing a line of thought that he really did not want to discuss any further; it was getting to be as embarrassing as having been forced to repeat his words to Mr. Carruthers. But the Commander had got the bit firmly between his teeth, was not to be diverted from his course and went on, pressing his question.
“Come on lad; answer the question; have you or have you yourself indulged in the practice we call buggery or not?”
All the while, the Commander’s fingers grew more and more assertive with the salve and started moving towards McGregor’s anus. McGregor was soon at his wit’s end and knew that he had to answer; the truth of the matter was that the boy, along with many others, did, in fact, indulge in anal intercourse with his classmates; the lads simply fucked each other as it was their only outlet for their sexual urges, which simply could not be legislated away; urges which were part and parcel of every boy’s and for that matter, man’s life.
“Sir, when I was in prison, before I came here, one of the warders did have sex with me; several times, in fact!”
“And did you let him do what he did willingly or did you resist and did you report the incident to the person in charge?”
“No, sir, I did not report his actions and I could not stop him as he was so much bigger than me at the time it happened.”
“And since then, here in this school have you and your classmates indulged in this illicit act? Come on boy; I want the truth and I shall know if you are lying; and if you are, let me tell you that the consequences will be be very, very painful indeed. So, just don’t tempt fate; answer me truthfully.
“Sir we have only been here a few days really and so far, I have had sex just once with my friend and he with me.”
“You mean that you, as you would put it, stuck your cock up his hole and he then did the same for you?”
“By this time, McGregor was utterly terrified of what was going to happen to him and was trembling with fear as the Commander’s fingers became ever more probing and started massaging his sphincter”.
“I see now”continued the Commander, “How it is that you are so familiar with the act in question. And let me now ask you this; do you enjoy this act, either when you are the active partner or when you your friend reams out your own hole?”
“Well, sir, to be honest, I can’t say that I dislike it, sir, otherwise I would not do it, sir, would I, sir?”
The Commander thrust is fingers into McGregor’s hole, making the boy wince as he stretched his tight sphincter, then, unbuttoning his own flies to allow his rock hard cock to leap put, he quickly applied a good dose of oil to his tool and, without warning, thrust it hard into McGregor. McGregor let out a moan of pain and then was silent, whilst the Commander pumped away with ever increasing strokes and vigour. He was not long in climaxing and delivered a thick stream of his own creamy cum into the young man’s rectum in a series of vigorous spurts. McGregor, until now totally silent, let out a moan of pleasure.
“Oh sir, that was wonderful. said McGregor.”
“Well, lad, as you see, we all need some relief on occasions.” This was the only thing the Commander said as he withdrew himself from the young man.
The Commander pulled his cock back inside his trousers, buttoned himself up and said to McGregor, reverting to his authoritarian tone,
I want the name of the boy with whom you indulged in the act of buggery since you came here; come on boy, out with it.”
The reply came tremblingly from McGregor’s lips: “ It was Armitage sir: Colin Armitage.”
Poor McGregor felt awful that he had ratted on his pal, Armitage; but what was the poor guy to do? Had he refused to answer, as sure as the sun rises each morning, his arse would have been thrashed to ribbons by the Commander’s fury and that, in his present state of agony, he could not bear to think about. I think any boy in the same position would have done the same and so we should not judge McGregor too harshly for being disloyal to his friend; who in the same place might hat not have done the same?
S”tand up boy; get dressed and leave.” Said the Commander.
McGregor grateful to be released, recovered his clothes, pulled them on and left, as he had been bidden. That night in the dormitory, his friend Armitage, along with the other lads, admired McGregor’s arse with awe.
“Boy, you really did get a beating. I bet it hurt, didn’t it?”
“It hurt like fucking hell, you idiot, what do you fucking think? And I can tell you the pain is still unbearable; so don’t even begin to think about touching me! Keep the fuck off! You know, you have to hand it to that sodding Commander; he really does know how to handle the cane and the birch. My God, he gave me six of the cane and eighteen of the birch across my naked arse; but I guess after what I said to Carruthers, I deserved it. But you know the best bit? If you can believe it, that old sod then went on to massage my bum with an ointment and finished up actually fucking my hole with his own cock. And d’you know what, he’s as handy with his dick as he is with the cane; but you know what? It was the best fuck, I think I ever had and, well, I did really enjoy it! Oh, and by the way, pal, he forced out me that you and me had had it off together; so lookout for yourself as you might find yourself in for the high jump. Sorry, pal but I had to tell him otherwise I would have had my arse beaten to fucking pulp before he had finished with me.”
“You reckon he performs better than me with his cock, do you? Listen, if you want, I can give you a quick fuck right now so that you can compare our styles. And if he sends for me, well, it won’t be the first time I’ve taken a beating across my naked arse; and, looking on the bright side, with any luck, he might give me the same sort of treatment as he gave you; I wouldn’t say no to a fuck from the old sod.” concluded Armitage, with a laugh.
The Commander felt well pleased with his night’s work. He had enjoyed thrashing all the boys he had seen; especially McGregor, who had been the highlight of what had proved an exhilarating evening. But, had the Commander reflected on what he had just done, he would have realized that, with McGregor, he had ventured into what should have been, for him, strictly forbidden territory; but looking at McGregor’ inviting buttocks, he simply had not been able to stop himself.
The fact was, nevertheless, that here, right at the beginning of his tenure as Warden of Moulton-Midmarsh school, in the first week of the first term, the Commander had started down a dangerous path, which would eventually, several years later, end in his imprisonment and the closure of the school. But it would have required a very farsighted mind at that moment, to grasp the later, potential ramifications of a seemingly casual act of illicit sex.
The Commander went to bed that night and slept the sleep of the innocent, wondering just before he dropped off, whether or not he should send for Armitage and give him a thrashing; on balance, he rather thought that he would!
CHAPTER 12
It was the morning after the Commander had birched and then buggered McGregor. He turned over in his mind what McGregor had told him about his sexual relationship with his friend, Colin Armitage and decided that he was not going to let the opportunity pass to give both lads a good thrashing. Homosexual relationships were forbidden territory in all schools and even though punishable by law, were, nevertheless, quite common. They were tolerated in most public schools, where the attitude of the staff was very much to let sleeping dogs lie.
But as anyone with the slightest understanding of human nature knows, you can legislate all you wish against any form of sex, but you will not stop it happening; it is just part and parcel of human nature. Of course the British penchants for educating boys completely separated from girls did not help matters; and the public schools, essentially boarding establishments, where the boys had no contact at all with members of the opposite sex, made matters worse. In state schools where the pupils went home each evening, the problem was less pronounced, for boys had contact with girls out of school time. So what were boys, in late adolescence, totally cut off from members of the female sex, expected to do to relieve their totally normal sexual desires? Well the official answer was, of course to wait;, but the actual solution was to fuck one of their school mates.
Now, the Commander was fully cognisant of all these fact, but he nonetheless felt it his duty to punish offenders if caught in the act. Otherwise, as he himself was not averse to administering a little anal therapy as he would have put it, to his charges; he adopted the attitude of “if we can’t beat ’em, then let’s join ’em” and enjoy part of the fun. So, it was with this rather twisted philosophy that he sent for McGregor and Armitage, in the full knowledge that he intended to roast both their arses. The Commander saw nothing incongruous in the fact that he proposed to beat a boy for the act of buggery with a schoolmate; a boy whom he himself had buggered just the previous evening.
And so it was that the news was transmitted to the two miscreants that the Commander wished to see them in his study immediately after supper.
“I warned you, didn’t I, “said McGregor to his partner in crime Armitage, “As sure as eggs are eggs, he’s going to give us both a hiding for what we did together. I thought after what he did to me yesterday, that he might just send for you; but here we go: we’re both in for the high jump, in my view.”
“Why the fuck did you tell him about us; you didn’t have to tell him anything.”
“Sorry, Colin, but he just forced me to tell him. He just wrung it out of me: I simply couldn’t avoid it; he just made me tell him; sorry, sorry, sorry!”
“Well, it’s a bit rich if he decides to beat us for something we did together when he himself did the same thing to you last nigh”
“Listen, pal, he doesn’t see it like that, I can tell you. What he did to me, fucking my butt, was for him something quite different. He saw it as what he calls therapy. That’s what he called the six cuts he gave me across my arse to make me tell him what I had said to Carruthers. It was not a beating, he claimed, but a piece of therapy to help me regain my lost memory. So, forget what he did to me: it won’t amount to anything in his eyes; so just forget it, for you might make matters worse than what they already are. Anyway, you said that you didn’t mind being caned and I reckon that with the present state of my arse, he might well let me off with just a warning.”
Alas, knowing the Commander’s fondness for whacking boys’ backsides, that was a fond hope; as McGregor had said to his friend at the start; they were both in for the high jump
The Commander was waiting for them in his study immediately after supper. He was looking forward to what he intended to do to the boys.
“According to what McGregor told me last night, Armitage, you and he have been indulging in what I will politely describe as unacceptable lewd behaviour together. Is that right? Do you both admit that you have been breaking the school rules, which strictly forbid any form of sexual liaison between the pupils in this establishment? Yes or no; come along boys, I want a straight answer from both of you?”
The boys had, of course, to confess their guilt.
“But sir, said Armitage, we only did what you say just once; really sir; just one time only sir”
“My dear boy, the number of times you did it has nothing to do with the present position you both find yourselves in; you both broke the rule and the matter is very, very serious and you will both now bear the consequences of your action. But just for the record, Armitage, have you done it before you came here?”
“Many times sir, at the place where I was before being transferred here. I had a friend there and he and I did it regularly”.
“Oh, I see! So we can consider you as a professional bugger in that case, can we?”
“Oh sir, please sir; we did it together, my friend and me because we liked it. We didn’t know it was forbidden.
“Forbidden, boy! Forbidden! Listen to me boy, it’s more than forbidden; it is against the law; and let me tell you that if the police ever find out about what you and McGregor have done, then you will both be sent to prison; and I mean prison; not an approved school like this one. This is a very serious matter indeed and you two boys had better believe it!”
How the Commander had the face to say this to the two lads, in the light of what he himself had done to McGregor the previous day, beggars belief; talk about the pot calling the kettle black; but he clearly did not see his own action as being relevant as he thundered on.
“And you tell me also, that you enjoyed it! Did you enjoy it when you did it with McGregor? And you, McGregor, did you enjoy it too? Well, let me tell you two lads, that enjoyment does not come into it. The fact of the matter is that the pair of you, in your first week at this school, have broken a serious rule; a very, very serious rule indeed, one that risks exposing you to criminal prosecution and you will both now pay the price for your disobedience. Let us all step into the room next door, where the implement of correction awaits you both!”
Both Armitage and McGregor were, by now, beginning to feel very uneasy about their immediate future prospects; and Armitage’s braggadocio to McGregor, about being indifferent to the cane, was beginning to wear thin, as the look on his face was starting to testify.
The Commander picked out a pickle-rod from its bath, fixed it in its handle and waved it under the nose of the two lads, who were both beginning to tremble at the thought of what was now going to happen.
“Have you been caned before Armitage? At your previous place of detention, perhaps?”
In a very timid voice came the answer: “Yes sir; several times sir; but never with a cane like the one you are holding; it was always with an ordinary cane sir.”
“And did you enjoy being caned, Armitage? Did you enjoy the experience? You seem to have been able to bring down the wrath of your superiors several times; did it hurt or not?
“It did hurt, sir, but not too much sir. I never cried when I got punished before sir.”
“Well Armitage; just let me just tell you that what I am about to do to you now, will hurt; it will not only hurt; it will hurt a lot; indeed a whole lot more than you can even now imagine. There is a saying that seeing is believing; well today, it’s feeling that is going to be believing; and let me tell you, boy, that once you have had a taste of this very cane across your naked posterior, you will become a true believer. I am sir, an expert with the cane and I doubt that you will ever have, in your future career, a more painful experience than the one I am now going to share with you.”
“Please sir, are you going to beat me as well as Armitage, sir; you just beat and birched me last night sir and I don’t think I could stand another beating today.” McGregor whined.
“McGregor, do stop bleating on, boy; it is I and I alone who will decide, after close inspection, whether your posterior is suitable or not for further punishment today. What you think, boy, is of no importance; no importance whatsoever.”
“But please sir….” McGregor’s voice died, as he saw from the look on the Commander’s face that he was wasting his breath.
“Well, boys, now that we are all clear about today’s proceedings, drop your pants and underwear and stand in front of me with your hands on your head”
“Sir; you are not going to beat us naked, sir, are you sir; please sir, not that; I’ve never had my arse beaten naked sir.” Moaned Armitage.
“Armitage, do not argue with me; there is a first time for everything and today is, for you, the first time that you will have the pleasure of feeling the very best of canes across your naked backside. Let me tell you boy, that I always beat errant boys directly on their naked buttocks; I believe that the experience should be painful, indeed as painful as possible for the recipient; and believe me boy, I think that you will find that the pickle-rod is what I like to call the acme of canes. The pain it produces is excruciating; so now you know boy, that today you will be getting the very best that is available across your very deserving arse. Now, the pair of you, get stripped and stand with your hands on your head, each of you.”
The two boys did as they were bidden and stood in front of the Commander in the ludicrous position he had ordered. Any arrogance and bravado, that “you can do our worst, but see if I care” attitude, had completely vanished from Armitage’s face as he realized that the Commander was in a different league as a disciplinarian to anyone else he had ever experienced. Add to this that the verbal tirade to which the Commander had just subjected them, had left both lads very deflated, so much so that they both looked utterly miserable as they waited for the next order.
“Well, boys, I have some good news for you. As you have both freely admitted your guilt, I have decided to be lenient with you today.
At this the boys brightened up, only to have their hopes dashed as the Commander went on.
“Yes; I have decided to give each of you only twelve cuts of the cane, instead of the statutory eighteen. So, Armitage, you first, step forward lad, and bend across the beating stool and we will get on with things; you must, by now, be eager to make your first acquaintance with the pickle-rod and get the matter over with.”
“Too bloody true,”. thought Armitage to himself as he positioned himself over the stool to be beaten, “You call twelve cuts lenient; you are out of your fucking mind.” But he was wise enough not to give voice to his thoughts!
The Commander took his time adjusting the height of the stool to position Armitage’s arse in exactly the right place to accept the cane. He explained to the hapless boy exactly what he was doing and why, thereby prolonging the agonising wait for the moment when he would deliver the first stroke. Then, judging the boys’ backside to be perfectly offered he began, after warning him not to move until told to do so.
Armitage had two perfect, unblemished cheeks to his arse, and the Commander thought carefully before beginning his task, as he wanted to leave the boy with an artistic set of stripes to show to his dormitory mates that night. He then slowly and deliberately gave the boy six parallel stroke of the pickle-rod, leading to six fine furrows, which rapidly coloured up to an angry red. Armitage, to his credit, took the punishment without a murmur and was surprised when, after the sixth stroke the Commander told him to stand up and again adopt he hands on the head position.
“Can I put my clothes back on now sir”
“Silence, boy; do as I say; stand there with your hands on your head until I tell you to do otherwise. Now, McGregor, kindly assume the position across the beating stool; if you please.”
“Sir; oh please sir, don’t beat me again; after last night I don’t think I can stand it.”
“McGregor, stop complaining and bend over; I am going to give our backside a detailed examination and I will decide whether or not you can stand a further caning, which, I might add, you richly deserve. Your views are of no importance, so shut up and bend over.”
McGregor realized that he could but obey the Commander, who looked over the boys multicoloured buns and said: “Well McGregor, you seem to be in good shape after the correction I gave you yesterday. Your posterior, boy, has taken on a fine colour and looks in perfect shape for further attention; I see no reason why you cannot now be punished for your flagrant flaunting of the rules in your forbidden activity with Armitage; so I propose to give you the same treatment as I have just given him.”
With that little speech, the Commander gave McGregor’s aching arse six well placed cuts with the pickle-rod, after which he told the boy to stand up, hands on his head, beside Armitage, who had looked on in horror as the Commander thrashed McGregor’s arse for the second time in twenty-four hours. What the two lads thought standing there, half naked in front of a hectoring Commander, we shall never know, but if they thought that they had escaped with six cuts of the cane, they were sadly mistaken.
“Armitage, kindly resume your previous position across the beating stool if you please; come on lad, jump to it, for I have not got all day to devote to this lamentable pastime.”
Lamentable pastime! What a joke, for the Commander was enjoying every minute of what he was doing to the two boys as anyone could have seen as he gave the boy another six cuts with the biting pickle-rod. In spite of his earlier stoicism, Armitage finally started to weep as the cane cut mercilessly into is buns. The Commander, surveyed his handiwork after the tenth cut, stood back and placed diagonally the final two cuts making up the promised round dozen, across the ten livid parallel marks, which were already becoming bright red. Telling the boy to get up and get dressed, the Commander felt pleased with his handiwork and wondered how many of his colleagues could have produced the symmetrical masterpiece which now adorned Armitage’s arse.
“McGregor, resume the position if you please. Come on quick about it as I have other things to do apart from thrashing errant boys’ backsides.”
Poor McGregor, whose arse was now in absolute agony, had the good sense to remain silent and let the Commander finish the job. Both boys got dressed and prepared to leave. The Commander shook each by the hand and they both thanked him for having corrected them, with the verbal assurance that we promise we won’t ever do it again sir
The Commander closed his study door as the boys limped away down the corridor, and thought, The lads are kidding themselves; there is no way that they are going to stop doing something which they like; let’s hope that they have the good sense not to get caught at it.
CHAPTER 13
The Commander thought hard and long about what he had just done and the events leading up to his latest efforts with the cane. He suddenly realized that certain changes were needed to avoid greater problems with boys having sex together, so he called a staff meeting of the eight Housemasters and their deputies.
“Gentlemen, I am afraid we have a little problem of our own making with the the sleeping arrangements we have made so far of the boys. It appears that we have set up the dormitories in which boys of different ages sleep together, in the same room; in doing this I believe we have inadvertently created a potential problem. I have just administered a thrashing to two boys aged eighteen from Norfolk House. These two boys, McGregor and Armitage had been indulging in forbidden sexual activities together. Not to mince words and to put it in the vernacular, which is always more expressive and immediate, they have been fucking each other in the dormitory, in front of younger boys.”
“Now, as you know, anal intercourse between the boys is strictly forbidden by the school rules; not to mention that buggery, for that is what the law calls it, is, moreover, illegal and punishable by imprisonment. Boys caught indulging in this practice must be severely punished; we cannot turn a blind eye on it. Unfortunately, when I say that it is forbidden, this does not mean that it will not happen, for human nature and the sex driving force being what they are, we shall never stop it. Lads in late puberty, who wish to have sex with each other, will do so, forbidden or not; and beaten black and blue or not, we will not be able to stop them; and that, gentlemen, like it or not, is something we and other all male establishments of any kind have to accept.”
“What we can and must do, however, is to stop young impressionable boys being exposed to such practices; and for this reason, I think we have to rearrange the sleeping arrangements in all houses so that the older boys, who are the ones who risk indulging in such practices, are separated from the younger lads. So, gentlemen, in all four houses, I wish you Housemasters to regroup the older boys into one dormitory, keeping the younger lads out of harm’s way.”
“Now, the great advantage of these new sleeping arrangements is that you, the Housemasters, will have an easier task in identifying which boys are sexually active. And let me say, here, that I want you Housemasters to be extremely vigilant, so that we identify, as soon as possible, those boys who indulge themselves in this forbidden practice. I want us to know exactly which of our charges are sexually active. Any boys caught in the act must be punished immediately; and when I say punished, let me specify that each lad, caught in the act of buggery, will receive eighteen cuts of the pickle-rod across his bare buttocks. This is mandatory; no questions; no explanations; no excuses; just eighteen hard strokes across the naked arse.”
:But let us not delude ourselves, gentlemen, beating these lads will not stop them repeating the offence; if they are that way inclined, nothing will deter them; they simply cannot help themselves; as you all know, the sexual driving force is so grea. So, after having beaten any boys caught in the act; and let me remind you that this beating is mandatory and should be carried out immediately to link the punishment to the act, I think it would be helpful for those of you who feel able, to give the unlucky lads a little consolation, in the form of, how shall I put it, anal stimulation. I think that the direction this school, under my leadership should take, is to channel the sexual activities of such lads into a more controlled environment, an environment controlled by us, the staff. I can tell you that I myself administered just such a dose of post beating therapy to McGregor, the other evening and the boy expressed himself grateful for the attention, which, to some extent, eased the pain in his buttocks. Need I go any further gentlemen? I think not; I am sure that you have all received and understood the message and will be eager to put my suggestions into practice. The matter is now your hands, gentlemen: that is all, and the meeting is now closed.”
As ever, the Commander, with that final hypocritical utterance, simply told his staff what he wanted and what they should do; he asked neither for questions nor discussion.
After the Commander had departed, Marcus Selby turned to his colleagues from the other three houses and said, Well, there gentlemen, there we have it; life is to be very simple and our task is clearly defined. Succinctly put; all we have to do, is to find ’em at it, flog ’em and then fuck ’em. Life, gentlemen, is going to be a bed of roses for all of us, for what more could a Housemaster wish.
His colleagues roared with laughter, as they had now realized, the Commander had given them all carte blanche to root out the boys who were sexually active, give them incredible, no-questions-asked thrashings and take over the sex element in their lives themselves. The Commander had, in fact, just created what in a short time would become a hotbed of sexual abuse; the staff having sex with the older boys. But then, that is the way things always seem to go in all male institutions. Whether the Commander realized that he was playing with fire will never be known. It seems very probable that both he and the majority of his staff found the backsides of their young charges so totally irresistible and were willing to risk everything to satisfy their own sexual urges.
Of course, the staff and the Commander would argue that abuse was the wrong word, as the boys who were involved were all, in fact, willing participants and enjoyed having their arses reamed by older men; which was largely true. It was, moreover, pie in the sky, to think that by creating a sexual liaison between staff and boys that the relationship between the boys themselves would vanish; of course it wouldn’t; if two lads fancied each other, then they would find the place and opportunity to indulge their carnal desires; no force or rules would ever stop them. However, it must be said that in initiating this latest venture the Commander had taken another step down the long slippery slope, which would eventually lead, several years later, to his downfall.
So, subsequent to this fateful meeting, the Housemasters made sure that they had identified all the boys who were indulging in what they usually referred to as lewd behaviour and the pickle-rod descended with monotonous regularity across the naked backsides of boys caught in the act. The Commander looked on from a distance with considerable satisfaction as he saw the structure of sexual decadence he had sanctioned, grow in importance, as boys were entrapped into sexual activities with members of the staff. No one objected, least of all the boys and as the years passed and boys came and went, it had to be said that Moulton-Midmarsh school had become a hotbed of sexual excess, which ultimately led to its cataclysmic downfall, but that is still in the future as the chronicles of the first year of its existence are still not complete.
CHAPTER 14
The Commander was looking through his mail one morning when he came across one of those dingy brown envelopes long beloved of the UK government. It was stamped, as ever, OHMS and addressed to the Commander by name as Warden (his official title) at the school. He opened the envelope with great curiosity, withdrew what what was clearly a long letter and settled back to see what it contained. It was from some undersecretary at the Department of Education and in a rather longwinded and pompous way informed him of certain changes which might affect his school.
The Principal Secretary to the Minister of Education for England and Wales had charged me to inform you of certain changes in the law concerning young offenders, which might, at some future date, impact on the running of your school.
As you are doubtless aware, the Magistrates’ Courts which deal with the vast majority of cases involving males under the age of twenty-one years, have for many years been able to sentence any offender to an immediate caning or birching for the offence for which he has been convicted. Such one-time punishments are normally carried out immediately following the sentence, in a room adjacent to the court room itself and the cane or birch is usually applied by a member of the police force. Subsequent to his punishment the offender is then allowed to go free.
There has been a growing awareness on the part of the judiciary and the police that a onetime beating is often an inadequate punishment for the offence committed and very often does not deter the offender from repeating offences. The courts are regularly confronted with repeat offenders who seem intent in breaking down the law and order of the country in spite of the corrective birchings they have received.
A recent change in the law had been enacted, whereby a magistrate or judge can now sentence an offender to a more serious punishment than has hitherto been the case in what has been termed Short-Term Confinement with Programmed Corporal Punishment or SCP for short. This programme allows the magistrate or judge, at his discretion, to commit the offender for a maximum period of three months to a reform institution, but associated with a mandatory programme of corporal punishment. This procedure, will not only deprive the offender liberty for three months, but during his detention he will know that he will automatically be punished according to a programme set out in his sentence.
The Principal Secretary has asked me to inform you formally, that your institution, the Moulton-Midmarsh Reform School, has been selected as one of six schools strategically placed around the UK, to which offenders convicted and sentenced under the SCP scheme can be sent. Your catchment area includes the Eastern Counties and the Boroughs of east London. Boys convicted by any court in this area and receiving an SCP sentence will, automatically be sent to your school, where their sentence will be served and the prescribed punishments administered by your staff in the normal manner.
The Principal Secretary has asked me to stress the fact that such offenders are, apart from the mandatory beatings defined in their sentences, to be treated exactly as all other internees, which is to say that they will attend classes appropriate for their ages and will be subject to all the normal rules and regulations of your establishment. It would, however, be helpful if such offenders were accommodated in dormitories separate from the other boys. This is a suggestion and not mandatory.
I hope that I have explained the situation to you clearly enough and that if called upon, you will execute the sentence of the offender in question as set out by the court.
I am, sir, etc. etc. etc.
Well, thought the Commander, what a turn up. The courts are going to send us boys each with a beating schedule; what a terrific idea; I simply cannot wait!
And indeed, the Commander did not have to wait long, for a month later, the first letter arrived from the court in Norwich. Two boys, aged eighteen, William Lodge and Derek Parry by name, both out of work, had been convicted of stealing goods from a food shop in the city centre; and then, when chased by a policeman, had knocked down an old lady, whose arm was broken by the fall and who had to be taken to hospital. The fact that they had caused a serious accident and had done nothing to help the person they had injured had enraged the magistrate, who gave them a three month SCP sentence with a ferocious programme of mandatory corporal punishment:
On arrival:– eighteen stroke birching
One month later:– an eighteen stroke caning
One month later:– a second eighteen stroke caning
On the day before they are to be discharged at the end of
the third month:– a second eighteen stroke birching.
The Commander could not believe what the court had ordered, it was beyond even his wildest dreams; and let’s face it, he was ever ready to apply his cane to any offender. But, four times really serious punishment, with eighteen mandatory strokes; he became hard just reading the letter.
The two boys, Lodge and Parry, arrived two days later. They were a rough looking pair, with long, dirty hair and pugnacious faces and they stood insolently in front of the Commander as he looked them over.
“You know why you are here and I imagine that you both know what is in store for you in terms of corporal punishment over the next three months. I have to say to you that I am utterly disgusted by your callous behaviour and I totally agree with the sentence of the court, which I will now read out to you to make sure that there is no misunderstanding as to what precisely is going to happen to to you, starting this very evening.”
And with that, the Commander read out the entire sentence. The boys listened but looked totally disinterested, as if they did not care what he was saying.
When he had finished the Commander looked balefully at the pair and said: “Just so that we fully understand each other, what I have just read out to you is a formal punishment schedule which I am required, by law, to carry out. Let me just remind you both that now that you are here in this institution, you will obey and follow the school rules of conduct to the letter. Any infraction by either of you will be punished; and believe me, we are very good at punishing errant youths here, as the pair of you will find out after supper, this evening when I shall have the pleasure of administering the first mandatory birching to your buttocks. Now, Mr. Selby, the Housemaster of Norwich House, where you will be lodged during your stay here, is waiting to take you to the barber and the showers. After supper I shall have the pleasure of receiving you both in the punishment room, where a freshly cut birch awaits you. Is that clear?”
As there was no reply from either boy, the Commander opened the door and showed them into the corridor.
As he was closing the door behind them, he heard Lodge say to Parry: “What a fucking old fart that guy is; he’s off his bloody rocker if he thinks he can scare me”
The Commander could not believe his ears, so he reopened the door fully and said’
“Lodge, I think you and I need to have a little talk right now; now get back in here boy. Now, what is you just say about me in the corridor?”
Lodge for the first time, was now beginning to show some signs of fear, as he realized that the Commander, who was clearly in a rage, meant business.
“Sir, I didn’t say nothing; nothing at all sir.”
“Don’t lie to me boy; I heard you. Now repeat to my face here and now what you said.”
“Sir, I can’t repeat something I didn’t say sir.”
“Boy, how you can stand there and lie to me, I cannot believe. Now, one final time: what did you just say out there?”
By this time Lodge was truly feeling very nervous and replied: “Sir, if I did say summat, then I’ve already forgotten wot I said.”
“Boy, I have never met such a liar in my life. It is less than a minute since you uttered your foul words and now you cannot remember them. Well my lad; let us see if I can help you remember what you said; step this way boy, into this side room.”
Lodge looked around the Commander’s punishment room and saw the two beating stools, the horse and the pickle-rods in their containers. What remained of his initial arrogance was now fast vanishing: and like many boys before him, when challenged to repeat some foul words he had just made about someone to that person’s face, found it difficult, if not impossible, to repeat them directly to that person. But repeat them or not, he was about to feel the wrath of the Commander descend on his arse.
The Commander selected a cane, fixed it in its handle, flexed it in front of Lodge and said: “This boy, is a very special cane, very flexible and very stinging when it lands on a boy’s arse. Believe me boy, when I tell you that you will very soon get our memory back once you have had a taste of this. Now boy; sharp about it; drop your trousers and underpants and bend across that stool.”
“But sir, you’re not going to hit my bare bum with that thing are you?”
“You know Lodge, you really are very bright under all that dirty, unkempt hair: Yes, that is precisely what I am going to do, so jump to it.”
Lodge, by now reduced almost to tears, all his résistance gone, did as bidden and placed himself across the stool. The Commander surveyed two splendid muscular buns and then set to with the cane. Poor Lodge did not know what had hit him as ten times the rod cut furrows in his arse, The Commander was so angry, that he just applied the cane anywhere it landed and the boy finished up weeping profusely, with a cross work of corrugations across his arse. The Commander, in his rage, had completely thrown to the wind the idea of painting a tasteful picture of cuts across the boy’s backside; he just wanted to give the lad as painful an experience as he could; and truly painful it was; for Lodge got up after his beating with tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Now, get out and go and get your hair cut and cleaned up. But remember, we have another appointment, you and I, together with your partner in crime, Parry. And believe me boy, you haven’t felt anything yet; just wait until I put the birch across your arse.”
After supper, the two boys were led to the punishment room by Mr. Selby, their Housemaster; his deputy, Mr. Summers was also in attendance. The Commander allowed the two boys to stand around in the corridor outside the room for about fifteen minutes, simply to heighten the tension and the fear that the two lads were now certainly feeling. He finally arrived, at his study, flung open the door and usher the two lads into the punishment room. They looked around at the somewhat stark room and the punishment equipment it contained: two beating stools; two horses; several deep buckets in which the freshly made birches were already soaking and the inevitable pickle-bath replete with well seasoned canes. All in all it was a daunting and frightening sight for the two boys who were now to experience the full horror of their mandatory birching.
The arrogance and casual nonchalance they had exhibited when first meeting the Commander had now totally disappeared. A Lodge had already experienced the bite of the pickle-rod due to his unseemly remarks about the Commander , his friend, Parry, had clearly learned to button his lip and not make matters worse for himself. . But as they both now realized, the moment of truth had arrived and their arses were both on a collision course with the birch and they could do nothing at all to avoid what was about to happened.
The Commander had taken an instant dislike to both miscreants the moment he met them. He had decided to make their punishment as dramatic as possible to bring home to the pair that they did not get away with their conduct which had led to an elderly lady being taken to hospital. So, there was to be no quarter given; the Commander wanted to see that the boys’ arses had the full benefit of the birch – a frightening prospect.
“Strip naked boys and stand in front of me with your hands on your heads and let me inspect you both.”
“But sir,” said Parry, “You’re not going to beat us on our naked bums are you, sir.”
“Where else boy, do you think that the birch is going to be applied? The birch is always applied to the recipients naked arse; in this case, yours; and let me tell you two miscreants that you are now going to rue the day when you knocked over that old lady; yes indeed, the moment of retribution has arrived, and I will remind you that you have three other appointments with the cane and the birch in your mandatory punishment programme; so this first birching will give you an idea of the pleasure you still have in store. Now, hold your lip and strip off otherwise I shall increase the number of strokes you are to receive.”
The two lads, practically dying with the embarrassment at their nudity, did as ordered and stood there; hands on heads, stark naked in front of the Commander and his acolytes,
“Mr. Selby, Mr. Summers, I think it is appropriate that these two boys be birched together side by side. So, would you please see that they are each strapped firmly to the birching frames. Make sure that the straps are well tightened as I want absolute stillness as the strokes are applied and kindly adjust the height of the frames to ensure that the boys’ buttocks are presented perfectly for the punishment.”
Whilst Selby and Summers did as the Commander requested, the boy Lodge decided that he would make one last attempt to mitigate his punishment in some way; the unfortunate lad had no idea that in addressing the Commander he was talking to something as unyielding as a block of granite.
“But sir, you have just beaten me with the cane, sir, and I don’t think it fair to have to be birched when my arse is already so sore; I don’t want you to beat me again right now, sir; I don’t think I can stand it, sir.”
“Lodge; when I want your opinion I shall ask for it. The beating I gave you earlier is unrelated to what is going to happen to you now; you brought that earlier punishment on yourself, by making lewd remarks about me and I punished you for that. So, I am afraid that the eighteen strokes of the birch to which you have been sentenced will shortly land on your already painful buttocks.”
Addressing now the tow masters, Selby and Summer he said: “Now, gentlemen, I myself propose to administer six strokes of the birch to each of these two boys, alternating between them; at which stage I shall hand the birches over to you and ask you to administer the remaining twelve strokes to each of them. I think it is right and proper that these two miscreants be punished side by side and at the same time.”
And with that, the warden selected one of the freshly made birches from its bucket, shook off the excess water and began. He started with Lodge, whose arse was already deeply furrowed by the earlier punishment and brought down the birch with as much forced as he could muster.
Lodge let out a howl of pain and and, in a pleading voice, begged the Commander to be lenient: “Sir, I don’t think I can stand any more sir, please stop sir.”
“Shut up boy; I want no more of what you think you can or cannot stand; I will be the judge and the only judge of that; frankly, boy, I see no reason why you should not be given, right now, the eighteen strokes specified in your sentence. If – and it is a big if – I have to stop, then you will be brought back here at a later date and the missing strokes will be applied. The fact that your arse is already sore is your own fault; you have harvested what you so unwisely sowed.”
And with that, the Commander went on and gave each of the boys their first six cuts of the birch. Both lads were weeping before he had finished and handed them over to Selby and Summers to complete the task.
“Make sure gentlemen, that you lay the birch on well; I want these boys to have an experience they will never forget. And, he added quietly, if you feel that a little post-beating therapy is needed, then please go ahead.”
Selby and Summers looked knowingly at each other and smiled; the Commander had said it all. The Commander had, in reality, no need to exhort his two Housemasters to lay on the strokes as hard as they could, for these two men, like the Commander himself, took great pleasure in administering pain to their charges; and so they synchronised their strokes so that the birches cracked down at exactly the same moment on the arses of the two penitent lads. By the time the boys had received their eighteen strokes each, their arses were already back black and blue with the minute bruises produced by the twigs of the birch, which when well applied is truly the most painful of instruments.
The Commander, who had withdrawn from the room, had watched the proceedings through a small observation window. He looked on with approval as Selby and Summers applied a little salve to the arses of the two lads, proceeded to oil their anuses and then gave each of them a little anal stimulation. What the two young men thought about the fact that they had had their holes drilled by their Housemasters, we shall find out later. Anal intercourse is, at the end of the day, not at all an unpleasant experience and, after the severe birching these lads had just received, might well have been looked upon as a gift from heaven.
Thus ended the first day of the three month sentence of Lodge and Parry. That night the two lads lay on their bellies with their aching arses exposed to the air, for both lads were still feeling excruciating pain.
Parry said to his friend, Lodge: “You know, I never ever realized just how how bad it would be; that was just the very worst beating I have had in my life and we have still three more to go. But you know I quite enjoyed having my arse fucked at the end.”
“Me too pal; I did enjoy being fucked; but then, I always have. But let me tell you that at the first chance I get, I’m, away from this hell-hole. You think your arse is bad? Well what about me? That old sod had already caned me hard today and then went on a flogged my arse as hard as he could with that fucking birch. There is no way I’m going to let that old fart beat my arse to pulp again.”
Brave words indeed; but words which led to even worse consequences for the two boys; as we shall see; they would have done better just to serve their sentences and take the three beatings yet to come, rather than try to avoid them.
CHAPTER 15
Mr. Cass was the assistant Housemaster of Cambridge house and to him had fallen the task of organising and supervising cross-country running. As you know, the eight Housemasters were totally responsible for all physical activity of their detainees; and the cross-country run was just one of the several athletic practices considered character building by the Commander and his acolytes. Just how cross-country running built up a boy’s character was difficult to see; but that was the theory and it was put into practice on a weekly basis at Moulton-Midmarsh school.
Now cross-country running, as many of you, I am sure know, is one of those activities which you either love or loath; there a no two ways about it. Either you are a dedicated runner or you wish that the whole rotten idea would just go away. But, like it or loath it, the boys of Moulton-Midmarsh were compelled to participate; which they did; but with widely varying degrees of enthusiasm. So, more or less every day, a platoon of boys would set out on a four mile run across the bleak and unattractive fenlands. Mr. Cass, who had himself as a public schoolboy been an enthusiastic runner had mapped out a course which taxed the boys so that they were pleasantly tired on their arrival back at the school, where he personally checked that all runners were present and correct as the military phrasing would have put it.
But all was not well, as the eagle eyed Mr. Cass quickly divined, for he realized that three senior boys of one of his groups arrived back at the end of the run, looking as fresh and sweat-free as they had departed. His suspicions aroused, he watched the three boys for several weeks and then saw that as they arrived back, always in the middle of the pack, their running shoes were never caked with mud in the way those of the other boys were. Now this was impossibility, as one part of the course forced the boys to run through some very marshy ground, of which there was plenty available in the fens. And so came the moment of reckoning for these three tearaway idlers.
Bearded, as they arrived back at the school, by Mr. Cass, they finally admitted that they were skivers: boys who had slipped away once out of sight of the school and spent the afternoon lounging around doing exactly nothing, whilst awaiting the return of their schoolmates. What these latter thought of them, we shall never know; but we shall learn of the severe blood-bath which developed out of this misdemeanour by three senior boys.
Mr. Cass made all the boys of the pack wait together in the school yard until everyone was present, for he had already decided to make an immediate example of the three idlers in front of their classmates. Cane in hand, as ever, he ordered the three lads to drop their shorts in front of the assembly, intending to give them an immediate beating for their actions. To his surprise, he discovered that these three lads were wearing their underpants beneath their running shorts, a practice strictly forbidden; all boys were forbidden to wear any type of normal clothing whilst involved in any athletic activity as it was considered unsanitary; cleanliness was next to Godliness, if not ahead of it, in the Commander’s eyes.
Junior boys were expected to run with just their running shorts and nothing at all beneath, as their sexual development did not warrant any special support, whilst the older boys were expected to wear an athletic supporter, commonly referred to as a jock-strap, to support their burgeoning equipment.
Mr. Cass was astounded and shocked with what he had discovered and decided to take the matter further. So, now addressing the entire pack he said: “Step forward all boys who are wearing underpants under their running shorts at this moment.”
There was a hush over the assembly and gradually some eight boys stepped slowly forward.
“Is that the lot of you who are breaking the rules? Come on now; are there any more of you?”
There was another pause and three more boys shuffled forwards to join their errant classmates.
“Let me tell you now boys; if there are any other boys who should have come forwards but have chosen not to do so, then the punishment they will receive will be very severe. So, the rest of you who are as pure as Caesar’s wife drop your running shorts here and now and let me see that you are not wearing any forbidden garment.”
There was a vague murmuring among the remaining lads, among whom Mr. Cass went on to discover two more who had chosen not the step forward who were disobeying the rules. He now had a group of no less than sixteen boys whom he decided to punish there and then in front of the others, all of whom stood there in the yard shivering, wondering what was going to happen.
“You sixteen boys, line up, one behind the other, drop your shorts and your underpants, bend over and hold your ankles. Mr. Cass then walked calmly along the impressive line of tightly presented arses and gave each one six good cuts with the cane he always carried. There was dead silence from onlookers as they watched with horror the carnage, thanking their lucky stars that they were not included as the cane descended with sharp cracks across the row naked buttocks.
“Now, those of you who came forward and admitted the error of their ways together with the rest of you boys, may go and shower and get dressed. However, as for the three of you who cheated on the cross country course and you two boys who were deceitful and did not come forward when asked, well you five kindly follow me to the punishment room, for I have more, much more, in store for you.”
Once in the dreaded room with its beating stools and two birching horses, the five miscreants really began to feel very sorry for themselves indeed. One by one, they were made to bend, arse naked, across the beating stool and Mr. Cass took considerable pleasure in giving each lad twelve good hard cuts with the pickle-rod. And there, ended the saga of the cross-country run, which had ended in a series of beatings, hitherto unprecedented at Moulton Midmarsh; it really had been a totally unexpected bloodbath.
Over dinner that evening, the Commander said: I hear Cass, that you rooted out the rot in today’s cross-country team; well let me congratulate you on your perspicacity in seeing the matter through to its end; the lads certainly deserved to suffer the pain of the cane for their disobedience; an excellent performance! It is precisely the attitude we need to foster here in the school! You are an excellent example to your colleagues, sir!
CHAPTER 16
It was the cross-country run which led to the undoing of our two miscreants, Lodge and Parry. Lodge had a big mouth and on his first day had badmouthed the Commander in his hearing which had landed him with a dozen stinging cuts of the pickle-rod across his naked backside. It was a beating which had served as a sort of hors d’oeuvre to the main dish of the day which was the eighteen stroke birching; the first of the four bouts of severe corporal punishment prescribed by the magistrate in his sentence on the two lads. And it was that same evening, lying in agony in bed, that Lodge had told Parry that he was going to get out of Moulton-Midmarsh at the first opportunity. There was no way he was going to allow anyone to beat his arse to pulp on three more occasions. The opportunity to abscond from the school presented itself more quickly than either of them could have anticipated, for in their second week at the school they found themselves part of a forty-strong cross-country turn out, supervised by Mr. Cass.
So, of course, they decided that they would leave the pack as soon as it was out of sight of the school, with no thought at all as to what they were going to do once they were alone. Had they studied the location of the school, stuck as it was in the middle of soggy marshland riddled with waterways with the nearest big town five miles distant, they might have had second thoughts; but they did not; their sole aim was to escape from the clutches of authority in the form of the staff of Moulton-Midmarsh school. And so, wearing only their running singlets and shorts they took off from the pack as soon as it was out of sight of the school. They had no idea where they were heading or what they were going to do with themselves, but they were free – or so they thought.
Of course, once free of the pack, things immediately began to look different; the two runaways had no clear plan of what they intended to do or where they should go. They found themselves in the rather bleak landscape of the fens with little at all to give them any direction; and remember, to leave Moulton-Midmarsh, there was but one paved road in and out of the town itself. The boys saw a group of small buildings, which turned out to be the bothies, where the grounds men, gardeners and other outdoor workers lived; there they found shelter in an outhouse. Already, what had seemed a good idea just a brief hour or so ago was fast turning into a nightmare; the two lads had not the slightest idea what they should do with their freedom
The pack of cross-country runners straggled back to the school, where the diligent Mr. Cass carefully checked them off in his register, to find that the two boys, Lodge and Parry were missing. He immediately questioned the boys, one of whom volunteered that fact that he had seen the two miscreants drop out of the run soon after they had left the school premises, but he had no idea where they had gone. It was clear that they could not have gone very far and Mr. Cass promptly organised a search party of the grounds men and a couple of gardeners, who, of course, quickly found the two runaways hiding in the outhouse and hauled them back to the school. So freedom for Lodge and Parry had lasted all of two brief hours and they were now face to face with the Commander in his study.
“What were you two boys thinking of, trying to escape? Where on earth did you imagine that you could go? This place is totally isolated, especially chosen by the Ministry of Education precisely to avoid inmates absconding as you have just tried to do. Well, boys, I have to tell you that your actions are very, very serious and cannot be allowed to pass without appropriate correction and I am sure, after your birchings of just a few days ago that you know what that means. I have asked Mr. Cass to join us and he will be here in a moment, for I propose to allow him to assist me in the painful corrective action which you have brought upon yourselves.”
Lodge and Parry listened in silence to the Commander, wondering what exactly he had in store for them, but they did not have long to wait before the full horror of their punishment was revealed to them.
“Mr. Cass; I am once again indebted to you for keeping order and supervising an orderly cross-country run, and today, especially, when, thanks to your vigilance, you have prevented these two miscreants from absconding from the school, which would have led to a police search for them as they are here under court sentence under the SCP scheme.”
“You will doubtless recall that under this scheme these two boys were sentenced to three months confinement at Moulton Midmarsh during which time they would on four separate occasions receive mandatory severe corporal punishment as prescribed by the court. I have already told these two runaways that they have committed a very serious offence for which they are now to be punished and I thought that as you had been the leading light in the whole matter, it was right and proper that you should assist me in administering their punishment. What I propose is that I thrash Lodge and you deal with Parry, so, if you are agreeable let us adjourn next door where the accoutrements of punishment are waiting and teach these two boys yet another lesson, which I hope they will take to heart, though I have to say in the case of Lodge, I have severe doubts.”
“Commander,” said Mr.Cass, “You have my fullest support in this matter, I agree that the boys cannot be allowed to escape unscathed from this ridiculous venture on which they started; but what, sir, do you have in mind by way of punishment?”
“I have consulted the school regulations concerning corporal punishment, which, as I am sure you are aware, is the only recourse we have to tame boys such as these and to make them toe the line and obey the rules. Severe infractions such as this one can be corrected by up to twenty-four strokes of the cane, applied to the naked buttocks of the offender. And so, in view of the extreme nature of their offence, I think that the full allocation is well called for in this cane. So, there, Mr. Cass, you have it; we will give each of these two lads twenty-four cuts of the cane. Shall we begin?”
“He now turned his attention to the two lads. Well, you have just heard what I have said to Mr. Cass. We are going to correct you with two dozen cuts of the cane across your naked arses; is that clear?”
Lodge tried to protest saying that it was not fair that they should be caned for what they had just done as in barely two weeks time they would again have to bend for the cane, when the second of their mandatory punishments became due.
“Lodge, and you too Parry, although I can see that you Lodge are the focus of most of the problems, need to understand that the canings you will receive under your SCP sentence relate to your actions in the past. Any punishable offences which you commit whilst in this school, where you are meant to obey the rules, will be punished as such. Now, let us be clear, the canings you are now about to receive, are unrelated to your past misdemeanours; you are to be punished, as would be any other boy who breaks the rules. So, the pair of you, kindly step into the room next door where your needs will be fully catered for! Let me say, you will perhaps now realize that the cane reigns supreme in this establishment and long may it so remain.”
The boys eyed the punishment equipment with unconcealed fear.
“Take of your shorts and singlets, both of you and stand to attention in front of us with your hands on your head”
“But sir, we shall be completely naked; it’s not decent, sir.: Said Lodge.
“Boy, do not argue with me, or I shall lose my temper. Just do as I say and hold your tongue. You are already in very deep trouble, the pair of you, and you Lodge, with your big mouth, seem to have an aptitude for making matters worse for yourself; so button up your lip, boy, and do as I say. Now, we are fortunate in having two beating stools available, so you do not have to jostle for a place; there is one for each of you. So, kindly each of you go to one of the two stools and bend across it so that Mr. Cass and I can adjust the height to ensure that your arses are in the perfect position for beating. And once in the right position, neither of you dare to move until the full two dozen cuts have been administered. Do I make myself clear? I would like to think that when we do things at Moulton-Midmarsh, we do them properly and I would hate the two of you to go away and tell people that you had had a second rate beating; believe me, the beating you are about to receive will be first rate!”
You can imagine how the two miscreants must have felt, listening to all this rhetoric,, wondering when the first stroke of what promised to be a very unpleasant experience, would land.
“Mr. Cass, if you would like to select a pickle-rod, we can perhaps begin our unpleasant task.” In fact, the Commander was being his usual hypocritical self, for as we all know, he loved beating butt, as too did Mr. Cass, so there was little doubt that the boys were going to enjoy a terrific arse roasting.
“Mr Cass, what I suggest is that you position yourself over Parry and I over Lodge and that we attempt to synchronize our strokes so that the two boys are punished together. This was typical of the Commander, who loved to heighten the tension of any occasion when the cane was being wielded. So, Mr Cass, if you are ready, on my count, apply your rod with vigour immediately after I call out the number of the stroke.”
Mr. Cass, like the Commander, was in seventh heaven; truly enjoying what was for him a novel theatrical experience; and he handled the cane as a true professional; he had some difficulty in disguising the fact that he had already become hard, even before the first stroke was laid, and as the beating progressed, he was well into the pre-cum stage, with a stain beginning to appear in the crotch of his trousers. The Commander was similarly aroused, and was secretly revelling in the frightening homoerotic scenario he had orchestrated.
Both boys had recently undergone their first birching and traces of that event still showed on their buttocks, but Lodge, whose big mouth had earned him, on arrival, an immediate caning by the Commander, still had clear traces of the furrows produced by the cane. The Commander, ever the artist, tried his best to place the strokes close together across the full width of Lodge’s rump so that his whole arse was inflamed and painful. Mr. Cass, who was no slouch either when it came to beating arse, produced a pictorial image of criss-crossed stroked across Parry’s arse.
It is, perhaps, difficult for us today to envisage how ferociously canings were administered at the turn of the century. The pickle-rod was, without any doubt, the most painful of all canes and its application produced immediate angry stripes on the buttocks and howls of pain from the unfortunate receiver of the punishment. The two men brought down their canes with great precision and the crack of the cane against the naked flesh was a frightening sound. As the punishment was very severe, two dozen cuts, the Commander called a pause after the first twelve cuts and let the boys stay there, bent over the stools in utter agony, for some ten minutes. He and Mr. Cass then switched places and completed the punishment, by which time both lads were in tears and hardly able to support the agonizing pain in their arses.
“Get up, the pair of you and go to the showers, clean up and get dressed. Now, let that be a lesson to you; in this school you will obey the rules and any infraction will be punished.”
You might be tempted to think, in view of the extreme punishments practiced at that time, that the old maxim, once bitten, twice shy would have conditioned the later behaviour of boys who had once experienced a painful beating. But it is surprising how many boys systematically continued breaking the rules and attracting further beatings; it was as if some boys actually enjoyed being beaten, which, of course, knowing the foibles of human nature, may, in some cases be true. Of course as you have divined, it was Lodge whose awful behaviour, incited both of his Housemasters and the Commander himself to address his arse with the cane on a very regular basis.
Parry now started to realize that his association with his friend and partner-in- crime, Lodge, was going from bad to worse. Lodge’s ill conceived idea to escape had already earned both of them an additional thrashing and he knew he still had three more encounters with the cane and the birch before he could really be free again. So he very wisely decided to distance himself from his erstwhile friend, whom he increasingly saw as a trouble maker.
Let Lodge take as many canings as he wishes, thought Parry, but as of now, I shall toe the line and include myself out of his schemes. My God, what we both still have to undergo is bad enough and this idiot still seems to wants to heap more upon himself self; well, no longer with me in tow! Parry had now totally accepted the terms of the sentence as the best of a bad deal and waited, with fear, for the three other thrashings he would have to suffer before finally being released into the world again. Not so, however, our friend Lodge, whose persistent loud mouth continued to bring regular punishment his way.
As Mr. Selby his Housemaster remarked laughingly to his assistant Mr Summers, “You know, Lodge’s arse is akin to the British Empire, on which we are taught that the sun never sets; except his arse is a globe on which the cane never rests. I reckon I could identify Lodge from his naked arse awaiting punishment, without ever seeing his face; it’s become like an old friend; easily recognisable and alwaysinviting what we might call a dose of percussive therapy.”
The three month’s sentence of the two miscreants was up and they both suffered the final statutory birching ordered by the magistrate the day before they were to leave Moulton-Midmarsh. The Commander and Mr Selby saw them in the Commander’s study the morning they were to leave the school. The Commander started to address the boys only to be interrupted by a torrent of abuse from the very foulmouthed Lodge, who said to him: “Now that we are free of this place, let me tell you that you have wasted your time on me, you old fart and you can go to hell as far as I am concerned, now that I am out of here; So just fuck off and that goes for you too Mr Selby.”
The Commander looked at Lodge and said: “You, boy, are a example of the very worst type of modern youth; you have no respect for anyone and think that you can do as you wish, for which, as you have seen during your brief stay in this school you have been severely punished. Well, just for the record, allow me to tell you that your sentence does not end until noon today and that it is now precisely eleven thirty. So, you young tearaway, still have thirty minutes of your sentence left to serve, for which period you are still under my care and will obey the school rules. Your foulmouthed remarks are totally in character with what we have come to see as the norm with you boy and are totally inexcusable. So, if you would kindly step into the room next door, Mr Selby and I will have the greatest pleasure in acquainting your backside with the pickle-rod for one last time; shall we say for old time’s sake? Get in there, boy, drop your pants and underwear and prepare for one last beating. As you so rightly observe, we seem to have wasted our time in trying to reform you, but we shall at least have the satisfaction of leaving you with one last painful – indeed, very painful – souvenir of your time at Moulton-Midmarsh.
The Commander and Mr Selby, each took a pickle-rod and applied alternate strokes to Lodge’ arse until even he begged them to stop. And that is how the saga of Lodge and Parry ended. I believe Parry went his way, chastened by his three months’ experience; but Lodge soon finished up in prison. As the Commander observed to Mr Selby: “Some boys just fall into the category of future old lags and Lodge was clearly one of them.”
But Lodge was not alone in his persistent trouble making, for there were others with the same bent and we shall now see how the Commander dealt with a small group of boys, who, in spite of regular canings, seemed determined, by their incessant bad behaviour, to disrupt the smooth running of the school.
CHAPTER 17
It was near the end of the third term and the Commander had convened a special staff meeting to discuss what he called an urgent matter
“Gentlemen; I have called you here today to discuss a matter which has been growing in importance over the past few months and which is becoming a true thorn in the flesh of this school. A small number of boys, in fact precisely twelve, a round dozen in number, is attempting to undermine everything we are trying to do in this establishment. These boys are a constant source of irritation and disruption, and all of them must be well known to you, the teaching staff, and equally to you, their Housemasters. Each of the boys on this list, has been caned either by me or by his Housemaster at least twelve times in the last three months; and here I speak only of caning noted in the punishment records and not the occasional whack in the corridors from one of the Housemasters or the mild canings they get when they have been sent out from the classroom for bad behaviour. It is as if there is a fifth column operating in the school, totally intent in creating mayhem; but of course this is imaginary, as the boys are just a series of individual youths who find it difficult to obey the rules and enjoy causing problems, which they appear to have done at an alarming rate.”
“It is clear that this situation cannot be allowed to continue unchecked and I have therefore given a great deal of thought as to the corrective action we can take. It is clear that the cane alone is not sufficient, for the boys in question persist in continuing their ways, in spite of the fact that they know they will get a sore arse at the end of their capers. So, I have decided that a combination of pain and shame shall be visited upon these boys. I intend to birch the twelve of them in front of their classmates, in the hope that a severe punishment in public with their naked arses exposed to their peers, in what might best be described as a before and after mode, might ultimately have an effect and set these young miscreants on the straight and narrow.”
“Therefore, gentlemen, all first classes this coming Friday morning will be cancelled and the twelve boys in question will be thoroughly birched before the full morning assembly, immediately after the usual morning prayers and announcements. I would ask each of you as Housemasters, for the boys are dispersed across the four houses, to inform those who are to be punished, of my decision this evening, so that they have tonight and Thursday to contemplate their fate; they can stew in tiers own juice for a day or so and suffer the mental anguish which precedes a thrashing. The boys are aged from fifteen to eighteen and I look to the Housemasters of the older boys to delegate four of them to move the two birching benches together with the birch buckets and their contents from the punishment room onto the stage in the assembly hall on Thursday evening. I have already ensured that sufficient freshly cut birch rods will be available for soaking by Thursday evening.”
“The Housemasters should then inform those unfortunate boys in their care who are destined for punishment, that they must attend Friday’s assembly wearing only their gym singlets and shorts and no – I repeat – no underwear of any kind. The twelve miscreants must be told to stand in the front row at the assembly and be ready to mount the platform when told to do so.”
“As for the administration of the birch, you Mr. Selby and I will thrash the first two miscreants and I would ask the rest of you to divide the task of beating the other ten boys among yourselves as you see fit. It will be salutatory for the onlookers to see that all the Housemasters are behind this initiative shall I call it? And for now, that, gentlemen, is all, I think so we can now close this meeting; thank you, gentlemen and I wish you a pleasant evening.:
As ever with the Commander, as his title implied, he commanded and asked neither for comments nor for guidance; he had decided and that was that; his will would be done!
The Friday morning assembly was already abuzz when the Commander appeared on the platform to conduct morning prayers. How the word got around as to what was to happen, who knows, but as it always does, it did, and the boys were all agog with wondering what exactly was going to happen to the twelve penitents. The birching benches and birches soaking in their buckets were in full view and the atmosphere was what I suppose we today would call electric in what was still a gaslight world. The normal proceedings over, the Commander advanced to the front of the stage and addressed the boys in what might best be described as his I am the lord thy God voice.
“You can all see that preparations have been made for administration of the birch to certain miscreant boys. This is the very first occasion on which certain of your school mates will be punished in front of you all, as an example of what will happen to anyone who adopts the paths of of disruption and mayhem. Now, the twelve of you in the front row, kindly step up onto the platform as I read out your names, so that schoolmates can see clearly who you are.”
The twelve lads who were to have their arses publicly roasted mounted slowly onto the platform as the Commander went on.
“The twelve young tearaways you now see before you, have, during this first year of operation of this school, done their very best to sow disruption and discord throughout the school. Their actions have, of course, been punished in the usual and time honoured way, by visits to the punishment room or to my own study, as well as in their own houses by their Housemasters. But these punishments have, apparently, had no effect, for every boy here in front of you today has been caned at least twelve times during the last three months. I say at least twelve times as three of the miscreants have had their buttocks thrashed no less then eighteen times during the same period; apparently to no avail, as their misdemeanours have continued. This, boys, cannot go on; I will not allow the smooth running of the school to be disrupted any longer by the actions of a few misguided youths. I trust I make myself clear.”
“And so, today, on this platform, in front of all of you, these twelve young offenders will meet what I think might well be described as their Waterloo, as they bend over the birching horse to have their backsides birched in public; and believe me when I say it will be the most severe birching that anyone of them has ever experienced. It is my earnest hope that this act of public humiliation and pain in front of their schoolmates will, finally bring home to them that their past behaviour has been intolerable and that they must, from now on, toe the line. This will, I hope, be a salutatory lesson for all of them and also for all of you, for as you watch your schoolmates receive their just deserts, bear in mind the saying: there but for the grace of God, go I.”
“Now, you boys who are to be punished, stand facing me on the platform; take of your singlets and shorts; put your hands on your heads and present your buttocks to your classmates so that they can see what I will call the before look! And all of you, remain in that position until I tell you to move”
The Housemasters and teaching staff, all of whom were present for this increasingly dramatic presentation, were as surprised or should I say, shocked, at the Commander’s orders, as none of them had had the slightest idea that he would make the miscreant lads stand stark naked in front to their classmates. But as he had said the previous evening, he hoped that the combination of a public beating and humiliation in front of their peers would make them see the error of their ways. Well, humiliation was here in spades! Already the older boys watching were beginning to become hard as were members of the staff as they watched unfold, what was clearly about to be a unique homoerotic spectacle. No one would have dared to use that word in describing what what happening, but said or unsaid, the spectacle was clearly becoming very hardcore.
Today, we would probably be shocked by what the Commander was doing, but well into the twentieth century, it was not at all uncommon to birch or cane miscreants naked in front of their peers and indeed, in the various military and naval cadet training corps, punishment parades of naked offenders were the norm. However, this theatrical drama as the Commander had foreseen it, was quite unique; conceived to make a point, which it did in abundance; it was also an occasion when the Commander and his cohorts could indulge their penchant for sadism. This word was never mentioned, not even among those who practised it, but there was a strong sadistic component in what the Commander was now enacting. And the same sentiment was shared among many of the on-looking boys, who although horrified by the thought that the same thing might one day be visited upon them, enjoyed, nevertheless a certain vicarious pleasure in watching their classmates suffer, whilst experiencing themselves sexual arousal and gratification; in short, like boys the world over, they took pleasure in watching with horror their peers being beaten.
The twelve unfortunate lads stood, as ordered, hands on heads, arses towards their classmates as the Commander continued. One thing was quite clear; the Commander had already shamed them, as could be seen from their expressions which simply want the whole ghastly business to be over and done with. But they had fond hopes, for the Commander went on and on with his pre-rehearsed monologue.
“You boys will be birched in pairs, starting with the youngest offenders first, but at the same time, by me and your Housemasters. Now, as I call the first two names, you two boys will take your positions across the birching horses. The two senior boys, who will have the pleasure of watching their young classmates suffer for their misdeeds before themselves enjoying the doubtful pleasure of taking the birch across their own rumps, will then have the honour of fastening the wrist and ankle straps on their classmates; after which I or one of the Housemasters will make the necessary adjustments to the horses to see that that buttocks of the miscreants are in the ideal position to be beaten. Mr Selby, the senior Housemaster and I, personally, will then administer the birch simultaneously to each of these first two boys; fifteen stroke in all, which, allow me to tell you is well beneath the twenty-four stroke maximum authorised by the school rules.”
The two youngest lads, aged about fifteen, bent across the horses, which had been so positioned that the boys’ arses faced their on-looking classmates, who were thus able to follow the punishment stroke after painful stroke. The Commander allowed them to remain in this position for several minutes, whilst he and Mr Selby each selected a birch rod, shook off the excess water and prepared to begin the punishment.
The Commander looked at the oldest boy in the punishment detail and said: “You boy will call out the strokes one-by-one, allowing at least ten seconds pause between each, so that the lucky recipient can truly appreciate the corrective therapy he is receiving.” He smiled inwardly to himself at his choice of the word therapy; this was not to be thought of as a punishmen, but a means, alas painful, of allowing the recipient to mend his ways; in its own way, it was the equivalent of a dose of a truly nasty medicine prescribed by a doctor; one took it, in the hope that it would do one good
The two men positioned themselves over each of their charges and on a nod from the Commander, the first stroke was called. Then both men together, simultaneously thrashed their birches down on the pair of unfortunate arses in front of them. The silence from the on-looking boys was deafening; one could have heard the proverbial pin drop; this was broken seconds later as the full pain of the birch was felt by the two lads, both of whom let out a cry of anguish. But cries of anguish were of no avail; the Commander and his cohort, pressed on, stroke after stroke until the poor lads had received the full fifteen strokes, by which time they were both howling with pain and in tears.
It is a fact that the pain of a birching builds up from stroke to stroke, becoming ever more intense until it reaches an unbearable level, which, alas, the poor recipient has nevertheless to endure. The great advantage of the birch is that being made of light weight twigs, it produces possibly the greatest pain among the armoury of corporal punishment implements without causing any permanent physical damage to the recipient’s arse. A well applied cane can draw blood; the birch rarely, but in the hands of an experienced practitioner, such as the Commander or Mr. Selby, a well birched arse finishes up like a multicolour abstract painting: quite beautiful to behold but extremely painful for its owner!
And behold is exactly what the onlookers were now invited to do, for on being release from their bonds, the first two young supplicants were ordered to resume their former positions on the platform, hand on heads as before, and display their roasted arses to their classmates. The Commander had talked about humiliation and humiliation there certainly was; combined, of course, with the most awful pain of the birch. The lads were not allowed to massage their smartingly incandescent buns to try to alleviate the pain, but were made to stand there, hands on heads as the gruesome pageant progressed.
The Commander and Mr Selby, having opened the ball so to speak, then passed the other ten disrupters over to the other Housemasters, who together had decided on a plan of action and together birched the rest of the lads. So the young onlookers had the pleasure of watching twelve arses each receive fifteen strokes of the birch, an unprecedented spectacle of no less than one hundred and eighty strokes in all.
When the last pair had been punished, the twelve miscreants stood totally naked, with their roasted buttocks facing their class mates.
“Now, said the Commander, I want the rest of you all to leave this hall in an orderly fashion, passing in line before your chastened classmates so that you can see exactly what a well birched pair of buttocks looks like. Take a good look at what you see, for be in no doubt, this is what will happen to you if you disrupt the smooth running of this school. These boys have been punished because of their constant and repeated disobedience, as an example to you all, as well as a moment of retribution for them. This is the end of the first year of this school, but in futurem year, any boy who repeatedly breaks the rules will be publicly birched on this platform at the end of each month. I sincerely hope that we shall not have to repeat today’s proceedings ever again; but make no mistake, if necessary we shall do so; order will be preserved.”
Thus ended one of the most awful and severe of public beatings imaginable. The twelve miscreants who had had the misfortune to take part in the affair, pulled on their singlets and shorts and slowly left the hall, a truly chastened group of lads; many still in tears and all with their arses feeling as if they were on fire. The four boys who had brought the birching horses from the punishment room were made to take them back there, together with the birch buckets. It truly had been a magnificent roasting of arses, the likes of which had never before been imagined. The truly awful truth of the matter was that, apart from the boys being flogged, pretty well everyone else, masters, warders and classmates had, in some dreadful way, actually enjoyed the spectacle, which says a great deal about certain aspects of human nature. Schadenfreude was the flavour of the moment!
The Commander said his staff: “Well, gentlemen, I think that went as planned and I hope that the principal participants take to heart the message we have given them”
But, as you will all probably have realised, boys being boys, this mass, therapeutic public birching became a regular end-of-month feature at Moulton-Midmarsh.
Thus ended the first full year of operation of the Moulton-Midmarsh Reform School. The Commander was well satisfied with what he had achieved.
CHAPTER 18
We now have to move on several years in the annals of Moulton-Midmarsh, where life, year in, year out, mirrored that described in the preceding chapters. Boys came, boys left, but the school functioned as it had from day one. The Commander became ever more authoritarian and the cane and birch saw more and more use. The illegal homosexual liaisons between the staff and the boys flourished and as time passed, riotous parties involving the staff and certain willing older boys increased. It seemed that there was no control at all over what happened at the school and so things became ever more homoerotic, until one fateful day, some nine years after the school had been first opened, it all came to a shuddering stop; and once again it was the injudicious actions of the Commander which led to the downfall and definitive closing of the school.
The Commander was walking along the corridor near the main dining room when hearing a strange noise from within; he entered, to catch red-handed a senior boy, Eric Lightfoot, in the process of wilfully destroying the gas mantles on the central lighting fixture, commonly called a gasolier. Remember, at the time there was no electricity in the school and the main rooms were lighted by gas burning fixtures fitted with incandescent mantles which, glowing white hot from the burning gas, gave a relatively good light. Most of you, today, will not be familiar with these mantles, which were small gauze like thimbles fitted on each gas jet. On first lighting the gas, the gauze burned off leaving the very fragile structure of rare metal oxides which became incandescent when hot; and it was precisely these delicate elements that Lightfoot, for no good reason, was intent on destroying.
Incensed by the unwarranted destruction being carried out by the lad, the Commander marched him forthwith to the punishment room, where stripped naked, he was strapped over a beating horse ready to receive punishment. The Commander, like one of the mantles, which the lad had been destroying, was incandescent with rage, picked up a pickle-rod and started to to thrash the lad’s arse. In the great rage that he was, the Commander foolishly let his anger run away with him and simply went on and on bringing the painful rod down across the lad’s backside until it was reduced to a bloody looking mess of deep wheals Just how many cut the Commander administered no one will ever know, but Lightfoot, who had undoubtedly deserved to be thrashed for his wanton destructiveness, could barely walk when the Commander told him to go back to his house.
As he limped into his dormitory, his Housemaster, by chance, happened to see him and realizing that something was clearly amiss, followed the boy and questioned him about what has happened. When he saw the state of the boy’s buttocks, he realized that the lad needed urgent hospital attention to avoid infection, for he was by now bleeding profusely from his beating. And so, Lightfoot was loaded into the trap and taken to the local hospital, where the young doctor who treated him was utterly horrified by what he saw. The doctor divined that something was sadly amiss at the school if a boy could be so brutally mistreated and questioned him closely about what had happened and about the school in general. Lightfoot, by now no friend of the Commander or the school in general, divulged all he knew about the excessive beatings; and further probing led to the disclosure of the existence of the regular clandestine sex parties, at which staff and older student indulged in all sorts of forbidden sexual relations. He admitted that he himself had been to several of these gatherings, where complete licentiousness reigned and nothing was forbidden.
The young doctor thought that the police should be involved, as it was clear from Lightfoot’s revelations that things were badly amiss at the school. Well, the upshot was that the police made an unexpected raid on the school one Saturday evening and found the Commander and several of the Housemasters in what they described in their report as compromising lewd situations both among themselves and with three of four of the older boys.
From then on, things went from bad to worse and it was downhill for the school all the way. The local press got hold of the story and had a banner headline, Sodomy at Moulton-Midmarsh Approved School and as a subheading; Headmaster and Staff accused of unnatural sexual relations with boys
The case came to trial with enormous publicity as this was a serious case of sodomy, which, although the general public pretended did not exist, were, as ever, avid followers of the court proceedings and totally enthralled by the revelations of what went on at the school. Then as now, sex sells; or should I say, sold? The Commander, the architect of the disaster, was sentenced to five years in prison for sodomy and for inflicting grievous bodily harm on one of his charges. The several Housemasters were each sentenced to three years confinement with hard labour and the four senior boys involved, all eighteen years old, were each sent to prison for two years with hard labour and given eighteen strokes of the birch for their part in the affair.
The Minister of Education accused the Town Council of Moulton Midmarsh of negligence in allowing the Commander to run the school free of any constraints. The Council, in turn, retorted that it was the duty of the Minister to institute such controls and to and fro the ball was batted between the two, with, of course, no conclusion.
But there was a dramatic end to this whole affair. The Minister had, of course, appointed a temporary Warden and staff to replace the Commander and this acolytes too ensure the orderly running of the school; but some three months after the incident, a decision was taken to close down the school definitively; the inmates were distributed across a number of other similar institutions all over the country and the buildings were put up for sale. The only bright thing was that the Government of the day reaped a handsome profit on the sale of the buildings, a minor miracle, when one considers how inept are the powers that be in making money out of anything they touch.
So there you have the sad story of the creation, the decline and the fall of the Moulton-Midmarsh Reform School all within ten brief years. I thought , having stumbled upon it by chance, that this story of a totally forgotten era, might be of interest; possibly of greater interest to most of you than my commemoration volume in celebration of the annals of the first hundred years of existence of Midfen College. But, of course, any of you who are interested to read this chronological account of the college, can obtain a copy, free of charge by applying directly to the Bursar at Midfen College, Moulton-Midmarsh, Cambridge, where I believe there are many copies still available. I am afraid that you might find it dull reading compared to the ten years of Moulton-Midmarsh under the leadership of Commander Reginald Douglas Pratt-Mainwaring, but do give it a try; it may help you get to sleep, if nothing else!
THE END
To get in touch with the author, send them an email.