Saturday 5 March 2016

The Marks of Master Brindley (M/m)


This was always one of my favourite stories and I have been meaning to post it here for a long time. Work on a new F/m story for this blog is likely to be distracted by the Cheltenham Festival (Horseracing not Literary) so this is posted as an interim piece. Should appeal to those of a mathematical bent and, of course, any who like the rigid logic of why and how masters cane schoolboys. Or used to. I never got caned exactly like this, my nearest being a collective bare bottom caning outlined in my autobiographical story 'Tomorrows Child.' But the ritualistic element has echoes of that real experience. Master Brindley gets more, eight, harder and just as bare. Pure fantasy, just like my dream of a yankee at Cheltenham. Alfred Roy


The Marks of Master Brindley
Alexander Brindley could not believe what he was hearing. There must be some mistake. Sitting at the back of the class he closed his eyes and concentrated, desperate to catch the main thrust of Mr Duncan’s peroration. The form master, a miserable disciplinarian of exceptional magnitude, was gathering up all the latest homework papers and, amid the rustle, amplified a number of well considered thoughts. The general gist was well and truly caught by the thirty well scrubbed boys who listened in disrespectful silence. None were enamoured of Mr Duncan’s dry and unbending personality, but all knew better than to do other than remain still and quiet. To absorb, in the silence, the growing implications of a singularly unpleasant speech. And none were more acutely aware of those implications than Alexander Brindley.

 

Their form master and specialist maths teacher was making it abundantly clear that homework standards had left much to be desired in recent months. So much so that, as he had recently warned this class, failure to improve would result in a painful and salutary lesson to the worst offenders. Indeed, he had carried out this threat on another class the previous week. Seven of the thirty two boys in class 4B had discovered that sloppy homework carried harsh penalties. And this class, the brightest and best of 4A, had been given due warning and their latest mathematics homework paper would be marked with special interest. And as all collectively strained in concentration, mindful of the celebrated group caning referred to, the most pertinent detail of Mr Duncan’s uncomfortable speech was revealed. Any boy receiving a mark that fell 20% or more below their normal schoolwork standard would be caned. The only exemptions from this stern criterion would be boys who, in the previous month, had been absent from crucial mathematics lessons for legitimate reasons. And as the tall and saturnine Mr Duncan listed the names of the four boys who would not be subject to such detailed scrutiny, Alexander Brindley suffered the uncomfortable sensation of a turning stomach and a spinning head.

 

It was a very subdued Alexander who made his way home that evening. How could he have been so stupid? He knew that his homework had not been of the highest quality in recent months. When you have just turned fifteen there are so many distractions when the school gates fade into the distance. Ten or fifteen minutes devoted to a boring homework task were as much as he was usually prepared to give. But it did not concern him. Most of the teachers did not set great store by it. And the one who did, the fear inspiring Mr Duncan, thankfully taught a subject at which young Alexander excelled. If his form master had, latterly, resolved to improve standards it did not concern him. Alexander Brindley could never, even on his worst submissions of dilatory homework fare, score less than 20% in mathematics.

 

And this is where he had been so stupid. He had listened to the warning the previous week and he had heard about the caning of the poor unfortunates of 4B. Seven boys from one class being taken into the sports hall and given eight strokes of Mr Duncan’s cane was a topic which quickly spread through the school. One caning a fortnight was the usual average, and that usually a cursory two or three from the ineffectual headmaster, so the excesses of Mr Duncan’s ministrations flew far and wide. And as the message moved, from the mouth of one overawed boy to another, it imperceptibly changed. By the time it reached the ears of the mathematically bright Alexander Brindley it had suffered a fatally flawed shift. Mr Duncan had caned the boys of 4B who had scored 20% or less in their homework. Taking this distorted message as gospel, Alexander Brindley relaxed and, with an indifferent air, opined that such matters did not concern him.

 

And now he knew different. In his bedroom, late into the night, he feverishly tried to redo in his mind the fateful mathematics paper handed in that morning. He knew he had scored more than 20%. He could score more than 20% at mathematics if he filled in the answers in his sleep. But that wasn’t the point. What was it Mr Duncan had said? Any boy getting a mark that fell 20% or more below their normal standard would be caned. Their normal schoolwork standard. That was the key point. Grudgingly, Alexander Brindley accepted this was fair. Not that it was fair to cane anyone but, if you did, it would not be fair to just single out the dullards. If he had thought about the distorted message regarding 4B he would have realised its inherent weakness. But he hadn’t thought. He had accepted it at face value. Only the thick would get caned. But Mr Duncan was more subtle than that. He would cane the ones he knew had not tried, had not done the necessary work in their home. The ones who had not reached their normal schoolwork standard. And the more he thought about that fateful phrase the more it tormented. Alexander Brindley’s normal mathematics standard was well into the mid eighties, even, occasionally reaching the dizzy heights of ninety plus. As he fell asleep he desperately tried to satisfy himself that his latest homework paper came within twenty points of those demanding peaks. He failed, miserably, to achieve such comforting satisfaction.

 

Walking to school the next day, convinced his name would be on a very select list, Alexander Brindley thought back to the last time he had fallen foul of Mr Duncan’s ill humour. It was three years ago but he had never forgotten it. He had only been at the school a few months and he and two of his class 1A friends took great delight in winding up a vague and pleasant and short sighted trainee teacher. This teacher, bearing the splendid name of David Digby-Bell, was singularly unsuited to the demands of imparting knowledge to thirty hyperactive eleven and twelve year olds. He may have had a brilliant brain, indeed he probably did, but his skills were more suited to the quiet backwaters of a laboratory rather than the wayward front line of a junior chemistry class. He became the butt of school boyish jokes and, sadly, had little idea of how to deflect them. A favoured past time of Alexander and his friends was to creep round the back of the chemistry laboratory after school and, as the trainee teacher sat quietly marking papers, shout ‘Ding Dong’ through a convenient open window.

 

Inevitably they were eventually caught, or at least the slowest member of the trio was. David Digby-Bell marched the young boy to Mr Duncan’s study and demanded that he be punished. The ‘Ding Dong’ pastime was clearly becoming irksome and retribution was overdue. Mr Duncan agreed and said that each of the three boys should be given two strokes of the cane across their backsides but, as the other two were unknown, the boy caught would have to take all six. Mr Digby-Bell considered this to be grossly unfair and urged the boy to name his companions. He refused to do so and, quietly impressed by such courage, Mr Duncan gave him twenty four hours to persuade his friends to come forward. And after much discussion, Alexander and his friends presented themselves in Mr Duncan’s study to share the six strokes of the cane initially allocated to the slowest member of the trio. But when they left Mr Duncan’s study five minutes later they were not rubbing their respective smarting bottoms. They were merely shaking their small heads in wonderment at the strange workings of adult minds. Mr Duncan had let them off. Yes he had issued the usual warnings that people in authority are prone to do, but the three trembling figures absorbed little of the detail. All they concentrated on was an allusion to manfully owning up and, in consequence, the small fact that the cane was not, on this occasion, to be actively employed. Three small boys, virgin bottoms all, collectively relaxed.

 

Alexander Brindley had almost forgotten that inadequate trainee teacher, known to all as ‘Ding Dong Bell’, but he had never forgotten that he was the cause of his one and only painful swishing from Mr Duncan. And walking to school on a day when he was convinced he was about to repeat the experience, all the long buried details came flooding back. The collective relief that he and his companions felt at not suffering a first taste of Mr Duncan’s feared cane was tempered by the obvious anger of the thwarted Mr Digby-Bell. He may have considered it grossly unfair for one of the boys to suffer all six strokes, but for all to be totally let off was beyond his comprehension. The methods of Mr Duncan were, in Mr Digby-Bell’s opinion, obscure to the point of absurdity. And the more he thought about the situation, the more his frustration grew. Those three boys should have been caned. As a trainee teacher he was helpless in such matters but, on a red letter day in the junior chemistry laboratory, he extracted his sleeping revenge. An elaborate experiment misfired and boys, being boys, took great delight in the ensuing chaos of an enveloping fire. The fire was hastily extinguished but the hapless trainee teacher lost control of thirty raucous and disruptive youngsters enamoured of both the chaos and the confusion. When the irate Mr Duncan was summoned to restore a semblance of order he demanded both collective calm and individual culprits. Mr Digby-Bell, shaken and stirred in equal proportions, gathered his remaining dignity and selected his sacrificial lambs. With barely a hesitation, an unfair finger was pointed in the direction of Alexander Brindley and his two friends. Long standing scores would, at last, be settled.

 

Alexander Brindley paused on his journey to school and sat on the wall of the local shop. The shop was a convenient break between home and school and he regularly indulged in its many delights. But on this fateful morning his fevered stomach was in need of no sustenance. He merely stopped to gather his thoughts and to play over in his imagination Mr Duncan’s sonorous listing of the boy’s who had fallen foul of a precise mathematical criterion. And if other names were vague and distant, the name of Alexander Brindley was always to the fore. And as he imagined himself making the slow and nervous journey to the school gym he remembered, in painful detail, that other journey taken by his younger self. When Mr Duncan beckoned the three to follow him young Alexander knew that protestations were futile. For the first time in his young life he was going to be caned and that fearful cane was going to be applied by the equally fearful Mr Duncan. Never did a journey to a teacher’s study seem so long. And sitting on the wall of his favourite shop he could remember it all. The background noise of other boys, in other classes, blissfully unaware of the impending drama. The benign and pleasant French teacher who, passing the silent group, spoke briefly to Mr Duncan and smiled gently at the three nervous boys. The school caretaker, mending a broken window, wishing Mr Duncan a gruff good morning and, as they passed, wondering why all were so silent.

 

Alexander Brindley could remember it all. And he could particularly remember arriving at Mr Duncan’s study and being told to enter whist his companions remained outside. And he remembered Mr Duncan opening a drawer and taking out an implement much talked about but, to Alexander, never seen. And Mr Duncan telling him to remove his jacket and lower his trousers and, when he had done so, to bend down and grasp his ankles. And, barely able to breathe, he had followed these instructions and waited. And he remembered crying copious tears long before any stroke had fallen. And he remembered Mr Duncan lifting his shirt up his small back and pushing him down so that his face almost touched his toes and his small bottom jutted out in preparation. And he remembered the slight adjustment to his underpants and a command to ‘hold tight’. And he remembered the excruciating pain as the first stroke of the cane lashed across his bottom. And that he screamed. And sitting on the shop wall, Alexander Brindley remembered all this and more. He had been given three strokes of Mr Duncan’s cane across his bottom. The pain remained with him for three days, the marks for considerably longer. The memory never left him. And now, three years on, he was convinced that he was to have a second, more deadly experience, of Mr Duncan’s scholastic wrath. How could he have been so stupid? With a heavy heart, he rose from the wall and continued his reluctant walk to school.

 

The mathematics lesson with Mr Duncan was scheduled for eleven thirty and a troubled Alexander had morning assembly and a ninety minute period of history to negotiate before his personal Armageddon. He was not the only one who was tense. A number of his class mates had equally concerned faces. All were remembering, with vivid clarity, the warning from the week before. The wait was intolerable. Alexander Brindley needed to share his personal grief and singled out one of the friends who, long ago, had touched his toes in the cause of a trainee teacher’s revenge. What he had to say gave no solace. Alexander Brindley’s anxiety reached new heights and, making his way to the history lesson he cursed his enquiry and digested the three salient points of their uncomfortable conversation. The friend had no reason to worry, he was on the exempt list. And Alexander had no reason to worry, he was a mathematics star. But those selected would do well to do some praying. Rumour had it that of the seven boys caned from 4B, three had got their eight strokes on their bare bums. The worst offenders were made to drop everything for Mr Duncan’s cane.

 

To say that the next two hours were the longest in young Master Brindley’s life would be a masterly understatement. His painful study of the hundred year’s war seemed almost as long as the event itself. If he entered the history lesson convinced that, by the end of the morning, he would be severely caned, he left it equally convinced that every one of those feared eight strokes would be on his bare backside. If only he could wind back the clock and redo that blighted mathematics paper. However much he had tried, his anguished mind could not get his homework mark above sixty. And that fell well short of his best and, more importantly, his normal school standard. Perversely he now fervently wished that those school marks which engendered such pride when announced, were now considerably less. If Alexander Brindley had been capable of a smile to cleave his inner turmoil, that thought was the moment when it would have surfaced. But he was not capable of any such homage to irony. As he made his way to Mr Duncan’s class he could only think of the fateful day when a small boy bent down for three strokes of a cane which, devastatingly, seared both his behind and his being. And the man who wielded that cane would shortly do it again. And this time, three years on, the strokes would be eight and the manner of their administration unthinkable.

 

Mr Duncan was not a completely cold and indifferent master. He was well aware that the class of 4A, all thirty of them, would be remembering his previous week’s warning and that concentration levels would be minimal. Besides this was the master who, three years ago, had temporarily reprieved three courageous and honourable boys. Mr Digby-Bell may consider him to be obscure to the point of absurdity but, coupling fairness with resolve, the mathematical Mr Duncan worked to his own precise agenda. And that agenda demanded that the fearful boys of 4A, fuelled with their imaginings from his dealings with the lesser mortals of 4B, be informed of their fate. He closed the register, noted the one absentee, and eyed his class. All were silently staring at him and none more so than the breathless and sweating Alexander Brindley. And as he stared and listened the inner anguish, matched by his many fellows, lurched from cold fear and dread to faint hope and blissful relief. As Mr Duncan droned on, five boys were named and told to report to the gym immediately. And in an instant of distilling emotions, Alexander Brindley headily realised that his name was not amongst them. Any sympathy he felt for the five was washed away in the inner joy of his own reprieve. He had escaped and the lesson would be gratefully learned. But as he sucked the air and closed his eyes in thankful prayer he almost missed a small but important fact. The saturnine Mr Duncan was grimly studying the list in his hand and, after a short pause, released the names of four other boys who were to report to the gym in half an hour. And the first name on that list, engendering a shaft of cold fear in its owner, was Brindley, Alexander. As he collapsed in his seat, fleeting joy instantly eclipsed, a pin could have dropped in heaven and all on that small piece of God’s earth would have heard it.

 

The thirty minutes following Mr Duncan’s announcement were the longest and most disjointed of Alexander’s young life. He was vaguely aware of the slight shuffling of feet as five subdued and traumatised boys rose and left the room. None looked back on their fellows. If they were surprised or shocked at their selection, they did not show it. Only one displayed outward signs of distress and a taller companion, condemned to a similar fate, gently touched his shoulder. As they left a young trainee teacher entered the room, no doubt to cover for a form teacher employed on a more serious mission, and delivered a superfluous command for silence. Well versed in the importance of the occasion his preening figure struck a slight comic note. Alexander Brindley was reminded of nothing more than the unlamented and inadequate Mr Digby-Bell. Trainee teachers had no place in such auspicious happenings. Those five boys, including the one who cried and the one who touched his shoulder, were on their way to a gym where they were to be bent over and receive eight strokes of Mr Duncan’s accurate and deadly cane to their most vulnerable parts. Those five bottoms would burn with unimaginable fire and the five owners would scream for forgiveness and relief. And Alexander Brindley and three other boys waited and wondered. Conscious of collective eyes constantly singling them out in inconsiderate curiosity, the four destined for the ‘second list’ imagined the worst. Four fevered minds convinced that within half an hour their worst fears were to be realised.

 

The minutes ticked by and Alexander Brindley desperately tried to concentrate on the task set by the self-important trainee teacher. That task was impossible. Every time there was a movement outside the schoolroom door his stomach turned in consternation. If that was not enough any attempts at the simple algebraic equations were destined to compete with his graphic imaginings. His exempted friend had seemed remarkably well informed on the dealings with class 4B and, knowing the orderly methods of Mr Duncan, Class 4A would be treated no differently. The five boys would have been taken to the gym changing room and ordered to change into specially provided P.E. kit of shorts and vest. Then, one by one, they would be called into the gym by the master charged with assisting and witnessing their punishment. Mr Duncan would be there and, minus his jacket, would issue a short lecture. But they would not hear it. They would be staring at the cane in his hand. And then they would walk to the back wall of the gym, a wall filled with wooden climbing rails, and grasp the bottom rail. A thick wooden rail, little more than six inches from the ground. It placed a boy in the perfect position for chastisement. Alexander had witnessed its use during the occasional P.E. lesson. A boy being slippered, in summary and arbitrary justice, painfully discovered this additional use of the gym’s climbing rail. And the first of the five would realise it worked just as well for a caning. Hold tight for there is nowhere to go, no escape for your jutting behind. And when each was dealt with they would be lined up in the gym, lectured again, and told to change and return to their class. No wonder it took so long. No wonder the boys on the second list had to sit through their additional torture. And when their turn came they would be given one additional instruction before grasping the bottom rail. Alexander Brindley shivered at this final thought and willed himself to address the third of the simple equations. He was half way through it when the schoolroom door opened and five subdued boys slowly returned to their class.

 

‘I am disappointed in you, Alexander.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘You scored 47% in your homework. Your school work in mathematics is 83%.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Homework 36% below standard.’ Mr Duncan paused. ‘The second worst in the class.’

‘Yes sir. I thought….’

‘You thought what?’

Alexander Brindley said nothing. He knew there was no point. No point in telling this stern disciplinarian that he, stupidly, thought a score of 20% would be enough to escape a caning. And that caning was now imminent. He had left the classroom with the other three boys on the second list a few minutes before. One of the first five, a ginger headed boy equally adept at maths, had rubbed his bottom and mouthed a silent ‘eight’ in his direction. Alexander could see the redness surrounding his eyes. The forced smile could not disguise the pain. He and the others left and slowly walked the long corridor to the gymnasium. No one spoke. The assistant master was standing outside the gym door and directed the boys into the changing room. In silence they changed into the sports kits handed out by this teacher. There was a hint of a smile on his face. Perhaps he knew that putting on the flimsy black shorts was superfluous, merely an attempt at initial dignity. Alexander Brindley had stripped and put on the equally flimsy white vest and, with undue haste, stepped into the shorts. The vest barely reached his waist and the shorts were disconcertingly baggy. In that moment he realised that they were not to remain around his person. If Mr Duncan intended to cane him across his shorts he would have ensured the issuing of a pair of a tighter fit. Dressed as instructed, and never looking at each other, the four made their way to the door of the gymnasium. The first boy was taken in and the other three stared impassively along the corridor. In other rooms, in other places, boys were learning of civil wars, intransitive verbs, and theories of relativity. But they had no mind for this. They were learning a boy’s oldest and most painful lesson. The silence stretched for at least five minutes and then they, collectively, heard the distant and familiar sound of a cane doing its work and a boy making the expected response. All in the silence stiffened and sweated. They strained every nerve in their bodies and listened. And counted. And after eight strokes the familiar sound ceased and only the sobbing of the beaten boy remained. And then, almost immediately, he came out and the second boy was summoned to take his place. The first boy rejoined the line and as the familiar sounds repeated he imparted the information that the two remaining boys both desired and feared. When Alexander Brindley, third in line, stepped into the gym, he knew exactly what was going to happen. His week of torment was about to reach its feared conclusion.

 

‘You thought what?’

Mr Duncan repeated his question.

‘Nothing sir. I have not paid enough attention to my homework. I am sorry.’

‘So am I Alexander. You are one of my brightest pupils. But you give me no choice. I set the rules, I can make no exceptions.’

‘No sir.’

‘No.’

Mr Duncan paused and then slowly delivered his instruction.

‘Go to the far wall and grasp the bottom rail. And before you do so remove your shorts.’

‘Sir?’

‘Take off your shorts.’

Alexander froze. The four words he had dreaded for the last week, the words which had tormented his mind were finally released. He mechanically repeated the instruction, plied out the words, one by one, as if to ensure that this momentous event was recorded for both participants.

‘Take off my shorts sir?’

‘You heard what I said Alexander. Take off your shorts. Your poor results warrant a bared bottom for your caning. So do as instructed and take the punishment you clearly deserve.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘You will be given eight strokes. And I can assure you they will hurt. So I suggest that you hold, very tightly, onto that rail.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And if you resist or get up I shall see you in my study tomorrow. Do you understand?’

Alexander Brindley decided that any further comment was unnecessary. Mr Duncan had made it very clear how he intended to administer this punishment and the consequences of any deviation from co-operation. He walked to the end of the room and, staring at the wooden rails, slowly lowered and removed his shorts. An inward shiver indicated his concern at the paucity of the flimsy vest. Barely reaching his waist it meant that all below was painfully exposed. The nakedness of his penis, brushed with the gentle hair of growing puberty, was nothing when compared with the acute realisation of the exposure of his bottom. A bottom only a few moments from the experience of excruciating pain. He bent down and grasped the bottom rail. He stretched out his arms as instructed and, simultaneously, stretched his legs. In the vulnerable position all was exposed and ready. If the freed and naked essence of a boy was the ultimate embarrassment, the upturned cheeks of his smooth behind were the greatest consternation. Alexander Brindley was acutely aware that the method applied left no room for comfort. His bare backside was presented in such a manner that only a fool would fail to cane it with efficiency. And Mr Duncan was no fool. When he laid the cane across Alexander’s jutting backside for the first of the eight strokes both knew that the one would lash with aplomb and the other would scream for forgiveness. The touch of that cold cane across his cheeks was accompanied by a second urging to hold tight and, briefly, Alexander remembered a younger boy who, three years before, was given the same instruction. Those three strokes, across his covered rear, had burned themselves into his mind and enhanced his latest turmoil.

 

And now a naked Alexander, from the waist down, was bent in submission to eight strokes of the same Mr Duncan’s cane. He gripped the wooden rails, stared at the shining parquet floor, and concentrated on the exposed part of his body about to suffer for the stupidity of his sins. This was the moment in his life he had most dreaded. The cane tapped his skin, readying itself for the first stroke. Alexander held his breath, screwed his eyes, and gripped the rails ever more tightly. And he, belatedly, clenched his small buttocks and prayed that the stroke, when it fell, would not hurt. And then he sensed the cane rise, heard the swoosh, and gasped in awe and desperation as it wrapped itself against his naked behind. For a moment he sensed nothing and then the burning fire hit him and a searing line of scholastic anger transmitted itself from his bottom to his brain. The pain begged for relief and it took all his strength to hold on to the wooden rails. His legs twitched, his small penis swung in sympathy, and his bottom writhed in agony. The first stroke of Mr Duncan’s cane had delivered all that Alexander Brindley most feared. He could not take seven more. But his mind said hold on, grip the rail, present the bottom, and with legs straddled absorb the worst that this master could do. And scream. Care not for what others think. If screaming and crying brought relief then indulge it. And Alexander Brindley did scream. As the seven remaining strokes fell across his behind, he wriggled, he squirmed, he begged for mercy he knew would not come, and he held tight on to that rail. Each unrelenting stroke of Mr Duncan’s cane delivered its message to the naked bottom, splendidly presented, of his brightest boy. The pale flesh registered each deserving stripe and the owner of the proud and trembling backside roared at their agonising arrival. The second stroke caught the bottom of his buttocks. The third and fourth, deliberately, wrapped themselves across the centre of his cheeks. The fifth hit unnecessarily high on the boy’s curves and the sixth mirrored the previous aim as it lashed into the crown of the arching presentation. Alexander Brindley may have been unaware of the subtleties but his Mr Duncan was an expert in the geography of a boy’s backside. The seventh and eighth strokes lashed across the centre of the writhing cheeks with consummate skill. And when the cane did its work for the final time, the wealed and disconsolate boy, bent and bare in humble submission, sobbingly contemplated the throbbing pain in his backside and the relief that its cause was ended. The lines of icy fire which had burnt his naked flesh had mercifully ceased. He could not rise but, bent over in that age old position, he could express a pitiful joy in the knowledge that his upturned bottom was to be spared further coruscating cuts. If Mr Duncan was admiring his handiwork Alexander was not aware, but it was a long two minutes before he was told to get up.

 

‘Put on your shorts Alexander. Your ordeal is over.’

Alexander Brindley rose and picked up the discarded baggy black shorts and hastily pulled them over his nakedness. He turned to his teacher, eyes reddened and watery, and gingerly rubbed at the stinging and throbbing pain which still emanated from his buttocks. His fingers traced the hard and sore ridges, easily defined through the flimsy shorts, and his short, uncontrollable, gentle sobs brought little relief. He had never suffered such a caning before and facing his tormentor was no easy task.

‘I am glad you took your punishment with fortitude, I would dislike having to repeat this experience.’

‘No sir.’

‘You are the one boy who I never expected to be on the list.’

‘No sir.’

‘Promise me Alexander that you will give me no future cause to cane you.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Because, if you do, I shall not hesitate.’

Mr Duncan paused with significant meaning.

‘I have no favourites, Alexander.’

‘No sir.’

‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Then you may go. Send the last boy in.’

‘Yes sir.’

And still rubbing his smarting backside and wiping his tears, Alexander Brindley turned his back on Mr Duncan and slowly left the gym. He was made to wait with the other caned boys until the last miscreant was dealt with. He heard little of it. Before his own caning he had concentrated his mind on all that took place behind the closed doors. But as the last boy paid his painful debts, Alexander was aware of nothing other than the tormenting throb which encapsulated every inch of his ravaged bottom. Each one of those eight strokes of Mr Duncan’s cane continued to wreak their individual revenge on the small and springy flesh of his backside. A poor and tender backside he was convinced would never heal. And the throbbing discomfort continued throughout the collective lecture that Mr Duncan delivered when all were finished. The fire still raged as he went back to the changing room to gather his school clothes. He gasped at the weals and lines displayed on the other boy’s bottoms and they, equally, gasped at the sight of his. And still the fiery throbbing raged. And when he returned to the classroom, sitting down to a gentle consolatory touch from a spared classmate, he winced in his sore discomfort. The momentous mathematics lesson dragged on for a further half an hour and each moment was filled with the pain of Mr Duncan’s cane. When Alexander Brindley rose for a welcome lunch break, the blessed relief of numbness in his rear had still not arrived. He gingerly rearranged the uncomfortable proximity of his underpants and, still red-eyed, left the class for a long and much desired lonely walk.

 

Alexander took many such walks over the next few weeks. Initially engendered by a desire to avoid his fellows he found such walks brought a quiet comfort. The caning of the indolent cream of 4A, Mr Duncan’s clear intention, caused ripples far beyond any stirred by the trial run on class 4B. Alexander had no wish to share his experience. By Mr Duncan’s criterion he deserved what he got and his quiet resolve was to ensure no repeat ever occurred. And the pain soon faded. Within a couple of days the only serious reminder of his unpleasant meeting with Mr Duncan’s cane was the eight distinct lines across his backside. And if they were a painful and personal signature, they unsurprisingly provided a boyish fascination. Mindful of those changing room gasps as he uncovered his throbbing bottom, Alexander had been strangely eager to see the results. In the privacy of his mother’s bedroom, curtains discreetly drawn, he lowered his trouser and underpants and turned his naked rear to her dressing table mirror. The reflecting triptych allowed no comforting illusion.  Seeing the eight rigid lines that searingly marked his flesh brought a painful recollection of their recent cause. Those marks, initially blazing their purplish hue, gradually faded to a speckled yellow and within three weeks were virtually spent. Only the knowledgeable or the keen sighted would, in the school showers, detect the faint traces of his mathematical come-uppance. But by the time that day arrived, the boy’s familiarity with his bottom and his painful penance was embedded in his mind.

 

 And on his many walks he constantly mused on the enduring inflictions of a cane in full flight. And on one such walk, long after the day when he bent to grasp a wooden rail, he met two men walking towards him. Two men taking an equally welcome lunchtime stroll. And Alexander Brindley suffered a double anxiety. For one of those men was the often seen, but much avoided, Mr Duncan and the other, resplendent in long grey coat and colourful scarf, was Mr David Digby-Bell. Mr Duncan smiled and Alexander nodded a silent and respectful acknowledgement and hastily walked on. As he passed, the younger man turned to Mr Duncan and issued an inaudible question. Alexander didn’t hear it but he could guess what it was from the loud response. As they disappeared into the distant he heard a distinct ‘Ding-dong’ and, after a moment, the sounds of two grown men laughing loudly. Clearly the sins of boys caused much amusement. Alexander took an aimless kick at a dirt covered plastic bottle and made his way back to school. The next lesson was double mathematics, a fairly easy ride for such a star pupil. Except for exams, these days Alexander Brindley took considerable care to ensure that his schoolwork never reached their previous dizzy heights. Mr Duncan’s painfully applied marking system was unlikely to be repeated. But you never knew. Alexander Brindley was taking no chances. Reflecting on this small flaw in the master’s methods he joined in the distant laughter and took a second, exultant, kick at the long discarded bottle. He would not be caned again.

 

 

Alfred Roy (2006)