Scoundrels

by Victor Cornwall

  Then, of all things, he began to sing to the bullock, in a surprisingly beautiful alto. From my limited German I could make out that it was something about the mountains making no judgments, and being together again where the brave snow and the swaying pines meet the endless sky. Whether Gruber’s Wiegenlied für ein Stier was a traditional song or his own composition remains unclear. Whatever the case, I was quite affected by the rendition and remember humming this tune half a century later in the Houses of Parliament, during a very trying day.

  Listening to this alpine love song made my heart soar. I saw that this poor mountain boy had shipped his childhood pet all the way from the Austrian Alps to Hampshire. This bull was the only true friend he had in the world. We knew that Gruber’s parents had been wrenched from him, and by that I mean both metaphorically wrenched from his heart, and also physically wrenched by poorly weighted climbing ropes into a frozen waterfall. Even now I can empathise with Hansclapp, as being left by the ones you love is rather sick-making, although it was not the cold that took my parents from me but intense heat.

  I said a silent prayer for this tender boy and his bovine friend. I stepped back a couple of paces, eager to let him calmly commune with his baby bull, and steel himself for another day of pitiless boarding school life. I had decided to silently depart and leave this lonesome fellow to find his own peace. I knew Cornwall would agree that it was the right thing to do.

  “Why are you singing to a bull Hansclapp, you softie?” shouted Cornwall incredulously. Hansclapp turned, his face bright red, as he realised he’d been followed.

  Cornwall starting laughing then picked up a fistful of cowpat and flung it in Gruber’s direction. It absolutely covered him and the little bull he’d been grooming. Everything sort of went downhill from there.

  Hermanus lurched up on his wobbly legs, his watery eyes wide with shock. He let out a strangulated bellow as he looked for a way to escape the stall. His spindly hoof caught his master in the temple, and Gruber went down like a sack of coal. Hermanus bolted for the stall’s entrance, barging us out of the way.“Nein! No! Noooo! NOOO!” cried the semi-conscious Gruber as he saw Hermanus escaping. I turned to see the bullock lurching into the herd of Friesians. But they closed ranks. Hermanus was suddenly surrounded by eighty mighty ladies, their teats bursting and their estrus levels at the absolute max. These ladies needed a man, and now they’d found one.

  “Zey will destroy him! Help him! Help Hermanus,” called the struggling boy, and then he turned and vomited onto the straw, blood dripping from the cut in his temple.

  I dashed out of the stall, thinking that I might be able to somehow scare the cows and lead the little bull to safety. No such luck. The first of the heifers was already waggling her colossal rump seductively at Hermanus. The other Friesians closed in on him, muscling him toward her. Unsure what was expected of him, he made a bolt for it but he was trapped in a bovine sex prison from which there was no escape.

  Hermanus was jostled right onto the first cow. To his credit, he made a pretty good go of it with her. Bulls go through puberty at seven or eight months of age, so he was physically capable, he just needed a bit of direction. After a few moments, she bellowed happily, and lumbered off, to be immediately replaced by another horny madame.

  “Bloody hell Cornwall,” I said. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  “We already have.”

  Gruber staggered to his feet, using Cornwall as a support. “They will kill him, they will destroy my little Hermanus. You must help him, he is all I have in the world.”

  “He’ll be OK, won’t he?” said Cornwall.“Look!” I did look, and saw the heaving throng of horny cows, squabbling with each other for a place in the love queue. Hermanus was now hammering away at his third or fourth heifer. He showed no signs of stopping, but the odds were against him. The latest cow was covered. She gave a shiver of satisfaction, shrugged Hermanus off, and another took its place. And another. And then another. But after servicing fifteen ladies, Hermanus began to look decidedly uncomfortable.

  Gruber, Cornwall and I made a couple of attempts to push our way through the barn, but the heifers closed ranks again and again, sensing we were trying to take their man away. Repeatedly the three of us were barged and butted back into Hermanus’ stall.

  “Maybe the farmer will come,” I suggested, brightly.

  “Not for another two hours. Hermanus will never survive. He is but a boy,” weeped an anguished Gruber.

  The next two hours were worse than double Latin. Gruber stood in the threshold between his baby bull’s cell and the main barn, and watched as his little friend shagged himself to an agonising death. By quarter past seven, he had serviced seventy-five heifers, and some of the cows were lining up for a second helping. Whenever the little bull flagged, the cows would urge him on, kicking him into further action, or ramming the seat of his buttocks with their short horns, demanding he keep at it. Hermanus’ eyes started to roll back in his head, and he bellowed with discomfort.

  Gruber made a couple of mad charges to get to Hermanus, but the cows were merciless. He turned and screamed at us that we were responsible. Tiny flecks of spittle flew from his furious mouth, as he cursed us in German, English and some phlegmy Tyrolean dialect. “If he dies, I will hold you responsible, and I will never forget what you have done.”

  As if on cue, Hermanus the bull slid out the back of a heifer, and collapsed on the urine-soaked floor of the barn. He’d lost perhaps half of his bodyweight and looked like the empty cover of a leather sofa. One of the ladies kicked him a couple of times. There was no response. Immediately, the herd lost interest in him and ambled over to the water troughs. Gruber raced to his pet’s side.

  Poor old Hermanus had covered all eighty heifers, and another six got two helpings. Surely that was some kind of record. I told Gruber he should be proud of his bull, and what a fantastic story it would make for the boys in the dorm. The look he gave me was murderous and if he hadn’t been tending Hermanus’s deathbed, I think he would have done for me then and there. Instead, he just wept.

  Later, the farmer arrived. He examined Hermanus, took off his cap and shook his head. There was nothing to be done.

  Together we lugged the body of the dead bull out into the open field. Gruber stripped to his waist in the cold autumn air and started digging a grave in the sodden Hampshire earth with his bare hands, cursing Cornwall and me over and over again. I grabbed a spade and tried to help him, but he pushed me away with a terrible strength as grief wracked his tiny frame.

  Cornwall and I walked back to the school in ruminative silence. As we entered our dorm I said, “You know I can’t help feeling we’ve made an enemy there.”

  “I’m sure he’ll get over it,” said Cornwall, “in fact he’ll have probably forgotten about it by tomorrow.” Not for the last time, Cornwall had spectacularly misread the situation.

  I trust you agree with this tragic account Major. It was the first time we crossed swords with this uniquely unpleasant individual.

  I have several regrets in my life, including the game of sardines that did for my Ma and Pa, losing my darling daughter Anais, and talking my way into the mission to infiltrate the Stasi Christmas Party in 1962. Presiding over the death of Hermanus the bull is definitely on the same list.

  Yours sincerely,

  Major St. John Trevelyan

  Hellcat Manor

  Great Trundleford

  Devon

  20th September 2016

  Dear Major,

  Ah yes, the list of regrets. One tends to accumulate a few by our age. I have my own of course, although nothing as damaging as burning my parents to death during a game of hide and seek. It explains your melancholic mood each Guy Fawkes night.

  I see you’re laying the blame of the bull’s death squarely on me. I won’t contest it but I believe it’s inconsequential compared to t
he grievances we later served on Hansclapp. In hindsight it should have been obvious that we’d made an enemy of him, but we were callow youths in those days. The irony is that without him we might never have become Scoundrels.

  Can you remember how it happened?

  __________

  CHAPTER 5

  Snatch The Gander

  Winstowe College, 1938

  After the death of the little bull, life at Winstowe continued as normal. Trevelyan and I were pulled in front of our housemaster, Dr Blaise, for an explanation. He made us talk him through the incident several times before conceding that it wasn’t our fault. “A bull is a highly sexual animal,” he said walking to the window. “Your only crime was your ignorance in the sexual dynamics of cattle.” Dr Blaise asked us to describe what happened a few more times in detail and then removed his tie, complaining about the rising temperature of the room. We stood in silence while he absent-mindedly rearranged a couple of items on his desk. He seemed a little down.

  “They were just lining up, were they, the heifers?”

  “Yes sir.”

  He swivelled on his chair away from us for a second and bit down hard on his fist. Then he composed himself and turned back towards us. “Had you have seen me before you decided on this childish prank I could have told you that the young bull would have thrust and thrust until he could thrust no more. They are so incredibly…” his voice trailed off before he found the word, “…virile.”

  Dr Blaise concluded that Hermanus’s death was regrettable but self-inflicted, a kind of suicidal sex act. He looked wistful as he lamented that at least the young bull had gone out in a blaze of glory, doing what he loved best.

  Hansclapp didn’t see it that way. He put the blame entirely on us. We’d never been the best of pals but now he stopped speaking to us altogether. Over the following weeks I’d catch him out of the corner of my eye, staring at me menacingly from afar. But after a few months this stopped and I forgot about him, for a while.

  Life went on as normal until the June of my final year, when I was called back into the Housemaster’s office a few weeks before the annual game of Snatch The Gander. To my surprise, Trevelyan and Hansclapp were already there, standing by Dr Blaise’s desk. “Explain yourself Cornwall. I hear you’re also not competing in Snatch the Gander this year – why?”

  “I’m not really interested in going on a wild goose chase sir,” I quipped. He gave me a withering look.“I don’t really care what you’re interested in. You’re a fit and able boy. You’re doing it. Don’t you realise your whole school career leads up to this moment?”

  I tried to think up some excuses. I’d actually planned on helping Mrs Morningdew unblock her drains, but I knew that wasn’t going to cut it with Blaise.

  “I do have a calf strain sir – I pulled it yesterday running to the tuck shop. It’s a damn bugger sir, if you’ll pardon my French.”

  “Pathetic excuse Cornwall, try again. Anyway Pemberton is doing it and he’s in a wheelchair.”

  “I don’t really have the time sir. I’m cramming like crazy.”

  Blaise looked disappointed at this. “Exams can wait Cornwall.” He walked across the room and pulled a large photo album off the shelf. He opened it and faced it towards me. “May I remind you, that the name Cornwall has become synonymous with Snatch the Gander,” he said pointedly.

  There in the album was an old black and white image of my great-grandfather holding a goose above his head triumphantly. He was smiling, but he was missing his two front teeth and there was blood all over his shirt. “Your family name is engraved on that plaque more times than any other, Cornwall. You have a responsibility to compete. Besides, it’s compulsory. The only other people who aren’t already on a team are Trevelyan and Hansclapp.”

  Trevelyan tried to protest but Dr Blaise shut him down. “I’m speaking boy. Now, that’s settled. I seem to remember you three having a little falling out a while ago. This is the perfect thing to get you all talking again.”

  “But sir– ”

  “Quiet! My mind is made up. You’re in – whether you like it or not.”And that was that. The word of our housemaster was final. We would be competing in this year’s Snatch The Gander. He pointed to each of us in turn.“Cornwall: Hodger! Hansclapp: Snatcher! Trevelyan: Dunce!”

  I looked across at a deflated Trevelyan. “I hope you’ve got a good gumshield.” I said.

  __________

  Most of the top English public schools have a traditional game, unique to them. Snatch The Gander was Winstowe’s version. It was a cross between rugby, pankration, Gaelic football, medieval war and poaching.

  The game is played exclusively by boys in their final year in teams of three, with up to ninety players per game. The basic idea is to snatch a goose from the river Fitchin and carry it three miles back to the school cookhouse. The first team to get the goose in the oven has won the game. Winners have their names engraved on a plaque above the dining room door and a dinner hosted in their name. It sounds simple but the devil is in the detail.

  There are three boys per team each with their own specialist role, the Hodger, the Snatcher, and the Dunce.

  The Hodger’s job is to protect the Snatcher. He carries a wooden cudgel and is allowed to hit anyone from another team who gets too close. He can use as much force as he wishes and is the most dangerous team member.

  The Snatcher’s job is to grab the goose. This is the most difficult job. Grabbing a goose from the river can be tiring, wet work, and therefore he may choose to conserve his energy and attempt to steal one from another team. The Snatcher is the only member of the team who is allowed to actually touch the goose. If any other member touches the goose they are labelled a Duffer and disqualified.

  The Dunce’s role is to protect the Snatcher. He carries no weapon and is not allowed to hit back, but he can block with his body. As such the Dunce’s job is to put themselves in harm’s way between the opposing team’s Hodger and his own team’s Snatcher. In any game of Snatch the Gander, the Dunce takes the biggest beating, and according to King William IV, who famously turned out to watch a game when he should have been opening Parliament, ‘Only a dunce would accept the role’. Famous Dunces have included Sir Issac Newton and Cecil B. DeMille.

  All team members compete barefoot in their pyjamas.

  __________

  Trevelyan, Hansclapp and I were now a team and that meant working together. At first it was a little awkward, but we soon forgot about the bull incident and concentrated on our game plan. Snatch the Gander was brutal. Once it started, it immediately became a battle for survival so we needed to be swift and direct. The winning team was invariably the one that had taken the fewest hits so we trained for hours, going through defensive and offensive drills with my cudgel, running the various routes and planning every last detail with military precision.

  All cudgels were fashioned from the ancient Murmur tree, an Australian Bull Oak on the edge of the school grounds. The Bull Oak produces the hardest wood in the world, making the cudgels not only lethal, but almost eternal. Some grand families have cudgels that have been kept by the school for generations. I was given Pitiless Black, cut from the Murmur by my ancestor, and over two hundred years old. It could crack your cranium like an eggshell. It was technically a murder weapon because in 1728 the young Bastian Cornwall had allegedly killed a Dunce, in the days before murder was ruled ungentlemanly conduct. I noticed Trevelyan was paying particular attention to it. As our Dunce he knew he’d be feeling the sickening thwack of something similar during the game. So together we devised a system of sign language that would allow him to communicate once his mouth had been stoved in. We really did think of everything.

  We continued our preparations, but as the game drew nearer Hansclapp’s influence grew. He’d call meetings out of the blue to make changes to our tactics. He’d produce maps of the local
landscape with potential ambush locations and hiding places. He even conducted a waterfowl river survey to plot the nesting and gathering places of the geese. It all seemed harmless at first, but as his influence grew it became unsettling. He was taking over.

  And then one day he told us he had a new plan. A plan that would guarantee we won. It was a plan to cheat.

  __________

  Snatch The Gander takes place once a year on the Summer Solstice. At precisely quarter to twelve the Chaplain marches from the college chapel to the Sick House where he bangs the door with his fist and utters the verse:

  Come boys! Come! For I is sick,

  I needs a Gander, quick, quick, quick!

  The Chaplain then continues his walk to the War Cloisters where he is met by the Headmaster, who slaps him once across the face, commanding him:

  Back to Church, Chaplain. You will be a-fed,

  The boys are a-coming, before you’re a-dead.

  The origin of this was unclear, but it was part of a tradition we had no right to change. Meanwhile the boys competing in the game have gathered around the giant black granite obelisk that lies in the shadow of the old Murmur tree.

  The Hodgers then face each other and begin striking their cudgels together in a fascinating initial skirmish known as Bully-Off. This continues until the obelisk casts a noon shadow, marking the start of the game. At that point the teams are allowed to break away and go looking for the goose, but often the Hodgers will just have it out there and then, destroying opposing team members before they can get going.

  Tactics have varied over the years. In the early eighteen-hundreds, when the vegetation was thicker around the grounds, some teams would hide within easy reach of the school, and attempt to steal another team’s goose as they came in for their home run. In latter years, physical fitness has played a bigger role, and today the game is a more straightforward grab and dash. The current school record is twenty-three minutes and forty-one seconds and it hasn’t been broken for over seventy years.