“We got to make a fire, Boxer, and we got to keep this a secret.”
They made their fire, dried themselves, and kept their secret. Very occasionally Boxer would refer to it, looking sideways at his twin as he did so:
“Remember the pond, Berni?” And Bernard would reply: “Shut up about it, Boxer.” His own reaction to the few moments of drama, and its immediate aftermath, was something he was not even prepared to share with Boxer; and even had he wished he would have found it impossible, then or later, to put into everyday speech the curious sense of responsibility towards his twin that had been born during those few terrible moments, when Boxer's weight was dragging him down into the depths of the pond. For this, in a strange and final way, became Bernard's dream—to watch over Boxer, to look out for Boxer, to make sure Boxer survived by every means, by any means. Nothing else was of the smallest importance.
2
When the twins were nine they left the local kindergarten and crossed the Lower Road to attend Havelock Park Elementary School.
Havelock Park was a dull, red-brick Council School that stood, like a vast public convenience in about an acre of asphalted yard. The playground was surrounded by gaol-like railings.
It was a joyless place, with high-ceilinged classrooms (“septic tanks” one L.C.C. Inspector called them), each housing some sixty boys, and partitioned off from a central hall as vast, and as chilly, as a French cathedral.
The school served a tough neighbourhood, one of the outer ring of suburbs, where many of the houses were well on the way to becoming new slums. The overworked staff, faced with the hopeless task of teaching sixty children apiece, and keeping out of the way of a tyrannical headmaster, were a shambling, dispirited lot, who lived on only in the hope of drawing a pension.
Mr. Adam Little was one of those headmasters who had chosen headmastering as a profession because of the unrivalled opportunities it afforded him of getting his own back on healthy humanity. All his life he had been a chronic suffer from dyspepsia, and now that he was nearing retiring age he was constantly attacked by severe stomach cramps, that caught him mostly at night, and left his abdomen tender to the slightest pressure.
To guard against this tenderness he had developed a curious manner of walking, his body bent slightly forward, and his left arm crooked horizontally across his stomach, as though to ward off the agony that would result from a possible collision.
As he grew older, and the cramps became more frequent, Mr. Little changed from a sour nag into an active bully, and ultimately into the sort of man who, a few years later, would have qualified for a gas-chamber post under Heinrich Himmler.
Every day he had to have human sacrifices, boys or colleagues, either or both would do, and when victims did not present themselves he went out to look for them, or sat in his study framing new and complicated school rules that would be certain to snare one group or the other.
Boys and staff, particularly female staff, lived in terror of his sudden appearance, and one and all prayed nightly that he might be taken from them, by L.C.C. whim, by illness, by forced retirement, or by swift and bloody death, they cared not which.
Under the sway of Mr. Little, Havelock Park School became a latter-day Dotheboys Hall. The headmaster spent several hours of his working day prowling along the corridors, and taking sly peeps through the glass partitions and wainscot chinks. When he saw, or fancied he saw, an undetected misdemeanour within, he would spring into the room, haul the culprit on to the teacher's dais, and proceed to thrash him unmercifully with a short cane that he carried in his trouser leg, like a concealed swordstick.
This erratic behaviour on the part of a headmaster, who should have been safely insulated in his study at that hour of the day, enraged the pupils and terrified the staff, who were usually called to account for their poor supervision as soon as the punishment was over.
At the time Boxer and Berni joined Havelock Park School a stream of prayer was ascending from the district, beseeching the Almighty to put an end to the tyranny, and the news that Mr. Little had been pulped under a No. 93 'bus in the Lower Road would have resulted in genuine mafficking on the part of his boys and colleagues. Even Mrs. Little would have been consoled by the fact that now, at last, she would be relieved of her special cooking, and be able to enjoy an unbroken night's rest.
At length God answered their prayers, and His agents in the matter were none other than the Carver twins, who earned thereby a reputation in the district second only to Jack Cornwall, the boy hero of Jutland, whose gun could be seen any fine Saturday at the Crystal Palace War Exhibition.
During the ten-minute morning break at Havelock Park, hundreds of Head-haters were turned loose in the vast playground, and encouraged to stretch their little limbs, and air their little lungs, in the anticipation of another hour's spell in stuffy, overcrowded classrooms. They took full advantage of the interval. The scene in the playground at ten minutes to eleven each morning resembled an Asiatic revolution, and the din that rose from the enclosure could often be heard as far away as the Lower Road tramway depot.
For ten glorious minutes the boys fought and rolled, kicked and cavorted, without the smallest hindrance, whilst Mr. Little sat, as though carved in stone, in the porch of the main entrance, a gold watch in one hand, and a small, silver whistle in the other.
On the stroke of eleven he would raise his whistle to his mouth, and blow three short, piercing blasts. This was the signal for the entire school to cease fighting, rolling, kicking, and cavorting, to cease, in fact, all movement whatever, even eye-rolling, on the very second that the first, shrill blast cut across the uproar.
The effect of this signal was very curious to behold. Housewives in their front bedroom, opposite the area railings, often paused in their window-cleaning to watch, for it was like nothing so much as the sudden shutting down of a boiler factory, staffed by midget maniacs. One moment there was nothing but sound, and frantic movement; the next, there was silence, and utter stillness. For anyone to move a finger was to earn a sound thrashing on the spot.
At the close of break on the historic morning, Bernard and Boxer were in the throes of ten-sided game of hi-cocko-lorum, played against the railings, and the twins' team was jumping when the whistle sounded.
Boxer had taken off about three seconds before Mr. Little's whistle touched his lips, and when the blast reached the railings he had just landed, a clear four backs from the point of take-off.
The boy on whom he landed collapsed under the impact, and fell forward on his knees, where, having heard the whistle, he remained like a small Mohammedan in prayer. Boxer rolled sideways, and then he too lay quite still, for this instantaneous transition from violent action to immobility tickled his humour, and Mr. Little's whistle always produced one of his harsh, inward chuckles.
Unfortunately for Boxer, Mr. Little's eye happened to be focused directly upon this group and it seemed to the headmaster that Boxer had not only flagrantly disobeyed his edict, by moving after the whistle, but was now actually laughing at him.
With a little grunt of fury, he jumped up, ploughed through the grotesquely frozen groups between his seat and the railings, dragged the grinning Boxer to his feet, and cuffed him across the side of the head with a vigour that sent Boxer staggering against the railings. Boxer immediately covered up, and this gave Mr. Little an opportunity to draw his cane. Whipping it from his trouser-leg he raised it above his shoulder and aimed a heavy cut at Boxer's knuckles.
The blow never fell. In a flash the cane was seized from behind, wrenched from the headmaster's grasp, and flung high over the railings into Cawnpore Road.
A long drawn-out gasp greeted this astounding action.
All over the yard the frozen groups relaxed. Raised arms were lowered, outstretched legs were slowly set down, and almost imperceptibly, boys began to converge on the group against the railings. With strained faces, and wildly beating hearts, the cowed five hundred waited breathlessly to see what would happen next.
Nothing did happen immediately. When Mr. Little discovered that he no longer held the cane it crossed his mind that the stick must have caught in something—he could not imagine what—as he raised it above his head. Instinctively he turned to see what inanimate object had cheated him of the first blow. It never occurred to him that the cane had been torn from his hand by a human being. He had been a schoolmaster nearly forty years, and during that period he must have raised his cane a hundred thousand times without anything like this happening. When he swung round, and met Bernard's unblinking stare, he still did not connect the boy standing there with the loss of the cane, and addressed him simply because he realised that this boy must have been the nearest eyewitness to the improbable occurrence.
“What... what happened to my cane?” he demanded, and as he shaped the words something in the boy's sullen expression gave him an inking of the incredible truth.
Bernard's gaze did not waver. “You can't do that,” he said levelly. “Boxer wasn't moving. He stopped, soon as the whistle blew, soon as he could!”
Mr. Little stood stock still. There was a faint roaring sound in his ears, and the close-packed ranks of the boys swam a little before his eyes. It was an old, familiar warning. He was due for a cramp at any moment, but he mastered himself with great effort, pressing his left hand hard against the taut muscles of his stomach.
“You ... you snatched it!” he gibbered, “you ... you snatched it from me?”
“He wasn't moving, he stopped when the whistle blew,” repeated Bernard, doggedly.
Boxer had now straightened up, and was massaging his crimson ear.
“I wasn't, neither,” he corroborated flatly.
A strangled, inarticulate sound issued from Mr. Little's moist lips. It sounded vaguely like the word “snatch”, but it might have been anything.
Suddenly, unexpected corroboration came from another source. The small boy whom Boxer had flattened decided to defend his own honour, and deny in advance any possible claim of “weak horses”, a claim that would have undoubtedly been made by Boxer's team, had the whistle not sounded when it did.
“He fell off,” said the small boy, adding grudgingly, “but he stopped falling, soon as the whistle blew, I sore it!”
For a moment it seemed to those watching that Mr. Little was considering the scientific aspect of this remarkable assertion, that he was, in effect, trying very hard to picture to himself a boy's body defying the laws of gravity in a praiseworthy attempt to obey his headmaster's injunction to the very letter.
Then two things happened simultaneously. Mr. Little's first spasm doubled him up like a jack-knife, and the ranks surrounding the group suddenly found courage in their numbers and anonymity.
They began to groan and hiss, first a few, well away at the back, and then all of them, even those standing directly under Mr. Little's eye.
The sound of their own voices encouraged them. In a moment the groans became shouts and catcalls; then they stopped hissing, and began to laugh, and thump one another, to hop about exultantly, point directly at the gasping figure of Mr. Little in their midst, and vie with one another in the violence of the personal abuse they hurled at him.
Then, as the first wave of pain receded, and Mr. Little half-straightened himself, a tall boy, known as Lofty Gibson, recognised as one of the more daring spirits, sang out:
“Shorty's got the belly-ache! Shorty's got the belly-ache!”, and the cry was immediately taken up on all sides, until every boy in the enclosure was hopping up and down to the rhythm of “Shorty's got the belly-ache!”, shouted at the top of his voice.
For a period of about five minutes the entire school drank deeply of the wine of revolution. It was very intoxicating, and they savoured every sip. For all who were present it was to prove the high spot of their stay at Havelock Park School, and those that took part never forgot the incident. Years afterwards, when one Havelock Road old boy of this cadre encountered another he would always say: “Remember the revolution?” It became a kind of pass-word among them, and those who were too old or too young to have witnessed it regarded it as having established an epoch in the history of the school, so that Havelock Road events were always labelled “Before the Revolution”, and “After the Revolution”.
Yet it all ended rather lamely.
From the staff-room window, Mr. Porless, the second master, and deputy Head during Mr. Little's periodical spells of absence, put through a panic telephone call to one of the regular inspectors, with whom he had recently had a guarded conversation on the subject of Mr. Little's fitness to command. The inspector, who lived in the Lower Road, owned a motor-cycle, and arrived on the spot within ten minutes of the outbreak. He was an ex-regular officer in the Buffs, and his experienced eye took in the scene the moment he had parked his machine against the railings. The boys nearest the road ceased to chant as soon as the inspector appeared, and when he climbed upon the brick base of the iron gates, and roared “Shut up!”, in a voice that had terrified recruits in a dozen base camps, and on hill-station parade-grounds, the chanting ceased altogether and there was a general scuttle for the classrooms. In less than a minute the yard was empty of everyone except Mr. Little, the inspector, and the twins, with a breathless Mr. Porless peeping from the main door.
Bernard stood his ground, his cool brain already grappling with the various repercussions he might expect, and Boxer remained because Bernard had given him no alternative lead. The inspector was an observant man, and noticed that the boy against the railings had a crimson ear. He looked from the ear to Mr. Little, now struggling with his third cramp.
“How did this idiotic business begin?” he demanded, and when Mr. Little seemed incapable of answering, he turned towards the fair-haired boy, who was still standing stiffly to attention, immediately behind the headmaster.
“He was bashing my brother for moving,” said Bernard, in a curiously flat tone. “He never did move. He stopped, soon as the whistle blew!”
“That's right, sir,” said Boxer; “then they all started shouting!”
At last Mr. Little found his voice. He straightened himself and began to speak in a gobbling, high-pitched voice: “He snatched the cane ... he snatched it ...” but the inspector now turned to Mr. Porless, who had at last nerved himself to leave the safety of the buildings.
“Did you see it begin, Mr. Porless?” he asked briefly.
Mr. Porless was perspiring freely. He looked even less in command of himself than the headmaster.
“Well, no, sir ... not exactly ... they ... they ... suddenly seemed to ... er ... get out of hand. I thought I'd better ring ... there was nobody else.”
“You did perfectly right,” said the inspector crisply. “We'd better all go to the study, and someone had better make arrangement to get Mr. Little home immediately.”
He turned to Bernard, as Mr. Porless gingerly took hold of his chief's arm.
“I shall want you two. You'd better come along with me now.”
“Yes, sir,” said Bernard mildly. “Come on, Boxer.”
Five hundred pairs of eyes watched the little procession trail across the playground, and disappear through the main door.
“Lumme!” said Lofty Gibson, climbing down from his observation post on the radiator of Standard Six, “It'll be bloody Borstal for them two, you see if it ain't!”
There was no reaction to this prophecy among Standard Six. Now that they were back in the classrooms, individualised by their desks, stripped of the security they had enjoyed when they were pressed closely against one another in the tumultuous circle about the groaning headmaster, they felt naked and defenceless. Hysterical elation had ebbed from all but Lofty Gibson, and would ebb from him after a few minutes' reflection.
They looked at one another and giggled nervously. Mr. Porless waddled in and rapped his ruler on the desk.
3
It was fortunate for the twins that Mr. Goreham, the ex-officer Schools Inspector, had had his eye on Havelock Road for some time past.
Having disposed of the incoherent Mr. Little, who was ultimately taken home by ambulance, and having on his own resonsibility installed Mr. Porless as deputy Head until further notice, he set about seeking corroboration of Bernard Carver's laconic account of the mutiny.
A conscientious and thoughtful man, he was tremendously impressed by Bernard's manner. The child showed no sense of contrition, or anxiety over reprisals, but simply reiterated his story without the slightest attempt to elaborate. Boxer had not moved. Boxer had been unjustly set upon. He, Bernard, had checked a renewed assault by quietly relieving Mr. Little of his cane, and throwing it into Cawnpore Road, where it was subsequently retrieved by the householder of Number Seventeen.
All Mr. Goreham could extract from Boxer was three words: “That's right, sir!” and these he repeated as often as Bernard repeated his modest outline of events.
Soon there was not the slightest doubt in Mr. Goreham's mind that the twins were speaking the plain truth, and his heart warmed towards them. Like the women of the Avenue, he was touched, deep down, by their mutual devotion, and it seemed to him that if he could confirm their story he might improve upon the occasion by disposing of Mr. Little once and for all.
This proved a good deal easier than he anticipated.
The housewife who returned the cane provided further corroboration, and so, with a little judicious prompting, did two of the oppressed female staff. Their statements opened the door to further investigations, and finally Mr. Porless was prevailed upon to put on paper a factual report of Mr. Little's behaviour during the past twelve months.
There was a certain limit, it seemed, to the powers that headmasters of Council Schools could exercise, and it was now very clear to the authorities that Mr. Little had exceeded that limit on numerous occasions. Mr. Porless was promoted, Mr. Little was promptly retired on grounds of ill-health; the changes were carried out with a minimum of fuss and, to Mr. Goreham's soldierly relief, without a whisper of newspaper publicity. He, in fact, was warmly congratulated by his superiors on the efficiency and dispatch he had exhibited in handling the affair; and with this commendation the incident was officially closed.
The Dreaming Suburb Page 8