‘Not exactly—in summer, anyhow.’ Stalky’s eye roved contentedly to the window. ‘Our bounds are pretty big, too, and they leave us to ourselves a good deal.’
‘For example, here am I sitting in your study, very much in your way, eh?’
‘Indeed you aren’t, Padre. Sit down. Don’t go, sir. You know we’re glad whenever you come.’
There was no doubting the sincerity of the voices. The Reverend John flushed a little with pleasure and refilled his briar.
‘And we generally know where the Common-room are,’ said Beetle triumphantly. ‘Didn’t you come through our lower dormitories last night after ten, sir?’
‘I went to smoke a pipe with your Housemaster. No, I didn’t give him any impressions. I took a short cut through your dormitories.’
‘I sniffed a whiff of ’baccy this mornin’. Yours is stronger than Mr. Prout’s. I knew,’ said Beetle, wagging his head.
‘Good heavens!’ said the Reverend John absently. It was some years before Beetle perceived that this was rather a tribute to innocence than observation. The long, light, blindless dormitories, devoid of inner doors, were crossed at all hours of the night by masters visiting one another; for bachelors sit up later than married folk. Beetle had never dreamed that there might be a purpose in this steady policing.
‘Talking about bullying,’ the Reverend John resumed, ‘you all caught it pretty hot when you were fags, didn’t you?’
‘Well, we must have been rather awful little beasts,’ said Beetle, looking serenely over the gulf between eleven and sixteen. ‘My Hat, what bullies they were then—Fairburn, “Gobby” Maunsell, and all that gang!’
‘’Member when “Gobby” called us the Three Blind Mice, and we had to get up on the lockers and sing while he buzzed inkpots at us?’ said Stalky. ‘They were bullies if you like!’
‘But there isn’t any of it now,’ said M‘Turk soothingly.
‘That’s where you make a mistake. We’re all inclined to say that everything is all right as long as we ourselves aren’t hurt. I sometimes wonder if it is extinct—bullying.’
‘Fags bully each other horrid; but the upper forms are supposed to be swottin’ for exams. They’ve got something else to think about,’ said Beetle.
‘Why? What do you think?’ Stalky was watching the chaplain’s face.
‘I have my doubts.’ Then, explosively, ‘On my word, for three moderately intelligent boys you aren’t very observant. I suppose you were too busy making things warm for your House-master to see what lay under your noses when you were in the form-rooms last week?’
‘What, sir? I—I swear we didn’t see anything,’ said Beetle.
‘Then I’d advise you to look. When a little chap is whimpering in a corner and wears his clothes like rags, and never does any work, and is notoriously the dirtiest little “corridor-caution” in the Coll., something’s wrong somewhere.’
‘That’s Clewer,’ said M‘Turk under his breath.
‘Yes, Clewer. He comes to me for his French. It’s his first term, and he’s almost as complete a wreck as you were, Beetle. He’s not naturally clever, but he has been hammered till he’s nearly an idiot.’
‘Oh no. They sham silly to get off more lickings,’ said Beetle. ‘I know that.’
‘I’ve never actually seen him knocked about,’ said the Reverend John.
‘The genuine article don’t do that in public,’ said Beetle. ‘Fairburn never touched me when any one was looking on.’
‘You needn’t swagger about it, Beetle,’ said M‘Turk. ‘We all caught it in our time.’
‘But I got it worse than any one,’ said Beetle. ‘If you want an authority on bullyin’, Padre, come to me. Corkscrews—brush—drill— keys— head—knucklin’—arm—twistin’— rockin’— Ag Ags—and all the rest of it.’
‘Yes. I do want you as an authority, or rather I want your authority to stop it—all of you.’
‘What about Abana and Pharpar,* Padre—Harrison and Craye? They are Mr. Prout’s pets,’ said M‘Turk a little bitterly. ‘We aren’t even sub-prefects.’
‘I’ve considered that, but, on the other hand, since most bullying is mere thoughtlessness——’
‘Not one little bit of it, Padre,’ said M‘Turk. ‘Bullies like bullyin’. They mean it. They think it up in lesson and practise it in the quarters.’
‘Never mind. If the thing goes up to the prefects it may make another House-row. You’ve had one already. Don’t laugh. Listen to me. I ask you—my own Tenth Legion*—to take the thing up quietly. I want little Clewer made fairly clean and decent——’
‘Blowed if I wash him!’ whispered Stalky.
‘Decent and self-respecting. As for the other boy, whoever he is, you can use your influence’—a purely secular light flickered in the chaplain’s eye—‘in any way you please to—to dissuade him. That’s all. I’ll leave it to you. Good—night, mes enfants.’
* * * * *
‘Well, what are we goin’ to do?’ Number Five stared at each other.
‘Young Clewer would give his eyes for a place to be quiet in. I know that,’ said Beetle. ‘If we made him a study—fag, eh?’
‘No!’ said M‘Turk firmly. ‘He’s a dirty little brute, and he’d mess up everything. Besides, we ain’t goin’ to have any beastly Erickin’. D’you want to walk about with your arm round his neck?’*
‘He’d clean out the jam-pots, anyhow; an’ the burnt-porridge saucepan—it’s filthy now.’
‘Not good enough,’ said Stalky, bringing up both heels with a crash on the table. ‘If we find the merry jester who’s been bullyin’ him an’ make him happy, that’ll be all right. Why didn’t we spot him when we were in the form-rooms, though?’
‘Maybe a lot of fags have made a dead set at Clewer. They do that sometimes.’
‘Then we’ll have to kick the whole of the lower school in our House—on spec. Come on,’ said M‘Turk.
‘Keep your hair on! We mustn’t make a fuss about the biznai. Whoever it is, he’s kept quiet or we’d have seen him,’ said Stalky. ‘We’ll walk round and sniff about till we’re sure.’
They drew the House form-rooms, accounting for every junior and senior against whom they had suspicions—investigated, at Beetle’s suggestion, the lavatories and box-rooms, but without result. Everybody seemed to be present save Clewer.
‘Rum!’ said Stalky, pausing outside a study door. ‘Golly!’
A thin piping mixed with tears came muffled through the panels.
‘As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping——’*
‘Louder, you young devil, or I’ll buzz a book at you!’
‘With a pitcher of milk—
Oh, Campbell, please don’t!
To the fair of—’
A book crashed on something soft, and squeals arose.
‘Well, I never thought it was a study-chap, anyhow. That accounts for our not spotting him,’ said Beetle. ‘Sefton and Campbell are rather hefty chaps to tackle. Besides, one can’t go into their study like a form-room.’
‘What swine!’ M‘Turk listened. ‘Where’s the fun of it? I suppose Clewer’s faggin’ for them.’
‘They aren’t prefects. That’s one good job,’ said Stalky, with his war-grin. ‘Sefton and Campbell! Urn! Campbell and Sefton! Ah! One of ’em’s a crammer’s pup.’
The two were precocious hairy youths between seventeen and eighteen, sent to the school in despair by parents who hoped that six months’ steady cram might, perhaps, jockey them into Sandhurst. Nominally they were in Mr. Prout’s House; actually they were under the Head’s eye; and since he was very careful never to promote strange new boys to prefectship, they considered they had a grievance against the school. Sefton had spent three months with a London crammer, and the tale of his adventures there lost nothing in the telling. Campbell, who had a fine taste in clothes and a fluent vocabulary, followed his lead in looking down loftily on the rest of the world. This was only their second term, and the sch
ool, used to what it profanely called ‘crammers’ pups,’ had treated them with rather galling reserve. But their whiskers—Sefton owned a real razor—and their moustaches were beyond question impressive.
‘Shall we go in an’ dissuade ’em?’ M‘Turk asked. ‘I’ve never had much to do with ’em, but I’ll bet my hat Campbell’s a funk.’
‘No—o! That’s oratio directa, said Stalky, shaking his head. ‘I like oratio obliqua* ’Sides, where’d our moral influence be then? Think o’ that!’
‘Rot! What are you goin’ to do?’ Beetle turned into Lower Number Nine form-room, next door to the study.
‘Me?’ The lights of war flickered over Stalky’s face. ‘Oh, I want to jape with ’em. Shut up a bit!’
He drove his hands into his pockets and stared out of window at the sea, whistling between his teeth. Then a foot tapped the floor; one shoulder lifted; he wheeled, and began the short quick double-shuffle—the war-dance of Stalky in meditation. Thrice he crossed the empty form-room, with compressed lips and expanded nostrils, swaying to the quickstep. Then he halted before the dumb Beetle and softly knuckled his head, Beetle bowing to the strokes. M‘Turk nursed one knee and rocked to and fro. They could hear Clewer howling as though his heart would break.
‘Beetle is the sacrifice,’ Stalky said at last. ‘I’m sorry for you, Beetle. ’Member Galton’s Art of Travel* [one of the forms had been studying that pleasant work] an’ the kid whose bleatin’ excited the tiger?’
‘Oh, curse!’ said Beetle uneasily. It was not his first season as a sacrifice. ‘Can’t you get on without me?’
‘’Fraid not, Beetle, dear. You’ve got to be bullied by Turkey an’ me. The more you howl, o’ course, the better it’ll be. Turkey, go an’ covet a stump and a box-rope for somewhere. We’ll tie him up for a kill—à la Galton. ’Member when “Molly” Fairburn made us cock-fight with our shoes off, an’ tied up our knees?’
‘But that hurt like sin.’
‘’Course it did. What a clever chap you are, Beetle! Turkey ’ll knock you all over the place. ’Member we’ve had a big row all round, an’ I’ve trapped you into doin’ this. Lend us your wipe.’*
Beetle was trussed for cock-fighting; but, in addition to the transverse stump between elbow and knee, his knees were bound with a box-rope. In this posture, at a push from Stalky he rolled over sideways, covering himself with dust.
‘Ruffle his hair, Turkey. Now you get down, too. “The bleatin’ of the kid excites the tiger.” You two are in such a sweatin’ wax with me that you only curse. ’Member that. I’ll tickle you up with a stump. You’ll have to blub, Beetle.’
‘Right O! I’ll work up to it in half a shake.’ said Beetle.
‘Now begin—and remember the bleatin’ o’ the kid.’
‘Shut up, you brutes! Let me up! You’ve nearly cut my knees off. Oh, you are beastly cads! Do shut up. ’Tisn’t a joke!’ Beetle’s protest was, in tone, a work of art.
‘Give it to him, Turkey! Kick him! Roll him over! Kill him! Don’t funk, Beetle, you brute. Kick him again, Turkey.’
‘He’s not blubbin’ really. Roll up, Beetle, or I’ll kick you into the fender,’ roared M‘Turk.
They made a hideous noise among them, and the bait allured their quarry.
‘Hullo. What’s the giddy jest?’ Sefton and Campbell entered to find Beetle on his side, his head against the fender, weeping copiously, while M‘Turk prodded him in the back with his toes.
‘It’s only Beetle,’ Stalky explained. ‘He’s shammin’ hurt. I can’t get Turkey to go for him properly.’
Sefton promptly kicked both boys, and his face lighted. ‘All right, I’ll attend to ’em. Get up an’ cock-fight, you two. Give me the stump. I’ll tickle ’em. Here’s a giddy jest! Come on, Campbell. Let’s cook ’em.’
Then M‘Turk turned on Stalky and called him very evil names.
‘You said you were goin’ to cock-fight too, Stalky. Come on!’
‘More ass you for believin’ me, then!’ shrieked Stalky.
‘Have you chaps had a row?’ said Campbell.
‘Row?’ said Stalky. ‘Huh! I’m only educatin’ them. D’you know anythin’ about cock-fighting, Seffy?’
‘Do I know? Why, at Maclagan’s, where I was crammin’ in town, we used to cock-fight in his drawing-room, and little Maclagan daren’t say anything. But we were just the same as men there, of course. Do I know? I’ll show you.’
‘Can’t I get up?’ moaned Beetle, as Stalky sat on his shoulder.
‘Don’t jaw, you fat piffler. You’re going to fight Seffy.’
‘He’ll slay me!’
‘Oh, lug ’em into our study,’ said Campbell. ‘It’s nice an’ quiet in there. I’ll cock-fight Turkey. This is an improvement on young Clewer.’
‘Right O! I move it’s shoes-off for them an’ shoes-on for us,’ said Sefton joyously, and the two were flung down on the study floor. Stalky rolled them behind an arm-chair.
‘Now I’ll tie you two up an’ direct the bull-fight. Golly, what wrists you have, Seffy. They’re too thick for a wipe; got a box-rope?’ said he.
‘Lots in the corner,’ Sefton replied. ‘Hurry up! Stop blubbin’, you brute, Beetle. We’re goin’ to have a giddy campaign. Losers have to sing for the winners—sing odes in honour of the conqueror. You call yourself a beastly poet, don’t you, Beetle? I’ll poet you.’ He wriggled into position by Campbell’s side.
Swiftly and scientifically the stumps were thrust through the natural crooks, and the wrists tied with well stretched box-ropes to an accompaniment of insults from M‘Turk, bound, betrayed, and voluble behind the chair.
Stalky set away Campbell and Sefton, and strode over to his allies, locking the door on the way.
‘And that’s all right,’ said he in a changed voice.
‘What the devil—?’ Sefton began. Beetle’s false tears had ceased; M‘Turk, smiling, was on his feet. Together they bound the knees and ankles of the enemy even more straitly.
Stalky took the arm-chair and contemplated the scene with his blandest smile. The man trussed for cock-fighting is, perhaps, the most helpless thing in the world.
‘ “The bleatin’ of the kid excited the tiger.” Oh, you frabjous asses!’ He lay back and laughed till he could no more. The victims took in the situation but slowly.
‘We’ll give you the finest lickin’ you ever had in your young lives when we get up!’ thundered Sefton from the floor. ‘You’ll laugh the other side of your mouth before you’ve done. What the deuce d’you mean by this?’
‘You’ll see in two shakes,’ said M‘Turk. ‘Don’t swear like that. What we want to know is, why you two hulkin’ swine have been bullyin’ Clewer?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘What did you bully Clewer for?’ The question was repeated with maddening iteration by each in turn. They knew their work.
‘Because we jolly well chose,’ was the answer at last. ‘Let’s get up.’ Even then they could not realise the game.
‘Well, now we’re goin’ to bully you because we jolly well choose. We’re goin’ to be just as fair to you as you were to Clewer. He couldn’t do anything against you. You can’t do anything to us. Odd, ain’t it?’
‘Can’t we? You wait an’ see.’
‘Ah,’ said Beetle reflectively, ‘that shows you’ve never been properly jested with. A public lickin’ ain’t in it with a gentle jape. Bet a bob you’ll weep an’ promise anything.’
‘Look here, young Beetle, we’ll half kill you when we get up. I’ll promise you that, at any rate.’
‘You’re going to be half killed first, though. Did you give Clewer Head-knuckles?’
‘Did you give Clewer Head-knuckles?’ M‘Turk echoed. At the twentieth repetition—no boy can stand the torture of one unvarying query, which is the essence of bullying—came confession.
‘We did, confound you!’
‘Then you’ll be knuckled’; and knuckled they were, according to ancie
nt experience. Head-knuckling is no trifle; ‘Molly’ Fairburn of the old days could not have done better.
‘Did you give Clewer Brush-drill?’
This time the question was answered sooner, and Brush-drill was dealt out for the space of five minutes by Stalky’s watch. They could not even writhe in their bonds. No brush is employed in Brush-drill.
‘Did you give Clewer the Key?’
‘No; we didn’t. I swear we didn’t!’ from Campbell, rolling in agony.
‘Then we’ll give it to you, so you can see what it would be like if you had.’
The torture of the Key—which has no key at all—hurts excessively. They endured several minutes of it, and their language necessitated the gag.
‘Did you give Clewer Corkscrews?’
‘Yes. Oh, curse your silly souls! Let us alone, you cads.’
They were corkscrewed, and the torture of the Corkscrew—this has nothing to do with corkscrews—is keener than the torture of the Key.
The method and silence of the attacks was breaking their nerves. Between each new torture came the pitiless, dazing rain of questions, and when they did not answer to the point, Isabella-coloured* handkerchiefs were thrust into their mouths.
‘Now are those all the things you did to Clewer? Take out the gag, Turkey, and let ’em answer.’
‘Yes, I swear that was all. Oh, you’re killing us, Stalky!’ cried Campbell.
‘Pre-cisely what Clewer said to you. I heard him. Now we’re goin’ to show you what real bullyin’ is. What I don’t like about you, Sefton, is, you come to the Coll, with your stick-up collars an’ patent-leather boots, an’ you think you can teach us something about bullying. Do you think you can teach us anything about bullying? Take out the gag and let him answer.’
‘No!’—ferociously.
‘He says no. Rock him to sleep. Campbell can watch.’
It needs three boys and two boxing-gloves to rock a boy to sleep. Again the operation has nothing to do with its name. Sefton was ‘rocked’ till his eyes set in his head and he gasped and crowed for breath, sick and dizzy.
‘My Aunt!’ said Campbell, appalled, from his corner, and turned white.
The Complete Stalky & Co Page 17