by Alec Waugh
It was during the end of the Easter and the whole of the summer term that Gordon earned a reputation for reckless bravado and disregard of all authority that stuck to him through his whole career. Up till now he had done things merely because he had wanted to. He followed the inclination of the moment, but now it was different. It is pleasant to be talked of as a mixture between Don Juan and Puck; and Gordon was sufficiently good at games to make himself an attractive and not a repulsive figure. The Public School boy admires the Meredith type; he despises the man who is no good at games, and who plays fast and loose in his house. Gordon was not unpopular, and indeed some of his escapades were really funny, as, for instance, when he cut through the string of the chapel organ on which a weight is attached to show whether the organ is full of air or not. The next morning in chapel the choir began but the organ was mute. The hymn broke off into a miserable wail. The whole service was one silent ripple of merriment. Rogers was taking the service, and was quite at sea without the help of music. Gordon earned a considerable measure of notoriety for the performance. On his way to the tuck shop, Ben, the captain of the Fifteen, came up and spoke to him.
“Caruthers, I say, are you the man who made the organ mute?”
“Yes.”
“By Jove, you are a sportsman.”
Gordon was thus encouraged to continue on his road to buffoonery, and when the summer term came, he found no reason to pursue any other course. On the cricket field he could not get a run; first he hit wildly, then he began to poke; but all without the least success. After a few weeks he almost ceased to try, except in House matches. “The Bull” got furious.
“Look here, Caruthers,” he said, “I don’t know if you are slack, or merely incompetent. But when I see you make fifty against my house in a Junior House match, and then play inside half-volleys on the upper, I begin to think all you care about is your house. Don’t you care for Fernhurst, boy?”
Gordon was genuinely worried about this. He admired “the Bull” immensely: indeed, “the Bull” was about the only person at Fernhurst whose opinion he valued at all. He made strenuous efforts to get runs, but it was no use. He was clean out of form. His fifty v. Buller’s was his only score during the season, but “the Bull” did not know this. He thought Caruthers tried for his house and slacked with the Colts. The climax was reached during the Milton Match. Gordon went in first with Foster. In five minutes he and Lovelace and a man from Claremont’s were out for four runs. “The Bull” chewed grass in a far corner of the field.
And then, to crown everything, Gordon missed the easiest of catches. He caught Lovelace’s eye. It was really rather funny. The two of them burst into sudden laughter. Lovelace was nearly doubled up. “The Bull” thought they were laughing at him.
“I can’t think what’s gone wrong with Caruthers this term,” he said to Fry, the captain of the School House. “He was so promising once; he doesn’t seem to be trying this term.”
Next day Gordon was left out of the Colts’ side. The day after the chair in Trundle’s class-room suddenly collapsed. The leg had been sawn half through, and Trundle fell over on the floor.
Gordon was riding for a fall, and two days before Commemoration, to use his own phrase, he “fairly put his foot in it.” This term he had a double dormitory with one Davenport, a scholar who was a year junior to Gordon; but was in the same form. The Chief had thought Gordon a bit big for the Nursery, but there was no room for him down below; so he and Davenport lived at the end of the passage in glorious isolation. It was a great luxury; they were allowed several privileges; they could keep their light on till ten; they could go to bed when they liked, and it was here that they usually did their preparation. Davenport, however, suddenly contracted measles; and Gordon, who had grown too slack to do his work alone, used to get leave for Sydenham, a rather insignificant, self-righteous member of V. A, who had come a term before him, to come and prepare his work in the double room. Leave was always granted, and when Davenport returned, the scheme was still continued. On this particular night, Davenport had got a headache. He said he was going to stop out next day, and refused to prepare Thucydides. It also happened that the House tutor was away that night, and so the Chief went round the dormitories, putting out the lights. He did not know of the custom by which Sydenham came up to do the con. He was not very pleased, but after a little hesitation gave leave. The door was shut. Sydenham perched himself on the chest of drawers, Gordon produced an aid to quick translation, Davenport turned over the pages of Nash’s. The Abbey bells also happened to be ringing that night. It was quite impossible to hear any normal sound down the passage; and so Gordon was quite unaware of the Chief’s intention to revisit them and see if they were really working, till the door opened and the Chief walked in. Gordon lost his head; he sat up in bed and gaped. Thucydides lay on one side of the bed, the crib on the other.
The Chief picked up the book.
“Ah, does Mr Macdonald allow you to use this?”
In the really dramatic moments of our lives it is always the inane that first suggests itself. It was so likely that Macdonald would have given them permission.
“No, sir.”
“Er, Davenport, are you preparing—er yes, Thucydides with Caruthers, too?”
“No, sir.” Davenport thanked heaven that he had a headache. He had helped in the work of deceit every night the whole term. The Chief thought he must be a boy of strong moral courage; and in many ways he was, but cribbing, after all, was part of the daily routine.
The Chief took up the book.
“Sydenham, go back to your study.”
He turned down the light and went out. His footsteps died out down the passage.
“Damn!” said Gordon.
“In excelsis gloria” said Davenport.
“And it was a rotten crib, too,” said Gordon.
By next morning the story was all round the school.
“You will be birched for certain,” was Tester’s cheerful comment, “and serve you right for getting caught.”
“I sha’n’t be such a fool again,” growled Caruthers.
And certainly he profited by his experience. A year later the House Tutor came into his study when he was preparing Vergil with the aid of Dr Giles’ text. He put a piece of blotting-paper over the crib, and chatted for a few minutes quite easily about the chances of the Eleven v. Tonford.
But when we are in trouble, there are few of us who can see so far ahead as to feel thankful at the thought that we have learnt something that will be a help to us in the future. Gordon was thoroughly fed up. But it was not his game to show his feelings. He went about laughing as though nothing had happened at all; he treated the whole thing as a colossal joke. Sydenham was, however, very nervous, and showed it. Gordon ragged him mercilessly.
“My good man, what the hell does it matter? Chief’s not much of a bircher, and don’t gas about disgrace, and such muck. This isn’t a St Winifred’s sort of school. It will only mean a bad report.”
In School that day Gordon was in great form. By the end of the morning he had accumulated in all three hundred lines from various sources for ragging.
“That man, Caruthers, is some fellow,” said Ferguson to Simonds at lunch. “He looks as if he enjoyed being in rows.”
“Perhaps he does,” was the answer. “He is certainly always doing his best to get into them. But he is in for a birching this time.”
But Simonds was wrong. The Chief was too utterly fed up to do anything; moreover, he saw that a birching would do Gordon no good. He would only boast about it.
It was not until a week later that Gordon was called up before the Chief.
“Caruthers, I want to know where you got hold of that crib.”
As a matter of fact he had obtained it by means of Rudd, who had a large stock of such articles, and let them out on loan for the term. It was a paying business. Gordon, of course, could not divulge this.
“I got it in the holidays, sir.”
The Ch
ief was surprised and shocked at this. He could quite easily understood that a boy should buy a crib at some secondhand bookshop in the town, during term time, when surrounded with the general atmosphere of Public School dishonesty; but it did seem unnatural that a boy, while living in the clean surroundings of his home, should be scheming to cheat his fellows and masters. The Chief said as much; Gordon did not quite follow him. Besides everyone cribbed.
“What I can’t understand, Caruthers,” the Chief went on, “is that you always assume a tremendous keenness on the School and House, of which you give absolutely no proof in your actions except on the field. This is the second time I have had to speak to you on this subject. Do you imagine that the good reputation of the House depends solely on its performance in the Thirds, or that of the School on its number of victories in School matches?”
Gordon thought it did. But he knew that “Yes” was hardly the answer the Chief expected. He held his peace. It was no use arguing the subject.
When he came out of the study, he met Rudd palpitating with funk.
“You didn’t say anything about my lending you that crib, did you?” Rudd was very frightened of the Chief.
“Of course not, you bloody-looking fool. The best thing you can do is to go and get me a better crib with all possible speed, my friend. And mind it’s a decent one. The last one was rotten; and I can’t do without one. I was bottled yesterday.”
In three days Rudd’s agent from town had procured him a fine edition of the Sicilian expedition. Davenport and Gordon did some superb construe during the remainder of the term.
It is, of course, very easy to run down any existing system; and the Public School system has come in for its fair share of abuse. Yet it must be remembered that no one has yet been able to devise a better. And after all, for the average man it is not such a bad training. It is inclined to destroy individuality, to turn out a fixed pattern; it wishes to take everyone, no matter what his tastes or ideas may be, and make him conform to its own ideals. In the process, much good is destroyed, for the Public School man is slack, easy-going, tolerant, is not easily upset by scruples, laughs at good things, smiles at bad, yet he is a fine follower. He has learnt to do what he is told; he takes life as he sees it and is content. So far so good. With the average individual the system is not so very unsatisfactory.
But take the case of the boy who has it in him to be a leader, who is not merely content to follow, but wishes to be at the head, in the forefront of the battle. What of him? Gordon went to Fernhurst with the determination to excel, and at once was brought face to face with the fact that success lay in a blind worship at the shrine of the god of Athleticism. Honesty, virtue, moral determination—these mattered not at all. The author of Eric and such others who have never faced, really faced, life and seen what it is, talk of the incalculable good one boy can do, who refuses to be led astray by temptations, and remains true to the ideals he learnt in the nursery. If there does come into any school such a boy, he is merely labelled as “pi,” and taken no notice of. He who wishes to get to the front has to strive after success on the field, and success on the field alone. This is the way that the future leaders of England are being trained to take their proper place in the national struggle for a right and far-sighted civilisation. On this alone the system stands condemned. For the history of a nation is the history of its great men, and the one object of the Public School is to produce not great men, but a satisfactory type.
Gordon found that, as soon as he was recognised as a coming athlete, popularity was his, and that on the strength of his physical abilities he could do pretty well what he liked. For there is no strong feeling in schools on the subject of honesty and morality. And it is not unnatural that a boy, finding that no one will object if he follows the call of pleasure, drifts with the stream. And then Gordon went off suddenly at games, as the best athlete must at some time or other. Like many others, he loved popularity and fame. So, in order to keep in the limelight, he flung aside all pretences of conscience, and got the reputation of being “the devil of a sport”—a reputation that is a passport to Public School society, but is damning to any man’s character. Only a few realise this. Betteridge was one. He was not an athlete, but was clever and in the Sixth. He enjoyed a rag, but saw the difference between liberty and licence. He was a freethinker, and saw life with a wide vision that embraced the whole horizon.
“Look here, Caruthers,” he said one evening, during hall, in the last half of the summer term, “I don’t want to say anything; but you know you are making a most awful ass of yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know quite well what I mean. I don’t think it’s your fault; it is the fault of this rotten system under which we live. You are not what you were when you first came. Of course, it is natural to crib and fool about, but you are going a bit far. One day you will be captain of this House. You’ll be sorry then.”
“Oh, don’t be a damned ass, Betteridge, preaching to me. I know what I am doing. It’s not long that I shall have to enjoy myself. I shall be in the Sixth soon, and shall have to slow down then. But at present I shall do damned well what I like. After all, what does it matter if I do rot all day and muck about generally? It makes no difference to you or the House. It’s my own damned business, and besides, everyone else does it!”
It was useless to reason with him. The argument that “others do it” is impossible to combat. And, after all, environment is what counts, and it is a fairly dangerous environment with which to surround any but the average sensual being who eats, drinks, laughs and is merry, and never thinks at all. And yet masters are surprised when they find the big man whom they thought impregnable following the accepted customs. They say: “What a pity! A fine fellow gone to the dogs, and after all we’ve done for him, too!” and yet whose fault is it?
But this is by the wayside. For better or for worse the character of Gordon Caruthers was developing on its own lines. Criticism should be withheld till the last threads are woven, and we can judge of the complex whole.
* * * * *
The summer term was drawing to a close. It had not been very successful as far as Gordon was concerned. His cricket had frankly been a failure, and the prominence he had gained in his House hardly compensated for the misgivings with which the Chief and Buller regarded his future. It seemed as if he could not help running up against “the Bull.”
A-K was knocked out of the Senior House competition at once. They drew Christy’s and were beaten by an innings. Gordon made eleven and fifteen, and was missed three times while making them. Foster, however, got a very sturdy thirty-three not out, and took three wickets. He got his House cap. Gordon was furious, and swore that he was jolly well not going to try any more that term.
During the final senior he was strolling round the field with Tester, both of them in cloth suits, unchanged for games. “The Bull” came up behind them.
“Caruthers, why aren’t you changed this afternoon?”
“Well sir, we only had a House game this afternoon, so Tester and I got leave off to watch the match.”
“But your House is not playing in it.”
“No, sir.”
“Well, then, what on earth do you mean by slacking about the field like this? It’s your duty to be training yourself too, so that some day you may be of some use to Fernhurst, and here are you slacking about, instead of asking the pro. to give you a net. Slackness! filthy slackness! I don’t know what’s wrong with you this term; you were quite keen once.”
He strolled off, scratching the back of his head. “The Bull” always did this when in a bad temper.
“Poor old chap,” murmured Tester, “he takes these little things so much to heart. He loathes me because I don’t sweat myself to death all day at the nets. He never said anything to me; he has given me up as a bad job. Poor old chap!”
“Well, I suppose we ought to have been at the nets,” said Gordon.
“If we did everything that we ought to
do in this world, we should never have a moment’s time to do the things we liked.”
“I suppose so,” said Gordon, “but still, you know—oh, well, what the hell does it matter? By Jove, well hit, Dyke!”
The conversation turned again to the match.
Next term Gordon had arranged to have a study with Lovelace. Tester was going to be a prefect, and wanted to himself the big upstairs study that Clarke had had. Gordon was staying in No. 1.
He was not sorry. He did not quite understand Tester; he was too clever, and Gordon never knew exactly what he was driving at. Lovelace, on the other hand, was his best friend; they had played together in several sides, and next term Lovelace would captain the footer Colts. The future seemed very roseate. Moreover, he was certain to get into the Sixth, and that meant many privileges. He did not have to attend rolls, he could be late for tea, there was no need for him to get leave to speak to anyone in hall. It meant many study hours, and it would also bring him into contact with the Olympians. There was Garter, who had been in the Sixth four terms, and was in the Second Fifteen. He would meet Betteridge. There was Rudd to rag. Prothero had reduced his time-table to one hour in school a day, and was an authority to consult on any subject regarding avoiding work. Davenport would be promoted, too. Gordon’s day of power was beginning to dawn. Next term he would be distinctly a House blood. It was a ravishing thought.
One evening in exam, week Hunter announced casually after tea: “I say, do you remember Betteridge talking once about a man called Ferrers? Well, he is coming here as a master next term.”