by H. S. Cross
He’d just put down the telephone when knocking commenced, not in his chest but at the study door. His Prefect of Chapel had come to report several boys missing from call-over and now lock-up. One or two truants were a perennial problem, but five? Including a sub-prefect? Leopards, not single spies, but battalions—mixing his metaphors, but if such a day didn’t allow it …
* * *
At one end of the changing room, Trevor and Gray peeled off wet clothes, while at the other, Halton and Malcolm minor shivered. Pearce berated the juniors pointlessly, unless the point was to vent his ire at the fact that the porter, Fardley, had stopped them at the gates and, rather than hail Pearce’s triumphant return, had treated him as a common criminal: All to Housemasters directly, them’s orders! Trevor revealed no glee then and looked none now as he straightened his tie and ran a comb through his hair:
—Fardles looked jolly put out.
—You were detained, came a voice across the room, on an errand of mercy.
Trevor looked into the glass and then at Gray. Were they or were they not being addressed by cheeky Halton? Halton, who, even if Grieves did not hand him over to the JCR, would come to grief later with his fagmaster, none other than gentle Pearce? Showing off was one thing, rank disregard of school practice another.
Gray turned on the taps to rinse their things, but Pearce emerged from the drying cupboard to rustle them along, making them leave their wet clothes where they lay, hauling all four of them through the House, past hungry onlookers (told by Pearce to nose out), to Grieves’s study. Filing in, lining up, nothing to distinguish their guilt, Grieves’s voice cut to the quick:
—Right.
It wasn’t like the classroom. Gray knew that man, what he wanted and hated, but here in the study, on the carpet, Grieves’s glare unfiltered—a churning, horrible realness.
—Pearce! Come in here and close that door.
The other Mr. Grieves, arctic and rigid.
—An hour late for call-over, three quarters of an hour late for lock-up. You can wipe that smirk off your face, Riding.
Gray’s mouth opened, then closed.
—You realize, of course, that we’d phoned the constabulary?
His gaze lingered with his question on Gray, as though he could see inside, not only to his mind but further, Stalky, Valarious, the place in the barn with the box and its edge.
—Sir, I can explain, Pearce said.
The sub-prefect launched into a faithful account of events as he had witnessed them, including his deliverance by Stalky & Co. Grieves leaned against the front of his desk, arms crossed, but at mention of McKay’s barn, he stood as if Pearce were confessing depravity. Gray avoided looking at Trevor, but he could feel from Trevor’s posture that Stalky was preparing to enter the arena.
Mr. Grieves declared his astonishment and gall. He truly could not believe his ears. There were several matters he was entirely failing to follow. How, for instance, had Trevor and Gray—innocents both—found themselves in proximity to McKay’s barn without violating school bounds themselves? Had they perhaps glimpsed the site before?
Stalky went to work, warming to his subject, holding that gaze. No, sir, he avowed, they did not. They knew as well as the next fellow that the barn was strictly forbidden, and dangerous, as Pearce’s mishap proved. No, sir, they had been … tracking a badger near the south-bounds hedgerow when the pitiful cries had reached their ears.
Mr. Grieves professed himself perplexed, for how had the heroes heard voices when the barn stood almost a mile from the south hedgerow (over Abbot’s Common, in fact)? Well, sir, they wondered that themselves. Perhaps the wind? Mr. Grieves had never heard of such an amplifying breeze. Well, at the time, sir, they didn’t know where the voices hailed from. They were merely intent on helping, sir, as any Christian would.
—Don’t overdo it, Grieves said.
But honestly, Trevor rejoined, if Mr. Grieves had himself heard the woeful baying, he would have rushed after it forthwith. And considering the fog, not to mention the approaching night—
And what about the approaching night? Surely they were aware of the impending call-over? Well, yes, sir, the thought did cross their minds, but they hoped Mr. Grieves would understand, especially considering the Head’s recent lecture on fostering neighborly relations with the local husbandry.
—Your intentions are touching.
Sarcasm like nettles. Gray looked to Trevor—Stalky, leash; exit, now.
—Thank you, sir. Will that be all?
But no, that was not all. There was another matter troubling their Housemaster, and that was the matter of the barn door. (Grieves hadn’t read The Complete Stalky—had he?) Just how, exactly, did it jam? Jam so that no effort from inside could budge it? Mr. Grieves demanded to know how, in what condition, Trevor and Gray found the barn door upon arrival.
Shut up, shut up.
Well, sir, it was jammed stubbornly. It seemed the cross timber had fallen and, rotten and treacherous as old barns are—shut up!—had somehow wedged itself into the latch and refused to budge. Stalky could not say how this had transpired. He could only elaborate on the hammering, chipping, and digging necessary to free Pearce & Co., all the while mindful of their Housemaster’s worried clock. At which point Pearce reiterated his support, for that clock was still ticking busily and Mr. Burton-Lee, Housemaster of the other fags, would soon be on his way to tea, White and Fletcher perhaps already dismissed.
Mr. Grieves opened the docket book and consulted its ledger. Mistake, monumental. Books were not real, and maneuvers only worked within the pages of—
—Very well, you two may go, Grieves said.
Too easy, too quick, but they took their leave, stepping around the remaining defendants—
Just one more thing, Mr. Grieves recalled. On the topic of the smoke Pearce had smelled, did they know anything about it? Nearly escaped, they turned back to the room. No, sir, quoth Stalky, they were afraid they could be of no assistance in that matter.
The fifteen-minute bell rang for tea.
—Sir, Pearce began.
Grieves snapped a finger at Pearce and consigned Stalky to outer darkness. They escaped before Trevor’s mouth broke into celebration.
* * *
John was too discombobulated to give them the dressing-down they deserved, and it only got worse when Pearce let slip—as if immaterial!—that two of Burton-Lee’s fags had been apprehended as well. The leopards had him by the thigh. Of course things were going in the worst possible way.
But he pulled himself together. He wrote the docket, instructing the JCR to deal with Malcolm minor and Halton in the strongest terms. Furthermore, he informed the miscreants, they were gated for the rest of term. Pearce herded them mercifully away, and John went to stand by the fire, as if its flame could purge the chill.
He had to stop jumping to dire conclusions. Boys transgressed every bound; it was their nature and their duty. Just because the barn hadn’t come to John’s attention of late did not mean boys hadn’t been trespassing there. And, actually, a minor scandal might deflate curiosity about the place. The short, sharp shock would haul the juniors back into line, and if John heard anything else from either of them, he was prepared to chuck them into extra tuition as well. Burton would deal with his own, and whatever illicit romance McKay’s barn had stirred up would end in exemplary fashion. Later, after Prep and Prayers or perhaps tomorrow, John would have a chat with his Head Boy, Carter. Of course they had Pearce to thank for reporting the escapade, but couldn’t Pearce have apprehended them before they reached that barn? At any rate, John trusted Carter to temper Pearce’s zeal. The whole affair was typical school discipline from start to finish, now decidedly finished.
Except for Mainwaring and Riding. They’d been trading in mischief for weeks. If not for Pearce’s unambiguous witness, John would have accused them of lying to his face, Riding anyhow. Mainwaring was generally frank and direct, but his companion positively smirked. John knew they disliked Pearce
, and there had been that business with call-over, but now they were indebted to Pearce. Whatever they had been pursuing—and if it was a badger then John was a Dutchman—their crime had been interrupted by Pearce’s predicament, which had ultimately led to rapprochement. If Pearce would maintain his gratitude and if they would refrain from overdoing it, then perhaps the House could be persuaded to give Pearce a chance. Mainwaring, at least, seemed bent on reconciliation, so hopefully he could influence his sidekick before Pearce quite realized he was being laughed at.
Burton of course would be furious and would remonstrate with John. Burton would have thrashed Mainwaring and Riding along with the rest, would have informed them that he cared not if they’d rescued the Prince of Wales, he wasn’t having it with that barn, and he’d tell Pearce the same thing in private and threaten to thrash him as well if he ever heard of his going there again—but Burton would never have realized the truth about the debacle, that it was a rare chance to advance the cause of peace in the House by encouraging détente between his sub-prefect and two blue-tongued members of the Remove.
The fire was going out, but the disaster had been turned to advantage, the leopards given a kick in the eye. He had to corner the Headmaster later, and it would not be about this.
4
She shouldn’t have looked away from what she’d seen: her mother’s tight mouth, her father’s outsize humor, the sounds down the corridor in the night. She should never have left her mother sleeping and gone to school through the rain, shouldn’t have laughed in the courtyard under the awning, shouldn’t have swept all concerns from her mind during the recitation.
O Thou, with dewy locks, who lookest down
Thro’ the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!
When dismissed for the holidays, she shouldn’t have gone with the girls from 7b to buy fish and chips, shouldn’t have squelched across the village green to the Free Library to ask the librarian what she could have waited to know:
—Who won, Mr. R? Who won the geography prize?
If she hadn’t so disturbed the normal order of time and menu of activities, she never would have let down her guard as the librarian slid the golden prize book across the desk: The Earth, with Maps and Illustrations.
It was wrong to hunger so fervently and for places beyond her ken. There was a word for such overmastering desire, and although she would never speak such a word aloud, she knew that it was lust that brought her week after week to the Free Library to pore over photographs of Britain’s wide empire. Lust made her long for the snows of Antarctica and its elusive, guarded Pole. Lust waylaid her when she should have rushed home that afternoon, lust for the color plates inside her prize book, for the icy ridges of Tierra del Fuego, that sensational archipelago where travelers could in a moment of failed vigilance succumb to vertigo and be sucked down to the polar regions.
She’d called to her mother while kicking off her wellington boots, but the silence failed to touch her because madness had taken, as it did when she let it. Bedroom door closed, she surveyed her treasures. Poseidon’s black tome she set aside for the prize book. Plate one: Map of the World, hydrological basins without outlet to the sea tinted gray. Plate seventeen: Delta of the Ganges. Plate twenty-two: Upheavals and depressions; plate twenty-three: Atoll Ari. Before scruples could speak, she unlatched pencil box and with slash of knife freed plates from binding. Putty, step stool, they joined the maps on the walls and ceiling. She lay across the bed and felt her heart pound in her ears: Atlantic, Doldrums, Horse Latitudes—
—Cordelia?
Downstairs, a voice not her mother’s. Mrs. Kneesworth, gray and wobbly:
—Dear?
5
Outside the refectory, Trevor held court with the Fourth, the Remove, and those of the Fifth who could not maintain their indifference.
—But who did you think was inside?
—We’d no idea, Trevor said. Sounded like a cross between a slaughterhouse and some Methodist revival, what with the fags blubbing and Pearce saying his prayers.
—His prayers!
—Never would have guessed who it was.
It was the Stalkiest thing they’d ever done (Stalkiest thing they’d ever cribbed?), and this was their hour of triumph. The truth, though, was that it was far more strenuous to do things than to read about them.
—Thought he’d had one or two from the sounds of it, Trevor confided.
—Come off it!
—Pearce tight?
—Bet a bob he’s secretly a mackerel snapper, Trevor said. They slosh it up every chance they get.
—What happened to the Flea’s fags?
—Oh, Trevor said, I think we can be fairly certain.
Guffaws from the crowd.
—As for the others, Pious hauled ’em into JCR, and I don’t think they’ll be amused.
—Old Carter’ll have a heart attack.
—The fags’ll get something to remember anyhow, Trevor concluded.
Chants of six began amongst the Remove, only to be disputed by the juniors, who reminded everyone who would listen that four strokes of the school cane was the limit for the Lower School.
—Six, six, six!
Those beyond the House joined the ruckus, not even knowing why, until two of Henri’s prefects appeared to hector them into queues. Trevor bantered with the Remove, and Gray scanned the cloisters for their own JCR, which had not arrived.
—I say.
Someone cut into the queue beside them, someone shorter—Halton:
—It was jolly lucky you turned up this afternoon.
Trevor for once seemed incapable of reply.
—I can’t think what would’ve happened, Halton continued, if you hadn’t come by.
Trevor lifted the brat physically from the queue.
—Am I hearing things, he asked Gray, or are we being addressed?
—I think it’s talking to us, Gray replied.
—Look, toe-rag, someone ought to have told you that fags do not address the Upper School.
The Remove was not the Upper School, as the nearby Fifth Formers would normally have reminded Trevor, but Stalky’s spell had so entranced them that they replied with Hear-hear.
—My name’s Halton.
—Congratulations.
—Jolly clever, the way you jinked the door.
If Halton thought he would get anywhere with nerve, he had another think coming. Public opinion had little sympathy for fags, and none for those who allowed themselves to be tracked by Pious Pearce.
—The whole thing was just plain Stalky, Halton concluded.
Trevor turned to him:
—How’s your arse, Halton? Get a taste of Swinton’s wrist?
The mob guffawed.
—Little brutes like you, I don’t see how four would cover it, Trevor opined.
The crowd agreed.
—Something to remember, that’s what you deserve.
Several bystanders seized Halton as if to administer civil justice, but the arrival of the bell fag began the queue moving. Halton shouldered past Trevor and Gray, treading with force on Gray’s foot.
—We got six, he muttered. And it was Pearce.
* * *
Pearce always had to overdo things, and if anyone should know, it was Moss. In their first term, Pearce lacked all proportion. When he and Moss were bloodying each other’s noses, Pearce always took it too far. Even when Wilberforce pulled them apart, Pearce always made as if he could escape Morgan’s grip and somehow destroy Moss in the moments before recapture.
Pearce may have mellowed in the intervening five years, but Moss had been warning Carter and Swinton all week that their fellow prefect was headed for some melodramatic mess. Carter had accused Moss of pessimism and pointed out that they were all benefitting from Pearce’s help as sub-prefect. Moss conceded that if Pearce could confine himself to bureaucratic tasks, he’d
save the rest of them a year of boredom, but who imagined Pearce would be confined?
—He’s got more earnest ambition than the Salvation Army, Moss complained.
Swinton, for his part, didn’t much care what Pearce did so long as he kept order in the changing rooms and relieved Swinton of dorm rounds. But Swinton and Carter were a year ahead and so hadn’t had to go up the school with Pearce; they didn’t know him as Moss did, and Moss knew, the moment they learned that Pearce was missing, that the going-overboard was at hand. Although Carter, as Head Boy, ought to have gone to alert Grieves, Moss volunteered. He’d not been able to stop Grieves ringing the constable, but he had talked him out of rousting Fardley to search for the missing boys. Moss left his Housemaster pacing the study and returned to the JCR, where Carter and Swinton had begun on the evening’s dockets. They put a stop to whatever rumors they encountered (that the five had run away, had drowned in a ditch, been shot on the moors, had—).
—Thank you, touch your toes.
They were just finishing the register when in walked Pearce, hair still wet, brandishing a docket. The miscreants Carter sent to the corridor while they debriefed Pearce and discovered for themselves his Grand Bag. (Tracking fags? Would he covet a deerstalker next? And McKay’s barn? Honestly?)
When Pearce wound himself up, you were lucky to get a word in for the next half hour, but Carter thankfully cut it short:
—All right, Pearce, you can go ahead.
Moss and Swinton had to work to conceal their surprise—that Carter was not only extending Pearce the privilege, not typically granted sub-prefects, of wielding the cane, but also doing so in the midst of Pearce’s batty caper. The fags looked equally shocked and not a little intimidated, whether by Carter’s sentence of six or by an informal acquaintance with Pearce’s arm, Moss couldn’t say.
When it came to it, Pearce did them proud. Even Swinton looked impressed. Pious, it seemed, had a bit of an eye. Well, the fags more than deserved it, and when word got round, the JCR might finally get a day’s peace.
