Thus, like Richard Hannay in The Thirty-nine Steps, though without the incentive of a murdered man in his rooms, he took the morning train from London to Scotland and spent several exceedingly uncomfortable nights trying to sleep in the heather, before deciding he was more likely to catch pneumonia than find adventure in such a bleak and rain-sodden part of the world. The following summer he had followed Richard Chandos’ route to Austria, this time on a motorcycle, in the hope of locating The Great Well at Wagensburg, only to discover Carinthia was packed with coach-loads of tourists and German holiday-makers. Mr Glodstone retreated to side roads and walked forest paths in a vain attempt to invest the area with its old magic. And so, each summer, he made another pilgrimage to the setting of an adventure story and came home disappointed but with a more fanatical gleam in his eye. One day he would impose the reality of his literary world on that of the existing one. In fact, by the time Peregrine came under his care, it was extremely doubtful if the Housemaster had any idea what decade he was living in. The rolling stock and carriages of his model railway suggested the 1920s with their Wagons Lits and Pullman cars which were all pulled by steam engines.
But his proudest and most dangerous possession, acquired from a dead uncle, was a 1927 Bentley, in which, until he was asked by the Headmaster to spare the school a multiple tragedy, he terrified a few favoured boys and every other road-user by hurtling at tremendous speed along narrow country lanes and through neighbouring villages.
‘But it was built for speed and eats the miles,’ Glodstone protested. ‘You won’t find a car to equal it on the road today.’
‘Mercifully,’ said the Headmaster, ‘and it can eat as many miles as it wants out of term time, but I’m not having the school’s Sanatorium turned into a mass morgue as a result of your insane driving.’
‘Just as you say, Headmaster,’ said Glodstone, and he had kept the Bentley in immaculate condition, locked away in his garage, awaiting the day when it would, as he put it, come into its own.
With the arrival of Peregrine Clyde-Browne at Groxbourne, that day seemed to have come closer. Mr Glodstone had found the perfect disciple, a boy endowed with the physique, courage and mental attributes of a genuine hero. From the moment he had caught Peregrine in the school bogs beating Soskins Major to a pulp for forcing a fag to wipe his arse for him, Mr Glodstone had known that his involuntary calling had not been wasted.
But, with a discretion that came from having seen what had happened to several masters in the past who had shown too early an interest in particular boys, he demonstrated his own impartiality by speaking to the House prefects. ‘I want you chaps to keep an eye on Clyde-Browne,’ he told them, ‘we can’t have him getting too big for his boots. I’ve known too many fellows spoilt because they’re good at games and so on. Popularity goes to their heads and they begin to think they’re the cat’s whiskers, what!’
For the rest of the term, Peregrine’s presumed ambition to be any part of the cat’s anatomy was eradicated. When he wasn’t doing a thousand lines for not polishing a prefect’s shoes properly he was presenting his backside to the Head of House wielding a chalked cane for talking in dormitory after Lights Out, when he hadn’t been, or for taking too long in the showers. In short, Peregrine was subjected to a baptism of punishment that would have caused a normally sensitive boy to run away or have a nervous breakdown. Peregrine did neither. He endured. It simply never crossed his mind that he was being singled out for special treatment. It was only when he was accused of a singularly beastly sin against nature by the Matron, who had found blood on his pyjama trousers, that he was forced to explain.
‘It’s just that I got twelve strokes yesterday and eight the day before,’ he said. ‘A chap can’t help bleeding.’
‘You mean you’ve had twenty strokes since Tuesday?’ said the Matron, utterly appalled.
‘You can count them if you like,’ said Peregrine matter-of-factly. ‘Though actually I had sixteen last week and they’re still showing so it’ll be difficult to sort them out.’
Half an hour later, after his backside had been inspected by the Matron and the doctor, Peregrine was lying face down in bed in the Sanatorium and the Headmaster had sent for Mr Glodstone. Since he was rather more progressive than his predecessor and held strong views on corporal punishment, and had been waiting to have a row with Glodstone, the meeting was acrimonious.
‘Do you realize we could be sued for damages for what’s been done to that poor boy?’ he demanded.
‘I don’t see how,’ said Glodstone, lighting his pipe nonchalantly. ‘Clyde-Browne hasn’t complained, has he?’
‘Complained? No, he hasn’t. Which only goes to show how brutally you run your house. The poor boy’s clearly too terrified to say anything for fear he’ll get another thrashing if he does.’
Mr Glodstone blew a smoke ring. ‘Is that what he says?’
‘No, it isn’t. It’s what I say and what I mean—’
‘If he doesn’t say it, I don’t see how you can argue that he means it,’ said Mr Glodstone. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘By God, I will,’ said the Headmaster, rising to the bait, ‘though I’m not having him intimidated by your presence. I’ll speak to him alone and you’ll kindly wait here while I do.’
And leaving Mr Glodstone to browse through his personal correspondence with a curiosity the Housemaster would have found disgusting in one of his ‘chaps’, he marched off to the Sanatorium. By the time he returned, Glodstone had put some more wood on the fire, together with two unopened envelopes for the hell of it, and the Headmaster was forced to temporize. Peregrine had refused to complain about his treatment and, in spite of the Headmaster’s pleading, had said he was jolly happy in Gloddie’s house and anyway, chaps ought to be beaten.
‘What did I tell you?’ said Glodstone, and sucked noisily on his pipe. ‘Boys appreciate a firm hand. And Clyde-Browne’s made of the right stuff.’
‘Perhaps,’ said the Headmaster morosely. ‘But whatever stuff he’s made of, I don’t want any more of it beaten this term. It may interest you to know that his father is a leading solicitor and has paid his son’s fees in advance. A man in his position could bring a court action that would bankrupt the school.’
‘Just as you say, Headmaster,’ said Glodstone, and took his leave, while the Headmaster went back distraughtly to his depleted correspondence and considered desperate measures for getting rid of the ghastly Glodstone.
Outside the study, the Housemaster knocked his pipe out into a bowl of hyacinths and returned to his rooms. There he selected one of his favourite books, Mr Standfast by John Buchan, and took it up to the Sanatorium.
‘Thought you might like something to read, old chap,’ he said to the back of Peregrine’s head.
‘Thank you very much, sir,’ said Peregrine.
‘And jolly good show on your part for not letting the side down,’ continued Mr Glodstone. ‘So when you’ve finished that, tell Matron and I’ll bring you another.’
The literary infection of Peregrine had begun.
4
It continued. By the time he was allowed out of the Sanatorium, Peregrine had finished all the adventures of Richard Hannay and was well into Bulldog Drummond’s. He went home for the holidays with several volumes from Glodstone’s library, a letter from the Headmaster explaining that he intended to abolish corporal punishment and apologizing for Peregrine having to be beaten at all, an excellent report on his term’s work and a positively glowing testimony from Mr Glodstone. Mr Clyde-Browne read the Headmaster’s letter with mixed feelings and didn’t show it to his wife. In his opinion there was a great deal to be said for beating Peregrine, and in any case, it seemed to suggest that the brute had at last taken it into his head not to do what he was told. Mr Clyde-Browne took that as a good sign. His views of the excellent report and Glodstone’s testimony were different.
‘He seems to be doing extremely well at his work,’ said Mrs Clyde-Browne. ‘He’s got an Alpha for
every subject.’
‘One hesitates to think what the Betas must be like,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne, who was surprised to learn that any of the masters at Groxbourne knew enough Greek to use Alpha.
‘And Mr Glodstone writes that he has shown remarkable character and is a credit to the House.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne, ‘he also says Peregrine is a born leader and that’s a downright lie if ever I heard one.’
‘You just don’t have any faith in your own son.’
Mr Clyde-Browne shook his head. ‘I have every faith in him except when it comes to leading. Now if that damn fool Housemaster thinks … oh, never mind.’
‘But I do mind. I mind very much, and I’m thankful that Peregrine has at last found someone who appreciates his true gifts.’
‘If that’s all he does appreciate,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne with rather nasty emphasis.
‘And what exactly does that mean?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’
‘It does, or you wouldn’t have said it.’
‘I just find the letter peculiar. And I seem to remember that you found Mr Glodstone peculiar yourself.’
Mrs Clyde-Browne bridled. ‘If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you’ve got a filthier mind than even I would have supposed.’
‘Well, it’s been known to happen,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne, among whose guiltier clients there had been several seedy schoolmasters.
‘Not to Peregrine,’ said Mrs Clyde-Browne adamantly, and for once her husband had to agree. When next day, on the pretence of having to mow the lawn in December, he questioned Peregrine on the subject, it was clear that he took a robust attitude towards sex.
‘Onanism? What’s that?’ he shouted above the roar of the lawnmower.
Mr Clyde-Browne adjusted the throttle. ‘Masturbation,’ he whispered hoarsely, having decided that auto-eroticism would meet with the same blank look.
‘Master who?’ said Peregrine.
Mr Clyde-Browne dredged his mind for a word his son would understand and decided not to try ‘self-abuse’. ‘Wanking,’ he said finally with a convulsive spasm. ‘How much wanking goes on at school?’
‘Oh, wanking,’ Peregrine shouted as the lawnmower destroyed Mr Clyde-Browne’s cover by stopping, ‘well, Harrison’s are a lot of wankers and Slymne’s go in for brown-hatting, but in Gloddie’s we—’
‘Shut up,’ yelled Mr Clyde-Browne, conscious that half the neighbours in Pinetree Lane were about to be privy to what went on in Gloddie’s, ‘I don’t want to know.’
‘I can’t see why you asked then,’ bawled Peregrine, still evidently under the impression that the lawnmower was purely incidental to the discussion. ‘You asked if there was a lot of wanking and I was telling you.’
Mr Clyde-Browne dragged lividly at the mower’s starting cord.
‘Anyway, Gloddie’s don’t if that’s what you’re worried about,’ continued Peregrine, oblivious of his father’s suffering. ‘And when Matron thought I’d been shafted, I told her—’
Mr Clyde-Browne wrenched the lawnmower into life again and drowned the rest of the explanation. It was only later in the garage, and after he’d warned his son that if he raised his voice above a whisper, he’d live to regret it, that Peregrine finally established his innocence. He did so in language that appalled his father.
‘Where the hell did you learn the term “brown-hatter”?’ he demanded.
‘I don’t know. Everyone uses it about Slymne’s.’
‘I don’t use it,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne. ‘And what’s slime got to do with it. No, don’t tell me, I can guess.’
‘Slymne’s a shit,’ said Peregrine. Mr Clyde-Browne turned the statement over in his mind and found it grammatically puzzling and distinctly crude.
‘I should have thought it was bound to be,’ he said finally, ‘though why you have to reverse the order of things and use the indefinite article into the bargain beats me.’
Peregrine looked bewildered. ‘Well, all the other chaps think Slimey’s wet and he’s sucking up to the Head. He wears a bow tie.’
‘Who does?’
‘Mr Slymne.’
‘Mr Slymne? Who the hell is Mr Slymne?’
‘He’s the Geography master and there’s always been a feud between his house and Gloddie’s ever since anyone can remember.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne vaguely. ‘Anyway, I don’t want you to use foul language in front of your mother. I’m not paying good money to send you to a school like Groxbourne for the privilege of having you come home swearing like a trooper.’
But at least Mr Clyde-Browne was satisfied that Mr Glodstone’s extraordinary enthusiasm for his son was not obviously based on sex, though what cause it had he couldn’t imagine. Peregrine appeared to be as obtuse as ever and as unlikely to fulfil the Clyde-Brownes’ hopes. But he seemed to be happy and rudely healthy. Even his mother was impressed by his eagerness to go back to school at the end of the holidays, and began to revise her earlier opinion of Groxbourne.
‘Things must have changed with the new headmaster,’ she said, and by the same process which saw no bad in her acquaintances because she knew them, she now conferred some distinction on Groxbourne because Peregrine went there. Even Mr Clyde-Browne was relatively satisfied. As he had predicted, Peregrine stayed on in the summer holidays, and allowed his parents to have an unencumbered holiday, by going on Major Fetherington’s Fieldcraft and Survival Course in Wales. And at the end of each term, Peregrine’s report suggested that he was doing very well. Only in Geography was he found to be wanting, and Peregrine blamed that on Mr Slymne. ‘He’s got it in for everyone in Gloddie’s,’ he told his father, ‘you can ask anyone.’
‘I don’t need to. If you will insist on calling the wretched man Slimey, you deserve what you get. Anyway, I can’t see how you can be doing so well in class and fail O levels at the same time.’
‘Gloddie says O levels don’t matter. It’s what you do afterwards.’
‘Then Mr Glodstone’s notion of reality must be sadly wanting,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne. ‘Without qualifications you won’t do anything afterwards.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Peregrine, ‘I’m in the First Eleven and the First Fifteen and Gloddie says if you’re good at sports—’
‘To hell with what Mr Glodstone says,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne, and dropped the subject.
*
His feelings for Glodstone were but a faint echo of those held by Mr Slymne. He loathed Glodstone. Ever since he had first come to Groxbourne some fifteen years before, Slymne had loathed him. It was a natural loathing. Mr Slymne had, in his youth, been a sensitive man and to be christened ‘Slimey’ in his first week at the school by a one-eyed buffoon with a monocle who professed openly that a beaten boy was a better boy had, to put it mildly, rankled. Mr Slymne’s view on punishment had been humane and sensible. Glodstone and Groxbourne had changed all that. In a desperate attempt to gain some respect and to deter his classes from calling him Slimey to his face, he had devised punishments that didn’t include beating. They ranged from running ten times to the school gates and back, a total distance of some five miles, to learning Wordsworth’s Prelude off by heart and, in extreme cases, missing Games. It was this last method that brought things to a head. Groxbourne might not be noted for its academic standards but rugby and cricket were another matter, and when boys who were fast bowlers or full-backs complained that they couldn’t play in school matches because Mr Slymne had put them on punishment, the other masters turned on him.
‘But I can’t have my authority undermined by being called nicknames to my face,’ Slymne complained at a staff meeting convened after he had put six boys in the First Eleven on punishment two days before the Bloxham match.
‘And I’m damned if I’m going to field a side consisting of more than half the Second Eleven,’ protested the infuriated cricket coach, Mr Doran. ‘As it is, Bloxham is going to wipe the floor with us. I’ve lost more practice time i
n the nets this term than any summer since we had the mumps epidemic in 1952, and then we were in quarantine and couldn’t play other schools, so it didn’t matter. Why can’t you beat boys like any decent master?’
‘I resent that,’ said Mr Slymne. ‘What has decency to do with beating—’
The Headmaster intervened. ‘What you don’t seem to understand, Mr Slymne, is that it is one of the occupational facts of teaching life to be given a nickname. I happen to know that mine is Bruin, because my name is Bear.’
‘I daresay,’ said Mr Slymne, ‘but Bruin’s a pleasant name and doesn’t undermine your authority. Slimey does.’
‘And do you think I like being called the Orang-utan?’ demanded Mr Doran, ‘any more than Glodstone here enjoys Cyclops or Matron’s flattered by being known as Miss World 1914?’
‘No,’ said Mr Slymne, ‘I don’t suppose you do, but you don’t get called Orang-utan to your face.’
‘Precisely,’ said Mr Glodstone. ‘Any boy foolish enough to call me Cyclops knows he’s going to get thrashed so he doesn’t.’
‘I think beating is barbaric,’ maintained Mr Slymne. ‘It not only brutalizes the boys—’
‘Boys are brutal. It’s in the nature of the beast,’ said Glodstone.
‘But it also brutalizes masters who do it. Glodstone’s a case in point.’
‘I really think there’s no need to indulge in personal attacks,’ said the Headmaster, but Mr Glodstone waved his defence aside with a nasty smile.
‘Wrong again, Slymne. I don’t beat. I know my limitations and I leave it to the prefects in my house to do it for me. An eighteen-year-old has an extremely strong right arm.’
‘And I suppose Matron gets boys to do her dirty work for her when she’s called Miss World 1914,’ said Slymne, fighting back.
Major Fetherington spoke up. ‘She doesn’t need to. I remember an incident two or three years ago involving Hoskiss Minor. I think she used a soap enema – or was it washing-up liquid? Something like that. He was off Games for a week anyway, poor devil.’