Saving the Queen (12 page)

“Oakes. O-a-k-e-s. I have a good many complaints here about you, Oakes, though I have not previously acted on any of them. My mistake, I can see now. Tell me, sir, have you ever been beaten?”

Blackford was hot now not only with fear but with rage. But he knew that nothing—no threat, no punishment—would deprive him of the imperative satisfaction of answering curtly. “No,” he said.

Dr. Chase seemed to grow whiter, but then the same chalkwhite shaft of light that shone on Oakes's rear end now flooded Dr. Chase's face as he bent over his register, scribbling on the page reserved for
O-a-k-e-s, B.
, a record of the forthcoming ministration.

“Perhaps, sir,” Dr. Chase said icily, “that accounts for your bad manners?”

Oakes said nothing.

“We have a great deal to accomplish, here in Britain, during the next period. But we are not unwilling to take time for a little foreign aid. Perhaps America is not prepared to help Britain. But here at Greyburn, Britain is prepared to help America”—he stood up, handed the book to Mr. Leary, and walked over toward the rod—“even if our aid is administered to only one American at a time.”

The moment had come, and suddenly Oakes found Trust's hands grabbing him at the armpits, forcing his head down. Now, his face on the leather cushion, he could see the bottom half of Dr. Chase, walking over toward the executioner's position.

“You will receive nine strokes.”

Black could hear Anthony gasp.

Again there was a pause, and the whistling sound of the rod as Dr. Chase limbered his arm. After that, a moment such as, Oakes thought—in the furious state of his mind, recalling the war stories he had read so avidly that summer—the soldiers experience just before beginning their charge: the whole body and mind frozen in anticipation. What happened then he could not have anticipated. The rod, the instrument of all Dr. Chase's strength, wrath, and resentment, descended, and the pain was indescribable, outrageous, unforgettable. Oakes shouted as if he had been hosed down by a flame thrower. His legs shot out from the block. “
Hold him tight
” Dr. Chase hissed at Trust, who applied his whole body's strength to holding Blackford down. The rod descended again, and Oakes's lower body writhed in spastic reaction, but could not avoid the descending birch, which came down, again; and again; and again. There was a slight, endless interval between the strokes—five, ten seconds—during which Dr. Chase, grim satisfaction written on his face, studied Oakes's movements like a hunter the movements of a bird dog, the better to anticipate, and connect the rod to, the buttocks with maximum effect. Oakes's screams were continuous, uncontrollable, an amalgam of pain, fear, mortification. But when the ninth stroke was given he suddenly fell silent, as Trust's grip relaxed. The room was noiseless. Dr. Chase, breathing heavily and drawing back his rod, red with Blackford's blood, said raspily:

“
Courtesy of Great Britain, sir.
”

He handed the rod to Leary, disdaining to return it himself to the closet, walked rhythmically to his office, and closed the door. Oakes did not change his position for a minute or two during which he was convulsed with a silent sobbing. Leary busied himself for a moment with unimportant details, shutting the closet door, replacing the register in the drawer; and then, finally, left to go to his own office, leaving the library to Trust and Oakes.

“You'd better try to come along now, Oakes.” Trust discreetly pulled up the shorts, and gently prodded him by the shoulder, first to lean back, and, finally, to stand up.

“Now, try raising your pants. Easy.”

Blackford's blond face was ashen, but his eyes had dried. He struggled to lift up his pants. Without bothering to fasten his suspenders, he reached for his coat, and Trust helped him put it on. He groped his way to Mr. Leary's back door, opened it, and passed through the antechamber without comment to the assistant to the headmaster, walking, as best he could, down the staircase. As he passed through the front door, held open for him by Trust, he detected the gaze of the two ladies in the administrative office, who no doubt had stopped their work to pity or—who knows?—perhaps to celebrate the youthful screams, which must have penetrated the ceiling like a burglar alarm. He felt like flinging open the side door and shouting out, “Would you like a repeat performance tomorrow, ladies? Same time? Same place?” But his imaginary resilience proved very nearly nauseating, and he felt he had to stop to swallow, or be sick. Trust stayed with him, saying nothing as Oakes, head down, waddled, which was all he could manage to do, in the direction of his dormitory. He didn't know exactly why he was headed there, but at that point Trust's voice, rather shakily, but in unequivocal accents of pity and shared outrage that gave a moment's life to Oakes's spirit, said, “We'll go to the lavatory. Cold water will help a lot, and right away.”

Trust brought up two empty wooden cases from the store closet opposite the empty lavatory, on which Oakes's feet could perch. Then he poured cold water into the large washbasin, and once again Oakes pulled down his clothes, and sat. The relief was immediate, overwhelming, blissful. He perched there while Trust kept running cold water. They said nothing, as Blackford's mind settled. It did so quickly. In ten minutes, he said, “Can I call you Anthony?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I have to leave Greyburn.”

“Don't. Chase has got it out of his system. Now Grey-burn is
secure.
” Suddenly Trust was less positive. “I don't think they'll keep after you.”

Blackford went on without comment. “Anthony, I want you to do one thing for me, which I can't do for myself.”

“What is it?”

“I want you to use the telephone in the prefects' lounge to order a taxi to meet me outside Caulfield Hall at one o'clock. I can't approach the housemaster and ask permission to use the telephone at this point.”

Anthony's orthodoxy collapsed. Suddenly, willingly—enthusiastically—he was the co-conspirator, sharing the wrath Blackford felt at the sadistic and xenophobic episode in which, the guilt began to assault him, he had somehow served as co-executioner. He wondered, should he have
refused
? Told Dr. Chase that
no
, he, Anthony Trust,
declined
to pinion down a fellow American to accommodate one Briton's vindictiveness? But, he reflected—Anthony was always judicious—the anti-American animus was not really all that transparent until just before the punishment began, and on through the ferocity of it and the hideously redundant final blows.… There
was
that premonitory crack, at the beginning, about foreign aid.… For a wild moment Anthony thought of taking off with Blackford; but reality quickly overtook him, as he tabulated the arguments, and reckoned that from such a flight he had everything to lose and nothing to gain, except a moment's satisfaction.

What Blackford had to gain, or lose, Trust could not know. But Anthony, unlike Blackford, was an unqualified success at Greyburn. He was elected prefect as a fifth-former and as an American. A slight, dark boy, with unspoken thoughts always obviously on his mind, he was, in a taciturn way, an enthusiast, whose paradoxical detachment, however, was always an unshakable presence. He made his mark early by singling out the house bully and challenging him, notwithstanding the disparity in size and experience. Anthony was trounced, and a week later he challenged the bully again, and again was trounced, and a third time, to meet the same fate. But soon the young oppressor appeared to lose his appetite for bullying, and Anthony, only a few months later, was named prefect by the boys in an overwhelming vote and found himself exercising formal authority over the bully, which he did not abuse. He occupied himself by quietly excelling in everything—his academic work, athletics, the maintenance of his privacy. He was a comfortable and respected member of the Greyburn community. He would remain in it.

Meanwhile his enthusiasm for Blackford's resolution had become a commitment, at whatever risk to his own standing.

“Okay. I'll call Leicester Drivers. But why one o'clock? It's only eleven-fifteen. If you want to slip away earlier, I'll help you pack.”

“I don't
want
to slip away. I can pack in fifteen minutes. Then I'll go to lunch.”

“You must be nuts! Go to the refectory and advertise the fact that you're running away from school because you were beaten?”

“I am not running away from school. I am leaving school.”

“Great God.” Anthony wondered: Would the school forcibly stop him? He could think of no real precedent. Last year one of the boys in the Lower School ran away, but he sneaked off at night, taking the bus from Grey-burn Town. He was back in two days, driven to the school by his irate father, was soundly beaten, and—Anthony vaguely remembered being told—was doing very nicely this term. Anthony could not conceive of a protracted, let alone ceremonial, departure from Greyburn when the departure was
itself utterly illicit
. He was certain only of this: He could either co-operate with Blackford or desert him; nothing in between. Anthony had not been invited by this strangely independent fellow-American to help formulate his plans, merely to help execute them. The boy sitting half-naked in the washbasin gave off a nearly regal sense of rectitude and authority. Anthony had only to see how it would all proceed. He was not there to interpose.

“We'd better get moving. I'll help you up. It's going to hurt again in a matter of minutes, after the cold wears off. After I call the taxi, I'll bring you some stuff I have left over from last year, which you can apply. It's for burns, and it dulls the pain.”

Blackford stood up, shakily, stepped off the wooden cases, and drew up his trousers. The pain resumed, intensely, and his eyes were once more hot with pain.

He tried walking naturally. It was very difficult, but by the time he reached the staircase, he was managing a kind of deliberate and synthetically symmetrical gait.

“I'll make the call, then I'll come to your dorm—what number are you?—and help you. Five minutes.” Anthony streaked out, and Blackford, his hand on the railing, moved himself, the left foot up, the right following, the left foot up again, the right following. He reached the landing and walked toward his little cubicle, along the neat row with the white hanging curtains drawn, the beds, the window sills on which personal belongings were permitted, pictures of parents and sisters, school photographs. He came to his own, halfway down the corridor, closed the curtain behind him, and, leaning against the dresser, wept convulsively. He must stop, he thought. Quickly. He leaned over, painfully, to open the drawers of the dresser, to take out his clothes. His suitcases were stored in the locker room, inaccessible. He would leave them there and pile his clothes into two laundry bags. He had already begun to do this when Anthony slipped through the curtains and whispered, “The taxi is all set.” He helped Blackford stuff his clothes into the bags. Suddenly he stopped.

“Blackford, you'd better change your pants.”

Blackford moved his hands behind him, felt nothing, and asked, “Why?”

“Because. Take them off.”

Blackford did, and saw the spots. He removed his shorts, gazing with awe at the streaky bloodstains. He accepted from Anthony the proffered tube. With great care he applied the unguent first on one buttock, then on the other. He took fresh drawers and stepped into them. Then another pair of pants, and suddenly, the balm taking hold, he felt better, and his appetite increased for a last lunch at Greyburn College.

By the time he reached the refectory, promptly at 12:15, the word had obviously traveled to all corners of the school—it is so in schools—that the problem of Blackford Oakes had been disposed of, and all eyes were on him as he filed silently (the boys were not permitted to talk until the presiding master had said grace) to his customary place at the table. After grace, everyone sat down, except Blackford, who in any case could not have done so. Freshly birched boys routinely ate off the mantelpiece for a day or so, and it was expected he would go there, where a plate would be brought to him, and where he could chat with several survivors of Bleak Friday, the afternoon before. Instead he turned to the boy on his left, stretched out his hand, and said, “Good-by, Dodson. I'm leaving Greyburn. It has been very good to know you.”

Dodson, who found all things amusing, was tempted to laugh, but decided, his soup spoon barely out of his mouth, against doing so; instead he dropped the spoon and stuck out his hand. There was a terrible gravity in the good-by he had just received from Oakes, who now was saying good-by to Oldfield, continuing his tour around the table. The master, a young physicist called Mr. Brown, watched with fascination and suddenly found that it was his turn.

“So long, Mr. Brown. It has been very nice to know you.”

The table was now quiet, and as Blackford walked off stiffly to say good-by, selectively, to special friends here and there at other tables, the entire refectory gradually fell silent. Blackford appeared not to notice, and the whispering then began, in accents of awe, disbelief, and dismay. But no one did what Anthony most feared someone might do. Perhaps because everyone knew Blackford enough to know that to call him a coward would be implausible. And there was something in the precocious solemnity of the courtly tour around the large refectory that gainsaid schoolboy jeering. He did it all—from the lowly Dodson to the final occupant of the main table, the formidable head prefect, the Scottish aristocrat who, at age seventeen, was already a world-renowned equestrian—in six or seven minutes, his voice audible only to the person he was addressing. When passing by the presiding master—this week it was an utterly dumbstruck Spaniard, who taught his own language and Italian—he merely bowed slightly, stopping to shake hands with a genial prefect on his right. Then, without looking back, he opened the door of the refectory, and closed it on to an explosion, the animated bustle of three hundred boys wondering whether they could believe their eyes.