At 15 I was offered an apprenticeship with a local computer company, largely because I played soccer rather well, and the training officer needed new talent for the apprentices' team. Once the offer of an apprenticeship arrived, I rushed to see the headmaster, Mr. Anderson, to explain why I was leaving at Christmas. On reading the letter, he advised me not to take the job. He said that I would not succeed, and would be better off staying in school for the final term. There was even the hint of elevation to the esteemed position of prefect. This high office was awarded only to ten senior pupils. Those righteous ten wore the revered prefect's badge and kept watch over the rest of the pupils, ensuring compliance with the school rules, and marching offenders off to see the headmaster. In short, prefects were narks and snitches and were hated by most frequent offenders, amongst whom could be counted the vast majority of my friends.
My school friends were either rogues or sportsmen. I played for the school soccer and cricket teams. Village life for us revolved around sports. All our free time, when it wasn't raining, was spent on a patch of grass somewhere playing soccer or cricket. After school in the summer we would practice cricket in the school nets, usually unsupervised. In my final year the school dug a pole-vaulting pit. This was a novelty to everyone who had vaulted across rivers using tree limbs or broomsticks. We found the necessary equipment and began to experiment. After a few runs and pole plants we were doing quite well and clearing two or three feet, when a school master wandered by. We were all instantly selected, without appeal, to perform for the parents and public at sports day the following week.
Sports day was an annual event in which the four houses of the school competed in races and other athletic events. The parents loved it, as did those who could run fast, jump high, and throw things vast distances. It was a mini-Olympics without medals. Pole-vaulting was the newest novelty and we eight gladiators were pitted against each other by the ruling classes to perform for the pleasure of the honored guests. The bar began at four feet, which we all cleared with relative ease, albeit void of elegance. After four more rounds we were attempting five feet, higher than any of us had vaulted before. We had decided for ourselves that the key to vaulting high was to run as fast as we could, plant the pole, and hang on. Courage, although misplaced, was not in any shortage as we gladiators each waited our turn. The first two vaulters cleanly removed the bar with sundry parts of their anatomy. I was next.
I recall carefully measuring out my stride so as to begin at the right point on the runway. I lifted the pole, balanced it, rocked on my heels, copying the one fragment of the style of Olympian athletes that I could remember, and took off racing down the runway as fast I could, holding my breath, and concentrating on the target. The pole planted perfectly and I jumped, clinging to the pole. It yanked me high into the air and then ... all went blank.
Life can be embarrassing enough when one is allowed to witness it without intermissions, but when nature inserts gaps in the record, the events of which cannot be reconstructed, save from the accounts of dubious friends who cannot complete their testimony without falling on the floor in uncontrolled laughter, the agony is more than anyone should reasonably be expected to bear.
According to the various accounts, which were being embellished at each rendition, I had gone up with the pole, achieving more than sufficient height to clear the bar. I apparently balanced for a brief period twixt kinetic and potential energy, body swinging around the bar, legs flailing upward, neck in contact with the bar, and then I fell sideways, hitting my head on the right hand upright. This being bad enough in front of teachers, parents, friends, and the many young ladies with whom I was now permanently impaired from making a favorable impression, the epilogue was even worse. It seems that the gym mistress picked me up and carried me into the school to administer first aid. The lady in question was beautiful and a mere shake of her hand in other circumstances would have earned me unsurpassable honor amongst my friends, but to be carried unconscious by any woman was, I was assured, a worse fate than anyone could imagine. Recovery from the concussion was much quicker than recovery from my emasculation.
I hated Mr. Anderson, a terrifying figure of no more than 5 feet 6 inches. We referred privately to him under various nicknames, Napoleon and Hitler being our favorites. The adjectives far outnumbered the nicknames. He dominated the stage at morning assembly. It seemed to the pupils that he dominated the faculty equally. They had us marching in single file all over the school. Strict silence was observed while any class was in session. Corporal punishment was freely awarded with verve to anyone who couldn't quite get used to martial order. Talking in the wrong place at the wrong time usually earned the offender one or two strokes of the cane on the hand. The girls got a whack with a slipper from one of the senior women teachers.
On one occasion Anderson gave a boy "six of the best" in front of the entire school after morning assembly. The boy was suspected of stealing a cricket ball, the facts of the case being widely disputed by all that claimed knowledge of them. The atmosphere was tense as we waited for the punishment to be carried out. The whole event was cast in the genre of a public execution. The boy was marched onto the stage, and made to stand before his executioner, who read out the charge and the sentence. The boy was instructed to bend over the large oak table, which he did with knees visibly shaking and tears streaming down his face, another fluid streaming down his legs.
As the first blow struck him he collapsed and began to cry loudly. The headmaster ordered him back to the appropriate position for his punishment, but I believe he could not stand. Fear, pain, humiliation, and a sense of doom had taken away his muscle control. The headmaster barked out orders to the teachers on the stage. They helped the boy to his feet and I believe one of them whispered some consoling words to the boy, but was cut off in the middle of his compassion by further barking from the Fuehrer. They held him down and the punishment proceeded. The blows, properly spaced two or three seconds apart, tore at the boy's rear. That he was in agony, there was no doubt. He was screaming by the time the sixth blow was struck.
There was no Qu'ran under the executioner's arm to limit the swing, no book down the back of the victim's trousers to minimize the bruising. This was not the way that the Beno and Dandy had characterized such events. Some little eleven-year-olds were crying; the youngest sat nearest the stage. Justice was served and no one ever again stole a $5.00 cricket ball. I can recall my pulse racing and my temples bulging with rage against the headmaster. If just one boy had been brave enough to rush the stage in an attempt to stop the savagery, I would have been with him. I had yet to read "Lord of the flies," but revolution was on my mind at that moment, and it stayed with me for many years. Oh to be part of an army on a righteous mission!
Who amongst us elevates himself to Lord High Executioner? Isn't there a qualification or two necessary for such a position, at least one of which must surely be righteousness? Didn't Jesus ask, "who amongst you will cast the first stone?" The Biblical scholars tell us that Mosaic Law demanded that an accuser throw that stone, but his testimony was only admissible if he was innocent of the crime himself. The witnesses of the adultery had apparently jumped the fence themselves, and had luckily or artfully avoided the very punishment that they wished on the poor woman.
School had served its purpose. It had provided minimal qualification for the next stage of my career. The apprenticeship would enable me to grow in confidence, or maybe audacity, and would therefore prepare me for university.