The Loom of Youth Part 36

In a mood of supreme self-confidence he returned to Fernhurst.

At Waterloo everyone was talking at the top of his voice.

"Is it true Akerman has left?"

"Yes; got a commission in the Middles.e.x."

"Good Lord! that'll mean Gregory captain."

"Hunter has left, too, I hear."

"Has he?"

"Caruthers will be captain of the House, then."

Broken sentences were wafted like strange music to Gordon's ears. He felt that the eyes of those who once had been his equals looked at him with a sort of Oriental admiration, in which there lurked traces of fear.

He found himself addressed with more respect. One or two people came up to congratulate him. The green flag waved. The train moved majestically westward, and his reign had begun. He did not feel the slightest tremor of nervousness. He remembered Hunter saying at the end of last term that it was ticklish work being captain of the House. Was it? To Gordon it seemed no more than the inevitable entrance into a kingdom which was his by right of conquest.

The Eversham road swept in its broad curve up to the Abbey, black with moving figures. Gordon slowly walked up to the House. It was the privilege of School House prefects to enter by a small gate near the masters' common room. Haughtily he rang the bell. A wizened old lady opened the door, bowing with a "Hope you 'ad a good 'oliday, sir." It was the first sensation of power.

A crowd had collected round the notice-board in the changing-room.

Gordon murmured "Thank you," and two or three Eton collars moved aside to give him room. What a change! All the giants of the former generation had gone. Betteridge had, at the express request of the Chief, come back for one term. But he alone remained. Gordon was fifth in the House; and, good Lord, that amazing a.s.s Rudd was a prefect, and second in the House!

He and Gordon had a double dormitory on the lower landing. The number of boys in the House had sunk to sixty-two, rather a desolating thought for House matches.

The Chief was not in his study. Gordon dropped a health certificate on his table, and gave instructions to one Morgan, a round-faced, ruddy youth, to shove his bag into his dormitory. Then he wandered over to the games study. And so this study was going to be his! He had often sat there with Carter; but he had always felt himself an excrescence. Now it was his own. He pictured the evenings after a hard game of football, sitting in front of the fire; the long mornings when he was supposed to be preparing history for Finnemore, spent in this atmosphere of luxurious calm. He planned his furnis.h.i.+ng of the room. In the broad window he would hang two bookshelves for his smaller books. On each side of the fireplace there was also room for bookshelves. Then, standing against the wooden part.i.tion that jutted out into the room would be his large oak bookcase for the heavy volumes. He would repaper the room, and a new carpet was a necessity. He went over to the porter's lodge to give instructions.

He had already decided to ask Foster to share the study with him. Foster would be captain of cricket next summer. They would get on well together. Foster never quarrelled with anyone; and it would be a suitable combination. He met Foster by the eight-ten train from Exeter, and informed him of the fact.

When prayers came, and Gordon stood under the mantelpiece behind the arm-chair where the captain of the House sat, and looked down at the row of new boys at the day-room table, it seemed incredible to him that he had ever been like that. And yet it was only three years ago since he had sat there, dazed and frightened.

Prayers were ended. Gordon sat back, his hands resting on the arms of his big oak chair. The Chief came round, shaking hands.

"Caruthers, Foster and Davenport, you might come and speak to me for a moment after you have finished your supper."

That was not long. No one had ever been known to touch any of the first-night soup; Gordon had often wondered what happened to it. There was much of it, and all wasted.

The Chief greeted them with his invariable fluttering smile.

"I suppose you know what I want you for? Kitchener called up his reserves, so I have had to call up mine. None of you would, I think, in the ordinary course of events have become prefects this term. But as it is, I am sure you will all do well; and remember that being a prefect does not merely consist in the privilege of being late for breakfast.

Some of you, who may very likely have views of your own on certain subjects, must try and make them conform with mine. We must all try to work together, and I am always ready to give any of you advice if I am able to, and of course----"

At this moment there came the discordant sounds that proclaimed the arrival of the last train from town. Gordon could imagine some wretched new boy huddled underneath the stairs, ignorant and timid.

Rudd burst in with a health certificate and outside came the babble of voices. "I must go and see Chief ... Health certificate ... Confirmation cla.s.ses ... Going to specialise in stinks."

It was clear that the Chief was to have a hard time for the next twenty minutes interviewing all these candidates for a satisfactory division of labour.

"Well, I think that is all just now, thank you."

He gave them a nod of dismissal. They filed out into the pa.s.sage, black with its crowd of clamouring applicants.

It was not until the next day, however, that Gordon fully realised the change that had come over Fernhurst. Nearly all the bloods had left.

Gregory was still there, but he had sent his papers in, and expected to be gazetted in a week or so, and of the Fifteen of the year before he was the only remaining colour. Two members of the Second Fifteen remained: one because he was only seventeen, the other, Akerman's younger brother, because he was going to be a medical student and was not allowed to take a commission by the War Office.

The staff also had undergone several changes. Ferrers was practically the only master under thirty. The rest had all taken commissions, and their places were filled by grey-beards and bald-heads, long since past their prime. It was a case of extreme youth face to face with extreme age.

"There will be some fun this term," prophesied Archie Fletcher, for whom the immediate future stretched out into a long series of colossal "rags."

Rogers was imperially himself. The Corps was, of course, to be allowed considerably more time this term. There were two parades a week, one a company drill on Friday, the other a field day on Wednesday. Besides this, between twelve-thirty and lunch there would be section and platoon drill every day. Rogers imagined that O.T.C. work would shortly become more important and more popular than football; he saw himself taking the position once held by Buller. On the strength of this alluring prospect he bought a new uniform.

For the first few days life was entertainingly disorganised. The time-table worked out all wrong. Gregory got gazetted; and Akerman, on becoming captain, forgot the numbers of the football grounds, thus causing endless and hilarious confusion. No one quite knew what was happening, but everyone was happily excited, and vaguely garrulous about "how the war has changed things."

Gordon found that his new position brought with it certain other honours. In the Corps, for instance, where for three years he had so tempered slackness with insolence as to make him the worst private in the company, he found himself a lance-corporal, in charge of a section.

He was elected to the Dolts Literary Society, under the placid autocracy of Claremont, who called them his "stolidi." But nothing showed more clearly the change wrought by the war than the fact that Gordon was nominated to the Games Committee, before which august body hardly six months ago he had cut such an inglorious figure. It was a strange irony.

In the School House every prefect was allowed four f.a.gs, so as Foster and Gordon were both prefects, the games study had a goodly crowd of menials. For the most part they were simple, insignificant, Eton-collared mortals, who flitted round the room after breakfast with dusters, and at various other times of the day came in to see after the fire. Gordon took little notice of them. Foster had made out a list of the days on which each f.a.g was on duty; one, Hare, was put in charge, and when anything went wrong, Hare was considered responsible and beaten. After two such castigations the excellence of the f.a.gging was maintained at an unusually high standard.

The first fortnight of the term was feverish. Corps work was revivified under the stimulus of war; the field days by Babylon Hill provided genuine excitement, in spite of the prolixity of Rogers's subsequent summary of the day's work. There were going to be very few football matches; but "uppers" were played with the old keenness, and there was fierce compet.i.tion for the last places in the scrum. Ferrers wrote a long article to _The Country_ on "The Public Schools and the War," which bubbled over with enthusiasm.

Gordon found authority a pleasant thing. There were, of course, bound to be little worries, but they were transient. The new boys caused him a certain amount of trouble. They never would take the trouble to find out if they were posted for House games. The result was that as often as not the House found itself playing with only six forwards. Gordon made a speech to the House on the subject. The very next day Golding, a most wretched-looking specimen, failed to turn up on a House game.

Gordon gave him a lecture on the insignificance of the new boy and the importance of games.

"This sort of thing can't go on," he said, using the formula that every prefect has used since the day prefects were first made. "If it did, we might find everyone cutting House games and going off to pick-ups! What would happen then?"

Golding was far too frightened to have any views on the subject.

"Well, I shall have to beat you."

Gordon led the way to the empty s.p.a.ce by the cloisters where roll was called.

"Bend over there!"

Golding showed a natural reluctance to do anything of the sort.

"No, right down; and lift up your coat."

Gordon gave him a fairly hard stroke. Golding squealed "Oh!" and rose, holding his trousers, and looking round fretfully. Gordon's heart melted. After all, this was a new kid, and a pretty poor specimen at that.

The next shot was very gentle.

The sequel reached Gordon three days later. Golding had gone back down to the day-room. Rudd was taking hall, which was, of course, an excuse for everyone to talk.

"How many?" asked several voices. "Did he hurt?"

"Oh, only one and a half," announced Golding, puffed out with pride.

"First hardly hurt me at all, and the second one was quite a misfire."