Fallen boys

‘There is nothing worse than a thief!’, said the scoutmaster to the grubby troop member.

‘It’s only scrumping apples’, muttered the boy, his head hanging low.

Master Plumb, as he liked to be called, clubbed the boy’s ear and hissed. ‘You always were a bad lot, Benjamin Smith. Your Dad is a dirty crook and your mother is no better than she should be.’

Benjie and his best friend Jamie Jones had been caught coming in from the cross-country hike with contraband. Two windfall apples from Farmer Jones’ orchard.

Plumb immediately worked himself up to a righteous rage until spittle flecked his lips.

The rest of the scout troop hung back so as not to draw his attention. At the same time the little drama mesmerised them. They sensed that dirty little Benjie Smith was really going to cop it at last.

‘I will deal with you later, Jones’, he said to Benjie’s fair-haired and retiring fellow miscreant.

The boys exchanged glances. They all knew what that meant.

To Benjie, Plumb said, ’As for you. It is time to cut the cancer from our troop. Give me your woggle and scarf!”

The yellow scarf and leather woggle were the only signs of scout-hood to be afforded in the poor country neighbourhood. Benjie's mother had worked extra hours as a cleaner to buy them, hiding the money from his drunkard father.

Everyone watched as the angry scoutmaster ceremonially lit a small fire from dry tinder and threw in the scarf and woggle.

He then ushered the whole troop round the boy and led them in a round of booing to formally expel Benjie from the brotherhood of scouts.

The boys joined in with enthusiasm. Some of them jostled Benjie roughly as he limped off to make his own way home.

Later than evening when Jamie Jones went to the scoutmaster’s prefabricated bungalow for his punishment, he stripped off as ordered and cried through five harsh blows from the leather strap.

That was bad enough, but then the scoutmaster insisted on anointing the welts with soothing ointment. He even went as far as to caress the boy to show there was no bad feeling.

Plumb then dragged the boy onto his knees and began a long and rambling prayer begging forgiveness for the depraved acts of the days and asking to be given strength to ‘always do the right thing’.

Afterward, he told Jamie, moisture oozing from his reddened eyes, that the whipping had hurt him more than it had the boy.

’At least that little devil Benjie Smith is out of our lives.

‘Now we can be happy’, he told the boy.