Anonymous - The Secret Chronicles of Henry Dashwood, Vol. 1

He thanked us warmly and I smiled at the puzzled frown on Billy Goodall's face when George mentioned how grateful he was to me 'for the set of extra tutorials.' Not wishing for Billy to pursue this matter further, I gave George my personal extra present of the 'Seebackroscope' which he thought was a most amusing gift. 'With the aid of this instrument, the possessor can see behind him,' he read out from the leaflet which accompanied the small rubber periscope.

'Observe who is following you without attracting attention by turning around, simply by placing the Seebackroscope to your eye. 'Thanks a lot, Henry, this could turn out to be jolly useful,' he said.

Johnny laughed and said that George could also have great fun with the Seebackroscope next year when he stayed with his parents at their summer house in nearby Felpham, standing outside the bathing machines on the beach at Bognor Regis! 'Ha, Ha, Ha! What a jolly idea! And, before then, I'll practise standing with my back to Mr.

Hutchinson and see if I can note down the answers to our maths homework,' suggested George. We demolished the rest of the plum cake and spent the remaining time till 'prep' in a merry mood, swapping ribald jokes. The best of these came from Billy Goodall who recounted an anecdote about a gentleman of the Romish persuasion who went to Confession one morning and informed the priest that he had been fucking one of the servant girls for the previous month. The priest admonished him and warned him that if he did not desist indulging in such carnal sin, upon his demise he would be consigned to the fiery depths. Much chastened, the gentleman left the church but, a mere week later, was back again in the confession box with an agitated expression on his face. 'Father, I tried tremendously hard not to fuck Matilda, but this morning, when I saw her bending over as she filled a shopping basket, I simply could not refrain from throwing up her petticoats and poking her.' 'My son, my son,' cried the horrified priest. 'Think of your immortal soul which will be barred from the doors of heaven!' To which the gentleman smiled wanly and replied: 'Perhaps so, and in the meantime I am also barred from the doors of Mrs. Estelle Cohn's Emporium in Kensington High Street!'

We roared with laughter at this comical tale and Johnny said: 'That joke reminds me of a little “Nursery Rhyme”: “From the depths of the crypt in St Giles, Came a scream which resounded for miles, Said the vicar, 'Good gracious, Has Father Ignatious Forgotten the Bishop has piles?'” This set off a round of rude rhymes of which I can only recall Stephen Harvill's: 'A comely young lady named Ransom, Was ravished five times in a Hansom, When she cried out for more, A voice from the floor Groaned “Madam, I'm Simpson, not Sampson!'” I enjoy a smutty story or poem which possesses genuine wit, but alas, I can never remember even the best of them.

Hopefully I shall now be able to rectify this situation by writing in this diary which will act as a repository for the most amusing jests which I wish to recall. Because of Mr. Hutchinson's absence, there were only some Latin verbs to mug up for 'prep' and George and I had plenty of time to take a short stroll down to the gymnasium to return the referee's whistle to Bunny Hare which George had absent-mindedly left in his shorts whilst changing into his ordinary clothes after the match. No-one was training in the gymnasium when we entered but in the far corner there was a light and a low murmur of voices coming from Mr. Hare's office. 'Why on earth is old Bunny sitting in his office when he has turned off the gas jets in the gym?'

I murmured as I closed the door quietly behind us. 'What the blue blazes can he be up to?' George grinned as he pulled the Seebackroscope out of his pocket. 'Stay here for a moment, Henry and I'll find out,' he said. He padded noiselessly across the wooden floor and climbed silently up the stairs to the changing area. At first, I wondered what he was about, but then I remembered that last week, at morning assembly, Dr Muttley informed us that some wood was found to be infested with dry-rot in the gymnasium and that for a few days there would be a gap of about ten inches between the planks of the upstairs floor, almost directly above the gymnasium office. 'Be careful to avoid this area, there is no danger of the floor collapsing underneath your weight, but we don't want anyone catching their feet in the hole,' the headmaster had warned. I realised that George would have no need of his Seebackroscope for he would be able to peer downwards for a bird's eye view of Bunny Hare's room. I waited for a minute or so and then made my way upstairs to join him, taking care to move as quietly as possible on the boards. Luckily, they were sturdy and didn't creak. When I reached George, he was down on his knees with his eyes glued to the gap and he beckoned me over to see for myself what was happening directly beneath him. As I took up position next to him, he mouthed: 'Just take a quick gander at that, Henry, the dirty beast.' I looked quizzically at George for a moment before squinting through the hole to gaze down at Mr. Hare who was standing by the treatment table talking to Gordon Harding, a good-looking third form boy, who was lying on the table with his head propped up against a pillow. 'I hardly breathed as I saw Bunny unbutton Harding's trousers and slide his hand down the stiff little shaft which he extracted from the vent of the fly. I bent closer to hear what the sports master was whispering to the boy as he slipped his foreskin down from the purple domed head. Harding continued to lie with his eyes closed whilst Bunny fondled his twitching tool.

'Does that feel nice, Gordon?' he enquired. Harding replied: 'Oh yes, sir, please rub faster as I think I'm about to spend.'

Bunny obliged him by working his hand to and fro at a greater pace until, with a sudden spurt, an eruption of white seed burst out of the boy's cock like a miniature fountain. 'This isn't playing the game,' muttered George under his breath. I nodded my head and whispered: 'Let's go downstairs quietly and then make a noise as if we've just come in. That will frighten the balls off them both.'

This is precisely what we did and the result was exactly as I had forecast. By the time we reached the office, Harding was standing fully dressed besides Mr. Hare who was breathing hard but who otherwise looked relatively composed. 'Ah Nugent-Bull and Dashwood – what can I do for you, boys?' he enquired cordially. I frowned at George who I sensed was about to make a tart retort about not needing Bunny's fingers on his cock, and I prevented him from doing so by answering quickly and before my chum could open his mouth.

'We've come to return your whistle to you, sir. Nugent-Bull took it back with his kit by mistake after the footer this afternoon.' I explained. George threw the whistle on to the treatment table and with a steely glint in his eye he said to Harding: 'Hello there, Gordon, are you doing some extra training for the match against Rookwood juniors on Thursday?' Mr. Hare replied for the third former. 'No, no, Harding simply twisted his foot and I invited him here so that I could give his ankle a massage,' he said as he patted the youngster on the head. 'Off you go now, and try to rest the foot as much as you can. With any luck, you'll be fighting fit for the game.' Despite his advice, Harding scuttled out and I pulled George's sleeve as I politely wished the sports master good evening.

'Good evening to you, chaps, and thank you for giving me back my whistle,' he said, as he stuffed it into his pocket. 'The great South African athlete, Laurence Nathan, gave me this whistle whilst we were at Oxford. I used to time his sprints, you know, and next Spring, he's off to represent the Orange Free State at these new Olympic Games some obscure French Baron is staging in Athens.' As we walked back to our study, George argued strongly that we should have confronted the sports master about how we had seen him fiddling with young Harding, but I shook my head and said: 'Look, for what it's worth, I would think that our arrival gave Bunny quite a fright and he won't try and seduce any other boy in a hurry – but if he does, it's odds-on he'll be discovered, just like we caught him out this evening. 'And let me ask you this, old boy. Hand on your heart, would you have got so hot under the collar if it had been Freda or one of the other servant girls whacking off young Harding?' George wrinkled his brow as he reflected upon how best to answer my question and finally said: 'Well, I suppose not, though I would still have considered it to have been a misdemeanour on her part.' 'So would most other people, including myself,' I agreed as we turned the comer into the fifth-form corridor.