Simon's Summertime Adventures

July, five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon: the end of another weekend’s leave-of-absence. Returning on the bus took longer than the train but was more restful and still got me back in time for call-over.

At The Lemon Tree café at the terminus I bought myself a Coke and a burger, and thought over the past few days. First, Roddy.

Roddy was in the middle of a blazing row, that was nothing to do with him, and all because he slept bare. Mixing intact boys and boy-eunuchs in the same dorm was bound to lead to trouble, and the week before, it had done just that.

Have I ever mentioned Sandie Ross? If not, Sandie was thirteen, very fair, with a peaches-and-cream complexion, and had his balls pricked for the same reason as I had - to prevent him shafting his cousins. Like me, he’d been caught in the act (the girl had been screaming for it but the boy always gets the blame); like me, he'd been rushed off to be neutered, without other options. I should have spotted this earlier, you know, the way that some boys act right after it's done, but I digress.

So far as that went, his operation had been very successful. Always rather chubby, he now had a tiny pink acorn almost invisible between his thighs. Harmless where females were concerned, neutering had not made him any less sexy. Sandie was ready for anything, including being a substitute girl. He had begun to make regular nightly visits to the bed of MacVittie, the dorm captain, to “have a homo” as the current expression was. Perhaps it's odd cases like this that confirm the notion that boy-eunuchs enjoy being bum-boys. While Sandie might have liked it, I certainly didn't.

Anyhow, the Masters patrolled the dorm building at intervals. The job of lookout had fallen to Michael Banner, another boy-eunuch, this time from the reign of Dr. Jolly, when new boys were getting neutered at the rate of two or three a month. Unwisely, Roddy had agreed to swap beds with Banner, so that Banner could have a better view through the door and down the corridor.

Most Masters just flashed a torch inside the door and passed on. But Mr Trefusis was more thorough, and came right in. At this moment, MacVittie had his cock right up Sandie Ross’s arse, having a “homo” – but this went unnoticed for a few moments. After all, discretion was the better part of...whatever.

“Banner, what are you doing in Fisher’s bed?” demanded Mr Trefusis. “Get back to your own beds at once. I’ll need an explanation in the morning. And,” (as he spotted the empty bed) – “WHERE’S ROSS”?

Roddy and Banner had obediently hopped out of bed, both in the nude. Next morning, both in turn ended up in front of Dr. Holroyd, the Headmaster, who by this time had seen MacVittie and Sandie Ross already. Following this, Ross and MacVittie were quarantined, while Dr. Holroyd decided what to do next. MacVittie’s stained and filthy bed-sheets were evidence enough. Sex was one thing, but the two were hopelessly under-age. Still, they were both underage at the same time, and the adults had probably had to deal with this before.

When it came to Roddy, Dr. Holroyd knew that he was my protégé, of sorts – and gave me quite a grilling. But I knew there was nothing, really, to connect Roddy with MacVittie’s nocturnal goings-on, and so I confidently backed Roddy’s own story. First, that he always slept bare, winter and summer alike; second, that he’d agreed with Banner to swap beds experimentally and they had both meant to ask permission officially, next morning.

So Roddy was off the hook, it seemed. My thoughts then turned to Melanie, and the weekend I’d just spent with her. Nothing was too much trouble for Melanie, the dear darling girl, to make our sessions exciting. I might have been Arnold Schwarzenegger, with seven inches or more of rampant uncontrollable flesh, instead of – what I was. And you know all about that already.

Yesterday she’d had hold-up stockings on, with lacy tops. I could still feel the imprint of the pattern on my cheeks, as she squeezed my head between her adorable soft thighs as orgasm ripped through her and her love-juices filled my mouth. She liked me to gently squeeze her nipples, at the same time putting my tongue as far up her vagina as possible and move it around. I always remembered, when doing this, that she wasn’t a virgin: that before we met, she had been with a boy and had felt a real, full-length cock up there.

Usually, we would also play her favorite game of "Ride the Gelding", which involved (as you know) me being cleaned out with a good filling enema and then literally ridden by Melanie with her wearing a strap-on dildo which went up my bum. However, given the last time, she didn't ask and I didn't offer. I was still a bit confused about the last episode of it, to be honest.

Once I’d mentioned this and asked, rather timidly, if she wouldn’t have preferred me intact, so that I could "do it to her properly." She smiled and stroked my hair, and told me she preferred me as I was, with no balls. Earlier, she had asked me – as she always did – to tell her about my castration, and drooled at the mouth as I told her the old – and for me the very stale – story of how I got my balls pricked. But for how long would her obsession last? Right now castration fascinated her – I was in the same bracket as her pony Diamond, who trotted around with a neat black triangle wagging between his haunches, where once he’d had a pair of balls the size of a cottage loaf. Would she grow out of it and become, like Mark’s Wendy, a normal healthy girl, who needed a normal healthy, intact boy?

I guess that's why I'd asked. It was more for my own peace of mind than hers. What would happen to me - and Mark - when and if that ever happened? What if the girls grew bored of their exotic boy-eunuchs?

Mention of Wendy then made me think about Mark. He was the greatest of my worries just then. Guilt about the past and fears for the future were destroying him – and on top of that, he had become dangerously ill.

Some time before, Mark had grown very depressed by the thought that he was no more than “a singing eunuch” – unable to do more than fumble and fondle and kiss. He longed to get his neutering operation reversed and had pinned his hopes on some pioneering work being done by a Professor Zuniger at the University of Göttingen. The Professor had agreed to see him, and Mark had gone to Germany, very much on a “high”. That was only ten days ago. Returning, he’d phoned from the bus terminus; would I please go meet him; he had a lot to tell me.

The Lemon Tree – where I now was – was deserted that day apart from two old women in a corner. It looked as if they'd partaken once too often of the Lemon Tree's feature drink - a vile concoction that turned one's face inside-out. I proposed a hot drink and a Toastie instead, and waited for Mark to make the first moves. Clearly the visit to the doctor wasn’t all he’d hoped for.

It also looked like he'd put on a bit more weight.

“The Professor was very nice,” he began at last. “He called me “Lieber Herr Maitland” all the time.” He paused.

“The good news is that I’m structurally intact,” said Mark after a time. “He inserted a micro-probe up you-know-where, pretty uncomfortable that was - and found my cords, all coiled up, with a tiny little nodule on the end of each one. This was good, apparently, although all the male tissue was very wasted – actually he said 'werry vasted'. He doesn't think there's any nerve damage either." Mark managed a faint smile as he imitated the Professor’s thick Teutonic accents.

“The less good news,” he continued after a bit (did I detect a slight wobble of his chin?) is that it’s all going to take much longer than I thought. That magazine article had suggested it would all be done in a few weeks. That was misleading; I’m really looking at over a year, or nearer two. And there...there could be some nerve damage, but...

“There’s no problem with getting the material, anyway. Auntie Cathy is pregnant again and the Prof. can obtain cord blood and so on, by arrangement with her GP.” (Mark had lost his parents some years before, but his father had had a much younger sister “Auntie Cathy” who already had four small children – this one would be Number Five). I couldn't help but to wonder if SHE had got custody of him, if his life might have turned out differently.

“He has to do several cultures, you see, and test for compatibility, then do the implants, and…,” This time his chin was really wobbling.

“Simon, suppose it’s no good after all – that it doesn’t work?” He stared at me wide-eyed and all of a sudden, burst into a storm of uncontrollable tears.

This was a first for Mark, and I was taken aback.

“Don’t leave me, Simon! Please! Don’t leave me – not like this – not the way I am!” Sobs shook his body as he buried his face in my neck.

It had all finally caught up with him.

He had got himself neutered for the sake of his cherished singing career – it seemed a trivial thing at age eleven, going on twelve - but now it seemed as if his singing career might be prolonged indefinitely. He might be wealthy enough to buy himself a manor-house on the Thames, but he would live there as a recluse – a freak, locked in the travesty of a child’s body, parentless, friendless, totally and completely alone.

It sent chills through me, as if someone had just stepped on my grave, as the old saying goes.

How do you comfort somebody of your own age, as distressed as this? Mark continued to sob his heart out, and his tears soaked through my shirt. “Whoever mentioned leaving you, silly mutt!” I murmured. “Silly sausage – of course I won’t leave you – not ever!”

About then I began to realize just WHY I'd asked Melanie what I had asked. Very suddenly, I understood Mark totally.

Adults always seem to interfere when least wanted. I was conscious of someone standing nearby, and looked up. It was one of the old women.

“What yer bin syin’ to ‘im then?” she demanded, belligerently.

“He’s just had some bad news,” I said, unwisely. “He’s a bit upset, that’s all”.

The old woman stayed where she was. She was ugly, and a bit smelly also. “I dunno about bad news,” she returned.

I lost my temper. “Well, I do!” I burst out. (I was beginning to sound shrill, a bad sign). “And it’s nothing to do with you, so will you leave us, please?”

The old woman began, “I dunno as I oughter…,” but I’d had enough. I was very near tears myself. “Oh please, drop it!” I cried. The old woman withdrew, grumbling.

I helped Mark back towards school, stopping in a quiet spot to clean his face: his own hankie was filthy so I used mine. He was still sniffing, but seemed to be calming down. Something was knocking around in my brain as well, something about nerves and nerve damage, but I couldn't lay a finger on it. I made a mental note about it, though.

However, fate had something else to throw at us, it seemed. Just inside the school's main gates, Mark stumbled. His face turned red, white and then red again. “Oh, Simon!” he gasped, and collapsed at my feet.

I ran back to the phone box on the street corner – empty, fortunately – and rang the infirmary. Nurse arrived in her car a few minutes later. I figured that she'd just prescribe her usual enema for Mark (and find some excuse to give ME one, too!). After all, she was rather a silly person but today she turned up trumps, helping me stow Mark in the car and taking him straight down to Casualty. She had her own suspicions, which the hospital confirmed later.

Mark had meningitis.

Since then Mark had been in intensive care and all I could get from Nurse was that “he was as well as could be expected.” That was last week, and I couldn't help but wonder if he'd picked up the bug from the doctor who'd examined him.

It had to be a bad omen. Then I shook my head. I was being foolish, omens, indeed.

Today I finished my burger and walked on to the school alone. Someone was coming to meet me, though. I recognised Graham "Jack" Elliott, and he looked excited.

“Awee, the lads!” was Jack’s greeting (he became effusively Geordie at times like this.) “Simon, you’re in the nick of time. We’ve something to show you”.

Jack led the way up a side path, and I quickly found out who “we” were. Three faces appeared from the bushes on either side, two white and freckled, one coffee-coloured. Manchit Khannah and the Roebuck twins.

We emerged on to a tarmac-ed area behind the school kitchens, a place where the trash cans were kept, and where the domestic staff parked their cars. The old steward came out of his cubby-hole and glared at us, but retreated without saying anything.

“Wasn’t he in some sort of trouble, a while ago?" asked Jamie Roebuck.

“Fiddling with boys’ cocks in the cinema,” replied his twin. Manchit giggled.

“Before we do anything,” I said, “you’ve forgotten call-over. Who’s duty master?"

“Mr Meredith” Jack replied.

“That’s okay then” I said. “Jon, go and get us all marked off”. (Strict masters insisted that all boys were present AT six p.m. Easy-going ones were satisfied if they reported BY six p.m., and old Merry, in his sixties, was the easiest of all.)

“I already did,” said Jon.

“What’s all this, then?" I asked.

The print of a shoe in the muddy ground at the edge of a carpark may not sound much to get excited about. What the twins, out exploring, had noticed, was the direction it was leading in. A narrow path led from here into the trees, and of all the off-limits areas round the school, this was the most strictly off limits, for the very good reason that it led to dangerous ground. Whoever had gone that way posed a mystery.

“Are we going then?" asked Jack.

It was not an attractive spot. The trees were old and fungus-ridden, the path overgrown. The footprints, however, led firmly on. In a short time we came to a deep fold in the ground, with lumps of concrete and deep holes, some of them full of water, and a dilapidated-looking bridge. This was the remains of the old canal, that had once crossed the Sussex Weald and reached the coast at a small tidal basin, still in active use as a marina.

A grim story was attached to the old canal – one I’d learned from quiet, self-effacing James Brotherton, a dayboy who lived locally. Given to nervously asking me, “Scott, you’re a brainy sort of chap, can you explain so-and-so”, he would come out with all sorts of fascinating things if encouraged -

Like how that in the 1850’s the main school building had been a country house, the home of an idle young peer, Lord Starborough. One autumn night His Lordship was giving a grand ball to his guests. The previous summer had been the wettest on record, and the canal bank was dangerously rotten. Without warning, part of it collapsed, releasing not only the canal but the pent-up water in the reservoir, at a higher level. Bursting through the windows, the torrent flooded the ballroom twelve feet deep. Twenty of the dancers were drowned or crushed.

The canal went out of use. Later owners of the house sealed off the reservoir as an ornamental lake. The ballroom was demolished – local people said that on wet windy nights they could still hear the frenzied screaming of those trapped inside. Still, others said that on moonlit lovely evenings, one could sneak a peek and see their ghostly forms still dancing the night away - almost if trying to finish the evening that had not been.

And later still, the founders of our school had bought the building.

The footprints stopped on the dry surface of the bridge but started again, distinct and firm, on the other side. It was at this point that Jon Roebuck announced that he needed to pee. All the others followed, and pulled their shorts down. (None of them were able to pee through the leg anymore and the Roebuck twins, who had only very small genitals before getting neutered, were the worst affected of all).

“For God’s sake,” I hissed, after looking at the row of bare bums, three white, one brown, longer than I wanted to, “This isn’t a Tiny Cock competition! Let’s get on, if we’re going”.

At the top of a slippery bank a stretch of stagnant weedy water came into view, about 400 yards wide at its broadest point. According to Jimmy Brotherton, this place, too, had concealed a gruesome secret for several decades. In the Eighties the abandoned lake had been drained by the police, searching for a cache of stolen drugs. With the water all gone there had appeared, muddy and draped in weeds but intact, the hulk of a World War II Dakota. Its flaps and undercarriage were down as if for landing. Four skeletons in flying suits were strapped into their seats. Indications were that the pilot, searching for a landing ground in a bad light, had mistaken the greenish opaque surface for a field.

The overgrown path, the stagnant lake, the white shelf-fungi on the trees – the place gave me the horrors, but the rest wanted to push on. At the far end, a slimy shallow creek appeared to bar the way, but it was Manchit who led us to a rotten leaky boat which, dragged across the stream, made a sort of causeway.

Jack Elliott whistled through his teeth on seeing it. “Awee, the lads!” he exclaimed, not for the first time. I glared at him.

Mud and water squelched beneath the boat’s decaying planking as, one after the other, we filed across. On the far side, trees gave way to rough grass and scrub, but more importantly the footprints pounded on. Not, it seemed, for a lot further; in front there loomed a twelve-foot-tall chain-link fence, with a very solid look to it and razor wire at the top. It was the perimeter of Hill Rise army camp, which little Harry Ricketts had pointed out to us almost as soon as he'd arrived at the school. Harry was a military fanatic after all, and probably the only boy to ever survive a Neutersol treatment and recover from it as a functional male, but that's another story.

When we reached the fence, we knew. One panel of the fence had been cut, very cleverly, so that it peeled back like a gate. Disguised by scrub and climbing plants the break was invisible until you looked carefully.

“This,” said Jamie Roebuck “is where we found Exhibit A”. From his shorts pocket he produced something yellow – the foil-lined wrapper of a Kodak 35mm high-speed film. Someone had been very careless.

“Did you go through?” I asked. All four shook their heads.

“Then what are we waiting for?" I asked. “One at a time. Across to that first hut. Then down on your belly. Jack – you’re first. Move!”

In the lee of the hut, we re-grouped. I was sure we hadn’t been seen – there seemed to be no one about, and the huts unoccupied. Very cautiously I moved round to the end. There were steps there, and a door with a stencilled number: 75. In the gravel at the foot of the steps I found something that wasn’t a pebble. An old padlock, the hoop cut through. This might mean that the door of the hut would open. It did. I beckoned the others to follow.

Once inside, all five of us sat on a rusty iron bedstead and re-grouped again. All of this was very strange indeed.

“Who?” asked Jack Elliott.

“When?” asked Jon.

“Why?” asked Jamie.

Manchit said nothing at first, but then said, “I think we can work out when our visitor came here. Those prints are fresh, but not sharp enough to have been made today. It rained last night. It also rained the night before. I believe the prints are not more than a day old. If older, they would be less distinct”.

Friday night then, or Saturday morning.

Jack spoke next. “They are big prints, size 11 I’d say. You’ve got the biggest feet, Scott – what do you take – an eight? Thought so. Now suppose our man is someone from school, it’s got to be a senior”.

“Or a master,” put in Jon. “And they are unusual prints. Trainers obviously, but not Adidas, or Reebok, or Nike. They could be Bata.”

“Bata shoes are made in India,” said Manchit. “And in eastern Europe”.

We weren’t getting very far. And “why” was the most baffling question of all. The Kodak film wrapper was an intriguing clue. Someone had loaded a camera outside the gap in the wire, but what was there to photograph? Wild life, perhaps - that would explain a zoom lens and high speed film. Then the padlock. Why cut through a padlock to get inside a completely empty hut? Suddenly I had a thought.

“Jack, come with me,” I said. “The rest of you stay here and keep quiet.”. Jack and I moved very quietly outside, to the neighbouring hut 74. Like 75, the windows were protected by stout wire mesh; unlike 75 the door was padlocked.

Crouching down I made Jack stand on my shoulders, then straightened up so that he could see through the window. “What’s inside?” I asked.

“Boxes,” said Jack. “Brown boxes, with yellow lettering on. The one nearest to me says '3.5 mortar HE, mark VII Z, batch something', I can’t read the rest”.

“How many boxes?”

“Dozens. Hundreds even. Some larger, some smaller”.

Ammunition. Tons and tons of ammunition, of all kinds. I thought I knew, now, what had drawn our visitor. What he had done after that, though, was still to be answered. And suddenly my heart skipped a beat. There was something I’d totally overlooked. We’d been so intent on following the footprints that we’d altogether failed to spot that they all went the same way.

That meant one of two things – either that our visitor was still in the camp – not very likely if Manchit was right and the prints were a day old – or that there was another way in – and out, additional to the camp’s main gate, where, as I knew, there were guards.

I was explaining all of this, in a low voice, to the other three, in the shelter of Hut 75, when the matter of an alternative entrance was explained in an altogether unexpected way. All of us suddenly heard the sound of feet on gravel, then the different sound of feet pushing through the long tangled grass. The feet stopped. We froze. Very, very slowly I moved to the window and cautiously peeped over the sill.

The newcomers were a boy and girl, both about sixteen. Locals. They were holding each other close when I first saw them, but very quickly drew apart to take off their jeans, which they laid on the grass. I saw the boy’s enormous rigid cock, the triangle of brown hair between the girl’s thighs as she took off her knickers. I watched the boy put a condom on; saw the girl and lie down with her knees raised and her legs open, for the boy to shag her…

I’d seen enough – I couldn’t bear to watch something I should never be able to do. Carefully I moved away, motioning to the others to keep quiet.

A few minutes later the footsteps again sounded on the gravel, growing fainter now and dying away. “What was all that?” asked Jon.

“Nothing to do with us” I said. “Now, unless we want a search party after us, we’d better get back to school double quick”.

With no need to stop and search the ground for footprints we covered the distance in a fraction of the time. Other boys were finishing their tea – on Sunday afternoons a moveable feast, tea, bread, butter and jam only. Entering the dining hall we all ran straight into Mr Meredith. “Where on earth do you think you’ve been?” he demanded.

“Sir, please sir, we’ve been on a fungus foray,” piped Jamie.

“Oh? And what fungi did you foray, may I ask?”

Jamie produced a battered notebook from his blazer pocket. “I’ve made a rough list of specimens, sir. I was going to show it to Fisher – he’s the expert”.

Mr Meredith adjusted his glasses and began reading “Piptoporus betulinus, birch bracket, Amanita muscaria, scarlet flycap, m-mmmm, very good, Roebuck, very interesting.” Then he flicked his eyebrows and had handed the notebook back.

Fortunately he omitted to ask where the “foray” had taken place. Instead we were instructed to change our shoes – very muddy by now – and get our tea at once.

“Where did you get that idea from?” I asked Jamie. “It was sheer genius. Meredith’s nutty about nature study of any kind”.

“Just suddenly thought of it,” said Jamie. “Fortunately I’d got the book with me. Those notes are months old”.

So that was that.

I still had some unfinished business, to solve the mystery of the camp gate, but it had to wait for the time being. That night, lying in bed after lights out, I began thinking about Mark again. Normally I’d hear his steady breathing from the next cubicle on the right- he always dropped off to sleep very quickly. But tonight there was silence.

On the left, there was a steady creak of bed-springs and that was Peter Keeble jerking-off. It was a pity that Peter Keeble didn’t have a girl friend – it seemed wrong that all that energy would go to waste on the leg of his pyjama-bottoms. But Peter was thin and nervous, with sticky-out teeth and thick National Health glasses with wire frames. Not the sort of boy that girls pull their knickers down for.

There could have been an alternative - if he and his classmates had all got to be neutered at eight or nine, say. They would never have developed male genitals and wouldn’t understand what made them different from “intact” boys. Of course, he would have found out by now, but would also have a better, more placid lifestyle without this torment. But Peter Keeble had doting parents and his father was a Vicar. Getting his balls pricked was definitely not on the agenda, so every night he wanked himself silly.

Next day, which was Monday, was a full day in school, nine till five-thirty then prep for the next hour. But I did find a few minutes to seek out Jimmy Brotherton.

“Oh yes,” he said. “There’s a side gate right at the top of Hill Rise Estate – the council houses, pretty rough area. It’s not used now”. I made a mental note to go and look, as soon as I could.

The late evening news that night included an item that “thieves suspected of connections with terrorist organisations were involved in raids on military bases in the south of England”. I stored this away for future reference. Next morning the local newspaper actually named Hill Rise Camp as one of the bases and said that “the military authorities were conducting their own investigations”.

Tuesday provided a good opportunity. I had a private-study hour before the lunch break and I wasn’t due for fielding practice till three. Plenty of time to go and explore. It would have taken a long time to do on foot, but at the bus terminus I found a service that went all the way. I didn’t care for the look of Hill Rise estate at all. Some of the houses were boarded up, there were abandoned cars here and there, and a number of small children playing in the road.

The bus ground up a steep hill and stopped. I was the only person to get down. The roadway to the camp gate ran straight on. No one took any notice as I walked straight towards it. The small brick building by the gate, no doubt once a rest-room for the guards, was out of use, windows broken, paint peeling. I took a good look at the gates themselves. As at Hut 75 there was a broken padlock lying on the ground. The hinges had been greased. The roadway itself was tarmac-ed, so no use looking for tyre marks, but there was no doubt now. Recently – very recently – the gate had been used.

What I needed to do was to watch the place round the clock, and see who went in and out – and that was out of the question. For a few moments I just stood, undecided, frustrated at my own uselessness. Meanwhile an urchin of about ten came out of one of the houses a long way down the hill. He gave me an idea.

I ran down the hill in long loping strides, and soon caught up with the urchin. Standing with his feet apart, his back to the road, he could only be doing one thing. "Hello!” I called out. “Been having a pee?”

The urchin nodded, as he shook the last drops off his penis. “Would you say,” I pursued “you have a big prick or a little prick?”

“I’ve got a little prick,” replied the urchin. He held it out for my inspection.

“But you’ve got a foreskin." He had too, and a good one, the loose skin tapering to a tight point, just as nature intended.

“Yeah” agreed the urchin. “Not had it clipped off yet. Has yours been clipped off?”

“And more besides,” I said.

The urchin stared at me, round-eyed. All boys of that age are always very interested in anything to do with "down there", and that was my plan.

“Some boys,” I said “get to have their balls pricked. It’s done by a nurse or doctor. They inject a drug into the boy’s balls and they dry up. The boy’s cock shrinks also. I had it done so I wouldn’t be able to fuck girls”.

“Coo'!” said the urchin under his breath. “Show me," he demanded, in his thick accent.

“Not out here,” I said. In response, the urchin towed me into the kitchen of a derelict house across the street. “This is our hide-out” he said proudly, “and this is the gang”.

The gang consisted of three other urchins and two small girls. “He’s got something to show us,” explained my captor. No way out of it. I dropped my shorts and gave them all a good look.

“Cor!” exclaimed one of the small girls. “E’s ‘ad ‘is balls cut off!”

“Jus' like they do an ‘orse,” commented one of the boys.

“Wrong,” I said. “They used to cut boys’ balls out like a horse’s, but not now. They just prick a boy’s balls and inject a drug, and then they dry up”.

“Tell us how you were done,” demanded another of the boys, his mouth agape and his eyes glazed. I knew that look.

I then spun them a highly-coloured story with a lot of invention, of having my balls pricked as a punishment for “doing it” with a girl. That I had been the most randy little devil, with big balls full of spunk, and a stiff cock that all girls wanted to have up them (what a fib that was!) how I’d been caught in the act and dragged off to the clinic then and there. I spoke of having my clothes roughly torn off and being held down while they did it; I described the vicious stab of the needle into my testicles (a howling lie since I’d been anaesthetised and felt nothing) and how, afterwards, I’d had to watch them day by day, first turning to mush then withering away. The last bit was literally true and telling it nearly brought tears to my eyes.

I made a mental note about that. Lately, I'd been prone to that and it annoyed me. Bursting into tears at odd times was not a good thing.

“And you can see,” I finished “how my cock has gone limp, and how small it is. Smaller than yours, I bet, so I can never, ever, do the thing with a girl that makes her start a baby”.

The little girl who’d said I’d “had my balls cut off” was staring, entranced, at the thimble of flesh between my legs. “Can I touch?” she asked, and I nodded. She extended a grimy paw and felt my penis. While she explored, all the boys had meanwhile unzipped and were comparing their own cocks. I hadn’t been wrong about that. The smallest was a good inch longer than mine, the longest, half-hard, nearer two. All of them, I thought, were exactly the right age to get their balls pricked.

“What’s yer name?” demanded my captor. (He pronounced it “nyme”).

“Who needs to know?” I replied.

“We do!” said another of the boys.

“I’m called Simon”.

“Soymon” repeated my captor. “I’m called Merv”. He thought a moment. “Soymon, you’re all roight, you are. You got guts!” (Well, he couldn’t have said “you got balls” now, could he?)

“Listen,” I said. “I need help, in something very, very secret. You know the old camp gate at the top of the road”. Five tousled heads nodded.

“I seen a van there the other day,” said the smaller of the two girls. “White, it was”.

“You saw a white van? That could be very, very important. Which day was it, remember?”

She thought a moment. “Sat’day”.

“Some men have been inside the camp,” I went on. “They are very dangerous men and they’ve been stealing explosives. Me and some friends of mine- we’re out to trap them”.

“Cor!” said one of the boys. “Are they Ell Croyda?” (It took me a moment to realise he was trying to say Al Qa’ida). Another disciple of the evening news, I wondered, what with Tony Blair all over the telly and talking about it.

“Maybe,” I said. “Now, will you help? I need that gateway watched. Day and night. And if you see anything – anything at all – get on the phone. Now, will you?”

None of them spoke but their eyes were shining.

“Ring 877884 and ask for Simon Scott. Say it’s very urgent – that you must speak to me personally – messages won’t do. Say the number”.

“Eight-seven-seven-eight-eight-four” they chanted. (Fortunate that the school number was so easy to remember).

“Good. I knew I could count on you”. (Could I, I wondered; still, it was the only hope.) “Now, do either of you girls know how to give a boy a nice time?”

The bigger of the two girls nodded. The boy next to her still had his jeans unfastened. With grubby fingers she rolled his foreskin back, then forward, then back again. When his cock went hard, she bent, and took it in her mouth like a lollipop.

“Shall I do it to you? asked the smaller of the two girls.

I had pulled my PE shorts up but there seemed no reason not to take them down again. I just closed my eyes - and enjoyed myself…… She did it very nicely and in spite of her young age seemed well practised. Only after she seemed to realize that I wasn't going to "do whut other boys did," did she stop. I left my new team of watchers with regret!

I’m slipping again. I almost forgot to mention the Joggers’ Club. That was something I had managed to arrange, in an otherwise useless day. Our mysterious visitor to the camp, who had a camera and big feet, and who entered it from the school, might or might not be connected with the ammunition thefts but I was somehow convinced he must be. If he went there again – that could be a sign that more thefts were imminent.

Jogging, two or three times round the building, was positively encouraged and never queried. I roped in everyone who’d gone with me that day – Jack Elliott, the Roebucks, Manchit Khannah, and several others who hadn’t, but who could be trusted, to jog round the building whenever they had a free period and look for fresh prints where we’d found the first. That way, the spot would be visited several times during the day.

And as so often happens, there wasn’t anything to report. Neither on Tuesday nor Wednesday. Perhaps the raiders had found another target.

Thursday was a different matter altogether. Soon after 9 o’clock assembly little Calum Hislop bunked-off from PE, and, very excited, caught me on the way to Advanced Maths at ten. There were more prints, fresh from the night before.

Halfway through Advanced Maths the school clerk came into the room and spoke to Mr Jackson, who spoke to me, rather irritably. “Scott, you have a telephone call. I wish you’d tell your friends and relations not to ring in school hours”. (Very unfair for the one-and-only time.)

It was Merv on the line. A white van was parked in the same place as before.

“Anyone in it?”

“Nah. They’ve scarpered into the camp”.

Desperately I thought what was to be done. “Let the tires down,” I said. “I’ll bring reinforcements as soon as I can”. I rang off.

But who? Not Mr Jackson, who had no imagination and wouldn’t listen. Then in a flash of inspiration I sought the music room – and Mr Trefusis.

Mr Trefusis looked up from his papers. “Well, Scott!” he began. “To what do I owe this pleasure? Some crisis of a musical nature?” He scratched at a long bluish chin – I was sure he needed to shave twice a day - a problem that I knew I'd never have.

“No, sir, I mean, sir…” I stammered- but somehow got launched into the story, ending with my guess that the thieves, plus someone probably from the school, were in the camp at this moment.

Mr Trefusis sat back, with a strange little smile. “Scott,” he said “if I didn’t know you as well as I do, I should take all this to be an almighty spoof, and I should cane you across your bare bottom for wasting my time”.

“And you would end up behind bars, sir,” I said, greatly daring. (Caning in schools had been outlawed for years).

“And quite right too,” responded Mr Trefusis. “But as things stand, me ‘andsome, I know you well enough to believe you’re probably right. Let’s go and get in my car, quickly”.

I fairly glowed with relief. Once Mr Trefusis began using Cornish dialect (“Me ‘andsome” means “old chap” more or less) you knew he was firmly on your side.

Mr Trefusis drove directly to the camp main gate. I was anxious to know if Merv and the others (I thought of them now as Merv’s Marauders) had immobilised the van but there wasn’t time to go that way. A sentry directed us to a building that had “ORDERLY ROOM” over the door. Inside were four trestle tables doing duty as desks, a young sergeant, an even younger corporal, and two clerks. Mr Trefusis spoke to the sergeant.

“We need to speak to your Commanding Officer,” he said “concerning the recent thefts”.

“We don’t have a CO, sir,” said the sergeant. “Hill Rise isn’t an operational camp. There’s only Mr Moore. He’s warrant-officer in charge”.

“Otherwise known as Old Bill,” said the more stupid-looking of the two clerks.

“Watch it, Bowers,” said the Sergeant. He led us down a passageway, to a door with “SSM W MOORE” on it, and knocked. There was a grunt from inside. “He’s there, sir” said the Sergeant. “I should just go in if I were you”.

I knew a little bit about Army ranks from Harry Ricketts. Staff Sergeant-Major was as high as you could go, before you reached commissioned rank: Second Lieutenant was the next step. But for the old man behind the desk, any chance of commissioned rank had vanished long before.

I say “old” because though SSM Moore was probably no more than fifty, he looked ten years older at least. He must have weighed seventeen stone, all of it fat. He had the red-rimmed eyes of the chain-smoker.In front of him on his desk – actually a six-foot trestle table with a blanket over it- was a jam-jar full of cigarette butts. There was ash down the front of his combat jacket. His badge of rank needed a polish and his peaked cap was long overdue for replacement.

He looked up: he’d been working on a list which he’d headed BED LINNEN. Some fat-faced people look jovial, like Santa Claus. SSM Moore wasn’t one of them. Every line of his face registered disillusion and disappointment.

“Yus?” he began. “Who’s in charge?” He looked from Mr Trefusis to me, and back again.

“Mr Moore,” began Mr Trefusis “we are from Southdown Hall School. My name doesn’t matter for the moment. But this young man,” – he indicated me – "has information of the greatest importance, concerning the break-ins at this camp, and the theft of ammunition. We believe there are Al-Qa’ida connections. I think you will be interested in what he has to say”.

SSM Moore grunted something which I took for agreement. He pushed BED LINNEN away and took a clean sheet of paper. I stepped forward. “Sir,” I began smartly. (Harry had told me that when addressing somebody of senior rank, that was how you began and ended.)

Carefully, omitting nothing – not even the teenagers who’d come in for a shag – I told him everything I’d seen. From time to time he stopped me, to write something down. He found one thing very difficult. “When was you in Hut 75?” he asked.

“Sunday night, sir”.

“You can’t a’ been. Sunday night Hut 75 was secure. Full of ammo. Break-in was Monday”.

“Sir, on Sunday night Hut 75 was empty. The lock had been cut through and was lying on the ground”.

SSM Moore glared. Mr Trefusis cut in. “He has four other boys to back his story, Mr Moore”.

There was silence for a moment before Mr Moore spoke again. “Thirty-five years I been in the Army,” he said, more to himself than to us “and now all this”.

He was in deep trouble. For years he’d done a 9-to-5 job, and on Fridays he’d been used to locking his office at five sharp and disappearing to his little house in the suburbs, not reappearing till nine on Monday mornings. No wonder he didn’t know when the break-in took place.

“You’re sure these villains are on the camp at this moment, are you?” I nodded. He now took a grip of himself. In a parade-ground voice he bellowed “SAR’NT WILKS!”

“SIR!” just as loudly from the outer office. The young Sergeant we’d met already marched smartly in and crashed to attention. Mr Trefusis winced at the noise. He always winced at loud noises.

Give him his due, SSM Moore’s orders were brief and to the point. A genuine military man immediately arose from the parody before us. Sergeant Wilks was to fall-in everyone he could find, clerks, cooks, storekeepers, drivers, the lot – draw automatic weapons, seal the perimeter and search the camp, section by section. The sergeant crashed to attention again and went out. Moments later we heard booted feet doubling up the roadway.

“And now we shall see,” said SSM Moore, and lit yet another cigarette. I believed he hoped that nothing would happen. If so, he was disappointed. There was a lot of shouting in the distance, then Sergeant Wilks’ squad reappeared, in twos and threes. With them, securely held and covered by armed soldiers, were four people.

“I better go and open up the cells!” said Mr Moore, and hurried out as fast as his bulk would let him. He looked as if he couldn't really believe it.

Three of the detainees were youths of about seventeen. One was in Pakistani dress, the other two in ordinary clothes apart from little Muslim caps. The fourth, though, was a surprise. Both of us immediately recognised the massive figure of Mr Waterbury, the senior geography master.

“Edward?” said Mr Trefusis.

“Edvard Wasserbillig” returned the other, and clicked his heels. The soldiers took him out.

There was no more to be done at Hill Rise. Everyone was busy so we returned to school.

En route we passed the unused side-entrance, where Merv’s Marauders had gone further than letting down the tires of the white van. They’d taken the wheels off also.

Back at school, the first job was to find Mr Jackson, whose lesson I’d so rudely interrupted. Mr Trefusis said something to him, so quietly I didn’t hear what he said, but for a long time afterwards I got funny looks from Mr Jackson.

Well, funnier than usual.

Saturday came. Throughout morning school I was longing for the afternoon, to be able to get away and see Melanie. I drifted off into a daydream, which was interrupted by the Headmaster’s Secretary tapping me on the shoulder and saying that I was to report to Dr. Holroyd – at once! Not in his study, but in his private house.

What could this mean, I wondered, as I tried to smarten myself up a bit. My shoes needed a clean, but there wasn’t time. I hurried round the corner of the main block: the Head’s private house was a small side-wing with its own entrance. There were three cars outside. One was Dr. Holroyd’s silver Merc. Then there was a black Audi A8, which I didn’t recognise, and the third car was also a Merc, but painted khaki, and at the front and rear were two stars on red plates, which I knew from Harry Ricketts meant a Major-General.

The Headmaster’s housekeeper showed me into the lounge. “Ah, here’s our man of the moment!” exclaimed Dr. Holroyd. “Gentlemen, this is Simon Scott, who’s been absenting himself from his studies, as I told you.” (That’s a good one, I thought). “Now, Scott,” he went on. “This is General Frobisher, of Military Intelligence”. I shook hands with the General, a thick-set, tough-looking individual with a high colour. I said “Sir” as I’d been taught by Harry. The General just nodded.

The Head was going to introduce the other man, but I got in first. “Hello, Uncle Max”.

“So you know each other already?” said the Head. Surely he knew – or was he keeping up appearances?

Yes, I knew Uncle Max alright. It was Uncle Max, above all people, who’d roused my curiosity about sex, who’d taken my virginity (though I was to blame for that) and who, I guessed, had really been responsible for getting me neutered. He was looking at the other two men with an expression that seemed to say “This is my nephew Simon; take a good look at what two little pricks with a hypodermic can do”.

Fortunately, he didn't make a show.

“Well, now that’s over” said the Head “I know that the General has something to tell us”.

“I expect you want to know,” began the General “what’s been going on, and who are these people, who are now safely locked away. Firstly, our Middle Eastern friends. Well, there doesn’t seem to me a real Al Qa’ida connection at all. They are just a bunch of young idiots with silly ideas about saving the Muslim world. But they committed a serious crime all the same. The stuff they took – we recovered all of it by the way – was obsolete but could have made a nasty bang all the same.”

Uncle Max chipped in. “The Americans wanted us to send them to Guantanamo Bay but we weren’t having any. It’s a purely civil matter. No need for an international bru-ha-ha, is there?"

“Thank you, Major Riche,” said the General, who went on. “Now Wasserbillig, or Waterbury as he used to be known, is a different proposition. He is, or rather was, because there’s no such place now – an East German from the DDR. He used to be a Stasi officer, with a deep-seated hatred of the West, which survived the Berlin Wall coming down.”

“We got him on the recommendation of an agency,” said the Head weakly.

Of course, I thought, they got Dr. Jolly (Joli) from there as well, and look at what HE'D done! I was beginning to question what little faith I had in the rest of the faculty at that point.

“Then they ought to be shot!” returned the General. “Anyway, to go on. For a long time, Wasserbillig has been trying to infiltrate extremist groups, Islamic militants – all that sort of thing – and then he met this little lot. They undertook all the rough stuff, the breaking and entering and carrying-away. What Wasserbillig did, was to photograph what was in the huts with a telescopic lens, so the thieves could quickly identify what they wanted and not burden themselves with parachute flares and stuff like that.

“What made things a lot easier was that the road from the side gate went directly to the top of the camp and was out of sight of the main gate and the guard room. No one patrols the whole camp any more. It was a sheer fluke that the break-in was discovered on Monday”.

Uncle Max broke in again. “General, all of this is restricted information at a high level. Before you say another word, young Scott needs to take the oath under the Official Secrets Act, and so does Dr. Holroyd unless he’s taken it before?

He hadn’t. Uncle Max produced a booklet with some wording in it, which I had to read back to him. Dr. Holroyd did the same. “Now,” said Uncle Max “if you breathe a word to anyone, you’ll end up in the Tower of London”.

I shot him a quick look that said 'You wouldn't?' and he fired one back that more than said that he would.

“Feeding the ravens,” added the General. “Shall we go on? I’ve prepared this press release”. He produced a sheet of MoD paper. It outlined, rather than described, the incident at Hill Rise Camp and ended in, “Resulting from the vigorous and spirited action of RSM Moore and his men, the miscreants were speedily rounded up. RSM Moore has been decorated in recognition of his part in this”. I looked at this and gaped.

“Yes, I know it does you no justice at all,” said the General. “But we just can’t put you in the paper. Don’t worry. The real version – with you centre-stage – will go on MoD files. And in fifty years’ time the public can read all about it. Likewise, we might have court-martialled old Moore, but since we all know he’s useless, giving him a severe reprimand – which is all he’d have got – wouldn’t have added anything. So we’ve given him the Meritorious Service Medal, which he should have got years ago only he was too lazy to apply- and we’re retiring him on full pension as Regimental Sergeant-Major. Sounds better and costs us nothing.

“And that brings us, doesn’t it, Major Riche, to the vexed question of what to do about recognising your nephew, young Scott”.

I was to get some sort of award! I listened, while Uncle Max explained. “All of this happened on MoD land and involves Government property, and without doubt you were exposed to considerable danger. But you’re not a soldier, so that rules out any kind of military award. I thought of the Queen’s Police Medal, but the Home Office quickly pointed out you were not a policeman. So, even though it lumps you together with Bus-Driver Of The Year and all that sort of thing, I’m afraid it’s got to be the OBE”.

This was awful. “Simon Scott OBE”. I’d never live it down. I thought very quickly and remembered something. “Sir,” I said to Dr. Holroyd “can I suggest something?” Dr. Holroyd nodded.

“Sir, it’s unfair just giving the award to me. To start with, four other boys came with me and it was one of those who pointed out the tracks were made by foreign shoes”.

“I’d been wondering about that,” muttered the General.

“Then Mr Trefusis – I don’t suppose anyone else would have listened to me if Mr Trefusis hadn’t. And then there were some local children, who immobilised the thieves’ van”.

“They can’t ALL have the OBE,” said Uncle Max.

“I’m not suggesting that, sir,” I said. “But in World War II, the George Cross was awarded to the island of Malta, as a whole. Couldn’t the OBE be awarded to the Lower School as a whole, to recognise everybody who was involved?”

For a moment no one spoke. Dr Holroyd was no doubt picturing his noticeboards and letter-headings “Southdown Hall Lower School OBE”. Then the General gave an approving grunt. “Jolly good idea. Unselfish. Just the right spirit!”

“Sounds OK to me too,” said Uncle Max. “I’ll have a think about the citation, something general. And by the way I’ll need the names of your comrades-in-arms, for the files. And didn’t you mention some children in the town?”.

“Yes, but I’ve no idea of their names, or where they live,” I said. Uncle Max looked quite vexed. I gave him Jack Elliott’s name, and Manchit’s, and the Roebucks’.

“Have we finished with Scott then, gentlemen?” asked the Head. “I’m sure he wants to get away for his weekend”.

The General hadn’t. “Ever thought about a commission in the Army, young Scott?” he asked. This was even worse than the OBE! Fortunately – or unfortunately – Uncle Max saved me having to reply. He whispered something to the General.

“Good God!” said the General. “I didn’t know there were any!" (I had caught the word “eunuch” in Uncle Max’s whispered “aside”.) The General turned redder than ever and under cover of his embarrassment I slipped out and away.

(A few weeks after this, a new glass-fronted case appeared in the School Hall. Below the enamelled gilt cross of the OBE on its pink-and-white ribbon was the citation, on vellum with the Royal Arms above it, “For work of national importance”.)

I went down to the bus terminus only to find I’d missed the only service of the day that would take me to Melanie’s. For the time being I retreated to “The Lemon Tree”. Over a Coke and sandwich I decided what to do next. The fact is I didn’t want to run into Uncle Max just then. Given the opportunity, he might have asked me to go with him for the weekend – and I’d have ended up, as in the past, with his penis up my bum. And I’d had enough of that for all time.

Or he might, somehow, have got me to talk about Merv’s Marauders and how to find them; I’d seen the gleam in his eye when I mentioned “local children”. Kids did disappear off the street, without trace, and the sinister men who worked for Uncle Max in the “Sugar Plum” operation were on a constant lookout for easy targets.

Yes, I knew about it - or rather a bit about it. Uncle Max might have been a smooth operator, but he did tend to slip now and then when computers were involved. Thank Uncle Carl for inspiring me to become a computer whiz.

I pondered it over another Coke. Those two grubby little girls, experts in cock-sucking – they were not so young that they could not be trained for some oil-sheikh’s harem. And as for the boys! Who knew better than I did, that when a boy was said to be “just the right age” for neutering, it was altogether the cruellest age for the boy. At that age he knew all the fascination of sexual awakening. The joys of feeling at his penis, making it go stiff. The thrill of feeling up a girl’s skirt, talking her into pulling her knickers down.

And then off to the neutering clinic, and after two pricks of a needle, it was all gone. All but the desires, and the longings. Merv and his friends would have ended up as placid, “safe” servants in the household of some upper-class citizen, somewhere in the world. Harem eunuchs perhaps, or sex slaves to some rich Middle Eastern pervert. I wanted nothing to do with it. I would not betray Merv and his friends, or deny them their future manhood.

In the end I caught the “Hospital” bus and went to visit Mark, who was now out of intensive care. They had put him by himself in a little side ward. I could only have a few minutes with him, they said.

Mark looked very weak and pale, but was over the worst, and there were no visible side effects. I told him about the past week. “Sounds as if I missed all the fun,” he said, regretfully. Then he asked about Roddy.

“That’s all blown over,” I said. “There’s been a lot of shuffling-round of dorms. Boys like us all together, as it should have been in the first place. Amazing how many of 'us' there are, you know. No problem in numbers there, 'us' vs. them. MacVittie is staying on, but as a day-boy; his home is only about twelve miles away”.

Mark was silent for a time, then said “I’ve got some news for you. Dr. Holroyd was here last evening.”

“Here? Why?”

“Because they keep a small lab for him here. You know, he’s not a PhD like most Doctors – he’s a full-fledged Doctor of Medicine – a proper scientist! And he’s published a lot of books. And what do you think he specialises in?”

“I can’t think. Tell me”.

“Stem-cell culture!”

“So I told him about me and – you know. When I told him about Professor Zuniger he got very excited. He said that Zuniger was the best in the world. Only I wasn’t to expect a “quick fix”. Treatment could take two years, perhaps three. But new possibilities were opening up all the time”.

“Why, Mark, that’s wonderful!” I said. “And meantime, there’s your singing”.

Mark gave a wry smile. “That seems like the only casualty. I might have lost fingers or toes, from this. Instead, I can’t croak a note. And now, Simon, I think I’d like to go to sleep again.”

My stomach seemed to lose its hold and fall down to somewhere near my shoes. I can't croak a note, Mark had said, in a voice that sounded like the last statement of a condemned man on his way to the gallows.

Mark couldn't lose his voice. He just couldn't!
It was all he had now!
That, and a new dream that I couldn't bring myself to share in.

I took Mark’s hand and squeezed it gently, holding it until he fell asleep.

Don't leave me, Simon, he'd said, before he'd fallen ill.

Confused, I then let myself out, away and down the wide stairs. There was an odd pricking sensation behind my eyes.

Why now, at this time, should I feel like crying?

THE END