Part 1. Simon begins the story

“Hold on a minute, Simon – I need a wee!”. The treble voice of Jon Roebuck, a boy-eunuch from the age of eleven, rang out across the snowbound hillside.

I stopped, and Harry Brotherton, a spade over his shoulder, came panting up to stand beside me, while Jon prepared to empty his bladder, pulling his tracksuit – pants down to his ankles, then the white elasticated sports-thong that most of us wore. Bending his knees he stuck his tummy forward – the only position in which he could wee standing up. (Jon had one of the smallest penises in the fourth year, where three out of every four boys had, for one reason or another, had their balls pricked, and where tiny penises were more usual than long ones.)

A yellow patch appeared in the snow. Finished, Jon pulled his pants up.The freezing weather was very unseasonable for mid-March, and from some source or other, water had poured over the carpark and turned to ice. I’d caught Harry sloping off “ter clear a blockage or summat” and thought I’d better see what he was up to. Jon had just come along for the walk.

What Harry did, and whether Jon helped him, I never found out. Just then my mobile phone burst into life. It was Mr Trefusis – Head of Music – and he sounded agitated.

“Simon? Whatever you are doing and wherever you are, leave it and get over here quick!” I knew better than to delay. John Trefusis wouldn’t make a call like that for nothing. Hurrying back to school I found him in his office pacing up and down. He didn’t waste time with “Good Morning’s”.

“Simon, I suppose you’ve heard of Veritas?” (I had. They were one of the best-known boys’ choirs in the country, with an international reputation.) “They’ve been on to the boss” (meaning Dr Holroyd). “Seems they’re on the point of starting a series of concerts and recitals and they are thin on the ground. The boss has offered to lend him two of ours. Seems time is very much of the essence. Something’s up – he sounded in a flat spin. So, who do we pick?”

I was on the point of volunteering – I could do no less – when Mr Trefusis cut me short. “Not you, Simon, for a start. You’re too old, and dare I say it, too big. Boys in Veritas start at seven and go on to thirteen, when their voices start to change. You’d stick out like a sore thumb”.

(By contrast, the principal sopranos in the Southdown Hall choir were castratos aged from fifteen to seventeen, whose voices would never change!)

“And not Fisher either” he went on. “Roddy Fisher’s face is known worldwide. He’s even more of a name than Veritas. Besides which, he’s under contract to the record company. Lending him to Veritas might cause a hell of a fuss”. (This was true.)

“Sir, how about Silva?”

“Is he good enough?”

“Oh, I think so”. I meant it. Ricky had quite a reedy little voice when he first came to Southdown Hall, but since then, he had gained in power and sweetness. He was most definitely good enough.

“And you don’t think that his appearance……..” Mr Trefusis trailed off. He was about to refer to Ricky’s rather Oriental features, and checked himself just in time. “Well, if they do, they’ll just have to stick him in the back row behind somebody else. Look, Scott, I really can’t spare anyone else from the main choir – what on earth do I say to Dr Holroyd?”

“Sir, can we draw on St Anselme’s?”

“Yes, we can. Is there anybody?”

“If I was choosing, sir, I’d pick Owen Roberts”. All Welsh boys can sing a bit, and after castration had got rid of his male hormones, Owen Roberts had just got better and better – a fact which seemed to have eluded Mr Trefusis.

“Roberts? Roberts? Don’t know him. Look, Scott, I’ll trust your judgment. Get hold of Silva then jump in your car, go to St Anselme’s and collect this – this Roberts and bring him over here. See they take enough changes of clothes for two weeks. Cassocks and surplices to be on the safe side. This is their contact”.

He thrust a piece of paper into my hand. The heading was “Parish Church of St Edmund and St Frideswide, West Norwood, London SE 27” and then “Rev. Donald Melhuish, B. D. (Dunelm) Chaplain and Choirmaster”

“Got your car here?” (I’d already told him I had!) “Good. Put them on the first possible train. I’d better report to the boss”.

He hurried out. It was obvious that the request for help had been made much earlier, and that Dr Holroyd had forgotten, or at any rate omitted, to pass it on, leaving John Trefusis – and me - to pick up the bits.

Part 2. Ricky continues.

“Nor-wood Junc-tion” Owen Roberts slowly spelled out, as the train drew to a halt for the umpteenth time. Till now he’d said very little. I guessed he was having one of his bouts of nostalgia for the Welsh hills beyond Abercraf, – where the Tawe ran through a brown valley to the sea. A place where he could forget how he’d come to lose his balls, where he’d explored old mines, hunted rabbits and been happy.

“Four more stops, then” I said. Simon had been told to put us on the first possible train – and this proved to be the notorious 12.10 all-stations to London Bridge, known as the Saturday Slow. “Did you know?” I asked Owen “that when they first built a station on this spot, there were no houses here at all and they called it “Jolly Sailor” after the nearby pub?” (A piece of useless information I’d gleaned from Simon on an earlier journey!)

No, Owen didn’t, nor from his tone did he care very much. The train gave a jolt and we were on the move again.

Twenty minutes later we got down on to the bare slushy platform of West Norwood. I took a quick look at the street-map I’d crammed into a pocket. “This way” I said. “Then it’s left, right and right again. I can see a tower, so that might be it”. Off we went through grimy snow.

It was. A smoke-blackened Victorian church, with a board at the entrance with the arms of the Diocese of Southwark and proclaiming it to be the “Parish Church of St Edmund and St Frideswide”. Next door to the church was our destination, a typical three-decker, red-brick London school. In we went.

Our reception was scarcely encouraging. Sitting in a kind of glass box was a middle-aged guy in a blue uniform and peaked cap. I told him who we were.

“Yeah, you’re expected” said this man, and said something I couldn’t catch, into an intercom system.

Seconds later, a pair of swing doors crashed open and a big man hurtled through, in a flurry of black cloth. He had an academic gown on, over a cassock. This was The Rev. Donald Melhuish, and he did not look to be in a welcoming mood.

He was, as I said, a large person, but his size wasn’t combined with any impression of strength – rather it made him seem all the more ineffective. He had limp brown hair combed over an expanse of pink scalp, rimless glasses and a pale oval face. (Old books might have likened his face to ‘a bladder of lard’ whatever that was.) He looked us up and down, as if we were something the dog had brought in.

“Really, this is too bad!” he began, when he at last found words. “What time do you think this is, may I ask? As if I hadn’t enough to do, without you being so disgustingly late.”

I refrained from saying that the first we’d heard about anything had been two hours earlier, and we’d mostly been travelling since then. The man was beyond reasonable discussion. He was looking wildly around, and a thought seemed to strike him suddenly. “Jessop!” he called out. “Jessop – oh where is that boy? JESSOP!” With a last despairing call for Jessop, whoever he might be, The Rev. Melhuish rushed off again.

I looked at Owen. His face was white. “For two pins” he muttered “I’d find my way to Paddin’ton Sta-tion and go ‘ome”. (He meant, not school, but Wales).

I too was pretty pissed-off. Before I could say anything, the swing doors re-opened to admit a boy. A boy with an untidy mop of reddish-brown curls and brown eyes. A complexion that might (in old books again) have been described as “apple-cheeked”. And a very welcoming grin. He was the cheerfullest character I’d seen since arriving.

“Hello” said this boy. “I’m Jacky Jessop. I’ve been told to look after you. Had a decent journey? He sounded about thirteen, perhaps younger.

Unfortunately for Jacky’s good intentions I was at breaking point. “No, we haven’t” I snapped. “We’ve been rushed off our feet to come here at no notice at all, been put on the slowest train in the timetable, and when we arrived we were treated like two pieces of shit. So if you’ll just show us where to put our things and where we’ll be staying, that will do for now”.

Jacky’s face fell. “I’m sorry” he said. “Really I am. But you won’t be staying here. In fact we’re due to leave in a few minutes – I thought I could hear the coach arriving”.

“Leaving?” I exclaimed. “Leaving – where to?”

“Why, Cyprus of course – has no one told you?” (Which, par for the course, they hadn’t).

Jacky pointed to our “luggage”. Believing we were just headed for London, my few bits and pieces were rolled up in a towel, Owen Roberts had put his in a bin liner. “Wait a sec” said Jacky. He went over and spoke to the guy in the glass box, who at once came out and unlocked a walk-in cupboard. He emerged holding a big old black canvas grip. “Lost property, never claimed” said this guy.

“Must be nearly time” said Jacky after we’d re-packed our stuff. “Better go for a quick wee”. We returned to find the Rev. Melhuish herding a group of about twenty boys through the door and on to the bus. (Our grip had been loaded). He had discarded his gown and cassock and was wearing a clerical grey suit and a panama hat.

The effect was ridiculous.

I hadn’t been to Gatwick Airport since first coming to Britain. It didn’t seem to have changed much – it was still a route-march from the check-in to the departure gates – though Roberts, who hadn’t flown before, was fascinated by every bit of it. Neither of us had passports – I don’t know if Roberts even possessed one – but the Rev. Melhuish had some sort of group travel document, so there wasn’t a problem.

Eventually the monitor showed “Boarding” so we all trooped along, and on board an elderly 757. There followed a long boring interval while the Captain awaited his “slot” for take-off. A few moments of shattering din, and we were airborne: the start of a 4½-hour flight.

Owen Roberts and I got two seats together, and after a while Jacky Jessop came and sat with us. He told us a lot about what was going to happen in the coming week. The old Roman amphitheatre in Pafos had been restored, and there was to be a whole series of celebratory concerts and recitals. Meanwhile Veritas – the choir – were to be accommodated at a large modern hotel in the tourist area, and when not either singing or rehearsing, were free to do as they liked.

We also learned a lot from him about Veritas. Its earliest days were the 1950’s. A young enterprising music master at the school, called Martin Lomax, had the idea of amalgamating the school choir with that of the parish church next door, and giving recitals in the church. At first these were purely local, but the reputation of the choir soon spread. Before five years had passed, Veritas enjoyed international renown, and still did. The name had a prosaic origin – Lomax felt he had to have a name that was serious and Latin, and “Veritas” was the brand-name of an old oil-stove he had in his office.

In 1997 Lomax – now in his late 70’s and Sir Martin – died. Jacky was strangely reticent about the way the Rev. Melhuish (the boys all referred to him behind his back as Smellyfish) replaced him. “He’s not too bad really” was all I could get out of him just then.

It was not till later that I found out how such an unappealing personality ever got control of a world-famous choir. In Martin Lomax’s day Veritas had been a one-man show, but it was now a company run by a board of trustees. They looked for a safe pair of hands, and Melhuish just seemed to have been in the right place at the right time: a curate of the neighbouring church, whom the Vicar was willing to dispense with! He became an employee of the board, who paid him a stipend, and though not very good at the job, did nothing bad enough to get himself fired.

Jacky had figured out that these days, Veritas was living off past glories. The trustees, all old men, were satisfied with the large income still received from royalties on records cut in the golden days of the 60’s and 70’s, when there was fierce competition to be accepted into the choir as a chorister, and huge fees were to be had for appearances all over the country. By contrast, recruitment was now a serious problem, and recitals in Britain were a rarity. On the other hand, trips to Europe were fairly regular. Last Christmas the choir had been to Lille and also Nuremberg, both as part of medieval fairs.

At this point the trolley came down the gangway with a sort of meal on little plastic trays: it was some sort of relation to sausage-and-mash, and quite tasty by the standards of in-flight food. The three of us took turns to use the bathroom – a cramped smelly little cubbyhole just to the left of the flight-deck door. Not long afterwards I dozed off, to be roused by the “ting-tong” of the PA system, and the Captain’s announcement “Cabin crew to positions for landing”.

The aircraft, steadily losing height, banked in a wide arc. Scattered clusters of lights appeared through the portholes. Lower and lower…….a shuddering bump, and we were down. The engines went into reverse thrust with a deafening blast of noise. Lines of blue, red and green lights streamed past, and on the end of a building I could see a big neon sign that said 'Aerolimen Paphous'. We’d arrived.

Getting off the aircraft – as usual – took an age, shuffling along a foot at a time. No gangway of course – only steep steps on wheels. Outside on the tarmac the wretched Melhuish was gesticulating and shouting “Come along, you boys, hurry up, hurry up” although there was only one entrance to the airport building, admitting two people at most, at a time. There were murmurs of “Oh for fuck’s sake shut up” up and down the line.

Through immigration at last, our old black grip collected, Owen and I stood outside the airport at last – not that we could see much, since the sun had gone down before we landed. Melhuish was there again, herding us on to a bus. We got a seat together, for the half-hour ride to Pafos town. I stared out of the window, first at indistinct clumps of vegetation, then at the buildings that began to appear. Most were in darkness: the resort had barely come to life yet, after the winter.

We were decanted at last outside a huge white building, a whole block long. With more cries of “Hurry up, you boys” we were shepherded into a vast, sumptuous foyer. This was the Poseidon Grand Hotel and Resort, and we had one wing of it, for the duration of the festival. A receptionist dished out room-door key cards. Single rooms were too much to hope for, but when Owen and I located Room 303, it at least had twin beds.

Food was on offer in an equally large and palatial restaurant – the “Aphrodite” , but I’d lost my appetite and could only pick at a salad. Bed seemed much more inviting, and with the time difference, the clocks showed half-past eleven.

Only one bathroom of course, and I let Owen go first. When I finished there myself, it was to find Owen, in old-fashioned striped pyjamas (I only ever wore boxer shorts and a T-shirt in bed) on his knees, eyes closed, saying his prayers.

I’d no doubt that his prayers were in fluent Welsh and I envied him, having something – or someone – to pray to.

----xXx----

Some hours later I was awakened by sunlight streaming through the window – I’d neglected to draw the curtains. Quietly I got up to take a look. The sea was an inviting shade of turquoise beyond a row of palm trees. In the near foreground a swimming pool, of the same entrancing colour, was as calm as a mirror. A rustle of bedclothes and Owen was beside me, taking it all in.

“Oh gosh!” was his comment on the scene. “Oh my golly-gosh!”

Before I could stop him he had shed his pyjamas on the floor, flung the window open, darted on to our little balcony, vaulted lightly over the wall into the garden without a stitch on – and dived into the pool. “Wait for me!” I called out, and also stark naked, joined him in the water. We both did a couple of lengths of rather splashy crawl and despite Owen’s earlier start, I just touched the rail ahead of him.

The noise we made had roused someone else. The window next to ours opened and Jacky, tousle-headed and rubbing sleep from his eyes, emerged to have a look. And clearly he wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

Owen had hauled himself out of the pool, showing the effect of the cold water on his boy-parts. His penis had shrunk down into a pink knob the shape of a small sea anemone – just a little smooth blob. My own genital area was in a similar way. Jacky’s eyes were metaphorically coming out on stalks.

“Is it cold?” he managed to say – though obviously the water temperature wasn’t the first thing on his mind.

I went over to the row of loungers, picking one in full sun, and stretched out. “I won’t say it’s warm” I said “but it’s bloody marvellous!”

Owen came and joined me on the next lounger. We both closed our eyes and listened to the sound of the sea. But our reverie was soon interrupted.

“Can I ask you something?” asked Jacky. “Something I believe you may know about?” He sounded embarrassed, and was blushing to the roots of his brown mop of curls.

“Fire away!” I said. “What’s bothering you?”

“It’s – well, you see, I’ll be thirteen soon, and I know that in order to stay in the choir I need to have a – a procedure, they called it - so that my voice won’t change. I know that means I’d have something done on my privates, but I couldn’t find anyone to talk to, about what it was like, whether it hurt and everything. Then you two came along and I thought….I thought….”

He trailed off unhappily so I stuck my oar in. “You mean” I said, “that you’ve noticed we’re both ball-less, and you’d like to pick our brains? Is that it?”

Jacky looked sheepish. “Well – yes” he said, after a while.

I decided to go in feet-first. “For starters, I ought to tell you that we – Owen here, and myself- are a bit out of the ordinary. While, as you can see, we are both castratos, our operations weren’t anything to do with singing – at least not to start with”.

Owen Roberts was determined to get his piece in. “I had a bad acci-dent, see – all cut up between my legs, I was. The doctors said I’d have to have my balls out because they’d gone sep-tic”. (This is an episode in “Simon Toes the Line”)

Then it was my turn. “Take a good look at me, Jacky – do I look a bit Chinese? That’s because I am – though the other half of me is American and I’ve got an American passport. I was an orphan, out in the Malaysian jungle, living on the bread-line. Then I was rescued, with a lot of other boys. They brought me to an orphanage run by an American doctor – a woman”. (Ricky’s entry into these stories is in “Dr Geller Goes Into Partnership”)

“Some rescue that was!” Owen chipped in.

“This doctor told me that under United States law, since I was of mixed race, I couldn’t be allowed to get married and produce children – I’d have to be castrated. It wasn’t true, but I didn’t find that out till much, much later. The truth was, that the doctor – her name was Geller – just loved castrating boys. She even persuaded me to watch while she did it”.

“Had them took right out!” was Owen’s contribution.

“Yes, that’s the other thing. Both of us had our balls taken right out. Owen because he couldn’t help it – he was badly injured down there – me, because Dr Geller preferred to do it that way. But it’s very unusual. Doctors now prefer to inject a drug into a boy’s balls, which makes them soften and wither away. The effect’s just the same.”

“Most boys call it “getting their balls pricked” added Owen.

“Yes, I know one or two guys who’ve been” said Jacky, vaguely. “But how come you know so much about it, if you weren’t “done” that way?”

“At our school, which as you know is Southdown Hall, I suppose one boy in three is a castrato” I replied. “It varies from age group to age group, but I suppose the proportion’s highest in the third year – boys of twelve going on thirteen. They get “done” for all kinds of reasons. In just a few cases it’s to help them to sing better, but more often than not, it’s just to calm them down and prevent them becoming a nuisance with girls”.

“Can’t get it up any more, see?” Owen added with a wry smile.

“Uh?” said Jacky. He sounded startled. Many boys suppose that the only effect of getting neutered is that they will be unable to make sperm when once their balls have been removed. But a boy is no different to a horse after being gelded: once the testosterone has run down, his penis retracts into his body except when he needs to wee. (Sometimes not even then!) I’d had it explained to me – why I was no longer able to get erections. (Doctors called it ‘penile shrinkage). So I would never be able to “do it” with a girl however much I tried.

“Got a girl-friend, have you?” enquired Owen.

“Well – yes” Jacky replied. Unexpectedly he went on “She lets me feel round her tits, and once or twice she’s let me fuck the gusset of her blue school knickers, though only the back way”.

After this revelation about Jacky’s sex life, for a few moments no one said anything. Owen Roberts stretched out luxuriously in the unaccustomed sunshine. The hospital had certainly done a neat job on him after his accident – you could hardly tell that he had ever had a scrotum. The warmth was also relaxing my own limp little penis, to something like its full 1½ inches. My castration scars had long faded, but a pink line showed where my wee-ing problems had been sorted out by Dr Geller, in the last surgical operation she would ever carry out, before disappearing from all our lives (Read “Ricky Visits America” if this interests you).

Jacky just sat and stared at us as if spellbound – two good-looking boys with rosebud penises: toddlers’ cocks and no balls.

“It’s a pity you can’t meet Peter Cardew” I said, after a pause. “He’s a boy at our school, and was “done” a few months ago – no particular reason; his guardians decided he was getting to be a big boy and it was time he had his balls pricked”.

“To prevent him doing rude things with girls” added Owen.

“He was a bit of a weed, before” I said. “But you should see him now. He’s grown quite a bit since losing his balls, and filled out too. But more importantly he’s discovering all kinds of things he’s good at, like gymnastics. Before, you’d have said he couldn’t do anything. Castration’s really been the making of him”.

Jacky just nodded.

For a time nobody spoke. Owen was the first to break the silence. He was prompted by a rich aroma of roasting coffee – and other appetising smells. “I’m ‘ungry” were his first words. “I’m goin’ to get dressed – I want my breakfast”. Scrambling off the lounger he ran towards our balcony, a cherub’s penis wagging between his thighs. I watched his retreating form. He had a cute butt. I hoped that in this crazy unjust world I could keep him from harm.

“See you later” I said to Jacky, and followed Owen into the hotel.

----xXx----

Melhuish had called a rehearsal for nine-thirty. Owen and I went along to find the Veritas boys all crowded into one of the syndicate rooms, which had a piano. Jacky introduced us to a few of the seniors, all aged about thirteen. Sharp on nine-thirty Melhuish arrived, greeting us with “Quiet, boys, quiet! Stop this noise!” (Though in truth there was very little noise to stop).

He had roughed out his intended program and read it through. To my disgust the first item in this was “Hark, hark, the lark”. He launched into the miminy-piminy little introduction, and we were off.

I don’t give a sod that Shakespeare wrote the words – the words are rubbish. I care even less that the tune is by Schubert – it’s a thin, poor little tune. All in all it was a terrible choice for the opening number and I wasn’t alone in thinking this: behind me two or three boys who couldn’t be seen plainly from where Melhuish was sitting, were singing “Fart, fart, the lark” instead of “Hark, hark”. I couldn’t blame them.

The wretched little song tinkled to its conclusion. Melhuish now made his big introduction. “Now, boys! Pafos is home to a large number of British ex-pats, and among them there is a sizeable Welsh contingent. To give them a treat, the second item on our program is the comic song “Sosban Fach”. I’ve typed out the words for you. Just read them through once and we’ll give it a go”.

You could have heard a pin drop. The Welsh language, to anyone seeing it in print for the first time, is baffling to a degree. (The word ‘Ddu” meaning dark or black, is pronounced not ‘doo’ but ‘thee’; ‘W’ is a vowel, ‘Y’ a sort of grunt, so that the place-name Bettws-y-coed comes out as Bettoos-a-Coyd, and oddest of all, double-L, as in Llanwrst or Llandudno, is a sound midway between clearing your throat and spitting. Try saying Tchsl and see how you get on.).

Then, a clear confident voice made itself heard. Melhuish’s attempt to say “Sosban Fach” had touched a raw nerve in Owen Roberts’ Welsh soul.

“That’s a crap choice”.

“I BEG your pardon?” – this from Melhuish who could hardly believe his own ears.

Owen Roberts stood his ground. “I said it’s a crap choice, and it is. For starters it’s not intended for boys’ choirs at all. It’s a rugby-club song – Llanelli rugby club to be exact. It’s meant to be sung by men who’ve drunk a lot of beer and are half-pissed” (There were sniggers at this.) “Male voice choirs would do at a pinch. But it’s not exactly comic. Know what the words mean, do you?”

Behind me there were snorts of badly-controlled amusement. Melhuish now made a fatal mistake. “I’ve got a good idea of their general sense, but I can’t really see what…….”

Owen didn’t let him get away with it. “Since you obviously don’t know, listen and I’ll tell you. There’s this woman; her servants are poorly, the cat’s scratchin’ little Johnny, and the pan’s boilin’ over on the fire. Very comical I’m sure!”

Giggles were breaking out all round the room. Owen hadn’t finished by a long way. “What I say is, if you don’t understand the Welsh language and can’t even pronounce it, you shouldn’t try sing-in’ Welsh songs. It’s an insult to Welsh people!”

“Hear, hear” said a boy at the far end of the room, whose name was Wynne-Williams.

“Couldn’t agree more” said another, whose name was Rhys-Jones.

(Owen Roberts was quick to make friends with these two, since all three of them were Welsh, and the two Veritas boys were boy eunuchs, as Owen was. But back to the present.)

This was outright defiance. Faced with it the wretched Melhuish first put his hands over his ears, then over his eyes, vainly trying to shut it out. He was not just on the back foot – he was on the ropes. For a brief moment there was an uncomfortable silence. Then someone laughed out loud. It might have been a trigger. Suddenly no one felt any need for restraint. Laughter rocked the room – loud, uncontrolled jeering laughter, of twenty boys who for the first time felt no need to hide their contempt for this man.

A voice made itself heard above the noise – the voice of one Peter Bennie, a tall fair boy, with a very high voice, and who seemed to be the senior chorister. “Sir! Sir!” Instantly there was loud shushing, and silence followed.

“Sir, why don’t we take advantage of our guests’ wide experience (this meant Owen Roberts and me) “to come up with some suggestions for alternatives?” (Murmurs of “Why not” “Good idea” “Oh yes, let’s”)

There was another pregnant silence, while we all awaited a reaction from the pasty-faced man at the piano. “Oh have it your own way!” he almost whispered. “Discuss it among yourselves and tell me later”. He gathered up his papers and left the room.

In the next twenty minutes or so, Owen Roberts and I, with the full co-operation of the Veritas boys, did a full-scale job of hijacking the concert program. “Hark, hark” and “Sosban Fach” were immediately ditched. The opening number would be “Men of Harlech”. Everyone knew it: it was a rousing song that would appeal to the Welsh element in the audience. It would be sung in English: Roberts would have preferred the original, but the first performance was tomorrow night, and he doubted whether the Veritas boys could learn the Welsh words in time.

“What about solos?” asked Peter Bennie. He was fourteen, and one of only four or five boys in Veritas to have had his balls pricked. When at length I got round to talking to Peter, it seemed that getting yourself castrated wasn’t as much a part of the culture in London day-schools as it was at Southdown Hall. (Most of the other Veritas boys weren’t old enough for castration anyway.) Peter had flaming red hair. I remembered once reading that sculptors used to use boys’ wee to create a patina on bronzes. Red-haired boys’ wee was especially prized, and that from castrated boys most of all…….Just a passing thought.

Owen had two suggestions “Dafydd y Garreg Wen” (David of the White Rock) and “Bugeilio’r Gwenith Gwyn” (Watching the white wheat). “Should ‘ave Welsh ‘arp accompaniment, really” he said. “Does anyone yere play guitar – acoustic variety?”

A silent boy called John Long put his hand up.

“Got it in your room?” John had.

“Go and get it”.

The seven- and eight-year-olds were beginning to fidget, so Peter let them go. John Long returned with his guitar; Owen began taking him through the haunting melody of “Watching the white wheat” which John was quick to pick up. Peter, the two Welsh boys and I had a think about the rest of the program. What we wanted was another stirring song that we could sing as a closing chorus, and the choice was proving elusive. Finally Peter suggested that the audience might contain some Scottish people, so why didn’t we end with a Scottish song? This seemed a sensible idea and we chose “Scots wha hae” – which everybody knew and liked.

On that note the meeting broke up. Owen went off with John Long to practise some more, and I made to return to the bedroom. A voice called after me “Hey, I say, Silva!” I turned to see who it was – Jacky Jessop.

“Silva, can we talk some more about – about, you know?”

He meant about getting neutered. “Alright” I said, and led him to a quiet corner of the terrace, overlooking the garden. “What do you want to know?” I began.

“Tell me about how you came to be – you know – and everything”.

Here we go again, I thought, and heaved a sigh - but decided to start at the very beginning. “When I was very small, living in the Far East, my parents disappeared, probably murdered by bandits but nothing was ever known for certain.

“So you never knew your parents?

“I never knew who my father was at all, till last year. He and my mother had been working for the Peace Corps and living in a camp in up-country Malaysia, quite a remote area. I dimly remember someone who might have been my mother, but she was hardly ever there. Other people seemed to have looked after me, saw I got something to eat and all the rest.

“ By the time I was about ten the Peace Corps had moved out and the camp was taken over by a nondescript bunch of people – you’d probably call them hippies. Life was a bit disorganised after that. No school of course, but I somehow learned to read and do sums: some of the people ran occasional lessons for small children. Keeping alive was the priority and I got to be good at that.

“Then one morning, early, a convoy drove into the camp – a Land Cruiser and a 3-ton truck. There were some Europeans in the Land Cruiser who rounded everybody up and started giving orders. It seemed the camp was going to be closed down immediately. All the adults, and families with children, were just told to pack their things and go.

“This left about twenty boys like me, who had no families or relatives at all. They – the Europeans – made us get into the truck. We set off on a long journey, several hours. We didn’t stop once; one boy even wet himself, he couldn’t wait. Then in the middle of the afternoon the truck drove into a compound, with several buildings round it, and they made us get down.

“First thing, a man appeared and showed us into a big hall where we were given a meal – the first proper food I’d had in months; in the camp I used to scrounge whatever I could get. When we’d all finished, the man came back and showed us the way to the showers. Oh boy, was that good! The camp had once had running water but the supply had been cut off long before.

“I was still in the shower, making the most of it, when a lady came along and spoke to me. She seemed surprised that I could not only understand her but speak fluent English. I told her that so far as I knew, I was American – this of course is true. Next thing, she’d rushed off and got me a complete change of new clothes, tee-shirt, shorts, ankle socks, trainers – all white. My own clothes were just rags, filthy too.”

“Who was this lady? She sounds nice”.

“This was Dr Geller. Yes, in a way I owe it to her for being where I am now. She took me in and gave me a home for several months, she arranged for me to go to school in England and perhaps the most important of all, she traced my mother’s parents, so that I had a family and a country. But then there was the down side”.

“Which was?”

“When I’d got dressed, Dr Geller told me she wanted to let me in on a secret. I would probably be adopted by Americans and taken to live in the U.S. But because of my mixed race, I could never be allowed to get married or have children.

“Before you leave here” Dr Geller said “you’ll have a little operation. You need to be castrated. All the boys who’d arrived with me that day, would be castrated”.I knew what the word meant – I would have my balls taken out. I’d seen it done on animals –male dogs mostly to stop them fighting – and I knew it was sometimes done on boys to make them unable to fuck girls”

“But that’s terrible! Was it true – about your mixed race, not being allowed to get married?”

“No, it wasn’t. Even if it had been, I could have been vasectomised and led a normal life, apart from being sterile of course. But remember where I’d been, up till then. I knew nothing of the world outside the camp. You could have told me anything. What I didn’t know, and only found out long afterwards, was that Dr Geller had a fixation about castrating boys.

“There were other boys with you, you said”.

“Yes, there were. I think they were all destined for the Arab world, as domestic eunuchs, or sold to rich Indian perverts as sex slaves.” (I stopped myself just in time from saying how I nearly ended up there myself on my visit to the States a few months back).

“What happened next?”

“I thought to myself – and remember, I didn’t know any better – that if it had to be done, best get it over with. Dr Geller seemed sympathetic, she was a qualified doctor, she had her own little operating-theatre; it could have been a lot worse. I wasn’t too concerned about the effects, I’d never tried to have sex with a girl and I’m just not interested in any other kind of sex. All I was worried about was whether it might hurt”.

“So –“

“So I asked Dr Geller if she could go ahead there and then, and she said if I was quite sure, then she would.”

Just then a loud yell sounded from the garden: “Hey, Ricky, are you there?” I went to the balcony and saw Owen’s little face looking up. “Ricky, are you stay-in’ there all day, whatever? I want my lunch!” “Coming right away this minute!” I called down.

“Sorry, got to go” I said to Jacky, and left him to make his own way down.

So I was spared having to re-live that strange surreal time, lying on Dr Geller’s operating table. Numbed below the waist, I watched, as if on a television screen, the doctor’s clever hands at work on my boy-parts; heard her explaining in a low voice what she was doing (“This is just to check any bleeding” as she fixed clamps to my spermatic cords, and not long afterwards “All finished!”). Through a mist of anaesthetics I saw my balls pulled out by the doctor’s fingers, once my future manhood but no longer, just two little blobs with bits of limp wet tissue attached –snipped off and dropped into a kidney-dish. I was a boy-eunuch.

Then there was the time afterwards, while my castration scars healed up.

For about a year, my little cock had been developing a life of its own. I’d even begun to get some quite long-lasting hard-ons. But with my balls gone, it stayed limp all the time, and more than limp: soft and floppy and only about half its former length, and that mainly foreskin. I worried in case it shrank away altogether.

Dr Geller’s explanation was that it was perfectly normal for my cock to shrink. Now that I would never “do it” with a girl, I didn’t need a long penis. “It was just Nature taking its course”, leaving me with just enough to wee through and no more.

It was two years before I knew the truth. By that time I’d read how the Jewish slave-dealers in Verdun, who trafficked in boy-eunuchs for the Muslim rulers of Moorish Spain, had been puzzled by the way that some castrated boys could still get “schoolboy erections”, strong enough to penetrate a girl’s hymen. But if the stumps of a boy’s spermatic cords were cauterised with a hot iron, the ability to get erections was lost. The hot iron burned out the boy’s erectile nerves, leaving his penis permanently limp.

A boy like that, incapable of “doing it” would attract a high price as a servant to a spoiled, bored Moorish princess. She would tease him, opening her legs wide, showing off her sex to her hapless page, jeering at him for his impotence and sterility.

Dr Geller knew this too. Only she used a laser on me. The result was the same.

Surreal, did I say? No, it had been real alright, as I was reminded every time I pulled my pants down.

---oOo---

Lunch over (salads again) Owen and I went out to explore. Pafos was, first and last, a summer resort, principally as we could see, aimed at English-speaking tourists. I wasn’t going to have any chance to practise my few words of Greek! We passed “O’Rourke’s Irish Bar” “The Brahms and Liszt Pub” “The Shamrock Lounge” – many still closed up from the winter recess but others doing brisk business in the warm sunshine. There were shops selling everything you could possibly want for a beach holiday, from surf-boards to condoms, and very little else. By the time we’d walked most of the length of the main street we both felt the need of a cold drink.

We were lucky to find a table from which the previous customers were just leaving – all the others were full. Hardly had we sat down when a middle-aged couple approached with beakers of coffee in their hands. The lady spoke first. “Would you mind very much if we joined you? she asked, in a very pleasant way. Of course we didn’t, and they sat down. Almost immediately the lady spoke again.

“Is it possible we’ve met before? she asked. “Aren’t you one of Simon’s friends – Simon Scott of Southdown Hall School? I admitted to this – why not after all – and she extended a hand. “I thought so! I’m Sylvia Briggs”

Commandant Mrs Briggs! Head of the local Red Cross, St John’s Ambulance, the Guides and many other organisations – and more than that, related to Simon’s long-time girlfriend Melanie. I shook the proffered hand, and introduced Owen Roberts.

“And this is my husband Reg” continued Mrs Briggs.

“Delighted to meet you both” said the old gentleman in a crisp firm voice. I say ‘old’ because he might have been in his 70’s – a good bit older than his wife – but not in the least doddery. He had a vaguely military look which I couldn’t place.

“We’re here on a sentimental journey” said Mrs Briggs. “Reg was in the Colonial Police, many years ago”.

“Many years is just about it” chuckled Mr Briggs. “I was first sent here as a very young cadet, just before Independence. Quite a feverish time, I can tell you. Babes-in arms were taught to say “Enosis” before they could say “Da-da”.

“Independence came and out we went. The next few years were a bit of an odyssey, weren’t they, Sylvia? Fewer and fewer colonies needing our services. But then in 1974, surprise surprise, we were back, providing a bit of muscle. The Turks had invaded the north of the island – they still occupy 40% of it in case you don’t know. Thousands of people displaced, riots, a few shootings, and the Cypriot authorities couldn’t cope. You can still see evidence of what went on, in this street. Look down there”.

A few yards beyond the café where we were, the look of the street changed totally. On the far side of the road, a small hotel was closed and boarded-up, evidently for a long time- perhaps years. Just beyond that, a further group of buildings was reduced to a mere shell. Further along still, a taverna in a prime position where the road curved, was an eerie ruin, torn awnings flapping in the wind, broken rusty chairs, weeds sprouting everywhere.

“Businesses at this end of the street were mainly owned by Turkish Cypriots” explained Reg. “They’d been here for decades minding their own affairs. But in the troubles, hardly surprisingly the Greek Cypriots kicked them out. They left some much older relics too. Do you see that little domed building? It’s not a tomb. It’s a hammam- a 16th century Turkish bath. But being Turkish it’s not high in the list for restoration. You see….”

“Reg, that’s quite enough politics!” laughed Mrs Briggs and turned to us. “I expect you are here on holiday. Are your parents with you?”

I refrained from saying we were both orphans. “No” I replied. “We’re here with the Veritas Boys’ Choir, taking part in the Festival”. I named the hotel where we were staying.

“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed Mrs Briggs. “We’re so looking forward to the Festival, so we shall actually see you performing”. (They finished their coffee). “Well, we must dash. By the way we’re staying with some old friends, their name is Pamphilious - just across the road, Number 79”. She indicated a modest-looking condo. “Well, bye-bye for the moment”. They were off. Reg Briggs slipping a business-card into my hand.

The afternoon had its darker side.

Owen and I, as I said a bit ago, were in Room 303. Across the corridor and a bit further down, Jacky Jessop and another boy shared 306. We were just coming out of our room when the door of 306 opened simultaneously and Jacky came out, with a rolled-up towel under his arm. I don’t know whether he ignored us deliberately or whether he just didn’t see, but anyway, he set off down the corridor almost at a run.

The corridor ended in a door marked “Emergency Exit Only” leading to a fire escape, and through this, Jacky was disappearing. “Come on!” I whispered to Owen.

The fire-escape led not only down to the ground, but up on to the roof. Footsteps on the iron treads showed that Jacky had gone roof-wards – for what purpose we had no idea. Very stealthily and quietly we followed. Duck-boards made a path across the flat roof. There were a lot of walls sticking up, making a full view impossible; chimney stacks also.

At one of these we halted and peered cautiously round. Jacky was only a couple of feet away, in a sort of alcove. He had spread the towel out as if he meant to sunbathe, and was in the act of taking his shorts and pants off. His boy-parts were like any intact twelve-year-old’s: a long slender penis and well-defined, hard little balls.

Jacky lay down on his towel, but not to sunbathe. Closing his eyes he took hold of his little penis and rolled his foreskin back. Then forward again. Then back. Forward – and back. Forward – and back. His penis hardened into a 3-inch erection.

“He’s tryin’ to jerk off!” hissed Owen in a fierce whisper. Evidently in his Welsh Baptist upbringing, he’d been taught that masturbation merited hell fire, or worse.) “Filthy little pig!”

I shushed him. Leaving Jacky to his solitary pleasure we returned to Room 303. I was uneasy at what we’d seen. Not the fact of Jacky jerking off – he could wank himself silly for all I cared – but that he did it so openly. Boys like that so easily became the victims of men of a particular kind. Men who preyed on young boys. Men who thought little about the damage they were inflicting, and cared even less.

Next day everything happened at once.

Smellyfish, as the boys called him, had sufficiently recovered his self-esteem to call a rehearsal after breakfast. But he was left in no doubt about who was in charge. “Now then, you boys”…..he began, but was immediately silenced by Peter Bennie, who although he’d lost his balls to two pricks of a hypodermic, showed no shortage of “balls” of another kind. “Sir, we’ve decided to…..” began Peter, and the rehearsal went on from there, Smellyfish acquiescing at every turn.

Among other things, Peter Bennie and the two Welsh boys were going to do “Dafydd y Garreg Wen” as a trio. Owen would make them practise the Welsh words all afternoon. Jacky would do “Watching the White Wheat” as a solo. Owen would write the words phonetically; all he had to do was go away and learn them by heart. Owen and I got off lightly. Last year my party piece had been Rutland Boughton’s “Fairy Song”. Owen knew it too, so it was decided he and I would do it as a duet.

Someone – I didn’t catch his name – suggested Kipling’s “Boots” as a good rousing chorus with scope for audience participation. I have to admit I kyboshed this. It’s a song that only comes over if sung by a bass-baritone. None of us had bass-baritone voices and at least six of us never would have.

To all the suggestions, Melhuish just smiled and nodded, as if on another planet. Or as if he had other things to think about. As Owen and I found out, a few hours later.

The afternoon passed quickly by, with everybody practising something or other. Tea was early. At seven, Melhuish once again shepherded us on to a bus, to go to the newly-restored theatre. Restoration proved to have been largely cosmetic. The auditorium looked fine, if you don’t mind stone seats, but the ancient changing-rooms beneath the stage remained untouched, the entrance blocked-up, blind and stifled. Instead, we got into our cassocks and surplices in a draughty tent beneath the trees. Melhuish additionally donned his academic hood. He looked like a huge prehistoric bird with his flapping sleeves.

I hope you won’t want a line-by-line commentary on the concert. The Cypriot dance troupe got polite applause. By contrast, we (that is the Veritas boys, Owen and myself) came on stage to loud foot-stamping acclaim. We hadn’t been wrong about the “ethnic minorities”! At least half the audience joined in “Men of Harlech”; the trios and duets were cheered to the echo, and Jacky was requested for an encore, so he had to sing “Watching the white wheat” all over again. By ten, it was all over. The hotel had laid on light refreshments – soft drinks only – and one of us over-indulged as you’ll soon hear from the man (?) himself.

Part 3. Owen Roberts has something to tell us

I suppose it must have been the last bottle of Coke I had before going to bed. I woke all of a sudden, like, busting for a wee. My watch showed five minutes to midnight.

As I left the bathroom I noticed our room door wasn’t properly shut, so I went to fasten it. Just then, there was a loud “click” from outside – the sound of another door closing. I stuck my head outside, and there was Jacky Jessop, in just his boxers and T-shirt, tiptoeing barefoot down the corridor.

By the time I’d roused Ricky, Jacky was out of sight, but we were just in time to see a door closing – a door a long way down the corridor. This, we knew because he’d told us – was old Melhuish’s room, number 317. It was a corner room, bigger than the rest, which is why he’d grabbed it.

Next to 317 was an un-numbered door – a room where the housekeeping people kept their stores of bed linen, cleaning materials and such-like. The door wasn’t locked. In we went, nearly falling over a Hoover parked just inside. Through the wall, voices could just be heard – all the internal walls were very thin; in our room you could hear the boys next door in 305 using the toilet. With our ears pressed against the wall we listened – and this is what we heard. (I very much wish we hadn’t).

Melhuish ……my favourite kind of boy. There! (there was a sound of kissing – I shuddered). A lovely, dirty-minded boy, who’s ready for anything. Isn’t that right?

Jacky (giggling) If you say so!

Melhuish Then let’s start by pulling these down, so I can see you. M-mmm! That’s nice. Now then….. (a pause followed; we guessed he was fiddling with Jacky’s cock). That feels just like satin. (Another pause).

Melhuish Are you enjoying that? I think you must be. I love playing with boys’ balls. You’ve gone lovely and hard!

Jacky It’s nice and tickly!

Melhuish Well, here’s something you’ll enjoy even more! (another pause, followed by giggles from Jacky)

Jacky It’s not a lollipop! (Ricky made a face and growled “Good God – he’s sucking Jacky off, the dirty old sod!” I shushed him to keep quiet.

Melhuish Well now, if you’re in the mood, we’ll do what we came here for. Shall we slip this on first?

Jacky Yes if you want, but don’t make it too tight – it hurts if you do. (We had no idea what “this” was, that had to be slipped on, but we were to find out later).

Melhuish Just turn around. M-mmm! You’ve got a cute behind, do you know that? (Sounds of kissing, presumably on Jacky’s bare buttocks.) Did you go to the bathroom?

Jacky Yes.

Melhuish. So that beautiful bum’s nice and empty. All ready and waiting!

Jacky How do you want me, this time?

Melhuish Let's start with you kneeling. It'll usually go in easier that way. Put that pillow under you. That’s right. Now, pull your bum-cheeks apart. This is just ordinary cold-cream. Nicer than Vaseline. Now I’ll just put some on me, and…. (another pause)

Jacky. You’re not in the right place- you’re hurting.

Melhuish. Is that better?

Jacky. Yes. Oh! Ow! Oooh!

Melhuish. Can you feel it going in? You’re very tight!

Jacky. Yes. It’s going right up the pipe. Ow! Ooh!

Melhuish Push back against me. Push with that beautiful bottom. I’m going to put it right up your hole- right inside!

We’d heard enough and more than enough. My worst fears were realised. Very, very softly we left our listening-post and tiptoed back to 303.

Part 4. Ricky resumes

The thought of Jacky becoming a bum-boy was depressing, most of all being a bum-boy to a creep like Melhuish. But there seemed no prospect of doing anything about it. We decided to leave Jacky to keep his grubby little secret to himself. If it still was a secret, that is. But before long, Jacky was going to give us problems that ran the present lot right off the scale.

Next day began by being disorganised. Things were to get a lot worse by nightfall.

Rehearsals, of a desultory sort, began after breakfast. Owen and I spent much of the morning swimming. In the afternoon we felt lazy, and lolled around by the pool. We didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary till teatime.

Jacky wasn’t in his usual place at the long table we all used. We thought little of it at the time, but an hour later, when we began assembling for the bus, there was no sign of him. Melhuish appeared, and Peter Bennie, as senior chorister, took the initiative. “Sir, we can’t find Jessop, sir”.

Melhuish seemed strangely unruffled. “Oh, I expect he’ll make his own way. His time’s his own till half-past seven”.

But down at the theatre, as the minutes ticked away till curtain-up, there was no getting away from it – Jacky wasn’t there.

Melhuish announced that “owing to indisposition the solo that should have been sung by Jacky Jessop, who is indisposed, will be sung instead by Owen Roberts”.

Indisposed?

Three hours later, back at the hotel, Owen looked at me, and I looked at Owen. We both thought the same thing – “what the f-----g hell?”

“Get your big torch” I told Owen. “We’re going out”.

For the first part of our search the big torch was redundant: all the cafés and eateries were heaving, and brilliantly lighted. But once past the coffee-bar where we’d met Mr and Mrs Briggs, the street lights thinned out to the occasional bulb on a pole. The sidewalk gave way to rough tussocky grass.

At the first derelict bar we stopped momentarily, to shine Owen’s big torch over the abandoned iceboxes and broken furniture. But of Jacky there was no sign. We repeated this at the other abandoned buildings further on, with the same result.

At the bend of the road we paused, to decide what, if anything, to do next. It was then that we heard a strange sound. Strange but familiar. Someone singing.

To be exact, someone not too far away, singing “Watching the white wheat” – not very well.

It seemed to be coming from the old Turkish hammam. This relic, as Mr Briggs had said, wasn’t scheduled for restoration. The authorities had ringed it round with razor wire. It looked impregnable at first sight but on closer inspection we found a gap. And in the gap, caught on the wire, a shred of fabric.

Scrubby growth stood between the ring of wire and the dark entry. Owen voiced my thoughts before I did. “There might be snakes in those bushes. Or scorpions”.

“We’ll have to chance it. Come on”. And in we went.

Jacky was lying sprawled on a heap of stones. His face was very white, but his eyes screwed up in the bright light of Owen’s torch. There was a strange smell, sickly and unpleasant. The torchlight showed us where this was coming from.

Jacky had taken his boxers off for some reason, so that he was naked below the waist. Between his thighs his scrotum seemed to be hanging by a stem, like some obscene kind of fruit. It was swollen, almost to the size of a tennis ball, it seemed, and was a livid purple, tending to black, and it was from here that the foul smell was coming. It was a smell I’d come across in the camps and I recognised it immediately.

Gangrene.

Without immediate medical attention Jacky would die.

Round his middle, Owen habitually wore a heavy leather belt, with rings at the side, from one of which there hung a black clasp-knife, Scout pattern, with a big blade, a can opener and a marlinspike. I’d often teased him about this weaponry (which it was strictly illegal to wear in Britain in public). But I didn’t tease him today.

“Do it!” I said.

Owen was a farm boy. In the lambing season the male lambs were neutered with rubber rings. More often than not the dried-up scrotum just dropped off, but now and then the testicles became septic, and needed immediate removal. Owen had learned to do this as a routine, whenever he was out on the hills.

“Do it!” I said, a second time.

But Owen had already unshipped his clasp knife. Grasping the suppurating thing between Jacky’s thighs, he severed it with a single slash. A stream of horrible-smelling pus jetted from the wound, followed by an ooze of blood. Jacky moaned feebly.

Owen flung the revolting handful of flesh through the broken arch of the doorway. A scuffling in the long grass quickly followed. Many scavenging creatures were lurking there.

Something remained in Owen’s hand – something small and green. An emasculation band, tightened to the limit. I took it from him. “Look, we need help to get him out of here, to a doctor” I said, pocketing the band. From my vest pocket I took Mr Briggs’ business card. “Go and find Mr Briggs. Say we’ve got a friend who has had a bad accident. No need for details. Go now”.

Owen wasted no time. He was very quick on his feet and his light footsteps soon died away. There was silence, apart from the sighing of the wind in the broken cupola.

Jacky stirred and moaned. “Must – get – rehearsal” he seemed to say.

I tried to say something to calm him. “It’s alright, Jacky, you’ll be better soon” was all I could think to say.

I suppose it was only a few minutes, but it seemed like hours before I at last heard the sound of a car drawing up in the road. Doors opened and slammed shut, and Owen’s voice piping up “In yere, please”.

I went outside, to be confronted not by Mr Briggs alone, but by two other men. A big fair-haired guy was Police Commissioner Giordis. A much older, dapper little man with a formal beard, was District Judge Ypsilantis. “Lucky your friend came when he did” commented Mr Briggs. “We’d made up a four for bridge this evening, with my wife, and were just going home when the doorbell rang. So, what’s the problem, a road accident or something?”

I cleared my throat. “Our friend, from the choir” I said, pointing towards the dark entry “is in that building. He has had an accident to his private parts and has lost both testicles”.

“What is this ‘testicles’? “ asked the big policeman. “I don’ know this ‘testicles’. I think I go take a look”. Switching on a torch of his own, he shifted his bulk through the narrow arch. In seconds he was out again, his face a mask of incandescent rage.

“This – this outrage!” he spluttered. “Who do this thing?” He seemed to notice Owen and myself for the first time and bore down on us, his eyes glaring. “You boys! You do this? Yes? No? Is a schoolboy prank that went wrong, yes? A horrible prank! I t’ink……”

“Oh rubbish, Konni!” Reg Briggs interupted. “Of course they didn’t do it, don’t be so ridiculous. These are English public-school boys from good English families, and they don’t go round hacking each other’s genitals off”.

(Owen flinched at “English”, and how my American grandparents would have reacted to being called “a good English family” I hated to think.)

Giordis calmed down. Meanwhile Judge Ypsilantis had been to see for himself, and made his first contribution. “I think we are overlooking the first priority, gentlemen” he said. He spoke very quietly, like a judge summing-up. “There is a boy who needs urgent medical help. We should attend to that immediately. Who did this to him, how and why, we can leave till later. Now if you will permit me……”

He took out his mobile phone, keyed-in a number and spoke briefly, ending “En taxei, en taxei”. Then he spoke to us. “I have arranged for your friend to be taken to the Makarios Clinic. It’s the best on the island. I shall be pleased if you will allow me to do this small service”.

In a very short time, it seemed, an ambulance pulled up. Two paramedics got out, gently lifted Jacky on to a stretcher, with a blanket over his middle, and took him away.

“And now” said Reg Briggs, “if we’ve finished in this ghastly place, can we go somewhere more comfortable?”

“I’ve seen as much as I need to” replied the Judge.

“Me also, I see all I want” added the burly Commissioner.

Back at the Briggs’ borrowed flat, Mr and Mrs Pamphilious were ushered off to bed. The five of us commandeered the lounge. Mrs Briggs mouthed a hasty “Hello” and busied herself in the kitchen, brewing strong coffee. Later through the glass panelled door I could see she had a mobile phone clamped to her ear and wondered idly who she could be calling at this hour.

“And now” said Reg Briggs “I suppose we’re looking out for some Turkish Cypriot terror group”.

“Most certainly, yes” growled the big commissioner.

Owen Roberts was on his feet. “No!” he said. “Most definitely, no! We know who did this!”

“I beg your pardon?” said Reg Briggs.

“You say you KNOW?” Commissioner Giordis almost shouted.

“Tell us” said Judge Ypsilantis, very gently.

Still standing, without a tremor in his voice, Owen related everything we’d heard through the bedroom wall. When he’d finished there was silence for a moment, then –

“Is there anything else?” asked the Judge.

From my pocket I produced the tiny loop of strip steel that had been released by Owen’s clasp knife. “We found this, on the ground, between Jacky’s legs” I lied. (It was important to keep very quiet about the crude surgery we’d carried out).

“What is that?” asked Reg Briggs.

“It’s an emasculation band” I said. “In the U.K. it’s used quite extensively on farm animals like lambs, piglets and so on. It’s never been approved for use on boys”.

The Judge looked grave. “Here in Cyprus, no method is approved for use on boys. The operation is completely illegal. But we are wasting time”. He turned to the Commissioner and spoke rapidly in Greek. The Commissioner immediately went out, and we heard his car starting up.

“It is important that we catch this – this Mellish – immediately” said the Judge. “It used to be one of the principles of our laws in Cyprus that anyone who corrupted a child, or took advantage of a child’s innocence to carry out a perverted act, faced the death penalty. The maximum sentence these days is imprisonment for life. We don’t want this man – this pervert – infecting other children with his filth”.

“He won’t get far, not tonight” said Reg Briggs. “The last scheduled flight leaves at six-thirty and there’s nothing after that till seven the next morning. And if he tries Nicosia, that’s three hours from here by road”.

So we settled down to wait. Judge Ypsilantis told me a little about himself. His parents, unusually for Greek Cypriots, were very pro-British. As a boy, the Judge had been sent to boarding-school in England (I recognised the name, it wasn’t far from Southdown Hall); he had gone on to read law at Cambridge, and had been called to the Bar at the Middle Temple. That explained his perfect English, with almost no accent.

In the event, Giordis was back within the hour. Melhuish, showing little imagination, had attempted to camp-out for the night in the VIP lounge at Pafos International, where he had bought a one-way ticket on the morning flight to Moscow, of all places.

“So he’s locked up” remarked the Judge. “Meanwhile we’ve these to look at”.

Giordis had confiscated Melhuish’s lap-top and webcam. Reg Briggs advised his wife to stay in the kitchen, in case anything unpleasant appeared on screen.

It did. The laptop came to life showing Melhuish’s bedroom, with Jacky taking his pants down, and Melhuish masturbating him, trying to make him have an orgasm. The scenes that followed were in the exact sequence of what Owen and I had heard through the bedroom wall. The words “Shall we slip this on?” were now explained: Melhuish looped an emasculation band round Jacky’s scrotum.

“My God!” said Reg Briggs under his breath.

Melhuish was now using Jacky as a substitute girl, doing his best to impregnate the boy’s rectum. Then the screen went black. “Turn it off” said Judge Ypsilantis. “We’ve seen enough”.

“No, leave it on!” said Commissioner Giordis. The screen had lit up again.

As with much of the film so far, the camera was focussed on Melhuish, as he forced an enormous black dildo into a boy’s bottom. But there was a difference. Jacky Jessop was – or rather had been – intact, when the film was made. But just now we’d all seen, flashing across the screen, the image of a neutered boy’s parts: we’d seen his tiny shrunken penis and the pathetic fold of skin that had been his scrotum. We waited. Presently the image changed as the camera moved upwards, to show the boy’s torso – bigger and taller than Jacky’s for a start. Then, at last, the boy’s face. A peaches-and-cream complexion, blonde hair falling over his eyes.

Peter Bennie.

The Judge looked on with a set expression. He’d made it clear that anyone who abused a child would have the book thrown at him. In the case of a serial paedophile, as Melhuish clearly was – even the British Library would not contain sufficient missiles.

“We’ve done all we can do, tonight” said the Judge, with a yawn. “Time for bed, all of us”. It was three a.m.

Morning came too quickly. At seven the bedside phone rang. It was Mrs Briggs to say that our playmate (ugh!) had recovered consciousness, eaten a good breakfast, and was expected to be discharged later that day.

For myself I’d little appetite for breakfast. Owen and I both stayed in bed till after eight. After getting dressed I wandered disconsolately into the foyer. Two people stood there. I didn’t register them at first, then I saw who they were, scarcely believing my own eyes.

One, round-faced and smiling. The other, dark-featured and lantern-jawed.

Simon and Mr Trefusis!

“Good morning” I said, stupidly, in a sort of trance.

Then the door from the gents’ toilet opened and, pulling his shorts straight, out came-

Roddy!

Roddy spoke first. “Bad news travels fast, Ricky! The only thing to do, when once we knew of your trouble, was to charter a private jet, and that was down to me. So here we are!”

Mrs Briggs, of course!

Mr Trefusis said “And there’s one more performance! They’ve asked me to stand-in as choirmaster so you’ll need to take me through the program. Roddy will be appearing as guest-artist”.

Simon said “And after all that, it’s my job to see you all get home”.

---oOo---

Simon finishes off.

Just been reading Ricky’s story. What an erudite little guy he’s become! British Library, indeed.

The return to the real world, cold slushy Britain, came sooner for some than for others. My place on Roddy’s hired private jet was taken by a rather fragile Jacky Jessop, while a bit later, I went with the boys on a Thomson Airways flight to Gatwick with a lot of returning holidaymakers. Gatwick is no distance from Southdown Hall, but I had to get the Veritas boys to West Norwood first, and it was late evening before I could turn myself round and head for home.

Ricky and Owen Roberts were full of hope that they’d have to return to Cyprus to give evidence at Melhuish’s trial. But they were to be disappointed. They had to go to London – to the vice-consulate – and make sworn statements, and that was that, for some weeks.

Jacky Jessop took some weeks off school to convalesce, and went to stay with Ricky’s grandparents at the Lymington Haven house. He needed some post-op care, and Ricky took him for a consultation with kindly old Dr Laing. The elderly Scotsman peered over his glasses and said “Iph’m, laddie – just slip your shorts and pants down”. He thought the remains of Jacky’s scrotum might be a source of infection. Jacky had a shot of local anaesthetic then and there, and the old Doctor trimmed all the loose skin away, making him a very neat boy-eunuch indeed.

Ricky’s grandma made a great fuss of him, feeding him on all kinds of cookies and pies. After meeting several of my friends, the old lady was much more used than she had been at first, to the idea of boys being “fixed” so they couldn’t have sex with girls. She said it was like living in a racing-stables, where the fillies snickered whenever uppity colts were gelded.

A fortnight after our return from Cyprus, the Easter holidays began, and the whole school dispersed, apart from a few individuals who’d arranged to stay on. Among these was little Peter Cardew – not so little now; after getting his balls pricked he’d positively shot up as some boys do. Jacky found a kindred spirit in Peter Cardew. They used to go off on their own together for hours, no doubt comparing notes about life without balls. At least Jacky could stop worrying about having to leave Veritas, now that his voice would never change.

It was only now that we learned what had been happening to him in those dark hours before Ricky and Owen found him. It seems that after the evening concert, Melhuish took Jacky to his room and made him have sex several times during the night. Towards morning Jacky woke, feeling uncomfortable in his scrotum area, and discovered that the emasculation band was still on. He asked Melhuish to remove it, but he refused, and made Jacky have sex again even though his anus and rectum were terribly sore from the night before.

Taking advantage of Melhuish going to the bathroom to wash his penis, Jacky escaped down the well-remembered fire escape and into the street, barefooted and in his T-shirt and boxers. He hoped to find somebody to help him, but it was early, and there were few people about. Looking for a quiet spot to see what he could do for himself, he eventually found the old abandoned hammam.

By now his scrotum was so swollen that he could scarcely see the band. When he did, it was to find that the release tag had snapped off – as it was supposed to, after application – and only snippers would have removed it. By now he was becoming a bit light-headed, what with the pain and lack of food. “I reckon I passed out” he said “and when I came to again, it was dark”.

What woke him was a stab of intense pain “down there” and he knew that his testicles had burst. Hardly surprisingly he passed out again, and woke in a daze, hallucinating about needing to get to his rehearsal of “Watching the white wheat”. It was then that Ricky and Owen heard him singing, and went to find him.

So much had been going on that we’d almost forgotten about the perpetrator – Melhuish. In fact the case got relegated to the middle pages of World News. It took four weeks for it to come to trial, and the Cypriot judges, predictably, came down on him like a ton of bricks. He was sentenced to five years, to be served in Cyprus without the possibility of appeal.

Also following the case had been the trustees who – nominally – managed Veritas. The chairman, Sir Leonard Mossimann, decided a totally new management structure was wanted. He might have chosen any one of a number of options, but do you know, he chose me! And so, Veritas became a subsidiary company of the Scott Group – of which, following Uncle Carl’s death, I’d become the boss-man. John Trefusis was appointed Technical Director, and he at once decided on a series of popular concerts around Britain, to bring Veritas back into prominence.

And so, to the start of the summer term and a whole lot of new interests. After Jacky had returned to St Edmund & St Frideswide’s (what a mouthful!) he wrote regularly to Peter Cardew. Jacky, you may remember, had a girl-friend, and being made a boy-eunuch had switched their love-life into fast-forward.. “Before” he confided to Peter Cardew “she only let me jerk off against the gusset of her school knickers, and only the back way. But now she knows I can’t fuck her, she pulls them right off and lets me fool around with her. It’s wonderful.”

Jacky also wrote to me. He’d been so impressed by his stay at Southdown Hall that he’d been evangelising to the other members of Veritas. As a result, all the seven- and eight-year-olds, young as they were, had been to have their balls pricked.

“At that age” Jacky wrote “they don’t know what they are missing, and in a month or two they’ll have forgotten they ever had balls”.

Well, I could have told him a thing or two about that.

F I N I S