Mister Henry & Zelamir

The Village

Book 2, chapters 5-11

Chapter 5

"Perhaps Sir," Mrs Thomas ventured, "I could suggest that Peter is thrashed first. My nephews, the spoilt little brutes, have never felt the cane and it would be educational for them to see it used on another boy's bottom before getting it themselves."

"An excellent thought," Jack replied heartily, "John – there are a selection of canes by the fireplace. Mrs Thomas prepare one of the whipping stools for a free boy."

John Thompson took all the care the importance of the task demanded in selecting the rod with which to chastise his seven-year-old son. One after the other he hefted the canes in his hand testing them for weight and flexibility. The only sounds in the room were the sibilant hiss of the canes as he took trial cuts at the empty air and the quiet hopeless sobbing of the naked six-year-old twin boys awaiting their turn on the whipping stools. Peter standing as his father had instructed with his nose pressed to the wall fought back his tears. Free boys did not cry, at least not in front of other people and before they had even been really hurt.

Mrs Thomas hurried from the room. She quickly returned with a plain white towel that she folded over the top of one of the stools.

"Tribute scum go straight on the leather," Jack explained. "God knows what filth leaks out of them when they're being flogged. It's not right to let a free boy come in contact with their dirt."

The tension in the room was now almost palpable. There was not an individual in the place that was untouched by the excitement of the moment; from Jack Wardle lounging in his chair at the head of the table, replete with food and drink, to the starveling serving brat carrying the half stilton from guest to guest. The nature of their excitement varied though according to the parts that they were to play in the unfolding drama. Jack settled back to enjoy the developing spectacle with the relaxed good humour of one who knew he was to be little more than a spectator, though as a conscientious host he kept a sharp eye open to spot opportunities to enhance the enjoyment of his guests. The grown ups in general watched John Thompson test the canes with avid interest and feasted their eyes on the slender bodies of the boys who were soon to play their painful parts in the intense dramatic entertainment that is played out every time a boy is flogged. The feelings of the children both free and pauper were however both more intense and more mixed. For with them excitement was blended in varying proportions with trepidation.

The most terrified were the twins. Used to being indulged, the sudden transformation from cosseted and spoilt favourites to pauper brats was the most traumatic event they had experienced in their brief six years of life. Even the terror of these two tiny sluts however was beginning to be leavened with excitement. Angela Thompson and Mary Roberts holding them on their laps with the brat's wrists clamped behind their backs in their left hands used their free hands to fondle the naked bodies of the two little boys. While the women's nimble fingers played with the boys' tiny pricks and hairless balls they whispered endearments to their helpless little captives calling them sweet sluts and hot little whores, telling them that their lips were formed to suck cock and their bottoms to give pleasure to their masters. Words that were as yet meaningless to the poor innocents but which together with the women's caresses eventually caused the children's cocks to harden; a success which Angela and Mary announced gleefully to the other adults.

Peter was excited as well. He knew he was because, as always, when he was waiting to be beaten and, if the truth be known increasingly on other occasions, he had an erection. It would go as soon as the cane bit into his bottom for the first time but would return soon after the beating was over. Being hard down there was a pleasant sensation and he had found, with tutelage from his older brothers, that even more enjoyable ones could be achieved if his swollen prick was stroked or sucked. Unlike Adam he was not old enough to be self-conscious. He was not embarrassed by his nakedness or humiliated by being required to stand with his nose pressed to the wall waiting for his father to get round to beating him or by the prospect of being beaten in front of an audience. Although only seven years old he had already been well seasoned to the rod and accepted all these things as being part of the natural order of things.

Two things however did frighten him. First was the prospect of the pain of the beating itself. I do not think anyone who has experienced the sharp gut wrenching agony of a cane cutting down across his bare bottom cannot but feel fear at the prospect of a thrashing. It maybe fear mixed with a strange apprehension tinged excitement but fear, nevertheless, it is. Peter was no exception to this rule. But along with the fear of the pain was another fear; the fear of letting himself down and shaming his Dad by his behaviour under correction.

This fear was made more acute by the presence of the pauper serving boys. Peter had only been staying in the Vale of Dingle for a couple of days but it was long enough for him to become aware of the gulf that divided free boys like himself from filth such as that. Auntie Angela had told them about the charity boys before they came to the village. She had told them the charity boys were quite different from themselves. They were the lowest and worst type of boy whom their Mummy's and Daddy's had despaired of and had placed in the care of the charity to be set to work and disciplined so that something could be made of their lives. He had not expected them though to be so different. Quite apart from the metal collars about their necks, the "CB"s branded on their bottoms and the threadbare rags, if any, that was the only clothing allowed them, they were thinner, darker skinned, even the fair haired ones, and even smelt different. Not a dirty smell but a funny sort of chemical clean smell, well the serving boys did anyway. Mum said it was the soap that was used on them – something called carbolic. And the stuff they ate. Peter had seen one of the garden boys put a worm in his mouth and eat it and when he told Angela she just laughed and said no doubt the little shit was hungry.

But what really showed to Peter's mind how different and how inferior they were was the way they just accepted it. His Mum and Dad hit him occasionally and had rough words for him too but not the way the charity brats were treated. He knew his Mum and Dad valued him. If they started calling him a useless little turd or something like that he wouldn't stand it. He wasn't quite sure what he would do about it but he would do something. But the pauper brats put up with that and much worse and didn't protest or anything. No wonder the grown ups called them scum. That was just what they were. Nobody else other than scum would put up with what they did.

But just because the sluts were so inferior to Peter it was, for that very reason, very important that everybody recognised that this was so and he showed it by his behaviour. He would be deeply shamed if anyone watching him being beaten mistook him for a charity boy. He would even be upset if the serving boys thought he was no better than they were. Pauper boys had no pride or self-control. They wept even before a beating began and they made no attempt to restrain their cries while actually under correction. As a free boy he knew he had to be brave. He fought back the tears as he heard the rich hiss of the cane cutting through the air behind him as his father selected a rod with which to chastise him and he resolved he would not cry however many strokes he was given.

"Come over here Peter," his Dad's voice summoned him.

Peter turned, his little stick like cock sticking rigidly out in front of him, and saw for the first time the low whipping stool with the canvas straps bolted to the floor ready to be used as restraints. He stopped dead. Surely they were not going to use them on him. Did they think so little of him that they thought he didn't have the courage and self-discipline not to stay down till his beating was over?

"Come on Peter," his Dad said impatiently, "don't be such a little coward…….or do I have to come and fetch you."

"Dad," Peter knew his voice sounded strangled and uncertain, "you're not going to tie me down?"

John Thompson chuckled indulgently.

"Oh so that's what's bothering you," he said softly, reaching out to take the boy by the hand.

"No Peter I'm not going to tie you down," he continued drawing the boy over towards the whipping stool. "I know you're a brave boy and will keep in position without my doing that."

He ruffled Peter's hair and gently pushed him down onto the stool. Peter felt his heart swell with pride and love. Pride that his father had such trust in him. Love for his father who had told everyone grown up and children, free boys and indentured trash, of that trust. He stretched himself over the stool feeling the course cloth of the towel against his crutch. He wriggled a little to get his stiff cock comfortable under him and then pushed his bottom upwards offering it to his father's cane in a gesture of love and acceptance of his authority.

John Thompson stood looking down at the slim naked body of his son, giving the boy time to arrange himself so that his swollen cock was lying comfortably cushioned between his tummy and the top of the stool. He saw and understood the message of loving submission conveyed by the child's upraised bottom. He felt a wave of deep affection and pride for his youngest son.

"Wait a minute," Jack said. "I think we ought to record the state of each boy's bottom involved in our experiment immediately before and after the first beating. We will then have a record to compare progress. I'll go and get my digital camera."

While they all waited for Jack's return John Thompson ran his hand slowly up the inside of Peter's thigh trying to steady the boy, feeling his velvet smooth skin cool against his palm. He noticed that nerves had brought the back of the child's thighs out in goose pimples.

"I suppose," he said when Jack had returned to the room, while the camera whirred and flashed as he recorded the comparatively unmarked state of Peter's bum, "I need to get him fairly well bloodied for the purpose of our experiment. This is a good cutting cane and I think I should be able to slice his bum up pretty well."

"I should think nine strokes should do it. We mustn't forget he's in for a further thrashing tomorrow." He glanced round and seeing no signs of dissent continued. "Very well nine strokes it is. If when he had them that seems insufficient we can always give him a few more."

With this cheering reflection John Thompson prepared to begin the flogging. He guessed something of the emotions surging within the child's head and of the boy's desperate wish to take his flogging well. He loved his son dearly and wanted to do all he could to help him.

"Peter," he said taking his handkerchief from the breast pocket of his dinner jacket and rolling it into a tube, "bite on this. It'll help you not to scream."

"Thanks Dad," the boy said. His young heart swelled with love and gratitude as he bit down on the rolled up handkerchief. His father was surely the most understanding Dad a boy could have.

John Thompson laid the cane gently across the curve of his son's rump. He smiled quietly as he saw the child tense the muscles in his bum, further deepening the dimples on it's sides, in anticipation of the pain to come. It was generally believed that a thrashing was easier to take if the muscles of the bottom were relaxed. John had never come across a boy who, when the moment came, was able to achieve this.

He steadied himself and then took a half step back with his right foot simultaneously lifting the cane back and above his right shoulder.

Peter sensing his father's movement and knowing from past and very painful experience that the moment that the rod would cut down on his defenceless bottom was imminent, grasped hold of the stool legs.

"I won't yell and I will stay down," he told himself as he braced himself to absorb the explosion of searing pain that he knew would come when the cane bit into his bum.

There was a pause, perhaps only a matter of a few brief seconds, although it seemed to last half a lifetime to the naked boy, as the man once again measured the distance between himself and his son's trembling body.

How frail the boy looks John Thompson thought as he deliberately summoned up all his strength and energy for the task in hand. Then aiming his blow perhaps a good foot beyond where Peter's bottom was so attractively displayed he brought the cane ripping down across the boy's tightly drawn skin. There was a rich sibilant hiss as the cane descended followed by a sharp crack as it struck bare boy's flesh. Peter's body arched as the pain tore through it. For a moment there was no question of Peter screaming or crying out, for the pain had emptied his lungs. The boy dragged air down into his chest and then bit down hard on the folded handkerchief fighting back the tears.

John Thompson let the cane lie across his son's bottom allowing the burn from the cut to spread and deepen. He watched the angry red line across the child's tender flesh deepen in colour till it was tinged with purple.

A harassed mother, driven beyond all reason, may simply drag down her child' shorts and shower blows on her screaming brat's bare bum thus finding relief for her own feelings and providing some mild entertainment for any onlookers. John knew however that a beating was not something that should be hurried, especially when, as on this occasion, there was an audience. It was rather something to linger over so that all involved would experience its pains and its pleasures to the full. It was necessary to take time so that the victim could feel the humiliation of having to offer his bare quivering rump to the cane and the pain of every individual cut across his tender flesh. Time too so that onlookers could experience the strange dry mouthed excitement that comes with watching the sufferings of a naked brat as he twists and bucks under the rod. It is a spectacle whose excitement is enhanced by the fierce music of the flogging block. The hiss and snap of the cane, the gasps and cries of the young victim rising in volume and urgency as his thrashing progresses until his screams and frantic pleas become one incoherent howl of agony. John knew too that there was another stage beyond that. That was when the volume of the boy's cries decreased first toa low moaning and then to nothing and the only sound was the swish and crack of the cane as it rose and fell scoring its cruel marks across the brat's well bloodied rump.

He had no intention though of carrying the current flogging that far. There seemed little point in, or indeed little satisfaction to be got from, flogging what was in effect dead meat. He did however intend to give young Peter a sound thrashing. This was partly a matter of pride. He would show Jack Wardle and the rest of them, men women and boys, that he could mark a bare bottom as well as anyone else.

Then there were his own interests to be considered. The human race has a natural taste for cruelty. Anyone who doubts this should watch a child tear wings from the body of the fly or a small boy inflate a living frog with a straw until it bursts. The bloody sports of the Roman Circus, the excited crowds that gathered to watch public hangings in the not so distant past in this country, the abominations performed in the death camps of the Third Reich all illustrate this truth. Nor has this taste for cruelty been without its beneficial effects. It has helped man to rule supreme over all other species and the governments to impose on the world such order as does now exist.

John Thompson had his share of this common appetite. Law and morality circumscribed the ways in which he could indulge it but it was there and had to be assuaged. He found, as many other parents have in the past, an acceptable and useful outlet for itin the regular thrashing of his young sons. And what was the harm in that? He enjoyed it and it did the boys good.

And then, he reflected, as he set himself to deliver the second cut to Peter's tightly clenched bum, there was something about a boy's bottom that invited the cane. The delicious curves, the taughtly drawn flesh, the smooth skin, the dimpled flanks, the boy's sheer helplessness as he lay, his bottom raised, stretched on the flogging block, all combined to excite his harshest appetites. This would have been true if it was any boy that lay there, even one of the miserable charity brats. That it was his son, a boy that he truly loved, roused deeper and more complex passions. Even as he scored livid stripes across the child's tender bum with the rod and his cock hardened with lust his heart was flooded by feelings of pity and affection for the suffering child.

Added to these emotions was a feeling of pride in the bravery with which his young son was taking his beating. He knew very well the school boy code that required a Spartan fortitude under correction. He knew also that the thrashing he was giving his son would test any six year old's reserves of fortitude to breaking point and beyond. As the stripes across Peter's bottom accumulated and beads of blood began to well from where the tip of the cane had curled around and nipped the boy's flanks his pride in his son increased and strengthened. Each time he cut down with the rod he expected the child's courage to fail and the tears and screams to begin. But still that moment did not come.

He did not abate the force of his blows but cut and cut again with all the strength he could muster at the boy's bottom. He loved the boy and pitied him but that was no reason to let him off lightly. A beating should hurt and in this instance the whole point of it was to mark and mark well, the lad's tender rump. Anyway how could the child show his courage if he did not strike hard and true.

Six parallel stripes now lay neatly scored across Peter's small bottom and the boy still had not broken down. He had endured his beating in silence apart from a gasp of pain wrenched from him each time the cane bit into the tightly stretched flesh of his tender little bum.

John Thompson slightly shifted his position. The boy had gone much further than he had expected. He did not think that Peter's fortitude could possibly survive what was to come and events were to prove him correct. He lifted the cane back over his right shoulder. Paused to judge the direction of the stroke and then brought the cane ripping. The rod cut down diagonally across the existing stripes. Blood welled from the broken skin where the fresh and old welts intersected. Peter' head jerk back. Thesearing pain was worse than anything he had experienced up to that moment. The courage that had sustained him so far at last gave way under his father's merciless assault. He screamed shrilly. The rolled handkerchief that until then he had gripped between his teeth fell from his mouth.

The boy's spirit was shattered. Peter forgot everything except the burning agony of his stripes. His mother seeing what was going to happen jumped up and grabbed him by his shoulders pinning him down across the whipping stool as his father gave him thefinal two stripes of his flogging.

Peter lay there guiltily aware of the warm dampness of the towel underneath him. Slowly his scream subsided into a quiet hopeless sobbing. His mother seeing the crisis had past released her grip on his narrow shoulders and stepped back.

He had tried so hard but in the end he had disgraced himself and shamed his father and mother. All the grown ups had seen and heard his loss of control and his brothers and their new friends Adam and Nicky and those filthy contemptible little brutes of pauper boys. He was no better than a pauper slut himself having to be held down for a beating. He had managed to keep down for so long, holding grimly on to the cross bar of the stool and biting down on the rolled up handkerchief to stifle his screams although he hadn't been able to stop his feet drumming on the floor as the flogging progressed. In the end though it had been too much for him and he had lost control.

He felt his Dad's arm round his shoulder helping him up from the stool. Mrs Thomas stepped forward and quickly whisked the soaking towel from the top of the stool. He turned to his father burying his face in the front of the man's stiff dress shirt, crying quietly. He heard that nice kind Mister Wardle's voice behind him, the man whom he had been told to call Uncle Jack.

"Turn the boy round to the light would you John. I had best get a couple of pictures of his bottom for the record."

There was a pause as his father moved him slightly so that he was properly placed for the camera. Then Mr Wardle spoke again.

"Well you certainly know how to use the cane John. I'll have to get you to give me a hand beating some of the nonsense out of our charity sluts."

The camera clicked twice.

"I tell you what John though. I don't know many free boys of seven that could have taken a beating like that better than that boy of yours. He's a brave lad and you must be very proud of him."

"I am very proud of him," Peter heard his Dad say and his head went back and he squared his shoulders and blinked back his tears.

John Thompson stepped away from his son and pulling his chair away from the dining room table sat down. He spread his table napkin over his knees because he didn't want to get any blood on his dinner jacket trousers and drew his youngest son as gently as he could because of the child's torn and bleeding rump down onto his lap. He took a grape from his cheese plate and popped it into the boy's mouth.

Now it's my two little brutes turns," Megan announced with evident satisfaction as she walked over to stand between the two whipping stools. "Ian, Duncan come over here you useless lumps of dogs' shit so you can have your filthy little bottoms bloodied."

The two little boys wailed in distress and huddled back into the laps of the two women on whose knees they were sitting. However if the children were hoping for protection from them they were going to be disappointed.

Angela Thompson roughly tipped Ian out of her lap and onto the floor. Grabbing hold of the squalling brat by his wrist she began to lead him across to the whipping stools. Mary Roberts did the same to Duncan. Both boys showed a certain reluctance to assume their places on the stools but the two women, much bigger and stronger than them, dragged them across the room regardless. In their desperation the twins even cried out to their mother to come to their aid but that woman, with admirable firmness, brought their pleas to an end with two hefty kicks up their backsides.

Despite their struggles the twins were soon forced down over the stools. The serving boys under Mr Wardle's instructions secured their desperately flailing arms and legs with the canvas straps. Mark noticed as he had on many previous occasions that the charity brats showed no reluctance in assisting in the disciplining of their own kind. Partly, perhaps, this was because they knew that if they did so they would get a dose of the cane or worse. It was clear however from the grins on their faces and their stiff little cocks that they also found assisting and witnessing the punishment of their fellows an exciting experience.

It was not long before the two children were strapped firmly in place, their arms and legs spread wide, their wrist and ankles secured to rings bolted to the floor, their little bottoms tipped up in the air. A further canvas belt running under the seatsof the stools and buckled tight around their wastes made sure that that even the most frantic contortions under correction would not allow them for one moment to evade the rod. Mrs Wardle looked down at her two nephews and suddenly turned red with embarrassment and anger.

"I do apologise Mr Wardle," Mrs Thomas she exclaimed her distress immediately evident. "Look at the disgusting state of the brats' bottoms. They're in no fit state to be brought before refined ladies and gentlemen like you and your guests. I make absolutely certain that all the charity brats in my care keep their bottoms spotlessly clean at all times, an uphill struggle I can tell you with naturally dirty animals like them and these two get past me and exhibit their holes in the most disgusting condition. If I'd had a little time alone with them before the two sluts were brought to you I would never have allowed such a thing to happen."

"Please don't blame yourself Mrs Thomas," Jack said in his usual easy good humoured way, "they're not too bad and they'll soon learn with the help of a couple of sound floggings."

"No, no Mr Wardle," the housekeeper said firmly, "I can't let them continue before you and your guests in this condition. Apart from anything else just think what a signal it would send to the charity trash if I allowed them to. The slightest slackening in discipline and the cunning ungrateful vermin try to take advantage. Their bottoms must be sorted out before anything else takes place. It'll only take five minutes or so."

She hurried from the room to return a moment or to later carrying a bowl of steaming water, a plastic bottle of washing up liquid and a toothbrush. She put the bowl of water on the ground between Ian's spread legs and knelt down. She parted the lips ofthe boy's anus with her left hand and squirted a generous dollop of washing up liquid into his hole. Ian's gasps and whimperings not wholly indicative of discomfort turned into a squeal of pain as abandoning the tube of detergent she picked up the tooth brush and set to work with that first vigorously scrubbing the entry to his hole and then deeper into the boy. Her hand moved fast with a twisting motion as she worked away at the boy's hole. Soon she had a good head of foam worked up rising out of the brat's anus. She wiped it away with a damp cloth from the bowl of water. She pulled the Ian's bottom open as wide as she could and peered inside.

"That's got the worst of it shifted," she said and reaching behind her slipped her hand under the short tunic of the nearest serving brat. Grabbing the boy by his balls she pulled him down beside her.

"You," she ordered harshly, "get your tongue up there and finish the job off."

The slut went down on his knees and bending forward buried his face in Ian's bottom. A series of sucking slurping sounds came from him as he warmed to his task. With his head down and his rump pushed up into the air his tunic fell forward over his shoulders leaving his bottom completely exposed.

Mrs Thomas stood up and paused for a moment before crossing to start scouring out Duncan's bum, looking down at the serving boy.

"That," she remarked, prodding the boy with her toe in the middle of his upturned and enthusiastically wriggling rump, "is how a slut's bottom should be," and indeed they could all see it was spotlessly clean.

"You know," Jack Wardle said thoughtfully once Mrs Thomas had completed her self appointed task, "I think we may be over simplifying this experiment. Sluts don't only get beaten, they get cut and burnt as well. We should test the comparative efficacy of the powder and ointment on those as well."

There was a murmur of assent from the adults sitting round the dining room table accompanied by renewed howls of distress from the twin small boys.

"I'll be glad to look after that," Megan said. "It'll begin to pay the spoilt little brutes back for all the grief they've caused me in the past and maybe begin to teach them that things are going to be very different from now on."

"Well you'll find a clean carving fork somewhere on the side board," Jack Wardle said laughing at the women's eagerness and there are lighted candles on the table. We do try as much as possible not to leave any permanent visible marks. Can I suggest you drive the fork into their bottoms just where the crease is and use the candle on the little turd's armpits."

The twins loving mother leapt to her feet and collected from the sideboard a large two-pronged carving fork. Smiling cruelly she walked slowly over to where her two sons lay stretched naked over the whipping stools.

Ian and Duncan heard her approaching and the volume of their screams redoubled.

Mark glanced round and caught Angela's eye. She was leaning forward watching the scene intently her eyes glittering with excitement. She really was, he thought, a very attractive girl.

"It's hard to imagine those two brats being able to scream any louder," Mark murmured to her.

She acknowledged his comment with a smile.

"I am sure they will though," she replied quietly and laughed.

She was to be proved right.

Megan stood beside the squalling twins. She lent forward and pricked Ian lightly on the curve of his bum. It was hard enough though for the brat to feel it and two beads of blood formed where the fork had pierced the pearl white skin.

"Mummy, Mummy, MUMMEEEE," the child's voice rose hysterically.

His Mother's laugh was drowned out by her young son's desperate screams as she raised her hand to her shoulder and then jabbed viciously downwards with the fork sinking the prongs into the taughtly drawn flesh of the boy's bottom. She tugged at the fork's handle but the two tines had been driven so far into Ian's rump that they could not be easily withdrawn. Megan placed her left hand on her son's behind, pressing downwards, as she yanked harder on the fork with her right. Suddenly the two prongs came away. Blood flooded from the dual wounds and flowed in a scarlet tide down the back and sides of the child's well rounded thigh.

"Wound powder on this one I think," Jack said shaking a cloud of white powder onto the open punctures at the top of Ian's thighs.

"Well," he said laughing in his jolly good humoured way and raising his voice to be heard over the boy's agonised screams, "they do say that 'if it isn't hurting it isn't working'. If the reverse is true there can be no doubt as to the efficacy of our powder."

"The same also seems to hold true of the Ovingdean Ointment," John Thompson said as he bent over Duncan plugging the deep wounds in that child's bottom with the pungent stuff.

Indeed there would appear to be no discernible difference between the volume or frequency of the screams coming from the two suffering boys.

"I'll scorch the brutes' armpits now," Megan said returning the fork to the side- board. Mark thought he could almost hear the woman salivating at the thought of further torturing her two sons.

"No, no dear Lady," Jack chortled. "Let us rest for a moment for if we do not I am sure I for one will very shortly have to make a hurried withdrawal. It will also give time for the sluts' screaming to abate which would be an excellent thing for if it does not shortly I fear my ear drums will be damaged."

"I think we might take a little port, or if any of the ladies prefer coffee. Mind you if anyone wants both they can most certainly have it."

The serving boys who had been trained to react immediately to any orders direct or implied from Jack Wardle hastened to bring decanters of port and cups of steaming coffee to the dinner table. There was the clink of glass as the port went round and the sound of chatter and laughter as the tension eased and people engaged their neighbours in conversation. The wailing of the twins fell away to a low hopeless sobbing for the two children knew well that what they were experiencing was only a temporary reprieve.

Indeed it was not long before Jack coughed loudly and rapped his glass on the table.

"I don't want to hurry anybody but I think perhaps we had better be moving on," he said into the ensuing silence. "We have quite a bit more to do. We must not forget that after laying the foundations of our experiment on the relative efficacy of the Village Wound Powder and the Ovingdean Ointment by flaying the bums of Megan's two sons and I must express our gratitude to you Megan," that lady simpered and indicated that it was a matter of no great moment, "for making the sluts available, we have also to witness young Adams' flogging by his father. Now Megan if you'd like to take a candle from the table………"

Hearing this suggestion a concerted howl of terror went up from the two naked urchins. Their mother plucked a candle from one of the candelabras that adorned the dining table. Mark could see the wretched boys straining desperately at the bonds that secured them over the whipping stools as she advanced towards them.

Ian was the first if the twins to attract his caring mother's attention. Megan bent over him as he lay there spread-eagled. For few seconds she held the candle a few inches from his armpit so that he could feel the warmth of the flame without experiencing real pain. The flame cast a deceptively gentle golden light on the child's smooth tightly drawn skin.

The child was beside himself with terror. Broken pleas for mercy, appeals to his Mummy not to hurt, him cries to his Daddy for help, all tumbled from his lips in a shrill hysterical torrent. These rose to an animal howl of pain as his mother deliberately advanced the candle towards his body and the flame touched and caressed his flesh. So violent were the poor child's struggles to escape the touch of the flame that blood began to well from where the straps restraining his wrists and ankles had torn his skin.

Laughing Jack led his guests in counting the seconds that Ian's mother held the flame against her son's flesh. Raising their voices to be heard over his screams they chanted "0ne.., two.., three..," up to thirty and only then did Megan relent. She straightened and acknowledged the burst of applause from the watching adults that followed, before turning her attention to the already sobbing Duncan.

After the boys' burns had been dressed respectively with powder and ointment, a process which judging from the noises coming from them did nothing to diminish their suffering, there was a pause while the arrangements for flaying their bottoms were discussed.

Megan was eventually forced to admit that with the best will in the word she could not beat two boys simultaneously. John Thompson, with what seemed to be his usual concern for the methodology underlying the experiment pointed, out that in order to be able make a valid comparison between the rate of healing of the two bottoms they had, in the first instance, to be flayed to a similar extent. While Jack Wardle tried tactfully to make the point that, while some had a natural aptitude for the task, therewas a skill in beating a boy that could only be honed with experience that perhaps Megan, fresh to the village, did not possess. Megan though was most unwilling to stand to one side.

"Can I suggest," Mrs Thomas said intervening, "that Megan and I share the task between us and swap brats half way through the flogging. Nobody I think can suggest that I am not experienced in such matters and in that way they will get equally severely treated."

"An excellent idea," said Jack said enthusiastically grasping the compromise solution. "You will keep it in the family which will be delightful. The twins are very lucky to have such a caring mother and aunt."

The two ladies quickly selected a pair of stiff cutting canes. Soon they established a steady rhythm, the two canes rising and falling alternately, the rich swish of one descending rod blending with the crack of the other striking taught bare flesh.

Mark had witnessed, or indeed participated in, innumerable boy floggings since he had first visited the Vale of Dingle and yet the sight of a young brat having its bottom flayed had lost none of its initial intoxicating excitement. He wasn't, Mark assured, himself a cruel man. Boys, especially charity boys, were improved by being regularly beaten. That he found such beatings exciting was simply an incidental benefit. The beatings were administered for the good of the boys not to give himself pleasure and he was sure that was true also of his old friend Jack and every other adult inhabitant of the Vale of Dingle. Even the flogging of young Peter Thompson and the subsequent sufferings inflicted on the two twins, although highly arousing to observe, had a philanthropic purpose. Pauper boys for generations to come should feel gratitude to Jack Wardle and his friends for taking the trouble to establish what was the most effective dressing for their stripes.

Mark shifted in his chair, trying to ease the pressure at his crutch. Despite their underlying altruistic purpose the sufferings inflicted on Peter and now the two twin sluts had been very arousing. He must not forget however the task entrusted to him by Jack Wardle and his sister-in-law. They were relying on him and he knew how much importance a conscientious guardian like Jack, or a caring responsible mother like Jean, attached to ensuring that a charity boy's first penetration should be an event that would be etched indelibly into the brat's consciousness. That way it helped to establish in the brat's mind its position and function in the world, for only a boy utterly abandoned by its parents, unwanted and unloved, could be used in such way simply to give pleasure. Indeed it was generally accepted in the Vale of Dingle that it was kinder in the end to the brat, for in one night of hard fucking it could be taught a lesson that would otherwise take weeks if not months of schooling.

To do his duty to his old friend and indeed to do justice to the attractions of the brat, for Daniel was a fetching little brute, Mark knew he should conserve his energies until later. Watching Peter and then the twins suffer had inflamed his passions. He must not allow himself to become so excited that he spent himself before he had got his hands on Daniel and he knew if he lingered to watch the skin being flayed from Ian and Duncan's delectable little rumps that was precisely what would happen. He regretted missing that spectacle and also seeing Adam getting his flogging. The lad was a good looking one and well grown. He could take a good hiding and his father had the look of a man who knew how to skin a boy's bottom with the cane.

He glanced round the table. Everybody's attention was focused on the developing drama as Mrs Thomas and Megan cut and cut again at the howling twin's frantically squirming bottoms. He rose quietly to his feet. Only Jack alive, as a good host has to be, to all that was going on about him spotted his movement. Mark gestured to the door and then pointed upwards. Jack smiled and lifted his hand, signalling understanding and support. Jean spotted this movement and beckoned to Mark.

"We are," she whispered softly, taking Mark's right hand in both of hers, as standing beside her chair he bent over to hear her speak, "relying on you Mark. I hope Daniel, the little brute, finishes the night feeling his bottom has been penetrated by a horse with a gigantic red hot cock."

Mark made no reply but smiling quietly crept from the room. Walking along the corridor to the staircase he could still hear, through the dining room's heavy double doors, the howls of the twins as they were beaten. Such sounds he reflected, as they echoed round the old house, could not but have an excellent effect on the other charity boys entrusted to the care of his old friend.

He made his way up the broad double staircase to his room. He paused a moment outside the door to his room, listening. He could still here the cries of the twins down in the body of the house but no noise came from within the room, or none that could penetrate the solid oak door. He pushed the door open. A standard lamp by the fireplace shed a soft light over the room. In his absence the curtains had been drawn across the window and the bed covers turned down. The duvet was slightly humped and a small fair head lay on the pillow where a sleeping charity brat warmed the bed, serving the function, that outside the Vale of Dingle, would have been undertaken by an electric blanket or hot-water bottle.

Mark became aware of a low keening sound coming from the shadows at the end of the room opposite the heavily curtained windows. Mark flicked down the light switch just inside the door and the room was flooded with light.

Daniel knelt where he had left him some three hours before, knees spread wide, wrists secured behind his back by the thin plastic tie, his balls and bottom pressed down on the cruel plastic blades, the water carafe balanced on the crown of his bowed head. Tears and probably snot as well, Mark thought, glistened damply on the brat's chin, which was the only visible portion of his face. He was obviously suffering agonies of cramp but had chosen to endure these rather than face the consequences of disobedience. Over all Mark thought the slut was a credit to his old friend Jack Wardle's training.

The little slut in the bed, woken by the sudden flood of light, stirred. He raised his head from the pillow and blinked sleepily. The boy, Mark thought, more than ten or eleven years old. Catching sight of Mark the child smiled pouting his lips suggestively.

Both sluts would have to wait for the moment. Mark quickly stripped, throwing his clothes in an untidy jumble on the floor. Leaving the door open, for he had long ago learnt, during his first visit to the Vale of Dingle that, there was no reason to feel shy with pauper brats, he went into the bathroom. He had drunk a little wine at dinner. Now he urinated, the hiss of his pee as it struck the water in the lavatory pan for the moment drowning out the sound Daniel's quiet whimpering.

Shaking the amber beads of piss from the end of his cock Mark returned to the bedroom. Picking up a clasp knife from the mantelpiece he strolled slowly over to where Daniel knelt, the carafe of water balanced on the crown of his bowed head.

The boy could not raise his head to watch the man approach but he could hear the pad of Mark's bare feet on the carpet grow louder. His sobbing increased in volume.

Mark stood very close to the boy looking down at him. The slut's head was just below the level of his own crutch. There was a sharp click and the knife's blade glittered coldly in Mark's hand. He pressed the point of the blade against the side of the brat's cheek. Daniel, with his hands bound behind him and the naked man towering over him, feeling the cold touch of the sharp steel began to shiver with fear.

"Please Mr Legg Sir," the child whimpered.

Mark made no reply but increased the pressure of the blade against his victim's cheek. Blood began to trickle down the side of Daniel's face where the point of the knife had pierced his skin. Still Mr Wardle's iron training held. Fear of the consequences of disobedience stopped the boy from flinching away from the knife but discipline however firmly and harshly imposed cannot eradicate fear. Daniel began to tremble uncontrollably and a pool of amber fluid formed on the floor at his feet as he peed himself. The carafe balanced on his head, dislodged by the shaking of his body, crashed to the ground, the water spilling out of it to swell the pool of urine slowly soaking into the carpet.

"You filthy little turd," Mark shouted.

In truth he was not too angry. Mark knew such accidents were bound to happen when you had young animals about the house, be they boys, puppies, kittens, or anything else. Nevertheless domestic animals have to be housed trained and their occasional messes cleaned up. Mark, following the usual method of achieving the first, buried a hand in Daniel's hair and forcing his face down to the floor rubbed his nose in the damp patch of carpet. At the same time he shouted at the slut acting as a hot water bottle to get out of the bed and get the mess cleaned up. The little fair-haired lad scuttled into the bathroom to fetch the bucket and rags which were kept there ready for such emergencies. Mark noticed that the child's tiny prick was sticking rigidly out in front of him its pink tip wobbling as he moved. It was amazing how watching one of their fellows being ill used seemed always to excite pauper boys; yet another example of their debased natures.

Still retaining his hold on the boy's hair Mark yanked Daniel to his feet. He spun the brat round and slashed at the plastic tie pinioning his hands behind his back with the blade of the knife. The straps fell away leaving angry red lines where they had bitten deep into the child's thin wrists. Daniel his body cramped from hours of kneeling seemed to have some difficulty in straightening himself. Mark placed the sole of one bare foot on one of the boy's buttocks and shoved hard. The brat staggered forward and crashed headfirst against the wall. He slid back down to his knees, blood gushing from his nose.

Mark strode forward and kicked Daniel hard in the bottom and then swore loudly. He had forgotten he was not wearing shoes and he had bruised his toes. The kick though had the desired effect. The brat dragged himself to his feet and turned to face Mark, blood gushing from his nose where he had hit it against the wall. Mark looked at the boy. He was standing more or less upright now. Mark reached out and taking the brat by the chin tipped his head back. He looked down into the child's blood and snot streaked face. His eyes, blank with panic stared, unseeingly into space. Mark slapped the boy across the face, fore and backhand, twice each, rocking his head from side to side, splitting his lip as he did so. Daniel's eyes came back into focus.

"Turn round slut and bend down," sure that he had the brat's attention Mark ordered sharply.

The boy obeyed and Mark seized hold of the wooden toggle at the entry to his hole with his right hand. With a sharp jerk he extracted the plug at the end of its length of stout nylon filament from the brat's bottom.

"Make an arch," Mark snapped dropping the plug on the floor, "Come on quickly. Get over backwards, feet slightly apart and the palms of your hands on the ground."

He raised his hand to strike the boy again and Daniel quickly moved to obey. Daniel made, Mark had to admit a good arch, feet apart and firmly planted, crutch and testicles lifted high, bum clenched with strain, ribs clearly visible under the taughtly stretched skin of his chest.

Mark bent over the boy's arched and naked body. He placed a hand on the inside of each firm thigh feeling the skin smooth and cool to the touch. He slid them upwards until they reached the slut's hairless crutch. With one hand he cradled Daniel's tinyballs his fingers reaching behind them to tickle the child's perineum, with the other he toyed with the boy's cock which began to harden under his touch.

"You slut, what's you're name," he snapped at the little blonde tart who was on his hands and knees sponging out the carpet where Daniel had wet himself.

"Tommy Mister Legg Sir."

Mark noted with approval that the brat had been told the name of the man he was to serve that night.

"Well Tommy you idle lump of pig’s shit leave that and come here. Kneel down by this slut's head and play with his nipples."

Under their dual ministrations Daniel's cock was soon stiffly erect, its pink tip quivering an inch or so short of his navel. Mark reached up to pinch one of the brat's nipples finding it hard and pronounced, like a small unripe wild strawberry.

"Kiss him – on the mouth," he ordered the tow haired boy.

That child, without stopping his fingering of Daniel's nipples, obeyed enthusiastically. Bending forward he fastened his lips on the other brat's. Daniel responded with equal eagerness.

Mark stood up. He looked down for a moment at the two boys, their lips clamped together, oblivious for the moment of his presence, lost in their shared lust.

He moved softly across to the mantle-piece. He chose a short heavy cutting cane from the selection standing in a large china vase by the empty fireplace. He returned to his position standing level with Daniel's raised testicles. The boy's eyes were closed, his penis as hard and rigid as ever.

Mark raised the cane, not back over his shoulder as he would have done if he was aiming at a brat's bottom which could be flogged with the utmost vigour without doing permanent damage, but a mere three foot or so.

He took careful aim and brought it slashing down across Daniel's distended prick. The cut landed squarely across the boy's stiff little penis about half way along its length.

Daniel's arched body collapsed on the floor. He rolled over onto his side his knees drawn up to his chest screaming out his agony. Blood streamed from his mouth.

Bending down Mark grabbed the boy roughly under the chin and yanked him up onto his knees. He tipped the brat's head back forcing his jaws open by squeezing them apart and peered into his mouth. It was full of blood. His tongue had been partially severed. He must have thrust it into Tommy's mouth and then bitten down on it in his agony.

Mark shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't sure what if anything could be done for the slut but he was certainly not going to postpone fucking the boy to find out. Mark waited patiently until the child's screams had subsided to a low hopeless sobbing before prodding him with his toe and ordering him to resume the arch position.

Mark was neither an unduly cruel nor an unreasonable man. His aim was to ensure that Daniel should never forget his first penetration not simply to inflict pain for its own sake. He had judged the weight of his stroke across the boy's cock to hurt but not to permanently damage. Nor did he intend to punish Daniel for collapsing his arch. There were some things a boy should be able to endure without loosing position and others that he almost certainly could not and what he had just inflicted on Daniel fell into the latter category.

At last Daniel's was back in the arched position his naked body taught as a drawn bow. Mark bent to examine the damage he had wrought on the boy's penis. The little tube of flesh and gristle was swollen not this time with lust but with bruising which transformed the previously twig like object into a single livid purple bruise. However Mark had not yet finished with the boy's cock. Slipping his hand between the boy's spread legs he began once again gently to finger his balls.

"Get busy with his nipples again you lazy little turd," Mark snapped at Tommy who still knelt by Daniel's head as he returned to playing with Daniel's bruised and heavily discoloured member,

The pain centred in Daniel's cock was intense. It was amazing the boy thought how small a thing could hurt so much. It was even worse than the pain from his injured tongue. Now with Tommy rubbing his nipples and Mister Legg fingering his prick his excitement was beginning to rise again and as the pressure in his cock built up, the pain increased. He tried to stop his cock hardening but it seemed to have a life and a will of its own. It wasn't just that it hurt so much. Daniel suspected that once it was hard Mr Legg would use the cane on it again. Why else had he had to get back in an arch and why else was Mr Legg playing with it again? It was hardening. He couldn't stop it. He saw Mr Legg stand up a half smile on his face. He had the cane in his hand.

Daniel shut his eyes. He knew he must stay in position. Uncle Jack, Mr Wardle, was a stern disciplinarian. He was very hard on boys who were the slightest bit disobedient. There was an explosion of searing pain in his crutch as the rod cracked down for the second time across his penis.

Really, Mark thought as the Daniel's agonised scream rang in his ears, it is as well that the rest of the house party is having a late night entertaining guests otherwise their sleep would surely be disturbed by the din the brat is making despite the thick walls and solid doors. By now surely Brian would be engaged in flogging that young lad Adam. No doubt the noise generated by that process combined with its inherent interest would mean that Daniel's howls would pass unnoticed.

Mark watched as the brat, his hands clasped to his crutch, his knees drawn up to his chin, writhed in agony on the floor. Eventually he raised the cane and cut down hard across the boy's rump. He was prepared to give the boy time but it seemed to him the slut was taking advantage of his kindness. This did not surprise him, pauper brats always did. It was the nature of the brutes.

"That's enough of that," Mark snapped, "get back in position. That's the last one across your cock. Now for your chest and this time you are stay in position."

Mark glanced down at Tommy, who knelt by Daniel's head. The boy had resumed his gentle teasing of Daniel's nipples. Mark bent to check on their condition. Pinching them he found they were as pronounced and hard as a couple of pink little pebbles.

"Get your hands out of the way filth," Mark snapped raising his cane.

Tommy hastily got his hands down by his sides away from Daniel's nipples. The sobs of the latter boy, who had seen too many similar beatings not to realise what was about to happen, doubled in volume.

This time Mark lifted the cane right back over his right shoulder. Then he cut down diagonally across Daniel's arched chest with each individual rib clearly visible through the brat's tightly drawn skin. He directed the stroke so that the cane's tip would nip the slut's nipple.

A cane, as anyone knows who has been lucky enough to have the opportunity to use one across some errant young behind, is a surprisingly difficult tool to wield accurately. Whether it is some quirk of aerodynamics that deflects the rod from its intended path, or the excitement of the occasion that undermines the co-ordination of eye and hand, or the slight movement of the intended target that even the best schooled of boys can hardly avoid at such a moment, the rod rarely seems to land exactly where it is intended.

So it was on this occasion. The tip of the rod missed its target by a fraction of an inch, nipping the pink pen-umbra of Daniel's nipple and raising there a bead of dark red blood.

Ignoring the Daniel's screams Mark moved round to the other side of the boy. Measuring line and distance with the utmost care he brought the cane hissing down. This time the stroke was well aimed. The tip of the cane bit into the boy's nipple and blood bloomed from the tight little bud.

For the moment Mark knew the brat was beyond understanding an order so he didn't bother to give him one. He simply kicked one of Daniel's feet away from under him collapsing his arch and bringing him crashing down on his back. Kneeling down he grabbed one of the boy's ankles in each hand and pushed them back over the child's head.

"Hold these filth," he snapped at Tommy.

Jumping to his feet he walked over to the fireplace. Propped against the wall beside the mantle-piece was a stout stave about four feet long. With Tommy's help he forced Daniel's knees down to the ground on either side of his head. Then, grabbing holdof the boy by his hair and lifting his head clear of the floor, he slipped the stave across the back of one knee under the back of the neck and then across the back of the other knee. This effectively locked the brat in position with his bottom tilted up in the air.

"Now shit face put all your weight on either end of that staff," Mark instructed Tommy. "If you let the slut loose you'll take his place."

Mark returned to the selection of disciplinary tools that Jack Wardle, ever solicitous of his guest's wellbeing and entertainment, insisted were placed ready to hand by the fireplace in every bedroom in the old house. This time he selected a light but vicious martinet. He lifted it from its hook by the side of the mantle-piece. It was clear from the dried blood that caked the knots at the end of each of its nine leather thongs that Daniel would not be the first slut to have his skin shredded by it.

Walking back to where Daniel lay he placed himself facing the brat's upturned rump. Daniel stared up at him eyes wide with terror. With his knees pressed down to the floor on either side of his head his bottom was exposed and open to Mark's gaze. Mark took the martinet and drew the tips of its tightly knotted thongs over the child's hairless balls, along the length of tender flesh that lay between his testicles and hole, and then along the length of his open crack.

"Please Mr Legg Sir," Daniel whimpered thickly blood from his torn tongue bubbling from his mouth.

Mark glanced at where Tommy knelt at Daniel's head. He saw with approval that he was pressing down as hard as he could on the staff resting across the back of Daniel's knees. He also noticed that the brat, apparently excited by his companion's sufferings, still sported a rigid erection.

Mark bending his arm at the elbow brought the martinet back level with his shoulder. He was aiming at the tenderest portions of the brat's carcass. Accuracy not strength was of pre-eminent importance.

Daniel seeing what was to come moved his hands in a pathetic and doomed attempt to defend his open rump. Mark, furious at such a lapse in discipline, quickly reversed the martinet and brought its wooden handle cracking down across the boy's hands.

"Get those hands away from there you ill behaved little turd," he shouted furiously and then added more calmly, "put your arms straight down your sides with your palms downwards," reinforcing the order by striking at the boy's knuckles with the scourge's handle.

"Now keep them there or I'll fuck you dry with the handle of this thing and then I'll tell your loving Mummy what a useless, ungrateful, ill-disciplined, useless little brute you are."

"Oh please Mr Legg Sir… I'm sorry Sir…… I'll try to do better Sir……"

"You had better do more than try scum if you don't want to be sent back to your Mummy. I'm not wasting my time on a lump of cat's puke who doesn't know better than not to use it's hands to protect it's filthy bum from a well earned beating. Now keep still while I beat some respect into you."

Mark lifted the scourge again and then flicked it down hard between the boy's spread legs. He aimed high and the tips of the leather thongs struck the tender flesh at the very top of the child's thighs and curled about his balls. Daniel screamed shrilly but even as he was doing so Mark struck again aiming a fraction lower. This time the tongues of the martinet bit into the boy's perineum. Beads of blood started from the slut's tortured flesh. Mark struck once more aiming the tips of the scourge at the boy's open hole. The knotted leather nipped at the lips of the child's anus and curled down into the boy. Daniel's hands beat a frenzied pain driven tattoo on the bedroom floor as the agony ripped though his body.

Tommy's naked body ran with sweat as he fought to control the tortured child's frantic struggles. His hands ached from the effort of maintaining his grip on the staff across the back of Daniel's knees. He watched Mark scourging the tenderest recesses of his fellow slut's bottom with increasing excitement. Leaning forward to put all his weight on the stave he felt the wind from thongs of the martinet every time they descended. The tip of Mark's tumescent cock wobbled only inches from his own face. His mind went back to the time Mr Wardle fucked his bum for the very first time. The weight of the man's body bearing down on him, the tearing pain as Mr Wardle hammered his swollen member ever deeper into his bottom. And then as Mister Wardle drove deeper into him the man's penis touched some trigger deep inside him and the pain was forgotten as he escaped for a brief moment the fear, the hunger, the ever present shame that was the lot of a pauper slut.

Tommy's eye's were drawn to Mister Legg's rigid cock standing proud from the dark forest of pubic hair, a thick column of white pulsating flesh ribbed with knotted purple veins topped by a bloated pink helmet with a drop of moisture glistening at its end. Perhaps Mister Legg would choose him rather than that dirty slut Daniel. He was prettier than Daniel and a better fuck too. He was sure he was. He imagined Mister Legg grabbing him, bending him over, driving his big man's prick into him, cursing, as men do when they fuck charity trash like himself, calling him whore and tart and then………

For a moment Tommy's world became a place of surging darkness and after that had passed he was back again in the real world – a frightening terrifying world for a helpless half starved pauper brat like himself. And then he realised how wicked he had been and everybody knew what happened to sluts who had been wicked. Only last Sunday Father Matthews had told them all that what he had just done was stealing from those into whose care they had been placed, just as bad as taking food from the swill bins. He hadn't said what would be done to any slut who was caught doing it but everybody knew what happened to sluts who stole from the swill bins. There was hardly a week went by when one or two weren't whipped and had their lips sown up for a couple of days for that. And now he had done it and right in front of Mister Legg. It didn't make any difference that he hadn't meant to do it, that he hadn't actually touched himself. It had happened and there was no chance of hiding it. His prick was all shrivelled up, his balls had almost hidden themselves in his body and looking down he could see the dollops of almost clear boy juice splashed down Daniel's face. He wondered what Mr Wardle would do to him. He'd be whipped that was certain but what else?

He remembered the time long ago when he had tried to runaway and he had been caught and Daddy had come to collect him from the police station. Daddy had taken him out to the garage and hung him by his wrists from a beam to flog so the blood wouldn't get on the carpet in the house. And when Daddy had got tired and out of breath, Mummy said they were letting him off much too lightly. So she got a pair of pliers from the work bench and wrenched out one of his teeth from the back of his mouth just to be sure "the little turd would never forget what happened to a charity slut who tried to runaway from its loving Mummy and Daddy."

Perhaps Mr Wardle would tear another tooth from his jaw or perhaps he would use the pliers on something else?

The thought made Tommy whimper with fear. There was plenty of other noise going on what with Daniel's screams, the thudding of his hands on the floor, and the swish of the scourge but the sound, coming from so unexpected a source, attracted Mark's attention. He had been so absorbed up to that moment in scouring Daniel's open crack and exposed balls with the martinet's knotted leather thongs that he had seen nothing of Tommy's misbehaviour. Even now he did not appreciate what had happened and, to tell the truth, he wouldn't have cared very much if he had, for he all his attention was focused on Daniel. Tommy's whimper distracted him for a moment only and, causing him to pause in the highly enjoyable and arousing process of scourging Daniel's open bum, gave him the opportunity to remember that this was a means not an end in itself. The end was a penetration of the little tart's virgin bottom so traumatic that it would never be forgotten and it was time that he got on with it.

He grabbed Tommy by his ears and pulled him up and forwards so that the brat's face was level with his crutch. Tommy had seen and assisted in one capacity or another in too may similar scenes not to know what was required of him. He opened his mouth and took Mark's bloated penis between his lips. Tommy knew his task was not to bring Mark to an orgasm but only to provide a minimal lubrication of the man's cock with his own saliva. However he was a keen little cocksucker, his expertise honed by practice, and it was impossible for him to stop his nimble tongue from teasing the man's prick. Mark, feeling himself on the verge of ejaculation, drove his knee into the brat's chest knocking Tommy sprawling to the ground. Mark threw the martinet to the floor and knelt down. Daniel looked up at him, his face, framed between his knees and upturned bottom, was smeared with blood, snot and other unidentifiable liquids. His eyes fearful, pleading and hopeless were those of a small animal, cornered and helpless. Mark shifted his gaze to the boy's bottom. The flesh between his legs was sore and seeped blood from the thongs of the scourge.

He aimed his swollen cock head at the entry to Daniel's hole. The boy winced at the mere touch of the hard flesh against his lacerated body. Deliberately Mark dug his thumbs into the boy's tortured flesh, pulling his anus lips apart. Ignoring the child's screams he thrust forward. There was a moment's initial resistance but under Mark's merciless hammering the child's sphincter quickly gave way and it was not long before he had his prick firmly lodged in the slut's body. Grabbing the Daniel by his ankles he drove his cock deeper and deeper into the boy.

Then he felt something within the boy stir. The slut's guts clamped tight around his pounding cock no longer resisting its assault but seeming to be attempting to draw it down deeper into them. The volume of the boy's screams fell away and was replaced by a harsh panting interspersed with groans not of pain but of lust. Daniel's head fell back, his eyes glazed over, saliva mixed with blood trickled from his half open mouth.

Mark's cock was now fully sheathed in the boy's bottom. Blood roared in his head. A black cloud began to fill his mind. He increased the tempo of his movement pumping Daniel's bum with short powerful thrusts.

Daniel, who at first thought his body was going to split apart as the man rammed his penis into his behind, had reached that magic region when pain and pleasure merge. His body that had at first resisted Mark's attack, now responded with enthusiasm to the man's deeply probing member. The boy rode Mark's rod reciprocating the pumping of his hole with upward thrusts of his bottom. The slap of bare flesh striking bare flesh as Mark drove down into Daniel's bum was added to the other lust induced noises; gasps, groans, whimpers, the cursing of the man, the broken pleas of the slut.

Mark felt the crisis grip him. Grabbing Daniel by his hips he thrust down one final time, harder and deeper than ever before. His head thrown back he held his cock there, its head buried in the boy's quivering guts. The muscles in his bottom worked as he pumped cum deep into the slut.

For a moment after the spasms in his cock had ceased he knelt panting his tool still sheathed in the brat's bum. Then he pulled back. His cock, now flaccid and shrunken, came out of Daniel with a soft plop. Filth oozed from the slut's hole and stained the man's member, a noxious stinking mixture of cum, boy's shit and blood.

Mark stood and beckoned to Tommy who was kneeling, knees spread wide, his boy's erection in full view, on the dagger sharp plastic matting of the brat pen. In an instant the slut was squatting his head buried in Marks crutch, his two hands resting on thesides of the man's hips, steadying himself, as he licked and sucked the noisome mess from the dirt encrusted cock.

Tommy was a conscientious cock-sucker and it was not long before under the ministrations of the slut's nimble tongue and soft mobile lips that Mark felt his cock begin to harden again. It would have been pleasant to allow the boy to bring him to orgasm but Mark had no intention of shirking his responsibilities to Jack and Mary Wardle. He pushed the brat away from him and ignoring the little tart’s whimper of disappointment, turned back to where Daniel still lay on the floor his legs pinned back with a length of wood resting behind his neck and across the back of both knees.

He caught hold of one end of the staff and pulled it clear of the boy. The wood drawn roughly across the back of the boy's legs left scorch marks behind but it was doubtful, Mark thought, if Daniel's sufferings, with all the other injuries that had been inflicted on him in the last few hours, were appreciably increased by this. Grabbing hold of a thin arm just above the elbow he dragged Daniel to his feet and slung him across the room and onto the bed. The boy fell sideways across the bed. The slut was only just able to get over onto his face and lift his bum before Mark was on him.

The boy's hole was less tight than before and with three or four savage thrusts Mark had buried his erect cock in the little whore's bottom. Though entry was easier it took Mark longer to reach a climax on this occasion and both he and Daniel had to labour long and hard before he came for a second time. Then, exhausted, his body soaking with sweat, he collapsed on the boy.

He woke a little later his penis, once again hard, still lodged in the sleeping child's hole. Mark's renewed pounding of his bum quickly roused Daniel. After some initial whimpering the slut was soon again fully aroused. So far as Mark could judge from the noises coming from the boy and the occasional deep shudders racking his body Daniel came four times before he himself managed his third orgasm.

Pulling away from the boy Mark rolled onto his back and lay staring up at the ceiling feeling totally sated. Daniel deprived of the anaesthetic of sexual excitement began to feel the pain of his cruelly abused body. He began to sob quietly.

"Get out," Mark ordered angrily. He had no further use for the boy and did not see why his rest should be disturbed by the brat's thoughtless whimperings.

Still crying Daniel dragged himself painfully from the bed. His feet gave way under him and he collapsed on all fours on the floor.

"Oh for God's sake," Mark explained impatiently. "Tommy you idle little tyke get this lump of pig shit out of here and away to somewhere where his stupid noise won't disturb your Master and his guests."

"And switch the lights off before you go," he added as the brat hurried forward.

After the two sluts had gone Mark lay in the dark reviewing the events of the day.

"And tomorrow," he thought as sleep crept up at him "there are the races. Life in the Vale of Dingle is indeed very pleasant."

Chapter 6

The door opened and Tommy padded in on bare feet bearing the morning tea tray. He placed it on the bedside table before crossing to the windows to draw back the curtains. This morning he was wearing the short white shift that had become the uniform of the house-boys since Anne Wardle had moved into the old mansion. Reaching up to pull the curtains back the hem of the shift rose up the brat's body the white of the material contrasting with the rich healthy tan of the boy's limbs. The slut took his time doing this. He also seemed to find it necessary to spend a great deal time up on tiptoes, reaching up to get as high up the curtains as possible, which afforded Mark a clear view of his rounded bottom. When Tommy could no longer prolong the job further he returned to the bedside table and busied himself pouring a cup of tea.

Mark noticed with approval that the slut knew without asking that he took his tea with milk and two sugars. The brat would have been handpicked by Jack Wardle to serve him and instructed by Mrs Thomas in his likes and dislikes. Pauper boys taught by Mrs Thomas never forgot their lessons.

When he had finished his tea he swung his legs from the bed and stood up. He had not bothered to put on pyjamas and he noticed Tommy's eyes fixed on his crutch with his penis, still stained from the previous night's pleasures, standing proud. The little whore glanced up the tip of his tongue appeared briefly between his pouting lips.

"Run the bath for me and then get your filthy carcass out of here you misbegotten turd," Mark snapped.

The slut was quite a pretty one but Mark was comfortably aware that many other opportunities of satisfying his sexual appetites would present themselves during the day and there was no need to hurry things. Just as in the act of congress itself a pleasure delayed was a pleasure enhanced. Anyway it was a long day and he needed to pace himself if he was to enjoy it too the full.

Mark strolled over to the window. It was a sash window and the bottom half rose easily on its counterweight. He threw it open to its greatest extent and lent out, resting his elbows on the sill the morning air pleasantly cool against his naked body.

The light breeze carried with it the sweet smell of new mown hay. A blackbird trilled out the notes of its liquid song. Sunlight glittered on the distant waters of the lake and glistened on the dew covered grass of the close cropped meadows that stretched between its shore and the house. Immediately below him a couple of dozen small boys on their hands and knees worked scrabbling in the gravel of the drive for weeds.

How wise, how beneficent, Mark reflected, as he looked down at the brats, some naked others dressed in tattered shorts, were the workings of the charity trustees. These very sluts, disciplined, schooled in obedience and humility, would in other circumstances have been no different from the rowdy little yobs that invested the streets and housing estates of the cities and towns of Britain. Here though, in the Vale of Dingle, instead of frittering their time away in rowdy play, petty crime and mindless vandalism, they had been set to useful labour. Instead of being a nuisance to their neighbours and a worry to their parents some order and purpose was given to their lives thanks to the efforts and good sense of the trustees who oversaw the system and the masters to whose care the brats were committed. That the success of the system was not achieved without hard work both by masters and parents was amply evidenced by the many dark bruises and livid welts that marked the deeply tanned bodies of the pauper boys.

But the advantages that the system brought far out weighed its costs. Quite apart from the work the brats performed there was a great saving in resources. Pauper boys did not burden the school rolls, nor trouble overmuch the civil police. They did not clog up the Doctors' surgeries or the children's wards of the local hospital. Fed little, worked hard and generally toughened up they were remarkably healthy, needing at the most the occasional services of the boy vet which amounted to little more than setting the occasional broken limb, cauterising an open wound or cutting out an appendix that was showing signs of bursting. Though many responsible masters scorned asking for assistance on such minor matters and would undertake these simple tasks themselves.

They were good to look at too like all healthy young animals. The small brats engaged in their perennial tending of the drive, their naked limbs burnt to the colour of dark chocolate by exposure to sun and wind and the bigger house slut in his sleeveless shift waiting nervously at the front door for the arrival of the morning post were all attractive and all available for him to use. The problem in the Vale of Dingle was not availability but one's own capacity.

Mark idly ran his eyes over the plethora of young lithe bodies exhibited so blatantly for his enjoyment, comparing slut with slut. He wasn't going to start so early in the day but if he was which one would he choose? The small dark haired slut his tight little rump recently marked by the cane, the chestnut haired lad with the nice round bottom so inadequately covered by his threadbare shorts or the house boy, at least the latter would be cleaner than the working sluts.

He was subjecting the house boy to further critical examination when Jack Wardle appeared from round the side of the house. All at once a fresh display of juvenile charms were presented to his eyes as the serving brat dropped to his knees and pressed his face to the ground causing his brief tunic to slip forward up his back exposing his naked bottom. Since every other slut in sight similarly prostrated themselves Mark was treated to the sight of thirty or so upraised youthful bums, some bare some, clearly outlined under tiny threadbare shorts.

Catching sight of him Jack called out a cheery greeting before striding forward, the short leather strap, that Mark was sure many if not all the bottoms now so attractively displayed had felt, swinging from his right hand, his dog, a massive bull-mastiff, lumbering in his rear.

"Beautiful day," Jack called out his bluff good humour evident as his boot thudded into the side of a prone brat in his path. "Just been down to the stable yard. Should be a great day for the races. Hurry up old man and get dressed you shouldn't miss……"

All the time he was talking Jack was looking around in that keen lively manner that was typical of the man. Abruptly he fell silent. His eyes focused on one of the brats. So far as Mark could see there was nothing to distinguish it from any of the two dozen or so little brutes that knelt on the gravel drive their faces touching the ground their rumps pushed up in the air. Perhaps it was a bit smaller and skinnier than average but otherwise there was nothing to mark it out from all the other nut brown sluts. However it was clear that Jack with his trained eye and intuitive skill in managing and disciplining pauper stock had spotted that something was not as it should be.

Roaring with anger Jack grabbed the child by the waste band of his shorts and lifting him from the ground shook him like a terrier shaking a rat. His shorts, that had seen better days and had by their ragged condition covered a number of juvenile hind quarters before their current owner's, did not withstand this treatment for long. The boy tumbled to the ground leaving Jack holding a fragment of torn cloth that was all that remained of his shorts. Seizing his opportunity Jack pinned the brat to the ground with the heel of his shoe between its shoulder blades and began vigorously to apply the leather strap to its bum.

Mark found the spectacle of a boy being beaten, as always, a very arousing one. Where he was in a first floor window he had an almost unimpeded view of the action below. And what action it was for Jack set about his work with enthusiasm bringing to it all the expertise he had acquired in more than twenty-five years of thrashing obedience and respect into the carcasses of recalcitrant pauper boys. The sharp crack of leather against tender boy's flesh, the agonized squeals of the slut as the strap tore at its bum, the gruff curses of good old Jack complimented and enhanced the sight of the slut's naked body writhing under the blows rained down on its firm but rapidly reddening bottom.

However all good things have sometime to come to an end and Jack, tiring of his exercise, eventually delivered one final cut to the brats squirming bum, before grabbing him by his collar with his left hand and dragged him back to his feet.

"Well louse," he demanded, "do you think you are so important that rules do no apply to you?"

The wretched brat tried to speak but broke down into loud sobbing. Mark laughed aloud for the boy's face was a most comical sight, a contorted mask speaking of terror pain and misery blotched with tears and snot.

Jack clenched his right hand and punched the boy square in the face. Blood spurted from the sluts flattened nose and split lips.

"I asked you a question now answer me you misbegotten lump of excrement."

The brat just cowered there, Jack's bulk looming over his slight figure. He made no attempt to ward off the threatened blow. He knew if he did so he would be in even worse trouble.

"Please Mr Wardle Sir no Mr Wardle Sir," he managed to stammer out between sobs.

"Perhaps you think that your Mummy and Daddy have sent you here so that you can entertain yourself watching the antics of your betters. Do you think that filth?"

"No Mr Wardle Sir…… Please Mr Wardle Sir…… I'm sorry Mr Wardle Sir…… Please don't hit me any more Sir."

"You're Mummy and Daddy gave you to me you stinking little turd because they saw you that were a lazy evil little boy. They begged me to take you off their hands because they thought I might be able if I trained you and toughened you up to get some work out of you. Do you want me to send you back to your Mummy and Daddy and tell them that you are such a stubborn ungrateful abortion of a boy that I can make nothing of you."

"Well do you? DO YOU SLUT?"

"No Sir… Please Sir, don't send me back. Please Sir…" the brat pleaded desperately.

"Well the you'll have to do better that you have up to now. You're here to work. When you work you keep your head down and concentrate on your work. If I or anyone else comes anywhere near you, you get down on your knees and press your ugly face to the ground. RIGHT TO THE GROUND. Like this."

Jack suddenly lashed out with his foot kicking the sluts legs away from under him. The boy tumbled to the ground and Jack retaining his grip of his collar rubbed his face in the gravel.

"Up," Jack shouted hauling the boy to his feet. Mark saw dark stains glistening red in the sun light on the gravel where Jack had rubbed the brat's face.

"Now," Jack said releasing his hold of the boy's collar, "show me you have at least learnt this lesson. You do it down."

The boy threw himself to his knees and thrust his face down onto the ground. Jack bent down putting his hands on his knees to check that the brat's position was acceptable.

"Good," he said straightening, "now to see that you remember this lesson you will stay like that till I tell you, you can get up."

"Now what was I saying," he said turning away from the slut and glancing up at Mark. "Yes don't hang around old boy. There's so much to do and I wouldn't want you to miss any of it. Today is the day my team of pony boys is going to win the Corvo Challenge cup. I am convinced of it."

As Jack was talking the bull-mastiff that had settled itself on its haunches to watch the brat being flogged heaved itself up and lumbered across towards where the brat knelt. It thrust its nose into the cleft of the slut's upturned bottom. The boy initially shuddered at the unexpected touch and then pushed his bottom back as far as he could in his restricted position. Mark thought he probably welcomed the cool touch of the dog's damp nose against his burning stripes.

"How long are you going to make the brat stay there?" Mark enquired.

He could see that behind Jack the dog was showing distinct signs of sexual excitement.

"Well it all depends what time we get back from the races. If its after dark I'm certainly not going to bother myself to come looking for the little brute. He can stay out all night. If its still light and it probably will be because it only gets dark about eleven this time of year I'll send him home at sunset. His parents house is only five miles [8km] away so he should get back by midnight provided he runs fast enough."

The dog had now hoisted itself up on top of the boy and was making strenuous efforts to mount him, the child's slight body pinned beneath its bulk, its massive hind-quarters hammering away at the brat's bottom.

"Mind you," Jack continued, "I doubt if the slut will get a very gentle reception when he does eventually get home. His father will see the bruises on his bum and beat him again for annoying me and then he'll be beaten again for loosing his shorts. So one way and another he's going to have a very sore bottom over the next couple of days. Do him good though. If you let up a second on that sort of vermin they start getting above themselves."

"What are you looking at Mark? What's going on?"

Jack Wardle spun round and seeing the dog its penis now fairly lodged in the brat's bottom, laughed.

"Oh Grinder," he said. "He's always doing that. It wouldn't matter except that he's got such a taste for sluts' bottoms that it has become very difficult to get him to service a bitch and I did want to use him for stud purposes."

"Well he'll be knotted there for sometime and I won't wait for him. There's nothing like beating a slut to give you an appetite for breakfast. I'll see you down in the breakfast room in a few minutes I expect."

Mark took the hint and did not linger over his bath. A mere fifteen minutes later he was fully dressed. The smell of freshly cooked bacon that met him as he descended the stairs reminded him of how hungry he was.

The breakfast room was a light airy room whose tall windows caught the morning sun. Once again Anne Wardle's influence on the domestic arrangements at Dingley Dell Manor was obvious. Four brats in spotless white shifts stood beside a side board. On this was ranked cut glass jugs filled with all sorts of fruit juices, silver chafing-dishes heaped with rashers of bacon, sausages, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, slices of black pudding, baked beans, a humble but important part of any decent breakfast, and many other delicacies. There were plates of smoked salmon, bowls of cereal, trays heaped with croissants, jars of honey and marmalade. There was even Mark noted with approval a jar of marmite.

It was all very different from the hearty but down to earth arrangements that ruled before her arrival. No guest went hungry when Jack Wardle was the host but breakfast before Anne's appearance was a much more Spartan event. Most likely a bowl of cornflakes followed by as many rashers of bacon and sausages that a guest could eat washed down by mugs of sweet tea brought to the table by single brat it's nakedness more or less adequately covered by a pair of ragged shorts.

"My dear chap," Jack called out as he entered the room, "come and join me at the table. I'm all alone here. Anne is breakfasting in her room but I thought Megan might be down by now. I do hope she's not having second thoughts about those two brats of hers. Won't make any difference if she is mind you. She signed their indentures last night but I do like to avoid causing stress and emotional upset."

"I don't think it's at all likely she's changed her mind," Mark replied reassuringly thinking how typical of his kindly old friend his concern for the happiness of others was. "She seemed dead set on getting rid of the vermin to me."

"I suppose she did. Now grab a chair and let the house sluts bring you breakfast."

As soon as he was seated the serving boys flocked about him in a carefully choreographed act, or more accurately series of acts, of service. Again Mark was amused to see that the brats had been tutored in advance in his tastes. A glass of grapefruit juice was brought by one boy, a bowl of corn-flakes by another, a third filled his cup with coffee from a silver pot while a fourth added just the touch of milk that he liked.

"A change from the way you used to do things," Mark remarked as the boys withdrew to sand ranked on either side of the side board.

"Yes indeed," Mark replied with a smile, "Anne you know, wonderful woman, as soon as she arrived she began to re-organise matters. She likes things just so and she is quite right. We had the Prince of Wallachia here on a private visit you know just a couple of weeks ago and he remarked on the quality of the service. He was kind enough to say our sluts were better than his butlers and prettier as well. Mr Tap fellow his personal assistant threw quite a tantrum as a consequence."

"Mr Wardle I am so sorry to be late," exclaimed Megan as she hurried into the room. "I have just been helping Mary, that is my sister, your house-keeper Mrs Thomas, hose down my two little turds after their night in the cage together."

"Very sorry for themselves they were two," she added with an amused laugh. "Whining about being cold and how their stripes were hurting."

"Good God," Jack exploded, "the ungrateful little rats. They don't know when they are well off. The cages have concrete floors and they were together so they could keep each other warm. Next thing they'll be demanding straw to lie on and a roof to keep the rain off." He laughed at the ridiculous nature of such requests and then added. "It's high summer as well..not even a touch of frost… still they'll learn."

"Yes indeed Mr Wardle," the twins mother replied enthusiastically, "and it can't be too soon either, the little brutes have been abominably spoilt. They need to be thoroughly disciplined and toughened up. Don't stand any nonsense from the brats. A few good hard floggings will do them a world of good."

"Don't disturb yourself dear lady," Jack said with an indulgent laugh, "that's exactly what they are going to get. Now do sit down and have some breakfast."

"What a magnificent spread," Megan exclaimed her thoughts distracted for the moment, but only for the briefest of moments, by the sight of the sideboard with its vast array of dishes from the disciplining of her two luckless sons.

"I'm sure my two disgusting lumps of pig shit will get even plumper than they are now if they get fed on your scraps," she added her mind coming round full circle again to the schooling of her boys.

Jack and Mark both burst out laughing. They didn't know what was funnier, the thought of pauper brats being allowed to share in the delicacies that graced the tables of their betters or the idea that such brats should grow fat on the meagre rations allowed them.

"Look at this Madame," Jack said grasping the bare firm thigh of the serving boy who happened to be refilling his cup with coffee at the moment, "there's no fat on this nor on any other part of this animal's body."

"Lift up that vest of yours brat," he snapped at the boy, "right up to your shoulders. I want the lady to see your miserable carcass."

"There Madame, look at the brute's chest, every rib clearly showing." He reached up and with some difficulty took a pinch of the skin at the side of the bay's ribcage between is finger and thumb. "You see not an ounce of spare flesh on him and that's true of every charity slut on the place. We don't spoil them here I can promise you. No good comes of it if you do. Keep them hungry, work them hard and flog them often that's the way to treat the scum."

At this point there was a loud thud as one of the brats standing by the sideboard suddenly and inexplicably slumped to the carpet in a jumble of bare brown limbs.

"What the hell?" Jack exclaimed before roaring "Mrs Thomas!! Mrs Thomas !!!"

"Yes Sir what is Sir?" Mrs Thomas exclaimed.

"One of the sluts seems to be taking a rest or something," Jack explained more calmly, "see to it would you please? Get him out of here and send in a replacement."

"Why the lazy tyke," Mrs Thomas exclaimed and a short leather strap appeared as if by magic in her hand. "I'll liven the slut up Sir in short order don't you worry."

Her words were punctuated by sharp cracks as she lashed at the boy's bare thighs and bottom with the belt. Roused by this attack the boy tried to crawl away from the housekeeper. Grabbing the brat by the hair she dragged him across to the door and sent him out into the corridor with a vicious kick up his bottom.

"Now stay there sod until I've got time to teach you not to lie down when you should be serving your betters," she shouted after him before turning back to speak to Jack Wardle.

"I'm sorry about that Sir," she said in quieter tones. "I'm afraid we've had a few sluts falling down this morning. Three in the kitchen already so far; one particularly selfish and lazy brute fell head first into the saucepan of porridge just when it was coming to the boil and I had to throw the whole lot away. Such a waste but I couldn't serve it to you or your guests after that. I just hope the slut's screams didn't disturb Miss Anne. I know how much she dislikes being bothered before she's had her breakfast in bed. I've whipped the brat already for his carelessness. He'll get a double dose of the lash if he's upset Miss Anne."

"But what is causing all this falling over nonsense Mrs Thomas."

"It's just the pauper filth usual laziness and lack of self control Sir. They're trying to use your cutting down their rations to one meal a day as an excuse. Just because they haven't been fed for more than twenty-four hours they seem to think it is permissible for them to start falling over and loosing consciousness."

"Dawn yesterday?" Jack said a question in his voice.

"Yes Sir they were fed twice a day, which I always thought was spoiling the scum, when they started and finished work. Last night you very sensibly said they were to be fed just once a day at midday so they didn't get fed that night nor at dawn this morning."

"Of course silly of me. Well I suppose you better start using the metal tipped strap on them, that usually is effective in getting a bit of extra effort out of even the laziest most insubordinate charity filth."

"I'm doing that already Sir."

"Excellent Mrs Thomas I knew I could rely on you."

"Meanwhile," Jack added showing that mixture of common sense and consideration for others that distinguished the man, "give those sluts you have selected to serve us at the races their midday rations now, a bowl of swill topped up with maize porridge. We can't have the lazy turds falling about and spilling champagne over the lady's summer frocks."

"There's one other thing I have to bother you with Sir I am afraid. That slut Daniel's tongue has started bleeding again. He seems to be catching the raw end where the tip was bitten off on his teeth – probably doing it on purpose looking for sympathy – shall I get the boy vet out to see him?"

"No certainly not," Jack said indignantly. He resented, like any other self-respecting guardian of pauper boys, that he should delegate the care of the brats for which he was responsible. "I'm quite capable of dealing with such a minor matter myself. Didn't I cut out that slut Sam's appendix and have him back on his feet and working within the week? It's just a question of drawing a few of Daniel's teeth or cauterising his tongue where the tip has gone. I can make up my mind which when I've had a look at the useless little brute. Tie the slut down on the bench in the brat surgery and see a set of pliers and an electric soldering iron are ready for me. Oh and a set of toothed tongs as well I'll need them to grip his tongue. I'll be down as soon as I've finished breakfast."

"Damn," he continued as Mrs. Thomas hurried away, "this would happen on race day when there is so much to do. Still I have a responsibility for the slut and I can't shirk that whatever other demands there are on my time. A bit of reciprocation, a bit of consideration for others would be pleasant but that is too much to expect from such trash."

With these words so typical of the man, mixing generosity of spirit with realism, he set about consuming the cooked breakfast heaped on his plate under the wistful eyes of the hungry serving boys.

Chapter 7

Mark made no reply, but crumpling his linen napkin threw it down on the table beside his plate, he jumped to his feet. He hurried after his friend. A serving boy hurried forward and collected his dirty plate, hungrily eyeing the uneaten scraps, from the breakfast table. Hungry though the child was he knew better than to take the scraps for himself. Such thievery he knew would merit and incur condign punishment.

Jack led the way to the small stoutly built cabin where damaged brats were taken to be patched up. It was situated well away from the house so that the screams of the sluts under treatment would not disturb its occupants. Following him Mark remembered the first time he had been taken to watch a brat being treated. It was his very first visit to the Vale of Dingle when he and Jack had been in their final year at Prep school together. Jack's father, the Mr Wardle of the time, an imposing old gentleman with the same benevolent disposition and bluff good humour that distinguished his son, had suggested the two boys might like to see him remove the in-growing toe-nails that were crippling one of his charges. Jack, he said, should get accustomed to the various duties and tasks that fell to a guardian of charity boys and his young friend would see how seriously these obligations were taken.

The two twelve year old boys had walked beside what was to them, Mark remembered with a smile, the old man, he was forty at least, across the same kitchen garden that he and Jack were now crossing so many years later. Jack had been visibly excited while he, still unused to the casual way boys in the Vale of Dingle shed their clothes, had been embarrassed by their nakedness. Still Mr Wardle had told him to strip saying that there was no need to risk getting his clothes messed up. So he had shed them, blushing slightly at the thought of exposing his twelve year old body to the gaze of others. He had learnt enough about the customs of the place during the short period he had been there to know that boys, charity or free, if they were wise, did what they were told.

He remembered the sound of the slut's hopeless sobbing that met their ears when Mr Wardle opened the cabin's thick door and the shock when he had seen the brat tied down on the bench waiting their arrival. He had been impressed by the brusque but calm way that Mr Wardle had told the boy, as he had readied the knife and pliers, that what was going to be done to him was for his own good and that he should be grateful. He would never forget the excitement he felt, as summoned to stand near the bench he saw Mark's father lift one of the screaming brat's big toe nails from its bed with the point of his knife and then taking a grip of it with the pliers wrenched it completely away. Nor would he forget the flush, this time of pride, that suffused his cheeks, when after a number of botched attempts, he himself had managed to tear a nail cleanly from the slut's bleeding toe and was rewarded by a gruff "well done boy I can see you belong here," from Mr Wardle.

Mark wondered what the slut's name was. He had completely forgotten but Jack might still remember. His old friend had a phenomenal memory even for such unimportant details as the name of some piece of pauper filth. Mark did remember Mr Wardle saying that the brat only had one toenail that needed removing but they might as well try their hand on some of the others while they had the chance. The nails would after all grow back in time and no permanent damage would be done to the little brute and there was no better way to acquire a practical skill than by practising it whenever the opportunity arose. Jack had clearly inherited his father's sterling common sense and practical wisdom.

He had visited Dingle Manor regularly over the years. Every such occasion would entail one or two, or even three, visits to the brat surgery. There he would watch some pauper boy or other being treated for one of the injuries to which boys, and pauper boys in particular, are so prone. The injuries had varied over the years. There had been gashes to be sutured or cauterised, bones to be set, a fish hook to be removed from where it had lodged, the barb sunk deep in the flesh on the inside of the slut's thigh – and how that brat had screamed – and many others.

At first he and Jack had by and large just watched Mr Wardle, his shirt-sleeves rolled up, a blood stained apron round his waist, as he worked on some screaming charity boy. That gentleman though, understanding a boy's natural wish to be involved in man's work, had encouraged them to become directly involved when ever possible. Then over the years it was increasingly Jack who did the work while his father sat in a straight backed chair tilted back against the wall, puffing on his pipe, watching proceedings with a benevolent contented smile on his face.

Nothing else Mark reflected as Jack had changed much over the past twenty or so years. Trenches of potatoes, rows of cabbages and cauliflowers, carefully tended asparagus and strawberry beds, lines of red currant and black current bushes, raspberry canes inside their protective cages stretched all enclosed within the vegetable gardens high brick walls out before him. Among them worked a score or so of charity brats, like all of their kind healthy strong young animals, not an ounce of excess fat among the lot of them, the sun glistening on their bare bodies as they bent to their tasks. Nearby a gang of six crop-haired boys hoed between rows of onions, further off a pair of young lads strained at the shafts of a two wheeled buggy on which was mounted a heavy tank of water, dragging it towards the green-houses at the further end of the garden. As Jack and he moved forward the brats dropped to the ground pressing their faces to the earth only to rise once they had passed to resume their labours with redoubled energy, bending before them and straightening like stalks of barley flattened by a ferocious but passing gust of wind. Everything spoke of order, discipline and hard work.

Mark walked forward between the kneeling brats. He looked down at their bare backs and upturned bottoms, some naked, a few squeezed into inadequate and threadbare shorts. There was hardly a brat among them whose body did not bear evidence of a recent aquaintanceship with the strap. He could not help reflecting, not for the first time, how much better things were managed in the Vale of Dingle than else where in the United Kingdom. The pauper brats, kept hungry and toughened up by frequent beatings and hard work were active and healthy, with their natural wilfulness curbed and urged on by the lash, able to make a useful contribution by their labour to the welfare of the community. They compared favourably with their contemporaries elsewhere, overweight physically lazy yobs whose ignorance and ill manners were only matched by their arrogance.

The outside world had suffered a loss of nerve in dealing with its young. It had been seduced by liberal idealists, who, against all the evidence, insisted that boys in their natural state were reasonable civilised human beings not irrational brutes, into regarding traditional forms of discipline as physical abuse. Parents and teachers deprived of the only disciplinary tool that boys respected and understood were rendered powerless.

Marks reflections were brought to an end by the site of the Head Gardener Hamish McAllister appearing at the door of his office. (Authors Note – Really grand Head Gardeners do have offices in which they tackle such mysteries as planning herbaceous borders, drink cups of tea and take surreptitious naps while the under gardeners are doing the real work and plot how to thwart those plans of his employer of which he disapproves – that is all or most of them). He too Mark thought had changed little over the years. His hair and whiskers once red had bleached with time but his stance was as upright, his face as determined and the twinkle in his eyes as bright as ever. He was wearing his usual summer clothes, a pair of sturdy boots which some brat had risen at dawn to clean and polish, cord trousers and a striped shirt it's sleeves rolled up to leave his brawny forearms bare. As he stepped out of his office to meet them he took a short leather strap from its hook just inside the door. Mark who had felt that strap on his own bottom when many years ago he and Jack had been caught raiding the strawberry beds knew well how vigorously McAllister could wield it when the occasion demanded.

With such men as Jack Wardle and Hamish McAllister, Mark felt, there was little chance of the people of the Vale of Dingle being seduced by the facile doctrines of liberalism and political correctness. Their nerve would hold and the pauper boys could expect no ill-considered leniency in their treatment.

"Mr Legg back with us agin I see. Good to see you Sir. You should come and live in the Vale you understand our ways sae well."

"How are you McAllister?" Mark said taking the Head-Gardeners proffered hand and wondering at the firmness of the man's grip. "Quite well I hope?"

"Aye, aye Sir well enough, well enough. And Mr Wardle Sir, what brings you here Sir? I hope you and Mr Legg's nae after the strawberries agin Sir."

"No, no McAllister," Jack replied laughing at the Head-Gardener's sally, "once was quite enough for that. We're only here to patch up a slut, my nephew Daniel, whom Mr Legg penetrated last night."

"Aye I saw the wee lad bein brought to the surgery by Mrs Thomas just now. He seemed to find it a bit sore to walk poor wee thing. I was sorry about that bairn Mr Wardle but I saw, as soon as he arrived here, he would na do. Too weak, too soft, nae strength or spirit in the creature. It's hard Sir but in the end it's kinder. There's no comfort nor happiness in bein what you aren't."

"I'm sure you're right McAllister but I had hoped so much from the boy."

"Aye Sir but he didna have it in him and that's the end of things. One of the children of Cain as the good book says. Born to hew wood and draw water and to live by the sweat of his brow. It's nae our business to question the will of the Lord Mr Wardle."

"And that's very true as well McAllister."

"Aye Sir it is. And now Sir if you'd be good enough to be goin on I can get my sluts back to work. The lazy brutes'll be well pleased to be kneelin in the dirt with their arses in the air while we blather on but the onions won't be hoed nor the potatoes dug while they are."

"And we have the races today so we must get on as well. Will you be comin to the races McAllister."

"The races and gamblin is all the work of the Evil One Sir but maybe I'll just risk my soul for a wee second or two to see your team win the Corvo Cup. I've got a pound or two on it as have all the staff here."

"Well no doubt we will see you there then."

As they walked on Mark heard behind him McAllister's rough voice raised in command followed by the crack of leather hitting bare flesh and the shrill squeal of a slut being corrected. It was clear that McAllister was intent on getting his brats to catch up with lost time.

"Are all Head-Gardeners," Mark asked quickly glancing over his shoulder to check that McAllister was safely out of ear shot, "like him."

"His brother Angus who is Head-Gardener at Emsworth Castle is even more stubborn and opinionated I am told," Jack said pausing with his hand on the latch of the brat surgery. "I understand from his son Freddie that Lord Emsworth has a terrible time with him."

"Well we'd better get on," Jack continued pushing the door open.

Again Mark was struck by how little things had changed over the twenty years or so that had passed since he had first visited the Vale. The quiet hopeless sobbing of the brat awaiting treatment, the strong smell of the place, a mixture of disinfectant, human waste, and fear, the concrete floor and bare breeze block walls, the bright unforgiving glare of the fluorescent light were all the same. Perhaps the dark stains that marred the scrubbed wood top and legs of the work- bench on which the brat was spread-eagled face up were deeper and more extensive but otherwise the place was unchanged.

Jack took two long aprons from the hook on the inside of the door on which they hung. They had both long ago had been white but now they were covered with stains and stiff with congealed blood. Handing one to Mark, he slipped the other over his head and, rolling up his sleeves began to walk towards the bench to which Daniel's naked body was strapped.

The slut, Mark thought as he approached the bench was really quite an attractive little animal. With his legs and arms spread wide and secured in place with straps drawn tight about his wrists and ankles, he looked deliciously vulnerable and helpless. He was a sturdily built brat with closely cropped blond hair and firm well-rounded limbs. Like all pauper boys the tough regime to which he had been subjected had given him a lithe deeply tanned body that glowed with health. The cuts and bruises from the beating Mark had given him the previous evening were already begin to mend so quickly does healthy young flesh heal. However a couple of angry weals remained clearly visible cutting across the taughtly drawn skin of his chest where Mark had slashed him with the cane and one nipple was discoloured and swollen where the tip of the rod had caught and split it. A strap drawn tight round his neck prevented the child from raising his head but hearing the footfalls of the approaching men he twisted it round to face them. Even though the boy's face was blotched with tears and distorted with terror Mark could see the brat was a pretty one.

"Let me see," Jack said turning to a small table set beside the work bench and as always concentrating on essentials, "pliers, electric soldering iron, tongs with toothed grips. Yes they seem all to be here. Mrs Thomas is really a most efficient lady."

"Now Daniel stop that ridiculous noise and listen to me you ghastly little turd."

The child sniffed, blinked and attempted to choke back a sob. He was not quick enough for Jack who slashed the boy viciously across the chest. The sharp crack of the strap against the brat's body was followed by a renewed burst of sobbing.

"Now listen to me Daniel," Jack roared, "you may think that by playing up and screaming and generally misbehaving you will make your Mother and I give up on you and send you back to your stupid weak willed father to spoil. You can dismiss that idea straight away. I won't pretend that it wasn't a disappointment, a very deep disappointment and a matter of shame to both your Mother and I, when we discovered that far from being the proper decent normal boy that we had both hoped and expected, you are nothing more than a debased bit of pauper filth. How a lady so high spirited and intelligent as your mother could have spawned something so utterly useless and squalid as a stinking lump of garbage like yourself I do not know. However we did not give up and simply sent you away. You were not what we wanted. Nobody could want something like you. We accepted we had responsibilities, unsought and unwanted responsibilities but responsibilities nevertheless, and we determined to honour them."

"I remember your mother saying to me, 'the last thing I ever wanted was a bit of pauper crap like him but I know my duty and I'll try and give some purpose and meaning to the little turd's life although I know it will be an uphill struggle and I can expect no thanks from the stupid ungrateful brute.'"

"And how right she was. We persuaded the trustees to accept you as a charity boy the only thing that vermin like you are good for. We had you branded and circumcised and took you into our own household to train. I even gave you to my old friend Mr Legg to penetrate. And what did we get for all our efforts? constant disappointment and trouble. Just during yesterday, you thoughtless useless streak of cat's piss, you both left Mr Legg's Times on the train and not content with that got your tongue bitten off playing about with that useless slut Tommy when you should have been concentrating all your abilities, minimal though they are, on pleasing Mr Legg. And that's just one day alone. It's been the same everyday since we took your stinking little carcass into our care. You are the most useless little turd of a pauper brat that I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. But I am not going to give up and niether is your loving Mummy going to give up. We are going to make something of you however long it takes and however much effort it entails. It may seem hard to believe, it is hard to believe, but by the time we have finished with you, you will be a model charity boy, humble, obedient, respectful to your betters, eager to please and grateful for the opportunity to do so."

"But first we've got to patch up the damage you have done to yourself. I haven't made up my mind whether we'll draw all your teeth or simply cauterise the end of your tongue with a hot iron. I'll have to have a look and see what I think best but either way it will hurt a very great deal, more than your branding, much, much more than your circumcision."

"It's going to hurt but don't expect any sympathy from us because you won't get any. You've brought the whole thing on yourself by your stupid, irresponsible self-indulgent behaviour. You choose to stick your tongue in that slut Tommy's mouth and now you are going to feel the consequences. It will hurt and we are glad it will hurt because you have nobody to blame but yourself and it may teach you to be more careful in future."

Daniel clearly deeply effected, by this well phrased and moderate admonition, lay on the bench fighting back his sobs.

Mark, who had drawn near to the bench, feasted his eyes on the slut's tear stained face. Jack, he thought, as he ran his hand idly up the inside of Daniel's bare thigh, certainly knew how to talk to a charity brat.

The boy's skin was cool to his touch. Fear had raised goose pimples that had roughened its otherwise silken smoothness. Mark's hand travelled up the inside of the boy's leg until it reached his small hairless balls, no bigger than two cherries. He turned his hand and slipping his index finger behind the child's testicles tickled the sensitive area of skin at the junction of his legs. Mark was amused to see Daniel's little penis stiffen until, despite the brat's obvious terror, the little tube of boy's flesh was standing proud, pointing rigidly upwards at an angle of about 45 degrees from the line of his stomach. He pushed his fingertip into the cleft of Daniel's bottom. Before Mark's fascinated eyes a bead of liquid formed and shimmered at the tip of child's penis. Then, even before Mark's questing finger had found it's way fairly into the slut's straining body, a jet of clear boy's cum shot out and splashed down on the front of Daniel's tummy spreading a silver sheen of boy's juice over the brat's milk chocolate coloured skin.

To Mark's surprise Jack did not burst into a rage, nor did he strike the boy. Instead he laughed and turning away from the table began to rummage in the one of the drawers of an old wooden chest, which stood against the wall of the cabin.

"That shows how much attention the little turd was paying to what I was saying," he remarked turning back from the drawer holding something that looked like a small and rather elaborate jubilee clip. Made of stainless-steel the inside of the ring was convex in shape and had a thin plastic coating which lapped over its sides so that there were no sharp metal edges exposed to bite into boy's flesh. "Typical of a slut, you try to reason with the brute and it takes no notice whatsoever. The only thing the scum heed is a good flogging."

"I'll just put this on him or else he'll be squirting his filth all the time. The sluts have no self-control at the best of times and Daniel here seems to be a complete tart. You get a brat like that form time to time. Once it's had a man's cock up its bum it just shoots and shoots."

Jack sounded resigned and a little amused rather than angry.

Following his orgasm Daniel's balls had almost retreated into his body. Jack dug his index finger and thumb into the boy's crutch pulling them clear. He slipped the clip over them and tightened it. Then he slipped the fly-bolt out of its setting effectively locking the stainless steel ring in place about the slut's scrotum and cock. The pressure of the clip forced the child's small testicles and penis outwards from his body in a very attractive manner.

"That should slow the horny slut down," Jack remarked.

"Now open your mouth Daniel so I can decide what I need to do to repair the damage your own stupidity has inflicted on yourself."

"Well Mark," Jack said peering down into his young nephew's open mouth, "it could be worse. The little turd has only taken off the top half-inch or so of his tongue. Now should I yank his teeth out or should I cauterise the wound? I'm not too keen on drawing his teeth. Mr Ridlaw over at Blackmoor drew the teeth of one of his sluts hoping to make it a more sensitive and expert cock-sucker. It worked for a time but once the brat's gums heeled and hardened up it was just back to normal so I doubt if we'd gain anything by doing that. And I do wonder if it is quite within the law to do it anyway. You know we are meant to avoid, if at all possible, inflicting visible permanent damage on our charity boys. Ridlaw of course argued that as the teeth were inside the slut's mouth their absence was not strictly visible but you could tell its teeth were gone by the way the little beast's cheeks had fallen in. On the whole I think I'll try and cauterise it. If that doesn't work we can always go back to pulling its teeth."

"Anyway you know," Jack added his mind returning to Mr Ridlaw's experiment, "fucking Daniel's mouth might be interesting if the little shit's tongue is tipped with scar tissue."

Mark thought that his friend's analyses of the situation was typical of the man, combining common sense with a very proper attention to the rules that the philanthropic instincts of the trustees had created to protect the pauper boys. Daniel for some inexplicable reason had begun to cry again.

"How am I do to do anything you stupid oaf," Jack demanded picking up the long handled tongs with the toothed grips, "if you don't keep your mouth wide open."

"Mark would you come here and force the slut's jaws as far apart as you can while I get a grip on its tongue? Good thanks……… Now…let's see."

Mark holding in an iron grip Daniel's nose with one hand and his jaw with his other forced the slut's mouth open. Jack his face creased in concentration manoeuvred the out-size forceps, attempting to get a grip of the brat's wounded tongue.

"Got it," Jack exclaimed triumphantly after a few seconds of muttered cursing. "Now Mark if you keep a grip of the little brutes nose with your left hand, I don't want him clenching his teeth in agony and biting off even more of his tongue when I cauterise its tip, and take the tongues from me with your right hand. Thanks now I'll just switch the soldering-iron on."

Anticipating his friend's wishes Mark took a firm hold of the handle of the tongues and pulled the truncated tip of Daniel's tongue clear of his mouth. The boy was reluctant to co-operate but with the teeth of the tongs' grips securely sunk into his tongue he had no choice.

There was a pause while Jack waited for the iron to heat up. Then with a frown of total concentration on his face, Jack drew its glowing tip along the raw end of the brat's tongue. The boy's body arched and strained against its bonds and a shrill ear splitting scream was wrenched from his throat. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and there was a stink of human waste as the boy lost control and shit himself.

"Ah," Jack said, "he's gone. We'll bring him back in a moment. It's an excellent opportunity to sort out that botched circumcision of his. You can do it Mark. But hang on to his tongue for the moment until I get something across his mouth. We don't want to have him swallowing it and choking to death. Especially after all the trouble we have taken with him. There that's done. You can let go of it now."

Once again Jack turned back to the wooden chest and began to search one of its drawers. Mark stood looking down at the body of the unconscious boy preparing himself for what was to come. He had not done this job before. However he had attended on many occasions the church services of dedication at the end of which by ancient tradition the newly accepted charity boys had their foreskins publicly removed by the vicar's wife. He knew therefore exactly what to do. It just needed a steady hand and a good eye. He just wished his own hands would stop shaking.

"Here we are," said Jack turning back to the table, "a Stanley knife with a reasonably fresh blade. Its only been used a couple of times so should still be quite sharp, the wooden funnel and a tube of wound powder for when the job has been done."

Mark picked up the funnel, a small hollow wooden tube. It was just big enough to allow him to slip it down over the end of boy's penis. Holding the tube in place with his left hand, he folded back the errant flap of foreskin that had eluded the blade of the vicar's wife's knife over the end of the tube securing it there with his thumb. Taking a deep breath he rested the blade of the knife against the pale flesh thus revealed. Then cutting as close to the top of the funnel and the child's cock as he dared he drew the knife in one straight clean cut across the strip of foreskin. Bright red blood welled from behind the blade as it travelled across the brat's trapped flesh. With the feeling of satisfaction that comes from a job well done Mark straightened removing the wooden tube from about Daniel's prick.

"Very neat and as close a cut as any I have seen," Jack announced bending down to inspect his friend's handiwork as he shook copious amounts of wound powder from its tube onto the palm of his hand.

Cupping his hand he slapped wound powder on the cut flesh stanching the flow of blood. The boy's eyes flicked open; once more his body was convulsed with pain as he fought the bonds securing him to the workbench. White froth formed on his lips as he screamed.

"We can leave him like that," Jack remarked as he closed the door of the shed on Daniel's frenzied howls and the stink of human faeces. "He's securely tied down and can't do himself any damage. He'll calm down after half an hour or so and stop that stupid screaming."

Mark drew a deep breath and glanced about him at the kitchen garden and the labouring pauper brats glad to be out once again in the sunlight and fresh air. He wondered if the boys whose naked limbs glistened in the bright sun as they bent to their tasks appreciated how lucky they were to have so conscientious a person responsible for them as Jack. A man who, as he had just witnessed, was prepared to devote almost a full hour of his time to dealing with the self inflicted injury of a mere pauper slut.

Not he had to admit that the process had been without a certain interest. His eyes rested speculatively at a brown curly haired little urchin, it's tight round bottom inadequately covered by the remnants of a pair of shorts about two sizes too small for him. He wondered if he should use the brat to ease the aching hardness in his crutch but decided the day would offer many more opportunities before it was over and it would be as well to save himself for these. He reflected, as he had often done in the past, that one was spoiled for choice in the Dingle Valley.

Jack was waiting holding open for him the white painted wooden door that was the only way in and out of the vegetable garden. As Mark drew level with him he could see from the bulge in the front of his trousers that Jack too had found the process of tending to the brat's injuries had its own peculiar charms.

The door opened directly into the stable yard at the back of the big house. This was a hive of activity as dozens of brats were marshalled and loaded with provisions for the picnic lunch at the races. The shouted commands of the overseers reinforced and punctuated by vicious cracks of their whips together with the shrill squeals of brats feeling the bite of the lash bite reverberated round the space.

"Come on. Move Yourself. Get out of the way………" Jack shouted as he forced his way through the crowd of near naked brat's staggering under their heavy loads.

"We use brats to carry loads rather than motor vehicles. It's more environmentally friendly. We find a healthy boy, if its properly motivated, can easily carry one and a half time its own weight over five miles [8km] in less than an hour," he explained to Mark as he laid about himself with his strap leaving livid weals across the bare bottoms, the nicely rounded thighs, and the thin shoulders of those boys who were within his reach.

They eventually reached the backdoor of the mansion. There Mrs Thomas stood, that excellent woman, the calm epicentre of all the frantic activity around her.

"Mr Wardle Sir," she exclaimed, "we are almost finished. We are just completing loading the champagne."

She gestured to three deep zinc tanks, each one held between two stout wooden poles. Inside each tank could be seen the tops of innumerable champagne bottles poking out from a bed of cracked ice. Brats were spreading armfuls of straw over the ice to insulate it from the heat of the sun.

"Very well that will do," she said to the overseer standing beside her. "Get them moving and keep them moving. I don't want that ice to be melted all away before they get to the racetrack."

"It won't Ma'am. It won't, it's a mere seven miles [11km] there and not at all steep," the heavily set man said saluting her with his whip. "I'll drive the scum hard don't you worry Ma'am."

"Now you idle brutes," he shouted turning to a group of sturdy charity boys squatting huddled against the wall of the house. Obediently the boys ran forward and bending, six to each pole, strained to lift the tanks onto their shoulders. Then urged on by shouts and cracks of the overseer's whip they broke into a shambling run. The man, seizing the reins of his pony from a naked brat standing nearby, vaulted into the saddle and trotted briskly after the boy porters, the little slut running at his stirrup.

"Well now Mr Wardle, what can I do for you?" asked Mrs Thomas turning to Jack.

"I've dealt with Daniel. I've left him strapped to the workbench. I'd leave him for a bit to let his screaming fit pass and I'm afraid he's shit himself."

"The disgusting little animal," exclaimed Mrs Thomas, "I'll get him to clean the mess up himself."

"Good excellent and Mrs Thomas………"

Mark saw his old friend lean forward and speak quietly in the housekeeper's ear. Whether it was Jack's intention or not he could not hear what was said.

"Yes, very well, a very good idea if I may say so Sir," Mrs Thomas said "I'll see that it is done" and for some reason she looked at Mark and smiled.

"Thank you Mrs Thomas I knew I could rely on you. Now could you please have the sluts Ian and Duncan brought to the Range Rover at the front of the house. Come along Mark we have to check the results of last nights experiment and watch Peter getting his second thrashing and then there are the races."

Chapter 8

"Megan has just gone to fetch the twins," she said. "She really is proofing to be a responsible and caring mother so far as those two little shits are concerned. She said she wanted to see how they looked after their first night in a brat cage."

"How did you manage with my Daniel? I hope you didn't let the idle little turd get away with lying around doing nothing just because he's bitten through his tongue."

"Of course not," Jack sounded irritated by the suggestion that he should be so slack and so easily taken in, "I'm not so green as that. If I did that every charity brat about the place would be biting its tongue off just to get out of work. I've cauterised the wound and Mrs Thomas will have him back at work as soon as his screaming fit has passed."

"Good I'm glad you were firm. That's the only way to treat vermin like him. Ah," she said breaking off from her enquiries about the well being of her son, "I think I can hear Megan returning with her two."

Sure enough the sound of a woman's voice raised in anger accompanied by shrill juvenile whining became increasingly audible. Initially only Megan's words were comprehensible, urging on and berating her two young sons. The boys' voices, shrill plaintive and distressed, an indistinct accompaniment to her more strident tones. As they drew near though both Megan's adjurations and her sons' tearful pleas could be heard.

"Mummy please Mummy I'm hungry Mummy please Mummy can't Duncan and me have something to eat."

"Of course you're hungry you misshapen lump of filth. You're charity boys now. You're going to get used to being hungry. Now get a move on or do you want another touch with this. Mr Wardle is waiting for you."

"Oh Mummy do we have to see him again. Please couldn't we go home Mummy we'll be good boys. Please can't we just go………" The child's prayers ended in a high pitched squeal of pain.

"You'll get another dose from the probe if you don't stop whining you ungrateful little brute. Mr Wardle has been kind enough to take the pair of you into his care. You don't know how lucky you are. He has a way of making something useful even out of useless streaks of piss like yourselves. You'll be seeing a great deal more of him and feeling his strap on your filthy bums too. Now get on." These encouraging words were followed by another shrill howl.

"It sounds as though Mrs Thomas has had the forethought to provide Megan with an electric cattle probe," Jack remarked approvingly. "So sensible and so typical. It would totally invalidate our experiment if further stripes were inflicted on the brats' carcasses this morning."

Round the corner of the house came Megan driving before her two naked six-year old sons. The twins condition had deteriorated since their arrival at the manor house, their lightly tanned skin blotched with bruises and ribbed with livid weals, their eyes red from weeping and their faces damp with tears. Coupled together by a short length of chain attached to collars round their necks, their hands tied firmly behind their backs they would, in any other context, have been a pitiable if interesting sight. In the Vale of Dingle however naked well whipped brats were commonplace.

"Handy little things these electric probes," Megan remarked as she came within earshot. To illustrate the point she pressed the tip of the probe against the bare flank of one of the twins and pressed the red button in the handle. The child shrieked and started forward until brought up with a jerk on the short length of chain attaching him to his brother.

"Yes indeed," Jack replied laughing at the sight of the two little sluts' discomfiture.

"Voyle," he continued addressing the chauffeur, "open up the back of the Range Rover please and we'll put the two tykes in the brat cage."

The cage similar to those in which dogs are transported was quite a small one with a narrow entrance and the back of the Range Rover was some height off the ground. The twins would in normal circumstances have found it quite a scramble to get up into the vehicle. Chained together by the neck and being required to get into the cage made it much more difficult for them. However aided by a grinning Voyle pulling on a bare limb or pushing a naked rump as occasion demanded and encouraged by their mother wielding the electric probe they were eventually, after a good deal of adult cursing and juvenile squeals, safely crammed into the cage.

"Good," Jack said, "well lets get going. Into the car everybody."

At that moment William Smythe came running breathlessly up from the stables. At a respectful distance behind him trotted his charity boy.

Mark struggled to remember the brat's name, lent to his father by Mr Henry and passed onto William to look after, what was the animal's name? Not that it mattered but it was irritating not to remember. It was coming back to him. Began with a "d". David, yes that was it David.

And it just illustrated Mark thought studying the slut how healthy and how well suited to the brutes was the regimen imposed by the trustees on those in their care. He remembered the fresh welts and bruises that had disfigured the boy's deeply tanned body when he had seen him the previous day. The marks had not completely gone. The lines scored across the hide even of a pauper brat by a ferociously wielded cane do not disappear in a mere twelve hours or so. But the cuts had healed and the redness like the bruising had faded. Some of the bruising Mark supposed might be camouflaged by the brute's deeply tanned skin. Nevertheless you only had to compare its condition, a fully seasoned pauper boy, with that of the twins, freshly arrived in the village, to see immediately the benefit of the toughening up process required by the Trustees.

"Hi Mr Wardle," William said white teeth flashing in a cheerful grin, "lovely day for the races. Could I have a lift please."

"Of course you can William," Mark replied hop in the back seat you can ride in the middle between Mr Legg and the two ladies."

"Thanks I've just been down to take a last look at Merlin and Lucifer before the race. They look great. We should walk it," William said climbing into the car.

"Oh you've got a couple of brats in the cage already. David you'll have to run to the race ground and you'll run fast or I'll flay the skin from your bottom with the buckle end of my belt. Do you hear me turd."

"We're going to the Old Game Keeper's Cottage first William," Jack intervened quickly, "there are some people staying there we have to see and there are some boys with them you might like to meet so your slut needs to go there not Mulligan's Meadow. But I'm sure we can squash him in the brat cage there's plenty of room."

Mark glancing into the back of the car and seeing the twins crammed uncomfortably into the cage various bits of them bulging out between the thin bars had his doubts about the accuracy of this latter statement. Indeed it seemed at one stage that despite the best efforts of Voyle that they would not succeed. Gripping the brat by its collar and driving its head at the tightly jammed bodies of the twins Voyle managed to make some progress. Then, despite the chauffeur's best efforts, the process stalled with David' head jammed between the rumps of the two small boys and his shoulders and rest of his body outside the cage.

"I can't get the little sod in Sir," Voyle said wiping the sweat from his forehead and aiming a final kick at David's bottom which, upraised and only minimally covered by his ragged shorts, offered a tempting target.

"David you useless lump of pig shit," William said from where he was watching proceedings leaning over the back of the rear passenger seat, "if you don't get into that now I'll tell Mr Henry."

Clearly Mr Henry's name was one to conjure with, at least so far as pauper boys were concerned. Galvanised by the mention of it David's bare feet scrabbled on the ground as he wriggled and pushed his way between the two smaller boys. After that it took only a couple minutes of further hearty cursing and half a dozen kicks and punches from Voyle for him to get the door of the cage closed on the three charity boys.

"That's done Sir," Voyle said getting into the driver seat beside Jack. The old Game Keepers Cottage you said Sir?"

"New stock are they Uncle Jack?" William asked as the car moved off.

William was kneeling on the back seat of the Range Rover peering down at the jumble of naked limbed sluts crammed into the brat cage in the rear of the vehicle. Mark was very conscious of the boy's presence his well muscled bottom squeezed into tightly stretched shorts only a few inches from his own head.

Such proximity to youthful beauty so unselfconsciously displayed was all but unimaginable in Britain now outside the Vale of Dingle. There the boy would have been too distrustful of all grown ups and it would be only the most foolhardy of adults who would risk being so close to such temptation. Here though there were no such inhibitions either on young or old. Affection was frankly given and reciprocated, the natural desire to admire and touch were not thwarted. Free boys such as William were not to be abused but abuse was more closely defined than the catch-all meaning given to the word away from Muggleton. Short of penetrating such a boy by force or beating him with excessive savageness all was permitted and why should anyone transgress these mild prohibitions when there were scores of charity boys available to whom they did not apply. Anyway a free boy who voluntarily submitted to penetration would soon cease to be free. The knowledge that this was so provided a strong incentive to boys like William to retain their virginity and increased the contempt they felt for the charity scum who were incapable of such self denial. No stigma though was attached to a man who attempted to seduce a free boy. Far from it he was regarded as performing a useful function for how could a free boy be shown to be worthy unless he was tested?

"Yes William," Jack replied easily, "just got them yesterday. What do you think of them?"

There was a squeal of pain from the back of the Range Rover as William reached over the seat and did something unimaginable to one or other of the sluts.

"They're both carrying a bit too much flesh Uncle Jack and they're light skinned for pauper brats but that'll correct itself quick enough. They're quite pretty little brutes and they're twins as well. You'd get a good price for them from the Duke Inn once they've been schooled if you cared to sell them. Identical twins are always popular with visitors Dad says," William remarked in a very worldly way.

There was another howl from the back.

"Lay off them William would you please," Jack said firmly from his seat beside the driver.

"All right Sir," William replied willingly enough but his surprise at so unprecedented an order was apparent in the tone of his voice.

"It's an experiment we are doing," Jack explained hurriedly clearly feeling the boy was owed an explanation, "to establish whether our wound powder or the Ovingdean Grange ointment is more effective. The one with the yellow tag has been treated with the powder and the blue one with ointment."

There was a pause while William lent even further over the back of the seat to inspect the twins bruised and torn bottoms.

"Both look much the same to me," he remarked eventually.

"We cut them in the crease of the bum and burnt their armpits as well. Can you see how they have done?"

There was more peering and wriggling and Mark grabbed hold of one bare thigh to stop the lad tipping bodily over onto the brat cage.

"Thanks Sir. No Uncle Jack they're too pushed up close together and their bums are right back against the back door."

"There'd be no objection to William using the electric probe on the sluts would there Mr Wardle?" Megan interjected.

"No of course not," Jack replied heartily. "It's just I don't want any fresh bruises or cuts on them before we've checked the effectiveness of the powder and ointment with our friends at the cottage."

"Thanks Miss," William said as he eagerly accepted the probe from Megan.

"Whatever are you doing William?" Mark asked a second or two later as he grabbed the waistband of the boy's shorts as he lent even further forward over the back seat.

"I'm trying to get the probe up one of slut's bums," the boy explained panting as he strained to reach right over the cowering brats helpless in their cage. "I want to hear them really squeal."

"It's funny how all boys want to do that," Jack remarked chuckling, "but I'm sorry William you'll have to wait till we stop. Then you'll be able to get at the little tykes' bums."

The rest of the journey was enlivened by the whimpering of the three sluts as William applied the probe to various exposed parts of their bodies.

As soon as the Range Rover drew up outside the cottage William scrambled over Mark's legs and round to the back of the vehicle with all the eagerness of a ferret after a buck rabbit. He pulled open the back door and saw before him, behind the bars of the brat cage, the pine ends of the three sluts. Two naked rumps, a little on the pale side ribbed with livid bruises, sandwiching one that was clearly skinnier sporting a threadbare pair of shorts some three sizes smaller than the bottom it so inadequately covered. He rested the end of the probe against a boy hole. The brat whimpered and stirred uneasily but confine in the cage it had no escape. The hapless slut, whether Ian or Duncan no one could tell, whimpered and tried to clamp its bottom tight but that only served to increase its suffering as William brutally jabbed the probe into it. The moan this assault on its anus extorted from the child was a mere prelude to the shrill scream that was wrenched from its body when William pressed the red button on the handle of the probe and sent a bolt of electricity coursing through its carcass. The boy jerked violently rattling the bars of the cage and shaking the bodies of the two other brats confined with it.

William laughed delightedly at the result of his actions and, without withdrawing the probe end from his victim's body, pressed the red button again. Another unearthly scream raised the hackles on the back of Mark's neck.

Mark feeling that this was an entertainment he should see as well as hear scrambled from the 4x4. Megan who obviously shared his excitement following close behind bumping into his back in her eagerness to watch the further sufferings of her two sons. Mark could see Adam and the three Thompson children, attracted by the noise tumbling out of the door of the cottage, followed by young Nicholas who, as always, looked rather nervous. They had all, he could see, adapted quickly to the custom of the place that allowed free boys to run around naked when at home.

"Why don't you give the other one a touch up its bum?" asked Jack good humouredly. "Lets see which one can scream the louder."

William clearly, on the evidence of the pronounced bulge in the front of his brief shorts, excited, yanked the head of the probe from the child's bottom with as much casual brutality as he had earlier inserted it. A bright red trickle of blood began to dribble from the child's violated hole.

The other twin, knowing from the screams of his fellow that something terrible was about to be done to him, began to sob loudly. Chained by his neck to his brother with David jammed between them in the narrow confines of their cage there was no escape. In a desperate but hopeless attempt to thwart his tormentor he clamped his bottom tight shut producing deep dimples on the sides of his plump little bum. This only served to increase his suffering as William stabbed viciously at the brat's anus with the probe. The child's sphincter proved unable to resist this assault. William gave the rod a vicious twist as he drove it into the slut. His thumb pressed down on the red button. The child bucked and screamed as the electric shock jolted him.

"I do enjoy watching the little sods suffer," Megan remarked her eyes glittering with excitement as she watched her twin sons agony. "Give him another dose William would you please?"

William obliged and the watching free boys hooted and clapped as the slut's small body was again racked with convulsions.

"Well boys," Jack said rising his voice to be heard over the general hubbub, "if we are to get to the races before they run The Baron Corvo Challenge we'll have to get a move on. Could you unfasten the back of the cage and get your slut out William? He's jamming in Ian and Duncan and we need to check them over to compare the effectiveness of the ointment and wound powder."

"Does the one in the middle belong to you?" Adam asked, the envy in his voice apparent.

"Yes, well he's been lent to us by Mr Henry who is away on business and Dad says I can have him to get experience in handling such scum," William replied as he unlatched the back of the cage.

"Why is he wearing shorts and the other two aren't? Is he spoilt?"

The question Mark was sure was innocently meant. Adam had not been long enough in the Vale of Dingle to know how damaging to a man's reputation in the community such a suggestion would be. William flared up instantly. No one was going to be allowed to accuse him of being so irresponsible as to be soft on a pauper brat entrusted to his care. Was it not well known that if the discipline under which such vermin were held was for one second and by one iota relaxed the ungrateful brutes would revert to their natural condition of idle insubordination?

"Does he look spoilt?" he demanded fiercely grabbing David's flimsy shorts by their waste band and pulling them down to expose a rump, less plump and more tanned than those of the twins which flanked it, but bearing as they did clear evidence of a recent savage beating.

Challenged in this way Adam took a second or two to assess the evidence presented to him. He resented Williams' tone and would dearly have liked to argue the point with him but he had to admit, being a fair minded boy, that the evidence was against him doing so. Perhaps the brat's bottom was not so obviously bruised as Ian's and Duncan's but he recognised that the difference was more apparent than real. The deeply tanned skin of David's bum tended to hide bruising, especially the yellow/green discoloration associated with the deepest, while the almost egg white skin of the twin's plump little bottoms showed every mark clearly. However their rumps were all more or less equally marked with deep red, in places where the skin had been broken and blood flowed almost black, ridges scored across the tender flesh by the cane.

"Well," Adam said unwilling to give way to the other boy, "it doesn't seem fair to me that you give those two the probe up their bums and not this one."

"That's soon put right," William snapped angrily.

Forgetting Mr Wardle's wish to get the twins quickly out of the Range Rover, he thrust the point of the probe into the David's bottom.

Feeling the probe against his anus David reacted quite differently than the twins. It was more than six months since his indentures had been signed and he had been entrusted to the care of Mr Henry. Under such a keen and conscientious a disciplinarian he had long ago learnt the servile virtues of humility, obedience and acceptance. He had also quickly learnt that resistance of any sort would only lead to harsh but well deserved punishment. So he strained inwardly, opening his sphincter, to ease the probe's entry.

William being a high spirited boy with a keen sense of humour and wishing to show how at ease he was handling charity stock twisted the probe as he thrust it into the brat. Then when seven inches [18cm] or so were firmly sheathed he began vigorously to pump the slut's bottom. From the sounds coming from David, a series of grunts interspersed with the occasional high pitched squeal, he was finding the process far from wholly disagreeable. This changed instantly when William plunging the rod deeper than ever into the child triggered an electric shock. The gasps of lust became a single agonised shriek, David's body leapt and his legs, unconstrained now by the door of the cage lashed out. William just managed to jump clear of the boy's flailing feet.

"That's quite enough of that William," Jack said stepping quickly forward. Grabbing hold of one bare flailing leg he jerked David bodily clear of the cage. The brat's head bounced as it struck the floor of the Range Rover and then again as it hit the ground.

"I told you William I wanted that slut out of there so we could get on with things and get to the races. I don't know why you can't do as you were told."

Jack's words were harsh but Mark could tell from the tone of his voice that he was amused rather than angry. Jack was no doubt remembering the fun that they had had when they were young with the charity brats and he was not such a hypocrite as to be really angry with a boy who was only doing what he had done in the past. Allowances had to be made for youthful high spirits.

"Sorry Uncle Jack," William said grinning and not at all abashed, "but the slut did squeal didn't he."

"He did indeed William," Jack replied laughing in his turn his good humour fully restored.

"Do you think it's seriously hurt?" Mary Roberts asked looking down at the small still figure lying in the dirt at their feet, the child's thread bear shorts, his only covering, pulled down about his knees.

"Hurt," Jack Wardle laughed, it was charming he thought that she showed concern for something as unimportant as a charity brat but it also showed what a comparative newcomer she was to the Village. "Hurt dear lady. Don't concern yourself. It would take more than a couple of thumps to the head to hurt a brute like that. If the little shit is not up and about his work in a minute or two I'll soon rouse him with the lash. He's probably now just malingering. You have no idea how lazy these scum are."

"Now let's get this dirt out of the way," he continued landing a hefty kick in the side of the brat that lifted it clear of the back of the 4x4, "and Voles get the two little sluts out for us so that we can check the result of our experiment."

The chauffeur hauled Ian and Duncan from out of the back of the Range Rover. Prompted by some residual sense of modesty they both tried to hide their nakedness with their hands.

"Get your hands down by your sides filth," Jack Wardle shouted at them fiercely.

The two little sluts confused by the noise and people crowding round them seemed for the moment petrified by fright. They huddled together blubbing quietly. Jack Wardle with a life time experience of charity boys knew exactly how to deal with such a situation.

"By your sides. By your sides, you stupid turds," he roared once again.

With lightening speed he struck two sharp blows at their clasped hands with the short thick strap that was his constant companion and chief management tool. The double crack of leather against bare knuckles merged with the sluts' squeals of pain and their hands flew apart, modesty and pride banished.

"Generally," Jack remarked jovially, "there is a good deal of truth in the adage that all you have to do to get a slut to understand what is required is to shout loudly and hit it hard."

"Peter if you would just come and stand by these two brats so that we can compare your bum with theirs."

Peter, grinning broadly, stepped forward and lined himself up beside the twins. He was apparently not the slightest bit embarrassed by his nakedness nor put off by being asked to submit his bare bottom to inspection by the crowd of grown ups and fellow boys. Indeed the contrast between his easy self-confidence and the abject terror of the twins was a striking illustration of the chasm that divided free boys of the Vale of Dingle from the charity brats destined for a life of service.

"Now," Jack said addressing the assembled adults, "you will remember the nature and purpose of the experiment we set up yesterday. Its purpose was to form a judgement on the comparative efficacy of our own wound powder and the Ovingdean Grange Ointment. Very fortuitously these two brats were available with unmarked bottoms. We therefore had them soundly thrashed and treated one, the one with the yellow ear tag, with wound powder and the other, with the blue ear tag, with the ointment. As a control and to check that the two treatments had any effect at all John Thompson volunteered his son Peter, a boy of much the same age as these two animals, whose bottom was also very, unusually, unmarked. He was beaten but no medication was applied to his stripes."

"John as it is your son who forms one of the subjects of the experiment and you played so large a part in organising it would you care to join me reviewing the results."

"There is no doubt," John Thompson announced after a few seconds examination of the three boys' bottoms, "that the powder and ointment are both effective. Peter's untreated welts are considerably more raw than those of the two sluts."

"I can only agree with you," Jack Wardle remarked. "Indeed your son's bottom is so bruised and tender that I think we will have to postpone this morning's flogging of the boy. Otherwise I fear the first cut of the cane would tear the skin and the beating would finish his bum thoroughly bloodied. That wouldn't matter at all if he was a charity brat, there are always plenty of them running about with bloody rumps, but there is a prejudice against thrashing free boys beyond a certain point."

"Now the more difficult question. Which has been the more effective the Ovingdean Ointment or our own Wound Powder and don't forget we need to check where they were burnt with the candle under their arms and cut in the creases of their rumps."

The adults and free boys crowded round as the two men carefully checked the twins over. There was silence except for the occasional terse order from the men, "bend over", "spread your legs", "lift your arms", "stand still", and the whimpering of the sluts as the men's fingers probed their stripes and other wounds.

Out of the corner of his eye Mark saw David's small body, tattered shorts pulled down round his knees, his bare bottom liberally striped by the cane, lying face down in the dust, stir. The brat lifted his head, looking about himself in a puzzled way. Groggily he got himself up onto his knees and then laboriously pulling his shorts up over his rump, heaved himself to his feet. He stumbled uncertainly across to where William Smythe stood and squatted down at his young protector's feet. The animal had clearly been well schooled and knew that whatever abuse was visited on it its sufferings would be far worse if it showed any sign of anything else other than total submission. Mark was not surprised at this for he knew by reputation how stern a disciplinarian was Mr Henry to whom the slut had originally been indentured. Certainly William expected nothing less for he hardly spared a glance for the brat before turning his attention back to the examination of the twins.

Mark thought how well the two boys illustrated the basic assumptions on which the stable and tranquil life of the Vale of Dingle was founded. On the one hand the free boy confident in his superiority, on the other the pauper brat unquestioning in his acceptance of his subordination. No doubt the lot of a charity boy was a hard one but, he mused, the discipline to which he was subjected made him apt for the tasks required of him and was the foundation on which society, or at least the society of the Vale of Dingle, was based. Undermine that, loosen for one instance the heavy chains that bound the brats to their servitude, and the whole comfortable edifice would tumble into ruin.

Was it right anyway to give more weight to the sufferings of the brat than to the pleasures of its young protector? Was it not likely that the latter balanced or indeed outweighed the former? And if this was so of an individual brat and its protector was it not more so of the body of charity boys and society as a whole? Surely the idyllic tranquillity of the Vale of Dingle fully justified the harsh discipline imposed, especially if you considered the alternative; the lawlessness, the resentment, the incivility the general degradation of civil life that was the rule in the outside world.

Perhaps the lines of William Cowper mutatis mutandis were in point "I own I am shocked by the purchase of slaves And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves What I hear of their hardships, their tortures and groans Is almost enough to draw pity from stones. I pity them greatly but I must be mum For how could we do without sugar and rum."

Anyway were the charity boys so unhappy in their lot? It did not seem at least that David as he crouched at his protector's feet questioned or resented his treatment, ribbed though his body was by the marks of the cane. He, Mark would not accept it, neither no doubt would William Smythe, nor Adam Roberts and so on, but he and they were not charity boys. They had not been subjected to the training to which charity boys were. Nor had they been branded and cut and humiliated, regularly flogged and kept perennially hungry, as were charity boys. Schooling a brat you were more often than not working with the grain, as Jack had often explained to him. Maybe the occasional freshly indentured brat felt the same way as a free boy, resented the discipline and humiliations of his life in the same way and to the same extent. But was that a reason to spare him them? Rather it proved the need to break him to his lot and break him quick, illustrating the truism so often heard in the Vale of Dingle, that it was a false kindness to be soft with a charity boy.

Jack Wardle cleared his throat loudly bringing Mark's musings to an abrupt end.

"We have completed our examination of the two sluts," Jack solemnly announced, "and are agreed on our conclusions. Both the powder and the ointment are effective. However the powder is best at staunching and healing open cuts while the ointment is better at treating burns and deep bruising. Now really delightful and useful though this episode has been we must really be getting onto the races."

There was a general stir among the adults as they prepared to move off.

"It's a pity though," Mark heard a girl's voice remark behind him, "that one of the boys wasn't thrashed. It would have set the tone for the rest of the day."

Turning he saw Angela Thompson a look of wistful regret on her face. How quickly and well the girl had adapted to life in the Vale of Dingle and how pretty she looked. How unfortunate it was that her perfectly reasonable and understandable wish, for there was nothing more effective in quickening the blood and firing the imagination than watching a young boy's bottom being shredded by the cane, should be denied.

Fortunately young William Smythe also heard her words.

"We could thrash this turd of mine," he said prodding David in the rump with his bare toe. "He hasn't been flogged for more than twenty four hours so he's overdue a good hard thrashing and it doesn't matter if his bum's cut to pieces. He's only a charity brat."

"Uncle Jack, Sir, I've got time to bloody my brat's bottom haven't I. It'll only take five or ten minutes and Miss Thompson wants to watch."

There was a murmur as those standing around both adults and children added their voices to his pleas.

"Oh very well then," Jack said glancing at his watch, "but please get on with it. It would be very bad form to be late for the races. You can bend the slut over the tail gate of the Range Rover."

"Thanks Uncle Jack," William said cheerfully.

Grabbing David by the collar he dragged the now whimpering boy across to the rear of 4x4. Catching hold of the back of the brat's shorts with his free hand he half threw him head first into the rear of the Range Rover so that his legs were hanging free over the tail gate. Holding him in place with a hand on the small of his back he pulled David's shorts down his legs exposing the boy's bottom still liberally striped with welts from his earlier beating. The stripes and bruising though were not so pronounced as those that decorated the plump little bottoms of the two twins. This was partly because David's deeply tanned skin masked the discoloration. Also it was a tribute to the tough but healthy life imposed on the charity boys for young healthy flesh heals quickly and the boys worked hard and never indulged or overfed were resilient little brutes.

William stopped, looking about himself apparently at a loss. Brian Roberts saw immediately what was wrong.

"Nicky," he ordered his stepson, "run into the house and fetch the cane I saw hanging on the back of the kitchen door and bring it here to William. It looked like a good heavy one with plenty of bite and will rip the skin from that brat's bottom in short order."

The boy trotted off obediently enough and was quickly back again carrying a hefty four foot rod. Mark wondered though at his attitude. A strange boy he thought, quite unlike his step-sibling and the other free boys who were all grinning gleefully in happy anticipation of the promised entertainment. Nicky held the cane gingerly. He did not take practise swings with it as Mark was sure any other of the boys would have done, delighting in the feel of it in his hand and in making it sing in the air. It was almost as though he was frightened of it and he looked troubled and nervous as he handed the cane over to William. Of all the boys in their party he seemed to be the one who had not adjusted well to the ethos of the Village. He was a pretty boy though Mark thought a very good looking child with his taught young body, slim legs, dimpled rump and fresh innocent young face.

"Get a good grip on something filth," William thoughtfully ordered the whimpering brat. "If you roll off onto he ground while I'm flogging you I'll send you back to Mr Henry."

David hearing these dread words sought desperately for something to hold onto.

"Listen you misshapen lump of lard," Mr Henry had said to him, gripping him one handed by the crutch so tight that tears streamed from his eyes, to ensure that he paid attention. "I have to go away on business so I am giving you to my good Doctor Smythe to look after. I have told him that despite being a naturally lazy, stupid, selfish, stinking bit of unregenerated filth you can, if beaten, regularly do some simple tasks. You know very well shit face how I punish disobedience, ungratefulness, laziness, impertinence and all the other many faults that come naturally to charity scum like you. God knows, I've had to thrash and whip these faults out of your idle stubborn carcass often enough over the last nine months or so that you have been in my care."

Here Mr Henry tightened his grip of David's balls so much that the he would if he had dared have tried to break the man's grip. Failing this his legs gave way under him and he was held upright only by Mr Henry's grasp of his testicles.

"But I can tell you David," Mr Henry continued, "if you let me down while you are in Doctor Smythe's care, if I have a single complaint from him about your behaviour, all the punishments I have inflicted on you up to now will pale into insignificance compared to what you will then suffer."

Mr Henry had then released his grip of the boy's balls and deprived of this support David had collapsed to the ground his hands clasped to his crutch. Mr Henry had then delivered two sharp kicks to the side of David's head to make doubly sure that he remembered this message.

It was a testimonial to this method of boy management that David did indeed vividly remember this warning so that Willaim Smythe's threat to send him back to Mr Henry was a very effective one.

Terror was the usual and proper state of mind of a pauper boy, terror of the lash, terror of his betters, terror of the future, but David now had an additional and greater terror than all of these, terror of Mr Henry's anger. He had been consigned by the trustees for nine months to Mr Henry's care. In that time that excellent disciplinarian had fully justified his reputation as a trainer of charity boys. He had scourged every last vestige of pride and of that close cousin of pride, modesty, from the boy's mind. He had crushed the boy's spirit and schooled him into instant and unquestioning obedience. In the process David had been beaten many times by Mr Henry but never in anger. The strap had been applied with deliberate and nicely calculated ferocity as the boy had squirmed and howled under its touch. David was frightened, as a boy should be of his protector, of Mr Henry when he was unmoved by anger. The thought of Mr Henry beating him in anger was infinitely more terrifying.

William waited a moment, impatiently tapping his shin with the cane, while David scrabbled with his fingertips to find something to grip on the smooth floor of the Range Rover. David knew that he was going to be badly hurt. His bottom was still tender from the first beating he had from William Smythe and that one had left him with a very real respect for the strength of that young gentleman. He was conscious too of the audience gathered round him, the excited giggling of the boys and the hardly better concealed enthusiasm of the grown ups as they stared at his bare bum exposed and waited with keen expectation for the cane to be applied to it. All these though paled into insignificance compared to his terror of being handed back to an angry Mr Henry.

At last David's fingers found a narrow crack in the metal floor of the 4x4. He forced his fingertips into it desperate for purchase to anchor himself in place.

Mark was both surprised and impressed by the way the William had allowed David time to settle himself. It seemed to him to give the lie to the claim he had heard made on certain occasions that boys should not be placed in charge of brats as they could not be trusted to look after them properly. After all with Jack Wardle impatient to be off to the races, the eagerness of the onlookers both adults and boys for the entertainment to begin and his own evident and understandable excitement there must have been a considerable temptation to start flaying the child's bottom without delay. Instead Willoiam had chosen to delay the hiding merely to give the brat a better chance of avoiding the wrath of his Protector.

Now however it was clear that William felt the time had come to get down to business. He deliberately set himself to begin the thrashing of the slut's naked bottom so invitingly displayed for the cane. Advancing his left foot he laid the cane gently across the curve of the brat's bum. The muscles of David's bottom tensed at its touch, deepening the dimples on its sides. William raised the cane back over his right shoulder, paused and then cut downwards with all his strength. His right foot moved forward as he put his weight behind the blow. The sibilant hiss of the descending rod ended in a sharp crack as wood struck bare boy's flesh. David grunted and his shoulders and legs jerked upwards as the pain tore through his body emptying his lungs of air. There was a moment of total silence as he fought for breath.

"An absolute natural that boy," Jack Wardle said admiringly. "Did you see the way he followed follow through? A couple more cuts like that……"

His comments were cut short by David's delayed howl of pain. William raised the rod again for the second blow.

"Don't hurry it William," Jack advised raising his voice to be heard over the brat's sobs, "give it time. You want the little shit to feel every cut. Wait till the blood flows back into the stripe and it turns bright red. Better still wait till its edges begin to darken with bruising."

"O.K. Uncle Jack," William said cheerfully and brought the cane slashing down a second time to strike, the now screaming brat, full across the bum.

"And don't take any notice of the noise he's making." Jack continued with his advice. "Just a touch of the cane makes a slut howl."

The rich hiss of the descending cane, the explosive snap as it struck and bit into young flesh, the agonised screeches and broken pleas for mercy of the brat, the frantic drumming of his bare feet on the ground provided an arousing and dramatic accompaniment to Jack Wardle's measured advice.

"Rely on your eyes. They won't deceive you."

Crack

"A well marked bottom is a well beaten one."

Crack

"Lay it on hard. Plenty of follow through."

Crack

"Well done William. You've split the skin."

Crack

"Keep it up now don't slack off."

Crack

"Look how the little sod's bleeding now."

Crack

"You've certainly given him something to scream about"

Crack

How fortunate William and the other young people of the Vale of Dingle were to have so experienced and expert a mentor to instruct and encourage them in disciplining the charity boys destined for their service, Mark reflected. Strange though how the brats always in extremis called on their Mummies for help although it was usually their mothers who had given them up to the trustees and who had signed their indentures.

Mark glanced round the group of adults and boys watching the beating. He was struck by how they were all, men women and boys, were utterly absorbed by the excitement of the spectacle. Mouths half open, eyes glittering, hands clenched they gazed transfixed at the brat's agony. The only exception again was that strange boy Nicholas who looked almost as though he was on the verge of throwing up.

The slut's screams had now descended into a constant shrill keening. Its bottom was masked with blood that trickled down the back of its thighs. Each time the cane descended its impact sent a small haze of red droplets into the air where they glistened darkly in the sunlight.

"I think William you must stop now," Jack said, his regret at bringing so exciting an entertainment to an end clear in the tone of his voice. "We really must be getting on. We can leave the twins here locked in one of the kennels. A further eight hours or so without food will do them no harm at all."

"You boys had better get your shorts on. There'll be a lot of people about. William while they're doing that put some wound powder on the slut's stripes and then get it back in the cage in the back of the Range Rover. I don't want the little brute messing up my upholstery with his blood. Perhaps John and Brian you would care to follow me in your cars."

Chapter 9

Conversation in the Range Rover was dominated by the subject of the races and in particular by the chances of Jack Wardle's entry in the Corvo Cup. William Smythe seemed to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the breeding and form of all the teams of pony boys involved, the racing history of trainers and owners, the nerve and expertise of jockeys. He sat squashed up close to Mark chattering away enthusiastically. There were Mark gathered from his comments a record number of entries for the cup attracted both by the glory of winning and the substantial amount of prize money available. However there were only about six teams that had any sort of real chance and none of them were quite as good as Mr Wardle's Merlin and Lucifer and their jockey Richard Smythe.

Sir Robert's boys were fast and had achieved some good times during training but they did not have the stamina to cover the full fourteen mile [22½km] course. They tended to fade after the first eight miles [13km] or so and their jockey was as William frankly put it 'crap'. He had in William's opinion no sense, no judgement and no nerve. Mr Weatherill's team was a strong one and would last the course but they lacked a turn of speed and while their jockey was quite competent nothing he could do would overcome this advantage.

William ran on and on and Mark more or less closed his ears to the mass of names and statistics that tumbled from the boy when his attention was caught by a name he recognised. Ivan Oblonsky the great Russian magnate, some described him as the greatest kleptocrat of them all, whose extradition to Russia had been so firmly rejected by the Home Secretary only a matter of months ago. Mr Plonkett, who took a robust view of the justice systems of the third world and gloried in the number of destitute asylum seekers he returned to the regimes they had fled, showed a surprising and untypical tenderness for the rights of the fabulously wealthy Russian.

Oblonsky had bought a property in the Vale of Dingle and was apparently the joker in pack so far as the Corvo Cup was concerned. He had entered a team but nothing was known about it. William spoke of horse boxes arriving at Oblonsky's isolated manor house in the middle of the night, of grounds patrolled by security guards and German Shepherd dogs, of mysterious lights seen up on the Downs in the dead of night, of attempts to place massive bets and all sorts of other strange and sinister events.

"Ivan's not a bad chap," Jack remarked interrupting the boy's chatter. "He's fitted in well in the Vale and no doubt a lot of what William says can be put down to his nervousness about his personal security. I expect he's stepped on a lot of toes in the past and the Russian law enforcement agencies are anxious to talk to him as well. And he can't pull anything too startling out of the hat. He's got to stay within the weight and height limits or his team will simply be handicapped out of the race. We'll know soon enough what if anything he is up to when the weigh in takes place though I must say I do wish a bit more was known about his team, the mystery is playing the devil with the odds."

Mark wondered if his old friend's believe that the matter would be soon resolved was a trifle over optimistic. They had left the narrow lanes about Dingley Dell Manor and joined the main road from Muggleton to Mulligans Meadow where the race for the Corvo Cup was to be run. All the inhabitants of the Vale of Dingle appeared to be intending to watch the race and were making their way along this road. In addition a large number of the racing fraternity from away also planned to be there. Because of the appalling road links between Muggleton and the outside world, these latter had been obliged to take one of the special trains laid on for the day and on their arrival at the railway station had had to find some way of getting out to the race track. Some had chosen to walk the five miles [8km] but it was a hot day, the road was hard and crowded so only the young and energetic and impecunious had opted for this option. The rest, the vast majority, had decided to use whatever local transport was available.

The farmers and tradesmen of the vale were as quick to spot an opportunity to make money and as eager to take full advantage of it as anyone. There was no one of them who had a trap however gimcrack and a couple brats to put between its shafts, however broken and starved they might be, who was not by dawn of race day part of the throng in the station yard awaiting the arrival of the first excursion train of the day from London.

All these, the cars, the traps, the pedestrians plus the crowds of brats carrying all manner of supplies for their betters enjoyment, were crowded on to this single road. Voyle eased the Range Rover out into the stream of traffic and began to try to work his way forward. As before the brats, in coffles or singly, scattered at his approach but the other road users were not so helpful. This was especially so of the drivers of hired traps. They were only interested in whipping their brats on so that they could drop off their current passengers and hurry back to the station to pick up another load of fare paying race-goers. The road was a cacophony of noise, Voyle revved his engine and sounded his horn, drivers cursed and cracked their whips, brats groaned with effort as they strained at the shafts of overloaded traps and squealed as the lash nipped at their bare shoulders and rumps.

Eventually the Range Rover came to a complete halt behind a shabby two wheeled cart that had clearly spent the previous twelve months stored in the back of some farm shed. It was covered with cobwebs and splattered with mildew. All Mark could only see, from his seat in the 4x4, of the passengers were the backs of two very fat children, a boy and a girl, perched up on the dicky at the rear of the trap, their plump buttocks bulged over the back of the narrow seat. Occasionally the whole vehicle would jerk sharply and the two children, the girl in a pink beribboned frock and the boy in a sailor suit with short trousers would grab hold of the sides of the seat while wobbling jelly like on their fat bottoms.

Voyle edged up closer and closer to the rear of the cart sounding the horn with increasing persistence. The two children scowled back at them from their perch at the back of the trap, fat bad tempered faces damp with perspiration.

"Oh God," groaned Jack Wardle, "We'll never make it in time for the start of the race at this pace. Come on Mark let's see what the trouble is."

Jack jumped out of the Range Rover and began to make his way round the side of the stationary wagon. Outside the protective cocoon of the Range Rover with its air conditioning he was struck by the heat and the noise. The sun, now almost directly over head, beat down on the road. The asphalt was soft under his feet. The hot air was heavy with petrol fumes. To the normal traffic sounds heard all over England were added those peculiar to the Vale of Dingle. The roar of car engines, the tooting of horns the scream of brakes mingling with the shouted curses of the carters, the sharp cracks of their whips and the cries of the brats. In addition, this being a holiday with passengers bent on pleasure on the brat drawn wagons and pedestrians similarly inclined mingling in the traffic, there was a good deal of shouted repartee and laughter.

It occurred to Mark that this must have been what travelling was like, a lively common social experience, before the motor car turned the process into lonely drudgery. In this as in so much else things seemed to be arranged better in the Village than elsewhere in the modern world.

The cart he could see was heavily loaded. On the floor of the cart, in front of the two children, who appeared even fatter viewed from the side, was a substantial hamper presumably containing their provisions for the day together with two dozen cans of lager and a dozen cans of Guineas. These competed for space with the legs of two mountainous adults who sat facing each other their vast bodies crammed into two small seats just behind where the driver sat in the front of the cart.

The driver was a heavily built man but heavy with muscle not, unlike his passengers, fat. He was wearing a greasy cap pulled down over one eye and a jacket and trousers from what had been once two separate suits. The one thing these two garments had in common was that they were made of considerably heavier material than the heat of the day demanded.

These clothes, together with his thick flannel shirt and weather beaten countenance, identified him as one of the small holders who farmed a few poor acres in the shadow of the downs. There a band of heavy clay appeared at the bottom of the chalk escarpment resulting in a strip of sour ill drained soil on which reeds and thistles seemed to thrive and little else. The men who scratched a living from this land were reputed to be as hard and as ungenerous as the soil they tilled. Judging by his appearance this example of the breed lived well up to that reputation.

At that moment he was standing upright in the trap in order the better to slash with his whip at one of a pair of the scrawniest pauper brats Mark had ever seen. They were, Mark supposed somewhere between fourteen and sixteen years old. It was difficult to judge the age of such boys accurately because, being half starved, they developed slowly. Some slight effort had been made to clean them up before putting them between the shafts that morning but the perfunctory scrubbing that they had been given could not rid of the ingrained filth accumulated over years of labour in the fields. In fact Mark doubted if any amount of scrubbing would ever get them clean. The dirt in which they toiled day after day seemed to have to have permeated their very skin and flesh and become part of them.

It was clear that the boys had been worked hard and this was far from the first load of passengers they had hauled to the race ground that day. Blood oozed from the cuts in their shoulders where the traces had galled their flesh. They were near exhaustion. Mark could see from their skinned knees that they had both gone down more than once. The brat who was getting the whip at that moment was down again on his hands and knees. Each time the lash ripped down across his already bleeding shoulders he would struggle again to rise, throwing his weight against the traces that had rubbed his shoulders raw, rocking the trap but failing to move it even an inch forward.

"You're not getting very far forward," Jack Wardle remarked mildly to the driver of the trap.

"No," he replied suspending for the moment the use of his whip, "only time I get a chance to make some extra cash and the buggers let me down. Typical of the ungrateful tykes. They spend the whole year eating their heads off and then refuse to do any real work."

"How many trips have you done today?"

"This is only the fourth load they've had to draw today," the man said indignantly.

Mark was impressed. It was five miles [8km] from the station to Mulligan Meadows where the races were run. The arithmetic was simple a total of forty miles [64km] half of them with the trap loaded. The man must have got the knack of getting work out of pauper boys.

"You know you're holding everybody up behind you?"

"I can't do a bloody thing about that if the brutes won't move," the man replied heatedly bringing his whip cracking down across the boy's shoulders no doubt to add emphasis to his point.

"It might help if you lightened the load they had to draw," Jack suggested mildly.

"I suggested that to him," the driver nodded at his male passenger, "but he wouldn't have any of it."

"I paid ten pounds to you," the fat man shouted indignantly the jowls in his large moon like face shaking with indignation, "to carry me and my wife and the picnic and the kids to the race track. I'm not getting down and walking. Why don't you get down. They're your brats and you said………"

"Shit that I'm not walking," the driver replied angrily, "I don't keep these idle brutes so that I can take walks with them………"

"Well why don't you get the children to walk for a bit," Mark suggested mildly. He had noted that their father had placed them after the picnic in the list of things that were to be carried to the races and thought that this suggestion might represent a reasonable compromise. He was mistaken.

"Let the kids walk!" screamed the woman indignantly, "and have them assaulted by paedophiles or kidnapped. Maybe that's what you want to get your hands on them you filthy brute. Yes that's it you're a nonce. Both of you are. It's a plot to lay your hands on our kids."

Jack caught Mark's eye and nodded. Together they made their way to the very front of the trap. Bending they each took hold of the end of a shaft. Lifting they got the brats back on their feet. Encouraged by cracks of the whip the boys lent into their traces. The rap began to move slowly forward.

"Thank you gents," the driver shouted, his contempt for two men who would lower themselves by helping charity boys implicit in his tone.

A moment later his jeers turned to a shout of rage as the two men guided the cart onto the grass verge.

"What the hell are you bloody doing," he screamed as Jack and Mark let go of the shafts.

The two men did not reply. The brats managed a further pace forward before, deprived of the men's help they collapsed to their knees. Voyle edged the Range Rover forward. When it was level with them Mark and Jack Wardle jumped in. Laughing they turned to wave at the enraged occupants of the trap as they drew away.

"I paid ten pounds and I'm not walking," said Jack in a passable imitation of the fat man's voice.

"I can't do anything about it if the brutes won't move," Mark chimed in, in the Kentish burr of the small holder.

"It's a plot to lay your hands on our kids." Jack's said in a shrill falsetto.

They all laughed uproariously.

"He's using the whip on the two brats again," William cried excitedly looking out of the rear window.

Even Voyle joined in the laughter that followed.

They were still laughing heartily at this comical interlude when Voyle swung the Range Rover past the two policemen guarding the entry to the owner's enclosure.

"Right," Jack said once his party had all scrambled out of the cars, "there's an hour before the Corvo Cup is due to be run. If you like to go over there to the marquee flying my racing colours, the one flying the blue and white flag over on the right, the serving boys will give you drinks and nibbles. I'm a vice-president so I need just to stroll round and check things are going all right before the weigh-in in half an hour. Mark would you like to keep me company."

"Frankly Mark," he continued quietly as they strolled away, "I'm a bit on edge with this race coming up and I'd find it difficult to just chat and hang round till it gets underway. Best to keep occupied."

They wandered from enclosure to enclosure, owners, members, silver ring, public, all steadily filling with crowds of excited race-goers. Where ever they went people hailed Jack, shook his hand, enquired after his team and its chances and wished him luck. Some knew Mark from his many visits to the vale over the years and he too was involved in their chat.

They were in the public enclosure. Jack Wardle was talking to one of his tenant farmers in that easy jovial manner that was typical of him when a large florid man dressed in a tweed suite with a pair of binoculars bumping on his right hip bore down on them.

"Jack," this individual said cheerfully, "good to see you my dear chap. Doing your duty I can see."

"Pleasure really," Jack replied, "I don't think you've met my friend Bill Smithers. Bill this is Sir Robert Graham. He owns a very well fancied team in the Corvo Cup."

"Not half as well fancied as yours I fear," Sir Robert replied a little tersely. He was not too pleased at being formally introduced to a tenant farmer. He had, as Jack explained to Mark later in the day, made his money in the city and didn't know how things were done in the country. "And now Jack I was intending to check the brat pen before the weigh in takes place. I feel that as we are going to have a couple of hundred of the brutes crammed in there in idleness for the better part of the day I had better ensure that they are being kept properly in order. Perhaps as a fellow vice-chairman you might care to accompany me."

"Of course I will. Mark come along with us. Sir Robert this is Mark Legg an old friend if mine."

Sir Robert subjected Mark to a keen inspection and then apparently deciding he was socially acceptable stuck out his hand with a muttered "howdyedo".

"We have a large number of charity boys employed in carrying food and drink and other supplies to the races." Jack explained as Mark fell into step beside the two other men. "Rather than having them wandering about over the countryside after they have made their deliveries we put them in a secure compound for the day and then release them into the care of their protectors. No doubt there is the potential for trouble with so many crowded together in idleness but we have a good number of auxiliary police cadets on duty there and they keep the vermin in order."

Mark could well believe this was so. The cadets were recruited from the biggest and toughest of the brats when they reached the age of sixteen. They had authority only over the charity boys but they exercised that with exemplary enthusiasm and brutality just as in the Army the most exacting of disciplinarians are those who have risen from the ranks.

The brat pen was about a fifty yard [45m] square of bare ground surrounded by a high chain linked fence topped with a double strand of barbed wire. It was situated on the opposite side of the course to the spectator enclosures some way down the slope of the meadow. The three men strolled down towards it. Once away from the dappled shade of the row of gigantic chestnut trees that lined the public road the sun beat down on them with the fierce heat of high summer. The pen with almost an hour to the weigh in was already crowded with boys and more were arriving by the minute. Despite the heat, the absence of water and the fact that most of the brats had had to carry heavy loads five miles [8km] or more to get there, the boys in the pen were noisy clearly excited by the prospect of what to them passed as a holiday. They pushed up against the fence, jostling each other, staring out at the outside world, a crowd of chattering naked and near naked brown skinned brats.

Outside the compound order reigned. The auxiliary police cadets, in their uniform of highly polished black ammunition boots, maroon hose tops, immaculate white shorts, black webbing belts and black forage caps trimmed with silver braid marshalled the brats as they arrived. They herded them towards the single small gateway to the pen with frequent heavy blows across bare shoulders and naked rumps with the short three foot staves that they all carried and used with commendable force.

At the gateway two senior auxiliaries processed the brats before releasing them into the pen. A few brief questions, a couple of streaks of coloured paint slapped on the slut's face or bare chest and he was sent on his way with a sharp boot up his bum. Brief though the process was in each individual case repeated over and over again it took time giving the cadets ample opportunity to show off their toughness and keenness by cracking the heads of the pauper boys as they waited their turn.

"What's the paint for?" Mark asked.

"Speed up identification of the sluts at the end of the day. They slap on the racing colours of the brats' protectors. It quickens things up when it comes to releasing them back into our care. So when Tom the groom or whoever goes to get my boys when the races are over he just takes all those with white and blue stripes on them," Jack explained.

"The brats like it too," Sir Robert laughed at the simplicity of the little brutes. "They all support their protectors teams and they seem to think the colours on their filthy carcasses somehow identifies them with the teams. Can't see any harm in it myself."

Indeed Mark as they drew nearer the pen became aware that the shrill noise coming from it which he had thought initially was simple shouting was in fact rather disorganised chanting. Disorganised because a dozen or more different slogans were being yelled simultaneously by the brats. Even as he made this discovery the nature of the chanting changed. A naked boy his chest smeared with blue and white paint let out a piercing shriek as he caught sight of Jack Wardle. Pointing he screamed at the top of his voice WarDULL, WarDULL. Soon a couple of dozen brats all with blue and white streaks painted on them had joined in this chant. At the same time a similar number of boys, all bearing red and black streaks, began to yell Sir RoBURT Sir RoBURT. Bunched together in their respective gangs they shouted their individual slogans each group being intent on not being outdone in volume or enthusiasm.

Jack walked over to talk to the two auxiliary policemen manning the gate. There the noise was intense.

"The sluts are in good voice today," he remarked good humouredly.

"They'll quieten down soon enough Sir," the man replied snappig to attention and saluting. "An hour or two out in this sun with no water will do that," and he laughed grimly.

"Any of Mr Oblonsky's sluts arrived here yet?" asked Jack casually.

"No Sir. None at all. I remember noticing that specially a couple of minutes ago. Funny thing that Sir. You'd expect an owner like him to have a big party with him and to want to have all sorts of stuff brought down in advance to entertain them. All the other owners have pretty well but not him."

While Jack talked to the auxiliary policeman Mark had been watching the boys in the pen. The two groups of supporters had quickly turned from simply shouting their support of their teams to deliberately provoking each other. The two gangs had turned to face one another and were with increasing hysteria screaming abuse at each other. Two leaders had emerged, one smeared with blue and white paint the other with black and red, who pranced in front of their followers, sticking their chests out and their heads forward, daring each other to come on like two game cocks squaring up for a fight. They would dance forward, their bums stuck out behind them, their hands down by their sides, until they were almost touching each other before backing off at the last moment. Then suddenly they went for each other and they were rolling about on the ground in a flurry of naked limbs.

In an instance two cadets were through the gate and into the pound. They dragged the brats apart. Keeping a firm hold of their collars they laid into the squirming sluts with their batons.

"Have the little brutes brought here," Jack ordered the auxiliary policeman, raising his voice to be heard over the thump of wooden staves against bare flesh and the howls of the boys as they were beaten.

"I don't know Robert how you feel," he added in quieter tones, "but as they seem to want to fight maybe we should give them the opportunity to do so. It would give our guests something amusing to watch before the races."

"Excellent idea," Sir Robert replied, "they seem to be a couple of well grown young animals quite strong enough to give some good sport."

As the two men were talking the Auxiliary Policeman had yelled orders two the two cadets to lay off the brats and get them out of the pen. Immediately the boys were dragged out by their collars.

"Yes," Jack remarked casting a critical eye over the two sluts, "they'll do very nicely."

Mark could not see anything special in the two young animals. They seemed to him no different from dozens of others of their sort. Tough little crop haired tykes, healthy if rather on the scrawny side, their bodies deeply tanned by the sun, they struggled in the grip of the two cadets mouthing threats and defiance at each other.

Without warning Jack cuffed the boy with the blue and whte stripes on the side of his head so hard that his knees crumpled under him and he would have fallen had he not been held by one of the cadets.

"That's enough of that turd," he snapped, "stop that at once. Safe your strength for when you're told to fight."

The boy immediately became quiet. Once Sir Robert had taken similar action to quell his brat the three men turned to stroll back up the course to the owners' enclosure the two brats following, to all appearances, quietly. However Mark noticed the two of them taking sly hacks at each others bare legs as they trotted along behind their betters.

They found the Thomsons and the Roberts's together with Anne Wardle and Megan inside the marquee chatting away animatedly with other guests of Jack Wardle. Among the throng of ladies in their summer frocks and men, some in suits, some in casual wear, all immaculately turned out, moved bare foot serving brats carrying trays of food and drink. Other brats carrying champagne bottles moved from group to group constantly refilling glasses. These serving boys dressed in spotless white shifts that left their arms bare and hardly covered their rumps, with their golden limbs glistening with health and their hair brushed and burnished till it shone were among the prettiest and most perfect specimens of their kind that Mark had ever seen. He glanced over at the two boys that Jack and Sir Robert had collected from the brat pen and who were standing just behind the two men shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Dressed in ragged shorts with their strong young bodies stained with dust and sweat they looked utterly out of place.

Certainly it seemed Anne Wardle thought them so for catching sight of them she fell suddenly silent before turning on her brother-in-law.

"What have you brought those two animals in here for Jack," she demanded in a loud voice that could be heard by everybody in the marquee including the two brats to which she was referring. "You know how much trouble I've had finding sluts suitable for domestic work and then getting them cleaned up and keeping them that way let alone training them. It's bad enough having to rely on the sort of scum we have to tolerate in the house without having you bringing filth like that into the place."

Mark thought that Anne and Jack were beginning to sound more and more like man and wife. He wondered if in fact there was something in the idea. Certainly they seemed, apart from the occasional spat that seemed to be an unavoidable concomitant of domestic life, very well suited and Anne clearly found the social customs of the Vale congenial.

"Sir Robert and I brought them up dear because we thought we could use them to provide a little entertainment for our guests before the race is run," Jack said in such mild and emollient tones that Mark's suspicions were further confirmed.

"Well all right," said Anne reluctantly, "I suppose this isn't the Manor but after we've finished with them they must go straight back to where they belong. I'm not going to have filth like that in here, God knows what diseases they, carry nasty little beasts."

"All right dear I certainly don't want the smelly brutes round us more than necessary especially while we're eating."

"Now Ladies and Gentlemen, friends," Jack said raising his voice over the chatter and the clink of glasses, "we have about forty five minutes before the weigh-in and my old friend Sir Robert and I propose to entertain you by staging a good old fashioned brat fight."

This announcement was greeted by an appreciative murmur together with some desultory clapping.

"If you ladies and gentlemen" he continued as the applause died away, "will just stand clear of the centre of the marquee. You brats, don't stand around gaping. Four of you, get chairs for the ladies and put them in a square and two chairs facing each other in opposite corners and a couple of buckets filled with water and white napkins, quickly. The rest of you see that the champagne keeps flowing."

In a few minutes a passable ring had been created in the middle of the marquee. The ladies took their seats on the chairs around the ring, the free boys sat on the ground in front of them with their legs crossed and the men sat on such chairs as remained or took station behind the ladies.

"Sir Robert perhaps you will act as second for your brat and I will do the same with mine. We need a neutral referee to decide on the winner, a young lady would be nice, Angela if you would be so good."

"Well you all know that what you need to stage a good fight is a couple of strong young brats with a bit of aggression in them and Sir Robert and I were fortunate enough to come across just the sort we need. And here they both are, come on you two lumps of filth stand forward and let the ladies and gentleman have a look at you."

The two boys stepped obediently forward and stood staring bashfully at the ground, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Jack bent down and without warning taking hold of the waste bands of the lad's ragged shorts, one in each hand, jerked them savagely downwards over the curve of their rumps. The boys knew enough to make no attempt to grab at their shorts or to try to cover themselves with their hands. Hanging their heads they patiently submitted themselves to the inspection of the crowd of smartly dressed men and women. Mark thought he saw for one brief moment a slight flush deepen the dusky red of one child's cheek. He resolved to mention to Sir Robert the need to give his brat some further additional instruction in the need for willing submission to its betters. That could however be left for later, now was not the time to interrupt the entertainment for such a comparatively minor matter as the schooling of some half-starved pauper brat.

"There you are ladies and Gentlemen our two champions, Sir Robert and mine. Maybe not up to the standard of the knights of old who jousted for a ladies love," he continued jovially to a ripple of laughter from his audience for indeed it was a ridiculous comparison, two naked urchins to the flower of medieval chivalry, "but we must put up with what we can get in these days. Sir Roberts cause is represented by the little brute marked with the red and white stripes mine by the one bearing the blue and white markings."

"Bring me the gloves." A brat hurried forward and handed Jack Wardle two pairs of what at first sight might have been mistaken for old and very stained boxing gloves. On closer inspection though you could see that they were both less thickly padded and somewhat lumpier than the standard boxing glove and that there was the occasional glint of metal as the light caught them

"Most of you are familiar with these," Jack Wardle said holding the gloves up so that all could see them. "They are the Dingle Vale equivalent of the Roman caestus which consisted of strips of raw hide wound round a boxers wrists and hand and weighted with balls of lead or iron. They were designed to break bones. Ours, in accordance with our enlightened and kindly attitude to our dependants, are far lighter and kindlier instruments designed merely to tear skin and mangle flesh rather than to smash jaws or temples."

"You two," his voice took on the hard contemptuous edge that was appropriate for addressing charity boys, "were keen enough on fighting each other now is your chance to show your betters how tough and brave you are. And I want a clean fight; no hitting below the belt; no kicking; no biting; no gouging. You will be fighting for the honour of each of your protectors Sir Robert and myself and we will each measure the devotion and love that you bear to us by how hard and bravely you fight for us."

There was suppressed tittering form the audience of well-dressed ladies and men. Indeed it was ridiculous to talk to two naked charity brats of such things as a clean fight or honour or bravery or devotion or love. However the two brats took it all very seriously scowling fiercely at each other obviously working themselves up into a rage in advance of the fight.

"Can I suggest Mr Wardle," Angela said quietly that as the referee of this fight I award a prize to the boy I judge to be the winner."

"What do you have in mind for a prize?" Jack Wardle asked.

"I will give the winning boy this," Angela stepped briskly over to the trestle table on which the coffee cups were ranked and took a box of after eight chocolates from it holding it out in front of her.

Mark saw the eyes of the two brats widen as they caught sight of the box and wondered again at Angela Thompson's instinctive understanding of the charity boy mentality. The two boys would no doubt fight hard for their protector's honour especially as they knew that their performance would be used as a measure of their love and devotion and any perceived shortfall in these would be made painfully good on their carcasses. But for chocolate any charity brat would gladly sell its soul, supposing that is the little brute had a soul; which seemed highly improbable. There wasn't a brat who had not vivid memories of its sweet addictive taste from the time before being taken into the protection of the trustees. Of course it was unthinkable that money should be squandered on providing such luxuries for pauper children. Nevertheless the memory lingered among the brats. It was amusing to see the longing, hopeless glances a free child eating a chocolate bar would attract from any charity boy who saw him. Even more so to observe the way brats passing the sweet shop in the high street, with its jars of lemon sherberts and bull's eyes and stacks of chocolate bars temptingly arrayed in the window would linger outside, hungrily eyeing the goodies on offer until some one sent them on their way with a blow or a kick. If anything would get the boys fighting even harder than the honour of their protectors it was the promise of chocolate for the winner.

"Very good," Jack Wardle said acknowledging this. "Four minute rounds give and take a bit if things are getting interesting, two minute intervals for patching up, any boy that goes down for a count of ten is out. Now boys into your corners and come out fighting when Miss Angela gives the word."

Jack Wardle and Sir Robert seated themselves on the two chairs at opposite corners of the makeshift ring and drew their naked boy champions onto their knees. Dipping the napkins into the buckets of water they sponged the dirt off the boy's faces and pressed the cloths to the children's lips. The boys sucked gratefully on the damp linen, it was probably the first drink they had had since setting off for the race ground in the early morning. Even as the two boys drew on the wet napkins they kept their eyes fixed on Angela Thompson watching the signal to begin their fight.

The chatter in the marquee died away and was replaced with an expectant hush as all eyes focused on the ring the two grubby naked sluts and the young woman cool and elegant in her summer frock. Mark liked boys and usually enjoyed looking at them but Angela standing there, the only thing betraying her excitement the bright glitter in her hazel eyes, on this occasion held his gaze. How quickly and well had the girl adjusted to the ethos of the Vale, how thoroughly she understood the working of the brat mind, how naturally calm and in control of the situation she was.

Angela glanced quickly at Sir Robert and then Jack Wardle. Both men nodded briefly and she brought her hands together in front of her silently signalling the beginning of the fight. The two men tumbled the boys off their knees onto the floor.

Jumping to his feet Jack dragged the strap, his constant companion and boy motivator, from his trouser pocket and urged his champion into the fray with a savage slash across his bare bottom. Sir Robert sent his slut bounding forward into the attack with a boot up his bum. Not that either of the brats needed much encouragement. They went at each other with all the enthusiasm of two little bantam cocks determined to decide who would be king of the dung heap. There was no science or skill in their fighting and no attempt by either of them at defence. They went for each other fists flailing intent on landing blows and inflicting damage on each other regardless of their own injuries.

The hush that had fallen before the fight began was replaced by a hubbub of noise from the crowd of spectators shouting and whistling and stamping their feet as they urged the two brats on. The cries of encouragement rose in volume and enthusiasm as the boys landed blow after blow on each others faces with their weighted gloves their metal studded backs ripping skin and pulverising tender young flesh. A lucky blow splayed Sir Robert's boy's nose releasing a fountain of blood. He didn't flinch but fought back desperately and a second later he caught the other boy with a heavy punch full on the mouth splitting both lips rocking the child back on his heels spitting out blood and a broken tooth. He took full advantage of his opponent's discomfiture, boring in varying his attack with a series of blows to the ribs and solar plexus. Jack's boy fought back valiantly but he had been badly shaken by the blow on his mouth and the other brat gave him no respite, smashing blow after blow into his body.

A particularly vicious blow slammed into his stomach and he crumpled at the knees falling forward to the ground. Angela moved forward pushing the other boy away from his fallen opponent and began her count. The boy was not yet ready to give up. At three the he was back on his knees wiping blood from his face with the back of his gloves. The crowd screamed and yelled at him to get up. He got his feet under him and began unsteadily to stand up. At that moment the other boy, who had crept forward unnoticed by Angela as she concentrated on the count, pounced on him before he was fairly on his feet landing a cracking blow on his ear. The boy went down again and Angela resumed the count. She had reached eight and the boy was still on his hands and knees when Jack stepped forward and slipping his hand under the boy's collar at the back of his neck hauled him upright.

The boys stood, his hands hanging down by his sides, his head lolling on his neck clearly still dazed. The very crowd who had howled at him to get back to his feet was now screaming at the other boy to get in and finish the job off. Jack released his hold of the brat's collar. The boy wobbled on his feet but remained standing. Angela signalled for the fight to start again. Sir Robert's boy seeing his opponent apparently defenceless stepped eagerly forward. He landed three hard blows to his opponent's head before the boy again began to crumple at his knees. Before he reached the ground Angela had called time for the end of the first round. Mark thought that the round had not lasted four minutes but he supposed Angela had brought it to an end to give Jack a chance to get his boy back on his feet and to prolong the fight that the crowd, judging from the buzz of excited chatter and laughter that rose round the ring, was enjoying so much. Certainly, he reflected as he watched Jack grab his brat as he fell and drag him back to his corner the rules seemed to be somewhat flexible.

"You" Jack snapped at a serving boy, as balancing the naked semiconscious brat on his knee, "get the wound powder from the glove compartment of the Range Rover and bring it here. Quick."

"I'll at least be able to stop the useless runt bleeding with it," he explained to Mark as he steadied the boy with an arm round his stomach while he swabbed the blood from his face. "Ah he's coming back to rejoin us I think," he added as the boy stirred on his knee and moved his head in an attempt to stop Jack touching his open cuts.

"Listen turd," he snarled shifting his grip to the brat's balls and squeezing them hard to ensure he had his full attention, "you're as useless at fighting as anything else but I am not going to allow you just to take the easy way out. If you go down once more I'll send you back to your Mummy and Daddy to deal with because you're no good to me. Now here's the wound powder. Put your head back and keep still."

"Oh for God's sake." Jack snapped as the boy squealed and squirmed as the powder burnt in his open wounds, "Mark grab hold of his chin would you and hold his head steady for me."

Jack was sill cursing the boy and working wound powder into his cuts when Angela signalled the beginning of the next round. Jack stood up and grabbing hold of his brat with one hand between the back of its legs and the scruff of the neck with the other hurled it bodily at the other boy as he advanced for the kill. The brat landed just short of his opponent. He managed to keep on his feet but the momentum behind him kept him running straightforward into the other boy who managed to hook a single blow into his face before being brought tumbling to the floor in a flurry of naked limbs.

All Jack's adjurations calling for a clean fight were now clearly forgotten as the two naked boys rolled about on the ground scratching, kicking and biting as opportunity arose while the crowd of smartly dressed race-goers laughed and cheered them on. Jack and Sir Robert, cursing loudly, hopped round the ring dodging the two boys' flailing limbs. In a vane attempt to separate the brats Jack lashed at them with his belt while Sir Robert kicked out indiscriminately with his stout brogues at the squirming jumble of bare boy bodies. At last Jack managed to get a grip the boys by their collars. He hauled then to their feet and tore them apart.

"I said fight clean you stupid runts," he shouted holding the two boys at arms' length. "Now get on with it and stay on your feet so the ladies and gentleman can enjoy watching the fight."

To give emphasis to his words he banged the two brats' heads together with sickening force. He released his grip of the boys' collars and they stood for a moment wobbling unsteadily on their feet, obviously dazed by the clash of heads, before resuming their attempts to hammer each other into submission with their fists. It was clear though that their strength was failing them. The blows were slow in coming and lacked their original sting. Sometime one or other of the boys would simply stand panting his hands hanging down by his side apparently unable to lift his fists. The best efforts of Jack and Sir Robert, ably seconded with vigorous applications of the strap and boot, did not succeed in bring the contest alive again.

There was the rising sound of the murmur of voices punctuated by the occasional laugh and the clink of glasses as the audience lost interest and began to chat among themselves. Mark noticed young William Smythe, beckoning his naked slut David to follow him, slide unobtrusively from the marquee, no doubt to seek more lively entertainment elsewhere.

Angela brought the round to a premature end and Sir Robert and Jack worked hard on their boys to revive the aggression that was so evident and such a source of entertainment earlier. They threatened and cajoled while bathing the brats cut and bruised faces and holding soaking flannels to their parched lips but it made no difference. The life had gone out of the fight and recognising this Angela brought it to an end.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," she shouted and the crowd fell silent, "it is my task to decide which of these two young brutes, Mister Jack Wardle's or Sir Robert Graham's is the winner of this contest and to award to the winner the promised prize of chocolate. I have decided," and she paused as the two sluts turned their blood stained faces to her expectantly, "that the fight was so hard fought and so even that I cannot say there was a winner. I am therefore going to give each of them a packet of chocolate mints."

She paused. There was a murmur of surprise from the audience who had expected that the announcement of the draw would be made an excuse for withholding the prize altogether. Indeed there was disapproval as well as surprise for did not such generosity come dangerously near spoiling the brats? The two urchins faces split with the biggest and happiest of grins. It was an interesting illustration Mark reflected of the truth expressed by the ancient Persian poet who wrote "A mouse that prayed for Allah's aid Blasphemed when no such aid befell A cat who feasted on that mouse Thought Allah managed vastly well."

"And now," Angela continued picking up a box of After Eights in each hand, "you two brats come here."

The two naked boys their faces and chests streaked with their own and each other's blood shuffled forward. Grinning bashfully they held out their hands for their prizes.

"No," Angela said holding the boxes out of their reach, "you have to give me a kiss, both of you, if you want these."

A gasp ran round the crowd of watching adults. Clearly some at least thought this was going too far. The boys though threw their arms around Angela's neck as she bent down towards them lifting their faces to hers. She gave them each a long hard kiss on the lips before handing them the small boxes of chocolates. Straightening she wiped the boys' blood from her lips with the back of her hand.

"Now," she said swinging them round and sending them on their way with two sharp kicks up their bums, "get back to the other filth where you belong."

The brats had the boxes of mints open even before they reached the door of the marquee and were stuffing chocolates into their mouths as fast as they could.

"Greedy little brutes," "filthy scum," and other comments came from the crowd as the brats left. Its good humour however had been restored. It recognised Angela's apparent spoiling of the brats to be, what indeed it was, a tease.

It was at this moment that William Smythe hurried into the marquee his face red with excitement.

"Uncle Jack," he announced his voice shrill with outrage, "Ivan Oblonsky's team of pony boys has arrived and they're black and they're not boys. They are," his voice rose to a falsetto squeak so strong were his emotions, "GIRLS."

Chapter 10

Then Sir Robert broke the shocked silence.

"Jack," he exclaimed almost incoherent with outrage, "this must be stopped. You and I are vice-presidents of the races we must go at once and tell Oblonsky that we will not tolerate this departure from tradition and he must withdraw his entry."

"I don't know if we should do anything too precipitate," Jack Wardle said in more measured tones. "Indeed I do not know if we can force Ivan to withdraw his team. The rules under which the race is run specify the course and prescribes a complicated handicapping system for teams exceeding certain weight and height limits but I think they are silent on the colour or sex of the teams and then there's the race and sex discrimination acts. You know we like to remain within the law when we can."

"But tradition……"

"Well tradition can't take precedence to the law and so far as race is concerned we already have Mr Patel and his family as valued members of our community. Look at the various ventures he has set up keeping the charity scum busy and out of mischief. I was chatting to him the other day and he tells me he has received an order from a merchant in Delhi for footballs. He is now working the boys so hard that he is able to undercut Indian labour costs. Admittedly he has not yet submitted one of his sons to the trustees for acceptance as a charity boy but he tells me he is very concerned about his second boy Imji. Complete lack of moral fibre, apparently begged him to let a brat off a thrashing just because the rat was crying and saying he was sorry. And I tell you Sir Robert, as I told the boy's father I'd be glad to take Imji if he is offered, a pretty little chocolate coloured slut."

"William you're quite sure about this. Not that his team is black, that they were girls I mean. It isn't just that Mr Oblonsky has had their balls and cocks cut off. I know that would be against our 'no permanent noticeable damage convention' but he's new to the vale and anyway these Russian magnates don't generally regard themselves as bound by rules at all."

"It didn't look like anything had been cut off Uncle Jack. They just had slits down there."

"Well we all need to be getting down to the paddock now anyway and I'll have a look for myself. You coming Mark?"

There was a general exodus from the marquee but even then Jack's progress to the paddock was not a straightforward one. Everyone seemed to want to speak to him, to shake his hand and to wish him luck and he had a smile and a cheery word for everyone.

"Peter," Jack Wardle suddenly called spotting a tall distinguished looking man entering the enclosure. "You have been able to get here for the races after all. Mark I would like you to meet an old friend of mine and a valued and distinguished resident of the Vale, Mister Peter Henry. I don't think you have met him before. Unfortunately from our point of view business commitments cause him to be all too frequently absent from Muggleton and the Vale of Dingle. A great pity because if anyone knows how to handle charity boys it is he."

"You flatter me Jack," the man replied laughing easily while at the same time extending his hand to Mark, "all you need to get the best from charity boys is a strong right arm and a heavy leather strap. If you have them and are prepared to use them you will have no trouble with the scum."

"William," he continued catching sight of the boy standing beside Jack Wardle and Mark, "I have just been talking to your father. He tells me he has given you that ghastly slut of mine David to look after, nasty little brute. I hope you're keeping the louse in order. Flog him frequently and flog him hard is my advice. That's the only thing filth like that understands."

"He's here Mister Henry." William said turning round and grabbing the naked brat by the ear.

"Come on turd stop hiding behind me and step forward so that Mister Henry can take a look at you."

Viciously twisting the brat's ear William pulled David out from where he had been lurking behind him. Bent double his face distorted by pain and terror his knees visibly shaking with fear the brat presented so comical appearance that Mark laughed out loud. A cold smile played even on Mr Henry's lips as he looked the frightened boy over. It did not seem to Mark that the child found the presence of the smile on the man's face at all reassuring.

"Well he's certainly collected a few bruises and welts while he's been in your care young man," Mister Henry said jovially "I'm glad to see you haven't stood for any nonsense from the louse."

"David," Mister Henry's voice had suddenly changed from jovial to coldly menacing, "where are your shorts you useless lump of dog's excrement."

The brat tried to speak, his lips moved, but no coherent sound came from them. Then giving up he burst into tears.

"You are," Mister Henry continued remorselessly ignoring the brat's wails, "the most thoughtless ungrateful brute that I have had the misfortune to encounter. I spend a great deal of time in finding a pair of shorts for you in the Oxfam shop which from their excellent condition had only covered the bottoms of three or four pauper brats after they had been judged inadequate for free boy use and which fitted you well once we'd found a safety pin to join the waste band up and what happens?"

At this point the brat's legs seemed to give way under him and he sank to his knees still weeping bitterly.

"Did you show any gratitude any appreciation? Did you bother to make any effort to preserve and look after the shorts that had cost me so much effort and time to find for you? No you idle little turd you did not."

Mark glanced across at William Smythe. The boy was looking, he thought, rather uncomfortable. No doubt William was aware that a large number of those listening to Mister Henry berate the pauper brat for its ingratitude had seen him rip the shorts from the slut as a preliminary to flogging it. The boy was probably worried that someone would mention this and Mister Henry would turn his anger on him. There was no question of a public flogging for William a free boy but the matter could be referred to his father and parents in the Vale had old fashioned ideas of discipline. Worse though for a proud high spirited lad like him was the possibility of being admonished in front of his own and his fathers friends. Mark was sure though that no one in their party would be so mean as to give the boy away just to safe a pauper brat from a beating. William was in reality quite safe, no grown up in the know would embarrass the boy by betraying him and no one would take any notice of anything the brat said. If the slut was stupid enough to try to shift the blame for the loss of his shorts onto William, the person really responsible, he would only be making his position worse. Mister Henry would flog him even harder for having the insolence to slander a free boy. William would no doubt take his own revenge somewhat later. The fact that David, although obviously terrified, kept silent showed that he had already learnt the hard realities of life as a charity boy.

"Well," Mister Henry continued icily, "you can dismiss any idea of my wasting any more of my time finding clothes for you, you miserable louse. You'll remain naked now for the rest of your service."

Mark though he saw a fleeting expression of hope cross David's face. No doubt to a pauper brat, devoid of pride, modesty or self-respect, the prospect of constant nakedness was of no consequence – if that was to be his only punishment………

If that was indeed the boy's hope Mister Henry's next words destroyed it.

"But that is for the future," said the coldly angry man, "first it is my duty to try to, I will not say instil some sense of responsibility or some sense of duty into your moronic mind, for it is clear that you like the rest of the charity scum are incapable of any of the higher emotions, but to persuade you that the consequences of such criminal carelessness as you, you miserable boy, have been guilty of are so painful that you will in future make some minimal effort to look after any property, such as the valuable pair of shorts that I in a moment of ill judged indulgence gave you to clothe your deformed body, entrusted to your care."

Before Mark could wonder at the description of the tattered and thread bare shorts that had hardly covered David's bottom as 'valuable property' or of the boy's body as deformed which apart from the many bruises that covered it was as pleasant to look at as that of any other young animal, Mister Henry suddenly lashed out with his foot. The toe of his highly polished brogue caught the kneeling brat in the balls. The boy howled. He fell forward, his hands clasping his crutch, his head pressed to the ground, his bottom invitingly upraised. With the speed and confidence of a man who had done this sort of thing many times in the past Mister Henry shifted his position slightly and drove his left heel hard down into the small of David's back flattening the boy and pinning him to the ground.

Mister Henry thrust his hand into his jacket pocket. Mark saw a look of puzzlement fleetingly cross his face like a man searching his pockets for something, a wallet or car keys perhaps, that he knew should be there but not finding it. This look vanished as Jack Wardle stepped forward smiling his hand outstretched offering the man his own leather strap showing an understanding and care for the needs of his fellows that was typical of that jovial good hearted man.

"Thanks old man," Mister Henry said, "I can't imagine how I can have forgotten such an essential an item. I suppose I was in such a hurry to get to the races this morning and being away on business so much one gets out of the normal way of doing things."

These remarks were punctuated by the regular crack of leather striking bare flesh and the squeals of the brat as Mister Henry flayed its bum.

The crowd in the paddock was beginning to build up as people hurried forward to witness the preliminaries to the main event of the day. However, apart from three or four free boys who are always ready to be distracted by the amusement of watching a slut being flogged, not a single person stopped to watch so unremarkable event as a brat being thrashed. Nailed to the ground by Mister Henry's heel grinding into his back David squirmed and shrieked as the strap raised fresh livid welts across the flesh of his already bruised rump. It was not long before beads of dark blood began to form where the tip of the belt had curled round and bitten the boy's flanks. Soon these beads had swollen and coalesced to form first a trickle and then a flood of blood that glistened redly as it welled from the broken flesh of the brat's lacerated bottom.

Mark was concerned about Jack Wardle. He knew his old friend was keen to get down to the weighing in enclosure as quickly as possible but it was considered the height of bad form to interfere in the flogging of a charity brat. He had not however allowed for the innate good manners and kindly consideration for the feelings and interests of others that still distinguish the natives of the Vale of Dingle although so sadly lacking nowadays elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

Mister Henry was obviously aware of the pressures on Jack Wardle as the time for the running of the Corvo Cup drew ever closer. He had hardly landed a dozen or so cuts across the backside of the screaming child before he stopped.

"That will have to do for the time being," he remarked raising his voice so it could be heard over the boy's sobbing. "It is a wholly inadequate punishment for so blatant a betrayal of trust as that of which that piece of filth has been guilty nor will it be sufficient I am sure to impress on its apology for a mind the need for better behaviour in the future. However the balance of the lesson will have to be left to later."

"Now get," Mister Henry continued slashing the boy viciously across the back of the thighs with the strap, "up on your feet and stop that stupid noise you lump of useless dog shit." He bent forward and grabbing hold of the back of the boy's collar yanked him to his feet before dismissing him with a hearty clout across the side of the head.

"I am sure we can rely on young William to continue the brat's instruction with at least equal vigour and enthusiasm. Can we not William?"

"Oh certainly Uncle Jack," William Smythe replied cheerfully," but do you mind if I left it till after the races. Don't worry though I'll really flay really the little tyke's bum tonight."

Everybody laughed at this apart, Mark noted, from David whose face crumpled once again at the prospect of so imminent a renewal of his bottom's acquaintanceship with the strap. The sight and indeed the sound, for the prospect of a further beating elicited another bout of loud wailing from the brat, of the boy's distress increased the general merriment of those present.

"Well, Jack Wardle said raising his voice above the ensuing gales of laughter, "this is all no doubt fun but time presses and I must get down to the track before the race begins."

Almost immediately though he was brought to a halt by a cry of recognition from a rather fat totally bald middle-aged man in the company of a younger leaner companion.

"Mr Wardle, my dear fellow, and Miss Thompson as well, how delightful to meet you both and on a purely social occasion for a change. I don't think either of you have met my friend Mister Matthew Ellis."

This name was said with something of an air and indeed all of the adults present would have been familiar with the name of the recently appointed Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Social Inclusiveness (previously the Home Office) with special responsibility for the Offender Management Service (called in a less enlightened time H.M.Prison Service). His career had gone through something of a crisis some months before. However the Prime Minister had been unusually stalwart in his support. Now it was generally agreed in the press that his appointment of one, who whatever his faults, had clearly taken a keen interest in the treatment of youth offenders, or more properly behaviourally challenged young persons, to head the new service was an inspired one.

"Mister Adams," Jack exclaimed apparently as delighted as his interlocutor at the chance meeting, "how pleasant to run across you like this and Mister Ellis. No doubt you are looking at how we manage things in the Vale. Indeed I would suggest the rest of Britain has much to learn from us, no juvenile delinquency here, no anti-social behaviour."

Now let me see, Miss Thompson you obviously know from your professional contacts but let me introduce you to the rest of my party. Everybody this is Mr Adams the principal of Ovingdean Reform School of which I am sure you will all have heard. Indeed I think I mentioned at dinner last night the discussions we are having with Mister Adams on the possibility of releasing some of his boys into the care of our trustees and no doubt you will remember the remarks of our Home Secretary, Mister Plonkett, after he visited Ovingdean. 'My sort of reform school'."

"And now these are………"

Jack Wardle sensibly restricted his introductions to the grown ups but even so there were a fair number of people to be mentioned and both Mister Adams and Matthew Ellis's faces quickly assumed faintly bemused expressions as the list of names grew. It was only when the name of Brian Roberts was mentioned that they both became suddenly animated.

"Mister Roberts," Matthew Ellis said holding out his hand to Brian, "I have been wanting to meet you for some time to say how sorry I was for the problems you experienced and your very understanding and helpful attitude when it came to resolving matters." (See my earlier story 'Into Care' – click here – for the background here.)

"I would certainly like to join Matthew in that," Mister Adam said taking Brian's hand in his turn, "and how is young Nicky since his return from Ovingdean."

"He's about here somewhere," Brian replied smiling, "now where is he. Ah hiding behind my own son Adam. Nicky step forward so these two gentlemen can see you. Stand up straight and try to look intelligent. There he is. As you can see he's a bit nervous but his behaviour generally is much improved. He's quieter and much more obedient, no arguments or rowdiness."

"Excellent," Matthew Ellis said enthusiastically, "we regard the community as our main customer in the Management Offender Department but parents, especially responsible caring ones like yourselves, are an important element, in our view, in that community. If you find the boy's behaviour improved after his stay in Ovingdean then it is a good indication that the community at large will do so also."

"You do know about the pre-empting recidivism initiative that my department has introduced? In brief if a parent or guardian feels a boy's behaviour is beginning to deteriorate after his release from Ovingdean or a similar establishment he has only to report it to my department and the boy will be immediately recommitted for a further period of training. It is designed to cut down on the number of young people who re-offend after a period of detention in one of our remedial units. We are working on developing it still further into a pre-empting anti-social behaviour programme where we identify potential offenders and take them off the streets for treatment before they have had the opportunity to commit an anti-social act. At my suggestion, as you may know, the Prime Minister has set my department a target of reducing juvenile anti-social behaviour by eighty per cent with in the life time of this current parliament and these initiatives are an essential part of creating a society in our country fit for the twenty first century."

"Anyway Nicky has already been to Ovingdean so he is subject to the pre-empting recidivism initiative so you only have to let me know if his behaviour shows signs of deteriorating and we will take him back."

"What Matthew hasn't said is that he would be delighted if you would return Nicholas to us," Mister Adams interposed. "After some initial problems Nicholas adjusted very well to life at Ovingdean and he became a great favourite of Matthew's. Judging from Matthew's comments Nicholas must have enjoyed certain aspects of his time with us he would not have performed so well otherwise."

'A bit nervous' did not, Mark thought, adequately describe the terror that clearly gripped the boy as he listened to this conversation. He was visibly trembling and seemed on the verge of tears. Adam, as always it seemed ready to come to the younger boy's aid, braving his father's anger let his hand brush against the side of Nicky's bare thigh in a surreptitious gesture of support and reassurance. Again Mark reflected how attractive a boy Nicky, was slim and fair haired with skin tanned golden brown, his brief shorts hugging a tight deeply dimpled bottom. The fear that made his knees shake and gave a quiver to his lips giving him a delightfully vulnerable air.

Mister Adams paused apparently to give Brian a chance to reply but he remained silent.

"I am sure money would not influence your decision in this matter," Adams continued smoothly after a short silence. "Any decision you come to will no doubt be prompted by such matters as the welfare of your family and marriage, of society as a whole and the ultimate welfare of the boy himself. However a certain saving in costs would be an inevitable consequence of returning Nicholas to our care. We would assume responsibility for all the costs of keeping him, which incidentally I am sure we would manage much more economically than you."

Mister Adams paused again waiting for some reaction from Brian. After a second or two of silence he resumed speaking accompanying his words with an urbane smile.

"We recognise, that is my friend Matthew Ellis and myself recognise, that loosing Nicholas might cause distress to you and your wife. He is, as we all can see, a pretty boy and as Matthew assures me a biddable and very lively little companion. Matthew was only just now remarking on how he misses Nicholas, no other boy has been as, how shall I put it, as adroit as Nicholas in satisfying his needs. Now Matthew wouldn't of course expect you to do anything so crass as to sell the boy to him but he would be prepared to pay you say five hundred pounds to ease the trauma of his departure."

"Dad……" Nicholas burst out in protest.

"Quiet Nicholas you impertinent child," Brian thundered. "How dare you interrupt our conversation. You know the rule about not speaking unless you are spoken to. You seem to enjoy living dangerously. I can tell you it won't take many more incidents like that for me to take up Mister Adams kind offer and send you back to Ovingdean where they know how to bring unruly boys to heel."

"Mister Adams," he continued dropping his voice to a more reasonable level, "I am most grateful to you and Mister Ellis for your interest in the boy. Goodness knows he is and has been a problem to his mother and myself but for the time being at least we will perservere with him."

"Very well then," Mister Adams replied smoothly, "I can only admire your sense of duty but don't forget if the boy becomes too much for you we will always be prepared to take him off your hands. Now Matthew it is time we were moving on. The race I think will begin in the next half hour or so and we want to be well placed to see the start."

Raising his hat Mister Adams walked off taking Matthew Ellis with him.

"Yes come along Mark," Jack Wardle said, "We must get down to the weigh in."

Glancing back Mark saw Adam slip an arm round Nicky's narrow shoulders and hug him. The boy Mark thought look frightened and shocked but he wondered if there was not a small bulge in the front of the child's shorts. Turning to follow Jack Wardle he noticed Angela. It seemed to him the she too was watching Nicky a speculative smile on her face.

Mark recognised Oblonsky, a big moonfaced man, from his newspaper photographs. He was standing slightly apart from the crowd gathered round the weigh-bridge and measuring posts where the teams were checked before being formally entered in the race. He was smoking a cigar and seemed oblivious to the excitement about him. A slim blond narrow hipped boy with the face of a cruel angel stood beside him. The boy was dressed in a suit of tight fitting black and yellow leathers and was holding a crash helmet by its chin-strap in his right hand.

Oblonsky catching sight of Jack Wardle removed the cigar from his mouth and waived cheerfully.

"Jack," he called out, "I am very glad to see you. The stewards seem to be reluctant for some reason to enter my team."

"I will certainly do my best for you but who is this young man?"

"Oh this is Stefan my son. He is my jockey today. This Stefan is Mister Jack Wardle a very important man in the Vale and a noted trainer of pony boys."

"How do you do Sir," the boy said holding out his hand.

If his father's accent betrayed his foreign origins Stefan's was indistinguishable from any upper class English boy's and no doubt reflected attendance at an expensive prep school.

"How are you Stefan," Jack Wardle replied solemnly shaking the boy's hand. "I must introduce you to Richard Smythe who is racing my team for me. Now let me see if I can sort this problem out for your father. Perhaps you can show me your team."

"Certainly Sir they're by the weigh-bridge with the other teams."

Mark followed Jack Wardle as accompanied by the Oblonskys they pushed their way through the crowd surrounding the weigh-bridge. It was immediately clear why the crowd had formed. Oblonsky's pony girls were not milk chocolate or dark chocolate or mahogany or sienna or any other shade of brown. They were the purest unadulterated jet. Yet they lacked the full lips and flattened noses of the Negro. Their faces had the fine-drawn hawk like features of the Arabs. They were harnessed to the shafts of a light racing cart, the sun glistening darkly on their oiled limbs and bodies. Clearly despite the blinkers that covered their eyes they sensed the presence of the crowd, of other racing teams and the excitement in the air. Their harnesses clinked as they shifted uneasily, shaking their heads and pawing at the ground beneath their bare feet. The groom in charge of them tightened his hold on their bridles and spoke softly to them before saluting Ivan Oblonsky.

"A bit frisky this morning Ted," Oblonsky remarked walking up to the pony girls and slapping a gleaming black flank. The pony girl jittered from foot to foot and throwing her head back winnowed softly.

"Steady girl steady…… That they are Sir. Keen for the off the pair of em. I hope they don't keep us hangin about much longer this pair won't stop still for ever."

"What magnificent animals," Jack Wardle exclaimed standing with his head on one side gazing at the two naked girls between the shafts of the racing trap. He took a couple of paces back to get a general idea of their configuration.

"By all means examine them more closely if you wish," Ivan Oblonsky said easily. Continuing as Jack Wardle stepped up close to the girls and bent to run his hands up the back of a hard black shin, "I get them from an establishment I have on the borders of the Sudan and Ethiopia. It is a matter of doubt as to in which country precisely it is situated which is helpful. We take the best that are offered us at somewhere between four and five years and train them over there until they are ready to race and then bring the most promising of them over to Europe.

"No fat at all, all good firm muscle," Jack remarked approvingly prodding the girl's glistening thigh

"About how old is the bitch?" he asked as his hand moved to explore the girl's hairless crutch.

"Steady now. Steady," the groom shouted as he hung on to the bridle fighting to control the girl as she reared back striking out with her knees at Jack Wardle. "You would, would you, you fucking bitch. I'll fucking teach you……."

He lashed the girl across the front of the thighs with the slack of the reigns raising dark red weals across the smooth ebony skin. The girl screamed and tugged at her bridle prancing from foot to foot as the groom thrashed her.

"That's enough Ted," Oblonsky said, "she'll calm down in a minute won't you girl, eh?"

He stepped quietly forward and ran his hand up the back of the pony girl's neck gently squeezing and massaging it. The girl shuddered and ceased tugging at her bridle standing still, panting and trembling nervously.

"I'm afraid they all go wild when they're touched there." Ivan Oblonsky remarked, "it's lucky she had a bit in her mouth or she would have gone for you with her teeth as well…… As for her age, somewhere between fourteen and sixteen years. It's difficult to know exactly. The bitch won't know it herself and she couldn't tell us if she did. Like your charity boys they develop slower than most because of their restricted diet and the way they're worked and then my trainer was a coach to the East German Girls Gymnastic team and he knows what drugs to use to hold them back. I'd say she's in her last season racing now."

"There's little sign of maturity," Jack agreed, "no body hair and hardly more than boy's breasts."

"They're both intact too and will remain so while I'm racing them." Oblonsky remarked.

"Well she's a fine looking beast but I wouldn't like to have to ride her," Jack said with a laugh, "too dangerous for a middle aged man like me."

"We'll have her bent over a bar with her arms stretched out on either side of her and secured by the wrists for that and she'll be taken from behind to stop her using her teeth. It's not a bad experience really liking fucking a wild animal which I suppose is what it is for all intents and purposes."

"Dad," Stefan Oblonsky interposed, "Dad if we win the race could I have the bitch to ride, please. I'm sure I could manage it."

"Well I don't know Stefan," Oblonsky replied chuckling indulgently at his young son's eagerness. "Apart from anything else she's a bit on the big side for you."

"That's just typical," Stefan began heatedly, "just because I'm young you don't think I can…"

"It's more usual Stefan," Jack said quietly, "here in the Vale for a boy to start off with one of the pauper brats. That's how I started off. There's so many available and it'll easier to find one more your size. If your father's agreeable you can both come up to the Manor tomorrow for lunch and then you can take your pick of what I've got available.

"And," he added with a laugh, "that invitation stands whether you win the race or not. Now let's see if we can sort out your father's problem with the stewards. It was not difficult to recognise the two stewards. They were standing slightly apart from the crowd with the Clerk of the Course all three dressed in dark pinstripe suites and sporting bowler hats and, despite the cloudless sky, tightly rolled umbrellas.

They turned to greet Jack Wardle and Mark as they approached.

"Oblonsky tells me you're making problems over entering his team," Jack Wardle said after the preliminary courtesies had been completed.

"Well it is a bit difficult," the Clerk replied. "We can't find anything in the rules that says he can't enter a team of girls and that they have to be white but it is completely unprecedented. All the teams have, from when records were first kept, been made up of pauper brats and all pauper brats are white. And then we really can't get on with handicapping the teams until we know which teams are going to run so we've had to stop the weigh in until the matter is decided. Thus the queue." He waived his hand to indicate the racing traps, teams of naked pony boys their oiled and burnished bodies glistening in the sun harnessed between the shafts of the racing carts and their young jockeys in their brightly coloured leathers standing beside them lined up beside the weigh-bridge.

Mark could understand why the clerk found the situation difficult. The handicapping for such races was not a straightforward process. Mark had once asked Jack Wardle to explain how it was done and after an hour and a half and the production of two flow charts he had not been very much the wiser. It seemed to be based on a comparison of weights and heights of the competing teams to a hypothetical but variable norm and was achieved by adding weights to the carts of those who fell outside certain variable limits. Mark having listened to his friend's exposition decided that, as with the game of cricket and so far as he could see American Football as well, you had to be born with an understanding of the rules.

"I feel if the rules do not prohibit something then it must be allowed," Jack said incisively. "Anyway how would it look if we turned Oblonsky's team away. He would be able to claim that we had done so because we were fearful that he was going to win and if he did that it would devalue the whole contest and I for one would not in that event wish to race my team."

"Well that decides that. Apart from anything else your team's favourite to win and there'd just about be a riot with the punters if you withdraw it. Mister Oblonsky bring your team up to be registered now please."

One by one the teams came forward to be weighed, measured and handicapped and registered before moving off to line up behind the starting line. Jack's team was the fifth in the queue. Mark who had been impressed by the clean lines of Oblonsky's black girls felt a surge of renewed optimism as the groom led Merlin and Lucifer forward. Such sleek healthy young animals would surely be more than a match in both speed and endurance for the bitches.

With young Richard Smythe a small slight figure in his tight fitting blue and white leathers standing beside them they took their place on the weigh-bridge. A cheer went up from the watching crowd. The groom fought to hold his charges as they jerked at their bridles, trembling with nervous energy, their feet almost dancing under them in their eagerness. When it was time for Richard to take his place in the light racing cart to be weighed it was all he could, do straining at the reins, red in the face with effort, to prevent the brutes cantering off by themselves. To Mark the slim figure of the boy standing straight and proud in the racing cart exerting all his strength to hold in check the two well grown charity brats straining at the traces somehow epitomised the drama and excitement of the whole event.

"That's it," the senior steward said and the groom stepped smartly forward to take hold of the left hand brat by its bridle. Richard Smythe relieved of the need to control the pony boys for the moment grinned his thanks and slackened the reins. Jack fell in on the right hand side of the trap with Mark walking beside him as the groom led the brats, straining and jittery between the shafts, to the starting line.

"Now Richard," Jack said seriously resting his hand on Lucifer's naked rump as he walked beside the racing cart, "I want you to listen carefully to what I say."

"First and most important you are not to put yourself at risk. You are a free boy and very precious. With those leathers on you should come to no harm but I want you to put your helmet and gauntlets on now and once your under starters orders you put your visor down and you keep it down until the race is over. Your Mother and Father will never forgive me if you were to be hurt."

"On the same subject. If there should be an accident the trap is tipped over or something you get clear. Don't bother about Lucifer and Merlin. Let the stewards look after them. They're fine young animals but they're only charity brats and there's plenty more from where they came from and there's only one of you. Remember the old lines "All the charity boys ever born is not worth one free boy broken and torn".

By now they had reached the start line. The groom led them behind the five carts already lined up for the off and wheeled them into place on the right of the line. Over to their left Mark could see Stefan Oblonsky standing on his racing cart his head bent as he listened to his father talking earnestly. Mark could see that the two black pony girls were as restive and eager as their own golden brown boys.

"Now for the race itself," Jack continued as racing cart after racing cart were led behind them down and lined up to their right. "Its going to be a fast start, the ground is dry and it's down hill, a long slow slope, to the ford over the Dingle. Lucifer and Merlin will want to go. They want to go now but try to keep them back. Remember they're the muscle you are the brain. The ford will be the first choke point there are thirty-four carts competing and there's only about room for six carts abreast at the ford. They'll all get there just about the same time and there'll be chaos. The Dingle is not in flood this year so there won't be quite the mayhem there was two years ago but there'll be a few traps tipped over and panic stricken brat's thrashing about in the water. This is a long race and you'll have plenty of time to catch up and get ahead later. You won't be able to do that though if you tip the trap over in the river. So hold back, wait for the way to be clear and then go."

"The meadow on the far side of the stream slopes gently upwards to the base of the downs. The going there will be firm and you can give them their heads and start to make some ground. You should be up among the first dozen or so by the time you reach the base of the downs. They've taken the hedge out along the top of the meadow so you can run straight out on the surfaced road. However the road itself is a narrow one with only room for two carts side by side and there are a number of hair pin bends on it as it rises. You should make more ground on the hill. Only over take when you see the way is clear. Don't try to overtake on the inside of a corner because the chances are the cart your over taking will cut in and then you'll both be tipped over and a tarmac road is hard even if you are wearing a crash helmet and leathers. Get close up behind the cart you want to over take, check in front and behind you, then if its all clear give the ponies a touch of the whip and get past it fast."

"There's seven miles [11km] of good open down land at the top of the scarp. That's where you can really get going. Go wide, you can afford to with these two brats they're strong and fast, by all means use the whip on them to get a bit of extra pace. Remember though the toughest part of the race is at the end and you need to keep a good deal in reserve for that. Use the light whip not the metal tipped one," Jack said touching first the long white handled whip and then its black companion held in the upright tube to the right of where Richard stood in the trap.

"I expect that by the time you come to take the road down the scarp back to the valley floor you should be well up with the leaders, perhaps in the first three. The road down is narrow and steep and twisting. Take it steadily. If anyone tries to pass you let him by. He'll probably have a smash before he reaches the bottom."

"You come out on a nice gentle slope down to the Dingle a broad shallow ford and then a long pull up to the finishing line. It's on that final slope that the race will be lost and won. These brutes are well up to the distance. You know that. They've done it many times in practice runs with you up behind them. This time it is for real and, Richard, I want that cup. Now you can use the weighted whip. So far as I am concerned you can shred their backs provided you win. It doesn't matter if we can't run them ever again provided I have the Corvo cup back where it belongs at the Manor."

"Now there's the bell. We're under starting orders. Tom I'll take the brats from you. You and Mark get back behind the spectator's line."

Chapter 11

The noise of the crowd had died away to an expectant hush. The only sounds now were the occasional muffled curses of the grooms as they struggled to hold their teams steady and the jingle of harness as the brats shifted nervously in tense expectation. The excitement of the occasion had penetrated even into the brats' muffled and blinkered consciousness.

The starter, immaculately dressed as all course officials were in pin stripe suit and bowler, mounted the step-ladder at the side of the course. He took one final glance down the line of racing traps to check that all were ready. Satisfied he raised his starting pistol.

A shot rang out shattering the intense silence. The shrill screams of the jockeys and the sharp cracking of their whips as they urged their teams on rose over the deep roar of the crowd and the clatter and rumble of the racing traps as the thirty-four teams of pony brats leapt forward. The ground was hard and the traps hurtled down the opening straight towards the first bend as the brats charged forward straining every muscle to get ahead of their rivals before the first bend. There had hardly been a yard between racing carts at the start of the race and it was hard to keep them steady as they flew bumping and clattering over the uneven ground. Long before the beginning of the bend there had been a number of collisions but the traps were surprisingly stable. There would be a shuddering crash as they struck each other, the brats, thrown off their pace would stumble but then the traps would bounce apart and the two teams pick up their speed once again.

However as the teams approached the long left-hand bend that would take them into the gentle down hill slope past the brat compound to the River Dingle and its ford they began to bunch more and more together. Except that is for two traps, one where the slight form of the child jockey was clad in Jack Wardle's blue and white colours, the other drawn by two glistening jet black pony brats. These two alone kept far out to the right away from the ruck setting an easy pace that still hinted at the power and pace latent in the four brats that drew them.

As the mass of racing traps jostled for position on the inside of the bend the bumps became more frequent. Finally the inevitable happened. The front shafts of a trap trying to cut inside were, whether deliberately or not Mark could not tell, struck hard by the rim of the left hand wheel of the cart it was trying to displace. This flung the two brats drawing it sideways with a rib cracking smash into the wooden rail marking the boundary of the course. They bounced off this and went down sprawling on their hands and knees. The cart they were drawing driven on by its own momentum slued uncontrollably outwards to the right only to be run into at full tilt by the team of the following trap. It's shafts with its own weight and the weight of its team behind them drove the cart it had struck sideways and snapping its axle and tipped it on its side. The jockey in the stricken cart was hurled to the ground by the force of the impact and its pony boys thrown onto their sides where they lay unable to free themselves from their traces, their bare legs frantically thrashing in an effort to right themselves. Blinded by their blinkers and almost totally deaf Mark supposed they had a very limited idea of what had happened to them and none at all of the causes of it.

The situation of the second trap was little better. The cart itself so far as Mark could see was undamaged. It's jockey though had been catapulted over it's front and was now lying on the ground apparently momentarily stunned while its team of pony boys had been trapped between it and the cart it had struck. When that had rolled over on its side the two brats had been lifted off the ground with their lower bodies pinned between the traps.

As Mark watched the two jockeys scrambled to their feet. The one whose trap had turned over, clearly furious at being put out of the race, ran across to where his two pony boys lay still secured to the shafts and began to flog them with his whip. Even at that distance Mark could hear the thud of the lash as it cut into the two brats and the strange inarticulate howls and moans that were the pony boys cries of distress.

The second boy jockey, after standing a moment shaking his head and looking about himself uncertainly, began to tug at the bridles of his two pony boys trying to pull them clear of the wreckage of the racing trap they had run into. A Land-Rover drew up beside the track and two marshals got out of it and went to the boy's assistance. After a good deal of pulling and manoeuvring they managed to disentangle the two brats who had been badly cut across the front of their thighs in the crash. Despite this the young jockey scrambled back into the trap and lashing at their bare shoulders with his whip sent them hobbling off in pursuit of the other contestants blood streaming down the front of their bare legs.

"Wonderful example of character," Jack Wardle remarked approvingly ducking under the rail to join Mark. "Good boys both of them. Our boys don't take failure easily. They're both showing real grit."

As he spoke there was a burst of hysterical screaming from the pauper boys crammed into the brat pen as they vied with each other, cheering their guardians' teams on, as the leaders came into sight. Now the teams of pony boys were out of the bend and starting the long straight stretch down to the Dingle River. The course sloped gently downwards, the ground was firm, and in front of them was the ford over the Dingle, with rapids and swirling currents and deep pools above and below, with room for six traps abreast at the best.

The first traps at the ford would be fine. They would have an easy passage across and a straight run up the meadow on the opposite side to the foot of the Downs. The later ones would have problems as the narrow passage of the ford became clogged with the teams jostling each other to get across. Then there would be accidents as carts crashed into each other in the general melee and pony boys went down in the swirling waters of the Dingle.

The young jockeys saw the opportunity and danger ahead of them. They stood up in their traps, screaming at their teams of pony boys, lashing at the naked brats with their whips, trying to get the last ounce of effort and speed out of their teams as they raced each other for the ford.

Two teams did not take part in this wild stampede. Out to the left, well away from the mass of racing traps with their yelling whip cracking drivers bouncing along behind the matched pairs of desperately galloping pony boys, Jack Wardle's and Mr Oblonsky's teams, effortlessly matching each other pace for pace, maintained an easy apparently unhurried pace.

The lead teams had reached the river. They plunged down the bank into the swiftly flowing stream. Drops of water rose glittering in the sunlight from under the feet of the pony boys and the wheels of the racing traps. Water splashed up over the brats, gilding their naked bodies with silver slicks. The river at the ford was hardly more than knee deep and the first few teams were quickly across and beginning the long pull up the meadow on the opposite side.

Later teams did not have so easy a passage. Soon the ford was clogged with racing traps and their teams of blinkered pony boys. The brats isolated in their own dark almost silent worlds, feeling the water deepen as they were urged forward, began to panic. Their jockeys fought to control their frightened teams, some sawing on the reigns trying to prevent them bolting, others lashing their teams on, intent on breaking clear of the scrummage of racing traps and the naked boys tethered to their shafts. Traps and teams of boys were jammed together, jostling, in the fast flowing water. A team lost it's balance and fell sideways. Mark could only guess at the terror that must have then seized the two brats, blinded by the blinkers that covered their eyes and held fast in the shafts of the trap by their harness, as the water closed over their heads. Their legs appeared momentarily out of the water frantically thrashing as they tried to regain their feet. Other teams became entangled in their struggles and the chaos and panic spread.

A jockey tried to avoid the melee by entering the river above the ford. The bank there was steep and his team with the weight of the trap behind them entered the stream in a rush raising a great splash of water. The stream under the bank was deep and fast flowing. The jockey was thrown clear as trap and brats were swept sideways down towards the ford. The panic stricken brats, once they felt land beneath their feet, made a dash to get away from the water but with deprived of sight and with no one to guide them, they simply bolted diagonally across the ford deepening and spreading the already existing chaos.

Richard Smythe arrived at the banks of the Dingle and seeing the confused mass of brats and racing carts blocking the ford, without checking, swung his team of pony boys in a wide curve until they were running back up the hill. Beside him, keeping pace with his matching pair of nut brown pony boys, ran the two lithe black girls who drew young Stefan Oblonsky's trap. Turning as one the two teams ran back down the hill, spotting a clear gap through which at last they could pass unhindered, they checked their teams and gently eased them down the bank into the water. Still keeping their brats well in hand they splashed through the river.

Out on the further bank Richard shouted and for the first time since the race began brought his whip into play. Responding to a single flick of the whip across one bare shoulder Merlin and Lucifer lent into their traces. The light racing trap surged forward as they lengthened and quickened their stride. For a moment Richard's trap drew away from Stefan's. Then the Russian boy cracked his whip, raising a livid weal across ebony skin and the two dusky girls in the shafts of his racing cart raised their pace and the gap closed. Side by side the two teams raced each other up the gentle slope of the meadow. The brats bare feet beating an urgent tattoo on the hard ground as they ran. Richard and Stefan urging their teams on with shouts and cracks of their whips. Up the hill they flew tearing past other slower carts, apparently oblivious to all but their own rivalry. At one moment the jet black bodies of the girls would draw slightly ahead at the next the lighter skinned boys were momentarily in the lead.

"This has the making of a classic race," Jack Wardle remarked, standing beside Mark, his field glasses held to his eyes. "If Richard and Stefan don't do anything stupid and crash and Oblonsky's girls can stay the course, I know my brats can, they've been run on it often enough, then there should be only the two of them in it by the end and it should be a cracking finish. Here Mark you have a look."

Mark took the glasses from his friend and focused them on the meadow on the opposite side of the Dingle. Soon he picked up the two traps with the slight figures of William and Stefan standing upright in them and the two teams of sturdy naked brats between their shafts. The glasses were excellent. Mark could see the expressions of concentration and excitement on the boy jockeys faces. He could also see the specks of white foam forming about the edges of bits in the brats' mouths, the rise and fall of their chests and the streaks of sweat glistening on their bare bodies as they pounded up the slope towards the base of the Downs.

The course began to bend to the right towards where it joined the surfaced road climbing the steep scarp to the top of the Downs in a series of hairpin bends. Stefan Oblonsky was on the right and his team began to draw ahead as they entered the bend. Richard after one futile attempt to force his way past him slackened his pace and accepting the inevitable swung onto the tarmacked road behind him.

Mark could see the brats straining against their traces as their strong young legs drove them up the now steeply rising road. The advantage of the bend had allowed Stefan to get ahead but only just. Richard urged his team up the hill with hardly a foot between them and the trap in front.

The two teams had slowed as they faced the long arduous haul to the top of the Downs. But if they had slowed they were still managing a faster pace than many of their competitors. A racing cart loomed ahead of Stefan. He slowed his team until coming out of the first tight bend the road momentarily straightened before turning tight back on itself again, as it did over and over again as it wound up the chalk escarpment. Stefan seized his chance. He pulled his cart onto the outside and with a shout and a crack of his whip sent his two dark skinned lasses tearing past the slower cart cutting in in front of it just before the start of the next bend.

"Oh God," Jack Wardle exclaimed, "Richard's not going to try and follow is he? I told him to be careful on the hill."

Recognising the agony in his friend's voice Mark silently surrendered the glasses to him. He could see well enough without them. Richard began to push his brats on obviously planning to take the cart that his rival had overtaken on the inside. Mark heard Jack muttering imprecations under his breath as he cursed his own stupidity in entrusting a valuable racing team to an inexperienced boy and Richard for being so stupid and ill disciplined as not even to be able to follow the simplest instructions. Then the boy checked his team and fell back. Once clear of the bend, he in his turn swung his trap out and overtook.

"Sensible boy that," Jack remarked, "intelligent driving, always had every confidence in him."

Mark thought the moment was too highly charged to risk pointing out to his friend the inconsistencies in his comments.

"Where the hell is Voyle," Jack continued almost beside himself with frustration, "I told him to bring the Range Rover here as soon as they had fairly started on the hill and now there's no sign of… Oh there you are Voyle. Take the lane to Hanger Farm and then up the track to the iron-age fort at Hawsburry Top. Get in Mark please. If we hurry we'll be at the top of the Downs in time to see them run the whole of the upland stage of the race."

"Voyle you take the Muggleton road and then the second turning to the right…… no perhaps it would be quicker to great straight on to the Lower Town cross roads and……"

The chauffeur who knew the way as well as Jack and was used to his employer's ways slipped the clutch into gear and set off.

They bumped along the lane to Hanger Farm, a low white washed house that lay close under the base of the Downs. A stocky red-faced man, dressed in corduroy trousers and a striped flannel shirt, was standing in the yard. He was supervising ten or so charity boys who were unloading sacks of fertilisers from a large trailer. Two brats stood on the trailer wrestling sacks hardly smaller than themselves to its edge before lowering them onto the shoulders of other boys. These, staggering under the weight of their loads, ferried them across the yard and through the open double doors of a large barn. There a couple of other sluts were engaged in stacking the sacks.

The yard was full of activity and noise. The pauper brats were being driven hard. The man made free use of his boots and stick to keep them moving. His shouted curses mingled with the sound of blows landing on bare flesh and the squeals and moans of the sweating boys as they laboured under the scorching sun.

"Wonderful sight," Jack Wardle remarked, as Voyle brought the Range Rover to a halt in front of the closed gate to the yard. "It just shows how brats can be set to useful labour if properly managed and vigorously disciplined."

As he was speaking Voyle sounded the horn. The man, who up to then had been unaware of their presence, turned to look at them. Catching sight of Jack Wardle he smiled broadly.

"How are you, Mister Wardle Sir?" he enquired cheerfully.

"Fine Joss, thank you," Jack replied. "I thought you'd be at the races today."

"That I would Sir but a load of fertiliser arrived yesterday and they want to pick up the trailer this evening so I've got to see the damn thing unloaded today. And you know what these sodding brats are like. You've got to be on top of them, driving them all the time or they just sit around playing with themselves, lazy, filthy minded little brutes."

As he spoke he lashed out with his boot at a passing boy catching the brat on its rump.

"Keep working you idle little turd," he shouted fiercely, "Just because I'm talking to a gentleman doesn't mean you can start taking a holiday."

"Bad luck Joss. I was wondering if you mind us taking the Rang Rover through your yard and out onto the Downs to watch that part of the race."

"Of course you can Sir. Just wish I could spare the time to watch it myself."

"You, are you blind?" the man grabbed a boy by the neck as he stumbled past him on the way back to the trailer to pick up another load. "Can't you see Mister Wardle is waiting for someone to open the gate. Get down there now at the double."

He swung the brat round and brought his cudgel down hard across the boy's narrow shoulders. The brat staggered under the force of the blow and then ran stumbling down the yard to the gate. He wrenched it open and dropped to his knees pushing his face down into the dirt and dust of the yard as Voyle drove past him.

"You'd better put it in four wheel drive Voyle," Jack announced as they began the steep ascent of the Downs.

Voyle, who had already done so while they were waiting at the gate, dropped into second gear and accelerated.

Voyle stopped the Range Rover by the grass ramp that formed the outer rampart of Hawsburry Top. Jack jumped from the Four-by-Four and scrambled up the bank. A covey of partridge rose whirring at his feet. Mark, still recovering from the shaking he had got as the Range Rover had bumped and skidded up the hill, followed more soberly.

The view from Hawsburry Top was a famous one. The whole expanse of the Downs with its closely cropped green grass dotted with sheep stretched out in front of them shimmering in the heat of the sun. Behind them was the deep valley of the Vale of Dingle, its broad bottom covered with lush meadows and orchards and dotted with whitewashed farms and tiny cottages. The tall spire of St Mary's and the only slightly lower tower of St George's with the houses and shops of Muggleton clustered round them were clearly visible. Mark could make out the big house at Dingley Dell with its acres of carefully tended park land and formal gardens and the still waters of the lake glittering in the sunlight. It was a tranquil scene that reflected the centuries of ordered life and effort that had been spent creating it. It was Mark thought a fitting monument to the generations who had lived and worked in the Vale of Muggleton and to those who had tamed and set to useful labour the irresponsible and anti-social elements that existed in every community. Here if anywhere was the justification of the charity boy system.

"Here they come," Jack cried excitedly bringing Mark's reflections to an abrupt conclusion.

Far over to their left, where the unfenced road breasted the escarpment the first of the racing carts appeared. Its team of pony boys laboured to draw it to the top of the final gentle slope before turning off the road and onto the open Downs. A flight of grey plover rose at their feet and wheeled away from them a pale silver crescent against the cloudless sky. Although the ground was firm and level the cart seemed hardly to pick up speed.

Jack focused his glasses on it.

"That team's blown," he said offering his glasses to Mark.

Indeed with the aid of the glasses Mark could see that this was clearly so. The two pony boys, although strong well made young animals, had given all they had to offer. Bodies running with sweat, knees raw and bloody from where they had stumbled and fallen on the tarmac road, they could manage now no more than a shambling trot. He could see their jockey glancing back over his shoulder as he flailed the shoulders of his exhausted team with his whip in a desperate and unavailing effort to raise their pace. Behind them more and more racing traps were appearing as they reached the summit of the Downs. Some were in a hardly better state than the first team but others, more skilfully driven or better schooled, as soon as they reached the crest managed to lengthen their stride.

There were six teams strung out along the top of the Downs when Oblonsky's pair of coal black pony girls burst into view. They emerged onto the Downs at a sharp canter, apparently undaunted by the long steep climb up the side of the valley. Hardly a foot separated the back of Oblonsky's trap and the end of the single shaft of Jack Wardle's. So close were they that it seemed that Merlin and Lucifer's knees were sure to hit the tail board of the leading trap. It was clear though that Richard Smythe was too skilful a driver to let that happen. In a well-judged display of carriage work he kept his trap well placed behind Stefan Oblonsky until they were clear of the road. Then, with the firm grass of the Downs under his brats' feet, he eased them out to one side and with a single flick of his whip sent them surging forward. For a moment it looked as though he would draw ahead but Stefan, spotting the danger, responded in kind. At first it was a repeat of the race up the meadow on the far side of the Dingle River. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, would challenge and begin to draw ahead but always, when that happened, the laggard would counter with a burst of speed and would draw level again. Then it seemed almost as though the two jockeys, Stefan and Richard, accepted that they could not get the better of each other, or perhaps they had both decided that the time was not yet ripe for final test. The two teams ceased to challenge each other but raced together across the close cropped turf matching each other pace by pace, stride by stride, firm, well muscled, black and nut brown legs pounding the ground together.

If neither team could get the better of the other both far out matched all the rest. One by one, running wide, they caught up and over took those ahead of them. By the time they had passed Hawsburry Top and were ready to join the road to take them back down into the valley only one racing cart was ahead of them and they were gaining steadily on it.

"Come on," Jack shouted hurling himself down the grass bank to where the Range Rover stood. "Come on we must get back to see the finish."

Voyle already had the engine running and he was moving off even as Jack and Mark scrambled into the vehicle. A brat had the gate ready open for them at Hanger Farm and they drove through without stopping. Urged on by Jack Wardle, Voyle drove through the narrow lanes to the race ground at break neck speeds. Mark was thankful that the roads were more or less deserted with all the people who could do so being at the races. Brats were not of course a problem, being agile and alert. Walking or running they could hear an approaching car and were expected to jump for the hedge. If they had met another car though, travelling at those speeds and on such winding roads with no room for manoeuvre, a crash and a nasty one would have been inevitable.

Back at the racecourse they tumbled out of the Range Rover before it had even stopped moving. Mark could see the two racing traps, hardly more than moving dots about half way down the road that ran in a series of hair pin bends from the valley floor to the summit of the Downs. In front of them still was a single racing cart. Indeed it seemed to him that if anything it had increased its lead.

"I think that one will come to grief pretty soon," Jack Wardle said peering through his field glasses. "Here Mark you have a look."

Through the glasses Mark could see the trap yawing wildly as the two brats ran full tilt down the steep road driven on both by its weight and the drivers whip. He supposed that the jockey, knowing the two teams behind him were stronger and fresher than his, was deliberately taking the risk of going off the road in the hope of putting so much distance between himself and his pursuers so that, by the time he reached the base of the scarp, he would be so far ahead of them to be un-catchable. It was a gamble that was unlikely to succeed. Indeed even as he watched the trap in negotiating a hair pin bend skidded wide. Its wheels went off the road on the outside of the bend. The brats were dragged sideways as the shaft swung inwards, bare feet scrabbling in the gravel as they fought for purchase. For a moment the cart seemed to hang there off the road. The driver took the opportunity to jump clear. The brats blinkered and harnessed to the racing-cart had no such opportunity. The weight of the cart dragged them inexorably backwards until, the point of balance being reached, it tipped and it and the brats, somersaulted and came rolling together down the near perpendicular slope.

Mark did not follow the trap in its fall to the base of the scarp. It was now out of the race and the free boy driving it was unscathed so there was nothing more to bother about. As for the brats they would probably be all right. Brats were generally tough and durable. They needed to be to survive. A few cuts and bruises together with, at the worst, perhaps a broken limb or a cracked rib – nothing the boy vet could not put right. Instead he swung the glasses back up the road. He could see on the road behind Jack Wardle's and Ivan Oblonsky's traps three more teams but they were all well back. The raise for the Baron Corvo Cup was clearly now between those two teams alone.

Down the hill they came at a sharp but safe pace. Having got this far they were neither of going to risk loosing all through some reckless accident. As before Stefan Oblonsky in his father's black and red colours led with Richard Smythe sporting Jack Wardle's blue and white content to keep Merlin and Lucifer tucked in tight behind.

All this changed the instant they reached the bottom of the scarp. As they swung off the road onto the long gentle grass slope back down to the Dingle River both boys lashed their brats up into a full gallop. There was no question now of conserving strength and energy. Now the brats had to give all that they had and a bit more as well in the service of their masters. Mark could see Richard's and Stefan's arms moving as they swung their whips mercilessly lacing their brat's bare backs with the metal tipped thongs to get the last ounce of effort out of them.

The two teams dashed together down the slope to the river in a wild unrestrained gallop. They came to the bank and plunged down it into the river. The water came up to the brats' knees but they did not slacken pace. They came to the opposite bank and Mark could see the two teams straining against their harnesses as, urged on by the frequent cracking of their drivers' whips, they dragged the traps up the steep slope out of the river.

Now they were in the final stretch of the race, a three mile [5km] up hill straight that would test already aching legs and straining lungs to the full. Although both teams were still running well Mark knew they must by now be close to total exhaustion. They had covered ten miles [16km] under the broiling sun including the long haul to the top of the Downs. They had three more up hill miles to run. Now the skill and determination of the individual jockeys would be decisive. It was up to them to force their brats to find some last reserves of energy that would take them to the finishing line.

Mark's throat was dry with excitement and he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. This would have been in his opinion the most exciting part of the race even if it was only a simple test of endurance and especially so on this occasion when the two leading teams were so evenly matched. His heart raced as he watched the two light carts bounding together over the grass, the young drivers slim and upright, goading their teams on with frequent cracks of their long whips, the two pairs of strong young brats, straining their hearts out, bare chests heaving with effort, naked bodies slicked with sweat, vying with each other in the service of their masters.

But Mark knew that there was another and more exacting a test to be faced by the brats. He knew that and the rest of the spectators who were beginning to roar the teams on to the finish knew it as well. The brats did not, for the rules allowed them to compete only once in the race and forbade their being trained for this particular aspect of it. A pony boy isolated from his fellows by the deliberate destruction of his hearing could learn only through what he saw and felt himself.

Now even the power of sight was denied the brats by their blinkers. They did not see the thin wall of flame that sprung up ahead of them as a steward ignited the narrow runnel filled with a mixture of paraffin and diesel oil that ran across the race track a mile or so before the finishing line.

Mark had often wondered what the brats felt as they drew near the band of flames. It was not in fact very much more of a barrier than the burning hoop through which tigers were made to jump in old-fashioned circuses. If the brats took it at speed it would do no more than slightly scorch them. They however were not to know this. They could not see anything. As they approached they would feel the heat of the flames against their bare flesh increase. For all they knew and could see they were being driven into a fire where they would die in agony and there was nothing in their past experience that would tell them that this was unlikely to be their fate. It was hard to imagine the increasing terror of a brat as he drew nearer the flames, the steel tipped lash ripping his shoulders as his driver whipped him on, the metal tearing at his mouth as he fought against the bit in an attempt to swerve away from the heat. It was a test of the determination and strength of the jockey and of the submissiveness of the brats. Mark had no doubt that Merlin and Lucifer, schooled by that exemplary disciplinarian Jack Wardle, would pass it with flying colours. He could never remember a pony boy of Jack's balking at the flames and his old friend had certainly not relaxed his stern and exemplary schooling of his brats over the years. As for Oblonsky's ebony girls, he was not certain but so far nothing in their performance suggested that they had been subjected to less stringent training than the boys.

The two pairs of brats rushed on towards where the flames, orange and read with a grey cloud of smoke above, licked upwards. It looked to Mark as though, as they approached nearer to the fire, both teams showed small signs of mutiny but the jockeys hauled on their reigns forcing them to keep their heads towards the flames and remorselessly whipped then onwards.

The two teams reached the line of fire at the same moment and without pausing dashed though it. Mark glanced quickly at Jack Wardle who flushed with pride and excitement was shouting his encouragement to his team.

Now the two carts were close enough for Mark to hear the rumbling of their wheels, the pounding of the brats bare feet on the ground and rising over all the crack of the jockeys' whips as they lashed their teams on. Still the two pairs of brats were running neck and neck. There did not seem to be an inch in it. They were so close now that Mark could hear the rasping breath of the brats as they dragged air down into their tortured lungs.

Mark fixed his eyes on the straight white line drawn across the turf that marked the finish of the race. The rule was the winning team was the one to whom the brat belonged whose foot first touched the ground on the far side of the line. Was it to be a black foot in which case Oblonsky's team had won the day or a brown one which would mean Jack Wardle had at last fulfilled his ambition of bringing back the Corvo Challenge Cup to Dingley Dell Manor. It could it seemed to Mark be either and then two bare brown feet, one right, one left, simultaneously reached over the line.

Merlin and Lucifer still keeping perfect time after thirteen miles [21km] of the most gruelling running had won the Corvo Cup for their master.

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