06 The Head of Kay's Read online

  Kennedy, of course, heard nothing of this, or he might perhaps have thought better of Fenn. As for the junior dayroom, it was obliged to work off its emotion by jeering Jimmy Silver from the safety of the touchline when the head of Blackburn’s was refereeing in a match between the juniors of his house and those of Kay’s. Blackburn’s happened to win by four goals and eight tries, a result which the patriotic Kay fag attributed solely to favouritism on the part of the referee.

  “I like the kids in your house,” said Jimmy to Kennedy, after the match, when telling the latter of the incident; “there’s no false idea of politeness about them. If they don’t like your decisions, they say so in a shrill treble.”

  “Little beasts,” said Kennedy. “I wish I knew who they were. It’s hopeless to try and spot them, of course.”

  XI

  THE SENIOR DAYROOM OPENS FIRE

  Curiously enough, it was shortly after this that the junior dayroom ceased almost entirely to trouble the head of the house. Not that they turned over new leaves, and modelled their conduct on that of the hero of the Sunday-school story. They were still disorderly, but in a lesser degree; and ragging became a matter of private enterprise among the fags instead of being, as it had threatened to be, an organised revolt against the new head. When a Kay’s fag rioted now, he did so with the air of one endeavouring to amuse himself, not as if he were carrying on a holy war against the oppressor.

  Kennedy’s difficulties were considerably diminished by this change. A head of a house expects the juniors of his house to rag. It is what they are put into the world to do, and there is no difficulty in keeping the thing within decent limits. A revolution is another case altogether. Kennedy was grateful for the change, for it gave him more time to keep an eye on the other members of the house, but he had no idea what had brought it about. As a matter of fact, he had Billy Silver to thank for it. The chief organiser of the movement against Kennedy in the junior dayroom had been the red-haired Wren, who preached war to his fellow fags, partly because he loved to create a disturbance, and partly because Walton, who hated Kennedy, had told him to. Between Wren and Billy Silver a feud had existed since their first meeting. The unsatisfactory conclusion to their encounter in camp had given another lease of life to the feud, and Billy had come back to Kay’s with the fixed intention of smiting his auburn-haired foe hip and thigh at the earliest opportunity. Wren’s attitude with respect to Kennedy gave him a decent excuse. He had no particular regard for Kennedy. The fact that he was a friend of his brother’s was no recommendation. There existed between the two Silvers that feeling which generally exists between an elder and a much younger brother at the same school. Each thought the other a bit of an idiot, and though equal to tolerating him personally, was hanged if he was going to do the same by his friends. In Billy’s circle of acquaintances, Jimmy’s friends were looked upon with cold suspicion as officious meddlers who would give them lines if they found them out of bounds. The aristocrats with whom Jimmy foregathered barely recognised the existence of Billy’s companions. Kennedy’s claim to Billy’s good offices rested on the fact that they both objected to Wren.

  So that, when Wren lifted up his voice in the junior dayroom, and exhorted the fags to go and make a row in the passage outside Kennedy’s study, and—from a safe distance, and having previously ensured a means of rapid escape—to fling boots at his door, Billy damped the popular enthusiasm which had been excited by the proposal by kicking Wren with some violence, and begging him not to be an ass. Whereupon they resumed their battle at the point at which it had been interrupted at camp. And when, some five minutes later, Billy, from his seat on his adversary’s chest, offered to go through the same performance with anybody else who wished, the junior dayroom came to the conclusion that his feelings with regard to the new head of the house, however foolish and unpatriotic, had better be respected. And the revolution of the fags had fizzled out from that moment.

  In the senior dayroom, however, the flag of battle was still unfurled. It was so obvious that Kennedy had been put into the house as a reformer, and the seniors of Kay’s had such an objection to being reformed, that trouble was only to be expected. It was the custom in most houses for the head of the house, by right of that position, to be also captain of football. The senior dayroom was aggrieved at Kennedy’s taking this post from Fenn. Fenn was in his second year in the school fifteen, and he was the three-quarter who scored most frequently for Eckleton, whereas Kennedy, though practically a certainty for one of the six vacant places in the school scrum, was at present entitled to wear only a second fifteen cap. The claims of Fenn to be captain of Kay’s football were strong, Kennedy had begged him to continue in that position more than once. Fenn’s persistent refusal had helped to increase the coolness between them, and it had also made things more difficult for Kennedy in the house.

  It was on the Monday of the third week of term that Kennedy, at Jimmy Silver’s request, arranged a “friendly” between Kay’s and Blackburn’s. There could be no doubt as to which was the better team (for Blackburn’s had been runners up for the Cup the season before), but the better one’s opponents the better the practice. Kennedy wrote out the list and fixed it on the notice board. The match was to be played on the following afternoon.

  A football team must generally be made up of the biggest men at the captain’s disposal, so it happened that Walton, Perry, Callingham, and the other leaders of dissension in Kay’s all figured on the list. The consequence was that the list came in for a good deal of comment in the senior dayroom. There were games every Saturday and Wednesday, and it annoyed Walton and friends that they should have to turn out on an afternoon that was not a half holiday. If was trouble enough playing football on the days when it was compulsory. As for patriotism, no member of the house even pretended to care whether Kay’s put a good team into the field or not. The senior dayroom sat talking over the matter till lights-out. When Kennedy came down next morning, he found his list scribbled over with blue pencil, while across it in bold letters ran the single word,

  ROT.

  He went to his study, wrote out a fresh copy, and pinned it up in place of the old one. He had been early in coming down that morning, and the majority of the Kayites had not seen the defaced notice. The match was fixed for half-past four. At four a thin rain was falling. The weather had been bad for some days, but on this particular afternoon it readied the limit. In addition to being wet, it was also cold, and Kennedy, as he walked over to the grounds, felt that he would be glad when the game was over. He hoped that Blackburn’s would be punctual, and congratulated himself on his foresight in securing Mr Blackburn as referee. Some of the staff, when they consented to hold the whistle in a scratch game, invariably kept the teams waiting on the field for half an hour before turning up. Mr Blackburn, an the other hand, was always punctual. He came out of his house just as Kennedy turned in at the school gates.

  “Well, Kennedy,” he said from the depths of his ulster, the collar of which he had turned up over his ears with a prudence which Kennedy, having come out with only a blazer on over his football clothes, distinctly envied, “I hope your men are not going to be late. I don’t think I ever saw a worse day for football. How long were you thinking of playing? Two twenty-fives would be enough for a day like this, I think.”

  Kennedy consulted with Jimmy Silver, who came up at this moment, and they agreed without argument that twenty-five minutes each way would be the very thing.

  “Where are your men?” asked Jimmy. “I’ve got all our chaps out here, bar Challis, who’ll be out in a few minutes. I left him almost changed.”

  Challis appeared a little later, and joined the rest of Blackburn’s team, who were putting in the time and trying to keep warm by running and passing and dropping desultory goals. But, with the exception of Fenn, who stood brooding by himself in the centre of the field, wrapped to the eyes in a huge overcoat, and two other house prefects of Kay’s, who strolled up and down looking as if they wished they were in t
heir studies, there was no sign of the missing team.

  “I can’t make it out,” said Kennedy.

  “You’re sure you put up the right time?” asked Jimmy Silver.

  “Yes, quite.”

  It certainly could not be said that Kay’s had had any room for doubt as to the time of the match, for it had appeared in large figures on both notices.

  A quarter to five sounded from the college clock.

  “We must begin soon,” said Mr Blackburn, “or there will not be light enough even for two twenty-fives.”

  Kennedy felt wretched. Apart from the fact that he was frozen to an icicle and drenched by the rain, he felt responsible for his team, and he could see that Blackburn’s men were growing irritated at the delay, though they did their best to conceal it.

  “Can’t we lend them some subs?” suggested Challis, hopefully.

  “All right—if you can raise eleven subs,” said Silver. “They’ve only got four men on the field at present.”

  Challis subsided.

  “Look here,” said Kennedy, “I’m going back to the house to see what’s up. I’ll be back as soon as I can. They must have mistaken the time or something after all.”

  He rushed back to the house, and flung open the door of the senior dayroom. It was empty.

  Kennedy had expected to find his missing men huddled in a semicircle round the fire, waiting for some one to come and tell them that Blackburn’s had taken the field, and that they could come out now without any fear of having to wait in the rain for the match to begin. This, he thought, would have been the unselfish policy of Kay’s senior dayroom.

  But to find nobody was extraordinary.

  The thought occurred to him that the team might be changing in their dormitories. He ran upstairs. But all the dormitories were locked, as he might have known they would have been. Coming downstairs again he met his fag, Spencer.

  Spencer replied to his inquiry that he had only just come in. He did not know where the team had got to. No, he had not seen any of them.

  “Oh, yes, though,” he added, as an afterthought, “I met Walton just now. He looked as if he was going down town.”

  Walton had once licked Spencer, and that vindictive youth thought that this might be a chance of getting back at him.

  “Oh,” said Kennedy, quietly, “Walton? Did you? Thanks.”

  Spencer was disappointed at his lack of excitement. His news did not seem to interest him.

  Kennedy went back to the football field to inform Jimmy Silver of the result of his investigations.

  XII

  KENNEDY INTERVIEWS WALTON

  “I’m very sorry,” he said, when he rejoined the shivering group, “but I’m afraid we shall have to call this match off. There seems to have been a mistake. None of my team are anywhere about. I’m awfully sorry, sir,” he added, to Mr Blackburn, “to have given you all this trouble for nothing.”

  “Not at all, Kennedy. We must try another day.”

  Mr Blackburn suspected that something untoward had happened in Kay’s to cause this sudden defection of the first fifteen of the house. He knew that Kennedy was having a hard time in his new position, and he did not wish to add to his discomfort by calling for an explanation before an audience. It could not be pleasant for Kennedy to feel that his enemies had scored off him. It was best to preserve a discreet silence with regard to the whole affair, and leave him to settle it for himself.

  Jimmy Silver was more curious. He took Kennedy off to tea in his study, sat him down in the best chair in front of the fire, and proceeded to urge him to confess everything.

  “Now, then, what’s it all about?” he asked, briskly, spearing a muffin on the fork and beginning to toast.

  “It’s no good asking me,” said Kennedy. “I suppose it’s a put-up job to make me look a fool. I ought to have known something of this kind would happen when I saw what they did to my first notice.”

  “What was that?”

  Kennedy explained.

  “This is getting thrilling,” said Jimmy. “Just pass that plate. Thanks. What are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. What would you do?”

  “My dear chap, I’d first find out who was at the bottom of it—there’s bound to be one man who started the whole thing—and I’d make it my aim in life to give him the warmest ten minutes he’d ever had.”

  “That sounds all right. But how would you set about it?”

  “Why, touch him up, of course. What else would you do? Before the whole house, too.”

  “Supposing he wouldn’t be touched up?”

  “Wouldn’t be! He’d have to.”

  “You don’t know Kay’s, Jimmy. You’re thinking what you’d do if this had happened in Blackburn’s. The two things aren’t the same. Here the man would probably take it like a lamb. The feeling of the house would be against him. He’d find nobody to back him up. That’s because Blackburn’s is a decent house instead of being a sink like Kay’s. If I tried the touching-up before the whole house game with our chaps, the man would probably reply by going for me, assisted by the whole strength of the company.”

  “Well, dash it all then, all you’ve got to do is to call a prefects’ meeting, and he’ll get ten times worse beans from them than he’d have got from you. It’s simple.”

  Kennedy stared into the fire pensively.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I bar that prefects’ meeting business. It always seems rather feeble to me, lugging in a lot of chaps to help settle some one you can’t manage yourself. I want to carry this job through on my own.”

  “Then you’d better scrap with the man.”

  “I think I will.”

  Silver stared.

  “Don’t be an ass,” he said. “I was only rotting. You can’t go fighting all over the shop as if you were a fag. You’d lose your prefect’s cap if it came out.”

  “I could wear my topper,” said Kennedy, with a grin. “You see,” he added, “I’ve not much choice. I must do something. If I took no notice of this business there’d be no holding the house. I should be ragged to death. It’s no good talking about it. Personally, I should prefer touching the chap up to fighting him, and I shall try it on. But he’s not likely to meet me half-way. And if he doesn’t there’ll be an interesting turn-up, and you shall hold the watch. I’ll send a kid round to fetch you when things look like starting. I must go now to interview my missing men. So long. Mind you slip round directly I send for you.”

  “Wait a second. Don’t be in such a beastly hurry. Who’s the chap you’re going to fight?”

  “I don’t know yet. Walton, I should think. But I don’t know.”

  “Walton! By Jove, it’ll be worth seeing, anyhow, if we are both sacked for it when the Old Man finds out.”

  Kennedy returned to his study and changed his football boots for a pair of gymnasium shoes. For the job he had in hand it was necessary that he should move quickly, and football boots are a nuisance on a board floor. When he had changed, he called Spencer.

  “Go down to the senior dayroom,” he said, “and tell MacPherson I want to see him.”

  MacPherson was a long, weak-looking youth. He had been put down to play for the house that day, and had not appeared.

  “MacPherson!” said the fag, in a tone of astonishment, “not Walton?”

  He had been looking forward to the meeting between Kennedy and his ancient foe, and to have a miserable being like MacPherson offered as a substitute disgusted him.

  “If you have no objection,” said Kennedy, politely, “I may want you to fetch Walton later on.”

  Spencer vanished, hopeful once more.

  “Come in, MacPherson,” said Kennedy, on the arrival of the long one; “shut the door.”

  MacPherson did so, feeling as if he were paying a visit to the dentist. As long as there had been others with him in this affair he had looked on it as a splendid idea. But to be singled out like this was quite a different thing.

 
“Now,” said Kennedy, “Why weren’t you on the field this afternoon?”

  “I—er—I was kept in.”

  “How long?”

  “Oh—er—till about five.”

  “What do you call about five?”

  “About twenty-five to,” he replied, despondently.

  “Now look here,” said Kennedy, briskly, “I’m just going to explain to you exactly how I stand in this business, so you’d better attend. I didn’t ask to be made head of this sewage depot. If I could have had any choice, I wouldn’t have touched a Kayite with a barge-pole. But since I am head, I’m going to be it, and the sooner you and your senior dayroom crew realise it the better. This sort of thing isn’t going on. I want to know now who it was put up this job. You wouldn’t have the cheek to start a thing like this yourself. Who was it?”

  “Well—er—”

  “You’d better say, and be quick, too. I can’t wait. Whoever it was. I shan’t tell him you told me. And I shan’t tell Kay. So now you can go ahead. Who was it?”

  “Well—er—Walton.”

  “I thought so. Now you can get out. If you see Spencer, send him here.”

  Spencer, curiously enough, was just outside the door. So close to it, indeed, that he almost tumbled in when MacPherson opened it.

  “Go and fetch Walton,” said Kennedy.

  Spencer dashed off delightedly, and in a couple of minutes Walton appeared. He walked in with an air of subdued defiance, and slammed the door.