THE GAUNTLET

I wonder now about the casual brutality meted out to migrants in Libya by the people traffickers. Or the political or religious fervour which allows for the extermination of so many human beings. Where does it come from? I do not mean the collateral damage caused by bombs and artillery which is bad enough. I mean the casual killing such as Boko Haram’s mad men carry out in villages and towns in Northern Nigeria or Chad. They do that in the name of God.

My headmaster used the cane with intent to hurt. He beat me across my fingertips for crimes I committed downstairs and across the buttocks for those I committed upstairs in the dormitories. I was beaten most often for failing a test or once for persistently misspelling the word went. I added an h to make it whent so that it was spelt the way my mother pronounced it when putting on airs.

There was a tradition amongst we boys about not showing pain when we were caned. Was I a mug to try to keep that tradition? He had caned my fingertips once and complained because I showed no pain, so he caned me again. I still showed no pain and he left with his academic gown bellowing out behind him.  He would play Mozart on his upright piano after school before falling asleep on the settee in his rooms.

Sometimes the bigger boys beat the smaller boys with army webbing belts or wooden coat hangers. This was gratuitous beating and more akin to the Boko Harem killings because some boys would enjoy their work. They did not need instructions from an avenging deity. They were experimenting with sadism perhaps.

In the dormitories the ordeal of the knotted towels was called running the gauntlet. Small naked boys ran between two lines of big boys who swung towels at their backs with knots tied at one end. The knots were better and had a more satisfactory impact if the towel had been soaked in water for a while.