Captains of Harley: A School Story

by Hylton Cleaver

They were like days of drought. Wherever one moved about the school one noticed everywhere the same set look on every fellow’s face of patient resolution. There was very little ragging. Harley had become a kind of expanded orphan school. They took their exercise in crocodile formation, moving shamefacedly two by two. The only permitted recreation was the reading of heavy books. No boy so much as dared to kick a fives ball before him along the gravel path. Few had the heart to whistle. To those who were onlookers of it all—the masters, school servants, neighbouring inhabitants—this had never been expected. So soon as the news had sped its rounds that Toby was leaving, and that all games were to cease, those who were wisest shook their heads and foretold whole-hearted revolution. Some vividly imagined the Head being captured by boys and ducked. Others anticipated open refusal to do any work whatever in school hours. Yet Harley took them by surprise. They went like lambs, and this was because they had a memory to give them heart.

It was the day that Toby had left. He had caught an early train. With barely half-a-dozen exceptions the whole school had turned out to say good-bye. It had been like a ceremonial parade on Founder’s Day. Toby had shaken hands with every fellow he could reach. He had said nothing at all. He had just shaken hands. And the fellows had understood. They had started to sing: “He’s a jolly good fellow.” Rouse had stopped them. He had got up on to a pile of boxes at the station and addressed them with some hesitation and an uncertain voice, and he had explained things to them.

“We’ve got to stick it out.” Those had been his words. Toby had foreseen this possibility and he had sent that message. “Hang on till he can bring up reinforcements from outside. Do nothing that may make it harder for you to wait. Get nobody expelled. Wait. Things will come out all right if you only show your grit. All you’ve got to do is to stick it out.”

They had understood.

Toby was leaving then, not for good, but merely as their messenger to every other old Harleyan who still loved the school, and every parent, and he would fetch help. They need write no whining letters home. Toby would know how to do it. There would be no unpleasant scandal, no trouble with the Press. Toby had the honour of the school at heart. He would know how to do it. Sooner or later the Head would find that out. Then it would be their day. Till then their duty lay in knowing how to wait. Every day that passed and left them idle and bored to tears would, nevertheless, be a day upon which Toby would without doubt have gone another step on the road of retribution.

Whether he could call up the outside forces in time to avail during the present term could not be guessed. But he would be working for them. That would be enough. This was the memory that those who looked on in wonder at the school’s forbearance did not understand. It was Harley’s secret.

So the days passed.

The Head, for his part, found them pleasant days. He knew at last the wonder of his power. His strength had triumphed. He had the reputation of never doing the expected. His answer to their challenge had taken the wind completely from their sails and left them open-mouthed with awe. They were spellbound with his invincible strength of purpose. They realised at last that they had met their master. Slowly but surely he was making them bow before him. They had counted upon him making Rouse the scapegoat and they had prepared to defeat him. Instead he had defeated them. The feeling was delightful. He went his way with a shrewdly grim expression befitting a man of such resolution, but at heart he was laughing in delight. He began to overlook the disappointment he had experienced in his son. Perhaps his son was not to blame. After all, one of his stamp in one family was all that folk could reasonably expect. He looked round and about him each day and saw boys wriggling under his iron rule. He did not wonder why they did not defy him. He was content to know that they were learning a lesson they would never forget as long as they lived, and he gloried in prolonging it. Once he reminded them that their punishment could not be lightened in any way until Rouse came to him to say that the school would bow to his ruling and would recognise his son. They just ignored him.

So days passed.

Soon Toby had been gone a fortnight. No news came. Terence had had letters but they conveyed only one exhortation. They gave no such message as the whole school longed so feverishly to hear.