In the Lap of the Gods 20
To help with the running of the agricultural boarding school every boy was allocated a job to do before breakfast. Most seniors were rostered on to milking and shearing throughout the year while minor chores like the grass cutting; window cleaning and kitchen duties were shared among the juniors. The worst of the kitchen duties was the preparation of vegetables for lunch and dinner. Outside peeling spuds, preparing pumpkin and cutting up cabbage for 250 hungry kids everyday was no picnic, especially since these tasks were done at six in the morning with freezing fingers. No one liked doing it and they dreaded Monday breakfast when the Head read out the week's duty list.
"Kitchen duties - Galloway, Thompson and...eh... Morgan."
Not again, thought Steve closing his eyes and putting his head down. That's three weeks in a row. Everyone knew what was going on but only Steve knew the shocking details of the thrashing that transpired in the office and it didn't take a rocket scientist to work out what the Head had in mind. He was out to break the spirit of this guttersnipe from the slums of England. He was a cowardly bully and he enjoyed being a bully. In fact the school was full of bullies but not all of them were students.
"How many tins of spuds have we done so far?" asked Galloway dropping another potato into the kerosene tin.
"Three, that means we've got another four to go so keep peeling or we'll never get the pumpkin chopped in time." Small as he was, Steve was the more experienced even for a Form II boy. This was now his fourth time on kitchen duty so they deferred to him for instruction.
Sisyphus' granite boulder was almost to the top of the mountain again so it was time for a change.
"How do you put up with this?" questioned Galloway. "You're always on vegetables and it's bloody freezing out here. I'm hoping for an inside sweeping job next week." Steve continued to peel spuds with deft fingers, his mind blocking out the numbness. He didn't care any more.
"The Head thinks he's got me beat," he said not looking up, "but there's a secret to it. I decided last week that I would force myself to enjoy this. Sort of take a pride in it. And now it's easy, especially since summer's not too far away. Pretty tricky eh?"
"You're bloody nuts you crazy bastard! How could anyone like doing this?"
"Well it takes some time to get used to but it's just a state of mind really. I block it out and smile on the inside, part of the game I suppose. In fact I look forward to it now!" he said smiling. Another spud plopped into the bucket. Galloway gave Steve a cautious sideways look nodding his head sagely but not really understanding this dopey Pommie. He's lost it, he thought. He's round the twist.
"So you don't mind if Marshall puts you on kitchen duty next week?"
"No, I'll be delighted." Steve plonked another spud into the water and raised the axe ready to chop the pumpkin. However Galloway misunderstood the action and backed off quickly hands up in the air.
"Hey! Hey! Back off Pommie! No need for that! Put the axe down!"
"Don't be daft, it's for the pumpkin you idiot. You didn't think I was... Oh for goodness sake, take those tins inside. I'll get started." Steve lifted the axe and slammed it down on the pumpkin smiling. "Take that you fat bastard!" and he cleaved the pumpkin with one hit. Galloway scurried inside the kitchen with the tins of spuds sploshing water everywhere in his haste to get out of the way of this maniac with the axe.
The next Monday when the Head read out, ‘Morgan', for kitchen duty he slowly raised his head, locked eyes and smiled at Steve across the dining room silence. Some sort of perverse rapport had sprung up between torturer and tortured, but who is to say who is the torturer and who is the tortured. Steve smiled back.
(To understand the full impact of this story you really need to go back and read the other earlier instalments. And there's more to come!)
Related Tags: education, friends, school, god, experiences, boarding school, code, rules, shanghai, new zealand, immigration, bullying, revenge, new boy, wesley college, kitchen duty
Retired Principal originally from England but now resident in New Zealand for the past 55yrs
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