Grade 8 – Rugby
Part 1
The Unwell Child
I would not have been classed as a physically healthy child. My human form travelled its earthly existence amidst a mist of phlegm and secretions, wheezing bronchospastic lungs, watering eyes, streaming nostrils, and ear infections.
Striving to keep my various tubes and orifices at least partly patent, I received, from earnest, well-meaning doctors, a variety of medical diagnoses, and an eclectic range of matching medicaments. In ever changing formats, anything that could be swallowed, sniffed, aspirated, inhaled, rubbed on, misted, or steamed, was given a fair trial. The passing years seemed to dilute the symptoms. I spent less and less time in bed and more and more time begrudgingly attending school, though the possession of excess mucosal secretions and chronic obstruction of my airways remained a sizeable hindrance to the performance of any activities requiring physical exertion.
Indeed, the merest little trot over a short distance would see me breathless, hands on hips, leaning forward from the waist, gulping air, and emitting repetitive rasping wheezes, like some overworked steam engine gone awry. A couple of desperate sucks on my inhaler, a recently invented, seemingly miraculous medical treatment for asthmatics, would provide a degree of instant relief and stave off impending death, for a bit. Thus came I to regard physical exertion, of any sort, as unpleasant in the extreme.
Unfortunately for me, sports practices and physical training were a regular hazard of school life. Fortunately, however, our enthusiastic coaches would often not notice the loss of one inept pupil during training routines. This allowed me to perform my resuscitation manoeuvres and enjoy my near-death experiences in peace.
By the time I took my leave of primary school, I had, to a greater or lesser degree, ‘grown out’ of many of my various afflictions. The asthma never left me, and I did continue to emit copious nasal secretions of varying viscosity and hue, but the symptoms were now no longer severe enough to keep me confined to bed.
Part 2
Fit For Rugby
And so it came to be that one blazing midsummer tropical morning , attired in long woollen trousers, long sleeved shirt and tie, and navy blue, brass buttoned blazer, I was delivered to a new world: a colonial high school, replete with nigh on a thousand boys.
It was here that I was to come face to face, literally, with a brand new concept, Rugby Football. At primary school we had had soccer and cricket. I, of course, had had a natural flair for achieving pathetic performances in both. But Rugby, I came quickly to understand, was of an entirely different order of magnitude.
Towards the end of summer, with Rugby Season almost upon us, all the new boys underwent physical health screening to assess our fitness for Rugby. This was a brief process, and appeared to be based on a broad definition of the concept of ‘physically fit’.
We were lined up against the side wall of the school gymnasium, clad in white shorts and bright vests of various colours, each colour reflecting our allegiance to a school house. In marched Mr Joubert, the head rugby coach, brandishing an imposing brown leather case and an enormous moustache.
Having set the case carefully down on a small table and popped its chrome catches, he tilted the lid slowly back until it rested on the tabletop. From inside the case a silver grey complex looking machine protruded upwards into the open air. Mr Joubert gazed down at it lovingly for a brief moment, reverentially stroking its surface. Then he elevated from the innards of the case, a vertical black drum, around the side of which he placed what appeared to be a piece of rectangular graph paper, marked with a grid and small red numbers. He attached to the machine a flexible corrugated plastic tube which ended in a dilated mouth piece.
Mr Joubert then turned to us and said, in respectful hushed tones as he gestured toward the machine,
“This, gentlemen, is a spirometer. It is a very delicate and very expensive device. Please treat it with the utmost care and attention.”
We lined up before the machine. One by one we took it in turn to inflate our lungs as dramatically as possible, seal our lips around the mouth piece and expel air forcibly outwards for as long as possible. While we did so, the drum rotated slowly and an ink stylus drew a black wavy line on the rotating graph paper, which rose with our respiratory efforts. Having been elevated by the air pressure provided by our outbreath, the stylus then began to settle back as we began to run out of puff, causing the jagged line on the drum to descend from its mountain like peak to a series of foothills and finally, as our breath died, to flat-line at the lower edge of the graph paper.
We were then instructed to blow into a second smaller, handheld tubular machine which had a plastic indicator needle set in a groove along its side adjacent to a line of incremental markings. This peak flow meter served to measure the airspeed produced by one short explosive outbreath.
These two machines, Mr Joubert informed us, measured the ‘forced vital capacity (FVC)’ or volume, and the ‘peak flow rate (PFR)’ or power, of our lungs. I apparently had larger than normal lungs; although they were not commensurately powerful as evidenced by the reluctance of the peak flow needle to move along the side of its small cylinder when I blew into the tube. I felt reassured, compensated almost, by the excessive volume of my lungs which the spirometer had so impressively demonstrated. This reading had also please Mr Joubert. He reassured me that I must be very fit to possess such fine voluminous breathing organs.
I found out later, much later, that the opposite was in fact true: that my lung functions - large lung volume and poor peak flow – reflected ‘air-trapping’ as a result of underlying bronchospasm and that this was, in fact, an indication of the severity of my asthma. The expensive machine had successfully recorded an accurate picture of my poor lung function. Mr Joubert, however, (perceiving the results through the lens of that popular philosophy that ‘more is always better’) had misinterpreted the results, allowing his mind to conjure up a direct reversal of reality.
It made little difference as it turned out. Unlike the outcome of many academic tests, no one would fail the Rugby screening tests. It rapidly became apparent that Rugby was compulsory for everybody, unless one had an actual loss of life or limb, or perhaps a proven paraplegia. For those few unfortunates who were possessed of such gross physical handicaps, hockey was available as an alternative, provided that a medical certificate confirming the disability was supplied.
Part 3
Rugby Season
i. The Team
With the arrival of Rugby season, an all-embracing ‘atmosphere’ pervaded the school. We were placed in teams for trials, practice schedules were placed on notice boards, and game booklets were published listing the fixtures for the entire season. At the beginning of the school year we had all been graded by academic testing. We had been thus stratified according to results of mathematics and English tests into multiple classes which could, theoretically, accommodate a broad spectrum of academic ability. After trial games we were now similarly stratified into multiple rugby teams to accommodate the broad spectrum of physical ability which had been on display during the trial games. Thankfully those of us who had never previously played rugby were matched against each other. As we had very limited knowledge of Rugby, the trial games of the lower orders were as short lived as they were chaotic.
The resulting rugby teams were labeled in descending order of prowess: Under 13-A, Under 13-B, Under 13-C, etc, all the way down to Under 13-F. This last was, of course, my team, the Under 13-Fs.
The inmates of the Under 13-F team were anything but fit. This became apparent at our first practice session when we attempted to follow the first (and in our minds, quite ridiculous) instruction from our unsuspecting coach to ‘warm up’ by running once round the perimeter of the field. Most of us found that we were unable to complete such a monumentally demanding project. In fact many of us were unable to progress more than a couple of paces without falling over in a dead faint.
Another characteristic of the Under 13-F team players was a remarkable dearth of ball skills. Our response to any rapidly approaching rugby ball was to regard it as dangerous and to duck determinedly out of its way.
Fortune favoured me by having me positioned at Tight Head Prop. This had the benefit, that, as a prop, I was required to do less running about and fumbling with the ball. The Tight Head Prop is one member of an assemblage of three players who make up the front row of the Rugby Scrum. We, the Props could rely on the process of ‘Scrumming’ to provide blessed intervals of more or less static relief from the otherwise near constant running around, which is one of the perverse characteristics of a rugby match.
ii. The Scrum
The Rugby Scrum is in itself a most intriguing affair. A total of eight boys, bent double, join up in a three row formation, all facing in the same direction. As mentioned, three boys occupy the front row: the Tight Head Prop (that was me) on the right; the endearingly named Hooker in the middle, and the Loose Head Prop on the left. The three front row members stand side by side and drape their arms about each other in a most affectionate fashion.
They are joined by four boys who make up the second row. The two in the centre of the row are labeled the Locks. The two Locks poke their heads between the buttocks of each of their corresponding Props and Hooker in the front row. Each Lock then places one arm between the inner thighs of his Prop, and takes a grip on the unfortunate fellow’s rugby shorts, just above the crotch. It’s all rather intimate and no doubt designed to allow pubescent boys to steam off excess testosterone.
The Flanks, as the two outlying boys of the second row are prosaically termed, place a shoulder against the remaining exposed lateral buttock of each of their Props, who are now bent double in the front row. The third row is made up of a single player, called, for want of something more erudite, The Eighth Man. The Eighth Man has the pleasure of inserting his head between the buttocks of the two second row Locks, bent double in front of him.
The entire Scrum, so formed, confronts the replica but mirror image formation of the enemy scrum facing them, head to head, in order to partake in a melee of pushing and shoving. Before the pushing starts, the Props and Hooker of the opposing front rows face each other and bend low, slotting together head to shoulder. Adjacent to the Scrum stands a boy with the ball. He is known as The Scrum Half, so called, I think, as he is often a rather petite player, or perhaps because he is usually positioned half way between the Scrum (made up of the larger ‘forwards’) and the rest of the team (the more athletic ‘line’ or ‘backs’). The Scrum Half remains sensibly outside this seething hummock of humanity. At a command from the referee, the Scrum Half inserts the Ball into the tunnel formed beneath the interlocking heads and necks of the two front rows.
The Rugby ‘Ball’ is an odd, rather inaccurately named object. It is a leather bound thing, plump and round in the middle, with ends tapering to a point on each side. It is pumped up hard with air contained in an internal bladder. It is clearly designed to be very difficult to catch, kick or throw. Once the ball has entered the Scrum, all sixteen boys begin to push in earnest, each group of eight trying to push the opposition off the ball, while the Hookers attempt to ‘hook’ the ball with their feet and scrape it back towards their own half of the Scrum, where it would then, in theory, be available for collection by the nimble Scrum Half.
The Under 13-F team were not adept at scrumming. What occurred on our field of play was frequently quite startling and would leave our poor coach repeatedly shaking his head and groaning in disbelief.
Both teams would attempt to enliven the early stages of the scrumming process by a bit of blustering bravado. Then, once the ball was in, the pushing and shoving would begin in earnest, and the cajoling comments and exhortations would become grunts of effort and agony. Here were sixteen boys pushing against each other for all they were worth, bent low as though each team was collectively forcing a massively laden cart through a muddy swamp.
Opposing vector forces were thus created. These forces peaked on the buttocks and heads of the Props and Hookers, now trapped in the very centre of the scrum. In obedience to Newton’s Third Law of Motion, the process of scrumming was followed by one of three possible outcomes:
Whichever outcome prevailed, the discomfort of each near death experience was extreme. An initial panicky period of immense bodily compression would be followed by much wriggling and kicking, after which the ball would pass out of the squirming, moving pile of compressed humanity. The receiver of the ball - usually the Scrumhalf - would fling the ball at the nearest of his team mates – usually the Fly-half (as the next player in the line was known). If it was our team that had, by some miracle, secured possession of the ball, our Fly-half would be instantly felled by an enormous enemy ogre. Our man would drop the ball and the referee would blow his whistle at the resulting infringement which was known as a ‘knock on’. The punishment for this crime was to begin once again the tedious compression cycle of the Scrum.
I spent many a match wheezing my way from one Scrum, Ruck (a kind of spontaneous Scrum on the ground, usually following a tackle), or Maul (similar to a ruck, but with a more elevated, vertical stance which keeps the ball off the ground) to the next; and being recurrently crushed, elevated, kicked, and trampled, leaving me wondering what the purpose could be of the bizarre ritual known as Rugby.
iii. The Technique
To assist in the preservation of life and limb in the face of the insuperable odds against us, there were employed, amongst the Lower Orders, certain clandestine methodologies. For the purposes of playing Prop in Rugby Football, these were encapsulated in a process known to us as The Technique. The Technique was a bit of schoolboy lore which was handed down by word of mouth from one generation of Under 13 F props to the next. The Technique was employed as a means of limiting the efficacy of the often larger and more capable opposing Props, whom we faced in each new match.
The first part of The Technique was to apply liberally to one’s neck, an ointment containing Oil Of Wintergreen. This substance was widely utilized as an unguent, massaged over sore muscles and painful joints. An ointment containing Oil Of Wintergreen was sold in tubes under the trade name ‘Deep Heat’. It did generate a sensation of soothing heat in the massaged area but, more importantly to us, it caused severe irritation of any eyes with which it, inadvertently, came into contact.
Saturday mornings, before matches, we could be found in the changing rooms, liberally applying Deep Heat to our necks and shoulders, both on the skin and, maliciously, onto the corresponding outer surfaces of our rugby jerseys. Deep Heat a perfectly innocent means of soothing our much abused and macerated muscles.
As the intimate process of the Scrum involved direct contact between our necks and shoulders and the faces of our enemy front rankers, the clandestine effect achieved was an inevitable transfer of this invaluable ointment onto the eyelids of our unfortunate victims. Their eyes would then begin to smart and water and the irritation would become unbearable. This would divert diverted their attention and render them less able to perform the job in hand, thereby saving us from being overly compressed.
The next step in The Technique, which took place during the Scrumming process, involved grasping a generous gobbet of rugby field: grass, soil, mud, small twigs, sand, grit … whatever made up the surface over which were we were playing. During the chaos of the scrum, this handful of debris was tossed surreptitiously upwards into the already smarting eyes of the opposing Prop, sticking there, owing to the greasy properties of the ‘inadvertently’ transferred ointment. The combined effect of Wintergreen and dirt adhering to the eyeballs was debilitating indeed.
The third, and final, step in the Technique was to modify the grasp on the opposing Prop. A Prop, scrumming in the usual fashion, would, for support, place his free hand on the exposed lateral aspect of his opposing number. Commonly inclined, as we were, towards indolence, Props were often nicely padded, facilitating a good grasp on a roll of tender loin flesh. During the compression phase of the Scrum, one was at liberty to subject this handful of sensitive skin to an almighty clenching twist and squeeze. The pain thus inflicted would further debilitate the already partially blinded enemy ogre.
Our opposition were not immobilised by these methods, but they were rendered a little less formidable. In mitigation of our ethically dubious methods, we did earnestly require a defence against bodily damage. As we, in the under 13-F team, existed at the extreme inferior end of the schoolboy rugby spectrum, so were our opponents frequently more talented, and much larger, than ourselves. We required every advantage we could muster, fair or unfair, in order to come out of any Rugby Football match alive.
iv. Practices & Tactics
In order to improve our standing in the rugby world, we conducted frequent rugby practice sessions. Most of the Under 13 F practices were conducted in our school classroom. It seemed far more sensible to us to spend time seated in comfort on our desks, planning tactics and drawing diagrams of ambitious manoeuvres on the blackboard, than out on the sports field, running around and sweating under the tropical sun. We dreamed up many magnificent manoeuvres to assist in swinging the odds a little in our favour against our inexorable enemies. Some of the tricks were designed to allow us to catch our breath during a match (most of us viewing fitness training with a jaundiced eye).
Smith…
One of the more popular moves was known as ‘Smith’, simply because there was no one by that name in our team.
‘Smith’ was unfurled about ten minutes after play had commenced. It was an emergency sequence used to force a pause in the game. The Team Captain would holler ‘Smith’, in a carrying tone, following which a designated player would fall down, roll onto his back and clutch convincingly at his chest. The captain would approach rapidly in a concerned manner, lean over the writhing form, and enquire, “Is it your ribs again?”
In a near death sounding rattle, Smith would gasp out an affirmative reply and accompanying this with heart rending groans, rolling his eyes up until the whites showed in a most melodramatic fashion. The captain would then run over to the referee, pointing to Smith, who appeared to be rapidly demising on the ground, and say politely, “Excuse me Sir, sincere apologies, but, you see, it’s Smith Sir, it’s his ribs again”. The ref would blow his whistle which would summon our travelling pack of enthusiastic first-aiders. There followed a blessed pause in play during which we could all catch our breath and obtain a merciful sip of water.
Smith would happily receive the tender ministrations of the first-aiders, who would rub soothing liniments (often the aforementioned Deep Heat) on his sore spots and dribble water into his open gasping mouth. After a few minutes of recuperation, Smith’s unfocused glazed look would clear and the game wound recommence with much complimenting of Smith’s stamina and determination in the face of adversity.
Peppermint Crisp…
Peppermint Crisp saw us ceasing all the silly flinging about of the ball, with its associated liabilities. This manoeuvre could be employed only when the ref had blown his whistle and awarded a penalty and hence possession of the ball to us. Often it seemed as if the ref had developed a little sympathy for us and whished our team to have a turn at carrying the ball.
With the enemy now banished to a reasonable distance (the rules required that they retreat ten metres distant), we would, at the given signal, all retreat very briefly into a quiet and civilized little huddle around our team-mate who was in possession of the ball (the ball, please remember, was not often with our team, so possession thereof required that we do something thoughtful, and with a little flair).
Immediately on obscuring the ball inside our huddle (not particularly a legal thing to do, I believe), we would all, including the ball bearer, place both our forearms up under our rugby jerseys, in a fashion that suggested that each of us was cradling the ball against our chests.
Thereafter the huddle would break up explosively with each of us running in a different direction, several creative individuals even hiving off at great pace towards our own try line.
The stellate pattern described by this explosive outburst of bodies resulted in considerable confusion. With the exception of the genuine ball bearer, no-one on the field at this point, including the somewhat bemused ref himself, would know, or be in a position to discern, which player was in actual possession of the ball.
In the brief state of mystification which ensued, the man with the ball, provided he had remembered to run in the correct direction, would manage to fall over the enemy line, and lie panting, one hand clutching the ball to the ground. Once the confusion had cleared, our team would be rewarded for this by a four point increase in our score. These points were, rather strangely, referred to as a Try. (From the latin root for three, which had been the original value of a Try. In later years a Try was awarded the deservedly higher value of five points, though this rendered the term increasingly inaccurate.)
Goal Kicking…
In our case it was an appropriately named award as we always had to try really hard to score any points at all. The try was regarded as converted (and worth an extra two points), if one of our players could subsequently kick the ball over the crossbar between the upright poles of the H-shaped goal posts. We never scored these extra points as none of us had even a faint hope of delivering a powerful enough kick to elevate the ball to this rarefied altitude.
However the attempt at goal kicking, as it was referred to, did provide us with a another moment of inaction to catch. One of the team players was designated kicker for the match, usually against his will as it was somewhat embarrassing to have a total inability to kick a rugby ball publicly exposed in this manner. To prolong the duration of the breather, the kicker would, in a most professional manner, mess around with the ball for as long as possible and employ several time consuming procedures before attempting the kick at goal: he would set about balancing the ball just so on a small heap of sand, making several minute adjustments to the angle the ball made with the ground; he would then lie on his chest behind the now perfectly placed ball and squint up at the goal posts to ‘get a line of sight’, somewhat akin to the activities performed by professional golfers before attempting an ambitious putt; and finally, he would spend time throwing a bit of sand up into the air while standing on various sides of the ball in order to ascertain the direction and speed of the prevailing breeze. This ‘evaluation’ by the kicker would baffle the ref, and the enemy; however as long as the kicker didn’t drag it on for too long, no-one seemed to mind and it added wonderful moments to our rest period
V. The Rugby Bully.
The following year I was promoted, for some unknown reason to the under 14-E team and, a year thereafter, in a state of bewilderment, to the under 15-D team. This could only have been owing to a dearth of able bodied, four limbed props in the land, no doubt as a result of deaths and serious injuries sustained during rugby matches by inmates of the higher teams. My promotion proved to be problematic in certain ways, not least because the D team engaged in ‘proper rugby’ and had less interest in intellectual exercises and tricky techniques which we had been wont to use in the lower orders.
Further, the under 14-D team had combined rugby practices with the under 14-C team. The Under 14 Cs were large and their style of Rugby was comparatively professional. The under 14-C team were possessed of a prop by the name of Maclean. Maclean represented my first and only contact with a school bully. He was a thuggish, mentally slow, overweight, bristle haired, troll of a child. He attempted to shield his insecurities with an abrasive, aggressive, mean attitude, turning him into a caricature of a school bully. Maclean snarled a lot and made stupid derisive remarks about his opposite numbers and even about his own team mates. He had accumulated a small gang of sycophantic supporters and between themselves they attempted to make their own lives more interesting by making those of the smaller people around them a misery. They chose only the smaller people, of course. This went on for some time, with the cowards among us, myself included, pretending not to notice.
Then, one day, Maclean picked on Richard. Richard was one of my closest friends at school and was a team mate, being the Hooker in the under 15-D team. When Maclean picked Richard as his next victim, we all noticed. Richard was physically tiny, but never seemed to see himself that way. What he lacked in tallness and broadness, Richard made up for with a massive intellect and a sharp as lightning tongue that knew not how to back off from any confrontation, regardless of the physical size of the opponent, and especially not one with a psychopathic school bully.
“Hey Doyle” sneered Maclean one day, as we were about to Scrum. As Maclean was the loose head Prop of the under 15-C team, he was facing the two of us as we bent forwards to commence scrumming.
“Why are you such an arsehole, Doyle?” continued Maclean, as we locked heads.
“It’s because everything looks like an arsehole to your flea-sized brain, Maclean,” retorted Richard without delay.
There was an ominous silence before Maclean replied menacingly from the interior of the Scrum,
“Don’t say that again Doyle, if you value your life”.
“Ooh, threats, threats,” replied Richard mockingly, in an imitative nasal twang, clearly designed to enrage Maclean as much as possible.
This was a fairly easy thing to achieve. Richard couldn’t help himself and, as the Scrum broke up, he followed up this remark with,
“Maclean, just face it. You have a guava pip for a brain, so you think we’re all arseholes, but that’s because you’re such an arsehole yourself.”
Maclean reared up from the remains of the Scrum, red in the face, right opposite Richard. His fist flashed out of nowhere and connected hard with Richard’s head, knocking him onto his back. Richard leaned on one arm and pushed himself unsteadily up onto his knees, understandably somewhat dazed. Maclean, redder in the face than usual, lambasted Richard’s head with several more vicious blows. One punch struck Richard on the nose causing blood to squirt grandly from his nostrils. Richard wobbled unsteadily on his knees and once again toppled over backwards.
My own reaction was entirely reflexive. I was standing right there after all, and couldn’t allow this ridiculous situation to continue – Maclean seemed to be intent on exterminating Richard. Forced reluctantly into action, I placed an automatic hand on Maclean’s shoulder and pulled him back, away from his wounded target.
“That is not a good idea,” I heard myself say out loud, as Maclean turned to see who this was, this impertinent person who had dared to foul up his afternoon interlude.
“You, Dwyer!” blurted out Maclean in disbelief.
Like everyone present, Maclean knew I was a completely non-confrontational pacifist (in other words, a coward).
“So.” he continued, once he had recovered from his surprise at this unexpected turn of events, raising his eyebrows to show his disdain, “what do you think you’re going to do about it Dwyer?”
I couldn’t answer that, so, at first, I didn’t.
“Just don’t touch him again Maclean,” I said eventually, hiding my own fear with the aid of a surge of adrenalin and looking, for a fleeting second, deeply into Maclean’s small brown eyes.
‘For such a fat face, your eyes are a little too close together,’ I remember thinking irrelevantly at the time, or maybe I said it out loud.
Maclean appeared dumbstruck.
“I can’t believe this,” he spluttered. “Doyle,” he continued, now sounding sarcastic, “your boyfriend is coming to your rescue. Isn’t that sweet?”
To me he turned and said, “Dwyer, you are so dead.”
He turned his head to see the coach approaching.
“I’ll meet you outside the change rooms after practice,” he hissed at me.
‘After practice’ was not far off and seemed to arrive with unwarranted rapidity.
“Thabaks,” said Richard through his rapidly swelling facial features once Maclean had departed the scene. “But, what are we gobig to do bow?” he asked, as blood dribbled dramatically from his nose.
All the others who made up the non-Maclean group expressed concern.
“You can’t go and face Maclean,” they said.
“He’ll tear you into mincemeat”, they said.
“Well,” I replied dubiously, “I don’t seem to have any choice.”
“You don’t have to go on being the hero, you know,” someone insisted. This sounded quite convincing I thought.
“I know. I know.” I replied. “I have no intention of purposefully engaging in fisticuffs with Maclean. But, I can’t see a way out. My clothes are in the change room. I can’t go in there without coming across him waiting outside.”
“I’ll get your stuff and bring it out,” someone volunteered.
“Yes, sure,” I replied, and he’s going to offer you nice safe passage to and from the change rooms to fetch my clothes. I doubt that, somehow.”
The others offered helpful suggestions, such as buying a high calibre firearm, adopting a disguise, or purchasing new clothes and abandoning the old ones in the change room.
In the end we realised that we would just have to approach the change rooms and see what ensued. At least there was a group of us, even if we were all non-pugilistic types. As we approached the school buildings, I began to be somewhat perturbed by growing sensations of anxiety. We seemed a pathetic little group of reticent weaklings against the mighty Maclean. When we arrived in the change rooms we found Maclean half dressed.
“You’re so dead, Dwyer, you’re toast…” he repeated as he finished donning his school uniform. He stomped out of the change rooms leaving me to dress in fear.
Astonishingly, on exiting the change rooms myself, all showered and dressed and terrified, it was to discover that Maclean was nowhere to be seen.
Relief and surprise were equal in their enthusiasm to occupy my mind. I stood, looking around, for a minute or two, no doubt with my mouth hanging open slightly. Maclean was definitely not present.
“Bethibiks he got cold feet,” contributed Richard gleefully. “It’s always like that with a bully – stabad up to hib add he disappears like a puff of sboke,” he added, snapping his fingers as if to indicate how regularly and rapidly bullies transmogrified into smoke.
I wasn’t so sure about this theory but I was immeasurably relived that Maclean had vanished. Maclean chose to ignore us at all future encounters. This, needless to say, was very welcome and was regarded by all as a most positive development.
Secretly however, I could feel a few inklings of something else. To this day I’ve never been sure what that was, that mild disquiet, that slightly empty let-down sort of sensation which had been provoked by the absence of Maclean. I think it may have been disappointment.
Part 1
The Unwell Child
I would not have been classed as a physically healthy child. My human form travelled its earthly existence amidst a mist of phlegm and secretions, wheezing bronchospastic lungs, watering eyes, streaming nostrils, and ear infections.
Striving to keep my various tubes and orifices at least partly patent, I received, from earnest, well-meaning doctors, a variety of medical diagnoses, and an eclectic range of matching medicaments. In ever changing formats, anything that could be swallowed, sniffed, aspirated, inhaled, rubbed on, misted, or steamed, was given a fair trial. The passing years seemed to dilute the symptoms. I spent less and less time in bed and more and more time begrudgingly attending school, though the possession of excess mucosal secretions and chronic obstruction of my airways remained a sizeable hindrance to the performance of any activities requiring physical exertion.
Indeed, the merest little trot over a short distance would see me breathless, hands on hips, leaning forward from the waist, gulping air, and emitting repetitive rasping wheezes, like some overworked steam engine gone awry. A couple of desperate sucks on my inhaler, a recently invented, seemingly miraculous medical treatment for asthmatics, would provide a degree of instant relief and stave off impending death, for a bit. Thus came I to regard physical exertion, of any sort, as unpleasant in the extreme.
Unfortunately for me, sports practices and physical training were a regular hazard of school life. Fortunately, however, our enthusiastic coaches would often not notice the loss of one inept pupil during training routines. This allowed me to perform my resuscitation manoeuvres and enjoy my near-death experiences in peace.
By the time I took my leave of primary school, I had, to a greater or lesser degree, ‘grown out’ of many of my various afflictions. The asthma never left me, and I did continue to emit copious nasal secretions of varying viscosity and hue, but the symptoms were now no longer severe enough to keep me confined to bed.
Part 2
Fit For Rugby
And so it came to be that one blazing midsummer tropical morning , attired in long woollen trousers, long sleeved shirt and tie, and navy blue, brass buttoned blazer, I was delivered to a new world: a colonial high school, replete with nigh on a thousand boys.
It was here that I was to come face to face, literally, with a brand new concept, Rugby Football. At primary school we had had soccer and cricket. I, of course, had had a natural flair for achieving pathetic performances in both. But Rugby, I came quickly to understand, was of an entirely different order of magnitude.
Towards the end of summer, with Rugby Season almost upon us, all the new boys underwent physical health screening to assess our fitness for Rugby. This was a brief process, and appeared to be based on a broad definition of the concept of ‘physically fit’.
We were lined up against the side wall of the school gymnasium, clad in white shorts and bright vests of various colours, each colour reflecting our allegiance to a school house. In marched Mr Joubert, the head rugby coach, brandishing an imposing brown leather case and an enormous moustache.
Having set the case carefully down on a small table and popped its chrome catches, he tilted the lid slowly back until it rested on the tabletop. From inside the case a silver grey complex looking machine protruded upwards into the open air. Mr Joubert gazed down at it lovingly for a brief moment, reverentially stroking its surface. Then he elevated from the innards of the case, a vertical black drum, around the side of which he placed what appeared to be a piece of rectangular graph paper, marked with a grid and small red numbers. He attached to the machine a flexible corrugated plastic tube which ended in a dilated mouth piece.
Mr Joubert then turned to us and said, in respectful hushed tones as he gestured toward the machine,
“This, gentlemen, is a spirometer. It is a very delicate and very expensive device. Please treat it with the utmost care and attention.”
We lined up before the machine. One by one we took it in turn to inflate our lungs as dramatically as possible, seal our lips around the mouth piece and expel air forcibly outwards for as long as possible. While we did so, the drum rotated slowly and an ink stylus drew a black wavy line on the rotating graph paper, which rose with our respiratory efforts. Having been elevated by the air pressure provided by our outbreath, the stylus then began to settle back as we began to run out of puff, causing the jagged line on the drum to descend from its mountain like peak to a series of foothills and finally, as our breath died, to flat-line at the lower edge of the graph paper.
We were then instructed to blow into a second smaller, handheld tubular machine which had a plastic indicator needle set in a groove along its side adjacent to a line of incremental markings. This peak flow meter served to measure the airspeed produced by one short explosive outbreath.
These two machines, Mr Joubert informed us, measured the ‘forced vital capacity (FVC)’ or volume, and the ‘peak flow rate (PFR)’ or power, of our lungs. I apparently had larger than normal lungs; although they were not commensurately powerful as evidenced by the reluctance of the peak flow needle to move along the side of its small cylinder when I blew into the tube. I felt reassured, compensated almost, by the excessive volume of my lungs which the spirometer had so impressively demonstrated. This reading had also please Mr Joubert. He reassured me that I must be very fit to possess such fine voluminous breathing organs.
I found out later, much later, that the opposite was in fact true: that my lung functions - large lung volume and poor peak flow – reflected ‘air-trapping’ as a result of underlying bronchospasm and that this was, in fact, an indication of the severity of my asthma. The expensive machine had successfully recorded an accurate picture of my poor lung function. Mr Joubert, however, (perceiving the results through the lens of that popular philosophy that ‘more is always better’) had misinterpreted the results, allowing his mind to conjure up a direct reversal of reality.
It made little difference as it turned out. Unlike the outcome of many academic tests, no one would fail the Rugby screening tests. It rapidly became apparent that Rugby was compulsory for everybody, unless one had an actual loss of life or limb, or perhaps a proven paraplegia. For those few unfortunates who were possessed of such gross physical handicaps, hockey was available as an alternative, provided that a medical certificate confirming the disability was supplied.
Part 3
Rugby Season
i. The Team
With the arrival of Rugby season, an all-embracing ‘atmosphere’ pervaded the school. We were placed in teams for trials, practice schedules were placed on notice boards, and game booklets were published listing the fixtures for the entire season. At the beginning of the school year we had all been graded by academic testing. We had been thus stratified according to results of mathematics and English tests into multiple classes which could, theoretically, accommodate a broad spectrum of academic ability. After trial games we were now similarly stratified into multiple rugby teams to accommodate the broad spectrum of physical ability which had been on display during the trial games. Thankfully those of us who had never previously played rugby were matched against each other. As we had very limited knowledge of Rugby, the trial games of the lower orders were as short lived as they were chaotic.
The resulting rugby teams were labeled in descending order of prowess: Under 13-A, Under 13-B, Under 13-C, etc, all the way down to Under 13-F. This last was, of course, my team, the Under 13-Fs.
The inmates of the Under 13-F team were anything but fit. This became apparent at our first practice session when we attempted to follow the first (and in our minds, quite ridiculous) instruction from our unsuspecting coach to ‘warm up’ by running once round the perimeter of the field. Most of us found that we were unable to complete such a monumentally demanding project. In fact many of us were unable to progress more than a couple of paces without falling over in a dead faint.
Another characteristic of the Under 13-F team players was a remarkable dearth of ball skills. Our response to any rapidly approaching rugby ball was to regard it as dangerous and to duck determinedly out of its way.
Fortune favoured me by having me positioned at Tight Head Prop. This had the benefit, that, as a prop, I was required to do less running about and fumbling with the ball. The Tight Head Prop is one member of an assemblage of three players who make up the front row of the Rugby Scrum. We, the Props could rely on the process of ‘Scrumming’ to provide blessed intervals of more or less static relief from the otherwise near constant running around, which is one of the perverse characteristics of a rugby match.
ii. The Scrum
The Rugby Scrum is in itself a most intriguing affair. A total of eight boys, bent double, join up in a three row formation, all facing in the same direction. As mentioned, three boys occupy the front row: the Tight Head Prop (that was me) on the right; the endearingly named Hooker in the middle, and the Loose Head Prop on the left. The three front row members stand side by side and drape their arms about each other in a most affectionate fashion.
They are joined by four boys who make up the second row. The two in the centre of the row are labeled the Locks. The two Locks poke their heads between the buttocks of each of their corresponding Props and Hooker in the front row. Each Lock then places one arm between the inner thighs of his Prop, and takes a grip on the unfortunate fellow’s rugby shorts, just above the crotch. It’s all rather intimate and no doubt designed to allow pubescent boys to steam off excess testosterone.
The Flanks, as the two outlying boys of the second row are prosaically termed, place a shoulder against the remaining exposed lateral buttock of each of their Props, who are now bent double in the front row. The third row is made up of a single player, called, for want of something more erudite, The Eighth Man. The Eighth Man has the pleasure of inserting his head between the buttocks of the two second row Locks, bent double in front of him.
The entire Scrum, so formed, confronts the replica but mirror image formation of the enemy scrum facing them, head to head, in order to partake in a melee of pushing and shoving. Before the pushing starts, the Props and Hooker of the opposing front rows face each other and bend low, slotting together head to shoulder. Adjacent to the Scrum stands a boy with the ball. He is known as The Scrum Half, so called, I think, as he is often a rather petite player, or perhaps because he is usually positioned half way between the Scrum (made up of the larger ‘forwards’) and the rest of the team (the more athletic ‘line’ or ‘backs’). The Scrum Half remains sensibly outside this seething hummock of humanity. At a command from the referee, the Scrum Half inserts the Ball into the tunnel formed beneath the interlocking heads and necks of the two front rows.
The Rugby ‘Ball’ is an odd, rather inaccurately named object. It is a leather bound thing, plump and round in the middle, with ends tapering to a point on each side. It is pumped up hard with air contained in an internal bladder. It is clearly designed to be very difficult to catch, kick or throw. Once the ball has entered the Scrum, all sixteen boys begin to push in earnest, each group of eight trying to push the opposition off the ball, while the Hookers attempt to ‘hook’ the ball with their feet and scrape it back towards their own half of the Scrum, where it would then, in theory, be available for collection by the nimble Scrum Half.
The Under 13-F team were not adept at scrumming. What occurred on our field of play was frequently quite startling and would leave our poor coach repeatedly shaking his head and groaning in disbelief.
Both teams would attempt to enliven the early stages of the scrumming process by a bit of blustering bravado. Then, once the ball was in, the pushing and shoving would begin in earnest, and the cajoling comments and exhortations would become grunts of effort and agony. Here were sixteen boys pushing against each other for all they were worth, bent low as though each team was collectively forcing a massively laden cart through a muddy swamp.
Opposing vector forces were thus created. These forces peaked on the buttocks and heads of the Props and Hookers, now trapped in the very centre of the scrum. In obedience to Newton’s Third Law of Motion, the process of scrumming was followed by one of three possible outcomes:
- We in the front row would be slowly compressed to death by having our heads forced through our torsos and out between our buttocks.
- The Scrum would collapse and we would be trapped, asphyxiated, and crushed under a heap of writhing, struggling bodies (this did nothing to improve my rapidly maturing sense of claustrophobia).
- The front row would be pushed upwards by the locks. If this occurred, it would cause my neck to be bent forcibly down by the opposing Prop and Hooker, so that my chin was ground firmly into my chest; the elevation of my entire being would leave my legs dangling uselessly below me like a pair of pathetic pendulums.
Whichever outcome prevailed, the discomfort of each near death experience was extreme. An initial panicky period of immense bodily compression would be followed by much wriggling and kicking, after which the ball would pass out of the squirming, moving pile of compressed humanity. The receiver of the ball - usually the Scrumhalf - would fling the ball at the nearest of his team mates – usually the Fly-half (as the next player in the line was known). If it was our team that had, by some miracle, secured possession of the ball, our Fly-half would be instantly felled by an enormous enemy ogre. Our man would drop the ball and the referee would blow his whistle at the resulting infringement which was known as a ‘knock on’. The punishment for this crime was to begin once again the tedious compression cycle of the Scrum.
I spent many a match wheezing my way from one Scrum, Ruck (a kind of spontaneous Scrum on the ground, usually following a tackle), or Maul (similar to a ruck, but with a more elevated, vertical stance which keeps the ball off the ground) to the next; and being recurrently crushed, elevated, kicked, and trampled, leaving me wondering what the purpose could be of the bizarre ritual known as Rugby.
iii. The Technique
To assist in the preservation of life and limb in the face of the insuperable odds against us, there were employed, amongst the Lower Orders, certain clandestine methodologies. For the purposes of playing Prop in Rugby Football, these were encapsulated in a process known to us as The Technique. The Technique was a bit of schoolboy lore which was handed down by word of mouth from one generation of Under 13 F props to the next. The Technique was employed as a means of limiting the efficacy of the often larger and more capable opposing Props, whom we faced in each new match.
The first part of The Technique was to apply liberally to one’s neck, an ointment containing Oil Of Wintergreen. This substance was widely utilized as an unguent, massaged over sore muscles and painful joints. An ointment containing Oil Of Wintergreen was sold in tubes under the trade name ‘Deep Heat’. It did generate a sensation of soothing heat in the massaged area but, more importantly to us, it caused severe irritation of any eyes with which it, inadvertently, came into contact.
Saturday mornings, before matches, we could be found in the changing rooms, liberally applying Deep Heat to our necks and shoulders, both on the skin and, maliciously, onto the corresponding outer surfaces of our rugby jerseys. Deep Heat a perfectly innocent means of soothing our much abused and macerated muscles.
As the intimate process of the Scrum involved direct contact between our necks and shoulders and the faces of our enemy front rankers, the clandestine effect achieved was an inevitable transfer of this invaluable ointment onto the eyelids of our unfortunate victims. Their eyes would then begin to smart and water and the irritation would become unbearable. This would divert diverted their attention and render them less able to perform the job in hand, thereby saving us from being overly compressed.
The next step in The Technique, which took place during the Scrumming process, involved grasping a generous gobbet of rugby field: grass, soil, mud, small twigs, sand, grit … whatever made up the surface over which were we were playing. During the chaos of the scrum, this handful of debris was tossed surreptitiously upwards into the already smarting eyes of the opposing Prop, sticking there, owing to the greasy properties of the ‘inadvertently’ transferred ointment. The combined effect of Wintergreen and dirt adhering to the eyeballs was debilitating indeed.
The third, and final, step in the Technique was to modify the grasp on the opposing Prop. A Prop, scrumming in the usual fashion, would, for support, place his free hand on the exposed lateral aspect of his opposing number. Commonly inclined, as we were, towards indolence, Props were often nicely padded, facilitating a good grasp on a roll of tender loin flesh. During the compression phase of the Scrum, one was at liberty to subject this handful of sensitive skin to an almighty clenching twist and squeeze. The pain thus inflicted would further debilitate the already partially blinded enemy ogre.
Our opposition were not immobilised by these methods, but they were rendered a little less formidable. In mitigation of our ethically dubious methods, we did earnestly require a defence against bodily damage. As we, in the under 13-F team, existed at the extreme inferior end of the schoolboy rugby spectrum, so were our opponents frequently more talented, and much larger, than ourselves. We required every advantage we could muster, fair or unfair, in order to come out of any Rugby Football match alive.
iv. Practices & Tactics
In order to improve our standing in the rugby world, we conducted frequent rugby practice sessions. Most of the Under 13 F practices were conducted in our school classroom. It seemed far more sensible to us to spend time seated in comfort on our desks, planning tactics and drawing diagrams of ambitious manoeuvres on the blackboard, than out on the sports field, running around and sweating under the tropical sun. We dreamed up many magnificent manoeuvres to assist in swinging the odds a little in our favour against our inexorable enemies. Some of the tricks were designed to allow us to catch our breath during a match (most of us viewing fitness training with a jaundiced eye).
Smith…
One of the more popular moves was known as ‘Smith’, simply because there was no one by that name in our team.
‘Smith’ was unfurled about ten minutes after play had commenced. It was an emergency sequence used to force a pause in the game. The Team Captain would holler ‘Smith’, in a carrying tone, following which a designated player would fall down, roll onto his back and clutch convincingly at his chest. The captain would approach rapidly in a concerned manner, lean over the writhing form, and enquire, “Is it your ribs again?”
In a near death sounding rattle, Smith would gasp out an affirmative reply and accompanying this with heart rending groans, rolling his eyes up until the whites showed in a most melodramatic fashion. The captain would then run over to the referee, pointing to Smith, who appeared to be rapidly demising on the ground, and say politely, “Excuse me Sir, sincere apologies, but, you see, it’s Smith Sir, it’s his ribs again”. The ref would blow his whistle which would summon our travelling pack of enthusiastic first-aiders. There followed a blessed pause in play during which we could all catch our breath and obtain a merciful sip of water.
Smith would happily receive the tender ministrations of the first-aiders, who would rub soothing liniments (often the aforementioned Deep Heat) on his sore spots and dribble water into his open gasping mouth. After a few minutes of recuperation, Smith’s unfocused glazed look would clear and the game wound recommence with much complimenting of Smith’s stamina and determination in the face of adversity.
Peppermint Crisp…
Peppermint Crisp saw us ceasing all the silly flinging about of the ball, with its associated liabilities. This manoeuvre could be employed only when the ref had blown his whistle and awarded a penalty and hence possession of the ball to us. Often it seemed as if the ref had developed a little sympathy for us and whished our team to have a turn at carrying the ball.
With the enemy now banished to a reasonable distance (the rules required that they retreat ten metres distant), we would, at the given signal, all retreat very briefly into a quiet and civilized little huddle around our team-mate who was in possession of the ball (the ball, please remember, was not often with our team, so possession thereof required that we do something thoughtful, and with a little flair).
Immediately on obscuring the ball inside our huddle (not particularly a legal thing to do, I believe), we would all, including the ball bearer, place both our forearms up under our rugby jerseys, in a fashion that suggested that each of us was cradling the ball against our chests.
Thereafter the huddle would break up explosively with each of us running in a different direction, several creative individuals even hiving off at great pace towards our own try line.
The stellate pattern described by this explosive outburst of bodies resulted in considerable confusion. With the exception of the genuine ball bearer, no-one on the field at this point, including the somewhat bemused ref himself, would know, or be in a position to discern, which player was in actual possession of the ball.
In the brief state of mystification which ensued, the man with the ball, provided he had remembered to run in the correct direction, would manage to fall over the enemy line, and lie panting, one hand clutching the ball to the ground. Once the confusion had cleared, our team would be rewarded for this by a four point increase in our score. These points were, rather strangely, referred to as a Try. (From the latin root for three, which had been the original value of a Try. In later years a Try was awarded the deservedly higher value of five points, though this rendered the term increasingly inaccurate.)
Goal Kicking…
In our case it was an appropriately named award as we always had to try really hard to score any points at all. The try was regarded as converted (and worth an extra two points), if one of our players could subsequently kick the ball over the crossbar between the upright poles of the H-shaped goal posts. We never scored these extra points as none of us had even a faint hope of delivering a powerful enough kick to elevate the ball to this rarefied altitude.
However the attempt at goal kicking, as it was referred to, did provide us with a another moment of inaction to catch. One of the team players was designated kicker for the match, usually against his will as it was somewhat embarrassing to have a total inability to kick a rugby ball publicly exposed in this manner. To prolong the duration of the breather, the kicker would, in a most professional manner, mess around with the ball for as long as possible and employ several time consuming procedures before attempting the kick at goal: he would set about balancing the ball just so on a small heap of sand, making several minute adjustments to the angle the ball made with the ground; he would then lie on his chest behind the now perfectly placed ball and squint up at the goal posts to ‘get a line of sight’, somewhat akin to the activities performed by professional golfers before attempting an ambitious putt; and finally, he would spend time throwing a bit of sand up into the air while standing on various sides of the ball in order to ascertain the direction and speed of the prevailing breeze. This ‘evaluation’ by the kicker would baffle the ref, and the enemy; however as long as the kicker didn’t drag it on for too long, no-one seemed to mind and it added wonderful moments to our rest period
V. The Rugby Bully.
The following year I was promoted, for some unknown reason to the under 14-E team and, a year thereafter, in a state of bewilderment, to the under 15-D team. This could only have been owing to a dearth of able bodied, four limbed props in the land, no doubt as a result of deaths and serious injuries sustained during rugby matches by inmates of the higher teams. My promotion proved to be problematic in certain ways, not least because the D team engaged in ‘proper rugby’ and had less interest in intellectual exercises and tricky techniques which we had been wont to use in the lower orders.
Further, the under 14-D team had combined rugby practices with the under 14-C team. The Under 14 Cs were large and their style of Rugby was comparatively professional. The under 14-C team were possessed of a prop by the name of Maclean. Maclean represented my first and only contact with a school bully. He was a thuggish, mentally slow, overweight, bristle haired, troll of a child. He attempted to shield his insecurities with an abrasive, aggressive, mean attitude, turning him into a caricature of a school bully. Maclean snarled a lot and made stupid derisive remarks about his opposite numbers and even about his own team mates. He had accumulated a small gang of sycophantic supporters and between themselves they attempted to make their own lives more interesting by making those of the smaller people around them a misery. They chose only the smaller people, of course. This went on for some time, with the cowards among us, myself included, pretending not to notice.
Then, one day, Maclean picked on Richard. Richard was one of my closest friends at school and was a team mate, being the Hooker in the under 15-D team. When Maclean picked Richard as his next victim, we all noticed. Richard was physically tiny, but never seemed to see himself that way. What he lacked in tallness and broadness, Richard made up for with a massive intellect and a sharp as lightning tongue that knew not how to back off from any confrontation, regardless of the physical size of the opponent, and especially not one with a psychopathic school bully.
“Hey Doyle” sneered Maclean one day, as we were about to Scrum. As Maclean was the loose head Prop of the under 15-C team, he was facing the two of us as we bent forwards to commence scrumming.
“Why are you such an arsehole, Doyle?” continued Maclean, as we locked heads.
“It’s because everything looks like an arsehole to your flea-sized brain, Maclean,” retorted Richard without delay.
There was an ominous silence before Maclean replied menacingly from the interior of the Scrum,
“Don’t say that again Doyle, if you value your life”.
“Ooh, threats, threats,” replied Richard mockingly, in an imitative nasal twang, clearly designed to enrage Maclean as much as possible.
This was a fairly easy thing to achieve. Richard couldn’t help himself and, as the Scrum broke up, he followed up this remark with,
“Maclean, just face it. You have a guava pip for a brain, so you think we’re all arseholes, but that’s because you’re such an arsehole yourself.”
Maclean reared up from the remains of the Scrum, red in the face, right opposite Richard. His fist flashed out of nowhere and connected hard with Richard’s head, knocking him onto his back. Richard leaned on one arm and pushed himself unsteadily up onto his knees, understandably somewhat dazed. Maclean, redder in the face than usual, lambasted Richard’s head with several more vicious blows. One punch struck Richard on the nose causing blood to squirt grandly from his nostrils. Richard wobbled unsteadily on his knees and once again toppled over backwards.
My own reaction was entirely reflexive. I was standing right there after all, and couldn’t allow this ridiculous situation to continue – Maclean seemed to be intent on exterminating Richard. Forced reluctantly into action, I placed an automatic hand on Maclean’s shoulder and pulled him back, away from his wounded target.
“That is not a good idea,” I heard myself say out loud, as Maclean turned to see who this was, this impertinent person who had dared to foul up his afternoon interlude.
“You, Dwyer!” blurted out Maclean in disbelief.
Like everyone present, Maclean knew I was a completely non-confrontational pacifist (in other words, a coward).
“So.” he continued, once he had recovered from his surprise at this unexpected turn of events, raising his eyebrows to show his disdain, “what do you think you’re going to do about it Dwyer?”
I couldn’t answer that, so, at first, I didn’t.
“Just don’t touch him again Maclean,” I said eventually, hiding my own fear with the aid of a surge of adrenalin and looking, for a fleeting second, deeply into Maclean’s small brown eyes.
‘For such a fat face, your eyes are a little too close together,’ I remember thinking irrelevantly at the time, or maybe I said it out loud.
Maclean appeared dumbstruck.
“I can’t believe this,” he spluttered. “Doyle,” he continued, now sounding sarcastic, “your boyfriend is coming to your rescue. Isn’t that sweet?”
To me he turned and said, “Dwyer, you are so dead.”
He turned his head to see the coach approaching.
“I’ll meet you outside the change rooms after practice,” he hissed at me.
‘After practice’ was not far off and seemed to arrive with unwarranted rapidity.
“Thabaks,” said Richard through his rapidly swelling facial features once Maclean had departed the scene. “But, what are we gobig to do bow?” he asked, as blood dribbled dramatically from his nose.
All the others who made up the non-Maclean group expressed concern.
“You can’t go and face Maclean,” they said.
“He’ll tear you into mincemeat”, they said.
“Well,” I replied dubiously, “I don’t seem to have any choice.”
“You don’t have to go on being the hero, you know,” someone insisted. This sounded quite convincing I thought.
“I know. I know.” I replied. “I have no intention of purposefully engaging in fisticuffs with Maclean. But, I can’t see a way out. My clothes are in the change room. I can’t go in there without coming across him waiting outside.”
“I’ll get your stuff and bring it out,” someone volunteered.
“Yes, sure,” I replied, and he’s going to offer you nice safe passage to and from the change rooms to fetch my clothes. I doubt that, somehow.”
The others offered helpful suggestions, such as buying a high calibre firearm, adopting a disguise, or purchasing new clothes and abandoning the old ones in the change room.
In the end we realised that we would just have to approach the change rooms and see what ensued. At least there was a group of us, even if we were all non-pugilistic types. As we approached the school buildings, I began to be somewhat perturbed by growing sensations of anxiety. We seemed a pathetic little group of reticent weaklings against the mighty Maclean. When we arrived in the change rooms we found Maclean half dressed.
“You’re so dead, Dwyer, you’re toast…” he repeated as he finished donning his school uniform. He stomped out of the change rooms leaving me to dress in fear.
Astonishingly, on exiting the change rooms myself, all showered and dressed and terrified, it was to discover that Maclean was nowhere to be seen.
Relief and surprise were equal in their enthusiasm to occupy my mind. I stood, looking around, for a minute or two, no doubt with my mouth hanging open slightly. Maclean was definitely not present.
“Bethibiks he got cold feet,” contributed Richard gleefully. “It’s always like that with a bully – stabad up to hib add he disappears like a puff of sboke,” he added, snapping his fingers as if to indicate how regularly and rapidly bullies transmogrified into smoke.
I wasn’t so sure about this theory but I was immeasurably relived that Maclean had vanished. Maclean chose to ignore us at all future encounters. This, needless to say, was very welcome and was regarded by all as a most positive development.
Secretly however, I could feel a few inklings of something else. To this day I’ve never been sure what that was, that mild disquiet, that slightly empty let-down sort of sensation which had been provoked by the absence of Maclean. I think it may have been disappointment.
