Life at the Shop for a Gentleman Cadet was similar to life at a boarding school except that we had to be cleaner, our buttons had to be brightly polished and our boots mirror-like. Spit and Kiwi were used alternately for hours on end during our first term and our boots shone in Splendour, unless some careless ass trod on the toe when falling in on parade. But the discipline was harder than at school, and, since it was administered by the senior term, whose members were only one year older than the snookers, it was considerably rougher. Public schools were run on the principal that the younger boy was barely human. Snookers were not given the benefit of he doubt. They were sub-human.
When my term reached the height of being Senior, we achieved the improbable and had questions asked of us in the House of Commons. It came about over the Snookers' Dance. This institution had been hallowed. The senior term decreed that the snookers would assemble in the gymnasium at a certain time one evening and they were crammed, all 60 or so of them, into a small changing room. As soon as the Commandant and his entourage of officers were comfortably seated, the dance began. Out ran the snookers from their lair to circle the gym, widdershins, past the wall bars and the horse, turning left handed in front of the Generals' stalls. The senior cadets, nostrils aflare congregated in the middle, each looking for the snooker he particularly detested. Once recognized the snooker, he was made to climb a wall bar and scratch like a monkey or lie on the floor and bicycle, waving his legs in the air. Humiliation complete he would be allowed up to join in the senseless circuit. After about ten minutes of this the snookers were sent back to their Black Hole for a very slight rest at the end of which dancing continued. How the General viewed this fatuity, I do not know, I was too busy running. He may have thought it was good for our souls.
When my term was snooker, we annoyed our seniors so much that they decreed a second dance, at the finish of which the less popular snookers were hounded by selected bullies round the Shop grounds and had their noses rubbed in puddles. There were several sore faces next day. I missed this second dance through having a sprained wrist caused by the fire ladder at that weeks' fire drill, having spun the elevating wheel backwards. I carried my wrist like a battle wound, sorry to all appearance at missing my dance.
Ah, Yes! We had suffered as snookers, but by Jove! we would make the snookers suffer more now that we were seniors. Rehoboam had nothing on us. We had no scorpions but our more accomplished bullies thought out more effective tortures than had the seniors who had bullied us. One unfortunate snooker had a broken arm by the time we had finished with him. Hence a question in the House, by Oliver Baldwin, the son of the Prime Minister. Snooker dances were stopped within a few years; the broken armed snooker had caused a change in an army tradition. That is more difficult to do than climbing a mountain. The army is a conservative force and normally none the worse for that.
When my term reached the height of being Senior, we achieved the improbable and had questions asked of us in the House of Commons. It came about over the Snookers' Dance. This institution had been hallowed. The senior term decreed that the snookers would assemble in the gymnasium at a certain time one evening and they were crammed, all 60 or so of them, into a small changing room. As soon as the Commandant and his entourage of officers were comfortably seated, the dance began. Out ran the snookers from their lair to circle the gym, widdershins, past the wall bars and the horse, turning left handed in front of the Generals' stalls. The senior cadets, nostrils aflare congregated in the middle, each looking for the snooker he particularly detested. Once recognized the snooker, he was made to climb a wall bar and scratch like a monkey or lie on the floor and bicycle, waving his legs in the air. Humiliation complete he would be allowed up to join in the senseless circuit. After about ten minutes of this the snookers were sent back to their Black Hole for a very slight rest at the end of which dancing continued. How the General viewed this fatuity, I do not know, I was too busy running. He may have thought it was good for our souls.
When my term was snooker, we annoyed our seniors so much that they decreed a second dance, at the finish of which the less popular snookers were hounded by selected bullies round the Shop grounds and had their noses rubbed in puddles. There were several sore faces next day. I missed this second dance through having a sprained wrist caused by the fire ladder at that weeks' fire drill, having spun the elevating wheel backwards. I carried my wrist like a battle wound, sorry to all appearance at missing my dance.
Ah, Yes! We had suffered as snookers, but by Jove! we would make the snookers suffer more now that we were seniors. Rehoboam had nothing on us. We had no scorpions but our more accomplished bullies thought out more effective tortures than had the seniors who had bullied us. One unfortunate snooker had a broken arm by the time we had finished with him. Hence a question in the House, by Oliver Baldwin, the son of the Prime Minister. Snooker dances were stopped within a few years; the broken armed snooker had caused a change in an army tradition. That is more difficult to do than climbing a mountain. The army is a conservative force and normally none the worse for that.
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