“So Sanjay and Ralf, tell us what happened.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know if we can.”
“Why not? I’ve told you - if you cooperate, you’ll be let off lightly. First of all, you’re juveniles, and secondly – there were mitigating circumstances.”
“Still… We can’t tell on our friends. That’s against the code of Bravo Wing.”
“Listen. This isn’t about Bravo Wing anymore, alright? This is about the whole orphanage, whether it should even continue, considering what happened.”
“Well… I have a request. If we tell you what happened, the whole thing, will you let the others go? Make it like it was only Ralf and I who were involved?”
“I… Yes, we can consider that. We can say you were the leaders, you planned everything, etc. The others are younger than you anyway.”
“Okay, in that case. Come on, Ralf. This seems to be the only way.”
“I’m not sure, Sanju.”
“It’ll be fine. Anyway, it’s the only way to ensure the masters suffer for what they did.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“Good decision, boys. So tell me how it began.”
“Well… I suppose it began when Osbourne became Principal. We’d all been expecting Mr Locke to be chosen, because he’s the best of the masters, but apparently whoever decides these things felt Osbourne would be better.”
“So till then – all of you had been reasonably happy at St Marks?”
“Yes, we were. We’re all like each other’s family, especially the boys in the same wing. We’ve pretty much grown up together, after all. Yup, St Marks used to be a pretty good place to be.”
“And then Osbourne became Principal. We all dreaded what was going to happen next, because Osbourne had been pretty bad even as a master. In fact, he once broke a boy’s elbow with his cane. It was only because Potty – that’s the old Principal, we used to call him Potty – was kind of senile that he wasn’t thrown out.”
“Osbourne as Principal was a nightmare come true. He decided that things had been pretty lax around here. Daily canings and beatings became the norm. Every master was required to keep a cane in the room. At the end of every week, during the weekly assembly, the five boys who had performed the worst that week were caned in public.”
“But didn’t the other masters object?”
“They did, initially. But Osbourne had this group of five masters who took to it from the first. They started publicly humiliating the masters who didn’t give out harsh punishments. So all the other masters gave in. Mr Locke was maybe the only one who didn’t.”
“Didn’t you boys ever think of complaining outside? How could it go on for so long?”
“You don’t understand what it’s like for us, Officer. We’re orphans, we don’t really have anybody outside St Marks. We thought we wouldn’t be believed. We were scared of losing this place, I guess - of being kicked out and having nowhere to go.”
“And anyway, Osbourne had snitches among the students. The most obvious ones were the prefects, of course. But you never knew if the boy next to you was a snitch or not. You couldn’t really bitch about any master, except to the boys closest to you, whom you trusted.”
“So what made you act, finally?”
“It was the incident with Robbie and Mr Brockson. Robbie is the youngest boy in Bravo Wing, he’s only ten. So we all sort of protect him as much as we can.”
