The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy) by W. E. Mann Page A

really,
with a great, thatched head, a grizzled beard which would make a spacious home
for a flock of geese, and enormous, swollen hands which could swing a length of
silver birch with cruel speed.
    He
paced over to the window and stood there, gazing out, with his hands clasped
behind his back, like Inspector Poirot on the brink of solving an intricate
murder.  I turned to watch Wilbraham.  It was a glorious morning and the view
from the window of his office was spectacular, like a scene from a painting. 
It looked out between two of the pillars, over the circular lawn in front of
the school, straight up the mile-long drive, along which Mr. English boasted
that he could get his Morris Minor to do fifty, and up the wooded hill to the
Monument, which was perched there like a space-rocket poised for launch.
    Wilbraham
shook his head as if to extract himself from the landscape.  “I will have to
issue you with some punishment, of course,” he mused, “for the sake of
appearances.  So, my proposal would be to give you two, Strange and Turnpike,
an afternoon’s Hard Labour, and you, Foxtrap, Detention.  I think we can leave
it at that, don’t you?”  
    He
swivelled his enormous frame on his heels and looked at us with a barely
noticeable nod as if to punctuate his decision.  “Righto.  I think we’d all
better get along to Assembly.”
    I
was elated with relief.  Hard Labour was hardly a punishment at all.  It was
usually just sweeping the floors and rearranging desks or helping out in the
vegetable gardens.  Wilbraham knew that.

nine
     
    Freddie,
Algie, Reggie and I climbed the steps to the Orangery that morning with boys
gaggling around us, trying to find out what happened with Wilbraham.  Freddie
and Reggie were, of course, keeping them happy with elaborate tales and impersonations,
so Algie and I managed to avoid having to say anything to anyone before we had
taken our seats.  Looking around, I could not see Vanderpump or the Bearbaiter
twins anywhere.
    The
Orangery was the recently repaired west wing of the school building and it was
where we had Assembly every morning.  Though it gleamed with new windows and
carpets, there was always a frostiness about it, even on such a warm summer’s
morning.
    It
was said that during the War an errant bomb dropped by a Messerschmitt had landed
in the Deer Park, close to where the Orangery stood and where, at that time,
the school was assembled for Prayers, just as we were this morning.  The
bomb-blast was so powerful that it had caused an earthquake throughout the
Forest, shaking the birds from the treetops and the rabbits from their
warrens.  Since the Orangery was so close to the epicentre, all of its windows
were blown in, causing a lethal blizzard of shattered glass.  Many of the boys
and teachers suffered hideous injuries as the shards sliced across the room,
burying themselves deep into flesh, taking slices of arm and ear with them. 
The Headmaster at that time was announcing the Talltrees 1 st XI’s
success in the previous day’s football matches against Roseacre, when a large
dagger of glass hurtled through the air inches past his head and cruelly
slashed his wife’s throat wide open.  He stood helpless at the lectern as her
head lolled backwards and she gurgled away her flailing final moments.
    After
this, the Headmaster lost his mind to a trembling insanity from which he never
recovered and, before the War was over, he was found in the Round Room, next-door
to the Orangery, swinging from the rafters by a noose about his neck.
    It
was agreed among the teachers when Wilbraham took over as Headmaster that, for
reasons of decency, the Round Room should be walled up to serve as a tomb for
the Headmaster and his wife.
    This
morning’s assembly involved the usual dreary assortment of prayers and hymns,
followed by Wilbraham announcing that this year the Grand Pillow Fight would be
cancelled on account of the “irresponsible behaviour last night”.