I was awakened in the small hours by a rumble of thunder, followed by lightning. Rivers of lurid white light chased across the dormitory wall. In between flashes the darkness was intense. I lay there, neither asleep nor fully awake, waiting for the next roll and crash as the storm grew nearer. In between the thunderclaps there were other sounds. To my right, a noise that was part-sigh, part-snore and part-whistle: Jack Elliott invariably slept with his mouth open. A moan from the far corner was Jamie Roebuck having a bad dream, and opposite, his twin brother Jon turning over restlessly.

Four boy-eunuchs, and there were so many more of us……

Through my drowsy brain, random images came and went. The most persistent was of a huge, red-brick, ostentatious building – the Grand Metropolitan hotel, down on the sea-front. Just a fire-blackened shell now, gaunt and hideous, awaiting the demolition gang. I had unhappy memories of the Grand Met. from the days before the fire. They were to get a lot worse before long, but you’ll have to wait for that.

To return to the recent past – to be exact, to one day the previous week, when I’d gone to meet Melanie. Melanie had a long connection with the Grand Met. It was there that she’d had her screen tests, prior to her selection as Miss Burdizzo 2005. Subsequently she had appeared in all farming magazines and quite a few posters, in a yellow tank-top, fishnet holdups and a black thong, holding out the ball-cord snippers with a knowing wink at the camera.

I often used to meet her there in term time. There was a side door with the words “Members Only” which opened with a smart-card and, bypassing the lobby and reception, gave on to the fitness suite and a range of rooms. Ideal for sex sessions which, as often as not, needed few words after the first “hello” and the first kiss. I’d cradle my face between her wonderful soft thighs, work her up with my tongue on her joy-button, and suck her vagina until she climaxed, her love-juice streaming over my mouth and chin. Till that day, last week.

No tank-top or sexy stockings that day. Melanie was dressed plainly in jeans and a denim jacket. She wasn’t smiling. I was not going to be asked – as so often in the past – “How’s my favourite gelding?” No such endearments today. “Simon” she began. “Tell me the truth. I want to know about Marcia”.

I went cold all over. My one-and-only encounter with Marcia – Uncle Carl’s personal assistant if you’ve forgotten – was months in the past. In my own mind I’d buried it deep.

“Marcia?” I repeated with – I knew – a silly grin, born of nervousness. “I don’t think I…..”

Melanie chipped in. “Don’t mess about, Simon, and don’t try to tell me any lies. I know you’ve met Marcia and I know you’ve snogged her. Did you kiss her down there?”

Though it had been months before, I remembered, all too clearly, Marcia pulling down her knickers and opening her legs for me to kiss her “down there”, the creamy skin of her thighs above the tops of her black stockings, the swelling curve of her shaved love-mound. “Yes” I croaked.

“That’s all I needed to know” said Melanie. “If I can’t have all of you, Simon, then I don’t want to share you. She moved towards the door. “I’ll let myself out. Don’t try to follow, and don’t write or phone. It’s over”.

She left, leaving me sitting on the bed, too bewildered to think straight. The tears would come later, and they did.

That was last week. I’d wondered, time and again, how Melanie got to hear about Marcia, and such a long time afterwards. Could Marcia have told her? That seemed very unlikely. Who else knew?

Uncle Carl knew. In fact he’d once threatened to tell Melanie. But he hadn’t – I’d bought him off, or so I thought. My memory recoiled from that session in the bedroom behind Uncle Carl’s suite, lying nude on the bed, my face pressed into the pillow while he shafted me up my butt, like an animal. But if Uncle Carl had gone back on his word, why wait till now?

Uncle Carl……

It defied explanation, so I left the question on a sky-hook.

Rain fell heavily till morning. I tried to get to sleep again. I’m not sure if I did. I closed my eyes but never seemed to stop hearing the rain sluicing along the gutter outside the window. Coming down late to breakfast, and getting a dirty look from Mr Jackson, I found a note shoved under my plate. “Must see you. Ricky”.

At my first free period I went in search of Ricky. It wasn’t difficult. From one of the music rooms came the sound of singing and I recognised the rather reedy quality of Ricky’s voice. He was accompanying himself, not too expertly, on the piano, in a Handelian air:

“Did you not see my lady

“Go down the garden singing”

The song was called “Silent Worship” and a more inappropriate song would have been hard to find. It was about a boy and his blonde girl friend, and through the elegant language of the song, the message was clear enough. The boy had the hots for the girl and wanted to get her pants off (if girls wore them then, and I’d a notion they didn’t). But neutered boys couldn’t do that.

If Ricky had encountered his lady – assuming he ever had one – in the garden, he could have done no more than gaze at her with those big china-blue eyes of his. When it came to the knicker department, no chance of Ricky “getting it right in” - he couldn’t even have penetrated the girl’s pubic hair. Though modern girls like Melanie, or Marcia, shaved that all off just as soon as they started having regular sex. (Oh shut up about Melanie, Simon, shut up, shut up, shut up). When Ricky reached “With her glory of golden hair” I tapped on the door and went in.

Ricky had put on a bit of weight in the past few months. This often happens with neutered boys - it happened to me, once! It’s all to do, seemingly, with the body reacting to the loss of male hormones. Roddy looked worried and tired. “Thanks for coming, Simon” he began. “I got this yesterday and I’m not sure what to do”.

“This” was a letter in a blue airmail envelope. The sender’s identity could easily be guessed from the big garish stamps and the address written in the sloping hand that is learned in grade schools across the USA and never forgotten. I didn’t have to read the sender’s name and address on the flap.

“Read it” Ricky implored.

Dr Geller (who else?) had filled up a page and a half with news of herself and the orphanage she ran in Malaysia. Then starting a new paragraph, she confessed herself “heart-sick” at not seeing Ricky for so long. “And so, you see” she concluded “I’ve decided to have a long vacation in the U.K. when you can fill me in with all those little details. I’ll let you know the dates and the flight number…………..”

“So she’s coming” I said, unnecessarily. Ricky nodded. “Do you want her to come?”

Ricky nodded again.

“How can you want to see her, Ricky?” I asked “After what she did to you?

A puzzled look came over Ricky’s face. “Simon, I owe her everything! Till I met her I didn’t even know where my next meal was coming from. I had nothing – you know that – just a few sea shells and an old airline ticket. It’s because of her that I’m here, that I have a family, a country, everything!”

Whilst all of this was true as I knew quite well, it ignored something else. That Ricky had been neutered by Dr Geller, with her own hands. (Dr Geller distrusted Neutersol; she thought that total removal of a boy’s balls gave more immediate results, so Ricky had a traditional gelding operation: his castration scars were still traceable.) I fixed Ricky with a hard stare, and at last the penny dropped.

“Oh, you mean that! She had no choice, did she? All the boys who arrived that day had to be castrated, me included. She explained it all, that because I wasn’t a full Caucasian, that I couldn’t be allowed to have children. That’s why. And after all, you’ve been, and so has Jack, and all the others………”

“That’s not it at all, Ricky” I butted in. “Those other boys, from what you told me once, were all going to be sex-slaves in the Middle East somewhere. You’re right, up to a point. Sex slaves are always castrated, it’s part of the culture. Myself and Jack, we’d been pestering girls for sex and had to be stopped. But you – you’d never been a nuisance with girls, had you?”

“No” he replied, wistfully. “I’d never even tried. I never got the chance to go with a girl”.

“You’d done nothing” I went on “except be what you were. So, if they didn’t want you to have children, you could have been vasectomised. That way you’d have had a normal adolescence, been able to fuck girls, everything except get your wife pregnant, if and when you ever got married. You didn’t have to lose everything”.

Ricky went very quiet. “No” he said at last. “I suppose not. I never thought about it before”.

And that was all there was to say on that particular subject. “Now, tell me” I went on. “When Dr Geller comes, and you go to meet her, would you like me to come too?”

Ricky’s face lit up. “Would you, Simon? Yes, I’d like that very much.”

“That’s settled then”.

Returning to the formroom I discovered there had been a timetable change. I had, not one free period, but the whole morning. I decided on a trip to the city library and, braving the wet weather, set off to get the bus to the city centre. I liked –whenever it wasn’t already occupied – to sit in the front seat of the top deck, because of the view along the road ahead.

At one of the intermediate stops the top deck underwent a sort of invasion. Feet pounded on the stairs and voices cried “Let’s sit here – no, here – well, alright, only move over, can’t you? And much more, all at such a high pitch that you might have assumed the newcomers to be girls. You’d have been wrong.

That bus route served the main entrance to St Anselme’s School, and St Anselme’s had recently got itself the uneviable reputation of being the "No Balls Prep School" of the south coast. The newcomers were like me – boy-eunuchs.

Now, eighteen months ago (read “Simon’s Revenge” if you want to know more) the boy-eunuchs at St Anselme’s numbered exactly four, and they did not owe their neutered state to St Anselme’s but to the local orphanage, where they were all inmates. Boys at the orphanage all had their balls pricked on admission – the resident nurse was trained to do it. But then a new board of governors had taken over at St Anselme’s, chaired by Uncle Carl……

Uncle Carl again. It was Uncle Carl who had lectured me, that horrible day, about the need to increase the boy-eunuch population at St Anselme’s. (Read “Simon Toes the Line” about that.) For a time it worked: some of the younger and more impressionable boys figured it was “cool” to have no balls. But like all fads, it tailed off. The potential “plusses” of becoming a boy-eunuch, like developing the voice of an angel, or excelling on the athletics field (don’t ask me how or why losing your balls gives you an advantage, but it does, and I should know!) were outweighed by the limitations of not being able – ever – to “do it” with a girl, or even enjoy a crafty wank.

At age eleven, my penis was slightly over one inch in length when soft, and my balls were like little eggs. I had hardly any body hair anywhere, including my pubic area. I was no use at any kind of sport or games and even less in the classroom. Then came Neutersol. It takes just ten minutes to destroy a boy’s balls: two pricks of a hypodermic and I was no longer male – not completely. Four years on from there, my penis was permanently soft and scarcely any bigger. I was still innocent of body hair – and of any vestige of balls or scrotum. I was also the Under Sixteen Athletics captain. But as usual, I’m wandering off again.

The bus reached the City Library stop, and I turned to get down. I got a good look at the new arrivals who continued to chatter among themselves in high treble voices. A good proportion of them looked to be foreign in some indefinable way, and this, too, was new. But I’d no time to speculate. For what was left of the morning I needed to get my head round Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” – surely one of the most boring poems ever written.

For the choice of this work I had my new form master to thank – Mr R.L. Jepson-Turner. He was a product of Dr Holroyd’s new policy in selecting assistant masters. Previous selection methods having produced – to name just two – Dr Jolly, the phoney, and Mr Hipkin, the paedophile, Dr Holroyd seemed to have resolved to seek out applicants who on their own admission were middle-of-the-road, with no strong views. Mr Jepson-Turner fell into this category: he was mind-numbingly dull.

Mr Jepson-Turner doesn’t figure in this story so you won’t meet him again. Another thing which doesn’t figure, but which I’m forever being urged to mention, is the fact that I was having driving lessons. It would be fifteen months before I could legally drive on a public road, but I’d made my mind up that I’d get fully proficient in the meantime, and once I’d hit 17 I’d take my test and buy myself a car. A BMW Z3, for preference.

Fortunately for this plan, there was a way of getting lessons off-the-road. The old Sixfields Airport, abandoned now for any kind of aviation, had become home to all kinds of small businesses including the Straight and Steady Driving School. Reached by a fitful local bus service, it was there that I used to take myself every Saturday afternoon.

The routine was always the same. My instructor, who answered to the name of Barney, would look up from the racing news and take the fag out of his mouth. “’Lo, Simon. Alright, are yer? Right then, go and get in ‘t car”.

“’T car” was a hard-done-by, 01-reg. Nissan Micra, a hatchback with a 1100 cc. engine: not exactly Grand Prix material, but you have to start some place. In the same impeturbable Lancashire burr, Barney would tell me to “tak’ her away”. Off we would go in a series of rabbit-like hops (my clutch control was terrible.) “Bit joggy, Simon” was Barney’s inevitable comment. “Stop her and start again”.

I would do so, and this would be followed by three or four turns round the perimeter, one or two 3-point turns in one of the old taxi-ing areas, and that would be that. “OK, Simon” Barney would say. “See yer next Sat’d’y” – and he’d return to his Racing Times and mug of stewed tea.

I liked Barney. He was my driving instructor first and last. He never tried to feel up my leg, or ask when I was going to start shaving. He doesn’t come into this story, nor does my budding ability to drive a car. But I mention both these things because people keep on asking.

The next ten days passed with only one incident worth telling you about. I can’t call it “another piece of the jigsaw puzzle” because at that stage I wasn’t aware that any big picture existed.

Of all the boys in my original circle (then known as the Knickers Club when we all took to wearing girls’ thong underwear) Jan Raxworthy was the most self-effacing. The aunt and uncle who had Jan neutered at age eleven (as most of us were) should have stopped to think ahead. Jan had been a plain unattractive child and would have grown into a plain unattractive teenager. Before taking him to the clinic to get his balls pricked, they might have asked themselves, who was he ever going to fuck?

Jan had a long pasty face, with a lot of freckles, under lank mouse-brown hair that always looked in need of a wash. His arms and legs were bony, his feet too big. Even his gelded genitals were unattractive. With the majority of neutered boys, once the balls have softened and disappeared, the empty scrotum shrinks and eventually grows out, the penis retracts to an inch or so – some can even look quite jaunty! But Jan’s scrotum hung down in a fold of loose skin, his penis dangling lifelessly…...

Leaving his appearance aside, though, Jan possessed one talent that amounted to genius. He was our most gifted computer “wiz”. He looked up as I passed him, deep, as I thought, in some computer game. “Oh, Simon” he greeted me. “This looks rather queer”.

I leaned over his shoulder. Simon had logged on to the St Anselme’s website. This, of course, anyone could have done, but Jan, God alone knew how, had got into the confidential part of the website that was heavily password protected. The screen showed two form lists – just columns of names. They were headed “III Alpha” and “III Beta”. Against both, the form-master’s name was “Mr H.Sugg”.

“I only began looking at those” explained Jan “because no other form group uses alphas and betas. They sort of don’t fit, if you see what I mean. Now, these lists are for III Alpha and III Beta today. I saved the lists for the same two forms to the hard drive a week ago, and then they looked like this”.

Jan called up the document he’d saved, and I looked at it. Half the names were the same as on the current lists. The rest were different.

“This is what they looked like a fortnight ago” said Jan. He called up another document. All the names were different.

“What does it mean, Simon?” asked Jan.

“I’ve no idea” I said. I had a mental picture of the top deck of the bus a few days before, crowded out with boy-eunuchs (this turned out to be a red herring but I didn't know it then). I went on “but it might be worth finding out”.

Accordingly four of us – myself, Jack Elliott and the Roebuck twins – presented ourselves later that afternoon at the St Anselme’s reception desk, and requested an interview with Mr H.Sugg “on sports business”. We were shown into a waiting room. Presently a thick-set individual appeared. “Yes?” demanded this man abruptly.

“Mr Sugg?” began Jack. Receiving only a hard stare he went on “My name’s Douglas”. (We had decided on using noms-de-guerre in case our plans backfired). “We are the committee of the inter-schools basketball league. We’ve been given the names of some St Anselme’s boys who might be interested in taking part, and since you are their form teacher – or so we’ve been told – we came to ask your permission to speak to them and ask them. “Have you got that list, Gordon?” (I was ‘Gordon’ for the afternoon).

Mr Sugg’s expression had hardened to a scowl. “I don’t know who you are, or what you’re up to” he said. “I’m nobody’s form teacher; I’m a woodwork instructor. Besides that, I’m nearly new here. If you’re trying to take the mickey, don’t! Now then, clear off”. He went out of the door, banging it behind him.

“He’s lying, of course” ventured Jon Roebuck, as we retreated down the drive. “So what do we do now?”

“I’ve no idea” I replied, for the second time that day. Totally unhelpful but true. No one else had any suggestions, so we left it.

The rest of that week passed uneventfully, but on the Saturday Ricky came to me white-faced. “Simon! She’s here!” was all he said.

“Who? Oh, you must mean Dr Geller. What do you mean, ‘here’?”

“She’s booked in to the Grand Met. She sent a handwritten note round. Manyweathers brought it to me just now”. (Manyweathers was the janitor and general factotum).

“Did it say anything else?”

“Yes, it said can I go and see her as soon as possible. Simon, will you come with me like you said – I’m afraid!”

“Yes of course I’ll come, silly! So don’t worry.”

It was one of Mr Jepson-Turner’s few good points that, having no imagination, he took me at face value if I said I needed to visit the Central Library. Ricky had the day free anyway. Accordingly, two-thirty in the afternoon found us both at the Grand Met reception desk asking for Dr Geller, and a little later, knocking on the door of the Arundel Suite on the second floor – the grandest of the three suites. The door opened and I got my first sight of Dr Geller.

She was a slim woman, about five-six in height and dark haired. She’d never been a beauty, even as a young girl, but she had what I call a “clever” face. Her complexion had that slightly leathery look that comes from too much exposure to tropical sun. This much I took in, in those few seconds.

“Oh my God!” were the words she greeted us with, hand up to her mouth, before she stepped forward, scooping Ricky into her arms, exclaiming “Ricky, honey – it’s been so long!” - at a volume and pitch that might have been heard on the seaward side of Marine Parade.

With the door still wide open, she held Ricky close, kissing his face and neck. Now her slim arms reached down below his waist. I reflected that those same clever hands, that were now fondling Ricky’s behind, had once cut Ricky’s balls out, making him what he was, and what he would always be. Ricky seemed resigned to being a “nothing”, but there were two lovely old people in the States who would never accept that Ricky should be like this – unable to give them the great-grandchildren they had hoped for. And it was all so unnecessary.

Dr Geller let Ricky go at last, and for the first time she appeared to notice me. “And you must be Simon! I’ve heard so much about you from that nice Lord Manningham. It’s mainly because of you, and what he said about you, that I let Ricky come here to Britain. So, how are you, Simon?

“I’m very well indeed, thank you, Dr Geller” I replied in level tones, wondering what, exactly, Uncle Carl might have told her about me. Not – I hoped – that I’d been his bum-boy.

Dr Geller gave a little laugh. “Say, you Brits are so - so reserved! But why are we all standing out here? C’mon in”.

We came on in, to a sitting room that could have held about seventy. We all had a choice of about four chairs apiece, and there were occasional tables dotted about, a thick carpet and heavy drapes – no expense spared. Doors gave on to other rooms. Behind one of these came sounds of heavy equipment being moved around.

Dr Geller monopolised Ricky for the next half-hour: asking what games he played, what subjects he was “majoring” in, who his best friends were. She punctuated his replies with “You don’t say!” or “Is that so!” I might have been invisible. After some time she picked up the phone and ordered tea – in which like everything else, no detail had been left out: there were cucumber sandwiches, walnut cake and every kind of pastry.

During tea Dr Geller slipped out and into the adjoining room. I heard her giving instructions to the furniture removers, if that was what they were. Returning, Dr Geller dropped her bombshell.

“Now, Simon” said Dr Geller “there’s someone I want you to meet. He’s been enrolled at your wonderful school, effective immediately. He’s Ricky’s kid brother”.

“But……..” began Ricky. Dr Geller silenced him with a look. From being all over Ricky earlier, her attitude visibly changed. She became stern, threatening even.

“I don’t think Ricky has a kid brother” I ventured. “If he had, he’d have told me”.

“Listen very carefully, Simon. The young boy whom you’ll be meeting in a minute – Ricky knows him already - has an entry visa and a student visa describing him as Ricky’s kid brother. Ricky’s – kid – brother, period. That’s how he’s been enrolled at your school. Now hear me, and hear me good. You would do very well to play along with that. If you don’t, there could be bad complications – ba-a-a-d complications”.

She went through a door into the room beyond, leaving me wondering. The threat of “bad complications” had been meant to sound menacing, but there had been something else in Dr Geller’s tone of voice, mixed in with the bravado (“Hear me good” and all that stuff) that didn’t jell. It sounded more like fear.

Seconds later she came back, leading a small figure. The newcomer reminded me, at first glance, of Tommy Chow (to read more about him, turn up “Simon and the Chinese Connection”.) However, this is only to say that one pre-teen Chinese boy resembles most others, up to a point. This boy was grinning broadly, but there was something else in his expression that wasn’t born of excitement or pleasure. There was a sort of knowingness about him, something corrupt.

“Hi ya, Ricky” said the newcomer.

Dr Geller hadn’t been wrong. Ricky knew the boy immediately. “Hello, Jimmy” said Ricky. It didn’t sound a heartfelt greeting or even a particularly friendly one

“Why don’t you two boys show Jimmy round the city?” suggested Dr Geller. “Go for a soda-pop or something, huh?”

Out we all trooped.

xxxxxxxx

“But Ricky, who IS he” I asked, an embarrassing hour later, after we’d delivered Jimmy back to Dr Geller, spending the minimum time over the handover. Jimmy had shown not the slightest interest in anything we showed him or told him – this, in spite of the fact that he was to be entered at our school the very next day.

“I’ll tell you all I know” said Ricky. “Only I must warn you, there isn’t much. I doubt if Jimmy himself could tell you a lot more. And, Simon, I know he’s a wart but don’t be too hard on him. If you thought I had it bad as a little kid, Jimmy had it worse”. And with that, Ricky embarked on his account of Jimmy’s early life and hard times, as he’d learned it during the few uncomfortable weeks that he and Jimmy had shared Dr Geller’s roof.

Jimmy had never known his parents and was unsure of his full name. It might have been Chiu or possibly Choi. As a very small boy he had drifted into the shadowy, perilous world of “The Beach Children”. These waifs were the knowing target of sex-tourists from the West and were also under attack from the police, who patrolled the beach in off-road vehicles, on the lookout for assignations. At ten, Jimmy was doing “wanky-wanky” on perverted old men for a few dollars a time. By eleven he was offering full sex for not much more, risking infection and possibly violence as well.

Dr Geller knew she could never stamp out the beach sex trade. But she figured out, partly (as she told herself) for humanitarian reasons but also with an eye to the main chance, a way of channelling it. She brought about twenty of the beach boys into the orphanage which she owned and ran. Special rooms were set aside where selected clients could have sex with the boys. Dr Geller charged very high fees for the service, which went into orphanage funds. She kept strict watch on the boys for any sign of disease, and clients who hinted that their interest lay not in sodomy but in sadism were instantly shown the door.

Initially all the boys were kept intact, although from time to time clients approached Dr Geller wishing to buy boys outright rather than pay for services by the hour. Where the buyer’s household included a young girl, Dr Geller recommended neutering the boy to ensure there would be no misbehaviour. No such bids were made for Jimmy, so for a while Dr Geller let him keep all the bits he was born with.

But after a time he began to dismay Dr Geller by showing signs of burgeoning maleness (the racing news calls it ‘coltish behaviour’) which had annoyed some of the clients. She decided to neuter him. Removing Jimmy’s testicles would calm him down (she was dead wrong about that) keep his young body smooth and little-boy-ish, and put an end to his developing an active sex life of his own.

Being turned into a boy-eunuch wasn’t in Jimmy’s game-plan. Ricky had watched, heart in mouth, as Jimmy was dragged, struggling and shouting, into Dr Geller’s surgery, and had also seen him brought out twenty minutes later, tearful, subdued – and ball-less. The operation, identical to Ricky’s, left Jimmy with a neat little penis that would never go stiff: seen under the shower it looked like a little acorn. (Ricky, whose skin complexion was much fairer, and who had kept his foreskin, had one more like a rosebud, I always thought. Girls would have wanted to kiss it.)

The operation achieved some of what Dr Geller had aimed at: in Jimmy’s own words “Me, too much wanky-wanky before, all the time wanky-wanky; so Dr Geller she cut my balls out, now no can wanky-wanky anymore”. Strangely for a doctor, she didn’t anticipate that without balls, Jimmy now had no means of satisfying the urges that were still tormenting him. He continued to “service” those of Dr Geller’s clients who demanded sex with young neutered boys, and in time his whole nature became warped.

“Day after day” Ricky complained “Jimmy used to say it was time I went to be trained, so I could take men’s penises up my behind. I’ve never done that and I never will”. Ricky jealously guarded his virginity, but Jimmy’s life had revolved so long around being a passive sexual plaything that he could think of nothing else.

“What I don’t get” Ricky said, after we’d walked along a little further “is why Dr Geller is trying to pass Jimmy off as my kid brother. For a start, I think he’s a bit older than I am and 100% Chinese, which I’m not. And besides that, my mother couldn’t possibly have had any kids of the age he’s supposed to be. She didn’t live long enough. So, what’s Dr Geller’s motive? It’s crazy!”

I didn’t know the answer so I said nothing. But there was much more on Ricky’s mind. “Simon” he said. “I’ve had a terrible thought. Obviously, Jimmy is here on false papers. What if the immigration people start looking into MY right to be here?”

“They won’t” I said. Your right to be here can’t be challenged. You’re an American citizen, born to parents who were also American citizens and your birth was registered in the States. You have grandparents living. If it really came to the point, you could have DNA tests done, to prove your relationship to them, once for all, so don’t worry”.

Ricky brightened up at that. I kept another thought to myself - that DNA tests could also be used to prove, beyond any shadow of doubt, that Jimmy was no relation whatever to Judge Benson and his wife. But I was sure that things weren’t going to be as straightforward as that. (They were not!)

Next morning Dr Geller brought Jimmy, fully attired in his new uniform, round to the school, where he was inducted into Form 3c. I couldn’t see it becoming anything other than a most unhappy relationship.

xxxxxxx

I hardly ever looke at newspapers and it was only by accident that I saw this one – on top of a pile waiting to go for recycling. The article was headed “Neutering Law to be Tightened Up”.

It was mainly about a court case involving a so-called tug-of-love: which of two separated parents should have custody of a 12-year-old son. The mother wanted the boy neutered; the father wouldn’t hear of it. The learned Judge had said he found the mother’s wishes “capricious” and he would have his views conveyed to the “proper quarters”. Questions were asked in the House of Commons, and the Home Secretary agreed to immediately suspend Clause 828a.

I had better remind you what this was all about. At the time that I was neutered (the Judge would have said ‘emasculated’) there had to be strong social or medical reasons, for the process to be legal. Every instance had to go before a local panel of experts and there were endless arguments about the ‘social’ bit. (None in my own case: I was judged to be a serial sex-offender in the making – at age 11 years and 7 months. Better get me neutered right away!)

But then the Government gave way to social pressures. A little time after my own operation I overheard my late Uncle Max say to my guardian “The powers-that-be will slip a clause into an enabling act; no one will notice, and it will become possible to take a boy’s balls out with no questions asked”. The result was Clause 828a of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2002. This legalised the neutering of pre-teen boys with the sole condition that a responsible person requested it to be done. This in turn led to a large increase in the number of boy-eunuchs at my school, the subject of a learned paper by the Principal, Dr Holroyd.

Now, with Clause 828a in suspense, we were back to “strong social or medical reasons”. Boys admitted to state orphanages would continue to have their balls pricked, to make them more docile and amenable to an institutional life, but mere convenience to foster-parents or guardians wouldn’t do. The majority of intended neutering operations would become illegal.

xxxxxxxxxxx

If you asked me to give you a full account of the next few weeks I couldn’t do it. Not in the way that Event A took place and this gave rise to Event B, and both were traced back to X, Y and Z. No chance of that. It was just like the man said: “Stuff Happens”.

All of us, particularly Ricky, had our hands full in trying to look after Silva Two – the name by which Jimmy appeared on the school list. At the start, we all felt protective and tried to do our best, knowing his background. And there, I suppose, our difficulties lay. Ricky had at least acquired a few rags and tatters of education – as well as fluent (if quirky) English - from the shiftless irresponsible people who ran the camp where Uncle Carl’s men had picked him up. Jimmy by contrast had none. His English was extremely poor, his knowledge of Western script patchy, and of other basics, like arithmetic, he had no understanding whatever. And there was worse.

In a school like ours, organised sports and games fill a large part of the timetable. Jimmy’s approach to these was the law of the jungle. On the cricket field, standing at the wicket (and it was no mean feat to get him to do that) his reaction to having a fast ball aimed at him was to charge down the pitch, screaming and waving his bat, intent on braining the bowler – and anyone else who stood in his way.

For most of his young life he had never slept in a bed, and preferred to roll up in his bedclothes on the floor. He ate his meals with a spoon, the use of a knife and fork being beyond him. Visiting the bathroom he preferred to crouch on the toilet seat rather than sitting on it.

That wasn’t all. From an early stage we knew that Jimmy was regaling his classmates with stories of his life at Dr Geller’s. Passing the shower-room door, I myself heard protests of “Oh do shut up, Silva – it’s too filthy!” I could go on. It was disheartening to put it mildly.

Whilst we were battling with this, a number of other things happened, all apparently disconnected at the time, although they all came together in the end as I shall explain.

Once a week there was a class in “Civics”, which usually took the form of a discussion group. The project for the term was “Vulnerable People in our Society” – the mentally ill: patients in homes for the elderly and so on. But with no argument, the prize for the most vulnerable element went to asylum seekers.

With asylum seekers, individuals could appear from nowhere or disappear without trace, since no tally of numbers was possible. On the streets they were a prime target. You could beat-up asylum seekers to your heart’s content, if you were that way inclined, since they were people without a country, citizens of nowhere.

Within the city, asylum seekers could be found in two places. Fruby Cliffs was the haunt of Asians or one ethnic group or another. A former holiday camp, the battered complex was owned by a notorious slum-landlord. Conditions were said to be appalling. At the other end of the town, Drulger Park Estate was occupied by people from Eastern Europe. This was a condemned municipal housing estate, scheduled for demolition. The asylum seekers had simply stripped the boarding from the doors and windows and moved in wholesale.

Enough of asylum seekers for the moment. The next factor in this complication was a bus – just an ordinary, red-painted, fifty-seater bus. It was to be a very important factor, though for the moment, no one knew this. But the bus, too, has to go in the pending tray for the moment, because of something else: a shock to our well-ordered school life that threw everything else into insignificance. Two of our second-years were picked up by the police for “cottaging”.

Only once before had this ever happened – to poor, confused, unhappy Paul Abbott (see “Simon’s Revenge”) but this was entirely different. The culprits were two very ordinary twelve-year-olds (their names don’t matter and were kept out of the Press, which was far more interested in the fact that one of the boys’ “clients” was a local Vicar. The spate of letters to the editor on the theme “All these Vicars are the same” kept the correspondence columns full for weeks).

They were a dirty-minded pair. Forget all about “Ashamed of their empty bag, their lost little chick-peas (yes I know that’s not original, I cribbed it from Juvenal). Both had their balls pricked as soon as they began to be a nuisance with girls. However, getting castrated had made them more raunchy rather than less - I’d have said they were ready for anything that involved pulling their pants down. Under interview they said that going with men was “a cool idea” and one that would earn them a lot of money. And that’s all they would say. It was glaringly obvious that Jimmy had put them up to going cottaging, but his name was never mentioned.

The brunt of this episode fell on Ricky, who as Jimmy’s supposed elder brother attracted a lot of funny looks and snide remarks. The crunch came when Ricky found a drawing inside his book locker, a very crude drawing with the caption “Assholes are cheap today”. He showed it to me. “Simon, this has gone on long enough. It really won’t do”.

“No, it most certainly will not” I agreed.

The time had most clearly come to call Dr Geller’s bluff – if bluff it was, and go public. We both went to see Miss Climpson – Dr Holroyd’s secretary – and asked if we might see the great man. Miss Climpson dialled the Head’s number. He agreed to see us the same afternoon.

Dr Holroyd was as genial as ever. “Ah, Scott and Silva One! How nice! Come in, come in and sit down, won’t you?” His eyes twinkled behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. “Funnily enough” he went on “I was just thinking of asking for you to come and see me, Silva, about your brother. How do you think he’s settling in?”

“Sir…” I began. Ricky cut me off. “He’s not my brother. He’s no relation whatever. You’ve got to believe me. I don’t know who is trying to pass him off as my brother, or why, but it’s got to stop……sir”. Ricky’s face had gone very pink and I was terrified he was going to cry.

Dr Holroyd looked puzzled, as well he might be. Ricky was, for the moment, incapable of speech, so I filled in. “Jimmy’s name isn’t Silva” I began. “I doubt if he, or anyone else, knows his real name, but that doesn’t matter too much. He’s no relation to Ricky – none whatsoever”.

Ricky composed himself enough to explain to the Head that Jimmy, far from being his kid brother, was possibly older than he. At the date when Jimmy was supposed to have been born, Ricky’s parents were dead – lost in the jungles of Cambodia, probably murdered by bandits.

Dr Holroyd listened in silence till Ricky finished. For a few moments no one spoke. If it had been possible to see inside the good Doctor’s head, you could have seen the wheels going round.

“Most extraordinary” he said at last. “Can it be true? Lord Manningham was most explicit in his letter. And that nice Dr Geller, too. She made me promise we’d take good care of the boy. And now all this, on top of that unfortunate business last week”.

He referred – of course – to the cottaging incident. I brought him up to speed on what we all thought – that Jimmy had been regaling the culprits with stories of his past, when he’d kept body and soul together by renting out his butt – and they’d been silly enough to take him up on it. Quite clearly, whatever Uncle Carl and Dr Geller had written about Jimmy, they had made no mention of his true background.

Dr Holroyd looked gutted. One of the main pillars of his philosophy of life had been knocked away. It was a matter of principle with him to assume that everyone told the truth, and the higher up the pecking order, the more impeccable the truth must be. All this had come tumbling down, with the revelation of Uncle Carl’s tissue of lies

Dr Holroyd would have to rapidly revise his views on “that nice Dr Geller” also. Whilst he now knew that Uncle Carl and Dr Geller knew each other, it was unlikely that he understood the full extent of their association (at that stage, neither did I. If you are impatient to know what it was, read “Dr Geller goes into partnership”)

Ricky had seen one side of the arrangement before he came to Britain – indeed he had almost become part of it. In a quiet, matter-of-fact voice he explained how, once a fortnight, a truck would arrive and unload a dozen or so untidy, dirty and hungry little boys, homeless waifs trawled up by Uncle Carl’s men, from ramshackle shanty towns and half-abandoned camps in the interior. Dr Geller would clean them up, feed them up and equip them with new outfits. On the tenth day they would all be neutered, and the following evening they would be shipped out.

Ricky had witnessed this happening several times. Their destination, Dr Geller confided to him, was the Middle East; their fate was to become the gelded pages of the spoiled, pampered daughters of oil sheikhs. The girls would cock-tease their hapless attendants, spreading their legs and jeering at the boys for their impotence and sterility…………

When Ricky finished, we just sat, looking at one another. When at last the Head spoke, it was in a stumbling, faltering way we’d never heard before. “I don’t know what to think” he said. “Who am I to believe? Ought I to contact Lord Manningham for his advice, or what? Or………” He wasn’t addressing me. He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular.

This was horrible. This was not the positive, decisive Head we’d always known. Dr Holroyd looked a shattered, deflated man. I interrupted him, mainly to get him to stop. “Sir” I began “don’t, please, for the moment, do anything”.

Dr Holroyd looked up. “Scott?” he said, in a querying tone, as if he’d never seen me till that instant.

I thought quickly. “Sir, all kinds of things are starting to come together. Just give us a little time – a few more days”. I hardly knew what I meant. Sure, there was a whole lot going on, but coming together it certainly wasn’t. But one thing was certain above all else – Dr Holroyd must not approach Uncle Carl.

Dr Holroyd sighed. “Scott” he said at last. “In all the time I’ve known you, you have never once told me an untruth. I’m sure you have the best of reasons for what you’ve just said. So I’m going to take your advice. But only for a few days, mind. As soon as things have “come together” as you put it, you must come back and see me. And for goodness’ sake, dear boys, don’t put yourselves in any kind of danger. Now, shall we all have tea?” He rang the bell for Miss Climpson.

Over tea, Dr Holroyd regained something of his old self. No further mention was made of Jimmy. But to me, Jimmy and the “Little Brother” ploy was the most puzzling question of all. If there was one place on earth where Jimmy would not settle down and feel at home, it was the well-ordered, regimented life of a British independent boarding school. So what was the motive in sending him here? However, that would have to wait for an answer.

xxxxxxxx

I said a while ago “Stuff Happens”. The next event – after the cottaging episode – was a road-accident, or rather a near-miss.

Every Saturday afternoon the Roebuck twins used to go to St Anselme’s to help with sports coaching. As the distance was short they went by bike. On the very next Saturday following the cottaging incident, they were entering the main gates at St Anselme’s when a red bus, coming down the drive very fast, forced them to do a crash-landing on to the grass. The alternative would have been a head-on smash.

“Funny thing about that bus” said Jon Roebuck, when he was telling me all about it, “it had one-way glass in all the windows”.

“Even funnier” said Jamie “guess who was driving? I saw him plain as anything. That Mr Sugg – you know, the grumpy woodwork master”.

“Didn’t get its number, I suppose?” I asked, hopefully.

“No problem” said Jon. “The number plate was coming straight at me. It was “WXI 9645”.

“Northern Ireland” murmured Jamie. “Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean the bus came from there. It’s just where they got it registered”. We knew that!

“Come on” I said. “Let’s go and find Jan Raxworthy”. This was easily done. Jan never went far on Saturday afternoons. He was deep in a computer magazine.

“Jan” I asked “can you get into the Police National Computer?

Jan laughed. “I already have! What do you want to know?”

Vehicle WXI 9645 was registered to Castlegrey Enterprises Limited, with an address in Woking. Jan shifted his search from the Police National Computer to Companies House, and found that Castlegrey Enterprises was a wholly owned subsidiary of Threegates Finance Limited, which in turn was owned by Gamegrove Holdings, and Gamegrove was owned by Hamilton Industries.

Hamilton Industries Limited looked to be a bog-standard commercial firm. But in the list of directors one name stood out from the screen. It said “The Rt. Hon. Viscount Manningham”.

Another link with Uncle Carl, but one that didn’t get us anywhere. I couldn’t blow the whistle on Uncle Carl for owning a bus: there was nothing illegal in that. In fact if I’d felt charitable towards Uncle Carl I might even have entertained the thought that he didn’t even know that one of his companies owned the bus. Ha ha ha to that idea.

But Mr Sugg, now – he was different altogether. The St Anselme’s website showed him as a form teacher, something he’d hotly denied when we put it to him. There was something distinctly fishy about the two forms that were listed under his name. When we’d approached him he’d turned distinctly nasty, for no apparent reason. Lastly, if he was a woodwork teacher, as he claimed to be, what was he doing driving buses around?

I put out a few feelers, and got the answer I expected. There were no woodwork classes at St Anselme's - there never had been. Sugg was a phoney. As soon as I could, I called an emergency meeting of the Knickers Club. We assembled in the sports store, where we talked round the subject for a while – and “Sugg Watch” was born.

“Sugg Watch” involved large numbers of junior boys. They had a more flexible timetable, and were less conspicuous, than seniors. Their remit was very simple: whenever, and wherever, the red bus was seen, they were to note where it was and the direction it was taking. For the most part, the juniors operated at random, though there were a few fixed observation points.

Elliott Minor (no relation to Jack) had an even smaller brother, Peter. He could be found, as a general rule, at the bus stop opposite the St Anselme’s main gate. To avoid suspicion he would even get on a bus from time to time, ride one stage and walk back to his post. On the sea-front you might see fat, gelded Selwyn Cox and his still intact friend Cardew, chatting-up the bowling green attendant, or sheltering in his hut in wet weather.

From the junior boys’ reports I hoped that a pattern would emerge. It was slow in coming. Some days the red bus didn’t turn a wheel, it stayed in the St Anselme’s vehicle park. On other days it just seemed to moon vaguely around the town. Once, it disappeared for the day altogether. About twice a week it was seen going up the London road, towards the northern suburbs. In that direction lay the asylum-seekers’ squatter-area of Drulger Park Estate. But at the time, we hadn’t made that connection, so for the moment, that was that.

The breakthrough came one pouring wet Sunday night, and Roddy was instrumental in bringing it off. The Vicar of one of the local churches – some way from the school – had sent Mr Trefusis a begging letter, saying that his own choir was so thin on the ground that he might have to suspend some services altogether, most particularly evensong. Mr Trefusis agreed to “lend” the Vicar Roddy, saying that Roddy had voice enough for three. He did not explain that Roddy was the famous Roddy Fisher, whose picture adorned millions of CDs, or that he owed his singing talents to being a castrato, as most of the school choir were.

Roddy had come bursting into the dayroom, rainwater streaming down his face. “Simon!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “That bus! I’ve just seen it parked in the side street by the Grand Met. I think there may be somebody in it, but of course you can’t tell”. (The bus windows were all 1-way glass as I’ve said before.)

So, Mr Sugg had some connection with Dr Geller. Unless of course he’d just decided to nip down for a quick one on the hotel bar, using the bus…………..Forget it!

“There’s something else” Roddy went on. “Those windows up on the second floor, which you showed me – the ones you thought were Dr Geller’s.” (I’d forgotten I’d ever showed Roddy, but I must have). “They are terribly brightly lit. They look more like a lighthouse – atishoo - atishoo”. He broke off in a fit of sneezing.

I had sudden visions of Dr Geller signalling to a boat out at sea – of mysterious landings on the shingle beach opposite the hotel. The truth, though, was likely to be more prosaic. “Thanks for telling me, Roddy” I said. “Now go and get out of those wet things or you’ll catch your death.” Roddy’s wet shorts were clinging to him and the thin material had become see-through, showing all the world that he hadn’t got a thong on. A pink jellybean, emasculated and circumcised, wagged between rounded thighs that would have looked good on a girl.

Roddy hurried away, leaving me thinking furiously. As luck would have it, the door opened again to admit the one person I could rely on to help. Manchit. Our star gymnast.

Manchit’s early life had been lurid to put it mildly. Orphaned as a small boy in the Indian city of Secunderabad, he’d been taken in by the priests of Lord Hanuman, the Hindu monkey-god. After undergoing a village castration (they bound a horsehair round his scrotum until it withered away) he had been trained as a temple eunuch. The operation, the priests said, would make him “very holy”. It had also been excruciatingly painful not to say dangerous. The operation left Manchit without sex, but as athletic as ever.

Many of his duties, allegedly ‘very holy’ are too disgusting to repeat, but a regular daily chore that came his way was to swarm up the pillars of the temple portico and chase off the sacred monkeys, that tended to congregate on the roof and urinate on the worshippers.

“Feel like a spot of climbing?” I asked him, rather airily.

Manchit looked at the windows, at the rain lashing down. “What, in this?”

“Fraid so” I rejoined. “Go and find your cagoule – mine too while you’re about it. Mine’s the red one”.

The driver of the town bus – the seafront service - which we boarded five minutes later, looked askance at two Southdown Hall boys in soaking wet cagoules, at eight o’clock on a Sunday evening when they should have (he thought) been watching “Match of the Day” on the telly. But he said nothing and took our fares. A short walk from the bus terminus found us in the shelter of the disused movie theatre in Culper Road, a gloomy back street running parallel to the sea front – and to the rear of the Grand Metropolitan Hotel.

The gates to the movie theatre carpark had once been locked, but the lock had long gone. Manchit led the way past heaps of derelict fittings and discarded rubbish, to the far end. Progress was then barred by a six-foot wall topped with rusty barbed wire, but Manchit cleared away the wire in an instant and the wall was no obstacle to a wiry Indian boy whose training ground had been the forty-foot walls of the Temple of Hanuman. Manchit was soon up on top of the wall and helping me over.

Once on the other side, we were in the Grand Met garden. Far overhead, the windows of Dr Geller’s suite shone out like a beacon. Manchit took his shoes off. “Back soon” he said in a loud whisper, and skipped off, leaving me under cover of the dripping lilacs. Manchit was invisible in deep shadow, but I heard the faint clank and rattle as he began to climb the fire escape.

Stepping off this, Manchit had to inch his way along a stone ledge, in places barely a foot wide. Underfoot, it could be slippery with seagull droppings. There were no handholds until he reached the ornate stonework surrounding Dr Geller’s window. Heart in mouth I could just make him out, crouched in an angle of the masonry, like a spider on a wall……

Every second I expected him to be spotted; every second I waited for him to lose his grip and fall. Under my canopy of soaking leaves an hour seemed to crawl by. In reality it was about twenty minutes before, once again, I saw movement. He was coming back.

Trembling like a leaf – though not from fear – Manchit began putting his shoes on. “What did you see?” I hissed.

“Tell you in a minute” panted Manchit. “Let’s get away from here first”. We had the wall and barbed wire to negotiate in reverse, and it was not until we reached one of the shelters on the sea front, deserted tonight in the darkness and rain, that Manchit told me what he’d seen, crouching behind the ornate stone pillars of Dr Geller’s window.

“It was all kitted out like a clinic in there” he said “with an enormous central light fitting. There was this woman – your Dr Geller I suppose, I’ve never seen her, remember, in a white coat with a face mask and rubber gloves on. Then the door opened and a man came in; he had a balaclava on over his face but I’m pretty certain it wasn’t the man Sugg; I could tell from his build, he had sort of ridgy shoulders. It was another man”.

“Go on” I said.

“He – the hooded man - brought in a beautiful blond boy, nude apart from his underpants. Really beautiful, you know, like Roddy”.

(Manchit had once had quite a crush on Roddy. At one point I feared it might turn physical, but Roddy was just not interested.)

“The boy had been doped I think. He had difficulty walking. I think he was trying to say something but they ignored him. Anyway I couldn’t hear; those windows are double glazed and very thick.

"The hooded man pulled the boy’s underpants off. Then he and the woman lifted the boy on to the operating table she has in there, and while the man steadied the boy by holding him down by his shoulders, the woman took some sort of instrument and began to castrate him – to cut his balls out - just like that”.

“Was that all?” I asked – though I don’t know how much more I expected.

“After Dr Geller had finished, and stitched the boy up, the hooded man helped him out of the room, and a few moments later he brought in another boy, with red curly hair, much younger, no more than eight or nine I guess, to have his balls taken out. But I’d seen enough by then”.

Yes, you certainly had, I thought. And I’d heard enough. Trouble was, it was just another conundrum with no obvious answer.

So, back to school – and straight into the arms of the late-duty master. As good luck would have it, this was old Mr Meredith, kept on after retiring age. The great thing about old Merry was that he always took what you said at face value. “And who have we here?” he greeted us. “Scott, isn’t it, and Khannah?” His eyes twinkled behind his glasses. “And what takes us out so late?”

Manchit was a quick thinker. “Please, sir, we’ve been observing bats” he replied, with no hesitation at all.

“And were your observations attended with success?” enquired Mr Meredith in a quizzical tone.

“No, sir, not very” I replied. “Bats don’t like coming out in the rain”.

“Quite so, quite so” agreed old Merry. “Run along then, and get out of those wet things”. In fact we were both as sodden as Roddy had been earlier, showing all we’d got through our wet shorts – not that there was much to see.

Next day a breakthrough came. The Roebuck twins still visited St Anselme’s on three afternoons a week for sports coaching. Seeing Mr Sugg in a crowded corridor they trailed him, and got close enough to hear what he was saying on his mobile phone.

“Tomorrow, you say? No, tomorrow I can’t. I’ve got to go over to Portsmouth at five-thirty”.

Sensing he was being followed, Mr Sugg whipped round, to find the corridor empty. The Roebucks were past masters at vanishing into thin air. They wasted no time in reporting to me.

Mr Sugg was going to Portsmouth, and Portsmouth was an international ferry terminal.

Months before, I’d been mixed up in an operation that involved neutering boys and shipping them across to France. That had been small-scale: two or three at a time. (Read “Made Safe” if you want to know more about that). This looked altogether bigger. I knew now – or could at least guess – that whenever the bus disappeared for a whole day, it had gone to Portsmouth.

Mr Sugg was taking neutered boys to Portsmouth, by the bus-load. I didn’t wait any longer, but went to see Dr Holroyd. There was nothing more that I could do on my own or even with friends.. The impassive Croker – the butler – showed me into the study.

The Head listened to me in silence, then gave a deep sigh. “You know, Scott” he said “I’ve been afraid it would turn out like this. Just wait outside for a moment, while I telephone”. I waited in the hall. Croker brought me “The Times” on a silver tray, Presently Dr Holroyd he came back. “There, I’ve notified the authorities” is all he would say. “Be here at two o’clock”.

The morning dragged past. At two I went to the Head’s house, as instructed “Ah, Scott!” said the Head – his usual greeting. “This is Major Harris. I’ve told him the essentials of your story”.

I turned to face the Major, a good-looking man of about forty, medium height, in a smart grey suit. He took my hand briefly. “Hello, Simon” said the Major. “I’m sorry I’m not a senior policeman with a lot of silver braid and medals, but it’s really not that kind of job”.

I immediately took to Major Harris; he had a warm smile, a quiet voice. Emboldened, I asked “Sir, do you work for Special Branch? Or maybe MI 5?”

“All you need to know, Simon” he replied “is that the section I report to, is wholly independent of the Home Office. It has to be.” (Military Intelligence I guessed. There were few holds barred where the Army was concerned.)

“Simon” said the Head “why don’t you tell Major Harris everything you told me? Just take your time”.

I did just that, omitting nothing – including my suspicions that Uncle Carl was involved. The Major listened, taking everything in. When I’d finished he sat back in his chair.

“Now then, Simon” said the Major “ I’m sure you are thinking that the information you’ve given me has come as a complete surprise. So the first thing I have to tell you is, that it hasn’t”.

My face fell. “Oh, but sir, I….” My voice tailed off. The Major laughed, but in a pleasant way. “Don’t worry, Simon. Your information isn’t useless. It’s confirmation from an independent source, always valuable - and it fills in a few gaps in our knowledge of how the thing actually worked. But before I say any more, you should meet an old acquaintance, and this may really be a surprise”. Turning towards the door into the corridor he called out “You can come in now, Sergeant”. The door opened and in came…..

“But……” I stammered. The Major laughed again. “Allow me to introduce Sergeant Pearson. You and your friends knew him as Mr Sugg. The reality is that Sergeant Pearson is a serving soldier, as I am”.

For the moment I was struck dumb. The Major went on. “Sergeant Pearson infiltrated Dr Geller’s outfit, in Malaysia, several months ago. By that time a man named Sugg actually had been engaged, by post, independent of all of this - to join the staff at St Anselme’s a month or so later. Sugg had “form” as the police say, much of it pretty nasty, so we sidetracked him. No one knew the real Sugg at St Anselme’s, so there were no problems for the Sergeant to pass himself off – were there, Sergeant Pearson?”

“None at all, sir” the Sergeant responded.

“In Malaysia” continued the Major, “Sugg – or rather Sergeant Pearson – persuaded Dr Geller that he was working for your uncle. So far as he – your uncle – was concerned, Sugg was Dr Geller’s assistant, and the kind of man who would fall in readily with his plans – one who would do anything for money. Meanwhile, until Dr Geller upped sticks and moved her operations to the UK, the Sergeant kept himself busy tapping phone calls and intercepting mail.

“Yes, I know it’s very naughty, but we had to be sure there were no risks to national security. As it happened there weren’t, but what we found was just as interesting.

“Let’s take Dr Geller first. We learned a lot about that lady. She had been supplying Lord Manningham, who I gather is your uncle, Simon, with boys for his Middle East operation. Problem: she wanted out. Only one thing interests Dr Geller: money. The bottom line. She wanted out, for the simple reason that your uncle’s terms weren’t good enough. She had an orphanage to run, and a private practice, and wasn’t prepared to subsidise Lord Manningham.

“As it happened, this suited him. Dr Geller had supplied him so well, that the Middle East market was at saturation point. And something else was opening up, which offered much higher stakes – France.”

“Fascinating” murmured Dr Holroyd.

“It’s not fascinating at all” the Major returned, rather sharply. “We’re not talking here about the finer points of educating neutered boys, Headmaster. This is about human trafficking; in short, the slave trade.” With the Headmaster chastened, the Major went on. “In France there have been odd rumblings from time to time, that something illicit was going on. A year ago the Sûreté picked up two boys working in a country estate in the Auvergne. They had been abducted in the UK and neutered by burdizzo. You may have seen the documentary we released on the news channel”. (We all had, and had winced at the thought of the crude surgery that the boys had undergone).

“Then the Comtesse de Barsac wrote to the “Figaro” daily newspaper. It’s a notoriously right-wing paper, where the aristocracy regularly air their views, and you won’t find them more right-wing than the Comtesse. She had a teenage daughter and wanted to find a page for her, but felt that it was altogether inappropriate for the girl – “a virgin of an ancient family” to be attended by an intact boy. She had tried to persuade her gardener to have one of his younger children castrated, to become a suitable page-boy for the girl, but hardly surprisingly, the man refused.

“There were several replies to the Comtesse including, Simon, one from your uncle. He agreed totally with the Comtesse, and said that in the time of Louis XV, a much more enlightened view was held: in the houses of the nobility all page-boys should be castrated without the option. It was astonishing, you might think, that he should have gone public”. (No, I didn’t think. Nothing that Uncle Carl did could astonish me. But I kept quiet, while the Major went on.

“There was a lull of a few weeks, while Dr Geller got herself settled in. By this time the Sergeant here” (hearing himself mentioned Sergeant Pearson stiffened to attention) “was in position, in his ‘persona’ as Mr Sugg the woodwork teacher, and he received two visitors. They were plug-uglies, whom Lord Manningham had used before, and they were reporting for orders. One actually rejoiced in the name of Slye! The other was called Finnegan. They were to carry out the actual abductions.

“It’s a good thing you never encountered that pair – they were really rough. As it happens they’ve both gone into the bag, as recently as this morning. But more on that particular subject in a minute.

“We had to let the thing ride for a while, so as to be quite sure we’d got hold of the French end. This turned out to be another French aristocrat, the Vicomte de Breuil. He’s been involved in small scale trafficking in neutered boys for some time. We let de Breuil meet the first shipment, then we put him in the bag too. All later shipments were met by Sûreté officers. The boys are presently in a holding unit”.

I looked a question, which the Major anticipated. “You mentioned phoney class lists – a good bit of sleuthing, that. The lists were, in fact, part of Sergeant Pearson’s homework, principally for internal consumption, although if the School Inspectorate had called round, the papers would have been produced as class lists. Before being sent to France the boys were kept at St Anselme’s School – arranged by your uncle, I need hardly say – till they were fit to travel. Sergeant Pearson kept the score. How many to date, Sergeant Pearson?”

“One hundred and twenty-one, sir” the Sergeant answered promptly.

A hundred and twenty-one boys who would never hit puberty. Who would never know the joys and thrills of teenage sex…….. The Major’s investigations might be nearing success, but at the cost of a hundred and twenty-one boys’ future manhood……

The Head’s voice called me back to earth. “All right, Simon?” I pulled myself together. “Quite alright, sir, thank you”.

The Major continued. “Identification isn’t going to be easy. They were all in Britain on counterfeit passports, but in time we hope to restore them to their families and friends”. In other words they were all asylum-seekers’ children as I’d guessed.

Though nothing can restore their virility, I wanted to add. But I kept that thought to myself. Despite the Major’s assurances I felt anticlimax setting in. Uncle Carl had devised an extremely clever, intricate knot. By accident I’d discovered the British end, and a lot of that was conjecture and supposition. And now it turned out that the Major had known every detail, every twist, as often as not before anything happened. There seemed very little more that could be said.

Clearly the Major thought so too. “Well, I believe I’ve told you all you need to know, Simon. Headmaster, have you any questions?” (Dr Holroyd hadn’t) “Well, in that case, we need to get on. Now it’s pure coincidence – I say again, pure coincidence – that today’s the day we decided to pull the plug on the operation. That’s why we put Slye and Finnegan in the bag, earlier today – they’d served their purpose. Lord Manningham is expecting another shipment to arrive at Portsmouth ferry terminal at half-five. It will, but not in the way he’s expecting. I daresay, Simon, that after all the hard work you’ve put in, you’d like to come along and see the fun? Is that alright with you, Headmaster – any reasons why he shouldn’t?”

“None at all, Major, none at all” murmured Dr Holroyd. Possessing a brilliant mind, nonetheless the Major’s exposé of events taking place on his doorstep, as it were, had left him reeling. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him making for the corner cabinet where he kept his whisky-decanter………

Major Harris and I walked out to his car, a powerful but inconspicuous Volvo S70 estate, grey with no markings. “Sergeant Pearson will be using the A 27, for the very good reason that he always has” said the Major. “So I think we’ll take the A 259 for a change”.

“Sir” I ventured “do we know for certain that Uncle Carl – Lord Manningham – will be there?”

“He’ll be there alright” said the Major. “Oh yes, he’ll be there, and we’ll pull the rug out from under”. On which note I shut up.

Half an hour saw us entering Portsmouth ferry terminal. At the first checkpoint a man in Port Authority uniform stepped forward. The Major showed him a pass. The man stepped back and saluted, too smartly for a civilian, I thought.

“The great thing about a ferry terminal” said the Major as he drove on to the next checkpoint “is that everyone does exactly as they are told. All the Port Authority people on this side of the terminal have been given a day’s paid holiday. They’ve been told that the terminal is being filmed. We have, in fact, brought some gubbins along though it’s only for appearances.

“All the checkpoints on this side are being operated by my own people. That was Sergeant-Major Smith, back there. I must tell him not to be so regimental.

“All the bona fide travellers are being diverted to the old freight terminal. Not very comfortable, no duty-free shops or anything, but it’s only for a day. By the time they’re on board the ferry they’ll have forgotten all about it”.

We were now approaching the main waiting area, where vehicles normally line up waiting to embark. The Major was directed to the head of a new line. I was surprised to see so many other vehicles, both cars and vans. The vans all seemed to have something in common – the firms’ names and addresses. I saw “Copperwheat & Son, Family Butchers, Elstow, Beds” and then “Jones and Pritchard, Motor Engineers, Elstow, Beds” and a bit further on “Home Farm Dairies, Elstow, Beds”. I mentioned this to the Major.

“Identification” he replied briefly. “They are all armed response units. Though I’d be very surprised – very surprised indeed – if there’ll be any shooting today. If there is, I’ll be ordering it, and no one else”.

The Major paused for an instant. “And now” he went on “we wait”.

We didn’t have to wait long. From one of the buildings a bell sounded, ting-ting-ting-tingle-ting. A tiny sound but full of menace. “They’re starting, then” said the Major, more to himself than to me. Then the well-known red bus drove into the waiting area and was flagged to the end of one of the rows. The driver jumped down. From the passenger door, eighteen boys emerged, to be marshalled in three ranks at the rear of the bus. Sergeant Pearson was ever the military man!

A knot of people came slowly out of a waiting room. “There he is” muttered the Major. Then a huge roaring voice filled the area: one of the Major’s men on the Tannoy. “Lord Manningham! Advance this way and raise your hands above your head! I say again, advance this way and raise your hands above your head!”

The knot of people dissolved, and the unmistakable, tall, immaculate tweedy figure of Uncle Carl stood alone, level with the bus. Once again the Tannoy filled the area with its stentorian command. Uncle Carl stood still. He glanced to left and right. I don’t think he recognised me. He took one pace forward – I got the ridiculous impression he was going to make a speech or sing a song, although of course he did neither.

Instead, Uncle Carl did the one thing that no one could have foreseen. With a quick decisive movement he swung himself up into the driving cabin of the bus, and gunned the engine. “Whatever is the man thinking of?” muttered the Major at my side.

The bus was moving quickly now. All exits to the area were blocked except one, and that had been left unguarded because it led nowhere: it was the boarding ramp for the ferry. Only no ferry was berthed there…….

Someone screamed. Everyone else seemed to have been galvanised into inactivity. Meanwhile the bus, gathering enormous speed, hurtled down the concrete ramp. Then like a toy falling over the side of a table, it flicked up its rear end – and was gone.

Fountains of water and spray shot skywards, falling back with a thunderous crash.

“Well, well!” remarked the Major. “Fun and games, indeed! Not at all what I’d come prepared for, but there we are, I suppose. Shall we take a look?” For the Major, the past few minutes were all in the day’s work. Not for me!

We walked to the end of the ramp and looked down. Twenty-or-so feet below, a patch of oil was spreading on the surface. Mud and other detritus were welling up from below – where the bus, minutes before, had plunged to the bottom of Portsmouth Harbour. I pictured Uncle Carl’s last seconds as the driver’s cabin filled with water…..

“M-mm” said the Major. “It’s at least forty feet deep here, they keep it dredged. Nothing to be done till tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I’ve got a report to write for my boss, and you had better go back to school”. He took a pad from his pocket, scribbled something and turned to the bunch of people that had followed us. “Staff-Sergeant Green! Where is that man! STAFF SERGEANT GREEN!

A man stepped forward. “Oh, there you are, Staff-Sergeant. Take Mr Scott back, please, then return to the depot. It’s all on the five-owe-one. Goodbye, Simon – and good luck”. The Major returned to whatever he had to do, and I rode back to school in a van lettered “John Ellis, Farrier and General Blacksmith, Elstow, Beds”. Staff Sergeant Green said never a word apart from “’Ere we are then, sir” when we reached the school gates.

There seemed to be no one about – no one at all. Then, looking around I saw a familiar figure. “Harry!” I shouted.

There was no one I’d have been more pleased to see just then, but Harry Brotherton. Harry with his pebble spectacles, his unattractive features, but above all his uncomplicated view of the world in general. He crossed the road, his face in a friendly grin.

“Where’s everyone got to, Harry?” I demanded.

“Bin a bomb scare” he replied. “ ‘Bout half-four. They told us all to evacuate the building, then if we heard nothing, come to morning school ter-morrer as normal. But where you bin, Simon? Out on the razzle?”

“No, not exactly” I said. “It’s all a bit difficult to explain. You see, I had this uncle, and……” There was a sudden pricking behind my eyelids. All of a sudden I buried my face in Harry’s jacket and broke into uncontrollable sobs. It didn’t mean anything. I certainly wasn’t crying for Uncle Carl. It’s just one of the things I do. I’ve explained it before and don’t propose doing it again.

By degrees I stopped howling. Harry pressed a spotless hankerchief into my hand, for me to wipe my eyes. “Mum makes me ‘ave a clean one every mornin’” he murmured. “Now then, you want to come along ‘ome wi’ me an’ have a cuppa tea, that’s what you want to do”.

So through back streets to “The Handy Stores” where Harry’s parents waged a long running battle with the supermarkets. Harry said that he father was, even then, out in his van delivering customers’ orders. His mother, a plump comfortable sort of body, met us in the family’s kitchen and gave me a big hug. “I’m ever so pleased to meet you, Simon” she said. “You’ve done so much for our Harry, making him feel at home in that big school with all them smart kids. Harry thinks a lot of you, you know- he’s always sayin’ he wished ‘e could be more like Simon.” I stammered something in reply. I’m sure Harry’s wishes didn’t include losing his balls at the age of eleven.

Tea, rather strong, was produced, then pilchards on toast, something I’d never normally eat, but food had never seemed so delicious. I realised, with a pang, that my last meal had been hours and hours before.

After tea, television. “East Enders” was avidly watched, and when that was finished, I said my goodbyes and thanks to Mrs Brotherton (why couldn’t I have had a mother like that?) and made my way back to school. It was now nine-thirty or so. Everyone I met was cold, grumpy and not inclined to talk much. They had been sculling round the town while the bomb disposal people searched the building, and presumed I’d been doing the same. As soon as I decently could, I went to bed.

But the day’s excitement wasn’t over yet.

I was awakened from sleep by people moving around. The dormitory was illumined by a strange yellowish light. Finding a window that wasn’t already crowded I looked out, to see at the seaward end of the town, an immense orange glare, with showers of sparks shooting hundreds of feet into the air.

Booted feet clumped on the stairs: Manyweathers, the janitor, on his rounds. He had a large chromium-plated torch which he shone straight at us. “Now then, you boys, you didn’t oughter be out o’bed” he scolded.

“But what is it, Manyweathers?” someone asked.

“It’s the Grand Met ‘Otel, that’s wot it is” replied Manyweathers. “A’goin’ up like a bonfire she is. Now, back to bed, all you boys”. And he went on his way, keys jangling.

To resume my story of the episode at Portsmouth Harbour. Next day, at low tide, they brought two crane barges round, with heavy lifting gear. Divers went down to attach cables, and the sunken bus was winched on to dry land. The police at once removed it to their secure compound, but before doing that, they removed Uncle Carl’s body.

He hadn’t drowned. His neck was broken cleanly. It had probably happened when the tail of the bus flipped up, as it plunged off the ramp. I’ll leave him in the police mortuary for a bit, because there are many other loose ends.

The Grand Metropolitan Hotel had been totally destroyed leaving only a shell. It had been an old building with a lot of dry wood, and from the first there had been very little chance of saving it. Of the room where Dr Geller had castrated boys for her own perverted pleasure, and Uncle Carl’s profit, not a trace remained. However, no one had been killed in the fire, or even hurt. A number of people were at first reported missing, but all were accounted for, bar one……………

Dr Geller was never heard of again. She had checked out the day before and vanished without trace. There might be somewhere in the world where she could find a refuge, eke out some kind of a living – but her old life had gone beyond recall. Back in Malaysia she would face capital charges for procuring underage sex. In Britain she could be arrested for carrying out illegal operations, whilst the authorities in the States had declared her “persona non grata” for a variety of reasons.

From one crime, however, she appeared to be innocent – the crime of setting the hotel on fire. Experts from the Fire and Rescue Department said that the hotel wiring had suffered an overload from “certain electrical appliances” and overheated. They might or might not have been referring to Dr Geller’s lighting and other surgical apparatus. Either way they weren’t saying.

Dr Geller’s disappearance left her protégé, the wretched Jimmy, at a loose end. It never did become clear exactly why he had been foisted on the school as Ricky’s younger brother. Possibly Uncle Carl hoped that he would cause so much mayhem that attentions would be distracted away from everything else that was going on. In this, as I’ve told you, he was totally mistaken.

Dr Holroyd was, of course, equal to the occasion. He knew of a small residential school specialising in the rehabilitation of traumatised children. Whilst nothing could be done to restore his lost manhood, Jimmy could – hopefully - begin to slough off the memory of his past life, and also gain some elementary education. In time he might even be readmitted to Southdown Hall. No longer Silva Minor, he had a new name for the record – Jimmy James. Dr Holroyd chose the name, saying it “rolled trippingly off the tongue”. Jimmy spent time learning how to pronounce it.

Only one other person might have been moved by the removal of Dr Geller from human ken, and of course I mean Ricky. But Ricky, in the past few weeks, had clearly been weighing things up. If he still had any regrets, he kept them to himself.

To return to Uncle Carl. The papers published a brief obituary under his full name, Charles James Scott, 4th Viscount Manningham, describing him as “diplomat and industrialist”, who had suffered accidental death when “a motor coach in which he had been travelling, plunged into the sea”. And if you believe that, I thought, you’ll believe anything. He had no decorations or honours apart from his inherited title; the activities in which he’d been involved for much of his life were not the sort that merited any.

The funeral, a purely family affair, was to be in Hampshire. I hadn’t intended to go. On the same day that the notice appeared I got a letter from the well-known law firm of Farland, Farland & Co, asking me to go to their London office, to discuss Uncle Carl’s will.

Uncle Carl’s will named me as his “residuary legatee” which meant that I inherited all his estate, after tax, expenses and a few small bequests. On paper it made me seriously wealthy, but when I considered how his fortune had been made, I wasn’t certain I wanted to keep it. I told the lawyers as much, saying I’d let them know before long, how I wanted it disposed of. But besides money there were other assets. In the first place, the first car I should own, after passing my test, was Uncle Carl’s Aston Martin. Much more importantly, there was the Simon Scott Centre.

I went over there as soon as I could. There were two members of staff I particularly needed to see. Uncle Carl had left all the day-to-day running to a manager, Geoff Robson, an accountant. He had always seemed a quietly competent sort of guy. I explained that I was now the majority stockholder and he could consider me as his new Chairman. He for his part could style himself General Manager, with a wider latitude of discretion. We'd meet every three months and review results.

The other was Marcia. I sent for her to come and see me in Uncle Carl’s office – now my own. She flounced in, but I didn’t let her keep that up for long. I didn’t invite her to sit down, and without wasting time I explained that with Uncle Carl’s death, her post was redundant. I added the two words I’d been itching to say: “You’re fired!” She left without a word.

I said a few moments ago that I’d not intended to go to Uncle Carl’s funeral. But on Friday of that week I found a note in my pigeonhole giving me a phone number to call. I didn’t recognise it, but called it all the same. A woman’s voice answered. “Hello, hello? Who’s that?”

“Simon Scott”.

“Oh, Simon! How good of you to call back. It’s Selena Scott-Hamilton here”.

Selena Scott-Hamilton – The Honourable Selena Scott-Hamilton to give her full title – was Melanie’s mother. Now what could she want?

“Simon, I don’t know if you’d planned to go to Carl’s funeral. It’s tomorrow, at (she named the place, a private crematorium). “We’re going, the three of us, and I’ve got in touch with one or two cousins. Even then, it’ll only be five or six people in all, to see him off. I know he wasn’t a very nice man (you can say that again, I thought) but we are the only family he had”.

There was a pause, then “Are you still there, Simon?”

“Yes, I’m still here”. (How silly that sounded).

“Well, please come if you possibly can. I’ll expect you when I see you. ‘Bye. Oh, Simon, Simon – are you still there?”

“Yes”. (What is it now?)

“There’s a message I’m to give you. Can’t find it – oh yes, I’ve got it here. “All a mistake”. That’s all. ‘Bye now”. She rang off.

I went over to the sports store, made myself a coffee and had a good think. I remembered all the indecent, degrading acts that Uncle Carl had forced me to do with him. I remembered the bullying, the interference with my life in so many ways. Uncle Carl was a control freak. And in the bigger picture – the world picture – he was an evil man.

On the credit side, there were many small – and not so small – acts of kindness: that Christmas party for me and all my friends. The train layout room, which the Railway Club in the junior school still used. Finally and by no means least, Uncle Carl had named me as his heir.

Should I go to his funeral or not? I took a coin from my shorts pocket – a 50p. If it came down heads I’d go. If tails, I’d give it a miss.

It came down heads.

With other bits of real estate that came my way in Uncle Carl’s will, there was the Lymington Haven house. It was only a short bus ride from the cremation chapel where I had to go. Rather than travel all the way in my blue serge suit, white shirt and black tie, I decided to use the Lymington Haven house as a changing room.

No one lived there now. Mrs Hodges, the housekeeper, came in twice a week to dust around, and clear unwanted junk mail. A man from the village mowed the lawn twice a month in summer and swept up fallen leaves in the autumn. That was all.

The well-remembered door creaked on its hinges.The house smelt of being shut up, needing air. Force of habit took me to the attic bedroom which I’d used all those years ago, when the Knight-Foxes lived there, and when I’d first met Roddy. In that room I’d come to terms with the kind of life that lay ahead for me, after having my balls pricked. Lying on that bed, fingering my dried-up scrotum and limp penis, I’d reflected that boys who had their balls pricked could never fuck girls.

But later, after Melanie showed me that I still could have a sex life, it was to that room that I used to take her. These days the bed, where we used to enjoy ourselves, wasn’t even made up. So many memories………..I changed quickly and hurried down to the bus stop.

The crematorium was sandwiched between a closed-down filling station on one side, and a DIY store on the other, a tiny red-brick Gothic building with the sate 1907 on the gable end. The door-latch made a loud click as I entered. Right at the front in the centre of the aisle, prominent in his casket, was Uncle Carl. To his left, the three Scott-Hamiltons. The Hon. Selena, tall and elegant, glanced round to see who the latecomer was, and flashed a brief smile of recognition. Her husband remained stolidly looking to his front.

So did Melanie.

To the right of the aisle, four people I didn’t know. A Vicar appeared and began reciting something from a book. No one was asked to say or do anything – not even “Amen”. It seemed an abrupt, even lonely, kind of send-off.

When the Vicar reached “We therefore commit his body to be consumed by fire” I guessed the proceedings were almost over, and let myself out. A bus came along almost at once so I got on that, intending to go straight back to school.

I hadn’t reckoned on the speed of the Scott-Hamiltons’ Mercedes compared to the bus, which was very slow and appeared to stop at every other lamp-post.

Back at the house I changed back into school uniform, packing my hated blue suit into the grip. As I did so I heard the sound of a horse’s hooves outside. Seconds later there came a knock at the front door. Opening it to the caller – whoever it was – I found Melanie. She wore a yellow shirt, jodhpurs, riding boots and a hard hat. And she was smiling.

“You got my message, then!”

“What message?” (and then I remembered that cryptic ‘all a mistake’ “Oh, yes, I got it – yes”.

Her smile grew wider. “Then that’s alright then, you silly boy!” She raised her hands to my shoulders, propelling me back into the hall and towards the foot of the stairs.

“Let’s go on up” she said. “We’ve a lot of catching-up to do!”.