NIGHTS OF HORROR

We all had stories of initiation. One guy said he heard that the ‘lords’ — as they called themselves — would polish your face black and flog you on the back with a whip. Another story was, they made you lie on a bench and beat you on your bare buttocks. They has a dirty filthy ‘watchekong’ (crepe sole, sneakers) into which you were forced to insert your private parts. Some stories must be censored.

After those tales of horror, there was a unanimous decision, that we — the first years — would not be initiated but the problem was in 1956, there were only eight of us and the second years were 14.

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;/For he to-day that sheds his blood with me / Shall be my brother." Those words from Henry V rang in my ears and I was ready for the struggle. Indeed, we were prepared "to imitate the action of the tiger." We planned to fight and when one screams, all would join in. Our battle cry was that of the Musketeers — "All for one and one for all."

The ‘lords’ arrived. They spoke to no one. With grim diabolical faces, and shrill frightening voices, they whispered when they passed closely, "Filthy beast."

That Sunday night in January, before the Training College re-opened for the first term, was a sleepless one for all of us. Throughout the night, covered with white sheets the ‘lords’ would pass near the double-decker beds making weird ghostly sounds. They muttered, "The beasts must be cleansed."

The next night, we heard horrible animal sounds coming from the recreation room. In the morning, we realised that the teacher from Preysal was initiated. The ‘lords’ called him one of them. He himself would not say what happened but he mixed freely with everybody. Anyway, the seven of us considered him as a cowardly traitor.

In the morning, after the third sleepless night, we learnt that another one was ‘cleansed’. Again, that night, two more were taken. The ‘band of brothers’ was now reduced to four. The initiated ones tried to persuade us to succumb gently as they did but we were far more resolute in our quest to stamp out initiation fever.

The second years found out that Cyril Stewart and myself were the masterminds behind anti-initiation movement. The next week, the ‘lords’ tried to take Stewart but he cried out and all hell broke loose. He fought with all his might and they retreated.

My turn was next. I had planned and rehearsed every movement. In the dead of night, about four or five ‘lords’ crept up silently and surrounded me on the upper deck. In a flash, I held on to the metal bar of the bedhead and screamed repeatedly, "Murder" while firing ferocious kicks. A giant hand tried to muzzle my mouth but it suffered a brutal bite from an enraged tiger. They disappeared into the darkness never to return.

The next year, the ‘band of four brothers’ decided we would welcome the new first years as our blood brothers and not "filthy beasts." Surprisingly, the initiated four had no objections whatsoever.

And it came to pass, that in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and fifty-seven, initiation was abolished.

Once a teacher asked his class to make a sentence with the two words, "defence" and "detail." Right away, a pupil said, "De cow jumped over de fence and de head came before de tail."