AD 2022: Welcome Back Cane & Birch!

"Now, O'Connor, having had this job thrust upon you, how do you feel about being able to carry it out to the full? Frankly O'Connor, neither you nor I have any previous experience of beating men's arses and equally our first "clients" will be never have been subjected to a formal beating with the cane or the birch; so it's a new experience for all of us: the supervisor, the beater and the beaten! Do you think that you will be able to cope? You know I would like the cane applied neatly across the buttocks of each man to leave him with a neatly striped well beaten arse; something that will look good when he shows it off to his mates, as he surely will be forced to."

"I would like everyone to see that you have done a really professional job, with nice parallel cuts of the cane from top to bottom of a man's buttocks or with every square inch of his backside scoured by the birch. You know, O'Connor, I get the impression that the Captain's words to the men and cadets as we set sail were not taken very seriously; so it is up to us to show just how seriously they need to be taken. I very much doubt that anyone at all really appreciates just how painful these Friday night sessions are going to be: so it's up to you and me to show them. You, O'Conner, cannot afford to be squeamish; you have to lay on the strokes with vigour and you cannot allow yourself to become moved or influenced in any way by what will surely be pleas for mercy from the offender. The punishment must be administered thoroughly and dispassionately to the letter. And as I am sure you will appreciate, O'Connor, tonight's inaugural performance is very, very important; we cannot afford to muff it."

O'Connor had listened silently and attentively to his superior before speaking: "Sir, I see no problem at all in administering the cane or the birch as required, as I myself have no qualms or reservations at all about corporal punishment. And as for laying of the strokes, have no fear sir, that I will shirk my responsibility; I assure you sir, there will be no soft pedalling from me; the receivers will know when I am through with them, that they have had a thorough thrashing. The only thing sir, is that I have no actual experience of handling either the cane or the birch and I fear I might not be able to land the cane as accurately as you would really like, to produce a neat set of cuts across an offender's arse, sir. I am sure sir, that it is just a question of a little practice. So sir, with your permission, if I might stay here in this room this afternoon for an hour or so and practise my caning swings on the leather of the beating horse, I think could learn exactly how to swing the cane to achieve the sort of seamless look you are wanting. And as for the birch sir, well I can already see that due to its wide spread, precision is less important than with the cane. I just need to be sure that I cover the entire area of an offender's backside with the strokes sir, which I do not see as a problem."

"Permission granted, O'Connor; take a full hour of practice here by yourself with no one to distract you."

Now while Curtis had been addressing O'Connor, whom he had not previously known, he had been automatically assessing the physical qualities of the young man with whom he was to work regularly. He was very, very impressed by what he saw: a tall handsome young man, with blondish hair, well-muscled and, like a piece of ripe fruit, sexually lusciously appealing. Seen through the lieutenant's own gay eyes, which viewed every attractive new male as a potential sex partner, he had already tabbed O'Connor as a top level prospect; he had, of course, no idea that the young sailor's sexual orientation was the same as his own. And the converse was true; for O'Connor, looking at his superior officer with similarly appreciative eyes, saw in him a very appealing partner, albeit one well beyond his reach. But thought was cheap and cost nothing; neither did it reveal anything; so one could dream of what might never be; which is what both young men, each unbeknown to the other, were doing.

The fatidic hour approached. The punishment list had been posted: nine men in all; there were six cadets and three ratings slated to attend the inaugural Punishment Parade that evening. Each of the cadets, all juniors aged sixteen to seventeen, were to be caned: twelve cuts each. The fate for the three ratings, all recently enrolled young sailors aged about twenty, was worse, for they were each to receive, for their offence, twelve cuts of the cable birch. In fact, being realistic, what O'Connor was about to do was no more than had been visited on the naked backsides of countless public school boys in England for well over a century until the ban on the cane in the late twentieth century. The thing that rendered it unique was the fact that no one had any experience of administering corporal punishment: neither the beaters nor the beaten.

Lieutenant Curtis arrived some fifteen minutes before the fatidic hour at the punishment room to find his "beater", O'Connor, already waiting there. His eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw that O'Connor was wearing only a pair of tight fitting shorts, which hugged his magnificently rounded bubble buttocks and were cut in the crotch to make the most of the wearer's package, which to judge from the attractive bulge was considerable. Curtis knew immediately, that given half a chance, he wanted to explore everything which those deliciously tight shorts, with the come-hither look which they so blatantly seemed to be advertising, were hiding. Apart from the shorts the young man was wearing only a pair of those soft leather boots beloved by boxers.

But he now noticed for the first time that O'Connor was wearing a small gold earring in his right ear and that his right nipple was also pierced and was sporting a small gold ring.

Curtis knew that several years ago, when earrings for men had first become popular, that a right hand side piercing indicated that the wearer was gay; as for the nipple piercing, he had no idea if there was any sexual innuendo implied or not. But he also knew that in the intervening years the significance of the ear piercing, left or right had largely lost its earlier clear message; but the fact that O'Connor had two right hand piercings was enough to set him wondering; that the young man had any piercings at all was an indication of his preoccupation with his appearance. Couple that with the clothes, or rather the lack of them, that he was wearing, O'Connor's appearance led Curtis to believe that the young man was very probably gay and he seriously began to wonder if O'Connor was trying to send him a message.

The moment of truth had arrived; the nine men were brought, under guard into the corridor. The lieutenant opened the door and read out the first name on the charge sheet: a cadet called Sinclair. The young man stood up and entered the room very nervously; he stood there trembling visibly with fear of the unknown. The charge against him was read out by Curtis and he was informed that he was to receive twelve cuts of the cane; but it was only now that he learned that he was going to take the cuts on his bare buttocks as O'Connor ordered him to drop and then to step out of his of his shorts. For a brief moment it looked as though the lad was going to refuse but then, seeing the two ratings who were waiting there to strap him to the horse, he realised that he could do nothing but comply; fifteen seconds later the lad was strapped firmly in place over the horse with his naked arse awaiting the tender ministrations the rattan cane, already being swished ominously through the air by O'Connor.

The lieutenant glance nervously at O'Connor who was also, judging by his face, somewhat nervous; both men knew that this was the all-important moment when the first stroke of the cane would be applied to the arse of the very first attendee at the very first Punishment Parade: in its own way it was a sort of historic occasion. O'Connor knew he had to get it right; to get off to a good start; to show that he was a true professional in the post to which he had been assigned. Curtis called "one" and O'Connor approached the waiting arse of the young cadet who was now visibly trembling with fear at what was about to happen him.

O'Connor's earlier practice now paid dividends as he took his time in deciding where to place his maiden stroke before raising the rattan well above his head and bringing it down with a resounding crack on the exact midpoint of Sinclair's awaiting globes. The characteristic crack of the cane mating with its target flesh, resounded around the room and was clearly audible to the other men waiting in the corridor, thus resolving any remaining question they might still have had in their minds about what was going to happen to them. One of their guards leered at his unhappy charges and told them that if any of them felt the need to go and take a pee, now was the time to do it.

But if the sound of that first stroke had awakened the waiting lads to the reality of their situation, its effect on Sinclair was dramatic to say the very least. As the cane landed on his naked flesh, there was an audible intake of breath, followed a second or so later by a scream of pain as the effect of the cane made itself manifest; it was as if a red bot poker had been laid across the lad's arse. The lieutenant waited for about ten or so seconds before calling the next stroke: ten seconds which seemed like an age to Sinclair as he lay there in agony, strapped to the horse, totally immobilised by the straps. Stroke then followed stroke, applied by O'Connor with admirable precision; he first landed each successive stroke exactly parallel to the one preceding it, working his way up the lad's buttocks from his first centrally applied cut to the bottom of his back; he then commenced his descent towards his upper thighs.

O'Connor applied ten strictly parallel strokes, each producing a livid red weal, before placing the last two cuts diagonally in the form of a cross. By the time he had finished, Sinclair was in tears. With each successive stroke, his cries became louder until he was screaming for the punishment to stop. As the beating continued, the lads awaiting their turn in the corridor, realised that they were in for an excruciatingly painful experience: an experience they would willingly forgo, but one which they knew was inevitable.

The lieutenant was filled with admiration of his assistant as he watched him carrying out his task. To say that this was his first "performance", O'Connor had acquitted himself like a seasoned professional. Clearly there was no problem: none at all: O'Connor was the perfect choice for the job! O'Connor was dripping with sweat by the time he had finished; such was the effort he had expended in laying on the cane. The lieutenant, who had already become quite hard in his trousers just watching O'Connor perform, could scarcely control himself as he gazed on the young man's superb glisteningly wet torso. He had a hard time restraining himself from grabbing the him there and then, so homoerotic had been the experience. O'Connor had had the good sense to bring a towel with him and he dried himself off as the two ratings let Sinclair down from the horse and helped him with the excruciatingly painful task of putting back on his shorts over his flamingly painful buttocks.

As Sinclair hobbled out, the lieutenant called in the next cadet on the charge sheet. And so it went on and on as cadet after cadet in turn, stepped out of his shorts and was strapped to the horse, where his naked arse had the doubtful pleasure of being treated to its first encounter with the rattan cane wielded by the ever more confident Beater O'Connor. As might well be imagined, the diminishing band of young men awaiting their fate in the corridor grew ever more tense and apprehensive as the crack after crack of the well placed rattan cane mating with the naked flesh of the supplicant's arse accompanied by his cries of pain resounded through the air.

By the time the last of the six cadets had been caned, the three waiting ratings had been forced to listen to the dreaded cane descend with its inimitable crack no less than seventy-two times on the naked arses of six young cadets. If ever a group of men had been left to contemplate their fate it was these three young sailors who were by now in an unbelievably nervous state. But their moment had still not come and they were left to stew in their own juice for another fifteen minutes, whilst O'Connor, now utterly drenched in sweat, dried himself off and took a well-earned breather.

The admiration of the lieutenant for O'Connor had grown with each passing moment, as the young man applied himself with dedication to his task and it is safe to say that each of the six cadets left the punishment room with a ragingly painful arse, which I am sure they wished belonged to someone else. There was no doubt at all that O'Connor had, on his first occasion as official beater, established a bench mark by which all future beatings would be measured. One might have thought that once the other cadets had seen the state of their mates' backsides that there would be no repeat performance of the Friday night Punishment Parade, but human nature being what it is, and young lads being unable to keep themselves in check, there was a regular flow of cadets to the Friday night proceedings and O'Connor's prowess with the cane quickly became legendary.

As the lieutenant had watched O'Connor apply the cane he had become ever more taken by the young man's extraordinary physique and stamina. He now found himself lusting over the young man; he tried to imagine what it would be like to grab him, pull those tight shorts off and have sex with him; those beautifully rounded buttocks were just so very enticing. And as time passed and cadet followed cadet, so his lust and desire for O'Connor continued to grow. He found himself hard-pushed to contain his own sexual arousal, so utterly homoerotic had become the whole business. But the "show had got to go on" and so he prepared to call in the first of the three ratings to his fate. By now O'Connor had composed himself and was ready to wield the birch for the first time.

Looking at the charge sheet he saw that the first two ratings had been sentenced to twelve cuts of the birch but that the calibre of the instrument to use had not been specified. And then he saw to his amazement that the third rating had been given a truly ghastly punishment: twelve cuts of the birch complemented by six cuts of the cane to be applied immediately after the birching. He shuddered inwardly as he wondered how on earth the young sailor would stand the pain. But as he had pointed out to O'Connor: "Ours not to reason why."

He turned to O'Connor and pointed out that the charge sheet gave only the number of strokes of the birch and not the calibre, 2mm or 4mm, to be used. So as he was in charge and someone had to decide he told O'Connor that they would begin with six cuts of the 2mm birch to see how that performed and then move on to the next six with the 4mm gauge. Thinking about it, he thought that Admiralty had been quite remiss in not trying out each model to see what the effects on the recipient would be; the birch moved the level of pain to a totally different level as any public schoolboy of the old days would tell you; the birch is truly and implement of punishment to be feared; but feared or not, this is what O'Connor was now required to apply to the naked backsides of three of his fellow ratings.

For O'Connor, there was that horrible moment as he saw himself one of the men being punished. There was the act of punishment itself but then there was the fact that he would be beating three of his shipmates, lads who in at any moment would all pull together to work as a team: and he was a member of that team; he was one of them. He had to tell himself that there was nothing personal in what he was doing, which was of course true; he was just performing a function; a function which he had not elected to perform but which had been thrust upon him by order of the captain. But in spite of his soul searching, O'Connor found it difficult to convince himself that he would not become an outcast, a pariah among his own kind. The only consolation, and it was a very small one, was that as the ship's crew was newly assembled, he did not, thank God, know, not even by sight, any of the three men he was about to thrash.

The lieutenant called in the first man on the list a young sailor called Turner; but what he had done to merit a twelve stroke birching was not specified. The young man was about twenty years old and was, quite understandably, in a highly nervous state, with all that he had just witnessed; first audibly at the sound of the cane cracking down time and time again on naked flesh and then visually as each cadet made his doleful exit, massaging his arse to relieve the obvious pain he was in. Like the cadets, Turner had no idea exactly what was going to happen and he was so unnerved by the whole situation that when told to remove his shorts he wet himself; the poor lad simply could not stop himself and was red with embarrassment as the two rating strapped him in place on the horse.

O'Connor now approached Turner with the 2mm birch in hand; the lieutenant called out the first stroke and O'Connor raised the birch high above his head and brought it crashing down at lightning speed on to Turner's waiting backside. There was that pause of a split second and then the sailor let out the most agonising cry of pain. The six strands of the birch had spread out fanwise across the centre of Turner's' buttocks and there was already a series of marks which had been left; but the skin was not broken and so stroke after stroke descended on the lad so that by the sixth stroke, his entire arse was and angry red colour. By this time the young sailor was sobbing uncontrollably with pain and begging O'Connor to stop.

The lieutenant nodded to O'Connor to pause whilst he examined the state of the lad's arse and as all seemed well he motioned to O'Connor to use the 4mm birch for the rest of the punishment. Now superficially it might appear that in passing from the 2mm to the 4mm birch one has doubled the power of the implement. However, those of my readers who are mathematically minded will realise that passing from 2mm to 4mm cylindrical the effective mass of this fearful implement is quadrupled. Whether the lieutenant was aware of this fact as he ordered O'Connor to use the 4mm birch is doubtful; what is certain is that O'Connor had no idea of the lethal implement with which he was now to about to visit on Turner's arse.

O'Connor raised the 4mm birch and brought it down sharply on Turner's unsuspecting arse causing him promptly to let out a scream of extreme agony, which took the customary howls of pain to a totally new level. The lieutenant stepped forward to examine the effects of the first stroke and saw that the six individual strands of the birch had cut deeply into the flesh of the lad's backside; the skin was now broken and a few spots of blood were visible. Now although he in no way objected to the use of corporal punishment, he was not in any way a sadist and saw that the 4mm birch would have the same effect as the old cat-o-nine-tails: it would reduce the recipient's arse to a bleeding mess; so he immediately stopped it use and reverted to the lighter version. But by the time O'Connor had finished with him, Turner's arse was right red and well and truly roasted.

As he was unstrapped and got down from the horse, Turner was a trembling wreck; his backside was raw, so much so that he left the room without putting back on his shorts: the pain was just too great. So the other two ratings, who were still awaiting their call as he went by them to return to his berth, both got a good view of his arse and I can tell you that what they saw filled them with fear. But there was no reprieve for either of them and one after the other they were strapped across the horse and the prescribed punishment was vigorously applied by O'Connor.