Kitabı oku: «The Wolf Patrol: A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SCOUTS MARCH FORTH

At seven o'clock on Whit-Monday morning the sun's rays fell on the backs of two boys marching westwards from Bardon at the scout's pace: Dick and Chippy were on the road. They were in full scout's uniform, and Chippy, in his new rig, looked as smart as Dick. Their hats and shorts were of khaki shade, their shirts grey flannel, their neckerchiefs and shoulder-ties of their patrol colours, their coats rolled at their waists with spare socks and vests tucked away in the pockets, their haversacks slung over their shoulders. In their haversacks there was no food at present, for they had to purchase everything they would need from their precious ten shillings; but each carried a blanket which Mrs. Elliott had found for them. Then Chippy carried a tin billy – a present from their instructor – and Dick bore, slung at his belt, a tiny axe, tomahawk shape, its head weighing fourteen ounces. This was intended for cutting wood; and, beside the axe, each had a strong, sharp jack-knife, with spring back, so that the blade could not close on the fingers. Being patrol-leaders, each wore his badge on the front of his hat, and had a lanyard and whistle; and thus accoutred, with patrol staff in hand, they marched on their way.

'I hope it will keep fine, Chippy,' said Dick; 'we can't afford to pay money for lodgings. How long do you think we shall be able to keep going on our money – till the end of the week?'

'Hope so,' replied Chippy. 'I don't want to goo back till we're obliged.'

'Nor do I,' cried Dick. 'Well, there's the last of Bardon for a bit.'

They looked back from a little ridge, and saw the spires of the town over a row of poplars.

'Ta-ta, Bardon,' said Dick. 'We mean to have a look at Newminster before we see you again.'

'We do,' grunted Chippy.

Newminster was a famous cathedral city rather more than forty-five miles from Bardon. To go there and back would mean a tramp of some ninety miles in the six days, and that would be a very fair achievement to carry out on ten shillings for all expenses. The boys talked over ways and means as they went on. 'We got to look out for everythin' we can pick up as 'ull help us,' said Chippy.

'I see,' replied Dick; 'we must try to live on the country. That would be real scout style, Chippy. But it isn't a hostile country; we can't take anything.'

'No, no,' agreed Chippy; 'no pinchin', o' course. Still, theer's things to be had in places. Fish, now – we could cop some fish in some rivers wheer it's free to put a line in.'

'I never thought of fishing,' said Dick; 'that's a good idea. But we've got no rods or tackle.'

Chippy gave a chuckle, and dived a band into a pocket of his shorts. He drew out a hank of fine cord and a screw of paper. In the paper were half a dozen hooks on gut. 'That's all as we want,' he remarked. 'Wait till we come acrost a river wheer there's suthin' to cop.'

'Good for you, Chippy,' laughed Dick. 'A few fish will help us along in style. Only we mustn't poach.'

'No, no,' said Chippy; 'we'll play fair.'

By eleven o'clock the boys had made, with occasional halts, just about eight miles, and both had the knot out of their neckties. Dick had seen an old cottage woman labouring at her well, and had lent her a hand with the heavy bucket, and drawn all the water she would want for the day, while Chippy had sprung forward to hold the pony of a lady who was visiting a sick woman in a cottage near by.

In connection with Chippy's good turn, a discussion arose between the two scouts as they marched on from the hamlet where these things had happened. The lady had offered Chippy sixpence, and, of course, he had refused it.

'Now, look 'ere,' said Chippy; 'o' course, I didn't tek' the sixpence, becos the knot worn't out o' me neckerchief, an' the job worn't worth sixpence, nohow, an' we got to do all them sorts o' things for nuthin', by orders. But s'pose I did a job for some'dy as was really worth sixpence, an' I'd done me good turn that day, could I tek' the sixpence to help us along? It 'ud come in uncommon handy. An', besides that, we're allowed to earn money, though we mustn't beg it or tek' it for little trifles as we ought to do for nuthin'.'

Dick looked puzzled, and thought for a moment before he spoke.

'What you say is very true, Chippy,' he said at last, 'and if you like to earn some money for scout work, why, that's all right. But I don't think we could use a single farthing of it for this trip. You see, we're bound to the ten shillings.'

'Righto, Wolf,' said the faithful Raven; 'but if some'dy offered us a drink o' milk for a hand's turn, or summat like that, I s'pose there'd be no wrong theer?'

'No, I should think not,' replied Dick. 'That would be living on the country in an honest sort of way, and on good scouting lines.'

'Just so,' said his fellow scout. 'I don't mind a rap how it goes, as long as we understand one another. Now we'll look out for a good place to mek' our fust halt.'

At the general shop of the hamlet they had made their first purchases and broken into the ten shillings. They had bought enough flour to fill a ration-bag for sevenpence, two ounces of tea for twopence-halfpenny, a penny packet of baking-powder, half a pound of brown sugar for a penny farthing, and the old woman who kept the shop had thrown a lump of salt as big as Dick's fist in for nothing. So they had spent elevenpence three-farthings, and their purchases were stowed away in the linen bags which Dick and his sister had made ready for the trip.

'Big hole in a bob for a start,' commented Chippy; 'but we must stretch the stuff out.'

'Oh, the flour will make us a heap of chupatties,' said Dick. 'We'll get a lot more to eat for the money than if we'd spent it in bread.'

'Rather,' said Chippy, 'an' we'll want it, too. Here's a spring. Just the place to fill the billy.'

He filled the big tin, and then they looked round for a spot to make a fire. Fifty or sixty yards past the spring a grassy cart road turned aside from the track, and they went down it for a hundred yards till they reached a quiet sunny corner.

Chippy set the billy down, and both turned to and built a fire, at which they were now pretty expert. First they gathered a dozen handfuls of dried grass and made a little heap. Over this heap they built a pyramid of dried twigs and tindery sticks gathered at the foot of the hedgerow. A match was set to the dried grass, and a little red flame sprang swiftly up and began to curl about the twigs and sticks. Now the boys were busy scouting here and there for large sticks to pile again in a bigger pyramid above the burning heap, and in a corner where hedge-cuttings had been flung in the previous winter they found plenty of fuel. Soon they had a capital fire, and the billy was put on to boil, while Dick turned his hand to the chupatties.

He unrolled his coat, and spread it on the ground with the lining upwards. Upon the lining he made a heap of flour, and formed a hole in the centre with his hand. Into this hole he poured hot water from the billy, and added a little salt and baking-powder. Then he mixed the whole well together, kneading and working it with his hands, the latter sprinkled with flour to prevent the dough from sticking to his fingers. Finally he had a couple of flat buns or cakes of dough. In the meantime Chippy had been getting the fire ready. A good pile of red-hot wood ashes had gathered in the centre of the burning sticks. When the dough was ready these ashes were swept aside, and the cakes laid on the hot earth. Then the ashes were piled round the cakes, and they were left to bake.

When the chupatties were nearly baked, the billy was boiled up again, and some tea and a handful of sugar thrown into it. Dick had cut a long skewer of wood to try the cakes, and he now pronounced them done. They were taken from the ashes and set to cool, while each scout fished a tin mug out of his haversack. Soon they were seated at their first meal, a thousand times more happy than any two kings.

CHAPTER XXIX
WINNING A SUPPER

While they ate the chupatties with the relish gained by their morning's tramp, and washed them down with steaming hot tea, they looked over the map which Dick had spread between them.

'Here we are,' said Dick, putting his finger on the very cartway itself, which was clearly shown in the capital map.

Chippy nodded.

'Lemme see,' murmured the latter. 'Wot's the best way to head arter this?'

The two scouts were steering clear of all high-roads and beaten tracks. They were both agreed that there was no fun in tramping along under telegraph wires and in the dust of motor-cars. Anyone could find his way where there was a row of milestones and finger-posts to keep him straight. They were marching purely by the map, following byways and narrow, hidden country lanes, and unfrequented tracks which led by moor and heath and common. There was another immense advantage, too, in moving by such routes. Not merely was it excellent scouting practice, but it afforded them quiet places for camping. It is not easy to camp along a high-road: there are too many people about. No sooner does the smoke of the evening fire begin to rise than a squad of village loungers turn up to watch the preparations, or perhaps, worse still, someone in authority arrives, and forbids the campers to halt in that spot.

'Lemme see,' murmured Chippy again. 'Here's a river; that's about seven mile again, as fur as I can mek' out.'

Dick measured the distance. 'Just about seven miles,' he said.

'Wot d'yer say to campin' pretty handy to it to-night?' went on Chippy.

'So that you can try your hand on the fish, eh?' laughed Dick.

Chippy nodded.

'All right,' said Dick, 'we'll strike out for it. We shall have to do about two miles along a main, then we can branch off again, and get up to the river in very quiet country. See, there's hardly a house marked on the map.'

'All the better for mekin' a camp,' said Chippy; and Dick agreed.

When they had finished their meal they lay in the sunshine, chatting and watching the fire die away. Before they left they took care that every ember was extinguished, so that no harm could come to the place where they had made their halt.

It was about two o'clock when they resumed their journey, and they moved at an easy pace, with the aim of reaching their camping-ground towards five. That would give them ample time to make their preparations for the night.

Until four o'clock the march was quite uneventful, then Chippy had an adventure with a baker's cart. They were passing through a village whose street was spanned at one end by a railway bridge. Near the bridge stood a cottage lying well back from the road, and as the scouts passed, a baker drove up, and went to the cottage with his basket on his arm.

While he was at the door, a train whizzed up and thundered over the bridge, and the horse took fright and dashed away, galloping up behind the two boys. Both of the latter began to run with all their might in the same direction as the horse, which soon caught them up. He was about to pass them on Chippy's side when the Raven flung aside his staff, and seized the shaft with his right hand, and thus was enabled for a few yards to keep an equal speed with the horse. Then Chippy gripped the near rein with his left hand and tugged with all his might. The terrified creature was not yet too wild with fear to fail to answer to the pull on the bit, and swung round to the left. In this way the scout managed to jam the frightened brute's head into the tall bank, and thus pulled it up. In dashed Dick and seized the other rein, and between them the scouts held the horse until the baker ran up and helped them to secure it.

The baker was profuse in his thanks – above all, when he had looked over the horse and cart, and found that neither was a penny the worse, thanks to the Raven's clever manoeuvring.

Chippy scratched his jaw thoughtfully, then spoke up:

'D'ye reckon it's worth a loaf to ye – a big un?'

'A loaf!' cried the baker, 'it's worth every loaf I've got in the cart, and more, too. The mare might have broke her leg and the cart been smashed, and I gave three-and-twenty pound for the mare less 'n a fortnight ago.'

'We'll let it go at a loaf,' murmured Chippy; and the baker picked out the best he could find and gave a thousand thanks with it. Chippy put the loaf in his haversack, and the scouts trudged on.

'It'll stretch our flour out a bit,' said Chippy, and Dick grinned.

'After all, Chippy,' he said, 'the loaf was well earned, and no mistake. I don't see that we're not playing fair by picking up things like that.'

'I don't see aught wrong in that,' replied the Raven; 'that's living on the country in as straight a way as can be, I reckon.'

Beyond the village they climbed a rise to a ridge, and at the crown of the ascent they looked ahead, and saw a wide valley before them, with a shining stream winding its way through a green river-flat.

'There's the river, Chippy,' said Dick, 'and there goes the road up the side of the valley, turning away from the river.'

He pointed to the white ribbon of dusty road which climbed a distant rise and disappeared.

'We'll mek' straight for the river,' said the Raven.

'Right,' said Dick. 'Cross-country it is;' and the boys struck away into the fields. They spent some time in reaching the river, for they carefully avoided crossing fields where grass was growing for hay, or where corn was green; but at last they were on its banks at a point where it wound across a big patch of rough common land, dotted by flumps of gorse and broken by two or three spinneys.

The river was not wide, but it was slow, and seemed deep. The boys tried two or three places with their patrol staffs, and could not touch the bottom. Then they started to prospect for a camping-ground for the night.

'How about under that little hanger?' said Dick, pointing to a tiny wood which clung to a bank a short distance back from the river.

'Looks all right,' rejoined Chippy; and they went towards it. They were crossing a grassy strip between two clumps of furze when a small spiny creature with a sharp nose trundled across their path some distance ahead. Chippy leapt out and darted in pursuit, his staff raised. Dick followed, saw the staff fall, and came up to find the Raven turning over a dead hedgehog with the point of his stick.

'Supper for two,' chuckled Chippy, 'an' a jolly good un.'

'Supper?' cried Dick, 'Why, it's a hedgehog. Who can eat a thing like that?' and he made a face of disgust.

'Them as know's wot's good,' murmured Chippy, with a cheerful wink. 'Wait till ye've had a bit. Besides, ain't we scouts? An' scouts ha' got to tackle anythin' an' everythin'. Look wot it says in the books. Look wot B.P. et at one time an' another.'

'You're right, old chap,' said Dick; 'but just for a minute it seemed so jolly queer to knock over a spiny little brute like that, and then talk of eating it.'

'Gipsies eat 'em reg'lar,' replied Chippy, 'an' I know 'ow they handle 'em. They're good – I tell ye that.'

Carrying the hedgehog by a withe cut from a willow, the scouts went on to the ground below the hanger, and pronounced the spot first-rate for a camp. There was a sandy patch at the foot of the bank, and here they resolved to build their fire and sleep.

CHAPTER XXX
THE FIRST CAMP

The fire was taken in hand first thing, for Chippy would need a great pile of red-hot embers for his cookery. The hanger was littered with dry sticks, so that there was no lack of material, and soon they had a rousing fire crackling on the sandy soil.

At the foot of the hanger they met with a stroke of luck. They found a young beech-tree which had been blown down in some winter storm. It was now as dry as a bone and easy cutting, and Dick went to work with the little axe, and soon cut and split a heap of logs some eight or ten inches long and three or four inches through – first-rate stuff, for no tree in the wood burns more sweetly than beech. While the fire was under way, and while Dick hacked at the beech, Chippy had gone in search of clay. He was gone soms time, for he did not hit on a clayey spot at once. But he worked along the bank of the stream where the wash of the water had laid bare the nature of the soil until he struck upon a seam of red clay, and dug out a mass with his knife and the point of his staff.

He brought the clay to the fire, and next fetched a billy of water from the river, and worked the clay into a mass which would spread like stiff butter. Now he took the hedgehog, opened it, and removed its inside. Then he began to wrap it in a thick covering of the clay.

'Aren't you going to skin it?' cried Dick, who had been watching his brother scout's doings with deep interest.

'I am,' said Chippy, 'but not now – leastways, it'll skin itself when the time comes.'

Soon Chippy held in his hands a great ball of clay, inside which the hedgehog lay like a kernel in a nut. The fury of the fire had passed by now, and the small beech logs were heaped in a glowing mass of fiery embers. With a spare log Chippy drew the embers aside, and laid his ball of clay on the heated ground, and raked the ashes into place again.

'Now,' said he, 'when we're ready for supper, that theer 'ull be ready for us.'

'It doesn't look as if our supper was going to cost us much,' laughed Dick. Chippy looked up with his dry, quiet smile.

'As it's runnin' so cheap,' he said, 'we might goo in for suthin' extra. Wot d'yer say to a drop o' milk in the tea?'

'Where are we going to get it?' cried Dick.

'When I was down theer' – and Chippy jerked his head towards the river – 'I seen a house acrost the fields. If ye'll turn me up a copper ot o' the cash-box I'll tek' a billy an' buy a pennorth.'

Dick laughed and turned out a penny, and away went Chippy after the milk, while Dick watched the fire and the haversacks they had piled beside it.

While Chippy was away an old man came up-stream whipping it with a fly-rod. The time of the evening rise was coming on, but very few circles broke the surface of the smoothly running river. Dick went over and asked him what luck he had had.

'Only two, an' them little uns,' said the old man. 'You see, this is a free stretch for about a couple o' miles, an' it gets fished a lot too much. There are some in it, an' big uns too, but they'm too wide awake to tek' the fly.'

When Chippy came back Dick reported this. 'Not much chance for you, old chap,' said Dick; 'the old fellow had got a good fly-rod and fine gut, and he could do little or nothing, so it isn't likely we shall get trout for breakfast in the morning.'

But Chippy's calm was quite undisturbed. 'Said as there wor' some about, an' big uns too, did he?' remarked the Raven. 'That's good enough fer me. Shouldn't wonder but wot I'll yank one or two on 'em out yet.'

He set the billy down beside the fire, and Dick cried out in wonder. 'By Jingo, Chippy, what a jolly lot of milk! You made that penny go a tremendous long way. You must have dropped across a good sort.'

'Just wot I did,' rejoined the Raven – 'a stout old lady, with a heart to match the size of her waist;' and he flipped the penny back at the treasurer.

'And you've brought the penny back!' cried Dick.

'Wouldn't tek' it nohow,' replied the other; 'said I was kindly welcome.'

'Why, we needn't make any tea,' said Dick.

'Just wot I thought,' remarked his companion; 'that's tea an' sugar saved at a bang. Bread, milk, an' 'edgehog ought to fill us out aw' right this time. Now, what about gettin' the bed ready afore we have supper? After supper I may be busy for a bit.'

'Right you are,' said Dick; and they turned to their first attempt of making a scout's bed.

The farther end of the hanger was composed of a thick growth of larch-trees, and here there had been a fall of timber in the winter. Two or three lots of logs had not yet been carried away, and the two scouts chose four logs of fairly suitable length for the framework of their couch, and pegged them into position. They could soon have chopped the logs to the right length, but they did not do so, for that would have been damaging other people's property, and no scout acts in such a way as to raise difficulties for those who may come after him.

When the woodmen had felled the larches they had stripped off the branches and cut away the plumy tops with their axes, and heaps of branches and tops lay about among the remaining trees. With axe and knife the scouts cut great armfuls of the tips and carried them to the framework. Here they laid them to overlap each other like the slates on a roof, as Mr. Elliott had shown them, and within an hour they had a dry, springy bed, upon which they flung themselves, and rolled in delight and kicked up their heels for a minute or two.

'One little job agen before supper,' said Chippy, 'but it'll only be a short un. I want two or three minnows, an' I saw a place wheer they wor' swimmin' in hundreds.'

The scouts ran down to the river, and Chippy pointed to a shallow where a great shoal of the tiny fish were glancing to and fro, their sides glittering as they turned in the light of the setting sun. Chippy throw himself flat on the bank, and very slowly and cautiously slipped his hand into the water. The minnows darted away, but soon returned, and the scout, with a swift, dexterous scoop, tossed a couple high and dry on the bank, where Dick secured them. A second attempt only landed one, but it was a good-sized one, and Chippy sprang to his feet.

'I reckon three 'ull be enough for now, an' we ain't supposed to catch more'n we can use. That's in the books. Got 'em safe?'

'Safe and sound,' replied Dick. 'But we can't eat these tiny things, Chippy.'

'Not likely,' said the Raven, 'but they'll make first-rate bait: that's wot I'm arter. Now for supper.'

'I'm ready,' said Dick. 'I'm as hungry as a wolf.'

'Right thing for one o' your patrol,' chuckled Chippy, and the boys laughed as they raced back to their camp.

Chippy opened the heap of ashes and drew out the ball of clay. Very carefully he broke the clay open and disclosed the white flesh of the hedgehog, cooked to a turn, and smelling deliciously.

'Where'e the skin?' cried Dick; 'and I say, how good it smells!'

'Skin's stuck fast in the clay wi' the prickles,' replied the Raven. 'Cut some chunks o' bread while I get it out.'

Dick took the loaf and cut some good slices with his knife, while his comrade dexterously divided the hedgehog into handy pieces. Then they sat about their fire and made a glorious supper. The bread was good, the milk was sweet, the hedgehog's flesh was tender and toothsome. Dick forgot all about his first dislike as he ate his share and applauded Chippy's skill and cookery.