Facing the German foe Part 1

Facing the German Foe.

by Colonel James Fiske.

CHAPTER I

SERIOUS NEWS

"As long as I can't be at home," said Harry Fleming, "I'd rather be here than anywhere in the world I can think of!"

"Rather!" said his companion, d.i.c.k Mercer. "I say, Harry, it must be funny to be an American!"

Harry laughed heartily.

"I'd be angry, d.i.c.k," he said, finally, "if that wasn't so English--and so funny! Still, I suppose that's one reason you Britishers are as big an empire as you are. You think it's sort of funny and a bit of a misfortune, don't you, to be anything but English?"

"Oh, I say, I didn't quite mean that," said d.i.c.k, flushing a little. "And of course you Americans aren't just like foreigners. You speak the same language we do--though you do say some funny things now and then, old chap.

You know, I was ever so surprised when you came to Mr. Grenfel and he let you in our troop right away!"

"Didn't you even know we had Boy Scouts in America?" asked Harry. "My word--as you English would say. That is the limit! Why, it's spread all over the country with us. But of course we all know that it started here--that Baden-Powell thought of the idea!"

"Rather!" said d.i.c.k, enthusiastically. "Good old Bathing-Towel! That's what they used to call him at school, you know, before he ever went into the army at all. And it stuck to him, they say, right through. Even after Mafeking he was called that. Now, of course, he's a lieutenant general, and all sorts of a swell. He and Kitchener and French are so big they don't get called nicknames much more."

"Well, I'll tell you what I think," said Harry, soberly. "I think he did a bigger thing for England when he started the Boy Scout movement than when he defended Mafeking against the Boers!"

"Why, how can you make that out?" asked d.i.c.k, puzzled. "The defence of Mafeking had a whole lot to do with our winning that war!"

"That's all right, too," said Harry. "But you know you may be in a bigger war yet than that Boer War ever thought of being."

"How can a war think, you chump?" asked the literal-minded d.i.c.k.

Again Harry roared at him.

"That's just one of 'our funny American ways of saying things,' d.i.c.k," he explained. "I didn't mean that, of course. But what I do mean is that everyone over here in Europe seems to think that there will be a big war sometime--a bigger war than the world's ever seen yet."

"Oh, yes!" d.i.c.k nodded his understanding, and grew more serious. "My pater--he's a V. C., you know--says that, too. He says we'll have to fight Germany, sooner or later. And he seems to think the sooner the better, too, before they get too big and strong for us to have an easy time with them."

"They're too big now for any nation to have an easy time with them," said Harry. "But you see what I mean now, don't you, d.i.c.k? We Boy Scouts aren't soldiers in any way. But we do learn to do the things a soldier has to do, don't we?"

"Yes, that's true," said d.i.c.k. "But we aren't supposed to think of that."

"Of course not, and it's right, too," agreed Harry. "But we learn to be obedient. We learn discipline. And we get to understand camp life, and the open air, and all the things a soldier has to know about, sooner or later.

Suppose you were organizing a regiment. Which would you rather have--a thousand men who were brave and willing, but had never camped out, or a thousand who had been Boy Scouts and knew about half the things soldiers have to learn? Which thousand men would be ready to go to the front first?"

"I never thought of that!" said d.i.c.k, mightily impressed. "But you're right, Harry. The Boy Scouts wouldn't go to war themselves, but the fellows who were grown up and in business and had been Boy Scouts would be a lot readier than the others, wouldn't they? I suppose that's why so many of our chaps join the Territorials when they are through school and start in business?"

"Of course it is! You've got the idea I'm driving at, d.i.c.k. And you can depend on it that General Baden-Powell had that in his mind's eye all the time, too. He doesn't want us to be military and aggressive, but he does want the Empire to have a lot of fellows on call who are hard and fit, so that they can defend themselves and the country. You see, in America, and here in England, too, we're not like the countries on the Continent. We don't make soldiers of every man in the country."

"No--and, by Jove, they do that, don't they, Harry? I've got a cousin who's French. And he expects to serve his term in the army. He's in the cla.s.s of 1918. You see, he knows already when he will have to go, and just where he will report--almost the regiment he'll join. But he's hoping they'll let him be in the cavalry, instead of the infantry or the artillery."

"There you are! Here and in America, we don't have to have such tremendous armies, because we haven't got countries that we may have to fight across the street--you know what I mean. England has to have a tremendous navy, but that makes it unnecessary for her to have such a big army."

"I see you've got the idea exactly, Fleming," said a new voice, breaking into the conversation. The two scouts looked up to see the smiling face of their scoutmaster, John Grenfel. He was a big, bronzed Englishman, st.u.r.dy and typical of the fine cla.s.s to which he belonged--public school and university man, first-cla.s.s cricketer and a football international who had helped to win many a hard fought game for England from Wales or Scotland or Ireland. The scouts were returning from a picnic on Wimbledon Common, in the suburbs of London, and Grenfel was following his usual custom of dropping into step now with one group, now with another. He favored the idea of splitting up into groups of two or three on the homeward way, because it was his idea that one of the great functions of the Scout movement was to foster enduring friendships among the boys. He liked to know, without listening or trying to overhear, what the boys talked about; often he would give a directing word or two, that, without his purpose becoming apparent, shaped the ideas of the boys.

"Yes," he repeated. "You understand what we're trying to do in this country, Fleming. We don't want to fight--we pray to G.o.d that we shall never have to. But, if we are attacked, or if the necessity arises, we'll be ready, as we have been ready before. We want peace--we want it so much and so earnestly that we'll fight for it if we must."

Neither of the boys laughed at what sounded like a paradox. His voice was too earnest.

"Do you think England is likely to have to go to war soon--within a year or so, sir?" asked Harry.

"I pray not," said Grenfel. "But we don't know, Fleming. For the last few years--ever since the trouble in the Balkans finally flamed up--Europe has been on the brink of a volcano. We don't know what the next day may bring forth. I've been afraid--" He stopped, suddenly, and seemed to consider.

"There is danger now," he said, gravely. "Since the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was a.s.sa.s.sinated, Austria has been in an ugly mood.

She has tried to blame Servia. I don't think Russia will let her crush Servia--not a second time. And if Russia and Austria fight, there is no telling how it may spread."

"You'd want us to win, wouldn't you, Harry, if we fought?" asked d.i.c.k, when Mr. Grenfel had pa.s.sed on to speak to some of the others.

"Yes, I think I would--I _know_ I would, d.i.c.k," said Harry, gravely. "But I wouldn't want to see a war, just the same. It's a terrible thing."

"Oh, it wouldn't last long," said d.i.c.k, confidently. "We'd lick them in no time at all. Don't you think so?"

"I don't know--I hope so. But you can't ever be sure."

"I wonder if they'd let us fight?"

"No, I don't think they would, d.i.c.k. There'd be plenty for the Boy Scouts to do though, I believe."

"Would you stay over here if there was a war, Harry? Or would you go home?"

"I think we'd have to stay over here, d.i.c.k. You see, my father is here on business, not just for pleasure. His company sent him over here, and it was understood he'd stay several years. I don't think the war could make any difference."

"That's why you're here, then, is it? I used to wonder why you went to school over here instead of in America."

"Yes. My father and mother didn't want me to be so far from them. So they brought me along. I was awfully sorry at first, but now it doesn't seem so bad."

"I should think not!" said d.i.c.k, indignantly. "I should think anyone would be mighty glad of a chance to come to school over here instead of in America! Why, you don't even play cricket over there, I've been told!"

"No, but we play baseball," said Harry, his eyes shining. "I really think I miss that more than anything else here in England. Cricket's all right--if you can't play baseball. It's a good enough game."

"You can play," admitted d.i.c.k, rather grudgingly. "When you bowl, you've got some queer way of making the ball seem to bend--"

"I put a curve on it, that's all!" said Harry, with a laugh. "If you'd ever played baseball, you'd understand that easily enough. See? You hold the ball like this--so that your fingers give it a spin as it leaves your hand."

And he demonstrated for his English friend's benefit the way the ball is held to produce an out-curve.

"Your bowlers here don't seem to do that--though they do make the ball break after it hits the ground. But the way I manage it, you see, is to throw a ball that doesn't hit the ground in front of the bat at all, but curves in. If you don't hit at it, it will hit the stumps and bowl you out; if you do hit, you're likely to send it straight up in the air, so that some fielder can catch it."

"I see," said d.i.c.k. "Well, I suppose it's all right, but it doesn't seem quite fair."