The Human Boy and the War Part 4

TRAVERS MINOR, SCOUT

Before the fearful war with Germany began, Dr. Dunston was not very keen about us joining the Boy Scouts on half-holidays. He liked better for us to play games; and if you didn't play games, he liked you to go out with Brown to botanize in the hedges. It was a choice of evils to me and Travers minor, because we hated games and we fairly loathed botanizing with Brown. Unluckily for us, he was the Forum master of the Lower Fourth, and so we had more than enough of him in school, without seeing him pull weeds to pieces on half-holidays and talk about the wonders of Nature. For that matter, he was about the wonderfullest wonder of Nature himself, if he'd only known it.

But after the War began, old Dunston quite changed his att.i.tude to the Boy Scouts, and, in some ways, that was the best thing that ever happened for me and Travers minor, though in other ways it was not.

I'm called Briggs, and Travers minor and I came the same term and chummed from the first. We had the same opinions about most things, and agreed about hating games and preferring a more solitary life; but we were very different in many respects, for Travers minor was going to be a clergyman, and I had no ideas of that sort, my father being a stock broker in the "Brighton A" market. Travers minor was more excitable than Travers major, though quite as keen about England, and after being divided for some time between the Navy and the Church, he rather cleverly combined the two professions, and determined to be the chaplain of a battleship. His enthusiasm for England was very remarkable, and after a time, though I had never been the least enthusiastic about England before, yet, owing to the pressure of Travers minor, I got to be. Nothing like he was, of course. He used to fairly tremble about England, and once, when an Irish boy, who didn't know Home Rule had been pa.s.sed, said he'd just as soon blow his nose on the Union Jack as his handkerchief--which was rot, seeing he never had one--young Travers flew at him like a tiger from a bow, and knocked him down and hammered the back of his head on the floor of the chapel. As soon as he had recovered from his great surprise, the Irish boy--Rice he was called--got up and licked Travers minor pretty badly, which he could easily do, being c.o.c.k of the Lower School; but, all the same, Rice respected Travers, for doing what he did, and when he heard that Home Rule was pa.s.sed, he said that altered the case, and never cheeked the English flag again.

Then Dunston changed towards the Boy Scouts, and said such of us as liked might join them; and about twenty did. We were allowed to hunt about in couples on half-holidays; and the rule for a Boy Scout is always to be on the look-out to justify his existence when scouting, and to a.s.sist people, and help the halt and the lame, and tell people the way if they want to know it, and buck about generally, and, if possible, never stop a bit of scouting till he's done a good action of some kind to somebody. Of course, we had to do our good actions in bounds, and Travers minor often pointed out, as a rather curious thing, that over and over again there were chances to do good actions if we'd gone out of bounds--sometimes even over a hedge into a field.

But he generally found something useful to do, and I generally didn't.

The good action that occurred oftenest was to give pennies to tramps, but Travers did not support this. He said:

"I dare say you've noticed, Briggs, that all these chaps who ask us for money have got starving families at home. Well, if it's true, they ought to be at home looking after them. But it isn't true. As a rule, they spend the money on beer. And when you ask them why they haven't enlisted, they all say they're too short, or too tall, or haven't got any back teeth, or something."

We were scouting the day Travers minor pointed this out, and that was the very afternoon that we met the best tramp of the lot. I should have believed him myself and tried to help him; but Travers, strangely enough, is much kinder to animals and dumb creatures in general than he is to men, especially tramps, and it took a very clever tramp to make him believe him. But this one did.

He was old and grizzled and grey, and his moustache was yellow with tobacco. He was sitting rolling a cigarette in the hedge, and as we pa.s.sed together in uniform with our scout poles, he got up and saluted us with a military salute.

"What a bit of luck!" he said. "You're just the chaps I'm on the look-out for."

Travers stopped and so did I.

"D'you want anything, my good man?" said Travers.

"Yes, I do. I want a sharp Boy Scout to listen to me. I'm telling secrets, mind you; but you're in the Service just as much as I am, and I can trust you."

"What Service?" asked Travers minor. "What Service are you in?"

"The Secret Service," said the tramp. "I dare say you think I'm only a badgering old loafer, and not worth the price of the boots on my feet.

Far from it. I'm Sir Baden-Powell's brother! That's why I was glad to see you boys come along."

"I don't believe it," said Travers.

"Quite right not to," answered the old man. "That is, till I explain.

As you know, the country's fairly crawling with German spies at present, and it takes a pretty good chap to smell them out. That's my game. I've run down thirty-two during the last month, and I'm on the track of a lot more; but to keep up my character of an old tramp, I dress like this; and then they don't suspect me, and I just meet 'em in pubs and stand 'em drinks, and tip 'em a bit of their lingo and pretend I'm German, too."

I was a good deal impressed by this, and so was Travers minor.

"I've been standing drinks to a doubtful customer only this morning, and spent my last half-crown doing it," went on the great Baden-Powell's brother. "That's why I stopped you boys. I'm a good way from my base for the moment, and I shall be obliged if you can lend me half a sovereign, or whatever you've got on you, till to-morrow. If you let me have your address, you shall get it by midday; and I'll mention your names to 'B.-P.' next time we meet."

Travers minor looked at the spy in a spellbound sort of way.

"It's a wonderful disguise," he said.

"Not one of my best, though," answered the man. "I never look the same two days running. Very likely to-morrow I shall be a smart young officer; and then, again, I may look like a farmer, or a clergyman, or anything. It's part of my work to be a master of the art of disguises."

Travers minor began to whisper to me, and asked me how much money I had.

Then the great spy spoke again.

"I might give you boys a job next Sat.u.r.day afternoon, but you'll have to be pretty smart to do it. I'm taking a German then. I've marked him down at Little Mudborough--you know, a mile from Merivale--and on Sat.u.r.day next, at 'The Wool Pack' public-house, I meet him and arrest him. I shall want a bit of help, I dare say."

Travers fairly trembled with excitement after that. Then he felt in his pocket and found he'd only got a shilling, and this he gave to the spy without a thought; but I happened to have five shillings by an extraordinary fluke, it being my birthday, and Brown had changed a postal order from my mother; so I was not nearly so keen about the spy as Travers minor. Travers was a good deal relieved to hear I'd got as much, and even then apologised that we could only produce six bob between us.

The spy seemed rather disappointed, and I made a feeble effort to keep my five shillings by saying:

"Couldn't you get to the police-station? They'd be sure to have tons of money there."

But at the mention of a police-station he showed the utmost annoyance, combined with contempt. He said: "What's your name?"

And I said: "Briggs."

"Well, Briggs," he said, "let me tell you, if there's one thing the Secret Service hates and despises more than another, it's a police-station; and if there's one bigger fool on earth than another, it's a policeman. It would very likely be death to my whole career as a spy, if I went to a policeman and told him who I was."

"Don't you ever work with them, Mr. Baden-Powell?" asked Travers; and he said:

"Never, if I can help it."

So he had the six bob, much to my regret, and told us to be at "The Wool Pack" public-house at Mudborough on the following Sat.u.r.day afternoon.

He asked what would be the most convenient time for us to be there, and we said half-past three, and he said "Good!"

Then Travers asked rather a smart question and said--

"How shall we know you?"

And the spy said:

"I shall be disguised as a farmer, in gaiters and the sort of clothes farmers go to market in on Sat.u.r.days; and I shall be in the bar with other men. And one of these men will be a very dangerous German secret agent, who has a 'wireless' at his house. And when we've got him, we shall go to his house and destroy the 'wireless.' And now you'd better be getting on, or people will think it suspicious. And you shall have your money again next Sat.u.r.day."

So we left him, and the six shillings with him, and I was by no means so pleased and excited about it as Travers minor. Still, I was excited in a way, and hoped the following Sat.u.r.day would be glorious; and Travers said it would undoubtedly be the greatest day we had spent up to that time.

We had gone two hundred yards, and were wondering what the German would look like, and if he'd make a fight, when we were much startled by a man who suddenly jumped out of the hedge and stopped us.

It was a policeman in a very excited frame of mind.

"What did that bloke up the road say to you?" he began; and Travers minor, remembering what contempt the great spy had for policemen, was rather haughty.

"Our conversation was private," he answered, and the policeman seemed inclined to laugh.

"I know what your conversation was, very well," he answered. "Soapy William wouldn't tire himself talking to you kids for fun. Did you give him any money?"

In this insolent way the policeman dared to talk of Baden-Powell's brother!

"His name is not Soapy William," answered Travers, who had turned red with anger, "and he's got no use for policemen, anyway."

"No, you take your dying oath he hasn't," said the policeman. "If he told you that, he's broke the record and told you the truth. Did you give him money, or only a f.a.g?'

"We lent him money for a private purpose, and I'll thank you to let us pa.s.s," said Travers minor.