Book: Facing the German Foe

C >> Colonel James Fiske >> Facing the German Foe




"I suppose those who are old enough could volunteer, sir," said Franklin,
doubtfully. "I can't think of anything else--"

"Time enough for that later," said Grenfel, with a short laugh. "England
may have to call boys to the colors before she's done, if she once starts
to fight. But long before that time comes, there will be a great work for
the organization we all love and honor. Work that won't be showy, work that
will be very hard. Boys, everyone in England, man and woman and child will
have work to do! And we, who are organized, and whose motto is _Be
prepared_, ought to be able to show what stuff there is in us.

"Think of all the places that must be guarded. The waterworks, the gas
tanks, the railroads that lead to the seaports and that will be used by the
troops."

A startled burst of exclamations answered him.

"Why, there won't be any fighting in England, sir, will there?" asked Dick
Mercer, in surprise.

"We all hope not," said Grenfel. "But that's not what I mean. It doesn't
take an army to destroy a railroad. One man with a bomb and a time fuse
attached to it can blow up a culvert and block a whole line so that
precious hours might be lost in getting troops aboard a transport. One man
could blow up a waterworks or a gas tank or cut an important telegraph or
telephone wire!"

"You mean that there will be Germans here trying to hurt England any way
they can, don't you, sir?" asked Harry Fleming.

"I mean exactly that," said Grenfel. "We don't know this--we can't be sure
of it. But we've got good reason to believe that there are a great many
Germans here, seemingly peaceable enough, who are regularly in the pay of
the German government as spies. We don't know the German plans. But there
is no reason, so far as we know, why their great Zeppelin airships
shouldn't come sailing over England, to drop bombs down where they can do
the most harm. There is nothing except our own vigilance to keep these
spies, even if they have to work alone, from doing untold damage!"

"We could be useful as sentries, then?" said Leslie Franklin. He drew a
deep breath. "I never thought of things like that, sir! I'm just beginning
to see how useful we really might be. We could do a lot of things instead
of soldiers, couldn't we? So that they would be free to go and fight?"

"Yes," answered the scoutmaster. "And I can tell you now that the National
Scout Council has always planned to 'Be Prepared!' It decided, a long time
ago, what should be done in case of war. A great many troops will be
offered to the War Department to do odd jobs. They will carry messages and
dispatches. They will act as clerks, so far as they can. They will patrol
the railways and other places that ought to be under guard, where soldiers
can be spared if we take their places. So far as such things can be
planned, they have been planned.

"But most of the ways in which we can be useful haven't showed themselves
at all yet. They will develop, if war comes. We shall have to be alert and
watchful, and do whatever there is to be done."

"Who will be scoutmaster, sir, if you go to the war?" asked Harry.

"I'm not quite sure," said Grenfel. "We haven't decided yet. But it will be
someone you can trust--be sure of that. And I think I needn't say that if
you scouts have any real regard for me you will show it best by serving as
loyally and as faithfully under him as you have under me. I shall be with
you in spirit, no matter where I am. Now it's getting late. I think we'd
better break up for to-night. We will make a special order, too, for the
present. Every scout in the troop will report at scout headquarters until
further notice, every day, at nine o'clock in the morning.

"I think we'll have to make up our minds not to play many games for the
time that is coming. There is real work ahead of us if war comes--work just
as real and just as hard, in its way, as if we were all going to fight for
England. Everyone cannot fight, but the ones who stay at home and do the
work that comes to their hands will serve England just as loyally as if
they were on the firing line! Now--up, all of you! Three cheers for King
George!"

They were given with a will--and Harry Fleming joined in as heartily as any
of them. He was as much of an American as he had ever been, but something
in him responded with a strange thrill to England's need, as Grenfel had
expressed it. After all, England had been and was the mother country.
England and America had fought, in their time, and America had won, but
now, for a hundred years, there had been peace between them. And he and
these English boys were of the same blood and the same language, binding
them very closely together.

"Blood is thicker than water, after all!" he thought.

Then every scout there shook hands with John Grenfel. He smiled as he
greeted them.

"I hope this will pass over," he said, "and that we'll do together during
this vacation all the things we've planned to do. But if we can't, and if
I'm called away, good-bye! Do your duty as scouts, and I'll know it
somehow! And, in case I don't see you again, good-bye!"

"You're going to stand with us, then, Fleming?" he said, as Harry came up
to shake hands. "Good boy! We're of one blood, we English and you
Americans. We've had our quarrels, but relatives always do quarrel. And
you'll not be asked, as a scout here, to do anything an American shouldn't
do."

Then it was over. They were out in the street. In the distance newsboys
were yelling their extras still. Many people were out, something unusual in
that quiet neighborhood. And suddenly one of the scouts lifted his voice,
and in a moment they were all singing:

Rule, rule, Britannia!
Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!

Scores of voices swelled the chorus, joining the fresh young voices of the
scouts. And then someone started that swinging march song that had leaped
into popularity at the time of the Boer War, _Soldiers of the Queen_. The
words were trifling, but there was a fine swing to the music, and it was
not the words that counted--it was the spirit of those who sang.

As he marched along with the others Harry noticed one thing. In a few hours
the whole appearance of the streets had changed. From every house, in the
still night air, drooped a Union Jack. The flag was everywhere; some houses
had flung out half a dozen to the wind.

Harry was seeing a sight, that once seen, can never be forgotten. He was
seeing a nation aroused, preparing to fight. If war came to England it
would be no war decreed by a few men. It would be a war proclaimed by the
people themselves, demanded by them. The nation was stirring; it was
casting off the proverbial lethargy and indifference of the English. Even
here, in this usually quiet suburb of London, the home of business and
professional men who were comfortably well off, the stirring of the spirit
of England was evident. And suddenly the song of the scouts and those who
had joined them was drowned out by a new noise, sinister, threatening. It
was the angry note that is raised by a mob.

Leslie Franklin took command at once.

"Here, we must see what's wrong!" he cried. "Scouts, attention! Fall in!
Double quick--follow me!"

He ran in the direction of the sound, and they followed. Five minutes
brought them to the scene of the disturbance. They reached a street of
cheaper houses and small shops. About one of these a crowd was surging,
made up largely of young men of the lower class, for in West Kensington, as
in all parts of London, the homes of the rich and of the poor rub one
another's elbows in easy familiarity.

The crowd seemed to be trying to break in the door of this shop. Already
all the glass of the show windows had been broken, and from within there
came guttural cries of alarm and anger.

"It's Dutchy's place!" cried Dick Mercer. "He's a German, and they're
trying to smash his place up!"

"Halt!" cried Franklin. He gathered the scouts about him.

"This won't do," he said, angry spots of color showing on his cheek bones.
"No one's gone for the police--or, if they have, this crowd of muckers will
smash everything up and maybe hurt the old Dutchman before the Bobbies get
here. Form together now--and when I give the word, go through! Once we get
between them and the shop, we can stop them. Maybe they won't know who we
are at first, and our uniforms may stop them."

"Now!" he said, a moment later. And, with a shout, the scouts charged
through the little mob in a body.

They had no trouble in getting through. A few determined people, knowing
just what they mean to do, can always overcome a greater number of
disorganized ones. That is why disciplined troops can conquer five times
their number of rioters or savages. And so in a moment they reached the
shop.

"Let us in! We're here to protect you!" cried Franklin to old Schmidt, who
was cowering within, with his wife. Then he turned to the rioters, who,
getting over their first surprise, were threatening again.

"For shame!" he cried. "Do you think you're doing anything for England?
War's not declared yet--and, if it was, you might better be looking for
German soldiers to shoot at than trying to hurt an old man who never did
anyone any harm!"

There was a threatening noise from the crowd, but Franklin was undismayed.

"You'll have to get through us to reach them!" he cried. "We--"

But he was interrupted. A whistle sounded. The next moment the police were
there.




CHAPTER III

PICKED FOR SERVICE


The coming of the police cleared the little crowd of would-be rioters away
in no time. There were only three or four of the Bobbies, but they were
plenty. A smiling sergeant came up to Franklin.

"More of your Boy Scout work, sir?" he said, pleasantly. "I heard you
standing them off! That was very well done. If we can depend on you to help
us all over London, we'll have an easier job than we looked for."

"We saw a whole lot of those fellows piling up against the shop here," said
Franklin. "So of course we pitched in. We couldn't let anything like that
happen."

"There'll be a lot of it at first, I'm afraid, sir," said the sergeant.
"Still, it won't last. If all we hear is true, they'll be taking a lot of
those young fellows away and giving them some real fighting to do to keep
them quiet."

"Well, we'll help whenever we can, sergeant," said Franklin. "If the
inspector thinks it would be a good thing to have the shops that are kept
by Germans watched, I'm quite sure it can be arranged. If there's war I
suppose a lot of you policemen will go?"

"We'll supply our share, sir," said the sergeant. "I'm expecting orders any
minute--I'm a reservist myself. Coldstream Guards, sir."

"Congratulations!" said Franklin. He spoke a little wistfully. "I wonder if
they'll let me go? I think I'm old enough! Well, can we help any more here
to-night?"

"No, thank you, sir. You've done very well as it is. Pity all the lads
don't belong to the Boy Scouts. We'd have less trouble, I'll warrant. I'll
just leave a man here to watch the place. But they won't be back. They
don't mean any real harm, as it is. It's just their spirits--and their
being a bit thoughtless, you know."

"All right," said Franklin. "Glad we came along. Good-night, sergeant. Fall
in! March!"

There was a cheer from the crowd that had gathered to watch the disturbance
as the scouts moved away. A hundred yards from the scene of what might have
been a tragedy, except for their prompt action, the Scouts dispersed. Dick
Mercer and Harry Fleming naturally enough, since they lived so close to one
another, went home together.

"That was quick work," said Harry.

"Yes. I'm glad we got there," said Dick. "Old Dutchy's all right--he
doesn't seem like a German. But I think it would be a good thing if they
did catch a few of the others and scrag them!"

"No, it wouldn't," said Harry soberly. "Don't get to feeling that way,
Dick. Suppose you were living in Berlin. You wouldn't want a lot of German
roughs to come and destroy your house or your shop and handle you that way,
would you?"

"It's not the same thing," said Dick, stubbornly. "They're foreigners."

"But you'd be a foreigner if you were over there!" said Harry, with a
laugh.

"I suppose I would," said Dick. "I never thought of that! Just the same, I
bet Mr. Grenfel was right. London's full of spies. Isn't that an awful
idea, Harry? You can't tell who's a spy and who isn't!"

"No, but you can be pretty sure that the man you suspect isn't," suggested
Harry, sagely. "A real spy wouldn't let you find it out very easily. I can
see one thing and that is a whole lot of perfectly harmless people are
going to be arrested as spies before this war is very old, if it does come!
We don't want to be mixed up in that, Dick--we scouts. If we think a man's
doing anything suspicious, we'll have to be very sure before we denounce
him, or else we won't be any use."

"It's better for a few people to be arrested by mistake than to let a spy
keep on spying, isn't it?"

"I suppose so, but we don't want to be like the shepherd's boy who used to
try to frighten people by calling 'Wolf! Wolf!' when there wasn't any wolf.
You know what happened to him. When a wolf really did come no one believed
him. We want to look before we leap."

"I suppose you're right, Harry. Oh, I do hope we can really be of some use!
If I can't go to the war, I'd like to think I'd had something to do--that
I'd helped when my country needed me!"

"If you feel like that you'll be able to help, all right," said Harry. "I
feel that way, too--not that I want to fight. I wouldn't want to do that
for any country but my own. But I would like to be able to know that I'd
had something to do with all that's going to be done."

"I think it's fine for you to be like that," said Dick. "I think there
isn't so much difference between us, after all, even if you are American
and I'm English. Well, here we are again! I'll see you in the morning, I
suppose?"

"Right oh! I'll come around for you early. Good-night!"

"Good-night!"

Neither of them really doubted for a moment that war was coming. It was in
the air. The attack on the little shop that they had helped to avert was
only one of many, although there was no real rioting in London. Such
scenes were simply the result of excitement, and no great harm was done
anywhere. But the tension of which such attacks were the result was
everywhere. For the next three days there was very little for anyone to do.
Everyone was waiting. France and Germany were at war; the news came that
the Germans had invaded Luxembourg, and were crossing the Belgian border.

And then, on Tuesday night, came the final news. England had declared war.
For the moment the news seemed to stun everyone. It had been expected, and
still it came as a surprise. But then London rose to the occasion. There
was no hysterical cheering and shouting; everything was quiet. Harry
Fleming saw a wonderful sight--a whole people aroused and determined. There
was no foolish boasting; no one talked of a British general eating his
Christmas dinner in Berlin. But even Dick Mercer, excitable and erratic as
he had always been, seemed to have undergone a great change.

"My father's going to the war," he told Harry on Wednesday morning. He
spoke very seriously. "He was a captain in the Boer War, you know, so he
knows something about soldiering. He thinks he'll be taken, though he's a
little older than most of the men who'll go. He'll be an officer, of
course. And he says I've got to look after the mater when he's gone."

"You can do it, too," said Harry, surprised, despite himself, by the change
in his chum's manner. "You seem older than I now, Dick, and I've always
thought you were a kid!"

"The pater says we've all got to be men, now," said Dick, steadily. "The
mater cried a bit when he said he was going--but I think she must have
known all the time he was going. Because when he told us--we were at the
breakfast table--she sort of cried a little, and then she stopped.

"'I've got everything ready for you,' she said.

"And he looked at her, and smiled. 'So you knew I was going?' he asked her.
And she nodded her head, and he got up and kissed her. I never saw him do
that before--he never did that before, when I was looking on," Dick
concluded seriously.

"I hope he'll come back all right, Dick," said Harry. "It's hard, old
chap!"

"I wouldn't have him stay home for anything!" said Dick, fiercely. "And I
will do my share! You see if I don't! I don't care what they want me to do!
I'll run errands--I'll sweep out the floors in the War Office, so that some
man can go to war! I'll do _any_thing!"

Somehow Harry realized in that moment how hard it was going to be to beat a
country where even the boys felt like that! The change in the usually
thoughtless, light-hearted Dick impressed him more than anything else had
been able to do with the real meaning of what had come about so suddenly.
And he was thankful, too, all at once, that in America the fear and peril
of war were so remote. It was glorious, it was thrilling, but it was
terrible, too. He wondered how many of the scouts he knew, and how many of
those in school would lose their fathers or their brothers in this war that
was beginning. Truly, there is no argument for peace that can compare with
war itself! Yet how slowly we learn!

Grenfel had gone, and the troop was now in charge of a new scoutmaster,
Francis Wharton. Mr. Wharton was a somewhat older man. At first sight he
didn't look at all like the man to lead a group of scouts, but that, as it
turned out, was due to physical infirmities. One foot had been amputated at
the time of the Boer War, in which he had served with Grenfel. As a result
he was incapacitated from active service, although, as the scouts soon
learned, he had begged to be allowed to go in spite of it. He appeared at
the scout headquarters, the pavilion of a small local cricket club, on
Wednesday morning.

"I don't know much about this--more shame to me," he said, cheerfully,
standing up to address the boys. "But I think we can make a go of it--I
think we'll be able to do something for the Empire, boys. My old friend
John Grenfel told me a little; he said you'd pull me through. These are war
times and you'll have to do for me what many a company in the army does for
a young officer."

They gave him a hearty cheer that was a promise in itself.

"I can tell you I felt pretty bad when I found they wouldn't let me go to
the front," he went on. "It seemed hard to have to sit back and read the
newspapers when I knew I ought to be doing some of the work. But then
Grenfel told me about you boys, and what you meant to do, and I felt
better. I saw that there was a chance for me to help, after all. So here I
am. These are times when ordinary routine doesn't matter so much--you can
understand that. Grenfel put the troop at the disposal of the commander at
Ealing. And his first request was that I should send two scouts to him at
once. Franklin, I believe you are the senior patrol leader? Yes? Then I
shall appoint you assistant scoutmaster, as Mr. Greene has not returned
from his holiday in France. Will you suggest the names of two scouts for
this service?"

Franklin immediately went up to the new scoutmaster, and they spoke
together quietly, while a buzz of excited talk rose among the scouts. Who
would be honored by the first chance? Every scout there wanted to hear his
name called.

"I think they'll take me, for one," said Ernest Graves. He was one of the
patrol to which both Harry Fleming and Dick Mercer belonged, and the
biggest and oldest scout of the troop, except for Leslie Franklin. He had
felt for some time that he should be a patrol leader. Although he excelled
in games, and was unquestionably a splendid scout, Graves was not popular,
for some reason, among his fellows. He was not exactly unpopular, either;
but there was a little resentment at his habit of pushing himself forward.

"I don't see why you should go more than anyone else, Graves," said young
Mercer. "I think they'll take the ones who are quickest. We're probably
wanted for messenger work."

"Well, I'm the oldest. I ought to have first chance," said Graves.

But the discussion was ended abruptly.

"Fleming! Mercer!" called Mr. Wharton.

They stepped forward, their hands raised in the scout salute, awaiting the
scoutmaster's orders.

"You will proceed at once, by rail, to Ealing," he said. "There you will
report at the barracks, handing this note to the officer of the guard. He
will then conduct you to the adjutant or the officer in command, from whom
you will take your orders."

"Yes, sir," said both scouts. Their eyes were afire with enthusiasm. But as
they passed toward the door, Dick Mercer's quick ears caught a sullen
murmur from Graves.

"He's making a fine start," he heard him say to Fatty Wells, who was a
great admirer of his. "Picking out an _American_! Why, we're not even sure
that he'll be loyal! Did you ever hear of such a thing?"

"You shut up!" cried Dick, fiercely, turning on Graves. "He's as loyal as
anyone else! We know as much about him as we do about you, anyhow--or more!
You may be big, but when we get back I'll make you take that back or
fight--"

"Come on," said Harry, pulling Dick along with him. "You mustn't start
quarreling now--it's a time for all of us to stand together, Dick. I don't
care what he says, anyhow."

He managed to get his fiery chum outside, and they hurried along, at the
scout pace, running and walking alternately, toward the West Kensington
station of the Underground Railway. They were in their khaki scout
uniforms, and several people turned to smile admiringly at them. The
newspapers had already announced that the Boy Scouts had turned out
unanimously to do whatever service they could, and it was a time when
women--and it was mostly women who were in the streets--were disposed to
display their admiration of those who were working for the country very
freely.

They had little to say to one another as they hurried along; their pace was
such as to make it wise for them to save their breath. But when they
reached the station they found they had some minutes to wait for a train,
and they sat down on the platform to get their breath. They had already had
one proof of the difference made by a state of war.

Harry stopped at the ticket window.

"Two--third class--for Ealing," he said, putting down the money. But the
agent only smiled, having seen their uniforms.

"On the public service?" he questioned.

"Yes," said Harry, rather proudly.

"Then you don't need tickets," said the agent. "Got my orders this morning.
No one in uniform has to pay. Go right through, and ride first-class, if
you like. You'll find plenty of officers riding that way."

"That's fine!" said Dick. "It makes it seem as if we were really of some
use, doesn't it, Harry?"

"Yes," answered Harry. "But, Dick, I've been thinking of what you said to
Graves. What did you mean when you told him you knew more about me than you
did about him? Hasn't he lived here a long time?"

"No, and there's a little mystery about him. Don't you know it?"

"Never heard of such a thing, Dick. You see, I haven't been here so very
long and he was in the patrol when I joined."

"Oh, yes, so he was! Well, I'll tell you, then. You know he's studying to
be an engineer, at the Polytechnic. And he lives at a boarding house, all
by himself. Not a regular boarding house, exactly. He boards with Mrs.
Johnson, you know. Her husband died a year or two ago, and didn't leave her
very much money. He hasn't any father or mother, but he always seems to
have plenty of money. And he can play all sorts of games, but he won't do
them up right. He says he doesn't care anything about cricket!"

"How old is he?"

"Sixteen, but he's awfully big and strong."

"He certainly is. He looks older than that, to me. Have you ever noticed
anything funny about the way he talks?"

"No. Why? Have you?"

"I'm not sure. But sometimes it seems to me he talks more like the people
do in a book than you and I do. I wonder why he doesn't like me?" pondered
Harry.

"Oh, he likes you as well as he does anyone, Harry. He didn't mean
anything, I fancy, when he said that about your being chosen just now. He
was squiffed because Mr. Wharton didn't take him, that's all. He thinks he
ought to be ahead of everyone."

"Well, I didn't ask to be chosen. I'm glad I was, of course, but I didn't
expect to be. I think perhaps Leslie Franklin asked Mr. Wharton to take
me."

"Of course he did! Why shouldn't he?"

Just then the coming of the train cut them short. From almost every window
men in uniform looked out. A few of the soldiers laughed at their scout
garb, but most of them only smiled gravely, and as if they were well
pleased. The two scouts made for the nearest compartment, and found, when
they were in it, that it was a first-class carriage, already containing two
young officers who were smoking and chatting together.

"Hullo, young 'uns!" said one of the officers. "Off to the war?"

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