The Wolf Patrol: A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts

'Anything wrong, Chippy?' he asked.

'Sommat's been here an' bagged the brekfus',' replied the Raven.

'Was it a dog prowling about?' cried Dick.

At this moment a hollow bark rang from the depths of the coppice:

'Wow-wow! Wow-wow!'

'There it is,' said Dick; 'a dog.'

'No,' replied Chippy. 'I know wot it is now. That's a fox. I'll bet theer's a vixen wi' cubs in this coppice, an' she's smelt the rabbit an' collared it.'

'Then I hope that weasel will start hunting again, laughed Dick, 'and chevy up another breakfast for us.'

'Well, it's gone, an' theer's no use tryin' to look for it,' said Chippy, and tucked himself up in his blanket again.

CHAPTER XLVIII

IN THE RAIN

The scouts were falling off to sleep once more when they were aroused again, this time by the divinest music. A nightingale began to sing in the little wood, and made it echo and re-echo with the richest song.

Suddenly a faint murmuring began to mingle with the lovely notes. The murmuring grew, and the bird's song ceased. The air was filled with the patter of falling rain.

'Rain!' cried Dick; 'that's rain, Chippy.'

'On'y a shower, p'raps,' said his comrade.

'I hope so,' returned the Wolf.

They felt nothing of the rain at present, for they were camped beneath a fir which stood as an outpost to the coppice, and its thick canopy was stretched above their heads. Chippy sprang up and threw fresh fuel on the fire, and looked out on the night.

'Theer's a big black cloud creepin' up from the sou'-west,' he said. 'That looks pretty bad for a soaker.'

In a short time the scouts knew they were in for a real drenching. The patter of the rain came heavier and thicker, until it was drumming on the fir-branches in steady streams. Soon great spots began to fall from the lower branches of the fir beneath which they lay.

'I've just had a big drop slap in my eye,' said Dick, sitting up. 'What are we going to do, Chippy?'

'Got to do summat,' said the Raven, 'an' quick, too, afore we're drownded out.'

'Let's rig up a shelter tent with the blankets,' suggested Dick; and they set to work at once. They pulled the four fence-rails which formed the framework of their bed from their places, and laid them side by side in search of the shorter ones. They proved much of the same size, so Chippy went to work with the hatchet to shorten a pair, while Dick began to dig the holes in which to step them. The ground was soft, and with the aid of his knife Dick soon had a couple of holes eighteen inches deep. While he did this Chippy had cut two rails down, and fastened a third across the ends of the shorter ones, with the scouts' neckties for cords. They had ample light to work by, for the fire had flared up bravely.

Now they swung up their framework of two posts and a cross-bar, and stepped the feet of the posts in the holes, throwing back the soft earth, and ramming it in with the short, thick pieces cut off the rails. This made a far stronger hold for the uprights than anything they could have done in the shape of sharpening their ends and trying to drive them down.

Next they took their blankets, and hung them side by side over the cross-bar, one overlapping the other by a couple of feet. With their knives they cut a number of pegs from the hard gorse stems, and sharpened them, and drove them through the blankets into the bar, pinning the blankets tightly in place. The tough gorse-wood went into the soft rail like nails, and the back of the tomahawk made a splendid hammer. They had a fourth rail, and they pegged the other ends of the blankets down to that, drew it backwards, and there was a lean-to beneath which they leapt with shouts of triumph.

'Done th' old rain this time,' yelled the Raven. 'Now we'll keep a rousin' fire goin', and sit here and listen to it.'

There was, luckily, no wind, or the scouts might not have been so jubilant; it was a heavy summer rain, pouring down strong and straight. The boys were pretty wet before they had got their shelter rigged up, but the fire was strong and warm, though it hissed vigorously as the heavy drops fell from the branches of the fir.

'Any chance of putting the fire out, do you think?' said Dick.

'Not if we keep plenty o' stuff on it,' replied his chum. 'Hark 'ow it's patterin' on the blankets!'

'They'll be jolly wet, and take some drying,' said Dick. 'Still, better for them to get wet than for us.'

'We ain't cut a trench,' said Chippy.

'To carry off the water,' cried Dick. 'No, we haven't. But we can dig that from cover, just round the patch we want to sit on.'

They went to work with their knives, and cut a trench six inches deep round the pile of bedding on which they were seated, and then had no fear of being flooded out with rain-water.

Down came the rain faster and heavier. The whole air was filled with the hissing, rushing noise of the great drops falling on the trees, the bushes, the open ground, but the scouts sat tight under their blanket lean-to, and fed the fire steadily from the heap of sticks and stems which the Raven had piled up.

'Weasels for weather-prophets for me arter this,' grunted Chippy; and Dick nodded his head.

'It was my Uncle Jim who told me that about the weasels,' said Dick. 'He said they're always very active before stormy weather.'

'Just about fits it this time, anyway,' remarked the Raven. The mention of Mr. Elliott brought to mind their chums in Bardon.

'I wonder how our patrols are getting on without us, Chippy?' said Dick.

'Oh, it'll gie the corporals a chance to try their 'ands at leadin',' returned the Raven. 'I wish they could just see us now. They'd gie their skins to jine us.'

'Rather,' laughed Dick; 'this is just about all right.'

It is possible that some persons might not have agreed with him, and at one o'clock in the morning might have preferred their beds to squatting on a heap of brushwood under the shelter of a blanket, the hissing fire making the only cheery spot in the blackness of the cloud- and rain-wrapped moorland. But the scouts would not have changed their situation for quarters in Buckingham Palace. There was the real touch about this. It seemed almost as romantic as a bivouac on a battlefield.

'Well, s'pose we try for a bit more sleep,' said the prudent Raven; 'long march to-morrer, yer know.'

'We've got to keep the fire up,' said Dick; 'it would never do to let that out.'

'O' course not,' replied Chippy; 'we must take turns to watch. Now, who gets fust sleep – long or short?'

He held up two twigs which he had plucked from the bedding; the ends were concealed in his hand.

'Short gets first sleep,' said Dick.

'Aw' right,' replied the Raven; 'you draw.'

Dick drew, and found he had the long draw.

'Wot's the time?' asked Chippy.

'Just turned one.'

'Right; then I'll sleep till three. Then you wake me, and I'll tek' a turn till five. Then we must be movin', for to-morrer's a long day.'

'To-day's a long day, you mean,' laughed Dick.

'So it is,' replied the Raven. 'It's to-day a'ready – o' course it is.'

He was about to coil himself round like a dog upon the hearth, when he cast a quick glance on the heap of firewood.

'Not enough theer,' he said; 'an' I ain't a-goin' to have ye hoppin' round on yer game foot.'

He sprang up again, and, in spite of Dick's protestations, caught up the axe and a flaming brand from the fire, and went down to the burnt gorse-patch, and hacked away till he had as many of the long stems as he could drag.

'They're a bit wet outside,' he said, as he returned; 'but they'll ketch all right if ye keep a good fire up, and theer's a plenty to last till I've finished my nap. Then I can fill in my time wi' cuttin' any amount.'

He curled himself up again, and was asleep in a moment.

Dick's watch was only two hours, but it seemed a long, long time. He kept a rousing fire going, such a fire as the rain could make no impression upon, and lost itself in the glowing depths in an angry spluttering. Once the heat made him so drowsy that he dreaded the terrible disgrace of falling asleep on his post. So he stuck his head from under the shelter, and washed the sleep out of his eyes in the slashing downpour. But even after that he was half asleep again, when a sluice of cold water came in at the point where the blankets overlapped, and very obligingly ran down his neck, and fetched him up with a jump. Now he had a job to do in arranging their cover, and he moved the ground rail a little back, and drew the blankets tauter. The simple shelter did its work nobly. It is true that towards the bottom the weight of water caused the blankets to sag, and there was a steady drip at that point; but it was beyond the spot where the scouts were crouching, and the sharp slant of the upper part ran the water safely over their heads.

Chippy woke upon the stroke of three in a manner which seemed to Dick perfectly miraculous.

'How did you do it?' asked the latter. 'I should never have awakened of myself in that style.'

'Yer must fix it on yer mind,' replied the Raven, 'and then somehow or other yer eyes open at the right time.'

'Well,' laughed Dick, 'I'm afraid it's no use my trying to fix five o'clock in my mind. You'll have to wake me, Chippy.'

'I'll wake ye fast enough,' returned the Raven. 'Now roll yerself up, an' go to bye-bye. It'll be broad daylight soon. Most likely the rain will stop at sun-up.'

Day was breaking, but grey and chill, and the rain still poured down in lines which scarcely slanted. The scouts, however, were quite warm, for there was no wind, and the leaping fire sent ample heat into the nook where they lay.

Dick placed his haversack for a pillow, and laid his head on it. The sleep he had been fighting off descended on him in power, and he knew no more until Chippy shook his arm and aroused him at five o'clock.

His eyes opened on a very different scene from that he had last gazed upon. The rain was over; the morning was bright with glowing sunshine; the new-bathed country looked deliciously fresh and green; a most balmy and fragrant breeze was blowing; and in copse and bush a hundred birds were singing, while the lark led them all from the depths of the blue sky.

'What a jolly morning!' cried Dick.

'Aw' right, ain't it?' grinned the Raven. 'The rain stopped a little arter four, an' the sun come out, an' it's been a-gettin' better an' better.'

Suddenly Dick looked up. The blankets had gone. Chippy laughed.

'Look behind,' he said.

Dick looked, and saw that the Raven had been very busy. He had built a fresh fire with a heap of glowing embers from the old one; the billy had served him as an improvised shovel. Over this fire he had erected a cage of bent sticks, and the blankets were stretched on the framework and drying in style; the steam was rising from them in clouds.

'That's great,' said his chum; 'I wondered more than once in the night what we should do with sopping wet blankets.'

'They'll be all right in a while again.' And the Raven gave them a turn. 'Now we've got to wire in and hunt up a brekfus.'

Dick turned out the haversack which held the food they had left, but it made a very poor apology for a meal.

'I could put that lot in a holler tooth, an' never know I'd had aught,' said Chippy. 'This scoutin' life mek's yer uncommon peckish.'

'Rather,' cried the Wolf, who was as hungry as the animal after which his patrol was named; and the two boys began to scout for their last wild, free breakfast-table.

CHAPTER XLIX

DIGGING A WELL

The two scouts crept along the edge of the coppice, eye and ear on the alert. They were hoping to surprise a rabbit in a play-hole, but though they saw plenty of rabbits scuttling to shelter, every hole proved the mouth of a burrow, and that was too much for them to attempt. They worked clean round the coppice, saw dozens of rabbits, but were never within a mile of catching one; at last they came back to their camp.

'It strikes me, Chippy, we shall have to divide the scraps we've got left, tighten our belts, and strike out for the next baker's shop.'

'Looks like it,' murmured the Raven. 'I'm jolly thirsty too.'

'So am I,' said Dick; 'let's see if we can find a pool of clear water in the swampy patch yonder.'

They went down to the little marsh, but though there was plenty of water, it all appeared thick and uninviting. Being scouts, the boys were very careful of what water they drank, and they looked suspiciously on the marsh pools.

'No drink nayther,' said the Raven; 'we'd better get a start on us for a country wheer there's things to be got.'

'Wait a bit, Chippy,' replied his comrade. 'I think I know a dodge to get round this, if we only had a spade to dig with. It's a trick my Uncle Jim put me up to. He often used it when he was travelling in Africa.'

Dick explained what was to be done, and the Raven nodded.

'If that's all there is to it,' remarked the latter, 'I'll soon find the spades.'

He returned to the camp, seized the tomahawk, and began to cut at one of the pieces chopped off the rails. In five minutes of deft hewing Chippy turned the broad, flat piece of timber into a rude wooden shovel. Dick seized it with a cry of admiration.

'Why, this will do first-rate, old chap,' he asid. 'The ground is pretty sure to be soft.'

'Go ahead, then,' said the Raven. 'I'll jine ye wi' another just now.'

Dick went down to the swamp, and chose a grassy spot about twenty feat from the largest pool. Here with his knife he cut away a patch of turf about a couple of feet across; then he went to work with his wooden spade on the soft earth below. In a short time Chippy joined him, and the two scouts had soon scraped a hole some thirty inches deep. From the sides of the hole water began to trickle in freely, and a muddy pool formed in the hollow. Dick now took the billy, and carefully baled the dirty water out. A fresh pool gathered, not so dirty as the first, but still far from clean. This, too, was baled out, and a third gathering also. Then the water came in clear and cool and sweet, and the scouts were able to drink freely.

Chippy was warm in his praise of this excellent dodge, when suddenly he stopped, caught up the wooden spade, and, with a single grunt of 'Brekfus ahoy!' was gone.

His eye, ever on the alert, had marked a small figure scuttling along in the undergrowth of the coppice, and he was in hot pursuit. In two minutes he was back with a fat hedgehog.

'Ye've tasted this afore,' he said. 'How about another try?'

'Good for you, Chippy!' cried Dick; 'it was first-rate. Will you cook it the same way?'

'There ain't none better,' replied the Raven, and set to work at once to prepare and cook the prey of his spade. In the end the scouts made an excellent breakfast. They enjoyed hedgehog done to a turn – or, rather, to a moment, as there was no turning in the matter – the remains of Mrs. Hardy's sandwiches, and a billy of water drawn from their own well. The well and the breakfast took some time, and their start was much later than they had intended that it should be. But, on the other hand, there were the blankets to dry, and between the sun and the fire the latter were quite dry enough to pack away in the haversacks when the scouts were ready to move.

Dick's foot had become quite easy during the night's rest, but after a couple of miles the cut began to let him know that it was there. By the time they had covered four miles it was very painful, and he was limping a little. Then they struck a canal on the side opposite to the towpath, and they sat down beside it on a grassy bank and cooled off a little before they stripped for a good swim in the clear water.

When Dick took off his shoe and stocking, the Raven whistled and looked uneasy. The flesh all round the cut looked red and angry, and the heel was sore to the touch.

'Isn't it a nuisance,' groaned Dick, 'for a jolly awkward cut like that to come in and make the going bad for me? But I'll stick it out, Chippy. It's the last day, and I'll hobble through somehow and finish the tramp.'

'We'll pass a little town 'bout a mile again, accordin' to the map,' said the Raven, 'an' there we'll get some vaseline.'

'Good plan,' said Dick; 'that's splendid stuff for a cut.'

They had their dip, dressed, and pushed forward. At the little town they called at a chemist's and bought a penny box of vaseline. As soon as they reached quiet parts again, Dick took off his shoe and stocking, and rubbed the wound well with the healing ointment, then covered the bandage with a good layer, and tied it over the cut, and rested for half an hour. This greatly eased the pain and discomfort, and they trudged on strongly for a couple of hours.

Suddenly the scouts raised a cheer. Above a grove of limes a short distance ahead, a church steeple sprang into sight.

'Half-way!' cried Dick. 'We've done half the journey, Chippy. Here's Little Eston steeple.'

The Raven nodded. 'We'll halt t'other side,' he said.

In the village they bought a small loaf and a quarter of a pound of cheese, and those were put into Chippy's haversack. At a cottage beyond the hamlet they lent a hand to a woman who was drawing water from her well, and filled their billy with drinking-water at the same time. They made another three hundred yards, then settled on a shady bank under a tall hawthorn-hedge for their midday halt.

'How's yer foot, Dick?' queried the Raven anxiously.

'A bit stiff,' replied Dick; 'but that vaseline has done it a lot of good. I'll peg it out all right yet, Chippy, my son. Now for bread and cheese. It will taste jolly good after our tramp, I know.'

It did taste very good, and the scouts made a hearty meal, and then lay for a couple of hours at ease under the pleasant hawthorns, now filled with may-blossom.

CHAPTER L

THE OLD HIGGLER

Before they started again Dick gave his foot another rubbing with vaseline, but found it hard going after the rest.

'Look here, Chippy,' he said, 'I mustn't halt again for any length of time. If I do, my foot may stiffen up till I can't move. We must make one long swing in this afternoon.'

The road that ran from Little Eston in the direction of Bardon had a broad strip of turf beside the way, and Dick found this a great ease to his aching foot. But after a time the road narrowed, and was dusty from hedge to hedge. They passed a sign-post which said, 'Two miles to Little Eston.'

'That's a couple scored off,' said Dick; 'the miles are less than double figures now, Chippy.'

'Yus,' said the latter; 'an' we'll get to Shotford Common soon. That'll be easier walkin' than the road.'

A short distance beyond the sign-post an old man leading a small donkey in a little cart met them, and they passed the time of day.

'Mortal hot, ain't it?' said the old man; and the scouts agreed with him. The heat was, indeed, sweltering. It was one of those days of early summer which seem borrowed from the dog-days, and the scouts, tough as they were, were dripping with sweat as they marched along with shirt-sleeves rolled nearly to their shoulders, their shoes and stockings thickly powdered with the white dust which lay deep under foot.

Suddenly Chippy pulled up. 'I'll 'ave that haversack o' yourn,' he remarked.

'You won't, old boy,' replied Dick. 'Every man shoulders his own pack on a day like this.'

'I'll have that haversack,' went on Chippy calmly. 'Bit too bad for a scout wi' a damaged foot to pull a load while another strolls along as easy as can be. So pass it over.'

'I won't,' said Dick. 'It's no load in particular.'

'Then why mek' a row about handin' it over?' queried the Raven.

Dick was about to reply when he paused, looked ahead, and said: 'By Jingo, Chippy, here comes a choker. The haversacks will come handy to put our heads into.'

The Raven turned and saw a huge pillar of dust whirling towards them. It rose high above the hedges beyond a bend near at hand, and came on at great speed. The scouts knew that a motor-car was at the fore-foot of the pillar, and they stepped back into the shallow ditch which bordered the way.

In another moment a big, heavy car, flying at terrific speed, came shooting round the bend, and as it flew it gathered the deep white dust, and hurled it thirty feet into the air; leaving the road in the wake of the car one utterly blinding, choking mass of eddying dust. The scouts threw themselves into the bank and covered their faces with their hats: it was the only way of drawing some sort of breath, and even then their throats were choked with dust till they coughed.

'Nice thing, a motor-car running forty miles an hour over two inches of dust,' remarked Dick in ironical tones.

'It 'ud serve 'em right to bust their tyres on a broken bottle end,' murmured Chippy. 'It ain't safe to scoot along like that on these 'ere narrow roads.'

'It's to be hoped they eased up before passing the old man and his donkey-cart,' said Dick. 'The wind of their passing would be enough almost to upset him.'

'That's wot they've done,' cried Chippy suddenly. 'Look! look! his cart's in the ditch.'

Dick looked, and saw through the thinning cloud that the poor old man was in distress. His cart was turned over, and the donkey was struggling on its side. The scouts ran back at full speed to help him.

'What's wrong?' cried Dick. 'Did the car hit you?'

''Twor comin' a main sight too fast,' cried the old man, 'an' just as it passed, the noise o' it med Jimmy start round an' swerve a bit, an' suthin' stickin' out caught him on the shoulder an' knocked him into the ditch as if he'd been hit wi' a cannon-ball.'

'And they never stopped or asked what was the matter?' cried Dick.

'Not they,' said the old man; 'on they went as fast as iver.'

'What cads!' cried Dick. 'Did you see the number, Chippy?'

'No,' replied the Raven. 'Too much dust.'

'There were four men in it,' went on the old man, 'an' they looked back at me, but they niver pulled up.'

The scouts were loud in their anger against the inconsiderate motorists, and they were perfectly right. The truth was that the men had fled in fear. A chauffeur had taken his master's car without permission to give some of his fellow servants a run, and they dreaded detection, which would get them into trouble at home. However, the car had gone, and its number was not known, and within half a mile there was a meeting of cross roads where the motorists could turn aside without passing through the village. The comrades gave their attention to the matter immediately in hand, and helped the old man to unharness the struggling donkey and draw the little cart back.

The poor beast did not attempt to rise when it was freed. There was a cut on the shoulder where it had been struck, but the wound was not bleeding much, and the old man did not think the hurt was so bad as it proved to be.

'S'pose we tried to get Jimmy on his legs,' he proposed, and the two scouts sprang to help him. They were trying to raise the poor brute when a gamekeeper with his gun under his arm came through a gate near at hand.

'Hallo, Thatcher, what's wrong?' he called out.

'Why, 'tis one o' these here danged motor-cars,' replied the old man. 'Gooin' faster than an express train along this narrow way, an' knocked Jimmy into the ditch.'

The gamekeeper came up, and at the first glance called upon them to lay the donkey down again.

'Let me have a look at him,' he said. 'That cut's nothing. There's worse than that cut, I fancy.'

'I hope no bones have a-gone,' said the donkey's master.

'That's just where it is, Thatcher,' said the gamekeeper, after a short examination. 'The poor beast's shoulder is a-broke right across. He'll ne'er stand on his four legs again.'

Thatcher uttered a cry of distress.

'Broke across, ye say, keeper! Then what's to be done with him?'

'Nothing,' said the keeper; 'there's nothing ye can do to cure him. The poor brute's in agony now. Look at his eyes!'

'Nothin' ye can do,' repeated the owner in a dull voice, his eyes almost as full of distress as those of his injured helpmate. 'An' Jimmy were the best donkey as iver pulled a cart.'

'Nothin' at all,' said the keeper, ''cept a charge o' No. 6,' and he tapped the breech of his gun significantly.

'Shoot him?' cried old Thatcher.

'It's that or let him die slowly in misery,' replied the keeper. 'If ye like I'll put him out of his pain before I go on, but I can't stay long, for I've got to meet someone in Hayton Spinney, and I ought to be there now.'