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

'It's a most mysterious affair, sir,' replied White. 'The place was locked up as usual, and I unlocked everything myself. Every padlock and fastening was in order, and no window had been tampered with.'

'Yet there's a lot of valuable stuff gone,' said Mr. Elliott. White shook his head. He seemed utterly bewildered and unable to explain what had happened.

'I shall go to the police at once,' said Mr. Elliott.

'Yes, sir; there's nothing else for it,' agreed the manager; and the two, who had been talking as they went through the great storeroom where Chippy was waiting, passed out at a farther door, and disappeared.

Chippy left his practice, and fell into thought. Things had been stolen from the warehouse. That was plain enough. The Elliotts were being robbed. Chippy was on fire in a moment. His friends and benefactors were being robbed. It was clear that Mr. Elliott meant to set the police to watch the place. Chippy promised himself that a certain boy scout would also take a hand in the game. Skinner's Hole was close by, and his home was not four hundred yards from the warehouse. That would be convenient for keeping watch.

That evening Chippy ate his supper so slowly and thoughtfully that his mother asked him what was on his mind.

'It's all right about yer place, ain't it?' she asked anxiously.

'Rather,' replied Chippy, waking up and giving her a cheerful nod. 'This ain't a job like old Blades's. Do yer work, and yer all right at Elliott Brothers'.'

'Yer seemed a-moonin' like,' said Mrs. Slynn.

'Thinkin',' returned Chippy briefly. 'I got a bit o' scoutin' to do to-night as 'ull keep me out pretty late, so don't get a-worryin', mother, an' sendin' people to see if I've dropped into the "Old Cut."'

The Old Cut was a dangerous, unprotected creek, where more than one resident of Skinner's Hole had been drowned in darkness and fog, and its name was proverbial on local lips.

'Tek care o' yerself, my boy,' said Mrs. Slynn. 'I don't know what I should do without yer.'

Chippy waved his hand with an air of lofty protection, and went on with his supper.

Towards ten o'clock he left the house, and went down a quiet byway to Quay Flat, and as soon as he got well on the Flat and away from the gas-lamps, he could see little or nothing. But Chippy had haunted the Flat all his life, and could find his way across it blindfold. He headed steadily forward, and a few minutes brought him to the spot where the huge bulk of the warehouse buildings stood at the river's edge, black against the sky.

He now commenced a stealthy patrol of the walks, every sense on the alert, and creeping along as softly as possible. The warehouse occupied an isolated position on the quay. The river front was now washed by only a few feet of water, for the tide was nearly out; but this side was only approachable by boat. A rude pavement of flag-stones ran round the other three sides, and along this pavement the Raven meant to hold his patrol march.

The march came to an end almost as soon as it had begun. Chippy turned an angle of the walls, and pulled up dead. He could hear footsteps a short distance away. He flitted off to the shelter of a pile of rusty anchors and iron cables which he knew lay within twenty yards of where he stood. He found his cover, and crouched behind it. He had barely gained it when a flood of light swept the pavement he had just left, and heavy boots tramped forward.

'Huh!' grunted Chippy to himself, 'they've got a bobby on the job. No call for a boy scout here. I might as well be off home an' go to bed.'

The policeman came forward, stood at the corner, and yawned; then he slowly paced forward on his beat once more. Chippy waited twenty minutes, but the constable persistently haunted the warehouse walls; it was clear that they were the special object of his care to-night.

'It's old Martin,' thought Chippy, who had recognised the constable; 'he's gooin' to potter round all night. I'll get 'ome again.'

Martin disappeared round the farther angle of the walls, and Chippy stood up to move softly away. But he did not move. He stood still listening intently. At the moment he straightened himself he felt certain that he heard a low chuckle somewhere behind him in the darkness.

Yes, there was someone there. Now he caught the voices of men who conversed together in tones little above a whisper. Chippy judged they were some twenty yards from him. Next he heard stealthy sounds as they moved away.

Who were these people who had crept up so silently that the scout had heard nothing? Chippy meant to find out, if possible, and already he had bent down, and his fingers were going like the wind as he whipped the laces out of the eyelets of his boots. Off came the latter; off came his stockings. The stockings went into his pockets; the boots were tied together by their laces and slung round his neck, and away slipped Chippy in search of the men who had laughed and whispered together.

He had lost a few seconds in taking off his boots, and the sounds of their stealthy movements had died away. Chippy dropped flat, and laid his ear to the ground. This gave him their direction at once, and, to his surprise, the sounds told him that they were going towards the river. That was odd. The quay edge was a very dangerous place on so dark a night as this, but these men were going down to it, and not across towards the town, as Chippy had expected.

The scout followed with the utmost caution – a caution which he redoubled as he drew near to the riverside. He would have thought little of going over the quay wall when the water was up, for that would only mean a ducking, and he could swim like a fish. But in some places patches of deep mud were laid bare at low tide, spots in which the finest swimmer would flounder, sink, and perish. Chippy sought for a mooring-post, and was full of delight when his hands came against a huge oaken bole, scored with rope-marks and polished with long service. These stood in line along the quay some ten yards apart, and Chippy worked from one to the other, and followed his men, who were still ahead, but moving very slowly. It was quite certain that the two in front knew the quay well, or they would not be here at this time.

Suddenly a match spurted, and a pipe was lighted. The men had come a good way now from the warehouse, and were quite out of sight of the constable. The light of the match showed the scout that there were two of them, and they had halted in lee of a fish-curing shed, now locked up for the night. The shed stood in a very lonely part of the quay, where no one ever went after nightfall. The men began to talk together, and Chippy crept closer and closer until he could catch their words.

'Laugh!' said one, as if in answer to a remark the scout had not caught – 'who could help laughin'? To see old Martin postin' up an' down, round an' round, just on the sides we want him to. If he started to swim up an' down t'other side, now, it might be a bit awkward for us.'

'Ah,' replied his companion, 'it'll be a long time before they tumble to the idea of anybody workin' 'em from the river-front. How did ye get round to the trap this mornin'?'

'Easy as winking,' said the first speaker. 'I made a little errand there, and slipped the bolts, and there it all was, as right as rain.'

'It's a clippin' dodge,' murmured the second man. 'We'll have another good go to-night, then leave it for two or three months till all's quiet again.'

'We will,' agreed the other. 'The boat's ready, I suppose?'

'Yes; I've seen to all that,' was the answer. 'She's lyin' at Ferryman's Slip, just swingin' by her painter. It'll be slack water pretty soon. We can start in about half an hour or so.'

CHAPTER XXII

CHIPPY GOES IN CHASE

Chippy's heart beat high with excitement. It thumped against his ribs till he felt sure that the talkers a few yards away would hear it; and he turned and crept away, and circled round to the back of the fish-shed, where he pulled up to think over what he had heard. He felt sure that he had hit upon the thieves. What should he do? Run to Martin and tell him what he had found out? Chippy considered that, then shook his head. He knew Martin, and Martin knew Chippy. 'He'd ne'er believe me,' thought Chippy. 'He'd think I was a-tryin' to kid 'im.'

Martin was a good, zealous officer, but rather a dull one, and Chippy knew that he would be very slow to give any credit to a story brought him by a wharf-rat. And then, they were not the best of friends. Chippy now entertained the most respectful regard for police-constables, for it was part of his duty; but it had not always been so. In his days of sin, before he became a boy scout, he had guyed and chaffed Martin many a time and oft, and had exercised a diabolical ingenuity in tricks for his discomfiture. Therefore a sudden appearance, springing out of the darkness as a supporter of law and order, might not be taken as it was meant, and Chippy was quite shrewd enough to see that.

And Chippy was puzzled – he was tremendously puzzled. For the life of him, he could not see how two men in a boat were going to successfully attack the river-front of Elliotts' warehouse, and he burned to discover their plan of assault. He shut his eyes, and saw clearly a mental picture of the building. Chippy knew the riverside look of every building as well as he knew the back of his hand; he had spent scores and scores of summer days floating about in anything he could seize upon in the shape of a boat.

Well, he saw a broad, high wall, perfectly flat, turning a gable end to the wide stream, and in that wall he saw a number of windows and one large doorway, above which an arm carrying pulleys was thrust out. Under this doorway barges came when the tide was up, and sank to the mud when it went down. Boxes, bags, bales, were swung up to the doorway by pulley and chain, and so taken into the warehouse. But there was no landing-place of any kind; the wall ran sheer down to the mud.

Now, how were these men going to break in? And at low water, too! Fifteen feet at least of oozy, slimy wall would stand up between the boat and the foot of the doorway; twenty feet to the nearest row of windows. Chippy could not form any idea of their tactics, but he meant to discover them before long.

'Well, I got to move a bit,' said the scout to himself. 'I'll 'ook it down to Ferryman's, and get ready for 'em.'

Still on his bare feet, he slid like a shadow through the darkness, counted the mooring-posts as he went, in order to get his bearings, found the head of the steps running down to the spot he sought, and at the next instant his feet were treading the rough stones of Ferryman's Slip.

Here close beside the water it was not quite so dark; the heavy clouds had broken in the west, and the stars were coming out. In their faint gleam Chippy caught the shine of the oily swells as the water lapped gently against the wharf.

There was always water beside Ferryman's Slip at every state of the tide, and Chippy knew that a bunch of boats would certainly be moored off the boat-builder's yard at the top end of the slip. He went up there, and saw their dark forms on the water. He could step into the nearest, and in a moment he was climbing from one to the other with all the sureness of a born waterman, searching for what he wanted. Luck favoured him: he found it on the outside of a bunch, where he had only to slip the knot of a cord to set it free. It was a little broad boat, blunt in the bows, wide in the stern, the sort of boat you can sit on the side of without oversetting, and very suitable for Chippy's purpose this night.

Now Chippy scratched his jaw thoughtfully. There was the boat, but oars and rowlocks were safely locked up in the builder's shed. This would have stumped some people, but not Chippy. Often and often he had been able to get hold of a boat, but nothing else. He was quite familiar with the task of rigging up something to take the place of an oar. He hopped across the boats, gained the shore, and sought the boat-builder's shed. Around such a place lie piles of planks, broken thwarts, broken oars, odds and ends of every kind relating to boats, new or old. Chippy knew the shed, and sought the back.

'Old Clayson used to chuck a lot o' stuff at the back 'ere,' thought Chippy. 'I wish I durst strike a match, but that 'ud never do. They might see it.' So he groped and groped with his hands, and could hardly restrain a yell of delight when his fingers dropped on a smooth surface, broken by one sharp rib running down the centre.

'A sweep!' Chippy cried to himself joyously – 'an old sweep! Now, if theer's on'y a bit o' handle to it, I'm right.'

With the utmost caution he drew the broken sweep from the pile of odds and ends where it lay. Yes, there was a piece of handle, and Chippy made at once for his boat, carrying his prize with him. An oar would have suited him much better, but beggars must not be choosers. The fragment of the sweep was heavy and clumsy, but in Chippy's skilled hands it could be made to do its work.

These preparations had taken some time, and Chippy was about to try his piece of sweep in the scull-notch in the stern when he paused and crouched perfectly still on the thwart. They were coming. He heard movements on the stone stairs which ran down to the river. The scout put his head over the side of the boat and listened. Water carries sound as nothing else does, and he heard them get into their boat very cautiously, slip oars into rowlocks, and paddle gently away. There was no dip or splash from the oars. 'Muffled 'em,' said Chippy to himself.

He gave them a couple of minutes to get clear out into the river from the side channel which washed the slip; then he prepared to follow. He untied the painter, pushed his boat clear of its companions, slipped his sweep over the stern, and began to scull down the channel without a sound, his practised hands working the boat on by the sweep as silently and smoothly as a fish glides forward by the strokes of its tail.

The little skiff slipped out on to the broad bosom of the river, and Chippy looked eagerly ahead. He saw his men at once. They were paddling gently down-stream close inshore. At this point the river ran due west, ran towards the quarter of the sky now bright with stars. Against this brightness Chippy saw the dark mass of boat and men. He glanced over his shoulder. The east remained black, its covering of cloud unbroken, and Chippy felt the joy of the scout who follows steadily, and knows that he himself is unseen.

The boat ahead went much faster than Chippy's little tub, but he let them go, and sculled easily forward; he knew where to find them. As they approached Elliotts' warehouse, a great cloud drew swiftly over the west, and the scout completely lost sight of the other boat. But the darkness was short. Within a few minutes the cloud passed as swiftly as it had come, and the surface of the river was once more pallid in the starshine.

Chippy saw the great bulk of the warehouse emerge from the gloom; he saw the level plain of water, now smooth at this time of dead-slack, and he expected to see the boat, but he did not. He brought up his skiff with a sharp turn of the sweep, and rubbed his eyes, and looked, and looked again. He saw nothing. The boat had vanished. It was not lying off the warehouse; of that he was quite sure. He was so placed, fairly close inshore, that his eye swept every inch of water along the front of the building. No boat was there.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE OLD WATER-GATE

This was very mysterious. Chippy could not make out what had happened. The boat had not sunk. Had it done so, the men would never have gone down without a sound. The scout thought a moment, then seized his sweep, and drove his skiff square across the river. Had the men gone out towards the middle? But Chippy opened fresh sweeps of the starlit stream, and all empty. Save for himself, there did not seem to be a single floating thing in the neighbourhood.

Now, in working across, Chippy had also gone down with the stream, so that by the time he was well out he had gained a point directly in front of the warehouse. He glanced towards the dark mass at the water's edge, and started. A pin-point of light flashed out at its base far below window or doorway. The light burned steadily for a few seconds, then went out as suddenly as it appeared.

'Looks to me as if some'dy struck a match over theer,' reflected Chippy. 'But who? The water looked empty enough. I'll have a look.'

He worked his boat round, and drove it steadily towards the great building, shaping his course a little upstream, in order to bring himself above it once more. He watched closely as he sculled, and when he checked his way not ten yards from the bank he was quite certain of two things: he had not seen the light again, and he had not seen any boat leave the front of the warehouse.

He let himself drift slowly down, staring and staring, and full of wonder. His eyes were now so used to the starshine on the river that he could see the water in front of the building like a smooth, pale plain, and it was empty – it was perfectly empty. Who had struck that light about the water-level? It was all very strange and mysterious.

Chippy let his craft drift. It moved slowly on the slow-running stream, but presently it was under the shadow of the lofty wall, and as it slid along, Chippy looked out more sharply than ever for the source of that strange light.

He stood in the stern of the boat drifting down in complete silence, with not even the gurgle of the sweep to betray his presence. And to this complete silence Chippy owed the discovery which he made about midway of the river-front.

He was staring straight at the blackness of the wall, when suddenly a light appeared in it. To his immense surprise, he found himself looking up a kind of long, arched tunnel, at whose farther end a man stood in a boat, a light in his hand. Only for an instant did Chippy behold this strange vision. His skiff drifted on, and he was faced once more by the darkness of the solid wall.

Chippy drew a deep breath, dug his sweep into the water, and sculled rather more than half a circle. This brought him opposite the mouth of the tunnel, but well out from the wall.

'That's wheer they'd slipped in,' reflected Chippy. 'Theer's the light again. Wot does it all mean? I never heerd o' that hole afore.'

Chippy was puzzled because he did not know the history of Elliotts' warehouse. It was a fairly old building, having been erected about the middle of the eighteenth century. Its basement had been pierced by a water-gate, which gave small barges direct entrance to the building, their contents being raised to the floor above through a large trap-door. But in the course of time, and under the influence of great floods, the river scoured out its bed in such fashion as to alter its depth against the wall of the warehouse, and largely to block the water-gate with mud. Sooner than undertake the expense of dredging in order to keep the water-gate open, the owners abandoned its use, and knocked a doorway in the front, and hauled up from the barges as they lay outside.

But on a very low tide it was possible yet to pole a small boat up the old water-gate, and gain the trap-door, which still existed, though unused, and almost unknown to the present generation of workers in the warehouse.

It took the scout a very short time to make up his mind. He was soon sculling for the mouth of the archway, which, now he knew where to look for it, could be made out as a darker patch in the dusk of the wall. With the utmost care Chippy laid the blunt nose of his craft square in the middle of the archway, and sculled very gently up. The air was thick and close and damp, but a slight current set towards him. He felt it blowing on his face, and knew that there was some opening at the top of this strange passage. He only went a short distance up, then checked his way, and his boat floated quite still on the quiet water of this hidden entrance.

Ten minutes passed, and then Chippy heard a voice. 'That's as much as we can shift to-night,' it said; and a second voice said: 'All right; drop a glim on the boat.'

At the next moment a strong shaft of light darted downwards into the darkness, and lighted up an empty boat floating within five yards of Chippy. Luckily for the latter, the light came from a dark lantern, whose slide had been turned, and was only a brilliant circle which did not discover the daring scout.

Chippy held his breath, and watched. He saw that aloft the light was pouring through an oblong opening; the latter was formed by the raising of one of the two doors of the big trap. He had need to hold his breath; the smallest turn of the lantern would throw the light along the tunnel, and he would spring into full view of the thieves. His position would then be desperate, for escape was out of the question. They had only to drop into their boat and pursue, when his clumsy old broken sweep would prove no match for a pair of oars. So Chippy held himself dead still, and watched with fascinated eyes the strong shaft of light pouring on the boat before him.

Presently a strongly corded bale slid into the light, and was lowered by a thin rope. The rope was tossed after it, and the same thing happened with three more bales; and then a pair of legs came into sight, and a man slid swiftly down a heavy rope which dangled above the boat.

The man swung himself down, and dropped among the bales. Chippy could not see his face, but the scout's eye saw the man's hand outstretched as he balanced himself with a sailor's skill in the swaying boat, and marked that the little finger was missing.

'I'll stow these, and then give ye a hand wi' the flap,' said the man in the boat. 'It'll never do to let it down wi' a bang, because of our friend outside.' And both of them chuckled.

Now was Chippy's chance, while the men were busy with the task of closing the heavy flap with as little noise as possible. He had been standing with the sweep in his hand. He began, with the tiniest, the softest of strokes, to turn his boat round. But his discovery would have been certain had not the men been so busy with the task of reclosing the heavy trap. It fell into place with a soft thud, which echoed along the water-gate, and as it did so Chippy glided into the open, and turned the nose of his craft down-stream. He now put out all his strength, sculled a dozen hard, swift strokes, then held his hand, and floated close beside the wall in the deep shadow.

From this cover he saw the boat glide out and the men give way as they gained the open stream. They pulled out some distance, and so skilfully did they use the muffled oars that Chippy scarce caught a sound.

'Rullocks muffled, too,' thought the scout; and very likely the thieves had muffled the rowlocks also.

CHAPTER XXIV

ON BOARD THE 'THREE SPIRES'

When the boat was well out from the shore its nose was turned, and it began to drop at an easy pace down the river. In cover of the bank Chippy was sculling his best. He had seen how the warehouse was robbed; he meant to see where the plunder was taken.

Beyond Elliotts' warehouse there were only two or three scattered buildings, and then the river-shore stretched away empty and deserted. For nearly a mile the men pulled steadily down, and left Chippy a long way behind. But the night was brightening fast; the moon was coming up, and he could see the dark spot upon the water which meant the gliding boat laden with plunder.

Then the boat turned and came towards the shore on the scout's side. It crossed his line of sight, and disappeared as if into the bank.

'Gone up Fuller's Creek,' said Chippy to himself, and sculled harder than ever. Fuller's Creek was a wide, deep backwater, never used nowadays for any active purpose, though occasionally an old hulk was towed there, and left to rot. Chippy supposed that his men had pulled up to the very top of the creek, where there was a deserted landing-stage, and he put all the strength of his wiry frame into driving his boat down to the creek and up it as hard as he could go.

He entered the broad, dark water-mouth, for the moon was not yet shining into the creek, and sculled into its shadow. Half-way up, a dark bulk loomed high in his path, and he swung the nose of his craft to port, to pass round the Three Spires, an old barquentine left to rot in Fuller's Creek out of the way of the river traffic.