by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER 13. THE DRAGON'S TEETH; OR, ARMY-SEED
Albert's uncle was out on his bicycle as usual. After the day when webecame Canterbury Pilgrims and were brought home in the dog-cart withred wheels by the lady he told us was his long-lost grandmother he hadknown years ago in India, he spent not nearly so much of his timein writing, and he used to shave every morning instead of only whenrequisite, as in earlier days. And he was always going out on hisbicycle in his new Norfolk suit. We are not so unobserving as grown-uppeople make out. We knew well enough he was looking for the long-lost.And we jolly well wished he might find her. Oswald, always full ofsympathy with misfortune, however undeserved, had himself tried severaltimes to find the lady. So had the others. But all this is what theycall a digression; it has nothing to do with the dragon's teeth I am nownarrating.
It began with the pig dying--it was the one we had for the circus, butit having behaved so badly that day had nothing to do with its illnessand death, though the girls said they felt remorse, and perhaps if wehadn't made it run so that day it might have been spared to us. ButOswald cannot pretend that people were right just because they happen tobe dead, and as long as that pig was alive we all knew well enough thatit was it that made us run--and not us it.
The pig was buried in the kitchen garden. Bill, that we made thetombstone for, dug the grave, and while he was away at his dinner wetook a turn at digging, because we like to be useful, and besides, whenyou dig you never know what you may turn up. I knew a man once thatfound a gold ring on the point of his fork when he was digging potatoes,and you know how we found two half-crowns ourselves once when we weredigging for treasure.
Oswald was taking his turn with the spade, and the others were sittingon the gravel and telling him how to do it.
'Work with a will,' Dicky said, yawning.
Alice said, 'I wish we were in a book. People in books never dig withoutfinding something. I think I'd rather it was a secret passage thananything.'
Oswald stopped to wipe his honest brow ere replying.
'A secret's nothing when you've found it out. Look at the secretstaircase. It's no good, not even for hide-and-seek, because of itssqueaking. I'd rather have the pot of gold we used to dig for when wewere little.' It was really only last year, but you seem to grow oldvery quickly after you have once passed the prime of your youth, whichis at ten, I believe.
'How would you like to find the mouldering bones of Royalist soldiersfoully done to death by nasty Ironsides?'Noel asked, with his mouth fullof plum.
'If they were really dead it wouldn't matter,' Dora said. 'What I'mafraid of is a skeleton that can walk about and catch at your legs whenyou're going upstairs to bed.' 'Skeletons can't walk,' Alice said in ahurry; 'you know they can't, Dora.'
And she glared at Dora till she made her sorry she had said what shehad. The things you are frightened of, or even those you would rathernot meet in the dark, should never be mentioned before the little ones,or else they cry when it comes to bed-time, and say it was because ofwhat you said.
'We shan't find anything. No jolly fear,' said Dicky.
And just then my spade I was digging with struck on something hard,and it felt hollow. I did really think for one joyful space that we hadfound that pot of gold. But the thing, whatever it was, seemed to belongish; longer, that is, than a pot of gold would naturally be. And asI uncovered it I saw that it was not at all pot-of-gold-colour, but likea bone Pincher has buried. So Oswald said--
'It IS the skeleton.'
The girls all drew back, and Alice said, 'Oswald, I wish you wouldn't.'
A moment later the discovery was unearthed, and Oswald lifted it up,with both hands.
'It's a dragon's head,' Noel said, and it certainly looked like it.
It was long and narrowish and bony, and with great yellow teeth stickingin the jaw.
Bill came back just then and said it was a horse's head, but H. O. andNoel would not believe it, and Oswald owns that no horse he has everseen had a head at all that shape.
But Oswald did not stop to argue, because he saw a keeper who showed mehow to set snares going by, and he wanted to talk to him about ferrets,so he went off and Dicky and Denny and Alice with him. Also Daisy andDora went off to finish reading Ministering Children. So H. O. and Noelwere left with the bony head. They took it away.
The incident had quite faded from the mind of Oswald next day. But justbefore breakfast Noel and H. O. came in, looking hot and anxious. Theyhad got up early and had not washed at all--not even their hands andfaces. Noel made Oswald a secret signal. All the others saw it, and withproper delicate feeling pretended not to have.
When Oswald had gone out with Noel and H. O. in obedience to the secretsignal, Noel said--
'You know that dragon's head yesterday?'
'Well?' Oswald said quickly, but not crossly--the two things are quitedifferent.
'Well, you know what happened in Greek history when some chap soweddragon's teeth?'
'They came up armed men,' said H. O., but Noel sternly bade him shut up,and Oswald said 'Well,' again. If he spoke impatiently it was because hesmelt the bacon being taken in to breakfast.
'Well,' Noel went on, 'what do you suppose would have come up if we'dsowed those dragon's teeth we found yesterday?'
'Why, nothing, you young duffer,' said Oswald, who could now smell thecoffee. 'All that isn't History it's Humbug. Come on in to brekker.'
'It's NOT humbug,' H. O. cried, 'it is history. We DID sow--'
'Shut up,' said Noel again. 'Look here, Oswald. We did sow thosedragon's teeth in Randall's ten-acre meadow, and what do you think hascome up?'
'Toadstools I should think,' was Oswald's contemptible rejoinder.
'They have come up a camp of soldiers,' said Noel--ARMED MEN. So you seeit WAS history. We have sowed army-seed, just like Cadmus, and it hascome up. It was a very wet night. I daresay that helped it along.'
Oswald could not decide which to disbelieve--his brother or his ears.So, disguising his doubtful emotions without a word, he led the way tothe bacon and the banqueting hall.
He said nothing about the army-seed then, neither did Noel and H. O. Butafter the bacon we went into the garden, and then the good elder brothersaid--
'Why don't you tell the others your cock-and-bull story?'
So they did, and their story was received with warm expressions ofdoubt. It was Dicky who observed--
'Let's go and have a squint at Randall's ten-acre, anyhow. I saw a harethere the other day.'
We went. It is some little way, and as we went, disbelief reigned superbin every breast except Noel's and H. O.'s, so you will see that even theready pen of the present author cannot be expected to describe to youhis variable sensations when he got to the top of the hill and suddenlysaw that his little brothers had spoken the truth. I do not mean thatthey generally tell lies, but people make mistakes sometimes, and theeffect is the same as lies if you believe them.
There WAS a camp there with real tents and soldiers in grey and redtunics. I daresay the girls would have said coats. We stood in ambush,too astonished even to think of lying in it, though of course we knowthat this is customary. The ambush was the wood on top of the littlehill, between Randall's ten-acre meadow and Sugden's Waste Wake pasture.
'There would be cover here for a couple of regiments,' whispered Oswald,who was, I think, gifted by Fate with the far-seeingness of a borngeneral.
Alice merely said 'Hist', and we went down to mingle with the troops asthough by accident, and seek for information.
The first man we came to at the edge of the camp was cleaning a sort ofcauldron thing like witches brew bats in.
We went up to him and said, 'Who are you? Are you English, or are youthe enemy?'
'We're the enemy,' he said, and he did not seem ashamed of being what hewas. And he spoke English with quite a good accent for a foreigner.
'The enemy!' Oswald echoed in shocked tones. It is a terrible thing toa loyal and patriotic youth to see an enemy cleaning a
pot in an Englishfield, with English sand, and looking as much at home as if he was inhis foreign fastnesses.
The enemy seemed to read Oswald's thoughts with deadly unerringness. Hesaid--
'The English are somewhere over on the other side of the hill. They aretrying to keep us out of Maidstone.'
After this our plan of mingling with the troops did not seem worth goingon with. This soldier, in spite of his unerringness in reading Oswald'sinnermost heart, seemed not so very sharp in other things, or he wouldnever have given away his secret plans like this, for he must haveknown from our accents that we were Britons to the backbone. Or perhaps(Oswald thought this, and it made his blood at once boil and freeze,which our uncle had told us was possible, but only in India), perhaps hethought that Maidstone was already as good as taken and it didn't matterwhat he said. While Oswald was debating within his intellect what tosay next, and how to say it so as to discover as many as possible of theenemy's dark secrets, Noel said--
'How did you get here? You weren't here yesterday at tea-time.'
The soldier gave the pot another sandy rub, and said--
'I daresay it does seem quick work--the camp seems as if it had sprungup in the night, doesn't it?--like a mushroom.'
Alice and Oswald looked at each other, and then at the rest of us. Thewords 'sprung up in the night' seemed to touch a string in every heart.
'You see,' whispered Noel, 'he won't tell us how he came here. NOW, isit humbug or history?'
Oswald, after whisperedly requesting his young brother to dry up and notbother, remarked, 'Then you're an invading army?'
'Well,' said the soldier, 'we're a skeleton battalion, as a matter offact, but we're invading all right enough.'
And now indeed the blood of the stupidest of us froze, just as thequick-witted Oswald's had done earlier in the interview. Even H. O.opened his mouth and went the colour of mottled soap; he is so fat thatthis is the nearest he can go to turning pale. Denny said, 'But youdon't look like skeletons.'
The soldier stared, then he laughed and said, 'Ah, that's the padding inour tunics. You should see us in the grey dawn taking our morning bathin a bucket.' It was a dreadful picture for the imagination. A skeleton,with its bones all loose most likely, bathing anyhow in a pail. Therewas a silence while we thought it over.
Now, ever since the cleaning-cauldron soldier had said that about takingMaidstone, Alice had kept on pulling at Oswald's jacket behind, and hehad kept on not taking any notice. But now he could not stand it anylonger, so he said--
'Well, what is it?'
Alice drew him aside, or rather, she pulled at his jacket so that henearly fell over backwards, and then she whispered, 'Come along, don'tstay parlaying with the foe. He's only talking to you to gain time.'
'What for?' said Oswald.
'Why, so that we shouldn't warn the other army, you silly,' Alice said,and Oswald was so upset by what she said, that he forgot to be properlyangry with her for the wrong word she used.
'But we ought to warn them at home,' she said--' suppose the Moat Housewas burned down, and all the supplies commandeered for the foe?'
Alice turned boldly to the soldier. 'DO you burn down farms?' she asked.
'Well, not as a rule,' he said, and he had the cheek to wink at Oswald,but Oswald would not look at him. 'We've not burned a farm since--oh,not for years.'
'A farm in Greek history it was, I expect,' Denny murmured. 'Civilizedwarriors do not burn farms nowadays,' Alice said sternly, 'whatever theydid in Greek times. You ought to know that.'
The soldier said things had changed a good deal since Greek times.
So we said good morning as quickly as we could: it is proper to bepolite even to your enemy, except just at the moments when it has reallycome to rifles and bayonets or other weapons.
The soldier said 'So long!' in quite a modern voice, and we retraced ourfootsteps in silence to the ambush--I mean the wood. Oswald did think oflying in the ambush then, but it was rather wet, because of the rain thenight before, that H. O. said had brought the army-seed up. And Alicewalked very fast, saying nothing but 'Hurry up, can't you!' and draggingH. O. by one hand and Noel by the other. So we got into the road.
Then Alice faced round and said, 'This is all our fault. If we hadn'tsowed those dragon's teeth there wouldn't have been any invading army.'
I am sorry to say Daisy said, 'Never mind, Alice, dear. WE didn't sowthe nasty things, did we, Dora?'
But Denny told her it was just the same. It was WE had done it, so longas it was any of us, especially if it got any of us into trouble. Oswaldwas very pleased to see that the Dentist was beginning to understandthe meaning of true manliness, and about the honour of the house ofBastable, though of course he is only a Foulkes. Yet it is something toknow he does his best to learn.
If you are very grown-up, or very clever, I daresay you will now havethought of a great many things. If you have you need not say anything,especially if you're reading this aloud to anybody. It's no good puttingin what you think in this part, because none of us thought anything ofthe kind at the time.
We simply stood in the road without any of your clever thoughts, filledwith shame and distress to think of what might happen owing to thedragon's teeth being sown. It was a lesson to us never to sow seedwithout being quite sure what sort it is. This is particularly true ofthe penny packets, which sometimes do not come up at all, quite unlikedragon's teeth.
Of course H. O. and Noel were more unhappy than the rest of us. This wasonly fair.
'How can we possibly prevent their getting to Maidstone?' Dickie said.'Did you notice the red cuffs on their uniforms? Taken from the bodiesof dead English soldiers, I shouldn't wonder.'
'If they're the old Greek kind of dragon's-teeth soldiers, they ought tofight each other to death,' Noel said; 'at least, if we had a helmet tothrow among them.'
But none of us had, and it was decided that it would be of no use forH. O. to go back and throw his straw hat at them, though he wanted to.Denny said suddenly--
'Couldn't we alter the sign-posts, so that they wouldn't know the way toMaidstone?'
Oswald saw that this was the time for true generalship to be shown.
He said--
'Fetch all the tools out of your chest--Dicky go too, there's a goodchap, and don't let him cut his legs with the saw.' He did once,tumbling over it. 'Meet us at the cross-roads, you know, where we hadthe Benevolent Bar. Courage and dispatch, and look sharp about it.'
When they had gone we hastened to the crossroads, and there a great ideaoccurred to Oswald. He used the forces at his command so ably that ina very short time the board in the field which says 'No thoroughfare.Trespassers will be prosecuted' was set up in the middle of the road toMaidstone. We put stones, from a heap by the road, behind it to make itstand up.
Then Dicky and Denny came back, and Dicky shinned up the sign-post andsawed off the two arms, and we nailed them up wrong, so that it said 'ToMaidstone' on the Dover Road, and 'To Dover' on the road to Maidstone.We decided to leave the Trespassers board on the real Maidstone road, asan extra guard.
Then we settled to start at once to warn Maidstone.
Some of us did not want the girls to go, but it would have been unkindto say so. However, there was at least one breast that felt a pang ofjoy when Dora and Daisy gave out that they would rather stay where theywere and tell anybody who came by which was the real road.
'Because it would be so dreadful if someone was going to buy pigs orfetch a doctor or anything in a hurry and then found they had got toDover instead of where they wanted to go to,' Dora said. But when itcame to dinner-time they went home, so that they were entirely out ofit. This often happens to them by some strange fatalism.
We left Martha to take care of the two girls, and Lady and Pincher wentwith us. It was getting late in the day, but I am bound to remember noone said anything about their dinners, whatever they may have thought.We cannot always help our thoughts. We happened to know it was roastrabbits and currant jell
y that day.
We walked two and two, and sang the 'British Grenadiers' and 'Soldiersof the queen' so as to be as much part of the British Army as possible.The Cauldron-Man had said the English were the other side of the hill.But we could not see any scarlet anywhere, though we looked for it ascarefully as if we had been fierce bulls.
But suddenly we went round a turn in the road and came plump into a lotof soldiers. Only they were not red-coats. They were dressed in greyand silver. And it was a sort of furzy-common place, and three roadsbranching out. The men were lying about, with some of their beltsundone, smoking pipes and cigarettes.
'It's not British soldiers,' Alice said. 'Oh dear, oh dear, I'm afraidit's more enemy. You didn't sow the army-seed anywhere else, did you, H.O. dear?'
H. O. was positive he hadn't. 'But perhaps lots more came up where wedid sow them,' he said; 'they're all over England by now very likely._I_ don't know how many men can grow out of one dragon's tooth.'
Then Noel said, 'It was my doing anyhow, and I'm not afraid,' and hewalked straight up to the nearest soldier, who was cleaning his pipewith a piece of grass, and said--
'Please, are you the enemy?' The man said--
'No, young Commander-in-Chief, we're the English.'
Then Oswald took command. 'Where is the General?' he said.
'We're out of generals just now, Field-Marshal,' the man said, and hisvoice was a gentleman's voice. 'Not a single one in stock. We might suityou in majors now--and captains are quite cheap. Competent corporalsgoing for a song. And we have a very nice colonel, too quiet to ride ordrive.'
Oswald does not mind chaff at proper times. But this was not one.
'You seem to be taking it very easy,' he said with disdainfulexpression.
'This IS an easy,' said the grey soldier, sucking at his pipe to see ifit would draw.
'I suppose YOU don't care if the enemy gets into Maidstone or not!'exclaimed Oswald bitterly. 'If I were a soldier I'd rather die than bebeaten.'
The soldier saluted. 'Good old patriotic sentiment' he said, smiling atthe heart-felt boy.
But Oswald could bear no more. 'Which is the Colonel?' he asked.
'Over there--near the grey horse.'
'The one lighting a cigarette?' H. O. asked.
'Yes--but I say, kiddie, he won't stand any jaw. There's not an ounce ofvice about him, but he's peppery. He might kick out. You'd better bunk.'
'Better what?' asked H. O.
'Bunk, bottle, scoot, skip, vanish, exit,' said the soldier.
'That's what you'd do when the fighting begins,' said H. O. He is oftenrude like that--but it was what we all thought, all the same.
The soldier only laughed.
A spirited but hasty altercation among ourselves in whispers ended inour allowing Alice to be the one to speak to the Colonel. It was she whowanted to. 'However peppery he is he won't kick a girl,' she said, andperhaps this was true.
But of course we all went with her. So there were six of us to standin front of the Colonel. And as we went along we agreed that we wouldsalute him on the word three. So when we got near, Dick said, 'One,two, three', and we all saluted very well--except H. O., who chose thatminute to trip over a rifle a soldier had left lying about, and was onlysaved from falling by a man in a cocked hat who caught him deftly by theback of his jacket and stood him on his legs.
'Let go, can't you,' said H. O. 'Are you the General?'
Before the Cocked Hat had time to frame a reply, Alice spoke to theColonel. I knew what she meant to say, because she had told me as wethreaded our way among the resting soldiery. What she really said was--
'Oh, how CAN you!'
'How can I WHAT?' said the Colonel, rather crossly.
'Why, SMOKE?' said Alice.
'My good children, if you're an infant Band of Hope, let me recommendyou to play in some other backyard,' said the Cock-Hatted Man.
H. O. said, 'Band of Hope yourself'--but no one noticed it.
'We're NOT a Band of Hope,' said Noel. 'We're British, and the man overthere told us you are. And Maidstone's in danger, and the enemy not amile off, and you stand SMOKING.' Noel was standing crying, himself, orsomething very like it.
'It's quite true,' Alice said.
The Colonel said, 'Fiddle-de-dee.'
But the Cocked-Hatted Man said, 'What was the enemy like?' We told himexactly. And even the Colonel then owned there might be something in it.
'Can you show me the place where they are on the map?' he asked.
'Not on the map, we can't,' said Dicky--'at least, I don't think so,but on the ground we could. We could take you there in a quarter of anhour.'
The Cocked-Hatted One looked at the Colonel, who returned his scrutiny,then he shrugged his shoulders.
'Well, we've got to do something,' he said, as if to himself. 'Lead on,Macduff.'
The Colonel roused his soldiery from their stupor of pipes by words ofcommand which the present author is sorry he can't remember.
Then he bade us boys lead the way. I tell you it felt fine, marchingat the head of a regiment. Alice got a lift on the Cocked-Hatted One'shorse. It was a red-roan steed of might, exactly as if it had been ina ballad. They call a grey-roan a 'blue' in South Africa, theCocked-Hatted One said.
We led the British Army by unfrequented lanes till we got to the gate ofSugden's Waste Wake pasture. Then the Colonel called a whispered halt,and choosing two of us to guide him, the dauntless and discerningcommander went on, on foot, with an orderly. He chose Dicky and Oswaldas guides. So we led him to the ambush, and we went through it asquietly as we could. But twigs do crackle and snap so when you arereconnoitring, or anxious to escape detection for whatever reason.
Our Colonel's orderly crackled most. If you're not near enough to tella colonel by the crown and stars on his shoulder-strap, you can tell himby the orderly behind him, like 'follow my leader'.
'Look out!' said Oswald in a low but commanding whisper, 'the camp'sdown in that field. You can see if you take a squint through this gap.'
The speaker took a squint himself as he spoke, and drew back, baffledbeyond the power of speech. While he was struggling with his bafflednessthe British Colonel had his squint. He also drew back, and said a wordthat he must have known was not right--at least when he was a boy.
'I don't care,' said Oswald, 'they were there this morning. White tentslike mushrooms, and an enemy cleaning a cauldron.'
'With sand,' said Dicky.
'That's most convincing,' said the Colonel, and I did not like the wayhe said it.
'I say,' Oswald said, 'let's get to the top corner of the ambush--thewood, I mean. You can see the crossroads from there.'
We did, and quickly, for the crackling of branches no longer dismayedour almost despairing spirits.
We came to the edge of the wood, and Oswald's patriotic heart really didgive a jump, and he cried, 'There they are, on the Dover Road.'
Our miscellaneous signboard had done its work.
'By Jove, young un, you're right! And in quarter column, too! We've gotem on toast--on toast--egad!' I never heard anyone not in a book say'egad' before, so I saw something really out of the way was indeed up.
The Colonel was a man of prompt and decisive action. He sent the orderlyto tell the Major to advance two companies on the left flank and takecover. Then we led him back through the wood the nearest way, because hesaid he must rejoin the main body at once. We found the main body veryfriendly with Noel and H. O. and the others, and Alice was talking tothe Cocked-Hatted One as if she had known him all her life.
'I think he's a general in disguise,' Noel said. 'He's been giving uschocolate out of a pocket in his saddle.'
Oswald thought about the roast rabbit then--and he is not ashamed to ownit--yet he did not say a word. But Alice is really not a bad sort. Shehad saved two bars of chocolate for him and Dicky. Even in war girls cansometimes be useful in their humble way.
The Colonel fussed about and said, 'Take cover there!' and everybody hidin the ditch,
and the horses and the Cocked Hat, with Alice, retreateddown the road out of sight. We were in the ditch too. It was muddy--butnobody thought of their boots in that perilous moment. It seemed a longtime we were crouching there. Oswald began to feel the water squelchingin his boots, so we held our breath and listened. Oswald laid his ear tothe road like a Red Indian. You would not do this in time of peace, butwhen your country is in danger you care but little about keeping yourears clean. His backwoods' strategy was successful. He rose and dustedhimself and said--'They're coming!'
It was true. The footsteps of the approaching foe were now to be heardquite audibly, even by ears in their natural position. The wicked enemyapproached. They were marching with a careless swaggeringness thatshowed how little they suspected the horrible doom which was about toteach them England's might and supremeness.
Just as the enemy turned the corner so that we could see them, theColonel shouted--'Right section, fire!' and there was a deafeningbanging.
The enemy's officer said something, and then the enemy got confused andtried to get into the fields through the hedges. But all was vain. Therewas firing now from our men, on the left as well as the right. Andthen our Colonel strode nobly up to the enemy's Colonel and demandedsurrender. He told me so afterwards. His exact words are only known tohimself and the other Colonel. But the enemy's Colonel said, 'I wouldrather die than surrender,' or words to that effect.
Our Colonel returned to his men and gave the order to fix bayonets, andeven Oswald felt his manly cheek turn pale at the thought of the amountof blood to be shed. What would have happened can never now be revealed.For at this moment a man on a piebald horse came clattering over ahedge--as carelessly as if the air was not full of lead and steel atall. Another man rode behind him with a lance and a red pennon on it. Ithink he must have been the enemy's General coming to tell his men notto throw away their lives on a forlorn hope, for directly he said theywere captured the enemy gave in and owned that they were. The enemy'sColonel saluted and ordered his men to form quarter column again. Ishould have thought he would have had about enough of that myself.
He had now given up all thought of sullen resistance to the bitter end.He rolled a cigarette for himself, and had the foreign cheek to say toour Colonel--
'By Jove, old man, you got me clean that time! Your scouts seem to havemarked us down uncommonly neatly.'
It was a proud moment when our Colonel laid his military hand onOswald's shoulder and said--
'This is my chief scout' which were high words, but not undeserved, andOswald owns he felt red with gratifying pride when he heard them.
'So you are the traitor, young man,' said the wicked Colonel, going onwith his cheek.
Oswald bore it because our Colonel had, and you should be generous to afallen foe, but it is hard to be called a traitor when you haven't.
He did not treat the wicked Colonel with silent scorn as he might havedone, but he said--
'We aren't traitors. We are the Bastables and one of us is a Foulkes.We only mingled unsuspected with the enemy's soldiery and learned thesecrets of their acts, which is what Baden-Powell always does when thenatives rebel in South Africa; and Denis Foulkes thought of alteringthe sign-posts to lead the foe astray. And if we did cause all thisfighting, and get Maidstone threatened with capture and all that, itwas only because we didn't believe Greek things could happen in GreatBritain and Ireland, even if you sow dragon's teeth, and besides, someof us were not asked about sowing them.'
Then the Cocked-Hatted One led his horse and walked with us and madeus tell him all about it, and so did the Colonel. The wicked Colonellistened too, which was only another proof of his cheek.
And Oswald told the tale in the modest yet manly way that some peoplethink he has, and gave the others all the credit they deserved. Hisnarration was interrupted no less than four times by shouts of 'Bravo!'in which the enemy's Colonel once more showed his cheek by joining. Bythe time the story was told we were in sight of another camp. It was theBritish one this time. The Colonel asked us to have tea in his tent,and it only shows the magnanimosity of English chivalry in the field ofbattle that he asked the enemy's Colonel too. With his usual cheek heaccepted. We were jolly hungry.
When everyone had had as much tea as they possibly could, the Colonelshook hands with us all, and to Oswald he said--
'Well, good-bye, my brave scout. I must mention your name in mydispatches to the War Office.'
H. O. interrupted him to say, 'His name's Oswald Cecil Bastable, andmine is Horace Octavius.' I wish H. O. would learn to hold his tongue.No one ever knows Oswald was christened Cecil as well, if he canpossibly help it. YOU didn't know it till now.
'Mr Oswald Bastable,' the Colonel went on--he had the decency not totake any notice of the 'Cecil'--'you would be a credit to any regiment.No doubt the War Office will reward you properly for what you have donefor your country. But meantime, perhaps, you'll accept five shillingsfrom a grateful comrade-in-arms.' Oswald felt heart-felt sorry to woundthe good Colonel's feelings, but he had to remark that he had only donehis duty, and he was sure no British scout would take five bob for doingthat. 'And besides,' he said, with that feeling of justice which is partof his young character, 'it was the others just as much as me.'
'Your sentiments, Sir,' said the Colonel who was one of the politestand most discerning colonels I ever saw, 'your sentiments do you honour.But, Bastables all, and--and non-Bastables' (he couldn't rememberFoulkes; it's not such an interesting name as Bastable, of course)--'atleast you'll accept a soldier's pay?'
'Lucky to touch it, a shilling a day!' Alice and Denny said together.And the Cocked-Hatted Man said something about knowing your own mind andknowing your own Kipling.
'A soldier,' said the Colonel, 'would certainly be lucky to touch it.You see there are deductions for rations. Five shillings is exactlyright, deducting twopence each for six teas.'
This seemed cheap for the three cups of tea and the three eggs and allthe strawberry jam and bread-and-butter Oswald had had, as well as whatthe others ate, and Lady's and Pincher's teas, but I suppose soldiersget things cheaper than civilians, which is only right.
Oswald took the five shillings then, there being no longer any scrupleswhy he should not.
Just as we had parted from the brave Colonel and the rest we saw abicycle coming. It was Albert's uncle. He got off and said--
'What on earth have you been up to? What were you doing with thosevolunteers?'
We told him the wild adventures of the day, and he listened, and then hesaid he would withdraw the word volunteers if we liked.
But the seeds of doubt were sown in the breast of Oswald. He was nowalmost sure that we had made jolly fools of ourselves without a moment'spause throughout the whole of this eventful day. He said nothing at thetime, but after supper he had it out with Albert's uncle about the wordwhich had been withdrawn.
Albert's uncle said, of course, no one could be sure that the dragon'steeth hadn't come up in the good old-fashioned way, but that, on theother hand, it was barely possible that both the British and the enemywere only volunteers having a field-day or sham fight, and he ratherthought the Cocked-Hatted Man was not a general, but a doctor. And theman with a red pennon carried behind him MIGHT have been the umpire.
Oswald never told the others a word of this. Their young breasts wereall panting with joy because they had saved their country; and it wouldhave been but heartless unkindness to show them how silly they had been.Besides, Oswald felt he was much too old to have been so taken in--ifhe HAD been. Besides, Albert's uncle did say that no one could be sureabout the dragon's teeth.
The thing that makes Oswald feel most that, perhaps, the whole thing wasa beastly sell, was that we didn't see any wounded. But he tries not tothink of this. And if he goes into the army when he grows up, he willnot go quite green. He has had experience of the arts of war and thetented field. And a real colonel has called him 'Comrade-in-Arms', whichis exactly what Lord Roberts called his own soldiers when he wrote homeabout
them.
