The soldier stared, then he laughed and said: "Ah, that's the padding
in our tunics. You should see us in the gray dawn taking our morning
bath in a bucket."
It was a dreadful picture for the imagination. A skeleton, with its
bones all loose most likely, bathing anyhow in a pail. There was a
silence while we thought it over.
Now, ever since the cleaning-cauldron soldier had said that about taking
Maidstone, Alice had kept on pulling at Oswald's jacket behind, and he
had kept on not taking any notice. But now he could not stand it any
longer, so he said, "Well, what is it?"
Alice drew him aside, or rather, she pulled at his jacket so that he
nearly fell over backwards, and then she whispered, "Come along, don't
stay parleying 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 properly
angry with her for the wrong word she used.
"But we ought to warn them at home," she said; "suppose the Moat House
was 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.
"Civilized warriors do not burn farms nowadays," Alice said, sternly,
"whatever they did 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 be polite even
to your enemy, except just at the moments when it has really come to
rifles and bayonets or other weapons.
The soldier said, "So long!" in quite a modern voice, and we retraced
our footsteps in silence to the ambush--I mean the wood. Oswald did
think of lying in the ambush then, but it was rather wet, because of the
rain the night before, that H. O. said had brought the army-seed up. And
Alice walked very fast, saying nothing but "Hurry up, can't you!" and
dragging H. 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't
sowed 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 sow
the nasty things, did we, Dora?"
But Denny told her it was just the same. It was _we_ had done it, so
long as it was any of us, especially if it got any of us into trouble.
Oswald was very pleased to see that the Dentist was beginning to
understand the meaning of true manliness, and about the honor of the
house of Bastable, though of course he is only a Foulkes. Yet it is
something to know he does his best to learn.
If you are very grown-up, or very clever, I dare say you will now have
thought 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 putting
in what you think in this part, because none of us thought anything of
the kind at the time.
We simply stood in the road without any of your clever thoughts, filled
with shame and distress to think of what might happen owing to the
dragon's teeth being sown. It was a lesson to us never to sow seed
without being quite sure what sort it is. This is particularly true of
the penny packets, which sometimes do not come up at all, quite unlike
dragon's teeth.
Of course H. O. and Noel were more unhappy than the rest of us. This was
only fair.
"How can we possibly prevent their getting to Maidstone?" Dicky said.
"Did you notice the red cuffs on their uniforms? Taken from the bodies
of dead English soldiers, I shouldn't wonder."
"If they're the old Greek kind of dragon's-teeth soldiers they ought to
fight each other to death," Noel said; "at least, if we had a helmet to
throw among them."
But none of us had, and it was decided that it would be no use for H.
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 to
Maidstone?"
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 good
chap, 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 had
the Benevolent Bar. Courage and despatch, and look sharp about it."
When they had gone we hastened to the cross-roads, and there a great
idea occurred to Oswald. He used the forces at his command so ably that
in a 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 to
Maidstone. We put stones, from a heap by the road, behind it to make it
stand up.
Then Dicky and Denny came back, and Dicky shinned up the sign-post and
sawed off the two arms, and we nailed them up wrong, so that it said "To
Maidstone" on the Dover Road, and "To Dover" on the road to Maidstone.
We decided to leave the Trespassers board on the real Maidstone road, as
an 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 unkind
to say so. However, there was at least one breast that felt a pang of
joy when Dora and Daisy gave out that they would rather stay where they
were and tell anybody who came by which was the real road.
"Because it would be so dreadful if some one was going to buy pigs or
fetch a doctor or anything in a hurry and then found they had got to
Dover instead of where they wanted to go to," Dora said. But when it
came to dinner-time they went home, so that they were entirely out of
it. This often happens to them by some strange fatalism.
We left Martha to take care of the two girls, and Lady and Pincher went
with us. It was getting late in the day, but I am bound to remember no
one said anything about their dinners, whatever they may have thought.
We cannot always help our thoughts. We happened to know it was roast
rabbits and currant jelly that day.
We walked two and two, and sang the "British Grenadiers" and "Soldiers
of 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 as
carefully as if we had been fierce bulls.
But suddenly we went round a turn in the road and came plump into a lot
of soldiers. Only they were not red-coats. They were dressed in gray and
silver. And it was a sort of furzy-common place, and three roads
branching out. The men were lying about, with some of their belts
undone, smoking pipes and cigarettes.
"It's not British soldiers," Alice said. "Oh, dear, oh, dear, I'm afraid
it'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 we
did 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 he
walked straight up to the nearest soldier, who was cleaning his pipe
with 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 his
voice was a gentleman's voice. "Not a single one in stock. We might suit
you in majors now--and captains are quite cheap. Competent corporals
going for a song. And we have a very nice colonel, too--quiet to ride or
drive."
Oswald does not mind chaff at proper times. But this was not one.
"You seem to be taking it very easy," he said, with disdainful
expression.
"This _is_ an easy," said the gray soldier, sucking at his pipe to see
if it 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 be
beaten."
The soldier saluted. "Good old patriotic sentiment," he said, smiling at
the heartfelt boy. But Oswald could bear no more.
"Which is the colonel?" he asked.
"Over there--near the gray 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 of
vice 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 often
rude 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 in
our allowing Alice to be the one to speak to the colonel. It was she who
wanted to. "However peppery he is he won't kick a girl," she said, and
perhaps this was true.
But of course we all went with her. So there were six of us to stand in
front of the colonel. And as we went along we agreed that we would
salute 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 that
minute to trip over a rifle a soldier had left lying about, and was only
saved from falling by a man in a cocked hat who caught him deftly by the
back of his jacket and stood him up 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 the
colonel. I knew what she meant to say, because she had told me as we
threaded 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 recommend
you to play in some other back yard," said the Cocked-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
over there told us you are. And Maidstone's in danger, and the enemy not
a mile off, and you stand _smoking_." Noel was standing crying, himself,
or something very like it.
"It's quite true," Alice said.