[Illustration: "SO WE LED HIM ALONG TO THE AMBUSH"]
We told him exactly. 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 an
hour."
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 of
command which the present author is sorry he can't remember.
Then he bade us boys lead the way. I tell you it felt fine, marching at
the head of a regiment. Alice got a lift on the Cocked-Hatted One's
horse. It was a red-roan steed of might, exactly as if it had been in a
ballad. They call a gray-roan a "blue" in South Africa, the
Cocked-Hatted One said.
We led the British army by unfrequented lanes till we got to the gate of
Sugden's Waste Wake pasture. Then the colonel called a whispered halt,
and choosing two of us to guide him, the dauntless and discerning
commander went on, on foot, with an orderly. He chose Dicky and Oswald
as guides. So we led him to the ambush, and we went through it as
quietly as we could. But twigs do crackle and snap so when you are
reconnoitring, or anxious to escape detection for whatever reason.
Our Colonel's orderly crackled most. If you're not near enough to tell a
colonel by the crown and stars on his shoulder-strap, you can tell him
by the orderly behind him, like "follow my leader."
"Look out!" said Oswald in a low but commanding whisper, "the camp's
down 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, baffled
beyond the power of speech. While he was struggling with his baffledness
the British Colonel had his squint. He also drew back, and said a word
that 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 tents
like mushrooms, and an enemy cleaning a caldron."
"With sand," said Dicky.
"That's most convincing," said the Colonel, and I did not like the way
he said it.
"I say," Oswald said, "let's get to the top corner of the ambush--the
wood, I mean. You can see the cross-roads from there."
We did, and quickly, for the crackling of branches no longer dismayed
our almost despairing spirits.
We came to the edge of the wood, and Oswald's patriotic heart really did
give a jump, and he cried, "There they are, on the Dover Road."
Our miscellaneous sign-board had done its work.
"By Jove, young un, you're right! And in quarter column, too! We've got
'em on toast--on toast, egad!"
I never heard any one 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 orderly
to tell the Major to advance two companies on the left flank and take
cover. Then we led him back through the wood the nearest way, because he
said he must rejoin the main body at once. We found the main body Very
friendly with Noel and H. O. and the others, and Alice was talking to
the 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 us chocolate
out of a pocket in his saddle." Oswald thought about the roast rabbit
then--and he is not ashamed to own it--yet he did not say a word. But
Alice is really not a bad sort. She had saved two bars of chocolate for
him and Dicky. Even in war girls can sometimes be useful in their humble
way.
The Colonel fussed about and said, "Take cover there!" and everybody hid
in the ditch, and the horses and the Cocked Hat, with Alice, retreated
down the road out of sight. We were in the ditch too. It was muddy--but
nobody thought of their boots in that perilous moment. It seemed a long
time we were crouching there. Oswald began to feel the water squelching
in his boots; so we held our breath and listened. Oswald laid his ear
to the road like a Red Indian. You would not do this in time of peace,
but when your county is in danger you care but little about keeping your
ears clean. His backwoods strategy was successful. He rose and dusted
himself and said:
"They're coming!"
It was true. The footsteps of the approaching foe were now to be heard
quite audibly, even by ears in their natural position. The wicked enemy
approached. They were marching with a careless swaggeringness that
showed how little they suspected the horrible doom which was about to
teach them England's might and supremeness. Just as the enemy turned the
corner so that we could see them, the Colonel shouted:
"Right section, fire!" and there was a deafening banging.
The enemy's officer said something, and then the enemy got confused and
tried to get into the fields through the hedges. But all was vain. There
was firing now from our men, on the left as well as the right. And then
our Colonel strode nobly up to the enemy's Colonel and demanded
surrender. He told me so afterwards. His exact words are only known to
himself and the other Colonel. But the enemy's Colonel said, "I would
rather die than surrender," or words to that effect.
Our Colonel returned to his men and gave the order to fix bayonets, and
even Oswald felt his manly cheek turn pale at the thought of the amount
of blood about 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 a hedge--as carelessly as if the air was not full of lead and steel
at all. Another man rode behind him with a lance and a red pennon on it.
I think he must have been the enemy's General coming to tell his men not
to throw away their lives on a forlorn hope, for directly he said they
were captured the enemy gave in and owned that they were. The enemy's
Colonel saluted and ordered his men to form quarter column again. I
should 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 to
our Colonel:
"By Jove, old man, you got me clean that time! Your scouts seem to have
marked us down uncommonly neatly."
It was a proud moment when our Colonel laid his military hand on
Oswald's shoulder and said:
"This is my chief scout," which were high words, but not undeserved, and
Oswald owns he felt red with gratifying pride when he heard them.
"So you are the traitor, young man," said the wicked Colonel, going on
with his cheek.
Oswald bore it because our Colonel had, and you should be generous to a
fallen 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 have
done, 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 the
secret of their acts, which is what Baden-Powell always does when the
natives rebel in South Africa; and Denis Foulkes thought of altering the
sign-posts to lead the foe astray. And if we did cause all this
fighting, and get Maidstone threatened with capture and all that, it was
only because we didn't believe Greek things could happen in Great
Britain and Ireland, even if you sow dragon's teeth, and besides, some
of us were not asked about sowing them."
Then the Cocked-Hatted One led his horse and walked with us and made us
tell him all about it, and so did the Colonel. The wicked Colonel
listened too, which was only another proof of his cheek.
And Oswald told the tale in the modest yet manly way that some people
think he has, and gave the others all the credit they deserved. His
narration was interrupted no less than four times by shouts of "Bravo!"
in which the enemy's Colonel once more showed his cheek by joining. By
the time the story was told we were in sight of another camp. It was the
British 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 of
battle that he asked the enemy's Colonel too. With his usual cheek he
accepted. We were jolly hungry.
When every one had had as much tea as they possibly could, the Colonel
shook hands with us all, and to Oswald he said:
"Well, good-bye, my brave scout. I must mention your name in my
despatches to the War Office."
H. O. interrupted him to say, "His name's Oswald Cecil Bastable, and
mine 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 can
possibly help it. _You_ didn't know it till now.
"Mr. Oswald Bastable," the Colonel went on--he had the decency not to
take 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 done
for your country. But meantime, perhaps, you'll accept five shillings
from a grateful comrade-in-arms."
Oswald felt heart-feltly sorry to wound the good Colonel's feelings, but
he had to remark that he had only done his duty, and he was sure no
British scout would take five bob for doing that. "And besides," he
said, with that feeling of justice which is part of his young character,
"it was the others just as much as me."
"Your sentiments, sir," said the Colonel, who was one of the politest
and most discerning colonels I ever saw, "your sentiments do you honor.
But, Bastables all, and--and non-Bastables" (he couldn't remember
Foulkes; it's not such an interesting name as Bastable, of course), "at
least 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 and
knowing 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 exactly
right, deducting twopence each for six teas."
This seemed cheap for the three cups of tea and the three eggs and all
the strawberry-jam and bread-and-butter Oswald had had, as well as what
the others ate, and Lady's and Pincher's teas, but I suppose soldiers
get things cheaper than civilians, which is only right.
Oswald took the five shillings then, there being no longer any scruples
why he should not.
Just as we had parted from the brave Colonel and the rest we saw a
bicycle coming. It was Albert's uncle. He got off and said:
"What on earth have you been up to? What were you doing with those
volunteers?"
We told him the wild adventures of the day, and he listened, and then he
said he would withdraw the word volunteers if we liked.
But the seeds of doubt were sown in the breast of Oswald. He was now
almost sure that we had made jolly fools of ourselves without a moment's
pause throughout the whole of this eventful day. He said nothing at the
time, but after supper he had it out with Albert's uncle about the word
which had been withdrawn.
Albert's uncle said, of course, no one could be sure that the dragon's
teeth hadn't come up in the good old-fashioned way, but that, on the
other hand, it was barely possible that both the British and the enemy
were only volunteers having a field-day or sham fight, and he rather
thought the Cocked-Hatted Man was not a general, but a doctor. And the
man with a red pennon carried behind him _might_ have been the umpire.
Oswald never told the others a word of this. Their young breasts were
all panting with joy because they had saved their country; and it would
have 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--if he
_had_ been. Besides, Albert's uncle did say that no one could be sure
about the dragon's teeth.
The thing that makes Oswald feel most that, perhaps, the whole thing was
a beastly sell was that we didn't see any wounded. But he tries not to
think of this. And if he goes into the army when he grows up, he will
not go quite green. He has had experience of the arts of war and the
tented field. And a real colonel has called him "Comrade-in-Arms," which
is exactly what Lord Roberts called his own soldiers when he wrote home
about them.