SCOUT TACTICS.
Just as he feared, when Rob managed to turn around and look back, he
found that Tubby had gone and done it again. Whether he had missed his
footing, or something had given way under his additional weight, was a
question that could not be decided.
Before Merritt, close in his rear, could thrust out a helping hand, poor
Tubby had fallen. The river was all of thirty feet below, and just there
the water looked unusually unpleasant, because it had considerable foam
on the surface, there being a shallow rift above the wider stretch.
By the merest accident in the world, Tubby's clutching hands had
succeeded in fastening upon a loose steel stay that hung downward for
ten feet. It must have given the fat boy a considerable wrench when he
gripped this, but he had clung with the tenacity of despair.
When Rob turned around, the first thing he saw was Merritt kneeling
there on the violently agitated girder over which they were making their
crossing. He was staring downward, and, of course, Rob instantly focused
his gaze in the same quarter.
He had expected to see Tubby splashing about like a porpoise in the
stream far down below; but, instead, was astonished to discover him
clinging desperately to that loose piece of steel wreckage.
Tubby had his face turned up toward his chums. There was not a particle
of the rosy color to be seen that as a rule dyed his ample face; in
fact, he was as white as a ghost. A beseeching look was in his eyes.
Tubby knew that swinging there he was in a serious predicament, from
which there would be only one escape if he were left to his own devices.
That would mean he must release his frantic clutch on the swaying steel
rope, and drop down into the river, a possibility he shuddered to
contemplate.
"Hey! get me up out of this, fellows, can't you?" he whined, for, after
his recent gymnastic efforts, he no longer had sufficient breath to
shout.
"Clasp your legs around the thing, can't you, Tubby?" said Rob, who saw
that the strain on the other's arms must be tremendous, judging from the
way he was hanging there.
The advice struck Tubby as well worth following; so he immediately began
to work his short legs violently until he found that he could, as Rob
suggested, twist them around his slender support.
When that had been accomplished it was much easier for him. He began to
suck in some encouragement once more.
"But won't you try and get me up again, Rob?" he asked piteously. "I
can't hang on here for very long, like a regular old pendulum to a
clock. I'm not wound up for a seven-day-goer. And say, I'd hate to have
to drop kerplunk into all that water down there. Think up some way to
grab me out of this, won't you, Rob?"
"I'm trying to, Tubby. Keep still a bit, and let me think," he was told.
In one way, of course, it was a ridiculous sight, and that was why Rob
winked his eye at Merritt when he thought he could detect a whimsical
look on the other's face. Still, it was anything but a laughing matter
to poor Tubby, who felt that he had a tremendous amount at stake. Every
time he found himself compelled to let his horrified eyes turn downward
that noisy stream seemed to be more and more formidable to him. He
fairly hated it.
"Can't you climb up again, Tubby?" asked Merritt, who knew exactly what
he would have quickly done had he found himself placed in the same
predicament.
"I'd like to, the worst kind," the fat scout assured him, "but you know
I'm feeling very queer and weak, so I don't believe I could do much that
way, unless," he added quickly, "I had some assistance from above."
"And that's just what I'm going to try and give you, Tubby."
While Rob was saying this he had unbuttoned his coat. This he proceeded
to take off, first making sure to transfer anything he had in the
pockets, so that he might not suffer a loss.
"Now, by leaning down here, I think I can reach you with this coat," he
proceeded to explain. "If I had a rope, it would be much easier, for
with a loop I could make a sure thing of it. But half a loaf is better
than no bread, they say."
"Of course it is, Rob," agreed Tubby, who was in no position to quarrel
with any measures that were taken for his relief. "But what can I do
with the coat when it comes down to me? I don't feel that cold, you
know."
"I'm going to keep hold of one end, Tubby," Rob explained quietly, in a
way to convince the imperiled scout that everything was working as
arranged, and that he need not worry. "With just one hand you get a good
grip of the end that's near you; then start in to try and climb, using
your clasped legs the best you know how. And don't get discouraged if
you only come up an inch or so at a time. When you're within reach
Merritt will hang down and lend a hand, too."
All of which was undoubtedly very cheering to Tubby. This thing of
having stanch comrades in times of distress was, he had always
believed, one of the best parts of the scout brotherhood.
[Illustration: He immediately took a firm grip--and commenced to wriggle
the best he knew how.--_Page 247._]
He immediately took a firm grip of the dangling coat-sleeve, and
commenced to wriggle the best he knew how.
"I'm making it, Rob; sure I am!" he presently announced. "That time I
slid up as much as six inches. It was a bully hunch, that coat racket of
yours. Keep her going, Rob, and I'll get there yet. Never give
up--that's my motto, you know. I may get in lots of scrapes, but somehow
I always do manage to crawl out, don't I?"
"Save your breath, Tubby, for your work; don't chatter so much," Rob
told him.
Merritt was ready to do his part. He had clasped a leg about the girder
to help hold him, and was leaning as far down as possible. Presently the
grunting fat chum reached a place where he could be taken hold of, and
so Merritt fastened a hand in his coat back of his neck.
"Here you come, Tubby," he said encouragingly.
"Don't let go with your hands or knees yet!" warned Rob; for, should
Tubby be so foolish as to do this, the chances were that such a sudden
weight might drag Merritt down, and both would take the plunge.
It required considerable effort to finally land Tubby on the horizontal
girder, but in the end this was accomplished. Then all of them sat there
to rest after their recent violent exertions.
"I don't see how I came to do it," Tubby finally remarked, as though he
deemed it necessary that some sort of explanation were forthcoming. "I
was moving along as nice as you please, when all of a sudden I felt
myself going. I must have grabbed at the air, and happened to get a grip
on that hanging steel rope. Well, it might have been a whole lot worse
for me! I'm glad I didn't get soused in the river. And I'll never forget
how nobly my chums came to the rescue."
"Oh! stow that sort of talk, Tubby," Merritt told him. "That's what
we're here for. What's a scout wearing his khaki uniform for if it isn't
to remind him what he owes to his chums? You'd do the same for us any
old time."
"Just try me, that's all," declared the grateful Tubby; and then,
changing his tune, he went on to say: "Here we are, out in the middle
of the span, and it's just as hard to go back as it is to move forward.
So when you're ready, Rob, start off again. I'll try not to slip any
more. The next time you might see my finish."
"I'm sure it would see mine," remarked Merritt, rubbing the arm he had
used in order to tug at Tubby's great weight.
Luckily nothing more happened, and they were able to reach the opposite
shore in safety. Tubby sank down and panted, as soon as he crawled off
the end of that fragment of the steel bridge.
"Thank goodness that job is over with!" he exclaimed fervently, "and all
I hope is that we don't have to come back this way."
"Oh! you're getting to be an expert tight-rope walker by now, Tubby,"
Merritt said encouragingly. "A little more practice, and you could apply
for a job with Barnum & Bailey's circus."
"Thank you, Merritt, but I have loftier aims than that calling," said
Tubby disdainfully.
"Well, let's be getting on," suggested Rob. "We've spent enough time
here already."
"Thank goodness I don't have to tramp along soaked to the skin," Tubby
was heard to tell himself, with gratitude.
The road skirted the river bank on the side they were now on for some
little distance at least. Rob continued to keep a watchful eye around as
they progressed. He knew there was always a chance that they might meet
some detachment of troops hurrying along; though the fact of the bridge
being down must be known to the Germans, and would deter them from
trying to make use of this road until a temporary structure could be
thrown across the river by their engineers.
Most of the inhabitants had fled from that part of the country. Some may
have drifted into Brussels before the capital fell into the hands of the
invaders, when August was two-thirds gone; and they had remained there
ever since. Others had fled in the direction of Ghent and Antwerp, in
the hope that these cities might hold out against the German army.
Several times they saw old men at work in the fields, trying to save a
part of their farm crops, though without horses they could do little.
Every beast of burden had been drafted for one or the other army; what
the Belgians missed the Germans had certainly commandeered to take the
place of horses lost in the numerous fierce engagements thus far fought.
On consulting his little chart Rob soon found that it would be necessary
for them to abandon this good road, and take to a smaller one that
branched off from it, winding in through the trees, and past farms that
had been thrifty before this blight fell on the land.
"Here's a wood ahead of us that looks as if it covered considerable
territory, and you don't often see such a bunch of timber in Belgium,"
Merritt announced presently.
"Because, with seven million inhabitants to such a small area," added
Rob, "it's always been necessary that they employ what is called
intensive farming. That is, they get as much out of the soil as
possible, even to several crops off of the same patch of ground during
the year."
"Belgium is a busy manufacturing country, too, or has been up to now,"
Merritt continued, which information he may have remembered from his
training at school, or else found in some guide-book purchased in New
York City before their steamer sailed for England.
"I wonder what we'll strike on the other side of this wood?" Tubby
questioned, always speculating on things to come; and possibly hoping
then and there they might run across a hospitable farmer who would
kindly offer to provide them with some sort of breakfast.
"That's yet to be seen," Merritt told him. "Here's where there seems to
be a sort of swampy patch, with water and bogs. Listen to the frogs
croaking, will you? And I can see more than a few whoppers, too. Chances
are this is a frog farm that supplies the big hotels in Brussels and
Antwerp. You know the French are keen on frogs' legs, and pay fancy
prices for them by the pound."
"I've eaten them more than once," Rob informed them, "and I never had
spring chicken that was more toothsome and tender."
Whereupon Tubby cast a wistful eye toward the border of the frogpond,
where the big greenbacks could be seen, sitting partly in the water, and
calling to one another socially.
The boys kept walking on, and finally came to where the trees began to
get more scanty. About this time Rob made a discovery that was not at
all pleasing.
"Hold up, fellows," he said in a hoarse whisper that thrilled Tubby in
particular, "our road is blocked. There's a whole German army corps
camped ahead of us; and it's either go back, or else hide here in the
woods till they take a notion to break camp and clear out. Let's drop
down in the brush and talk it over."