While the man was tying a bandage over his head, Kim noticed that he was wearing a locket like his own, so Kim showed him his. Immediately the man brought into the conversation some of his secret words, and Kim answered with the proper ones in reply. Then the stranger got into a corner with Kim and explained to him that he was carrying out some Secret Service work, and had been found out and was hunted by some enemies who had nearly killed him. They probably knew he was in the train and would therefore telegraph down the line to their friends that he was coming. He wanted to get his message to a certain police officer without being caught by the enemy, but he did not know how to do it if they were already warned of his coming. Kim hit upon the solution.
Kim disguised the man as a beggar, with a mixture of flour and ashes.
In India there are a number of holy beggars who travel about the country. They are considered very holy, and people always help them with food and money. They wear next to no clothing, smear themselves with ashes, and paint certain marks on their faces. So Kim set about disguising
the man as a beggar. He made a mixture of flour and ashes, which he took from the bowl of a pipe, undressed his friend and smeared the mixture all over him. He also smeared the man’s wounds so that they did not show. Finally, with the aid of a little paint-box which he carried, he painted the proper face marks on the man’s forehead and brushed his hair down to look wild and shaggy like that of a beggar, and covered it with dust, so that the man’s own mother would not have known him.
Soon afterwards they arrived at a big station. Here, on the platform, they found the police officer to whom the report was to be made. The imitation beggar pushed up against the officer and got scolded by him in English. The beggar replied with a string of native abuse into which he mixed the secret words. The police officer at once realized from the secret words that this beggar was an agent. He pretended to arrest him and marched him off to the police station where he could talk to him quietly and receive his report.
Later Kim became acquainted with another agent of the Department—an educated native—and was able to give him great assistance in capturing two officers acting as spies.
These and other adventures of Kim are well worth reading because they illustrate the kind of valuable work a Boy Scout can do for his country in times of emergency if he is sufficiently trained and sufficiently intelligent.
Boys of Mafeking
We had an example of how useful boys can be on active service, when a corps of boys was formed in the defence of Mafeking, 1899-1900, during the South African War.
Mafeking, you may know, was a small, ordinary country town out on the open plains of South Africa. Nobody ever thought of it being attacked by an enemy. It just shows you how, in war, you must be prepared for what is possible, not only what is probable.
Here is a map of South Africa. If you look carefully, you will find Mafeking and many other places mentioned in this book.
When we found we were to be attacked at Mafeking, we ordered our garrison to the points they were to protect—some 700 trained men, police, and volunteers. Then we armed the townsmen, of whom there were some 300. Some of them were old frontiersmen, and quite equal to the occasion. But many of them were young shopmen, clerks, and others, who had never handled a rifle before.
Altogether, then, we only had about a thousand men to defend the place, which was about five miles round and contained 600 white women and children and about 7,000 natives.
Every man was of value, and as the weeks passed by and many were killed and wounded, the duties of fighting and keeping watch at night became harder for the rest.
The Mafeking Cadet Corps
It was then that Lord Edward Cecil, the chief staff officer, gathered together the boys of Mafeking and made them into a cadet corps. He put them in uniform and drilled them. And a jolly smart and useful lot they were. Previously, we had used a large number of men for carrying orders and messages, keeping lookout and acting as orderlies, and so on. These duties were now handed over to the boy cadets, and the men were released to strengthen the firing-line.
The boys of Mafeking did excellent service. They were gathered together into a cadet corps, put into uniform and drilled.
The cadets, under their sergeant- major, a boy named Goodyear, did good work, and well deserved the medals they got at the end of the war.
Many of them rode bicycles, and we were thus able to establish a post by which people could send letters to their friends in the different forts, or about the town, without going out under fire themselves. For these letters we made postage stamps which had on them a picture of a cadet bicycle orderly.
I said to one of these boys on one occasion, when he came in through a rather heavy fire:
“You will get hit one of these days riding about like that when shells are flying.”
“I pedal so quick, sir, they’ll never catch me!” he replied.
These boys didn’t seem to mind the bullets one bit. They were always ready to carry out orders, though it meant risking their lives every time.
Would You Do It?
Would any of you do that? If an enemy were firing down this street, and you had to take a message across to a house on the other side, would you do it? I am sure you would—although probably you wouldn’t much like doing it.
But you want to prepare yourself for such things beforehand. It’s just like taking a header into cold water. A fellow who is accustomed to diving thinks nothing of it—he has practised it over
and over again. But ask a fellow who has never done it, and he will be afraid.
So, too, with a boy who has been accustomed to obey orders at once, whether there is risk about
it or not. The moment he has to do a thing he does it, no matter how great the danger is to him,
while another chap who has never cared to obey would hesitate, and would then be despised even by his former
