Part 3 (2/2)

”Right oh! I'll come around for you early. Good-night!”

”Good-night!”

Neither of them really doubted for a moment that war was coming. It was in the air. The attack on the little shop that they had helped to avert was only one of many, although there was no real rioting in London. Such scenes were simply the result of excitement, and no great harm was done anywhere. But the tension of which such attacks were the result was everywhere. For the next three days there was very little for anyone to do.

Everyone was waiting. France and Germany were at war; the news came that the Germans had invaded Luxembourg, and were crossing the Belgian border.

And then, on Tuesday night, came the final news. England had declared war.

For the moment the news seemed to stun everyone. It had been expected, and still it came as a surprise. But then London rose to the occasion. There was no hysterical cheering and shouting; everything was quiet. Harry Fleming saw a wonderful sight--a whole people aroused and determined. There was no foolish boasting; no one talked of a British general eating his Christmas dinner in Berlin. But even d.i.c.k Mercer, excitable and erratic as he had always been, seemed to have undergone a great change.

”My father's going to the war,” he told Harry on Wednesday morning. He spoke very seriously. ”He was a captain in the Boer War, you know, so he knows something about soldiering. He thinks he'll be taken, though he's a little older than most of the men who'll go. He'll be an officer, of course. And he says I've got to look after the mater when he's gone.”

”You can do it, too,” said Harry, surprised, despite himself, by the change in his chum's manner. ”You seem older than I now, d.i.c.k, and I've always thought you were a kid!”

”The pater says we've all got to be men, now,” said d.i.c.k, steadily. ”The mater cried a bit when he said he was going--but I think she must have known all the time he was going. Because when he told us--we were at the breakfast table--she sort of cried a little, and then she stopped.

”'I've got everything ready for you,' she said.

”And he looked at her, and smiled. 'So you knew I was going?' he asked her.

And she nodded her head, and he got up and kissed her. I never saw him do that before--he never did that before, when I was looking on,” d.i.c.k concluded seriously.

”I hope he'll come back all right, d.i.c.k,” said Harry. ”It's hard, old chap!”

”I wouldn't have him stay home for anything!” said d.i.c.k, fiercely. ”And I will do my share! You see if I don't! I don't care what they want me to do!

I'll run errands--I'll sweep out the floors in the War Office, so that some man can go to war! I'll do _any_thing!”

Somehow Harry realized in that moment how hard it was going to be to beat a country where even the boys felt like that! The change in the usually thoughtless, light-hearted d.i.c.k impressed him more than anything else had been able to do with the real meaning of what had come about so suddenly.

And he was thankful, too, all at once, that in America the fear and peril of war were so remote. It was glorious, it was thrilling, but it was terrible, too. He wondered how many of the scouts he knew, and how many of those in school would lose their fathers or their brothers in this war that was beginning. Truly, there is no argument for peace that can compare with war itself! Yet how slowly we learn!

Grenfel had gone, and the troop was now in charge of a new scoutmaster, Francis Wharton. Mr. Wharton was a somewhat older man. At first sight he didn't look at all like the man to lead a group of scouts, but that, as it turned out, was due to physical infirmities. One foot had been amputated at the time of the Boer War, in which he had served with Grenfel. As a result he was incapacitated from active service, although, as the scouts soon learned, he had begged to be allowed to go in spite of it. He appeared at the scout headquarters, the pavilion of a small local cricket club, on Wednesday morning.

”I don't know much about this--more shame to me,” he said, cheerfully, standing up to address the boys. ”But I think we can make a go of it--I think we'll be able to do something for the Empire, boys. My old friend John Grenfel told me a little; he said you'd pull me through. These are war times and you'll have to do for me what many a company in the army does for a young officer.”

They gave him a hearty cheer that was a promise in itself.

”I can tell you I felt pretty bad when I found they wouldn't let me go to the front,” he went on. ”It seemed hard to have to sit back and read the newspapers when I knew I ought to be doing some of the work. But then Grenfel told me about you boys, and what you meant to do, and I felt better. I saw that there was a chance for me to help, after all. So here I am. These are times when ordinary routine doesn't matter so much--you can understand that. Grenfel put the troop at the disposal of the commander at Ealing. And his first request was that I should send two scouts to him at once. Franklin, I believe you are the senior patrol leader? Yes? Then I shall appoint you a.s.sistant scoutmaster, as Mr. Greene has not returned from his holiday in France. Will you suggest the names of two scouts for this service?”

Franklin immediately went up to the new scoutmaster, and they spoke together quietly, while a buzz of excited talk rose among the scouts. Who would be honored by the first chance? Every scout there wanted to hear his name called.

”I think they'll take me, for one,” said Ernest Graves. He was one of the patrol to which both Harry Fleming and d.i.c.k Mercer belonged, and the biggest and oldest scout of the troop, except for Leslie Franklin. He had felt for some time that he should be a patrol leader. Although he excelled in games, and was unquestionably a splendid scout, Graves was not popular, for some reason, among his fellows. He was not exactly unpopular, either; but there was a little resentment at his habit of pus.h.i.+ng himself forward.

”I don't see why you should go more than anyone else, Graves,” said young Mercer. ”I think they'll take the ones who are quickest. We're probably wanted for messenger work.”

”Well, I'm the oldest. I ought to have first chance,” said Graves.

But the discussion was ended abruptly.

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