The Chief Scout Talks

Taranaki Daily News, 26 April 1930, Page 25 (Supplement)

The Chief Scout Talks

THE CYCLISTS’ BADGE., (By Lt. Gen. Lord Baden-Powell.) Amongst the tests for the scout cyclist’s badge is one which says that the scout who gains it must be willing at any time to • use hie bicycle in the "King’s service, if called upon in case of emergency. During the months before the Great War,many scouts had qualified for this badge, little thinking, perhaps, how soon they would be put to the test. You have heard how useful these scouts were as messengers and dispatch riders, . especially in those early days of the war when it became necessary, to guard our telephone and telegraph wires, railway bridges, and so on. In many other emergencies the knowledge of how to ride a bicycle and —what is more important—how to carry a message correctly, has been very useful to scouts. ’ There are many ways of carrying dispatches. One way is for the dispatch runner to know his message by heart, to'carry it in his head only, and to repeat it at the end of his run. This

sounds quite easy and simple, but it is wonderful how seldom it succeeds unless the dispatch runner is really good at remembering a message. A fellow who can do this is likely to be a really useful man later on.

In a good many troops the scouter writes down a message and reads it out to a dispatch runner and sends him off to give the message to someone a mile or two away. The scouter keeps the paper himself. The “someone” who receives it then writes down the message as given to him and sends it back to the scouter, who compares the note with the message he sent out, and thus the scout can see for himself if he made a mistake.

With a little practice scouts become very good at- this work. But at first it is rather like the game of Russian scandal. Ever played it? You sit in a ring and the first scout whispers a message of, say, fifteen words in length to the scout beside him, who in turn re-

peats it to his next neighbour, and so on round the circle till the message comes round to' the scout who started it. I can tell you he has some difficulty in recognising it as the one he sent out. Probably °one word . has got changed each time until the whole thing is a perfect muddle of words and the sense is completely lost. BE ACCURATE. Here is a small instance of what once happened to me when I employed a scout who ought to have known better. I was out shooting and I called up a scout and said, “Go to Mr. Duckworth, who lives in that house,' and tell him that I am shooting near the road to Norland, and if he likes to "bring hie gun 1 should be glad if he would come and shoot with me.” Twice I repeated the message to the boy and off he went. Mr., Duckworth did not come, but later he sent me a letter in which he wrote: “Your scout came to me and said, Sir Robert' wants to know if you will come out beating this afternoon.” He did not want to come out beating, so of course he said no thank you. Just a little difference in a word or two makes all the difference in a message. In that ease it was not of great importance, beyond the natural annoyance of people who get wrong messages, but there are times when lives may be lost or serious accidents may occur through messages being jvrongly delivered. . It is the same in map-drawing. I know a case, of a map in which a sign had been wrongly drawn through carelessness, a little error which cost the lives of hundreds of men. It was in the war between France and Germany in 1870. The German general was using map in which the man who had drawn it had carelessly sketched a road which went through a cutting uvithout the outer line round the shading of it, so that it looked like a road on an embankment. Heavy fighting was going on at this spot; the French guns were ranged, straight into the cutting and the German troops on the road could not shelter from the fire, and were being mown down.' ' The General was at some distance from this part of the battlefield, and when he heard of it be looked at his map and said, “The road is on an embankment, so the men have only to get f down to one side or the other and they l will be protected from fire.” So he ' ordered more and more men to be sent. 1 They were mowed down in their turn, • and he sent still more, until in the end ■ they succeeded in getting through the ' place by force of numbers; but they I lost three thousand men at that one ! spot. The general would never have i attempted it had lie not been misled ' by the mistake in the map. Just two '■ lines left out, through carelessness, ’ caused all those deaths. i In the smallest thing that you are ; trusted to do you can never be too [ careful. You can never tell what 1 harm a careless word or a piece of for- ! o-etfulness on your part may cause. Boy > scouts arc generally looked upon as reliable people who can be trusted not to forget orders. Mind you uphold that name which your older brothers won for your movement.