Perhaps it will make them
realise that being a scout is not, after all, only camping in the
woods, long hikes, games in the open. The long hikes fit a boy for
dispatch carrying, the camping teaches him to care for himself when,
if necessity arises, he is thrown on the country, like his older
brother, the fighting man.
A small cog, perhaps, in the machinery of mercy, but a necessary one.
A vital cog in the vast machinery of war--that is the boy scout
to-day.
The day after the declaration of war the Belgian scouts were
mobilised, by order of the minister of war--five thousand boys, then,
ranging in age from twelve to eighteen, an army of children. What a
sight they must have been! How many grown-ups can think of it with dry
eyes? What a terrible emergency was this, which must call the children
into battle!
They were placed at the service of the military authorities, to do any
and every kind of work. Some, with ordinary bicycles or motorcyles,
were made dispatch riders. The senior scouts were enlisted in the
regular army, armed, and they joined the soldiers in barracks. The
younger boys, between thirteen and sixteen, were letter-carriers,
messengers in the different ministries, or orderlies in the hospitals
that were immediately organised. Those who could drive automobiles
were given that to do.
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