Surgeons, nurses, priests, nuns, volunteer workers who substitute for
lack of training both courage and zeal, these are a part of the
machinery of mercy. There is another element--the boy scouts.
During the early days of the war the boy scouts of England, then on
school holiday, did marvellous work. Boys of fourteen made repeated
trips across the Channel, bringing back from France children,
invalids, timorous women. They volunteered in the hospitals, ran
errands, carried messages, were as useful as only willing boys can be.
They did scout service, too, guarding the railway lines and assisting
in watching the Channel coast; but with the end of the holiday most of
the English boy scouts were obliged to go back to school. Their
activities were not over, but they were largely curtailed.
There were five thousand boy scouts in Belgium at the beginning of the
war. I saw them everywhere--behind the battle lines, on the driving
seats of ambulances, at the doors of hospitals. They were very calm.
Because I know a good deal about small boys I smothered a riotous
impulse to hug them, and spoke to them as grown-up to grown-up. Thus
approached, they met my advances with dignity, but without excitement.
And after a time I learned something about them from the Chief Scout
of Belgium; perhaps it will show the boy scouts of America what they
will mean to the country in time of war.
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