Boy Scout Automobilists; Or, Jack Danby in the Woods Read online

  CHAPTER II

  THE RED ARMY

  The Scouts, under Durland and Dick Crawford, went to Guernsey on aspecial car of a regular train. Durland, in making the arrangements forthe trip, had told the adjutant-general of the State militia that hewanted to keep his Troop separate from the regular militiamen, as far aspossible.

  "I've got an idea, from a few words I've heard dropped," he told thatofficial, "that some of the boys rather resent the idea of the BoyScouts being included in the maneuvers. So, for the sake of peace, Ithink perhaps we'd better keep them as far apart as possible. Then, too,I think it will make for better discipline if we stick close togetherand have our own camp."

  "I guess you're right," said the adjutant-general. "I'll give youtransportation to Guernsey for your Troop on the noon train on Sunday.There'll be a special car hitched to the train for you. Report toColonel Henry at Guernsey station, and he'll assign you to campquarters. You understand--you'll use a military camp, and not yourregular Scout camp. The State will provide tents, bedding and utensils,and you will draw rations for your Troop from the commissary departmentduring the maneuvers."

  "I understand, Colonel," said Durland. "You know I served in the Spanishwar, and I was able to get pretty familiar with conditions."

  "I didn't know it, no," said Colonel Roberts, in some surprise. "Whatcommand were you with? I didn't get any further than Tampa myself."

  "I was on General Shafter's staff in Cuba," said Durland, quietly.

  Colonel Roberts looked at the Scout-Master a bit ruefully.

  "You're a regular," he said, half-believingly. "Great Scott, you must bea West Pointer!"

  "I was," said Durland, with a laugh. "So I guess you'll find that myTroop will understand how to behave itself in camp."

  "I surrender!" said the militia colonel, laughing. "If you don't seeanything you want, Captain, just ask me for it. You can have anythingI've got power to sign orders for. And say--be easy on the boys! They'rea bit green, because this active service is something new for most ofus. They mean well, but drilling in an armory and actually getting outand getting a taste of field-service conditions are two differentthings."

  "I think it's all splendid training," said Durland, "and if we'd hadmore of it before the war with Spain there wouldn't have been so manygraves filled by the fever. Why, Colonel, it used to make me sick to goaround among the volunteer camps about Siboney and see the conditionsthere, with men who were brave enough to fight the whole Spanish armyjust inviting fever and all sorts of disease by the rankest sort ofcarelessness. Their officers were brave gentleman, but, while they mighthave been good lawyers and doctors and bankers back home, they had nevertaken the trouble to read the most elementary books on camp life andsanitation. A day's hard reading would have taught them enough to savehundreds of lives. We lost more men by disease than the Spaniards wereable to kill at El Caney and San Juan. And it was all needless."

  "I'm detached from my regiment for this camp," said Colonel Roberts,earnestly, "but I'm going to get hold of Major Jones as soon as I get toGuernsey, and ask him to have you inspect the Fourteenth and criticizeit. Don't hesitate, please, Captain! Just pitch in and tell us what'swrong, and we'll all be eternally grateful to you. And I wish you'd giveme a list of those books you were talking about, will you?"

  "Gladly," said Durland. "All right, Colonel. I'll have the Troop on handfor that train."

  The Scouts enjoyed the trip mightily. Durland took occasion to impresson them some of the differences between a regular Boy Scout encampmentand the strict military camp of which, for the next week, they were toform a part.

  "Remember to stick close to your own camp," he said. "After taps don'tgo out of your own company street. There's no need of it, and I don'twant any visiting around among the other troops. In a place like thiscamp, boys and men don't mix very well, and you'd better stick byyourselves. We won't be there very long, anyway, because we'll probablybe detached from headquarters Monday. The army will break up, too,because this is really only a concentration camp, where the army will bemobilized."

  "When does the war begin?" asked Dick Crawford.

  "War is supposed to be declared at noon to-morrow," said Durland. "It isregarded as inevitable already, however, and General Harkness can beginthrowing out his troops as soon as he has them ready, though not a shotcan be fired before noon. Neither can a single Red or Blue soldier crossthe State line before that time. However, I suspect that the line willbe pretty well patrolled before the actual declaration, so as to preventGeneral Bliss from throwing any considerable force across the linebefore we are ready to meet it. If he could get between Guernsey and theState capital in any force, the chances are that we'd be beaten beforewe ever began to fight at all."

  "That wouldn't do," said Dick Crawford. "Will we have any fortificationsto defend at all, sir?"

  "Not unless we're driven back pretty well toward the capital. Of coursethere are no real fortifications there, but imaginary lines have beenestablished there. However, if we were forced to take to those the moralvictory would be with the Blues, even though they couldn't actuallycompel the surrender of the city within the time limit. If I wereGeneral Harkness, I think I would try at once to deceive the enemy bypresenting a show of strength on his front and carry the war into hisown territory by a concealed flanking movement, and if that wereproperly covered I think we could get between him and his base and cuthim off from his supplies."

  "You mean you'd really take the offensive as the best means of defense?"

  "That's been the principle upon which the best generals always haveworked, from Hannibal to Kuroki," said Durland, his eyes lighting up."Look at the Japanese in their war with Russia. They didn't wait for theRussians to advance through Manchuria. They crossed the border at once,though nine critics out of every ten who had studied the situationexpected them to wait for the Russians to cross the Yalu and make Koreathe great theater of the war. Instead of that they advanced themselves,beat a small Russian army at the Yalu, and pressed on. They met theRussians, who were pouring into Manchuria over their greatTrans-Siberian railway, and drove them back, from Liao Yiang to Mukden.They'd have kept on, too, if they hadn't been stopped by peace."

  "Could they have kept on, though? I always had an idea that they neededthe peace even more than the Russians did."

  "Well, you may be right. That's something that no one can tell. They hadthe confidence of practically unceasing victory from the very beginningof the war. They were safe from invasion, because their fleet absolutelycontrolled the Yellow Sea after the battle of Tsushima, and thereweren't any more Russian battleships to bother them. They had bottled upthe Russian force in Port Arthur, and they were in the position ofhaving everything to gain and very little to lose. Their line ofcommunication was perfectly safe."

  "They must have weakened themselves greatly, though, in that series ofbattles."

  "Yes, they did. And, of course, there is the record of Russia to beconsidered. Russia has always been beaten at the start of a war. It hastaken months of defeat to stiffen the Russians to a real fight. Napoleonmarched to Moscow fairly easily, though he did have some hard fights,like the one at Borodino, on the way. But he had a dreadful time gettingback, and that was what destroyed him. After that Leipzic and Waterloowere inevitable. It was the Russians who really won the fight againstNapoleon, though it remained for Blucher and Wellington to strike thedeath blows."

  "Well, after all, what might have happened doesn't count for so much.It's what did really happen that stands in history, and the Japanesewon. It was by their daring in taking the offensive and striking quicklythat they did that, you think?"

  "It certainly seems so to me! And look at the Germans in the war withFrance. Von Moltke decided that the thing to do was to strike at thevery heart and soul of France--Paris. So he swept on, leaving great,uncaptured fortresses like Metz and Sedan behind him, which was againstevery rule of war as it was understood then. Of course, Metz and Sedanwere both captured, but it was daring strategy on t
he part of VonMoltke. It was supposed then to be suicidal for an army to pass by astrong fortress, even if it were invested."

  "That was how the Boers made so much trouble for the English, too,wasn't it?"

  "Certainly it was. The English expected the Boers to sit back and waitto be attacked. Instead of that the Boers swept down at once on bothsides of the continent, and besieged Kimberly and Ladysmith. That washow they were able to prolong the war. They took the offensive, in spiteof being outnumbered, and while they could never have really hoped towin, they put up a wonderful fight."

  "Well, I suppose we'll know in a day or so what General Harkness plansto do."

  "Hardly! We're not connected with the staff in any way, and he'lldiscuss his plans only with his own staff officers. He has an excellentreputation. He commanded a brigade in the Porto Rico campaign, you know,and did very well, though that campaign was a good deal of a joke. Butone reason that it was a joke was that it was so well planned by GeneralMiles and the others under him that there was no use, at any stage ofit, in a real resistance on the part of the Spaniards. They were beatenbefore a shot was fired, and they had sense enough not to waste livesuselessly."

  "Then they weren't cowardly?"

  "No, indeed, and don't let anyone tell you they were, either. TheSpaniards were a brave and determined enemy, but they were so crippledand hampered by orders from home that they were unable to make much of ashowing in the field. We'll learn some time, I'm afraid, that we wonthat war too easily. Overconfidence is our worst national fault. Justbecause we never have been beaten, we think we're invincible. I hope thelesson, when it does come, and if it does come, won't be too costly."

  The run to Guernsey was not a very long one. The train arrived there atfour o'clock in the afternoon, and the Scouts, armed only with theirclasp knives, Scout axes and sticks, lined up on the platform inexcellent order. Dick Crawford, who ranked as a lieutenant for theencampment, took command, while Durland reported the arrival to ColonelHenry, as he had been ordered to do.

  Half a dozen extra sidings had been laid for the occasion by therailroad, and on these long trains, each carrying militia, had beenshunted. Clad all in khaki, or, rather, in the substitute adopted by theAmerican army as more serviceable and less easy to distinguish at adistance, a stout cloth of olive drab, thousands of sturdy militiamenwere standing at ease, waiting for orders to move. Field guns, too, andhorses, for the mounted troops, were being unloaded, and the scene wasone of the greatest activity. Hoarse cries filled the air, but there wasonly the appearance of confusion, since the citizen soldiers understoodtheir work thoroughly, and each man had his part to play in thespectacle.

  From one of the trains, too, three great structures with spreading wingshad been unloaded, and the eyes of the Boy Scouts turned constantlytoward the spot where mechanics were busily engaged in assembling theaeroplanes which were to serve, to some extent, as the eyes of the army.

  "Glad to see you, Captain," Colonel Henry said to Durland when theScout-Master reported the arrival of his Troop. "I'll send an orderlywith you to show you the location of your camp. Colonel Roberts directedme to give you an isolated location, and I have done so. It's a littleway from drinking water, but I guess you won't mind that."

  "Not a bit, sir," said Durland, smilingly.

  "Very well, Captain. Report to General Harkness's tent at eight o'clock,sir, for your instructions. I think you will find that the General hasenough work planned to keep your Troop pretty busy to-morrow. We shallall watch your work with a great deal of interest. We've been hearing alot about Durland's Scouts."

  Durland saluted then, and turned with the orderly to rejoin his Troop.

  In two hours the camp was ready. The neat row of tents, making a shortbut perfectly planned and arranged company street, were all up, beddingwas ready, and supper was being cooked from the rations supplied by thecommissary department. Durland, with active recollections of commissarysupplies, had been inclined to bring along extra supplies for his Troop,but had decided against doing so, though he knew that many of themilitia companies had taken the opposite course to his own, and hadbrought along enough supplies to set an excellent table.

  "I want the boys to get a taste of real service," he told Dick, "and itwon't hurt them a bit to rough it for a week. They get enough to eat,even if there isn't much variety, and the quality isn't of the best. Thestuff is wholesome, anyhow--that's what counts."

  By the time he returned from headquarters, the Troop was sound asleep,save for the sentries, Tom Binns and Harry French, who challenged himbriskly.