Traffics and Discoveries

Bayley took me through the railings, and gravely returned the salute of a freckled twelve-year-old near by.

"What's your corps?" said the Colonel of that Imperial Guard battalion to that child.

"Eighth District Board School, fourth standard, Sir. We aren't out to-day." Then, with a twinkle, "I go to First Camp next year."

"What are those boys yonder – that squad at the double?"

"Jewboys, Sir. Jewish Voluntary Schools, Sir."

"And that full company extending behind the three elms to the south-west?"

"Private day-schools, Sir, I think. Judging distance, Sir."

"Can you come with us?"

"Certainly, Sir."

"Here's the raw material at the beginning of the process," said Bayley to me.

We strolled on towards the strains of "A Bicycle Built for Two," breathed jerkily into a mouth-organ by a slim maid of fourteen. Some dozen infants with clenched fists and earnest legs were swinging through the extension movements which that tune calls for. A stunted hawthorn overhung the little group, and from a branch a dirty white handkerchief flapped in the breeze. The girl blushed, scowled, and wiped the mouth-organ on her sleeve as we came up.

"We're all waiting for our big bruvvers," piped up one bold person in blue breeches – seven if he was a day.

"It keeps 'em quieter, Sir," the maiden lisped. "The others are with the regiments."

"Yeth, and they've all lots of blank for you," said the gentleman in blue breeches ferociously.

"Oh, Artie! 'Ush!" the girl cried.

"But why have they lots of blank for us?" Bayley asked. Blue Breeches stood firm.

"'Cause – 'cause the Guard's goin' to fight the Schools this afternoon; but my big bruvver says they'll be dam-well surprised."

"Artie!" The girl leaped towards him. "You know your ma said I was to smack – "

"Don't. Please don't," said Bayley, pink with suppressed mirth. "It was all my fault. I must tell old Verschoyle this. I've surprised his plan out of the mouths of babes and sucklings."

"What plan?"

"Old Vee has taken the battalion up to the top of the common, and he told me he meant to charge down through the kids, but they're on to him already. He'll be scuppered. The Guard will be scuppered!"

Here Blue Breeches, overcome by the reproof of his fellows, began to weep.

"I didn't tell," he roared. "My big bruvver he knew when he saw them go up the road…"

"Never mind! Never mind, old man," said Bayley soothingly. "I'm not fighting to-day. It's all right."

He rightened it yet further with sixpence, and left that band loudly at feud over the spoil.

"Oh, Vee! Vee the strategist," he chuckled. "We'll pull Vee's leg to-night."

Our freckled friend of the barriers doubled up behind us.

"So you know that my battalion is charging down the ground," Bayley demanded.

"Not for certain, Sir, but we're preparin' for the worst," he answered with a cheerful grin. "They allow the Schools a little blank ammunition after we've passed the third standard; and we nearly always bring it on to the ground of Saturdays."

"The deuce you do! Why?"

"On account of these amateur Volunteer corps, Sir. They're always experimentin' upon us, Sir, comin' over from their ground an' developin' attacks on our flanks. Oh, it's chronic 'ere of a Saturday sometimes, unless you flag yourself."

I followed his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and fife band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy breech of a four-inch gun which they were feeding at express rates.

"The attacks don't interfere with you if you flag yourself, Sir," the boy explained. "That's a Second Camp team from the Technical Schools loading against time for a bet."

We picked our way deviously through the busy groups. Apparently it was not etiquette to notice a Guard officer, and the youths at the twenty-five pounder were far too busy to look up. I watched the cleanly finished hoist and shove-home of the full-weight shell from a safe distance, when I became aware of a change among the scattered boys on the common, who disappeared among the hillocks to an accompaniment of querulous whistles. A boy or two on bicycles dashed from corps to corps, and on their arrival each corps seemed to fade away.

The youths at loading practice did not pause for the growing hush round them, nor did the drum and fife band drop a single note. Bayley exploded afresh. "The Schools are preparing for our attack, by Jove! I wonder who's directin' 'em. Do you know?"

The warrior of the Eighth District looked up shrewdly.

"I saw Mr. Cameron speaking to Mr. Levitt just as the Guard went up the road. 'E's our 'ead-master, Mr. Cameron, but Mr. Levitt, of the Sixth District, is actin' as senior officer on the ground this Saturday. Most likely Mr. Levitt is commandin'."

"How many corps are there here?" I asked.

"Oh, bits of lots of 'em – thirty or forty, p'r'aps, Sir. But the whistles says they've all got to rally on the Board Schools. 'Ark! There's the whistle for the Private Schools! They've been called up the ground at the double."

"Stop!" cried a bearded man with a watch, and the crews dropped beside the breech wiping their brows and panting.

"Hullo! there's some attack on the Schools," said one. "Well, Marden, you owe me three half-crowns. I've beaten your record. Pay up."

The boy beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions melting among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets without once looking up.

The ground rose a little to a furze-crowned ridge in the centre so that I could not see the full length of it, but I heard a faint bubble of blank in the distance.

"The Saturday allowance," murmured Bayley. "War's begun, but it wouldn't be etiquette for us to interfere. What are you saying, my child?"

"Nothin', Sir, only – only I don't think the Guard will be able to come through on so narrer a front, Sir. They'll all be jammed up be'ind the ridge if we've got there in time. It's awful sticky for guns at the end of our ground, Sir."

"I'm inclined to think you're right, Moltke. The Guard is hung up: distinctly so. Old Vee will have to cut his way through. What a pernicious amount of blank the kids seem to have!"

It was quite a respectable roar of battle that rolled among the hillocks for ten minutes, always out of our sight. Then we heard the "Cease Fire" over the ridge.

"They've sent for the Umpires," the Board School boy squeaked, dancing on one foot. "You've been hung up, Sir. I – I thought the sand-pits 'ud stop you."

Said one of the jerseyed hobbledehoys at the gun, slipping on his coat: "Well, that's enough for this afternoon. I'm off," and moved to the railings without even glancing towards the fray.

"I anticipate the worst," said Bayley with gravity after a few minutes.