The Wouldbegoods: Being the Further Adventures of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit (best books to read TXT) 📗

‘I say,’ Oswald said, ‘let’s get to the top corner of the ambush—the wood, I mean. You can see the crossroads from there.’

We did, and quickly, for the crackling of branches no longer dismayed our almost despairing spirits.

We came to the edge of the wood, and Oswald’s patriotic heart really did give a jump, and he cried, ‘There they are, on the Dover Road.’

Our miscellaneous signboard had done its work.

‘By Jove, young un, you’re right! And in quarter column, too! We’ve got em on toast—on toast—egad!’ I never heard anyone not in a book say ‘egad’ before, so I saw something really out of the way was indeed up.

The Colonel was a man of prompt and decisive action. He sent the orderly to tell the Major to advance two companies on the left flank and take cover. Then we led him back through the wood the nearest way, because he said he must rejoin the main body at once. We found the main body very friendly with Noel and H. O. and the others, and Alice was talking to the Cocked-Hatted One as if she had known him all her life.

‘I think he’s a general in disguise,’ Noel said. ‘He’s been giving us chocolate out of a pocket in his saddle.’

Oswald thought about the roast rabbit then—and he is not ashamed to own it—yet he did not say a word. But Alice is really not a bad sort. She had saved two bars of chocolate for him and Dicky. Even in war girls can sometimes be useful in their humble way.

The Colonel fussed about and said, ‘Take cover there!’ and everybody hid in the ditch, and the horses and the Cocked Hat, with Alice, retreated down the road out of sight. We were in the ditch too. It was muddy—but nobody thought of their boots in that perilous moment. It seemed a long time we were crouching there. Oswald began to feel the water squelching in his boots, so we held our breath and listened. Oswald laid his ear to the road like a Red Indian. You would not do this in time of peace, but when your country is in danger you care but little about keeping your ears clean. His backwoods’ strategy was successful. He rose and dusted himself and said—‘They’re coming!’

It was true. The footsteps of the approaching foe were now to be heard quite audibly, even by ears in their natural position. The wicked enemy approached. They were marching with a careless swaggeringness that showed how little they suspected the horrible doom which was about to teach them England’s might and supremeness.

Just as the enemy turned the corner so that we could see them, the Colonel shouted—‘Right section, fire!’ and there was a deafening banging.

The enemy’s officer said something, and then the enemy got confused and tried to get into the fields through the hedges. But all was vain. There was firing now from our men, on the left as well as the right. And then our Colonel strode nobly up to the enemy’s Colonel and demanded surrender. He told me so afterwards. His exact words are only known to himself and the other Colonel. But the enemy’s Colonel said, ‘I would rather die than surrender,’ or words to that effect.

Our Colonel returned to his men and gave the order to fix bayonets, and even Oswald felt his manly cheek turn pale at the thought of the amount of blood to be shed. What would have happened can never now be revealed. For at this moment a man on a piebald horse came clattering over a hedge—as carelessly as if the air was not full of lead and steel at all. Another man rode behind him with a lance and a red pennon on it. I think he must have been the enemy’s General coming to tell his men not to throw away their lives on a forlorn hope, for directly he said they were captured the enemy gave in and owned that they were. The enemy’s Colonel saluted and ordered his men to form quarter column again. I should have thought he would have had about enough of that myself.

He had now given up all thought of sullen resistance to the bitter end. He rolled a cigarette for himself, and had the foreign cheek to say to our Colonel—

‘By Jove, old man, you got me clean that time! Your scouts seem to have marked us down uncommonly neatly.’

It was a proud moment when our Colonel laid his military hand on Oswald’s shoulder and said—

‘This is my chief scout’ which were high words, but not undeserved, and Oswald owns he felt red with gratifying pride when he heard them.

‘So you are the traitor, young man,’ said the wicked Colonel, going on with his cheek.

Oswald bore it because our Colonel had, and you should be generous to a fallen foe, but it is hard to be called a traitor when you haven’t.

He did not treat the wicked Colonel with silent scorn as he might have done, but he said—

‘We aren’t traitors. We are the Bastables and one of us is a Foulkes. We only mingled unsuspected with the enemy’s soldiery and learned the secrets of their acts, which is what Baden-Powell always does when the natives rebel in South Africa; and Denis Foulkes thought of altering the sign-posts to lead the foe astray. And if we did cause all this fighting, and get Maidstone threatened with capture and all that, it was only because we didn’t believe Greek things could happen in Great Britain and Ireland, even if you sow dragon’s teeth, and besides, some of us were not asked about sowing them.’

Then the Cocked-Hatted One led his horse and walked with us and made us tell him all about it, and so did the Colonel. The wicked Colonel listened too, which was only another proof of his cheek.

And Oswald told the tale in the modest yet manly way that some people think he has, and gave the others all the credit they deserved. His narration was interrupted no less than four times by shouts of ‘Bravo!’ in which the enemy’s Colonel once more showed his cheek by joining. By the time the story was told we were in sight of another camp. It was the British one this time. The Colonel asked us to have tea in his tent, and it only shows the magnanimosity of English chivalry in the field of battle that he asked the enemy’s Colonel too. With his usual cheek he accepted. We were jolly hungry.

When everyone had had as much tea as they possibly could, the Colonel shook hands with us all, and to Oswald he said—

‘Well, good-bye, my brave scout. I must mention your name in my dispatches to the War Office.’

H. O. interrupted him to say, ‘His name’s Oswald Cecil Bastable, and mine is Horace Octavius.’ I wish H. O. would learn to hold his tongue. No one ever knows Oswald was christened Cecil as well, if he can possibly help it. YOU didn’t know it till now.

‘Mr Oswald Bastable,’ the Colonel went on—he had the decency not to take any notice of the ‘Cecil’—‘you would be a credit to any regiment. No doubt the War Office will reward you properly for what you have done for your country. But meantime, perhaps, you’ll accept five shillings