Speaker’s corner

IT WAS wartime in Britain and there was lots of bombing. Our scoutmaster, Thistlethwaite, used to say that by observing you not only avoided being hit on the head by a bomb but you also fed the brain. And the more observations you stuffed into your brain box, the larger it would grow – just like the stomach – until, I suppose, one developed a fat head like Einstein.

Thistlethwaite drew our attention to the manual, Scouting for Boys, which says: “A scout must not only look to his front, but also to either side and behind… often, by suddenly looking back, you will see an enemy’s scout or a thief showing himself.”

One day, Thistlethwaite sent us out on an observation patrol through Sutton Park, a wild moorland which began quite near the Scout Hall. We had to report back in an hour.

Carrying our stream-vaulting poles, we walked single file because one cannot see much walking in a gaggle. In a gaggle you could all fall into a bog whereas in single file only the front fellow would fall in and the rest could then use him as a stepping stone.

The act of looking sideways and backwards while walking in single file made progress rather ragged. There was much shunting when somebody suddenly stopped because he fancied he had spotted “an enemy scout” when it was probably just “a thief showing himself”.

I was Patrol L*E*A*D*E*R of the Yellow Six (not that titles mean anything to me) and, like all Boy Scout patrols, we had our own animal symbol.

We were the Peewit patrol and our secret signal was the call of the peewit (plover) – “peee-whitt”. By calling “peee-whitt” we could keep in touch without the enemy realising it was us making the racket.

We came to a deep, dark wood. The Welsh Kid took the lead.

As leader of the Yellow Six I would decide who would lead and, as I have stated elsewhere (Google: The Yellow Six, by James Clarke), I liked to give everybody a chance to lead, especially in dark woods or swamps. We stopped peee-whitting and crept forward, looking mostly over our shoulders for thieves showing themselves.

Thus we began running into trees and sometimes all six of us were silently concertinaed up against a single tree.

It was in the wood that we made our “observation”.

It involved the Welsh Kid’s sister, Bronwyn. The Welsh Kid was one of us.

Now Bronwyn, who must have been 18, had flowing red hair and two beautiful legs (oh, how many times I counted them). I lived in awe of her. Whenever she so much as acknowledged my presence, I was struck dumb. Even if I managed to open my mouth nothing would come out, except dribble, and sometimes to get it closed it needed medical supervision.

Patently, Bronwyn was oblivious of our presence. She was leaning against a tree looking up with her great saucer eyes at a tall American sergeant. Now an American soldier was every boy’s hero, not so much because of their nippy Jeeps and big Super Fortresses, but because they sometimes could be induced to hand out chewing gum.

Most of the Yellow Six preferred gum to girls.

We all ducked down in the undergrowth and watched, entranced, as the giggling Bronwyn began to unbutton her blouse. The soldier, meanwhile, was looking sideways and backwards – thus he spotted us enemy spies.

He came at us like the Santa Fe Express and we fled through bog and heather, vaulting wide streams with our poles in perfect unison, and eventually vaulting the park fence itself and stampeded into the Scout Hall, muddied, bloodied and fighting for breath.

“What did you observe?” asked the startled Thistlethwaite.

“Nothing,” we all said. jcl@onwe.co.za www.jamesclarke.co.za blog://stoeptalk.wordpress.com