Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

Fantasy Football Challenge - Library of Books for Football Fanatics

Fantasy Football Challenge presents
Young Knights of the Empire

75 of 87

to save fellow creatures. These five heroes arrived at Balmoral while I was there, as the guest of King Edward, by whom they were received. He had the story of their heroism read over, and he then congratulated them on their bravery, and himself hung the medal for saving life at sea on the breast of each and shook hands with him. That was his official reward to them, but privately also he gave each man a personal friendly reminder in the shape of a good pipe and some tobacco, which he chose himself for them. * * * * * A BRAVE SEA SCOUT. The lads of the training ship _Mercury_ were manning one of the boats to go ashore. There was a heavy wind blowing--it was still dark--when one of the boys, named Newitt, fell into the water and was swept away by the tide. Two of his messmates at once dived in to his rescue. One of these, Yateman, was quickly picked up by the ship's boat in mistake for the drowning lad. But the other boy, Driver, a Patrol Leader belonging to the 8th Southampton (_Mercury_) Troop, succeeded in getting hold of Newitt and swam towards the pier with him. But Driver was hampered with the suit of oilskins which he was wearing, and in battling with tide and wind, he himself was nearly drowned, although he was a good swimmer. A boat which put out from the pier got to him just in time to save him, and he was pulled on board in an unconscious condition, from which he did not recover for nearly two hours. The poor fellow, Newitt, had slipped from his grasp and was drowned. Still, Driver had done all that he possibly could. He had not thought of the danger to himself, but on the first alarm had, with the true spirit of the Scout, at once sprung to the assistance of his comrade in distress, and for this he was awarded the Bronze Cross, the Scouts' highest award for gallantry. * * * * * SEA SCOUTS. I began my Scouting first of all as a Sea Scout, before I ever went into the Army and before I ever saw the backwoods in Canada or India. And I am very glad that I did, for as a Sea Scout, I learnt how to swim, and I should have cut a poor figure as a soldier, or as a hunter, or as a Scout, if I had not been able to do that. But besides swimming, there are so many things that one learns while a Sea Scout which come in useful afterwards, whatever line of life you may take up. For instance, I learnt how to tie knots, and unless a fellow can do that he is a duffer; I learnt how to handle and manage a boat by myself, how to right her when upset, and how to get in and out of her when bathing. I learnt how to steer and manage a large sailing boat, taking my watch alone at night; how to read the stars and charts; and how to take the responsibility for navigating and not running her on to the rocks. As a Sea Scout you get mighty hungry, so in order to feed yourself when on the water you have to be able to catch fish and to clean them, and to cook them for yourself. All this means that you have to be what a sailor is generally known as, a "handyman." Then the life is so jolly, free, and breezy; there is lots of hard work at times, and difficulties and dangers to overcome, but also lots of enjoyable sunny cruising into strange places with good comrades around you. Fellows boxed up in a ship together naturally become the best of friends and comrades if they are naturally good chaps with good tempers; if they are not--well--then I would rather not be in that ship, thank you! Sailors are always manly fellows, and know how to give and take, and they manage to keep their tempers when small things go wrong. * * * * * GENERALS WHO WERE SAILORS. Two of our greatest generals to-day began their careers as sailors. Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood won his Victoria Cross as a midshipman in the Royal Navy while serving in the Crimea. Field-Marshal Viscount French, late Commander-in-Chief of our Forces in France and Flanders, was a sailor before he joined the Army, and so was Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams, who commanded the Town Guard so well in Mafeking. I have always found that a Boy Scout who has been a Sea Scout as well as a Backwoods Scout makes much the best all-round Scout in the end.

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