Scouting for Boys

We had an example of how useful Boy Scouts can be on active service, when a corps of boys was formed in the defence of Mafeking, 1899-1900.

Mafeking, you may remember, was quite a small ordinary country town out on the open plains of South Africa.

Nobody ever thought of its being attacked by an enemy any more than you would expect this town (or village) to be attacked—the thing was so improbable.

But it just shows you how you must be prepared for what is possible, not only what is probable in war; and so, too, we ought to be prepared in Britain against being attacked by enemies; for though it may not be probable, it is quite as possible as it was at Mafeking; and every boy in Britain should be just as ready as those boys were in Mafeking to take their share in its defence.

Well, when we found we were to be attacked at Mafeking, we told off our garrison to the points that they were to protect—some 700 trained men, police, and volunteers. And then we armed the townsmen, of whom there were some 300. Some of them were old frontiersmen, and quite equal to the occasion; but many of them, young shopmen, clerks, and others, had never seen a rifle before, and had never tried to learn to drill or to shoot, and so they were hopelessly at sea at first. It is not much fun to have to face an enemy who means to kill you, when you have never learned to shoot.

Every boy ought to learn how to shoot and to obey orders, else he is no more good when war breaks outthan an old woman, and merely gets killed like a squealing rabbit, being unable to defend himself.

Altogether, then, we only had about a thousand men all told to defend the place which contained 600 white women and children, and about 7,000 natives, and was about five miles round.