text: The Left Handshake The Left Handshake THE LEFT HANDSHAKE The Boy Scout Movement during the War 1939-1945 By HILARY ST. GEORGE SAUNDERS Originally published by: COLLINS ST. JAMES'S PLACE LONDON 1949 Page 1 The Left Handshake CONTENTS Chapter I BRAVERY: The Story of Jan van Hoof 7 Chapter II ENTERPRISE: Lord Baden-Powell 10 Chapter III PURPOSE: Scouting in the British Isles 19 Chapter IV RESOLUTION: Scouting in Occupied Countries 30 Chapter V ENDURANCE: Scouting in Captivity 82 Chapter VI PARTNERSHIP: Scouting in the Empire and in the U.S.A. 100 Chapter VII ASSURANCE: Scouting in Refugee and Displaced Persons' Camps 106 Chapter VIII REFORMATION: Scouting in the Defeated Countries 114 Chapter IX ENTHUSIASM: The Movement and its Meaning 120 Chapter X DEVOTION: The Jamboree of Peace 127 APPENDICES 130 INDEX Not included in this volume Page 2 The Left Handshake FOREWORD by The Chief Scout of the British Commonwealth and Empire WHEN COLONEL BADEN-POWELL entered the capital city of the Ashanti people in 1890 he was met by one of the Chiefs who came to him holding out his left hand. B.-P. held out his right in return but the Chief said: "No, in my country the bravest of the brave shake with the left hand." So began the "left handshake" of the world-wide brotherhood of Scouts. In this book are told some of the stories of courage and endurance shown by Scouts in many different countries during the war of 1939-45. There would not be room even in many books to tell them all. Many, indeed, can never be told; some for political reasons, some because the actors died unknown. They remembered their Promise, to do their best to do their duty to God, and their Country; to think of other people and not themselves. So, when the time came, they were prepared in body and in spirit to render their service. Their record is unsurpassed; they were "the bravest of the brave." Page 3 The Left Handshake Chapter I BRAVERY The Story of Jan van Hoof H IS FACE was that of one who, in the prime of youth, died not only for his country but for the freedom of the world. The forehead was high and smooth beneath hair well kept but a little distorted, as though he had just run his hands through it. Below the forehead the eyes, looking into a distance which held what the ordinary man and woman may on occasion glimpse in moments of exaltation or despair, but which he was plainly enough – duty, danger, death. They were the eyes of an idealist set in the head of a shrewd and practical young man. For that most assuredly was what Jan van Hoof was. The resolute mouth with the full under-lip, the somewhat large ears, the straight nose with the well-marked nostrils, these were features belonging to one who, you would say, would go far in business. And far he went, into the business of battle. Here is his story. In the third week of September, 1944, the German armies, thrust out with tremendous slaughter from France and Belgium, turned at bay upon the confines of their own country. Opposed to them more than a million men, British and American, who a few weeks before had burst from their congested bridgeheads in Normandy, were now stretched out from the Alps to the mouth of the Rhine, poised ready to deliver, if they could, the final, the mortal blow. At that time it seemed that they would be able to deal it at any moment. Those September days, when the leaves were slowly turning to gold, would, it was confidently hoped, provide the climax of the war. That they did not was an act of fate, who relented at the last moment and granted to a treacherous and defeated people a few months of respite ere the consequences of their sin were paid in full. That autumn of 1944 the 21st Army Group, comprising the British and Canadian forces, after sweeping through Northern France and Belgium, were standing on the edge of Germany confronted by the three great river barriers which, in the northeast of Holland, barred their further advance. These were the River Maas, the River Waal, and the Lower Rhine. Cross them in strength and the war was won, for the main German defences in the west, the vaunted Siegfried Line, petered out in the forest of the Reichswald and would therefore be outflanked. The Germans were as well aware of this as was Field- Marshal Montgomery, and as determined to prevent, as he to force, the passage. It could be made only at three points. The first of them, the Maas, was traversed by a nine-span steel bridge at Graves, the second, the Waal, by a five-span bridge at Nijmegen, the third by a bridge similar in character over the Nijder, or Lower Rhine, at Arnhem. The capture of these three bridges was vital, for they were the three most important links in a single chain, the Eindhoven-Weghel-Graves-Nijmegen and Arnhem road joining Holland to Northern Germany. In a countryside for the most part low-lying and flooded, this road was the only one along which armour could pass, and behind armour lorry-borne infantry and their supplies. Montgomery's plan was to seize the three bridges by a bold and modern operation of war. "A carpet of airborne troops" would be laid, over which his armies would pour into the Reich. The task of the 101st American (Airborne) Division was to seize the bridge at Graves, that of the 82nd (Airborne) the bridge at Nijmegen, and that of the 1st British Airborne Division the bridge at Arnhem. It was with the second of these bridges that Jan van Hoof was so vitally concerned. He had lived in sight of it all his short life; he was to die beside it. When war came to Holland in 1940, Jan was eighteen years old. The Germans arrived almost overnight, so swift and well prepared was their conquest of his country. They behaved well – at first; but, in common with many of his generation, Jan was not fooled by Teutonic wolves in sheep's clothing, and he at once made common cause with those who were determined to open the eyes of their countrymen to the real, as opposed to the expressed, intentions of the conquerors. Jan was "a very idealistic boy with Page 4 The Left Handshake high principles of what a good community ought to be." So said his Patrol Leader, and he knew him well, for Jan had been a keen Cub and Scout. "We often had talks about it and I was always impressed and carried away by his enthusiasm, and that, I think, was one of the characteristic things of his underground work –his steady enthusiasm, and the serious way in which he carried out his job." The boy was well equipped, then, for the dangerous, glorious, monotonous life of an underground worker. All who knew him describe him as "a silent, simple boy who went his own way." He rarely told his parents what he was doing and they never asked; nor did his two sisters and his brother. They knew this trait of Jan's nature. He had said many times as a small boy: "What I plan to do, I will do." Now the days of darkness had come. His parents watched and waited, but they did not ask what thoughts were alive behind that tall forehead, those steady eyes. Yet he was not naturally secretive for his ambition was to be that most open and frank of all men, a journalist, if possible a foreign correspondent, and when the Germans came he persisted in this desire. "He used to say to me," said his mother, "that would be a Goebbels, but a Goebbels of a good kind." Jan believed in the value of journalism and in its power to do good as well as evil. By 1941 the early – it is hard to call it the halcyon-period of the German occupation of Holland was over. The Dutch, ever stubborn, had refused to respond to blandishments. They had grim memories on which to draw. Alva's pikemen, the legions of Louis XIV, the douaniers of Napoleon, not once but many times had their flat, well-ordered country been the coveted prize of an invader. The latest was Hitler. Well they would deal with him as their ancestors had dealt with the others. Patience and courage. They were the weapons before the year was out the Dutch Underground Movement was beginning to show those symptoms of organisation with which the Germans, with their long experience of Czechoslovakia, Poland and other ravaged countries, were by then only too familiar. They applied the usual, the ever-failing, remedy, brutal, bloody suppression. Seventy-two members of a Dutch Resistance group were taken out and shot in one mass execution. The echoes of the German tommy-guns were the voice of trumpets to Jan van Hoof and others of his kind. Their organisation became stronger, better equipped, better run. Being a member of the Nijmegen group, Jan was in the thick of it. Their activities were many and various. They forged identity papers and ration cards, they distributed underground newspapers, carried messages, they hid "divers" (people who had to "dive" because the Germans knew them as Resistance workers). As a side-line, Scouting, though absolutely prohibited, was carried on, primarily for its proved educative value, and even produced its own underground newspaper called Fighting Youth. Eager to intensify his efforts, Jan van Hoof became a Rover Scout. His enrolment took place in a wood outside Nijmegen, near a monastery which in 1941 was being used by the Germans as a barracks. During the ceremony, silently and reverently carried through, the Germans could be heard a few yards away stamping their feet, shouting orders, drilling. And so Jan became a member of the Underground Clan of Rovers, who carried on their Scouting no less fervently because it was performed in secret. There were the same Scouters and Rover Mates as before, but they had a new task. It was to build up a new Scout Movement ready to appear when the war ended. To do so it was important to "hold" the small boys during the Occupation, not, of course, physically, but with the bonds of the mind. That was difficult after Scouting was prohibited. Several troops went on in great secrecy and allowed new members to join. They still held camps hidden in the woods, and all celebrated their St. George's Day ceremonies with camp-fires and renewal of the Scout Promise. So passed 1941, 1942 and 1943. The German hold was becoming more deadly, resistance to it more desperate. The only light in the darkness was provided by the British Broadcasting Corporation. "Without the B.B.C. news and Mr. Churchill's speeches, we would not have continued our resistance," said Scouter Hans Lombaers, speaking for thousands of his countrymen. And he went on to describe their lives during Page 5 The Left Handshake those grim years. "A slow moving-on of history," he said, "events upsetting our plans. A small victory here – a handful of people saved from German slave labour; a setback there, another handful of people picked at random and shot; a 'quisling' talks and an Underground leader is hunted to his death in a Nazi horror camp. Through it all the hope of eventual liberation. Then – June 6th, 1944, when light bursts on Europe with the news of Allied landings in north-west France. How difficult to keep to your quiet path of resistance when your heart is singing and bursting into excitement, and hope runs high that the war will be over 'by Christmas.' You must keep sober, though; plans must be made now against the time when the Allies reach Holland. What should be done to foil the German defence?" An uneasy pause ensued. The British and Americans remained penned in their bridgeheads for weeks, or so it seemed to the impatient spirits in the Dutch Underground. German oppression grew daily heavier and more difficult to bear, and the commands and orders of the infamous Seyss-Inquart more and more intolerable. Then came the news of the battle of the Falaise gap and the break-out of the Allies from the bridgehead. Spirits rose higher and higher as the flood of freedom poured across the northern plains of France, engulfed the bastions of Brussels and Antwerp, and stopped short only a few score miles from the old city of Nijmegen. Messages on the radio multiplied. Every day words of hope and happiness were whispered in the neat streets with their trim trees beside the yellow Waal swirling quietly to the sea. But now there came a second pause. The Allied armies at the far end of lines of communication, hard to maintain and tenuous because of their length, marked time. The necessary supplies of guns, ammunition, tanks, aircraft, all the thousand-and-one appliances of modern war, were piling up slowly. One day they would be used, but when, when? On all sides the Dutch beheld the feverish preparations of a shaken but not yet wholly defeated enemy to stave off the fate he so richly deserved. A detachment of the Hitler Jugend sent hastily from their homes in the Fatherland reinforced the garrison troops and prepared in haste and desperation to man the last defences on Dutch soil. The citizens of Nijmegen and other towns were ruthlessly pressed into service, boys as young as twelve being set to dig slit-trenches and prepare the sites of pillboxes. Presently the arrival of anti-aircraft guns in ever-increasing number began to be noticed. This could mean but one thing. The Germans feared the advent of airborne troops, who might come crowding thick out of the skies as they had come three months earlier to fall upon the pleasant meadows and lush pastures of Normandy. Now the flat fields and orchards beside the Waal might see them. The Germans stood to their guns and watched the September skies. The Dutch watched the bridges, and one Dutchman in particular, Jan van Hoof, watched the Nijmegen bridge. By then the conviction that this five-arched bridge, with its great central semi-circular span of steel, was of vital importance to the campaign had become deeply rooted in his mind. Were it and its sisters, the bridge at Graves across the Maas and that at Arnhem across the Nijder Rhine, to be destroyed, the Allied advance would be held up for days, weeks, perhaps months. The great outflanking movement, already dimly to be discerned and the subject of whispers and happy snatches of talk round deal tables in back rooms or beside the bars of quiet cafés, would be in jeopardy. More, it was so already, for the Germans made little secret of the fact that, if forced to retreat, they would break the bridges behind them. For two months Jan van Hoof studied the preparations to blow the Nijmegen bridge with the utmost attention. To do so more readily and without arousing suspicion, he joined the De Batavier Canoe Club because its boats were berthed near the first pillar of the bridge on the opposite, the Arnhem, side of the river. From this point of vantage he would observe the enemy, and presently he made a discovery of the utmost importance. About two thousand pounds of high explosive had been built into the second arch of the bridge, that joining the main semi-circular span to the Arnhem shore, and the fuse which was to set off the explosion was laid and visible. That fuse must never be lit. The conviction grew and burgeoned in his young mind. He became obsessed with the thought of the bridge and its burden of explosive, and from Page 6 The Left Handshake that thought the next was easy. He must save it. That was his task. To that he was called, specially summoned, perhaps by a higher power, for Jan was a devout Roman Catholic. He both believed in his faith and practised it. He made many plans, held discussions with the members of his group. Older, wiser, more cautious men shook their heads. They advised him to give up the idea. It was too difficult; no one could hope to accomplish so perilous a mission. Undeterred he went away and returned with new, more fantastic plans. If the bridge were too long, the approach to it too closely covered by pillboxes, the whereabouts of the explosive too far from the Nijmegen side of the river, the railings too high to climb over unobserved, then why not take a boat, drift downstream until beneath the span containing the explosive and then seek to reach it by means of a rope ladder? He and two friends redoubled their enthusiasm for the De Batavier Canoe Club. They observed, they made notes, measurements, in silence, in their heads, lying on their backs flat in the boat and staring up at the vast bridge high in the air above. In vain. The plan was impracticable. No ladder was long enough, and to climb a rope under the noses of the German guards would be to hang in mid-air perfectly placed to be picked off like a bird on a bough. "Then in another fashion it must be done," said Jan. His leaders told him to put the project from his mind and to concentrate on easier feats. The firm mouth shut more firmly, and never again did he speak of the bridge. They thought he had taken their advice and had forgotten, as they had forgotten. There were other, more pressing things to do. To remove the charges from the Waal bridge was one of many schemes which they had to admit were too difficult to carry out; one more disappointment they had grown in the past four years to accept as part of the burden of living. Morally, the Germans had never beaten them, but physically the enemy were still strong, as strong as the defences of the bridge. The structure of steel, stone and concrete is some fifteen hundred feet long and seventy feet high. At its northern end was a German strong-point of pillboxes, with sentries on guard day and night. On the Nijmegen side two high banks, covered with grass on each side of the road, had been turned into German strong-points. To the west of the road the medieval citadel of Walkhof commanded the southern approach, which was in addition defended by dual-purpose guns, deadly against either aircraft or troops. There was no cover anywhere. Breast-high railings ran on either side of the bridge. Just beyond the end of the steel hoop composing the central span, on the north side, by the parapet and facing the north shore, the Germans had lodged two charges. The detonating mechanism was some two hundred metres away, near the pillboxes. Jan carried out his daily tasks, doing quietly and efficiently everything that came his way; but by now he felt himself to be consumed by the secret fire of the zealot. He became critical and difficult to live with, for if his companions did not reach his standards, he was apt to say so frankly. He disregarded all advice not to use up his energies so fast, took to tonics and sedatives, and as a minor contribution to the common cause discovered and reported the positions of a German anti-aircraft gun and a Radar unit. Then on Friday, September 1st, news flashed round Nijmegen that the Allies were in Belgium and were expected in Holland at any moment. During the next fortnight Jan was even more silent and taciturn than usual. Unknown to him but shrewdly suspected, the three Airborne Divisions were massing for the attack, on the Berkshire downs and in the windy spaces of Salisbury Plain. On the 17th they put to air and came, swooping or falling from the skies above his home. In an hour troops of the 82nd American Airborne Division were locked in combat in the woods and field about Nijmegen. Their headquarters were situated in or near the monastery where Jan van Hoof had been made a Rover. He and his brother Scouts at once offered their services, and the woods, fields, and presently the streets of Nijmegen began to swarm with boys, lads and young men wearing uniforms patched and faded, often much too large or much too small, but all with the Scout neckerchief, clean and neatly ironed, around their necks, and all with the orange band of freedom on their left arms. This youthful army went Page 7 The Left Handshake immediately into action as guides, as messengers, as spies, and the hardy American parachute troops and the no less hardy men of the Guards Armoured Division noted with wonder that they all spoke excellent English. They had learned it during the dark winters of the Occupation, while awaiting the dawn of liberation. Now that day had arrived and with it the climax of Jan van Hoof's young life. Now at last he could put into practice the plans he had so often discussed, before they put a bridle upon his tongue, with Major van Burken, Engineer Jules Janssen, Lieutenant Visser and other members of the Orde-Dienst, or Military Interior Force of the Netherlands. On Monday, 18th September, the British guns opened and between 1.30 and 3 in the afternoon, the bridge across the Waal was swept continuously by heavy artillery fire. So severe was it that a German soldier called Schugard, one of the Schutzgruppe, whose task it was to guard the bridge, told his subsequent captors that he and his comrades had been withdrawn from their posts upon the bridge itself. Jan's chance had come. For months he had been a member of the Geheime Dienst Nederland, an organisation set up by the Netherlands Intelligence Department in London, of which the local chief was G. Jansen op de Haar, with headquarters at Nijmegen. Jan was now, by virtue of General Eisenhowers's proclamation, an official solder of the Allies. Alone he set out to war. His objective was the smoke-enshrouded bridge along the length of which the Allied shells were bursting. No one saw him go, but at three o'clock that afternoon, half an hour before the bombardment ended, he returned, to be met by his sister Truus in the street near his house. She told him that it had been hit by a shell and destroyed. Jan received the news with calmness, almost with indifference. "The bridge is safe anyhow," he said, and then turning to his father and mother, who had just emerged dazed and shaken from the ruins of their home, "Thank God the bridge at least is saved." His voice was well controlled but his eyes, it was noticed, shone. Having given this vital piece of news, he disappeared once more, but returned that evening to the new address where his family was taking shelter, and said again to his sister, "The fuse has been cut through in the very nick of time." How had he accomplished his self-imposed, his most honourable task? No one will ever know. On the next day Jan van Hoof was detailed to act as guide to a British armoured car, No. F. 195193, which was taking part in the advance towards the bridge. Through the town beneath the shells it rumbled till, on reaching the Nezelstraat, it ran into a German defence post. There it sustained a direct hit and burst into flames. All inside it, Jan van Hoof included, were killed either by that shell or by the machine-gun fire that followed as they sought to quit the burning vehicle. Jan van Hoof was dead but the bridge still stood. Secretive to the end, he had, it would appear, made no report on his exploit or, if he had, none reached the headquarters of the American 82nd or the Guards Armoured Division. All that day, the 19th, and the next the battle raged, the Americans, with a gallantry unsurpassed in war, crossing the Waal in assault boats to make good by the evening of the 20th a footing on the opposite bank. Before sunset, aided by reinforcements from the Guards Armoured Division, they had succeeded in clearing the area round the south, the Nijmegen, end of the bridge and the streets leading to it, but a troop of the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards which tried to rush the approaches was driven back with heavy losses. Another attempt was made and presently a second troop of the same battalion made up of four Sherman tanks, two 17-pounders, and two 75-mm. guns, under the command of Sergeant Robinson, who that day won the Distinguished Conduct Medal, made resolutely for the bridge. It was still there, still intact. Why had the Germans not blown it? To-day the answer is known, but to those guardsmen pressing forward in the dusk after a long day of battle, the two thousand yards of steel and concrete running straight ahead above the cloudy river held ominous possibilities. Nevertheless they advanced resolutely. "Our happiest moment," said Sergeant Pacey, fighting that day beside Sergeant Robinson, "was when we saw the Germans actually on the bridge, firing at us from behind the girders and supports. 'Well anyway,' he said, 'if they are going to blow the bridge, they will blow up some of their own people with it.' Half-way over, there was a piece of piping across the road. That worried us. We thought it might be some sort of an igniter which would touch off the moment a tank passed over it." It was a piece of tubing and nothing more, and when we found on the other side, the plunger to which the Page 8 The Left Handshake fuse had been attached was equally innocuous. It had been pulled down but without result, for the fuse had been cut. For the next few days the Allies asked every one in authority whom they could find who had done this thing, who had saved the bridge. None could say, but gradually as the smoke of battle cleared and long lines of transport began to rumble across its majestic length, men bethought themselves of Jan van Hoof and his obsession. Had he not always said that he would save the bridge, and was it not still standing? A local leader, one Hans, having collected the facts, reported them to the Allied town major at Nijmegen. They were accepted, and he received the congratulations of the Allied Commanding General for a deed of great gallantry performed by one of his men. He responded modestly and with reserve, for the Dutch are a cautious people and it did not seem to Hans and his fellow citizens that the evidence of Jan van Hoof's deed was conclusive. They waited a year but no one made any claim, and when it was passed they felt at last that it was right and just to award the honour to Jan van Hoof. So they put his name upon a tablet, and they put the tablet upon that part of the bridge where the explosive had been hidden, and there it is today under the second span of the northern end, just short of the steel over-span. The name Jan van Hoof is graven in stone, but like those whom Pericles in another country and another age commended for their sacrifice, it is also in the hearts of men and is of the very stuff of which life is made. Thirty Troops of Boy Scouts in Holland are called after Jan van Hoof who, when the war broke out, was but seventeen and who died at the age of twenty-two.1 His deed was one of many performed by brave Scouts. How they did so, what perils they encountered and overcame, will presently be told, but first let the origin and object of the organisation which gave them so much of courage and ingenuity, of honour and resolution, be described, and something of the background against which they stand, bright symbols of valour and victory, be depicted. Who are the Scouts and who founded this modern order of chivalry? 1 He was posthumously awarded by his Queen the Military Order of William with its inscription "Voor Moed, Belied, Trouw"; and by the United States Army the Medal of Freedom "for exceptionally heroic achievement which aided the United States in the prosecution of the war"; and by Great Britain the King's Commendation for Bravery "for his part in helping to save the Nijmegen bridge". Page 9 The Left Handshake Chapter II ENTERPRISE Lord Baden-Powell D USK HAD gathered in the nave of Westminster Abbey and the side chapels were dark, when a Royal Duke, at the head of a huge congregation, took his place before the altar. It was the evening of Wednesday, April 23rd, 1947, St. George's Day – the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and of the raid on the Zeebrugge. Before the altar stood the Dean, and as the hymn "Lord God of Hosts," borne on voices keen and clear, rose up into the vaulted roof, boys and girls wearing a uniform known throughout the world for nearly four decades, moved slowly forward from the great West Door bearing Colours which they laid in the hands of the Dean, who placed them upon the altar. The Dean addressed them, saying that they had come there to pay honour to the memory of a great man, and to renew promises to remain true to an ideal of duty and service which he had been the first to clothe with words and to teach in every country and in every clime. When the service was ended, a second procession was formed. It passed round the ambulatory and down the south aisle until it reached the Chapel of St. George. Here upon the floor beneath the Screen was a tablet of stone, covered with the flag of St. George which the Duke removed as trumpeters of the Royal Hussars sounded a fanfare. Upon the stone was written: TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT BADEN-POWELL CHIEF SCOUT OF THE WORLD 1857-1941 Upon one side of the stone was the badge of the Boy Scouts, the arrow-head to point the true way as it had pointed the way for sailors and navigators from the time of the earliest maps; and on the other the badge of the Girl Guides – the three-leafed clover. The Organ pealed for the last time and died away, and the voices of Lord Rowallan, the Chief Scout of the British Empire and the Commonwealth, and of Finnola, Lady Somers, the Chief Commissioner of Guides, were heard leading the renewal of the Scout and Guide promises. Who was this man to whom such signal honour had been paid and whose name had been inscribed among those of poets, and great captains, of explorers and men of science, of statesmen and kings? It had become a household word many years before he died, and was set there upon the tablet, as the Duke of Gloucester, who uncovered it, said, "in gratitude for his life of service to the youth of the world." Who, then, was this man? Robert, Lord Baden-Powell, O.M., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., K.C.B., was born at 6 Stanhope Gardens, London, in 1857, the year of the Mutiny, and he was the fifth son of a parson and a scientist. His mother, a friend of such eminent Victorians as Jowett, Dean Stanley, Ruskin, Browning and Thackeray, introduced him when still very young to "the art of inductive reasoning." At the same time she was careful to bring him up in those moral principles which exercised so potent an influence on her generation. The effect they had on the young Baden-Powell was to thrust him in the direction of Christian Socialism, a development not without significance. "I will have the poor people to be as rich as we are," he wrote at the age of eight, "...and I can tell you how to be good. Now I will tell you. You must pray to God whenever you can but you cannot be good with only praying but you must try very hard to be good." His grandfather, a spartan admiral of the old school, maintained that such sentiments savoured of the doctrines of Jack Cade and hastened to remind his grandson of the fate which befell that reformer. Page 10 The Left Handshake The self-taught training and discipline he acquired at Charterhouse, where he preferred long walks and rambles through woods full of wild life whose habits he delighted to observe, were soon to stand him in good stead. Having passed brilliantly into the army — "he was not quite up to Balliol form," opined Jowett, showing in this instance a singular lack of judgment — he found himself in India, a subaltern of cavalry. Young soldiers, many of them illiterate, became, after passing through his hands, expert trackers and scouts, and he used them for his purpose to play unorthodox but extremely valuable games. At the same time he did not neglect regimental soldiering, and at the age of twenty-six became a captain and adjutant. His interest in animals, which never abated throughout his long life, did not compete with his instincts as a sportsman. A good shot, a "bold and successful pig-sticker" — he won the Kadir Cup in 1883 — he was also a first-class horseman with a wonderful eye for country. But he was always apt to slip away from the companionship of his fellow officers to go for long tramps into the jungle of the countryside where he could watch animals and learn their habits. Refreshed by these expeditions, he would return, to plunge once more into the social life of the station, taking part in plays or operas – for he had a good singing voice – painting scenery and bearing a hand in making the costumes. Once at a regimental concert he dressed up as a general and "so deceived his colonel that he was given the place of honour. To the hardly concealed surprise of the officers he said that he preferred the platform and, leaping on it, burst into the major-general's song from the latest Gilbert and Sullivan opera, The Pirates of Penzance." In 1884 his regiment was recalled to England, and on the way home touched at South Africa, for trouble was brewing in Natal, and it might be needed. Baden-Powell was not, however, destined to see fighting on this occasion, and spent his time travelling through Natal on horseback. In this way he learned something of the habits of the Zulus, and perfected his scouting technique. The next two years were devoted to work in the Secret Service, and it was during that period, and a later time in 1889 when he was Intelligence Officer for the Mediterranean, that he met with adventures of which some are described in the book Adventures of a Spy. His tasks were many and varied. He examined and reported on fortifications in the Balkans and Turkey — he discovered the secrets of the forts guarding the Dardanelles which in 1915 were to prove too tough a nut for even the Royal Navy — he attended the manœuvres of Austrian mountain troops in the high Alps, he explored the recesses of the basket attached to a captive military balloon, and he was present, very unofficially, at the secret trials of a new searchlight about to be used by the Russian army. It was at these that he was finally caught, but escaped through the quick-wittedness of another agent, a waiter in the hotel St. Petersburg to which he had been sent under police supervision while his papers were being examined. The waiter made arrangements for Baden- Powell and his brother to elude the detectives watching them, reach the river and go on board a small British vessel whose captain was willing to allow them to pose as two members of his crew. All went well, and they arrived safely at the ship which had steam up, but at the last moment their departure was delayed by Baden-Powell's brother who started a fierce argument with the boatman taking them out to the ship and who was, he said, demanding too high a fare. Disregarding Baden-Powell's protests, he continued to argue until he had induced the man to accept a fair price, pointing out when they were safely below and the ship under way, that his conduct was precisely that which would be expected from a sailor returning to his ship after a riotous night on shore during which he had presumably spent most of his money. In all these missions Baden-Powell's ability to sketch with rapid accuracy and, when the subject was suitable, admirable humour, was of great value to him. Time and again he used the gift as "cover," posing as a harmless tourist with a strong British accent and an interest in cathedrals, butterflies, wild flowers and trout. True, his drawings of ivy leaves or Red Admirals and Camberwell Beauties, beautifully executed in colour, would reveal to the expert eye the silhouette of a fort with the exact location of its guns, or the outlines of a fixed defensive position with the howitzer cupolas carefully marked; but to the Page 11 The Left Handshake eyes of the local police, if they troubled to look at them, they were leaves and butterflies and nothing more. Though he confesses that these missions were a strain on the nerves and on the mind, which had to be constantly alert and as fertile as that of Ulysses, the greatest of his profession, Baden-Powell obviously enjoyed them. Yet they were not all child's play — mere fun and games in a foreign country at Government expense. Had he been caught, that same Government would have immediately disowned him and left him to pay the penalty for detection and capture, five years in a fortress. Baden-Powell always vigorously defended spying, which, he said, was a profession far from dishonourable and indeed immensely patriotic; but he drew careful distinction between professional spies such as Lieutenant Carl Lody, who was referred to in the House of Commons as "a patriot who had died for his country as much as any soldier who fell in the field," and traitors who sold their country's secrets for money and for whom he had no mercy. These adventures of his with gun, butterfly net or fishing rod, and with the seemingly innocent sketch- book tucked away in pocket or creel, were the natural sequence to the training in woodcraft which had occupied so much of his leisure hours at school. He knew that trait in human nature, especially in a boy's nature, which takes delight in being part of a mystery, in dressing up, and deluding his fellows. He knew it well because it was part of his own nature and he turned it into excellent account. This instinct, which in criminals is twisted and turned to evil purposes — men were deceivers ever — is in Scouts developed for the improvement and strengthening of character so that they become alert, quick-minded, observant and therefore of increased value as citizens. In 1887 Baden-Powell returned to Africa as aide-de-camp to his uncle and saw active service for the first time against the Zulus. With the perspicacity of the wild man they named him "M'hlala Panzi" — "The man who lies down to shoot" — that is, the man who takes careful aim and thinks before he acts. One day he was lying down in this manner examining the approach to Dinuzulu's last stronghold, when, happening to turn, he saw before him a native warrior "in all the glory of glistening brown skin with his great shield of ox-hide and his bright assegai." Most men would have felt the situation to be too tense to notice such details. Not so Baden-Powell who, as Ruskin said of genius, saw "with the eyes of children in perpetual wonder." On the approach of Baden-Powell's servant, the warrior made off. Baden-Powell pursued him to a gully and was soon inducing the natives he found there to surrender, winning their immediate confidence by unconcernedly playing with one of their children. It was during this short and not very important campaign that he heard for the first time ten thousand men acclaiming full-throated their Chief in a ritual chant — "Een Gonyama" — "a wonderful anthem" — which he never forgot and was afterwards to teach to the Scouts. In the year 1895 the King of Ashanti began to cause trouble, and Baden-Powell was a member of the Expedition which marched a hundred and fifty miles through dense bush and forest to his chastisement. It was then that he received further lessons in thinking things out before taking action, or, as the natives of those parts expressed it, "Softlee softlee catchee monkey," a phrase which was ever afterwards on his lips. The wild tribes of the Gold Coast were, like the Zulus in the south, to give him a new nickname, "Kantankye" — "He of the big hat," an allusion to the cowboy sombrero he always wore, and to teach him a new war song which appealed to his soldiering instinct. "If I go forward, I die, If I go backward, I die, Better go forward and die." In this campaigning he became friendly with a captain of engineers, whose practice of carrying a long staff, marked off in feet and inches, Baden-Powell was to remember and copy long afterwards when Page 12 The Left Handshake devising the equipment of the Boy Scout; and it was then, too, that he learnt the secret of the left handshake. A chief of the Ashanti people offered his left hand to Baden-Powell, saying, "In my country the bravest of the brave shake with the left hand." This form of salute was in fact a secret sign of an order of chivalry among these brave people. Hardly was this expedition finished when he found himself a lieutenant-colonel en route for what he called "the best adventure of my life," the Matabele war. By then his abilities as a scout were known and recognised, and he was in charge of all the scouting work of the expedition. Prowling at night among moon-washed boulders, he had to match his laboriously acquired skill against the native cunning of the Matabeles, and his success may be judged by a new nickname, his third, which they gave him, "Impeesa" — "Wolf who never sleeps." On one occasion a blade or two of bruised grass and a leaf smelling of Kaffir beer, picked up ten miles away from the nearest tree, enabled him to attack and surprise a party of the enemy. The Matabele campaign completed his education in the art of scouting and when he assumed command of the Fifth Dragoon Guards, then stationed in India, he immediately began to teach it to others. Rating, very rightly, the barrack square manoeuvre to be of secondary importance, he concentrated on scouting. The men were divided into small units under a non-commissioned officer and became imbued with the enthusiasm of their colonel for these strange new methods. That they would enhance the value of a cavalryman whose prime duty was reconnaissance was soon regarded beyond doubt; and the men vied with each other in acquiring in as short a time as possible the arrowhead showing the north point of a compass, which was the special badge Baden-Powell devised to mark the trained scout. Up till then his life, though he did not consciously realise it, had been shaped for one purpose, aimed at one target, the practice of scouting in the widest and most liberal interpretation of the word. First he learned it himself; then he had taught it to trained cavalrymen. Soon he was to teach it to the youth of every nation. The idea was already in his mind when in 1899 he returned to England on leave, bearing with him the manuscript of a small book which he called Aids to Scouting. It was no more than a summary of the lectures, illustrated by examples, which he had delivered to his men, and he intended to publish it in the hope of arousing a wider interest. Before he could do so, however, he was off to accomplish the greatest achievement of his life – one which on a May evening in the first year of the century was to plunge the citizens of London into a wild riot of rejoicing and to add a word to the English language. In the autumn of 1899 war broke out with the Boers in South Africa, and Colonel Baden-Powell was ordered to organize a frontier force to aid the British regular army. He was in the midst of this task and had already collected a number of men when he found himself cut off in the small town of Mafeking and surrounded by a Boer army nine thousand strong. The garrison was greatly outnumbered, but held out for the space of two hundred and seventeen days, during which Baden-Powell was the mainspring and inspiration of the defence. At this moment of crisis his long years of self-imposed training were at last able to bear full fruit. The enemy was courageous, cunning and resourceful, qualities which he himself possessed in high degree. He speedily infused them not only into the men he was commanding, but also into the citizens of the little town, who presently found themselves putting into practice many strange devices which he adopted to conceal the nakedness of his own position from the besiegers. "Bluff the enemy with a show of force as much as you like," runs a passage in his general instruction to the garrison, "but don't let yourself get too far out of touch with your own side. …Don't be afraid to act for fear of making a mistake. A man who never made a mistake never made anything." The principles he preached, he practised. There were above eight thousand natives in Mafeking, and by no means all of them could be trusted. The place, in fact, swarmed with spies, a situation of which Baden-Powell took every advantage. He sent out beyond the perimeter numbers of natives carrying Page 13 The Left Handshake wooden boxes which, he told them, would instantly explode if they were dropped. These were carefully buried and some, he announced, would be tested between noon and 2 p.m. During those two hours every one went under cover while he and a companion sallied forth and exploded a stick of dynamite in an ant- bear hole. "Out of the dust emerged a man with a bike who happened to be passing, and he pedaled off as hard as he could go for the Transvaal." The Boers were convinced that a wide minefield had been sown. The buried boxes contained sand. A public competition supplied life-like dummy figures which were set up in the improvised forts and drew the fire of Boer snipers, and a portable searchlight made out of biscuit tins was carried from fort to fort and flashed at irregular intervals to give the impression that a chain of searchlights existed to illuminate night attacks. On Sundays there was always a truce — for this was before the days of "total war" — and observing that the Boers stepped warily out of their trenches to avoid the barbed wire, Baden-Powell ordered his men to put up posts and do likewise when they walked between them. There was no barbed wire to trip them, but the Boers, observing their cautious behaviour, were deceived and thought the defences to be much stronger than they were. Much of the scouting necessary to keep the Commander of the besieged town well informed of the enemy's movements Baden-Powell carried out himself, and to aid him in the quick transmission of messages he presently founded a messenger corps recruited from the boys of Mafeking. They were quick to learn, full of pluck and determination under fire, and ready at all times to rise to the occasion. Their intelligent and courageous behaviour came as somewhat of a surprise even to Baden-Powell whose protegees they were, and he never forgot their bearing, which was soon to have a far-reaching effect on thousands of their kind in every country. These boys moving cheerfully about their dangerous duties, were by their example, as much a tonic to the defenders as was Baden-Powell himself, who displayed not only military skill of the highest order, but a quick and contagious humour which caused him naturally and without a thought to exchange the helmet for the fool's cap at improvised concerts or merry evenings. At last, on May 16th, 1900, Colonel Mahon, commanding a flying column detached from the main force under Lord Roberts, raised the siege. Up till then a comparatively unknown colonel, a man of shrewd worth to his superiors and to his companions-in-arms an excellent fellow with an odd habit of being able to tell you at a glance where you had been and what you had been doing the night before, Baden-Powell found himself overnight the youngest major-general of the army, acclaimed throughout the English-speaking world, and the particular hero of that part of its population between the ages of eight and eighteen. From them countless letters poured in asking for his help and advice, for the secret of his success with his messenger corps, and on setting foot in England, fresh from the task of organizing the South African Constabulary for Lord Milner, he was amazed to discover that his short recently published manual, Aids to Scouting, had become the vade-mecum of youth and its teachers throughout the country. It was at this critical moment in his career that he met the founder of the Boys' Brigade, Sir William Smith, whose ideas and enthusiasms he instantly shared. At his suggestion, scouting and other outdoor pursuits were added to the activities of the Brigade in an effort to increase its numbers. Baden-Powell undertook to explain these new activities in print, and in 1908 began the publication in fortnightly parts of the book now famous, Scouting for Boys. The result at once exceeded and confounded his expectations. Boys everywhere bought it in their thousands, and, ignoring the Boys' Brigade, began immediately to form themselves into patrols of their own. By the end of that year they numbered more than sixty thousands, and had found Scoutmasters ready to take charge of Troops. Far from resenting this development, whose strength was not foreseen, Sir William Smith gave the new Scouts every encouragement. Relations with the Boys' Brigade were cordial from the beginning, and they remain so. Both have grown up side by side with mutual goodwill. Baden-Powell was soon struggling to find badges, uniforms, enrolment cards, and other necessary adjuncts for an organisation which had created itself. What was his own position to be? Should he Page 14 The Left Handshake continue a career in the army, which would almost certainly bring him to the highest rank, or should he place himself at the head of this new spontaneously generated organisation for which his own book and his own method of life were responsible? The gourd of the prophet Jonah had not grown faster. In December, 1908, two rooms in Henrietta Street housed the headquarters of the new Movement. It had almost no staff; its equipment and that of its recruits, increasing by hundreds daily, was described as "haphazard," and there was no official recognition. In December, 1909 — a year later — ten rooms in Victoria Street did not suffice to house headquarters, and the number of Boy Scouts enrolled exceeded one hundred thousand. Local committees had sprung up everywhere; the patronage of Majesty had been secured, and the founder had been knighted. Baden-Powell could no longer delay his decision. Putting aside all thought of his career in the army, this spare, wiry figure with the strong, resonant voice, placed himself at the head of a movement unique of its kind and which, though now more than forty years old, has not yet attained its full stature. For thirty-three years of them he remained at his post, stimulating its growth and directing its energies. From the very beginning Baden-Powell adopted the principle of leaving as much as possible to the local Scoutmasters and Scout leaders on the spot. Decentralisation was his principle and he sought no more than to give general guidance through the medium, mainly, of Scouting for Boys. Such a scheme threw a great responsibility on the local Scoutmaster who, of necessity, had to make use of all the powers of initiative and leadership which he possessed. A very few fell by the wayside, but the vast majority, by their acts, their enthusiasm and what might be termed their instructed loyalty, proved finally and overwhelmingly the wisdom of the Chief Scout. B.-P., as he had now become known to millions, was here, there and everywhere. Leaving the details to be handled by capable men of experience and an independent habit of mind, he set himself to win recruits by the oldest and soundest of methods — preaching the faith. In this he was tireless. By the spring of 1910 he was delivering an average of twelve lectures on Scouting a month, in places as far apart as Exeter and Aberdeen. Nor were his visits limited to the United Kingdom. In that year he visited the Cadet School at Moscow, where a Troop of Scouts had been formed. They were subject to the rigid, set discipline which was the pride of the Imperial Household Troops. Baden-Powell was conducted round the school by its headmaster, an aged colonel girded with a sword, who displayed with pride the wonderful precision which the cadets had attained at drill, the spotless condition of their dormitories, the exact and meticulous order of their lives. Outside the railway station at his departure, a Guard of Honour mounted from the Scouts among the cadets was drawn up. "Rigid as stone," he records, "they stood in their ranks," but as he passed them, each boy staring at him with his soul in his eyes, the occasion was too much for him; in a moment it became too much for them, for, as he turned back and walked along the unbending line shaking hands with every boy in turn, "there was a sudden cry, they broke their ranks and were all over me in a second, shaking my hand, kissing my clothes, every one bent on giving me some sort of keepsake." Scarcely less enthusiasm was displayed everywhere else, and the climax seemed to be reached next year when, after the appearance in Windsor Great Park of thirty thousand Scouts, Punch gave its blessing to the movement by publishing a cartoon which showed a Boy Scout cheering from the battlements of the Castle. Such universal fervour inevitably engendered a spirit of jealousy and criticism in the breasts of those who in every generation regard enthusiasm with suspicion, and the desire to be of public service with loathing. A certain gentleman hiding himself behind the pseudonym of Captain Nemo burst into print and among other complaints maintained that the new movement smacked of militarism — a heinous crime in 1912. Baden-Powell's retort was simple and complete. "Scouting," he said, "is not drums and flags but life in the woods and the open." At the other end of the scale were those who complained bitterly that the Boy Scouts were pacifists, an accusation which has been repeated at intervals ever since and with as little justification. The truth was, of course, that Scouting was neither the one nor the other. It was plain but exciting common sense. Page 15 The Left Handshake Such niggling critics were but small fry. A new development was more formidable and far more welcome. The opposite sex began to take an interest in Scouting. For girls to appear in shorts in 1910 was unheard of, and they were compelled to wear skirts. Despite this handicap, some eight thousand had registered themselves as Scouts by the beginning of that year. They were given the name of Girl Guides and put in charge of the Chief Scout's sister — Agnes Baden-Powell — whose handbook, published two years later, became their official guide. By the end of 1911 Great Britain had become too small a place for the Boy Scouts. They had spread throughout the world and Baden-Powell set off on a tour to visit them. The ship taking him to Jamaica was new, the seas were rough, the decks leaked, and the driest place on board proved to be the empty swimming bath. B.-P. could not be induced to leave her, however, and at every port they touched obstinately remained on board. The reason was Miss Olive Soames, to whom he had first become attracted by the determination of her walk. He had seen her two years before in Knightsbridge with a brown and white spaniel at her heels. Now they were fellow passengers and he presently summoned up courage to address her. "Were you ever in London near Knightsbridge Barracks?" "Yes," was the reply, "two years ago." "So we married and lived happily ever after," he records. During this tour Baden-Powell was greatly impressed by the rapid growth of the movement in the United States of America, but before it ended visits to China and Japan convinced him that in those countries too the same phenomenon was apparent — enthusiasm and determination to spread the new gospel. Spread it did, and Baden-Powell, with that charming sense of humour which never deserted him, depicted its growth in a sketch showing an enormously corpulent Boy Scout with the caption, "Scouting is developing steadily." The years before the outbreak of the First World War culminated in 1913 with an exhibition of Scout craft at Birmingham when, for the first time, the eyes of the general public were opened to the value of the work accomplished. By then it was evident even to its few enemies that the movement was no mushroom growth but an acorn from which a strong sapling, in the course of time to become a mighty oak, had sprung. The outbreak of war in 1914 might well have destroyed the Boy Scout Organisation. Scoutmasters volunteered for the Army and the Navy in thousands and it seemed that many Troops would have to be disbanded. The exact contrary happened. Far from losing their occupation, the patch Scouts found it enhanced. Before the first year of war was out they were performing every kind of National Service. They were messengers in Government offices; they patrolled railway lines; the guarded bridges; they helped in the hospitals; they collected salvage; they harvested flax, and when the Zeppelins came it was their bugles, more musical than the sirens of which they were the forbears, that sounded the "All Clear." Perhaps the finest work was performed by the Sea Scouts, whose formation had been suggested by Lord Kitchener himself. Before the end of the war some thirty thousand boys and young men had passed through this Service. They were constantly visited by B.-P., who took great delight in watching them at their duties. These were many and various. At one station, he reported, the log showed that the Sea Scouts had "warned a destroyer off the rocks in a fog, sighted and reported airship going S.S.E. five miles distant, provided night guard over damaged seaplane which was towed ashore by drifter." Other items of note were: "Light shown near...at 3.15 a.m. for seven minutes and again from apparently the same spot at 4.35 a.m. Trawler No. ... came ashore. Permits all in order except J. ... M. ... who had none. Took his name and address to Police Superintendent at ... Floating mine reported by fishing boat No. ... Proceeded with the patrol boat which located and blew up the mine. Provided guard over wreck and stores three days and nights in ... Bay." Page 16 The Left Handshake Although as soon as war was declared the Chief Scout had placed himself unreservedly at the disposal of the War Office, no Command was given to him, for Kitchener very wisely decided that "he could lay his hand on several competent divisional generals but could find no one who could carry on the invaluable work of the Boy Scouts." Such a decision merely increased the activities of the Chief Scout, who spared himself not a whit throughout those four grim years. Occasionally his existence of endless inspections, office work and general duties of organisation was enlivened by the discovery that others thought him to be engaged on a very different kind of work. It was whispered that he was in Germany on Secret Service, and a naval officer went so far as to emphasize the care with which he had conveyed B.-P. across the North Sea upon his dangerous and secret mission. Others, however, took a different view and maintained that he was in the Tower of London, and an enterprising American published a graphic account of his execution as a spy, ending with the observation that "England has put into his last sleep one of the bravest soldiers who ever headed her armies." "It was really worth while being shot as a spy to gain so sweet an epitaph as that," was Baden-Powell's comment. The advent of uneasy years of peace meant a greater and still greater expansion of the Boy Scout Movement. The keenness of the younger brothers of Scouts to participate in Scouting led to the formation of a junior section known as Wolf Cubs, which sought to instill the beginnings of Scouting by means of games based on Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books. The general term of Scouter was adopted to cover the activities of all adults engaged in training Boy Scouts. It was then, too, that the Rover Scout scheme was evolved and launched to meet the desire of those boys, grown to manhood, who still wished to be connected as closely as they could with Scouting and all that it implied. In 1920 the first jamboree was held at Olympia. The word is of uncertain origin, but the Oxford English Dictionary now defines it as "a collection of Boy Scouts." It has become the highest expression of the movement, and at such functions Scouts from all over the world meet and join together in brotherhood. At that first jamboree Dr. Lang, Archbishop of York, conducted a service in the arena, preaching to a congregation of eight thousand of the youth of many nations seated in a circle about him, their arms round their knees, their young faces uplifted. "You are now a great power," he said, "which can make for peace. I exhort you to take this as your aim.... This is my message to you Boy Scouts. Keep the trust." A very important result of this jamboree was the naming of B-P. as Chief Scout of the World — by unanimous consent — and the formation of the International Committee which, as its name implies, put Scouting officially on an international basis. Two years later a census showed that there were 1,019,205 Scouts in thirty-two countries. In I939 the numbers had reached 3,305,149. As will presently become apparent, the spread of Scouting throughout the world was to bear noble fruit in the dark years of the Second World War. So the years went by, bringing with them many honours. In 1923 Baden-Powell became a Grand Commander of the Victorian Order. In 1929 a Barony was conferred upon him, in 1937 the Order of Merit. But though the ribbons on his chest multiplied. he remained the simplest of men and the easiest to approach. Thousands of Scouts now middle-aged will remember him wandering about boys' camps and talking to their inhabitants with the art that conceals art — or was it just the spontaneous utterance of a nature which in more Christian times would have been hailed as that of a saint? He would sit down by a fire and begin a yarn, and more and more would crowd round to listen. As he told of his adventures, the kindly trees of an English wood would change their magic for that of tropic palms, their shade for the shaggy depths of the West African jungle, the meadow beyond them would become the sand and burning rocks of the Sind Desert, and that half-seen boy and his friend, off with a bucket to draw water for the camp, the trackers who had once followed a stolen camel from Karachi to Sehwan. Stalking, how to hide yourself, the habits of animals, the ways of birds and reptiles, of fishes and insects, he would talk of these and other things for hours, and then turn to speak of trees and their growth and from that easily enough to the growth of man and how to keep fit and keen. Dryden's advice — Page 17 The Left Handshake "Better to hunt in fields for health unbought Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught: The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend" — was ever on his simple yet so persuasive tongue, together with the Scout Law which he drew up and which became that creed of undying inspiration to thousands. The years went by full of honour and hard work, of promise and fulfillment. The war of 1914 to 1918 was a severe but, as he and his fellow leaders saw it, a preliminary test of the strength and value of the Scout Organisation. From it, it emerged in triumph, only to meet a sterner time of testing twenty years later. By then the Chief Scout was more than eighty years of age and was no longer strong enough to carry out those tours and visits to his Scouts the world over, in which he took such delight. By then, too, he had formed the habit of spending much of his time in the lovely uplands of Kenya; and it was there that he died on the 8th January, 1941. Soldiers and Scouts, white men and black, bore him to his grave. It is written "Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions" — Baden-Powell did both. He died in the midst of a world-wide convulsion, but his work, far from being overwhelmed, was thereby to be strengthened and fortified. How this came about must now be told. Page 18 The Left Handshake Chapter III PURPOSE Scouting in the British Isles D erek Belfall was fourteen years old and lived in Bristol. The minimum age laid down at the outbreak of war by the Government for Air-Raid Precautions workers was sixteen, and many young Scouts were therefore prevented from becoming official members of the various organizations. Such official prohibition did not deter Derek. On the contrary, it seems to have acted as a stimulus, for he did not cease from importuning his father until he had at last received reluctant permission to join the Messenger Service attached to the local A.R.P. headquarters. Here he showed himself to be active, efficient and intelligent, never more so than on the night when a swift attack was made on Bristol. When it was at its height, a message had to be sent, for the telephone lines had been cut. Derek took it, delivered it, and returning passed by a house from which flames were beginning to issue. Thrusting open the front door, he stumbled over a stirrup pump which he picked up and turned upon the fire, soon bringing it under control. Relieved presently by the household, he went on his way, but soon afterwards, hearing cries, rushed into another burning building and brought out from it an injured and badly frightened baby. Then for the third time during that fire-shot night he turned his steps towards the A.R.P. post, only to be struck by a bomb fragment. He was picked up badly wounded and carried to hospital. As they laid him upon the bed he murmured, "Messenger Belfall reporting. I have delivered my message," and so died. In this display of courage and determination Scout Belfall was not unique, but he has provided an example, one of many, of that attitude of mind which enables so many Scouts to rise to so many occasions. Never, not even during those grim years 1914 to 1918, did Scouts have so many or such great opportunities of displaying to the world both the inner and the outward meaning of Scouting. This is no mere generalization but a sober fact. The figures prove it. Sixty thousand Scouts were awarded the National Service Badge for sustained work of every kind and description. No task was too great or too small, too important or too insignificant, for the Scouts, and the variety of their employment may be seen in Appendix I. For their leaders, the Munich Conference of 1938 had been a finger-post pointing straight to danger, and when a year later "a worn and tragic" Prime Minister told a listening nation that Great Britain was once again at war with the same foe, the Scouts were ready. The basis of their activity, in war as in peace, was the solid foundation of the third Scout Law (A Scout's duty is to be useful and to help others). In this law, which perhaps more than the other nine has impressed the imagination of the world, lay the secret of the Scouts' success in war-time. To observe it is to a Scout second nature, and whether it was a matter of supplying messengers to inform the deaf of air- raid warnings or the sounding of the All Clear, to fire-watching, to erecting indoor shelters, to the manning of listening posts, to hop-picking, to waste-paper collection, to wood chopping, to painting kerbs of pavements white, or the thousand and one tasks which had to be performed in a society engaged in total war, the habit of the Good Turn was ever at their elbow. To classify the work of the Scouts during those six years is very difficult because its variety was so great, to describe each separate item is impossible within the compass of one or even of many volumes. Only their principal services to the community can be mentioned. First, those of a general nature, not specifically connected with Passive Defence. At the outbreak of war, Scouts, in common with every one else, were keyed up and eager to contribute their individual share to the common effort. Good turns multiplied prodigiously. There were at that time somewhat more than half a million Boy Scouts, and to judge from the very large volume of reports from Groups and Troops, most of them modestly laconic, and the even larger volume of public and private testimony, each one of them must have performed more than one good turn a day. Here are some examples. All over the country Scouts made thousands of camouflage Page 19 The Left Handshake nets, an occupation on which the younger members of Troops were engaged throughout the war. In many districts harassed and overworked Post Office officials were helped in the sorting of letters by Scouts, and other Scouts collected clothing for refugees and persons who had lost their property in air-raids, the amount thus amassed running into thousands of tons. At the special request of the Minister of Fuel and Power, Scouts made a prodigious number of briquettes from coal dust and collected bundles of firewood and loads of logs. The first Christmas of the war, taking place as it did in the black-out, was rightly regarded as something different from the joyful feast of peace-time. Scouts all over Britain, with a special eye to the poor and needy, made a great and determined effort to reproduce normal conditions as far as possible. They gave hundreds of Christmas parties for children, they collected food for the aged, especially the aged poor. They took a prominent part in entertainments for the Forces. One Troop, from so poor a district that its members could not even afford to pay their subscription, collected discarded toys and, with the help of paint and glue, willingly supplied by the shops, made "a great pile of bright toys" for the children of the district, as poor and needy as themselves, but with fewer opportunities than they had for strewing resourcefulness. They went further and collected, again from the shops, baskets of "sweets, nuts and fruit," which they distributed. In Sheffield the Jewish Scouts organized a service which helped many a weary member of the Forces, by carrying his kit for him from one railway station to the other. In Edinburgh Wolf Cubs collected paper, bottles and other rubbish scattered about the Zoo, and ran messages for the infirmary. In Northern Ireland the Scouts concentrated their efforts on tinfoil, and did all they could to keep the Armed Forces supplied with magazines and books. The Scouts of Wales made a special collection of red seaweed to be used by the botanical department of the University College of Wales for medicinal and bacteriological purposes. In Dublin, which never felt the weight of war, the Sea Scouts showed themselves eager to help survivors of torpedoed ships, a service deeply appreciated. In the field of finance the Scouts showed themselves to be particularly useful. No sum was too large or too small to escape their notice. An evacuated Wolf Cub from Hounslow raised £60 by his own efforts towards the cost of a Spitfire, while the Thrifty Threes Club, inaugurated by the Scouts of Richmond, of which each member was required to carry a twelve-sided three-penny piece and to produce the coin on being challenged or pay a fine of 2d., collected £100, and the Glasgow Scouts raised £1,300 in order to provide a minesweeper with all its auxiliary equipment. In Fulham the Boy Scouts War Savings Group amassed a total of £57,232 in four years. The 8th Batley (Hanover Street) Troop of Yorkshire made use of some unusual methods of raising money for their town's War Weapons Week They sold two thousand yards of Savings Stamps and erected a signalling tower from which members of the public could send messages on payment of a fee. At the foot of the tower they set up a model Scout camp, pitching it on a piece of ground in the centre of the town and carrying out a different program each day, with a camp-fire every evening. Using their powers of persuasion on a battalion of the Royal Armoured Corps, they induced a large number of the public to ride in a tank on payment of a small sum. "This proved a great attraction . . . as the soldiers chose the roughest ground they could find, with plenty of bumps thrown in." Finally there was the Bob a Job scheme mentioned in Chapter V, which produced £32,000 in one day. Of the good turns done by the Scouts in the early stages of the war, none was of greater importance than their labours among evacuated children. The sudden transfer of school children from large cities and towns to country districts presented many problems, and local authorities soon found themselves in positions of great difficulty. Lord De la Warre, President of the Board of Education, appealed to Scouts, saying that many of the children "are running wild and all sorts of stories are heard about what is happening." The appeal was answered and soon Scouts of the countryside were busy strewing those strange places, the woods and fields of England, unknown to four-fifths of her population, to boys from the streets and squares of her cities, to many of whom Scouting was not even a name. The main difficulty was find a cure for boredom. The town child forcibly evacuated the country had lost his old interests and had not had time to acquire new ones. "The adventures of his street . . . the cinema, the shops, the night Page 20 The Left Handshake school, perhaps his club and church activities, and means of easy and quick transport, all these had gone." The country Scouts began their heavy task with a will. It was both easy and difficult. Their success with their opposite numbers from the towns was never for a moment in doubt, but with those who were not Scouts it was often a grinding task. Nevertheless, little by little much was achieved. The small town boy is an adaptable creature and presently found, under the guidance of his new friend, that the countryside had much to offer if he took the trouble to discover it. Patrol, Troop and Pack meetings were held, handicraft classes inaugurated, and individual interests stimulated by means of hobbies, reading, and Scout games. The results achieved were cumulative rather than striking. Had Scouts and Scouting not existed the situation would have been much more difficult. In the solitary instance of the reverse procedure, when 650 children were moved from the comparative safety of Gibraltar to endure the London blitz, Scouting proved invaluable. These "rock scorpions" — the name followed them to London — had "nothing to do except misbehave." In some parts of London, notably in Holborn, Tottenham and Ilford, Troops composed of them were started and soon proved successful. Great difficulty, however, was experienced in the genteel respectability of Kensington. Allan Bilby of Imperial Headquarters undertook the task and was soon reporting that his experiences in the Royal Palace Hotel, where potential recruits were housed, reminded him "of the Demons' Chorus from The Dream of Gerontius.... It took me back . . . to my experiences in the East End in 1910 and 1911 when I had to dodge tomatoes and cabbage stumps when coming home in uniform. But I do not intend," he went on, "to let a pack of naughty kids who know no better, put me off the work I have promised to perform." Starting at the beginning with a nucleus of sixteen, who established a Court of Honour, the Troop was gradually built up, and after a slow start began to grow. The difficulties were very great, the children spoke little or no English, air-raids were frequent, they spent, most of their nights in the tube station at Notting Hill Gate. They were bewildered and far from home, strangers from the bright Mediterranean strayed into a land of fog and fire. But the perseverance of Bilby, ably supported by a Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. B. F. M. Bussy, won victory in the end, and before the war was over, "the Scout Troop had improved the behaviour of the Gibraltar refugees beyond recognition." One of them, a member of the 1st Gibraltar (London) Scout Troop, Harold Wahnon, was awarded a Silver Cross for his work during the London blitz. Greater even than the importance of collecting money or clothing, and looking after evacuee children, was the cultivation of the land. For Scouts the slogan "Dig for Victory," a snore worthy exhortation than the "Business as Usual" of the First World War, meant very hard work. The appeal of the Ministry of Agriculture fell on ears alert and keen, and many troops took to "farming," a nauseous but effective telescope word to describe the annual camp which they combined with work on the land. Fruit-picking — one camp in Worcester attended by 600 Scouts plucked a million pounds of plums; harvesting — the Doncaster Scouts formed a mobile harvesting Troop which maintained a permanent week-end camp from which they sallied out to farms all over that part of Yorkshire; herb-gathering — 2,000 lb. of mixed herbs, 15,000 lb. of horse chestnuts, and 17,000 lb. of rose hips, not to mention 45,000 lb. of moss, 8,000 of nettles and 750 of acorns; planting — one Troop planted 50,000 cabbages for a Wiltshire farmer at twenty-four hours' notice; all these were undertaken with an enthusiasm from which skill was by no means lacking. In Leicester the gardens of men serving with the Forces were kept in excellent order by the Scouts. At Blackburn the Scouts ran their own allotments, and the Woodlands Group lifted 800 lb. of potatoes in one season "without touching more than the fringe of their allotment," and this although it was situated in a densely-wooded area and had had, before planting, to be cleared of old trees and bushes. Perhaps the most curious agricultural task was that performed by a Patrol of Scouts from Stepney, who assisted the Oxford University Bureau of Animal Population to plot the movements of the grey squirrel in the south-east area of East Anglia, the object being to determine the amount of damage such vermin did to crops. From June, 1944, to December, 1945, the Patrol covered some 2,000 miles when engaged on this investigation. Before the war was ended, Scouts in the British Isles had worked two and a half million hours at harvesting and general farm work, and somewhat more than 600,000 hours at forestry. Page 21 The Left Handshake In salvage, too, the Scouts showed themselves equally pertinacious. Delivering slogans, "Save your scraps to save your bacon" and "Rubbish makes rashers," the Scouts of Salisbury collected twenty tons of pig food in one month. Twenty-four Scouts of the 1st Radlett Troop, Hertfordshire, collected 70,200 razor blades in a week, their record being beaten by the 3rd Ewell (Ewell Castle) Scout Troop, who amassed 80,000 in the same period. Before the war was ended the total number of blades collected in Britain by the Scouts was only fifty thousand short of a million. In June and July, 1940, the "steel conscious" Scouts of Sheffield amassed 378 tons of scrap iron. Two thousand tons of metal, 15,000 cwt. of rubber, 750 cwt. of bones, 2,000 cwt. of rags, 85,000 bottles, 900,000 jam-jars, 2,250,000 lb. of seaweed — these were some of the major items to the credit of these omnivorous collectors. Waste paper proved an irresistible attraction. The Paper Control Board appealed to the Boy Scouts Association, and a central depot was established in each district and put in charge of the local Scout authorities. Imperial Headquarters was soon dealing with 250 offers of waste paper a day. The St. Matthew's Troop of Ponders End, for instance, collected 45 tons in nine months, the Scouts of Cambridge 201 tons in the same time, while those of Norwich took ten months to amass 250 tons, and those of Harpenden 240 tons in eighteen months. Even these efforts paled beside the achievement of the Scouts of Kent, who collected 2,000 tons in six months, one Troop alone contributing 100. Faced with the task of visiting more than 1,500 houses once a fortnight to collect waste paper, the 1st Balderton Troop tried to hire a horse and cart. The price proved too high, but the owner, when appealed to, presented the equipage together with harness and spare wheels "in appreciation of the work the Troop was doing." Scout Joseph Cleasby and his small friend Charles Score, both Handicapped Scouts, dragged their maimed limbs along endless streets, their bag trailing behind them, on their "daily paper chase." In Durham, where two tons of paper was collected in eight months, the additional objects found included a pound note, several pounds of sweets in small packets, some still edible, enough coal to heat a house, straw sufficient to keep a horse for a year, several pairs of nylon stockings, bananas, cheese, a dead cat, an unnumbered quantity of electric bulbs, sufficient string to connect Durham with New York, a number of top hats, and a quantity of wire sufficient to surround a fair-sized field. The money thus earned was used for various purposes. The camping expenses of poor Scouts were paid, Troop headquarters were built, and camp gear bought. The Scouts of Glasgow handed £182 to the Lord Provost towards the cost of an ambulance, those of Durham sent £50 to the Red Cross, and the Scouts of Bishops Stortford and the 1st Hockerill Troop lent £50 to the Government free of interest. In Kent a central fund maintained by the sale of waste paper sent frequent subscriptions to local hospitals and to the Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Families Association. The Scouts of Farsley, Leeds, spent the money they earned in sending 250 parcels to Scouts serving with the Forces. In all, 100,000 tons of waste paper was collected by the Scouts during the war, an average of slightly more than 20 tons a Troop each year. Every item of this large quantity was collected after school hours and at week-ends. From hospitals the Scouts have received much praise. To these institutions, burdened at all times but especially in war, they made themselves useful in many ways. They acted as messengers and telephone operators, they cleaned wards and carried stretchers. The more skilled found themselves working in operating theatres cleaning wounds, putting on dressings, suturing, administering local anæsthetics, sterilizing instruments, looking after plaster bandage trolleys, and all of them, the older and the younger, were ready at any time to give their blood for transfusions. The regularity of their attendance and their reliability were especially conspicuous. Patrol Leader Arthur Penfold of the 10th St. Marylebone (London) Group, a boy of fourteen when he began, worked for two years without a break at the Middlesex Hospital on night duty, and for this received a Certificate of Merit. Another such certificate was awarded to Patrol Leader Alan G. Stephenson of the 41st Newcastle-on-Tyne Group. He was escorting a soldier who had lost a leg to Roehampton and noticed that the stump, which the man had accidentally knocked against the door when entering the railway carriage, was beginning to bleed. Page 22 The Left Handshake Stephenson cut the seal off the emergency locker containing the First Aid appliances, found a nurse on the train, and she and he between them looked after the patient, who had by then become a stretcher case. On their arrival at King's Cross a stretcher party awaited them, summoned by Stephenson, who, as the train roared through an intermediate station, had contrived to throw a message from the carriage window on to the platform. The Scouts of Croydon, members of thirteen Troops, worked so continuously in the hospitals that they became known as The Hospital Scouts. They were to be found in every department and their duties ranged from the development of X-ray films to the preparations of corpses for post-mortem examination. On the 16th September, 1942, the services rendered by the Scouts of St. Marylebone to the Middlesex Hospital were officially recognized by the naming of a bed and the unveiling of a tablet in their honour. The Scout Gilt Cross for gallantry was awarded to the 48th Kensington Scout Troop as a whole, and individually to Peter Cronbach. The hospital medical superintendent reported that "they were most worthy of the great organization of which they were members." All these activities, and others of a lesser sort, were carried on not only in a country shrouded at sundown in absolute darkness from Land's End to John o' Groats, but also subject from time to time, often for weeks and months on end, to savage air attack. For the first time since the Danish invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries, with the exception of the half-hearted air warfare conducted by the Zeppelins of the war of 1914-1918, the civilian population of these islands found themselves in acute physical danger. Some 50,000 were killed, many more thousands wounded. It was a strange, a terrible time, which those who lived through it will not lightly forget. Of these, many, like a London doctor who wrote of the Scouts "their courage and unflinching devotion to duty were magnificent. I feel proud to be working under the same flag as these excellent examples of our young manhood," will remember those boys in dusty uniforms or dustier plain clothes who thought no danger too sharp, no toil too heavy to endure in the fulfillment of their self-imposed task of helping their fellow citizens. By boys such as these the Home Office ruling — already mentioned, which sought to prevent those under sixteen from enrolling as National Service volunteers, was honoured more often in the breach than in the observance. Messengers, telephone operators, call-boys for A.R.P. staff, drivers, policers of air-raid shelters, sandbag- fillers, gasmask assemblers, disinfectors, entertainers of shelter "patrons," erectors of indoor shelters, fire- watchers, these were some of the "professions" which the Scouts entered. On the first day of war a young Wolf Cub was sent with a message to a civic centre in London. He delivered it, and finding that there was no answer, remained with the staff and continued to work with them till discovered when — he still continued. His spirit typifies that shown everywhere among the Scouts. Scout Service Bureaux were set up in towns and villages throughout the kingdom and there lists were kept of all Scouts available for service, together with particulars of their age, school, occupation, address, hours when they were free, and details of any special badges of qualifications which would render them particularly suitable for special work. Scouts thus registered were given hours of duty, during which they were available to assume any task. One of these was the erection of Morrison shelters. The Scouts set up more than 40,000 of them, being called upon to do so by the Ministry of Home Security, which realized the difficulties that many housewives whose husbands were on active service might encounter when they tried to install them. The Scouts worked swiftly, and after a little practice were able to build one of these shelters in twenty minutes though it was made up of 200 parts. The record was achieved by a Liverpool Patrol which erected a Morrison shelter in sixteen. The 8th Aintree Scout Troop built no less than 200 of these shelters, and one gratified householder wrote saying, "My mother is an invalid and I expected it to be a noisy job, but your boys did it so quietly and efficiently that it was a pleasure to watch them." In Bethnal Green shortage imposed a delay in the erection of three-tier bunks in the tube shelters. The local Scout Troops were called in and in nine months set up 5,000, working only in the evenings and at week-ends. Page 23 The Left Handshake From the erection of shelters, the work of looking after those who used them was a small step. Here, perhaps more than any where else, the Scouts were invaluable. Scarcely more than children themselves, they knew how to look after children. "You can find him in Holborn Tube Station any night," wrote one A.R.P. warden, "He carries a haversack of blanket pins and makes a nightly round folding and pinning children's blankets, Scout fashion. The occupants all call him 'Big Chief Blanket Pin.'" In the East End of London, which had to endure the first fury of the air attacks, Scouts were particularly active in the stinking overcrowded shelters, which were all that could at first be provided for a population bewildered, afraid, but resolute to endure. "The scene is typical of many nights," runs a letter written at the time. "A warden on duty, with him several Scouts to act as messengers. The bombs are falling and the barrage is loud. One small Scout has a baby in his lap, playing games with her and showing her a picture book to distract her attention. A mother arrives sobbing with several children; she has left one behind and asks the warden if she can go and get him. The warden shakes his head. Immediately a voice chips in, 'Where do you live, Mother?' The address is given. 'Give me the key, please,' and the owner of the voice goes off and brings in the child. There are 700 people of all ages in the shelter. The Scouts gather round the piano and start the shelter's signature tune, 'Green grow the Rushes O.' A dusty A.F.S. man looks in; he wants help and out goes a Scout to direct him and his men to the scene of the fire. The gas is cut off, so the Scouts warm babies' bottles over candle flames. At midnight the Scouts on duty group together again and there is silence in the shelter, for every night at this hour they hold a Scouts' Own Service for ten minutes – a hymn and a prayer." Before the blitz was many days old they had become accustomed to looking after badly frightened people roused from their beds by bombs exploded or unexploded fallen near their homes and to cutting unnumbered piles of sandwiches and making unnumbered gallons of tea to be drunk by the firemen, policemen and A.R.P. workers, and this kind of labour, unspectacular, exacting, they performed night after night all over southern England. There was nothing heroic about it. The heroism had to be displayed in the streets outside, and was. The Scouts of London were more heavily tried than those in other towns because of the long duration of the raids. Their city was bombed ninety-five nights running and they got little sleep. Here, as elsewhere, many Scouts acted as messengers and fire-watchers. Scout John Cox was one night on duty on the roof of a church in Stepney. A load of incendiaries fell upon it's farther end, and Cox was soon busily engaged taking a hand with the pumps and then going for help. On his way, the bells from the belfry crashed through the roof and missed him by a few feet. He mastered his natural fear and hurried to help in the evacuation of people in the shelter beneath the church. Cox was evidently a boy of determination for a few nights later he was discovered by the police carrying tins of glycerine away from a blazing factory at imminent risk to his life. His warden often "had to remonstrate with him because of his utter disregard for his own safety when helping others." On the 7th October, 1940, the 36th Poplar (Bow Baptist Church) Troop lost their church and their headquarters. By the middle of March they had rebuilt their meeting-room with boards dug out of the debris of the church, but on the 19th another raid completed the destruction of the church property, including the hall in which the services were held. The Scouts offered their newly completed room, but hardly had the offer been accepted, when this, too, was blown to pieces in the great raid of the 10th May. By then they might with justice have shown discouragement. Instead, they rebuilt the hut which by October was ready to house the Baptist worshippers. It stood for the rest of the war and still stands, though the final blow fell on these pertinacious Scouts when on V.E. Day the local populace pulled up the fence they had laboriously built round it and used the wood to make a bonfire. Page 24 The Left Handshake As the blitz continued so the peril grew. Scouts John and Alan Cantillon, aged fourteen and twelve, of the 9th Farnham (Tongham) Group, Surrey, heard "the shrieks of their mother and . . . found that an incendiary bomb had set fire to her bed." The two small boys put out the blaze and held in check the flames which had seized upon the house, until the arrival of the brigade. That same night Scoutmaster George Keen won the Scouts' highest award, the Bronze Cross, for uncoupling the blazing trucks of an ammunition train and saving forty-five out of fifty-one of them. By this action he also saved the whole neighbourhood, for had the trucks exploded the consequences must have been disastrous. Scouts were active in railway stations, not only helping as messengers but also doing what they could to aid the overworked staff. During the flying bomb attacks a number of Scouts were discovered on the roof of a London railway station. When asked what they were doing, they replied, "Spotting for the lady porters." This was confirmed by the forewoman. "It's all right, mister," she said. "They let us know when a doodlebug is on the way and we all duck." Six Holborn Scouts won awards for gallantry and thirty Bermondsey Scouts, of whom one, Scout Frank Davis, aged seventeen, was killed in the rescue of a fellow passenger who had been wounded. For this he received a posthumous award of a Bronze Cross. Altogether, Bermondsey had an especially gallant record, winning six individual Silver Crosses and two awarded to Troops. Though London was bombed more continuously than any other city, the attacks of the Luftwaffe elsewhere were very severe and caused much damage and many casualties. In Coventry on the night of November 14th 1940, the Scouts' "acts of gallantry, unselfish, untiring service, and a spirit of cheerfulness throughout, have provoked the greatest admiration among all the Services to which the boys were attached." That dreadful night a Rover aged just seventeen took the place of an A.F.S. driver put out of action early in the raid, and drove his tender until long after the All Clear had sounded. The devotion to duty of five Patrol Leaders attached to the A.F.S. was so remarkable that, when dawn broke and they were still at work putting out the flames of a burning house, a small crowd of dazed and homeless people paused on their way to a rest centre to cheer them. Six of their young comrades, also Rovers, were described by the Warden as "worth fifty men," and of their number three were killed "after working nearly the whole night through." In Plymouth Patrol Leader William Cappola,, on duty fire-watching, climbed to the roof of a high building and as the incendiaries fell, kicked them off into the gutter, Later that same night he was buried in debris, but after an hour or two was dug out and reported for duty on the following night. In Bath a like spirit was strewn. The raids, a reprisal, so the Germans said, for the damage inflicted by the Royal Air Force on German cities, were short but very sharp and much damage was done. One night Patrol Leader Lionel Hawkins found himself engaged on the grim task of digging out a trapped family. Some of them were dead but one small girl was not. With the thoughtfulness of youth, Hawkins bandaged her eyes before he carried her out of the ruin, lest she should see the torn and twisted bodies of her parents. For this and other work at night he won the Scout Gilt Cross. During the heavy raids on Bootle, James Armstrong, a sixteen-year-old messenger, won the George Medal for his gallantry. Blown from his bicycle by bomb blast, he continued his journey on foot, delivered his message, and on the way back, seizing a hose, climbed a ladder to play water upon a house set on fire by an incendiary bomb. He remained in this exposed position for some time, ignoring the bombs which continued to fall at intervals. Having put out the fire, he returned to headquarters where he learnt that A.R.P. workers posted near delayed-action bombs were finding difficulty in obtaining food. He at once volunteered to take them hot tea and sandwiches, and made repeated journeys until all were fed. So efficient and courageous were the members of the Bootle Civil Defence Messenger Service, nearly all of them Scouts, that they were specially commended by the Minister of Home Security. Nearby, in Liverpool, Scout William Alfred Leigh of the 19th Fairfield Troop won the Scout Silver Cross to add to the George Medal with which he had already been decorated, by working for hours to rescue a man and his wife and child buried beneath a house. Being small, he was able to crawl through the Page 25 The Left Handshake tunnel made in the debris, and prolonged it sixteen feet, passing the bricks back one by one. This work of rescue took several hours and was hampered by escaping gas which overcame two of the rescue party. About the same time, farther south, Patrol Leader Anthony Dove and his two brothers Henry and Terence, of the Pitsea and Bowers Gifford Group, Essex, all won Gilt Crosses for the rescue of a woman in a lonely house struck by a jettisoned bomb. The building was on fire, the woman trapped by heavy debris. There was a dense fog, and the fire brigade took more than an hour to reach the spot. While awaiting it, the three Scouts, aged fourteen, twelve and ten, carried water in kettles and buckets from a nearby tank and poured it on the burning ruins, thus keeping them damp and so preventing the flames from reaching the woman. Farther south still, in Kent, Troop Leader Donald Jones of the 37th (Medway) Troop, who was made an air-raid warden at the age of eighteen, was the first of that gallant band to receive the O.B.E. He crawled beneath the wreckage of a house, and upheld with his back and shoulders a number of beams so that they should not fall upon three persons trapped a foot or two beneath them. So precarious was the condition of the house that he dared not move, but held the same posture from 2 a.m. till 6 a.m. "keeping up a cheerful conversation the whole time" until the rescue party arrived. In Glasgow those Scouts under sixteen who were unable to "bluff their way into A.R.P. duties" formed "After the Raid Squads" which went into action as soon as the All Clear had sounded. They helped in the rescue of people buried under bombed houses, salvaged furniture, looked after homeless children, helped in rest centres, and canteens, and acted as messengers. In one of the worst raids, a row of small houses was wiped out and a Patrol worked for hours digging for the victims. When they had done all they could; they were making their way to a mobile canteen, "their clothes torn, their hands and faces scratched and bleeding," when one of them "heard a moaning cry from a wrecked house." The Patrol Leader burrowed his way in and presently came out "carrying the naked body of a young girl. Blood dripped from a gash in her neck, which was stained crimson." "Take her, skipper," said the Patrol Leader to the Scoutmaster as he thrust her into his arms. "I'm going to be sick." Such sights, from which most parents would do their utmost to shield their children, were only too common in those days of war. Many Scouts beheld them not only on the bodies of other people, but on their own. Pierced with sudden agonizing pain and that moment of deadly fear which is caused by even a small wound they were not found wanting. Ronald Eke of London was rescued from a building beneath which he and his parents had taken shelter His legs were crushed, but "he made no complaint and gave clear directions as to where his mother and father could be found. They were dead, and he died on his way to the hospital." He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Cross. David Friar, aged eight, was five times bombed out of shelters in one night. Only when the All Clear was sounded did he inform his parents that his wrist was hurting him. It had been broken by the first bomb but he had borne the pain throughout the night and said nothing. The Cubs in one district of London were urged by their Cubmaster to be brave. A few nights later Ronald Troman found himself buried up to the neck in debris. It took many hours for the rescuers to reach him. All that time he was heard humming a tune, and when they laid their hands on him to draw him out, he said "I am a Cub. I can take it." He was nine years old. "I feel I must write and let you know of the courage shown by Alan Grover," wrote a London air-raid warden to the District Scout Commissioner. "He kept a very cool head after being buried under debris for over an hour, and when asked about his mother buried." Arthur Rossiter, aged fourteen, of the 45th Camberwell Troop, London, was injured by an oil bomb in a daylight raid. He was badly burnt and had to lie for months on his face and undergo "various forms of very painful treatment." The nurses and doctors of the hospital were impressed by his courage and endurance, and most of all by "his concern lest he should be a trouble to any one." He was awarded the Cornwall Scout decoration for being an outstanding example of a Scout who smiles under difficulties. A similar award was made to Wolf Cub George Wooldridge, whose left leg was blown off by a bomb. For some, death, not wounds, was the reward of service, as the many posthumous awards testify. In all, 194 Scouts were killed and father told us very clearly where they were when on duty in air-raids. Page 26 The Left Handshake So much for the Scouts on land. The Sea Scouts, though not so numerous, were equally active. By an arrangement between the Admiralty and the Boy Scouts Association, their Troops were recognized for the training of boys entering the Navy under the "Y" Scheme. The Admiralty inspected these units and provided basic equipment and a special badge implying that the Sea Scouts were members of a recognized unit. Training was varied, but in various places and also in the Discovery, Captain Scott's vessel now living out an honourable old age at anchor – in the Thames. Of the many Sea Scouts, none were more efficient than the ninety-six who were part of the force manning the Thames River Emergency Service. This was an Air-Raid Precautions organization under the control of the Port of London Authority, and its members were drawn from those who knew and loved the Thames, and could handle boats. Among them were peers, barristers, authors, shopkeepers, and artists. If a ship on the river needed help during a raid the small craft they manned went to her assistance, took off casualties and brought them to hospital. Sea Scout signallers were attached to each station and maintained a twenty-four-hour watch. Others manned boats on patrol and the various stations of the organisation on land. The most important of these was a fort in Kent where fifteen Sea Scouts were on continuous duty. It had once formed part of the Thames defences and commanded two long reaches of the river. It had been manned before, in 1914, also by Scouts. One Troop of Sea Scouts were given a fine chance to show their worth. The 1st Mortlake Troop possessed a forty-five-foot motor picket boat, the Minotaur, which they had bought from the Admiralty in 1929 and converted for their purposes. Ten years later she was commissioned and formed part of the fleet belonging to the Port of London Authority, but May, 1940, found her back at her moorings in Mortlake, in use once more for training purposes. On the 29th May, T. A. Towndrow, the Scoutmaster of the Mortlake Troop, was confronted by a naval commander and two petty officers, who ordered the Minotaur to proceed as soon as possible to Sheerness. Realizing the nature of the duties before him, Towndrow aroused his chief, the Town Clerk, obtained a few days' leave, and set out with a crew of two. Reaching Sheerness, they were sent on to Ramsgate, took on stores and fuel, and, picking up two naval ratings, set out for Dunkirk. "The crossing took five and a half to six hours and was by no means uneventful," reported Towndrow, who was skipper. "Destroyer after destroyer raced past, almost cutting the water from beneath us, and threatening to overturn us with their wash. We approached the beach with great caution at Dunkirk because of the wrecks. We found things fairly quiet and got on with our allotted job of towing small open ships' boats, laden with soldiers, to troop transports anchored in deep water, or of loading our ship from the open boats and proceeding out to the transports. Conditions did not remain quiet for long. We were working about a quarter of a mile away from six destroyers. Suddenly all their anti-aircraft guns opened fire. At the same time we heard the roar of twenty-five Nazi planes overhead. Their objective was the crowded beach and the destroyers. One plane made persistent circles round us. Another Nazi plane was brought down in flames, far too close for our liking. "After the raiders had passed, we shakily got on with the job. Eventually our fuel ran low and the engine made ominous noises, so we were relieved. We took a final load to a trawler, returned to our East Coast base, refuelled and turned in for a few hours' sleep. We were then told to stand by, as fast boats were making the next crossing. We shipped aboard another motor boat as crew. We left before it got dark under convoy of a large seagoing tug. Our job this time was to work from the mole at Dunkirk Harbour in conjunction with the tug. The operation was supposed to be carried out under cover of darkness, but with the petrol and oil tanks on fire it might have been day-time. Having loaded the tug we came away barely in time. As we left the mole the Germans got its range and a shell demolished the end of it. "On the way back we Scouts transferred to a naval cutter, full of troops, which was making the return journey. The officer in charge had lost his charts. Knowing the course back we were able to take over. Page 27 The Left Handshake After a nine-hours crossing we made our East Coast base once more. German aircraft constantly followed all small boats out to sea, gunning the crews and troops on board." Thus land and sea Scouts did their duty during the long years of war. To record all their deeds in full would be to write a detailed history of the air attack on England and the threatened invasion. The examples given have been taken almost at random from the reports which accumulated during six long years of intermittent, sometimes acute, but ever present danger. The tale they tell is woven of the very stuff of life itself, and death, and the colours of the tapestry are dark. Yet twisted with every sombre thread is one of brighter hue, for the courage of those boys, all of them under eighteen and many half that age, transformed a picture of wrath and horror into one of steadfastness and shining worth. These multifarious duties imposed upon the Scouts by the circumstances of war meant that there was but little time to spare for other activities. Moreover, as the war progressed, a great shortage of Scouters inevitably developed. 222,215 Scouts joined the Services. Once more the same phenomenon observed in the First World War was present in the Second. The Troops which made the fullest use of the Patrol system and gave Patrol Leaders responsibility were those which most successfully withstood the strain. They were helped by the institution of the National Service Badge which any Scout over the age of fourteen who had passed his Second Class tests, could win, and a Pennant with a crown of gold for Troops having the highest number of badges. The requirements of the badge were, in brief, an ability to write and carry messages, special knowledge of the locality in which the Scout lives, knowledge of how to deal with panic and preserve discipline, and enrolment in some form of National Service. Altogether, as has been said, more than 60,000 Scouts won this badge, the record perhaps being held by the 1st Balderton Troop of Nottingham, who won the pennant three years running, each member being awarded the National Service Badge and twenty-five of them the Civil Defence Badge. Scouting per se, as distinct from the duties undertaken by Scouts as the result of the war, was further encouraged and stimulated by the establishment at Imperial Headquarters of a club for the use of Scouts serving with His Majesty's Forces and Civil Defence units. In it were displayed awards and trophies associated with Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell. On the walls were his insignia and in a glass case by the door the brave and tattered Union Jack which had waved about his headquarters in Mafeking. The club was visited by many Scouts of different nationalities, the average number-using it being about 1,100 a month. Not only did the numerous services performed by the Scouts during the air-raids serve to keep them in the public eye, they were also made known to thousands by The Gang Show, organized by Ralph Reader, a theatrical producer. These shows, which had originally been staged at the Scala Theatre in London, where they drew large crowds, traveled all over Britain and to every theatre of war. Scouts who joined the Services, and there were more than half a million of them, found Scouting of the utmost value, a fact freely acknowledged by their comrades. "My officer's a Scoutmaster," wrote a sergeant describing his escape from Germany into Switzerland, "and with only a compass and map he led us over 120 miles of woodland into Switzerland. How's that for Scout training?" "I enclose a small gift of money to help the future generation," wrote a naval officer who spent six months in enemy territory and eventually reached England in safety, thanks, so he maintained, entirely to his Scout training. Another Scout wrote to Imperial Headquarters asking for his letter to be forwarded to his former Scoutmaster, whom he wished to thank for having taught him to swim. Swim he did, from the beaches at Dunkirk to one of the rescuing ships. A Glasgow Rover, one of the crew of a trawler sunk off the Norwegian coast by a German bomber, got ashore with his comrades and with a flashlight signalled to a British cruiser in the offing who took them off. Augustus Charlwood, wireless operator of a Royal Air Force bomber, owed his life to John Finlayson, the navigator, who bandaged his wounds after the aircraft Page 28 The Left Handshake had been hit attacking an enemy ship in Norwegian waters. A convoy of a hundred Air Force motor lorries in Burma reached safety because a Scout, Leading Aircraftsman Alfred Deany, was able to repair a wrecked bridge with few old railway sleepers and some rope. It took him twenty-five minutes to do so, and when the last heavy vehicle had crossed, the bridge "gently subsided." Everywhere where Scouts served, whether in Europe, the Middle East or the Far East, the tale was the same. For work requiring intelligence and training, the first choice was a Scouter or an ex-Scout if one was available. The position of Scouts in the Armed Forces was well summed up by a brigadier with more than thirty years' experience of training men for the Regular and Territorial Armies. "A batch of first- class Scouts," he deported, "would prove more acceptable to a commanding officer or a sergeant-major than a similar number of lads with any other form of spare time occupation in their past." Many gained the highest awards. Among those who won the Victoria Cross was Flying Officer Cyril Barton of the 1st Oxshot Group, who bombed Nuremberg after six of his crew had been forced to bale out, and lost his life landing the aircraft but saved the remaining members of his crew. Others were Lieutenant Donald Cameron of the Royal Naval Reserve, belonging to the 3rd Glasgow Group, who successfully attacked the Tirpitz in a midget submarine; Brigadier L. M. Campbell, Assistant District Commissioner of Guilford, who with his men cut a path through the German lines and behaved in a manner which "can seldom have been surpassed in the long history of the Highland Brigade"; Flying Officer J. A. Cruikshank of the 4th Edinburgh (Greenbank) Troop, who, wounded in seventy-two places, flew his Catalina safely back to base after destroying a U-boat; Sergeant T. F. Durrant of the 1st Green Street Green Group, who fought at St. Nazaire; and Lieutenant the Hon. C. Furness, 3rd Eton College Troop, who fought to the end in a Bren-gun carrier to cover the retreat of a large column of vehicles on the road to Dunkirk. Best known of all to receive this, the highest decoration for valour, was Acting Wing Commander Guy P. Gibson of the 1st Tovil Group, who led the raid on the Moehne Dam in the Ruhr and who subsequently lost his life as a Pathfinder of Bomber Command. Gibson had originally been a Scout at school and, to use his own words, "re-mustered" with the 1st Tovil Group as a Rover. The devotion to duty of Boy Jack Cornwell in the First World War, who lost his life winning the Victoria Cross at Jutland, was repeated in the Second by another Scout, Leading Seaman Jack Foreman Mantle of H.M.S. Foylebank, at one time a member of the 6th Southampton (St. Paul's) Troop. On July 4th, 1940, he was in charge of the starboard pom-pom when his ship was attacked by enemy aircraft. "Early in the action his left leg was shattered by a bomb but he stood fast to his gun and went on firing… Almost at once he was wounded again in many places. Between his bursts of fire he had time to reflect on his grievous injuries of which he was soon to die, but his great courage bore him up to the end of the fight when he fell by the gun he had so magnificently served." So the Scouts, young and old, served together — all of them, the known and the unknown, the small and the great — from him who grappled with the emergency when it came suddenly upon him in flame or roaring sound and did not count the cost, to the Air-Raid Warden's messenger slipping through the bomb- loud streets with aid to fellow creatures buried alive. They upheld the Law, they kept the Promise, and one and all from this nettle, danger, plucked this flower, safety, to the honour and glory of Britain. Page 29 The Left Handshake Chapter IV RESOLUTION Scouting in Occupied Countries T o carry on as Scouts in Britain, a country at war and at bay, but whose frontiers were intact and unviolated, was a simple, if hard, task. How different was the situation in Europe. There, before 1941 was out, a ruthless tyrant wielding power ruthlessly had enslaved men from the North Cape to the Pyrenees, from Ushant to the dreary woods a few miles west of Moscow. Treading in its footsteps, a rickety page following a bad King Wenceslas, another tyrant sought to do likewise in Greece and Albania. Throughout that vast area all forms of Scouting were first forbidden, then fiercely suppressed. That the movement was maintained at all was remarkable enough, that it achieved what it did is a shining tribute to the soul of man. For Scouts all over Europe and, when Japan entered the struggle, over much of China, Malaya and the Far East generally, the motto "Be Prepared" had a peculiar and tragic significance. They had not only to be ready to meet the ordinary ups and downs of life, and to add to these the assaults of the enemy in the form of bombs, as was the lot of the Scouts in Britain, they had also to be prepared for something far worse, far more subtle and more sinister, the attack, unflagging, insidious, deadly, of the Gestapo and the Kempetai. Therein lies the essential difference between the life of a Scout as lived in Britain or her Dominions during the war, and that endured in Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Belgium, Holland, Greece, China, Malaya or any of the other countries occupied by Germany, Italy and Japan. All outward signs of association had to be most carefully concealed. The Scout salute, if made at all, had to be made furtively, quickly, with a careful look round beforehand to make sure that "they" were not watching. A "hike" had to be made alone, in ordinary clothes, and the secret rendezvous had to be reached alone. There was no cheerful chatter with friends upon the way, no songs, no arguments. The boy slipped along alone, fear, throttled by resolution, in his heart. "They" might be watching, "they" might stop him. He must not tell even his father and mother whither he was going. That Scouting, essentially a way of life for boys in times of peace, could have achieved so much during a long and dreadful war is a tribute at once to its soundness and its resilience, and it is with feelings of wonder and thanksgiving that it can be recorded that in 1945 there was a far larger number of Scouts, active in Europe than 1940. During those five bitter years, Scouting in the nations beneath Germany's heel became almost a religion. It was helped and encouraged by all good men and true — and there were many in every country — not only because of the strength and beauty of its principles, but also because it was in itself a strong and healthy antidote to the insidious assaults of the various Nazi Youth Movements. These were, as it were, the reverse of the medal, the face of the demon peering between the pure, leaping flames. Many of the parents refused to encourage their boys to become "underground" Scouts, for the dangers were many and their love for them very great; but if, despite them, their son became such a Scout, they were careful to shut their eyes and to make no effort to stand in his way. Boy Scouts were therefore left free to follow their own conscience and to adopt the attitude dictated by them towards the power occupying their country. In practice this meant that since the Scout law and the Scout faith were, and are, almost identical with the ideals for which the Allies went to war — individual freedom, the right to live according to one's own beliefs — there were very few Scouts who did not in fact belong to one resistance movement or another. Of their work in these movements, the perils they ran, the triumphs they achieved, many records exist and on one point all reports, written and verbal, agree. The work done by Scouts in the underground movement could never have been carried out with the same dispatch and efficiency had it not been for their Scout training. This was invaluable. They were able, for example, to read maps with a speed and facility denied to other members of the movement who had not received such training. They were able to camp in the open, in all seasons of the year, in every kind of good or bad conditions of weather, without equipment or any of the usual aids to camping, and to thrive. Their indifference to hardship, or their Page 30 The Left Handshake toleration of it, can only be described as phenomenal. Above all, their training taught them to rely on their own brains and not to wait for orders which might never come. Self-reliance, development of the individual, that was what as Scouts they possessed to a marked degree. It is small wonder that Scouting was so frowned upon in countries governed by dictators. But all the disguises the Scouts had to assume, all the steps they took to deceive their enemies, were for them part of the "great game," the game they had learned as Scouts and which they now played for stakes higher than those dreamed of by their founder. Many of them played it to the bitter end, all with skill and unselfishness. Here, then, country by country, are their stories. CZECHOSLOVAKIA Let us begin with Czechoslovakia, the first of the European countries to feel the lash of Hitler's oppression. Germany seized a part of it in September, 1938, and completed theft in March, 1939. The Munich Agreement gave her Sudetenland, a country of wooded hills and valleys, in which camps for Scouts were almost too numerous. The whole countryside was ideal for Scouting and had long been used for that purpose by the large and well-organized Scout movement in Czechoslovakia. During the six uneasy months which elapsed between September, 1938, and March, 1939, the Czech Scouts beheld with mounting indignation the overrunning of their favourite haunts by German youth, who had succeeded in extracting the technique of Scouting and in using it to found their own training for the battlefield. Then with the early spring came the total eclipse of Czechoslovakia. The shallow which had fallen upon the Sudetenland spread across the whole of the country and deepened into a black night which was to endure for six terrible years. That day, the 15th March, there were many camp-fires burning in the hills and woods. Round them patrols of Czech Scouts had gathered, and with bitterness but no fear in their hearts they renewed their oaths. The only audience, the dark firs and pines round about them, heard the clear boys' voices. "On my honour and my conscience I will Do my duty to my country, the Czechoslovak Republic, I shall love her and I shall work for the Liberation of my Nation: I shall obey the orders of my Scoutmaster and fulfil each of them without hesitation: I shall love my brother Scouts whom I shall never betray, and I am ready to make the sacrifice of my life." These were solemn words, more solemn on the lips of children faced suddenly with the problems of a man. They knew what was in store, for in their veins flowed the blood of the men of Bohemia who had fought so often for their freedom. Once more it was in jeopardy; already, indeed, it had been torn from them by the German invader. The oath they took that night, therefore, was in some respects almost a matter of routine. Their forefathers had taken many such and fulfilled them to the death. Now it was their turn. Though the Germans did not immediately disband the Boy Scouts Association, they forbade the wearing of Scout uniforms and ordered that the national flags, flown at all Scout camps, should be hauled down and the Swastika substituted. At once the issue was joined, for the Czech Scouts had no intention of filling these demands. Outwardly they did so. Their uniforms were discarded and hidden when they were in the towns or villages, but once in the woods, out of pockets enlarged for the purpose by their mothers, and of rucksacks, came the scarves and badges of their calling. Where the buckle of the Scout belt had been wont to meet round their waists, a patch was sewn on so that they could slip the buckle of the belt beneath it should they encounter a German. Every camp had its national flag but it did not fly from a pole, Page 31 The Left Handshake nor did the Swastika. "How could they fly flags?" said the Czech Scouts. "Had not the Germans forbidden the felling of trees? How, then, could they obtain the necessary poles?" Their oppressors muttered and grumbled but took no action, and in the meantime the flag of their country lay honoured upon the ground, to be instantly concealed when danger threatened. In July, 1940, it became acute. Without warning Scout camps all over Czechoslovakia were raided and disbanded by the German police. They were full of boys wearing the forbidden uniform, which since the raid had been cunningly planned and carefully executed, they had no time to conceal. The Germans were delighted. They ordered them to take off their uniforms. So it came about that one summer evening boys were seen going home in their hundreds clad in nothing but their underwear. The equipment this seized was handed over to the Hitler Jugend. A pause ensued, and then in November the Boy Scout Association was made illegal and disbanded. Its headquarters, an old three-storied house in the centre of Prague, was taken over and bestowed on the same hated organisation. The Scouts went underground and intensified the work they had begun in 1939. They held ever before them the precepts of the Scout Law, to which they gave the widest interpretation. The Fifth Law, for example, "A Scout is Courteous," they regarded as imposing a duty to guide strangers and show them the way if they were lost in an unknown place. Mindful of this, they applied it in their dealing with the numerous political refugees. These were being ruthlessly rounded up and thrown into concentration camps. The Scouts conveyed messages to many who were in danger and helped many more to escape. The only road to safety, and that was dubious, ran across the frontier to Poland or to Hungary. Scout Troops, manned by boys from villages near the border who knew the countryside intimately, organised a service of guides to take these fugitives across the mountains or beneath the earth through the workings of derelict coal-mines. These frontier Scouts became very expert. They knew every dog belonging to the frontier guards and how they were used, and, in taking avoiding action, they profited from the size and shape of the military boots which left so distinct a pattern on the ground. Not only had political fugitives to be helped, there were many forced to stay behind, the families, for example, of the men who had been put in concentration camps. These, too, had to be succoured, and the task was dangerous. The Scouts went about collecting food and finding persons ready to look after the derelict children. They went further and provided food for the inmates of the camps. Among these, one situated in Moravia was populated mainly by hostages and the relatives of those known to have enlisted in the armies of countries fighting against Germany. A local Scout Troop organised a regular supply of smuggled food passed through or over the barbed wire during the night, and inaugurated a most efficient postal service. To the inhabitants of Great Britain or America, who have had the good fortune not to experience occupation, the mentality of less fortunate human beings who have had to endure it may be hard to imagine. To live in a country where at any moment you or your relatives or your friends may be seized, flung into prison or behind barbed wire, or taken hundreds of miles away to forced labour, imposes a strain which at times is beyond endurance. So it was in Czechoslovakia, and it was in helping to relieve the strain that the Scouts, mindful of the Eighth Law (A Scout smiles and whistles under all difficulties) proved especially useful. They devised various methods of keeping up the spirits of the dejected, sullen, but stout-hearted inhabitants. Of these none was more effective or caused greater satisfaction than the perambulating orchestra formed by Boy Scouts in one small town. They moved about its streets playing upon various musical instruments. Every one in the place knew them for Scouts though they wore no uniforms or badge of any kind, and they lend a passionate ear to the melodies played, for they were of a special kind, old Czech tunes chosen for their patriotic meaning which, when heard, set a lump in the throat and a tear in the eye. To the clodhopping German infantry they were just tunes not very well played by a number of ragged small boys. To the Czechs they were the music of the spheres. Page 32 The Left Handshake As the war went on and the Czech Underground Resistance became yet more active, the perils faced by the Scouts became greater and greater, as did the needs of the Partisans scattered throughout the country. To them the Scouts proved of the highest value. They collected food for them, delivered messages, gave them warnings. Sometimes they met with disaster. For example, a group of fifteen Scouts, of whom the youngest was only twelve years old, tried to get into touch with a number of Partisans, most of them, former Scouts, hiding in the Beskydy mountains. They needed food and means of communication. The Scouts were determined to supply them and were on the point of success when they were betrayed by a German evacuee who, because she spoke perfect Czech, had not been suspected by them. She gave away their hiding-place to the Gestapo. All fifteen were arrested and taken to the barracks at Tesin. There they joined eighty Poles and with them were marched to the cemetery. Here Poles and Scouts were handed spades and ordered to dig a common grave. When it was completed the boys were taken apart, their hands bound brutally with barbed wire, and one by one they went over the edge of the pit, each receiving as he did so a bullet in the back of the head. These Scouts were less fortunate than those who assisted Scouter S. after he had shot an SS trooper dead in the streets of Kladno. To kill a German was bad enough, but if he was a member of the SS, the crime was aggravated. Moreover, such a deed had put every German in uniform on his mettle. The police combed Kladno seeking S., and presently surrounded his house. S. fought his way out and succeeded in escaping to the mountains, where he lay hiding. Boy Scouts brought him food, and two Wolf Cubs, only ten years old, went each day into the woods ostensibly to pick wild strawberries but also to leave messages for S., warning him of the movements of the police. Every night he changed his lie-up for another found for him by the Scouts. Despite these precautions, after a few weeks the forest became too hot to hold him, for by then hundreds of German police, in a determined effort to avenge their dead colleague, were beginning to comb it from end to end. S. walked right through the cordon in the uniform of a German soldier, reached Prague and was about to lie low when he learned that the Germans knew that he was in the city and were about to search it from end to end. They did so, and most prominent among their ranks was S., who sought for himself high and low. Eventually, it being impossible for him to remain any longer in his own country, he made his way into that of the enemy and, posing as an enforced labour, reached Bavaria. Waiting his opportunity, he crossed the frontier into Switzerland, gained England, and joined a Czech squadron of the Royal Air Force with which he served until the end of the war. Then he went back to Kladno and met the Wolf Cubs without whose help he would never have escaped. "They laughed sincerely as they talked about their adventures." Scoutmaster M. was arrested with twenty-three boys of his Troop and questioned by the Gestapo. Unable to obtain any information, some of the boys were sent to a concentration camp, while M. was taken to Prague. On the way to Gestapo headquarters the car in which he was driving slowed down, and he leapt out of it at a point where the old town began. Through its narrow streets sped M., into one passage, out of another, through one old court over which the houses brooded, into a second. Putting on a spurt, he outdistanced the pursuers, and turning a corner ran full tilt into a young boy whom he called upon to help him. The boy was a Scout, hid him in a cellar while the Gestapo pack howled past, and eventually took him to the Scouts' Troop room, situated in an old tower overlooking the river. There M. spent several weeks, and when the search came too close, took a small boat and sculled up and down the river while the Gestapo combed every house upon its banks. He remained in the Troop room long enough to grow a beard, and thus disguised was able to make his way to Yugoslavia and then by devious routes to Russia, where he joined a Czechoslovak contingent and in due course returned triumphant to Prague. The story of the three brothers, Eugen, Vladimir and John, ends more tragically. Eugen, prominent in the Czech Underground Movement, was arrested and executed in November, 1942. Vladimir, who had fled the country at the outbreak of war and reached the Czech forces in England, learned of Eugen's execution on the 14th December, 1939. "It was a terrible shock," he records in broken English in his diary. "There is a long row of boys who have been killed, all of them of my native town, my school- Page 33 The Left Handshake fellows and brother Scouts.... I walk like in dreams... But I cannot help.... Eugen, I will avenge you, I will." He did. He, too, eventually reached Russia and put himself in the forefront of the battle. Several times wounded and decorated, he eventually reached a spot close to his native town in the mountains and there he received his last and mortal wound. Carried to a hut, his dying gaze rested upon his native valley, and so he passed, content and at peace, four days before the unconditional surrender of his enemies. Of this family John alone is left. He escaped from a concentration camp and is now in charge of a Troop of Scouts. In addition to helping fugitives from the Germans, persons in concentration camps and leaders of the Czech Underground, the Scouts did what they could to alleviate the sufferings of Czech workmen forcibly deported to factories in Germany, far from their homes and families. They maintained a constant service of letters to them which was so effective that, though these unhappy men were cut off from all that they held dear and subjected to constant bombing from the Royal Air Force, for they were working in factories sited in target areas, they never succumbed to German propaganda. When, a few weeks before the end of the war the Germans carried out a mass migration of prisoners- of-war from east to west Czechoslovakia, Scouts near the German boundary kidnapped some sixty American prisoners-of-war who had arrived in an exhausted and starving condition, hid them in the woods and fed them till their compatriots arrived to find them alive and well, and conversing with their hosts by means of the American Indian sign language. Mention has been made of the dogs which accompanied the German frontier guards. The Germans made great use of such dogs, not only to guard prisoners but also to carry messages under fire, and collected every dog they could find for training. The method used was simple. A shot was fired over their heads. Any dog who, though it might be frightened, did not run away, was immediately pressed into service. Those who fled were left alone. It did not take the Czech Scouts long to discover this method of training; they put every dog they could lay their hands on through a "re-schooling" course and succeeded very quickly in making cowards of them all. Thus by divers means, some comical, some grim, but all effective, did the Scouts of Czechoslovakia maintain resistance to the enemy, and in so doing upheld the glorious tradition of their country and of their calling. They did so at no little cost, 397 losing their lives in concentration camps, in street fighting, in torture chambers, and 137 in the air or upon the field of battle. When the end came at last how full were those who survived of joy and hope. "I was lucky enough," writes one of them in June, 1947, "to get as far as Prague last week for a couple of nights and to have a look at Scouting there. Everywhere I went, in the American Zone and the Russian Zone, I saw plenty of Scouts in uniform and boys and girls at work. Scouts were very active in the days of the fighting in Prague, the leaders of the Underground were mainly Scouts and former Scouters. The boys built barricades in the streets of the city (there were such on each crossway), the girls worked in hospitals and nurseries.... The main activity of the Scouts after the fighting ceased in the streets (where many of them, and all grown-ups, took part) was mostly dispatch service because the telephone service was partly disorganised and the lines destroyed.... Scouts into the occupied Czechoslovakia went through fire. They had to use all means to keep their living underground, they had to learn lying, dissimulation, to play different tricks.... But in spite of all this, when the irons were broken and new freedom came to rule over the country, thousands of Troops emerged out of the Underground. The hearts were clean and full of enthusiasm...." That joyful day inaugurated a new era of happiness. It lasted not quite three years. Then, on the 24th February, 1948, without any consultation with the Scout Leaders of Czechoslovakia, her newly-formed Communist Government announced that the Boy Scout Association was to be affiliated to one of the Communist Action Committees. On the next day, led by a traitor, a number of men, very few of them ex- Scouts, marched to Scout headquarters in Prague at the head of police armed with tommy-guns, occupied Page 34 The Left Handshake the buildings and thrust out the Chief Scout and his staff. Similar steps were taken in the Provinces. The curtain of the dark fell once more. POLAND The keynote to the character of a Pole is patriotism. There is a saying in that country that a child sucks in love of Poland with its mother milk. The reason is not far to seek. Poland has been partitioned by her neighbours four times. Safe for a short period after the First World War, during which she was rent this internal dissensions, she has never been allowed to govern herself for more than two centuries. It is not, therefore, altogether surprising that the Poles are strongly nationalists, and when Hitler armies overran their country in the autumn of 1939, that they should have formed the fiercest of all Underground movements. It was joined as one man by the Scouts. Scoutmasters in other countries might have tried, and did try, to restrain the boys committed to their charge and prevent them from exposing themselves to the same risks as those run by the older members of the community. No such attempted restraint was made in Poland, nor would the Polish boys have understood it had it been made. Each and all worked this a selfless devotion for the cause of their country. The vitality of Scouting has always been a characteristic of the movement in Poland. Troops, Groups, Patrols, Rover Crews, Lone Scouts, seemed to spring up spontaneously everywhere. In the war they were to be found in prisoner-of-war and concentration camps, in the forests of Siberia, in the Polish settlements scattered over Africa, India, New Zealand, Mexico, England, Scotland and France, but especially in tortured Poland herself. There the part played by Scouts in the Underground Movement cannot be exaggerated. From its beginning Scouts became members of the Polish Home Army, that secret force which defied the Germans and fought them from the day Poland was overrun until the day of victory. It was one of the grimmest armies the world has ever known. No quarter was asked or given on either side. The battleground was the homes of the men in its ranks, their weapons those snatched from the enemy or manufactured in secret, or, most subtle of all, books and newspapers printed by stealth and distributed with uncanny skill. Of this army the Polish Scouts were the scouts, moving everywhere, collecting information, distributing orders, harassing the Germans. Side by side with these activities went on the normal pursuits of Scouting. Somehow, somewhere, despite the police, the routine training was carried on. Through all those years, there were three Polands: the western part forcibly absorbed into Germany, the central part governed by a German governor, and Underground Poland covering the whole territory populated by people working, thinking, fighting, laughing, weeping, living, in fact, a full Polish life. Among these, the Scouts were here, there and everywhere, at one moment teaching a Tenderfoot to tie knots, at another derailing a train or ambushing a German patrol. Let the story of Wojtek and Czarny — these are not their real names — give a picture of this strange, fantastic, perilous existence. Intimate friends, they belonged to the "Beeches" Patrol, so called because its members were accustomed to make expeditions every year in summer into the beech forests near their homes. They came from different social classes. Wojtek father was a rich industrialist, Czarny was the son of a peasant. In due course Wojtek became the head of a group of boys known as "The Five," who achieved fame among their fellows by the skill with which they climbed the peaks of the Tatras, and their prowess on skis. Czarny was a technician and could build a bridge, or a hut better than any one else. They passed the splendid summer of 1939 in the woods, but the shadow of war lay heavily upon the land, and in September when it broke out, both boys left for the east, but soon returned to Warsaw. Here, Wojtek's father was arrested and six months later shot. From that moment Wojtek determined to fight the Germans by any and every weapon. In this design he was joined by Czarny and The Five. They edited a secret newspaper, The Polish Call, they defaced German posters, they flung vomit bombs into luxury Page 35 The Left Handshake restaurants, patronised by the German troops of occupation, they broke the windows of collaborators. All these activities were but small beer. In carrying them on the young men were putting their Scout training to perverted use, but were at the same time helping their fellow countrymen to bear an oppression which daily grew in stature till it culminated in an orgy of terror. In November, 1942, the era of the Polish partisans opened in earnest and among the first to join them were Wojtek, Czarny and their friends. After a short course of training, Czarny performed his first task, blowing up a German train with mines made by himself in his flat. It soon became a place of refuge for his friend Wojtek, who had suffered arrest but had escaped almost at once by jumping from the lorry taking him to prison. In a few weeks, from high-spirited boys playing a dangerous game in a light- hearted manner, they developed into cunning and resolute secret soldiers. They collected arms, they blew up trains, they waylaid officers and men of the Wermacht. Wojtek was the leader, Czarny the resourceful aide. The pace was too hot to last long. Before three months were out, Czarny's whereabouts had been betrayed by a friend who broke down under torture and he was arrested. For two days the was ruthlessly tortured, sometimes in the presence of the man who had betrayed in and who was himself almost in extremis from the same cause. Never a word did Czarny utter, and finally, losing patience, the Gestapo examiner ordered him to be beaten to death. In the meantime, Wotjek outside was organising his rescue. The first attempt failed, but the second succeeded, the lorry in which Czarny, still just alive, was being conveyed back to prison from Gestapo headquarters, being ambushed by Wotjek and his men. In the fight Wotjek was mortally wounded. Two days later he died. His last words were for Czarny, his friend. Czarny, too, was dying in another part of the city, dying of multiple wounds and exhaustion. He died slowly and in great pain. Yet he was full of happiness and continued to joke and laugh with his friends to the end. His last words, spoken from blue and bloodless lips, where that verse of Slowacki: "I implore the still living not to lose hope, But, when the time comes, to go forth to their death Like stones thrown by God upon a great rampart." So he passed to join his friend, who died at the same hour and upon the same day. They were twenty- two years of age. The Poles, if their own estimate of themselves is to be believed, are not a people much given to humour. They have suffered too much and, inevitably, they take life seriously. From the beginning the basis of Scouting in that country was a moral, a Christian basis, and the Tenth Scout Law — a Scout is clean in thought, word and deed — became an Eleventh Commandment to all who joined. Paradoxical though it may seem, Scouting was at once a strengthening of family ties and a substitute for them. To be a Scout was to love, honour and respect the family of which he was a unit, but if that family were destroyed—and in Poland the number which suffered this fate must be counted not in tens but in hundreds of thousands—then there was a larger family to which the Scout belonged by virtue of the oaths he had taken, the uniform he had once worn. The great family of Scouts, millions strong, became his family, their joys his joys, their sorrows his sorrows, their achievements his achievements. More than in any other country was this aspect of Scouting, foreseen indeed by its founder but applied by him rather to the socially poor and backward than to the youth of an oppressed nation, emphasized in Poland. There the need to maintain some kind of family spirit, in order to oppose in every possible way the assumption by the State of all the functions of family life, was paramount. The difficulties under the brutal and savage heel of Germany were enormous, none greater than in the field of education. The occupation of Poland destroyed in a matter of days the work of years. Before many months were out, all schools for boys over Page 36 The Left Handshake twelve years of age had been closed save for a very small number of technical training colleges. Only Poles who would consent to work with the conqueror, and their number was negligible, could obtain education. It was at this great moment of crisis that the Polish children rose above the level of their fate. An elaborate, patchy, but astonishingly vigorous system of "underground" education was constructed and its growth and maintenance were insured by the children themselves. "The whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face creeping like a snail unwillingly to school" was not to be found in Poland. Boys and girls went to their secret schools with an eagerness which would have confounded Tom Brown, and astonished the School Certificate examiners. The schools themselves were run by Troop Leaders, the pupils being the Scouts of the Troop. Organised groups met at the houses of professors, and thus through Scouting a network of teachers and learners spread all over the country. Since the Germans would not allow more than three people to meet together in any one place, the greatest care had to be taken. Were one of these clandestine schools to be discovered, even if those attending it were but found in the streets in possession of school books, punishment, swift and immediate, fell upon them all. Schoolmaster and pupil alike were sent to Germany to forced labour. The classes had, therefore, to be divided into two. One-half were at their books while the other half were on sentry-go. "Some of my small boys" — it is a Polish professor speaking — "would stand on guard hiding outside the house in which I was taking my class. When one of them saw a soldier approaching he would cough, or knock against a wall with his feet, or make some other predetermined noise. He would then approach the soldier and try to get into talk with him, while his companion — for those on watch always worked in pairs — ran back to tell the class that danger threatened. This required great courage from the very young, and they showed it." Scenes such as this were enacted daily for years all over Poland. It was surely the hardest schooling the world has ever known. One phenomenon became immediately apparent and remained so. No punishment were necessary, nor was there ever a lack of discipline. Each child knew the risks involved and strove manfully to acquire all the knowledge available. Secret education was only one of many activities which the Polish Scouts tenaciously pursued. There were others which, as the war went on, grew greater and greater. In addition to petty sabotage practiced by boys like Wotjek and Czarny there was, for instance, the huge underground newspaper organization, run very largely by Scouts and former Scouts, responsible for the printing and delivering of clandestine news-sheets and the maintenance of secret wireless communication with the Allies. There were the athletic clubs, founded ostensibly for the organisation of sports, in reality for the promotion of resistance. And then, when open revolt broke out in Warsaw in 1944, there were the famous Scouts and Guides of the Home Army, citizens of the fighting city, Zoska, Parasol, Wigry and the rest, who crawled through miles and miles of sewers delivering messages and letters of hope and comfort. These young postmen were known as Messengers of Joy, and they brought hope and comfort to citizens whose children, boy and girl, were manning the barricades. The knowledge that they had died fighting for their country was a certain solace. Bad news, even the worst, was better than no news. Surely Baden-Powell's great game has never been played in conditions so grim, so heroic. As the war went on, the difficulties of recruiting men and women suitable for the training of Scouts increased. Forced labour, massacre, the casualties of battle, had thinned the numbers of those eligible by reason of age and education to carry out this task. So important was it that secret schools for the training of Scoutmasters were established in half-ruined Warsaw, in the forests near Lublin, in the mountains of the Carpathians, in the fields of Mazowsze. Here picked candidates came for instruction and were visited regularly by the Scout Commissioners of the district. The course lasted a few days, sometimes only a weekend, but the Scout training was vigorous and intensive, including the games and sports beloved of peaceful days, and that centre of Scout activity, the Camp-Fire. At these places those who taught and those who learned could forget for a brief moment the domination of a foreign race, and translate haltingly and slowly, but none the less surely, their dreams of freedom into action. Page 37 The Left Handshake Returning comforted to the hardships of their everyday lives, they put into practice what they had learned in the quiet woods and the high mountain glades. Some worked undetected for months. Others were not so fortunate. Of these, the most revered, perhaps , was Stanizlaus Sedlacek, one of the first Poles to become a Scout, and for many years the National Commissioner of Poland. Returning from a visit to the Scoutmasters schools, this man of sixty, the translator of Baden-Powell's Aids to Scoutmastership, was seized and thrown into the terrible camp at Oswiciem. Sedlacek made no effort to conceal his identity or the nature of his calling, and the German guards determined to make an example of him and to break his spirit. With a number of others he was ordered to load heavy iron bars on to lorries, and as soon as the loading had been completed, to off-load them again. This form of torture — for it was nothing else — endured throughout the day, and whenever Sedlacek paused overcome with weariness, he was kicked on the head and in the stomach until he lost consciousness. He was then revived by a bucket of cold water and kicked again. He endured this treatment from dawn to dusk and paraded the next day with the rest, miserably weak and ill. But "his eyes were bright and cheerful," records one who suffered with him and who survived. He was even able to smile as he bent once more to his senseless labours, but before long his legs refused their office and he fell down. "A guard seized one of the iron bars and struck the half - conscious man on the head once, twice and again. He then threw away the piece of iron all red with blood. A big dog from the camp came near and licked the hot blood steaming in the frosty air." This happened at the beginning of December, 1941. The production and distribution of clandestine newspapers and news bulletins was, as has already been said, work in which the Scouts of Poland played a most important part. The circulation of the copies printed in secret was at once monotonous and dangerous, the first because after a few days the "newsboy," usually a Scout, was apt to forget there was any danger in his calling and ceased, therefore, to be exhilarated by his daily task, carried out in all weathers, of walking miles and miles through unkempt streets, climbing endless stairs, often carrying heavy parcels to the "points" at which they were split into smaller parcels and eventually distributed to individual persons. Punctuality was vital, for the parcels, particularly the large parcels of illegal newspapers, could not be allowed to lie in any one spot, a flat, an office, or a cellar, for more than a few hours lest they be discovered, with the inevitable fatal consequences. Moreover, the newsboys had to deliver each copy of the information bulletin to each client at a particular hour to make certain that there would be someone there to take in the paper. It could not just be thrust beneath the door and left. When it is recalled that fifty thousand copies of the Information Bulletin were eventually printed and distributed all over Poland, the unspectacular day-to-day achievement of the Scouts will be appreciated. Sometimes the paper was in itself a form of protection. A little boy, Mis, encountered a German patrol when he was carrying ten copies of the bulletin. The three large Germans comprising it searched him on the spot and it did not take them long to find the incriminating news-sheets. Though none of the Germans could read Polish they could easily understand the meaning of those small sheets with their caricatures. Held in the grasp of one of them, Mis stood rigid trying not to tremble. The day before, they had arrested Zbyszek, a week before that, Antek. Now it was his turn. Suddenly the grip on his shoulder relaxed. The man examining the bulletins thrust them hurriedly into Mis's hands and all three Germans took hastily to their heels, breaking into a run as they reached the corner of the street. Amazed, Mis looked round and saw coming towards him six young Poles walking with their hands in their jacket pockets. Seeing his astonishment they stopped and asked him what was the matter. He explained and showed them the bulletins which the Germans had returned to him. They all began to laugh, for they realised at once why the Germans had fled. Seeing them walking with their hands in their side-pockets, the Germans had mistaken them for members of the Underground army shadowing Mis, whom they doubtless supposed to be one of the army's messengers. It was the practice to give escort to a messenger carrying important papers, and the Germans had no wish to come to blows with such desperate men. Page 38 The Left Handshake In the summer of 1943, in an effort to tighten their slipping control of the situation, the Germans developed the practice of surrounding a number of streets in each city and then searching every house, cellar and attic in the area thus cut off. On occasion they achieved considerable success, particularly at the beginning when their raids were unexpected, and by this means they acquired considerable stocks of black-market food, used mostly as rations for the Underground Movement, and also of compromising material of which the main haul was the Information Bulletin. One warm morning in July, 1943, Scouter Wojtek [not to be confused with that other Wojtek who had laid down his life for his country three months before] was on his way to collect the latest issue for dispatch to all the main towns of Poland, when a passing newsboy whispered in his ear the single word "Lapanka." This was Polish Underground army slang, and meant that the Germans were out, raiding. Moving forward cautiously, Wojtek soon discovered that the area cut off for search included Kowelska Street, where the flat containing the edition of the bulletin was situated. He went at once to the street and found the liaison officer, a girl named Gena, awaiting him. She was very nervous and told him that the Gestapo, who had already removed three lorry- loads of people from other houses, would reach the flat in half an hour at the most. Wojtek summoned a fourteen-year-old Scout, one Edek, ordered him to buy a large bunch of flowers and a pound of apples, and then to take a cab and go at once to the flat. The boy made off to the shops, Wojtek with Gena to the flat. They had no difficulty in entering, for the Germans cared not who went into the cordoned area; they were concerned only with those who emerged from it. Wojtek and Gena hastily packed the edition of the bulletin into two large suitcases always kept handy for the purpose, and had just finished their task when the cab, carrying young Edek with his bunch of flowers and his apples, arrived. Down the stairs went Wojtek and Gena, a heavy suitcase in one hand, an apple in the other. They were laughing, for, said Wojtek as they reached the door of the street, "You must remember, Gena, that we have just been married and are now going on our honeymoon. How heavy our luggage is." Hoisting the suitcases on to the cab, they climbed on board amid the cheers of the neighbours, Gena clutching the bridal bouquet bought by Edek. Five German soldiers appeared at that moment from a nearby house and stopped the cab. Wojtek explained the situation. "These suitcases," he said, "have already been searched. I am off on my honeymoon. Surely you have not the heart — "The Germans waved them forward. That evening the edition was safely dispatched to its many destinations. It is pleasant to record that Wojtek and Gena were married in fact as well as in make-believe. A child, Chris, was subsequently born to them, but it was not until after Wojtek, captured in the Warsaw rising, had been released from a German prisoner-of-war camp when war was over, that he first saw his son. It was during the fierce and terrible siege of Warsaw in 1944 that the Scouts and Guides in the city sent a secret emissary with a message to their brothers and sisters in England. In its most significant passage it recalled that the Scouts in Poland were brought up on the same unaltered principles of Scouting as those which were followed by British Scouts. "All Scout movements," it ran, "share the responsibility for international Scouting as well as for each separate movement in every country. They should not limit themselves to their mother country alone," and it went on to say that the Polish Scout Movement was based on the Law and the Promise as enunciated by Baden-Powell and that they had always stood firmly by these principles in spite of nearly five years of underground fighting. It was their intention to remain true to them to the end. After sixty-three days of bitter fighting, the insurrection was crushed, and on the 3rd October, 1944, Warsaw fell for the second time. It was a cold, grey day, and in a house in Wilcza Street more than a hundred Scouts and Guides had gathered together. They knew it well, for some of them had helped in the hospital which had once been set up there. Now all that remained was a skeleton of scarred brick and mortar. A few were Scoutmasters who had commanded Scout units in the Home Army, but the great majority of that silent band was made up of boys and girls from the age of twelve upwards, all of whom had been heavily engaged in the fighting. They had carried messages, manned first-aid posts and fire parties, looked after homeless children, operated the Scout post office, printed and delivered newspapers, sung songs to divert terrified civilians hidden in the cellars during a bombardment, cooked for the army. Page 39 The Left Handshake There they stood in a semi-circle in the ruins of their city, and of their number forty that morning were decorated with the Cross of Merit and the Cross of Gallantry by the Chief Commissioner. He made no speech, nor was there any farewell. All who were met there in "the terrible silence of the ruins" knew that in all human probability they would never see each other again, but they were not dismayed. "Slowly and majestically they recited the Scout Promise which meant so much to them. They all understood that service to God, to Poland and to their fellow-men would show them the right way to follow, whatever might befall them." So they remained a moment amid the broken houses, breathing for the last time the smoke-laden air of the burning city. Then they sang the Polish National Anthem and with a desperate act of faith told each other that Poland still lived, would always live. "Czuwaj," Be Prepared, they said. For them this was no parrot phrase. They had learned its meaning through bitter days that, as they now saw, had been but a promise of worse to come. The Chief Commissioner called them to attention and gave the command "Dismiss" and away they went, those who belonged to the army to prisoner-of-war camps somewhere in Germany, the civilians to slave labour. Overhead the sky was still grey and no sun shone. DENMARK The contrast between the lot of Scouts in Denmark, the next country to be overrun by the Germans, and that of those in Poland was marked. But Denmark was a comfortable country badly needed by the Germans to provide them with milk, butter, bacon and other foodstuffs. The Danes had to be treated well and must be lulled, if not into a sense of security, at least into one of acquiescence. The fewest restrictions possible were accordingly placed upon them. Scouting was allowed to continue fully and freely, save that camp-fires could not be lighted during the hours of darkness because of the blackout regulations. After a time the comparatively small number of active Danish Nazis made an attempt to start a Youth Movement financed by Germany and devoted to German ideals. This movement had a marked effect upon Danish Scouts, though perhaps not one which the conquerors had intended. The number of Scouts increased and Scouting was stimulated in all its branches. The Danes, with memories of the war of 1864, have no love for the Germans. Nevertheless, some considerable time elapsed before they adopted active measures on a scale similar to that prevailing in other occupied countries. It was not until 1944, when the Danish Scout Organisation was officially abolished, that many of the older Scouts, Rovers and Scouters joined the nascent Resistance Movement. Soon several of its groups were composed entirely of Scouts, and they proved a great help to the Jews, of whom ninety per cent succeeded, largely through the Scouts, in escaping to Sweden. In the course of these and other operations against the enemy, more than one Scout lost his life, some being judicially murdered, others shot in cold blood or in the heat of battle. Among them was Orla, who on the 13th January, 1944, was arrested for helping British agents landed by parachute in Denmark. In high spirits, he went off to a concentration camp, where he soon became a local leader among the prisoners, and was strong-minded enough to protest vigorously when one of them was tortured. It was probably because of his courageous demeanour that the Germans determined to make an example of him. On the 24th May he was sentenced to death, and despite an appeal by his parents to Dr. Best, German Minister in Denmark, was executed at four o'clock the next morning. He died with great composure, and in his last letter to his parents he wrote: "Life has given me only good things. I am no miserable culprit mounting the scaffold with trembling knees.... I am writing this letter at 11.35 p.m., and I feel quite sure I shall spend a cheerful night fast asleep. The war calls for many victims and I am one of them. I hope my sacrifice will not be in vain." To his brother Scouts he sent a message: "In life," he wrote, "we must have one aim and for this we must fight and never compromise." Of the same pure metal was Charles, the wireless operator of a clandestine radio transmitting group. On the 26th April, 1944, the house in which he worked was surrounded, but rather than surrender he fought to the death, killing several of his enemies before he, too, fell. A similar fate befell Preben, who on the 9th August, after having been in prison for some months, was murdered together with ten of his Page 40 The Left Handshake companions, in a cellar in Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, an act which caused the greatest resentment all over the country. Of the eleven who died that day, four were Scouts. Eric was a very active member of the Resistance Movement. Single-handed and showing great daring, he made many journeys to various groups in it, each time carrying a consignment of arms in a large bag seldom empty of lethal weapons. He also acted as courier in the illegal post office organisation, sheltered fugitives from the Gestapo, and maintained a voluminous correspondence with friends and helpers in Sweden. On the 13th January, 1945, the Gestapo searched the house of his parents, but Eric had long since abandoned his home. Finding nothing, they left, but almost immediately afterwards Eric arrived, and on learning what had happened, went out to warn a member of the Troop to which he belonged and who lived close by. Entering the house, he was shot in the leg and then in the stomach. His wound, he knew, was mortal, but he knew also that he might linger for some hours, during which the Gestapo would not hesitate to torture him in order to obtain the information on the Resistance Movement they knew him to possess. He lifted his revolver and blew out his brains. Preben, murdered in the Copenhagen cellar, was a member of the illegal post office organisation. Its "mail" was sent out to Sweden through one of the numerous Danish islands. On one occasion those carrying it were about to take it down to the shore, when six rifle shots followed by the cry of a wounded man warned them of the presence of Germans. A moment later they were challenged by three German soldiers, but the mailbag-carriers were wearing Danish police uniform and bluffed their way to the boat, which got safely away. In the darkness another member of the Resistance Movement was standing with the mailbags from Sweden which had just been put ashore. In the confusion, and fearing that they would be captured, he hid them behind a hedge and reported their whereabouts the next day. Once more the illegal postmen donned their Danish police uniforms, set out on bicycles and picked up the missing bags. They successfully deceived a German officer by telling him that they contained lists of Danish fishing vessels, and brought them safely to Copenhagen. Two days later the man who wrote the report containing this story was caught by the Gestapo and spent fifteen months in a concentration camp. All the persons concerned were Scouts. The geographical position of Denmark made the smuggling of arms into the country by Danish partisans somewhat easier than it was in other countries. The bulk of the weapons came from England, most of it dropped by parachute, but on occasion carried by sea, in ships which were met by Danish fishing-boats some 270 miles from the coast. After transhipment, the arms were landed at various spots in Denmark, as much as four and a half tons of machine-guns, pistols and hand grenades being thus safely smuggled. "We began discharging at midnight on the quay, only seventy-five metres from the German guard," runs the report of one Scouter. "Everything went swimmingly. The goods were loaded on to a lorry and looked like cases of fish. Two hours later we were ready to get it off to a depot two miles outside the town. The guards reported everything all right, when suddenly forty German soldiers came marching along in the darkness in such a way that our car nearly ran into the whole force. Only by turning the car into the soft edge of the road was a collision avoided. But the car got stuck in the roadside and we felt quite sure that we were done for. There was wild confusion among the soldiers, together with the usual crying and screaming which characterises these people. Quietly the rest of us made ready to shoot, being prepared for the worst. We were agreed to sell our lives as dearly as possible. But the Germans had no suspicion. We worked hard to get the car out, but all in vain. What else was to be done than to ask the Germans to help us? So we did, and the car got out. The Germans marched on. We went on to our ammunition dump, but it must be admitted that our hearts were throbbing wildly." The arms and explosives so smuggled were used for sabotage and to give the saboteurs, many of them ex-Scouts, a chance to defend themselves if necessary. One consignment reaching Denmark in 1944 had been dropped on a small island, the arms consisting of a few carbines with ammunition. Three Scouters were sent to collect them, and eventually brought them to the mainland inside an ambulance which the Page 41 The Left Handshake Germans, as a favour, allowed them to ship on a ferry reserved for the Wehrmacht. Thus this consignment of arms was carried surrounded by the men against whom it was designed to use them. On another occasion a Danish Scout induced a German soldier to help him push his tricycle up a steep hill. Upon the carrier was a large wooden case marked "Fresh Fruit." It contained automatic pistols. It was constantly necessary to shift depots of arms from one place to another so as to minimise the chance of their discovery. During one of these operations a battle broke out between the Germans and the Danes, and a cordon was thrown across the street in which the arms depot was situated. Fortunately the quantity was small and could be concealed in a pram. It was, though the baby protested strongly against lying on a bed composed of "knobbly automatic." Two former Scouts went to blow up a turn-table and succeeded in doing so despite a cordon of guards which the Germans had thrown across the mouths of all streets leading to the yard where it was situated. The moment the explosion was heard these guards arrested every one in the street. Only two men were allowed through the cordon. They were in evening dress, very drunk and much inclined to song. These were the saboteurs. The leader of a sabotage gang was hit by nine bullets and taken by his friends to a hospital to be treated. "Fearing that the Gestapo might find him there," the report runs, "we fetched him the next day in an ambulance which we had 'borrowed' for the occasion. Everything worked well, but when we were about to leave the hospital it occurred to us that it would be better if the nurses could tell the story that they had been exposed to a hold-up. A Scout-fellow of mine made the following arrangement. 'Ladies,' he said, 'now you must promise not to be frightened. In a moment I produce a pistol – a tiny little one – which is properly secured.' So he did and placed the pistol on the flat of his hand. 'Now, ladies, you know what a pistol looks like, and when the Gestapo arrives to examine you, you declare that you have been brought to silence and held up by masked saboteurs armed with revolvers.' The nurses were quite on and acted accordingly." Sabotage parties were not always successful. One of them, composed for the most part of Scouts, failed to destroy a large and heavily guarded factory on the outskirts of Copenhagen, for they were discovered by "the man with a dog," a German soldier in charge of an Alsatian. He gave the alarm and they had to fight their way out, but lived to profit from the experience and subsequently to do much damage. Better fortune attended the destruction of a large ship taken over by the Germans, who used it for the transport of stores and war material. The leader of the sabotage party, a former Scout, came down to the quayside with a fishing rod across his shoulders. He began to fish some distance from the ship but gradually moved closer until he was very near its hull. His fishing rod had been specially prepared and, instead of a hook on the end of the line, there was a powerful magnet which, when he was near enough to the ship, attached itself to her hull. The "fisherman" cut the line and repeated the same process with another line and another magnet farther along the hull. At the other end of the severed lines, delayed- action bombs were tied and slipped gently into the water. They went off an hour later and blew out the ship's bottom. The courage and intelligence of two Scouters once obtained a large consignment of petrol for the Resistance Movement. They stalked a tanker lorry manned by two Germans and a driver, which visited various filling stations and extracted the petrol from each until its tank was full. It was indeed brimming over when the two Scouters held the Germans up with pistols, disarmed and tied them up and then "thanked them for their work of three hours' hard pumping" before leaving with the tanker lorry. The most beneficial action which any Danish Scout performed during the war was, beyond question, the taking of photographs of an experimental German V I bomb, and the successful dispatch of them to Sweden. One of these bombs, with a concrete warhead, fired from Peenemunde, crashed on the island of Bornholm. A Danish Scout happened to be at work a mile away. He at once took his camera, ran to the spot and photographed the bomb from every angle. He had barely finished when the inevitable German guards arrived and flung a cordon round the missile. Two days later the Scout stole a small sailing boat and crossed to Sweden with a crew of five. They had but one compass among them, and with some Page 42 The Left Handshake difficulty eluded a number of German vessels in the Sound. Arrived at Stockholm, the Scout immediately handed the photographs and a description of the bomb to the right quarter. With not quite so strong a motive, perhaps, as that animating the Scouts of other occupied countries, for until towards the end of the war the persecution of the Danes was not so severe as it was elsewhere, the Danish Scouts nevertheless showed the same qualities of resistance as their less fortunate brethren, and in this did good service to their country. NORWAY The invasion of Norway followed twenty-four hours after that of Denmark. The Norwegians are a stout-hearted people, as modest as they are brave. Like the Danes, they were taken utterly by surprise, and the swiftness of the German coup left them utterly amazed. At one moment they had been a peaceful neutral country worried, it is true, by the demands of the British and French on the one hand, who complained that German shipping was using the safety of their territorial waters — there had been more than a little trouble concerning the Altmark of evil memory — and on the other by German diplomatic pressure, which was steadily increasing. It had not seemed to their Government and their King, however, that a crisis was upon them, when it fell, swooping down with the speed, precision and sudden dash of one of their own eagles. The country was for a moment paralysed. All forms of corporate activity, Scouting included, ceased, but the Scouts remained and at once began to show their mettle. The arrival of the Germans in Oslo and Bergen was the signal for something not far short of panic. The Scouts stepped in at once and did their duty. "I saw Scouts absolutely cool-headed," reports a Scout Leader, "trying to stop people panicking on that tenth day of April. In all big towns Scouts helped the police, the fire brigade, the hospitals, etc. I remember in Oslo things were not very clear and it was not possible to know who was friend or who foe. Then one fellow, Helge Inster, who was formerly the King's Commissioner for Scouts, was sent by the medical people to find out the situation as to what was needed in the way of sanitary, first-aid, etc., in the country. On this expedition he had a Scout with him who was a young medical student and when they came back he said, 'We are going to make up three expeditions and you must take charge of one of them,' and this fellow said, 'I am only a young student; I can't take charge.' Then Inster said, 'I know that but you are a Scout.'" He took charge. As in Oslo, so it was elsewhere. Scoutmasters and Scouts were to the fore calming the people. They were heartened by a letter sent to them by the Chief Scout of Norway. "Now that war is here," he said, "it is no use asking why and for how long. What counts is to make the best of conditions as they are," and he went on to urge the Scouts to learn every lesson they could and to remember how much depended on them, especially in times of adversity such as had now fallen upon the country. "There will be need for self-sacrifice and mutual help," he said, "and remember, however difficult things may be for you, there are always others who are worse off." He ended by urging them to continue Scouting as much as it was possible, and at all times to bear themselves as Scouts should. They never forgot this advice through the long years of oppression which awaited them. At first, as in Denmark, the Germans behaved well and Scouting began to lift its head. Two months after the invasion many Troops found themselves able to organise the usual summer camps, and those which could not resumed their Scout training. This period, however, did not last for any length of time, for Quisling and that very small part of the population who supported him founded a Youth Movement which they intended should swallow up the Boy Scouts of Norway. It was well organised, but as the months went by it still remained strangely short of recruits, even though the Germans were well in the saddle. By autumn, 1941, it was obvious that persuasion would yield no result and, true to type, the Germans fell back on force. Scouting in Norway was suppressed. No reasons were given. Some thought that the motives were Page 43 The Left Handshake political, others that the Scouts were by then closely connected with the Resistance Movement, an inevitable consequence of the invasion of any country by the Germans. Both opinions were correct. The suppression of the Norwegian Scouts was made easier by the unhappy defection of one of their travelling secretaries. He was a quisling and had been deep in the confidence of the Nazis long before war broke out. His knowledge served them in good stead, for he knew the number and size of Troops, the whereabouts of their headquarters, and what funds and equipment they possessed. Having been instructed by the Germans to liquidate the Scout Movement in his country, he issued a proclamation ordering all Scout Troops to cease training and to deliver up their uniforms. A notice was sent to every Bank in Norway to place the Scout funds on deposit there at the disposal of the Nazi Youth Organisation. For this and other acts of treachery the quisling — his name is best forgotten — eventually paid the penalty and is now undergoing eight years of rigorous imprisonment. The Scouts in Oslo decided to save as many of their uniforms and as much of their equipment as they could. Each, therefore, divided what he had into two parcels, one containing old, worn-out clothing, the other everything that was new, strong, or still serviceable. This done, they all waited until the last day of the period ordained by the terms of the proclamation for handing in uniforms and stores. They then went in a body to the depot, which was soon besieged by scores of Scouts and Guides, all eager, as it seemed, to fulfil the law, but inevitably causing the utmost confusion. The receiving authorities were overwhelmed, as the Scouts had hoped they would be. Each Scout and Guide handed in the first parcel only, that containing the bad and unserviceable uniform. They then waited, wondering whether the Germans would ask for the second parcel. Being far too concerned, however, with the first flood, they did not invite the onrush of a second. The Scouts and Guides left with the good material under their arms, and they kept it until the day of liberation. In the lonely country places, however, in the mountains and on the skerries, the Scouts were not so fortunate. All their homes were visited by SS troops or Quisling police and searched and all their Scout belongings removed from them. "Jens has been crying all day," wrote a mother in Norway to her sister in the United States, the Germans came last night and took his Scout uniform, his rucksack, his hike tent, his axe and his knife." Jens was twelve years old, and to 'smile and whistle' in the face of this disaster was more than he could accomplish. Having been forbidden, the Scout Movement, as in other countries, went underground. In a country like Norway, sparsely populated, with few towns and great stretches of forest and mountain, this was not difficult. Ostensibly the Scouts obeyed orders and were careful not to be seen wearing badges or any article of clothing which might connect them with the forbidden movement. In secret they continued Scouting. Many joined the Red Cross and the Y.M.C.A., thus being able to combine welfare with Scouting work. Many of the older boys and most of the Scouters joined the Resistance Movement, which occupied all their time and led in only too many instances to imprisonment and to death. A perusal of the reports shows that despite difficulties caused on the one hand by the occupying Power, which had suppressed them, and on the other by the demands of the Resistance Movement, which were not far short of insatiable, the Scouts continued to enrol new members and to maintain their training. In one small provincial town, for example, by the spring of 1942 one Patrol had begun work again and was presently split up into eight. Before the year was out, two Troops had been formed, meetings being held in the open countryside and sometimes in the public meeting-houses of the town. In addition to training, the Scouts performed daily good turns to persons "whose working power had been ruined by the Germans in various ways" — a sinister phrase — by looking after their gardens and making sure that they were properly cultivated. Potatoes, a staple crop in that northern land, were sown and lifted at the proper seasons, firewood was collected against the bitter cold of winter. All the time, whenever they could, these Patrols indulged in "illegal athletics with great enthusiasm." At Whitsun, 1943, they held a camp attended by some sixty Scouts, most of the tents used having been "acquired" from the occupying Power. Page 44 The Left Handshake A Troop near Oslo formed a special Patrol, The Owls, to serve as a nucleus against the time when Scouting would be legally resumed. Though much of the regular training had been abandoned, much was retained and a steady trickle of recruits from young boys flowed in. Meetings were held in a hut 200 years old, of which the main feature was a chimney with the disconcerting habit of falling down, usually during the height of a discussion. As the war progressed, the number of Scouts in this Troop increased, but the number of Owls fell off. They had grown older and had joined the Underground. The report on their activities is typical of many others, and all tell the same story — suppression in September, 1941, Underground work till the spring of 1944, and then a transfer en masse of the older members from the Troop to the Underground Movement. In another town the boys made themselves useful as orderlies in the hospital of St. Joseph and the first-aid station, and served as auxiliaries to the Police and as messengers. One of their best loved elder Scouts was presently arrested and died in a concentration camp. His example seems to have fired the boys, for they redoubled their exertions in every field until their Scoutmaster was told by a townsman whom he met one day in the street, "Every boy had done his 'little best' to help the country. The town may be proud of its Scouts." The crisis for this Troop, as for others, came in 1944 when the Germans made a great effort to conscript the youth of Norway, whom they sought to pattern after the Arbeitsdienst. To escape it, all who were old enough disappeared into the Underground. Those who did not performed many little acts of sabotage on the sly. "Never breathe a word about your work," exhorted one Scouter. "Many people have been sent to the wall, to prison or to concentration camps, not because the Germans are so clever, but because other people have talked too much." These words, and similar exhortations to silence from others, were well heeded throughout the war. The number of Troops and Patrols meeting and training literally in the midst of the Germans was very large, yet not one of their members ever said a word. "The whole house was requisitioned by the Wehrmacht and the Scouts had to find other quarters. Their new headquarters were right in the centre of the town, in the same building which the Germans also used...." "There were a great number of soldiers in our building right in front of the windows...." "The older boys were summoned to form a new Troop of senior Scouts surrounded by German bunkers and bayonets...." "A very enthusiastic Nazi lived right under us, consequently we could not sing so very much, but he had to put up with the Scout Prayer...." No wonder the Germans were baffled. Unlike Dutch, Belgian and Danish Cubs, Norwegian Cubs were used by the Underground for the performance of certain duties. These were mostly the carrying of messages and "it was very strange and wonderful how these young boys kept their heads and held their tongues." A British agent, dropped into Norway by parachute, was very much impressed by the admirable help he received from very young boys. They knew only too well that they were risking their lives but they never said a word. "Small boys," reports the agent, "who before the war had known nothing about Germans, got really to hate them. They developed a natural resistance to them and maintained it through the long years, which was extraordinary when you come to think of it, for they were very young and might have been expected to be excited at first and then to tire of the excitement and mystery as month after month went by." As in other occupied countries, individual Scouts paid the penalty for their bravery, some comparatively lightly by making Norway too hot to hold them and having, therefore, to flee to England. Of these Victor Carlson was one. In peace-time he had been in charge of a coastguard service manned by Scouts. In war it was transformed into a centre for the dispatch of messages giving the position of German ships. Their success in this dangerous work was very great and they earned the commendation of the Board of Admiralty. Before the war was ended, Carlson became the leader of the Norwegian Boy Scouts in Britain, an association made up of young men and boys, all of whom had had to flee their native land. Some of them had come from as far as Spitzbergen, travelling back with the British forces after the Commando raid on that island in August, 1941. Page 45 The Left Handshake The method of escape to England, or more frequently Scotland, was almost invariably by fishing vessel. Often it was no easy passage. Olaf Reed Olsen, for example, a boy of eighteen in 1940, found it necessary to leave Norway in a hurry at the end of that year. With two companions he set out across the North Sea against a westerly wind. In four days they had made the coast of Scotland when a heavy gale developed which blew their boat back to the shores of Denmark, twice capsizing it. Exhausted though they were, they determined not to land upon the shores of a country held by the enemy, put about, and began to beat back towards England, eventually reaching the English Channel where they were sighted by a destroyer. They refused, however, to abandon their vessel, which was hoisted on board. "I have heard plenty of stories about the Norwegian Vikings," was the comment of the destroyer's captain, "but yours beats them all." The gale which had driven them to Denmark had sent the patrolling vessels of the Royal Navy back to their bases. Olsen is now returned to Norway, where he runs a Troop of Scouts, to whom he says that if it had not been for his Scout training and the general attitude of Scouts towards life, he could never have brought his small craft successfully to the end of so perilous a voyage. Olsen had good fortune, Eric Knoll had not. At the age of fifteen this young Scout became a member of a Resistance group. An expert map-reader and woodsman, he made ninety trips across the Swedish border helping agents, refugees and others to escape from Norway. Then one day he was captured. The Germans knew enough about him to know that he had much information. They therefore tortured him but he would not speak. Eventually they cast him into a cell half-filled with water, in which he could neither sit nor lie, and there they left him for many days. But still he would not speak, and presently they took him to a concentration camp where, at the age of eighteen, he died. Odd Starheim, a Scoutmaster from near Flekkefjord, organised resistance in South-west Norway, landing from a submarine near Egersund in January, 1941. Before six months had passed he had sent over one hundred wireless messages, including the first news that the German battleship Bismarck had sailed for the North Atlantic. Returning to England in the summer of that year, he went back to Norway in January, 1942, being dropped by parachute as part of a special unit. A few weeks passed and he was arrested by mistake. The Gestapo had come to arrest his host, suspected of illegal propaganda. Starheim asked to go to the lavatory, knowing that it had two doors. He slipped through one, out of the other and jumped from a first-storey window on to a road where he was picked up by the driver of a passing van and so got clear away. Norway was now getting too hot, so he and five friends boarded a coastal steamer the Galtesund, of 6oo tons carrying stores on the regular Christiansun-Bergen run. When out of sight of land, Starheim held up the man at the wheel with a revolver, the captain was dealt with, and the ship headed for Scotland. On the way a signal was sent to the Admiralty which provided air escort and a trawler to take the vessel through the minefields to the harbour of Aberdeen. A few weeks passed and Starheim became a member of a Norwegian Independent Company under the joint control of the Special Forces and the Norwegian High Command. They made several raids in a Norwegian whaler, the Bodo, which was subsequently sunk by a mine. On the 1st January, 1943, Starheim now a Lieutenant with the D.S.O., in command of a small highly-trained force, forty-two strong, began guerrilla operations in Norway, but misfortune dogged him and his attempt to destroy the "Titania" mine at Sogndal failed. Reinforcements sent to him were scattered by a storm and he set about extricating his small force. Repeating his former achievement, he seized the coastal steamer Tromoysund and in her began the voyage to Scotland. All went well until the escorting aircraft of Coastal Command were obliged to return to base to refuel. During their absence the Tromoysund was attacked by a Focke Wulfe 190 and sunk. Starheim's body was washed up on the Scottish coast many weeks later and was subsequently taken to Norway to his own village churchyard where he now lies. In that year, 1943, another brave Norwegian Scout, Knut Haugland — he was to win both the D.S.O. and the M.C. — was involved with eleven other Scouts in the attack on the "heavy Water" installations in Norway which the Germans hoped to use in connection with their attempts to produce the atomic bomb. More fortunate than Starheim, he survived the war and set out in 1947 on the Kon-Tiki expedition to Page 46 The Left Handshake prove the ethnological theory that, many thousands of years ago, a movement of races took place between Peru and Tahiti. He and a number of others drifted across the South Pacific towards Kon-Tiki on a wireless-equipped raft. By the end of that year two-thirds of their vast journey had been successfully accomplished. "Heavy water" (deuterium oxide) is used in nuclear physics for harnessing atomic energy. Its production — a singularly slow process — was of importance to the Germans in their search for atomic means of destruction and their only considerable source in Europe during the war was the Norsk Hydro Hydrogen Electrolysis Plant at Vemork, in the deep Norwegian valley of Rjukan. The destruction of this plant was of great importance to the Allies, and the story of how this was done must be given a place of honour in the record of what Norwegian Scouts accomplished in the war, for the planning, mounting and control of the operation were in Scout hands. The technical adviser in London, Professor Lief Tronstad, O.B.E., was a Scout in Trondheim, and, of the twelve men actually engaged in the operation, eight had been Scouts. Einar Skinnerland was an old Rjukan Scout, and had come to Scotland in March, 1942, in the coastal steamer Galtesund with the gallant Starheim. He was given a week's intensive training and parachuted back into Norway ten days after he had landed in Aberdeen. He was to stay there in Rjukan and find out all he could about German intentions in regard to the "heavy water" plant. In October, 1942, an advance party of four men, three being Scouts, were dropped on the high Hardangervidda plateau, west of Rjukan. The wireless operator was Knut Haugland, another was Claus Helberg, of whom the leader of the party wrote: "Claus travelled to Barunuten and back, a distance of fifty miles, under terrible going conditions, and proved the saying 'A man who is a man goes on till he can do no more, and then goes twice as far.'" To join these four men and with them to do the deed, a glider force of thirty British Special Service troops left Scotland on the 19th November but disaster overtook them. One aircraft and both gliders crashed almost two hundred kilometres southwest of Vemork. The few survivors were "interrogated," and, in the best traditions of German fair play, were shortly afterwards shot. The entry in the advance party's log for 20th November reads: London's radio message about the glider disaster was a hard blow. It was sad and bitter, especially as the weather in our part of the country improved. But we are happy to hear that another attempt would be made in the next moon period." The difficulties of attack were multiplied. Well aware of the gliders' objective, the Reichkommissar and Colonel-General von Falkenhorst inspected Vemork; the Rjukan garrison was increased; the area was combed for saboteurs. A second attempt to land was prevented by weather. "...To make matters worse," runs the entry in the log for 13th December, "everybody except myself went sick with fever and pains in the stomach. We were short of food and were obliged to begin eating reindeer-moss. Knut found a Krag rifle and some cartridges. I went out every day after the reindeer, but the weather was bad and I could find none. Our supply of dry wood came to an end...." On the 23rd December "the weather cleared and at last I shot a reindeer. We celebrated a happy Christmas." A third attempt was made in January. The operational party flew over but mist obscured all landmarks and the six Norwegians who composed it returned to Scotland. These men — of whom four were Scouts, including the leader, Captain Joachim Ronneberg, D.S.O., of the Aalesund Troop — had been selected for their military knowledge, physical fitness, skiing proficiency, and, above all, for their character. At last, at midnight on the 16th February, 1943, they landed safely on Norwegian soil. "The jump was made from a thousand feet. One package, containing four rucksacks, landed and was dragged by a wind-filled parachute for some two kilometres before coming to rest in an open ice crack from which it was salvaged." The party were dropped thirty miles north-west of the advance party because of the increased enemy activity in Rjukan, and a journey of thirty miles in the Norwegian winter can take as long as one of 300 in warmer, flatter country. By 24th February, however, all ten men had met and the two leaders could Page 47 The Left Handshake prepare their plans for the attack. Their operation orders ended with the sentence: "If any man is about to be taken prisoner, he undertakes to end his own life." On the night of 27th February, Claus Heiberg led the way down to Vemork. "Skis and rucksacks were hidden close to the power-line cutting, from which we began a steep and slippery descent to the river at 10 p.m. On the river the ice was about to break up. There was only one practicable snow-bridge with three inches of water over it. From the river we clambered up sheer rock-face for about 150 metres to the Vemork railway line. We advanced to within 500 metres of the factory's railway gate.... Here we waited till 12.30 a.m. and watched the relief guard coming up from the bridge...." A bite of food, a final assurance that each man knew what he had to do, and the advance to some store- sheds about 100 metres from the gates began. One man went forward and, with a pair of armourer's shears, easily opened the factory gates. Once inside, the covering party took up temporary positions while the demolition party opened a second gate ten metres below the first. At a given sign, the covering party advanced towards the German guard-hut while the demolition party moved to the door of the factory cellar through which it was hoped to enter. It was locked. "We were unable to force it, nor did we have any success with the door of the floor above. Through a window of the high concentration plant, where our target lay, a man could be seen." Meanwhile, the covering party, in position round the guard-hut, passed a breathless moment when the door of the hut was flung open and a German non-commissioned officer stood silhouetted against the light. He looked round, listening. Barely four yards away four men had him covered, one with a tommy-gun. After a few seconds, which passed like hours, he turned and went in, closing the door behind him. In their search for the cable-tunnel — their only remaining method of entry — the demolition party became separated. One of them found it, and, followed by another, "crept in over a tangled mass of pipes and leads.... We decided to carry on the demolition alone. We entered a room adjacent to the target, found the door of the high concentration plant open, went on and took the guard completely by surprise. I began to place the charges. This went quickly and easily. The models on which we had practised in England were exact duplicates of the real plant." At this point two others joined them, and the charge was checked before ignition. Then both fuses were lit and the captive guard was told to run to safety. He blurted out that he had lost his spectacles and could not possibly secure another pair in Norway. There was a frenzied search and the spectacles were found. "We left the room," writes Captain Ronneberg, "and twenty yards outside the cellar door we heard the explosion. Our sentry at the main entrance was recalled from his post. We passed through the gate and climbed up to the railway track. For a moment I looked back down the line and listened. Except for the faint hum of machinery that we had heard when we arrived, everything in the factory was quiet." The two parties withdrew independently. Ronneberg led four men across the Swedish border, a journey of 250 miles on skis in conditions of great hardship. Knut Haukelid, D.S.O., M.C., remained behind to organise resistance farther west among the mountains. The advance party, after waiting to report results, dispersed, leaving only Einar Skinnerland and Claus Helberg. He had a narrow escape when, rounding the corner of a hill, he came suddenly face to face with three Germans who began to shoot. He turned and fled on his skis, but found that one of the enemy would inevitably outdistance him. He fired a shot from his pistol, calculating that, at that distance, the man who emptied his magazine first would lose. He stood there as a target until the German had emptied his Luger pistol, and was turning to retreat. Claus sent a bullet after him, and the German staggered and stopped, hanging over his ski-sticks. Claus made off. A little later, in the darkness, he went over a cliff and fell forty metres, damaging his right shoulder and breaking his right arm. After various adventures, from the unpleasant consequences of which he saved himself by his courage and resource, he returned to Great Britain. In the autumn of 1944 he went back to Rjukan with a party to protect the Norsk Hydro plant from Page 48 The Left Handshake German demolitions. Colonel-General von Falkenhorst visited Vermork immediately after the explosion and described the operation as "the best coup I have ever seen." Mr. Winston Churchill characterised it as "completely successful" and wrote in the margin of the report upon it: "What is being done for these brave men in the way of decorations?" The German guards were punished and the patrols reinforced. Keeping up the pressure, the Eighth United States Air Force attacked Vemork on the 16th November, 1943, but, owing to the mountainous terrain, little damage was done. For the Germans, however, it was the final straw. They decided to abandon Vemork and remove all stocks of "heavy water" to Germany. Messages were sent to Knut Haukelid and Einar Skinnerland to join forces and destroy the stocks in transit. On 10th February, 1944, Haukelid asked permission to sink the ferry-boat Hydro on Lake Tinnsj which would carry the containers down to the railway at Tinnoset for shipment from Skien to Germany. The enemy took every precaution save one. SS troops were drafted into the Rjukan valley; two aircraft patrolled the mountains each day; guards were stationed on the factory line from Vemork to the ferry quay. The containers, loaded on to railway vans at Vemork under strong guard, were flood-lit at night with many guards round them. But, by some freak of chance, not a German was posted on the ferry-boat. Haukelid and two friends — one of them Gunnar Syverstad, another Rjukan Scout — boarded the Hydro at 2 a.m. on Sunday, 20th February, 1944, leaving a third in charge of their car. They persuaded a Norwegian guard that they were fleeing from the Gestapo and he allowed them into the bilges of the boat, where they crept up to the bows and laid explosive charges there, hoping that the explosion would lift the stern of the ferry and render it unnavigable. The charges were coupled to two time-delay mechanisms made by Haukelid from alarm clocks, and the time was set for 10-45, because Haukelid had found out that the ferry should be at the deepest part of the lake at this time. "At 4 a.m. the job was finished, so we left. The car took us to Jondal and we were in Oslo the same Sunday evening." It was as easy as that, but it could have been far otherwise. Einar Skinnerland's part had been to collect information about the operation. On that Sunday afternoon, he sent a happy signal to London which said that shortly before 11 a.m. the Hydro had gone down after an explosion and that the vans with the "heavy water" were sunk in the deepest part of Tinnsji Lake. So it was that the manufacture of "heavy water" ceased in Norway and that all stocks available to German scientists were lost. The Allied reply was the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6th August, 1945. Major Lief Tronstad did not live to see that day, and Gunnar Syverstad died with him; Einar Skinnerland had remained in Rjukan identifying himself with the Norsk Hydro Electric Plant until after V.E. Day, when he emerged as the District Leader of the Home Forces in Rjukan and North Telemark. His week's training had been put to good account. When the day of liberation came, Scouts appeared all over Norway, thrusting up, as it were, like rabbits from a burrow. The organisation was overwhelmed with demands from boys to be allowed to join openly a movement which so many of them had supported in secret. Foreign observers bear witness to the universal enthusiasm. The Scoutmaster of the 38th Bradford East, West Riding, Yorkshire, group, J. E. Yarborough, who landed with the Airborne Division, saw Scout badges worn everywhere when he reached Oslo. He was soon surrounded by Norwegian Scouts of the 24th Oslo Troop, who sent cordial messages to their English brothers. Their uniforms and those of the other Troops had been handed in, and the Germans had sent them to be re-made to a Norwegian clothing factory for issue to the Quisling Youth Movement. Though not a Scout himself, its manager, whose son was, had had other views and had hidden them, issuing to the quislings uniforms made of material obtained with much difficulty from other sources. When Yarborough arrived the old uniforms had just been reissued amid scenes of great rejoicing. Another English Scout, Assistant Scoutmaster Roy Marian of the 3rd Bilston Troop, also records the Page 49 The Left Handshake warm welcome he received from the Norwegian Scouts, who pushed him to a corner "where questions and answers were flung to and fro in broken English." His left hand felt "as though it would drop off," so often had it been shaken. It was reserved for the Chief Scout of Norway, the Reverend Hans Moller Gasmann, to give point to the great day of liberation. Soon after the Germans had thrown down their arms he held a service in the largest church in Oslo where, addressing the Scouts, he urged them, now that freedom had come, to do each and all of them what they could to rebuild their country. To this exhortation they have most wholeheartedly responded, and no Norwegian citizen has done more than the Boy Scouts to repair the ravages of war. The Norwegians are a modest people, shy of describing their own deeds, but "By their work ye shall know them," and among all groups of resistance in all countries the Norwegians were, in the view of those best qualified to know, given pride of place. This high tribute they owe as much to their Scouts as to any one else. Scouting in Norway abundantly proved itself between 1940 and 1945. LUXEMBOURG Luxembourg is a country almost ideal for Scouting. It is small but possessed in careless abundance of woods, hills, rivers and streams, in or beside which are to be found the finest camping sites imaginable. Camping is a national pastime. The woods have beckoned to the Luxembourgers for centuries and for centuries they have responded. With so many delights of Nature to aid them, that Scouting is in the blood of the Luxembourger is scarcely surprising, and it needed only the Movement created by Baden-Powell to give it concrete form. In May, 1940, the Germans overran and annexed Luxembourg. Her citizens were at once forcibly included in the Reich, the intention of Hitler being to abolish once and for all the historic Grand-Duchy. The occupation was immediate and thorough. At dawn on the 10th May, 1940, tanks and armoured cars in their thousands, destined some for the attack on Belgium, others for that on France, rolled through the countryside, fresh and scintillating in its garment of spring. Across the Moselle and Sauer they poured and before the sun had set Luxembourg was in the toils. It was Whitsuntide and her Boy Scouts were putting the finishing touches to their preparations for the Whitsun camps. The invasion put an immediate end to them, as it did to many other peaceful happy occupations. A few months of uncertainty went by, and then in August, 1940, the Gestapo with all its horrors established itself in the walled city set upon its hill. National organisations were immediately and ruthlessly suppressed, among the first to suffer being the Fédération Nationale des Eclaireurs de Luxembourg. The reaction of the Scouts was that of the rest of the population, fierce and immediate. Every fit man and woman in that small country became at once a hunter and a quarry. They pursued the Germans, who pursued them, and the peaceful camping sites became places where fugitives of their own or an Allied nation, escaped from German prison and concentration camps, might find refuge. Resistance began in earnest in October, 1940, when the slogan "Vive Charlotte" was everywhere chalked up to commemorate the birthday of their beloved Grand-Duchess of Luxembourg, and by the spring of 1941 a number of Resistance movements had begun and were well established. In all these, Scouters and former Scouts played a gallant and successful part. At the same time, the work of resistance, which engaged so much of their attention, did not cause them to neglect the training of Scouts. Several new Troops were founded, among them that of the Red Lion, whose birthday is the 3rd September, 1942. Two boys of fourteen were the originators. Starting with seven companions, they presently reached twenty-eight, all of them eager to become proficient so that they might be of ever-increasing service to their country. The only Scout handbook they had was a number of notes written hastily by a brother of one of the Scoutmasters. All rapidly became 2nd and 1st Class Scouts, the aims of the two young leaders Page 50 The Left Handshake being to preserve the Scout ideals and to show the Germans that even the youth of Luxembourg was their deadly foe. As in Poland, Norway and the other occupied countries, meetings of Patrols and of the Troop were held almost under the noses of the Gestapo, in fact in a room beneath that occupied by a Gestapo inspector. All went reasonably well for a year and a half, but on Whit Sunday, 1944, the two young Chiefs, who had organised a long hike for that day, were seized by the Gestapo. Each was wearing the shorts and shirt of a former Scout uniform and both were at once, therefore, highly suspect. Being told to report to Gestapo headquarters on the following Monday, they returned to their homes, burned all compromising papers and made ready for their ordeal. Monday was a dark day with sky overcast. The moment the two boys entered the dreaded building, the Gestapo began their questions. Each was interrogated separately by a German well accustomed to hectoring and violence. The proceedings were suddenly and happily interrupted by the appearance of a Gestapo officer, who bade them brusquely to be gone to their homes. Hardly believing their ears, they departed and do not know why he let them go. If he thought by this clemency to soften their hearts he was sadly mistaken. Free once more, the leaders of the Red Lion Troop redoubled their efforts, and from then until the end of the war proved a thorn in the invader's flesh. By the time V.E. Day had arrived they were a well-trained Troop worthy in every way to be inspected, as they were, by Major Georges Schommer, the Deputy Chief Scout of Luxembourg. The inspection over, they changed their name to Les Diables Mauves. Another Troop under the two leaders, Josy Wengler and Josy Wirol, were arrested en masse by the Gestapo in September, 1940. They were freed after a few days in the hope, a vain one, that by gentle methods they could be won over to the German cause. It might have been thought that young boys, as most of them were, would have been too frightened after this experience to continue. When all is said and done, a boy of thirteen or fourteen does not expect to spend several days in prison and be threatened by something far worse if he persists in defying those who have usurped authority over him. But this Troop, like so many others in so many other occupied countries, refused stoutly to learn from experience. Far from abandoning Scouting, they entered into it the more fervently. The two Josys presently left them for the still young Resistance Movement, and both suffered long periods of imprisonment in concentration camps. They were less fortunate than Adij Reich, who escaped from prison in Germany, bringing with him thirty French prisoners. Adij was always in and out of prison, being captured and recaptured four times. He ended up by fighting with a band of the French Maquis. Franz Stielens was not so lucky. He, too, escaped and was recaptured a number of times but eventually disappeared and no one knows his fate. Jacques Tillman was tortured to death in prison. Roland Victor, aged nineteen, fought hard for his life outside a gas chamber but lost it to a bullet from an SS guard, though not until he had killed another of that evil breed. These, and others like them, were wont to frequent a café in the City of Luxembourg, which became the secret, very unofficial rendezvous for Scouts and Scouters who had joined the Resistance. It was managed by a young woman, Madame Noel, and she continued to manage it alone after her husband, a Scouter, had been caught and shot with two fellow Scouters. Nothing shows more clearly the spirit of the Luxembourg Scouts than the following brief curriculum vitae of one Aimé Stoll, aged seventeen when his country was overrun. Here it is in full: 3rd January, 1941. — Admission to Luxembourg Underground Movement. 1941-42. — Propagandist and other activities in the Underground. April, 1942. — Germans smash Luxembourg Underground Movement. May 26th. — Thrown out of High School for anti-Nazi demonstration. June to August. — Three months' forced labour at German T.N.T. factory, Brahnau, near Bromberg (Poland-West Prussia) with British P.O.W. Spy activity started. September. — Luxembourg workers called up for service in Wehrmacht. General Strike, in which Stoll took part. October. — Put into custody at Bad Veueushr with British and French P.O.W.s. Page 51 The Left Handshake November. — First call-up for German paratroopers, avoided by simulating being sick. December. — Second call-up, for Luftwaffe. Avoided by previous appendix operation. January, 1943. — Third call-up, German Navy. Joined to avoid troubles to family. Stayed with Navy until May 2nd same year. May 2nd. — Escape from German training ship Monte Olivia at Gdynia (Polish harbour) with false papers to Luxembourg. May 7th. — Departure from house en route for England. Hiding in Luxembourg Ardennes until August 22nd. August 23rd. — Pass Belgian border. Stay with White Army for one month. Contact British Intelligence officer. Arrange departure to France. September 20th. — Passed French border at Erquelines. Paris. September 30th. — Left for Southern France. October, 1943, to March, 1944. — Southern France (Bordeaux, etc.). March 4th. — By arrangement with Allied Intelligence, left secretly by motor torpedo boat for England (with Commandos from St. Froc). March 13th. — Arrival at Tilbury. Sent to Special Intelligence (nom de guerre — J. J. Manet). Volunteered for special Paratroop Training. July, 1944. — Back to Continent with Allied Expeditionary Forces. September 13th. — Back to Luxembourg three days after its liberation (on leave). October 31st. — First operation behind enemy lines across the Luxembourg-German border near Mertert. November 2nd. — Second operation behind enemy lines (Echternach). February, 1945. — Third operation behind lines in Holland. April 1st(Easter Sunday). — Dropped in civilian clothes with false papers and wireless operator, by parachute at Leutkirch near Lake of Constanze (Bavaria). April 27th. — Liberated by Third American Army. If the Scouts and Scouters showed such grit and determination, so also did the parents. One day a Scout was shot. He had been convicted of working for the Resistance. The Germans displayed his body on the steps of the church in his village and compelled the population to file past the bier so that he might be identified and they could thus learn more about him. Among those who passed by was the boy's father, but he gazed upon his dead son without moving a muscle of his face though he did not know that the boy had been shot. Small Luxembourg may be in size, but her inhabitants are great of heart, and of these none are greater than the Scouts. HOLLAND "We built a cottage in a good camouflaged spot, of branches, grass, heather and rope; we also built in a high tree an observation post. We often worked at it in the evening (after school-time). It was a very pretty job, pioneering in that high tree, the red setting sun in the waving branches... it was picturesque. One day we went there and found it all destroyed. It was clear that the boys of Hitler Youth had done their work." The report, of which this is an extract, describes a scene repeated many times throughout Holland for five long years. The Dutch are reputed to be among the most obstinate or stubborn people in the world. They are the first when confronted by their enemies, and the second when fighting side by side with their friends. Both these national characteristics were displayed to the full between 1940 and 1945. Page 52 The Left Handshake The story begins in a manner only too familiar, the sudden and violent entry of the Germans into Holland. That lovely May morning, the tenth of the month, Koos, Patrol Leader of the 6th Rotterdam Troop, on the way to his firm where he was employed as an apprentice electrician, heard gun and rifle fire. He turned back, hastily donned his Scout uniform, put his head into the office crying, "It's war now and I'm going to see what I can do," and made for the bridges across the river. On the other side Dutch Marines were heavily engaged. Koos spent that morning carrying food to the front line and the wounded away from it. There were many wounded but he was not among them, though during one trip, the handle of the wheelbarrow which he was using to convey a wounded man to safety was smashed by a bullet. Koos was one of thousands of Dutch Scouts who on that day were plunged into a new existence, one which for many of them held peril but no little glory. After the first four days of desperate fighting when the Dutch Army, overwhelmed, was compelled to surrender, a false calm fell upon the city. Of the many invasions which Holland has suffered in the course of her history, this was the last, the swiftest, the most overwhelming. But it was over now, and the fields and towns, except for the smoking ruin of Rotterdam, appeared unchanged. Tall spires above spacious churches, clean white and red houses in the midst of rich fields of corn, canals straight and edged as a sword blade, the very generosity of the scenery seemed to be a guarantee against chance, a contradiction of violence, an outward symbol of an inward peace. How different was the reality. An invader had appeared, one more to add to the list. He must be resisted by the old tried means. But it was important not to hurry. Everything must be done in due order, following a plan, and to begin with it was necessary to discover the intentions of the enemy. They seemed innocuous enough, almost praiseworthy — at first. Scouting continued unchecked, and since Scouting has always been popular in Holland, especially after the great Jamboree of 1937 at Vogelensang, which gave it a great impetus, there were many Scouts and many Troops. One great service they could and did render immediately. In every town they were among the most prominent members of Air-Raid Precautions organisations, and they had plenty of work to do, especially in Rotterdam on that terrible afternoon of May 14th, 1940, when 30,000 lost their lives in a bombardment from the air which took place after the Dutch had surrendered. "We had got some experience during the preceding days," writes the Leader of the 6th Rotterdam Troop, "but this was beyond every description. The centre of the town was ablaze, the fire brigades doomed to idleness for the water mains had been hit. All we could do, therefore, was to lend a helping hand in the evacuation of the hospitals, help the very large number of injured, and carry away the dead. We had to improvise, for there was no time to organise. Not a single Scout remained in our headquarters in Rotterdam West, which were outside the target area. All of them, and every Scout who could be found, rushed into the burning city, and each did what he could without orders." Such services, begun in May, 1940, never faltered till the day of liberation five years later. Long after the suppression of Scouting those who practised it continued to be the mainstay of Passive Defence despite the ever-present risk of severe punishment and its frequent infliction for disobeying the orders of Germany. The number of lives they saved, the number of buildings they preserved from destruction by air-raids, most of them unhappily made in the course of duty by the Air Forces of the Allies, was very great. For this contribution alone to the welfare of their country they deserve and have been given the gratitude of the whole nation. Most of the misery air-raids were to inflict was still in the future when, in the autumn of 1940, the Germans first began to show the cloven hoof. The Scout Law, the very antithesis of Fascism, was still the guide of thousands of young Dutch folk by whom it was assiduously preached and practised. The occupying Power sought to impose its own brand of Youth Movement. The most notorious was the Jengstorm. To nine Dutch boys out of ten it made no appeal, and recruits were therefore very scarce. The Germans — there is a dreadful sameness about their procedure – were forced to sterner measures. Since the Scouts of Holland would not work for them and were not even content to remain passive, they must be suppressed. Scouting, which had already been frowned upon as early as August, 1940, only three months after the invasion, was on April 2nd, 1941, abolished altogether. Page 53 The Left Handshake This action of the Germans had a double effect upon the Dutch. Here was a concrete instance of German harshness against an Organisation strictly non-political. It must be a good organisation or the Germans would not have taken such action, therefore it must be encouraged. The population of Scouts, already great, increased. They came to be widely regarded throughout Holland as martyrs for the cause of their country. True, the sternest measures had not yet been taken against them, but the nation's youth had been forbidden to follow a healthy, popular and sound method of fitting themselves for the battle of life, a battle which for many of them was likely to prove more than usually strenuous. The immediate result of the suppression was, therefore, that Scouting was carried on in secret. Here, however, an immediate difficulty arose. A general instruction was issued by the Scouting authorities to suspend the recruiting and training of Cubs, for these small boys were too young to understand the need for secrecy and might, therefore, expose those in charge of them to needless danger. Nevertheless, Scouting had taken too strong a hold in Holland to die out for lack of initial training. Somehow, in conditions of increasing difficulty and danger, summer camps were maintained in 1942 and 1943. Not only Cubs, but the young 2nd Class Scouts of twelve and fourteen were apt to boast to their friends about the way in which they outwitted the Germans and carried on their Scouting. The older boys from seventeen to nineteen found life very difficult, for if they wished to escape forced labour or even inclusion in the German Army, they had to disappear into hiding. Yet despite every difficulty, every danger, many still contrived to practise some active form of Scouting. "The elimination of Scouting had been a hard nut to crack for us," runs the report of the redoubtable 6th Rotterdam Troop. "It took us some time to recover from the blow. Moreover, we were not sure whether the German Sickerheitdienst (Security Service) was keeping an eye on us or not. We soon discovered that they were busily engaged with other evil things (i.e. wicked deeds) and didn't pay attention to us. So we gradually rallied the greater part of the Group for renewed activities. It was perhaps more on behalf of (i.e. as the result of) the old friendships and the tendency for eating of the forbidden fruit than of aimed resistance that we stuck to Scouting." This spirit burned all over the country. In the mining districts they played the game of Scouting resolutely throughout what they called "The Time of the Catacombs," but they had to stop work with Wolf Cubs, who turned themselves into choir boys, joined various religious organisations analogous to the Church Lads' Brigade, and thus contrived still to learn something of Scouting. With the Troops the situation varied and, generally speaking, despite constant spying by the Germans and by Dutch traitors which increased their difficulties, many continued to hold regular meetings but always disguised. Following the example of their juniors, they became dramatic or sports clubs, choirs, missionary societies, and were thus enabled to meet without undue risk. By the end of 1942, however, the Germans had discovered these subterfuges and the Troops had to be disbanded, their leaders going underground. Yet Scouting still continued, being made possible largely by the determination of the boys to hold summer camps at any cost. True they bore little resemblance to the camps of peace-time. The Scouts of Hulst, a mining district, used the caves of Valkenburg, where their ancestors of 150 years before had hidden from the soldiers of Napoleon. The Stork Patrol of Nijmegen slept "in lofts and barns." The Scouts of Tilberg once camped in a great castle belonging to Count d'Oultremont, completely furnished but empty. Here they felt themselves remote from the world of chaos and oppression outside. "How we looked through the Gothic windows over the silent dreaming moat.... How we cooked, dined, sang, fought and romped.... How we laughed till the tears rolled down our cheeks in pleasure and mighty remembrances. In a word, how we lived there as knights of old." For one brief moment the romantic dreams of youth had come true, and then on that last morning the "bailiff told us... of the break-out of the Allied armies in France, for it was August, 1944. To tell the story of the Scouts in the Underground army of Holland would be to write, in effect, a history of the whole Resistance Movement. In every branch of it they were active, in all its battles they Page 54 The Left Handshake were to be found in the post of danger. The individual adventures of a few men and women, here in brief set down, must serve as examples, splendid and heroic but far from unique, of deeds performed also by their numerous comrades. First the tale of Wim, a young citizen of Amersfoort. When the war broke out he was twenty-three years old and a Scoutmaster (there are now four Scout Troops named after him). By September, 1942, he was an active member of the "K.P." Group (the Knok Ploeg) — a very active group which specialised in raids on German offices with the object of acquiring ration cards. Such raids were carried out on a large scale, the object being not only to provide food for the increasing numbers of young men and women compelled to "dive" in order to escape forced labour or the concentration camp, but also generally to confuse and hamper the Germans in their efforts to control Holland. Wim led a very successful raid in Tilburg which resulted in the capture of a special stamp used by the Germans on all identity cards. This was followed by an equally successful operation in the small village of Maartensdijk in which a quantity of ration cards were taken. These raids had been comparatively easy to execute, for in each case the guards attacked were what was known as "good" Dutch, police who had been compelled, very often for family reasons — they could not see their wives and children starve or be transported to Germany — to take service with the invaders, but who were determined to do as little as they could to help them. Confronted by Wim and his friends, they put their hands behind their backs and allowed him to tie them up. The third attack, however, carried out against the Germans in Amersfoort, was a failure. Wim had been against it from the start, for by then a sufficient number of ration cards had been collected, and to run further risks for more was unnecessary. He took no part in it, which was as well for its leader was arrested and found with the names of all his Troop upon him. Among them was that of Wim, who was seized in his bedroom. In an effort to shield his friends, he immediately assumed full responsibility for all the raids which he had undertaken, and swore that the ration and identity cards found in his bag had been stolen by him and him alone. He was kept in close confinement in Amsterdam, then transferred to The Hague and soon afterwards shot. Van D., a Troop Leader of the same town, had better fortune. At the age of nineteen he was Leader of a Scout Troop in Amersfoort and was certified by the local doctors as unfit for forced labour. He was therefore set to work in a German office of which the main business was to choose those Dutch who were to be transferred to Germany to work in her factories. His duty seemed to him obvious; he must prevent as many persons as possible from being drafted to forced labour. He soon learnt to imitate the handwriting of the doctor whose task it was to examine them, and very soon the number of certificates issued to unfit persons began to rise sharply. Even when Van D. was unsuccessful with medical certificates, he contrived in many cases to send the persons chosen, not to some distant city of Germany such as Berlin or Breslau, but to a town just across the border from which they could effect their escape. When they returned, he provided them with ration cards. It was naturally impossible for him to help every one on the lists with which his office dealt, but he found himself able to aid about one in four who passed through his hands, and altogether in eighteen months one thousand of his compatriots were thus saved from forced labour or a concentration camp. Eventually in February, 1944, through the indiscretions of a young medical student, the Germans discovered his activities. He was arrested and condemned to five years imprisonment and was serving this sentence when the end of the war freed him. The stories of Frans, a Scoutmaster, and Else, also of Amersfoort, are especially revealing, showing, as they do, not only unselfish bravery but also the cold ferocity with which the Dutch Underground did their work. Else was the fiancée of Frans, and a lady Cub-Master. When Scouting was suppressed in 1941 her Pack was disbanded and she presently found herself working entirely for the Underground. One of the first tasks given to the group of which she was a member was to shoot a number of quislings who had befriended the Germans and, worse, betrayed a number of their own countrymen. Resolutely she set about her grim duty. In the neighbourhood of Eiper was a wealthy farmer who was a determined quisling and a very active traitor. Else, her fiancée, and two others wearing the uniform of the Dutch police, set out to Page 55 The Left Handshake settle his account. They went separately to the rendezvous, the quisling farmer was duly executed, and the little group dispersed. The next day one of them reported that in the hurry of departure he had left his soft hat behind and that it had his initials stamped on the sweat-band. This was a very serious blunder and for days they lived in fear, till they learnt that a local quisling, a friend of the farmer who had paid the penalty for his treachery, had been arrested. He, too, had lost a hat, his head was the same size as that of Frans's companion, and, moreover, he bore the same initials. Eventually Else was captured, but Frans continued his Underground activities, having broken away from the police guard who was taking him to court to be tried, for he, too, had been arrested. For a time he worked for "Uncle John," the head of a Resistance group, and then in September, 1943, he took a grave and courageous step. He determined to join the Dutch National Socialist Party so as to climb as high as he could in their councils and at the same time, by wearing the hated uniform, to be free to move about and help the Resistance. To do this was no easy matter, but by staging a love affair with the daughter of a Dutch National Socialist living with her family near Schutfen, he eventually succeeded. Frans posed as a young man who had suffered imprisonment for backsliding. He would do all that he could, he explained, to be restored to favour. His charm and the power of his wooing convinced the girl, who prevailed upon the local National Socialist authorities to admit Frans into their ranks. Once in, he showed himself so keen and active that he was sent to the officers' training school of the Dutch National Socialist Security Service. Having completed his training, he was posted to the Office of Administration and found himself handling all its correspondence. Much of this consisted of that most treacherous of all forms of denunciation, the anonymous letter. Frans was soon busy warning the people whose names were contained in these missives, and presently felt himself strong enough to go further. Arrested persons were frequently brought to his office. On seeing them, Frans would fall into a rage, scream and shout at all of them in general, but reserve his special wrath for one or two in particular. To these he would be especially abusive, yelling at the top of his voice and thrusting his finger at them. At the same time his thumb pointed in the direction of the door. He had little difficulty in making them understand, so he said. "Being in the Underground made you quick on the uptake." After a time Frans felt that if he stayed much longer with this office in Amersfoort his identity would be pierced. He accordingly obtained a transfer to the Utrecht office, where he found himself in charge of all outgoing and incoming mail. His activities were redoubled and he was able to deal with anonymous letters to the number of between thirty and forty a day and thus to continue his work of warning. September, 1944, arrived. The Allies were close at hand and Frans was faced with a difficult problem. For a year he had worked as a Dutch Nazi. How would he be able to re-establish his true identity? If he failed, his own countrymen would do justice upon him. He considered the problem and one evening found himself in a new officers' mess built for the Security Service of the Dutch and German Nazis. It was the day appointed for the official opening but the German officer chosen to make the speech was too drunk to do so. By a common impulse the audience, all of whom regarded Frans as an energetic and efficient young Dutch Nazi, called upon him to speak. Frans rose to his feet and to the occasion. His audience, like the German officer, was for the most part drunk. They were treated to a "very rhetorical and allegorical" speech filled with long quotations from Hitler's speeches and those of Mussert, the leader of the Dutch quislings. Towards the end of his discourse, Frans frequently introduced the words "good times are coming," a phrase which was the password of the Resistance army. The German and Dutch Nazis cheered him to the echo, "put him upon a table and gave him the distinctions of an officer." On leaving the mess he pocketed all the revolvers in the ante-room, stole the new bicycle belonging to the commandant, and set off for The Hague, twenty kilometres distant. On the way thither he stopped a German convoy of twelve lorries and obtained a lift. His parting gesture was to direct the lorries on to the wrong road so that they became jammed in a "cul de sac." Frans was at The Hague when he heard of the arrest of Else. The news inspired him to undertake the most dangerous of all his missions, the formation of a special Underground group dressed in German SS Page 56 The Left Handshake uniforms. These were obtained by shooting the necessary number of Germans and removing their clothes. Frans soon had twenty men under him and carried out a series of operations, which, since they were wearing German uniform, could be performed in daylight. For a time they were very successful, notably in the arrest of certain chosen Dutch and German Nazis who were kept in a secret prison so that they might be tried for their crimes when the war ended. Eventually, however, his group was betrayed by one of their number and two were arrested. Frans determined upon their rescue. Still wearing his uniform, he bluffed his way into the prison past three sentries. To the first two he gave a password, but he knew that the third would require a different word which he had not learnt. Summoning up all his Scout training, he went up to the man and holding out his hand, said, "Comrade, how are you? We haven't met for two years. You remember that place on the Russian front — I forget its name." The sentry had never seen Frans before, but did not like to confess his ignorance, a weakness upon which Frans, knowing human nature, had counted. Not only did the German let him pass, but he obligingly produced the two prisoners. Frans instantly said that he must take them away for an interrogation, marched them off under the noses of the sentries. One of the prisoners was his brother and he survived the war. The other, as was subsequently discovered, was the traitor. He was shot. Frans's final feat, which he performed in October, 1944, was to hide thirteen young men for whom the Germans were searching, in the gallery of the Opera House at The Hague. They thoroughly enjoyed a performance of Fledermaus while he was obtaining false identity cards for them. Frans was as brave and resourceful as the "Scarlet Pimpernel" of fiction and as fortunate. He must stand out as a shining example of those young Scout-trained Dutchmen who dared all and triumphed. Many, equally daring, did not. Luck was against Piet of Lunteren, who was described as "a very good Scout, an Assistant Scoutmaster, and a great enthusiast." In June, 1943, he "dived" and helped an Organisation providing thousands of young men who had done likewise to acquire false ration cards. He then became a member of a signalling group, and as such was caught and shot by the German SS. The same fate befell many of the gallant Dutch Scouts who helped the men of the 1st Airborne Division in the battle of Arnhem. Throughout the ten days during which they strove first to capture and then to hold the bridge across the Lower Rhine, they received every help possible from the townspeople. No one was prompter with it than the Scouts. Of these, Hans and Bert, aged fifteen and sixteen in 1940, had formed a secret Troop of Rover Scouts. Together with their leader and three others they went at once to the hospital set up in Arnhem by the parachute troops soon after the fighting began, laboured there among the wounded, and when the last of them had been taken away by the Germans, remained behind for three weeks to bury the dead. Only then did they think of their own safety. They started for Appeldoorn but on the way were arrested by some Dutch SS. Three weeks later they were found lying face downwards, having obviously been shot "while trying to escape." One of their comrades, Piet, had no better fortune. After the battle of Arnhem he established a ferry service across the Waal, his object being to help airborne troops left behind in hiding, to escape to the British lines. They were taken across at night, and by day hidden in a fruit farm owned by a friend of his. On the 23rd October he was caught, having been denounced by a Jewish couple who informed the Germans that Piet was in possession of a rubber boat. He and his two helpers were seized in the act of pumping it up. They were taken away to a school at Tiel, and Piet was shot dead while attempting to escape through one of the windows. He was one of four of his Scout Troop, all of whom died fighting for the Underground during the war. "I think that Scouting did much to make him active," said his father, "and to give him the feeling that he must not give up." Eddy of Haarlem was a Patrol Leader in 1939. He joined the Underground Movement as soon as it was founded and was still working with it when the British and Canadian forces entered the city. Before that joyful day arrived, however, he worked for their Intelligence Service and when, like Piet, he found Page 57 The Left Handshake himself in a position to help airborne troops left behind in Arnhem, he made use of a hidden telephone which connected the house in which he was staying with British headquarters back beyond the Waal. A German officer was billeted in the house, and whenever Eddy had occasion to telephone, its owner or his son played Beethoven and other composers upon the piano, to the delight of the German officer. The escaping British soldiers were taken across in boats at previously arranged spots, the remainder of the river being subjected to a heavy bombardment. Eddy conveyed these men across in a rubber boat, and brought others away by lorry and ambulance, using roundabout roads. "It was lonely work and he stayed in Arnhem to perform it from September, 1944, to March, 1945." To carry it out successfully, Eddy organised a Troop of twenty-five boys of whom many were Scouts. As long as the British Army endures, the name of Arnhem will have an honoured place in its annals, nor will those gallant Dutch, so many of them Scouts or former Scouts, who helped during the desperate battle and for weeks and months afterwards, ever be forgotten. In May, 1945, when the war was over at last, the Boy Scouts of Arnhem sent this message to their brothers in England: "As Dutch Boy Scouts we bring a salute to our brothers and sisters in England. For more than five years our contact with you was broken, but the news we got about your actions was so splendid that we are proud to be members of this world organization. "Since the 1st April, 1941, Scouting was forbidden by the Germans, but secretly we continued our Scouting, and those of us who were not able to do this remained a Boy Scout at heart. "Soon after the liberation we met some of your English brothers and sisters, and we are glad to hear what fine work they are doing, especially for the hungry people in the west of our Country. "We soon hope that we ourselves can do our duty as Boy Scouts and help our population in the west of Holland. "In all our Scouting we shall take your work and that of B.P. as an example. "THE DUTCH BOY SCOUTS OF ARNHEM." It was warmly reciprocated. Each year British and Dutch meet together in that city to commemorate the fight and the fallen, among whom those who were Scouts are not the least honoured. Out of the many acts of bravery and cunning which the Scouts and Scouters of Holland performed in the service of their country, those of Mr. B. of Amsterdam must not be forgotten. He was a Scoutmaster, and being employed in the labour office of that town, showed great ingenuity in helping his compatriots to avoid forced labour. He paid particular attention to those who were Scouts, and doctors engaged in medically examining persons detailed for forced labour were also the object of his solicitude. He was able to extract from them large quantities of bogus health certificates which he gave to the Scouts, and the standard of health in Amsterdam quickly began to decline. Mr. B. presently found a printer able to forge on a large scale. Certificates, ration books, every kind of official paper were manufactured with care and dispatch, and the exemption curve rose still more sharply. Then Mr. B. discovered that the Germans had a rule that persons with black blood in their veins must never be sent to Germany lest the Herrenvolk should be corrupted by their presence. This was a wonderful stroke of good fortune. Mr. B. himself had a brown face and curly hair, and allowed it to be known that not far back in his family there had been an East Indian mésalliance. The word went round and soon anybody with black hair and brown skin — and there were not a few of them — discovered a similar black grandmother in the cupboard. All were exempted. Page 58 The Left Handshake But the pace became too hot to last. The printer was caught and sent to a concentration camp, where he died. Undeterred, Mr. B. prepared the special stamp which the Germans used on the cards. He worked in a small cellar hidden in the midst of the city, proceeding to and fro in a motor hearse, frequently saluted by the punctilious Germans. One day the inevitable happened. The certificates which Mr. B. was issuing so lavishly were scrutinised and found to be forged. Mr. B. left the labour office in a hurry but continued his work on a smaller scale, stealing genuine cards from the Town Hall and altering them. In October, 1943, however, his activities were temporarily stopped by his arrest. For a year and a half he languished in various concentration camps until he reached Siegberg. There, awaiting his opportunity, he hid for a fortnight with a friend in a disused steam boiler and thus escaped. One of the Scouts of Middleburg was L. K., a Rover and a champion wrestler of the Dutch Navy. He joined the K.P. organisation and being a skilled fighter and a man of abnormal strength, would, "whenever he passed a German sentry post, make a practice of knocking down the guards. Then he would go away, put on a different hat or clothes and come back to see how much damage he had done." His two most memorable feats were the blowing up of "an important bridge in the north of Holland at the moment when a column of Germans were on it. This he did all by himself on his own initiative. It was his hobby." The second deed was the substitution of harmless sand for the explosive charges placed by the Germans under the Post Office at Leewarden. Though there were eighteen German soldiers on guard, L. K. succeeded in performing this feat, but to this day refuses to tell how he did so. To physical strength he added resource and sagacity. When, as inevitably happened sooner or later in the lives of those who fought for the Dutch Underground, the Gestapo came to arrest him, he was ready for them. At that time he lived in a large house in The Hague. Three agents knocked upon his door and said they wanted to speak to Mr. K. He replied, "Oh, Mr. K. is living on the third floor." In they went, out he went. Let these stories of what Scouting meant in Holland, and of the deeds of some few of the many Scouts in her Underground Army, be concluded with the tale of Nellie. In 1939 she was Cub Commissioner for the whole of Holland, and as such organised the work of the Cubs throughout the country. There were many charitable tasks which could be performed and were. Nellie directed them until Scouting was suppressed on the 2nd April, 1941 She then threw in her lot with the mayor of a little village who was the head of a section of the Underground. Their labours were many and varied. They sent messages to London, they helped Allied airmen and others to take the long road to Spain, they provided "divers" with false identity cards and ration books. In June, 1942, the mayor was arrested and Nellie took over his work. Equipped with a false identity card and a season ticket on the railway, she threw herself into her dangerous tasks, and from then until her arrest never slept more than one night in the same place. In March, 1943, she saved the life of an agent of the Netherlands Intelligence Department who fell into the Zuyder Zee, the aircraft from which he was to parachute having been shot down by a German night fighter. With him she worked until he returned to England, and she then "organised the going back of crashed pilots via Belgium and France." It was dangerous work, for the Gestapo had a habit of planting "stool pigeons," persons who pretended to be Royal Air Force pilots. Through the help of "such a damned inferior Dutch quisling" — Nellie does not mince her words — "my group fell into the hands of the counter-espionage department of the Gestapo." It was only a question of time before they found Nellie. On the 27th September "the Gestapo had luck!" and she was arrested by no less than eight of their officers. It seemed impossible that she should escape death. Had she not been engaged on espionage work and did not the "Convention of Geneva give the Germans the right to execute spies?" Moreover, had not "a German general declared in Brussels that my group had caused the death of thousands of German soldiers?" To her astonishment, however, she was politely interrogated. "I had the luck," she records, "to Page 59 The Left Handshake find Gestapo officers who were no beastly sadists. A Hun is a Hun, I will never forget that, but my interrogators never beat me." The first day she remained silent. On the next, the Germans took her to the prison at Scheveningen. "The first night in your cell you don't sleep. You're thinking, what's the best thing to do. Only for a moment did I have the thought of suicide. I said I would prepare the Huns a good surprise when they found me the following day as dead as a doornail. But immediately your common sense gets the upper hand. There is only one way for me, fight against the Huns to the end." The following day she was interrogated from 8 a.m. till midnight, every member of the Gestapo taking a hand. Her fame had spread through Holland and they were eager to see her. "As each came in they made the same remark: 'Das ist die Nel,' as if I was a good old friend of theirs." She gave them no information that day or on any other. In July, 1944, Nellie was tried by a Court of German Air Force officers sitting in Utrecht. She was condemned to death on two counts, espionage and helping Allied pilots, and of the twenty-one who were in the dock with her, all belonging to her own Resistance group, ten received the same penalty. "I am still proud of the behaviour of them all," she writes. "Nobody showed his emotion, nobody said that he regretted his work. That 4th of July we saw death in the face and nobody was afraid of him." Even the German President of the Court was impressed by their demeanour. Before the confirmation of the death sentence arrived, the Allies had reached Holland, and Nellie with others was thrown into a cattle truck and transported to Germany, taking three days to perform a journey which in peace-time took four hours. In Germany she and her companions were confined with a group of Nacht und Nebel prisoners, victims of perhaps the greatest of all German crimes, the Night and Fog decree under which arrested persons were never seen or heard of again, their fate remaining an unsolved mystery to their relatives. With these, Nellie and her companions spent the rest of the war, in a grim prison at Kotbus at hard labour, her food "two thin slices of mouldy bread and for dinner a litre of water with something in it, that we in Holland give to cattle." She contrived to keep up the spirits of all by making them play Scout games, learn Morse and see each other puzzles. She also contrived to teach embroidery. Transported from Kotbus in February, 1945, they were taken in cattle wagons in the depths of winter to Waldheim in Saxony. The journey took three days and nights, seventy women being thrust into one cattle truck without food or water. Many of them died, but Nellie survived though by then she had lost four stone (fifty-six pounds). In their new prison they could hear Russian gunfire. "These last weeks with practically no food and the Allies so near I will never forget. They were the most heavy days of our imprisonment. It was on the 6th May, 1945, at 10.30 p.m. that some drunken Russian soldiers smashed our cell doors and liberated us . . . they were rough fellows but we were free." Nellie is now back at her work forming Cub Packs, promoting Scouting throughout her country. She and thousands like her are convinced that Scouting must and does play a major part in the rebuilding of any country ravished by war. It will certainly play its part in Holland, for the traditions which it has created in the five years from 1940 to 1945 will not easily be forgotten. After a slow start the Dutch created a movement of resistance to their oppressors as powerful and as successful as those which won them independence from Spain and thwarted the ambitions of Napoleon. In it all classes played their parts and all ages, from the ten-year-old Cub taking a message or forged ration card to a "diver", to that old lady of many ancestors who said that the Germans could never reach the height of her disdain. BELGIUM The attack on Holland by the Germans was accompanied by a simultaneous onslaught upon Belgium, her next-door neighbour. For the second time in a generation this small but gallant nation, "the stoutest warriors in all Gaul," as Caesar, the first of the dictators to try conclusions with them, described them, found itself at bay against the troops of the most ignoble of his imitators. The campaign lasted eighteen Page 60 The Left Handshake days. At the end of it the country was overrun, and the British and French armies, which had come to its support, flung back, the first across the Channel, the second into their own country, there to disintegrate with a speed which appalled all Europe. The small, hard-fighting Belgian army counted many Scouters within its ranks, and of these many were killed in the course of the brief but hard-fought campaign. Most of these had been of military age, but there were in Belgium many thousands of Scouts of all grades too young for active service, but constituting in their own persons the nation's reserve of youth. Within a few hours of the outbreak of war, the Government, realising that Belgium would certainly become a battlefield, determined to send as many of these to safety as they could. They should go to France when, as they grew old enough, they would return to swell the ranks of the Belgian army. At the time this decision was taken, the imminent fall of Belgium's great neighbour was undreamt of. On the 14th May a special Scout train left Brussels, every carriage filled with boys in uniform, cheerful and resolute. Some twelve hundred reached Montpelier in the south of France by this means. They were more fortunate than the remainder, who soon found themselves making for the same destination on foot, without food, money or shelter, all their possessions in a haversack upon their shoulders. But they were Scouts, and therefore able to take care of themselves. More than that, they could take care of others in that great stream of civilian refugees winding southwards with no clear journey's end, filled with but one thought, to escape from the Germans. Along the Via Dolorosa the sound of singing would sometimes be heard. It came from the lips of Scouts, the Belgian boys who, "trusting in God and their own resources," strove each to do his duty. Around them were men and women in the last extremity of woe. It was for an occasion like this that the Scout Code had been promulgated. They set about fulfilling as literally as they could the Fourth Law — A Scout is a Friend to all. One Troop from Tournai worked without a break day and night for three days at a canteen cutting bread, carrying drinks, and leading to the rest centres an increasingly large number of refugees terrified by bombs. Not all the Scouts went by road. In addition to those who had been sent away in the special Scout train, there were others who travelled on refugee trains, refusing to sit in the carriages, which they gave up to elderly folk and children, and crowding instead into the corridors and the guard's van. One such train ran, near Calais, into a heavily-loaded goods train. The fourth and fifth coaches were telescoped, burying the survivors, but the Scouts jumped from the van just as the two trains met. Most of the passengers thought the accident was the result of an air raid and fled screaming from the line. They were met by resolute Scouts and Rovers who checked the panic, then returned to the train, calming the people and leading them away from the wreckage. For an hour the Scouts worked alone, two doctors discovered in the train being so panic-stricken as to be useless. The younger Scouts did their best to recover the luggage strewn in every direction and very precious, for they represented the only possessions of their owners; the older Scouts bore away the casualties, nursed the wounded, and carried off the dead. "They worked without respite, like automata in the rank smell of blood." Two ambulances presently arrived, but the driver of one of them made off. A Rover took his place, though he had never driven a car in his life. He brought the injured safely to hospital. Unshaken by this grim experience, this Troop of Belgian Scouts reached Paris, where they worked at the headquarters of the "Scouts de France" before joining the huge mass of refugees streaming through the southern gates of the capital. The Belgian General Commissioner, Armand de Coninck, eventually established his headquarters at Toulouse, and in this town and round about it a small army of young Belgians, some 1,500 in number, began to collect. The older Scouts, belonging as they did to the only disciplined organisation on the spot, had the task of looking after them, and were given the equivalent of commissioned rank. From the 5th to the 18th June the Belgians poured in. They were divided into fifty-four Companies, and 300 Scoutmasters with twenty chaplains took charge under the guidance of Baron Charley del Marmol, the Belgian International Commissioner. They arranged for billets, for rations, and above all for occupation, for many of the young men kicked against inactivity and found this enforced exile in a foreign land irksome and Page 61 The Left Handshake hardly to be borne. The Belgian Scouts taught the young men to "make and mend" and to scrub. Once a week their quarters were painted with creosote to destroy vermin. Their food was improved and better cooked. Sports were arranged and physical training classes, and there was a touch of ceremony, so important when dealing with human nature en masse. Each night the Belgian flag was saluted. Afterwards sing-songs, reminiscent of evenings round the camp-fire, were instituted, and the strains of harmonica and accordion filled the southern night. All this was accomplished very quickly, but not without ascertain friction with the army authorities, who, however, finally realised the value of persons who, whatever their ages, knew the meaning of discipline and had a cheerful and quiet spirit. In General Orders published on the 13th June it was stated: "In principle the cadre of every Youth Company is composed of Boy Scouts. This arrangement has given good results and all efforts to alter it have failed. Wherever possible, it is to be extended and used." By the time that order was published, the demeanour and bearing of the Belgian Boy Scouts had confounded their French hosts who had not been niggardly in the harshness in which they had criticised the Belgian surrender. Now, however, both French and Belgians were in the same boat and it was anchored, seemingly for good, in the harbours of the enemy. For a time the Belgian Boy Scouts contrived to carry on their life in Southern France. By then there were many small camps of them scattered round Provence in the neighbourhood of Montpelier, and from these they went out day by day and laboured in the vineyards, spraying the vines and digging the red earth. In August, on the orders of the Germans, they were sent back from the Occupied Zone of France to their own country, which they had left free but which was now "feeling the hardness of the German boot." Before quitting the soil of France they set up small monuments in the little sun-drenched villages of the South, to commemorate their short stay there and to thank their hosts. The return journey was sad, long and difficult. In the short space of a month France and Belgium had suffered terribly from war. Many roads and railways had been damaged or destroyed. Those that remained were cumbered with refugees returning home again, having failed to find safety in France. These were helped by the Scouts, one young Rover of eighteen succeeding in bringing back to Belgium several families of refugees and their luggage packed in a large furniture van. At first, as in every other conquered country except Poland, the Germans behaved mildly, seeking to win over the population who, twice in a lifetime, had to support their armies, with fair words and kind deeds. To the Scouts, however, this period was exceedingly short-lived. A few months passed and then the Gestapo called upon the Scout leaders in Belgium and demanded detailed information regarding all Scouting activities. They were fobbed off with vague general statements, and the files containing what they sought were burnt or safely hidden. A demand for a detailed inventory of equipment, tents, camping grounds, dens, etc., was met by a flat refusal, and the Boy Scouts de Belgique, one of the three Scout Associations flourishing in that country, informed the Germans blandly that all their assets belonged to the Church. The inevitable happened. Scouting was forbidden except by permission. Outwardly the Belgian Scouts complied. "We gave up the uniforms and kept up the spirit." As famine came to Belgium, following as it always does the footsteps of German armies, camps and "foyers" for undernourished children were organised, and these "afforded a personal channel to carry on Scouting on a large basis." One phenomenon was at once apparent. The numbers of Scouts rose steadily. In 1940 the three Associations, the Boy Scouts de Belgique, the Fédération des Scouts Catholiques, and the Vlaamsch Verbond der Katholieke Scouts, numbered in all 17,780. In 1941 this figure rose to 23,430, and in 1944, the year of the liberation, to 41,950, or more than double the figure for 1940. The reasons for this increase were the same as in other countries. Belgium was called upon almost immediately to endure a fierce and unjust persecution, and this produced the usual reaction in the hearts of the persecuted, a deep resentment and a determination to resist. An obvious outlet for the feelings was the Scout Movement; regarded in peace-time as a clean and pleasant pastime, it became in the years of occupation a vivid, and as the days went on, a dangerous manner of showing patriotism. Page 62 The Left Handshake As a Youth Movement, Scouting inspired the confidence of all Belgian families, who saw in it a ready means whereby to form good citizens, and it naturally attracted, through the many social services it performed, boys anxious to do what they could to help the community. The disaster of two German invasions in so short a period forced the ordinary Belgian to think very carefully, to take stock of his life, as it were, and to determine that out of the grimness of the present, a better world would arise in the future. That world, however, had to be based on education and the training of character. Quid leges sine moribus? Scouting contained both. Moreover, to join the Movement meant to hold acquaintance with danger, and what young man of spirit could resist such a lure? The largest single cause of the increase in membership was probably the attempt of the Germans to create a Youth Movement for their own purposes. This they sought to achieve through the Rexist Organisation built up by the traitor Degrelle, whose task it was to preach and practice the New Order. Their methods were as crude as their ideas, and they were the best recruiting agencies for the Scouts. During the Occupation two leading principles guided the Scouting activities of Belgium. In the face of ever-growing material needs, the doing of good turns became of increasing importance. In each of the three Associations, therefore, Commissioners for Service were created whose duty it was to organise and co-ordinate the different ways in which Scouts could fulfil this duty. The most important of these were the "Camps des Jeunes," the camps for under-fed children already mentioned. They were organised mostly by Rovers and were attended by children between the ages of six and seventeen suffering from the effects of semi-starvation. Many of them were the sons and daughters of Belgian prisoners-of-war. The Scouts based these camps on their own experience of camping and acquitted themselves very well. Not only were the children provided with nourishment and fresh air, but also with the moral foundations of a good life. They learnt obedience, discipline and citizenship, and their religious sense was also developed. The Rovers divided the boys into Troops and set up a Patrol system. So successful were these camps in 1941 that in 1942 a greater effort was made. More than 350 boarding schools lent their premises and their staffs for August, and in that month 21,000 children were given a holiday. These were the worst cases of malnutrition. The less severe went to "open-air stations." To equip and provision the camps was a great problem, for no appeal could be made to the Germans, who were steadily tightening the screw. Through the Red Cross an agreement was concluded between the Belgian Government in exile in London and the Governments of Switzerland and Portugal, whereby a certain quantity of food for children was sent to Belgium. To enable it to reach that country the Allies lifted the blockade. The result of this timely measure of assistance, with which the Germans did not interfere, was that the weight of the average child at the camps increased by from four to six pounds. Clothing was another difficulty. Thirty per cent of the 21,000 children frequenting the camps in 1942 were shod only with slippers. They were provided with a kind of galosh with a wooden sole. Their discipline was bad for they were either orphans or their parents were too busy fighting the hard battle of existence to give them proper care and attention. This was provided by the Scouts, and in that year thirty- four camps were staffed wholly by them, notably those called after Prince Baudouin. In 1943 more camps were opened. Some were placed on a permanent footing, and the number of "open-air" stations was also increased. In that year fifty camps were handed over to the Scouts, and in others the proportion of Rovers in charge was very high. 1944 showed no falling off, and in general it may be said that the efforts of the Belgian Scouts to care for the children of their country have had a permanent and most heartening effect. Children were not the only section of the population helped by Belgian Scouts and Scouters. The Fédération des Scouts Catholiques created a special sub-section of its Rover Branch called the Route des Hommes. This was not merely an association of former Scouts but was designed to attract men of all ages towards the movement and give them the moral help and succour of which they stood so much in need. The response was unexpectedly great and many men of forty and more began to adopt the Scout Law as the basis of their professional and family life. They took also to other Scouting activities, learned to cook Page 63 The Left Handshake over camp-fires and went hiking. "I myself have seen a doctor thirty-five years of age taking the Scout Oath. It was an impressive moment," writes a commissioner. A Flemish Scout Organisation paid particular attention to boys reaching puberty, for whom they made special provision. It must not be imagined that all this work was allowed to continue unchecked or unhampered by the Germans. As has been said, they showed the cloven hoof before 1940 was out, and on the 15th October that year they arrested all the Scoutmasters of Brussels, including the chaplain, and closed the headquarters. The chaplain, Father Schurman, was found guilty of distributing copies of Le Libre Belgique, the first of the clandestine newspapers, and was condemned to ten years' hard labour. He was sent to a concentration camp, but survived it and returned in 1945. Having shown the iron hand, the Germans thrust it back again into the velvet glove and sought, through Leon Degrelle, head of the Walloon Fascist Movement, to win over the Scouts to their side. In an interview with Father Frencken, the Chaplain-General of the Fédération des Scouts Catholiques, Degrelle declared that he had the Scouts very much at heart but that they must conform to the New Order or be suppressed. On behalf of the Scouts their chaplain chose suppression. From that moment onwards it was war between the Germans and the Rexists on the one hand, and the Scouts on the other. In 1943 the Germans suppressed Scouting altogether. They forbade the wearing of uniform, the use of compass or maps, practicing the Morse Code, or walking in threes. These orders were disobeyed whenever possible, and generally the Germans appear to have been somewhat uncertain as to their course of action. In one town in Southern Belgium, for example, they arrested a number of young Scouts carrying a totem pole, which they confiscated, but a few days later gave it back. In Chimay, despite the efforts of the Rexist Burgomaster, the Scouts were able to maintain their headquarters in the house. The Scouts in Antwerp were always particularly active. In 1940 they had collected clothes, socks, underwear and shoes for Belgian soldiers, prisoners-of-war, their method being to go round the town in plain clothes — the Germans frowned on uniform — putting printed notices in the letter-boxes telling a householder that they would return on a certain day in the following week to collect a parcel. On collecting day handcarts were used, and "though the job was a hard one, we had a nice haul." Some weeks later they had carried out a similar operation, this time for the benefit of British prisoners-of-war. By then the Scouts of Antwerp had become determined to carry on their Scouting whatever obstacles might be placed in their way, and they sent a message to this effect to the King. That Christmas sweets and toys were collected for sick children in hospital, and it was during that winter that they began a mild form of resistance which was to culminate, before the war was ended, in full-scale operations with the Maquis. For some reason the Germans relented in 1941 and the Scouts were allowed to put on their uniforms once more. Wearing these, they gained recruits, organised camps, and lying on their backs in the darkness, flashed the "V" sign in Morse to bombers of the Royal Air Force. "Our spirits rose whenever we heard the drone of R.A.F. engines." The national flag was displayed in secret — "I have seen women weeping at the sight of it." That winter their hearts were high. Soon, however, the Germans became harsh again, and by then the quislings of Degrelle, known as "The Blacks" and hated even more than the Germans, were becoming a nuisance. Being forbidden to use maps or compasses, all the Antwerp Scouts could do was "to walk in the country and study flowers and plants," but nevertheless, when, with the greatest difficulty, the Association organised a national competition near Brussels, one of their Patrols, the Swallows, won the Challenge Cup. By the end of 1943 their Troops were more than 500 strong and they had sent some hundred parcels each weighing ten pounds to prisoners-of-war, at a cost of over 10,000 francs, no mean effort for Troops composed largely of the poorer elements of the population. They took an active part in the camps for under-nourished children, and in 1943 ran three containing 325. On returning from them, two Patrols of Antwerp Scouts were arrested by the Blacks, beaten up, and spent some hours in gaol. This was the beginning of an intensified form of persecution and it soon Page 64 The Left Handshake became difficult for Scouts to show themselves in the streets, for the Hitler Jugend reinforced the Blacks and kept watch. Arrests became more frequent and were invariably followed by a brutal beating because the Scouts "refused to give the names of their officers." They were also offered the choice of joining the Rexist Organisation or the Hitler Jugend, and more than one, having refused to do so, was sent to a concentration camp. The Assistant Rover Leader of the 1st Antwerp Troop was especially brave and especially fortunate. One day he telephoned his Scoutmaster saying that "he had something of interest to show me. That interesting thing was a huge U.S.A. airman." The Rover had met three who had been shot down. He hid one of them for three days and put them all into touch with the organisation engaged on smuggling Allied airmen out of the country. The penalty for such work was death, and the Rover was subsequently arrested but escaped with a sentence of imprisonment. He was sent to a concentration camp and returned in July, 1945. His Scoutmaster made a practice of "going about the country to search for landing-places on which arms could be dropped." He helped seven British and U.S. airmen to safety, and his brother, the Scoutmaster of the 5th Antwerp Troop, "a champion and a hero," had sixty-five similar rescues to his credit. He was less fortunate than the others, for the Germans got wind of his activities, arrested him, and he died in a concentration camp in December, 1944. His son, a Patrol Leader, carried on his father's work and by the time the Allies had landed, most of the elder Rovers of the Troop were in the Resistance, where "they fought like devils." When V.E. Day came, the Scouts of Antwerp were 700 strong, with ten Troops. Their story is typical of the behaviour of Scouts in general throughout Belgium during the five years of occupation. All awaited the day of liberation, which they knew with a blind and touching faith would assuredly dawn. In the meantime there was work to be done, risks to be run. In general Scouts helping in Civil Defence were not interfered with, and they acted as fire-watchers, collected the dead, and carried messages. In this A.R.P. work they were a special source of comfort to the general population which, as the war progressed, was compelled to suffer to an increasing degree from Allied bombing attacks. "As it had conquered the children in the camps, so Scouting conquered the public during the bombing." Liége and Antwerp were the worst-bombed towns in Belgium, and after the liberation Antwerp suffered from a severe bombardment from flying bombs and rockets. By then Belgium was free and the Scouts were more active than ever. Here is an eye-witness account of how two of them behaved during Antwerp's second ordeal. "I saw one Scout of twelve apply a tourniquet to a person with a severed artery. A rocket had fallen a few streets away and the blast sent showers of glass down into the roadway. A woman on the opposite side of the road to where I stood fell to the ground bleeding profusely from the arm. Before I could reach her, a Scout dashed from a doorway, whipped off his scarf and in a flash had fashioned a tourniquet, using a pencil to apply the necessary pressure. Knowing the danger which can arise from keeping the pressure applied for too long a period, I questioned him on the point. He certainly knew his stuff, did that young Scout. Apart from his knowledge of first-aid, he also had grit. The casualty was not a pleasant sight, and I know many a grown man who would not have been able to tackle the job so effectively." The same witness saw two other young Scouts rescue a baby from a building so demolished by a flying bomb as to leave the "interiors exposed like the inside of a doll's house." In the Liége district fourteen regular members of a Rover Crew, of the average age of twenty-two, set up one of the first information sections. Under cover of their Scouting activities they spied on the enemy and sent frequent reports by radio to the Allies. As the war progressed, they became expert in picking up and hiding supplies dropped to the Resistance by parachute. All these Rovers, of whom half paid for their patriotism with their lives, lived "a tremendous adventure." Six escaped eventually to England, and of these, five joined the parachute troops and the other became a fighter pilot. At one time or another, ten of them were in the hands of the Gestapo, and four in those of the Spanish police. Including the seven who were executed, twelve went to concentration camps. At the end of the war the Minister of National Defence awarded a special decoration to be sewn on the flag of this splendid Troop, a unique distinction of which Belgian Scouts are justly proud. Page 65 The Left Handshake Throughout 1943 and the beginning of 1944 fugitives from forced labour increased rapidly. They were hidden in the forests by groups of Scouts, which gradually formed a network all over the country. This network, spread as it was over the small but crowded country of Belgium, served not only to hide deserters but also Allied airmen, of whom the numbers increased steadily as the war progressed. The Scouts did all they could to help them. Pilots and crews of the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force, as they would be the first to admit, owe an immense debt to the Scouts of Belgium, who hid them and passed them on from one stopping-place to another till they were able to leave the country on the next stage of their long journey to freedom. At last the great day of liberation dawned. The Guards' armour was in Brussels, and on the 4th British tanks rolled into Antwerp. "We heard the sound of guns," writes a Scoutmaster of that city. "They were there. We could not believe it. I issued orders to every one available, 'Now for a fight in the open.' I got on the road and heard a large noise far away. I rushed down the road and there is a huge Sherman tank. I ran like a madman. I climbed on to the tank and I asked 'American?' I am answered, 'No, British.'" Soon British troops were everywhere in Brussels, in Antwerp, in Ghent, in all the lovely brick cities of Belgium, which for five long years had lain under the heel of a hated oppressor. In Antwerp they sang songs and drank wine. That night "a very merry, very drunk sergeant arrived at Scout headquarters saying he must get back to his unit but had no idea where it was. Asked if he could remember the district, he said, "If you could take me to a statue of a lady with a baby I shall know where I am." The Scouts thought for a long time, then light broke and they remembered the statue in a square of a coloured woman holding a baby in her arms, representing the fight against slavery in the Congo. So two young Scouts took an arm each and put the sergeant on his right way home. In Liége forty Scouts bethought themselves of the priceless volumes of the University library. The Germans in retreat had set fire to the central telephone exchange nearby and the firemen had only just succeeded in extinguishing the blaze. The water from their hoses must be damaging the books. They went to the University, emptied the library, working many hours to do so, and saved from grave, if not mortal injury, thousands of most valuable volumes. But though freedom had come, the end of the war had not, and for the next eight months Belgian Scouts, wearing once more their uniforms, more than a little shabby, and in many cases ill-fitting, worked openly and proudly with their British liberators. In Brussels Rover Scouts served regularly as stretcher bearers in the hospitals for a period of six months from the middle of September, and were in charge of all movements of patients. Some were attached to the surgical wards and some to the X-ray department. They also performed many small services for the wounded, such as bringing them drinks, helping to undress, wash and shave them, and they tried "to give them some distractions." These took the form of organising games and concerts. Altogether the Rovers worked 37,000 hours in the hospitals, their day being divided into three shifts. In March, 1944, this service came to an end, for by then most of those maintaining it had entered the Belgian Army as volunteers. Besides helping in the hospitals in Brussels, the headquarters of the Boy Scouts de Belgique became a very popular mixed club for Brussels Scouts and Guides and for their Allied guests. Entertainments took place there every night, besides folk dancing, choral singing, lectures and intensive Scout training. Here were made welcome British and Allied Scouts, Rovers and Rangers, and a special feature of the club was the camp-fire of a Saturday evening, when the traditional sing-song was held. The British found to their delight and amazement that their Belgian friends used English song-books and could sing many of the old favourites as well as, if not better than they could. Every evening closed with "Auld Lang Syne," sung in French. Here in the great hall, with the Allied flags hanging from the roof and clothing the walls with colour, let us leave the gallant, long-suffering Scouts of Belgium singing with their friends from over the water who have come back again. Page 66 The Left Handshake FRANCE "I have often prayed to Our Lady of the Scouts, but my gratitude also goes out to Baden-Powell and his Scouting. If I had not been trained from early youth in the science of woodcraft and the Scouting arts I would have stood little chance of being able to carry through this mission, as well as many others of the same kind." These words, written before the end of the war by a French Maquisard, describe very well a very important, if unexpected, consequence of Scouting. Scouts, from the very first moment when they enter the Organisation as Cubs, learn to develop that sense of observation which is the oldest instinct in man. Baden-Powell knew this well, and deliberately set out to encourage such a development, knowing that by so doing he could use it for the building of character, for the formation of a man alert, friendly, and aware of his responsibilities. The emphasis at the earliest stage on woodcraft and the playing of games requiring observation, had an unforeseen consequence. Designed to help youth, whether happy in a good home or miserable in a bad, to equip itself for victory in the battle of life, these methods were of great, often of vital aid to many thousands of Scouts and former Scouts when faced with that most difficult of all tasks, the maintenance of resistance against a heavily armed, well-equipped and utterly ruthless foe. How much Scouting contributed to the success of the Resistance in every country cannot with accuracy be computed, but it is safe to say that without it their casualties would have been many times greater and the results they achieved many times smaller. "The participation of the Scouts in the Resistance Movement," runs a sentence in the general report on Scouting in France during the war, "according to a great many eyewitnesses, sustained it and facilitated its growth, those belonging to it ascribing their success to their Scout training." Every branch of Resistance work benefited from this training, for there was always someone among those detailed to lay out a dropping zone, to take a message, to be instructors of the Underground army, to forge permits, to help prisoners-of-war, who had been, or was, a Scout. In some sectors seventy-five per cent of the Resistance were Scouts or had had Scout training. The shadow of secrecy still envelops their activities, which may never be told. The general lines, however, are clear enough. First and foremost — work which continued right up to the end of the war — was the aid afforded to prisoners seeking to escape. These came, for the most part, from forced labour in Germany, though some had been able to break away while marching to Germany in the summer of 1940. Among them were those prisoners whom French Cubs, playing near their temporary camp on the eastern border of France, aided by leaving beside the wire, bundles containing clothes, identity papers and money. Later on, in order to bring escaping prisoners across the Rhine, an Alsatian couple, both with Scout training, organised an elaborate ferry service which took over more than a thousand escaped prisoners. One of the Scouts permanently employed at the French headquarters of Scouting was the head of an organisation which had the same object, and which brought prisoners all the way from Germany to France, where they could join the Resistance Movement, or to Britain, where they could enlist under the Cross of Lorraine. In the course of this work, one Scoutmaster also belonging to it went as far as Konigsberg on the Baltic carrying a suitcase filled with forged permits which he distributed amongst French prisoners-of-war detained in that city, all of whom succeeded, by using them, in returning to France and joining the Resistance. These are but examples, almost trivial, when set against the great results achieved, of how Scouting, either directly or by reason of the training it had given, removed many prisoners-of-war from the hands of the Germans. As in other occupied countries, resistance grew slowly, though in France from the very first, since the country was divided into two unequal parts, there was much smuggling of persons and goods across the demarcation line. In addition to the assistance given to Allied airmen, Commando soldiers and others to escape from France, a task which began almost after the Armistice and continued until the enemy was finally driven out of the country, there were two main forms of resistance, first clandestine newspapers, then open warfare. In both, the French Scouts were involved up to the hilt. Secret newspapers were Page 67 The Left Handshake printed all over the country but were naturally particularly in vogue in Paris, the capital. Here by the beginning of 1943, by which year the Germans had occupied the whole country as the result of the Allied landings in North Africa, numerous newspapers were being printed and distributed in secret. First among them was the Défence de France, which reached a circulation of half a million and was distributed by Paris Scouts, some of them belonging to the Clan Bayard in the Chaussée d'Antin. This Clan, or as we should say, Troop, had by then acquired special experience in Underground work. They had stolen and distributed literally thousands of false identification papers with which they had provided "Resistance chaps." Other Scouts elsewhere were performing similar deeds. At the end of 1943 and the beginning of 1944 open warfare began. By then Resistance groups were active all over France, but especially in the mountainous districts of the central Massif, Savoy and the Pyrenees. They fought with weapons supplied by England through the medium of the Royal Air Force, which dropped them by parachute. It was guerrilla warfare on a steadily increasing scale, and the thousands of Scouts, Rovers for the most part, who were among those waging it found a new and stern vocation. Let a letter written in the winter of 1944 by a young Savoyard Rover to the man who taught him Scouting give a vignette of those grim and glorious days when the Scouts were among the elite of a resurgent nation. Here we are all volunteers. Happily a good friendship joins us to each other. Many Rovers and manual workers and students who have all lived in Maquis and seen friends stricken dead by their side. On 8th June, '44, order for guerilla war has arrived. On 10th we have attacked 'miliciens' in Uriage. Truly it was my baptism of fire. I've been shot at point-blank by our 'miliciens' who have immediately run away. Till 15th of September night and day we've fought against SS Alpine Infantry and Tartars, a special picked anti-guerilla regiment. Everywhere in Isere department have begun attacks on transport columns with light machine-guns and grenades. Roads were mined and countrymen looked upon us as lunatic boys. But we knew why we fought. We have seen our wounded friends despatched by German troops, and we have known their criminal mines. (One of my best friend's body blown up; I could have brought it back in my cap.) At the end German columns were convoyed by armoured cars and canons; but, placed under cover of rocks along the roads, we shot at retreating German troops' cars. Often we have seen death as in the front line. Thus one day on the Grenoble-Lyons road after our attack, Germans counterattacked with machine-guns, mortars and planes flying close to the ground. They were perhaps a hundred and we were twelve. Or when we attacked Grenoble in broad daylight and after having shot Germans at drill we waited for night to get away. We were assaulted at fifteen metres, everywhere hand-to-hand. We ask how we can have come back. Dear Chief, you've said to us 'Between two ways choose always the hardest one.' I remember that to-day." As the Allies surged across France from the Normandy beaches, the French Résistance grew more and more active. On the 15th August the Underground army of Paris came out into the streets to free their city. The Scouts and Rovers among them went into action. The Clans of St. Francis Xavier and St. Stanislaus served as reconnaissance units for the armoured cars of Leclerc's Division and signalled to them the position of German guns and tanks defending the Luxembourg Palace where the French Senate once sat. The Clans of St. Nicholas and St. Severin fought at the barricades and established a canteen which fed 800 of the combatants and 600 old people. The Clans of St. Anne and the Maison Blanche manned the Danton barricade arming themselves for the purpose from a German store of arms. They destroyed every German vehicle that came against them and "gave an excellent example of discipline in action in the midst of this popular, courageous but most disordered movement." Patrice, though a Rover, was small and looked no more than fourteen years of age. On 24th August he was on his motorcycle escorting a car filled with ammunition when he ran into a German cordon near the Avenue de l'Opera and was captured but not before a sign from him had enabled the car to turn and make off. With other prisoners he awaited search with some trepidation for in his pockets were a number of Page 68 The Left Handshake written orders, a pistol and some F.F.I. armless; but Patrice, being a Scout, was observant and presently contrived to slip into the group which had already been searched. They were taken to a nearby German police post, and there he thrust the pistol and armless behind a radiator and ate the papers "silentiously." Their improvised hiding-place was discovered, and in order to prevent the Germans from carrying out their threat to shoot all the prisoners, Patrice confessed that the incriminating articles belonged to him. He was taken to the firing party and remained against the wall for "half an hour, silent and praying." Then it was decided to question him, for he looked so young that the Germans evidently hoped to obtain much information from him. Sensing this, Patrice burst into tears and said that he had owned up only to save the others. The German officer in command, more compassionate or less resolute than the others — he must have realised the hopelessness of the German cause in Paris at that moment — gave Patrice his freedom, telling him "to go back to your duty." This advice from an enemy Patrice followed rigidly till his death in battle some months later fighting with the French Army in Alsace. That same day a former Scout Commissioner, the father of a Cub, captured the Parc Monceau with an improvised force of twenty passers-by, of whom twelve were subsequently found to be Rovers. The French Resistance groups of the 7th Arrondisement of Paris consisted for the greater part of Rovers. They fought at the barricades of the Chamber of Deputies and the Military Academy. One of their number was killed in this last action and two others taken prisoner, escaping death by a miracle. The great moment in the life of this Clan was when eight of their number arrived with the armoured cars of Leclerc, having come all the way from Normandy, where they had joined his division, having slipped through the German lines at Caen to do so. Before the war was ended, seventy-eight of this Clan were under arms, only two of them more than twenty-five years old, and at the same time the younger members had been reorganised and were under training in Paris. When Germany laid down her arms, members of this gallant Clan had won one Legion of Honour, one Medaille Militaire — the highest military French decoration — and thirty-seven Croix de Guerre. Nine of them died for their country. The Resistance Movement, however, though of great, indeed vital, importance in the life of French Scouting during the Occupation, was only one of the many forms of activity which, during those five long years, were pursued by Scouts. At the outbreak of war over 10,000 Scoutmasters joined the Forces, and when the capitulation came in June, 1940, the great majority of these, with the exception of those who had fallen in battle, became prisoners-of-war and were not available to return to their Troops and continue the work of training. The first and most important step, therefore, was to train new Scoutmasters and these were formed out of former Scouters, Rover Scouts and the older Patrol Leaders. Scouts had by then established their reputation and were very popular with the inhabitants. Thousands of boys and girls wished to join them and the Guides, and many young people from seventeen to twenty also presented themselves. The various Scout Organisations such as the Scouts de France (Catholic), the Eclaireurs Unionistes (Protestants), and the Eclaireurs de France were overwhelmed with applications. In 1942 the number of Scouts in the unoccupied part of France, usually known as Vichy France, and in North Africa had trebled. Scouting activities were maintained by rallies, camps, hiking, and all the usual means of promoting Scouting. The Vichy Government did not at first frown on the Movement, though uniforms were prohibited. In the Occupied Zone the situation was more difficult. Scouting was forbidden in September, 1940, and penalties became more and more severe as the war went on. Nevertheless it continued, and the Scouts exercised all their ingenuity in maintaining their Organisation intact. They succeeded, thanks to a system of close liaison which enabled all Scouts to keep in touch with each other, from Lille to Bayonne, and this despite the fact that the main headquarters in Paris had been suppressed and all its staff deported. One phenomenon, which may seem strange, nevertheless played a very useful part in maintaining the unity of the Scouts. Though France was cut in two, yet the closest connection existed from the very beginning and remained unbroken to the very end between the Scouts under German domination and Page 69 The Left Handshake those in the power of Vichy. The National Commissioner of Cubs, for example, was smuggled across the boundary line no less than fourteen times in twenty-eight months. Once the Germans occupied the whole of France the position became much more difficult. The Scouts of Vichy had enjoyed a precarious existence till then, but were now subjected to closer supervision though, curiously enough, they were not suppressed. Perhaps the Germans thought that the Movement would die a natural death, provided they arrested a sufficient number of Commissioners, Scouters and chaplains. The Chief Scout himself, General Lafont, continued to organise the Movement with great skill and ability, and even went so far as to continue to wear uniform until in the early months of 1944 this became no longer possible. Throughout the war years the Scouts extended their charitable and social work to the widest possible degree. The Protestant Association, which in the summer of 1940 could muster 500 Rovers, 5,200 Boy Scouts and 3,600 Wolf Cubs under the direction of 1,100 Scoutmasters, made a practice of meeting all army and evacuee trains at the stations, and presently worked under the Committee of Internal Assistance to Deportees and Evacuees to alleviate the sufferings of persons from Alsace and Lorraine who had to leave their homes when the Maginot Line was manned. A reception office for Protestant children was set up in Tarn and worked hard. After the Armistice, the Association was suppressed in the northern district by the Germans but encouraged in the southern, in which various youth associations were formed, all of which were manned principally by Scouts. These were, among others, the Chantiers de la Jeunesse, the Compagnons de France, whose duty it was to look after evacuees from the northern and eastern districts, and the Chantiers des Jeunes Travailleurs. As time went on, however, the Vichy Government showed a tendency to introduce politics into these Movements. This was frowned upon by the Scouts, who were continually on watch against "the violation of the essential principles of political, religious and intellectual liberty." By then 11,000 Protestant Scouts were at work in the Southern Zone running soup kitchens and canteens, collecting waste-paper and salvage of all kinds. They also helped with the grain and wine harvest, they hewed wood, they made charcoal, soon the main form of fuel, and they played a prominent part in trying to help refugees and evacuees to recapture a little "of the atmosphere of their own lost homes." A great effort was also made to teach Scouting to the new recruits, and many lessons in woodcraft and camping were given. The training of Scoutmasters was carried on in the National Camp School at Cappy. In the Northern Zone the difficulties were much greater, for the Movement had, without the help of uniforms, equipment or the delights of camping, to "find the means to inspire enthusiasm among the boys." They succeeded, as in other countries, by camouflaging Scouting activities. "The Wolf Cubs were turned into 'Pages,' the Scouts into 'Knights.'" Despite every form of restriction and petty persecution, there were more than 5,000 Protestant Scouts enrolled at the time of the liberation. One task was common to the Scouts of both zones, to whatever association they belonged. It was to help with the Air-Raid Precautions Organisation, for it was part of the unhappy duty of the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Corps to bomb many targets in France and thus to cause much ruin and devastation. That these raids have never been resented by the French is one proof, if proof be needed, of their great heart and their generous nature. Air-Raid Precautions were run by Equipes Nationales, either pro-German or inclined to be. There were lives to be saved, however, and the Scouts were not concerned with the political views of those charged with the task of helping their fellow Frenchmen during the ordeal of bombing. The tales of quiet heroism and devotion to duty shown by French Scouts under the stress of bombardment are very numerous. Here are four. Crepin, aged fourteen and a half, worked at a refugee centre, and when a raid broke out panic developed among the refugees, whose nerves were already at breaking point as the result of their sufferings. He deliberately quitted the shelter into which he had succeeded in leading them "to find out what was going on," and continued to encourage them as the bombs fell, only leaving them to take his share in fire-fighting. Noel, aged fifteen, dragged four persons from a collapsed house and only desisted Page 70 The Left Handshake from helping them when he found they were dead. He then joined a passing squad of soldiers, gave them a hand in carrying injured persons from another house and finally, as soon as the raid was over, helped the police to regulate the traffic. Jacques was fifteen years old. He returned home on hearing the siren to find his neighbour's house in flames. He dragged all the inmates out and gave them first-aid, then went back and rescued important and very compromising papers. A bomb fell on another house nearby and this time Jacque's good fortune was not so great. He dragged out the occupants but they were dead. Lutran was seventeen. He carried bodies, some alive, some dead, from three houses during an air-raid and then went on point duty for six hours while the ambulance and fire brigade dealt with the results of the raid. He next helped to rope off unexploded bombs and finished the day by assisting in the evacuation of ambulances and in calming a panic which had broken out in a large cellar filled with women and children. The behaviour of these four Scouts was typical of the bravery strewn by men and women all over the world in that most revolting of all forms of modern warfare, the air-raid directed against civilians. The story of the Eclaireurs Unionistes is, mutatis mutandis, the same as that of the other Associations, Scouts de France, Catholique and the Eclaireurs de France. As soon as the Germans had established themselves in France the inevitable persecution of the Jews broke out. The Eclaireurs Unionistes were determined to help these victims of racial prejudice and were soon engaged in smuggling Jews across the frontier into Switzerland, the principal "smuggler" being one of their young Rovers, aged twenty. The number of Jewish children deprived of their parents by the action of Germans steadily increased. In 1943 a holiday camp was established for them, where they were given new names and new identity papers. At first there were not more than thirty helped in this manner, but by 1944 the number had reached 130. Many of their parents were helped by means of false papers. The homes were run by volunteers from the ranks of Scoutmasters and lady Cub-Masters. These, too, were supplied with false papers and money, principally by the Mayor of Aubervillers. In this work a policeman, who was also a Scouter, rendered invaluable help. In 1942 representatives of the French Red Cross succeeded in taking some forty Jewish children to Lyons and there hiding them before smuggling them across the frontier into Switzerland. The Germans got wind of this plan and determined to seize the children and deport them to Poland for cremation. The Scouts learned of this infamous intention just in time, and five of them ran ahead of the Germans to the convent where the children were hidden and led them forthwith to a place of greater safety. Their beds were hastily filled by the nuns with forty aged candidates for the local almshouse. The Jews themselves had their own Scouting Organisation, the Eclaireurs Israelites. Before the war its members were accustomed to meet twice a week and to hold camps in the holidays. They numbered about 1,600. At first they bore their full share of the Scouting activities carried on by the other associations, but when the Armistice came they made haste to leave the German-occupied part of France, for they well knew their fate if they remained, and moved to the south. The heads of the Eclaireurs Israelites were determined to defend Judaism by all the means in their power and this decision was communicated to the Association, which closed its ranks and did all it could to carry it out. All kinds of Jews gave them help, among them officers, civil servants and professors. In June, I940, they were established in only two towns in Vichy France. In April, 1941, they had set up in twenty-one. Some of their number still continued to work in the German occupied zone of France despite the danger of arrest and deportation. In North Africa the Movement prospered, and two Commissioners were dispatched to establish schools for training The Association paid particular attention to creating study circles for the teaching of the Jewish faith. After a time, however, under pressure from the Germans, the Vichy Government suppressed the Movement and it went underground, but by September, 1943, the centres had one by one been shut down. The leaders joined the Resistance but the Scouts remained and did what they could. Scout camps continued to be organised, but with the increasing persecution difficulties became greater and greater. Finally, the Association, what was left of it, concentrated on saving Jewish children from deportation. They forged identity cards, ration books, birth certificates and military papers. The work was dangerous, and of the sixty-eight young Jewish men and women who carried it out, twenty-six were arrested and four shot. Page 71 The Left Handshake As will be seen, Scouting in France followed much the same lines during the Occupation as in other countries afflicted with the Germans, but with the added difficulty caused by the division of France into two zones. It says much for the virility of the Scout Movement in France that this proved no obstacle. No better example of how the French Scouts helped their country in the days of its great tribulation can be found than the history of young Jean Pierre Comboudon with which this brief record must end. He was a Rover Scout, aged sixteen, in May, 1944, and he lived at Issy les Moulineaux, a suburb of Paris. Joining the Red Cross, he soon found himself engaged in the work of rescuing the victims of Allied air-raids. These were succeeded by fighting on land, during which Issy was cut off, its inhabitants facing starvation, and the general disorganisation of all services was complete. Jean Pierre prevailed upon the mayor to give him a free hand. Equipped with two lorries, a small sum in cash and a motor-cycle, he went round the fields and farms and collected twelve tons of vegetables. These served to stay the pangs of hunger from which his fellow townsmen were suffering, but not for long. Jean Pierre's next expedition was farther afield. He penetrated into the district of the Oise and collected thirty tons of foodstuffs, taking no notice of a brisk engagement then taking place between the Canadian forces and the retreating Germans. On the way back he was delayed by a burst tyre and an air-raid on the town of Nanteuil. With the help of his companion he put out the fire in one of his lorries which had been hit, and took two passers-by, both injured in the raid, to hospital. Arrived there, Jean Pierre found the place deserted, without staff, dressings or material of any kind. Abandoning his lorries, he set out into this strange town, collected a staff, found bedding and medical supplies, and arranged for the transport of all injured to hospital. On reaching Issy that evening it is not surprising to learn that he was very tired. A few days later Issy was itself involved in the fighting, and Jean Pierre's forethought bore full fruit. Had it not been for the thirty tons of food he had collected "all would have starved." As it was, rations for 25,000 people were issued and this tided matters over until the Americans arrived on the 24th. The fighting continued on the 25th and 26th, and during it Jean Pierre was here, there and everywhere on his motor-bicycle, which by then was well known in the streets of Issy. He collected the wounded straight from the firing line and in this way saved the lives of an American, two soldiers of the Forces Francaise de l'Interieure, and, since charity knows no nationality, a German. His final exploit was to penetrate into a position held by some 400 savage and desperate SS troopers, convinced that they would be massacred if they surrendered. Jean Pierre induced them to do so and thus saved a bloody fight, for they were prepared to sell their lives very dearly. Of such stuff are the Scouts made. On 24th August, 1944, one of them became a symbol of freedom. It was the day on which the Germans fled from Paris and crowds surged cheering down the wide boulevards. On the roof of a high building in the Champs Elysées a boy in full Scout uniform was observed to be standing. "The good times are back again," shouted the crowd. "There is a Scout." GREECE, YUGOSLAVIA AND HUNGARY In Greece the Boy Scouts Association suffered the same fate as the Boy Scouts in Germany on the advent of Hitler. They were dissolved by President Metaxas in May, 1939, and "with tears in their eyes, their hands clasped in a chain of brotherhood, the Scouts of every troop sang the Song of Parting." The law might decree their dissolution, but their devotion to the ideals of Scouting particularly to those which enjoined love and friendship between Scouts could not be broken. The boys continued to remain in contact with each other, and the older among them to study the writings of Baden-Powell in the hope that one day they would be able to reform the Association. So matters continued uneasily for more than a year, during which the Boy Scouts' International Bureau in London lost touch inevitably with the former Association. Then on the 28th October, 1940, Mussolini launched his coward's attack on Greece. Immediately every Greek Scout volunteered his Page 72 The Left Handshake services. Soon all who were not of military age were working as stretcher bearers for the Red Cross, which rapidly trained a number of them to give blood transfusions, they themselves being, in many cases, the donors. Soon there were Scouts in every theatre of the war, in the mountains of Albania, in the rugged uplands of Macedonia, and finally in Crete. In that brief and bloody campaign, which, until the German wolf came to the rescue of the Italian jackal, had gone wholly in favour of Greece, many Scouts were killed, among them the Commissioner General for Thrace. When all was seemingly lost and the Germans in full occupation of their country, the Greeks, with fine courage, seized this moment to refound the Scouts. They did so with the approval of the Government in exile. Old Cubs became Scouts, new ones joined, the whole Movement being on a Patrol basis, and all uniform, camping and hiking being forbidden. Very soon the Scouts found themselves fighting an even more arduous battle than that sustained so gallantly by the army of their country a few months before. In the tragic winter of 1941-1942 thousands starved, and the Scouts and Guides engaged in a grim struggle to save at least the children. With such food as could be provided by the Greek Red Cross, they opened kitchens where school children from the poorer quarters of Athens were fed. Following the invariable practice of Scouts, they did not confine their efforts to the doling out of a plate of soup, a few biscuits or a chunk of bread, but tried to make the surroundings in which the meals were eaten as attractive as possible. The walls of the kitchens were decorated with pictures telling in bright colour the traditional fairy tales of Greece. The children were taught songs, home-made toys were provided, clothes were collected for them, and at Christmas a wonderfully-attired Father Christmas gave them presents. The children were treated as though they themselves were Scouts and divided into Patrols, and before very long twenty centres had been set up in Athens at which every day 5,000 children were fed and given two or three hours of rest and recreation. March 25th, 1942, the anniversary of Independence Day, was celebrated everywhere, but in secret, in damp ill-lit basements and cellars, in ruins and caves, in little coves by the seashore. Here half- starved, ill-clothed children saluted the Flag and sang, in a soft undertone lest they should be heard by the enemy, the Greek Anthem. That summer their lot improved somewhat, for the International Red Cross was able to send sufficient food for them to be fed in summer camps. These were organised and controlled by Scouts and Guides, and run on Scout lines. Many thousands of Greek children spent a month or six weeks in them. Such Greek banks and other commercial organisations as survived called upon the Scouts and Guides to run camps for the children of their employees. As in every other occupied country, the number of Scouts and Guides increased, so much so in Greece that every Troop had presently founded three or even four other Troops. To train the Scoutmasters and the Patrol Leaders, schools, to which the hopeful name of Phoenix was given, were founded, and in November, 1943, the books containing the tests for 1st and 2nd Class Scouts, which had long been prohibited, secretly printed. Some forty meetings of Scoutmasters took place in Athens during this period, and on the whole the standard of organisation achieved became remarkably high. All this time the main work continued. The Scouts had to succour their fellow citizens, not the children only but their parents, for by the end of 1943 1,200 villages had been burned and destroyed either in battle or by way of reprisal, and their inhabitants left without food, shelter or clothing. They were cared for as best they could by the International Red Cross, who enrolled every Scout they could find for the purpose. When Greece was finally liberated, in Athens alone fifty first-aid units manned by eight to ten Scouts were in existence end working hard. The Scouts in the islands of the Greek Archipelago were as active as their brethren on the mainland. In Crete, where strong enemy forces maintained a reign of terror for three years and more, they published a secret newspaper containing information picked up from B.B.C. broadcasts from London and Cairo. This did much to encourage the inhabitants. In Samos three young Scouts crept into the German headquarters, stole the maps and smuggled them to the Allies. Page 73 The Left Handshake Not a few of the Scouts, both from the mainland and the islands, succeeded in escaping and joining the Allies, where they rendered many services, some in the Royal Hellenic Navy, others with the Royal Air Force. One of them, a fighter pilot, was shot down behind our lines at El Alamein. Some were not so fortunate. George Zlatoglov of Mytilene was caught seeking to escape and shot, and his comrade, Michael Karafilis, suffered a worse fate, dying under torture in prison. Still others performed even more dangerous work, deliberately returning to Greece as Intelligence agents for the Allies. Like the small Scouts of Samos, they obtained much valuable information at the risk and often at the cost of their lives. Rover Andrew Kalyvas of the 3rd Athens Troop of Sea Scouts was eventually shot by the Germans on September 8th, 1944, after having been subjected to six months of intermittent and excruciating torture. In the intervals between these ordeals he found means to communicate in Morse with his friends outside the prison. His fate was shared by Scout George Mavroukakis, shot for stealing plans of fortifications. Rover Persakis of the same Troop as Kalyvas was arrested by the Germans after completing many dangerous missions on the island of Scyros. On the way to the Piraeus in a caique with his companions, they attacked their escort. A bloody fight ensued in which all the Germans but one were killed. He, who was left alive, however, was the most important of all, the machine-gunner, and, though wounded, he continued to serve his gun, wounding Persakis, who fell overboard and tried to swim to Andros, but was too weak to do so and drowned. The caique was subsequently discovered by a German aircraft drifting over the blue waters, her crew and their prisoners dead or dying on the deck. The arrival of Greek and Allied troops in September, 1943, after the collapse of Italy, was a signal for renewed activity on the part of the Scouts, who became dispatch-runners, telephone operators and interpreters. For these services they were given a diploma of honour signed by Field-Marshal Alexander. But though joy now reigned, for Greece was free once more, terror lurked in the background. The Luftwaffe was still active and the Scouts took thorough precautions. In Samos, for example, they instituted a twenty-four-hour air-raid watch, with manually operated sirens to give warnings. Two months later their use became very necessary. On the 16th November a heavy air-raid was launched against the town of Samos in three waves. The Scouts attended those injured by the first wave, but were caught in the open by the bombs of the aircraft composing the second. One was killed and another badly wounded. In this and other ways did the Scouts of Greece and in the islands serve their country as steadily and as surely as those who left it to fight for the Allies. There was a third category, those who, when the fighting was supposedly over after the conquest of Greece by the Germans, took to the mountains in the north and served with guerilla bands. When at long last the oppressor was driven out, they "made their first official appearance when it was found that they numbered far more than the total number of Scouts in Greece before the war." These Scouts and all the others who survived the war and who made great and successful efforts to maintain their organisation and their ideals, continued in peace to suffer from the inevitable consequences of war, under-nourishment, lack of clothing, lack of equipment. On the 21st May, 1945, the Scouts of Andros wrote to their brothers in Britain. They were, they said, "without uniform, bootless, and living on a few ounces of dry bread as they used to do during the occupation.... Every response of yours, even the least, will be greatly welcomed, and we here together with the rest of the mainland, will remain faithful to you for ever and ever. Thanking you in anticipation ever so." The appeal did not fall on deaf ears, and by August, 1947, conditions had improved. The bonds uniting Greece and Britain are more than a century old, and despite a political scene of the utmost confusion, still endure. The relations of the British and Greek Scouts are not the least of the links in this chain. For the first eighteen months of the Second World War Yugoslavia was still neutral and Scouting continued on normal lines, though the Association found communication with London and elsewhere difficult. When their country, too, was invaded, the headquarters in Belgrade issued an immediate order to Page 74 The Left Handshake all Scouts "to be prepared for selfless Scouting service." Within a month they were called upon to obey it. The destruction of Belgrade from the air cost the lives of thousands. The survivors were succoured by the Scouts, who worked in the Relief Centres and acted as fire-watchers. It was a very grim period and was succeeded by a grimmer, for, as a Yugoslav poet said: "Darker than under earth are the days of slavery." Thousands of Scouts made off to the mountains and forests and there joined the guerrilla bands. All organisation disappeared and the Scouts acted as individuals. The few stories which have come through about them show that the Scout Law was followed as conscientiously as elsewhere. The Scoutmasters of the 2nd and 3rd Scout Troops, both trained at Gilwell Park, leaving their families, acted as medical orderlies to the guerrilla bands and saved many lives. An improvised Patrol supplied a guerrilla band operating in the neighbourhood of Fiume for three months with drinking water, carrying it throughout that period through country held by the enemy. An Assistant to one of the District Commissioners joined a guerrilla band, leaving his fiancée behind. "After many months they met in the woods. She followed him. He married her regular in the woods." Both were subsequently captured, the Assistant Scoutmaster escaped but was presently recaptured and shot in the presence of his wife. As was the case with Scouts in other Underground Resistance Movements, their training stood the Yugoslav Scouts in good stead. "We met again our son," writes a Yugoslav lady living in Trieste. "He told me he could never have passed all the hard time in the woods if he had not been before a Boy Scout." One day, perhaps, the full story of the Scouts of Yugoslavia will come to light, but much will always be missing, for many "did not come back and the fields are silent." Scouting in Hungary began very early, the first Troop being formed in 1910. The first camp, attended by 105 boys, took place in 1913, and it was unique for it was composed of log cabins built on six rafts on which the boys sailed down the Vag River for seventeen days. From the start a certain opposition to Scouting manifested itself in Hungary, and the "boys with the big sticks," as they were called, were the butt of music-hall jokes. By the beginning of 1914, however, they numbered 3,000, and when that war was over they continued to thrive and expand, especially after 1922, when Count Paul Teleki, a former Prime Minister of Hungary, became Chief Scout. During those years the Scout hat with the feathers in it, as worn by the Hungarian Scouts, was seen in many lands from Finland to the United States, and in 1938 was worn by nearly 50,000 boys. Then came the Second World War. From January, 1939, to April 3rd, 1941, when Count Paul Teleki died, Hungarian Scouts continued for the most part to carry on their activities unhindered. German successes, however, during that period had the inevitable effect on Hungarian politics and the Nazi element in the country grew stronger and stronger. As part of their campaign against Count Teleki and the moderate elements, they attacked the Scout Movement both in the Press and in Parliament, accusing it of being international in character and of tolerating the Jews. This the Movement was only too proud to admit, but as time went on they found their difficulties increasing owing to the operation of the law known as the Law of Social Balance passed in 1939 and directed against the Jews. It was entirely contrary in letter and spirit to the Fourth Scout Law. The Hungarian Boy Scout Movement had never made any distinction of religion or race, and contained within it Jewish, Catholic, Calvinist and other Troops. More than half were mixed and were made up of boys belonging to all races and religions in Hungary. The Scouts were vigorously defended by Count Paul Teleki, notably in a speech delivered in the Hungarian Parliament on the 22nd November, 1940. Even he, however, was unable wholly to prevent the persecution of the Jews, for which Hungary has been famous, or infamous, for so many centuries. The Ministry of Education, which was the supervisory authority of the Scouts, first forbade the formation of new Jewish Troops and then by a special instruction ordered their dissolution. "The Jewish boys, however, did not cease to remain Scouts in heart and soul, and the overwhelming majority of the Aryan Page 75 The Left Handshake boys continued to consider them as their brother Scouts. Many wonderful examples of this brotherhood were noticed during the hard years which followed." The demeanour of Count Teleki has been well described by a Pole who met him during this period. "He welcomed me with open arms and with the true smile of a brother Scout such as I had seen at so many Jamborees. In his buttonhole he wore the Scout fleur-de-lys. In our talk he showed himself well informed of the situation in Poland and was obviously glad to have been able to secure the freeing from a concentration camp of the Polish General Commissioner for Scouts. In a few days he was to be still prouder of his successful efforts to allow Polish Scouting to continue on Hungarian soil." Despite everything that this great man could do, the situation slowly deteriorated, although as long as he lived he was able to prevent any attempt to turn the Hungarian Scouts into a military body. On April 3rd, 1941, however, he died by his own hand, being unable any longer to withstand German pressure. His death was an irreparable loss to the Hungarian Boy Scout Movement. The attacks on it were instantly renewed, and soon the Levente Movement was started and officially encouraged. It was a military and political organisation which all boys between twelve and twenty-one were forced to join. Its leader, Lieutenant-General Boldy, realised the vital importance of ensuring that the 10,000 Scoutmasters, Assistant Scoutmasters and Patrol Leaders of the Hungarian Boy Scouts should become members of it. Failing to achieve this end, a great effort was made to suppress the Boy Scouts altogether. This, too, was unsuccessful for the Regent favoured them, but they were subordinated to the Ministry of Education and the Association was dissolved, a Boy Scout Movement being substituted for it. The object of the Government was to ensure the national character of the Hungarian Scouts and to weaken the international aspects of Scouting. A further intervention of the Regent, who appointed Major-General Francis Farkas, once more thwarted the enemies of the Scouts, for the new Chief Scout had had twenty-two years experience of. Scouting behind him and was a fervent and true Scout. He was, however, forced to yield in a certain measure to pressure and introduced a number of additional laws to the Scout Law, of which one was "A Scout is always and everywhere a soldier of the Defence." He did so in order to appease the Levente Movement. The Scouts' tests were also somewhat altered and given a vague military twist. There were, for instance, new badges to be gained called "Tent Pitcher," "Pioneer," "Wanderer" and "Conqueror." Though by then almost all relations with the outside world had been cut off, the Hungarian Scouts still contrived to keep in touch with the Honorary President of the International Committee, the late Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden, but this tenuous line of communication disappeared when on the 19th March, 1944, the Wermacht occupied Hungary. From then until the siege of Budapest, which began in December, the Scouts went through a most difficult period. The puppet Nazi Government sought to transform them into what they called a "Hungarist Outpost Movement" but once more failed, and this despite the fact that it was no longer possible for the Troops to keep their meeting-rooms, their camp areas or their uniforms. Moreover, many of their leaders had by then been killed or captured. The rank and file, however, had "numberless possibilities of doing their daily good turn in a ravaged and plundered country." By then its main cities were under heavy air bombardments from the Allies, and the Scouts were hard at work saving life and property. They also saved the lives on occasion of Allied pilots. On July 2nd, 1944, for example, an American Flying Fortress was shot down on the outskirts of a village near the Hungarian town of Gyor. Andreas Borsody of the local Scout Troop dragged the pilot clear of the smashed aircraft, bound up his wounds, and prevented the local Germans from killing him on the spot. The pilot was a Scout. In the autumn of 1944 the Germans and the Nyilasok (Hungarian Nazis) began that mass deportation of youth which was one of the worst features of the Second World War. Many Scouts were driven from their homes. Among them was a Scout chaplain who "had ample opportunity to witness their splendid Page 76 The Left Handshake behaviour . . . sometimes with set jaws, sometimes gaily, they lived in reality a life very similar to that of a camp of concentration. They maintained the principles of Baden-Powell and Paul Teleki. Constantly in danger of their lives from bombardments, hunger and epidemics . . . they continued to fulfil the Third Law, to give faith to the faithless and force to the feeble." On January 21st, 1945, while fighting was still continuing on the other side of the Danube, certain members of the Executive Committee met and elected provisional national leaders who began the task of reorganising the Scouts of Hungary. The Scouts themselves occupied their time, several thousand of them in Budapest, in cleaning streets and public buildings, in setting to rights the books in the Public Library, and in work in the railway stations. Summer camps were begun again and many thousand Boy Scouts took part in harvesting and other farm work. The regulations forced upon the Hungarian Scouts covering the participation of Jews were relaxed. The political disturbance in Hungary did not end with the end of the war, and attacks were still being made on Scouts in 1945. They took precisely the opposite form to those made against them in 1940. Then the Scouts were pacifists and supporters of an outworn international creed. Five years later they were described as reactionaries and lovers of Fascism. Undeterred, the Hungarian Scouts went on their way, and despite shortages of every kind, including money, raised their numbers to 50,000. The appearance at the Jamboree of 1947 of a contingent of Hungarian Scouts proved that there was health and life and abundance in the Movement. CHANNEL ISLANDS Last, but far from least in this account of Scouting in countries in Europe occupied by the Germans or Italians, is the story of the Scouts in the Channel Islands. From across the strip of water separating the islands and France there came to their ears one June day in 1940 the rumble and mutter of gunfire. It continued for some time and then "one day the thunder ceased and for a time the Channel Islands lived in a strange quietness." On July 2nd, 1940, a line of dark-grey ships sailed into the island harbours. Down their gangplanks came Nazi after Nazi, arrogant in their field-grey uniforms, their polished jack-boots shining in the sun. So began the occupation of the first piece of British soil to fall into the hands of the enemy since the Norman Conquest. It endured five years. The Germans banned Scouting and disbanded the Troops, but Scouting has always been a very live force in the islands, and the Scouts continued their activities, above all preserving the ritual of the camp- fire in little woods and copses where they were unlikely to be detected. Food soon ran short and they discovered that a certain kind of seaweed, when they washed it, could be boiled and made into an excellent jelly. This weed they collected in large quantities. This Troop was but one of many comprising in all about 400 Scouts, whose President was the Lieutenant-Governor. During the Occupation the numbers were increased by the formation of one Troop who, without guidance from Scoutmasters, taught themselves Scouting by reading Scouting for Boys. Its members persuaded their parents to make shirts and scarves for them, and on the day of liberation appeared wearing full uniform. The Scouts of Jersey owe a great debt of gratitude to the 10th Toronto Troop of Canada, who in August, 1943, adopted them. By May, 1945, they had by various means collected 1,200 Canadian dollars, and this sum was used to help the Scouts of the Channel Islands, particularly Jersey, to find their financial feet again. Page 77 The Left Handshake COUNTRIES OCCUPIED BY JAPAN Before the long tale is done of the oppression of so many millions of mankind and the heroism which it provoked, especially among the more youthful elements, the activities of Scouts in those countries which fell beneath the yoke of Japan must be briefly set down. The Japanese aircraft which spread destruction and confusion in Pearl Harbour on December 7th, 1941, spread it equally thoroughly throughout the Far East. After a brief period of fighting, Japan became master of every piece of land between the Philippines and the Naga Hills which divide Burma from India. Everywhere in this great area the Allied nationals were removed to internment camps, and the disaster was so great that no coherent stories of how the Scouts continued to live have been recorded. BURMA In Burma organised Scouting did not survive the advent of the Japanese. Before and during the period of the invasion "Scouting was going on steadily and in the large towns they were trained to help in air- raid precaution work," a Scouter from Burma wrote to the Chief Scout early in 1940. "Should war come our way we cannot hope for better than we will do our part as well as the best at home are doing theirs." When the time came, the Scouts had very little chance, though they did what they could before war dispersed them. They trained well and thoroughly in all A.R.P. work, each Scout being careful to know his own area intimately. So useful were they that, as the Burmese Scouts left school, they were absorbed into the Auxiliary Fire Service, where they were allowed to wear Scout badges and scarves in addition to their A.R.P. uniform. The last gathering of Scouts, most of whom were wearing it, took place on January 10th, 1942, at Lanmadaw in Rangoon. By then they had already proved their mettle in the two great raids made by the Japanese against the city during the previous month. Of all the Rangoon Troops who helped to mitigate their effect, the 51st Kandawgalay took pride of place, not only for the number of Scouts belonging to it engaged in National Service, but also because of their great devotion to duty in time of danger. When the Auxiliary Fire Service left Rangoon with the retreating army, the Scouts went with them and moved successively to Mandalay, Maymyo and Shwebo. Most of them went farther and under their officers tramped the long road through the Naga Hills to Imphal and on to Assam and India. There some of them joined the Burmese Navy. GILBERT ISLANDS From the Gilbert Islands comes the following story, from Tuitonga Merang, who was their Assistant Scoutmaster of the 1st Troop. "I want to tell you about our friend whom we loved so much, A. L. Sadd, and the way in which he, a Scout, helped us of the 1st Gilberts Scout Troop at Rongorongo. When Mr. Sadd first came here, we the Scouts at Rongorongo welcomed him with great joy, as he was the first British Scout who had come to help us and to be our friend. He became our Captain and the leader of our Rover Scout Troop at Rongorongo.... When I think of Mr. Sadd and his life among us, I feel that he carried out the ten Scout Laws.... This is what happened when the Japanese took him, and he showed the Scout spirit. Early one morning in September, 1942, two Japanese warships and a submarine appeared off the island. The people ran away from the village and Mr. Sadd was here alone. Soon guns were fired from the ships and an aeroplane came flying over very low, Japanese soldiers then came ashore — over 300 — to the Government station. Only the Commander and a few men stayed there, the rest spread out to search for the white wireless men, who had gone into hiding. One group of soldiers came to our school to take Mr. Sadd, and we were surprised for he just stayed in his house waiting for them to come to him. They took him to the Government station and we saw no sign of fear, but just a stern face and a great courage. When Page 78 The Left Handshake he came before the Commander, the Union Jack was lying on the ground in front of him, so that he should tread on it, but Mr. Sadd stooped down, picked it up, folded it together and put it on the table before the Commander. It was decided that he should be taken away. He was allowed to go back to his house to get things for the journey, and he called good-bye to the schoolboys as he was taken away by the soldiers. I went along with Mr. Sadd to the Government station. When we arrived there, he was taken outside to sit on a rough stone for more than an hour. While he was sitting there waiting to go, he got very thirsty and hungry, for he had not eaten anything since early morning, and now it was after 3 p.m. So he beckoned to me to go to him, and he whispered asking if I could get him a young coconut to drink. It was very difficult as the place was full of Japanese soldiers, and they liked coconuts too. When I was getting some and husking them, some soldiers came to me but they did not take the nuts away. Perhaps they had had enough. I went with the coconuts to Mr. Sadd, but it was difficult as the Commander was looking at Mr. Sadd's things only a few yards away. So I decided to go first to the Commander, to give him one coconut to please him, and then perhaps he would not be angry if I went and gave one to Mr. Sadd; and perhaps the Japanese soldiers would not ill-treat me, for there were a great many standing round staring at Mr. Sadd. My plan worked and Mr. Sadd got his coconut and was very grateful. But as I was leaving him, glad that I had managed to help him, he asked me to do something even more difficult. He was very distressed when he saw his things which he had been allowed to bring from his house being given by the Commander to different soldiers to take down to the wharf, so that he knew they would be scattered and he would never get them on the ship. So he asked if I could get hold of his kitbag and hide it till I saw him being taken to the wharf. Then would I take it and give it into his hands, as he depended upon the contents, a little food, some money and some warm clothes, to keep him alive if he was taken to Tokyo. So I tried to hide it but it was big, and I had to carry it in my arms, but I was fortunate that no Jap soldier tried to take it from me. Perhaps, if one had come, I should have been afraid to hold it for fear of his gun and bayonet. Presently the time came to go and Mr. Sadd was led down to the wharf by two soldiers, and I with two boys followed at a little distance. But he was kept another half-hour at the wharf, while they waited for the Commander to get on his launch, saluted by all the soldiers who were gathered on the wharf. We knew it was very dangerous to stand about among the soldiers, and I began to get very nervous and worried lest they should take us away too, because we were standing there. While we were waiting, a soldier came to tell me to help load some pigs, which they had shot in the village, and were taking out to the ship to eat. I had to go to do the job, but I was thinking about that kitbag. I did not want to leave it for it would soon be lost. I tried to hold it between my feet, but I could not work like that, so I put it near the wharf and I was very glad that no Jap soldier took it away. After about ten minutes more the Commander came, the soldiers saluted, and he went away on his launch. Then Mr. Sadd was taken to the boat. I and one of the boys who had some of Mr. Sadd's things wanted to go and give them to him as he had asked me. But we were too frightened because the boat was full of soldiers, so we put them on the near end of the boat. Then I thought of poor Mr. Sadd's request, and God helped me. I jumped to the boat, picked up Mr. Sadd's things and took them round to the far end of the boat and gave them into Mr. Sadd's hands. He took them and said, 'Thank you very much, Tuitonga.' I went back to the wharf, glad that I had succeeded with the help of God, whom Mr. Sadd served, and for Whose sake he was suffering.- I did it because of the great love which God had put in my heart for Mr. Sadd and because He gave me courage not my own. Well the boat left the wharf and Mr. Sadd started on his lonely journey. I and the two boys stood at the end of the wharf and waved him and called 'Good-bye, Mr. Sadd.' He did not answer us because he was too full of sorrow at having to leave all his Gilbertese boys, but he was not afraid, and he waved his hat to us. We stood and watched till the boat reached the ship, about two miles away, outside the reef. We left the Government village then for it was nearly six o'clock and we returned to our village of Rongorongo. It was all very quiet — no noise or games or singing. Every one was very unhappy because Mr. Sadd had been taken away. The ship took Mr. Sadd to Tarawa Island and he stayed there about a month before he was killed. I very much wanted to tell you about Mr. Sadd's courage when he was put to death but we have heard so many different stories that we do not know the whole truth yet. We heard that he was always cheerful and helped the other white men with him, when the Japs threatened Page 79 The Left Handshake them and made them work hard. He was always 'prepared,' even for the danger which ended in his death." PHILIPPINES News from the Philippines came in but slowly after the war. The Scouts there suffered great privations and many hardships. On the outbreak of war most Philippine Scouts bad undergone some form of training for emergency services. This they began to use to good effect. In Bataan, for example, they took on the duty of directing the traffic, and on the 27th December, Scout Joson, remaining at his post, was killed in an air-raid. Another, Scout Montilla of the 3rd Y.M.C.A. Troop in Manilla, had lost his life a fortnight before, thrusting women and children into a shelter during a raid on Cavite. In general, the Scouts' most urgent duty and that performed most successfully was in helping a terrified population to avoid the extremes of panic and giving special succour to about fifty women and 120 children, the wives and dependents of Philippine soldiers summoned hurriedly to the Colours. Boy Scouts of Dansalan helped these unhappy women and children on their arduous road from their homes to the hills in the north. They moved only a few hours in advance of the Japanese, and eventually reached Liang after traversing malaria-ridden forests and streams teeming with reptiles, leeches and mosquitoes. Their refuge lay at the foot of a mountain surrounded on three sides by forests and on the fourth by a crocodile-infested river. The Scouts built shelters for the women and children and cleared the ground to grow crops. In a few weeks they had transformed this piece of Jungle into a village of nondescript huts, where these refugees lived for many months, succoured and looked after by their young protectors. Gradually as life grew more normal even under the occupation, they found their way back to their own homes. But "in that now deserted village you will find spoons, saucers and cooking utensils made from coconut shells, slippers and bags of abaca twine, rows and rows of garden plots now overrun by weeds, and wells dug deep in the earth . . . all the results of skills learned by boys in Scouting." So writes a Philippino. He goes on to say that in unspectacular but important ways the Scouts throughout the Philippines helped the various Resistance Movements by feeding guerrillas, carrying messages and receiving and distributing supplies landed by American submarines. The most noted in this work was a young Rover, aged nineteen, Jorge Fajardo by name, of Troop 61 of Manilla, an expert signaller who maintained communications in Morse with submarines and thus prevented many tons of essential supplies from falling into Japanese hands. After the liberation the Scouts in the Philippines did what their brothers were doing elsewhere all over the world. They collected food, clothing and medicine for destitute civilians and were used by the Civilian Affairs Units of the United States Army for the orderly distribution of relief. They also collected magazines, books and newspapers for the troops, and took care, by the manufacture of abaca handbags and belts, which the Americans bought eagerly and sent home as souvenirs, to relieve them of as much money as they could, which they devoted to charitable purposes. By far the most remarkable exploit performed by a Philippino Scout was that of Valerino Abello, a member of Troop 11 of Leyte. As a Scout he had learned signalling, and on the day of the attack on Leyte, this accomplishment was to stand him and the American invading forces in good stead. The Japanese had massed the most formidable of their defences along the eastern coast of the island and they stretched from the Ambao mountains to the San Juanico Strait which divides Leyte from Samar. The defences included tank traps, pillboxes, slit-trenches, barbed wire and individual foxholes, and were manned by a full Japanese division. On the seashore and at certain points in the hills behind, batteries of guns and mortars had been installed. Having served as a capataz, or foreman, over the Philippino labourers who had been forced to build these defences, Abello possessed detailed knowledge of their general disposition, and the many strong- Page 80 The Left Handshake points they contained. On the 20th October, 1944, he was at Telegrafo, near Toloso, when looking out to sea he saw a long line of warships moving into position. A moment later heavy shells began to burst near him and he ran at once to the beach, where he was joined by two comrades, Anterio Junua and Vicente Cononigo. By now the bombardment was at its full height, and large and medium-calibre shells were falling along the defences. It was obvious that this was the preliminary bombardment not of a raid but of a landing in force. Abello began to signal, repeating over and over again, "Please let me direct the shelling." The waving flags were presently seen and a destroyer closer in shore than the great ships flashed back, "Come immediately. Waiting." The three men jumped on board a native outrigger canoe and paddled out towards the destroyer. They were closing her when shells from a Japanese battery burst into the water nearby and upset the canoe. They took to the sea, swam towards the destroyer and were dragged, exhausted and dripping, on to her decks. Abello was taken at once to the bridge where, giving the Scout's salute, he said, "I know where every main defensive position on shore is to be found, for I helped to build them." The destroyer signalled to the flagship, and soon Abello, from her bridge, was directing the bombardment. New targets were given to the gunners and, most important of all from the point of view of Abello, Tolosa and the other villages and towns within the defence area were spared the hail of fire which fell upon the beaches. One by one each strong-point was shelled in turn, and two hours later the assaulting troops headed by the famous Marines, swept in in their landing-craft and set foot on shore. With the noise of battle roaring, echoing among the palm trees and drowning the voice of the surf on Leyte, let us leave this story of suffering and heroism imposed by war upon half the peoples of the world. For five long years and more their fate was hard, their ordeal grim, their lives a dull pain exchanged at moments for a sharp agony. Alleviation was small, consolation meagre. For those in bondage the inevitable ills of life are made sharper and more difficult to bear because the corresponding joys are lacking. Yet their fate would have been harder, their lot more onerous, their lives more hopeless had Boy Scouts not come to their rescue. The tale, plain and unadorned, of what they did has in part been set down. More will presently be told as fresh evidence of what the Scouts accomplished in those stricken countries comes to light. Yet it will never be told in full. Too many, who suffered and received comfort, are now dead and their testimony lies with them in their graves. But enough remains and has been set down to make it possible to maintain with no fear of contradiction that, when the time of testing came, the Scouts and Scouters of Baden-Powell proved not the happy-go-lucky children or the figures of lath and plaster their enemies would have them to be, but boys of true and solid worth, young Paladins with souls of steel and hearts brimming with unselfish devotion. Nearly twenty-three centuries have passed since certain old men stood upon a stage in Athens cried out that love was unconquerable in battle. Scouts the whole world over provided, in six years of the greatest tribulation, the latest and the clearest proof that those words are true. Page 81 The Left Handshake Chapter V ENDURANCE Scouting in Captivity I N AN OFFICE on the first floor of the Court-house at Nuremburg, Monsieur Raymond, a short, middle-aged Frenchman the skin of his face much creased about the eyes, worked daily during the trial of the German war criminals. He was in charge of many of the papers and files which constituted the bulk of the evidence against them. His particular care was the documents and other evidence relating to concentration camps, and he kept in steel filing cabinets, alternating with bare tables at which sat industrious typists, exhibits of such horror that when they were produced in court even the prisoners in the dock were observed to show signs of uneasiness. Dreadful to see, they were the crudest examples of that strain of sadistic madness which is one of the least pleasant features of the German character. Among these grisly relics of the new Dark Ages was one which at first sight aroused little comment. It was an outline map of the Baltic countries, accurately drawn in black ink, displaying — its only detail — a neat figure in red ink inscribed in the centre of each country. The map was headed "Baltic Jewish Extermination Map" and the figures represented with painstaking accuracy the number of Jews down to the last child at its mother's breast, put to death in that part of the world. This map was one of a number of others showing by means of conventional symbols the whereabouts of the internment and concentration and prisoner-of-war camps throughout the area controlled by the German Reich. Monsieur Raymond, who had been an inmate of Buchenwald, was very ready to show them. In nearly all of them some element of Scouting was found to exist, and wherever it was found, it was noticed that the will to survive had never been wholly extinguished, however terrible, indeed indescribable, the conditions of life might be. This is the first and most important fact to be borne in mind when the position of Scouting in those places of horror and despair is examined. Beside the spirit the Scouts created, the ideals and therefore the hope which they kept alive, the actual deeds they did were of small account. It was the fact that they were Scouts and did not forget it that counted. With this in mind, then, let conditions in a number of internment and concentration camps, those darkest patches on the drab shield of our civilisation, be examined. What happened in Italy and Germany before 1939 need not be mentioned, for the advent to power of Mussolini and then of Hitler so completely put an end to Scouting in those two countries that it is doubtful whether any trace of it remained, even in the concentration camps or penal islands to which those two dictators sent all who disagreed with them. Perhaps in the first days of Dachau or the Lipari Islands, some early victims of Fascism may have derived help and comfort from the Scout Law or the Scout example. There is no record to say. The story begins with the advent of war, not in the wide grey plains of Poland or in the forests of Western Germany or on the sun-scorched rocks off the Italian coast, but beyond the Pyrenees by the banks of the Spanish Ebro. There, couched like a beast lying in wait for a prey, waiting to swallow up those who escaped from Hitler, lay the camp of Miranda. It had been established by Franco for the imprisonment of the enemies of his Fascist friends, and it was there that in 1942 a Belgian Rover, a member of the Liége Rover Troop, of which half the members were killed by the Germans, founded the Clan de l'Etape. He did so to meet a need which seemed to him vital. Miranda was technically a transit internment camp where men, caught after they had crossed the Pyrenees, were held, until their fate had been decided. The more fortunate, especially the British and Canadian who could call upon the help and assistance of the Embassy in Madrid and the Consulate in Barcelona, did not remain for long. Others stayed for months, even years, in a place where men fought with knives for an extra ration of soup, and where hunger and idleness were the prison visitors. Page 82 The Left Handshake It was to combat these two insidious ills, the one physical, the other moral, that the Clan de l'Etape was founded, unique among Scout Troops, not so much because of its situation — for many other Troops were founded in concentration and internment camps — but because of its constantly changing membership. Some of those who belonged to it had hardly passed the preliminary tests before they found themselves on their way to the next stage of their fate. Others, like he who bears the pseudonym of Aries, stayed for most of the war. At one time or another ten different nationalities were represented in the ranks of the Clan. Four of the founder members were Frenchmen masquerading as Canadians, and these were presently joined by two Belgians, one calling himself The Talkative Wolf and the other Aries, already mentioned. The Talkative Wolf soon passed on elsewhere and the Troop for a long time was composed of only three persons, but was gradually increased until the first full meeting took place on the 26th November, 1942, when nine new members were admitted. It was at this meeting that the Troop was christened. Its members met on Thursdays, and presently divided it into various sub-sections which studied each a particular group of subjects. There was the lecture centre, a section of actors, a section making badges, another forming a glee club, another studying the stars, and a sixth all possible roads from France through Spain to Gibraltar. The seventh section was devoted to physical training. Thus it was that everything under the sun, from politics to sport, from religion to science, was discussed in a sustained effort to prevent their minds from sinking to the level of their weakened bodies. These, too, they looked after as well as they could, despite miserably inadequate food — the ration was cabbage soup twice a day and five ounces of a substance called bread. They practiced judo for two hours every day under the direction of the seventh section. To enter the Troop, a candidate was required to pass a number of tests of considerable severity and outside the usual run of Scout tests. For example, if he reached Miranda in the winter, he must bathe in what was known as the camp fountain in a temperature of five degrees below freezing point. He must sleep for three nights on the ground with the centre of his body supported by planks set on edge, although a comparatively comfortable mattress lay, inviting and empty, beside him. The Troop paid special attention to new-comers and did their utmost to help them to bear the shock of what was, for most, their first taste of prison. Courage and hope were very low in the camp, but in the ranks of this Troop they were high, and their esprit de corps was such that even the slouching Spanish guards looked up to them. More, they relied on them to put an end to the violent quarrels and fights which constantly broke out among their fellow prisoners. Since the Troop was comprised for the most part of temporary members, they formed a habit from the start of keeping a log book in which each set down what he felt inclined to write, a song, a joke, a record of his experiences up to the moment of entering the camp. Of its kind it is one of the most remarkable books ever written. Neatly bound in wood, with the Scout Badge carved upon it, and copiously and excellently illustrated in line and colour, it now reposes in the archives of the training centre at Gilwell Park, to which it was presented during the Jamboree of 1947. Its pages record with an accuracy all the more vivid because of the restraint imposed upon themselves by its many authors, their adventures and their hopes. Take, for example, the story of that Belgian Scout, Carombelle. Having escaped from the Belgian Army after the capitulation, he reached his home in Liége only to find that his brother had been killed. Carombelle determined to continue the fight. It took him six months to find means to quit Belgium. Then he fled south through Lille, Abbeville, Paris and Bordeaux until he reached Tarbes, where he was arrested. By then he had acquired a companion, and on both of them consenting to work, they were released. Having laboured for some months and saved all the money they could, they set out for Spain, climbing the Pyrenees without a guide and with only a compass to aid them. They passed safely across but were then arrested by the Spanish police, who put them back over the frontier into France. There once more they obtained work as carpenters, and then, when they had accumulated sufficient funds, made a Page 83 The Left Handshake second attempt. This time they went as far as Figueras, where they were arrested for the third time and eventually sent to Miranda. There the story ends. No one knows what happened to them after they left that camp. Some of the Scouts whose names and writings appear in the book were as young as fifteen. One of these wrote: "I regret neither my flight from home nor the hardships which we suffered nor those which await us, for all of them can be borne by means of the Scout spirit. Scouting teaches us to fight against Nazism and against any system of training men to become mere automats. I regard my life at Miranda as part of my schooling, as something which, having experienced it, will increase my capacity to serve." Michael Elias was his name. He, too, was never heard of again. The book gives a wonderful picture of the strange, compelling unity of Scouting. In it is a Jewish song beginning with a quotation from the 150th Psalm, "Praise Him in the cymbals and dances: praise Him upon the strings and pipe...." "We sang with those we left behind us: We sing to-day with those who have departed: We will sing more joyfully to-morrow when we shall return free to our free country." On the first page was written a summons to all who read it or who signed it to "meet at the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde on the 1st August of the year following that in which the war ends." The meeting was to take place at 11 a.m. precisely, and those who attended it were to eat together and take part in "moultes festivités." When that day came, on the 1st August, 1946, those remaining of the Clan de l'Etape to the number of eleven kept the rendezvous. The sky was blue with large white clouds and, at the foot of the Obelisk, the small group of Scouts grew larger minute by minute. They were clothed in all kinds of kit and many of them wore rows of ribbons on their chest. When noon struck they compared notes. There was Delsemme, who had been parachuted into France in December, 1944, and was the Federal Secretary of the French Federation of Scouting in Great Britain. There was Chauvet, who had been a member of No. 4 Commando and then joined No. 11 Allied Commando. There were Demot, fighter pilot of the R.A.F. in a Belgian squadron; Bourdens, a Free French fighter pilot of the R.A.F. There was Brochon of the Free French Navy, radio operator. There was Rousseau, driver of a tank in Leclerc's Armoured Division. There was Dickert of the Algerian Riflemen. There was Putscher, who had been badly wounded when serving in the Tank Brigade of De Lattre de Tassigny's 1st Army, and with him was Cesarsky, a machine-gunner in the same regiment. Finally there was Weist, a French Commando soldier who had served with Leclerc's Division. In addition to the eleven, news was received of eight others. Of some twenty more there is no trace. The same spirit which was to be found among the Scouts in the notorious camp of Miranda de Ebro was equally as strong half the world away in the internment camps of the Far East created by the savage Japanese. The unheralded attack on Pearl Harbour was the first of a series of blows delivered with great skill and rapidity against the British Empire and the United States which went far to create for a short time the new Asia of Japanese dreams. Shanghai, Hong Kong and Wake Island were all in their hands before 1941 was out, and their legions were through Thailand and well on the way to the Burma Road. Then in swift succession fell Borneo and Sarawak, the Solomon, Gilbert and Marshall Islands, and New Guinea. On the 15th February, 1942, with the fall of the "impregnable fortress" of Singapore, the whole of Malaya fell beneath their sway. Less than a month went by and the conquest of Java, Sumatra and the Philippines was completed. By the middle of May all British forces had been driven from Burma, and by the third week in July Papua had fallen into their hands. Throughout this vast area the white, as distinct from the native population, was not large. Such as it was, however, it became a slave population employed either on the railroad of death, that terrible line of communication between Bangkok and Page 84 The Left Handshake Moulmein, whose every sleeper, it is said, cost a life, or the building of airfields on the hundred and one islands of the Eastern Ocean, or merely languishing behind barbed wire. SHANGHAI The oldest internment camps were situated in China, for that nation had been at war with Japan since 1935. Shanghai was the first Chinese town to establish an organisation known as the Scouts War Service, which came into being during the Japanese attacks on that city. The Scouts belonging to it helped all in authority, civilian or military, and lost thirteen of their number killed, including a young girl who carried the Chinese flag to a battalion of a garrison cut off from the rest, a deed of gallant patriotism which cost her her life. Before Japan was finally mastered, the Chinese Scouts and Guides numbered over 15,000. After the fall of Hong Kong and the general collapse of all resistance to the Japanese along the coast of China, Shanghai became what was virtually one huge internment camp in which, at first at least, the inhabitants were left more or less to themselves, their worst hardships being a lack of food and heating. Only in 1943 was the Shanghai area divided up into camps. The Scouts of Shanghai were fortunate in the possession of an admirable place, Millington Camp, No. 230 Hungjao Road. Here and elsewhere they carried on Scouting, under difficulties, it is true, but more or less unmolested. Throughout the period of Japanese domination they were encouraged and stimulated by the example of that hard-working man, their acting Commissioner, A. R. Gordon, who had made in peace-time many friends among Japanese officers of the Army, Navy and Consular Service. These connections with the enemy proved useful, for they gave him an assurance, which was kept for some considerable time, that the activities of Scouting in Shanghai would not be curtailed provided that the Scouts did not flaunt their uniforms. An Advisory Committee was appointed to organise the Scouts on an international basis, and Troops were urged to continue with their training and to emphasise at all times that there was nothing political or military about it. Their first step was to turn the Millington Camp into a farm where cattle and vegetables were raised to relieve the necessities of distressed American, British and European nationals whose means of livelihood were gone. The farm was manned by skilled persons drawn from the ranks of the Scouts and subjected to a severe medical examination to ensure their physical fitness for the work. They lived in the camp under semi-military discipline, the sensible and matter-of-fact Standing Orders laying down, among other instructions, that no food was to be eaten except at specified hours and no unboiled water be drunk, that full advantage of fine weather was to be taken so that the work on the land could be pursued from dawn to dusk, with a compulsory rest period during the hour of tiffin, and that "the Law of the Scout is the law of the camp." Very soon the farm, self-supporting from the start, became a great success. Work was begun on the 7th February, 1942, in the midst of heavy snow and cold. The workers immediately adopted the laconic motto "Can Do," and lived up to it. Within a month, spinach and radishes were being eaten, and Kate, the senior goat, and Susan, the senior sheep, were both expecting families. Trouble being experienced from local thieves, or "yellow ants," as they were known, the Scouts maintained a day and night watch, arrested two of these light-fingered folk and frog-marched them to the nearest police station. Other intruders were a number of large hedgehogs who, for their depredations in the vegetable patch, paid with their lives and their bodies — they formed a welcome addition to the pot. In May, Kate had become a mother, and Agnes, a newly purchased goat, had presented the farm with triplets, while rabbits "were multiplying in a satisfactory manner." In June, Susan produced two lambs, and by then the farm was being run on strict Scout principles, a Court of Honour being held every fortnight at which "the camp chiefs were criticised and guided in the way they should go." In addition to the camp, the ordinary Scouting activities were carried on. Training was continued, Patrol meetings held, and The Totem, the local Scout magazine, regularly produced. One feature distinguished the Scouts of Shanghai. Their Troops containing boys with such names as Novgorodoff, Argentelli, Rosoven, Sayle and Robertson, were very international in character. Page 85 The Left Handshake By the end of 1942 the Japanese attitude changed for the worse but never became intolerable. Troop meetings were never prohibited, and the chief disability under which all lived was the sense of isolation and the knowledge that they could play no part in shaping the tremendous events taking place elsewhere in the world, upon the outcome of which their own fate depended. Inevitably they found it difficult to remain always at a high pitch, and sometimes exhortations were necessary. "Have you not a little pride?" runs an open letter in one issue of Totem. "Why do you not report that this or that Scout has got a new badge or has won a competition? ... We should not lose touch with each other just because of the hot weather." It was necessary on occasion to speak frankly to the more senior Scouts, the Rovers. "We sat up and took notice," runs the report of a meeting of a Rover Crew, "when Koshman expounded the necessity of each and every Rover having an ambition. He inquired of us in turn what we were doing to improve ourselves in the unit and suggested that we each fix on one useful task and attach ourselves unswervingly to its fulfilment for one year. This evoked a good deal of scratching of heads." But on the whole the Scouts of Shanghai seem to have been active and eager enough, keeping their spirits up with frequent meetings and sing-songs. "The meeting was well rounded off with a sing-song round the piano, with Maestro Bochler at the keys. We possessed no tenors but a collection of good lungs. It was interesting to note the facial expressions during the rendering of Auld Lang Syne. Homeward bound, I wondered what thoughts had passed through the fellows' minds. I, for one, had delightful recollections of Easter camps at Hanchow, of dusty roads, sizzling frying pans, and breathless sunsets. Koshman talked with me. I asked him what he had felt and said I had noticed a peculiar look on his face. He kicked a stone off the sidewalk 'Plenty of things,' he answered, 'but I always look like that when I sing.'" Life pursued the even tenor of its restricted way in Shanghai until one o'clock in the afternoon of the 17th July, 1945, when a heavy raid by American bombers caused great damage, especially in the eastern district and the Jewish segregated centre, and cost several thousand Chinese and foreigners their lives. The Scouts gave what aid they could, among them two Russian boys aged sixteen and seventeen, who worked from two o'clock in the afternoon till half-past six on the evening of the following day without pause or intermission, first in the streets and then in the Ward Road police hospital, where "the Chinese wounded and dying were literally being poured into the compound. The sight that met the eye beggared all description. Several thousands lay dying and dead. The stench was awful. Millions of flies were around. The groans of the dying were heartrending.... A single medical student was doing all that he could." Three weeks later the ordeal was over. The Japanese surrendered and the internees of Shanghai found freedom. POOTUNG Other internment camps in China did not at the beginning possess any Scouts. At Pootung, for example, it was not until January, 1944, that a Troop was formed. Its nucleus consisted of a number of boys who had once been Scouts at Shanghai. All boys of Scouting age, except two, flocked to join the Troop, and here, as in Shanghai, it showed a marked international character, being made up of English, Scottish, Jewish, Chinese and even Japanese boys. The uniform presented little difficulty for every boy possessed a khaki shirt and a pair of shorts, exchanged in winter for corduroy plus-fours furnished by the Red Cross. Sufficient cloth was collected to form scarves, which were dyed blue by the Girl Guides. The Japanese commandant made no objection to Scouting activities, and soon the Troop was holding regular weekly meetings either in the open air or "in an old engine-room." Here they were trained in Tenderfoot, 2nd and 1st Class tests, and in the acquisition of proficiency badges they found themselves singularly fortunate for among the internees, who numbered over a thousand, were men of practically Page 86 The Left Handshake every trade, profession and hobby. These very willingly gave their services as instructors and a "Badge" course was maintained without interruption. A member of the Shanghai Fire Brigade, the camp doctors, a number of mariners, several physical training experts and expert electricians, members of the Shanghai Power Company, were among the instructors. The badges gained were seven Firemen, eleven Handyman, seven Ambulance, five Electrician, five Public Health, two Leather Worker, and one Musician. By way of doing a collective good turn, the Scouts made themselves responsible for the regular performance of a number of chores, such as, for example, the collection of cardboard and glass containers, the receiving, sorting and delivering of Red Cross parcels, the running of messages for the medical officers, the digging of vegetables for the camp hospital, and assisting as stage hands when entertainments were given. The first obstacle to real Scouting was the continued and inevitable close confinement which prevented hiking and camping, and a very great shortage of equipment. Scout meetings, however, "were always looked forward to and greatly enjoyed by the boys, who derived a tremendous amount of fun and a great deal of useful knowledge from their membership.... Probably the most noticeable fact was the improvement of the individual boy's standards of behaviour and morals. Altogether Scouting in Pootung was a game well worth while." In addition to Scouts, the Pootung camp also possessed a Rover Crew which at one time numbered twenty-two. Though the normal Rover programme of hiking and camping was impossible, it held regularly fortnightly meetings and performed one service of great usefulness. Each Rover became an expert in first-aid and rescue work, and two-thirds of them completed the St. John's Ambulance course. CHEFOO In Chefoo, in Northern China, there came a day when those attending "the boarding school for the sons and daughters of missionaries and business men" were given orders by the Japanese commander to leave their premises within the hour. "We packed for dear life and then, under the slanting eyes of Japanese armed to the hilt, we left our buildings and playing fields to face an unknown future." It soon transpired that it was to mean living for an unknown length of time in a camp on the other side of the town, where three houses were allotted to 167 persons. Here an intense communal life began, and here the Captain of the Girl Guides — a Guide Company had been in existence for some years — secretly trained six boys in Scouting till they passed the 2nd Class tests. While she was at this task, one of the internees, Stanley Houghton, who still held his warrant as a Scoutmaster though he had given up active Scouting nearly twenty years before, organised a Cub Pack. "It was amazing what he managed to do in that confined space. Fortunately there were trees, bushes and buildings that afforded good cover within the wall by which we were surrounded.... We had grand Scouting games introducing all the knowledge required for tests up to 1st Class.... We converted outhouses into Troop dens.... We had camp-fires and sing-songs, and we passed the tests before the very eyes of Captain Cosaka, the Japanese officer in charge.... After ten months we were packed like sardines into a small steamer, taken to the coastal port of Tsingtao and entrained for Weihsien." WEIHSIEN Here the Scouts of Chefoo found themselves in contact with the Rev. Chesney Clark, who had succeeded in organising Scouting among the 1,700 internees, of whom over a hundred were children of school age. When a Scout passed his 2nd Class test, a star was embroidered on his shirt, and when he passed the 1st he was given "The Order of Merit," which was the Weihsien Scout Badge on a blue background with Chinese characters and symbols. The octagonal shape was chosen ". . . because of its significance for those who know and love China." A Wolf Cub Pack was soon in full operation, with children carrying water, coal and food for the sick, bathing the babies and helping in the kitchen. The advent of the Chefoo Scouts led to "a healthy spirit of rivalry between Chefoo and Weihsien." Page 87 The Left Handshake As at Pootung, a Rover Crew was formed from the older boys of the Chefoo Scout Troop. Throughout these years of internment, the Japanese made no attempt to interfere with the development of Scouting, save, on one occasion, to ban a camp-fire. When liberation came, the Weihsien Group consisted of thirty Scouts and thirty-four Cubs, and the Chefoo Group could count seven Rovers, twenty Scouts and twelve Cubs. HONG KONG In Hong Kong the Scouts were highly organised, and at the outbreak of war they became the Boy Scout Dispatch Corps. In the course of their duties, which consisted of carrying messages or passing them by telephone, they soon came under enemy fire and were shelled out of their headquarters within the first twenty-four hours. Re-establishing themselves in St. John's Cathedral Hall, they made themselves responsible for the issue of Government stores and the transmission of orders from the Director of Communications to the Sub-Directors. Confusion mounted as the Japanese approached ever nearer, but the boys remained "very keen and did everything possible to help put things in order.... The work was carried on deep into the night by kerosene light. From the 17th onwards daily reports were received from District headquarters and a daily inspection was made." There was, indeed, much to do, and the Scouts, together with a number of devoted Chinese, among them Mr. Tso and Mr. Chung King Pak, worked; in shifts dealing with food, the provision and distribution of bicycles, of rations of uncooked rice, the enrolment of new recruits, and the settlement of boys fleeing from districts occupied by the Japanese, which grew in number and extent almost hour by hour. There was work for all and more than work — there was danger, but they did not heed it. On the 17th Mr. Pau, who was in charge of the whole Corps as Scoutmaster of the 7th Kings College Scouts, was inspecting an A.R.P. post manned for the most part by Scouts, when the Japanese "suddenly swooped down on the district and occupied positions in it after shooting every human being they saw." At the end of two hours Pau, his driver and another Scout slipped away, but returned later and helped to carry into dubious safety two wounded wardens. Though matters in Hong Kong were desperate now, the Scouts still worked on and new recruits continued to offer themselves, many of them from districts occupied by the enemy. By Christmas Day an "ominous silence" fell upon the central, upper level, and western districts of the city, and from that time onwards the Corps was virtually unable to carry on its duties. A day or two before the end came, Scoutmaster Wong Kai Chung, an assistant lighthouse-keeper, and one of the pioneers of Sea Scouting in Hong Kong — many officers of the Royal and Merchant Navies owe their early training to him — rescued in a very gallant fashion a Chinese fisherman whose fishing vessel had been attacked and sunk by the Japanese. Chung swam out through a shark infested sea with a rope, caught hold of the drowning man and was then pulled ashore by the united efforts of eleven men. Thereafter, for four long years, the Scouts of Hong Kong found themselves interned, often in very bad conditions. What these were like in the Stanley Camp, for example, can be judged from the report made by Patrol Leader Ronald Whitfield, who after the end of the war eventually reached Scotland and produced the necessary proofs that he had passed the Scout tests in that camp. He had done so "in spite of daily slappings and beatings from the Japanese, of air-raids, of an operation for appendicitis, and of school lessons from Hong Kong University professors." The badge of Handyman which he possessed had been well earned, for he had worked as assistant to a Norwegian blacksmith, helped the doctors in the camp hospital, become for a time carpenter's apprentice, "buried garbage of all kinds, and helped in the kitchen." In addition to this badge, Whitfield acquired those of Swimmer, Ambulance Man, Public Health Man, and Missionary. On reaching Scotland he began at once to train for a Pathfinder badge, and having acquired it became a King's Scout. Page 88 The Left Handshake On the 17th August, 1945, John Pau, the Scoutmaster who had organised the Dispatch Corps four years before, revived the Corps which, manned by Scouts, began work on the 3rd September, twenty boys reporting for duty. Four days later the number was forty-five and continued to grow. As the various departments of civil government took up their duties once more, the Scouts withdrew and were transferred elsewhere, until by the end of October they had completed their task, for which they received official thanks. By then Scouting, dormant in Hong Kong, had revived, and the headquarters of the Dispatch Corps was transformed into a meeting-place for Scouts and Scouters. They were soon able to welcome Sea Scouts and former Scouts serving with the Fleet then in port. Scouting in Hong Kong had found its sea legs again. MALAYA "All these activities were going pretty strong when the blitz of the Double Tenth (10th October, 1943) occurred, when the Kempetai (the Japanese equivalent of the Gestapo) raided the camp. According to Herdslet, who was called to his cell to open a locked bag, one of the searchers on our floor of the gaol was an ex-Scout, for he recognised Herdslet's Silver Wolf, and it is probable that the same chap searched my cell also, for though nearly everything had been turned upside down and the place ransacked, my war medals and my own Silver Wolf badge had been replaced in my suitcase. A Union Jack, together with its component flags, which I had only risked painting for the instruction of the Cubs, had been merely thrown on the floor, whereas if a non-Scout searcher had found it, it would probably have landed me in the dreaded Y.M.C.A., the Kempetai headquarters from which a large number of the fifty-one persons detained on that and succeeding days did not return alive, or returned so badly tortured that they only lived a few hours." So writes Scoutmaster A. R. Westrop, D.S.O., now in Southern Rhodesia, who was interned in Karikal in Malaya, and his report shows that conditions in that part of the world were far more severe than in the internment camps of China. For a few days after the outbreak of war it seemed that there would be none set up in Malaya, for the Japanese attack would, it was confidently hoped, be held. In six brief weeks that hope was proved vain. On the 8th December, 1941, the day on which the Japanese landed at Khota Baru and opened the campaign, there were sixty-two Troops of Scouts some 2,000 strong in Malaya. In addition, there were large numbers of Scouters and Rovers either serving with the Strait Settlement Volunteer Forces, the local defence corps, the Special Constabulary, the A.R.P. Services or the Auxiliary Fire Services. The Scouts themselves, emulating their elders, volunteered, every boy of them, to act as messengers. Many falsified their ages and alleged that they were fourteen in order to be enrolled. On their own or borrowed bicycles they carried messages throughout the city during heavy air-raids, and regardless of danger increased this service during "that terrible week which preceded the capitulation." Many of them were in uniform at their posts when the Japanese forces marched in. In addition to serving as messengers, they also acted as orderlies, rendered first-aid, and served in canteens, while the Sea Scouts formed a mine-watching corps and rendered great service in the waters round the port. They worked in twelve-hour shifts and spent them on the watch for Japanese mine-laying aircraft. On sighting any mines, they took bearings to locate the mine by means of a specially constructed compass which "though illuminated, was hidden from the air." Six bearings were taken from six different stations. They also served in the Kuala Loyang Boom Defence office at the depot near the yacht club, and in the telephone exchange. While the Scouts in Singapore were thus fully occupied, those in Georgetown, Penang, were equally busy. They were the first to feel the full weight of the enemy attack. The town was heavily bombed, and being without defence the casualties and damage caused were very great. The Deputy Chief Air-Raid Warden, Koo Sin Teang, who was also Assistant District Commissioner of the Scouts, had encouraged as many as possible of them to join the A.R.P. Services. When the test came, their courage was remarkable. Page 89 The Left Handshake Two of them, Hooi Seng Tuck and Ooi Boon Ewe, were acting as spotters on the roof of Penang Free School when more than eighty Japanese aircraft attacked the town. The building was struck by H.E. and incendiary bombs, both of the Scouts were burned and otherwise injured, but remained at their posts until finally ordered to leave, though even this they refused to do until others had been found to take their places. These boys and their comrades deserve special praise, for they acted with coolness and devotion at a time when the utmost confusion prevailed and when almost every European had fled, leaving the Chinese and native population to their fate. In such circumstances the behaviour of the Scouts is peculiarly meritorious and more than deserved the tribute paid to them by Mr. H. Hall, Director of Air-Raid Precautions, who five years later submitted an official report on their conduct. The fall of Penang was followed two months later by that of Singapore. After the capture of the city Scouting officially ceased, for the Japanese military administrators forbade it. But though "its outward panoply" had disappeared, its spirit could not be quenched. The meeting of Troops or Patrols might be impossible, but two or three Scouts would come together and "in the midst of informers and spies they kept alive the flame of Scouting. Troop and Patrol log-books were carefully kept during the occupation.... The Troop which held the district flags found it no easy matter to keep them intact, but despite the danger which possession of the Union Jack entailed, these flags were safely preserved." The Malayan Scouts soon had the measure of their enemy. "When the Japanese authorities took possession of the premises in which the local Scout shop was situated, a certain Troop, by dint of collecting funds from all its members, managed to bribe the Japanese in charge and thus obtain all the badges in stock, which they presented to the local Association when the war was over." Singapore Sea Scouts were not so fortunate. The Japanese pulled down their headquarters and subjected them to various forms of persecution. The Scouts at large in the town of Singapore maintained a precarious freedom. There were others, however, not so fortunate who still contrived to maintain Scouting in the dreadful prison of Changi. That they did so was due in great measure to the devotion of the former Deputy Commissioner for the State of Victoria, the Reverend A. Rowan MacNeil, a chaplain serving with the Australian Forces. On the first day of his internment in Changi he appealed for Scouts, putting notices in the camp orders urging all who were interested in Scouting to get in touch with him. A "Catch My Pal" campaign resulted in the formation of the first Troop. Prominent among them was Bob, something of an inventor, who made "a flag by getting some blue cloth from the lining of a tropical suit." True, when treated with acriflavine it turned green, but it was the intention that mattered and "the same dye used on strips of white sheets made quite good yellow material for the badge and lettering." Wrist badges were cut out of stray pieces of aluminium by using a broken dental drill, and the design was carefully adapted from the Chinese character meaning prisoner-of-war. In this manner the Japanese guards were deceived. To talk about Scouting, however, MacNeil realised was not enough, and he therefore formed a Rover Crew and "by breaking down our organisation from a Troop to a Crew with practically autonomous Patrols, we entered upon a new lease of life, and incidentally, proved that the Patrol system of Scouting is the mainspring.... Our experience rams home to the hilt the wisdom of dealing with small numbers. Crews and Patrols carried out their own programmes." MacNeil worked unceasingly and was more than rewarded by the spirit prevailing at Changi, which despite increasing troubles and privations remained one of undaunted courage. In failing health, and in flat disobedience to medical advice, he moved daily round the prison inspiring all with whom he came into contact. The tribute paid to him by seven Scouts shows what manner of man he was. "He interpreted the true spirit of the Scout Law," they write, "and we who belonged to different churches, each different from that of Padre MacNeil, are deeply grateful for the material and spiritual advice with which he encouraged us for so long." Page 90 The Left Handshake Conditions in other internment camps, such as Karikal, near Kuala Lampur, were much the same. There for some months the Scouts were allowed to attend a prison school, "where there were almost more teachers than boys," and a certain amount of Scout training was made available through the efforts of old Scouters. It was thought expedient, however, to mask it by describing it as junior recreational training. The arrival of Padre Eric Scott, Cub Leader from Malaya, increased Scouting activities. Possessed of a strong personality, he had soon organised a Cub Pack with himself as "Akela," Westrop as "Bagheera" and a Jewish Cubmaster named Silbermann as "Baloo." "Our meeting-ground was a tiny patch of ground which at our earnest request was kept uncultivated." (Vegetables covered every other square inch of space.) . . . "We did not risk anything in the way of uniforms." Matters continued thus until October, 1943, when a period of severe repression set in. Rations were reduced, guards increased, and embargoes laid on lectures, concerts and amusements. More work with less food had the inevitable effect on the health of the internees, who rapidly tired but continued nevertheless their Scouting activities. In May, 1944, they were moved and then an unfortunate state of affairs developed. The Scouts, who comprised Muslims, Tamils, Singalese, Malays and Chinese, developed a marked antipathy to Jews, and the inclusion of this race "led to the resignation of practically all the remaining boys." Thus was a great blow to those who had organised the Scouts, particularly to Eric Scott, but he was undeterred and formed an all Jewish Pack, which by the time the war was over had seventy members. Throughout the period of internment the Scouts of Karikal had depended on one copy of Scouting for Boys on which all tests and training were based. At last, in August, 1945, the ordeal was over. As elsewhere, Scouts freed from prison came into the open and resumed their well-loved uniforms. In Singapore "On September 6th eleven of us in full uniform rode on bicycles to the den and hoisted the Union Jack and Scout pennant on an improvised flagstaff," while at Changi "there was a grand rally and such uniforms and badges as were available were worn." The time of trouble had been long and arduous. As in other places of bondage, the Scouting spirit had sustained both those who, since they were Scouts were naturally imbued with it, and their companions who were cheered and strengthened by their example. Not all were present on the great day of freedom. That spirit, which burned in all, had enabled some like Scoutmaster G. M. Pamadasa and the Scoutmasters and Scouters of Karikal, victims of the Kempetai raid of the "Double Tenth," to endure to the end with unflinching fortitude, and to die in agony, victims of those fabled tortures of the East which, when the day came, proved revolting reality. Theirs was the coldest, the most adamantine form of courage, and their example is and will always be an abiding inspiration. DUTCH EAST INDIES In the Dutch East Indies very much the same conditions prevailed as on the other side of the Banka Straits. After the capitulation of Java and Sumatra, one of the first actions of the Japanese was to forbid any form of youth organisation. All Troop rooms were closed and all Scout moneys confiscated. The Dutch Scouts were in a position of great danger, for to meet in secret was to run the grave risk of denunciation by the local Indonesians who, in general, preferred the Japanese to the Dutch. In July, 1942, all Europeans were rounded up and concentrated in twenty camps scattered throughout Java. The Scouts of Sourabaya and Malang, whose treatment was typical of that meted out to all, were sent to "a so-called colonisation place consisting of fifteen square kilometres of uncultivated woods and scrubs. Here a nice bit of Scouting had to be done; we did our own cooking, cut down trees and had plenty of woodcraft to do, not for pleasure or training this time but solely in order to keep on living. In all these camps it was in the beginning quite impossible to play games or to arrange evenings, as we were surrounded by spies of the Japanese police. Later on these spies gradually fell into disgrace with their masters and we got to Page 91 The Left Handshake know them too. So at last a Rover Crew could be established at the camp at Bandoeng to which we were all sent in the end." The Dutch worked very hard to become Rover Scouts, and presently thirty of them qualified, half as Rovers and half as Sea Scouts. The numbers grew and other Troops were formed, all this very secretly, their activities being concealed even from the other interned persons in the camp. Their greatest handicap was under-nourishment which reduced them to a condition in which "we were not strong enough to do much practical physical work." The Scouts and Rover Scouts were known as "Dads," each of them having control of twelve boys with whom they lived, fed and slept. They taught first-aid and signalling, and "arranged games in the evening and play-acting." Greatly daring, they decided to celebrate St. George's Day and were in the midst of the Patrol competitions when the Japanese police arrived on the scene, seized two of the Scouters and thrashed them severely "in front of the Troop. After this there was a moment of standstill but soon we started again." So the Dutch Scouts of Java lived and suffered like their brother Scouts in China and Malaya until at last "the delivery day came . . . and two Scouts hoisted the Dutch flag, the greatest moment in our lives." FORMOSA In the Shirakawa Prisoner-of-War Camp, where food was scarce and conditions grim, one officer- prisoner, Major I. C. Pedley, R.A., formed a Rover Scout Crew consisting of American, Australian, British and Dutch prisoners. In spite of the usual extreme difficulties of circumstance under the yellow hand of the Japanese, several Crews were eventually raised and about 100 out of 450 prisoners belonged to them. "I cannot," wrote the Senior Officer of the camp, "sufficiently express my admiration for, and gratitude to Major Pedley and his Rovers for the work they did and the example they set." THAILAND (SIAM) In Thailand the most notorious prisoner-of-war camps in the world were set up. From the very beginning, all Scouting activities in them were strictly forbidden, the Japanese making it clear that to carry on Scouting was an offence against the Emperor punishable by death. Meetings of every kind were prohibited and this proved a great handicap. Nevertheless, Rover Crews were gradually formed in the greatest secrecy, and one, the Menam Qua Noi, called after the river on the banks of which the camp was situated, became so large that three Patrols were eventually formed. The Rovers made it their special duty to care for the sick. Presently the prisoners in the camp were moved to other camps and the Rover Crew consequently scattered. Individual members started other Crews in their new place of captivity, and in at least five different camps Scouting was organised to such an extent that the original twelve Rovers increased to 200. In all these camps they took their orders from the senior British officer, who in some cases became an honorary Scoutmaster. In these places of horror it was found that the example of the Scouts doing their utmost to turn out as smartly as possible and to keep healthy, clean and cheerful had a marked effect on the spirits of the men. "Patrol meetings took the form of discussions . . . and the item which proved of the greatest interest was the talk entitled 'My own Pack, Troop or Crew, and how it was run,' which every member had to give on joining the Crew.... With people from ten different countries in the Crew, you can imagine the large number of different ideas brought to light." Page 92 The Left Handshake GERMANY Such, in general, were the conditions of life in the internment and prisoner-of-war camps in the Far East. In Europe they were different, but the spirit displayed by the Scouts was the same in both. The Germans, perhaps because so many of their own people became prisoners-of-war, until at last their whole army passed into captivity, maintained at least in some of the camps a certain standard, in this strewing themselves to be the opposite of the Japanese, whose internment camps for civilians were, on the whole, slightly less vile than those harbouring prisoners-of-war. Scouting in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany was confined to Rovers, since their inhabitants were, for the most part, young men, and the results achieved, if unspectacular, were solid and enduring. Let the story of three camps serve for all. In May, 1940, Rousseau, a Belgian Scout, found himself a prisoner-of-war in a camp in Germany. On the 31st July he and fourteen other Scouts celebrated Belgium's National Day, and then and there decided to meet more often and to carry on Scouting. By December their numbers had increased to forty and they had been joined by some who, though not Scouts, were lonely and thirsted for the companionship which Scouting affords. At the beginning of 1941 the camp was divided into two, but the Rovers continued in both, and five years later, when the war was over, their numbers had increased from the original fifteen to 350, each of whom had made the Rover promise. This was no mean achievement, and one of its results was to provide the Regular Army of Belgium with a nucleus of Scouts which it still possesses. The Rovers proceeded on standard lines. Chiefs were chosen and a training programme drawn up. Clans, or as we should say in England, Crews, were formed and by the end of the war twelve were in existence. They received names such as Rainbow, Lark, Flame, each personifying an ideal which their members, shut up in their dark camp away from home and happiness, strove to attain. In addition to training they occupied themselves with many activities normally performed by the Red Cross, and within their ranks were to be found about a hundred former ambulance drivers. During a severe epidemic of influenza, when 3,000 men succumbed, the Rovers were the right-hand men of the three overworked doctors of the camp. Yet there was another side to their work. There is an obligation on all prisoners-of-war to escape if they can, and the Rovers were determined to fulfil it if they could. Many plans, some of them most elaborate, were concocted, civilian clothes were contrived, food saved, tunnels dug. The Rovers organised the prisoners into groups for escaping purposes, but the task was one of extreme difficulty. Of the many attempts made to escape, only one in five were successful. The success of these Belgian Rovers was not easily achieved. At the outset it proved more than a little difficult to arouse interest in Scouting, for so many of the prisoners took the view that it was a pleasant occupation designed to keep children out of mischief. It was the Red Cross work of the Rovers and their attention to the sick during the epidemic of influenza that established the reputation of Scouting in the camp. The devotion to duty and to Scouting, practiced throughout the period of captivity, unceasingly by the Rovers, received its reward in the last days of the war when the camp, which was near the Oder, was broken up under the threat of the Russian advance, and the prisoners marched into Germany. Conditions on the road were very bad. By then all were gravely under-nourished for no Red Cross parcels had reached them since the invasion of Normandy by the Allies nearly a year before. As they trudged wearily along it was the Rovers among them who maintained their spirits and helped the weakest. Finally they were overtaken by the Russians and liberated, in the sense that their German guards were captured or disappeared. For the next month, until they were sent home, conditions continued to be very hard. They found themselves in a new camp set down in a battlefield surrounded by the corpses of dead Germans. These had been left unburied, the Russians performing this office only for their own troops. The Rovers Page 93 The Left Handshake organised the burial of the German dead and thus, in all probability, prevented a grave outbreak of disease. Scouting in British prisoner-of-war camps was very similar to that carried on by Rousseau and his Rovers on the banks of the Oder, for it cannot be too strongly emphasised that Scouting is international and knows no frontiers, physical or moral. In Oflag 3C, the Richard Coeur de Lion Troop was established under the leadership of an Australian warrant officer, and presently came to include Scouts from Stalags. By November, 1942, the numbers were more than forty, and the Crew was duly registered at Imperial Headquarters. A year later they had contrived, saving from their meagre pay as prisoners-of-war, to send over £100 as their contribution to the Baden-Powell Memorial Fund. In French camps, too, there were many Scouters who practiced Scouting. In one camp the numbers rose from 50 to 350, and here, as with the Belgians, the Scouts took a leading part in planning escapes, one of them helping no less than 140 men to get away. The unhappy divisions of opinion, which were one of the main causes of the downfall of France, continued in the French camps, where there were many quarrels over political matters. It was here that the Scout Movement was of peculiar value, for it united men of the most divergent views so that Communists found it possible to live at peace with Radical Socialists, and all, because they were Scouts, remembered that they were also Frenchmen. In addition to those of the French Army they captured, the Germans removed many Frenchmen to Germany for forced labour. Among them were Scouts and Scouters who practiced their Scouting in conditions far harder even than those which prevailed in the camps. The Germans mistrusted Scouts because they knew them to profess and preach ideals very contrary to the doctrines of Fascism. Moreover, they were convinced — nor can it be maintained that they were wrong — that French Scouts in the armament and other factories of Germany did their utmost to disobey orders, sought to aid General de Gaulle, and were everywhere a source of trouble. They and the Belgians were very active in organising Scouters and Rovers wherever the forced labourers sent to Germany were in strength. "Wherever Scouts happened to be in Germany they spontaneously knew one another," runs one report. "They organised various services which made the long captivity easier to endure. Their ability, their spirits, their good temper, and their love of life, all these they brought to ease the misery of their stricken brothers. Before the war ended, more than 4,000 French Scoutmasters and Rovers were at work in Germany, where they had formed district Clans in such large towns as Berlin and Breslau." The Gestapo waged unceasing war against them, and occasionally, as a deterrent to the rest, chose one or more of their number for execution. Such was the fate of Joel Angles d'Auriac. On his arrival in Germany he was sent to an armaments factory in Bodenbach and was billeted with other French civilian workers in a nearby hotel. He bided his time and on the 6th December, 1943, formed a Rover Crew, putting it under the protection of Our Lady of Good Hope. At the beginning of March, 1944, he paid a brief visit to Dresden, where he founded another Rover Crew, and returning almost immediately to Bodenbach was arrested and eventually on the 20th October tried for high treason, being accused of sabotage, inciting to sabotage, and Scouting activities. Convicted, he met death at Dresden on the 9th December. "Do not mourn me," he wrote in a last message to the Rover Crew he had founded. "I die with a smile, for the Lord is with me. Continue along the road I have shown you. It is certainly the most successful and leads to the fullest kind of life. Good-bye, my brother Rovers. My last word is 'Do not leave the Scouting Movement.'" It is such men as these, bearing witness with their lives, who place Scouting among the great movements of the world. Internment and prisoner-of-war camps, were, during the Second World War, bad enough, but the lowest depths of human cruelty outside, and of human misery inside, were to be found in the concentration camps. Here existed thousands upon thousands of human beings in conditions so revolting that it is hard to realise that they were caused by man. Some were situated in prisons, others were Page 94 The Left Handshake specially built, but in all a policy of callous neglect, coupled only too often with sadistic cruelty, was pursued with Teutonic vigour until the armies of the Allies arrived to release the few emaciated occupants who still had life in them. The men and women who suffered in these camps or who were condemned to a scarcely less severe fate, that of forced labour, are very reluctant to speak of their experiences. It is an effort for them to recall those years of horror, and between that time and today they have striven hard to set up a wall of reticence which it is not easy to pierce. These few stories of their sufferings must, therefore, be taken as examples only of what man can endure and still not die, either physically or morally. Very far from being the whole truth, they have been chosen to illustrate not only courage and endurance in adversity, but also the mainspring of that courage and endurance. This was, quite simply, the spirit of Scouting. Each and every one of these survivors broken in body though many of them were, still had a stout heart and they have testified that these remained stout because they were trained Scouts. They had learned to master their minds as well as their bodies and were thus able to withstand a strain under which others without that spirit and that training only too often wilted and died. They were of all nations, for courage, like Scouting, is international, and they light up the world not so much by their actions as by their steadfast fortitude. On the 22nd August, 1944, forty Belgians whose leader was Jean Francois Nothomb, found themselves imprisoned in Zuchthaus, near Bayreuth. By then they had been long accustomed to captivity and were expecting death, to which they had been sentenced. Instead, they found themselves locked for six months in narrow cells too small for one person, into which three were thrust. There they existed covered with vermin, in foul air and darkness save for an hour or two when the sun was very bright outside, with no work to do or books to read, and with almost no food. Yet the Rovers and Scouters among them, of whom their leader was one, so contrived it that presently all began to follow the Scout Law and to derive from it such comfort as gave them the strength to endure. They found means to send messages to each other, and Nothomb set subjects for meditation so that they might control their thoughts during the long, dark hours. Then there was that patrol of Belgian Scouts aged between fifteen and eighteen who were arrested for manning an illegal radio station. They were placed in solitary confinement in the prison of St. Giles in conditions very similar to those which prevailed at Zuchthaus save that in their cells there were radiators. Soon each Scout was tapping on the pipes in Morse to communicate with his friends, and presently they succeeded in teaching this code to every inhabitant of the prison, who made use of this newly-acquired accomplishment to such an extent that fixed times for communications had to be allotted. Two of these boys left the prison for the cemetery. Father Schoorman of Belgium offers a fine example of endurance. He spent five and a half years altogether in various prisons, having, as has been related, been arrested in Brussels for printing secret newspapers. After a long period of solitary confinement in five different prisons, where by tapping Morse like the boys of St. Giles he succeeded in getting into contact with a number of French Scouts, he reached Siegburg between Cologne and Bonn. Here, shut up alone in his cell, he would start a Scout song very quietly, and soon Scouts in other cells would pick it up and begin to sing too. During the infrequent periods of exercise he would make slight gestures of salute, lifting his fingers no higher than his thigh. "Other Scouts did the same; it comforted them." At Siegburg, when his conditions of confinement were somewhat relaxed, he made the acquaintance of Josy Wengler, of Luxembourg, a boy of nineteen, whose story will be told in a moment. Father Schoorman was given the task of mending socks and trousers for the prisoners and washing their clothes. He presently joined the famous "Klok" Group, who spent their nights in the prison and their days in various war factories in the neighbourhood. Here they became expert saboteurs and found a way to send information to England concerning a great variety of subjects, the quality of the goods they were Page 95 The Left Handshake making, details of new alloys, new aircraft designs, new detonators. After raids by the Royal Air Force they were used by the Germans on the difficult and dangerous task of removing unexploded bombs. Whenever possible, they sent back to England the technical reasons why the bomb had not exploded. On their way to work they had to travel some fifty kilometres. They carefully noted the numbers of any German troops they passed and also regaled Whitehall with the gossip of their German guards. The messages were sent to England by three Luxembourgers who, since Germany had absorbed their country, were treated not as prisoners but as guards and allowed to see their families once a week. In all this activity Father Schoorman played a leading part. He listened daily to the B.B.C. for the guard whose room he cleaned possessed a wireless set. For the last year of his imprisonment he became the camp librarian, and as such was able to visit the cells of the other prisoners, and thus pass news. The leader, Klok, was a man of great resource, a skilled craftsman with a perfect knowledge of German. Finding that he could repair small arms, he was set to do so by the Germans, and making a false key was presently able to inform his fellow prisoners, by means of Father Schoorman, that 200 rifles and 50,000 rounds of ammunition were at their disposal when the time came. Klok had decided that as soon as the Allies drew near he would arm all who were willing to fight and thus create a timely diversion. The plan, however, failed, for when the moment came the whole camp was stricken with typhus. Father Schoorman, who throughout his captivity had not "ceased to think of Scouts and Scouting," was released on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination and was able to say Mass for the first time since his imprisonment five and a half years before. During all that period he drank, according to his reckoning, not above ten glass of water, and contrived to exist on thin soup and five small pieces of bread a day. Father Schoorman survived, and so did Robert Schaffner, a Luxembourger who, after his return, became a Cabinet Minister. The Gestapo interrogated him first on the 14th August, 1940, for they knew him to be a Scouter and suspected him, rightly, of having worked for the Allied Intelligence Services. On this occasion they let him go and he continued to work for the Allies in conditions of increasing difficulty and danger until Easter, 1943, when he was denounced by an informer and taken to his first concentration camp, Hinzert, just inside the German frontier. He had received warning that his arrest was imminent, but had not been able to escape for he had broken his leg and was lying helpless in bed. He remained at Hinzert for seven months, living on soup made of nettles, losing fifty-two pounds and becoming very weak. Throughout this period he derived great spiritual consolation by reciting to himself Kipling's poem, "If." Conditions in Hinzert were bad enough, but they were far worse at Buchenwald, whither he was sent in June, 1943. Being by trade an electrician and a decorator, he fared better than most and was set to decorating the living-rooms of the SS guards. It was in Buchenwald, the most notorious of all the concentration camps, that Robert Schaffner organised a Patrol of Scouts. In addition to decorating rooms, he also worked in the garage and was thus able to steal bread and other foodstuffs which he distributed among the ten boys who formed his Troop. Presently the number of Boy Scouts in Buchenwald reached twenty-four. For the camp-fire they used a candle, and round it they would sing in low voices. In their ranks there were two Czechs and an Austrian. That Christmas the Germans allowed parcels and they had the first square meal they had eaten for months. After that, parcels arrived regularly, out of which they fed many prisoners. Presently, since Buchenwald was situated in the midst of a wood, they chose a spot as remote as possible from the guards and there held meetings at which they discussed what they would do when the invasion of Europe began, and sang "Smile, smile, smile" in German. The proceedings never lasted more than half an hour for fear of the Buchenwald Gestapo, which "was most severe, and if you were called to the Gestapo Bureau it was some times in order to die. I had once to go to the Bureau but it was only to be asked for information." Page 96 The Left Handshake So the slow days passed, and presently Schaffner found himself transferred across Germany to the hardly less notorious camp of Lublin. This "was the most darkest camp of all. It was like a camp of extermination and was so dirty that flies and lice were in millions in the barracks . . . you became really sick seeing it. In Hinzert and Buchenwald you had your own plate and cup, but not so in Lublin.... There we were four in a bed and blankets so dirty and so full of insects that you could feel them with your fingers. The sick and the healthy slept together. There were very many sick prisoners full of open wounds. They used the same cups as the healthy and they were not clean. For the first three days I did not rest. I did not go to bed and did not eat because I could not, but then I felt faint and did as the others. Sometimes when you lay in bed and woke in the morning you would find the boy next to you dead." Schaffner's clothes were taken away from him at Lublin, and when he protested "they beat me and an SS guard broke my shoulder with a blow from a light machine-gun. Then I lost consciousness and they took me naked into the snow. When I got back my mind, the others in the hut gave me some clothes so dirty and so ill-fitting that really I looked rather comic." Fortunately for him, Schaffner, having a knowledge, among other trades, of that of blacksmith, was set the task of shoeing horses and was transferred for this purpose to a sub-camp. He had not been there long, however, when eighteen young Poles escaped by digging a tunnel beneath the wire. The remaining prisoners, Schaffner among them, were severely beaten. Here, as in Buchenwald, Schaffner organised a Scout Troop made up of Dutch, French and Czech young men. Liberation, however, was in the air, for the Russians were advancing. On July 22nd, 1944, the camp was bombed, and when the raid was over the Germans set up machine-guns and announced that they were about to massacre every occupant. Changing their minds, however, they took them away instead during a bombardment by Russian artillery. The march westwards was a long, drawn-out scene of horror. All who fell out were instantly shot, and most of them were women and children. "There was one child who could no more go and we took it in our arms and brought it to the next village… The SS guard allowed us to put it in a house, and I never will forget the thankful eyes of this child . . . when the farmer said he would keep her with him." The grim journey continued. Mounted guards with police dogs rode up and down the column, and by the time the prisoners had passed the Vistula there was not a pair of boots among them. At last they reached a railway station beside a small lake and there the commander of the SS guards decided to put them in a train. While they waited for it, the prisoners, led by Schaffner and the Scouts, "took off our clothes, washed and shaved." The guards, who were almost as exhausted as the prisoners, made no attempt to do so, and "when the commander saw that, he was angry and warned them that he could not understand how they, SS guards, could be so tired and dirty, and the prisoners so clean." This small incident revived their spirits, but they fell again to zero when the train into which they had been herded eventually drew up at the extermination camp of Auschwitz. In this terrible place, where they remained for months, the Scouts, particularly those from Luxembourg, kept together. The horrors they witnessed varied from the indiscriminate shooting of prisoners, to the slaying of children between one and five years old. "They took them by the legs, dashed their heads against the wall or against a car. Those that were killed they left. Those that were alive were taken to the crematorium. They were mostly Jewish children." One of the Scouts was a butcher by trade, and he found means to slaughter purloined cattle. "In this way we had the opportunity to get back our strength, and it was very good that we had that chance." It was indeed, for a few days later began the last and worst of their marches, from Auschwitz to Gros Rosen. Sometimes on foot, sometimes packed a hundred in a single lorry, they moved westward until at last they reached this camp. The routine at Gros Rosen was the same as at Auschwitz. Once a week the prisoners were paraded naked, and those incapable of marching were taken away to the gas chamber, for "every one too weak to work was of no value and only ate food." Page 97 The Left Handshake From Gros Rosen Schaffner was transferred to Litmeritz, a still unfinished camp. There, with some Russian, French and Czechs, all young, he formed his last Scout Troop, organising meetings and sing- songs, and stealing food from the kitchen. Employed in the foundry attached to the camp, Schaffner had to cross a number of fields which were being sown. Little by little he collected a sack of the seeds, built a small machine to mill them, made flour and succeeded in baking bread. This sufficed to keep them alive and "so we came to the end. On the 8th May the SS guards assembled us, saying that they, too, were only soldiers. We, too, were soldiers and now we should be free, and they gave us each a paper with the words 'The bearer of this is to go to his own country as soon as possible.'" A few weeks more, and then with the aid of the Americans and the Red Cross, Schaffner once more reached Belgium, where he found his wife and family, who had also spent a long time in concentration camps. Through all these years of misery he had never forgotten what Scouting meant, and when he was home again and had picked up the threads of civilisation, "it was the Scout Law," he said, "and living according to the Scout Law that gave us courage to endure all the bad things we had to live through, because nothing makes you so happy if you have done something good for someone every day." Schaffner was not the only Scouter to organise Scouting in Buchenwald. Another of its inmates, Chief Scout Professor Slava Rehak of Czechoslovakia, was also active, and during his period of detention, which lasted several years, not only kept in touch with all Commissioners and Scoutmasters in the camp but with their aid worked out details for rebuilding Scouting in Czechoslovakia and prepared a handbook for the training of Scouters. "A triumph indeed of spirit over matter." Josy Wengler, the prison friend of Father Schoorman, was a young Rover Scout of nineteen who, from the camp at Siegburg went out daily to work. He presently became head of a band of saboteurs called the "Kodak" group. They specialised in the production of "dud" shells, and claim to have made between 100,000 and 150,000 a month. Josy induced the inspector of Siegburg to engage him as his secretary. In this capacity he bought far more food than was laid down in the regulations, falsifying the books, and thus improving the rations for the prisoners. Josy also had charge of the card index of prisoners and by falsifying some cards and destroying others was able to save about 200 men from being sent to Auschwitz and other places of extermination. But he could not save every one, notably three Luxembourg Scouts who were shot on the 23rd August, 1944. Josy, however, preserved the details of their execution, together with the names of those who condemned them. He was more successful with twenty other prisoners, of whom two were German officers connected with the plot to kill Hitler. They took to the woods close by and were for some time fed by Josy. Conditions in Auschwitz were reproduced at Grini in Norway, and it was in this camp that Per Gulbransen, who was but seventeen years old in 1943, lived for sixteen months. Eight of them were passed in solitary confinement varied by bouts of torture of which he bears the marks to this day upon his wrists. One day he was confronted by his father, the head of an Underground organisation, who had also been arrested and tortured. Neither would speak. The legs of the elder Gulbransen were broken, and in this condition he was put on board a ship with thirty-eight other prisoners to be taken to Germany. On the way the ship was torpedoed and they were all drowned. After his eight months' solitary confinement, Per was allowed to mingle with the rest of the prisoners, and had soon formed a Scout Troop although he had lost so much weight in his cell and was so exhausted that it was some time before he could walk. The 1st Grini Troop followed a programme and "hiked in fantasy and had camp-fires." When Per was liberated he returned to his mother, who was in her early forties but whose hair was snow white. Hans Morch was a member of the Grini Troop, which met on Sundays at five in the evening. Birger Groom of Trondheim, who had been trained at Gilwell, was elected Scoutmaster, and in addition to Page 98 The Left Handshake "hiking in fantasy" they used to play Kim's game, listen to a lecture and discuss it. They also practiced knots and splices. Presently the Troop was divided into two Patrols and held camp-fires made of a small pile of logs beneath which an electric lamp, the bulb covered by red paper, was lit. They even contrived to publish a news-sheet. "Most of our life at Grini," records Morch, "we would rather forget, but the Troop and Patrol meetings will live long in our memories." In July, 1940, thirteen young men, ten of them Scouts, were thrown into prison in Bergen. The Germans had caught them sending messages reporting troop and fleet movements to one of the Secret Service organisations in London. They were all sentenced to death by a court composed of two German admirals and a general, who paid tribute to the bearing and bravery of the Norwegians. The sentence was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment, and while serving it they were asked whether they would render harmless a number of mines which had been washed up on the shore. They all volunteered provided that no report of their action should be published in the Press. Their demeanour so impressed the German commandant of the prison that he abandoned his harsh methods and for two years treated the prisoners "in a specially fine way." He would sit up till ten or eleven at night talking with them, and once, presumably wishing to pay them a compliment, said, "I should like you all to be young Germans." In 1942 ten prisoners, of whom three were Scouts, suffered death. One of them was twenty-two years of age, and before execution had been questioned by the Gestapo for sixty-three days at a place in Bergen known, grimly enough, as Hell. When eventually he was taken from it and they told hum that he was to leave Hell, he answered, "Some may call it that, but I do not for I found God in that place." His face was bright and full of joy," and he shouted words of encouragement to the others as the rifles spoke. France, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, all held their camps of horror and misery, and the hideous tale of the agony and heroism of their inmates is a long one. Of all types of courage this is the hardest to maintain, especially when the body is weak from hunger and wounds. There is nothing dramatic about it. No roar of guns nor brandishing of swords, no flashing bayonets accompany it, but rags and vermin, mouldy food and prison sores, hard living, and, a deadly, soul-destroying monotony. Such is the unromantic setting, and to practice fortitude in it and to continue to practice it unfaltering is the highest test of human nature. To pass it as thousands passed it, is to take rank as the most proven Scouts of all, and to show beyond all question what it is to believe and fulfil the Scout Law. Page 99 The Left Handshake Chapter VI PARTNERSHIP Scouting in the Empire and in the U.S.A. T O MAINTAIN that Britain fought for a year alone is but a half-truth. In Europe, until Greece entered the war, she had indeed no allies, but from first to last there was at her back the full strength of the Empire, whose Dominions and Colonies lavished it upon her without stint. In the field of Scouting they were especially generous, and their activities took much the same form as those performed by the Scouts in the home country. To some of these, burdened as they were by the stress of war, it must at times perhaps have seemed that they were very much alone, but if they paused to think, they could not but realise that they were members of an organisation greater than that known as the Boy Scouts Association of Great Britain. Scouts have made their promises, played their games, done their good turns everywhere where the British flag flies, not only in the great Dominions where they number many thousands, but in tiny inaccessible islands such as St. Helena, Tristan de Cunha, remote atolls in the Pacific, far-away stations in the jungles of Malaya and Assam. When war came all these Scouts, wherever they were, showed the same eagerness to help in the common effort. Everywhere the picture painted by the reports is the same, a mild sense of frustration because, with the exceptions of those who lived in Malta and Gibraltar, India and Ceylon, they were far from the conflict, soon conquered by the determination to let nothing prevent them from aiding those who were, by every means in their power. Of these, money was the most obvious. Fortunately there was an admirable and tangible object for which to collect it. Soon after war broke out a special Relief Fund for war-distressed Scouts was opened in London by the Boy Scouts Association. The idea made a strong appeal and the response was very great. It ranged from the £3 collected by Scouts and Cubs in a leper colony in Uganda to the £322 sent by the Scouts of Australia, principally through the Blitz Cheer Fund. Scouts of South Africa, Rhodesia Nigeria, Canada, where the average contribution was fifty-three cents a head, all set about raising money for the Fund. They did it by what can surely be described as the Scouts' classic method, the collection of salvage of all kinds, much of it paper and metal, and its sale to the Government. Soon the Fund, made up in this manner and from contributions from British Scouts, reached a total of £26,141. It was used for such purposes as relieving British Scouts in London, Portsmouth, Hull, Manchester, and the County of Middlesex, or for the general rehabilitation of Scouting inside Poland, or for the purchase of Scout badges and equipment for the Scouts of Holland, Norway and Malta. The money was expended during the war, and more lavishly after it was over when the needs of Scouts in European countries were made known. The administrators of the Fund did their best to help Scouts in distress wherever they might be. Only in regard to Belgium were they thwarted, for the Treasury refused to transfer a grant of £1,000 to the Scouts of that country. Part of the sums raised by the Scouts of the Dominions and Colonies they used in their own homes to improve their equipment or to help local war charities. The first of the Dominion Scouts to collect money for the purpose of aiding Great Britain, and subsequently the occupied countries of Europe, were those of Canada. Very early in the war they established a "Chins Up" Fund which produced money for various purposes, particularly for the publication of Scout books in various European languages. Donations to this Fund were stimulated by a visit paid to Canada during the war by four Scouts from the blitzed areas of Britain. Another means of helping, which Scouts, particularly in Africa, Australia, Canada and India found attractive, was the establishment of clubs for the use of members of the Services passing through those countries or stationed in them. At Bulawayo for example, a club for the Royal Air Force was established, the equipment, furniture, books and cigarettes being paid for by the Scouts themselves. At Nairobi a canteen for African native troops was opened by the Scouts, who sent out Rovers "as decoys to entice the somewhat suspicious soldiery to sample the facilities offered." So successful were these methods that Page 100 The Left Handshake shyness yielded to boldness and the club was in some danger of being overwhelmed. In Australia a Services Club was opened in Sydney and maintained by voluntary contributions from Scout groups, who also supplied volunteers to run it. In Nova Scotia the Tweedsmuir Room, called after Lord Tweedsmuir, was set up in Halifax as a place of refreshment for former Boy Scouts irrespective of rank. In four years more than 18,000 letters were written by visitors to the club, who came from places as far apart as Great Britain and Martinique. The Bengal Scout Club, set up in 1942 to bring together as many Rover Scouts, Scouters and Commissioners from overseas as possible, more than fulfilled its mission. Before the war was over it had been visited by nearly 7,000 overseas Scouts and Scouters. A direct result of the foundation of this club was the formation of twelve Rover Service Crews in different districts of Bengal, whose services during what was known, somewhat euphemistically, as the food crisis at the end of the war were particularly noteworthy. A successful and important club was started in Alexandria by an International Rover Crew consisting of eleven Greeks, three Jews, one Egyptian, three Sudanese and four British Rovers. So popular a rendezvous did this become to its visitors from divers countries, that in May, 1943, it was decided to publish a quarterly magazine to inform the club members of its activities. As has been said, the collection of waste-paper, metals and salvage of all kinds was carried out by Scouts everywhere in the Empire. In South Africa toothpaste tubes, tins and bottles were the favourite forms of salvage, in Australia clothing and aluminium, of which 26,000 pounds was amassed in a year. New Zealand preferred rubber, small jars for ointment, rags and ergot; Canada scrap iron, shoes and bottles. Books and periodicals for the use of merchant seamen were also everywhere collected. The Scouts of Nigeria and Northern Rhodesia showed themselves to be particularly eager to provide merchant seamen with reading matter. From Jamaica came 328 binoculars and telescopes, those indispensable adjuncts of war, collected by the Scouts of the West Indies. In Dominica "it was a hot day" but the Scouts were busy collecting scrap and in one day reckoned on having well over 1,000 pounds; it was the same story from St. Lucia, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, the Windwards, Trinidad and Tobago. Another universal service performed by the Scouts of the Empire was that of carrying messages. One of war's tribulations appears to be an overwhelming urge on the part of those in authority to send as many messages as possible to as many people as possible. The Scouts did all they could to assuage this strange passion of their elders, and everywhere formed the nucleus of the A.R.P. messenger services established in such places as Bombay, Colombo, Kandy, and in the towns of Australia and New Zealand. The Scouts of Ceylon were particularly efficient in this service, and upwards of a thousand of them entered it. Some Troops in some countries went further and encouraged their members to learn and use signalling. In Kenya, for example, a number of Scouts learnt telegraphy in the Post Office at Mombasa. In Transvaal more than fifty Rover Scouts formed a radio company of the South African Air Force. In the Cameroons Scouts acted as signallers for the local defence troops. In Trinidad the Scouts were attached to the local military units for the same purpose, and in Zanzibar one Scout, who eventually passed the Yeomen of Signals test, organised look-out posts for submarines. The posts communicated with each other by means of heliographs. Sea Scouts became very popular and their numbers greatly increased. In Cochin State, Indian Sea Scouts took part in mine-sweeping operations. In Sierre Leone the "deep-sea Scouts helped to run troops and train Scouters, provided books, papers and pamphlets, joined in camps, camp-fires, rallies and shows, and generally set a fine example of the Scout spirit." In Australia Sea Scouts helped flying-boats on the Swan River. The 5th Gibraltar Sea Scout Troop was responsible for the dockyard special messenger service, of the utmost importance in that bastion of our Empire, and their smartness was such that they, earned a special word of commendation from the rear-admiral in command. Page 101 The Left Handshake These were some of the more general ways in which overseas Scouts sought to be useful in war-time, but they represent a small fraction only of the tasks performed from the Arctic Circle to the coasts of Tasmania by the eager youth of the Empire. In Nigeria, for example, a special effort was made to spread official information to the native population, and this was achieved by collecting crowds round a camp- fire. Here the Scouts sang songs made up by one of their number in which the prowess of West African soldiers in the Abyssinian campaign was extolled and the vices of Hitler condemned. Small plays with these themes proved very popular, especially those in which a dusky and determined actor portrayed Mr. Winston Churchill proclaiming the justice of our cause. The Nigerian Scouts seem to have been called upon to render unusual forms of service. Those in Lagos, for example, surrendered their whistles because the police were unable to obtain any for Special Constables, and their Digging for Victory included work on ground-nut farms. In Uganda eighty Scouts were continuously employed in guarding lorry parks and directing traffic in Kampala, and were thanked by the Governor for the excellence of their service. On the Gold Coast the training of Scouts was carefully fostered, 160 being put through the test for King's Scout badges at a great training camp at Kumasi. In New South Wales, on the other side of the ocean, Scouts spent long periods at airfields erecting "Shadow hangars" and doing other camouflage work, and in New Zealand a demand for camouflage nets made from heavy rope was met by the Scouts Association, between eighty and ninety Scouts devoting themselves for months to this task, which it was estimated would have occupied the time of one man, had he alone been charged with it, for more than a quarter of a century. In Bombay ammunition boxes were being produced in large quantities but there was a lack of skilled labour to splice the rope handles. An appeal was made to the Scouts and in less than twenty-four hours twelve Troops numbering over 500 Scouts were splicing the pliant manila at the rate of 1,000 rope handles a week. In Bombay, too, the Senior Scouts were attached to the hospitals and to the A.R.P. posts. In Ceylon the village Scouters organised local food drives, while the town Scouters concerned themselves with A.R.P. work and proved of great use in the raids on Colombo. The Scouts and Rovers of that lovely island were prominent in organising carnivals during 1940 and 1941, which raised several lakhs of rupees. The Scouts of Bermuda took the opportunity to entertain refugees from Europe calling on vessels bound for more distant lands. One part of the Empire deserves special mention. The Scouts of Malta endured a heavier ordeal than any others. They were employed, like their comrades elsewhere, as coast watchers, messengers, telephone operators; they manned A.R.P. centres worked in the Censor's office, in the hospitals, and those who were old enough, in the Volunteer Defence Force. One of their most important duties was that of acting as telephone orderlies when convoys were unloaded. The ships — those of them that were fortunate enough to survive a voyage beset by enemy submarines and aircraft — had to discharge their cargo with the utmost speed and nearly always under heavy bombing attack. Telephone instruments were placed at intervals at the discharging points along the quays, and the Scouts were made responsible for collecting and relaying the necessary information. The bravery of the Scouts during the frequent air-raids became a by-word among the population. Early in the war they adopted as their motto "Scarred but not scared." Their headquarters were destroyed together with all records, but two stories that have survived show their quality. One is that of Scout David John Archer of the Pembroke Group, who received the British Empire Medal for remarkable coolness under heavy air attack and for constantly passing information "invaluable to the defence of the Island" when on special coast-watch duty. The other concerns that of an unnamed seventeen-year-old Scout who "held a lamp the whole night" to enable the men extricating persons buried under the debris of a bombed house to see their way, and was killed a month later by a bomb which destroyed the room he was decorating for a children's party. Page 102 The Left Handshake The conduct of the Scouts of Malta caused them to be specially remembered by Lord Baden-Powell, then in the last year of his life. The aged Founder of Scouting sent them special congratulations on the manner on which they had withstood "the infernal bombing." Despite the fierce attacks, camping and other Scout activities continued as usual, and only on St. George's Day, 1942, did the bombing prove too severe to hold the customary Rally. On the next anniversary of that Festival the Bronze Cross, awarded to the Scouts of Malta, was solemnly presented in the presence of 800 of those who had contributed so valiantly to the winning of it. When in June, 1943, the King visited Malta, the Scouts broke the police cordon and gave him a "roaring welcome," running beside his car so that he arrived at the Palace escorted by "Scouts and flags." The George Cross conferred on Malta for its dogged resistance was earned as much by the Scouts as by any of its inhabitants. All of them, from the members of C Company of the 3rd King's Own Malta Regiment, each one a Scouter, to the young boys who helped Mr. Spiro Giudice "in getting the flour down," must be a shining example to Scouts everywhere as long as the Movement endures. In these and many other ways did the Scouts of the Empire support the common cause and, like those at home, when they grew old enough, they joined the Forces in large numbers. In their new and more perilous occupations their Scout training stood them in good stead. Second-Lieutenant Keith Elliott of the Fielding Troop of New Zealand won a Victoria Cross at Ruweisat in July, 1942, leading a bayonet charge with four wounds in his body. Major C. F. Hoey of the First Quamichan Group of British Columbia was posthumously awarded the same decoration for his heroic fight on the Ngakyedank Pass in Burma, Sergeant A. G. Hume of the Lower Hutt Group of Wellington, New Zealand, gained his upon an airfield in Crete, and a chaplain, Major J. W. Foote of Madoc Troop, Ontario, his upon the blood-soaked beaches of Dieppe. These are conspicuous examples of many acts of gallantry, recorded and unrecorded, performed by Scouts of the Empire of which the whole Scouting world is justly proud. While they were upholding the cause of Democracy on the field of battle, their American comrades were far from idle. Their efforts both before and after America's entry into war were, indeed, on the highest scale. Scouting in the United States began formally on the 8th February, 1910, and was granted a Federal Charter by Congress on June 15th, 1916. Since 1910 several million boys have been Scouts, or still are, and the active membership at the end of 1945 was a little less than 2,000,000, including Scouters and Senior Scouts. America has, therefore, the largest Scout population of any single country. Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, which transformed the United States from a passive to an active belligerent, the Scouts, whose motto was the simple and effective statement, "We too have a job to do," were engaged on numerous projects initiated by Government agencies. Here are some examples. At the demand of the Secretary of the Treasury, they put up in shops 1,607,000 posters calling on the American public to buy Defence Bonds and Stamps. 266,400 circulars containing the same appeal were handed by 3,784 Scouts in uniform to the public attending 121 games of baseball on August 28th. After this effort it must have been impossible for any American citizen not to realise that the Government wanted him to save. With their eyes on the international situation and the grave menace which Germany presented to the world as the result of her victories in 1940, the Offices of Price Administration and of Civilian Defence called upon the Scouts on June 18th, 1941, to collect all the aluminium they could find. The response was very satisfactory. Before the end of that year 10,500,000 pounds had been amassed in 11,369 civic communities. As the total collected was about 12,000,000 it will be seen that the Scouts were responsible for more than five-sixths of this remarkable amount. On November 7th, a month before America entered the war, the Consumers' Division of the Office of Price Administration launched a campaign of which the object was to induce American consumers to Page 103 The Left Handshake pledge themselves to consume less. Ten million such pledges were distributed to housewives by Scouts, and the Scouts' pledges themselves reached a total of several million A month earlier another department of the same office opened a campaign to collect waste-paper, and the Scouts of America responded by producing 300,000,000 pounds between September 12th, 1941, and May 1st. 1942, an average monthly collection of 50,000,000. These huge figures were made possible by individual efforts such as that of Robert Siersted, who went round the district in which he lived in New York with a small hand-made cart and "an informed sales talk." His daily average collection was between 100 and 120 pounds of paper. This collection earned the Boy Scouts the unstinted praise of General Eisenhower, one of whose many duties it was to act as head of the Waste-paper Collection Campaign. A special medal bearing his image was issued to any one who collected a thousand pounds or more of paper. 220,000 Scouts won it, members of 41,000 Packs and Troops So efficient did the Scouts prove themselves to be that the War Production Board urged them to turn their attention to other forms of salvage since, thanks to their efforts, there was no longer any shortage of paper. Accordingly, responding to the appeal of the Industrial Conservation Bureau of the War Production Board, the Scouts began a continuous salvage drive for old rubber, non-ferrous metals, iron and steel, sparking plugs and, a trifle oddly perhaps, coat hangers. In June, 1942, on the order of President Roosevelt, a "whirlwind rubber collection" was carried out from June 15th to July 10th. In the first fortnight the Scouts amassed 22,910,300 pounds. By then America had been at war for six months and was getting into her stride. By then, too, the Scouts had, by order of the President, become official Government dispatch-bearers for the Office of War Information, which, since there were 1,589,281 of them, must have had the largest messenger service in the world. It was presently reduced by some half million who, leaving the Office of War Information, joined the Civil Defence Services, but 424,000 still remained to carry its voluminous dispatches. Now that America was in the war, War Savings became of major importance, and before V.J. Day the Scouts had succeeded in selling the enormous amount of $1,800,000,000 worth. By then their collection of paper, though it had been slowed down by the War Production Board, had reached the enormous figure of 480,038,000 pounds, or 240,019 tons, an amount sufficient to make, among other things, 3,500,000 protective bands for 1,000 pound bombs, more than 5,000,000 similar bands for 500-pound bombs, more than 16,000,000 casings for 75-mm. shells, some 64,000,000 containers for blood plasma, and 93,593,075 cartons each containing ten cartridges for inflating life-floats. Such figures, which fire the imagination, are a tribute to the energy and pertinacity of youth. Collections, however, were not by any means the whole effort of the Boy Scouts of America. Far from it. Their special training was recognised by the commanders of the State Guards of America, who made the greatest use of it and appointed Scout instructors to their Tactical School. The results of the training the Scouters gave to embryo State Guardsmen was extremely encouraging. The Scouters imparted their instruction by means of a "learning by doing" process, treating the recruits much as they treated Cubs and Scouts. "Do not be surprised," said Major-General Sherman Miles, commanding the 1st Corps Area of the United States Army, when opening the Tactical School, "if we frankly teach you Boy Scout Law. We grown men and soldiers may have thought we were beyond such elementary games. We were mistaken." The "games" to which the general referred were adaptations of the old Kim game, stalking, hiding, and personal camouflage. There was also an obstacle hike in which such barriers to forward progress as "bottomless canyons" and electric fences were met with. The course ended with instruction in tracking, based on Baden-Powell's original work on that subject. As in Britain and elsewhere, American Scouts dug for victory. In 1945 more than 67,000 Scouts were working in victory gardens, and more than 20,000 possessed gardens over 400 feet square. To these, "Green Thumb" certificates and MacArthur medals were awarded. The Forestry Service of America was also helped, the Scouts planting 142,103 trees. Blood Banks were established all over the country which received the blood of Scouts who also worked in large numbers with the hospitals. The Services were Page 104 The Left Handshake looked after by providing entertainment, collecting more than 3,000,000 musical instruments, gramophone records and furniture for Services hospitals. Certain Scouts rendered individual service of great importance. The Germans made an attempt to organise a Fifth Column in the United States and for that purpose sent agents who landed from submarines. Scout Marvard Hodgkins of Hancock Point, Maine, was coming home late one night in the winter of 1943 when he saw two figures trudging through the snow. "What struck me," he reported, "was that they were wearing light overcoats. Nobody here wears such coats, least of all on a cold winter night. I saw their tracks in the snow and noticed that they were leading from the shore, where the seas were pounding on the beach." His observation was correct and accurate. The two men had just been landed by submarine. A telephone message from the boy's father, a Deputy Sheriff, secured their immediate capture. As elsewhere, the number of former Scouts, Scouters and Scoutmasters who won distinction in battle when serving with the American Forces was very large. The records show how varied was their service, both in quality and locality. Seventeen former Scouts formed part of General Doolittle's gallant band which bombed Tokyo. Noel A. M. Gayler, a Scout of Bremerton, Washington, was the first naval lieutenant to be awarded three Navy Crosses. He was a pilot of one of the aircraft carrier Lexington's aircraft, and among other feats shot down eight Japanese fighters and bombed and set on fire two Japanese destroyers. Colin P. Kelly of Troop 601, Madison, Florida, of the United States Army Air Corps, destroyed the 29,000-ton Japanese battleship Haruna. On returning, his bomber was attacked and set on fire but he held it straight and level enough to enable the crew to bale out. He himself was killed. Edward F. Cheney of Troop 85, Yeadon, Pennsylvania, gained the first Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal for rescuing non-swimmers in a sea covered with burning oil spouting from his torpedoed tanker. Coastguardsman Douglas A. Munro, a Life Scout of Troop 84, South Cle, Elum, Washington, put a party of Marines ashore at Guadalcanal and later took them off under heavy fire, himself losing his life. The tales of these gallant American Scouts are examples chosen by the simple method of shutting the eyes and pricking with a pin from the numerous reports of their velour. They serve to show that in war, as in peace, Scouting was invaluable, giving those who practiced it not only resource and trained intelligence above that possessed by non-Scouters, but also that ultimate scruple of courage which enabled them to endure to the end. When the war was won, the Scouts of America concentrated on raising the World Friendship Fund launched by their National Council, of which the object was to help the reorganisation of Scouting in Allied countries devastated by the war. The success already achieved was very great, and their efforts were enhanced by the strong encouragement of President Truman, who urged them to keep on "building together." By February, 1946, nearly 2,000,000 Scouts had paid heed to their President and were helping in this invaluable work. Page 105 The Left Handshake Chapter VII ASSURANCE Scouting in Refugee and Displaced Persons' Camps W ARS, like other scourges, produce a language of their own. Those who have to fight them or suffer their consequences use it to describe new weapons, new developments, new processes. The words disappear when they disappear, or become absorbed in the language if a contemporary genius enshrines them in a masterpiece. The slang used at Crecy or Agincourt may no longer be remembered, but Pistol, Bardolph and Nym have preserved the language of the Elizabethan camp; Uncle Toby had made succeeding generations familiar with the manner of speech of Marlborough's veterans, Napier of Wellington's, Kipling of Victoria's barrack-rooms, Blunden, Alington and Sassoon of French's Old Contemptibles. But no character depicted by a dramatist, a novelist or a historian of the past has used a word or an expression to describe those the most unhappy of the human race who, through war, have lost not only their homes but their country. It has been left to the twentieth century to coin the phrase "displaced persons." How long it will last only the future can tell. But of all the expressions to which the Second World War gave birth it seems to be that which will last the longest. With a few unimportant exceptions, every country in Europe has either lost large numbers of its own population or acquired a part of another's and it has done so in circumstances which, for the people concerned, have been uniformly bleak, miserable, and only too often disastrous. During these dark years of war and in the years which followed, men, women and children were torn from their homes on a scale which would have staggered Attila and caused Tamberlane to rub his eyes. They were moved hither and thither about the chequerboard of Europe, pawns in as grim and inconclusive a game of international chess as any dictator has ever played. They were, and are, of all races, ages and classes, possessing nothing in common except want, misery, hunger, and the generic term "displaced persons." Their pathetic entry on to the European scene and their continued presence there is a daily unpleasant reminder that the standard of our civilisation has not necessarily been heightened by the invention of the motor car and the refrigerator, and that an aircraft able to fly the Atlantic without a pilot is a poor substitute for the food which is everywhere, to use another modern expression, "in short supply." These miserable millions are the orphans of the world, without a home, without a country, possessing only a few yards of dusty or muddy earth in an unlovely camp, or a precarious hiding-place in some foreign forest from which, from time to time, they are hunted like the beasts to whose level they have sunk. That in all probability most of them can never again exclaim "This is my own, my native land," is the most permanent and bitter of their misfortunes, but others, of which uncertainty as to the future is the worst, have crowded thick upon them. Poverty, starvation, confinement, from all these they have suffered, and in 1948 are still suffering, and they must depend not for the amenities of life but for its continued possession, on the charity of those nations who are under the impression that they won the war. Scouts are bound by the Scout Law, of which the 3rd and 4th provisions do not allow them to pass by on the other side of the street when they know that there are people in distress who need help. Mindful of this, the Scouts' International Relief Service was founded in Britain as early as 1942. The widespread misery and desolation which would follow the war had been easy enough to foresee. Its remedies were harder to devise, and Scout Headquarters were well aware that the more permanent of them did not lie within their province. Temporary relief, however, could and must be given. Scouting had to do something, though it could not do everything. The new organisation was an expansion of the War Distress Scout Fund set up in 1939. Its aim was to give general relief to civilians as distinct from Scouts, and by so doing to fulfil in the letter and in the spirit the injunction never to forget to do a good turn. Page 106 The Left Handshake In these charitable intentions the Scouts were not alone. Other organisations, religious and philanthropic, were also in the field. The Government therefore set up a Council which, it was hoped, would co-ordinate the efforts of all and direct them into a common channel. Upon it sat two representatives of the Boy Scouts Association, who "had to suffer long, wearisome hours sitting at committee meetings throughout 1943." At times they were near despair, for it seemed that the Council would never achieve a concrete result. While awaiting it, a register of volunteers had been compiled and at long last a request came for Scouters to go to the Middle East. Three of them chosen from the register were dispatched in the spring of 1944 and others followed. The next request was from the Red Cross to send teams to North-west Europe. The first of these landed in Normandy at the beginning of September, and during the next twelve months three others followed them. Some Scouters were included in a Girl Guides hospital unit, and others worked not in teams but as individuals. Altogether ninety-three Scouters took part in the work, twenty-six of them women. How to finance these workers had been a problem which the Association faced as soon as it began to lay its plans. This kind of Government service is not generously paid and those who perform it are usually out of pocket. An appeal was therefore made to every Cub, Scout and Rover in the British Isles to do some piece of work between dawn and dusk on Saturday, 20th May, 1944, for which he should earn at least a shilling. The money thus collected would become the "Bob a Job" Fund, and its organisers expected to obtain £10,000. When night came that day, £26,000 had been collected, and by the following Monday the total had reached £32,000. The problem of finance had been solved. Side by side with the Friends' Ambulance Unit, the Save-the-Children Fund and other voluntary organisations, the Scouts' International Relief Service, its financial difficulties at an end, entered the field. It was soon at work in refugee and displaced persons' camps in North-west Europe, Italy, Austria, Yugoslavia Greece, Cyprus, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Hong Kong. After the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was created, the Scouts continued for a time to serve under its aegis. The work was exacting and difficult, calling in full measure for qualities of tact, endurance and, above all, for a display of serene temper. Nowhere were these qualities more necessary than in war-torn Greece. Here a team of Scouters and five women arrived in November, 1944, when the oppressors had been driven out, but before they had finally been destroyed. It split up and laboured in different parts of the country, its members making many long and difficult journeys through the mountains to remote valleys and uplands where the need was greatest. "When I arrived at the town with three tons of medical stores," one Scouter wrote, "and asked for the hospital, the people looked at me doubtfully until I told them I had supplies. Then the fun started: I was escorted royally and I think the whole town turned out to welcome me. The old doctor in charge came out to see if the war had started again, and when he realised what was happening, he just danced for joy. From then on I was not allowed to do a single thing. When I started to get the cases open and check the contents, most of the staff was on the scene to help, and it would have been funny, if it had not been so tragic, to see, for instance, the cook lovingly handling a pot, and even the cleaners grinning at the sight of pails and scrubbing brushes. But the best part was when the doctor and nurses took me round to see the condition to which they had been reduced. They put the new instruments alongside the old ones, and one of them said, 'How did we manage to perform operations with these old things? Our old surgeon must have been a magician!' With that I fully agreed. The journey to this town was a 600-miles return trip over the worst roads I had so far encountered, and I can honestly say that all the difficulties were fully repaid by the heartfelt gratitude of the townspeople." In Salonika, where a children's Health Centre was opened, the Scouts played "big brothers" to the small and under-nourished boys. "I wish you could have seen the scene at their supper last night," an UNRRA worker wrote. "We found Scouts with a concertina type of instrument playing as the little boys ate, and this morning they all marched to full music to the dairy for milk and afterwards on a course of Page 107 The Left Handshake instruction on baby pigs to the strains of cafe dance music. British Scouts are being most helpful and some members of their team now here come out and cart sand for the children to play in." In Yugoslavia it was the same. From Cetinje a Scouter wrote: "At 4,000 feet, in heavy, snow-covered roads among the mountains, with the road winding up and down, backwards and forwards, it made us feel that if we made this trip none other would ever deter us.... All the hospital staff seemed to be out watching as the cases were unloaded from our lorries, asking about the contents of this and that. When they were opened and unpacked the staff, fondling each bottle or package, felt a miracle had happened.... Another journey was to Plevje. Nothing but climb over terrific mountains, drop into deep, narrow gorges, negotiate serpentine after serpentine, continually trusting yourself and the heavy-loaded lorries on bridges built for horse-drawn traffic." Another, making a journey by jeep, reported that his Yugoslav driver suddenly stopped on a lonely road and ran to an old lady sitting by the side of it. The greeting between them was rapturous for the lady was his mother and he had not seen her for three years. "Many children here are without hands and blind as the result of booby-traps left behind," he added. The town of Dubrovnic was fiercely attacked by typhus. A hospital was hurriedly improvised and for six weeks two members of one of the Scouter teams laboured day and night to disinfect clothing and bedding, to operate wards, wash and clean bodies of lice, and cut hair. "My spare time was spent in the bakehouse making bread for ourselves, and we amused the children by making gingerbread men and animals." These were some of the first toys they had ever had, and presently the Scouts introduced them to the playing of team games, football, cricket and handball. When the weather grew warmer swimming was added to the pastimes, but here an odd difficulty arose. The older boys were ashamed to appear naked, though the smaller showed no such modesty. A Scout is resourceful, and the Scouter in charge was equal to the occasion. With the aid of some of the boys he made fifty pairs of bathing slips in khaki and blue, twelve pairs of shorts and a number of shirts. By then "my own slender stock of clothes had all been distributed, and I gave my spare boots and shoes to the older boys who helped me." Grown-ups in Yugoslavia play games too, but an element of passion appears to enter into them which is lacking in more sophisticated countries. This same Scouter who had lavished such care upon the children found himself one Sunday called upon to provide transport for a party of soldiers. "Having done so, we found they were a football team going to a match. The game started and all went well until the ball burst. We were asked to repair the puncture from our repair outfit. This meant a walk of half a mile to the truck but we started off and . . . set to work on the ball. People began to run past us, but we took no notice and started back with the ball. Then we found that a riot had broken out among the players. One had called the captain of the team a name which is a deadly insult here and he retaliated by drawing a gun on his fellow-player. Order was only restored by planting a machine-gun in one corner of the field so that it covered all the players.... People told us afterwards they were sorry we had seen such an outburst of temper." These Scouters were part of the team sent to the Middle East in September and November, 1944, which had been preceded by seven Scouts acting individually. They and the teams after them laboured among boys in refugee camps in Egypt, Palestine and Syria, helped to repatriate Greeks from the Holy Land to the isles of the Ægean and Dodecanese, and found much to do in Cyprus. The remainder of the Scout teams chose North-west Europe for the scene of their labours, which were divided into three main phases: first-aid, emergency relief, and the rehabilitation phase. In September, 1944, the first Scouts' International Relief Service team landed on the beaches at Arromanches and followed the Canadian Army right through North-west Europe. They helped in the evacuation of civilians from Calais and Dunkirk, and of the sick and wounded from hospitals during the "mopping-up" operations in the Scheldt pocket and the island of Walcheren. They were in charge of a transit camp at Nijmegen through which passed thousands of Dutch civilians forced to leave their farms, fields and cities Page 108 The Left Handshake which had now become a battlefield. In March and April, 1945, the war was nearing its end and the nature of the work underwent a change. All relief teams concentrated their efforts on the "Western Bounders." This was not a snobbish description of their birth or manners but the official name given to the Allied nationals whose one aim was to get back home as soon as they could after years of forced labour in Germany. The duty of the relief teams was to feed, clothe and delouse these rejoicing but needy people and to answer the innumerable questions they asked. The rehabilitation phase began immediately before the German surrender in North-west Europe. The relief teams provided or issued the first essential items of food and clothing required by the Allied nationals whose homes lay in the rear of the advancing armies. Most of this work was carried out in North and West Holland, and three teams of Scouters were there to help, two of them labouring from March till June, 1946, when they moved on to Germany. The third team, consisting of four Scouters, was attached as orderlies to a Girl Guides' hospital section. Their activities and those of the other volunteer welfare organisations were carried on under the direction of the Civil Affairs Officers of the British Army, one of whom was heard to sigh with relief when he discovered that the Scouters were grown men. He had been told that he was to be helped by Boy Scouts and had been wondering what his attitude should be towards a collection of eager small boys. Throughout this period, and indeed all the way through France, Holland and Belgium, the Scout relief teams, of which each member wore the Scout badge, aroused the delighted friendship of their brother Scouts who, during the long years of the Occupation, had contrived to keep the Scouting Movement alive. When at last they reached Germany a task of overwhelming proportions met them. Dotted all over that country were camps of every kind, Prisoner-of-War, Internment, Concentration, Displaced Persons. In these were many hundreds of thousands of demoralised people, hungry, dirty, diseased. The army authorities acted with resolution and dispatch, but even after many had eventually been sent to their homes, or at least to the country where these had once stood, there still remained a vast number whose fate could not be permanently determined and who in 1948 were still displaced persons likely to remain so for a long time. In the British Zone of Germany alone, before 1945 was out, there were more than half a million who were living there either because it had been found impossible to repatriate them or because they had refused to return to their native land, by then under the heel of another conqueror. The greatest part of them were and continued to be Poles, nationals of the Baltic States, Ruthenians and Ukranians. In the French and American Zones the numbers were equally large. It was these unhappy people who constituted and still constitute the most difficult problem. All that the Scout relief teams and those other organisations could do to help them was very small compared with the huge sum of their misery. Herded in evil-smelling camps where cooking, heating and sanitation were more primitive than are to be found among the most savage people of Darkest Africa, they could look to no one save the Allies for food and clothing. Scouters, among other relief workers, were called upon to distribute such quantities of these as were available and to supervise the general administration of the camps. The Scouters, by now men of experience in this mass form of charity, took up the task with all the energy at their command. A member of the S.I.R.S. wrote the following: "…The Scout teams are running camps throughout this winter, camps for which they are directly responsible to the Military Government. Running a camp is just like being a sort of Town Council. A Scout team has to supervise the ordering and issue of rations, of clothing, of special supplies for mothers and babies, coal (of which there is very little) and wood (which Polish work parties cut for themselves in the nearby forests). Then someone has to deal with complaints and answer questions on every subject you can think of. One Scout — possibly one of the lady Cubmasters who are now working with the teams — will be responsible for the camp hospital, which often has to be carried on with no full-time doctor available. Another will keep the trucks and ambulance fit for the road day and night in all weathers and on terrible roads. Yet another is in charge of cleanliness and sanitation. One will get a school going for the Page 109 The Left Handshake children, and several will devote an hour or two a day to giving handicraft or English lessons not only to children but to adults as well. No: I do not know any one in S.I.R.S. who knows the Polish language, but we get the job done with a mixture of German and good luck, and when the difficulties, come the old 'smile and whistle' goes a long way." As soon as a team arrived at a camp — it might contain as many as 30,000 souls — it would first try to gauge its atmosphere. Contact with the camp-leaders would be made. (It was always easy, the teams averred, to pick out the one or two outstanding personalities in a camp who would be the leaders); then the team would be split up and one Scouter put on to each of the following duties: food, sanitation; registration and keeping of records; accommodation; transport; liaison between the displaced persons, the Civil Affairs headquarters, etc. The remainder would fit in where most needed. Scouting was never officially begun in these camps, but in many the inmates themselves would start on their own or the members of the Scout Relief teams would strive to improve the morals and discipline of the hundreds of unruly children by introducing some form of Scouting work. A director of an UNRRA assembly team at Lubeck started Scouting immediately and wrote to England to ask for books to give the boys. He also reported that forty-five Poles in a camp at Lubeck had formed themselves into a Rover patrol and had appointed a provisional committee to organise Scouting amongst all the Polish boys in Germany except those living in the Russian Zone. There were, they thought, about 4,000 boys in the immediate neighbourhood of Lubeck. These Rovers were full of enthusiasm. "They had not, they said, lit a straw fire easily kindled and as easily dying out." Theirs was not a whim or a passing fancy. They were "forty-year-old men who thought soberly and soundly," and wished to raise the moral tone of Polish youth because it had suffered badly during the war years owing to the entire lack of any education and the shocking living conditions and atmosphere in which these children had been brought up. One of the first cares besetting a Relief team on entering a camp was the problem of the children. "Twenty-two boys (Poles) live in this stable which they have transformed into their home, and the other boys of the camp (who live with their families) meet them here in what has become a flourishing Youth Club.... Next door is theatre, built up from nothing by the Poles with material rummaged from all over the place. ... There are frequent concerts by local talent.... We step aside for a moment into the Chapel, where Mass is said regularly by a Polish priest who was at Dachau. Only those who saw the dank, dirty stable as it was six months ago can really appreciate what has been done to bring such an atmosphere into this camp Chapel; and we pay tribute to the Polish artist who has painted such wonderful frescoes.... So has an ordered life been built up among a crowd of people 'dumped' into a German camp. We do not claim it as anything wonderful, but it is typical of the sometimes slow, but always steady, work that is going on in these camps; when a team is with a group of D.P.s long enough to establish friendship, it can show them that life can be good . . . and do a little at least to supplement the early sheer physical relief with more intangible, but equally necessary, mental and moral welfare. That we have done something is, we feel, shown in the attitude of the Poles who, after an initial outburst, remained calm in face of a threatened removal to another camp. 'We will go,' said the Polish leader at length, 'if the British Scouts can go with us.'" The Polish Rovers at Lubeck were by no means the only displaced persons who turned to Scouting as the solution to their troubles. The report of the American, Harry K. Eby, on Scouting in the displaced persons' camps of the United States Zone shows that by 1946 seven major nationalities had established Scout Committees and were doing their utmost to supervise the work of their groups throughout the zone and in places beyond it. The programme which they drew up, consisting as it did of training courses, conferences, the collection of literature, the publishing of Scout magazines and the passing of tests for badges, was, he notes, comprehensive and of fine quality. At Camp Esslingen, for example, he discovered that 165 Latvian Scouters had drawn up a well-planned programme for training Scoutmasters, Scouters Page 110 The Left Handshake and Commissioners, while at Augsburg the Ukrainian Scouts to the number of 728 had celebrated the thirty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Scouting in their country. Russian Scouts of the Greek Orthodox Church had built up "an extensive and long-standing organisation," and the Poles and White Ruthenians in the zone were equally active. These various organisations were fortunate enough to receive a supply of Scout literature from the World Friendship Fund which, among other books, sent several hundred copies of Aids to Scoutmastership. They were much appreciated. "Dear Friend, " To-day we received from you seeded books. I real was good serpraised. These books we call in I.S.A. Librery therefor that from this place the books can take ever from our scout leader and scout. The books are very necessary to scouts friendship to You and other scouts brothers in America always let be so hard and true, then that would be our greatest success. "Always prepared! "A. ZEMGALS, "Your District Scoutmaster." The spelling and grammar may be a trifle shaky, but the gratitude is evident. The collection of Scout magazines and periodicals made by Mr. Eby during his extensive tour "were many of them unbelievable in their composition, lay-out and art work, and just how all this was possible is hard to understand except for the zeal and ingenuity of those involved." The Troop meeting-rooms, of which several camps possessed more than one, "had been decorated in fine Scout fashion and many were real works of art with rustic woodwork . . . and decorations." Mr. Eby was gratified, as all sane persons must be, to find that there was strong evidence in each national group of the desire, indeed determination, to get into touch with other groups, so much so that an International Scouting Association had been established which was responsible in the autumn of 1946 for a widely-attended International Rally at Augsburg. Most remarkable of all was the wish expressed by the Displaced Persons' Scouting Groups to meet groups of German Scouts as soon as they were formed. A number of such meetings had taken place, with good results. Scout uniforms were made mostly in the camp workshops or the huts, out of German Army and Hitler Youth uniforms. Each nationality developed a set of badges distributed by the appropriate committee. Mr. Eby concludes with some remarkable figures. In the U.S. Zone by the beginning of 1947 there were between 12,000 and 15,000 Boy Scouts and Scout leaders. Of these the Poles, Latvians and Lithuanians contributed the largest number, the White Ruthenians the smallest. Only the Jewish Displaced Persons stood aloof. "Most of all have I been impressed," runs the last paragraph of his report, "by the vitality of a programme which grips these people as Scouting has and by the vitality of a people who, while facing difficulties and hardships, with little hope at times, give much unstinted devotion to their youth. Scouting is reaching a high percentage of their youth, seventy and eighty in places. It has become a natural and accustomed part of their lives. As they establish their schools, kindergartens, churches and workshops, they automatically set up their Scout programme." Scouting continues among the displaced persons in the French and British Zones in Germany, having followed the same lines as those which have proved so successful in the United States Zone. "Our best effort was quite unintentional," reports the British Governor of a colony of 15,000 Poles housed in eight villages close to Minden. "A few weeks ago I discovered a few Boy Scouts and arranged a meeting for them. We have now got 800 Scouts and about 400 Girl Guides, with a waiting list of as many again. They are as keen as mustard. When I went to a German clothing manufacturer and ordered a thousand Scout uniforms he thought I was mad but he made them." Page 111 The Left Handshake Common to all three zones have been the general meetings between the leaders which have taken place at Augsburg in Bavaria, at Gesslingen in Wurtemburg, and other places throughout the length and breadth of Germany, save in those parts of that country under the administration of Soviet Russia. The ground has been well dug, the seed sown, and the field is green with promise. Of all displaced persons, those of Polish origin perhaps have been the most widely scattered. Polish refugees fled to Hungary, Roumania, Yugoslavia, even to Persia. They came there in 1932 from Russia, where they had been interned after the partition of their country two years before. Some of them found work on that remarkable railway connecting the Persian Gulf with the Caspian Sea which formed the main line of supply from the outside world to Russia, others existed miserably in camps which were "just sites in the desert," for the Persians were quite unprepared for this horde of men, women and children belonging to a race of which few of them had ever heard. On the high, bare plateau of Central Persia, cold in winter, savagely hot in summer, they lived a life of great hardship, especially the children and the young people and girls. "They had no clothes, no food, no facilities for education, no morality. They were wild, unkempt, little gipsies." But here, too, Scouting raised its head. A number of young Scouters organised a camp for children where they could play games, learn lessons, and where those who were afflicted with typhoid, dysentery, malaria and other diseases — a large number — could be given some kind of hospital treatment. The Scouts who became schoolmasters were handicapped by a total lack of books or paper, pen or ink. They taught from memory, using a pointed stick and the sand of the desert as a blackboard. Presently camp-fires were lit, plays performed, and since the children were now happy, the spirits of the adults rose. "Afterwards it was said by many people," the report modestly records, "that if it had not been for Scouting the situation would have been very much more serious." The most fortunate of the Poles found themselves, by the middle of 1942, far away from Europe in Northern Rhodesia. Their advent caused something of a flutter, but Mr. H. F. Cartmel-Robinson, the Commissioner, was equal to the occasion. There were, he was informed, Scouts among the boys and girls, and one of them had been a Troop Leader. He was called upon at once to form a Troop and did so at Livingstone, where the Polish Scouts trained side by side with their younger British brothers. A Rally was held which they attended, and they became "extremely popular throughout the camp.... Their singing was very good. They learned the English words of the songs and taught the British Scouts Polish songs.... I was greatly impressed with the fine spirit of comradeship between them both, despite the language difficulties. It was a fine example of Scout brotherhood." This was the first Troop and others were formed as more Polish boys and girls arrived, the kind-hearted Commissioner urging every one to "extend a welcome to these unfortunate people who have suffered such terrible misfortunes. I appeal," he went on, "to all Scouts and Scouters to help them in every way." The appeal did not fall on deaf ears. At Lusaka there were soon 88 Polish Scouts and 102 Guides and Brownies. The Polish Commissioners in London were eager for them to become good Scouts and to this end felt that the help given by British Scouts in their training would be invaluable. They had no need for apprehension. Both nations took easily and readily to each other, and the history of Polish Scouting in Rhodesia is an altogether happy one. Other Polish children went still farther afield to the blue hills and blue skies of New Zealand, where they were warmly welcomed by the native Scouts, who were shocked at their appearance. "It was rather pitiful to see the aged and anxious expressions on some of the very young faces and also to see how shortage of food and improper care had reduced them considerably in vitality." The hospitality given was such that these marks of privation soon disappeared. They were established "in an old military camp specially adapted for their use in wide open country where there are plenty of trees on the one hand and a vista of low blue hills on the other." Here, too, all became well, and similar good fortune befell the Jewish Displaced Persons who arrived in the island of Mauritius early in 1941. Before very long, four Patrols among them had been started and Page 112 The Left Handshake these Scouts were provided each with a white shirt, a royal blue scarf, a pair of blue shorts, and a white forage cap pending the arrival of Scouts' hats." Such reports as these shed a bright ray of hope across a Europe reduced by two wars in one generation to a condition of slavery and destitution unknown since the Dark Ages. It was in those times that the influence of religion and the slow rise of chivalry gradually made themselves felt and eventually produced happier days. What will take the place of those influences to-day it would be unwise to conjecture, but it is safe to say that Scouting, with all it means, with all the joys and responsibilities it brings to youth at the most impressionable age, must be, and will remain, a principal factor in that physical and moral recovery which Europe must achieve if she is to survive. It is a very sound form of "Assurance" which the nations would do well to take out as quickly and as lavishly as possible. Page 113 The Left Handshake Chapter VIII REFORMATION Scouting in the Defeated Countries T HE TIME IS undoubtedly nearer when we must prepare ourselves to carry out the most important duty that lies ahead, that of restoring goodwill and fellowship throughout a world divided by enmity and hate. There are Scouts on both sides in the present conflict. Those of us who are on the side of the United Nations preponderate in number. We believe in the justice of our cause. We believe in the freedom of peoples and more particularly in the freedom of the individual.... Those who fight for their countries on the Axis side are not to be condemned. Many are forced to do so. Many believe in the justice of their cause. By reason of this they have not forfeited the right to our consideration and to our future friendship. "When war ceases our first feeling will be one of infinite thankfulness. Our work will not be finished. In truth the work we can do as Scouts will only recommence. The first question, 'What can we do to help our allies who have suffered more than we ourselves have done?' is already engaging our attention. . . . When we set ourselves to solve it, we shall find ourselves confronted by another question, 'What can we do to help those against whom we have been ranged, in order that peace and goodwill amongst men can be the better insured?'" So runs part of an editorial published in the issue for November, 1942, of Jamboree, the journal of World Scouting. This opinion is in strict accord with the practice and preaching of Baden-Powell himself, who died only a year before it was written. It is but right and proper that this history of Scouts and Scouting in war should be concerned mainly with the exploits, hardships, triumphs and loyalties of British and Dominion Scouts and of their staunch comrades in Allied countries. Yet to portray them and them alone in their long, arduous and successful struggle to uphold the principles laid down by the founder is to paint an incomplete picture. There were Scouts in the Axis countries too, and all in them who sought to follow the Scout Law have always been recognised and encouraged by their brethren in more fortunate lands. For Scouting, being international, can take no account of race or creed, colour or boundary, right or left. Those who profess and practice it know no unclimbable barrier shutting off the victors from the vanquished, the sheep from the goats. Rubber truncheons are not part of a Scout's equipment and iron curtains have no place in his camp. Even before the war, to discover and keep in touch with a Boy Scout Movement in Germany was not easy. Scouting as preached and practiced by its founder does not seem to appeal to the Teutonic temperament, perhaps because it has always laid great stress on personal freedom and individual initiative. Nevertheless, continuous efforts were made between 1920 and 1933 to establish in Germany a Scout Movement which could be regarded as a national organisation with aims, principles and methods of a standard which would permit its registration as a member of the Boy Scouts' International Conference, under which all the activities of international Scouting are carried out. Representative members of the various German Pfadfinder groups were invited as guests to the Second World Jamboree held in Denmark in 1924, but they were still too divided to become recognised as a German Boy Scout Movement. These divisions and sub-divisions continued, despite the efforts of many individual Germans, the participation of several German Pfadfinder leaders in courses of Scout instruction at the international training centre at Gilwell Park, and the presence of representatives from two of the strongest Pfadfinder groups at the Coming-of-Age Jamboree at Arrowe Park in 1929. In 1933, with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, all German youth movements were compulsorily closed down or absorbed by the Hitler Jugend. It is known, however, that many of the more Scout-minded Pfadfinder groups continued to meet in secret and that some of their members suffered persecution and imprisonment. Despite the Gestapo, a secret Scout leaven continued to exist. Page 114 The Left Handshake When the Allied armies occupied Germany in 1945, one of the immediate problems facing them was the control of the bands of boys who were roaming the country, a menace to the maintenance of good order and discipline. One counter-measure suggested was that groups of Boy Scouts should be formed, and Scouting become an integral part of the policy pursued by the occupation authorities. This solution was firmly rejected by Scout authority, who considered it fatal to the ultimate development of an indigenous and spontaneous Scout Movement in Germany under German leadership. Such a movement might become of service to Germany and the world in from five to seven years. The difficulties, however, of promoting and encouraging it proved very great. Not only did the pre- Nazi past, with its record of division and uncertainty, stand in the way, but conquered Germany had been divided into four zones under four different masters who soon, under the stress of peace, lost the unity they had acquired in war. In the Eastern Zone under the dominion of Soviet Russia no Scouting, as understood by the followers of Baden-Powell, was possible. The organisation called the Free German Youth was political in aspect from the beginning and has remained so. In the French Zone permission was given to form Scout Groups on a local basis but the boys do not —this is being written in 1948—as yet wear uniform and "only at a later stage may a federal organisation be started." In the British Zone the authorities decided that, for the time being, Scouting should be excluded from the educational and rehabilitation programme, the main reason being the fear that Germans may use Scouting as a cover for the perpetuation of the Hitler Jugend. Only in the American Zone was Scouting encouraged from the start, but it has to be carried on under American supervision. Here, as in the whole of Germany before 1933, divisions began at once to show themselves and still continue. Altogether the prospects of Scouting in Germany among German youth, as opposed to displaced, are not at present very bright. Nevertheless in the summer of 1947 the decision was taken to allow the training of German Scout Leaders in the British Zone. The National Scout Associations of the Occupying Forces and Control Commissions in the three Western Zones began to give what assistance lay in their power to the German Scouts who, despite internal dissension and external discussion, continue to grow in number. The help consists in the provision of facilities for training, by advice to the Control Education and Youth Activities Branches, and by the supply of literature and a limited amount of equipment. After an interregnum of fourteen years there is naturally a great shortage of Scout equipment such as tents, cooking gear, etc. Much remains to be done to bring about the resurrection and rehabilitation of Scouting in Germany. In the past it certainly opened a way of friendship to German youth, and it was not the fault of Scouts in other countries that that way was barred; World Scouting looks forward to the time when it may be possible to secure some recognised and registered Association of German Scouts. It is too early yet to descry the form such an Association may take, federal or some other. But it is the intention to create it. That is the aim, the plan. The two parallel Scout Associations in Italy of Corpo Nazionale Giovani Esploratori Italiani and Associazione Scoutistica Cattolica Italiana were Foundation Members of the Boy Scouts' International Conference in 1920. Italian Scouting continued to thrive and to be an important factor in the development of the individual characters of Italian boys until 1928, when Benito Mussolini founded the "Ballila" and abolished all other organisations save this State Youth Movement. A certain number of the Scout methods of training were adopted or adapted for the Ballila programme, but all opportunities for individual expression were suppressed. Scouting, however, continued sub rosa. There is even evidence to show that Scout meetings took place in the room above the famous balcony overlooking the Piazza Venetia. A strong Rover Scout Crew was maintained in Milan; old Scouts continued to meet as simple gatherings of friends; Italian priests going out as missionaries to Africa went through courses of training at Gilwell Page 115 The Left Handshake Park. As was natural and possible, Scouts continued to meet in the Vatican City, and many a Scout conference, forbidden elsewhere in the Axis countries, took place there. Thus the spirit of Scouting never died in Italy. It was handed from friend to friend, from father to son, from elder brother to younger brother. Italian Scouts were present, again sub rosa, in twos and threes at the successive World Jamborees at Arrowe Park in 1929, at Gödöllö in Hungary in 1933 and at Vogelensang in Holland in 1937. The Chief Scout of the World, Baden-Powell, was introduced to one at Vogelensang, who afterwards was the leader of the "Aquila Randaggia" in Milan, a group that played a large part in the Italian partisan fighting in the North of Italy and was the means of helping many Allied soldiers and airmen to escape into Switzerland. This group of men was composed almost entirely of Old Scouts who, at the risk and sometimes with the loss of their lives, maintained the spirit of Scouting and freedom. In Sicily Scouting sprang up again as soon as the Allies had freed the island. From the dark recesses of church crypts where they had lain for fifteen years, Scout flags were brought once more into the streets, and Scout badges, some worn by their owners, some by their late owners' sons, flashed in the strong sunlight. Such scenes were repeated everywhere on the Italian mainland as field by field and town by town Freedom stumbled slowly northward. When Rome was taken and Scout Councils could be held once more, application was made to the Boy Scouts' International Bureau for the re-registration of the two Associations, who had in the meantime agreed to form one united federation. In 1944 Italian Scouts were readmitted into the World Brotherhood under the Federazione Esploratori Italiani, and in 1947 their numbers had risen to 65,000. In May of that year the Director of the Boy Scouts' International Bureau paid a ten-days' visit to Italy in the course of which he met with considerable numbers of Scouts in Vicenza, Venice, Milan, Brunate, Como, Bologna, Florence, Naples, Pompei, Castellamare, Bari and Rome. He found, as he expected, that the standards of Scouting differed between place and place, and to a lesser degree between the members of the two Associations. It was in Rome and its neighbourhood that its development had been most complete, with Milan a very close second and Bari and Venice only a short distance behind. Its popularity in Bari owed a great deal to the activities and encouragement given by a British Services Rover Crew, still remembered with gratitude, whose handiwork was apparent in the headquarters of various Troops. The Pope expressed to the Director of the International Bureau his great appreciation of Scouting and its influence on the character and moral fibre of the young. It was of the greatest importance, particularly at the present moment, when every force making for good had to be upheld and strengthened. He permitted his message of appreciation to be given to all Scouts throughout the world, irrespective of their religious beliefs, and gave his blessing to World Scouting. Scouting could not ask for higher praise or encouragement. There is always the danger that a compulsory system of youth education may be attracted by the Scout method. Mussolini used it in the Ballila, and it is an obvious weapon in the armoury of a dictator. Against this danger Baden-Powell continually sounded a warning note: "Scouting is caught, not taught," he said. "Scouting comes from within — it is not imposed from without." Scouting has grown and spread with a natural spontaneity not foreseen by its founder. No efforts were ever made to force its growth; no propaganda campaign was launched. Nowhere more than in Italy has the truth of this phenomenon been more strikingly illustrated. Everywhere in that country, as soon as Fascism was destroyed, Scouting raised its head and proved that it could rise again of its own free will and that there was no need to force the growth. Austria, like Italy, had been a Founder Member of the Boy Scouts International Conference. Austrian Scouts of the two recognised Associations — Oesterreichischer Pfadfinder and Oesterreichisches Pfadfinderkorps St. George — had taken part in all international gatherings and conferences. Then in Page 116 The Left Handshake 1938 came the Anschluss to make the end of Scouting in Austria. A determined attack was made on the members and property of both Associations; headquarters were wrecked, Scouters were imprisoned and sent to confinement camps where many of them died. Some, however, escaped and carried on their Scouting in other countries, of which more than one owe the present standard and standing of their Scouting to Austrian Scout refugees. As the result of this persecution there was only a handful of former Scout leaders to be found in Austria when she was freed in 1945, but they immediately began to plan for the revival of Austrian Scouting. First they decided that it was contrary to the spirit of Scouting to have two separate national associations, and therefore formed a single united Boy Scouts organisation. Despite the encouragement afforded by public opinion, which wholeheartedly supported the revival of a national Scout organisation, it was a year before any steps could be taken to secure readmission to the International Scout Organisation, for the division of the country into four separate occupied zones hampered development. The educational organisations of the three Western Control Commissions were encouraging and helpful, but meetings and conferences proved difficult to arrange. A National Conference was, however, held in Vienna in the first week-end of November, 1946, and received the good news that the Boy Scouts of Austria had again been admitted to full membership of the Boy Scouts' International Conference. By the spring of 1947 there were about 5,000 Boy Scouts in the three Western Zones of Austria, and great care was and is being taken to ensure that their leadership is sound. Baden- Powell's advice — "Softlee softlee catchee monkey" — is the watchword of the Scout authorities. In Austria, as in Italy, the value of Old Scouts has been proved, and these have provided a sound foundation on which the building of Scouting can be raised again. Many of the present Austrian Scouters were prisoners-of-war in Allied countries. A small but good Austrian contingent attended the Jamboree of Peace in France in August, 1947, and the Austrian Chief Scout has been elected as a member of the new Boy Scouts' International Committee. Austria and Italy have both been helped by the knowledge that they have precisely the same standing in World Scouting as any other country. In that world there are no big powers, no small powers. Each "Scout" country, whatever its size, has the same number of representatives with the same powers as any other Scout country, and in Scout circles Liechtenstein and the United States of America are on an equal footing. Hungary joined the International Scout Brotherhood before the Second World Jamboree of 1924. On that occasion the Hungarian Troop took fourth place in the International Competition, which was a unique feature of that Jamboree. Hungarian Scouting had had a successful start and remained flourishing until the outbreak of the Second World War. Count Paul Teleki, the Honorary Chief Scout and Jamboree Camp Chief at Gödöllö in 1933, for many years a member of the International Committee, was its greatest figure. The difficulties with which he had to contend have been mentioned in Chapter III, and he dealt with them in the manner of a man bred in a tradition hardly intelligible to a generation taught by two wars to hate their enemies and to use any and every means to overcome them. In 1940 the Scouts of Hungary were much exercised by the provisions of the Fourth Scout Law — "A Scout is a friend to all, and a brother to every other Scout, no matter to what country, class or creed the other may belong." "How," said many of the Hungarian Scouts, "could they regard the enemies of their country as their brothers?" Count Teleki told them. "In 1914," he said, "I entered Macsva with the Kraus Army. I was by the first military bridge thrown over the Sava. Behind me were some old Hussars, men of the Frontier Guard. I heard one say to his comrades, his pipe between his teeth, 'These Serbs are really brave enemies. It is a pleasure to fight against them.' So it is that when I face a man who is fighting for his country honestly and conscientiously, I feel there is some kind of a spiritual bond between us. I look on him in a curious kind of way as my comrade and my brother. In the same way the Old Hussar spoke from the depths of his Hungarian soul of the enemy worthy of him. When we say that every other Scout is our brother we presuppose that those who are our present enemies are faithfully serving their own country, in all honour, as their Scout duty. He who does not so serve is not a Scout and not our brother. I esteem as myself him who is honestly serving the needs of his country. I subscribe wholeheartedly to this Page 117 The Left Handshake Scout Law." Whatever view may be taken of these sentiments they were those of an honest and honourable man. After Paul Teleki's death the Hungarian Scout Organisation continued to exist, but its leadership was changed and it acquired a certain taint of fascism. The Association was, however, still upon the register of the International Bureau although information about it was hard to come by. In the summer of 1946 the Association was dissolved by decree of the Hungarian Government but after a very short interval was allowed to start afresh. This break made it necessary for the International Committee to conduct a number of difficult investigations, but it finally resolved, in May, 1947, to regard the present Scout organisation in Hungary — Magyar Cserkeszfiuk Szövetsege — as the heir to the former recognised Association, and invited the Hungarian Scouts to attend the Jamboree of Peace and the Boy Scouts' Eleventh International Conference held in the following August. A Hungarian contingent and delegation were accordingly present at Moisson, and the Conference unanimously confirmed the Committee's decision. The present muster of Scouts in Hungary is given as 30,000 as against some 60,000 in 1939. The number of Scouts in Bulgaria in 1939 was slightly over 6,000. They also had been in existence before 1920, but the Movement came to an end during the war, has not been revived since, and no information has been received from any of the former leaders. But by the end of 1947 two separate contacts had been made with former Scouts. The Roumanian Boy Scouts were one of the first to be registered with the International Bureau. They were fostered by ex-King Carol, and ex-King Michael, his heir, was a member and, while being educated in England, took part in several Scout gatherings. In October, 1937, however, King Carol founded the Straja Tarii (Guardian of the Country) as a united Roumanian Youth Movement, based on the same ideas and system as those followed by the Boy Scout Movement. The Straja Tarii coordinated all the youth organisations in the country, including the Boy Scouts; but, while acknowledging their debt of gratitude to the Chief Scout and to Scouting, presently felt unable to remain as a registered Association of the Boy Scouts' International Bureau. An agreement of reciprocity was, however, signed in 1938 and a representative delegate of the Straja Tarii was present at the Tenth Biennial International Conference at Edinburgh in July, 1939. Roumania was subsequently induced to enter the Axis camp, and communications were cut. Since the end of hostilities one or two messages from former Roumanian Scouts expressing a determination to revive Scouting have been received, but, with Bulgaria, the country remains aloof and cut off behind the iron curtain. A Scout Movement was recognised in Japan under the name of Dai Nippon Syonendan Renmei. Comparatively little was known of its true character, but very Scout-like contingents from Japan attended the successive World Jamborees. One of their leaders was for some years a member of the Boy Scouts' International Committee. In 1937 the number of Japanese Scouts was given as 36,000, but by 1939 they had evidently suffered a sharp fall for only some 3,000 Scouts were reported to be still active. By then, as in every country which embraced totalitarian ideas, a State Youth Movement had been formed and Scouts gradually or forcibly incorporated into it. It is known that a few individual Scout leaders survived the ban, and recent news shows that they are intent on reviving Scouting again. Scouting in Korea has shown signs of revival, but it is too early yet to determine whether that revival is along real Scout lines. In Japan itself a few groups have been formed and it is hoped that permission to form more may be given in due course. Japanese Scouts, boys and men, proved themselves very adept at the methods and practice of Scouting activities, and in the old days gave proof that many of them had grasped its spirit. The revival of that spirit is as necessary to the future welfare of Japan as it is to that of other defeated countries in which the virus of Fascism has wrought such harm. Scouting, with its emphasis on the freedom of the individual, on training boys to see, think and act for themselves, is incompatible with the idea that the individual is the servant of the State and that the State is all. It was logical, therefore, that a Page 118 The Left Handshake State governed on totalitarian lines had inevitably to forbid the fulfilment of Scouting's aim and the practice of its principles and methods. Now that the disease of Fascism has been scotched, Scouting would seem to be an obvious prophylactic against its recurrence. Page 119 The Left Handshake Chapter IX ENTHUSIASM The Boy Scout Movement and its Meaning P LATO maintained that it is a "education in virtue from youth upwards, which makes a man passionately desire to be the perfect citizen, and teaches him how rightly to rule and how to obey." What, then, is this movement which in all the bravery of youth, guided by the enterprise of its founder, set out almost without realising it to conquer the world? What power and purpose is there in Scouting which was able to sustain those who practiced it during years of imprisonment, torture and oppression by an alien people, and gave them resolution to fight and endurance to the end? Why has it established a partnership of men and boys whose happiness lies in the assurance that they can and do support and sustain each other? Why is Scouting generally regarded as an important factor in the education and reformation of Nazi and Fascist youth? Why does it arouse among so many such enthusiasm and devotion? Each of the questions here asked contains one or more of the chapter headings used in this book. Not one of them is out of place. They denote the ideals for which Scouting stands or the service which it renders. It is perhaps in the happy combination of both that the strength of the Boy Scout lies. Scouting is a game for boys, a job for men — "a school of citizenship through woodcraft," B-P. described it — and though it may not outwardly appear so, the stakes played for are high, nothing less than the training of a boy to take, not a place, but his place in a civilisation among the most complex the world has hitherto known. The normal desires of a boy are given a practical and attractive outlet, and in this way his character receives an impress which, as this book has striven to show, is of a quality made to last. As a rule he is unaware of what lies behind his training; to him it is a game played with friends, sometimes exciting, sometimes puzzling, at all times absorbing. It is only when he grows up that he may realise that his teachers were trying to make it easier for him to become "the good man;" that Kalos Kagathos, who was the Greeks' ideal, the possessor of "virtue," that quality by which the Romans set such store, "a man of honour, self-disciplined and self-reliant, willing and able to serve the community." From the outset the boy is set a standard of conduct which, when it was first published, aroused the mirth of a few, the praise of many and, now that it has been tested literally in the fires of torture, the admiration of all. This is the Scout Law: 1. A Scout's honour is to be trusted. 2. A Scout is loyal to the King, his Country, his Scouters, his parents, his employers, and to those under him. 3. A Scout's duty is to be useful, and to help others. 4. A Scout is a friend to all, and a brother to every other Scout, no matter to what country, class or creed the other may belong. 5. A Scout is courteous. 6. A Scout is a friend to animals. 7. A Scout obeys the orders of his parents, Patrol Leader, or Scoutmaster, without question. 8. A Scout smiles and whistles under all difficulties. 9. A Scout is thrifty. 10. A Scout is clean in thought, word and deed. And here is the Scout Promise, which he makes on joining: Page 120 The Left Handshake "On my honour I promise that I will do my best: To do my duty to God, and the King. To help other people at all times. To obey the Scout Law." The order of these promises is important. "Duty to God" is the basis of religion, and though the Scout Movement itself is not committed to any one creed, the boys are encouraged to fulfil their obligations if they are already members of a church or cult. "Duty to the King" sums up that sense of responsibility to the community which it is the primary aim of Scouting to develop. The wording of this promise is different in those countries without a monarchy but the essential idea, loyalty to those in authority, remains. The daily good turn — probably the best-known feature of the Scout Movement — is the first step towards learning how "to help other people," how, in fact, to acquire and practice that virtue called unselfishness, so much belauded, so rarely encountered. The Law and Promise are not learnt by rote but by practice. Boys and many adults learn more by doing things than by listening. It is a fundamental principle of Scouting that the boy, by striving to attain the ideal set before him, should learn to discipline himself. Once he has made his Promise, it is assumed that he will carry it out to the best of his ability, and this assumption is a great strengthener of resolve. Moreover, the Patrol system, under which the boys of a Troop are divided into small units or Patrols of from six to eight, in charge of a Patrol Leader, lends effective support to the insouciant who has hitherto been inclined to take a promise lightly. The Patrol Leader is given considerable responsibility in the training of the members of his Patrol, and with the other Patrol Leaders, in the general organisation of the Troop. Patrol Leaders form a Court of Honour which meets regularly to plan and discuss the Troop's activities. During the early stages of training, the Scoutmaster does much of the work, but as the Troop becomes more experienced he must and does leave much to his Patrol Leaders. The success of this method is strewn by the fact that during the war Troops found little difficulty in maintaining their activities under Patrol Leaders when their Scoutmasters had left to join the Forces. The Patrol system satisfies the instinct of boys to combine together in a gang or secret society, harmless or harmful according to their surroundings and the conditions of their family life. Scouting turns this instinct to good account, unashamedly offering to the Patrol romance and adventure, a uniform, exciting expeditions, Mercutio's world of "breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades" transmuted into make-belief which has yet the stuff of experience in it and breeds self-reliance, courage and resource. The first business of a Scoutmaster is to see that this natural craving for romance and adventure is satisfied. This may seem an impossible task in the mean streets of a great town, but experience has proved that the Scoutmaster with a touch of imagination can satisfy this need within the framework of the activities suggested in Scouting for Boys, whatever the surroundings of the Troop may be. No one can really understand the Movement without reading that book carefully. A glance at the titles of the "CampFire Yarns" indicates the general nature of the practical training: Life in the Open, Pioneering, Camping, Observation, Stalking Animals, Plants, Healthgiving Habits.... A Scout is not taught these subjects as set lessons or lectures. They are all part of a great game with all the fun which the playing of it indoors or outdoors brings, and all the companionship. Scouting is primarily an outdoor game, and on Saturday afternoons, summer evenings, during week-ends and at the annual camp, the boy becomes the real Scout, skilled to care for himself, attentive to the lore of the woods and fields of which he learns ever more and more with each expedition, a hunter as mighty as Nimrod, and in winter when the games must be played indoors, a contriver as wily as Ulysses. A system of badges leads a Scout from one practical achievement to another. The badges are of two kinds — those given for efficiency and those for proficiency. They are very numerous and much coveted. Page 121 The Left Handshake The first kind are gradually acquired by the Tenderfoot whose minimum age is eleven, then by the 2nd Class and finally by the 1st Class Scout. The efficiency tests must be passed to qualify for these various grades, but the Scout may acquire as well Proficiency Badges of his own choice. Certain of these are known as King's Scout Badges as they are intended to give him training in various kinds of public service; the most important are Ambulance Man, Fireman, Handyman, Pathfinder, Public Health Man, and Rescuer. Another group of badges such as the Explorer, Stalker, Tracker, Forester, Naturalist, Pioneer, Starman and Weatherman, encourages the Scout to specialise in those outdoor activities peculiar to Scouting. For gaining certain of them he is awarded the coveted Bushman's Thong. There are, too, Proficiency Badges intended to encourage boys to develop a skill or hobby, which may or may not help them to choose a livelihood, but which will certainly provide them with pleasant leisure-time pursuits. Artist, Bookbinder, Camper, Carpenter, Cook, Electrician, Engineer, Gardener, Musician, Photographer, Prospector and Wireless Man are among them. Throughout the training great attention is paid to health, and each Scout is made personally responsible for his own health and physical development. The object of this rule is not so much to provide formal physical training as to inculcate healthy habits. No encouragement is given to the development of large muscles or the performance of complicated exercises, but a Scout is strewn that health is maintained by following good bodily habits, taking exercise, eating simple food and sleeping soundly of nights. Scouting not only concerns itself with the normal boy; it is interested in the boy who may be blind, crippled, or through some physical defect unable to join in the active life of the normal boy. A scheme for Handicapped Scouts has proved very successful. By its operation such boys are enabled to take a place — often a high place — beside their more fortunate comrades. While the care and training of the boys from eleven to eighteen years of age is and will always be the first concern of the Movement, there have been various developments, the result of special needs. Younger boys desired to become Scouts, so for them the Wolf Cubs, children between the ages of eight and eleven, were formed. Their activities are set in the imaginative framework of the Mowgli stories in Kipling's Jungle Books. Older boys wished to remain in the Movement on reaching young manhood, so the Rover Scouts, who are seventeen years of age and over, were formed. Their activities are those of Scouts in a more strenuous form — hiking, climbing, pioneering, and so on. The theoretical training they receive is based on the needs of citizenship, and special emphasis is laid on personal responsibility as a member of the community. Sea Scouts devote much of their activity to boating and sailing; Air Scouts specialise in all things connecting with flying. From this brief summary it will be seen that Scout training, if persisted in, is a major influence in a boy's life from the age of eight to early manhood, one stage of training leading to the next. Two breaks are made at points which are recognised as of importance psychologically — eleven and eighteen. Boys, of course, enter and leave the Movement at varying ages, but it may safely be claimed that any boy who spends five or six years as Cub and Scout has derived considerable benefit from Scouting, even if he leaves before the Rover stage is reached. The progressive nature of the training, if he responds to it — and if he does not, his interest flags and he quits the Movement — makes him ever more and more skilled in looking after himself and enables him to discover abilities which he might never have suspected and interests he might otherwise have left unnoticed. Above and beyond all is the fact that, however long or short has been his life as a Boy Scout, he has been trained to take account of the needs and desires of his fellows and has learned something of the happiness of service. On paper the organisation of the Boy Scouts looks formidable; in practice it is simple, and based on the principle of decentralisation. The Group is the most important unit. There are two kinds: the sponsored Group which is formed in direct association with a church, school or other institution and limited to those boys attending it; and the "open" Group without such affiliations. A Group consists of a Page 122 The Left Handshake Wolf Cub Pack (8-11), Boy Scout Troop (11-15) (this may be partly or wholly of Sea Scouts or Air Scouts), Senior Scout Troop (15-18) and a Rover Scout Crew (17-25). A number of Groups form a local Association — the area covered being a matter of local convenience; a District under a Commissioner may contain one or more Local Associations. Each District is part of the County Organisation under the County Commissioner and a County Scout Council, who are the personal representatives of the Chief Scout and are responsible to him and to Imperial Headquarters in London. Each unit, from Imperial Headquarters down to the Group, must finance its own activities, following the general principle that each unit should be self-supporting. The International Bureau, formed in 1920, promotes cooperation and understanding between the Boy Scout Associations of all countries. In 1939 there were forty-seven such Associations registered by the Internationa1 Bureau, with a total membership of over 3,250,000. In 1946 the number of Associations had risen to forty-nine, and the total membership by nearly 800,000 to 4,404,927 Boy Scouts. At Gilwell Park, near Epping Forest, leaders, known as Scouters, twenty-one years of age or more, from all over the world, are trained in the methods which B-P. laid down in Scouting for Boys. From this training camp hundreds of selected Scouters have gone out to organise similar training courses in their own counties or countries, and hundreds more will do so. The place of the Scouter in the scheme of Scouting is of the highest importance. No one knew this better than the Founder himself who, from his last home in Kenya, sent this message to Scouters in 1939: "Let us, in training our Scouts, keep the higher aims in the forefront, and not let ourselves become too absorbed in the steps. Don't let the technical outweigh the moral Field efficiency, backwoodsmanship, camping, hiking, good turns, Jamboree comradeships are all means, they are not the end. "The end is character — character with a purpose. "And the purpose, that the next generation be sane in an insane world.... " . . . That the next generation be sane . . ." these are surely the operative words." Before the war Scouting was usually no more than an accompaniment to a boy's normal life, supplementing the influence of his family, his school, his friends and his general environment. There were many boys, it is true, who lacked a normal background and on whose behalf the Scoutmaster made a special effort. But, as a general rule, Scouting was still a game — to be played from the safe base of home, supported by parents who approved of Scouting because it kept their sons out of mischief, or made them cleaner, or quieter, or more interested in interesting things. With the Second World War, however, came the test. Would Scouting survive prohibition, propaganda and persecution? Occupied Europe, German concentration camps, the prisons of the Far East supplied the answer. In those dark places men, women, boys and girls throughout those years of horror maintained their faith in Scouting and drew from its ideals and traditions the strength of mind and of purpose to endure. The Promise and the Law gave them courage and steadfastness, the Scout training ability to resist. Scouting not only survived, but those practicing it greatly increased in numbers. Here are the figures: Page 123 The Left Handshake 1939 1946 Belgium 16,924 53,495 Czechoslovakia 20,000 67,200 Denmark 18,116 36,675 France 93,985 211,727 Luxembourg 2,192 4,864 Netherlands 36,212 116,000 Norway 14,934 22,534 Poland 130,541 (Unknown. About 150,000) These figures are conclusive, and in considering them it must be remembered, a most important point, that the Scout Movement was not a Resistance Movement. The aims of Scouting are instinct with peace and goodwill, and Scout organisations in all countries did their utmost to carry on the work of training the boys as Scouts. In many this work had to be done underground, and every effort, not always successful as has been seen, was made to ensure that young boys ran no danger by being Scouts. It was left to the conscience of the individual to decide in what way he could best serve his country, and if the fact that he was a Scout helped him to serve it well, no further justification is needed for Baden-Powell's insistence that the Scout must be trained in duty to God, country and neighbour. The main reason for the increase in the number of Scouts during the occupation of Europe is the simple fact that, in the years between the wars, both the adult and the youthful population of the countries concerned had a respect for the Boy Scouts. The first may not have been enthusiastic — though many of them, parents in particular, were — the boys may not have belonged — though many of them did — but when both discovered that the Boy Scout Organisation of their country was among the first victims of suppression, when they saw that in spite of this suppression Scouting continued and that those who adhered to it attained the highest standards of service, the urge to join it became great and, as the war went on, overwhelming. The importance attached by their totalitarian conquerors to youth movements, of which the sole object was to create as many young Nazis and Fascists as possible, showed how necessary it was to provide a different kind of education, one based on the principles of justice and charity. From the parents, therefore, came encouragement. To protect home life was as difficult as it was to educate their children along the lines to which they had been accustomed and which they believed to be right. To Belgian, Czech and other oppressed men and women of sober thought and clear understanding, it was obvious that the temptations and confusions with which children were faced in their countries required a counter-balance. If the home and the school could not supply this, then the Boy Scouts might. The life that children in Europe between 1940 and 1945 were compelled to live was one of Germany's major crimes against humanity, though it did not appear in the Nuremburg indictment. Homes and schools were broken up in thousands and parents and teachers disappeared — to prison, to the concentration camp, into the Resistance, or merely into hiding. Many children experienced the shock of seeing their father or elder brother at breakfast, and at supper of finding him gone, to return in a year or two perhaps, perhaps never. Others knew the agony of quisling parents whose conduct made their children a hissing and reproach to their fellows who belonged to stouter-hearted or less selfish homes. In their loneliness and confusion, what was more natural than for boys to follow the herd instinct inherent in the young and join a Scout Patrol even though it might only meet very occasionally? There was comradeship to be had and sometimes a forbidden camp in a wood under steadfast stars. Pitfalls more insidious than those dug by the Germans, strewed their path. The children of occupied countries had to learn to lie, to cheat, to steal. The moral rules, which they had learned at home or at school, became all at once invalid, not to be obeyed. Parents, schoolteachers, Scoutmasters, made a virtue of deceit. A lie might save a life or betray an enemy. Children had to learn not to repeat what they heard said at home, or, worse still, not to repeat at home what they had heard outside. To live it was necessary Page 124 The Left Handshake to cheat. To deal in the black market was often the only means of obtaining even the barest necessities. Boys were taught to use their intelligence to procure them for their family, and enjoyed exercising an ingenuity which in normal times would have landed them in gaol. At school they had to learn new subjects; the German language, the history of Nazi-ism, the duty of children to the State. At home, if their parents were "good" — in other words, if they were not quislings (and how much more difficult and confusing it was for children whose parents were) — they were encouraged to be absentees and do no work. If the teacher was "good" he encouraged children to neglect their work, for to study the text-books of the enemy was unpatriotic. Sabotage was looked on with approval. To work slowly and carelessly was an easy and safe form; to misuse tools, destroy machines, to do bad work was more dangerous. Both, however, were patriotic and as such encouraged, as was the disobedience, whenever possible, of orders; for whether reasonable or not, they had been issued by the occupying Power. By extending and continuing its fellowship, Scouting was able to make a most important contribution to the removal or alleviation of the dangers caused by this manner of life. The spirit of adventure drew the boys to Scouting; as the years went on it appeared as a "mouvement de résistance." They enjoyed the practice of deceit; the secret salute, the hidden camp, the camouflaged hike, the wearing of the forbidden scarf. They were attracted to it because it was underground and by joining it they could join in the fight against the invader. They were used wisely and well, for their leaders avoided as far as possible risking their lives. It was Scouting at its best because it turned to good purpose the evil conditions of the time; too much leisure, too little control; too many temptations, too little discipline; no possibility of travel, no change of scene; these were neutralized by sharing in the real work of resistance which the grown-ups carried on at peril of life and liberty. More than one — many more indeed — who was a Scout of thirteen or fourteen when war began, became a trusted leader of the Resistance. Though there is no military training in Scouting, Scouts learn to observe, to remark and to handle all kinds of situations. It was often observed that Maquisards who came from towns were not so efficient as the local men unless they were, or had been, Scouts. Long before the end of the war it was generally prophesied that Scouting would "rise again of its own free will and accord. There is no need to force the growth. The plant is indigenous in almost every country in the world. Here and there it may — it will — need tending and strengthening." As the armies of liberation advanced across Europe, the truth of these words became more and more apparent. "The dark curtain of oppression has been lifted from many parts of Europe," cries the voice of a liberator. "The scene disclosed is as we expected. Scouting lives and has been revitalised. It has continued to flourish despite — perhaps because of — opposition." As soon as the war ended, the Boy Scouts Association sought to maintain contact with many world organisations and bodies. The degree of liaison differed as between one body and another, and care had to be exercised to prevent Scouting from being associated with any body of a particular political complexion. Scouting worked with UNRRA in many different countries on relief and rehabilitation work; but always tried to do so directly and not through one of the numerous official or voluntary co-ordinating bodies. Friendly messages were exchanged between the International Bureau and the United Nations Organisation, and the Boy Scouts of America agreed to undertake any direct liaison with U.N.O. headquarters. The International Bureau appointed the International Commissioner of Scoutisme Francais to be liaison officer with the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris. At the moment of writing there are forty- nine Scout Associations recognised as members of the International Conference and registered with the Boy Scouts' International Bureau. They represent forty-two different countries, six fewer than in 1939. The strength of World Scouting is shown in the table appearing in Appendix II, where the total active membership of the World Scout Brotherhood can be seen. The figures are incomplete, for there is no Page 125 The Left Handshake mention of Displaced Persons Scouts or of Scouts in countries where associations have not yet been registered, but they are significant for they show how the Movement has grown. The great increase in the numbers of Scouts during the war has brought to a head the problem of finding suitable leaders and providing for their training. It will take time to solve; but the will and the men are there. "In an emergency," runs a paragraph in The Times "it is often found that resources can be drawn upon, whether physical, mental or spiritual, the possession of which has been entirely unsuspected. What is needed is the assurance that these inner resources are always there and always available, for the needs of every day as for the critical tests of emergency." That assurance, as the Jamboree of 1947 proved, is not lacking. Page 126 The Left Handshake Chapter X DEVOTION The Jamboree of Peace H E STOOD outside his tent, a golden figure against the August sky. Between his white teeth was a green apple which from time to time he removed in order to take a large, satisfying bite. Presently he lifted his head and with eyes turned to the chalk bluffs beyond the river, smiled. He was youth laughing in the sunshine and he had come 10,000 miles from the Philippines to take part in the Jamboree of Peace. It opened on 10th August, 1947, at Moisson, half-way between Paris and Rouen, and was the sixth Jamboree to be held since the foundation of Scouting. The hosts were the French Scouts, more than 10,000 of them. The request, made to them by the International Bureau in 1937 asking them to undertake this onerous but honourable task, was renewed in 1943 at a time when not a few were in prison, many in the ranks of the Resistance and all living in an atmosphere of terror and savage repression. All this was now forgotten. The world had become alive again and summer tarried to greet 40,000 whose youth, radiant and serene, might still, if man learns the lessons of two disastrous wars, proclaim the birth of a new age. On that Saturday evening, exactly forty years after the opening of the First Boy Scouts' Camp at Brownsea Island, as dusk fell, the vanguard stormed into the arena where the flagstaffs pointed lean fingers to the first bright stars. On they came out of the fifteen sub-camps, each called after a province of France, pouring down the wooden ramps of the stands, cheering and shouting in twenty languages, each nation marching down together with linked arms. The Scots Scouts behind their pipes, the Czechs behind their loudly acclaimed band, American Scouts led by two Red Indians splendidly feathered, Scouts in green and white turbans from India, Hindustan and Pakistan, who five days later celebrated in touching and happy accord the independence of their two countries, Austrians and Italians a trifle shy and embarrassed by their welcome, plumed Hungarians, fezzed Egyptians, skull-capped Swiss, Mexicans in all the splendour of serape, wide-skirted Greeks, Philippinos with straw hats, dark-skinned Moors. For three-quarters of an hour, while the day died in splendour above the pines and oak trees of the forest, nation followed nation until the great space was filled and silence fell for General Lafont, Chief Scout of France, to speak. He welcomed boys and young men come from forty-two countries to prove that brotherhood — that overworked and overvalued word — could at Moisson, as everywhere else in the Scout world, be accurately defined as the expression of comradeship and community of feeling. He ceased and presently, when the speeches of the living leaders were over and the voice of the first Chief Scout speaking, as it seemed, from beyond the grave, for his words had been recorded four years before his death, had died away, "every one suddenly burst out singing." The old songs rolled round the arena as into it were carried relics of past gatherings, among them an ember of the camp-fire lit at Vogelenzang in Holland, where in 1937 the previous Jamboree had been held. Now, ten years later, it was kindled once more and from its flame 5,000 torches were lit and held aloft in the gathering night. The Jamboree of Peace had begun and for ten days the Scouts' smile and left handshake "cut across all barriers of class, colour and creed." The setting was a shallow saucer of sand washed on one side by the swift-flowing Seine, in the midst of which, on an island, the Sea Scouts had their habitation, and on the other by a line of chalk bluffs covered with small trees. Upon one of them stood a ruined castle to remind the Scouts of the storied past, and at its foot a more modern building where, in a less chivalrous present, Erwin Rommel lay when they brought him the news that Montgomery was ashore at Arromanches. Within this natural enclosure, half wood, half open space, the camp was pitched, a huge city — it needed more than an hour to traverse it on foot from one side to the other — built of tents as many hued as Jacob's coat. Green, white, aquamarine, red, orange and olive, they stood "all orderly" in rows well spaced and open to the sun and air, and also to Page 127 The Left Handshake the dust. The soil of Moisson wood is sandy and rain-water drains quickly through it; but in dry weather such as prevailed throughout the Jamboree, it crumbles easily and its presence was soon universal. But in that shining August of good hope, who cared? The brown bodies flashed in the strong light, the flags, more multi-coloured even than the tents, fluttered or drooped from the poles, the light railway which, running in a circle round the camp, had been built for the Jamboree and carried rolling stock taken from the Maginot Line, transported more passengers to the square foot than any in the world. Each sub-camp had its individual characteristics which were those of its inhabitants. The Jewish Scouts and the French Burgundian contingent set up their tents on platforms, thus making a two-storied dwelling; the Italians lived in double-shelled tents, the New Zealand Scouts decorated theirs with Maori work, the Scouts of Morocco strewed bright rugs upon the floor, those of Holland displayed the national colour, orange, those of Egypt the pale yellow of the desert. At the entrance to each nation's quarters a gateway was set up or an emblem formed of poles or light canvas ingeniously disposed to recall some monument or legendary figure of their country. The Giant of Lille, his Scout badge upon his mighty chest, towered above the Flanders camp, and hard by was the outline of a cloth hall. St. Paul's Cathedral, built of boughs and ornamented, surprisingly but very gaily, with the armorial bearings of the London boroughs, presided over the London Scouts; a tall square gateway gave access to Morocco, a huge wooden shoe, made of canvas, betrayed the whereabouts of Holland; a bull the place of Languedoc; a sphinx guarded the tents of Egypt; wigwams dotted America. The Scouts of Lorraine used ten cubic metres of pine wood, three kilometres of cord, four hundred and fifty square metres of sailcloth and a hundred of bunting to construct a life-size reproduction of the Pourquoi Pas, the vessel of Dr. Charcot, the explorer, and the Scouts of Britanny set up a calvary which their own hands had carved. The centre of all was the great stadium with the world, a green globe, anchored at the end of the avenue leading to it, and hard by were the markets filled with merchandise. Here food was distributed to be taken away by each Troop and cooked according to their country's fashion, and near at hand were the centres of worship where Scouts of all creeds could adore their God each as his conscience bade him. The main rule of the Jamboree was that there should be no rules. Within the limits of such common discipline as is necessary to lead a life in common, all were free to do what they liked from ten in the morning to ten at night. In this atmosphere of freedom, the exact and planned antithesis to the grim junketings of the Ballila and the Hitler Jugend, the August days went by. They were passed in national displays staged before international audiences, in Patrol competitions and explorations, in the technical workshops, in climbing 'Mont Blanc' a perilous mountain of poles and canvas, or leaping from a parachute tower, tests of nerve and sinew, in swimming close to where the 'Minotaur' of Dunkirk fame had her moorings, in visiting the nearby cities of Paris and Rouen, but above and beyond all in making friends. That was, indeed, the first and last object of the Jamboree of 1947, as it was of all the others. To the old adage "Know thyself," Baden-Powell added the corollary, "Know other people," and at Moisson 30,000 set themselves with joy to this congenial task. They exchanged or bartered possessions — badges were the main attraction — they taught each other each other's games and so each other's language; in the evenings they sang together the Scout songs while the flames of the camp-fire roared and crackled and the smoke set the stars blinking, and, surely the ghosts of their dead comrades, whose spirit could not be slain, laughed with them from the shadows. Soon the easy intimacy of youth was established and camp jokes were cracked and tall stories told. It was said that the American Scouts had brought collapsible rubber refrigerators, automatic tin-openers and jet-operated tent-peg mallets. The Swiss Scouts set large sails about their camp to provide the passers-by with an opportunity to make an easy jest concerning the Swiss Navy; more macabre in temperament, the Scottish Scouts hung up a wooden skeleton with the inscription, "He burnt the porridge." As at other Jamborees, the Scouts discovered many things from their brothers of other races. Let a 1st Class Scout from Southend speak for all. "The Norwegians," he said, "are smarter than we are, the French have shown Page 128 The Left Handshake us that we can't climb as well as they can, and I wish we could sing in harmony like they do when we start a chorus. The Belgians showed us how to make ornaments and Scout insignia much better than we can, and they teach chaps who don't know anything about it how to play all sorts of musical instruments quite easily." This boy from Essex sounded a modest but an inquiring note, and it was repeated da capo throughout the camp in every tongue and accent. For these boys were as eager to learn as to teach, and in doing both they found that the words "brotherhood" and "comradeship," hackneyed from repetition and often unavailing from misuse, had for them a literal meaning of the happiest augury for the future. At Moisson they learnt in a few days a lesson which their elders are still slow to apprehend, and in so doing set an example the world would be well advised to follow. So did the Scouts attending the sixth World Jamboree fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world, and with their well-deserved rejoicings let this brief history of a grim, prolonged but transitory period in the story of Scouting end. Through six years of war, in the torment of prison-house and torture chamber, amid the slow starvation of concentration camps, even in the choking death of gas chambers, its spirit flamed undaunted and throve upon more ills than any flesh has been heir to since Attila scourged Europe and Genghis built his pyramid of skulls at the gates of Samarkand. B-P., that old and gentle warrior, who did not live to see the happy harvest of his faith reaped at Moisson, sowed a fecund seed and a strong. The early drought of cynicism or indifference could not stifle it, and two wars in twenty years did but serve to stimulate its growth. Is it too much to hope that the day may dawn when, like the tree of mustard seed, it may spread out its branches and cover the whole world? Page 129 The Left Handshake APPENDIX I SERVICES RENDERED A.R.P .— Wardens, messengers, decontamination squads, telephone operators, various orderly duties indoors at Town Halls, Control Centres, etc.; delivering calling-up letters to A.R.P. personnel; call-boys for A.R.P. personnel; driving A.R.P. personnel; policing air-raid shelters, trenches, sandbag emplacements, etc.; sandbag filling and stacking; camouflaging buildings; blacking-out public and private buildings; escort duties to women A.R.P. night staff; gas-mask assembling, fitting, distributing, repairing and disinfecting; distributing, repairing and making gas-mask containers; making wardens' rattles; erecting A.R.P. shelters for old and infirm; assisting householders with trench digging; supplying messengers to inform deaf of Air-Raid warnings and All Clear; guiding aged, infirm, mothers, children, new arrivals in black-out; patrolling during black-out and directing traffic; painting and lettering tin helmets; training civilian stretcher parties; pumping water from Anderson shelters; assisting in rescue work; water delivery service; manning A.R.P. posts; guiding mothers and babies to shelter; fire-watching; whitewashing kerbs and street islands; manning road crossings in black-out; making children's beds in shelters; providing shelter entertainments; guiding relief parties to posts; erecting indoor shelters. Auxiliary Fire Service. — Firemen, messengers, guides, telephone operators. Thames River Emergency Service. — Telephone operators, stretcher-bearers, signallers. Police. — Special constables; war reserve police; messengers; guides; helping with traffic; distributing notices; helping to man police stations. Hospitals and First-Aid. — Blood donors; nurses; qualified first-aid helpers; examiners; stretcher- bearers; St. John and Red Cross messengers; hospital messengers and orderlies; messengers and canvassing for blood donors; first-aid posts and clinics in rural areas; patients for ambulance classes and A.R.P. rehearsals; guarding hospital gates; assisting with X-ray photography; collecting magazines and books for hospitals; ambulance tent equipped and manned; troop headquarters prepared as emergency stations; making splints; collecting sphagnum moss; collecting tinfoil for Red Cross; collecting meadow saffron, eggs, nettles, dandelion roots. Evacuation. — Escorts and guides at assembly points; helping with entraining arrangements; accompanying parties of children; helping with baggage, etc.; erecting temporary latrines; escorts and guides from station to billets; listing and mapping billets; card-indexing particulars of evacuees; distributing clothing; lending blankets; filling palliasses; packing and distributing rations; drying clothes and bedding; supplying temporary domestic staff at billets; cleaning and repairing empty houses as billets; messengers for miscellaneous services; providing cooking and waiting staff at Communal Feeding Centres; providing temporary accommodation; cleaning barns for evacuees; loaning cooking equipment. The Services. — Observer Corps; Listening Post Duty; Balloon Barrage orderlies; messengers; coast- watching — signallers and orderlies at a few specified stations; messengers and signallers for Naval authorities; messengers for Air Ministry and to certain departments of War Office; making roads for military units; clearing coastguard paths; A.A. gun crews formed by Rover Scouts; assisting in Dunkirk evacuation; guides to canteens for H.M. Forces; setting up Services clubs; manning listening posts. Agriculture. — Haymaking; harvesting; repairing hedges; digging gardens of men in Services; milking cows of men in Services; digging school gardens; hop-picking; preparing allotments; fruit-picking; working allotments of men in Services; poultry farming; forestry; collecting waste food for pigs; preserving fruit. Page 130 The Left Handshake Home Guard. — Members; messengers; guides and pathfinders; instructors (stalking and tracking, etc.). Refugees. — Helping at distribution centres; cooks; night guards; messengers; guides; orderlies; lending equipment; organising and running play-hour and instructional meetings. Miscellaneous. — Waste-paper collection; leading headquarters for various purposes to various Services; messengers for banks, commercial houses; manning Citizens' Advice Bureaux; helping with National Register; mixing bleach paste at technical dispensary — raising daily rate of output from 150, to 2,000 units until job completed; distributing notices and urgent bills for municipalities; keeping streets clean; collecting firewood; wood-chopping and tree-felling; assisting with milk rounds owing to shortage of labour; shopping for the blind; drawing water for women with no menfolk; painting street corners, lamp-posts, etc., white; linking country villages with Scout cyclist messenger patrols; manufacturing home-made torch batteries; cultivating flax; searching for and treating animals after raids. Page 131 The Left Handshake APPENDIX II CENSUS OF BOY SCOUTS ASSOCIATIONS, SHOWING TOTAL NUMBERS IN 1939 AND 1947 RESPECTIVELY Association Total 1939 Total 1947 Remarks Afghanistan 352 — Not now registered. America (United States) 1,271,900 2,063,397 Argentine 5,500 10,300 Armenian Scouts 884 2,335 Austria — 5,260 Non-existent in 1939. Belgium 16,924 53,495 Brazil 10,689 10,689 Bulgaria 6,206 — Not now registered. Canada — 98,794 1939 figures included under Gt. Britain. Chile 7,606 16,568 China 315,776 315,776 Columbia 966 966 Costa Rica 316 950 Cuba 3,590 1,854 Czechoslovakia 20,000 67,200 Denmark 18,116 36,675 Dominican Republic 1,227 600 Ecuador 450 450 Egypt 10,134 8000 El Salvador — 536 Non-existent in 1939. Estonia 7,249 — Not now registered. Finland 12,358 17,389 France 93,985 211,727 Great Britain (British 698,885 604,249 Includes Canada, now Empire) separately registered. Greece 12,000 41,722 Guatemala 150 709 Haiti — 709 Not previously registered. Hungary 59,500 30,000 Iceland 1,164 2,112 India 285,502 414,649 Total includes 24,830 for Madras. Iran 10,483 — Not now registered. Iraq 33,481 — Not now registered. Italy — 64,220 Japan 3,100 — Not now registered. Latvia 8,174 — Not now registered. Lebanon — 2,196 Registered jointly with Syria in 1939. Liechtenstein 416 422 Page 132 The Left Handshake Association Total 1939 Total 1947 Remarks Lithuania 8,881 — Not now registered. Luxembourg 2,192 4,864 Details not received. Mexico 1,105 4,721 Netherlands 36,212 116,000 Nicaragua — 740 Previously registered with Boy Scouts of America. Norway 14,934 22,534 Peru 1,225 1,855 Philippines — 61,379 Previously registered with Boy Scouts of America. Poland 130,541 — Portugal 3,009 2,638 Russian Scouts 1,121 — Not now registered. (National Association) Siam 98,747 — Not now registered. South Africa 25,284 25,168 Spain — — Figures unobtainable. Sweden 23,786 51,135 Switzerland 19,724 25,010 Syria 11,787 — 1939 figures refer to Syria and Lebanon combined. Venezuela 4,690 4,853 Yugoslavia 4,828 — Not now registered. ------------- ------------- Grand Total 3,305,149 4,404,927 Page 133