LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES Page 1 LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES Downloaded from: “The Dump” at Scoutscan.com http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/ Editor’s Note: The reader is reminded that these texts have been written a long time ago. Consequently, they may use some terms or use expressions which were current at the time, regardless of what we may think of them at the beginning of the 21st century. For reasons of historical accuracy they have been preserved in their original form. If you find them offensive, we ask you to please delete this file from your system. This and other traditional Scouting texts may be downloaded from the Dump. Page 2 LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES BOOKS BY RUDYARD KIPLING UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. LIFE’S HANDICAP. BEING STORIES OF MINE OWN PEOPLE. MANY INVENTIONS. THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. WEE WILLIE WINKIE, and Other Stories. SOLDIERS THREE, and Other Stories. CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS. A STORY OF THE GRAND BANKS. THE JUNGLE BOOK. With Illustrations by J. LOCKWOOD KIPLING and W. H. DRAKE. THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK. With Illustrations by J. LOCKWOOD KIPLING. THE DAY’S WORK. STALKY & CO. THE NAULAHKA. A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. By RUDYARD KIPLING and WOLCOTT BALESTIER. KIM. JUST SO STORIES FOR LITTLE CHILDREN. With Illustrations by the Author. TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES. PUCK OF POOK’S HILL. With Illustrations by H. R. MILLAR. ACTIONS AND REACTIONS. REWARDS AND FAIRIES. With Illustrations by CHARLES E. BROCK, R.I. A DIVERSITY OF CREATURES. LETTERS OF TRAVEL, 1892-1913. DEBITS AND CREDITS. LIMITS AND RENEWALS. SOMETHING OF MYSELF: FOR MY FRIENDS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN. THY SERVANT A DOG, and Other Dog Stories. Page 3 LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES BY RUDYARD KIPLING COMMISSIONER, BOY SCOUTS ILLUSTRATED BY MANNING DEV. LEE MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1951 Page 4 LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES Nothing on earth — no arts, no gifts, nor graces — No fame, no wealth — outweighs the want of it. This is the Law which every law embraces — Be fit — be fit! In mind and body be fit! Page 5 LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES This book is copyright in all countries which are signatories to the Berne Convention — First Edition November 1923 Reprinted November and December (twice) 1923 Uniform Edition 1925, 1930 Library Edition (reset) 1951 Page 6 LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES PREFACE TO ALL to whom this little book may come— Health for yourselves and those you hold most dear! Content abroad, and happiness at home, And—one grand secret in your private ear:— Nations have passed away and left no traces, And History gives the naked cause of it— One single, simple reason in all cases; They fell because their peoples were not fit. Now, though your Body be mis-shapen, blind, Lame, feverish, lacking substance, power or skill, Certain it is that men can school the Mind To school the sickliest Body to her will— As many have done, whose glory blazes still Like mighty flames in meanest lanterns lit: Wherefore, we pray the crippled, weak and ill— Be fit—be fit! In mind at first be fit! And, though your Spirit seem uncouth or small, Stubborn as clay or shifting as the sand, Strengthen the Body, and the Body shall Strengthen the Spirit till she take command; As a bold rider brings his horse in hand At the tall fence, with voice and heel and bit, And leaps while all the field are at a stand. Be fit—be fit! In body next be fit! Nothing on earth—no Arts, no Gifts, nor Graces— No Fame, no Wealth—outweighs the want of it. This is the Law which every law embraces— Be fit—be fit! In mind and body be fit! The even heart that seldom slurs its beat— The cool head weighing what that heart desires— The measuring eye that guides the hands and feet— The Soul unbroken when the Body tires— These are the things our weary world requires Far more than superfluities of wit; Wherefore we pray you, sons of generous sires, Be fit—be fit! For Honour’s sake be fit. There is one lesson at all Times and Places— One changeless Truth on all things changing writ, For boys and girls, men, women, nations, races— Be fit—be fit! And once again, be fit! Page 7 LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES CONTENTS PAGE Winning the Victoria Cross 9 The Way That He Took 17 An Unqualified Pilot 28 The Junk and the Dhow 34 His Gift 35 Prologue to the Master-Cook’s Tale 44 A Flight of Fact 45 ‘Stalky’ 53 The Hour of the Angel 65 The Burning of the Sarah Sands 65 The Last Lap 70 The Parable of Boy Jones 71 A Departure 78 The Bold ’Prentice 79 The Nurses 86 The Son of His Father 87 And English School 100 A Counting-Out Song 109 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE So he got his Cross 10 Working his men up between avalanches of stones 15 ‘Hold on, sergeant, I’ll light a pipe’ 25 Gathered their pigtails into his hands 32 ‘It’s early to say—yet,’ was his verdict 40 ‘They cottoned to ’em no end’ 51 ‘Oh, we found ’em,’ said De Vitré 57 A man with a hatchet—his name is lost—ran along the bulwarks and cut the wreck clear 67 ‘You poor little impident fool!’ 77 Number Forty’s right side was paralysed 83 ‘If you come here,’ said Adam, ‘they will hit you kicks’ 90 ‘Put me up against that tree and take my men on’ 106 Page 8 LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES WINNING THE VICTORIA CROSS THE HISTORY of the Victoria Cross has been told so often that it is only necessary to say that the Order was created by Queen Victoria on January 29th, 1856, in the year of the peace with Russia, when the new racing Cunard paddle-steamer Persia of three thousand tons was making thirteen knots between England and America, and all the world wondered at the advance of civilization and progress. Any rank of the English Army, Navy, Reserve or Volunteer forces, from a duke to a negro, can wear on his left breast the little ugly bronze Maltese cross with the crowned lion atop and the inscription “For Valour” below, if he has only “performed some signal act of valour” or devotion to his country “in the presence of the enemy.” Nothing else makes any difference; for it is explicitly laid down in the warrant that “neither rank, nor long service, nor wounds, nor any other circumstance whatsoever, save the merit of conspicuous bravery, shall be held to establish a sufficient claim to this Order.” There are many kinds of bravery, and if one looks through the records of the four hundred and eleven men, living and dead, that have held the Victoria Cross before the Great War, one finds instances of every imaginable variety of heroism. There is bravery in the early morning, when it takes great courage even to leave warm blankets, let alone walk into dirt, cold and death; on foot and on horse; empty or fed; sick or well; coolness of brain that thinks out a plan at dawn and holds to it all through the long, murderous day bravery of the mind that makes the jerking nerves hold still and do nothing except show a good example ; sheer reckless strength that hacks through a crowd of amazed men and comes out grinning on the other side; enduring spirit that wears through a long siege, never losing heart or manners or temper; quick, flashing bravery that heaves a lighted shell overboard or rushes the stockade while others are gaping at it; and the calculated craftsmanship that camps alone before the angry rifle-pit or shell-hole, and cleanly and methodically wipes out every soul in it. Before the Great War, England dealt with many different peoples, and, generally speaking, all of them, Zulu, Malay, Maori, Burman, Boer, the little hillsman of the North-east Indian Frontier, Afreedi, Pathan, Biluch, the Arab of East Africa and the Sudanese of the North of Africa and the rest, played a thoroughly good game. For this we owe them many thanks; since they showed us every variety of climate and almost every variety of attack, from long-range fire to hand-to-hand scrimmage; except, of course, the ordered movements of Continental armies and the scientific ruin of towns. That came later and on the largest scale. It is rather the fashion to look down on these little wars and to call them “military promenades” and so forth, but in reality no enemy can do much more than poison your wells, rush your camp, ambuscade you, kill you with his climate, fight you body to body, make you build your own means of communication under his fire, and horribly cut up your wounded. He may do this on a large or small scale, but the value of the teaching is the same. It is in these rough-and-tumble affairs that many of the first Crosses were won; and some of the records for the far-away Crimea and the Indian Mutiny are well worth remembering, if only to show that valour never varies. The Crimea was clean fighting as far as the enemy were concerned,—for the very old men say that no one could wish for better troops than the Russians of Inkerman and Alma,—but our own War Office then, as two generations later, helped the enemy with ignorant mismanagement and neglect.