A SIGNAL FAILURE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 48, 13 February 1945, Page 8

A SIGNAL FAILURE

SCOUTMASTER IN A FIX

JUST A STORY

(Bj' D. H, Barber)

Mrs Hogg liatl dropped in from next door for a cup of tea t and we were discussing chocolate eclairs and politics and earwigs at the bottom of the garden.

"So kind of you to let me pop in like this," said Mrs Hogg, "but I always feel in the -way when the Colonel has his Boy Scouts round at the house. Since he took charge of the local troop he has been thinking of nothing else, and lets them come round at all hours to light fires in the. garden and tie the clothes line into knots, practise bandages on the dog."

At that moment. 1 happened to look up and was surprised to see Colonel Hogg, wearing shorts and an enormous leaning against the chimney stack on top of his outhouse. He was waving his arms about in a weird sort of way.

"That's all right/' said Mrs Hogg, calmly lie has evidently decided to spend 'the afternoon teaching the boys their signalling. I expect tie has sent them down to the bottom of our garden, where they are taking down the messages he sends. Though why he should want to make a public exhibition of himself on the roof I really don't know."

The Colonel appeared to be varying his signalling by shouting instructions to the boys down" in the garden, but the wind was in the wrong direction and we could not catch what he was saying. "I used to be rather a dab at signalling myself," I said ? modestly. I wonder if I can read the messages he is sending." "I doubt it," said Mrs Hogg- "The Colonel is by no means an expert himself." However I got out a bit of paper and a pencil and had a shot at it. The Colonel's stout figure was silhouetted against a whitewash wall, and he couldn't have been better j placed for the job. At first I could make nothing of his, signals, but after a bit I got the hang of things, and I managed to get a couple of words. I had written down the dots and dashes as they came but. when I translated them I got a nasty shock. "D-a-m-n y-o-u," I read out. "I missed the first few words of the sentence, but it looks as if it wasn't quite the sort of message one would expect an earnest scoutmaster to send to his scouts." Mrs Hogg chuckled. "I'm afraid lie does get a bit cross with them at times/' she said } "and then he forgets he's not still in the army. See what lie sends, next. But the Colonel had stopped sending, and was sitting in a despondent attitude.

"I suppose the boys are sending the answer," said Mrs Hogg. "Even if they send it correctly I don't imagine for a minute that the Colonel will understand it. His eye sight isn't what it was."

Evidently she was right } for a fewj minutes later the Colonel got up andj started shouting again. We couldn't liear what he was saying, but it sounded very rude. "He seems, to have lost, his temper with them properly/' said Mrs Hogg. "I really don't think he's the sort of man to have charge of a lot of small boys. Too choleric." Then he leaned against the chimney stack and mopped his brow and started to send another message. I had dropped my pencil and and by the time 1 was ready to take it down I had again missed half of it. But 1 got the. last two words all right. They were the same as before . Then it started to rain, and we ran for the summer house.. We could see the Colonel ou the roof, and he appeared to be still signalling energetically. "I can't help admiring his spirit;' I said.. "He's so "wrapped up in his task that he hasn't noticed he's getting wet to the skin. Or perhaps he thinks that it ; would be unbecoming for a scoutmaster to be intimidated by the weather." We had taken the tea things into the slimmer house with us, and as we were tired of watching the Colonel we got on with our meal. By the time Ave had finished it had stopped raining. "He's given up signalling." I said, "and he appears to be giving a demonstration in mountaineering. He's climbed down by way of the drainpipe. It looks hardly strong enough to bear his weight. I was right, for a moment later the Colonel fell through the roof of the conservatory. W\e hurried rounl and found him sitting on the floor, mixed up with flowers of various softs. "Why didn't you come and help

me down?" lie roared at us. "I shouted and signalled to ytfu, but you just Avent on with your tea. Those confounded boys got me to go up on the roof on the pretext that it would be a good place to signal from, and then took the ladder away and went off to the pictures!" —"The Humourist" (London).