Here are a number of suggestions for keeping your camp kitchen in good shape and for maki ng your cooking work easier.
Cooking Hints
When boiling a pot of water on the fire, do not jam the lid on too firmly. When the steam forms inside the pot, it must have some means of escape. To find out when the water is beginning to boil, you need not take off the lid and look, but just hold the end of a stick or knife to the pot, and if the water is boiling you will feel the pot trembling.
Oatmeal Porridge—Pour into a pot one cup of water for each person. Add a pinch of salt for each cup. When the water boils, sprinkle oatmeal in it while stirring with a stick or large spoon. The amount of oatmeal depends upon whether you want the porridge thick or thin. Simmer the porridge until it is done, stirring all the time.
Don’t do as I did once when I was a tenderfoot. It was my turn to cook, so I thought I would vary the dinner by giving them soup. I had some pea-flour, and I mixed it with water and boiled it up, and served it as pea-soup. But I did not put in any stock or meat juice of any kind, I didn’t know that it was necessary or would be noticeable. But they noticed it directly, called my beautiful soup a “wet pea-pudding”, and told me I might eat it myself—not only told me I might, but they jolly well made me eat it. I never made
the mistake again.
Hay-box Cooking
Hay-box cooking is the best way of getting your cooking done in camp, as you only have to start it and the hay-box does the rest. You can then go out and play your camp games with the other fellows, and come back to find that your dinner has cooked itself—that is, if you started it right. If you didn’t— well, you won’t find yourself very popular with the Patrol!
This is how you start it: Get a wooden box. Line it with several thicknesses of newspaper at sides and bottom, then fill it with hay or more newspapers; pack this all tight with a space in the middle for your cooking pot. Plenty of hay below as well as round the pot. Make a cushion packed with hay for the top, or a thick pad of folded newspapers.
Get your stewpot full of food, and as soon as it is well on the boil, pop it into the hay-box. Pack the hay or paper tight round it and over it, put on the covering pad, and jam down the lid with a weight on it.
Meat will take four or five hours to cook in this way. Oatmeal you should boil for five minutes, and leave in bay-box all. night. It will be ready for your early breakfast.
Bread Making
“The three B’s of life in camp are the ability to cook bannocks, beans, and bacon.”
To make bread, or bannocks, or “dampers”, the usual way is to mix flour with a pinch or two of salt and of baking powder, then make a pile of it and scoop out the centre until it forms a cup for the water, which is then poured in. Mix everything well together until it forms a lump of dough. With a little fresh flour sprinkled over the hands to prevent the dough sticking to them, pat it and make it into the shape of a large bun or several smaller buns.
Then put it on a gridiron over hot embers. Or sweep part of the fire to one side, and put the dough on the hot ground left there and pile hot ashes round it and let it bake.
Only small loaves can be made in this way.
Bread can be made without any oven at all. Twist the dough around a stick and bake it over glowing embers.
Pan Bread
Another very good way is the following:
Make a moderately stiff dough with these ingredients: 1 teacupful flour, I pinch salt, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder. Make a frying pan hot and grease it well, put in the dough and stand it near the fire. In a few moments the dough will rise and stiffen. Then prop the pan up sideways till it is nearly upright on its side in front of the fire, and so cook one side of the flat loaf. Then turn it over and cook the other side. You can see whether it is properly baked by shoving a splinter of wood through it. If the splinter comes out without any dough sticking to it your loaf is baked through.
“Twist”
Still another way is to cut a stout club, sharpen its thin end, peel it, and heat it in the fire. Make a long strip of dough, about two inches wide and half an inch thick (about 5 x 1 cm) and wind it spirally down the club. Plant the club close to the fire and let the dough toast, just giving the club a turn now and then.
Baking Oven
If real bread is required, a kind of oven should be made, either by using an old earthenware pot or a tin box, and putting it into the fire and piling embers all over it. Or make a clay oven, light a fire inside it, and then, when it is well heated, rake out the fire, and put the dough inside, and shut up the entrance tightly till the bread is baked.
Cleanliness
Old Scouts take special care to keep the kitchen particularly clean. They are careful to clean their cooking pots, plates, forks, knives, very thoroughly. They know that if dirt and scraps of food are left about, flies will collect.
Flies are dangerous , because they carry disease germs on their feet, and if they settle on your food they often leave the poison there for you to eat—and then you wonder why you get ill.
For this reason you should be careful to keep your camp kitchen very clean, so that flies won’t come there. All slops and scraps should be burned or thrown into a properly dug hole, where they can be buried, and not scattered all over the place.
Patrol Leaders are responsible for seeing that this is always done. Remember, “A Scout is clean”.
PATROL PRACTICES IN COOKING
Scouts should be able to cook before they go to camp. Teach them the most important things, such as cooking potatoes and porridge, meat and vegetables. These can be practised during the winter.
Practise mixing dough and baking twists and dampers.
Make a hay-box and use it.
Make your own linen ration bags.
Patrols should compete in preparing menus, working out quantities, etc.
Bring raw rations on a hike, make a fire and cook your own meal.
Experiment with different types of fire places until you arrive at the one you think most suitable for your Patrol Cooking. Then try making a number of the kitchen gadgets shown on page 136.
CHAPTER IV
TRACKING
CAMP FIRE YARN NO. 11
OBSERVATION OF “SIGN”
Noticing “Signs” - Details of People - “Signs” Round a
Dead Body - Details in the Country
Use of Eyes, Ears, and Nose by Scouts
Night Scouting
“SIGN” is the word used by Scouts to mean any little details, such as footprints, broken twigs, trampled grass, scraps of food, a drop of blood, a hair, and so on—anything that may help as clues in getting the information they are in search of.
Mrs. Walter Smithson, when travelling in Kas hmir, was following up, with some native Indian trackers, the “pugs” of a panther which had killed and carried off a young buck. He had crossed a wide bare slab of rock which, of course, gave no mark of his soft feet. The tracker went at once to the far side of the rock where it came to a sharp edge. He wetted his finger, and just passed it along the edge till he found a few buck’s hairs sticking to it. This showed him where the panther had passed down off the rock, dragging the buck with him. Those few hairs were what Scouts call “sign”.
Mrs. Smithson’s tracker also found bears by noticing small “signs”. On one occasion he noticed a fresh scratch in the bark of a tree evidently made by a bear’s claw, and on the other he found a single black hair sticking to the bark of a tree, which told him that a bear had rubbed against it.
Noticing “Signs”
One of the most important things that a Scout has to learn, whether he is a war scout or a hunter or peace scout, is to let nothing escape his attention. He must notice small points and signs, and then make out the meaning of them. It takes a good deal of practice before a tenderfoot gets into the habit of really noting everything and letting nothing escape his eye. It can be learnt just as well in a town as in the country.
And in the same
way you should notice any strange sound or any peculiar smell and think for yourself what it may mean. Unless you learn to notice “signs” you will have very little of “this and that” to put together, and so you will be of no use as a Scout.
Remember, a Scout always considers it a great disgrace if an outsider discovers a thing before he has seen
it for himself, whether that thing is far away in the distance or close by under his feet.
If you go out with a really trained Scout you will see that his eyes are constantly moving, looking out in every direction near and far, noticing everything that is going on.
Once I was walking with one in Hyde Park in London. He presently remarked, “T hat horse is going a little lame”. There was no horse near us, but I found he was looking at one far away across the Serpentine Lake. The next moment he picked up a peculiar button lying by the path. His eyes, you see, were looking both far away and near.
“Have You Seen a Man?”
In the streets of a strange town a Scout will notice his way by the principal buildings and side-streets, and by what shops he passes and what is in their windows ; also what vehicles pass him.
Most especially he will notice people—what their faces are like, their dress, their boots, their way of walking—so that if, for instance, he should be asked by a policeman, “Have you seen a man with dark overhanging eyebrows, dressed in a blue suit, going down this Street?” he should be able to give some such answer as “Yes—he was walking a little lame with the right foot, wore foreign-looking boots, was carrying a parcel in his hand. He turned down Gold Street, the second turning on the left from
here, about three minutes ago.”
Information of that kind has often been of the greatest value in tracing out a criminal.
You remember in the story of Kim how Kim was taught observation by means of a game in which he had to describe from memory a trayful of small objects shown to him for a minute and then covered over.
We use this “Kim’s Game”, because it is excellent practice for Scouts.
There was a revolutionary society in Italy called the Camorra, that used to train its boys to be quick at noticing and remembering things. When walking through the street of the city, the Camorrist would suddenly stop and ask his boy:
“How was the woman dressed who sat at the door of the fourth house on the right in the last street?” or, “What were the two men talking about at the corner three streets back?” or, “Where was the cab ordered to drive to, and what was its number?” or, “What is the height of that house and what is the width of its upper-floor window?” and so on. Or the boy was given a minute to look in a shop window, and then describe all that was in it.
It is easy enough to disguise yourself with simple means, if you know how. How many things did this man change to alter his appearance? Notice that the thing that makes the main difference is his changed posture.
A Scout must also have his eyes on the ground, especially along the edge of the pavement against the houses of the gutter. I have often found valuable trinkets that have been dropped, and which have been walked over by numbers of people, and kicked to one side without being noticed.
Every town Scout should know, as a matter of course, where the nearest chemist’s shop or drug store is (in case of accidents), and the nearest police “fixed point”, police station, doctor, hospital, fire alarm, telephone, ambulance station, etc.
Details of People
When you are travelling by train or bus, always notice every little thing about your fellow-travellers. Notice their faces, dress, way of talking, and so on, so that you could describe them each pretty accurately afterwards. And try to make out from their appearance and behaviour whether they are rich or poor (which you can generally tell from their boots), and what is their probable business, whether they are happy, or ill, or in need of help.
Notice the faces of people so that you will be able to recognize them.
But in doing this you must not let them see you are watching them, else it puts them on their guard. Remember the shepherd-boy I told you about in Yarn No. 2, who noticed the gipsy’s boots, but did not look at him, and so did not make the gipsy suspicious of him.
Close observation of people and ability to read their character and their thoughts are of immense value in trade and commerce, especially for a shop-assistant or salesman in persuading people to buy goods, or in detecting would-be swindlers.
It is said that you can tell a man’s character from the way he wears his hat. If it is slightly on one side, the wearer is supposed to be good-natured; if it is worn very much on one side, he is a swaggerer; if on the back of his head, he is bad at paying his debts; if worn straight on the top, he is probably honest but very dull.
The way a man (or a woman) walks is often a good guide to his character—witness the fussy, swaggering little man paddling along with short steps with much arm action; the nervous man’s hurried, jerky stride; the slow slouch of the loafer; the smooth, quick, and silent step of the Scout, and so on.
Can you tell their characters by the way they wear their hats?
Practise Observation
With a little practice in observation, you can tell pretty accurately a man’s character from his dress. The boots are very generally the best test of all the details of clothing. Sometime ago, I was with a lady in the country, and a young lady was walking just in front of us.
“I wonder who she is?” said my friend.
“Well”, I said, “Maybe you will know if you know whose maid she is.”
The girl was very well dressed, but when I saw her shoes I guessed that the dress had belonged to someone else, had been given to her and refitted by herself—but that as regards shoes she felt more comfortable in her own. She went up to the house at which we were staying—to the servants’ entrance—and we found that she was one of the maids.
I once was able to be of service to a lady who was in poor circumstances. I had guessed it from noticing, while walking behind her, that though she was well dressed the soles of her shoes were in the last stage of disrepair. I don’t suppose she ever knew how I guessed that she needed help.
It is an amusing practice, when you are in a railway carriage or omnibus with other people, to look only at their feet and guess, without looking any higher, what sort of people they are, old or young, well-to-do or poor, fat or thin, and so on, and then look up and see how near you have been to the truth.
I was speaking with a detective not long ago about a gentleman we had both been talking to, and we were trying to make out his character.
I remarked, “Well, at any rate, he is a fisherman”.
My companion could not see why—but then he was not a fisherman himself.
I had noticed a lot of little tufts of cloth sticking up on the left cuff of his coat. A good many fis hermen, when they take their flies off the line, stick them into their cap to dry; others stick them into their sleeve. When dry they pull them out, which often tears a thread or two of the cloth.
TOMMY THE TENDERFOOT No. 7 - TOMMY THE PATHFINDER
“Which way to turn me I cannot divine. Of friend or of foeman I can’t see a sign.”
Remember how Sherlock Holmes met a stranger and noticed that he was looking fairly well-to-do, in new clothes with a mourning band on his sleeve, with a soldierly bearing, and a sailor’s way of walking, sunburnt, with tattoo marks on his hand. What should you have supposed that man to be? Well, Sherlock Holmes guessed, correctly, that he had lately retired from the Royal Marines as a Sergeant, his wife had died, and he had some small children at home.
Signs Round a Dead Body
It may happen to some of you that one day you will be the first to find the body of a dead man. In such a case the smallest signs that are to be seen on and near the body must be examined and noted down, before the body is moved or the ground disturbed and trampled down. Besides noticing the exact position of the body (which should, if possible, be photographed exactly as found) the ground all r
ound should be very carefully examined—without treading on it yourself more than is absolutely necessary, for fear of spoiling existing tracks. If you can also draw a little map of how the body lay and where the signs round it were, it might be of value.
I know of two cases where bodies have been found which were at first supposed to be of people who had hanged themselves. But close examination of the ground round them—in one case some torn twigs and trampled grass, and in the other a crumpled carpet—showed that murder had been committed, and that the bodies had been hanged after death to make it appear as though the people had committed suicide.
Finger-Prints
Finger-prints are some of the first things the police look for on all likely articles. If they do not correspond to those of the murdered man they may be those of his murderer, who could then be identified by comparing the impression with his fingers.
Scouting for Boys Page 13