CHAPTER III
MUD AND SWAPS

WHEN the opening parade and speeches were over we made our way back to the American camp. We were half-way there when it started to pour. "B.-P." had opened up the water faucets once more. As we got on our ponchos in a hurry and put up our speed we succeeded in sliding back to our tents before we were completely soaked. Yet, as a matter of fact, we needn't have hustled so, for the sun was shining again by the time we got home! England certainly has variable weather.

It was now getting to be rather late in the afternoon. However, since we had a couple of hours before supper and a little more time, too, before camp fire, some of us decided to explore the Jamboree City. Arm in arm with one another we set forth. From our tent we walked across the American parade ground and a minute later we passed under the gateway of our American camp into Kingsway.

Just on the other side of the street Denmark was busily occupied making its camp ready. A little further down the road we could see the gateway of India. Other signs indicated the entrances to Luxembourg, Japan, Chile, and several English counties.

As there wasn't time to do any visiting, we decided just to do a little strolling around. We did so until supper time and got a good eyeful of the big camp.

There were two things that made our strolling difficult. One was the visitors that were swarming all over the place. There were thousands of them that had braved wind and weather to come to Arrowe Park to see how the Scouts of the World looked and behaved and camped. These people were all over the roads, all over the camps--everywhere. They were a rather amusing and friendly bunch. But their number made a traffic problem which was hard for the scout patrols to solve.

The other obstacle was-but let us explain in exact detail: What was it that followed us wherever we went? That stuck to us through thick and thin? That made the days seem longer and the hours shorter? That was more closely connected with the jamboree than anything else?

The answer is mud. Plain ordinary English mud! M-U-D!

It started the first day and it continued oozing up from below the turf the following days. How could it do otherwise? Every day fifty thousand boys and fifty thousand visitors waded through the streets. Every day had its downpour of rain. The sun would start shining now and then and we would say, "Now the mud is bound to dry out!" But the sun shone for only ten minutes or so-and then it poured again and things were even worse than ever!

The first day was bad enough-but the next!

The sun shone nearly all morning. But the mud came up to expectations. Then it showered again at eleven. The crowd came at twelve. Feet, feet, feet-thousands of  'em tramping in the mud, stirring up the mud, wallowing in the mud. Then another rainy night. The mud increased in depth. The first pair of rubber boots we saw were worn by a Girl Guide leader! She was prepared.

About this time the Scouts began to enjoy the situation for some of the visitors, very English, very spotless and very desirous of keeping spotless, became very closely allied with the jamboree mud in their few hours' stay in camp. We Scouts, having plowed along in all stages of mud, were by then well-experienced in the art of "anti-slip" and only a few were "descendants."

The mud started at two inches, worked upon rather, down-to four and ended at six inches in depth! These, of course, are minimum figures. But picture some lady, in the latest mode of low shoes and immaculate hose, trying to find the dry spots (of which there were very, very few) and you picture many thousands of visitors to the Jamboree.

The mud had its humorous side, of course. Everything has to happen when you are three thousand miles from home and then it was such "nice mud," as one boy said. Kingsway, the main thoroughfare of the jamboree, was the worst section of the camp. One elderly lady suggested a ferry. Instantly several carts appeared, manned by trusty English lads. The boys took off their shoes and socks, waded around in the mud for a while and then announced that the "ferry" was ready.

If you wore rubbers those days you got into trouble, for the mud was so sticky and so deep it pulled them off. If you wore shoes it took nearly a day to clean them properly. The easiest way was to go barefoot; and, as the mud and rain kept up day after day, some of the Scouts of other lands did so. Some of our boys thought they would take to mud skiing; but before we became experts sunshiny days came to help us out of our difficulties.

One of the American Scouts made himself a pair of mud-proof boots out of two deep cracker tins. These boots worked like magic. A woman watching him plod along Kingsway with his new shiny tin shoes, was heard to say: "There's Yankee ingenuity for you!"

On the muddiest of days one of the English contingents put a sign on its gate: "Please wipe your feet on the mat!" The "mat" was a box of mud.

The "Mudboree," of course, had to provoke its ditty. This gem was sung and sung often to the tune of a popular song:

Button tip your lumberjack
At the jamboree!
Take good care of yourself
For the mud flows free!
Keep away from Kingsway Street
At the Jamboree!
Take good care of yourself
Or you'll slip-o-ree-!
Be careful crossing streets,
Oh-Oh-!
For the mud is deep,
Oh-Oh-!
And you'll wet your feet,
Oh-Oh-!
You're apt to slide and fall on your tum-tum-!
Buy yourself some overshoes
And umbrellas three.
Take good care of yourself
At the jamboree!

But the mud was really only a means to an end. The Scouts of every country thought of it only as a good joke. And usually when two people laugh at the same joke those two people become friends. So it happened at the jamboree. The mud only helped the boys of different nations to become better friends. Not that they would not have become good friends anyway without mud to bother them; but they became even better comrades because of it!

After all this talk of mud you will understand that it was a bunch of enterprising adventurers that for the first time ventured out in the world-famous Arrowe Park mud. It proved a great help to us that we were several Scouts instead of one. Whenever one of us slid and tried to swing his legs up over his head, the fellows on either side would be ready to catch the "flying fool" in his descent.

We proceeded up Kingsway through Copenhagen Gate and arrived at the "business center" of our world. Here one could buy anything from a needle to a spare tire. There were shops here of every description; eating places; bakery shops with delicious English pastries; newspaper stands; book shops; photographic shops; little souvenir shops that carried all sorts of goods on hand, such as drawn linens, potteries, wood carvings. Three or four large London banks had branches here; so had the most important railroad companies. And all of them were kept busy all day long.

A complete Tower of Babel effect reigned here. All kinds of uniforms and all kinds of tongues were in evidence. Suddenly we were attacked by a couple of small British Scouts.

"Have you anything to swap?" they asked. "Woggles, badges, eh?"

Before we went home those words became very familiar. We were in the midst of the favorite outdoor sport at the jamboree-swapping.

At first we were about to brush past with an "Awfully sorry, but we haven't anything," when one of our crowd suddenly saw on the sleeve of one of the English boys a badge that he wanted. Accordingly he entered into the strict business of bartering. He dug into his pockets to find something to use for the exchange. Unfortunately there were no extra badges or pins with which to clinch the trade; only an old Scout knife, rather the worse for dampness and hard use.

The small Britisher looked sadly at the knife and then asked: "Haven't you a pin, though?" Our Scout hadn't; but told him that he would be willing. to part with the knife-"This, swell official Boy Scout knife, you know."

A dubious nod of the English lad's head was followed by a half-muttered desire for "a pin, instead."

Just then an old lady passed by who had evidently overheard our conversation. Before we realized what had happened she had opened her hand-bag, triumphantly pulled out something which with a hearty smile she pressed into our fellow's hand. It was a safety pin! She had heard a pin being asked for and had tried to help.

That was our first swapping experience. It wasn't much of a success. But whenever we went out the following days we brought along a load of badges and pins and found we could swap them for all kinds of souvenirs.

We strolled a little further up the shopping street and then suddenly happened to look at our watches. It was getting late. If we didn't hurry up we should miss supper! We rushed tip the muddy Kingsway and reached camp at nearly seven o'clock, just in time to save the last of the stew from the hungry gullets of those who had remained behind.

After the supper we lined up. There had just been another downpour of rain but Sub-camp No. 6 had decided to have a joint Camp 5, and so we had it. We walked to the appointed place singing and yelling. Arriving there we found a real stage equipped with loud-speakers and projectors waiting for us. At the side a couple of fires were burning and around it were gathered Scouts from England, Japan, Malta, Germany, Yugoslavia, Newfoundland. Quite an international get-together!

Commander Saunders, an eminent British Scout leader, had charge of our camp fires and made a good job of it. He introduced us to English Scout songs, calling often on his own countrymen to aid him in carrying out the program. Then he asked us to sing some American jamboree songs and national melodies. It surprised us to find out that the English boys knew and could join in readily such tunes as "Swanee River" and "Old Black Joe." However, we couldn't help British lads much when it came to the singing of their songs most of us had never even heard of them!

There was one we liked at first (as a curiosity) and then got pretty tired of when we couldn't get it out of our heads. We all sang it. We sang it singly, in pairs, or in groups. It was an old English round, the first typical English song some of us had ever heard. The words ran like this:

London's burning, London's burning;
Look yonder, look yonder;
Fire, fire! Fire, fire!
And we have not water.

Quite simple, isn't it? Yet, with its melody, which was almost a monotone, repeatedly ringing in our ears, small wonder we got so we tired of it. Yet we kept on singing it just the same.

While we are on the subject of camp-fire songs, one of the most amusing incidents of our whole fourteen gatherings was one night, well in the first week, when a group of Germans mounted the stage and sang two American songs. One of them was that old refrain which deals with the experiences of "John Brown's Body," the other was a medley composed of several fairly recent songs. Though not all the chaps could speak English, they made a gallant stab at it, chiming in valiantly with the rest. The result was screamingly funny. We literally rolled on the ground at the funniness of it.

The hour of that first camp fire soon passed by. At ten o'clock we broke up with the singing of "God Save the King," in compliment to our hosts, all of us standing at attention and the British Scouts saluting. Then we started for home and got to our quarters still singing our songs.

We jumped right into bed. It had been a wonderful and exciting day and we were all pretty tired. It certainly was a grand and glorious feeling to get into the blankets.

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