Morse and Semaphore Codes.
Morse and Semaphore Codes.
Every scout ought to learn the "dot and dash" or Morse method of signalling, because it comes in most useful whenever you want to send messages some distance by flag signalling, as in the Army and Navy, and it is also useful in getting you employment as a telegraphist. It is not difficult to learn if you set about it with a will. I found it most useful once during the Boer War. My column had been trying to get past a Boer force who was holding a pass in the mountains. Finding they were too strong for us, we gave it up late in the evening, and leaving a lot of fires alight as if we were in camp in front of them, we moved during the night by a rapid march right round the end of the mountain range, and by daylight next day we were exactly in rear of them without their knowing it. We then found a telegraph line evidently leading from them to their headquarters some fifty miles further off, so we sat down by the telegraph wire and attached our own little wire to it and read all the messages they were sending, and they gave us most valuable information. But we should not have been able to do that had it not been that some of our scouts could read the Morse code.
Then the semaphore signalling, which is done by waving your arms at different angles to each other, is most useful and quite easy to learn, and is known by every soldier and sailor in the service. Here you have all the different letters, and the different angles at which you have to put your arms to represent those letters, and though it looks complicated in the picture, when you come to work it out, you will find it is very simple.
For all letters from A to G the right arm only is used, making a quarter of a circle for each letter in succession. Then from H to N (except J), the right arm stands at A, while the left moves round the circle again for the other letters. From O to S the right arm stands at B, and the left arm moves round as before. For T, V, Y, and the "annul" the right arm stands at C, the left moving to the next point of the circle successively.
The letters A to K also mean figures 1 to 9, if you first make the sign Y to show that you are going to send numbers.
If you want to write a despatch that will puzzle most people to read, use the Morse or Semaphore letters in place of the ordinary alphabet. It will be quite readable to any of your friends who understand signalling.
Also if you want to use a secret language in your patrol you should all set to work to learn "Esperanto." It is not difficult, and is taught in a little book costing one penny. This language is being used in all countries so that you would be able to get on with it abroad now.