The Dispatch-Riders: The Adventures of Two British Motor-cyclists in the Great War — Context and Discussion

Kenneth was a well-set-up English youth of seventeen. He was tall for his age, and withal broad-shouldered and well-knit. His features were dark, his skin burnt a deep tan by reason of more than a nodding acquaintance with an open-air life. In character and action he was impulsive. He had the happy knack of making up his mind on the spur of the moment, and yet at the same time forming a fairly sound judgment. He was quick, too, with his fingers, having been gifted with a keen, mechanical turn of mind.

Rollo Barrington, who was his companion's junior by the space of three days, was rather the reverse of his versatile friend. He was shorter in height by a good four inches; he was slightly built, although he possessed an unlooked-for reserve of physical strength and endurance. He was fresh-complexioned, with blue eyes and wavy chestnut hair.

If Kenneth acted upon impulse, Rollo went by rule of thumb. He was cool and calculating when occasion served; but when in the company of his chum he was generally content to allow his will to be dominated by the impetuous Everest.

Both lads were at St. Cyprian's--a public school of note in the Home Counties. The vacation started about the middle of July, and it was the custom for the senior members to put in a fortnight's camp with the Officers' Training Corps during the latter part of that month.

At the time this story opens--the first day of August, 1914--the two chums were on a motor-cycling tour through Northern France and Belgium. The parents of neither had offered any objection when their respective sons announced their intention of wandering through the high-roads and by-roads of that part of the Continent.

Kenneth had sprung the suggestion upon his father like the proverbial bombshell; and Mr. Everest, who was largely responsible for his son's impetuosity, merely acquiesced by observing: "You lucky young dog! I didn't have the chance when I was your age. Well, I hope you'll have a good time."

On his part Rollo had broached the subject with his customary deliberation, and Colonel Barrington had not only given his consent, but had gone to the extreme toil of producing maps and a Baedeker, and had mapped out a route--to which neither of the lads had adhered. The Colonel also realized that there was a considerable amount of self-education to be derived from the tour. There was nothing like travel, he declared, to expand the mind; following up this statement by the practical action of "forking out", thereby relieving his son of any fear of pecuniary embarrassment.

Both lads rode identically similar motor-cycles--tourist models, of 3-1/2 horse-power, fitted with three-speed hubs. But again the difference in character manifested itself in the care of their respective steeds.

Rollo had been a motor-cyclist ever since he was fourteen--as soon as he was qualified in point of age to obtain a driver's licence. The close attention he bestowed upon his motor-bike never varied; he kept it as clean as he did in the first few days after taking over his new purchase. He had thoroughly mastered its peculiarities, and studied both the theory and practice of its mechanism.

Kenneth Everest had first bestrode the saddle of a motor-cycle a week before their Continental tour began. No doubt his experience as a "push-cyclist" helped him considerably; he quickly mastered the use of the various controls, without troubling to find out "how it worked". With his companion's knowledge at his back he felt quite at ease, since, in the event of any mechanical break-down, Rollo would point out the fault, and Kenneth's ready fingers would either do or undo the rest.

But so far, with the exception of a few tyre troubles, both motor-cyclists had done remarkably well. Landing at Havre, they had pushed on, following the route taken by the English army that had won Agincourt. This, by the by, was Rollo's suggestion. From the site of the historic battle-field they had sped eastward, through Arras, St. Quentin, and Mezieres. Here, finding themselves in the valley of the Meuse, they had turned northward, and passing through the French frontier fortress of Givet, entered Belgium, spending the first night on Belgian soil in picturesque Dinant.