Kipling and war, p.16
Kipling and War, page 16
Months later, I got a cutting from an American paper, on information from Geneva – even then a pest-house of propaganda – describing how I and some officers – names, date, and place correct – had entered a farm-house where we found two men and three women. We had dragged the women from under the bed where they had taken refuge (I assure you that no Tantie Sannie of that day could bestow herself beneath any known bed) and, giving them a hundred yards’ start, had shot them down as they ran.
Even then, the beastliness struck me as more comic than significant. But by that time I ought to have known that it was the Hun’s reflection of his own face as he spied at our back-windows. He had thrown in the ‘hundred yards’ start’ touch as a tribute to our national sense of fair play.
From the business point of view the war was ridiculous. We charged ourselves step by step with the care and maintenance of all Boerdom – women and children included. Whence horrible tales of our atrocities in the concentration-camps.
One of the most widely exploited charges was our deliberate cruelty in making prisoners’ tents and quarters open to the north. A Miss Hobhouse among others was loud in this matter, but she was to be excused.
We were showing off our newly-built little ‘Woolsack’ to a great lady on her way upcountry, where a residence was being built for her. At the larder the wife pointed out that it faced south – that quarter being the coldest when one is south of the Equator. The great lady considered the heresy for a moment. Then, with the British sniff which abolishes the absurd, ‘Hmm! I shan’t allow that to make any difference to me.’
Some Army and Navy Stores Lists were introduced into the prisoners’ camps, and the women returned to civil life with a knowledge of corsets, stockings, toilet-cases, and other accessories frowned upon by their clergymen and their husbands. Qua women they were not very lovely, but they made their men fight, and they knew well how to fight on their own lines.
In the give-and-take of our work our troops got to gauge the merits of the commando-leaders they were facing. As I remember the scale, De Wet, with two hundred and fifty men, was to be taken seriously. With twice that number he was likely to fall over his own feet. Smuts (of Cambridge), warring, men assured me, in a black suit, trousers rucked to the knees, and a top-hat, could handle five hundred but, beyond that, got muddled. And so with the others. I had the felicity of meeting Smuts as a British General, at the Ritz during the Great War. Meditating on things seen and suffered, he said that being hunted about the veldt on a pony made a man think quickly, and that perhaps Mr. Balfour (as he was then) would have been better for the same experience.
Each commando had its own reputation in the field, and the grizzlier their beards the greater our respect. There was an elderly contingent from Wakkerstroom which demanded most cautious handling. They shot, as you might say, for the pot. The young men were not so good. And there were foreign contingents who insisted on fighting after the manner of Europe. These the Boers wisely put in the forefront of the battle and kept away from. In one affair the Zarps – the Transvaal Police – fought brilliantly and were nearly all killed. But they were Swedes for the most part, and we were sorry.
Occasionally foreign prisoners were gathered in. Among them I remember a Frenchman who had joined for pure logical hatred of England, but, being a professional, could not resist telling us how we ought to wage the war. He was quite sound but rather cantankerous.
The ‘war’ became an unpleasing compost of ‘political considerations,’ social reform, and housing; maternity-work and variegated absurdities. It is possible, though I doubt it, that first and last we may have killed four thousand Boers. Our own casualties, mainly from preventible disease, must have been six times as many.
The junior officers agreed that the experience ought to be a ‘first-class dress-parade for Armageddon,’ but their practical conclusions were misleading. Long-range, aimed rifle-fire would do the work of the future; troops would never get nearer each other than half a mile, and Mounted Infantry would be vital. This was because, having found men on foot cannot overtake men on ponies, we created eighty thousand of as good Mounted Infantry as the world had seen. For these Western Europe had no use. Artillery preparation of wire-works, such as were not at Magersfontein, was rather overlooked in the reformers’ schemes, on account of the difficulty of bringing up ammunition by horse-power. The pom-poms, and Lord Dundonald’s galloping light gun-carriages, ate up their own weight in shell in three or four minutes.
In the ramshackle hotel at Bloemfontein, where the correspondents lived and the officers dropped in, one heard free and fierce debate as points came up, but – since no one dreamt of the internal-combustion engine that was to stand the world on its thick head, and since our wireless apparatus did not work in those landscapes – we were all beating the air.
Eventually the ‘war’ petered out on political lines. Brother Boer – and all ranks called him that – would do everything except die. Our men did not see why they should perish chasing stray commandoes, or festering in block-houses, and there followed a sort of demoralising ‘handy-pandy’ of alternate surrenders complicated by exchange of Army tobacco for Boer brandy which was bad for both sides.
At long last, we were left apologising to a deeply-indignant people, whom we had been nursing and doctoring for a year or two; and who now expected, and received, all manner of free gifts and appliances for the farming they had never practised. We put them in a position to uphold and expand their primitive lust for racial domination, and thanked God we were ‘rid of a knave.’
[First published in Something of Myself (London: Macmillan, 1937).]
* * *
The early months of the Boer War put British soldiers through thousands of miles of forced marches. Kipling’s poem expresses his sympathy with their hardship. It also reflects the fact that George Allen, the businessman who brought Kipling back to India to work on his newspaper, the Civil and Military Gazette, in 1882, had a thriving business manufacturing leather and boots for the army.
Boots
Infantry Columns
We’re foot – slog – slog – slog – sloggin’ over Africa –
Foot – foot – foot – foot – sloggin’ over Africa –
(Boots – boots – boots – boots – movin’ up an’ down again!)
There’s no discharge in the war!
Seven – six – eleven – five – nine-an’-twenty mile to-day –
Four – eleven – seventeen – thirty-two the day before –
(Boots – boots – boots – boots – movin’ up an’ down again!)
There’s no discharge in the war!
Don’t – don’t – don’t – don’t – look at what’s in front of you.
(Boots – boots – boots – boots – movin’ up an’ down again);
Men – men – men – men – men go mad with watchin’ ’em,
An’ there’s no discharge in the war!
Try – try – try – try – to think o’ something different –
Oh – my – God – keep – me from goin’ lunatic!
(Boots – boots – boots – boots – movin’ up an’ down again!)
There’s no discharge in the war!
Count – count – count – count – the bullets in the bandoliers.
If – your – eyes – drop – they will get atop o’ you!
(Boots – boots – boots – boots – movin’ up an’ down again) –
There’s no discharge in the war!
We – can – stick – out – ’unger, thirst, an’ weariness,
But – not – not – not – not the chronic sight of ’em –
Boot – boots – boots – boots – movin’ up an’ down again,
An’ there’s no discharge in the war!
’Taint – so – bad – by – day because o’ company,
But night – brings – long – strings – o’ forty thousand million
Boots – boots – boots – boots – movin’ up an’ down again.
There’s no discharge in the war!
I – ’ave – marched – six – weeks in ’Ell an’ certify
It – is – not – fire – devils, dark, or anything,
But boots – boots – boots – boots – movin’ up an’ down again,
An’ there’s no discharge in the war!
[First published in The Five Nations (1903).]
* * *
This is a fine example of Kipling getting into the mind of a soldier whose whole world picture has been changed by his military service abroad.
Chant-Pagan
English Irregular, Discharged
Me that ’ave been what I’ve been –
Me that ’ave gone where I’ve gone –
Me that ’ave seen what I’ve seen –
’Ow can I ever take on
With awful old England again,
An’ ’ouses both sides of the street,
And ’edges two sides of the lane,
And the parson an’ gentry between,
An’ touchin’ my ’at when we meet –
Me that ’ave been what I’ve been?
Me that ’ave watched ’arf a world
’Eave up all shiny with dew,
Kopje on kop to the sun,
An’ as soon as the mist let ’em through
Our ’elios winkin’ like fun –
Three sides of a ninety-mile square,
Over valleys as big as a shire –
‘Are ye there? Are ye there? Are ye there?’
An’ then the blind drum of our fire …
An’ I’m rollin’ ’is lawns for the Squire,
Me!
Me that ’ave rode through the dark
Forty mile, often, on end,
Along the Ma’ollisberg Range,
With only the stars for my mark
An’ only the night for my friend,
An’ things runnin’ off as you pass,
An’ things jumpin’ up in the grass,
An’ the silence, the shine an’ the size
Of the ’igh, unexpressible skies –
I am takin’ some letters almost
As much as a mile to the post,
An’ ‘mind you come back with the change!’
Me!
Me that saw Barberton took
When we dropped through the clouds on their ’ead,
An’ they ‘ove the guns over and fled –
Me that was through Di’mond ’Ill,
An’ Pieters an’ Springs an’ Belfast –
From Dundee to Vereeniging all –
Me that stuck out to the last
(An’ five bloomin’ bars on my chest) –
I am doin’ my Sunday-school best,
By the ’elp of the Squire an’ ’is wife
(Not to mention the ’ousemaid an’ cook),
To come in an’ ’ands up an’ be still,
An’ honestly work for my bread,
My livin’ in that state of life
To which it shall please God to call
Me!
Me that ’ave followed my trade
In the place where the Lightnin’s are made;
’Twixt the Rains and the Sun and the Moon –
Me that lay down an’ got up
Three years with the sky for my roof –
That ’ave ridden my ’unger an’ thirst
Six thousand raw mile on the hoof,
With the Vaal and the Orange for cup,
An’ the Brandwater Basin for dish –
Oh! it’s ’ard to be’ave as they wish
(Too ’ard, an’ a little too soon),
I’ll ’ave to think over it first –
Me!
I will arise an’ get ’ence –
I will trek South and make sure
If it’s only my fancy or not
That the sunshine of England is pale,
And the breezes of England are stale,
An’ there’s something gone small with the lot.
For I know of a sun an’ a wind,
An’ some plains and a mountain be’ind,
An’ some graves by a barb-wire fence,
An’ a Dutchman I’ve fought ’oo might give
Me a job where I ever inclined
To look in an’ offsaddle an’ live
Where there’s neither a road nor a tree –
But only my Maker an’ me,
An I think it will kill me or cure,
So I think I will go there an’ see.
[First published in The Five Nations (1903).]
* * *
At the time Lichtenberg was a small village in the western Transvaal. Some of its trees were cut down by the Boers in 1901 to make it easier to defend.
Lichtenberg
(New South Wales Contingent)
Smells are surer than sounds or sights
To make your heart-strings crack –
They start those awful voices o’ nights
That whisper, ‘Old man, come back!’
That must be why the big things pass
And the little things remain,
Like the smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg,
Riding in, in the rain.
There was some silly fire on the flank
And the small wet drizzling down –
There were the sold-out shops and the bank
And the wet, wide-open town;
And we were doing escort-duty
To somebody’s baggage-train,
And I smelt wattle by Lichtenberg –
Riding in, in the rain.
It was all Australia to me –
All I had found or missed:
Every face I was crazy to see,
And every woman I’d kissed:
All that I shouldn’t ha’ done, God knows!
(As He knows I’ll do it again),
That smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg,
Riding in, in the rain!
And I saw Sydney the same as ever,
The picnics and brass-bands;
And my little homestead on Hunter River
And my new vines joining hands.
It all came over me in one act
Quick as a shot through the brain –
With the smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg,
Riding in, in the rain.
I have forgotten a hundred fights,
But one I shall not forget –
With the raindrops bunging up my sights
And my eyes bunged up with wet;
And through the crack and the stink of the cordite
(Ah Christ! My country again!)
The smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg,
Riding in, in the rain!
[First published in The Five Nations (1903).]
* * *
The Yeomanry was composed of (mainly) volunteer cavalry regiments, originally established to defend Britain at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. This poem refers to the amalgamated Imperial Yeomanry which fought in the Boer War. A kopje is a small usually rocky hill which sticks up on the flat African veld.
Two Kopjes
(Made Yeomanry towards the End of the Boer War)
Only two African kopjes,
Only the cart-tracks that wind
Empty and open between ’em,
Only the Transvaal behind;
Only an Aldershot column
Marching to conquer the land …
Only a sudden and solemn
Visit, unarmed, to the Rand.
Then scorn not the African kopje,
The kopje that smiles in the heat,
The wholly unoccupied kopje,
The home of Cornelius and Piet.
You can never be sure of your kopje,
But of this be you blooming well sure,
A kopje is always a kopje,
And a Boojer is always a Boer!
Only two African kopjes,
Only the vultures above,
Only baboons – at the bottom,
Only some buck on the move;
Only a Kensington draper
Only pretending to scout …
Only bad news for the paper,
Only another knock-out.
Then mock not the African kopje,
And rub not your flank on its side,
The silent and simmering kopje,
The kopje beloved by the guide.
You can never be, etc.
Only two African kopjes,
Only the dust of their wheels,
Only a bolted commando,
Only our guns at their heels …
Only a little barb-wire,
Only a natural fort,
Only ‘by sections retire,’
Only ‘regret to report!’
Then mock not the African kopje,
Especially when it is twins,
One sharp and one table-topped kopje
For that’s where the trouble begins.
You never can be, etc.
Only two African kopjes
Baited the same as before –
Only we’ve had it so often,
Only we’re taking no more …
Only a wave to our troopers,
Only our flanks swinging past,
Only a dozen voorloopers,
Only we’ve learned it at last!
Then mock not the African kopje,
But take off your hat to the same,
The patient, impartial old kopje,
The kopje that taught us the game!
For all that we knew in the Columns,
And all they’ve forgot on the Staff,
We learned at the Fight o’ Two Kopjes,
Which lasted two years an’ a half.
O mock not the African kopje,
Not even when peace has been signed –
The kopje that isn’t a kopje –
