Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1129 page)

THE SECRET OF THE SERVICES

Pride of city, calling, class, and creed imposes standards and obligations which hold men above themselves at a pinch, and steady them through long strain. One meets it in the New Army at every turn, from the picked Territorials who slipped across Channel last night to the six-week-old Service battalion maturing itself in mud. It is balanced by the ineradicable English instinct to understate, detract, and decry - to mask the thing done by loudly drawing attention to the things undone. The more one sees of the camps the more one is filled with facts and figures of joyous significance, which will become clearer as the days lengthen; and the less one hears of the endurance, decency, self-sacrifice, and utter devotion which have made, and are hourly making, this wonderful new world. The camps take this for granted - else why should any man be there at all? He might have gone on with his business, or - watched ‘soccer’. But having chosen to do his bit, he does it, and talks as much about his motives as he would of his religion or his love-affairs. He is eloquent over the shortcomings of the authorities, more pessimistic as to the future of his next neighbour battalion than would be safe to print, and lyric on his personal needs - baths and drying- rooms for choice. But when the grousing gets beyond a certain point - say at three a.m. in steady wet, with the tent-pegs drawing like false teeth - the nephew of the insurance-agent asks the cousin of the baronet to inquire of the son of the fried-fish vendor what the stevedore’s brother and the tutor of the public school joined the Army for. Then they sing ‘Somewhere the Sun is Shining’till the Sergeant Ironmonger’s assistant cautions them to drown in silence or the Lieutenant Telephone-appliances-manufacturer will speak to them in the morning.

The New armies have not yet evolved their typical private, n.-c.-o., and officer, though one can see them shaping. They are humorous because, for all our long faces, we are the only genuinely humorous race on earth; but they all know for true that there are no excuses in the Service. ‘If there were,’ said a three-month- old under-gardener-private to me, ‘what ‘ud become of Discipline?’

They are already setting standards for the coming millions, and have sown little sprouts of regimental tradition which may grow into age-old trees. In one corps, for example, though no dubbin is issued a man loses his name for parad- ing with dirty boots. He looks down scornfully on the next battalion where they are not expected to achieve the impossible. In another - an ex- Guards sergeant brought ‘em up by hand - the drill is rather high-class. In a third they fuss about records for route-marching, and men who fall out have to explain themselves to their sweating com- panions. This is entirely right. They are all now in the Year One, and the meanest of them may be an ancestor of whom regimental posterity will say: ‘There were giants in those days!’

THE REAL QUESTION

This much we can realise, even though we are so close to it. The old safe instinct saves us from triumph and exultation. But what will be the position in years to come of the young man who has deliberately elected to outcaste himself from this all-embracing brotherhood? What of his family, and, above all, what of his descendants, when the books have been closed and the last balance struck of sacrifice and sorrow in every hamlet, village, parish, suburb, city, shire, district, province, and Dominion throughout the Empire? 

FRANCE AT WAR

This military critical work was first published during World War I in 1916.

CONTENTS

FRANCE

I

ON THE FRONTIER OF CIVILIZATION

AN OBSERVATION POST

“THE BARBARIAN”

THE BARBARIAN”

SOLDIERS IN CAVES

THE SENTINEL HOUNDS

WORK IN THE FIELDS

A WRECKED TOWN

IN THE CATHEDRAL

II

THE NATION’S SPIRIT AND A NEW INHERITANCE

THE LINE THAT NEVER SLEEPS

LESSON FROM THE “BOCHE”

TRAGEDY OF RHEIMS

IRON NERVE AND FAITH

III

BATTLE SPECTACLE AND A REVIEW

FARM LIFE AMIDST WAR

WATCHING THE GUN-FIRE

BEHIND THE GERMAN LINES

VETERANS OF THE WAR

AN ARMY IN MOTION

ARTILLERY AND CAVALRY

THE BOCHE AS MR. SMITH

IV

THE SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE

A CITY AND WOMAN

FRENCH OFFICERS

FRONT THAT NEVER SLEEPS

THE BUSINESS OF WAR

A CONTRAST IN TYPES

V

LIFE IN TRENCHES ON THE MOUNTAIN SIDE

TRENCHES

IN THE FRONT LINE

FRONT LINE PROFESSIONALS

HANDY TRENCH-SWEEPERS

A BOMBARDED TOWN

CASES FOR HOSPITAL

VI

THE COMMON TASK OF A GREAT PEOPLE

SUPPORTS AND RESERVES

PARIS — AND NO FOREIGNERS

A PEOPLE TRANSFIGURED

THE NEW WAR

A NATION’S CONFIDENCE

FRANCE

Broke to every known mischance, lifted over all By the light sane joy of life, the buckler of the Gaul, Furious in luxury, merciless in toil, Terrible with strength that draws from her tireless soil, Strictest judge of her own worth, gentlest of men’s mind, First to follow truth and last to leave old truths behind — France beloved of every soul that loves its fellow-kind.

Ere our birth (rememberest thou?) side
      by side we lay
Fretting in the womb of Rome to begin
      the fray.
Ere men knew our tongues apart, our one
      taste was known —
Each must mould the other’s fate as he
      wrought his own.
To this end we stirred mankind till all
      earth was ours,
Till our world-end strifes began wayside
      thrones and powers,
Puppets that we made or broke to bar
      the other’s path —
Necessary, outpost folk, hirelings of our
      wrath.
To this end we stormed the seas, tack for
      tack, and burst
Through the doorways of new worlds,
      doubtful which was first.
Hand on hilt (rememberest thou?), ready
      for the blow.
Sure whatever else we met we should
      meet our foe.
Spurred or baulked at ev’ry stride by the
      other’s strength,
So we rode the ages down and every ocean’s
      length;
Where did you refrain from us or we
      refrain from you?
Ask the wave that has not watched war
      between us two.
Others held us for a while, but with
      weaker charms,
These we quitted at the call for each
      other’s arms.
Eager toward the known delight, equally
      we strove,
Each the other’s mystery, terror, need,
      and love.
To each other’s open court with our
      proofs we came,
Where could we find honour else or men
      to test the claim?
From each other’s throat we wrenched
      valour’s last reward,
That extorted word of praise gasped
      ’twixt lunge and guard.
In each other’s cup we poured mingled
      blood and tears,
Brutal joys, unmeasured hopes,
      intolerable fears,
All that soiled or salted life for a thousand
      years.
Proved beyond the need of proof, matched
      in every clime,
O companion, we have lived greatly
      through all time:
Yoked in knowledge and remorse now we
      come to rest,
Laughing at old villainies that time has
      turned to jest,
Pardoning old necessity no pardon can
      efface —
That undying sin we shared in Rouen
      market-place.
Now we watch the new years shape,
      wondering if they hold
Fiercer lighting in their hearts than we
      launched of old.
Now we hear new voices rise, question,
      boast or gird,
As we raged (rememberest thou?) when
      our crowds were stirred.
Now we count new keels afloat, and new
      hosts on land,
Massed liked ours (rememberest thou?)
      when our strokes were planned.
We were schooled for dear life sake, to
      know each other’s blade:
What can blood and iron make more than
      we have made?
We have learned by keenest use to know
      each other’s mind:
What shall blood and iron loose that we
      cannot bind?
We who swept each other’s coast, sacked
      each other’s home,
Since the sword of Brennus clashed on
      the scales at Rome,
Listen, court and close again, wheeling
      girth to girth,
In the strained and bloodless guard set
      for peace on earth.

Broke to every known mischance, lifted over all By the light sane joy of life, the buckler of the Gaul, Furious in luxury, merciless in toil, Terrible with strength renewed from a tireless soil, Strictest judge of her own worth, gentlest of men’s mind, First to follow truth and last to leave old truths behind, France beloved of every soul that loves or serves its kind.

*First published June 24, 1913.

I

ON THE FRONTIER OF CIVILIZATION

“It’s a pretty park,” said the French artillery officer. “We’ve done a lot for it since the owner left. I hope he’ll appreciate it when he comes back.”

The car traversed a winding drive through woods, between banks embellished with little chalets of a rustic nature. At first, the chalets stood their full height above ground, suggesting tea-gardens in England. Further on they sank into the earth till, at the top of the ascent, only their solid brown roofs showed. Torn branches drooping across the driveway, with here and there a scorched patch of undergrowth, explained the reason of their modesty.

The chateau that commanded these glories of forest and park sat boldly on a terrace. There was nothing wrong with it except, if one looked closely, a few scratches or dints on its white stone walls, or a neatly drilled hole under a flight of steps. One such hole ended in an unexploded shell. “Yes,” said the officer. “They arrive here occasionally.”

Something bellowed across the folds of the wooded hills; something grunted in reply. Something passed overhead, querulously but not without dignity. Two clear fresh barks joined the chorus, and a man moved lazily in the direction of the guns.

“Well. Suppose we come and look at things a little,” said the commanding officer.

AN OBSERVATION POST

There was a specimen tree — a tree worthy of such a park — the sort of tree visitors are always taken to admire. A ladder ran up it to a platform. What little wind there was swayed the tall top, and the ladder creaked like a ship’s gangway. A telephone bell tinkled 50 foot overhead. Two invisible guns spoke fervently for half a minute, and broke off like terriers choked on a leash. We climbed till the topmost platform swayed sicklily beneath us. Here one found a rustic shelter, always of the tea-garden pattern, a table, a map, and a little window wreathed with living branches that gave one the first view of the Devil and all his works. It was a stretch of open country, with a few sticks like old tooth-brushes which had once been trees round a farm. The rest was yellow grass, barren to all appearance as the veldt.

“The grass is yellow because they have used gas here,” said an officer. “Their trenches are —  —  — . You can see for yourself.”

The guns in the woods began again. They seemed to have no relation to the regularly spaced bursts of smoke along a little smear in the desert earth two thousand yards away — no connection at all with the strong voices overhead coming and going. It was as impersonal as the drive of the sea along a breakwater.