Soldiers Three [Stories]

R >> Rudyard Kipling >> Soldiers Three [Stories]

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

Thus the boys discussed their futures, and conducted themselves
piously for a week. That is to say, Lew started a flirtation with
the Colour-Sergeant's daughter, aged thirteen - "not," as he
explained to Jakin, "with any intention o' matrimony, but by way
o' keep in' my 'and in." And the black-haired Cris Delighan
enjoyed that flirtation more than previous ones, and the other
drummer-boys raged furiously together, and Jakin preached sermons
on the dangers of bein' tangled along o' petticoats."

But neither love nor virtue would have held Lew long in the paths
of propriety had not the rumour gone abroad that the Regiment was
to be sent on active service, to take part in a war which, for the
sake of brevity, we will call "The War of the Lost Tribes."

The barracks had the rumour almost before the Mess-room, and of
all the nine hundred men in barracks, not ten had seen a shot
fired in anger. The Colonel had, twenty years ago, assisted at a
Frontier expedition; one of the Majors had seen service at the
Cape; a confirmed deserter in E Company had helped to clear
streets in Ireland; but that was all. The Regiment had been put by
for many years. The overwhelming mass of its rank and file had
from three to four years' service; the non-commissioned officers
were under thirty years old; and men and sergeants alike had
forgotten to speak of the stories written in brief upon the
Colours - the New Colours that had been formally blessed by an
Archbishop in England ere the Regiment came away. They wanted to
go to the Front - they were enthusiastically anxious to go - but
they had no knowledge of what war meant, and there was none to
tell them. They were an educated regiment, the percentage of
school-certificates in their ranks was high, and most of the men
could do more than read and write. They had been recruited in
loyal observance of the territorial idea; but they themselves had
no notion of that idea. They were made up of drafts from an over-
populated manufacturing district. The system had put flesh and
muscle upon their small bones, but it could not put heart into the
sons of those who for generations had done overmuch work for
overscanty pay, had sweated in drying-rooms, stooped over looms,
coughed among white-lead, and shivered on lime-barges. The men had
found food and rest in the Army, and now they were going to fight
"niggers" - people who ran away if you shook a stick at them.
Wherefore they cheered lustily when the rumour ran, and the
shrewd, clerkly non-commissioned officers speculated on the
chances of batta and of saving their pay. At Headquarters men
said: "The Fore and Fit have never been under fire within the last
generation. Let us, therefore, break them in easily by setting
them to guard lines of communication." And this would have been
done but for the fact that British Regiments were wanted - badly
wanted - at the Front, and there were doubtful Native Regiments
that could fill the minor duties. "Brigade 'em with two strong
Regiments," said Headquarters. "They may be knocked about a bit,
but they'll learn their business before they come through. Nothing
like a night-alarm and a little cutting-up of stragglers to make a
Regiment smart in the field. Wait till they've had half a dozen
sentries' throats cut."

The Colonel wrote with delight that the temper of his men was
excellent, that the Regiment was all that could be wished, and as
sound as a bell. The Majors smiled with a sober joy, and the
subalterns waltzed in pairs down the Mess-room after dinner, and
nearly shot themselves at revolver-practice. But there was
consternation in the hearts of Jakin and Lew. What was to be done
with the Drums? Would the Band go to the Front? How many of the
Drums would accompany the Regiment?

They took counsel together, sitting in a tree and smoking.

"It's more than a bloomin' toss-up they'll leave us be'ind at the
Depot with the women. You'll like that," said Jakin sarcastically.

"Cause o' Cris, y' mean? Wot's a woman, or a 'ole bloomin' depot
o' women, 'longside o' the chanst of field-service? You know I'm
as keen on goin' as you," said Lew.

"Wish I was a bloomin' bugler," said Jakin sadly. "They'll take
Tom Kidd along, that I can plaster a wall with, an' like as not
they won't take us."

"Then let's go an' make Tom Kidd so bloomin' sick 'e can't bugle
no more. You 'old 'is 'ands an' I'll kick him," said Lew,
wriggling on the branch.

"That ain't no good neither. We ain't the sort o' characters to
presoom on our rep'tations - they're bad. If they have the Band at
the Depot we don't go, and no error there. If they take the Band
we may get cast for medical unfitness. Are you medical fit,
Piggy?" said Jakin, digging Lew in the ribs with force.

"Yus," said Lew with an oath. "The Doctor says your 'eart's weak
through smokin' on an empty stummick. Throw a chest an' I'll try
yer."

Jakin threw out his chest, which Lew smote with all his might.
Jakin turned very pale, gasped, crowed, screwed up his eyes, and
said - "That's all right."

"You'll do," said Lew. "I've 'eard o' men dying when you 'it 'em
fair on the breastbone."

"Don't bring us no nearer goin', though," said Jakin. "Do you know
where we're ordered?"

"Gawd knows, an' 'E won't split on a pal. Somewheres up to the
Front to kill Paythans - hairy big beggars that turn you inside
out if they get 'old o' you. They say their women are good-
looking, too."

"Any loot?" asked the abandoned Jakin.

"Not a bloomin' anna, they say, unless you dig up the ground an'
see what the niggers 'ave 'id. They're a poor lot." Jakin stood
upright on the branch and gazed across the plain.

"Lew," said he, "there's the Colonel coming. 'Colonel's a good old
beggar. Let's go an' talk to 'im."

Lew nearly fell out of the tree at the audacity of the suggestion.
Like Jakin he feared not God, neither regarded he Man, but there
are limits even to the audacity of a drummer-boy, and to speak to
a Colonel was -

But Jakin had slid down the trunk and doubled in the direction of
the Colonel. That officer was walking wrapped in thought and
visions of a C. B. yes, even a K. C. B., for had he not at command
one of the best Regiments of the Line - the Fore and Fit? And he
was aware of two small boys charging down upon him. Once before it
had been solemnly reported to him that "the Drums were in a state
of mutiny," Jakin and Lew being the ringleaders. This looked like
an organised conspiracy.
-
The boys halted at twenty yards, walked to the regulation four
paces, and saluted together, each as well set-up as a ramrod and
little taller.

The Colonel was in a genial mood; the boys appeared very forlorn
and unprotected on the desolate plain, and one of them was
handsome.

"Well!" said the Colonel, recognising them. "Are you going to pull
me down in the open? I'm sure I never interfere with you, even
though" - he sniffed suspiciously - "you have been smoking."

It was time to strike while the iron was hot. Their hearts beat
tumultuously.

"Beg y' pardon, Sir," began Jakin. "The Reg'ment's ordered on
active service, Sir?"

"So I believe," said the Colonel courteously.

"Is the Band goin', Sir?" said both together. Then, without pause,
"We're goin', Sir, ain't we?"

"You!" said the Colonel, stepping back the more fully to take in
the two small figures. "You! You'd die in the first march."

"No, we wouldn't, Sir. We can march with the Reg'ment anywheres -
p'rade an' anywhere else," said Jakin.

"If Tom Kidd goes 'e'll shut up like a clasp-knife," said Lew.
"Tom 'as very-close veins in both 'is legs, Sir."

"Very how much?"

"Very-close veins, Sir. That's why they swells after long p'rade,
Sir. If 'e can go, we can go, Sir."

Again the Colonel looked at them long and intently.

"Yes, the Band is going," he said as gravely as though he had been
addressing a brother officer. "Have you any parents, either of you
two?"

"No, Sir," rejoicingly from Lew and Jakin. "We're both orphans,
Sir. There's no one to be considered of on our account, Sir."

"You poor little sprats, and you want to go up to the Front with
the Regiment, do you? Why?"

"I've wore the Queen's Uniform for two years," said Jakin. "It's
very 'ard, Sir, that a man don't get no recompense for doin' of
'is dooty, Sir."

"An'- an' if I don't go, Sir," interrupted Lew, "the Bandmaster 'e
says 'e'll catch an' make a bloo - a blessed musician o' me, Sir.
Before I've seen any service, Sir."

The Colonel made no answer for a long time. Then he said quietly:
"If you're passed by the Doctor I dare say you can go. I shouldn't
smoke if I were you."

The boys saluted and disappeared. The Colonel walked home and told
the story to his wife, who nearly cried over it. The Colonel was
well pleased. If that was the temper of the children, what would
not the men do?

Jakin and Lew entered the boys' barrack-room with great
stateliness, and refused to hold any conversation with their
comrades for at least ten minutes. Then, bursting with pride,
Jakin drawled: "I've bin intervooin' the Colonel. Good old beggar
is the Colonel. Says I to 'im, 'Colonel,' says I, 'let me go to
the Front, along o' the Reg'ment. - 'To the Front you shall go,'
says 'e, 'an' I only wish there was more like you among the dirty
little devils that bang the bloomin' drums.' Kidd, if you throw
your 'courtrements at me for tellin' you the truth to your own
advantage, your legs'll swell."

None the less there was a Battle-Royal in the barrack-room, for
the boys were consumed with envy and hate, and neither Jakin nor
Lew behaved in conciliatory wise.

"I'm goin' out to say adoo to my girl," said Lew, to cap the
climax. "Don't none o' you touch my kit because it's wanted for
active service; me bein' specially invited to go by the Colonel."

He strolled forth and whistled in the clump of trees at the back
of the Married Quarters till Cris came to him, and, the
preliminary kisses being given and taken, Lew began to explain the
situation.

"I'm goin' to the Front with the Reg'ment," he said valiantly.

"Piggy, you're a little liar," said Cris, but her heart misgave
her, for Lew was not in the habit of lying.

"Liar yourself, Cris," said Lew, slipping an arm round her. "I'm
goin'. When the Reg'ment marches out you'll see me with 'em, all
galliant and gay. Give us another kiss, Cris, on the strength of
it."

"If you'd on'y a-stayed at the Depot - where you ought to ha' bin
- you could get as many of 'em as - as you dam please," whimpered
Cris, putting up her mouth.

"It's 'ard, Cris. I grant you it's 'ard, But what's a man to do?
If I'd a-stayed at the Depot, you wouldn't think anything of me."

"Like as not, but I'd 'ave you with me, Piggy. An' all the
thinkin' in the world isn't like kissin'."

"An' all the kissin' in the world isn't like 'avin' a medal to
wear on the front o' your coat."

"You won't get no medal."

"Oh, yus, I shall though. Me an' Jakin are the only acting-
drummers that'll be took along. All the rest is full men, an'
we'll get our medals with them."

"They might ha' taken anybody but you, Piggy. You'll get killed -
you're so venturesome. Stay with me, Piggy darlin', down at the
Depot, an' I'll love you true, for ever."

"Ain't you goin' to do that now, Cris? You said you was."

"0' course I am, but th' other's more comfortable. Wait till
you've growed a bit, Piggy. You aren't no taller than me now."

"I've bin in the Army for two years, an' I'm not goin' to get out
of a chanst o' seein' service, an' don't you try to make me do so.
I'll come back, Cris, an' when I take on as a man I'll marry you -
marry you when I'm a Lance."

"Promise, Piggy."

Lew reflected on the future as arranged by Jakin a short time
previously, but Cris's mouth was very near to his own.

"I promise, s'elp me Gawd!" said he.

Cris slid an arm round his neck.

"I won't 'old you back no more, Piggy. Go away an' get your medal,
an' I'll make you a new button-bag as nice as I know how," she
whispered.

"Put some o' your 'air into it, Cris, an' I'll keep it in my
pocket so long's I'm alive."

Then Cris wept anew, and the interview ended. Public feeling among
the drummer-boys rose to fever pitch, and the lives of Jakin and
Lew became unenviable. Not only had they been permitted to enlist
two years before the regulation boy's age - fourteen - but, by
virtue, it seemed, of their extreme youth, they were allowed to go
to the Front - which thing had not happened to acting-drummers
within the knowledge of boy. The Band which was to accompany the
Regiment had been cut down to the regulation twenty men, the
surplus returning to the ranks. Jakin and Lew were attached to the
Band as supernumeraries, though they would much have preferred
being company buglers.

"Don't matter much," said Jakin after the medical inspection. "Be
thankful that we're 'lowed to go at all. The Doctor 'e said that
if we could stand what we took from the Bazar-Sergeant's son we'd
stand pretty nigh anything."

"Which we will," said Lew, looking tenderly at the ragged and ill-
made housewife that Cris had given him, with a lock of her hair
worked into a sprawling "L" upon the cover.

"It was the best I could," she sobbed. "I wouldn't let mother nor
the Sergeant's tailor 'elp me. Keep it always, Piggy, an' remember
I love you true."

They marched to the railway station, nine hundred and sixty
strong, and every soul in cantonments turned out to see them go.
The drummers gnashed their teeth at Jakin and Lew marching with
the Band, the married women wept upon the platform, and the
Regiment cheered its noble self black in the face.

"A nice level lot," said the Colonel to the Second-in-Command as
they watched the first four companies entraining.

"Fit to do anything," said the Second-in-Command enthusiastically.
"But it seems to me they're a thought too young and tender for the
work in hand. It's bitter cold up at the Front now."

"They're sound enough," said the Colonel. "We must take our chance
of sick casualties."

So they went northward, ever northward, past droves and droves of
camels, armies of camp-followers, and legions of laden mules, the
throng thickening day by day, till with a shriek the train pulled
up at a hopelessly congested junction where six lines of temporary
track accommodated six forty-waggon trains; where whistles blew,
Babus sweated, and Commissariat officers swore from dawn till far
into the night, amid the wind-driven chaff of the fodder-bales and
the lowing of a thousand steers.

"Hurry up - you're badly wanted at the Front," was the message
that greeted the Fore and Aft, and the occupants of the Red Cross
carriages told the same tale.

"Tisn't so much the bloomin' fightin'," gasped a headbound trooper
of Hussars to a knot of admiring Fore and Afts. "Tisn't so much
the bloomin' fightin', though there's enough o' that. It's the
bloomin' food an' the bloomin' climate. Frost all night 'cept when
it hails, and b'iling sun all day, and the water stinks fit to
knock you down. I got my 'ead chipped like a egg; I've got
pneumonia too, an' my guts is all out o' order. 'Tain't no
bloomin' picnic in those parts, I can tell you."

"Wot are the niggers like?" demanded a private.

"There's some prisoners in that train yonder. Go an' look at 'em.
They're the aristocracy o' the country. The common folk are a
dashed sight uglier. If you want to know what they fight with,
reach under my seat an' pull out the
long knife that's there."

They dragged out and beheld for the first time the grim, bone-
handled, triangular Afghan knife. It was almost as long as Lew.

"That's the thing to j'int ye," said the trooper feebly. "It can
take off a man's arm at the shoulder as easy as slicing butter. I
halved the beggar that used that un, but there's more of his likes
up above. They don't understand thrustin', but they're devils to
slice."

The men strolled across the tracks to inspect the Afghan
prisoners. They were unlike any "niggers" that the Fore and Aft
had ever met - these huge, black-haired, scowling sons of the
Beni-Israel. As the men stared the Afghans spat freely and
muttered one to another with lowered eyes.

"My eyes! Wot awful swine!" said Jakin, who was in the rear of the
procession. "Say, ole man, how you got puckrowed, eh? Kiswasti you
wasn't hanged for your ugly face, hey?"

The tallest of the company turned, his leg-irons clanking at the
movement, and stared at the boy. "See!" he cried to his fellows in
Pushto. "They send children against us. What a people, and what
fools!"

"Hya." said Jakin, nodding his head cheerily. "You go down-
country. Khana get, peenikapanee get - live like a bloomin' Raja
ke marfik. That's a better bandobust than baynit get it in your
innards. Good-bye, ole man. Take care o' your beautiful figure-
'ead, an' try to look kushy."

The men laughed and fell in for their first march, when they began
to realise that a soldier's life is not all beer and skittles.
They were much impressed with the size and bestial ferocity of the
niggers whom they had now learned to call "Paythans," and more
with the exceeding discomfort of their own surroundings. Twenty
old soldiers in the corps would have taught them how to make
themselves moderately snug at night, but they had no old soldiers,
and, as the troops on the line of march said, "they lived like
pigs." They learned the heart-breaking cussedness of camp-kitchens
and camels and the depravity of an E. P. tent and a wither-wrung
mule. They studied animalculae in water, and developed a few cases
of dysentery in their study.

At the end of their third march they were disagreeably surprised
by the arrival in their camp of a hammered iron slug which, fired
from a steady rest at seven hundred yards, flicked out the brains
of a private seated by the fire. This robbed them of their peace
for a night, and was the beginning of a long-range fire carefully
calculated to that end. In the daytime they saw nothing except an
unpleasant puff of smoke from a crag above the line of march. At
night there were distant spurts of flame and occasional
casualties, which set the whole camp blazing into the gloom and,
occasionally, into opposite tents. Then they swore vehemently and
vowed that this was magnificent but not war.

Indeed it was not. The Regiment could not halt for reprisals
against the sharpshooters of the country-side. Its duty was to go
forward and make connectioon with the Scotch and Goorkha troops
with which it was brigaded. The Afghans knew this, and knew too,
after their first tentative shots, that they were dealing with a
raw regiment Thereafter they devoted themselves to the task of
keeping the Fore and Aft on the strain. Not for anything would
they have taken equal liberties with a seasoned corps - with the
wicked little Goorkhas, whose delight it was to lie out in the
open on a dark night and stalk their stalkers - with the terrible
big men dressed in women's clothes, who could be heard praying to
their God in the night-watches, and whose peace of mind no amount
of "sniping" could shake - or with those vile Sikhs, who marched
so ostentatiously unprepared and who dealt out such grim reward to
those who tried to profit by that unpreparedness. This white
regiment was different - quite different. It slept like a hog,
and, like a hog, charged in every direction when it was roused.
Its sentries walked with a footfall that could be heard for a
quarter of a mile; would fire at anything that moved - even a
driven donkey - and when they had once fired, could be
scientifically "rushed " and laid out a horror and an offence
against the morning sun. Then there were camp-followers who
straggled and could be cut up without fear. Their shrieks would
disturb the white boys, and the loss of their services would
inconvenience them sorely.

Thus, at every march, the hidden enemy became bolder and the
Regiment writhed and twisted under attacks it could not avenge.
The crowning triumph was a sudden night-rush ending in the cutting
of many tent-ropes, the collapse of the sodden canvas, and a
glorious knifing of the men who struggled and kicked below. It was
a great deed, neatly carried out, and it shook the already shaken
nerves of the Fore and Aft. All the courage that they had been
required to exercise up to this point was the "two o'clock in the
morning courage"; and, so far, they had only succeeded in shooting
their comrades and losing their sleep.

Sullen, discontented, cold, savage, sick, with their uniforms
dulled and unclean, the Fore and Aft joined their Brigade.

"I hear you had a tough time of it coming up," said the Brigadier.
But when he saw the hospital-sheets his face fell.

"This is bad," said he to himself. "They're as rotten as sheep."
And aloud to the Colonel - "I'm afraid we can't spare you just
yet. We want all we have, else I should have given you ten days to
recover in."

The Colonel winced. "On my honour, Sir," he returned, "there is
not the least necessity to think of sparing us. My men have been
rather mauled and upset without a fair return. They only want to
go in somewhere where they can see what's before them."

"Can't say I think much of the Fore and Fit," said the Brigadier
in confidence to his Brigade-Major. "They've lost all their
soldiering, and, by the trim of them, might have marched through
the country from the other side. A more fagged-out set of men I
never put eyes on."

"Oh, they'll improve as the work goes on. The parade gloss has
been rubbed off a little, but they'll put on field polish before
long," said the Brigade-Major. "They've been mauled, and they
don't quite understand it."

They did not. All the hitting was on one side, and it was cruelly
hard hitting with accessories that made them sick. There was also
the real sickness that laid hold of a strong man and dragged him
howling to the grave. Worst of all, their officers knew just as
little of the country as the men themselves, and looked as if they
did. The Fore and Aft were in a thoroughly unsatisfactory
condition, but they believed that all would be well if they could
once get a fair go-in at the enemy. Pot-shots up and down the
valleys were unsatisfactory, and the bayonet never seemed to get a
chance. Perhaps it was as well, for a long-limbed Afghan with a
knife had a reach of eight feet, and could carry away lead that
would disable three Englishmen.

The Fore and Aft would like some rifle-practice at the enemy - all
seven hundred rifles blazing together. That wish showed the mood
of the men.

The Goorkhas walked into their camp, and in broken, barrack-room
English strove to fraternise with them: offered them pipes of
tobacco and stood them treat at the canteen. But the Fore and Aft,
not knowing much of the nature of the Goorkhas, treated them as
they would treat any other "niggers," and the little men in green
trotted back to their firm friends the Highlanders, and with many
grins confided to them: "That dam white regiment no dam use. Sulky
- ugh! Dirty - ugh! Hya, any tot for Johnny?" Whereat the
Highlanders smote the Goorkhas as to the head, and told them not
to vilify a British Regiment, and the Goorkhas grinned
cavernously, for the Highlanders were their elder brothers and
entitled to the privileges of kinship. The common soldier who
touches a Goorkha is more than likely to have his head sliced
open.

Three days later the Brigadier arranged a battle according to the
rules of war and the peculiarity of the Afghan temperament. The
enemy were massing in inconvenient strength among the hills, and
the moving of many green standards warned him that the tribes were
"up" in aid of the Afghan regular troops. A squadron and a half of
Bengal Lancers represented the available Cavalry, and two screw-
guns, borrowed from a column thirty miles away, the Artillery at
the General's disposal.

"If they stand, as I've a very strong notion that they will, I
fancy we shall see an infantry fight that will be worth watching,"
said the Brigadier. "We'll do it in style. Each regiment shall be
played into action by its Band, and we'll hold the Cavalry in
reserve."

"For all the reserve?" somebody asked.

"For all the reserve; because we're going to crumple them up,"
said the Brigadier, who was an extraordinary Brigadier, and did
not believe in the value of a reserve when dealing with Asiatics.
Indeed, when you come to think of it, had the British Army
consistently waited for reserves in all its little affairs, the
boundaries of Our Empire would have stopped at Brighton beach.

The battle was to be a glorious battle.

The three regiments debouching from three separate gorges, after
duly crowning the heights above, were to converge from the centre,
left, and right upon what we will call the Afghan army, then
stationed towards the lower extremity of a flat-bottomed valley.
Thus it will be seen that three sides of the valley practically
belonged to the English, while the fourth was strictly Afghan
property. In the event of defeat the Afghans had the rocky hills
to fly to, where the fire from the guerrilla tribes in aid would
cover their retreat. In the event of victory these same tribes
would rush down and lend their weight to the rout of the British.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15