OUR LOSS AND THE ARMY'S
_The Departure of Mr. Kipling, leaving_ THE FRIEND _vigorous
with the Impetus he gave it._
Rudyard Kipling left Bloemfontein for Capetown on the night of April
1st, in the same train that bore away Sir Alfred Milner, Colonel
Hanbury Williams, and Colonel Girouard. The High Commissioner had been
declared to be leaving a day or two later, but started at once in
order to avoid giving the Boers notice to prepare mischief.
Of the happy days of boyish delight we editors spent with Mr. Kipling
many brought incidents too trifling to be noted here, yet which went
to fill a heaping loving cup of pleasant memories. "Heavens!" he once
exclaimed, "how good it is to be with men who are doing things!" There
was, for instance, the day when--as the reader may have perceived--two
poems bore a note of merely suggested complaint from the sick in the
hospitals. That note struck Mr. Kipling's sensibility, and he and Mr.
Landon and I seized armsful of FRIENDS and set out upon a tour of the
hospitals--then far too numerous in the public and semi-public
buildings of the place. Mr. Kipling went ahead and distributed the
papers, and we followed and whispered who he was to the sufferers in
the cots. I never shall forget the look that came in each man's eyes,
or how every one of them who was able raised himself upon an elbow to
stare after the poet as he passed from room to room.
"God bless him," they said; "he's the soldier's friend."
And surely a blessing proceeded from him, in response to that which he
received, for, at the knowledge of his presence, a new vigour and a
sense of delight, such as they had almost forgotten how to feel, came
to the sufferers. He had nothing of the theatrical about him, made no
speeches, conversed in hushed tones, halted nowhere, posed not even to
the slightest extent--but went on with doctor or nurse through the
wards, listening and looking. I think that Mr. Landon and I were more
conscious of the reflection of his fame than was he from whom it
proceeded.
At one stage of our adventure we determined to cross from one hospital
to another, over some intervening gardens. What an unsuspected
wildness lay among those walled enclosures in the confines of a
nation's capital. Little hills, little rivers, marshes, precipices,
walls on the edges of tiny cliffs! It proved a better feat for Italian
cavalrymen than for a stout poet, a man with a game leg and arms in
lint, and a third one who did not know it, but who was already
poisoned with fever germs. However, we had set it for ourselves to do,
and we did it--without any more serious mishap than a kick in the
equatorial region which I bestowed on the poet in dropping over a
wall.
Mr. Kipling had other experiences with hospitals when we were with him
and when he was by himself. He was qualified to testify as he did
before the Commission that looked into the manner in which the care of
the sick and wounded was bestowed.
While I was in Capetown I heard a story of an adventure of his, in
which the parts played by him and by the hospital people were
eminently characteristic of both. To begin with, he discovered that
there were no bandages in a certain hospital! The reader imagines that
such a state of things must have been most extraordinary--but it was
not. Why should we conceal facts or mince words if we are earnestly
endeavouring to probe our own weaknesses and mend our faults? I knew
of hospitals without cots, without sheets, without pillows, without
measuring glasses, without thermometers. These "hospitals" must have
been little more than mere surgeons and staffs, for they applied to
the Red Cross people for nearly everything--except medicines--which is
required in the care of the sick. Thus Peter was robbed to pay Paul,
for Tommy's "comforts" were swallowed up in getting him his
necessaries. This was the case in Kimberley after the relief of the
town, and it was again the case in Bloemfontein. But to return to
Capetown. There Mr. Kipling discovered a hospital without bandages, in
desperate need of bandages, in a city containing stores of bandages on
sale in many places.
Mr. Kipling mentioned to an acquaintance that he was going to supply
that establishment with bandages, and this acquaintance, who was
connected with the _Daily Mail's_ "Absent Minded Beggar Fund," at once
offered to pay for all that Mr. Kipling would buy and take to the
hospital. A cart was quickly loaded with bandages, and then Mr.
Kipling was told that under the army rules the hospital authorities
could not receive supplies from a private individual. "Well," said he,
"I will dump the packages on the pavement before the door, and then
tell them to come out and clear up the litter. They will get them into
the building that way without tearing any red tape, I hope."
He drove off with the bandages, I am told by the gentleman who footed
the bill, but how the supplies were smuggled in I have never heard. I
suspect that the rule against receiving supplies from civilians got a
great many wrenches and fractures. But for civilians such as at least
one Red Cross Commissioner of my acquaintance, Heaven only knows what
these hospitals, that consisted of little else than a corps of men,
would have been able to do. I asked my friend how it could be possible
that an arm of the Government of Great Britain could find itself in
such helpless and pitiable plights, and he replied that red tape was
the root of the evil. Nobody dared to buy a measuring glass or a
pillow-case or a cot for fear that his enterprise might bring him a
reprimand and his bill might be repudiated. The hospitals had made
demands outmeasuring the supplies, or the supplies had not come up
from the Cape, or to the Cape from London. If private generosity was
not appealed to circumlocution must be resorted to by means of
requisitions which would be slowly forwarded to London and there
passed upon. By this means the supplies would reach the front within
three months after the patients were dead--provided that all should go
smoothly with the circumlocution machinery.
Mind, I know how extraordinary, excessive, and sudden were the demands
made upon the Medical Corps after such a shocking affair as the Sunday
fight at Paardeberg and during the enteric epidemic at Bloemfontein. I
am in no position to say that any one was blameable or that better and
ampler means of caring for the disabled could have been arranged. But
let us not deny the facts or try to deceive any one with regard to
them. That is no way for an earnest and ambitious and healthy people
to meet an unpleasant situation.
On the contrary, that is the very way to make certain of a worse
"breakdown" of the hospital service in the next war.
* * * * *
THE FRIEND.
(_Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force._)
No. 14.] BLOEMFONTEIN, MONDAY, APRIL 2, 1900. [Price One Penny.
A SONG OF THE WHITE MEN.[15]
[Footnote 15: The poem by Rudyard Kipling which we publish in this
issue was written some time ago to be read at a dinner in Canada and
then published in the _Toronto Globe_. It has never been read in
public, and it has never before been published. Like all his poems and
writings, it is for all time--as good next year as to-day and always
excellent in all seasons. It is copyrighted in England and America,
and used here by Mr. Kipling's permission.]
BY RUDYARD KIPLING.
Now, this is the cup the White Men drink
When they go to right a wrong,
And that is the cup of the old world's hate--
Cruel and strained and strong.
We have drunk that cup--and a bitter, bitter cup--
And tossed the dregs away,
But well for the world when the White Men drink
To the dawn of the White Men's day.
Now, this is the road that the White Men tread
When they go to clean a land--
Iron underfoot and levin overhead
And the deep on either hand.
We have trod that road--and a wet and windy road--
Our chosen star for guide.
Oh, well for the world when the White Men tread
Their highway side by side.
Now, this is the faith that the White Men hold
When they build their homes afar:--
"Freedom for ourselves and freedom for our sons
And, failing freedom, War."
We have proved our faith--bear witness to our faith,
Dear souls of freemen slain!
Oh, well for the world when the White Men join
To prove their faith again!
* * * * *
RUDYARD KIPLING.
(_Editorial._)
Mr. Rudyard Kipling left Bloemfontein for Capetown last night to
rejoin his family and, presently, to sail with them to England.
Believing that the arrangement of terms of settlement with the people
of the Boer Republics will be the next important work for the British,
he desires to be in London, there to speak and write for such a finish
to the war as he deems best for Britons and Boers, for Africanders,
for intending new settlers, for the future quiet and prosperity of
South Africa, and for the honour and glory of the Empire.
The editors of THE FRIEND bade him God speed and knew, when they
wished him health, prosperity, and a long life, that there is not a
man in the British Army or man or woman in the Empire in whose name
they could not have warmly and sincerely repeated their own hearts'
utterances.
Mr. KIPLING came to the editorial rooms of this unique journal with an
offer to assist us War Correspondents who are in charge, but he
quickly and easily led us in the clearness of his views upon the
paper's policy, in the wealth of talent he lavished upon its columns,
and in the enthusiasm with which he collaborated with us. He evidently
enjoyed this brief return to his old profession--as what man would not
who ever fell under its exciting and fascinating influence? We do not
doubt that he found an added and a powerful charm in the peculiar
conditions under which we work--upon a journal created by and for a
conquering army and published in a conquered capital.
But it is of the pleasure we have known in being co-workers with him
that we would write if it were fit that we should share our emotion
with the public. Pleasure would be a trifling word to use were we to
let our emotions flow. Honour and Pride were better terms, expressive
of our stronger feelings.
We can congratulate the friends of THE FRIEND that they shall read his
work again in these columns before he sails for home. They have not
lost him, but we have lost his company, we who knew his genius so well
yet could not conceive it possible that to his talent he joined a
personality so rich in varied charms as we have found it. For we have
learned that he is sweet to the core, lovable, magnetic, modest, and
sincere. He has the crystal frankness and the tireless enthusiasm of
ever fresh and unsullied youth. Great as our readers know him to be in
literature, we know him to be even greater as a man.
Good luck to RUDYARD KIPLING, always, everywhere, to the end--and,
then, to eternity.
J. R.
* * * * *
THE LATE COLONEL HON. G. GOUGH.
BY BENNET BURLEIGH.
And thou also hast gone over to the majority! To God's rest, most
honest English gentleman. I saw thy bier go by but the other day in
the streets of Bloemfontein. They gave thee, rightly, a soldier's
funeral, and for love of thee many sorrowed and followed afoot to
God's acre. Troopers with arms reversed were thine escort, our band
played the "Dead March in Saul," and behind thy coffin, covered with
the Union Jack and set upon a gun-carriage, walked that British
Paladin, Field Marshal Lord Roberts, accompanied by a long concourse
of all ranks--comrades of thine, men of distinguished service.
Veterans and juniors were there, and besides these, for further token
of the affection and esteem in which thou wert held by all who knew
thee, a throng of the rank and file of the army.
All was as it should be, for we had come to say our English "Goodbye;
God be with thee." Sprung from the loins of a race of soldiers, thou
wert all a true soldier should be, tender, brave, and true, a
gentleman above gentlemen.
It seems but a breath or so that I was wont to meet thee almost daily
in London at the War Office. Lord Wolseley will miss thee, for he will
never find a better Military Secretary than thou. Thy courtesy was
uniform to all, thy frankness beyond question, as was thy readiness to
do kindnesses; whilst thy fidelity to thy Military Chief was to thee a
sacred duty.
Cheery and pleasant, Gough of the 14th Hussars was a "beau sabreur," a
man who inspired friendship and commanded respect. I could recall many
incidents in all of which thou acquitted thyself like a Gough. There
was the morning of Abu Klea in the Soudan, after the night of alarms
that found thy fortitude undisturbed. I stood beside thee by the screw
guns when the Dervish bullet smote thee upon the head and thou wert
felled to earth as with the blow of a hammer. None who saw thee as
thou lay unconscious doubted but that thou had been killed outright.
Even when we learned that thou survived we held to the conviction that
to the weight of such a stroke thou must succumb. But thou recovered
and we rejoiced. Yet such a blow must have left its impress.
None can ever know how in secret thou must have stoically suffered,
for thy patience was as afore, unwearied, thy fondness for work and
duty as untiring, and thy Christian spirit as unbounded. We, thy
friends, thank thee for thy life of gallant bearing, thy sympathies,
thy uncomplaining bearing of burdens.
I deplore that I was not permitted to meet thee again in thy new
office, a member of the Staff here in South Africa, serving under the
worthiest of leaders, the chivalrous Field Marshal, Lord Roberts. Thou
art in God's hands, most excellent Gough. There mayst thou abide. So
let it be.
* * * * *
FOR FREEDOM'S CAUSE.
BY TROOPER G. SIMES, ROBERTS' HORSE.
Not with vain boastfulness, careless, unheeding,
Left we our homes and prepared for the fray.
Sadly we answered our wives' gentle pleading,
Hearing the summons we turned to obey.
Not for the worth of the Rand's golden treasures,
Neither dominion, nor riches, nor power,
Ever had moved us to leave city pleasures,
Ever had held us together an hour.
'Twas not for this that we turned to assail you,
'Twas not for this that we entered the strife.
Loud though your country with tears may bewail you,
Can she blame us for this waste of young life?
What we have asked of you that we have given.
Down in the South you may live and be free.
When we have gained that for which we have striven,
Then we will come and will share it with thee.
Freedom you value but hoard as a miser;
Freedom we value but offer to all.
But of the conflict now sadder and wiser,
Blame you not us, but yourself, for your fall.