Kipling's Choice Page 4

  ***

  Second Lieutenant John Kipling is known to be a very reasonable officer among the regular recruits. Of course he is also the son of a living legend, the wealthy writer whose stories and poems are taught in all schools. But John tries to forget his background when he's with the officers. They appreciate the modesty of their youngest colleague. In the officers' mess John is the cheerful, humorous lad with the tiny little glasses, a hard worker who is always ready if his lieutenant-colonel calls for a volunteer.

  But outside the barracks John changes back into a rich kid, a posh boy, an expensive dandy. When he is out at night, either alone or with friends, and parks his Singer (which has been repaired) in front of an extravagant hotel or a swinging concert hall, he enjoys having the porters, bellboys, waiters, and butlers in livery, waiting on him before he even walks through the door. He spends more on tips than he earns as a lieutenant.

  "I've gotten a bargain," he writes home. "For barely three pounds I've signed up for a temporary wartime membership to the Royal Automobile Club."

  John doesn't say a word about the truly royal amounts he spends in the plush salons of his club. That's my boy! Rudyard thinks once again. Englishmen's clubs, and certainly those in London, provide an atmosphere that will turn his boy into a genuine English gentleman. And an automobile club to boot! cheers the car-crazy Rudyard to himself.

  Father and son meet for the last time on August 11, 1915. John is spending the night at the Bath Club, Dover Street, London. Rudyard is spending the night there, too. In no time at all the private club fills with members who "by chance have to be in the area." Nobel Prize winner Rudyard Kipling is a star, and the members practically fight over the tables to get a glimpse of him. It is he, not John, who will be going to the front the next day. The Daily Telegraph has asked him to write a series of articles entitled "France at War." Since Rudyard couldn't have a military career himself, he is glad to be right there in the action to report on it. He believes that the war is a heroic fight against the barbarians, and that the noblest fate a young man could encounter would be to give his life for his country. He recalls the words of Horace, "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, How sweet and honorable it is to die for the fatherland." As long as it's not your son...

  Two days later the Irish Guards Regiment in Warley Barracks receives an important visitor: Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of War. He has come to inspect John's battalion and solemnly inaugurate it. It is now no longer a reserve unit.

  John goes home for the last time that evening, on August 13. He brings along his friend, Rupert Grayson, who stays just an hour at Bateman's. The heartfelt farewells to Mummy, Elsie, and the trusty household staff are postponed until the middle of the night. Rudyard is in France. "Send my love to Daddo." Those are John's parting words as he stands at the top of the stairs and wishes his mother a goodnight. His unit leaves the barracks in Brentwood on August 15. The next day he makes the trip across the English Channel between Southampton and Le Havre. John finally lands in France on August 17. It is his eighteenth birthday.

  ***

  John often sailed into the harbor at Le Havre on his way to Switzerland. He now feels the same marvelous thrill as he did when he was ten, at the side of either his governess, Miss Ponton, or his father. With his nose reaching just above the railing, he would be full of anticipation as he watched the gulls, the approaching coast, the ocean liners with their smoking funnels, and the bustle during docking time. This is his first birthday without his family. Eighteen! He doesn't miss them, however, for his men are standing right behind him. They are waiting just as impatiently as he for the Great Picnic.

  "It's going to be fun, Rupert," John whispers to his friend, who has come up on deck for a while. "Finally la douce France!"

  "Wine and women, eh, John?"

  "Ah, oui, mon cher, du vin rouge!" John answers in impeccable French. He sighs.

  Rupert tries to speak French, too, but his tongue is tied up in knots: "Ah! Lay de-mwa-zelles wro-man-ti-ques! Girls, eh, old chap!"

  The boys are relieved that they have made it to France in time; after all, everything will be over soon. They are sure of it.

  It takes an eternity before their ship, the SS Viper, docks. Hundreds of fresh troops, grouped in dozens of platoons, stand on deck and watch the cables grind against the steel mooring posts. While waiting for one of the heavily laden platoons to move, Lieutenant John Kipling, apparently relaxed, follows the tense actions of the sailors on board and the dockworkers on shore. Short, sharp whistles send mysterious commands to the navy personnel. Three gangplanks are set down. John is sitting with his men on the quay ten minutes later. They laugh, they smoke, but mainly they wait. John exchanges a few words with the sergeants, then gathers together with the other officers.

  There is an extra-wide gangplank mounted on the SS Viper's bottom deck. A small tractor uses it to pull dozens of fully loaded horse carts from the stern onto the wharf. The horses, with hoods over their heads, come separately. Led by their attendants, they clatter down the iron plank one by one. Stubborn or nervous animals are led back to the nose of the ship, where a crane is lifting the loose cargo out of the hold. Carts are being transported, too, and they swing on long hooks as they are moved over the railing to the quay. The horses come next, and what follows is a spectacle that the amused people down below have never seen before. The officers and their men watch as the helpless, bawling animals, suspended on long straps under their bellies, hover over the water before they are plumped down on the dock. The teamsters curse to each other and plead with the panic-stricken beasts to help make this unusual task manageable. A fiery, dark-brown racehorse lands too hard on the concrete and falls to its knees. Hundreds of "Ooohs!" from the shocked spectators reverberate over the wharf, as well as hundreds of boos directed at the crane operator. A shot rings out five minutes later. The animal has been put down. The men are quiet for a moment. The carcass is dragged away by one of the work horses.

  "Lieutenant Kipling?"

  "Yes?" John says and looks around, surprised. A corporal from the military police salutes and hands him a letter.

  "For you, sir."

  It is a telegram from Daddo, wishing John luck on his eighteenth birthday:

  AM IN VERDUN ON ASSIGNMENT—STOP—WAS HOPING TO MEET YOU ON THE BIG DAY—STOP—CAN ONLY SEE YOU IN LE HAVRE AS I PASS THROUGH—STOP—SPENDING THE NIGHT ISN'T ALLOWED—STOP—MAYBE JUST AS WELL ON YOUR BIG DAY—STOP—PERHAPS WE'LL MEET LATER AT THE FRONT—STOP—LOVE DADDO—STOP—

  John answers him the next day. He sends the letter home because Daddo has no other permanent address.

  I am writing this in a train proceeding to the firing line at 15 miles per hour. We are due at our destination at 11 a.m. tomorrow. I am quite concerned about my men, for they are all sitting on top of each other: the whole battalion of 1,100 men are jammed together in one train, along with 73 horses and 50 wagons.

  Three friendly (and pretty!) English ladies pampered us with coffee and tea and large slabs of bread and butter during one of the countless stops. They run a stall just like the ones you frequently see in the French stations.

  The adrenaline is visibly rushing through the veins of the subalterns. They can feel the danger approaching. For the time being they have great fun polishing off bread, sardines, and jam, and washing it all down with whiskey and water. They stick their bare feet out the window and sing and shout and smoke like Turks while waving to the startled passersby. It's quite all right here! This is A-1!

  Would you be so good as to send me an Orilux service lamp for officers? Don't forget the refills. I'm enclosing a newspaper clipping; the French press keeps a close watch on Daddo.

  The Second Battalion of the Irish Guards disembark at Lumbres. From there the troops march for days over the endless pavés, the brick roads, toward the front. Field officers proceed on horseback. Young officers such as John Kipling and Rupert Grayson walk next to or in front of their platoons. "On our God-given two legs!" Rupert says wi
th a laugh.

  At night they fall exhausted onto their straw mattresses.

  "I'll strangle that miserable shoemaker for ramming these nail heads into my soles," John complains.

  It remains hot and dry. The steel-blue sky shimmers and the severity of each day's march is measured by the merciless pull of their shoulder straps. After half a day, a rucksack weighing thirty kilos will feel as though it weighs a hundred. At least John and Rupert don't have to lug their leaden packs and heavy rifles, for the officers' baggage is transported by horses and mules, together with the munitions and tents.

  For the time being, the endless pavés are their greatest enemy, certainly for the ordinary infantryman and the petty officer. Each extra mile is measured off with uncertainty. John can't let on to the fact that he, too, is taking his bearings through the clouds of dust that follow the regiment over the landscape, and that he is unsure of the landmarks on his map.

  "Acquin," he said to his platoon. "That's the destination."

  "All right," Sergeant Cochrane conceded, after he was shown how the route had been mapped out on paper. That boosted the men's spirits.

  John wasn't really surprised when Cochrane walked up to him hours later.

  "With permission, sir," the sergeant said hesitantly. He did not look happy.

  "Sergeant?"

  "Of course I don't want to question the decision of an officer, sir, but are you certain that—is this the correct way?"

  "Happy that you mentioned it, Cochrane."

  "The boys, sir. Uh, not ours. Well, I mean the men in the platoon behind us. They say that we've taken a wrong turn."

  John takes his map and pretends to study it. "Then is this the road to Lauwerdal, and not Acquin? Or no—"

  "Le Poovre," the sergeant says, correcting him. He looks straight ahead. "It was marked on a washed-out little arrow sign on a wall, they say."

  "Just now?"

  "An hour ago, sir."

  The difference in rank between officer and sergeant is great, not to mention the difference between officer and ordinary infantryman. The stiff etiquette of the English army makes that gap unbridgeable. But the young Kipling, with his brand-new gold star, must gather all his tact and courage to inform the regiment commander of the mistake. The long procession is stopped. Picnic, they call it. Scouts on horseback head out immediately. A rocket shoots into the sky half an hour later. The Irish Guards continue on in the same direction for two miles, then take a right turn off the cobbled road. Making their way on bone-dry church paths and farmers' roads, they curve back around toward Acquin. This way it seems no one has erred and no one suffers loss of face, certainly not the officer who plotted out the route. It is even amusing as they goose-step between the grain and flax fields. The boys are able to try out their French in a field where women and men are binding the harvested flax into endless rows of knee-high sheaves to dry. The farm girls don't understand a word of the soldiers' exuberant French, but that doesn't matter; a smile is enough to drive the boys crazy.

  Young pups like John and Rupert can be quite sympathetic to most soldiers in spite of the military etiquette. The junior officers, after each exhausting day's march, must make sure that their men find suitable shelter, negotiate with the local citizens if necessary, see that rations are evenly divided, and take care that the feet of their troops are inspected and patched up. Only then can they pass the command to the noncommissioned officers and find beds for themselves.

  The marching is hard on everyone in the Guards even after the rigorous training at Warley. They march up to forty kilometers a day with full packs. The young officers such as John and Rupert have great admiration for Captain Harold Alexander, their company commander, for he marches every mile with his men. "It's the same distance on foot as it is on horseback," he explains, dead serious. Alex would later be promoted to field marshal and "Duke of Tunis." He had been wounded in November 1914 at Zillebeke, near Ypres. "Oh, that little scratch," was his invariable comment about it. That attitude alone is enough to grant him a good deal of authority and respect among the men. His unbelievably sharp sense of humor, which is in such startling contrast to the stiffness of "the real Englishman," makes him hugely popular. Alex keeps the morale of his troops high. He promises the worn-out boys a surprise on one of those hot, wretched, dusty days. That evening the whole battalion sits exhausted on the ground around an improvised stage, amid bottles of beer and illegal French wine. Alex appears on stage wearing a crazy hat that goes quite well with his enormous mustache. The unexpected sound of accordion music turns all heads to the scene. In a few seconds the long, nasal wailing creates the same excitement as a drum roll does before a death-defying leap. Alex stands still and as stiff as a board. An accomplished Irish dancer, he begins to hop back and forth to the simple, monotonous chords of the accordian, with his upper body taut and his arms pressed to his sides. The whole crowd springs up in madness. The handclapping of the Irish Guards swells to a rhythmic ovation. Alex lets himself be whipped up by the foot-stamping and the Gaelic yells of his men, and in an instant they all forget about their fatigue.

  John and Rupert also try to get through those difficult days by singing their misery away. Their fired-up marching songs acquire a few new racy lines each day.

  Here's to the Kaiser, the son of a bitch,

  May his balls drop off with the seven-year itch,

  May his arse be pounded with a lump of leather

  Till his arsehole can whistle "Britannia for Ever."

  John is discreet in his letters home and doesn't write about this part of the musical repertoire.

  "Oh, Rudyard will most likely find out about them," says Rupert. He is amused to see his friend lie on his bedding and fill up whole sheets of paper with his scribbling.

  "I can't tell my father about things like that," John answers. He is well aware that Mummy will also be reading every word he writes. He also knows she shows off the letters to her chic circle of friends, women who probably all have a hero in the family.

  "At home they'll be eager to read the franglais," John adds.

  Rupert chuckles in agreement. "Frenglish!"

  The British soldiers speak a roguish kind of French and call out all sorts of things to the girls along the way. It provides some comic relief each day.

  "Talking French they are screamingly funny," John writes to his family on August 20 from the small but comfortable village of Acquin, near Saint-Omer.

  We are splendidly billeted here. There are about fifty men in every barn in the area. I myself have accommodations in the mayor's house, where his very attractive daughter lives, too. Monsieur le maire is a small-time farmer but he reads. He stood up to Wel come me as his guest, the son of "le grand Rudyard. " His daughter's name is Marcelle, Celle to her friends. It will be good for my French...

  As a member of the upper class, John has always been able to speak the language of Molière reasonably well. Daddo reads effortlessly between the lines and knows how smitten his dear son is. Head over heels in love, or even more. Perhaps a romance is blossoming. Daddo writes back, "The best dictionary for French is a dictionary in skirts."

  John always receives a lot of letters from home; every day in the barracks at Brentwood, every four days in France, for the mail can't be delivered more often than that. Mummy and Daddo don't miss a day. And in addition to letters, they send him countless parcels. "John Kipling!" the courier calls when he empties his mail sack. "Lieutenant Kipling! For you!" John is buried under the wool pullovers, collars, underwear, and stockings that his overanxious mother sends him. And all the while northern France is groaning from the heat, dust, and flies.

  "Surely our whole company is wearing something of yours," Rupert Grayson says with a laugh.

  The parcels are getting to be an embarrassment. John writes to his mother and begs her:

  Please, no more underwear or clothes. Send me some biscuits instead. (But not the digestive kind!) Also welcome are chocolate (for the food is rotten!), a refill for my
Orilux lamp, Colgate tooth powder, tobacco, shaving powder, magazines, and a glass (in a box for traveling), writing paper (also for my men who can't write; I do it for them)...

  Even in Acquin, the Guards barely get any time to sit around when the long day's march is over. There is drilling, shooting practice, hours and miles of marching, then more drilling. The worst marksmen have extra shooting practice.

  On August 30 they kick up their heels and take the day off. The Second Battalion of the Irish Guards plans to rendezvous with the First Battalion—their equal—halfway between the two, in Saint-Pierre.

  "Unbelievable, isn't it, Rupert? Just think: they fought at Festubert, Neuve-Chapelle, and last year they were even in Ypres!" John is practically floating when he thinks about meeting the First Battalion.

  Rupert remains sober. "Don't forget Mons. That was last year, too."

  "Oh, that was the beginning of the war," John says, waving the criticism away.

  "Right. But then George Cecil and his best school chum, John Manners, of the Grenadiers, were there as well."

  "In God's name, Rupert! What are you trying to say?" John snaps back. No one likes to talk about the British Expeditionary Force, for instead of freeing poor Belgium it was all but wiped out in an instant. This army of professional soldiers was sent to Belgium and northern France at the onset of the war, but it was too small and too inexperienced to stop the Germans.

  The encounter with the First Battalion is a shock. The brave and seasoned soldiers don't seem like heroes. Most of them look drained and pitiful. Even their uniforms appear faded and weary; the badges on the sleeve and the glittering harp on the collar are often missing. While they march over the sunlit field by Saint-Pierre, John and the other boys of the Second Battalion watch them silently.