Kipling's Choice Read online

  John chuckles and walks past the dimly lit kitchen window. In the darkness he can't see a thing. By groping he finds the stepladder to the attic above the little barn.

  Five minutes later he opens his ink pot and begins to scratch his pen across the paper.

  ***

  Second Lieutenant J. Kipling

  Mr. and Mrs. R. Kipling, Bateman's, Burwash

  (Sussex)

  2 September 1915, France

  Dearest Mummy and Daddo,

  We are still in the same village, far enough from the front, therefore safe. Not allowed to give names. Understandable. The people I've been staying with have been very kind to me.

  Tomorrow we're moving to X for the Brigade Field Days. Long marches, actual war drills, fighting techniques, making trenches, evacuations. We'll be sleeping there. This is real. I'm looking forward to it. However, it's raining just as hard and long as it does at home. English weather.

  That leather jacket is as heavy as lead, completely soaked. On the field I'll have to use those clumsy army canvases. For that matter, the mud is also a problem during the street marches. Wait until we're lying in our trench.

  Will you send me the following items right away: a genuine navy oilskin, pipe cleaners, a tin box of matches, and some dry underwear.

  The oil lamp on John's table begins to flicker all of a sudden. A draft comes through the floorboards. He lays down his pen. The rustle of trees rises up the stairwell. Has the door blown open?

  "Is anyone there?"

  No answer. The rustling stops. He hears only the water dripping off his raincoat onto the wooden floor. He holds his breath for a few seconds. There is silence.

  John picks up his pen again and tries to read the page, but a tread creaks on the steps. And another...

  ***

  Two brown eyes stare at John, motionless. They look right through him. He lies bleeding in a ditch. This is his very first field battle. He is slipping in and out of consciousness. And he is waiting, helpless.

  John glides forward on a cottony little cloud through a milk-white haze and lands soundlessly in the grassy ditch. Slowly he awakens once again. A shadowy form is beginning to appear above his face. Everything he looks at is barely visible without his glasses. His myopic gaze zooms in on two glassy eyes that are wide open.

  John squeezes his own eyes shut. He has a terrifying thought: It's the Angel of Death who has come for me!

  The motionless face hangs over the edge of the ditch, a half-meter from his very soul.

  Is this the end? John thinks. So fast? Don't took at me like that! Jesus, I can't move, I can't even turn my head away.

  Blood oozes from the dead mans ear. The drops roll over the grass and are immediately absorbed into the pink, chalky soil.

  Could that be me? Am I already dead? Is it a bad dream, an image of myself? Say something, you creep! Why is this Grim Reaper so quiet? God, what's happening to me? I can't talk, my mouth doesn't work. And that horrible fellow doesn't say a word either! He won't budge. Everything is spinning around me, everything is black...

  ***

  I'm living, I'm still breathing. Where was I? Oh, that wretched man. He's still lying there. His eyes. Go away! I can't do anything for him. Hmm, look at that, his arm. There is a white band on his sleeve, a red cross. That's the medic who wanted to help me. He's dead. That can't be, can it? Two—there were two of them. Could the other one be dead, too?

  Listen! Someone is calling for help. Voices. Someone is crying. Why don't I feel anything? I can't feel a thing! Maybe it's better this way, without pain.

  Listen! The road. Army cars are driving past. Ambulances, perhaps. Can they see me? No, they keep going. Patience, have patience, they will come. Above all else I've got to stay awake, I mustn't die.

  There they are again. Engines chugging, autos are riding past me. Did I fall asleep, after all? Stay awake, think, fight, that's what I must do. Those cars. Think about home. What's it like in Burwash now, at Bateman's, our house? I wrote to them just last week about cars and such. Maybe they're reading my letters right now.

  Dear Mummy, Daddo, and Ebie. Or should I say Phipps these days? Yes, Ebie, I hear from Daddo that you have a new nickname. By the way, how is my car? I wish I were a fly in East Sussex, dear sister, so I could watch you parade around in my Singer. Daddo writes that you already can handle it rather well. Is it true that he is considering leaving the Green Goblin in the garage for the rest of the war? You've become his permanent chauffeur, he says. Those Singers have proven to be useful in France, too. At the Divisional Headquarters I've seen two and they're exactly like my Car-Uso. I've got to restrain myself from getting in one of them and tearing off with it. If I'm lucky enough to survive this adventure...

  Did I really write that? "Survive?" God, no! Don't let me die. I knew that this might end badly, but I didn't think I would die. No, not that! They will find me here, won't they? I don't want to die. They can't just leave me here, can they? No, someone will come looking for me soon. I've got to control myself. Calm down, Kipling. Quiet, you're not an officer for nothing. Oh, I feel so tired and empty, I want to sleep. No, old chap, pull yourself together. Wellington School, drill, discipline, Brentwood, Warley—keep at it. Don't sail away now, stay awake, you've got to think. Those letters. Think for a moment. What else did you write?

  If I'm lucky enough to survive this adventure I'm going to get myself the smartest two-seater Hispano-Suiza that can be bought. What a splendid car it is! And what a sharp engine it has under that graceful hood! But what I want more than anything else when I get back is a nice hot bath. You people at home can't even begin to realize what excessive luxury surrounds you. We're killing ourselves with endless marching and I've had quite enough of it, with all the dust and the bugs. And when it's not boiling hot, the rain pours down incessantly. We're fighting against the mud, lice, and rats. Those rough Irish boys in our regiment can withstand this abominable outdoor life better than we boys from wealthy English families. What I'd like first and foremost when I come home is...

  I'm so tired. I want to sleep. Miss Ponton? Will you bring me upstairs? My bed.

  ***

  A motionless figure is lying in a ditch. An inexperienced English officer. He is a small detail on the battlefield at Loos that Monday, September 27,1915. The British front-line pushes a kilometer farther to the east. The Irish Guards and the Scots Guards gain some ground on this day, just barely crossing the road that rises gently from La Bassée to Lens. The Germans are still defending the area. John is lying near the road, right by Pit 14, a limestone quarry between Chalk Pit Wood and the Bois Hugo. They are strange words, marks of identification, really, like Lone Tree in the same vicinity. These are the last words that Kipling read; they were notated on his military map.

  English with some French in between, John muses. When I was a child we mixed the languages together and called it Franglais. Daddo and I used that jargon when we wanted to be secretive. And my friend Oscar. Poor Oscar. "Je believe this vraiment est le grand jour, mon friend." Elsie would find it a nice mélange, Oscar too, and Daddo.

  The low, dull droning of a machine gun startles John out of his dozing thoughts. He listens intently. The artillery sounds far away, deep in the woods. Such a poor, endless rumbling can't possibly be directed at one precise target.

  He tries to concentrate on the pumping noise of the artillery. That's all he can do, but it helps him forget the pain that is welling up again.

  Damned Germans, he thinks, they're firing blindly in order to give cover to their men who are advancing. They're trying to win back territory. Shhh. Jesus, oooh, my face. Mummy, help! I can't take it anymore. I'd rather shove my head in a bucket of boiling water. Oh, God! No!

  His whole body shakes. John can't cry out, for all that remains of his mouth, nose, and throat are some holes and patches of raw flesh. With his one hand he reaches for his head, but he lacks the coordination to do so. Exhausted, he drops his hand to his side. The shaking increases until onc
e again his body is racked with spasms. Then, as if by magic, all movement ceases. John lies there and waits. For what? For whom?

  Fifteen minutes have passed. Or is it five? He doesn't know. Rifle and pistol shots. John awakens in a daze. The pain is gone again. The pistol shots sound harmless and almost ridiculous compared to the heavy machine-gun rounds. A counterattack with little toy cap guns, but it keeps getting closer. A shot is fired back every now and then, a cracking sound from the other direction followed immediately by an echo from the quarry.

  A thumping noise now, footsteps and stamping on the ground close to his ear. Dim, hurried shadows dart past the corner of John's eye. He can't turn, and from his ditch he sees only the gray-blue sky, the sparse red tops of a few trees, and two brown, hollow eyes in the questioning face of the dead medic.

  Someone is panting close by. There is a rustling of leaves.

  "Guck mahl hier, ein Offizier!" a voice mutters in surprise.

  Two hands reach out for the shoulders of the dead medic, who has been hanging close to John's face all this time. John sees the bloodied head give a brief nod—Like a quick greeting, a wink, see you later!—after which the corpse is rolled away, disappearing with a thud into the grass next to him.

  "Herr Hauptmann, hier legt ein Leutnant!" the same man calls to his superior, who has caught up to him.

  God, Fritzes are all around me. John weeps silently, helplessly. Tears of pain, rage, and disillusionment roll down the remains of his tattered cheeks.

  Three men in mouse-gray uniforms gather around and by turns bend over him. One man kneels down beside John.

  "Mein Gott, dieser Kerl lebt nochl" My God, this man is still alive.

  A hand waves a black Luger pistol above him. The man mumbles something in unintelligible German and searches all of John's pockets.

  What are they looking for? They won't find anything on me. Ugly Hun, I won't tell you anything, ever, do you hear? John is seized with a painful cramp in his chest. Coughing and choking, he spatters blood all around. The German jumps back, cursing.

  The pain ebbs quickly and John feels a strange laugh coming on. I can't betray anything at all, he realizes, even if I wanted to. How can I talk? You've shot me to pieces. For a moment it's a crazy, restful thought.

  Now what? They're beginning to turn me over. What are they looking for? They're getting snappy, they're at the end of their patience. Oh, just listen to them bark at each other. I wish they wouldn't keep waving their weapons around. This will come to a bad end. Mowgli! Mowgli, help me! The Bandar-log have nabbed me!

  The men stop their bickering and are quiet, all of a sudden.

  How is it possible? John reproaches himself. I hope no one finds out that I panicked! Be strong, fellow. Remember your rank. Even the enemy must treat an officer with respect. That was the agreement, wasn't it? he thinks nervously. Listen up now, or I'll call Mowgli!

  John could have done without that little boy from his past. Mowgli, the "man-cub" who was raised by wolves, was the hero of his father's The Jungle Book.

  Once, John now realizes, Mowgli also fell into the clutches of the enemy, the Monkey-People, the Bandar-log. Mowgli—God, how I cursed that little chap. I've never felt any kinship with that jungle brat. But when there are Germans pointing guns at your head, that changes the picture; you start having second thoughts about it all.

  When John was a schoolboy he was always being compared to the man-cub from the jungle, even though he tried to avoid it. There was absolutely nothing wild or exotic about him, with his pince-nez and skinny body. He did enjoy some of his fathers stories, but he hated The Jungle Book like the plague. Mowgli had been pursuing him since childhood, always and everywhere, even when he first joined the army. And now Mowgli suddenly pops up on his own accord.

  "Hey, Kipling!"

  John sees himself as a ten-year-old again, a beanpole at Saint Aubyns Prep School in Rottingdean.

  "Look at him there, Mowgli the Frog!" Fingers point at him.

  "Afraid of the big bad wolf, man-thing?"

  Those same troublemakers practically fell over when they heard that this slender little four-eyed kid, this young Master Kipling, was not a bit afraid of the dark. They learned about this after the night when John stole out of the dormitory to drive away evil spirits for his friend Beresford. Ever since that night he could count on being given a little credit, at least.

  "It's a shame that I'm not good at sports," John daydreams. "My eyes, you see, these nearsighted eyes. Although you know, Daddo, no one can beat me at swimming."

  "Ha ha! Of course. Swimming isn't difficult for a frog!"

  "Yes, they keep on teasing me, Daddo. I'll just have to get used to it. And why do you find it so necessary to torture me with your famous books and poems? I've often written to you about it. When Puck appeared, naturally the schoolmasters knew to fish out that instructive closing poem, 'The Children's Song.' Every single day at school all of England, no, what am I saying, the whole British Empire sings the song written by the great Rudyard Kipling. I sing it, too. Certainly I sing it, for the schoolmasters make very sure that I do. 'Kipling this, Kipling that.' I just hate it! And then there is 'If,' another big hit. Every single boarding school has the verses of 'If hanging on the wall, either painted, framed, or engraved. For punishment we have to write it out until our fingers are numb. Why do you do this to me, Daddo?"

  Hey, don't touch me! What does that fellow want from me? Ow, that hurts! If you want to empty my pockets, you're too late, you fool. They've already run off with everything. Though I don't know what they could have stolen. Some pounds, at most?

  "Hauptmann, hier, eine Karte!" comes a voice.

  My map! That bastard has found my map! Filthy Fritz!

  The three German soldiers now turn their hurried attention to the document, ignoring the small British lieutenant lying motionless, waiting to die. They crowd together above him; the German captain snatches the map from the hands of one of the other soldiers and unfolds it right over John.

  My map! John could kick himself. Good Lord, what's marked on it? Our positions? Names of army units? Notes? What doesn't a person put on such a scrap of paper?

  "You can't be too careful with military documents and notations at the front, you must guard every single piece of paper." John can still hear his instructors call out those words. They drilled it into him countless times. Even the most inexperienced officer knows these strict orders. From underneath the unfolded paper John hears the three Germans deep in discussion. He thinks back to the middle of September, two weeks earlier, when it had become increasingly clear to his battalion that their first attack was drawing near.

  ***

  "Come on, Rupert! Bring that chap down! Get him!" John is shouting at the top of his lungs.

  "Shoot! Now! Shoot, I say!" Voices from the other side are shouting, too.

  "Get him, Grayson! No. Rupert! Ohhh, too late!"

  Cheering comes from all the soldiers on the sidelines. They are amused at the sight of the players, all officers dressed in short pants revealing their white bowlegs.

  "You aren't a footballer yourself, are you, Kipling?"

  "Uh, no, Colonel." John is caught off guard by the unexpected appearance of the corps' commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Butler. "The football is a bit too round for my two left feet," he quips, trying to save face. "Water sports, sir. I'm better at them." Clumsily he hops from one foot to the other.

  The old aristocrat takes his time, twirling the tip of his mustache with his thumb and middle finger. "I see. Rowing, eh, Lieutenant? Or sailing."

  "Swimming, actually, sir," John says and waves his arms, pretending to do the breaststroke. An unnecessary gesture, absolutely ridiculous, he realizes.

  "By the way, Kipling. Mister Grayson is your friend, I assume."

  "Rupert Grayson is a very good friend indeed, Colonel."

  "And the soldiers in our battalion, as well?"

  "Indeed. Well, uh, of course not personally, sir." His gl
asses begin to slide off his sweaty nose. He pushes them back up. "They're not personal friends."

  "I should certainly hope not, Kipling. If your father were to hear of it! Don't forget that they're Irish. And you, after all, are an Englishman."

  "Well, sir, I didn't mean..."

  Colonel Butler is not listening. John snaps to attention.

  "We are officers, is that what you mean, Kipling? And they are our subordinates."

  John stands somewhat ill at ease and looks at the improvised football field. The colonel is directly next to him, gazing out over the field while he talks. The referee sets the ball down in the middle and blows his whistle for the new kickoff.

  "Of course, Colonel." John's easygoing manner has completely taken on the strict, submissive tone of the military.

  "And your friend, Mister Grayson. Is he an officer, too?"

  "Of course, sir. He is a second lieutenant, the same as I." What a question! John thinks. The colonel taps his wooden officer's stick against his riding boot.

  "Precisely, Kipling," says the colonel. "Look here, good fellow, even though we're off duty, I would appreciate it if you would no longer address Grayson as 'Rupert' in the presence of subordinates."

  John swallows hard. "Naturally, sir. It won't happen again." He pinches the side seam of his trouser leg.

  Colonel Butler walks to the end of the football field, which is lined with the caps, shirts, and jackets of the players. John flashes a look of relief to his fellow officers. They can barely contain their snickering. The colonel then turns around unexpectedly.

  "Oh yes, Kipling. You've just been promoted to two-star lieutenant, but of course we'll wait for the official announcement."

  John stands ramrod straight. "Thank you, sir," is all he can manage to say.