Kipling's Choice (3 page)

John Kipling is completely paralyzed and continually bleeding from his head. Fragments of the hellish offensive overwhelm him now and then. The noise of the battle goes on and off as if someone were playing with the volume knob. Each time he passes out he is blown awake by thunderous noise that is as loud as every storm of his entire life all rolled into one. There are voices of fellows who crawl right by him. "This is—ugh—our lieutenant, the young Kipling! Poor devil."

How long ago is that now? Five minutes, five hours?
Sometimes he is awakened by clumps of earth and lime which rain down on him.

The pain has become much less. Perhaps I'll make it,
he wagers.

"See that? He's looking about," says an invisible voice.

John feels empty. With difficulty he squints to see who is sitting next to him. Everything is black.

"He's looking but he can't see anything," another voice answers.

John wants to protest.

 

"Left
without glasses,
with glasses." The voice is clear and emotionless.

The war is six days old. John has voluntarily reported to the Ministry of War in London. He wants to serve in Lord Kitchener's new army. Not wanting to pass up such a chance, he is now standing in line for the eye exam.

"Right
without glasses,
with." The verdict is given: "Unsatisfactory."

John grits his teeth to keep from talking back to the man.

"Perhaps you could report to a local recruiting office in your area," advises a friendly officer as John exits.

Disillusioned, John returns to Brown's Hotel, the London residence of the Kipling family. Rudyard and Carrie Kipling are upset by their son's tone of voice when they get him on the telephone, and they rush to London in the
Green Goblin.
By the time they arrive, John has already left to see Colonel Feilden, a family friend, to lick his wounds.

"Next week you'll be seventeen, John. Maybe they'll be more accommodating then," suggests Daddo the next day. "Do you know what? We'll try together."

John lives on hope. On his birthday they ride in the Rolls to Hastings, then to Maidstone. When the recruiting sergeants and officers recognize Daddo, they bow like pocket knives and greet him with stiff salutes. But for the second time it's to no avail. Always those weak eyes...

"Maybe they don't want me as an officer, but do you think they'll take me as an ordinary soldier?" John muses with a sigh.

"Maybe, boy. Maybe."

"Maybe, Daddo? Is that all you can say? Maybe?" John asks reproachfully.

Rudyard Kipling feels wounded. After all, everyone wants to do his part in the war. Why should his only son be barred from serving king and country? How can they pass over the son of Rudyard Kipling, the most celebrated writer of his time, a Nobel Prize winner? They can't do that, can they?

In the following weeks, the lines in front of the recruiting offices grow visibly. Every able-bodied man reports for duty, not only in England but in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, South Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Young men are rising up to fight in every corner of King George's empire. Many of these boys are still in their teens. This is the chance of a lifetime! It is the Great Picnic, an opportunity to see another part of the world. Therefore it's best to sign up quickly, for it will all be over by Christmas. Everywhere you go you see the Secretary of War, Lord Kitchener, on posters with his finger pointing: "I want YOU! Be there! Join your country's army!"

Daddo knows that his pen is a mighty weapon, and he knows that the most powerful people in the land know it, too. He believes that the world must be saved from "the Hun," the name that everyone calls Germany these days. The British world-empire can't just throw in the towel to the enemy!

"Have you read this, John? Fantastic!" Oscar Hornung says as he flies into Bateman's and takes his brooding friend into the garden.

"What is it?" asks John as he listlessly takes Oscar's newspaper clipping and unfolds it. It is from the
Times.
It is dated September 2, 1914.

"A poem by your pa! And
what
a poem, John!" Oscar grabs the piece of paper and begins to read with gusto:

 

There is but one task for all,
One life for each to give.
What stands if freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?

 

The poem, "For All We Have and Are," strikes a chord throughout England. Daddo expresses exactly what the population is feeling. His verses pour oil on the fire and, quick as lightning, they take on a life of their own. The people quickly learn to recite the poem by heart.

A few days later, the great Kipling totally commits himself to the fight. Even though he hates public appearances in which he is the center of attention, it is now or never, he thinks. He rattles off that poem twice in a fiery speech in the southern seaside resort city of Brighton, where he addresses an enthusiastic crowd of young people and urges them to report for duty.

***

"Roberts! Here, look, one of the Irish Guards."

John awakens suddenly with a cry of pain, which sounds more like a hearty burp to the soldier next to him. He is lying on his side, with his torn neck to the sun. His shattered face is glued to a dark-red, sticky pulp on the ground, a mixture of blood, vomit, lime, and clay.

"Please finish me off," John murmurs, but the soldier doesn't understand a word.

The splinters of John's lower jaw pierce his palate and throat. He wants to fight off the pain but he can't. He feels as if his head were being crushed in a vise.

Ma! Mummy ... Can't anyone help me? Why not? Why me? Oh, God,
he complains to himself in disbelief. He slips in and out of consciousness; the battle noises keep waking him.

"Hey, Roberts! Here, I say!" the voice calls impatiently.

Roberts? Which Roberts? Is that old Bobs here? Wait.
Someone is sitting on my shoulders. Now there are two people here.

"Irish Guards. A second lieutenant."

"That's what I said, Roberts."

Oh no, bunglers, amateurs! Just let me lie on my side. Why aren't they helping me?

"Good Lord, Roberts! Look at his face! What a mess."

Lord Roberts? Good old Bobs? Irish Guards, of course. Is it you?

John loses consciousness again.

 

"Fantastic news, old boy!"

John sees that his father is walking toward him at a pace that is brisker than usual.

"This is for you, Lieu-ten-ant Kipling. Congratulations!" Cheerfully, Daddo waves the letter that his old friend Lord Roberts has just given him in London.

John snatches the paper from his father's hand. "The Irish Guards? Has that good Bobs fixed it up for me?"

Colonel Roberts is an aged veteran who earned his stripes during the Boer War in South Africa. Too old now to be at the army top, Bobs nevertheless has always had his own regiment, and he doesn't want to miss this war.

Daddo isn't totally satisfied. In the newspaper not too long ago he vented his wrath against the Irish, who want to free themselves from English rule. That
his
son must now be thrown together with those Irish! But Bobs is prepared to take John on as an officer, to return a favor; years before, the colonel had asked Rudyard to write for a new army paper, and Rudyard had obliged.

"If you don't think this regiment is suitable for John, I can certainly have him put on a list for a different one," Bobs assures him. But, of course, Rudyard can't dismiss the colonel's gesture. Besides, the list of candidates who are waiting impatiently for their commissions is getting longer by the day. And with John's eyes...

The official letter comes two days later, on September 13, 1914. John is appointed second lieutenant, backdated to August 16. Right away he receives four weeks of service time as a gift. The governess and the other servants hurriedly pack Master Kipling's luggage. The next day the whole family travels to London to visit the barber and John's tailor, who works a full hour taking measurements for his uniform. Everyone thinks it's exciting that John's life has been turned upside down in just one day. The Kiplings lunch together in the city and wave goodbye to John at the Warley Barracks, the dilapidated soldiers' quarters in Brentwood, where his regiment has been crammed while training for the fight.

Bad news arrives three days later. After a terrible battle, George Cecil is missing at the front. "Missing in action," Mummy writes. Now John can understand why she was so quiet and anxious when she said goodbye to him. George Cecil, such a splendid fellow—how can that be? George used to visit them regularly. In August he was among the first British troops to be sent to the Belgian front via the French port of Boulogne. The British Expeditionary Force, known commonly as the BEF, has a clear goal: "To stop the German barbarians and save poor little Belgium." Everyone is quite worked up over the graphic stories in the English papers. To their bewildered readers they dish out so-called reports about German atrocities: villages burned to the ground, rapes. Sketch artists show Belgian children being speared on German bayonets, with a devil-like Prussian in a pointed helmet dragging women and girls in the background. The war propaganda machine is going at full speed. Every able-bodied British male should be flying into the action. The papers brush over the fact that in the meantime the inexperienced BEF is being ground into mincemeat near Mons. They are losing almost as many men as the Belgian troops. On September i, the Grenadiers, young George Cecil's battalion, were bayoneted to death while retreating. John Manners, who was George's best school friend and whom the Kiplings also knew, is dead, that is certain. But George's body has not been found. The strong ties between the Kiplings and George's parents become even stronger. At Bateman's, Rudyard and Carrie sympathize greatly with Lord and Lady Cecil, who are desperately searching for news about their son. The war has suddenly taken on a face. George and his friends are the first who will never return. And the list of dearly beloved sons of friends is growing longer every day.

 

The tip of my shoe,
John thinks when he tries to rub the dried blood from his eyes.
The chalk pit, France, yes ... First my leg, the German machine-gun nest, the run through the brush, the ear-splitting bang, creeping forward, my head feeling like a block of ice, blood everywhere, terrible, surging pain. Where is the pain? No pain, no, please!