War's Brighter Side Part 31

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. n.o.body dared to buy a measuring gla.s.s 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 circ.u.mlocution must be resorted to by means of requisitions which would be slowly forwarded to London and there pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mlocution 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sist 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d'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; G.o.d 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 fort.i.tude 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 succ.u.mb. 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 G.o.d'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 a.s.sail 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 h.o.a.rd 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.

CHAPTER XVII