Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1123 page)

We are not built to comprehend a lie,
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive,

If you make a slip in handling us you die!
We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings —
Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods! —
Our touch can alter all created things,

We are everything on earth — except The
Gods!

Though our smoke may hide the Heavens

from your eyes,
It will vanish and the stars will shine again,
Because for all our power and weight and size,
We are nothing more than children of your brain!

In the common sense of the word “ happy,”
these and a thousand other inventions have no doubt made us happier than our great-grandfathers were. Have they made us better,braver, more self-denying, more manly men and boys; more tender, more affectionate, more home-loving women and girls? It is for you boys and girls, who are growing up, to resolve that you will be all these things, and to be true to your resolutions.

The Glory of the Garden.

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,

Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns

and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks

strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the

thin red wall,
You’ll find the tool and potting-sheds which

are the heart of all.
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung-

pits and the tanks,
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you’ll see the gardeners, the men and

‘prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;

For, except when seeds are planted and we shout

to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,

And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;

But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift

the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens

are not made
By singing, “Oh, how beautiful,” and sitting

in the shade,
While better/men than we go out and start

their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.

There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not

a head so thick,
There’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet

a heart so sick,
But it can find some needful job that’s crying

to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and

work till further orders,
If it’s only netting strawberries or killing

slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your

hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees

That half a proper gardener’s work-is done

upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash

your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

THE NEW ARMY IN TRAINING

On August 4th 1914, following the German invasion of Belgium, Britain declared war on Germany. During the autumn, Kipling wrote six articles about the training of the new British troops that had volunteered to fight. These articles were published in the
Daily Telegraph
in December 1914.  They were collected the following year in this 64-page booklet, published in the Britain and in the United States.

British troops training in Newcastle in 1914

CONTENTS

I

THE MEN AT WORK

II

IRON INTO STEEL

III

GUNS AND SUPPLY

IV

CANADIANS IN CAMP

V

INDIAN TROOPS

VI

TERRITORIAL BATTALIONS

THE NEW ARMY IN TRAINING .

I

THE MEN AT WORK

The ore, the furnace and the hammer are all that is needed for a sword. - Native proverb.

THIS was a cantonment one had never seen before, and the grey-haired military policeman could give no help.

‘My experience’ he spoke detachedly, ‘is that you’ll find everything everywhere. Is it any particular corps you’re looking for?’

‘Not in the least,’ I said.

‘Then you’re all right. You can’t miss getting something.’ He pointed generally to the North Camp. It’s like floods in a town, isn’t it? ‘

He had hit the just word. All known marks in the place were submerged by troops. Parade- grounds to their utmost limits were crowded with them; rises and sky-lines were furred with them, and the length of the roads heaved and rippled like bicycle-chains with blocks of men on the move.

The voice of a sergeant in the torment reserved for sergeants at roll-call boomed across a bunker. He was calling over recruits to a specialist corps,

‘But I’ve called you once!’ he snapped at a man in leggings,

‘But I’m Clarke Two,’ was the virtuous reply.

‘Oh, you are, are you?’ He pencilled the correction with a scornful mouth, out of one corner of which he added, ‘“Sloppy” Clarke! You’re all Clarkes or Watsons to-day. You don’t know your own names. You don’t know what corps you’re in, (This was bitterly unjust, for they were squinting up at a biplane.) You don’t know anything.’

‘Mm!’ said the military policeman. ‘The more a man has in his head, the harder it is for him to manage his carcass at first. I’m glad I never was a sergeant. Listen to the instructors! Like rooks, ain’t it?’

There was a mile of sergeants and instructors, varied by company officers, all at work on the ready material under their hands. They grunted, barked, yapped, expostulated, and, in rare cases, purred, as the lines broke and formed and wheeled over the vast maidan. When companies numbered off one could hear the tone and accent of every walk in life, and maybe half the counties of England, from the deep-throated ‘Woon’ of the north to the sharp, half -whistled Devonshire ‘Tu.’ And as the instructors laboured, so did the men, with a passion to learn as passionately as they were taught.

Presently, in the drift of the foot-traffic down the road, there came another grey-haired man, one foot in a bright slipper, which showed he was an old soldier cherishing a sore toe. He drew alongside and considered these zealous myriads,

‘Good?’ said I, deferentially,

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Very good’ - then, half to himself: ‘Quite different, though.’ A pivot-man near us had shifted a little, instead of marking time on the wheel. His face clouded, his lips moved. Obviously he was cursing his own clumsiness,

‘That’s what I meant,’ said the veteran,

‘Innocent ! Innocent ! Mark you, they ain’t doin’ it to be done with it and get off. They’re doin’ it because - because they want to do it.’

‘Wake up! Wake up there, Isherwood !’ This was a young subaltern’s reminder flung at a back which straightened itself. That one human name coming up out of all that maze of impersonal manoeuvring stuck in the memory like wreckage on the ocean,

‘An’ it wasn’t ‘ardly even necessary to caution Mister Isherwood,’ my companion commented.

‘Prob’ly he’s bitterly ashamed of ‘imself.’

I asked a leading question because the old soldier told me that when his toe was sound, he, too, was a military policeman.

‘Crime ? Crime ?’ said he. ‘ They don’t know what crime is - that lot don’t - none of ‘em!’ He mourned over them like a benevolent old Satan looking into a busy Eden, and his last word was ‘Innocent!’

The car worked her way through miles of men - men route-marching, going to dig or build bridges, or wrestle with stores and transport - four or five miles of men, and every man with eager eyes. There was no music not even drums and fifes. I heard nothing but a distant skirl of the pipes. Trust a Scot to get his national weapon as long as there is a chief in the North! Admitting that war is a serious business, specially to the man who is being fought for, and that it may be right to carry a long face and contribute to relief funds which should be laid on the National Debt, it surely could do no harm to cheer the men with a few bands. Half the money that has been spent in treating, for example . . . .

THE NORTH IN BLUE

There was a moor among woods with a pond in a hollow, the centre of a world of tents whose population was North-Country. One heard it from far off.

‘Yo’ mun trail t’ pick an’ t’ rifle at t’ same time. Try again,’ said the instructor.

An isolated company tried again with set seriousness, and yet again. They were used to the pick - won their living by it, in fact - and so, favoured it more than the rifle; but miners don’t carry picks at the trail by instinct, though they can twiddle their rifles as one twiddles walking-sticks.