Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1261 page)

Now, how could he get his men on to the hunting grounds without making too much noise, which would scare the game; and without leaving too conspicuous a trail, which might bring some dangerous wild beast after them? The simplest — the only — way of walking through thick jungle, as our troops knew in the Cameroons campaign, is in single file — down the bush-paths, if there are any. Where there are no paths, or where the ground is boggy or covered with fallen trees, each man has to step in the track of the next ahead. If he doesn’t, he steps on the next man’s heels, where he may throw him off his balance, and — what is more important — make a noise. So, whether he likes it or not, a man in single file has to keep step. The penalty for not keeping step when keeping step was first invented, was, in all probability, a severe reprimand on the head with a club.

“And thus, my beloved ‘earers”, as Mr. Jorrocks says in his sporting lectures — thus did George Robey’s company learn to keep step, which is the first essential of all drill.

And, after all, what does drill come to? This — the step, which includes keeping step — the line, by which I mean any sort of line, close or extended — the wheel, which includes a line changing direction — and, most important of all, because it is the foundation that makes every move possible, forming fours. There you have it all, gentlemen — the four sides of the Magic Square. The Step and keeping step — the Line, close or extended — Wheeling and changing direction — and Forming Fours. S.W.L.F. So We Learned Fighting.

Single line ahead — single file — is the weakest of all formations. By the way, a man in the German East Africa campaign told me that one of his columns, which was about a mile and a half long, moving in single file through heavy bush, was charged and scattered eleven times in one day by rhinoceroses. At the end of that time he was a little fed-up with big game. This will give you some idea of what the wretched George Robey had to put up with when he took his company through the forest in single file; for I believe the rhino of George’s day, so far as we can judge from its fossil remains, stood about seven feet at the shoulder. There was only one advantage in single file. George’s human enemies were as helpless to attack him as his own lot would have been to attack them. On open ground or in the big natural glades and parks inside forests, single line ceased to have any advantage. George might want to beat over a clearing in the woods for small game, or it might be necessary to drive some big animal that had been marked down by scouts towards some place where another detachment of the tribe was waiting for it. Those things would depend on the nature of the ground; but, one way or another, George had to get his whole string of men into some sort of line abreast before he could beat for game. Listening to instructors on the Square, I have often wondered whether George Robey, with his limited vocabulary, didn’t blow up with suppressed indignation. But it is more likely that he bit the nearest man on the ear.

Consider for a moment what that early drill involved! Obviously, the whole line had to draw clear of the woods and halt. Then it had to extend till it had stretched all across the clearing they were going to beat. It had to keep touch, because if it didn’t the game would bolt back through the gaps when the drive began. Next, at a given signal, the line had to rise and rush forward to start the small game — or, if it was big game, to make just enough noise to keep the beast moving towards the desired ambush. To appreciate the magnitude of the problem involved, gentlemen, you have only to go out in a five-acre field with half a dozen friends and try to catch an old and cunning horse who doesn’t want to be caught. Then you’ll understand what the first drill-instructor had to contend with. There must have been some reprimands delivered, in the morning of the world, that beat anything at Caterham, where, I have heard, “they tame lions”.

Under these circumstances, what did George Robey do? He did what any thinking being would have done after he had missed his meat-ration three times running. Remember, his reasoning mind made him realise that if this silly catch - as - catch - can business went on the tribe would get no food. So he said to the younger men: “We will practise the motions of hunting game several times over before we hunt game in earnest. Report to me outside the caves at sunrise to-morrow.” That was the first, cold, grey dawn of Drill in the world!

It must have been a slow process, but — what a thing to have seen being born! Remember, the tribe had already been forced to learn how to keep step and form some sort of line to beat with. Imagine George Robey when it first dawned on him that if all his men brought down their right or left foot at the same time, they could make noise enough to scare off a marauding wild beast or a human enemy without fighting! Imagine the first time he taught fifty or even twenty men to do it every time he shouted: “Stamp!” An animal often stamps when it is angry or wishes to frighten somebody; but no herd of animals ever stamp simultaneously and move forward one pace at each stamp. That was the first exhibition of organised “frightfulness” that the world ever saw.

Let us go a step further. George Robey has managed, by bites and blows and howls, to get a few individuals to stand in line; at first, shoulder to shoulder; next, with a sufficient interval between each to allow one to handle his club without hitting his neighbour. He has also taught the line to stamp with its feet at each step when he tells ‘em to. He can do a lot with this formation. If the individuals in the line turn right or left, the line becomes a single file again that can make its way through the forest like a snake. If it advances as a line, it thoroughly beats out all the ground in front of it, and can extend and envelop either flank of the enemy, like the old cow’s-horn formation of the Zulu
Impi
. If any animal breaks through the first line during the beat, there is nothing easier than to put a second line or a third behind it, at whatever distance may be advisable. And when both lines, or all lines, stamp their feet at once the noise is twice as impressive. Consequently, on account of these wonderful inventions, George Robey’s tribe gets plenty to eat, and is less worried by wild beasts or enemies.

But I don’t think human enemies entered largely into man’s calculations at first. By what one can make out from the manners and customs of the gorillas and the larger apes of to-day, there could not have been much actual fighting; and what there was, was rarely to the death, unless, of course, it was two males fighting for a female. I take it that it was a long while before there was organised war of man against man in the world. I fancy the earliest forms of drill were evolved originally more on account of man’s necessities as a hunter than from his needs as a warrior. Keeping in step and beating over ground in line are hunting dodges. Now for the wheel, or change of direction, and the marking time that goes with it.

Some years ago I saw a line of beaters in one of the Native States in India beating a big jungle to drive game up to the shooting-stand, where the Raja and his guests sat with rifles. They had put up a lot of buck and small game, and a panther or two, which they wished to head off down one particular rocky ravine. About fifty of them were acting as stops, lying hidden among rocks and bushes out on one flank of the drive. As the game began to come through, and showed signs of scattering over the open plain, the men rose, formed line, and wheeled inward, shouting and waving, till all the game turned left into the ravine. These men ran at a quick stooping shuffle, but they kept their line perfectly. What struck me most when the first man — the pivot man — of the wheel, and the others, came into their places on the new alignment parallel with the side of the ravine, was the way they danced and capered with excitement. But they always came down in the same place! It was like a lunatic asylum marking time. As I watched — and I can see those wild, little black legs now — it occurred to me that marking-time, as practised in the civilised armies of the world, must be just the last, last remnant of that wild dance of excited hunters, coming into position when a drive halts, ready to lead off on either foot as soon as the drive goes forward again. I have a theory, based on what I have read about primitive dances and children’s games, and some of the figures in square dances like quadrilles and lancers, that George Robey may have originally taught his line of men to wheel on parade by making them hold hands. However he came by the notion, it was a splendid idea, and it completed three sides of the Magic Square — the Step — the Line — the Wheel or incline.

But if you ask me how George Robey conceived the idea of forming fours, I tell you frankly I am up a tree. I argue that it must have been quite a late development. Here are my reasons. First, the world wasn’t fitted for route-marching in fours in those days. Fours require something wider than a bush-track. Single file would be the natural formation till tracks were developed or men lived in open country. Secondly, column of fours isn’t directly a hunting formation like the line or the wheel. It’s only a means to an end. Thirdly, it was a long, long time before primitive man learned to count. And the odds are that it was another long time before he counted further than his own fingers and toes, as primitive tribes do to-day. The Esquimaux word for twenty-one is about seven syllables long, and literally translated it means “one finger on the other man’s hand”. The word for fifty-three is
inup-pinga-jugson-arkanek-pingasut
, which means “on the third man, on the first foot, three”. This would make numbering off a platoon last as long as the War.

So the nature of the ground, the nature of the formation, and the difficulty of counting have delayed the epoch-making discovery of forming fours. It has been lost and rediscovered many times since; but the more one looks at the evolution, the more one is impressed by its astounding simplicity and cunning. Here are two lines of men, one behind the other. Somebody utters a magic howl, or yelp, or bark — the sound of words of command hasn’t altered much since the beginning — and, behold, the lines become a compact and supple column, capable of moving in any direction, and capable, if anyone says the magic word, of becoming two lines once more! Look at it from primitive man’s point of view, and you’ll see what a miracle it must have been the first time it was shown to the tribe. But how — how — how — did George Robey get the idea; and, having got it, how did he push, and pull, and haul his men into fours? My own theories on the subject would be too fantastic, probably, for your acceptance. I merely suggest that forming fours was originally not a hunting formation at all, but a portion of ceremonial drill which later was employed, when going to battle or the hunt, on account of its many conveniences.

I have used the words “ceremonial drill”.

Side by side with this practical drill, or rehearsal for the business of hunting and war, there developed the rudiments of what, later on, became ceremonial drill. Why? Here is my reason. The natural instinct of a man, after he has done anything worth talking about, is to talk about it; and George Robey was extremely natural. When he had finished a successful day’s hunting or had cleverly knocked an enemy on the head, he went home and told his wife and the children all about it. Like all persons with a limited vocabulary, he had to act most of his story and piece it out, precisely as children do, with innumerable repetitions of the same word. His tale wouldn’t grow less in the telling. Tales don’t. His actual fight was probably a crude affair; but he would act it at home before the family with stately leaps and bounds to represent the death-scuffle, and with elaborate wavings of his club and thrustings with his lance to show how he did his man in. At the end of his story there would certainly be a solemn walk round the fire to let the females admire him and the young bloods be impressed with him. It’s too long a subject to go into to-night; but you can take it that when a male animal has accomplished a kill of any kind, he generally indulges in a sort of triumphal demonstration — a tense, highly braced walk or promenade round and above the carcass, especially if there is a female of his species near by. At the very first, when George Robey was only the hairy, low-browed head of a family, he would declaim and prance alone. Later, as the families grew into groups and tribes, the other men who had assisted at the hunt or the battle would have their say, and their shout, and their walk-round, in the open spaces before the caves. It may be that the idea of forming fours was first originated at those processional walk-rounds where there was open space to manœuvre and safety in which to correct errors. You can imagine how, as these men danced and leaped, they would all sing like children: “This is the way we kill a bison. This is how we stand up to a tiger. This is how we tackle men.” The drama would be accepted as the real thing by the women and the juniors, till at last the bison, or the tiger, or the man-killing charade would become a religious ceremonial — a thing to be acted, said, or sung before going up to battle or chase, with invoca tions to great hunters in the past, and so on. It would end by being a magic ritual, sure to bring good luck if it was properly performed. And so far as that ritual, with its dances, and chants, and stampings, and marches round, gave the men cohesion and confidence, it would go far towards success in the field. That principle holds good to this day.

I was at Edinburgh Castle a few weeks ago, watching a squad marching in slow time, and doing it rather badly. The instructor told ‘em so. Then he said: “You’re lazy! You’re lazy! Point that toe! There’s not a
fut
among ye!”

It is hard work trying to get recruits to reproduce in cold blood, on a cold morning, in cold boots, something of the wonderful grace and poise and arrested motion of the bare-footed, perfectly balanced, perfectly healthy primitive man rejoicing over his kill. The nearest thing I ever saw to the genuine article must have been sham-fight among Kaffirs in a compound at the Kimberley Diamond-fields. It finished with a walk-round in slow time, and I remember that every Kaffir’s foot shot out as straight as the forefoot of a trotting horse. You could almost hear the hip and knee and ankle joint click as the toe was pointed. Now, it’s a far cry from a Kaffir compound to a Guard Mount at Buckingham Palace; but if you stand three-quarters on to the Colours as they come out of the gate with the Guard, you’ll catch just a far-off shadow of what the march in slow time originally sprung from, and what it meant.