WINNER OF THE VIRGINIA PRIZE FOR FICTION 

• A unique insight into the life of one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th century; one whose private life was obsessively well-guarded.
• An incredible and theatrical tale: Hamer’s work of fiction uncovers the truth about Alice Kipling – ‘Trix’ – delving into the heart of the relationship between a difficult brother and his troubled sister.
• Set against a lavish backdrop of colonial India, austere Edwardian England and Vermont, USA ‘New England’

Book launch at Waterstone’s Covent Garden on Nov 6th, Richmond Literature Festival with Isla Blair Nov 10th and more events tbc 

Description

As young children, Rudyard Kipling and his sister ‘Trix’ flourished in the brilliant warmth and colour of India. Their happiness ended abruptly when they were sent back to England to live with a strict and god-fearing foster family. Both became writers, although one lived in the shadow of the other’s extraordinary success. The name Rudyard Kipling is known to millions, but what became of his talented younger sister? She was careful to hide her secret life even from those closest to her.

Mary Hamer’s fascinating novel brings both Kipling and Trix vividly to life. In this fictionalised account of their lives, she goes to the heart of the relationship between a difficult brother and his troubled sister. Hamer peels back the historical record to reveal the obsessions which fuelled Kipling and his sister. Was he really better equipped to deal with conflict, heartbreak and loss than his beloved Trix?

Author 

Mary Hamer travels widely and has lectured in many countries. Her work has appeared in The Economist, The Guardian and The Independent. She has contributed to television and radio programmes, such as In Search of Cleopatra, Women’s Hour and Night Waves.

Mary began her career teaching at Cambridge University but soon found that research was her real passion. Ever since Rudyard Kipling lit her imagination as a child, Mary had wanted to write about him. Later, she realised that the story of his sister, Trix, was just as compelling. To explore the impact of their daunting early experience on their lives and work as adults, she set out to research the facts in libraries and archives. But it was visiting the places where they lived, from Mumbai to Cape Town, that brought them closer to her. In Naulakha, the house Kipling built in Vermont, Mary slept in his bedroom and soaked in his own bath. For the intimate story she had to tell, she decided it had to be fiction. Kipling & Trix is her fifth book and first novel.

Reviews of Mary Hamer’s previous work: 

‘A personal journey of significance to us all… Its echoes will reverberate a long time.’ Marilyn Strathern, author of After Nature 

‘illuminating new study…She writes clearly, pleasantly and with a blessed absence of jargon.’ Times Literary Supplement 

Publication: Dec 2012
ISBN: 9781-906582-34-0
Price: £9.99
Extent: 320 pages
Size: 129mm x 198mm
Category: Fiction/Biography
Territory: World
Publisher: Aurora Metro Books
67 Grove Avenue, London TW1 4HX
Tel: 020 3261 0000
admin@aurorametro.com
www.aurorametro.com
Contact: rebecca@aurorametro.com
0203 261 0000 for author interviews, events, serialisation, review copies and rights enquiries

Baloo’s Backpage

They say that first impressions last. So I thought this little vignette, published in the Clarence and Richmond Examiner (Grafton, NSW) on Saturday the 27th September, 1890, was quite interesting.

His observations on America, and American women particularly, were delightfully amusing. “It’s awfully jolly to see the boys and girls together as I did last night at a party,” he said. “In India I am not accustomed to it. My only society was amongst married women as far as the fair sex goes. Squads of charming young women come out from England ostensibly to be married. It is an understood thing, a respected and accepted fact, and a man who enjoys the society of women, but is not a marrying man, must keep in the background, or his meaningless attentionsmight spoil some other fellow’s chances and lose ‘ an opportunity’ for the girl. It is immensely entertaining to see the boys and girls together,’ he repeated ; ‘ they seem to have such jolly times and are happy ; but, although bright and clever, they seem frivolous, so frivolous, he added, with a little deprecatory gesture, almost pathetic.

“Have you ever heard of BurneJones?” he asked in unamusing, naïve way. “Yes; he is the greatest artist of his particular school of painting,’ was the schoolgirl answer to the question. “Yes, Uncle Ned is a fine artist, but he paints women with impossible chins”

It would be a curious experience on any given day to ask each individual of one’s acquaintance that one may chance to meet his or her candid opinion of Rudyard Kipling, quite irrespective of any new light which may be derived from lecturers who are, from time to time, so kind as to tell us what we must admire and what we must revile The various views might be delivered something after this style ” I cannot bear Rudyard Kipling, horrid, coarse creature!” “Kipling! The most wonderful master of English that the age has produced, and an absolutely fervid imagination ” ” Rudyard Kipling is not an author whose works should be put into the hands of young people ” ” Is he not a dear man, and does he not write charming stories ‘” ” Slangy rubbish, and no style whatever, but the public nowadays will swallow anything ” And so on.” In the multitude of counsellors there is safety,” says Holy Writ, but it would puzzle any ordinary person who has not read Kipling’s writings to form any opinion of his merit from such conflicting testimony. He would be compelled to sum up the evidence in a manner with which we are all familiar, with the verdict that “much may be said on both sides”.

Apart front the general accusation of writing rubbish, from all this we may extract two or three definite charges. He is coarse, he is slangy, he has no style. One is really puzzled to know what some people mean by style. A style may be good or bad, but no writer who has stronglymarked characteristics can be said to be devoid of style. The mere fact of being open to parody suggests style. No one thinks of parodying Shakespeare or Mrs. Hemans. The perfection of art which cannot be distinguished from nature, and the perfection of twaddle which suggests another use of the word natural, do not invite parody, but everyone with a fancy for imitation thinks he can catch Rudyard Kipling’s manner. Johnson had a style, and so had Macaulay the one the perfection of effort, the other of ease; but we suppose that Macaulay took at least as much pains to be graceful as Johnson to be uncouth. Kipling’s style is easy enough, but surely no one objects to ease. Is nothing to go down with us but Carlyle’s roughness and Ruskin’s sixbarrelled adjectives? When Partridge went to the play, he objected to Garrick’s rendering of Hamlet on the ground that he behaved exactly as anyone else would have behaved under similar circumstances; It was impossible to discover that he was acting; and he preferred the King, whose face showed no signs that he had committed a murder, and who ” spoke all his words distinctly half as loud again as the other ” ” Anybody,” says Partridge, “may see he is an actor.” One is tempted to suppose that those who see no style in Rudyard Kipling would be apt to endorse Partridge’s view on the rival merits of Garrick and the super. Of course he has tricks, but you might produce a sketch embodying all those tricks which would be no more like the real Kipling than the Mormon Bible is like the Authorised Version because, as Mark Twain tells us, they heaved in “And it came to pass,” “exceeding sore,” and the like in order to make it resemble the Sacred Scriptures. On the other hand, a cunning pen might give us a very fair imitation without once using the phrase “But that is another story”

Take the “Conversion of Aurelian M’Goggin”. If M’Goggin had kept his creed, with the capital letters and endings in ‘isms,’ to himself, no one would have cared, but his grandfather on both sides had been Wesleyan preachers and the preaching strain came out in his mind. He wanted everyone at the club to see that they had no soul too, and to help him to eliminate his Creator. As a good many men told him, he undoubtedly had no soul, because he was so young, but it did not follow that his seniors were equally undeveloped, and whether there was another world or not, a man still wanted to read his papers in this “. Can anyone describe an intellectual prig more pleasantly and vividly?

And again, ” If he had gone on with his work, he would have been caught up to the Secretariat la a few years .He was of the type that goes thereall head, no physique, and a hundred theories. Not a soul was interested in M’Goggin’s soul. He might have had two, or none, or somebody else’s. HIs business was to obey orders and keep abreast of his files, instead of devastating the club with ‘isms ‘ ”

Or the account of the celebrated correspondence on pig, which reminds us of one of Milton’s learned catalogues which run into so many side issues, affording personal employment to the commentator and unending delight to the student.

And that wonderful description of the Indian wood ” In spring the rukh put out few new leaves, but lay dry and still, untouched by the finger of the year, waiting for rain. Only there was then more calling and roaring m the dark on a quiet night, the tumult of a battleroyal among the tigers, the hollowing of arrogant buck, or the steady woodchopping of an old boar sharpening his tushes against a bole. Then Gisborne laid aside his littleused gun altogether, for it was to him a sin to kill. In summer, through the furious May heats, the rukh reeled in the haze, and Gisborne watched for the first sign of curling smoke that should betray a forest fire. Then came the rains with a roar, and the rukh was blotted out in fetch after fetch of warm mist, and the broad loaves drummed the night through under the big drops; and there was a noise of running water and of juicy green stuff crackling when the wind struck it, and the lightning wove patterns behind the dense matting of the foliage, till the sun broke loose again, and the rukh stood with hot flanks smoking to the newlywashed sky. Then the heat and the dry cold subdued everything to tigercolour again. So Gisborne learned to know his rukh, and was very happy”

If this is not the style of a master of English I must humbly confess my inability to recognise style when I see it But things change so fast nowadays that we spend half our lives unlearning what we learn in the other half, and we live in constant apprehension of being called upon to adore what we have burned and to burn what we have adored.

But we are also told that Rudyard Kipling is coarse, and addicted to slang. As for the slang: after all, the slang of one period is the correct English of another. Slang is often vigorous and picturesque and indeed Kipling does not use slang per se, but rather as the colloquial forms of the persons whom he brings on the scene. When Ortheris is suffering from a severe fit of pessimism he does not complain that ” the dust of an earthy today is the earth of a dusty tomorrow,” but he tells us that he is “a gawdforsaken Tommy, a bloomin’ eightanna dogstealin’ Beerswillin’ Tommy, with a number instead of a decent name; sick for London again ; the orange peel and hasphalte and gas coming over Vauxhall Bridge;” sick with what he calls “the bitter beer of ‘ome sickness,” and he intersperses his lamentations with quotations from the ” Orders for Military Funerals .” “Rest on your harms’versed. With blankcartridgeload,” and ” That’s the end o’ me ” His symptoms are much the same as those of any hyperaesthetic product of the pothouseforcing process of this end of the 19th century, but he is denied the happiness of expressing his complicated state of mind in equally complicated phrases. Is his condition the less interesting because it expresses itself in the language of a little cockney soldier? And Badalia Herodsfoot, with her indomitable pluck and her sublime loyalty to the drunken brute who kicks her to death, does she appeal less strongly to our feelings because she speaks the vulgar tongue of GunnisonStreet? Do we want Mulvaney to he stripped of his brogue, or the policeman m Hammersmith to be supplied with h’s?

A more serious accusation is that of coarseness, but on this point the critics do not seem to agree with each other. For some by coarseness merely imply the vulgar dialogue of vulgar people, while others infer a low tone of morality. Certainly some of Kipling’s .short stones are not fit for the library of a girls’ school. And “Under the Deodars” throws a strong light on a very unpleasant phase of Indian life. But Kipling’s coarseness, like his slang, is never for its own sake; it is always incidental to something which he wishes to set before us, and as he has set himself to portray AngloIndian life, why should we expect him to leave out one important point in it? He does not give it undue prominence, but it is there, and he feels himself bound not to pass it over altogether. Life in India is apt to deck itself for those who have not tried it in a golden haze of sunshine, and it is as well that the outside world should know something of what really lies behind the glamour And granted that some few of hw stories deal with essentially nasty topics, it is surely better if these things are to be told they should be told in their bare simplicity without any attempt to disguise them in elegant drapings. A spade is none the less a spade because we choose to call it an implement for the titration of the soil, and in these days, when men and women rather pride themselves on the free and open discussion of topics which 30 years ago were not considered fit for the vernacular or the daily papers, it is surely better to keep a plain broad line between vice and virtue, even at the risk of offending the ears of the fastidious.

But of all those who find fault with Kipling, not one as far as I know has pointed out what seems to me a very serious defect in the only complete novel that he has published, ” The Light that Failed “. South considered an epigram man’s masterpiece If this opinion be true, we may suppose that a short epigrammatic story is the master piece of fiction And certainly the writers of good short stones are much rarer than the writers of good one or three volume novels, while, on the other hand, the best writers of short stories seldom achieve a brilliant success when they attempt a complete novel. They string together a series of lively pictures, individually charming, but altogether lacking unity as a whole. Take Bret Harte for instance. Those who are most delighted with the wit and humour and pathos of his short stories are most disappointed in “Gabriel Conroy ” There are delightful scenes in it, but it is a failure as a novel, for there is no coherency about it . And we may say precisely the same of ” The Light that Failed ” It also has many charming passages with that wonderful blending of tears and laughter which is so perfectly true to nature and always appeals so powerfully to the English mind. But the mere fact that it is capable of two different endings, even from the author’s own point of view, stamps it at once as an illcontrived novel. For it is not a question of mere incident. We have to consider whether Maisie, whose development we have watched from childhood, is to exhibit the triumph of womanly sympathy and selfdevotion or a selfish and calculating prudence. Her behaviour to Dick at this crisis is the keynote of her character. She must do one thing or the other, she cannot do both. But Rudyard Kipling considers her equally capable of either, so that he gives us two versions of the story and invites us to take which we like; either, we are to suppose, is a logical consequence of what has gone before, but we are only seized by the strong conviction that Maisie had never impressed her real character on her author’s mind. Men and women may be very inconsistent and self contradictory in many passages of their lives, but in supreme moments they are forced to understand themselves and to know the mind that is within them. “Je crois,” says Victor Cherbuliez, “qu ‘on peut agir souvent contre son caractère, mais qu’il revient toujours dans les moments décisifs,” and to say that at such a moment in Maisie’s life it is equally natural and probable that she should either abandon Dick or cleave to him is as absurd as to say that the angle ABC is both equal to and greater than the angle ACB. There is no such uncertainty as this in the short stories. The characters are quite clear and definite, and pass before us in rapid succession like the slides in a magiclantern Wali, the young Mahommedan, who is perpetually lamenting over the Western training which has destroyed his faith, and whom we leave faint and bleeding under the violence of his religious emotions on the festival of Hassan and Hoosein; Mrs Hauksbee, Mrs Reiver, Strickland, Mr Wonder, the secretary, and the easygoing Viceroy, the Gadsbys, and the immortal soldiers three, we seen to know them as well as we know our own intimate friends They are too lifelike to be vague and indefinite.

But among these short stones there are some that are painfully vivid ; the ghastly absurdity of the two men gravely inventing their charitable lies over the body of the boy who shot himself, the hideous story of the pet ape, and the haunting horror of “At The End of the Passage” make us feel grateful that a man of such powerful imagination does not often let it run riot among terrors, but prefers to keep for the most part along those pleasant middle paths where tragedy and comedy walk handinhand. He is as much at home in pure comedy, and his last published volume shows no deterioration of his humour. Who can read ” Brugglesmith ” or “ Judson and the Empire ” without laughter which rivals the merriment of the two men reeling about on the poop deck of the flat iron of 270 tons displacement, built for river defence and beloved of ” Bai Jove Judson “.

As for Kipling’s poetry, if we may judge from his one more ambitious flight, “The Song of the English,” it is possible that the English world may someday have to consider his claim to be counted as one of the poets of the nineteenth century At least it will owe him a debt of gratitude for his intense and wideembracing patriotism, and for his patent though unexpressed conviction that with all their faults the English in all parts of the globe are on the whole the finest race on God’s earth.

ALLAHABAD, July 1888

Dear J. — When ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ was germinating in R. K.’s mind he was lunching with us. Suddenly he demanded names for his characters. A. promptly said, ‘Well, the queerest name I ever heard was that of a missionary I met in the Himalayas when we were both tramping—”Peachey Taliaferro Wilson.”‘ Of course Rudyard seized that at once. I could think of no name to give, so R. said, ‘Well, who was the most prominent man in your home town?’ Of course you know that I replied ‘Mr. Dravo,’ and sure enough he used these very names, adding a t to Dravo.

Later he was sitting at a desk busily writing. A. was in a big chair and I was near by. His custom was to push off a sheet from the pad as fast as he had filled it with his tiny fine writing, letting it fall to the floor. A. picked up the sheets, read and passed them to me, our one complaint being that we could read this thrilling story faster than the author furnished it.

Speaking of ‘His Majesty the King,’ R. K. said he had a very tender comer in his heart for little children, but there was not often an opportunity for showing it.

I never saw anyone more devoted to children, and alas there are so few in this station; all old enough have been sent to England, but Dr. and Mrs. J. Murray Irwin have a darling little girl who is my godchild. When she comes to the house there is nothing that R. will not do to amuse her. He plays bear, crawling over the floor, and he will endure every sort of teasing. On her birthday he wrote to accompany my small gift a gay little verse beginning:—

Imperious woolbooted sage,
Tho’ your years as men reckon are three,
You are wiser than ten times your age
And your faithfulest servants are we.

At last R. K. is coming into his own, for he is permitted to collect the stories he has written for the Week’s News into a more permanent form to be published by Wheeler, in the Railway Edition. The covers are to be a grayish blue and the pater is designing them.

The first one, of Soldiers Three, came for inspection and has been severely criticized by Ruddy. Mulvaney is not smart enough in the way he stands, and the barracks are not just right. I shall keep the pencil sketch, as it will be interesting to compare.

What a life he leads, all among the babblings of the Chamber of Commerce and the unsavory detail of the days among the dockets, departmental orders, and the queer expositions of human frailty, vanity, greed, and malice that a newspaper offers. With it all he watches for suggestive ideas for his tales. For instance:—

‘The Judgment of Dungara’ had its origin in a statement that A. made at the dinner table concerning the Nilgiri nettle, which has most persistent stinging qualities. R. made use of every item of information he could gain, and in a few days the story of the great God Dungara appeared in the Week’s News. It has a vivid description of the loneliness of a mission station in the interior. ‘Isolation that weighs upon the waking eyelids and drives you by force headlong into the labors of the day.’ The missionary, besides giving his flock the Bread of Life, had taught them to weave white cloth from the glossy fibres of a plant that grew near by. The Civil Service official was due, and the converts, usually naked, were to appear for the first time clothed in their new garments, made, alas, from this terrible nettle. It was woven fire that ran through their limbs and gnawed into their bones. Needless to say, they broke ranks and rushed to the river, ‘writhing, stamping, twisting and shedding garments, pursued by the thunder of the trumpet of the God Dungara.”

The need in India for hospitals for native women is very great. Dr. Bielby, the Kiplings’ physician at Lahore, was going home to England, so she was asked to present to Queen Victoria the dire necessity for some help for the secluded zenana women. She did so, and as a result the Lady Dufferin Fund for a chain of hospitals throughout India was raised by means of everyone giving a day’s pay, from the richest rajah down to the humblest ryot—from the Viceroy to Tommy Atkins. This stirred the soul of Rudyard, so he wrote for the Pioneer ‘The Song of the Women’ — prefacing the poem with the address of the women of Uttarpara to Lady Dufferin which had been published in the Pioneer. ‘Our feelings in this matter are shared by thousands of our sisters throughout the land and of this we are assured by many signs not likely to come under the observation of the outside world.’

Kipling brought the first copy of the paper just fresh from the press to us and, tossing it over, said, “What do you think of that?” He is rather cynical about the whole matter, for the giving of money is not voluntary, but practically compulsory.

Kipling’s friends felt that it was unfair to him to keep writing stories for the two papers without any extra remuneration, so he was persuaded to discontinue them. He wound up with “The Last of the Stories.’ He pictures a visit of his old friend, the Devil of Discontent, who lives at the bottom of the inkpot, but emerges half a day after each story has been printed with a host of useless suggestions for its betterment. This Devil of Discontent is the proprietor of the largest hell in existence, the Limbo of Lost Endeavor, where the souls of all the characters go. He takes the author below, where his characters are passed in review before him — till his heart turns sick. ‘The Last of the Stories’ closes, ‘Now the proof that this is absolutely true lies in the fact that there will be no other to follow it,’ and there were no more for the Week’s News — a great loss to the Indian public. He was not permitted to sign any of his work.

We invited Rud to stay at our house while we are away, as he is at the N. W. P. Club and he could have more room and also enjoy Bhoj’s cooking. He has written of his good times and of his trials.

It seems that the ayah thought this was her opportunity for a tamasha, so she celebrated by having guests in the compound. That meant noisy ekkas jingling down the avenue and the night, vocal with much tinkling of anklets to the accompaniment of the sitar. Rud says he had no notion that forty poor rupees could create such a devilment for so long.

Evidently he is not idling, as he says Mulvaney ‘came’ with a rush on the blue couch in the Blue Room, and if he walked one mile up and down as he was hacking it out, he walked three. Old ‘Pig and Whistle’ is getting lame, so R. is pattering about in the dust, to his infinite weariness and discontent.

September

Dear ONES: You know we live in a famous old bungalow which has been standing since the Mutiny days of 1857, when nearly every house was destroyed. R. K. so appreciated the privilege of staying in our lovely home while we were away that he wrote a clever sketch for us which tells of our daily life, our occupations, and our servants. He pictures the attractive verandah where we live most of the time, the long avenue of thickleaved shisham trees leading to the house, and he gives many amusing incidents. He calls this ‘Celebrities at Home,’ borrowing the title from a series of articles now coming out in an English paper.

Some day maybe I’ll send you the manuscript, which is at first in his fine handwriting, but toward the last is hurriedly scribbled.

Rikki Tikki Tavi unhinges me.

The biggest fight my husband and I have ever had was over Rudyard Kipling. It was a snarling, sarcastic argument with accusations of Orientalism, bourgeois thinking, and allowing animated wildlife to mask blatant racist attitudes. Even two years later, I shudder when I recall the night we were on opposite sides of the Rikki Tikki Tavi debate.

My son had announced at the dinner table that he and his classmates had read Rikki Tikki Tavi in their English class. He could not have known that his mother suffers from a hatred of all things Kipling and RikkiTikkiTavian in particular.

In addition to my serious problem with the author of “The White Man’s Burden,” I loathe that particular story of his about a mongoose with Stockholm Syndrome. I hate the way that the cobras are supposed to be evil for wanting to be able to breed in peace. I resent being forced to defend the reptiles from defamation.

I’m pretty sure that it was the British folk and not the cobras who decided to set up new homes in foreign territory. Maybe the lady in the bustle should catch a steamer back to England if she wants fewer venomous reptiles in her garden.

However, I am married to a rational person who was able to read about a spunky mongoose’s battle against the snakes without invoking the whole history of Imperialism. And for that, I was unable to forgive him. The issue grew much more tense when the father of my children actually invoked his fond memories of the 1975 cartoon adaptation in which Rikki and the other garden friendlies had American accents while the cobras had a threepackaday British rasp. The production is narrated by Orson Welles in the era when he was paid in Paul Masson Wine and the soundtrack is roughly one half 70’s synth jazz and one half fake sitar. It is not just politically incorrect. It is aesthetically wrong.

The mere mention of it filled me with a nearly cobrastrength portion of venom. How could he not understand that the snakes had a point? How could he be fooled by the laidback voice of the actor bringing Rikki to life with a laconic, California tone in which I could hear the excessive width of his lapels?

The stilted story of how The Raj was really about enslaving indigenous mammals in order to make Madras more like Manchester is bad enough on the page, but the animated version adds a level of frivolity to the endeavor which makes my jaw come unhinged. In Burmese Pythons, this ability better facilitates consumption of bandicoots. In overeducated, suburban mothers, a freewheeling jaw allows one to better quote literary theory and Hegelian philosophy. I deserved a dart gun to the backside for my rants and I am quite sure that my beloved spouse and at least two of my children would have shot me full of tranquilizers given even half an opportunity.

So, karma being the saucy mistress that she is, my preschooler’s attendance at a Reston institution with a serious love of animated literature has earned me a child lovestruck with that blasted 1975 production of Rikki Tikki Tavi. And, because I am humbled enough by the two years since my outburst, I have sat with her and watched all 27 minutes of it twice a day for the past four days.

I’m still not buying that nonsense about how the cobra eggs getting smashed is a triumph of Western Civilization, but I cannot resist how my baby takes my hand every time Rikki dives into the snake’s den as she announces, “He’s gonna save the family!”

I now know that every English major reaches a point when she must put aside her books and just let Rikki Tikki Tavi save the family.

A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.

They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race
They made a samadh in his honor,
A mark for his resting-place.

For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state;
With fifty file of Burman
To open him Heaven’s gate.

The men of the First Shikaris
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay
A jingal covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.

The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar’s flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.

Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again.

Each man bearing a basket
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village
The village of Pabengmay,
And the “drip-drip-drip” from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.

They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man’s chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below,
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a kullah’s head
Must be paid for with heads five score.

There’s a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done!

movement, including the history of scouting and Philips own involvement. Most of us remembered RK’s association with South Africa , and his friendship with Cecil Rhodes. It was there that RK connected with BadenPowell,”the Hero of Mafeking”, now an almost forgotten military achievment, but in those days it even gave birth to a phrase “to Mafeking” meaning to celebrate.

Baden Powell realised one of the problems of the British Army was using city bred young men as soldiers in the country side, and the South African veldt was far removed from city life.

BP founded the Scouting movement to in effect give urban youth a taste of country life, and also involved his friend RK, who gladly involved himself where children were concerned. When BP found that the youths younger brothers needed to get involved, remember RK’s comment about the tales of children at the end booklet on the Railway bookstall series “ like small children who always follow at the end of the procession” BP had to plan for the smaller children, RK really got involved and the Mowgli stories were used as a base, many characters names being used, such as the elder wolf Akela used for the cub mistress, and the boys themselves called Wolf Cubs, even the caps had a wolf’s head on them.

However RK’s involvement went a lot further than supplying names, in 1909 he wrote the Boy Scouts “Patrol Song” which went to the tune of “A life on the Ocean Wave”, he used to attend many Scout rallies, now called Jamborees, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Scouting movement, and was supposed to have a hand in writing the book “Scouting for Boys”. He referred to himself at times as “Commissioner for Boy Scouts”, he introduced “Kim’s Game” which most of us have tried to play, often with limited success, as one of the tests for Scouts, and we can find many Scouting references in his work, including that very interesting one on campfire cooking, where a controversy still reigns as to whether the eggs or bacon should be put into the frypan first!

You may remember that a few months ago I came across a transcript of a paper read by a Miss Badham at a meeting of the Women’s Literary Society in Sydney in November 1893. At that time I wrote to you and asked if anybody could confirm that this “Miss Badham” was Emily Badham, the first principal of SCEGGS. Many of you offered helpful hints and took the trouble of making enquiries on my behalf. Eventually, Ms Prudence Heath, the Archivist at SCEGGS opined that this paper was very likely to be the work of Miss Emily Badham. It is such an intriguing paper that, though it is a little long, I thought I would publish it in full, rather than serialise it and lose some of the impact.

This issue also contains an item by Justine van Engen, whose blog is published in a Reston (Virginia, USA) paper. Kipling evokes all kinds of interesting emotions! Sarah Burns reminds us of the Kipling talk to be held in Sept. – “Travels in Rajasthan with Rudyard Kipling”. The speaker is from NADFAS in the UK – the lecture will be held on Thursday 8th September at 12 noon and again at 6 pm. The venue is The Paddington-Woollahra RSL, 220-230 Oxford St, Paddington, and the cost is $20. Sarah can be contacted on sarah.burns@mls.net.au or by phone on 0407 065051 or 9957 1373.

Naren Menon

Heleanor Feltham, BA (hon) Dip. Ed., PhD began tutoring in the English Department of Sydney University and then switched to the Powerhouse Museum, specialising in material culture.  She has been involved with adult education for many years, with a particular interest in China, Persia, Central Asia and the Silk Road.  A founder of the Asian Arts Society of Australia and original editor of its journal, she retired from the museum in 2002 and is currently a visiting scholar in International Studies at UTS.
Her interest in Kipling goes back to her early childhood in New Guinea, when her father read her the Just So Stories and other children’s books and recited reams of Kipling’s poems.  She is currently writing a book on lions.