The Frontier Line · Corporal Dick’s Promotion — A Ballad of ’82 · A Forgotten Tale

The Frontier Line

What marks the frontier line?
  Thou man of India, say!
Is it the Himalayas sheer,
The rocks and valleys of Cashmere,
Or Indus as she seeks the south
From Attoch to the fivefold mouth?
     ‘Not that!  Not that!’
  Then answer me, I pray!
What marks the frontier line?

What marks the frontier line?
  Thou man of Burmah, speak!
Is it traced from Mandalay,
And down the marches of Cathay,
From Bhamo south to Kiang-mai,
And where the buried rubies lie?
     ‘Not that!  Not that!’
  Then tell me what I seek:
What marks the frontier line?

What marks the frontier line?
  Thou Africander, say!
Is it shown by Zulu kraal,
By Drakensberg or winding Vaal,
Or where the Shiré waters seek
Their outlet east at Mozambique?
     ‘Not that!  Not that!
  There is a surer way
To mark the frontier line.’

What marks the frontier line?
  Thou man of Egypt, tell!
Is it traced on Luxor’s sand,
Where Karnak’s painted pillars stand,
Or where the river runs between
The Ethiop and Bishareen?
     ‘Not that!  Not that!
  By neither stream nor well
We mark the frontier line.

‘But be it east or west,
  One common sign we bear,
The tongue may change, the soil, the sky,
But where your British brothers lie,
The lonely cairn, the nameless grave,
Still fringe the flowing Saxon wave.
     ’Tis that!  ’Tis where
  They lie—the men who placed it there,
That marks the frontier line.’

Corporal Dick’s Promotion — A Ballad of ’82

The Eastern day was well-nigh o’er
When, parched with thirst and travel sore,
Two of McPherson’s flanking corps
  Across the Desert were tramping.
They had wandered off from the beaten track
And now were wearily harking back,
Ever staring round for the signal jack
  That marked their comrades camping.

The one was Corporal Robert Dick,
Bearded and burly, short and thick,
Rough of speech and in temper quick,
  A hard-faced old rapscallion.
The other, fresh from the barrack square,
Was a raw recruit, smooth-cheeked and fair
Half grown, half drilled, with the weedy air
  Of a draft from the home battalion.

Weary and parched and hunger-torn,
They had wandered on from early morn,
And the young boy-soldier limped forlorn,
  Now stumbling and now falling.
Around the orange sand-curves lay,
Flecked with boulders, black or grey,
Death-silent, save that far away
  A kite was shrilly calling.

A kite?  Was that a kite?  The yell
That shrilly rose and faintly fell?
No kite’s, and yet the kite knows well
  The long-drawn wild halloo.
And right athwart the evening sky
The yellow sand-spray spurtled high,
And shrill and shriller swelled the cry
  Of ‘Allah!  Allahu!’

The Corporal peered at the crimson West,
Hid his pipe in his khaki vest.
Growled out an oath and onward pressed,
  Still glancing over his shoulder.
‘Bedouins, mate!’ he curtly said;
‘We’ll find some work for steel and lead,
And maybe sleep in a sandy bed,
  Before we’re one hour older.

‘But just one flutter before we’re done.
Stiffen your lip and stand, my son;
We’ll take this bloomin’ circus on:
  Ball-cartridge load!  Now, steady!’
With a curse and a prayer the two faced round,
Dogged and grim they stood their ground,
And their breech-blocks snapped with a crisp clean sound
  As the rifles sprang to the ‘ready.’

Alas for the Emir Ali Khan!
A hundred paces before his clan,
That ebony steed of the prophet’s breed
  Is the foal of death and of danger.
A spurt of fire, a gasp of pain,
A blueish blurr on the yellow plain,
The chief was down, and his bridle rein
  Was in the grip of the stranger.

With the light of hope on his rugged face,
The Corporal sprang to the dead man’s place,
One prick with the steel, one thrust with the heel,
  And where was the man to outride him?
A grip of his knees, a toss of his rein,
He was settling her down to her gallop again,
When he stopped, for he heard just one faltering word
  From the young recruit beside him.

One faltering word from pal to pal,
But it found the heart of the Corporal.
He had sprung to the sand, he had lent him a hand,
  ‘Up, mate!  They’ll be ’ere in a minute;
Off with you!  No palaver!  Go!
I’ll bide be’ind and run this show.
Promotion has been cursed slow,
  And this is my chance to win it.’

Into the saddle he thrust him quick,
Spurred the black mare with a bayonet prick.
Watched her gallop with plunge and with kick
  Away o’er the desert careering.
Then he turned with a softened face,
And loosened the strap of his cartridge-case,
While his thoughts flew back to the dear old place
  In the sunny Hampshire clearing.

The young boy-private, glancing back,
Saw the Bedouins’ wild attack,
And heard the sharp Martini crack.
  But as he gazed, already
The fierce fanatic Arab band
Was closing in on every hand,
Until one tawny swirl of sand,
  Concealed them in its eddy.

* * * * *

A squadron of British horse that night,
Galloping hard in the shadowy light,
Came on the scene of that last stern fight,
  And found the Corporal lying
Silent and grim on the trampled sand,
His rifle grasped in his stiffened hand,
With the warrior pride of one who died
  ’Mid a ring of the dead and the dying.

And still when twilight shadows fall,
After the evening bugle call,
In bivouac or in barrack-hall,
His comrades speak of the Corporal,
  His death and his devotion.
And there are some who like to say
That perhaps a hidden meaning lay
In the words he spoke, and that the day
When his rough bold spirit passed away
  Was the day that he won promotion.

A Forgotten Tale

    [The scene of this ancient fight, recorded by Froissart, is still called ‘Altura de los Inglesos.’ Five hundred years later Wellington’s soldiers were fighting on the same ground.]

‘Say, what saw you on the hill,
  Campesino Garcia?’
‘I saw my brindled heifer there,
A trail of bowmen, spent and bare,
And a little man on a sorrel mare
  Riding slow before them.’

‘Say, what saw you in the vale,
  Campesino Garcia?’
‘There I saw my lambing ewe
And an army riding through,
Thick and brave the pennons flew
  From the lances o’er them.’

‘Then what saw you on the hill,
  Campesino Garcia?’
‘I saw beside the milking byre,
White with want and black with mire,
The little man with eyes afire
  Marshalling his bowmen.’

‘Then what saw you in the vale,
  Campesino Garcia?’
‘There I saw my bullocks twain,
And amid my uncut grain
All the hardy men of Spain
  Spurring for their foemen.’

‘Nay, but there is more to tell,
  Campesino Garcia!’
‘I could not bide the end to view;
I had graver things to do
Tending on the lambing ewe
  Down among the clover.’

‘Ah, but tell me what you heard,
  Campesino Garcia!’
‘Shouting from the mountain-side,
Shouting until eventide;
But it dwindled and it died
  Ere milking time was over.’

‘Nay, but saw you nothing more,
  Campesino Garcia?’
‘Yes, I saw them lying there,
The little man and sorrel mare;
And in their ranks the bowmen fair,
  With their staves before them.’

‘And the hardy men of Spain,
  Campesino Garcia?’
‘Hush! but we are Spanish too;
More I may not say to you:
May God’s benison, like dew,
  Gently settle o’er them.’