Kipling and Brown Bess

The fourteenth in my ongoing series examining the poetry of Rudyard Kipling. The other posts in the series may be read here, here , here , here,  here , here, here, here, here , here, here, here and here.  Certain themes recurred in many of Kipling’s poems:  a fascination with mechanical devices, strong British patriotism and a puckish sense of humor.  All three of these themes were on display in the poem Brown Bess written in 1911 and which was part of the School History of England authored by Kipling and C.R.L. Fletcher .  The poem was a paean to the British Land Pattern Musket, affectionately know by the Redcoats as Brown Bess.  Brown Bess was the standard English long gun from 1722-1838, an astounding length of service for those who live in a time of ceaseless and rapid technological change.

The video at the beginning of this post is taken from Sharpe’s Eagle and depicts the battle of Talavera.  It illustrates the impact of massed British volleys of Brown Bess  musket fire on French columns.  (The redcoats are armed with muskets;  Sharpe and his green jacketed men are armed with rifles.)  The British Army was a curious thing during the period of Brown Bess.  The men were almost entirely desperately poor, poverty being the main inducement to don the Red Coat, service in the Army with its low pay, harsh discipline and danger being highly unpopular.  The officers tended to be aristocratic wastrels who purchased their commissions and were often regarded by their families as dunderheads fit only for gunpowder.  However, from this unpromising material was created the finest army in the world.  This was largely a function of ferocious discipline, constant training in drill and volley firing, good career noncoms, a few brilliant generals like Amherst and Wellington, and extreme combativeness and courage, amply displayed both by the common soldiers and the aristocrats who led them.

Kipling’s poem was based upon the device of treating the Brown Bess musket as if she was a fashionable belle of society.  Kipling told his father,  ‘A conceit somewhat elaborately beaten out but it amused me in the doing – sign that may be t’will amuse other folks to read.’    Here is the text of the poem:

In the days of lace-ruffles, perukes and brocade

 Brown Bess was a partner whom none could despise–

 An out-spoken, flinty-lipped, brazen-faced jade,

 With a habit of looking men straight in the eyes–

 At Blenheim and Ramillies fops would confess

 They were pierced to the heart by the charms of Brown Bess.

  Though her sight was not long and her weight was not small,

 Yet her actions were winning, her language was clear;

 And everyone bowed as she opened the ball

 On the arm of some high-gaitered, grim grenadier.

 Half Europe admitted the striking success

 Of the dances and routs that were given by Brown Bess.

  When ruffles were turned into stiff leather stocks,

 And people wore pigtails instead of perukes,

 Brown Bess never altered her iron-grey locks.

 She knew she was valued for more than her looks.

 “Oh, powder and patches was always my dress,

 And I think am killing enough,” said Brown Bess.

  So she followed her red-coats, whatever they did,

 From the heights of Quebec to the plains of Assaye,

 From Gibraltar to Acre, Cape Town and Madrid,

 And nothing about her was changed on the way;

 (But most of the Empire which now we possess

 Was won through those years by old-fashioned Brown Bess.)  

In stubborn retreat or in stately advance,

 From the Portugal coast to the cork-woods of Spain,

 She had puzzled some excellent Marshals of France

 Till none of them wanted to meet her again:

 But later, near Brussels, Napoleon–no less–

 Arranged for a Waterloo ball with Brown Bess.

  She had danced till the dawn of that terrible day–

 She danced till the dusk of more terrible night,

 And before her linked squares his battalions gave way,

 And her long fierce quadrilles put his lancers to flight:

 And when his gilt carriage drove off in the press,

 “I have danced my last dance for the world!” said Brown Bess.  

If you go to Museums–there’s one in Whitehall–

 Where old weapons are shown with their names writ beneath,

 You will find her, upstanding, her back to the wall,

 As stiff as a ramrod, the flint in her teeth.

 And if ever we English had reason to bless

 Any arm save our mothers’, that arm is Brown Bess!