THE STRANGE RIDE OF RUDYARD KIPLING by Angus Wilson; Viking; 370 pages; $17.50
The sand of the desert is sodden
red,Red with the wreck of a square that
broke;The Gatling's jammed and the
Colonel dead, And the regiment blind with dust
and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his
banks, And England's far, and Honour a
name, But the voice of a schoolboy rallies
the ranks:
'Play up! Play upland play the
game!'
Only one man could have written those bully lines, and it wasn't John Wayne.
Rudyard Kipling, the laureate of British imperialism, of the white man's...
