There the youth, who by drawing a lucky
number escapes serving his country, is congratulated, feted, and led in
procession round the streets.
One hard and fast rule, however, Lumsden made. He would take no low
caste men; he would have naught to say to the washermen, sweepers, and
fiddlers[7] of the village; he would take only the highest, which in
this land is the fighting caste. His argument was one which still holds
good. It is not in reason to expect the classes which for hundreds of
years have been hewers of wood and drawers of water, and for hundreds of
years have been accustomed to receive the cuffs and kicks of their
village superiors, to face readily the fighting classes in the day of
battle. The prestige of the soldier would be wanting to them, and
prestige counts for as much in the East as elsewhere.
[7] A musician in India is a low caste person.
Yet holding these views, a brave man was a brave man to Lumsden, be his
birth or caste what it might be. Most English-speaking people have read
Mr. Rudyard Kipling's poem about Gunga Din the _bhisti_, or
water-carrier, who by the unanimous verdict of the soldiers was voted
the bravest man in the battle. Whether Mr. Kipling got that incident
from the Guides or not his poem does not show, but there it actually
occurred. The name of the bhisti was Juma, and so gallantly did he
behave in action at Delhi, calmly carrying water to the wounded and
dying under the most tremendous fire, that the soldiers themselves said:
"This man is the bravest of the brave, for without arms or protection of
any sort he is in the foremost line; if any one deserves the star for
valour this man does.
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