Soldiers Three

Soldiers Three is a collection of stories written between 1882 and 1888 with three major characters – Mulvaney, Learoyd and Ortheris – sharing their personal experiences, adventures, romance, military exercises, mischievousness and pranks. These stories, as such, are not concerned with colonial wars, administrative control, masculinity, chivalry, death and sufferings instead cover the garrison army at rest. His writings evoke feelings and action of soldiers at parade ground or resting in their quarters. Kipling was embarrassed to make war the subject of his writing. He mainly confines to the phases of military life: parades, drills, guardhouses, discipline, alcohol, punishment, training, diseases and homesickness.

Kipling shifts from private life of underdog soldiers in Barracks to regiments battling on the Northwest frontier of India in “The Drum of Fore and Aft.”  It is a story of two young drummer boys Jakin and Lew who shame their army by going into the battlefield against powerful and fanatical Muslim fighters alone.  The regiment is inspired from the courage of two boys and retreat against the enemy. The battle is won but both Jakin and Lew died.