THE HERO IN VICTORIAN POPULAR MYTHOLOGY 25
Here in the storming of a native stronghold we see the epitome of the
Victorian ideals of heroism, and indeed, four of those who made the mad
rush up the heights of Dargai were recommended for the Victoria Cross.^75
Officers were expected to lead from the front, ‘offering the first mark to the
enemy,’ while the other ranks were filled with a sort of disciplined berserker
rage. When men were wounded they bore up under the pain with manly
stoicism and carried on with their duty as long as they could stand (or in
the case of Piper George Findlater, shot through both legs, got a Gurkha
to prop him up on a rock so he could continue playing) and when they
died, it was thanking God they had done their duty by Queen and Country.
It was common knowledge that a Tommy Atkins or Jack Tar could easily
whip thrice his weight in any foreign nationality you cared to name without
mussing his mustache.^76
The problem was that war was a horrible bloody business that left death
and shattered survivors in its wake. Bullets did not leave neat holes in
shoulders, and it was a rare man indeed who could press his lips together
hard enough to prevent crying out during an amputation. Heroes were more
often than not just too tired, too hungry, or too crazed with blood-lust to
care anymore. Reconciling the myth and reality would prove to be a tedious
task once the decision was made to institutionalize heroism. The Normans
had their Tallifers, the Saxons their Herewards and the Celts their Warrior
Queen; military virtues and the values of the hero had been common features
of popular culture in the British Isles as long as there had been a population
to cultivate these values. Why, then, did the British Government feel the
need to institutionalize the hero in 1856?
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