Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.
The Grave of the Hundred Head
T
Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.
Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.
A blanket over his face—
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race—
They made a samadh in his honour,
A mark for his resting-place.
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state;
With fifty file of Burman
To open him Heaven’s Gate.
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay—
A jingal covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Send out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning and grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar’s flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again,
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village—
The village of Pabengmay.
And the “drip-drip-drip” from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.
High as a tall man’s chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below—
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris—
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.
A hush fell over the shore,
And the Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a white-man’s head
Must be paid for with heads five-score.
Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.