Arithmetic on the Frontier
A great and glorious thing it isTo learn, for seven years or so,The Lord knows what of that and this,Ere reckoned fit to face the foe—The flying bullet down the Pass,That whistles clear: “All flesh is grass.”
Three hundred pounds per annum spentOn making brain and body meeterFor all the murderous intentComprised in “villainous saltpetre!”And after—ask the YusufzaiesWhat comes of all our 'ologies.
A scrimmage in a Border Station—A canter down some dark defile—Two thousand pounds of educationDrops to a ten-rupee jezail—The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
No proposition Euclid wrote,No formulae the text-books know,Will turn the bullet from your coat,Or ward the tulwar's downward blowStrike hard who cares—shoot straight who can—The odds are on the cheaper man.
One sword-knot stolen from the campWill pay for all the school expensesOf any Kurrum Valley scampWho knows no word of moods and tenses,But, being blessed with perfect sight,Picks off our messmates left and right.
With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,The troop-ships bring us one by one,At vast expense of time and steam,To slay Afridis where they run.
The “captives of our bow and spear”Are cheap—alas! as we are dear.
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