Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/104

90 No proposition Euclid wrote,

No formulæ the text-books know,

Will turn the bullet from your coat,

Or ward the tulwar's downward blow.

Strike hard who cares—shoot straight who can—

The odds are on the cheaper man.

One sword-knot stolen from the camp

Will pay for all the school-expenses

Of any Kurrum Valley scamp

Who knows no word of moods and tenses,

But, being blest with perfect sight,

Picks off our messmates left and right.

With home-bred hordes the hill-sides 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.