The Works of Rudyard Kipling: One Volume Edition

THE GRAVE OF THE HUNDRED HEAD

   There's a widow in sleepy Chester
     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.

   A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
     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.

   Subadar Prag Tewarri,
     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.

   They buried the boy by the river,
     A blanket over his face—
   They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
     The men of an alien race—
   They made a samadh in his honor,
     A mark for his resting-place.

   For they swore by the Holy Water,
     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.

   The men of the First Shikaris
     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.

   Subadar Prag Tewarri,
     Bidding them load with ball,
   Halted a dozen rifles
     Under the village wall;
   Sent out a flanking-party
     With Jemadar Hira Lal.

   The men of the First Shikaris
     Shouted and smote and slew,
   Turning the grinning jingal
     On to the howling crew.
   The Jemadar's flanking-party
     Butchered the folk who flew.

   Long was the morn of slaughter,
     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,

   Each man bearing a basket
     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.

   They made a pile of their trophies
     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.

   Subadar Prag Tewarri
     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 the samadh was perfect,
     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.

   Then a silence came to the river,
     A hush fell over the shore,
   And Bohs that were brave departed,
     And Sniders squibbed no more;
       For the Burmans said
       That a kullah's head
   Must be paid for with heads five score.

   There's a widow in sleepy Chester
     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.