GRAVE OF A
HUNDRED HEADS
THE
BALLAD OF BOH DA THONE
Rudyard Kipling
GRAVE OF A
HUNDRED HEADS
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.
THE BALLAD OF BOH DA THONE
This is the ballad of Boh Da Thone,
Erst a Pretender to Theebaw's throne,
Who harried the district of Alalone:
How he met with his fate and the V.P.P.
At the hand of Harendra Mukerji,
Senior Gomashta, G.B.T.
Boh Da Thone was a warrior bold:
His sword and his Snider were
bossed with gold,
And the Peacock Banner his henchmen bore
Was stiff with bullion, but stiffer with gore.
He shot at the strong and he
slashed at the weak
From the Salween scrub
to the Chindwin teak:
He crucified noble, he sacrificed mean,
He filled old ladies with kerosene:
While over the water the papers cried,
"The patriot fights for his countryside!"
But little they cared for the Native Press,
The worn white soldiers in Khaki dress,
Who tramped through the jungle
and camped in the byre,
Who died in the swamp and were
tombed in the mire,
Who gave up their lives,
at the Queen's Command,
For the Pride of their Race and the
Peace of the Land.
Now, first of the foemen of Boh Da Thone
Was Captain O'Neil of the "Black Tyrone",
And his was a Company, seventy strong,
Who hustled that dissolute Chief along.
There were lads from Galway
and Louth and Meath
Who went to their death
with a joke in their teeth,
And worshipped with fluency,
fervour, and zeal
The mud on the boot-heels of
"Crook" O'Neil.
But ever a blight on their labours lay,
And ever their quarry would vanish away,
Till the sun-dried boys of the Black Tyrone
Took a brotherly interest in Boh Da Thone:
And, sooth, if pursuit in possession ends,
The Boh and his trackers were best of friends.
The word of a scout -- a march by night --
A rush through the mist -- a scattering fight --
A volley from cover --
a corpse in the clearing --
The glimpse of a loin-cloth
and heavy jade earring --
The flare of a village -- the tally of slain --
And. . .the Boh was abroad
"on the raid" again!
They cursed their luck, as the Irish will,
They gave him credit for cunning and skill,
They buried their dead, they bolted their beef,
And started anew on the track of the thief
Till, in place of the "Kalends of Greece",
men said,
"When Crook and his darlings come back
with the head."
They had hunted the Boh
from the hills to the plain --
He doubled and broke for the hills again:
They had crippled his power
for rapine and raid,
They had routed him out of his pet stockade,
And at last, they came,
when the Day Star tired,
To a camp deserted -- a village fired.
A black cross blistered the Morning-gold,
And the body upon it was stark and cold.
The wind of the dawn went merrily past,
The high grass bowed her plumes
to the blast.
And out of the grass, on a sudden, broke
A spirtle of fire, a whorl of smoke --
And Captain O'Neil of the Black Tyrone
Was blessed with a slug in the ulnar-bone --
The gift of his enemy Boh Da Thone.
(Now a slug that is hammered
from telegraph-wire
Is a thorn in the flesh and a rankling fire.)
The shot-wound festered --
as shot-wounds may
In a steaming barrack at Mandalay.
The left arm throbbed,
and the Captain swore,
"I'd like to be after the Boh once more!"
The fever held him -- the Captain said,
"I'd give a hundred to look at his head!"
The Hospital punkahs creaked and whirred,
But Babu Harendra (Gomashta) heard.
He thought of the cane-brake,
green and dank,
That girdled his home by the Dacca tank.
He thought of his wife
and his High School son,
He thought -- but abandoned the thought --
of a gun.
His sleep was broken by visions dread
Of a shining Boh with a silver head.
He kept his counsel and went his way,
And swindled the cartmen of half their pay.
And the months went on,
as the worst must do,
And the Boh returned to the raid anew.
But the Captain had quitted
the long-drawn strife,
And in far Simoorie had taken a wife.
And she was a damsel of delicate mould,
With hair like the sunshine and heart of gold,
And little she knew the arms that embraced
Had cloven a man from the brow to the waist:
And little she knew that the loving lips
Had ordered a quivering life's eclipse,
And the eye that lit at her lightest breath
Had glared unawed in the Gates of Death.
(For these be matters a man would hide,
As a general rule, from an innocent Bride.)
And little the Captain thought of the past,
And, of all men, Babu Harendra last.
But slow, in the sludge of the Kathun road,
The Government Bullock Train toted its load.
Speckless and spotless
and shining with ~ghee~,
In the rearmost cart sat the Babu-jee.
And ever a phantom before him fled
Of a scowling Boh with a silver head.
Then the lead-cart stuck,
though the coolies slaved,
And the cartmen flogged and the escort raved;
And out of the jungle, with yells and squeals,
Pranced Boh Da Thone,
and his gang at his heels!
Then belching blunderbuss answered back
The Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack,
And the blithe revolver began to sing
To the blade that twanged
on the locking-ring,
And the brown flesh blued
where the bay'net kissed,
As the steel shot back
with a wrench and a twist,
And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes
Watched the souls of the dead arise,
And over the smoke of the fusillade
The Peacock Banner staggered and swayed.
Oh, gayest of scrimmages man may see
Is a well-worked rush on the G.B.T.!
The Babu shook at the horrible sight,
And girded his ponderous loins for flight,
But Fate had ordained
that the Boh should start
On a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart,
And out of that cart, with a bellow of woe,
The Babu fell -- flat on the top of the Boh!
For years had Harendra served the State,
To the growth of his purse
and the girth of his ~p]^et~.
There were twenty stone,
as the tally-man knows,
On the broad of the chest
of this best of Bohs.
And twenty stone from a height discharged
Are bad for a Boh with a spleen enlarged.
Oh, short was the struggle
-- severe was the shock --
He dropped like a bullock -- he lay like a block;
And the Babu above him, convulsed with fear,
Heard the labouring life-breath
hissed out in his ear.
And thus in a fashion undignified
The princely pest of the Chindwin died.
Turn now to Simoorie where,
lapped in his ease,
The Captain is petting the Bride on his knees,
Where the ~whit~ of the bullet,
the wounded man's scream
Are mixed as the mist of some devilish dream --
Forgotten, forgotten
the sweat of the shambles
Where the hill-daisy blooms
and the gray monkey gambols,
From the sword-belt set free
and released from the steel,
The Peace of the Lord is with Captain O'Neil.
Up the hill to Simoorie
-- most patient of drudges --
The bags on his shoulder, the mail-runner trudges.
"For Captain O'Neil, ~Sahib~.
One hundred and ten
Rupees to collect on delivery."
Then
(Their breakfast was stopped
while the screw-jack and hammer
Tore waxcloth, split teak-wood,
and chipped out the dammer;)
Open-eyed, open-mouthed,
on the napery's snow,
With a crash and a thud, rolled --
the Head of the Boh!
And gummed to the scalp was a letter which ran: --
"IN FIELDING FORCE SERVICE.
~Encampment~,
10th Jan.
"Dear Sir, -- I have honour to send,
~as you said~,
For final approval (see under) Boh's Head;
"Was took by myself in most bloody affair.
By High Education brought pressure to bear.
"Now violate Liberty, time being bad,
To mail V.P.P. (rupees hundred) Please add
"Whatever Your Honour can pass.
Price of Blood
Much cheap at one hundred,
and children want food;
"So trusting Your Honour will somewhat retain
True love and affection for Govt. Bullock Train,
"And show awful kindness to satisfy me,
I am,
Graceful Master,
Your
H. MUKERJI."
As the rabbit is drawn
to the rattlesnake's power,
As the smoker's eye fills at the opium hour,
As a horse reaches up to the manger above,
As the waiting ear yearns
for the whisper of love,
From the arms of the Bride,
iron-visaged and slow,
The Captain bent down to the
Head of the Boh.
And e'en as he looked
on the Thing where It lay
'Twixt the winking new spoons
and the napkins' array,
The freed mind fled back to the long-ago days --
The hand-to-hand scuffle
-- the smoke and the blaze --
The forced march at night
and the quick rush at dawn --
The banjo at twilight, the burial ere morn --
The stench of the marshes --
the raw, piercing smell
When the overhand stabbing-cut
silenced the yell --
The oaths of his Irish
that surged when they stood
Where the black crosses hung
o'er the Kuttamow flood.
As a derelict ship drifts away with the tide
The Captain went out
on the Past from his Bride,
Back, back, through the springs
to the chill of the year,
When he hunted the Boh
from Maloon to Tsaleer.
As the shape of a corpse
dimmers up through deep water,
In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter,
And men who had fought with O'Neil
for the life
Had gazed on his face with less dread
than his wife.
For she who had held him so long
could not hold him --
Though a four-month Eternity
should have controlled him --
But watched the twin Terror --
the head turned to head --
The scowling, scarred Black,
and the flushed savage Red --
The spirit that changed
from her knowing and flew to
Some grim hidden Past
she had never a clue to.
But It knew as It grinned,
for he touched it unfearing,
And muttered aloud,
"So you kept that jade earring!"
Then nodded, and kindly,
as friend nods to friend,
"Old man, you fought well,
but you lost in the end."
The visions departed,
and Shame followed Passion: --
"He took what I said in this horrible fashion,
"~I'll~ write to Harendra!"
With language unsainted
The Captain came back to the Bride
. . .who had fainted.
And this is a fiction? No. Go to Simoorie
And look at their baby,
a twelve-month old Houri,
A pert little, Irish-eyed Kathleen Mavournin --
She's always about on the Mall of a mornin' --
And you'll see,
if her right shoulder-strap is displaced,
This: ~Gules~ upon ~argent~
a Boh's Head, erased!
