On the North West Frontier

From "Tales My Father Told Me"

My Father was a soldier brave since he’d first turned sixteen,
And he loved to tell me tales about the actions that he’d seen.
I’d sit at Father’s feet for hours while he told me some story
Of how he’d fought the wild Pathans in far-off days of glory.

He was sent to North West India as a bright-eyed volunteer,
To Lucknow and to Peshawar - the old Northwest Frontier.
He told me of his chums who’d died up by the Khyber Pass,
Shot by the wily hillmen, who were brave and bold as brass.

He found that Pathan craftiness was more than just a rumour
Athough they fought like tigers, they kept a sense of humour.
One night as in their tents they lay, the cunning Pathans crept
Into the camp and stole their arms, while all the soldiers slept.

But with merely stealing rifles, those hillmen weren’t content,
So they staged a demonstration with the Colonel and his tent.
They stripped the snoring Colonel just as bare as he was born,
And laid his bed outside his tent - where he was found at dawn!

The sentries never heard a sound - the Colonel he was furious,
And from the hillsides all around the laughter was uproarious!
My Father thought it funny, too, since he was then a stripling,
But he assured me it was true - not something out of Kipling!

He told me other grimmer tales that caused my blood to chill,
But that one about the naked colonel, makes me chuckle still!

 

Gerry Forster