Chapter 8
OONTS by Radyat Kipling NORTHERN INDIAN TRANSPORT TRAIN What makes the soldiers art to penk? What makes them to perspire? It isn't standing up to charge, nor lying down to fire.
But it's everlasting waiting on an everlasting road for the commissariat camel and his commissariat lord. Oh, the oon't! Oh, the oon't! Oh, the commissariat oon't!
With his silly neck o'bobbin' like a basket full o' snakes. We pack him like an idol, and you ought to hear him grunt, and when we get him loaded up his blessed girthrope breaks. What makes the rearguard swear so odd when night is drawing in, and every native follower is shivering for his skin?
It ain't the chance to being rushed behind by pythons from the ills. It's the commissariat camel putting on his blooming frills. Oh, the oon't! Oh, the oon't! Oh, the hairy, scary oon't!
A-trippin' over tent-ropes when we've caught the night-alarm. We socks him with a stretcher pole and eds him off in front, and when we've saved his blooming life he jaws our blooming arm. The oars he knows above a bit, the bullock's but a fool, the elephant's a gentleman, the battery mule's a mule, but the commissariat camul, when all is said and done, is a devil
and an ostrich, and an orphan-child in one. Oh, the oon't! Oh, the oon't! Oh, the god-forsaken oon't! The lumpy, umpy, ummin' bird, a-singin' where he lies.
He's blocked the whole division from the rearguard to the front, and when we get him up again the beggar goes and dies. He'll gall and shave and lame and fight, he smells most awful vile, he'll lose his self forever if you let him stray a mile. He's game to graze the whole day long, and owl the whole night through, and when he comes
to greasy ground he splits his self in two. Oh, the oon't! Oh, the oon't! Oh, the flopping, droppin' oon't! When his long legs give from under and his melting eye is dim.
The tribes is up behind us, and the tribes is out on front. It ain't no jam for Tommy, but it's kites and crows for him. So when the cruel march is done, and when the roads is blind, and when we seize the camp in front and ears the shots behind, oh, then we strips his saddle off, and all his woes is past.
He thinks on us that used him so, and gets revenge at last. Oh, the oon't! Oh, the oon't! Oh, the floating, bloating oon't! The late lamented camel in the water cuts he lies.
We keeps a mile behind him, and we keeps a mile in front. But he gets into the drink in casts, and then, of course, we dies.
