"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier"

Rudyard Kipling’s words evoke the brutal reality faced by soldiers involved in colonial warfare, specifically in Afghanistan. His imagery is striking and unflinching, conjuring the loneliness and vulnerability of a wounded soldier abandoned on the battlefield. The soldier is no longer protected by the might of his regiment or the discipline of his military order. Instead, he is at the mercy of the land and its people, and, significantly, the women "come out to cut up what remains". This line carries a double weight: it reflects both the fearsome reputation attributed to Afghan tribes, where even the women are believed to join in dispatching wounded enemies, and the sense of utter desolation for the fallen soldier, left with no hope of mercy or rescue.

Kipling presents a world in which death is preferable to capture or mutilation. The act of reaching for one's rifle, not in defense but as a weapon of self-destruction, is a final assertion of agency amid overwhelming powerlessness. The suggestion to "jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains" is both darkly pragmatic and profoundly tragic, underscoring that in this world, even death can be seen as an act of courage and self-determination. The phrase "go to your gawd like a soldier" invokes both religious overtones and military stoicism, urging the reader to recognize the honor (or perhaps the forced necessity) in dying by one’s own hand rather than suffering an even more terrible fate.

Kipling does not romanticize the violence or soften its horror; instead, he lays bare the pain and terror experienced by colonial soldiers. Beneath his robust, rhythmic verse lies the acknowledgment of the psychological and physical extremities of imperial warfare, and the stoic, even fatalistic bravery expected from those who serve on its front lines.