One of Rudyard Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballads, set to music and recorded by Peter Bellamy (1977, Peter Bellamy Sings the Barrack-Room Ballads of Rudyard Kipling).
A bitter little song about the appalling pensions given to retired soldiers
One of the reasons Kipling wasn’t awarded a knighthood!
My name is O'Kelly, I've heard the Revelly
From Birr to Bareilly, from Leeds to Lahore,
Hong-Kong and Peshawur,
Lucknow and Etawah,
And fifty-five more all endin' in “pore”.
Black Death and his quickness, the depth and the thickness,
Of sorrow and sickness I've known on my way,
But I'm old and I'm nervis,
I'm cast from the Service,
And all I deserve is a shillin' a day.
Shillin' a day,
It's bloomin' good pay—
You're lucky to touch it,
A shillin' a day!
Oh, it drives me half crazy to think of the days
IWent slap for the Ghazi, my sword at my side,
When we rode Hell-for-leather.
Both squadrons together,
That didn't care whether we lived or we died.
But it's no use despairin', my wife must go charin'
An' me commissairin' the pay-bills to better,
So if me you be’old.
In the wet and the cold,
By the Grand Metropold, won't you give me a letter?
Give 'im a letter
He can't do no better,
Late Troop-Sergeant-Major
an'—runs with a letter!
Think what 'e's been,
Think what 'e's seen,
Think of his pension an’.
Gawd save the Queen
