No one accuses the Gunner of maudlin affection for anything except his beasts and his weapons. He hasn't the time. He serves at least three jealous gods—his horse and all its saddlery and harness; his gun, whose least detail of efficiency is more important than men's lives; and, when these have been attended to, the never-ending mystery of his art commands him.
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.
And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth; Four things greater than all things are Women and Horses and Power and War.
For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, they arrive at their conclusions, largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; but sometimes in a smoking room, one learns why things were done.
We never pay anyone Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!