COOL your heels on the rail of an observation car.
Let the engineer open her up for ninety miles an hour.
Take in the prairie right and left, rolling land and new hay crops, swaths of new hay laid in the sun.
A gray village flecks by and the horses hitched in front of the post-office never blink an eye.
A barnyard and fifteen Holstein cows, dabs of white on a black wall map, never blink an eye.
A signalman in a tower, the outpost of Kansas City, keeps his place at a window with the serenity of a bronze statue on a dark night when lovers pass whispering.

There is no disagreement,
no mutiny, no desertion
Only a quiet acknowledgement
as the men get back to work

The signalman returns to his signal,
Throughout the day, he will never stop
relaying the events.

The sound of the oncoming horde grows louder,
Rifles crack, The horde is upon them,
assaulting the outer wall

The disciplined fire of the Sikh troops,
breaks the first wave of the tribesmen.
But they are like the sea, rolling back,
and rushing forward with even greater strength.

Bodies drop all along the killing field.
in front of the signalling post.
The sound of twenty rifles,
roaring against ten thousand.

But this time, it's not enough to break the charge
Shells pepper the rough hune walls
One of the signal company falls dead

Then the enemy is at the wall
Climbing, clambering up, determined.
A brief melee: Knives and swords, bayonets and rifle butts

They break the wave again, But this time,
There's Sikh blood in the dust, under the baking sun
The bodies of the fallen are carried into the inner wall
Each loss is a friend, one of only 21 holding the station.
and that number is dropping

Shouts are heard from outside the wall,
The tribe's leaders are promising the Sikhs
wealth, safety and positions of importance
All they had to do was abandon their post.

No man budges.

The wild unforgiving landscape,
The perilous heat and,
The untamed sun.
A fools conquest the land was.

Dawn comes to the very boundary of the empire,
standing on the uncontrolled border.
A string of forts stretch long and thin,
covering the horizon with their power.

Dawn breaks as the men wash and meditate,
affixing there turban to begin the day.
Sensing a looming threat in the air,
the Sikhs man their posts.

Someone tells a joke to break the tension,
everybody laughs, but the feeling remains.
The lookout shouts about an enormous mass moving on the horizon,
The twenty-one takes their defensive positions.

At least 10 thousand tribesmen,
once there allies but now, in full retaliation,
descending on the forts with only the signalling post,
standing in there way.

The unit is piling up ammunition,
barring the gates to there tiny compound.
The signalman sends a tiny message,
"Can you send help?",
Only with a slight delay, "no".

The men in the unit gathered around their commander,
Ishar Singh, knowing fully that they could make a break for it,
Ishar then tells them calmly about what they are already,
in their hearts, are ready for.

They will stay and,
They will fight.

They will delay the oncoming tribesmen,
as long as possible.
They will buy the forts the time they need,
to call the reinforcements.