Then on a horse which bit and bucked
(The half-broke four-year-old Marauder)
Came Minton Price of th’ Afghan border,
Lean, puckered, yellowed, knotted, scarred,
Tough as a hide-rope twisted hard,
Tense tiger-sinew knit to bone.
Strange-wayed from having lived alone
With Kafir, Afghan and Beloosh
In stations frozen in the Koosh.
Where nothing but the bullet sings.
His mind had conquered many things –
Painting, mechanics, physics, law.
White-hot, hand beaten things to draw
Self-hammered from his own soul’s stithy.
His speech was blacksmith-sparked and pithy.
Danger had been his brother bred;
The stones had often been his bed
In bickers with the border thieves.

John Masefield: Reynard the Fox (1919)

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains
An’ the women come out to cut up what remains
Jest roll out your rifle an’ blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

Rudyard Kipling: The Young British Soldier (1890)