What shall we do now ? ' ` The bugles 'll go for dinner in arf a minute . My Gawd ! I wish I 'd gone up to the Front with the Regiment . It 's awful doin ' nothin ' but school down ` ere . Do n't you ` ate it ? ' ` Oah yess ! ' I 'd run away if I knew where to go to , but , as the men say , in this bloomin ' Injia you 're only a prisoner at large . You ca n't desert without bein ' took back at once . I 'm fair sick of it . ' ` You have been in Be -- England ? ' ` W ` y , I only come out last troopin ' season with my mother . I should think I ` ave been in England . What a ignorant little beggar you are ! You was brought up in the gutter , was n't you ? ' ` Oah yess . Tell me something about England . My father he came from there . ' Though he would not say so , Kim of course disbelieved every word the drummer-boy spoke about the Liverpool suburb which was his England . It passed the heavy time till dinner -- a most unappetizing meal served to the boys and a few invalids in a corner of a barrack-room .
But that he had written to Mahbub Ali , XXXXX would have been almost depressed .
Gawd Injia Kim Liverpool Oah barrack-room bloomin minute troopin yess