Gunga Din (1939)

Montagu Love: Colonel Weed

Photos 

Quotes 

• Colonel Weed : [speaking over Gunga Din's body]  And here's a man of whom the regiment will always be proud. According to regulations, he had no actual status as a soldier. But those of us who had the privilege of serving with him today, knows that if ever a man deserved the name and rank of soldier, it was he. So I'm going to appoint him a corporal in this regiment. His name will be written on the rolls of our honored dead. And I...

  [falters, clears throat] 

  Colonel Weed : Let me see that last part again, will you Mr. Kipling?

  [Rudyard Kipling hands Col. Weed his writing, regimental bugler begins to play solemnly over mass grave as Col. Weed reads the final lines] 

  Colonel Weed : "So I'll meet him later on, at the place where he is gone, where it's always double drill and no canteen. He'll be squatting on the coals, giving drink to poor damned souls, and I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din. Yes, Din! Din! Din! You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din! Though I've belted you and flayed you, by the living God that made you, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din."

• Colonel Weed : [reading from the poem by the journalist, Rudyard Kipling]  "Though I've belted you and flayed you / By the living God that made you / You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din."