The publican ‘e up an' sez,
‘We serve no red-coats here.'
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' ‘Tommy, go away';
But it's ‘Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to
play —
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's ‘Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn't none for mе;
They sent me to thе gallery or round the music-‘alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' ‘Tommy, wait outside';
But it's ‘Special train for Atkins' when the trooper's on the tide —
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
This gets to the essence of the injustice. The “stalls”, the front seats in a theatre, is a metaphor for the front line in the army. The ordinary soldier was the one to take the bullets and had the highest risk of injury and death. This is an astute prediction by Kipling, given the conflicts that arose in the 1890s following the poem’s publication; the Boer War, the Ashanti War, the Boxer Rebellion etc. leading of course to the First World War.
Tommy