An article in the Kipling Journal for December 1983, pp. 27-32, connects
the poem with the execution (by shooting) of Gunner Kelly at Dinapore on 13
August 1888. Some correspondence in the March 1984 number pp. 44-48
mentioned another possible original, a very moving eyewitness account of
the hanging of Private Flaxman at Lucknow on 10th January 1887. This had
been quoted in an earlier Journal (July 1954), and the details and the
general tone are close to 'Danny Deever', though I believe the detail 'he
shot his comrade sleeping' comes from a much earlier incident in the East
India Company's army. The original account of Private Flaxman's death is
apparently now in the Leicestershire Regimental museum. It is very likely
that Kipling was familiar with it, because it reports that there was some
doubt as to whether the correct man had been hanged, since three of them
had used a pack of cards to decide who should shoot an NCO: this is the
plot of the short story 'Black Jack'.
Kipling himself had seen a civilian hanging at Lahore. Lisa Lewis
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