Dropped to a ten-rupee jezail

A scrimmage in a Border Station —
A canter down some dark defile —
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail —
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

I thought of Kipling’s poem Arithmetic on the Frontier when I saw this picture:

“Russian navy ship appears to be heavily damaged in Ukrainian sea drone attack” – Sky News.

Here and now, I am glad to see an expensive defeat inflicted upon one of Putin’s warships at little cost to the Ukrainians. But the new arithmetic of war will not always give results that I like.