It is generally read as being set in India, though it gives no details of the actual situation. Some research has suggested that the poem was written with a specific incident in mind, the execution of one Private Flaxman of The Leicestershire Regiment, at Lucknow in 1887. A number of details of this execution correspond to the occasion described by Kipling in the poem, and he later used a story similar to that of Flaxman's as a basis for the story "Black Jack".