The form is a dialogue, between a young and inexperienced soldier (or soldiers; he is given as "Files-on-Parade", suggesting a group) and a more experienced and older NCO ("the Colour-Sergeant"). The setting is an execution, generally presumed to be somewhere in India; a soldier, one Danny Deever, has been tried and sentenced to death for murdering a fellow soldier in his sleep, and his battalion is paraded to see the hanging. This procedure strengthened discipline in the unit, by a process of deterrence, and helped inure inexperienced soldiers to the sight of death.