Gunga Din: The Original Bromance

We all feel better now?  Good. :)

So anyway, the British forces stationed in India loses contact with one of their outposts, and they send a trio of unconventional but undeniably effective soldiers to deal with the trouble.  Cutter, Mac, and Ballantine soon face a bigger problem -- Ballantine is leaving the army, getting married, and going into the tea business.  This highly offends both Cutter and Mac, especially the bit about the tea business (In my head there's a back story where somewhere along the line they were thrown a dirty curve by a tea merchant, and they haven't been the same since...suspicious, like.  But I'm pretty sure it's just because they're personally affronted that any friend of theirs would want to give up all the fun and adventure to go into a profession as supernaturally boring as the tea business.)

Ballantine is unswayed by their outrage and is nearly finished with his duty,   Their loyal noble savage Indian servant, Gunga Din, tells Cutter about a treasure that he has seen, and Cutter decides that it's a really good idea to desert the army to go on a wild goose chase -- where he is quickly captured by an offshoot group of Kali-worshiping rabble rousers.  Gunga somehow manages to escape, and he goes back to tell Mac and Ballantine, forcing the latter to go out with them on One Last Mission.  Oh yes, the One Last Mission trope, I know thee well.  Mac gets him to sign a re-enlistment form so that he doesn't get in trouble for taking a civilian on a military mission, with the promise that they can tear it up when they get back.  I'm willing to bet 100 dollars that Ballantine isn't going to end up tearing it up.

So Ballantine and Mac go on a rescue mission, although it isn't so much a rescue mission as it is a get captured and be of absolutely no use to anyone mission.  Luckily, however, the leader has this inexplicably uncontrollable urge to explain every single detail of his secret conquest plan.  I question his ability as a military strategist.  The British troops have come to recover their comrades, and they're about to be ambushed by a veritable army of *gasp* bad men in turbans, when Gunga Din comes to the rescue.  He has literally been bayoneted, but he manages to climb up a tower of gold and sound the alarm, allowing the British troops to take the offensive.  They crush the bad guys almost laughably easily (it's Her Majesty's army, what do you expect?), although sadly Gunga Din is shot and killed.  His dream of being a soldier is fulfilled, however, when they give him the rank of a corporal on the death records.   Dawwww how sweet.