"The Three Musketeers" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling which introduces three fictional British soldiers serving in India in the later nineteenth century: the privates Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris.
Narrated by the three privates—mostly Mulvaney, the loquacious Irishman, and Ortheris —The Three Musketeers tells the story of how the three contrive not only to 'protest' (like the junior officers) against a proposed special parade requested by a visiting grandee, Lord Benira Trigg, but to have it cancelled and humiliate the Lord and receive a five-pound note apiece from him, for being "a honour to the British Harmy".
Learoyd raises a subscription from the troops to have it cancelled, which is spent on suborning an ekka driver to take Trigg to Padsahi jhil, a large swampy tract of flooded land, about two miles off.
They improve the operation by paying Buldoo, a "knowin' little divil" attached to the Artillery, to take the place of the ekka driver, and to mount a simulated abduction.
Once the ekka is capsized into the jhil and Buldoo's three accomplices are banging sticks all over it, Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris 'rescue' the Lord from "about forty" dacoits".