The Book of the V.C. A. L. Haydon
situated just off the coast of Finland, was being carried on by our warships under Admiral Napier’s command, a live shell suddenly dropped on to the deck of H.M.S. Hecla. It was a moment of frightful suspense for every one on board who watched the grim messenger of death fizzing there within a few yards of them. But there was one man on deck who saw what to do.
Acting-mate Lucas, on duty near one of the guns, promptly ran forward and with iron nerve picked up the shell, dropping it instantly over the ship’s side. The burning fuse sputtered out in the water, and the shell sank harmlessly to the bottom.
Captain Hall, his commander, brought the plucky deed under the notice of Admiral Napier, who, in writing to the Admiralty about the young sailor’s bravery, trusted that “their Lordships would mark their sense of it by promoting him.” This recommendation was acted upon, Lucas being at once raised to the rank of lieutenant. When later on the Victoria Cross was instituted the young officer’s name figured duly in the Gazette.
Two other sailors who gained the V.C. for similar actions were Captain William Peel, the dashing leader of the Naval Brigade, and Chief Gunner Israel Harding of H.M.S. Alexandra, also a Crimean veteran.
Whole pages might be written about Captain Peel’s exploits. All the time the naval men were engaged with the troops round Sebastopol he was ever to the fore, leading forlorn hopes and fighting shoulder to shoulder with his soldier comrades whenever opportunity offered. At Inkerman, at the fierce attack on the Sandbag Battery, he was in the thick of it, and again at the Redan assault.
Peel loved danger for danger’s sake. There was no risk that daunted him. At the attack on the impregnable Shah Nujeef, at Lucknow, in the Indian Mutiny, two years later, he led his gun detachment right up to the loopholed walls, which were crowded with rebel sharpshooters. He behaved, said Sir Colin Campbell, “very much as if he had been laying the Shannon alongside an enemy’s frigate.”
It was Peel who first demonstrated the practicability of fighting with big guns in the skirmishing line. “It is a truth, and not a jest,” he once wrote home, “that in battle we are with the skirmishers.” The way in which the sailors handled their great ship’s cannon, 8-inch guns, 24-pounders, and the like, was marvellous. A military officer, in a letter that was written at the front, gives an interesting reminiscence of the Naval Brigade. “Sometimes in these early days of October 1854,” he says, “whilst our soldiery were lying upon the ground, weary, languid, and silent, there used to be heard a strange uproar of men coming nearer and nearer. Soon the comers would prove to be Peel of the Diamond with a number of his sailors, all busy in dragging up to the front one of the ship’s heavy guns.”
In a future chapter we shall meet again this intrepid son of Sir Robert Peel, the great statesman, winning glory and renown under Campbell and Havelock. For the present I must confine myself to his career in the Crimea.
The most notable of the three acts, the dates of which are inscribed on his Cross, was performed in October 1854, at the Diamond Battery which some of the Naval Brigade were holding. The battery needing fresh ammunition, this had to be brought in by volunteers, for the horses of the waggons refused to approach the earthworks owing to the heavy Russian fire.
Case by case it was carried in and stacked in its place, and right into the midst of it all, like a bolt from the blue, dropped a shell. Peel jumped for it like a flash. One heave of his shoulders and away went the “whistle-neck” to burst in impotent fury several yards off—outside the battery’s parapet.
The second date on his Cross notes the affair at the Sandbag Battery, where he joined the Grenadier officers and helped to save the colours from capture. On the third occasion when his bravery was commended for recognition he headed a ladder-party in that assault on the Redan in which Graham and Perie won such distinction.
In this attack the gallant captain was badly wounded in the head and arm, a misfortune which was the means of gaining the V.C. for another brave young sailor. From the beginning of the war Midshipman Edward St. John Daniels had attached himself to Captain Peel, acting as the latter’s aide-de-camp at Inkerman. During the battle he was a conspicuous figure, as, mounted on a pony, he accompanied his leader about the field.
In the Redan assault he was still by Peel’s side, and caught him as he fell on the glacis. Then, heedless of the danger to which he was exposed, he coolly set to work to bandage the wounded man, tying a tourniquet on his arm, which is said to have saved Peel’s life. This done, he got his chief to a place of safety.
Daniels did another plucky action some months earlier, when he volunteered to bring in ammunition from a waggon that had broken down outside his battery. The fact that the waggon became immediately the target for a murderous fire from the Russian guns weighed little with him. He brought in the cartridges and powder without receiving a scratch, and the battery cheered to a man as the plucky little chap scrambled over the parapet with his last armful.
Along with Peel and Daniels must be named that popular idol William Nathan Wrighte Hewett, known to his messmates as “Bully Hewett.” He was nearly as picturesque a character as his commander.
At Sebastopol, the day following Balaclava fight, Hewett (he was acting-mate at the time), fought a great long-range Lancaster gun that had been hauled up from his ship, H.M.S. Beagle. The gun drew a determined attack on its flank from a very large force of Russians, and orders were sent to Hewett by a military officer to spike the gun and abandon his battery. The odds were too overwhelming.
In emphatic language the young sailor declared that he’d take no orders from anyone but his own captain, and was going to stick to his gun.
The other “Beagles” were quite of his opinion. In quick time they knocked down a portion of the parapet that prevented the huge Lancaster bearing on the flank and slewed the piece round. Then, loading and firing with sailorly smartness, they poured such a hot fire into the advancing horde of Russians that the latter beat a retreat.
They used the big gun with great advantage at Inkerman, but the young mate’s splendid defence of his battery was enough by itself to win him a well-deserved V.C. Hewett died eighteen years ago, a Vice-Admiral and a K.C.B.
A page or two back I mentioned Israel Harding, chief gunner, as a third naval hero of the live shell. It was many years after the Crimean War that his opportunity came, but his exploit may well be noted down here.
Harding was a gunner on board H.M.S. Alexandra, when, in July 1882, Sir Beauchamp Seymour (afterwards Lord Alcester) with his fleet bombarded Alexandria. On the first day of the action (the 11th), a big 10-inch shell from an Egyptian battery struck the ironclad and lodged on the main deck. The alarm was raised, and at the cry “Live shell above the hatchway!” Harding rushed up the companion. There was luckily a tub of water handy, and having wetted the fizzing fuse he dumped the shell into the tub just in the nick of time.
As in Lucas’s case, promotion quickly followed with the gunner, while the V.C. was soon after conferred upon him. The shell, it may be of interest to note, is now among the treasures of her Majesty the Queen.
So many naval heroes call for attention that I must hurry on to speak of Lucas’s comrades in the Baltic who also won the coveted decoration.
There was Captain of the Mast George Ingouville, serving in the Arrogant. On the 13th of July 1855, the second cutter of his vessel got into difficulties while the fleet was bombarding the town of Viborg. A shell having exploded her magazine, she became half swamped and began to drift quickly to shore. Observing this, Ingouville dived off into the sea and swam after the runaway. He was handicapped with a wounded arm, but being a strong swimmer he reached the cutter just as it neared a battery. With the painter over his shoulder he struck out again for the Arrogant, and towed his prize safely under her lee.
At about the same time a gallant lieutenant of Marines—now Lieut.-Col. George Dare Dowell, R.M.A.—did much the same thing. When a rocket-boat of the Arrogant was disabled he lowered the quarter-boat of his ship the Ruby, and with three volunteers rowed to the other’s aid. Dowell not only succeeded in saving some of the Arrogant men, but on a second journey