A truly glorious and inspiring record is that of the V.C. The stories of how the Cross was won, though they cannot be told as fully as one could wish, make a Golden Book of Valour that every British boy should be made familiar with, as the sons of the old Norsemen were made familiar with the sagas of their heroes. For they tell not merely of physical courage, which the ancients extolled as the highest of all the virtues, but of that moral courage which demands even more fully our admiration.
THE FIRST PRESENTATION OF THE V.C., IN HYDE PARK, JUNE 26, 1857.—[Page 5.]
One’s heart warms at the recollection of the giant M’Bean slaying his eleven sepoys single-handed at Lucknow, but his heroism pales before that of Kavanagh or of Surgeon Home and the other heroes of “Dhoolie Square.” Their gallant deeds were not performed in the fierce heat of battle, when in the excitement of the moment a man may be so lifted out of himself as to become unconsciously a veritable paladin, but done quietly, from a high sense of duty and in the name of humanity, in the face of what looked like certain death.
There is room only in the succeeding chapters for a recital of a limited number of the deeds that won the Cross. One would like to tell of all, making no exceptions, but such a task is beyond the scope of this volume. The most striking and most notable acts in the annals of the V.C. have accordingly been selected, and while keeping strictly to fact the endeavour has been made to present them in a worthily attractive setting.
And in calling to mind the heroism of the brave men who figure in these pages let us not forget those who may be said to have equally earned the distinction but who for some reason or other were passed over. Of such were Chaplain Smith, who was one of the heroes of Rorke’s Drift; Gumpunt Rao Deo Ker, the Mahratta sowar who stood by Lieutenant Kerr’s side at Kolapore, saving his leader’s life more than once in that terrible fight; and the gallant little bugler boy, Tom Keep, of the Grenadier Guards, who, while the battle of Inkerman was at its height and bullets were whistling round him (one actually passed through his jacket), went about tending the wounded on the field. These are names among many that deserve to be inscribed high up on the scroll which perpetuates the memory of our bravest of the brave.
Out of the 522 winners of the V.C. some 200 are alive at the present time. Death has been busy of late years in thinning the ranks. Only the other day, as it seems, we lost Seaman Trewavas, Mr. Ross Lowis Mangles (one of the few civilians decorated), General Channer, and Baker Pasha. We have, however, still with us the senior winner of the distinction, Rear-Admiral Lucas, whose exploit is narrated at length in its proper place, Field-Marshals Lord Roberts, Sir George White, and Sir Evelyn Wood, Admiral Sir Nowell Salmon, General Sir Redvers Buller, and many another hero of high rank. May the day be far distant when their names have to be erased from the survivors’ roll!
[1] No such clasp or bar has yet been granted.