It was in this desperate struggle of bayonet versus spear and sword that Gunner Smith saw his officer, Lieutenant Guthrie, prone on the ground and at the mercy of the enemy. The gunner had only a handspike for weapon, but with this he rushed forward, hurling himself like a thunderbolt upon the Soudanees. He was in the nick of time. One of the warriors was in the very act of plunging his spear into Guthrie’s breast when the handspike crashed upon his head and stretched him lifeless.
Standing over the fallen lieutenant’s body, Smith kept the enemy at bay, and he was still at his post when the ranks had recovered from the shock of the onset and filled up the gap in the square. Then he was relieved of his charge, but unfortunately his gallantry had not availed to save the lieutenant’s life. Guthrie had been mortally wounded when he fell.
Taking a leap of several years, I may fittingly tell here of how some more recent V.C.’s of the Soudan were won. At Omdurman, where on September 2nd, 1898, the Khalifa was finally routed, the 21st Lancers covered themselves with glory through a famous charge, and three of their number inscribed their names on the Roll of Valour.
It was after the Khalifa’s futile attempt to storm the zereba where the British troops lay strongly entrenched that the Lancers’ opportunity to distinguish themselves came. While the main body of the army marched steadily forward in the direction of Omdurman, the 21st, under Colonel R. H. Martin, were sent to Jebel Surgham to see if any of the enemy were in hiding there and to prevent any attempt on their part to occupy that position.
Away down the bank of the Nile rode the four squadrons, A, B, C, and D, meeting with scattered parties of dervishes who fired fitfully at them. Just south of Surgham, behind the hills, some seven hundred or more Soudanese cavalry and infantry were suddenly espied hiding in a khor, or hollow, and Colonel Martin passed the word that these were to be cleared out.
Forming in line, the Lancers galloped forward. As they neared the khor a sharp musketry fire broke out, which emptied a few saddles, and then to their dismay they saw that instead of only a few hundred of the enemy there were nearly three thousand Mahdists concealed there. There was no time for hesitation. Go forward they must. So, rising in his stirrups, with sword on high, the colonel cried “Charge!” and, closing in, the squadrons dashed into their foes.
They went down a drop of three or four feet, plunging into the thick of the Mahdists. Cutting and thrusting fiercely, they forged their way through, and with pennons proudly flying at last gained the steep ascent beyond. Many men, however, were left behind, and but for the devotion of some like Private Thomas Byrne the number must have been still larger. Byrne saw four dervishes pursuing Lieutenant Molyneux, who was wounded and on foot, and although he was himself crippled with a bullet in his right arm he rode back to the rescue. He tried to use his sword, but there was no strength in his arm; the weapon dropped from his limp grasp, and he received a spear wound in the chest. By this time Lieutenant Molyneux was out of danger, so Byrne galloped off to his troop, which he regained without further injury. The brave Irish private got the Cross for his pluck, and, as Mr. Winston Churchill comments in his account of the deed,[3] Byrne’s wearing it will rather enhance the value of the Order.
One of the officers to fall in the charge was Lieutenant Robert Grenfell. To save him, or at least recover his body, Captain P. A. Kenna and Lieutenant de Montmorency, accompanied by Corporal Swarbrick, dashed back into the midst of the enemy. They were unsuccessful, De Montmorency’s horse bolting as they tried to lift poor Grenfell on to it; but the attempt was a courageous one, and both officers were gazetted V.C. a little later, Corporal Swarbrick being awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Just before this gallant action, I may mention, Captain Kenna had distinguished himself by saving the life of Major Crole Wyndham, whose horse had been shot under him, an act which alone entitled him to the distinction.
[3] The River War, vol. ii. p. 141.