Lieutenant Dunn had the distinction of being the only officer of the Light Brigade to win the V.C. When Sergeant Bentley of his regiment fell behind in the dash back to safety, and was quickly set on by three Russians, the lieutenant turned his horse and rode to his comrade’s aid. Dunn was a less powerful man than Parkes, but he sabred two of the Cossack lancers clean out of their saddles and put the third to flight.
Subsequently Lieutenant Dunn rescued a private of the Hussars from certain death in similar circumstances. He survived the Crimean War and rose to distinction in the service, but his career was cut short all too soon by an accident in the Abyssinian campaign.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CRIMEA.—THE HEROES OF INKERMAN.
The fierce battle on the plateau of Inkerman, in the early morning of November 5th, 1854, was the most desperate engagement of the whole war. It has, indeed, been described as “the bloodiest struggle ever witnessed since war cursed the earth.” The sixty thousand Russians who made a sortie out of Sebastopol were able through the heavy mists that hung over the field to take the British force of eight thousand men by surprise, and the fight at once became a hand-to-hand encounter rather than a pitched battle.
To call Inkerman the “soldiers’ battle” is to give our brave fellows who fought that day no more than their due. There was scant time for any plan of operations to be formed; as the guardsmen—Grenadiers, Coldstreams, and Scots—turned out of their tents at the warning bugle call it was to face immediately an enemy already entrenched behind battery and redoubt which belched forth shell and grape-shot incessantly. With bayonets fixed they went forward at the charge to silence those terrible flame-mouthed cannon and drive the Russians from battery and rifle-pit, and once among the foe British pluck could be relied on to carry the day.
What deeds of daring were done in the mist-shrouded glades and dells of Inkerman, in the valley and on the heights that commanded the British position, can never be fully chronicled. We know, however, how some of our gallant soldiers bore themselves, for in that titanic struggle acts of signal bravery were performed that were remembered afterwards and deemed worthy of recognition.
Charles McDermond and Thomas Beach, privates, made themselves conspicuous in saving the lives of two officers who were lying on the ground wounded and at the mercy of Russians, who never hesitated to kill a disabled man. So, too, did Sergeant George Walters of the 49th Regiment, who was more than a match for half a dozen Russians when Brigadier-General Adams got cut off. All three won their V.C.’s that day.
Of Lieutenant Mark Walker, of the 30th (Cambridgeshire) Regiment, a striking story is told. From out of the fog his men saw a great mass of Russians, two battalions strong, advancing towards them. They were ordered to open fire, but their rifles were wet and useless. Seeing this, Walker called on his men to fix bayonets and follow him, and, running forward, leaped over the low wall behind which the regiment had been lying hidden. This was enough for the 30th. With a wild cheer, they followed his lead, and flinging themselves impetuously against the enemy, a mere handful as they were, they actually sent the greycoats flying.