While the bombardment of this port of the Äland Islands, which are 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.