A leap into the ditch, where he lands beside Home and Bugler Hawthorne, saves him just in time. A moment later and there is a loud explosion, a cloud of smoke, and stones, pieces of wood, and other débris raining down all around. In the noise of the firing and the confusion that prevails, the bugler is meanwhile sounding the “advance,” not once but thrice, though it is extremely doubtful if it is heard at all.
Colonel Campbell has seen the explosion, however, and the storming party, straining like hounds in leash, are no more to be held back. With a wild cheer they spring forward, to find—not the big Gate itself destroyed, but the little wicket, which was all that had been blown in. One by one they creep through, stepping over the scorched bodies of the sepoy wardens within, and form up in the open space by Skinner’s Church, where all are to meet.
But what of the survivors of the explosion left behind in the ditch? Home is alive, and so are Hawthorne, Smith, Burgess, and Salkeld, though the two last are grievously wounded. Carmichael and several others lie still for ever on the damp ground.
With some assistance, brave John Smith and Bugler Hawthorne get Lieutenant Salkeld into the doctor’s hands, though it is evident nothing can be done for him. Burgess, too, has a mortal wound, and he is dead before friendly hands have carried him a score of yards. Of the wounded only the havildar, who had fallen with Carmichael before the deadly rain of bullets, has any hope of recovery.
There is not much more to be said. Lieutenant Philip Salkeld died a few days later, but not before he knew that the Cross for Valour had been conferred upon him. Sergeant Smith and the bugler were the only two destined to wear the coveted decoration in memory of that day’s desperate deed.
Lieutenant Duncan Home figures in the list of V.C. heroes with his brother-lieutenant by reason of the Cross having been provisionally bestowed upon him by General Wilson. His end, which came scarcely three weeks later, was a dramatic one.
In the attack on Fort Malagarh it was expedient to lay a mine and make a breach in the wall. Home superintended this operation, and lit the slow match himself. The fuse appearing to have gone out, he went forward to examine it and relight it if necessary, but at the moment he stooped the light reached the powder and the mine blew up.