To get the wounded officer back to camp in safety was Leach’s first thought. The Afghans must be kept at a safe distance. With all the Sikhs, therefore, save the two or three needed to attend to Barclay, he formed up and charged with bayonets fixed straight into the oncoming enemy.
They were a score or so against a hundred, but desperate men take desperate risks. Leach himself was immediately attacked by four Afghans, two of whom he shot in quick succession. The third grappled with him, but another shot from the unerring revolver settled him, and the captain turned to meet his fourth assailant. He was not a moment too soon. The Afghan had slipped round to attack him from the rear, and as Leach’s left arm went up in defence it received on it the blow from an Afghan knife that was aimed at his back.
A slash from his sword laid the Pathan low. Then wounded as he was, with blood streaming fast from his arm, the captain dashed on into the mêlée, and gathering his men together for another fierce charge sent the enemy tumbling backwards in confusion. But the little company was not even then out of danger. The retreat led them along a narrow rocky road, from the sides of which the Afghans continued to pepper them, and a last charge was necessary to scatter them. Fortunately, just after this a cavalry troop, attracted by the noise of firing, came up and relieved them.
Captain Leach was promptly awarded the Cross for Valour for his bravery, but though he had succeeded in saving the party from certain annihilation, his satisfaction was clouded over by one great sorrow. Poor Lieutenant Barclay died soon afterwards from his wound.
The next V.C., the story of which I have to tell, is that of Lieutenant Hamilton,—“Hamilton of the Guides,”—whose brilliant career was cut all too short at Cabul in the massacre of Cavagnari’s ill-fated mission. Having joined Brigadier-General Gough’s force, which was keeping clear the line of communication between Jellalabad and Cabul, Lieutenant Hamilton saw plenty of fighting with the hill-tribes in the vicinity. At Futtehabad, in April 1879, there was an engagement with a considerable body of Afghans, and in this fight he made himself conspicuous.
At the moment that the scale of victory was turning in our favour, the Guides, led by their beloved commander, Major Wigram Battye, charged into the Afghan ranks. Battye fell shot through the heart at the first volley, and the leadership devolved on Hamilton, who led them on, more fierce than ever. In the mêlée that now ensued Dowlut Ram, a sowar riding by the lieutenant’s side, was bowled over and instantly threatened with death from three Afghan knives. Wheeling his horse, Hamilton cut his way to the fallen man’s side, dragged him from beneath his dead horse, and carried him off right under the enemy’s nose.
For this act he was recommended for the Cross, but to everyone’s disappointment it was not awarded him. Only after he had fallen beneath Afghan swords at Cabul, five months later, was his heroism acknowledged. Then followed the tardy announcement that had he lived her Majesty would have been pleased to confer the honour of the Victoria Cross upon him.
Hamilton’s end was an heroic one. Early one September morning in 1879 the Residency at Cabul in which Sir Louis Cavagnari and his staff had taken up their quarters was attacked and fired by the Afghans. The only defenders of the place were the Guides, a mere handful of men under Lieutenant Hamilton’s command. Soon the building was stormed, and Cavagnari with his suite brutally massacred. Hamilton alone remained, the last Englishman left alive in Cabul.
Driven from room to room, he and his men at last reached the courtyard to make their last stand. In vain did the Afghans call on the Guides to join them, saying they had no quarrel with men of their own race. The Guides were loyal to the oath they had sworn. As one man they formed up behind their gallant leader, dressed their ranks, and flung wide
“The doors not all their valour could longer keep.”