'Wauchope held some special appointment at home, and his regiment had been in Malta for several months before he joined them after the Ashanti war. He had been severely wounded in that war. A leaden slug, fired by one of the savages hidden among the branches of trees, entered his breast, and it was a marvel he was not killed on the spot. He told me he bled like an ox. His account of how the blood at last stopped was somewhat curious. His old colonel, Sir John M'Leod, came to see him after he was wounded, and on leaving he presented him with a copy of the Book of Psalms. Wauchope said that he began wondering whether "old Jack," as he familiarly called his commanding officer, whom he greatly venerated, was in the habit of carrying about copies of the Psalms in his pocket to give to officers when dangerously wounded, and it struck him in such a ludicrous light that, after the good colonel was out of sight, he burst into such a fit of laughing that he could not stop—and that, he said stopped the bleeding! Sir John and Wauchope had a great respect for each other. Wauchope looked up to Sir John with admiration bordering on awe. The colonel regarded his lieutenant as a model officer. He told me that Wauchope's character commanded universal respect, and that his high moral tone and the thoroughness with which he discharged all his duties gave him an influence which was invaluable.
'On his arrival in Malta he was appointed musketry Instructor at Pembroke Camp. The men's shooting did not come up to the standard which it was thought it ought to reach; and one day Sir John said to me: "Wauchope is making himself perfectly ill with his anxiety about it. If he would only be anxious twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four I would not mind so much, but he is anxious all the twenty-four hours of the day!"
'At that time, however, Wauchope was anxious not only about his professional duties, but he was concerned about himself, for he knew that his life was a most precarious one, scarcely worth a day's purchase. The slug which pierced his chest had not been extracted. It kept moving about, and at any moment might cause death. This he knew full well. He consulted the best surgeons in the island, but they were unable to do anything. It was not, I believe, till about a year afterwards that the slug was at last extracted by an Edinburgh surgeon.
The drawn sword
'During this period of Wauchope's stay in Malta, when there was, as it were, this drawn sword hanging over his head, although he maintained a quiet exterior, he felt that there was but a step between him and death. I saw a great deal of him then. He had brought a letter of introduction to me from his law-agent in Edinburgh, my old friend the late Mr. Colin Mackenzie, W.S., and from the first he honoured me with his confidence. He spoke freely of the possibility, not to say the probability, that his time on earth might be short, but he showed no craven fear. He said he wished to know as much as he could about the world into which he might soon be going—that "undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns." I have seldom met a man further removed from fanaticism, and at the same time so full of reverence. From his earliest days he seems to have feared God. He had not, however, escaped from the doubts and difficulties raised by the sceptical spirit of the age. He shrank from taking a leap in the dark. He wanted to be sure that there was no mistake, and he took the best means of becoming sure. "If any man will do His will," Christ says, "he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." This is what Wauchope did. He put the desire to do God's will into every duty which fell to him. He followed on to know the Lord, and he came to know the truth of the Gospel, not only as a truth of faith, but a truth of personal experience.'
Lieutenant Wauchope was home on furlough more than once during the period of the 42nd regiment's stay in Malta, extending to nearly four years, and it was on one of these visits to Edinburgh he was operated upon successfully, as mentioned by Dr. Wisely.
Though still only a lieutenant, he was appointed to the command of E company in July 1878, while in Malta. With a wider range of duties and greater responsibilities, this appointment gave him much satisfaction, and he set himself to the task of making E company the company of the regiment, sparing neither time nor money to advance its efficiency, and at the same time to add to the comfort and pleasure of his men. To be one of Wauchope's company was considered a high privilege. Two months afterwards—in September—he received his full commission as captain. In addition to the yacht in which he would give them occasional cruises, we are told by one of his men that 'the company had a good boating-crew, and at a cost of about £20 he had the best boat built for them that Malta could produce. On one occasion, when they had some races, Captain Wauchope steered them in a match with the 101st regiment, but not to victory. Wauchope's boat, named "The Black Watch," was beaten, but he was the first to declare that the race was lost owing entirely to his bad steering.'
Occupation of Malta
The occupation of the island of Cyprus by Great Britain in 1878 gave Wauchope a splendid opportunity for the exercise of his talents, not only as a military man, but in the capacity of a civil administrator and judge. The island was taken over from the Turks in July of that year. Their government of it for centuries had been a curse to the people and a curse on the land, and it had lapsed into one of the forgotten spots of God's earth. The advent of British rule proved the beginning of a new era for both its Greek and Turkish population. Endowed with a healthy climate and a fertile soil, Cyprus—once so fruitful and prosperous—may yet rank as one of the most flourishing dependencies of the Crown. It is full of romance, for its lovely scenery and relics of the past well entitle it to be called 'an Enchanted Island.' With mediæval traditions of its occupation by the Crusaders, and with its still older classical reminiscences of the heathen worship of Aphrodite, supplanted by the early conversion of its people to Christianity through the visit of St. Paul, St. Mark, and Barnabas, not to speak of its repeated conquest by Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Venetians, and Turks, there is no more interesting island to be found in the Mediterranean.