“His Highness desires me to add, that it would be very gratifying to him if Her Majesty could in any way reward these officers for the able services they have rendered to the Ottoman army and the common cause.
“I am, &c.
(Signed) “J. L. A. Simmons,
“Field-Marshal Lord Raglan, G.C.B., &c. Lieut.-Colonel.”
This encomiastic testimonial was apparently insufficient to mark the appreciation of their military services, and decorations were added to commemorate the campaign. In the brigade orders of the 23rd July, 1855, the Sultan’s gift was thus alluded to:—“The Turkish government having awarded a certain number of medals to the officers of royal engineers and the royal sappers and miners who were engaged in the campaign of 1854 on the Danube, the Major-General commanding has much pleasure in publishing the following extract from a letter addressed by his Highness Omar Pasha to Lieut.-Colonel Simmons, Her Majesty’s Commissioner with the Turkish forces.”
“I beg you will distribute these medals amongst the officers and men according to the accompanying list, as a mark of the great satisfaction my Sovereign has always experienced from the manner in which they conducted themselves whilst sharing the dangers and fatigues of the campaign of 1854 against our common enemy.”
The non-commissioned officers and men who received the medals were—
| Colour-sergeant | John F. Read. |
| Corporal | James Curgenven. |
| ” | James Cray. |
| ” | Joseph J. Stanton. |
| 2nd corporal | Robert M. Rylatt. |
| Lance-corporal | Michael Westacott. |
| Private | John Boyles. |
| ” | John Bramley. |
| ” | John Doran. |
| ” | William Henderson. |
| ” | Alexander McCaughey. |
| ” | William Morrison. |
| ” | George Scown. |
| ” | William Allen. |
| ” | James Bland. |
| ” | John Piper. |
These sixteen sappers were the only British soldiers honoured with the distinction.
There existed an intention for a time of attacking the enemy across the Tchernaya; but as the bridge which spanned it, stript of its planking, was impassable, it was necessary, before providing an expedient for the passage of the troops, to ascertain the characteristics of the river and take its soundings. A portion of the seventh company had constructed a raft of four common sized beer barrels, lashed together in pairs and overlaid with an ordinary superstructure of balks and chesses. Early in January, in the dusk of the evening, twelve sappers under Lieutenant Drake, R.E., left the Inkermann camp with the small float, carried shoulder high by four men at a spell. Though the moon had risen, it was heavily beclouded, and the party was covered from Russian observation by the hills which, on either side of the winding road, rose sometimes sloping, sometimes abruptly, to their summits. The stream was nearly two miles away, and the carriage of the raft, over a broken country, where every step was fraught with danger and the supports distant, was no light enterprise. At length the bank was reached. It was then dark; but an occasional gleam of the moon, lit up the men and threw a pale streak across the water, which though it assisted to add a pleasing feature to the picture, was altogether unsuited to the secrecy of the service. Another long black cloud now spread itself over the meek orb, and no sooner was the little raft launched, than Lieutenant Drake, followed by corporal Ramsay, leaped upon it, and booming out took the required soundings and measured the breadth of the river. This done Lieutenant Drake landed on the opposite side and went forward to reconnoitre. Not long had he been away when one of the leaky barrels, becoming filled with water, drew the head of the float under the stream. Feeling that in all probability the whole raft would sink, Ramsay called lustily for Lieutenant Drake to return. If he came instantly there was a chance of recrossing in safety. Ramsay’s voice was powerful; and ringing among the hills and over the quiet stream, it was loud enough to collect a swarm of Russians at the spot, but none fortunately were seen. Lieutenant Drake, hearing the summons, quickly reappeared, and bounding from the bank to the sinking raft it capsized, pitching both into the river among the piles of the old bridge. It was excessively cold, snow was on the ground, and the water—though not iced over—was freezing. The officer swam ashore, but Ramsay, entangled among the guys of the raft could not strike out. On gaining the bank Lieutenant Drake asked whether his partner in adversity wanted help, and was about to re-enter the river to afford it, when the party hauled on the ropes, and Ramsay holding on with a benumbed grip to the raft, was pulled to land. Theirs was a miserable march to camp, but cold and frozen as they were, their unfailing spirits sustained them, and the corporal was more than compensated for his mishap by the reception he met with from a subaltern of the corps, who throwing aside the conventionalities which separate the soldier from the officer, gave him a place in his tent and entertained him hospitably. Three months after, this non-commissioned officer was killed at the Inkermann light-house battery.