The Strand Magazine/Volume 1/Issue 4/Stories of the Victoria Cross
Stories of the Victoria Cross: Told by Those who have Won it.
Deputy Inspector-General J. Jee, C.B., V.C.
HOUGH military surgeons are technically non-combatants, yet practically they are as much exposed to peril as other officers, and frequently have to perform work demanding the greatest care and calmness under the most disturbing dangers. In gallantry and devotion to duty no other class of soldiers has surpassed them. The following is the story of the exploit of one of these brave men, Surgeon Jee, as told in his own words:—
On the advance of the force to relieve the garrison of Lucknow, under Generals Havelock and Outram, my regiment, the 78th Highlanders, led the way. General Outram's order on leaving Lucknow ran as follows:—"I have selected the 78th
Highlanders for covering the retreat of the force; they had the post of honour on the advance, and none are more worthy of the post of honour on leaving it."
There was very hard fighting from the Alum Bagh till we arrived close to Lucknow, when I was told an officer was severely wounded. I dismounted from my horse to attend him, and found he was dead. At that moment a very rapid ordnance and musketry fire commenced close. to us, and I was pulled into the bastioned gateway of the Char-Bagh Palace by some soldiers, to whom probably I owed my life, as the round shot passed by us in quick succession. Captain Havelock (now Sir Henry Havelock) then rode up to me, with a bullet hole through his topee, and said, "We have taken that position, at all events, at the point of the bayonet." That proved to be the bridge over the canal at the entrance of Lucknow, defended by heavy guns, which had evidently been well served, judging by the numbers of dead lying around them.
Surgeon Jee dressing the wounded.
When the main body of the force arrived and crossed to the other side of the bridge, the Generals heard that the streets in the city, leading direct to the Residency, were entrenched and barricaded. It was, therefore, decided to take the outside route by the very narrow road to the right by the canal, leaving the 78th to hold the position until ordered to advance after the column. Captains Drummond-Hay and Lockhart were then ordered to proceed with their companies to a pagoda some little distance up the street leading from the bridge. All was pretty quiet for some time, and the force had got some distance away, when a message was sent down to the Colonel by Captain Drummond-Hay that the enemy were coming down upon them in great force with two guns. The Colonel sent up an order for them to charge them, which they did, and spiked the guns and brought them down and threw them into the canal, all the while hotly pursued by the enemy. I then got between twenty and thirty wounded men in a few minutes.
I was then informed that the regiment had disappeared round the corner of the canal after the force, and that we should all be killed if I remained to dress the wounded upon whom I was engaged, as the enemy was firing at us from the corner of the street. So I sent to the Colonel for men to carry the wounded on their backs till we came up with the dhoolies. I was thus enabled to save them for a short time. It appeared that Captain Havelock, the Assistant Adjutant-General, had been sent back by his father to order the 78th to follow the force, when he was badly wounded in his arm. Luckily I came across two dhoolies, in which I placed him and a lieutenant of the 78th, who was mortally wounded. The rest I put into sick-carts drawn by six bullocks; but shortly after all of them were massacred within sight of us, as unfortunately a native hackery containing round shot fell over, and completely blocked the road. One poor fellow, Private Farmer, held his watch out from one of the carts, asking his comrades to come and take it rather than the enemy should get it, but no one responded, as the danger was too great.
One man had his lower jaw blown off by a round shot, whom I am seen dressing in my V.C. picture at the Crystal Palace.
When we reached the force Captain Halliburton, 78th Highlanders (afterwards killed in Lucknow), took charge of the wounded with his company. We lost our way in the city, and were led by a guide, who showed us the way to the Residency into the enemy's battery, where we suffered considerable loss. After this we wandered about the suburbs of the city, under an awful cannonading and shelling from the opposite side of the River Goomtee, being fired at from loopholes in the houses of the streets when we entered them, from which parties of natives, clothed in white, often issued. We took refuge in the Mote-Mahul, as it was too late at night to advance further. The Mote-Mahul is a square courtyard with sheds round it, and two large gateway entrances. This was crowded with soldiers, camp followers, and camels, so that you could scarcely move. I had Captain Havelock and Lieutenant Woodhouse (right arm afterwards amputated), 84th Regiment, with me under the shed. The firing during the night was deafening, and gongs were sounding the hour, and we knew not how far the Residency was. Some who had been with the main body said the 78th were all killed, and they could not tell what had become of the rest of the force. At daylight the next day Brigadier Cooper gave us some tea, as we had taken nothing since leaving Alum Bagh early the morning before. Our men then commenced making loopholes in the wall of the shed to shoot the enemy on the other side, and I heard them told not to make too many or they would be shooting some of us, and soon afterwards Brigadier Cooper was shot through one of them, and fell over me. I often had to cross a gateway that was being raked up by bullets, to dress the wounded of both the artillery and my own men, against the remonstrances of my apothecary, Mr. de Soura, and others.
I then volunteered to attempt to get the wounded into the Residency, and was told by Captain Halliburton, if I succeeded, to tell General Outram to send him reinforcements or they would all be killed and the guns lost. I soon came across Colonel Campbell, wounded in the leg (afterwards amputated in Lucknow, and he died), and I got one of his men to carry him on his back (who would have been recommended for the V.C. if he could have been found, but he was supposed to have been killed). I then wandered on, and had to cross a shallow stream under fire of the guns of the extensive Palace of the Kaiser Bagh, where the enemy were said to have 20,000 men. I was then hailed by an European sentry at the gate of a very high wall, which I had the unpleasant feeling was the Kaiser Bagh, and that I was on the wrong road, but to my great relief he told me it led to the Residency, and that I must keep well under the wall on the way to it, to avoid the firing that was going on. On arriving at the Residency I delivered my message to General Havelock, who congratulated me on my escape, as I was reported killed.
Of course I lost a great many of my wounded, and one could see their skeletons lying outside the Palace, which we afterwards took, during the two months we were besieged in Lucknow. I did not see my horse (that is painted in my V.C. picture from a photograph) till after I arrived in Lucknow, where he was captured. He was badly wounded by a large slug or bolt about two inches long (which I have now) entering deeply on the side of the chest, and which was afterwards found most difficult to extract with bullet forceps. Yet the horse lived to aid Outram's relief outside Lucknow, and afterwards was sold as a very valuable charger for £160.
"I came across Colonel Campbell."
Lance-Corporal William Goate.
The following account, written by himself, of the military career of William Goate, and of the heroic act of devotion for which he was rewarded with the V.C., speaks for itself and needs no introduction:—
My father died when I was only five years old, and left mother with a family of eleven of us, so as I grew up I had to work in the fields till I was big enough to mind horses. Then after a bit I got tired of the country, although it was a pretty village in Norfolk, called Tritton, close to Norwich; so I thought I would go to Norwich and get a job as a groom, which I did, and stopped till I was 18. Then I thought I would like another change, so up to London I went, and I had a wish to be a soldier. I was a smart lad and fresh-looking, so I went to Westminster in November, 1853, and enlisted in the 9th Lancers, and being a groom I was quite at home in a cavalry regiment; and I confess to being proud of our gay uniform and fluttering pennons. Well, after serving four years I was destined to ride in many a wild charge and see men and horses go down like ninepins, but I never thought of danger. When we got the order to charge, away we went determined to win, and I can tell you it must always be a terrible sight for any troops, let alone Sepoys, to see a regiment of cavalry sweeping down upon them.
Our fighting began at Delhi. We were at Umballa when the Mutiny broke out, and we were ordered to join in the operations against Delhi. I was present at the siege and capture of that city. I will tell you of a little adventure of my own at this time. Before the city was taken I was on despatch duty at an advanced post with orders to fetch reinforcements when the enemy came out. One day I saw six men trying to steal round by the river into our camp. Believing them to be spies, I asked officer in charge of the picket to allow me and two men to go and ascertain what their intentions were. He gave us leave. We had a very difficult job to get down to the riverside on account of the rocks, and when we got up to the men they showed fight. We shot three of them with our pistols—one each. Being on horseback we then attacked them with the lance. One daring fellow struck at me, and I couldn't get at him. He slightly wounded my horse and then made a run for the river. I jumped from my horse, and, going into the water after him, ran him through with my lance. Meanwhile, the other two of my companions had settled the two remaining men. All this while a heavy fire had played on us from the enemy's battery. We had now to ride for our lives. On getting back to the camp, the officer in command sent me to the camp with a note to the Colonel of the regiment, who made me a lance-corporal then and there.
"I ran him through with my lance."
I might say I was two years in the saddle, almost continuously fighting. I was with Sir Colin when he retook Cawnpore from the Gwalior rebels. We went to the aid of General Wyndham, who had been repulsed. We crossed the bridge of boats under a heavy fire, but forced our way in. As soon as our brave leader got his men in position, he carried everything before him. We could still see traces of Nana Sahib's atrocity in June, and every soldier vowed vengeance. The affair that I was in when I gained my Victoria Cross was before Lucknow, the second time. Early in 1858 the rebels had strongly fortified the place, and it became necessary for Sir Colin to take it. Our regiment had some hot work. It was on March 6 that I won the Cross, in action at Lucknow, having dismounted in the presence of the enemy and taken up the body of Major Percy Smith, 2nd Dragoon Guards, which I attempted to bring off the field, and after being obliged to relinquish it, being surrounded by the enemy's cavalry, going a second time, under a heavy fire, to recover the body, for which I received the Victoria Cross.
I will try and describe the fight, and what I saw of it. The enemy appeared in great force on the race-course outside Lucknow, and the 9th Lancers, the 2nd Dragoon Guards, and two native cavalry regiments were ordered to charge. The brigade swept on in grand style, and clashed into the enemy. We had a fierce hand-to-hand fight; but our troops behaved splendidly, and at last we broke them up. Then we were obliged to retire under a heavy fire. As we did so Major Smith, of the Dragoons, was shot through the body, and fell from his horse. Failing to catch him, I sprang to the ground, and, throwing the bridle-rein over my arm, raised the Major on to my shoulder; in this manner I ran alongside of my horse for some hundreds of yards, until I saw the enemy's cavalry close upon me. Clearly I couldn't get away with my burden, so I determined to do what I could for myself.
Springing into my saddle, I shot the first Sepoy who charged, and with my empty pistol felled another. This gave me time to draw my sword, my lance having been left on the field. The Sepoys were now round me cutting and hacking, but I managed to parry every slash and deliver many a fatal thrust. It was parry and thrust, thrust and parry all through, and I cannot tell you how many saddles I must have emptied. The enemy didn't seem to know how to parry. Taking advantage of this, I settled accounts with a jolly lot. I was determined not to be taken alive. At last some of the Lancers saw me and came to my rescue. Thinking the major might still be alive, I went again to rescue him, but it was not until the enemy's forces were driven back that we got his body.
Lance-Corporal Goate winning the V.C.
After the action, General Sir Colin Campbell, General Sir Hope Grant, and some of the cavalry officers shook hands with me and complimented me.
In regard to the sword and lance, I certainly prefer the lance; the lance is so keen, it goes through a man before he knows it. I was always very careful never to let a swordsman get under my lance, and in fighting with cavalry I made full use of the pennon to baffle an enemy's horse.
The weapons of troops on active service are made as keen as razors, and it was a common thing during the Mutiny to see a party of soldiers under the shade of a great tree waiting their turn to get their blades sharpened and the dints removed, ready for the next fight with the rebels. Our gallant little army was like a ship cleaving its way through the sea, for wherever we went, the enemy, like the waters, closed in behind.
(To be continued.)