The Cross Of Honour,

due deliberation it was decided that none , of ours , either ollicers or men , should be recommended for the Order . Now don't misunderstand me . It wasn ' t because the ollicers and men of the Forty-second didn ' t think themselves as daring and as deserving as the rest of the troops engaged ( here . Oh , no ! for . 1 . knew both 'ollicers and men declared in ( heir cups that'their own names should have , been

forwarded to head quarters it strict justice was to be meted out , But , as 1 have indicated , flu ' s was only the drunken opinion of the regiment ; the sober one was that the commanding ollicer had done perfectly right in not recommending any one of us for the distinction . Asa mailer of fact , we all Haltered ourselves afterwards that we were the only regiment for the Crimea which had not got one solitary Victoria Cross .

" However , during our stay in England , several decorations fell to fhe regiment , the gifts of the foreign Powers with whom we had come in contact during the Crimean War . There was nothing singular in this , but there was something remarkably singular in the fact that all these decorations , or nearly all , were showered upon a certain man , a , sergeant whom I prefer to call Shavden . Of course , that wasn ' t his name , but that ' s no matter . Now this Sergeant Shardcn was not a bright and particular star in the regiment . As a matter

of fact , be had never been very sober—was a regular " ale-can , " as the colliers say in Coletownc , and had been , more or less drunk during the twenty years be bad been in the service .

"But his decided predilection for booze wonldu t have mattered much had he been splendidly courageous ; but , he was neither very intelligent' nor very brave ; besides , he had not served ' at the front ' much more than half the time of sonic of his comrades ; and yet honours fell thick upon him as leaves in Vallombrosa . "

••Very strange that-very strange that , sir ! " the Druggist exclaimed , as he si ruck a match to re-light the half yard of clay he had foi gotten to keep ignited . " So we all thought , " the Old Soldier replied , with a sombre smile flickering a moment across his cynical face , " but stranger things were to happen , as you'll hear shortly . Well , as I was telling , the

good things simply rained down upon him . _ rom onr own government he had already received the Crimean War medal with one , clasp ; the Good Service Medal , which brought him ; C 20 per annum ; and the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal , which brought with it a donation of £ 20 . A Cross of the Legion of Honour was now sent to the regimen ! by lhe Emperor of the French , and this , with its 400 francs a year , was handed without ceremony to Sergeant Shardcn .

But that wasn ' t all he got by a long shot . A decoration of the Order of the Mcdjidie ; one of six French war medals ; one of three Sardinian war medals ( hat came to the regiment almost simultaneousl y were handed over to the gentleman I have referred to , and by the time the distribution of the Turkish war medal came about there was not much room left on ( he breast of the Sergeant for further display of the evidences < if his—well , suppose we call it good fortune !"

" 1 dare say the men of the Forty-second culled it by another and a stronger name , " the brawny Draper ventured to remark , as be ran his lingers along his brown beard . " But after all , Mac , that Sergeant of yours did not get hold of the Victoria Cross , did he Y " "If you'll have patience , my sonsie Scot , I'll tell you all about it , " the Old Soldier retorted , gruffly . "Fellows , you know , " he went on

' •will say anything , and when the order came for ns to sail to India , where the Mutiny had broken out , some of our chaps did not scruple to say that'Auhl Wall Shardcn' was going with us merel y for an opportunity to obtain the Victoria Cross , when he would be at once sen ! home again . This was , of course , a mistake , perhaps pardonable , but still a mistake . We were in India some time , and bad seen considerable service before anyone was recommended for the Victoria

Cross , and the ( irsf man , contrary to expectation , was not Sergeant Shardcn . "A . certain friend of my own , a Sergeant Tom Rigby , who deliberately made up his mind to win the decoration or perish in the attempt , would have been the first but he perished in the effort ,

which was especially foolhardy . We had barel y succeeded in carrying the rather formidable works thrown up by the Mutineers for the defence of Luckuow when night fell , and quite a lot of our regiment-, of different companies , found ourselves , and were ordered to make good our position till morning , in a kind of walled enclosure , which has always remained in niv mind as a garden .

' There was onl y one gateway , and about twenty yards in front of if was a gun , which had been abandoned by the Mutineers in the hurry of retreat . Somewhere about midnight , and for reasons best known lo themselves , the Paiulies made an attempt Io recover this abandoned gun . Our orders wore simply to hold the enclosure wherein we were penned ; but no soldier , let his orders be what , they might ,

could calmly look on while lhe enemy was carrying away the gun . Sergeant Tom Rigb y couldn ' t do anyhow , and aided and abetted by a young ollicer named , say , l- ' razer . a handful of men were got together , and a charge made on the insolent Pandies :. The poor devils simply lircd their pieces anywhere , ami ran oil ' , and our men were halted and sent back into the enclosure . But in Sergeant Tom

; tuil his ollicer the ardour of battle had , meanwhile , got into a glow ; 11 iiI l- ' ra / . er looked on approvingly , while liigby jumped upon ( he gun with lhe intention of spiking it , and hurling deliance at ( lie foe . lie succeeded after a fashion in doing both things , but at the expense ol his life . While madly shouting and gesticulating , poor Tom was shot through ( he heart , ami in less than half an hour was buried beneath lhe gateway of the garden . "And Frazer ' r" the Surveyor broke in , in an undertone of excitement .

The Cross Of Honour,

"Oh , Lieutenant Frazor had his right arm broken by a bullet : and for this sill y adventure ho was the very lirst of ours who evin wore the Victoria Cross . " " But what about" Sergeant Shardcn ? the Travelling- Drapei queried . " Did he get the Cross at Lucknow ? I thought this story was concerning him ,. Mae . "

" This story isn't finished yet , my man o ' . Ayr , " was the veteran ' s retort ; " and when you close your pretty month I ' m read y to resume my plain unvarnished chronicle . Well , if any of our men earned the V . C . at Lucknow I have forgotten both themselves and their deeds ; but at a little place called Rooya , in Onde , shortly after the fall of the Capital , wo gathered quite a decent , cro p of the Crosses—some of which were well earned , although one or two certainly were not

An ouiccv ' s servant who was decorated for carrying his wounded master out of action was , or as we thought , sufficiently rewarded for his humanit y by the privilege he allowed himself of remaining under cover , or out of range for the rest of that day . And a certain Quartermaster-Sergeant , who came into action , with ammunition , on the lee side of a camel , and got the coveted V . C . therefore , did no more than his duty , and not very bravely at that .

" But I wanted to tell about Bareilly . There we had what was called in ours a very pretty 'Shoofast' ; and out of it came a thick crap of envy , hatred , evil speaking , and all nncharitableness . At the time of our approach , the station of Bareilly was in possesion of the native Raj ah of the district , who had under him a largo number of Sepoys , with two or three fully-equipped and manned batteries of field artillery and a somewhat formidable siege train . He had also

with him , as a guest , the notorious Nana Sahib ; but as to whether Nana added to the Rajah's strength or weakness I am not in a position to say . Certain it is , however , that from that day to this European eyes have never beheld the infamous wretch , and the mysterious fate of the " Nana Dundoo Punt , chief b y adoption of the Rohillas , and known as Nana Sahib , " remains one of the unsolved puw . les of the world .

"You will excuse me , I hope , resumed the narrator , after moistening his lips from the tumbler before him , "for bringing in the Nana , who has really nothing to do with my story . I was following my own thoughts , my own recollections of thirty odd years ago , and had forgotten for the time that I was speaking aloud ,

Where were we ? Oh , yes , we were approaching Bareilly from the south-east ; and besides being defended by all the men and gnus 1 have mentioned , this station was protected by a stream , the somewhat preci p itous bank ' s of which afforded difficulties to the safu passage of troops in the face of an enemy .

"The bridge which carried the Grand Trunk Road over this watercourse was held by a bod y of the Rajah's infantry , a couple of troops of his cavalry , and half a battery of smooth bore ninepounders . To make himself master of this bridge without . incurring any serious loss was the problem Sir Colin Campbell had set himself as soon as he had grasped the situation ; and while the problem was being worked out to a practical solution the great body of the army under his control was being brought to a halt .

" During this halt , " said the Old Soldier , and his eyes showed that he was wanning up with a subdued kind of enthusiasm , " we hail an opportunity such as few of us had enjoyed before of seeing how an experienced and skilful military commander sets about to overcome a dilueulfv . 1 need not trouble you with the details ; bill

after some short time spent m cautious and careful preparation , the wil y old Scotchman launched his bolt , and , by the Lord , gentlemen , that unhappy detachment in charge of the bridge was broken to pieces and swept away as you may have seen stubble whirled into space by the fierce blasts of heaven .

"Then after having endured passively for almost an hour the pounding of a large number of fairl y well-served gnus we were set in motion once again , and mighty glad we were of ( he chance , I can assure yon . There is absolutely nothing more trying to the soldit-i

than this standing to be shot at without a chance being given linn to retaliate ; but ( his , of course , you can ' t understand , am ) it ' s apart from the mutter anyhow . Wo were , as I said , put in motion , onr orders being to cross the bridge in fours and form line while advancing on the , cantonments , on the plains beyond .

"The entire regiment had got across , but the line formation was very far from being complete , several companies being behind , and others widel y out of touch , when a horde , several hundreds strong , of madly fanatical Mussulman rebels , hurst like a torrent out of tin ' cantonments , and bore down on us at full speed , wildl y nourishing their glittering tulwars , and savagely shouting , ' Deen ! Deeu ! ' We

at once opened lire on them with murderous effect and little loss In ourselves , very few of the foe having other arms than tulwars and shields ; but the disfanee between ourselves and the cantonment *' was not great—say a hundred yards—and steadily decreasing ; mul some of our men were actually killed and many wounded by swoid

cuts in the ranks before we were able to destroy the assailants i " front of us . And from the iiieoitiploloiiess of our line , of which I have spoken , several of the fanatics , who were , as we afterward * learned , excited with bhang and vowed to death , succeeded in making their w :: v right through our ranks lo fhe rear .

"Here , at the rear , three sturd y and savage rebels attacked oat Colonel , about whom , alas ! there was nothing heroic . He , pool devil , forgot to draw cither his sword or his pistol , and in trying i ' dodge a sword out , the Colonel slid out of his saddle . I'Yoin tin ranks nothing was to be seen of him except one boot high in the an ' when Private Jem Garvin , a , splendid young fellow , Hew to hi * officer ' s assistance . Garvin promptly shot one of the three rebels .