United States or Greenland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Amongst those who fell in this action were Lieutenant Montresor, RN, Lieutenant Almack, RN, and Lieutenant Houston, RN, with seven of their men who were killed at their guns. For the subsequent proceedings against the Mahdi, see Our Soldiers, page 338.
Again, on the 16th, the naval brigade guns were engaged in the attack on Secundra Bagh, when Lieutenant Salmon, RN, was severely wounded, and Martin Abbot Daniel, midshipman, was killed by a round shot in the head. In writing to his father, Captain Peel says: "It was in front of the Shah Najeef, and in command of an eight-inch howitzer, that your noble son was killed.
For a short time the Ashantis kept up a fire from the houses; but the 42nd soon drove them from the village, and all further resistance at this point was at an end. The right-hand column, too, had suffered severely. Colonel Wood received a slug in the left breast, and 6 naval officers and 20 men were also wounded. Captain Luxmore, RN, was in command here.
See Turner's "Nineteen Years in Polynesia." "Of an evening," says Lieutenant Walpole, RN, writing of Samoa, "when, taking advantage of intervals of fine weather, we went for a ramble in the delightful woods, the quiet of the grove was often disturbed by a ruthless savage, who would rush out upon you, not armed with club or spear, but with slate and pencil, and thrusting them into your hands, make signs for you to finish his difficult exercise or sum."
H.F. Boyle, RN, chief officer of the Coast Guard at Tenby, distinguished himself in the same humane manner. At daybreak on the 2nd of November, the smack Bruce, of Milford, anchored, being totally dismasted, about three miles east of Tenby.
Which was, so said old Dick in confidence to the two young officers, "a blessing to everybody consarned, for that there Rajah Gantang was about the wussest nigger as ever suffered from the want of soap." The last the writer heard of Dick was, that he was the oldest boatswain in the service, and that he was on board that rapid gunboat the "Peregrine," commanded by Lieutenant Robert Roberts, RN.
Captain Wilson, RN, cut down an Arab who was about to kill a soldier, and his blade shivered to the hilt, leaving him without a weapon to ward off a cut which wounded him, though happily not severely, in the head.
Word Of The Day