LINK WITH BALACLAVA

Evening Star, Issue 17920, 16 March 1922, Page 12

LINK WITH BALACLAVA

A VETERAN IN CHRISTCHURCH

A short cable from London recently announced the death of the last survivor of the Light Brigade, the cavalry corps that rode “ into the jaws of death ” at Balaclava, in_ the Crimea. But the Light Brigade is still linked with the present. In Christchurch there lives a Crimean veteran, Mr Edgar Henry Jenkins, who was a comrade of the cavalrymen of Balaclava. He is still halo and hearty, despite Ids great age. and he told a ‘ Sun ’ interviewer the tale of his exploits. He showed with pride his medals, the Queen’s medal, with the blue and yellow ribbon, and the Sultan’s medal, with the pink and green ribbon. They were presented at Hyde, Park. Bom at Poole, the quaint old seaport of Dorsetshire, in 1836, the Army fascinated him in the earliest days of his boyhood. To-day he is white-haired, but fit, fit as a “young” fellow of 60. Time has not impaired his vision, nor age his legs, and ho tells one proudly that ho does not wear glasses, nor does he use a stick if ho can help it. He is a typical old Eng-* lishman.

Gunner Jenkins does not talk in the modern parlance of machine guns, of Vickers guns or Lewis guns, of the trench mortars or the bombers. His was the experience of the dying days of war that was still picturesque—war that was fought in bright uniforms, with sabre, lance, and “Brown Bess,” as against poispn gas flame-throwers, and howitzers. Like many other soldiers of tho old school, ho laughs at khaki.'and tells one of the beauties of the Guards Brigade at Inkcrman before the Guardsipen discarded their bear skins for the little forage caps with the gold apple in the centre of tho top. He can remember when the Guards Brigade wore tail coats and skin-tight trousers, and still shows resentment that the War Office during the Crimean War thought fit to order the Guards to wear tunics. He was a soldier when the Household Cavalry changed from busby to plumed helmet, when the ridiculed “ Prince Albert ” double-peaked shako was ordered _by the Queen to be worn by lino regiments; when the Dragoons—light and heavy—wore the fur-topped Roman helmet, and the waist-long tunic with three rows of gold buttons. After reminiscing regarding the “tremendous funeral” of the Duke of Wellington which he witnessed in 1852, the lying in state of the body at Chelsea, and of the genuine grief of the nation, Mr Jenkins came to the CRIMEAN WAR.

He was not. in the Regular Army. He was working at his trade as an organbuilder when the outbreak came, and with the first call for volunteers ho enlisted. "I was like some of the younger chaps m this last war,” he said, smiling reminiscently. “I wanted to be in the .fun. too. [ liked the artillery, so I enlisted in the Royal Artillery, and was attached to the siego train as a gunner. Let me see—you don’t have siege trains now? . . . No! Well, in our day it was a. most important affair. We were heavy guns, you understand, and we hud special duties. The siege gun battery consisted of big muzzleloaders. Those were the days of real artillery! Nowadays you don’t have grapeshot and canister and chainshot! Eh, that chainshot! Two big cannonballs, you understand, fastened together by a length of chain. And when, that shot got in amongst a company of foot soldiers it kept turning over and over, and mowed the men down like liav. And those cannonballs! Why. at a review _in Hyde Park once cannonballs were bred, ana thev rolled slowly along the ground after coming down. A boy tried to stop one as it rolled slowly, with his foot, but it too.:, his foot off. *Wo used n_ lot of those in the Crimea, and also 13in .shells, -they were new-fangled in those days, but they did a lot of damage. . . ■ ‘‘THAT LIGHT BRIGADE.”

Mr Jenkins mused in silence for a minute or so. Then his eyes Hashed. ‘‘That Light Brigade,” he said. “The heavy cavalry were lucky to be away from the vallcv of Balaclava that day. There was Lord Raglan,, giving his orders to Ins Staff officer, ‘Take the guns. And that Light Brigade went after them. Ihero were some fine regiments in the Six Hundred, too; but in our day wo, called it the Seven Hundred. Let me see, there were tho 17th Lancers, the Bth Hussars, apd, and, I think, tho sth Light Dragoons.

They were light dragoons; that I know, ■because none of the heavy men went down the valley. I was talking to a long, lanky fellow -at Balaclava Camp after they came 'back. Ho was a lancer, one of about twenty of his'regiment who came back. A comrade of mine had had a brother killed in the charge, and wo were having dinner —cold dinner —on tho bank of a trench. ‘Wo were going main fast - at it,’ said the lancer to me. ‘My hor-so was at full gallop, and my lance at the ready, and before I knew it I had pinked a Russkio well. My lance went right through him, and I couldn’t pull it out! f didn't mind so much going down; but we had to come back from the valley, and I had to fight my way out with a sword.’ ” AS MEMORY PAINTS. Memory proved sound when tho old man called back pictures of tho remnants of the brigade and stories of their epic. It was not the ride down, but the ride back, that did all the damage, ho thought. The Russian batteries did more damage then, as they were on all sides. Then came talcs of Florence Nightingale, the Turks, the Sardinians, and tho Freach; of the Scutari hospitals; of the return of tho Guards Brigade; and the long waiting -for a troopship at Scutari. Ho was in the siege of Sebastopol, and recalls that his heavy battery did tremendous damage to the Russian lines, ns it was in good position. He hked tho muzzle-loaders because he thinks they did more damage than the modem heavy gun. “ That is, when troops were in open order,” ho added. As did many soldiers at the evacuation of Gallipoli, Mr Jenkins stayed until the end on special duty. There were also some cavalrymen detailed, and they stayed at Scutari until 1856. was in that year that Mr Jenkins '■returned to England. From martial music, h© went back to organ music, and, after some years’ study in Paris, camo to New Zealand in the early sixties.