GORDON'S BRAVERY

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3498, 21 June 1884, Page 3

GORDON'S BRAVERY

An interesting and thoroughly characteristic story of Gordon was told recently by an old Artillery pensioner. The first day on which fire was opened at Sebastopol from the 21-ton gun battery, the sand-bags forming one of the embrasures caught fire from the flash of a too-closely mounted gun. A corporal and a sapper of ihe Engineers were told off to repair the damage. The corporal ordered the sapper to mount the embrasure, and proposed to hand np the fresh bags to him. They were under heavy fire at the time, and the sapper, with some want of discipline certainly, demurred to this arrangement, and suggested that the corporal should get up, and that he (the sapper) would go on with the handing up business. There was a bit of a wrangle over it. Gordon, who was passing, inquired into the matter, and quietly telling the corporal, “ Never order a man to do what you are afraid to do yourself,” got up on the pile of bags himself, and said, “Come up here, both of you,’’ and then ordered the men who were working the gun to hand the bags up. The storm of bullets swept over Gordon and the two men, but his charmed life seemed to protect the trio. He finished his work, and came down as coolly as he had mounted, but the lesson was never forgotten by those around.