AN UNKNOWN HERO.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXIX, Issue 11415, 2 December 1886, Page 3

AN UNKNOWN HERO.

4Since the institution of the Victorian Cross there has been considerable disputation as to the wisdom of the policy fc which inaugurated such a decoration. Many who could not be called cynics M declared that, to decorate o soldier because he was brave, was almoat as doubtful a compliment as to congratu- , late a woman because she was chaste. Bravery is supposed to be a soldierly r- attitude, inseparable from the profession of arms, and to make a special merit of it was held in some quarters to be a mockery and an insult to the warrior It was difficult, too, to define the limit whcee the soldier ceased to perform the mere " duty" of being bravfe and earned a special distinction for extraordinary courage ; the records of the Victorian Cross show aome curious instances of this difficulty. But Sir Frederick Boberts told the other day at Simla the story of a deed which, had it occurred " in Boman history, would have made the hero of it immortal, and yet in English story it has had no place, and the doer of it has received neither reward nor fame. His name possibly has been forgotten — *' un honoured and unsung." But here is the story of the deed, as told by the present Commander-in-chief of India, an eye-witneHß of the scene : — " At the relief of Lucknow, when a heavy fire from the loop-holed walla was making terrible havoc in the ranks of the storming party of the Sikanderbagh, a young Sikh, of the *th Punjab Infantry, passed his arm through the wickefe of the gate and endeavoured to draw back the bolt with which it was barred. A swordcut from within nearly severed his hand from the wrist; nothing daunted, he withdrew the injured arm and thrust in the other * one. 'This shared the fate of the first, but not before the bolt had been drawn, and the gallant Sikh had the satisfaction ,of seeing his comrades stream through the gateway, which by his determined bravery had been opened for tin.ni." There was no difficulty in defining the boundary line between courage and heroism here, but no Victorian Gross was granted ; the rules of the order did not recognise an exceptional case of a native soldier. The story, however, will now find a place in England's military history amongst other bright deeds that the " world will not willingly let die."— Broad Arrow!