It is not remembered as it should be that there were two brilliant charges made at Balaclava, on that grey day of October 25th, 1854. Tennyson’s stirring lines in honour of the Charge of the Light Brigade have given enduring fame to the “noble Six Hundred,” but the exploit of the “Three Hundred,” the Heavy Brigade, should make the name of Balaclava equally thrilling to us.

The Heavy Brigade was composed of squadrons of the 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards, Scots Greys, Inniskilling Dragoons, and the 1st Royals, under the command of Brigadier-General Yorke Scarlett. At an early stage of the fight Scarlett was proceeding with his brigade to the support of the “thin red line” which was bearing the brunt of the Russian attack, when suddenly a huge mass of Russian cavalry, Cossacks and others, 3000 strong, loomed up on the heights to their left.

The situation was a perilous one, as the General saw in a glance. The launching of that great crowd of Russians upon the valley below meant annihilation for his little force. With a quick command to “wheel into line,” Scarlett gave orders for the brigade to form up, facing the enemy. By some blunder, however, the movement was not properly executed, and when the Russians flung out in a wide-spreading crescent to envelop the few hundreds of British redcoats below them, two squadrons of the Scots Greys with one of the 6th Inniskillings were left in front to receive the first shock of the attack.

With that menacing horde of grey-coated, black-bearded Russians, poised like a hawk about to swoop upon its prey, there was no time for pause. Shrill on the air the “Charge!” rang out, and with Scarlett leading them, the little advance body of “Heavies”—300 men of the Scots Greys and Inniskillings—dashed off to meet the foe.

We have no such details of the fight as were forthcoming after the Charge of the Light Brigade, but we know that it was a most desperate affair. For every one of that handful of men, flung into a mass of the enemy that outnumbered them many times over, it was a hand-to-hand struggle for life of the most heroic kind. For a few moments they were lost to sight. Then out of the heaving, surging multitude the black bearskins and brass helmets of the Scotsmen and Irishmen broke into view here and there, while their sabres flashed in the sun as they hewed their way through.

It was a battle of giants. What wonder that the Russians gave for a brief moment under the fierce onset?

At this juncture the other squadrons that had been left behind came galloping to the rescue. Into the swaying mass they plunged, and soon afterwards “Cossack and Russian,” reeling from the sabre-stroke as they did again a little later, fell back in confusion. The peril was past, the day won.

Of how Brigadier-General Scarlett, Lieutenant Elliot, Captain Williams and Major Clarke of the Scots Greys, and the other officers who led that fierce charge, bore themselves, the regimental records tell more than do the history books. Very few escaped unscathed, and there were many like Elliot, who had no fewer than fifteen wounds, sword cuts and lance thrusts. And as with the officers, so was it with the men. There was not one but proved himself a hero that day. We can well understand how old Sir Colin Campbell was for once moved to emotion, as bareheaded he greeted the victors with the words, “Greys, gallant Greys! I am an old man, but if I were young again I would be proud to ride in your ranks!”

Where all men are brave it is not easy to single out any for special distinction. But in that terrible death-ride there were two who merited honour above their comrades, Sergeant-Major Grieve and Sergeant Ramage. The former in the heat of the engagement saw an officer in imminent danger of being cut down. Riding to the rescue, he swept like a whirlwind upon the Russians, cutting off the head of one at a single blow and scattering the rest by the fury of his onslaught. For this deed he won a well-deserved Cross.

Sergeant Ramage, like Grieve also of the Scots Greys, saved at least two lives on that day. He rescued first Private MacPherson, whom a body of Russians had hemmed in and who was fighting against odds that must have proved too much for him ultimately. Later on, when the “Heavies” were covering the retreat of the Light Brigade, a private named Gardiner was seen to be in a terrible plight. His horse was lagging behind the others, and one of the private’s legs had been shattered by a round-shot. The first to see Gardiner’s situation, Ramage rushed impetuously to his help, and although exposed to a cross fire that placed him in momentary danger for his life, he nobly carried in the wounded soldier to a place of safety.

These were the actions that gained the brave sergeant the V.C., but they do not complete the story of his exploits that day. After the Charge of the Heavy Brigade, in which he had borne so distinguished a part, Ramage’s horse, a stubborn brute, would not follow the retreating Russians. No amount of spurring would induce it to go in any direction save that of home. Nothing daunted, the sergeant dismounted and, leaving his charger to find its own way back, actually rushed over on foot to the nearest Russian lines, collared a man and brought him back prisoner!

The story of the Charge of the Light Brigade has been told a score of times. There is nothing to be added to it now, for the voices of its gallant leaders, of Cardigan, Morris, and Nolan, are hushed in death, and we shall never know what were the true facts of the case. That “someone had blundered” is at least certain. It is hard to believe that the order was actually given for such a brilliant but useless charge.

Yet so Lord Cardigan interpreted the instructions brought to him by Captain Nolan, as the Light Brigade, consisting of the 17th Lancers, the 4th and 13th Dragoons, and two regiments of Hussars, was drawn up in the North Valley, on the other side of those hills whereon the Russian cavalry had been routed by Scarlett’s brigade. At the other end of the valley was a strong force of Russians, formed up behind a formidable battery of some thirty cannon. The order—wrongly given or misunderstood—was that the Light Brigade should advance and carry these guns.

It was over a mile from the brigade’s position to that of the Russians. At a trot, then at a gallop, the Six Hundred, led by Cardigan in his striking hussar uniform, set off on their death-ride. Tennyson’s words, “Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them volley’d and thunder’d,” are literally true. When the astonished Russians realised what was happening they opened a terrible fire with their batteries. Shot and shell hurtled through the ranks again and again, laying many a brave fellow low; but without wavering the Six Hundred closed up the gaps and pressed on to their goal.

In a very few minutes from the time the fatal order was received the Light Brigade had disappeared in the smoke of the Russian batteries, riding clean over the guns and sabreing the gunners as they stood linstock in hand at their posts. Then ensued as terrific a hand-to-hand combat as has ever been chronicled.

It was in that ride back, when a large body of grey-coated lancers rode down upon their flank, and the Russian artillerymen rallying to their guns fired indiscriminately into the mass of English and Russians, that the other Balaclava Crosses were won.

Major John Berryman, the most distinguished of the seven heroes of the Charge who were awarded the decoration, has told the story of his exploit himself, told it modestly and simply as becomes a brave man, but we can fill in the details of the picture for ourselves as we read.

At the time of the Charge Berryman was Troop-Sergeant-Major in the 17th Lancers, well known as “the Duke of Cambridge’s Own” and “the Death or Glory Boys.” In the last mad leap at the guns, the mare he was riding was badly hit, and he dismounted, when he found that he too had been wounded in the leg. As he stood debating in his mind whether or not to shoot the mare, Captain Webb, on horseback, came up. He also had been struck in the leg, and to his query as to what he had better do, Berryman replied, “Keep to your horse, sir, and get back as far as you can.”

Webb thereupon turned and rode back, while the sergeant-major, catching a loose horse, attempted to follow suit. But his new steed had its breastplate driven into its chest, and hardly had he mounted ere it fell to the ground. Giving up the idea of rejoining his regiment in the mÊlÉe, he was making his way back on foot when he caught sight of Captain Webb, who had halted a little distance off, the acute pain of his wound preventing him riding farther.

“Lieutenant George Smith, of my own regiment,” says Berryman in his account, “coming by, I got him to stand at the horse’s head whilst I lifted the captain off. Having accomplished this, I assisted Smith to mount Webb’s horse and ride for a stretcher, taking notice where we were. By this time the Russians had got back to their guns and reopened fire. I saw six men of my own regiment get together to recount to each other their escapes. Seeing their danger, I called to them to separate, but too late, for a shell dropped amongst them, and I don’t think one escaped alive.”

Hearing him call to the lancers, Captain Webb asked Berryman what he thought the Russians would do. Berryman answered that they were sure to pursue, unless the Heavy Brigade came to the rescue.

“Then you had better consult your own safety, and leave,” said the captain.

Berryman shook his head. “I shall not leave you now, sir,” he replied, adding that if they were made prisoners they would go together.

Just at this moment Sergeant Farrell hove in sight, and at Berryman’s call he came over. The retreat of the Light Brigade from the guns was already beginning, and the confusion and danger was augmented by the onslaught of the Russian lancers, who had now ridden down upon the devoted remnant.

The position of the wounded officer and his helpers was indeed precarious. Bullets and shells were flying by them, and at any moment a Cossack lance might have laid them low. But neither Berryman nor Farrell hesitated or thought of saving his own skin. Making a chair of their hands, they raised the captain from the ground and carried him in this way for some two hundred yards, until Webb’s leg again became very painful. A private of the 13th Dragoons, named Malone, was requisitioned to support the officer’s legs, and another start was made.

The rear of the Greys was at last reached in safety, and here the sergeant-major procured a tourniquet which he screwed on to Webb’s right thigh (“I could not have done it better myself,” said the regimental doctor afterwards), together with a stretcher.

We will let Berryman take up the story himself at this point.

“I and Farrell now raised the stretcher and carried it for about fifty yards, and again set it down. I was made aware of an officer of the Chasseurs d’Afrique being on my left by his placing his hand upon my shoulder. I turned and saluted. Pointing to Captain Webb, but looking at me, he said—

“‘Your officer?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Ah! and you sergeant?’ looking at the stripes on my arm.

“‘Yes.’

“‘Ah! If you were in French service, I would make you an officer on the spot.’ Then, standing in his stirrups and extending his right hand, he said, ‘Oh! it was grand, it was magnifique, but it is not war, it is not war!’”

This French officer was General Morris.

Resuming their task, Berryman and Farrell got the captain to the doctors, who discovered that the shin bone of his leg had been shattered. Farrell turning faint at the sight of the terrible wound, the sergeant-major was instructed to take him away, and this was the cause of bringing him near enough to the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Cardigan to hear the former say as he viewed the remnant that had come “through the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of Hell”:—

“Is that all of them? You have lost the finest brigade that ever left the shores of England!”

And to Captain Godfrey Morgan, now Viscount Tredegar, who had led the 17th Lancers (thirty-four returned out of one hundred and forty), the Duke could only say, “My poor regiment! My poor regiment!”

Sergeant Farrell and Private Malone, as was only fitting, also received the Cross for Valour.

I have given the account of the brave deed of Berryman and his companions at some length, because it is, to my mind, one of the most signal acts of devotion in the chronicles of the V.C. A very large proportion of those who have won the Cross distinguished themselves in the attempt, successful or otherwise, to save life, and there is no act that is more deserving of our fullest admiration. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

There were other lives saved in that death-stricken valley that day besides Webb’s. Captain Morris, who led a troop of the 17th Lancers, was taken prisoner by the Russians after a desperate encounter, but managed to escape in the confusion. Grievously wounded and on foot, for his second horse had been shot under him, he struggled towards the British lines, until from sheer exhaustion he fell beside the dead body of his brother-officer, Captain Nolan.

It is stated that the two officers, knowing the peril that faced them, had each left in his friend’s charge a letter to be sent home if he fell and the other survived. These letters were found in the breasts of the two as they lay side by side.

Captain Morris, however, was luckily still alive. To his assistance promptly came Sergeant-Major Charles Wooden of his own regiment, who pluckily stood by his body until he saw a surgeon. The latter, who proved to be Surgeon Mouat of the 6th Dragoon Guards (now Sir James Mouat, K.C.B.), promptly went over to the wounded man, and despite the heavy fire that was being kept up, dressed his wounds as coolly as if he had been in the operating-room. His skill stopped the hemorrhage, which undoubtedly saved the captain’s life, and for this, as well as for getting the wounded man back to safety, the brave surgeon in due course got his V.C. Sergeant-Major Wooden was decorated at the same time.

One other man of the 17th Lancers who distinguished himself in this historic charge was the regimental butcher, John Veigh. Hearing that the dash for the Russian guns was to be made, he left his work in his bloodstained smock without seeking permission, borrowed a sabre, and rode through the valley with his comrades. “Butcher Jack” cut down six gunners and returned unhurt, still smoking the short black pipe which was in his mouth when he joined in the ride.

The two remaining Balaclava Crosses were awarded to Private Samuel Parkes, a Light Dragoon, and Lieutenant Alexander Robert Dunn, of the 11th Hussars.

Parkes’ exploit was a courageous rescue of Trumpet-Major Crawford, who, on being thrown helpless to the ground by his horse, was furiously attacked by a couple of Cossacks. Himself unhorsed, he fearlessly bore down upon the cowardly Russians, and plied his sword with such vigour that he sent them flying. The two were attacked again by a larger party of Cossacks, but Parkes maintained such a sturdy defence that he was only subdued when a shot struck his sabre out of his hand. He and Crawford were made prisoners, and not released until a year later.

Lieutenant Dunn had the distinction of being the only officer of the Light Brigade to win the V.C. When Sergeant Bentley of his regiment fell behind in the dash back to safety, and was quickly set on by three Russians, the lieutenant turned his horse and rode to his comrade’s aid. Dunn was a less powerful man than Parkes, but he sabred two of the Cossack lancers clean out of their saddles and put the third to flight.

Subsequently Lieutenant Dunn rescued a private of the Hussars from certain death in similar circumstances. He survived the Crimean War and rose to distinction in the service, but his career was cut short all too soon by an accident in the Abyssinian campaign.