The author has used a large number of sources—newspapers, official reports, private letters and diaries, as well as books—in gathering the facts for these simple stories. Acknowledgments have been made wherever it was possible to trace the source, and indulgence is asked if through inadvertence or inability to find the original report any requisite acknowledgment has been omitted. Very meagre particulars of most of these brave deeds are at present available, for the British V.C. does not talk of his exploits. But such facts as are actually known ought surely to be given the widest possible publicity, especially in the schools of the Empire.