but that is no reason why I
should not mention his name. I believe he is still in India, and a
distinguished officer of the Rajpootana-Malwa Railway Volunteers at
Ajmere. However, after Captain Peel's guns were dragged into position,
the Ninety-Third took up whatever shelter they could get on the right
and left of the guns, and I, with several others, got behind the walls
of an unroofed mud hut, through which we made loopholes on the side next
to the Shah Nujeef, and were thus able to keep up a destructive fire
on the enemy. Let me add here that the surgeons of the force were
overwhelmed with work, and attending to the wounded in the thick of the
fire. Some time after the attack had commenced we noticed Captain Alison
and his horse in a heap together a few yards behind where we were in
shelter. Sergeant Findlay rushed out, got the wounded officer clear of
his dead horse under a perfect hail of bullets and round-shot, and
carried him under the shelter of the walls where we were lying. He then
ran off in search of a surgeon to bandage his wounds, which were
bleeding very profusely; but the surgeons were all too busy, and Sir
Colin was most strict on the point of wounds being attended to.
Officers, no matter what their rank, had no precedence over the
rank-and-file in this respect; in fact, Sir Colin often expressed the
opinion that an officer could be far more easily replaced than a
well-drilled private. However, there was no surgeon available; so
Sergeant Findlay took his own bandage,--every soldier on going on active
service is supplied with lint and a bandage to have them handy in case
of wounds--set to work, stanched the bleeding, and bandaged up the
wounds of Captain Alison in such a surgeon-like manner that, when Dr.
Menzies of the Ninety-Third at length came to see him, he thought he had
been attended to by a doctor. When he did discover that it was Sergeant
Findlay who had put on the bandages, he expressed his surprise, and said
that in all probability this prompt action had saved Captain Alison's
life, who otherwise might have been weakened by loss of blood beyond
recovery before a doctor could have attended to him. Dr. Menzies there
and then applied to Captain Dawson to get Sergeant Findlay into the
field-hospital as an extra assistant to attend to the wounded. In
closing this incident I may remark that I have known men get the
Victoria Cross for incurring far less danger than Sergeant Findlay did
in exposing hi