LAST OF LUCKNOW'S V.C.'S.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1024, 13 January 1911, Page 8

LAST OF LUCKNOW'S V.C.'S.

■.— —4— T— ;. _ HOW SIB A..D. HOME WON THE . VICTORIA: CROSS. s Sir_ Anthony Dickson:' Home, V C 1y..C.8., who recently ■ celebrated his eighty-fourth-birthday, is the last man J ,? f - the little ban<l of elevon-cut oft after the march pi' Havelock's column ot relief into. 1-ucknow 'Residency—who' in September. 1857, held a house in a Lucknow bazaar, against' 1000 senovs for ono long day and a night, •--"defendiu" wounded men. .'..'.,. " Sir Anthony, was a surgeon, then attached to the 90th Eight Infantry, and was with the rearguard that could not force its way through to the Residency with tho main body of Havelock's men on September 25. ' .' ... •

Tho events of September 26, which gained him the*. Victoria Cross,' are still fresh "in' the niemory of Sir Anthonjv "With.a giinril of 150 men," he said, "I was sent'forward to convey the wounded'into the 'Residency. Sepoys were all around us on the housetops firing down, and when we reached a raised bazaar the native bearers of the dooleys, or.'.palanquins, '' in which the wounded, were borno, dropped their burdens and fled. ■ ■" . / "With four men.to help me'l dragged some of, .the wounded . into-a one-story house, where other soldiers-, rail to join us. - There; were only ton effective'men. in the- house, and outsido I calculated 1000 sepoys. ■" '; ''

.."During the, night there were onlyseven of us left fit to fight. Tho terror's of-the night wore'awful; for others, of our wounded'had fallen into the sepoys' hands, and they burned them to death within our sight., When daylight came wo-, had given over- hone. All at once, however, wo heard the crack' of Enfield jifles near at hand.' 'Them's' our chaps,' shouted a soldier named Evan, who I hail told off to watch.x We were saved-!." '