[5] The distinction of having sounded the charge that sent so many brave fellows to their death down the valley of Balaclava has been claimed by, and on behalf of, several people. Amongst others the distinction has been claimed for Trumpet-major H. Joy of the 17th Lancers. He was staff-trumpeter to Lord Lucan, and was with his lordship on the day of the charge. The bugle which Joy carried in the Crimea was sold by public auction in 1894, and was bought for the fabulous sum of seven hundred and fifty guineas. The bugle bears this inscription: ‘Presented by the colonel of the 17th Lancers to Trumpet-major Joy, on which the Balaclava charge was sounded, October 25th, 1854.’ On the death of the first purchaser the bugle was resold, fetching less than a third of the original price. It was presented to the United Service Institution in Whitehall, where it now is. The Earl of Lucan was in command of all the cavalry in the Crimea; his brigade commanders were responsible for carrying out his orders. After Lord Lucan, on the morning of the charge, had given Lord Cardigan his orders, beyond moving the 11th Hussars from the front to the second rank, he had nothing more to do with the Light Brigade. From the moment when Cardigan said simply, ‘The brigade will advance,’ it received no orders from any one else. It regulated its speed and took its direction from Cardigan alone, who rode about five horses’ lengths in front of the first line. Lord Lucan and, of course, his orderly trumpeter, remained behind with the heavy dragoons, and whoever _may_ have sounded the fatal charge, no military man will believe that it was Trumpet-major Joy. Survivors of the charge deny that it was sounded at all, and when it is remembered that the brigade had some mile and a quarter to ride before it got to the guns, and that the men were almost mad with excitement long before the time to ‘charge,’ in the true military sense, had come, it is more than probable that the call was not sounded. If, however, it was sounded, it would have been by Trumpeter Brittain of the 17th Lancers, who was Lord Cardigan’s orderly trumpeter, and should have been taken up by the other trumpeters from him. But Brittain was severely wounded before the guns were reached. He was taken to Scutari hospital where he died, not from his wounds, but from the privation and neglect that he, in common with the other wounded, had to suffer through the lamentable lack of all that was necessary for the comfort and welfare of the patients.