While I was calling out the results of the targets made, a man handed round the rum for the gun’s crew, and Green asked me to move my elbow, so that he might not shake me while drinking his grog. We both stood up, and he was holding the pannikin to his mouth, when a shot from the Redan, coming obliquely from our left, took off his head, the body falling on me. At this moment Michael Hardy, having just fired his gun, was “serving the vent.”[30] Hardy had turned up his sleeves and trousers, and his shirt being open low on the neck and chest, his face and body were covered with the contents of the boy’s head. Now, if he had lifted his thumb from the vent the result might have been fatal to Nos. 3 and 4, who were then ramming home the next charge; but Hardy never flinched. Without moving his right hand, he wiped with his left the boy’s brains from his face. Those sitting at my feet were speechless, being startled, as indeed I was, for I had felt the wind from the Russian shot which had passed within an inch of my face. We were brought back to a sense of duty by Hardy’s somewhat contemptuous “You ---- fools, what the hell are you looking at? Is he dead? Take his carcase away. Ain’t he dead? Take him to the doctor.” “Jim, are you home?” he asked of No. 3, the Loader, who was in the act of giving the final tap, after having rammed home the charge, and seeing him nod, without bestowing another look on us, or possibly even thinking of me, he gave the order, “Run out. Ready.” From this time to his death I saw a great deal of Hardy, as we generally went to battery together, for although I had become an Aide-de-Camp I remained at battery duty, when Captain Peel did not require me. Hardy carried down my blanket and tea-bottle, receiving my allowance of rum for his services. He was in many ways a remarkable man, for when stationed at Eupatoria in the autumn of 1854, he amassed by questionable means a number of ponies, and started a livery stable, hiring them out to officers of the Fleet. I cannot say any more of his courage than that he was as brave as Captain Peel, but in quite a different way, for I doubt whether Hardy ever felt danger. Whenever I was in battery during this and the following bombardments, Captain Peel gave me the same charge as that held by Lieutenants, and although I never went near him unless I was sent for, he somehow managed to see or learn anything I was doing well. About 1 p.m. on the 9th I was taken ill; I had been working since daylight on a cup of coffee, in a thin jacket, and chilled by the incessant rain, shivered continuously. Captain Peel noticing my state, sent me back to camp, and in doing so expressed his satisfaction at my conduct. Later, I learnt he had told Lord Raglan of my mending the embrasure twice under heavy fire, after the sappers had been wounded, which I was not previously aware he had seen.