They probably imagined that we had others behind us, for they turned and fled. As we rode back a company of Sardinians advanced to our assistance. Cholera broke out in the Army during the second week in May, and the Naval Brigade moved out of the sheltered valley where it had encamped since November, to the top of the hill, near the 3rd Division. We did not escape altogether, but suffered little in comparison with the soldiers. On the evening of the 21st May I counted twenty-one bodies outside the Divisional Hospital tents, sewn up in blankets ready for burial. During the forenoon of the 3rd June several men of the Relief for the gun detachments were going into battery from the Woronzow road; there was little fire at the time, and the men, disregarding the order which prescribed that they should enter by the “Covered way,” were walking over the open ground. As the last of the party approached the 21-gun battery, there was a shout, “Look out, Whistling Dick!” This induced the men to run, for the appalling size of “Whistling Dick” struck terror into the bravest heart amongst us. It is illogical, no doubt, to fear an enormous shell more than a bullet, for either can send us into the next world, but most of us have a greater fear of the larger destructive object.[32] All the men except John Blewitt, of H.M.S. _Queen_, safely reached the trench, and were crouching in it, waiting for the explosion. Blewitt, as he bent forward to run, was struck immediately at the back of the knees by the mass of iron, 13 inches in diameter, and fell to the ground crushed under its weight, in sight of his horror-stricken messmates. He called out to his chum, Stephen Welch, “Oh, Stephen, Stephen, don’t leave me to die!” The fuse was hissing, but Welch jumping up from under cover of the edge of the trench, which must, humanly speaking, have ensured his safety, called out, “Come on, lads; let’s try,” and running out, he had got his arms round Blewitt, and was trying to roll the shell from off his legs when it exploded, and not a particle of the bodies or of the clothes of the two men could be found. I did not witness Welch’s Divine-like act of self-sacrifice, but passing immediately afterwards helped the men, though in vain, to look for his remains. Captain Michell of the _Queen_, out of his own small income, pensioned Welch’s mother. During the night of the 3rd June, the Artillery alongside of us were firing some “carcases,” but it became necessary to stop firing, as nearly every round burst at the muzzle, wounding some soldiers, and frightening more. I looked at some of these missiles next morning, and found that they had been made at the end of the previous century.