They went down a drop of three or four feet, plunging into the thick of the Mahdists. Cutting and thrusting fiercely, they forged their way through, and with pennons proudly flying at last gained the steep ascent beyond. Many men, however, were left behind, and but for the devotion of some like Private Thomas Byrne the number must have been still larger. Byrne saw four dervishes pursuing Lieutenant Molyneux, who was wounded and on foot, and although he was himself crippled with a bullet in his right arm he rode back to the rescue. He tried to use his sword, but there was no strength in his arm; the weapon dropped from his limp grasp, and he received a spear wound in the chest. By this time Lieutenant Molyneux was out of danger, so Byrne galloped off to his troop, which he regained without further injury. The brave Irish private got the Cross for his pluck, and, as Mr. Winston Churchill comments in his account of the deed,[3] Byrne’s wearing it will rather enhance the value of the Order. One of the officers to fall in the charge was Lieutenant Robert Grenfell. To save him, or at least recover his body, Captain P. A. Kenna and Lieutenant de Montmorency, accompanied by Corporal Swarbrick, dashed back into the midst of the enemy. They were unsuccessful, De Montmorency’s horse bolting as they tried to lift poor Grenfell on to it; but the attempt was a courageous one, and both officers were gazetted V.C. a little later, Corporal Swarbrick being awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Just before this gallant action, I may mention, Captain Kenna had distinguished himself by saving the life of Major Crole Wyndham, whose horse had been shot under him, an act which alone entitled him to the distinction. [3] _The River War_, vol. ii. p. 141. CHAPTER XXV. V.C. HEROES OF THE INDIAN FRONTIER. The closing years of the eighties and the opening years of the nineties saw a good deal of fighting at different places on our Indian frontier. Through internal dissensions or the interference of some foreign power, some of the turbulent hill tribes were in a state of continual ferment, and order had to be restored within their boundaries by force of arms. In 1888 there was trouble in Upper Burmah. The Karen-ni, or Red Karens, who form a group of semi-independent tribes down by the Siamese border, took to dacoiting again in a bold manner. An expedition was accordingly sent into their district, with the result that the disturbances were quickly quelled. This “little war” comes within the scope of this book for a notable display of devotion on the part of an Army doctor which gained him a V.C.