In the ride back Major Percy Smith, of the Dragoons, was shot through the body and fell from his horse. Corporal Goate was close by, and springing to the ground he quickly lifted the major on to his shoulder and ran with him thus alongside his horse. The major was a heavy weight, however; Goate found himself lagging behind with several of the enemy close upon him. Clearly he couldn’t get away with his burden, so he determined to do what he could for himself and the major. Placing the wounded officer on the ground, he sprang into his saddle and rode at his foes. “I shot the first sepoy who charged,” he says in his account of the incident, “and with my empty pistol felled another. This gave me time to draw my sword, my lance having been left on the field. The sepoys were now round me cutting and hacking, but I managed to parry every slash and deliver many a fatal thrust. It was parry and thrust, thrust and parry all through, and I cannot tell you how many saddles I must have emptied. The enemy didn’t seem to know how to parry.” So our brave corporal (he was only a little more than twenty, mind you) “settled accounts with a jolly lot,” and was still hard at it when some of his comrades came to his assistance. In the fight his horse had carried him some distance from where the major lay, and when the rebels had been forced back he went out again to look for him. Poor Major Smith was found after a long search, but it was a mutilated corpse that was brought sadly and reverently back to the camp. Sir Colin Campbell and Sir Hope Grant had seen Goate’s gallant attempt at rescue, and after the action there was a cordial handshake for him from both the veterans, with many compliments upon his pluck that filled the corporal with just pride. The scene of Sir Evelyn Wood’s principal exploit was the wilds of Sindhora, near Gwalior. It was at the close of the Mutiny, when the rebels had been split up and only kept the fires of rebellion burning in detached districts. After a fatiguing pursuit of some mutineers one day, news came to the young officer’s ears (he was a lieutenant in the 17th Lancers then) that a potail--a loyal native named Chemmum Singh--had been carried off by a band of these marauders. With a duffadar, two or three sowars of Beatson’s Horse, and half a dozen sepoys of the Bareilly Levy, he started off promptly in pursuit. The mutineers were discovered at night in the jungle, twelve miles away, preparing to hang their captive. Creeping up unseen, Lieutenant Wood and his few followers sprang upon them from several points at once, firing a volley and shouting as if they had a whole company behind them. This was enough for the rebels. They took to their heels incontinently, and before they could rally and discover the numbers of their assailants Wood and his men were riding swiftly back with the released potail.