At a village near Kokeran, the next day, he made a dash for some water, which he was successful in obtaining. Here, he records, he saw Lieutenant Maclaine, of the Royal Horse Artillery, and he was almost the last man to see him alive. The lieutenant was captured immediately afterwards, kept a close prisoner by Ayoub Khan, and eventually found lying with his throat cut outside the Amir’s tent at Candahar, after the Afghan leader’s flight. A second journey for water becoming necessary, Collis set off again for the village. He was returning with a fresh supply when he beheld some ten or twelve of the enemy’s cavalry approaching the gun. The gun went off, and, throwing himself down in a little nullah, Collis waited until it passed by. Then, with a rifle which he had obtained from a 66th private, he opened fire upon the Afghans, in order to draw them from the gun and the wounded. Not knowing how many were concealed in the nullah, the Afghans halted and answered his fire. They fortunately failed to hit the plucky gunner, but from his vantage he scored heavily against them, killing two men and a horse. From a distance of three hundred yards, however, they came pretty close to him, and he must have been discovered had not General Nuttall arrived on the scene with some native cavalry and made them turn tail. “You’re a gallant young man,” said the General. “What is your name?” “Gunner Collis, sir, of E. of B., R.H.A.,” answered the gunner in business-like fashion, and the details were promptly noted in the General’s pocket-book. Then Collis hastened after his gun, which he caught up with after a five hundred yards’ chase, and after running the gauntlet of the enemy’s fire for several miles farther, went safely in with it into Candahar. He arrived there at seven in the evening, having been marching for a whole night and day since the battle. There is yet another brave act to be recorded of Gunner Collis, which contributed to gain him his well-earned Cross for Valour. While the garrison under General Primrose were besieged in Candahar, anxiously awaiting the arrival of General Roberts’ relief column, various sorties were made upon the enemy. On one of these occasions, in the middle of August, Collis was standing by his gun on the rampart of the fort when Generals Primrose and Nuttall passed in earnest conversation with Colonel Burnet. Hearing one of the former say that he wished he could send a message to General Dewberry, who was fighting away out in the village, the gunner stepped up to Colonel Burnet and touched him on the arm. “I think I can take the message, sir,” he said, giving a salute.