“There were some very sad cases in these chaps that were killed. Out of five new officers that had joined and not been under fire before, three were killed and one wounded, and none of them more than twenty-one years of age. Only a few minutes before we went into the charge, and were halted awaiting orders, Eve called out one of my men[42] to present him with the D.C.M. for extraordinarily fearless bravery in the last show that had just been sanctioned that morning, and I promised to send a cable home for him if we got up alongside any of the gunboats. Another fellow, a great big, rough, hard-working fellow, remarked that if we could have one in the troop we could just as easy have two, and he was going to get it in the next show we got into or die in the attempt. I saw him try: he rode past me yelling and whooping and ran his sword through the foremost Turk, only to be bowled over the next second. When I went out later to find him, my sergeant, who had a shattered thigh, told me not to risk myself any further, as he had seen a Turk blow his brains out, as they had also done with the boy who had just won his medal. I have finished up after being in fifty shows without a scratch: they’ve whistled past my nose, through my coat and everywhere, killed four of my horses, one after another, and never touched me. You may call it providential or the hand of God. I don’t know what it is other than miraculous good luck, for it’s not right to think that I should be spared when such good fellows as Eve are struck down, and all three poor new chaps, who had never heard the terrible swish of a bullet pass their heads before, to meet death the first time. It doesn’t seem right that I should be spared.... I had absolutely no thought whatever about my soul or the hereafter, in fact everybody seemed to be in a state of pleasant anticipation. When Eve galloped by me and I looked to him for orders he had a beautiful smile and just sailed along, and I waved my men on to follow him, and next second his soul had left his body. I don’t believe he had a thought of death, or that it meant anything to him. I know only when we had breathing-space in all these occasions did I worry about anything, and that was how you would get along, and whether I had left everything satisfactory.... Lynch Staunton, whose father was a Senator from Hamilton, was one of the six new subalterns who hadn’t been under fire before.... Poor fellow, he rode right down into the Turk trench and walked his horse along it over the Turks, that were as thick as gooseberries, as much as to say you are my prisoners; and they certainly would have been, had not that murderous fire from their main position bowled him over. They took him prisoner, but we found his body next day: they had dressed his wound, but later decided he would be a hindrance to carry along, so murdered him and took everything off him.”