When Captain McDonald fell the company was led by the senior lieutenant, and about twenty yards inside the breach in the outer rampart we were stopped by a ditch nearly eighteen feet wide and at least twelve to fourteen feet deep. It was easy enough to slide down to the bottom; the difficulty was to get up on the other side! However, there was no hesitation; the stormers dashed into the ditch, and running along to the right in search of some place where we could get up on the inside, we met part of the grenadier company headed by Lieutenant E. S. Wood, an active and daring young officer. I may here mention that there were two lieutenants of the name of Wood at this time in the Ninety-Third. One belonged to my company; his name was S. E. Wood and he was severely wounded at the relief of Lucknow and was, at the time of which I am writing, absent from the regiment. The one to whom I now refer was Lieutenant E. S. Wood of the grenadier company. When the two parties in the ditch met, both in search of a place to get out, Mr. Wood got on the shoulders of another grenadier and somehow scrambled up claymore in hand. He was certainly the first man inside the inner works of the Begum's palace, and when the enemy saw him emerge from the ditch they fled to barricade doors and windows to prevent us getting into the buildings. His action saved us, for the whole of us might have been shot like rats in the ditch if they had attacked Mr. Wood, instead of flying when they saw the tall grenadier claymore in hand. As soon as he saw the coast clear the lieutenant lay down on the top of the ditch, and was thus able to reach down and catch hold of the men's rifles by the bends of the bayonets; and with the aid of the men below pushing up behind, we were all soon pulled out of the ditch. When all were up, one of the men turned to Mr. Wood and said: "If any officer in the regiment deserves to get the Victoria Cross, sir, you do; for besides the risk you have run from the bullets of the enemy, it's more than a miracle that you're not shot by our own rifles; they're all on full-cock." And so it was! Seizing loaded rifles on full-cock by the muzzles, and pulling more than a score of men out of a deep ditch, was a dangerous thing to do; but no one thought of the danger, nor did anyone think of even easing the spring to half-cock, much less of firing his rifle off before being pulled up. However, Mr. Wood escaped, and after getting his captaincy he left the regiment and became Conservator of Forests in Oude. I may mention that Mr. Wood was a younger brother of Mr. H. W. I. Wood, for many years the well-known secretary to the Bengal Chamber of Commerce. He has just lately retired on his pension; I wonder if he ever recalls the danger he incurred from pulling his men out of the ditch of the Begum's palace by the muzzles of their loaded rifles on full-cock!