After which achievement Edwards sat down on the parapet to bind up the scalp wound he had received with a towel, in Indian “puggaree” fashion, afterwards marching to Tel-el-Kebir station, two and a half miles off, with this decoration on his head. A few months later he wore another decoration, the Victoria Cross having been bestowed upon him for his gallantry.
Although it is not a V.C. exploit, I am tempted to include a remarkable feat performed at Tel-el-Kebir by Major Dalbiac, of the Royal Artillery, that Dalbiac who fell at Senekal twenty years later.
During the battle the battery which he commanded ran short of ammunition and no more was to be had. In this dilemma the major resolved that at all events his guns should not stand idle, so, with a touch of humour characteristic of him, he ordered them to be limbered up, and took them forward at a gallop. One can imagine the surprise of the “Gyppies” when the entire battery came racing up one side of the earthworks and down the other into their midst, putting them fairly to rout!
In 1883 broke out the Mahdi’s rebellion in the Soudan, which was to give us endless trouble and to cost the life of Gordon. After Hicks Pasha had perished miserably at Shekan, and Colonel Valentine Baker with his Egyptians had been routed at Tokar, Gordon was sent out from England to conquer the Soudan, and with him went Sir Gerald Graham, who defeated Osman Digna, the Mahdi’s right-hand man, at El Teb and Tamai.
In the first of these battles, fought on February 29th, 1884, two V.C.’s were earned; one by a quartermaster-sergeant of the 19th Hussars, who saved his colonel’s life; and the other by a naval captain who is now the well-known Admiral Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson, K.C.B. The latter won his Cross for conspicuous bravery, which his chief, the gallant Sir William Hewett, V.C., knew well how to appreciate.
The Naval Brigade contributed to form a huge square which moved steadily down upon the massed Arabs, to whom this was a novel form of fighting. As the troops approached closer little parties of the enemy dashed out to fling themselves bravely but vainly upon the bayonets of the front ranks or be shot down ere they could get so far. The principal Arab attack was directed against the side on which the sailors were with their Gardner guns and here Captain Wilson found his opportunity to distinguish himself.