Such is the true and literal account of the charge; but the reader may care to consider a few incidents.  Colonel Martin, busy with the direction of his regiment, drew neither sword nor revolver, and rode through the press unarmed and uninjured.  Major Crole Wyndham had his horse shot under him by a Dervish who pressed the muzzle of his rifle into its hide before firing.  From out of the middle of that savage crowd the officer fought his way on foot and escaped in safety.  Lieutenant Molyneux fell in the khor into the midst of the enemy.  In the confusion he disentangled himself from his horse, drew his revolver, and jumped out of the hollow before the Dervishes recoved from the impact of the charge.  Then they attacked him.  He fired at the nearest, and at the moment of firing was slashed across the right wrist by another.  The pistol fell from his nerveless hand, and, being wounded, dismounted, and disarmed, he turned in the hopes of regaining, by following the line of the charge, his squadron, which was just getting clear.  Hard upon his track came the enemy, eager to make an end.  Beset on all sides, and thus hotly pursued, the wounded officer perceived a single Lancer riding across his path.  He called on him for help.  Whereupon the trooper, Private Byrne, although already severely wounded by a bullet which had penetrated his right arm, replied without a moment’s hesitation and in a cheery voice, ‘All right, sir!’ and turning, rode at four Dervishes who were about to kill his officer.  His wound, which had partly paralysed his arm, prevented him from grasping his sword, and at the first ineffectual blow it fell from his hand, and he received another wound from a spear in the chest.  But his solitary charge had checked the pursuing Dervishes.  Lieutenant Molyneux regained his squadron alive, and the trooper, seeing that his object was attained, galloped away, reeling in his saddle.  Arrived at his troop, his desperate condition was noticed and he was told to fall out.  But this he refused to do, urging that he was entitled to remain on duty and have ‘another go at them.’  At length he was compelled to leave the field, fainting from loss of blood.

Lieutenant Nesham had an even more extraordinary escape than Molyneux.  He had scrambled out of the khor when, as his horse was nearly stopping, an Arab seized his bridle.  He struck at the man with his sword, but did not prevent him cutting his off-rein.  The officer’s bridle-hand, unexpectedly released, flew out, and, as it did so, a swordsman at a single stroke nearly severed it from his body.  Then they cut at him from all sides.  One blow sheared through his helmet and grazed his head.  Another inflicted a deep wound in his right leg.  A third, intercepted by his shoulder-chains, paralysed his right arm.  Two more, missing him narrowly, cut right through the cantel of the saddle and into the horse’s back.  The wounded subaltern —­he was the youngest of all—­reeled.  A man on either side seized his legs to pull him to the ground; but the long spurs stuck into the horse’s flanks, and the maddened animal, throwing up its head and springing forward, broke away from the crowd of foes, and carried the rider—­bleeding, fainting, but still alive—­to safety among the rallying squadrons.  Lieutenant Nesham’s experience was that of the men who were killed, only that he escaped to describe it.