100 AWARDED FOR VALOUR
Table 5.2 Enlisted versus officer in life-saving VCs, nineteenth century
Decade 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890–1904
103 13 16 18 63

Awarded Raw % Raw % Raw % Raw % Raw %

Enlisted 64 62 10 77 13 81 11 61 43 68
Officer 39 38 3 23 3 19 7 39 20 32
for retrieving the wounded: ‘For having, on 18 June 1855, after the Regi-
ment had retired into the trenches from the assault on the Redan, gone out
into the open ground, under heavy fire, in broad daylight, and brought
in wounded soldiers outside the trenches.’^11 Overall humanitarian valour
accounted for 35 percent of the awards for the 1850s, 38 percent in the
1860s (discounting the noncombat Andaman Island rescue) and 33 percent
during the 1870s. Breaking those figures down into saving officers as
opposed to saving enlisted shows that saving an officer was more likely to
result in an award (see Table 5.2).
Although the numbers of a given battalion varied widely depending
on available manpower, a safe estimate of 600 men and 32 officers
yields a ratio of 5 percent officers and 95 percent enlisted. Even doubling
the officer ratio to account for staff and visiting officers on detached duty
would not account for the disparity between population and distribution.
Clearly, saving the life of an officer got one noticed:
On six January 1893, during the Kachin Expedition, Burma, while an
attack was in progress on Fort Sima, Surgeon Major Owen Lloyd went,
with an Indian NCO, to the assistance of the commanding officer who
was wounded. Surgeon Major Lloyd then stayed with the officer while
the NCO went back to get further help in carrying the wounded man back
to the fort, where he died a few minutes later. The enemy was within 10
to 15 paces during this time, keeping up a heavy fire, and Surgeon Major
Lloyd was wounded while returning to the fort.^12
Another aspect of these humanitarian awards was getting rid of ordnance
before it exploded. The first VC earned went for this action by Mate Charles
D. Lucas:
On 21 June 1854 in the Baltic, H.M.S.Heclawith two other ships, was
bombarding the Bomarsund, a fort in the Aland Islands. The fire was