72 AWARDED FOR VALOUR
O’Hea was granted a Cross for extinguishing a fire in a railway carriage
containing 2000 pounds of ammunition on 9 June 1866 in Danville,
Canada.^102 Five were awarded in one stroke to the 2nd Battalion 24th Regi-
ment, for the rescue of stranded companions on Little Andaman Island in
the Bay of Bengal on 7 May 1867. The original party had landed to ascertain
the fate of the commander and seven of the crew of theAssam Valley, and had
lost their longboat in heavy surf. The rescuers braved the surf in reaching
the island, as well as the cannibalistic natives that inhabited it.^103 There
were no significant questions raised concerning the award of the VCs to the
Andaman Island five. They saved 17 officers and men from certain death,
making no less than three excursions into the extremely treacherous surf to
do so.^104
Others now saw their own noncombat actions as deserving of recognition;
Lieutenant Joseph Bourke of the 29th Regiment recommended himself for
the VC for his conduct in fighting a fire on the magazine at Fort Charlotte
in the Bahamas, 10 January 1862. He bypassed his commanding officer
entirely, writing directly to the War Office himself. The Adjutant General’s
office examined his statement and the battalion diary and ruled that he had
never actually been in any danger, and besides, by his own statement the fire
had burned itself out anyway.^105 General Peel considered that awarding the
VC in this instance would damage the prestige and integrity of the award.
The powers-that-were wanted to keep the VC a distinctive award and avoid
establishing any precedent that might endanger that distinction.^106
The need for the warrant extension covering noncombat VCs was in any
event soon obviated by the creation of the Albert Medal in 1866. This award
was designed to cover those who ‘in saving or endeavouring to save the
lives of others from shipwreck or other peril of the sea, endangered their
own lives.’ It was extended to included life-saving on land in 1877, and
was superceded by the George Cross in 1940.^107 The Albert Medal gave the
crown the opportunity to return the Victoria Cross to its original distinction
as a purely combat award, and also decreased the potential for its abuse. The
royal warrant governing the Cross was again modified in 1881 to read ‘Our
Will and Pleasure is that the qualifications shall be ‘conspicuous bravery or
devotion to the country in the presence of the enemy.’^108 The noncombat
option was thus quietly dropped.
The Victoria Cross had been born in the bungled campaigns of the Crimea,
perhaps as an atonement for the wastage of life due to the stupidity of the
military high command. It had been tempered in the reconquest of India
and many of the rough edges had been worn off in the process. The basic
criteria for the institutional determination of heroism were established by
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