The Maiwand D.C.M. awarded to Battery Sergeant-Major William Paton, “E” Battery, “B” Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery

Distinguished Conduct Medal, V.R. (4198 By. Sgt. Maj. W. Paton, R.H.A.) edge bruisies and contact marks, otherwise better than very fine £3000-3500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Brian Ritchie Collection of H.E.I.C. and British India Medals.

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D.C.M. recommendation submitted to the Queen on 5 March 1881, an award for the battle of Maiwand, 27 July 1880, and retreat to Kandahar, 27-28 July 1880.

For three hours E/B, with the Bombay Grenadiers moving up on its left and Jacob’s Rifles on its right, banged away firing 120 rounds from each gun as the Afghan horde began to envelope Burrows’s front which now curved round in a salient with the Grenadiers at the apex. At about 2 p.m., the roar of battle died down to an ominous rumble as Ayub prepared to launch a general advance. From a nullah opposite Jacob’s Rifles and the 66th Foot on the British right, wave upon wave of wheeling, circling, cavorting tribesmen rose up only to be mown down in hundreds by deadly volleys from the 66th. But ghazis are undeterred by the prospect of death and they kept rushing at the 66th, until, momentarily flinching in the face of the disciplined fire, they changed direction across the front of Jacob’s Rifles and headed straight for E/B’s guns.

Colonel H. S. Anderson (qv) of the Bombay Grenadiers saw them coming and tried to form company squares but at the same moment his regiment was charged on its left and front. Confusion reigned in the Grenadier ranks. The guns of E/B swept the ground before them with a murderous fire of canister shot, but nothing was going to stop the ghazi rush. Captain Slade, who now commanded E/B in place of Blackwood (Ritchie 1-120) who had been wounded, knew that he must get the guns away before they fell into enemy hands. He shouted orders for the guns to limber up and retire, and led out Fowell’s centre division himself, Fowell having been wounded. Lieutenant Osborne passed the orders for the right division to pull out, and dismounting from his horse helped the surviving Gunners to hook-in. But before he could mount again an Afghan shot him dead - but his guns galloped away to safety.

‘Maclaine (qv) either did not hear the order to retire, which is unlikely, or he knew better and still hoped to stem the rush and save the day. He fired his last round of case-shot when the enemy were but twenty yards from his gun-muzzles, and then tried to hook-in and go. It was too late. The ghazis flooded over the position, slashing and thrusting, hacking at the men. Gunners fought back furiously with handspikes and sponge-rods, anything that they could find. A limber came up, but the drivers were dragged struggling from their horses and slaughtered on the ground, while the team galloped masterless and riderless to the rear without its gun. Maclaine, himself slightly wounded, saw that the other gun had been overrun and that there was no hope of recovering it, so decided at least to save the team. But just before it left, the Number One, Sergeant Patrick Mullane, charged back in rage among the ghazis, who recoiled before his fury. He managed to grab a wounded driver from under the very knives of the tribesmen, and to carry him back and put him on the limber. They galloped away to rejoin the battery, leaving the ghazis and Kabuli infantry standing proudly around two 9-pounder guns of the Royal Horse Artillery.’

Captain Beresford-Pierse of the 66th still thought there was a chance of recovering the guns and he turned the rear rank of his left half-company around to fire volleys at the captors. But almost at once numbers of Sepoys from Jacob’s Rifles, under Colonel W. G. Mainwaring (Ritchie 1-126), crowded into his ranks causing further chaos. Following an abortive charge by the cavalry brigade the guns fell back on Mundabad with Nuttall. Maclaine retired gunless to join Slade and the rest of E/B at the place where Blackwood had chosen his first position of the day and here the gun limbers were refilled from the ammunition echelon.

The infantry, meanwhile, were streaming towards Khig. Hearing a bugle sounding the retire from that direction Nuttall decided there was no point in lingering and, having allowed the E/B’s 9-pounders to fire a couple of rounds at the advancing enemy cavalry, he gave orders for the baggage guard and the stragglers of several regiments to pull out and join the general retreat to Kandahar thirty miles away. The smooth-bores were now completely out of ammunition and were sent on ahead with Maclaine’s gunless limbers which were quickly covered with wounded and exhausted officers and men. Maclaine now in charge of Osborne’s division moved on up the ragged column, while Slade kept Fowell’s guns under his own hand.

Nuttall’s Mundabad group struggled out of the village under the fire of Afghan guns and threatened by enemy cavalry. Fortunately the Afghan horse made no attempt to cut the line of retreat and contented itself with attacks on the tail of the column. When they massed for a serious attack Slade unlimbered his two 9-pounders and fired a few rounds, and whenever, the threat did not justify bringing the guns into action the cavalry rear party would charge.

Slade graphically described the scene: ‘All over the wide expanse of desert are to be seen men in twos and threes retreating. Sick men almost naked are astride donkeys, mules, ponies and camels. Horses limp along with ugly wounds. The hordes of irregular horsemen are to be seen among our baggage animals relentlessly cutting down one and all, and looting. Men can hardly speak, the wounded open their mouths and show a dried parched tongue, and with a sad expression convey to your mind but a glimpse of their intense suffering.’

By 9 p.m. the column, tortured by thirst, was strung out along the Kandahar road. In the villages the locals lit fires relaying the signal that there were infidels to be killed and loot to be had without too great an element of personal risk. Soon after 11 o’clock those who had followed the main body came up to the empty Hauz-i-Maudat water tank. A desperate search was made for the source that supplied it and at length a small well was discovered a little distance from the road. When the cry went up that water had been located there was a stampede of the parched troops. But the well was shallow and only one man could drink from it at a time, and anyone not strong enough to hold his place was simply dragged off and his station usurped by another. Many soldiers got something to drink but the unfortunate followers had no rights and few of the wounded had friends strong enough to fetch water for them. And in any case it was soon necessary to push on.

For services in Afghanistan E/B, R.H.A., received the special thanks of the Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief in General Orders, ‘and the following officers, non-commissioned officers, and men were, decorated: Captain Slade, with a Companionship of the Bath; Sergeant Mulane and Gunner Collis, with the Victoria Cross; Sergeant-Major Paton, Quartermaster-Sergeant Munroe, Sergeant Burridge, Corporal Thorogood, Bombadier Payne, Gunner Tighe, Driver Bishop [Ritchie 1-122], and Trumpeter Jones, with the medal for distinguished conduct in the field’.

Battery Sergeant-Major William Paton, the Senior N.C.O. of “E” Battery at the battle of Maiwand, died at Aldershot on 18 May 1904.

Refs: E/B R.H.A. at Maiwand, R.A. Journal, Vol LV, No. 3 (Latham); My God Maiwand, Operations of the South Afghanistan Field Force 1878-80 (Maxwell); The Second Afghan War (Hanna); The Afghan Campaign of 1878-1880 (Shadbolt); Recipients of the Distinguished Conduct Medal 1855-1909 (Abbott).