Lives of the First World War

Drawing from The War Illustrated, 14 August 1915. Caption reads: The wonderful story of how Lieut. J. G. Smyth won the V.C. is one of the most inspiring in the annals of the decoration. To relieve the critical position of the 15th Sikhs, Lieut. Smyth and ten sepoys volunteered to convey two boxes of bombs from the reserve trench. Wriggling painfully over the open ground, that literally hissed with a deluge of fire, they hauled the heavy boxes after them. One by one the sepoys were struck, till only Sepoy Lal Singh remained with the Lieutenant. On and on they crawled over the dead bodies of friend and foe, until they reached their comrades with their precious burden.