Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/180



in the public press, early in the month of January, 1855, conveyed the first intelligence that three officers had been found dead in their tents, from the effect of the fumes of charcoal, and that another was hanging between life and death. That other was Hedley Vicars.

He had returned to his tent chilled and weary, after a wild and snowy night in the trenches. Before throwing himself on his miserable bed of leaves and stones, he told his servant, as it was intensely cold, to make a small fire of charcoal in a dish, and to leave the door of the tent partially open, imagining that this would secure him from any injurious effect.

Providentially he was for out-lying picquet that afternoon. His servant, who had several times vainly endeavoured to awaken him, at last became alarmed, and went for the surgeon; he found him returning from the tent of another officer of the 97th, for whom, alas! his aid had come too late!

Hedley was carried into the open air, and laid on the snow. His men stood round him wringing their hands. Eagerly as brothers, tenderly as mothers, some assisted the medical Officer in chafing with