Service
[PB: According to DJA, sailed from Portsmouth on the Culloden, with Major Gore and detachments, 10th of May, 1854.]
Sent to Scutari on the 11th of November and returned to the regiment on the 20th of December 1854.
From Private to Corporal, 10th of October 1855.
He was "Acting Hospital Sergeant" for 63 days from the 23rd of July 1855.
Early in 1985 an original letter sent by him to a friend was donated to the National Army Museum by a Mr. L.S. Allen. In this letter he told of his part in the battle of Balaclava.
Two pages of the manuscript letter, now in the National Army Museum, as reproduced in Alastair Massiet, A Most Desperate Undertaking, p.111.
(Click on image to enlarge)
He first described how he had been sent to Scutari with an attack of cholera but only spent four days there and was back with the regiment on the evening of the 24th of October 1854.
EJB: The muster roll shows him as being sent to Scutari as "sick" on the 11th of October 1854, and is on the muster roll there from the 16th and being returned to the regiment on the 20th, but not when he rejoined, although he is shown as being "struck off" the ration strength for "5 days on board ship and 3 days in the hospital." No other proof of his having participated can be found, but Canon Lummis is of the opinion that, based on this letter, "he can now be considered as having taken part in the Charge"
[RM: Excerpts from this letter appear in the book "Hell Riders" by Terry Brighton (Penguin, 2004).]
"I cleared myself of the saddle and my poor dying horse and succeeded — through a field of blod, and scrambling over dead and dying men and horses — in getting out of gunshot."
"I had only got a few yards when I saw two Russian lancers coming towards me with clenched teeth and staring like savages. The first one made a thrust at me with his lance. It is a heavy weapon and easily struck down, which I did with my sword, thrusting at the same time through the fellow's neck. He fell from his horse with a groan. The other fellow wheeled round his dying comrade and made a thrust at me. I had not the strength to strike down the blow for my sword fell from my grasp, but one of our lancers came to my assistance, thrusting his lance through the fellow's body" [p.177].
(There is a copy of the letter in the "Memoirs" file, to be transcribed.)
[PB: In 2009, Douglas Austin published a transcript of this letter, with detailed notes and information based on info. from the EJBA. This is now in the EJBA as "FIRKIN_E_1477_3LD_LETTER_transcribed_DJ_Austin_WC_vol27n1.doc".]