Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry 70


The Crimean War D.C.M. awarded to Private John ‘Butcher Jack’ Fahey, 17th Lancers, one of the most colourful characters who rode in the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava


Distinguished Conduct Medal, V.R. (John Fahey. 17th Lancers) suspension neatly re-affixed, edge bruising and contact marks, otherwise nearly very fine


£10,000-£15,000


Provenance: Fleming Collection 1871; J. Lawson Whalley Collection 1877; Gaskell Collection 1911; Needes Collection 1939; Sotheby’s, March 1975 and March 1986; Christies, November 1989.


Although entitled to the Crimea medal with 4 clasps, this D.C.M. has always been sold as a single medal. The medal rolls give his name as Vahey in every case and indicate that his medal was sent to the Mint to be named [officially impressed]. Some sources state that he is entitled to the Indian Mutiny medal and, whilst he did serve in India, his name does not appear on the Indian Mutiny roll.


The footnote in Whalley’s privately printed catalogues states: ‘John Fahey, generally known as the Balaklava butcher. He was engaged cutting up meat for the messes, when the trumpet, sounding the charge, he sprang on the nearest horse (a Russian), made his way, axe in hand and did terrible execution. In Elliot’s picture of the “Charge of the Six Hundred” he is seen well in front of the 5th Dragoons. This Medal came from the Fleming collection.’


D.C.M. Recommendation dated 19 January 1855.


John Fahey (Vahey, Vey, Veigh) enlisted circa 1839 and served as regimental butcher with the 17th Lancers in the Crimea. On the day of the charge, 25 October, 1855, he was slaughtering for the Commissary and joined his Regiment just prior to the charge of the Light Brigade. According to witness accounts he rode down the valley wielding his butcher’s axe, causing death and mayhem amongst the Russians. He afterwards served in India where he often acted as a grave digger. Whilst on the march from Gwalior to Secunderabad, when the Regiment lost 38 men, Fahey died of cholera, 8 March, 1860, and was buried, with six others, in a grave which he himself had prepared.


The following account by ‘Butcher Jack’ appeared in the contemporary magazine entitled “Soldiering and Scribbling” by Archibald Forbes:


‘It was in the autumn of 1854 that the English and French armies were lying lovingly enough together in front of Sebastopol, that nut which it took them such a time to crack. Our cavalry had a camp of their own upon the hillside near Kadikoi, and the old “Death’s- head and Cross-bones”, to which I belonged, were there among the rest, forming part of the Light Brigade. We had a separate commissary of our own, and handy men were told off from the various corps to act as butchers. I never was backward when there was any work to do; and when some fellows were moping helplessly in the tents, or going sick to hospital, every morning I was knocking about as jolly as a sandboy, doing a job here and one there, and always contriving to get more or less tipsy before nightfall. If you ever drop across any of the old Crimean Light Brigade, just you ask them if they remember “Butcher Jack” of the Lancers, and see what the answer will be. I was as well known in the Brigade as old Cardigan himself, and in my rough-and-tumble way got to be quite a popular character. Indeed, had it not been for my inordinate fondness for the drink, I might have got promotion over and over again. But I used to find my way shoulder-high into the guard-tent pretty regularly once a week, and more than once I only saved the skin of my back by being known as a willing, useful fellow when sober.


One “slaughtering day” at the Commissary we had killed, flayed, and cut up our number of beasts, and there was a lot of rum knocking about, for the Commissary Guard knew how to get at the grog, and were free enough with it among the butchers, for the sake of a nice tender steak. Paddy Heffernan, of the Royals, and I, managed to get as drunk as lords before we found time for a wash, and one of the Commissary-officers came across us while in this state, and clapped us in the guard-tent before you could say “knife.” One place was as good as another to us, so we lay there contented enough all night, taking an occasional tot out of a bottle which Paddy managed to smuggle into the tent where we were confined. It was getting on for morning before we dropped off into a heavy, drunken sleep, out of which the Commander-in-Chief himself would have had a tough job to have roused us. We must have had a long snooze, for it was broad daylight before we were wakened by the loud thundering of a tremendous cannonade close by, making the very tent-poles quiver again. I still felt decidedly muzzy, for Commissary rum, as you would know if you ever got tight on it, is hard stuff to get sober off, yet I managed to pull myself together enough to know where I was, and could give a shrewd guess what all the row was. I sat up with the intention of hearing more about it from some of the guard; but to my surprise there was not a soul in the tent but Paddy and myself, and there was not even a sentry upon the door. So we both got up on end and had a stretch, and then walked coolly out of the guard-tent, only to find the camp utterly deserted, not a man being apparently left in it. Turning into our own tent, we sat down, and over a refresher out of the inexhaustible rum bottle, we tried, in a boozy sort of way, to argue out the position.


From where the camp was we could not see what was going on down in the valley by reason of a low ridge which intercepted the view; but we could tell it must be pretty warm work, from the hot and continuous firing which was being kept up. At last says I to Paddy, “Why the devil should we be out of the fun? Let's go up to the sick horse lines, and see if there be anything left there fit to put one leg in front of another.” “Agreed,” cries he, heartily enough; so I got hold of a butcher's axe for a weapon, and he a sword, and, half-drunk as we were, and just in the condition we had left off killing the night before, we started off for the sick horses. But is was no go for a moment here, for there were but two brutes left, and one of them had a leg like a pillar letter-box, while the other was down on his side, and did not look much like rising again. Determined not to be beaten, we started off on foot, and making our way round by the rear of the staff, who were on the edge of the little ridge, we dodged down into the valley just in the rear of the position of the heavy cavalry.


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