than did any other officer, old or young. He had "a special
aptitude for war," says one general. "We used to send him to find out
what new move the Russians were making."

Shortly after his adventure in the caves, Gordon had another narrow
escape. A bullet fired at him from one of the Russian rifle-pits, 180
yards away, passed within an inch of his head. "It passed an inch
above my nut into a bank I was passing," wrote Gordon, who had not
forgotten his school-boy slang. But the only other remark he makes
about his escape in his letter home is, "They (the Russians) are very
good marksmen; their bullet is large and pointed."

Three months later, one of his brothers wrote home--"Charlie has had a
miraculous escape. The day before yesterday he saw the smoke from an
embrasure on his left and heard a shell coming, but did not see it. It
struck the ground five yards in front of him, and burst, not touching
him. If it had not burst, it would have taken his head off."

[Illustration: The shell struck the ground five yards in front of him]

The soldiers at Sebastopol were not long in learning that amongst their
officers there was one slight, wiry young lieutenant of sappers, with
curly hair and keen blue eyes, who was like the man in the fairy tale,
and did not know how to shiver and shake.

One day as Gordon was going the round of the trenches he heard a
corporal and a sapper having hot words. He stopped and asked what the
quarrel was about, and was told that the men were putting fresh gabions
(baskets full of earth behind which they sheltered from the fire of the
enemy's guns) in the battery. The corporal had ordered the sapper to
stand up on a parapet where the fire from the guns would hail upon him,
while he himself, in safety down below, handed the baskets up to him.
In one moment Gordon had jumped up on to the parapet, and ordered the
corporal to stand beside him while the sapper handed up baskets to
them. The Russian bullets pattered around them as they worked, but
they finished their work in safety. When it was done, Gordon turned to
the corporal and said: "Never order a man to do anything that you are
afraid to do yourself."

On 6th June there was a great duel between the guns of the Russians and
those of their besiegers. A stone from a round shot struck Gordon, and
stunned him for some time, and he was reported "Wounded" by the
surgeon, greatly to his disgust. All day and all night, and until four
o'