Beschreibung:

Colonel Keyes at once answered this appeal. Taking with him an officer and ten of his own men, he proceeded to join them, directing his adjutant, Lieutenant Pitcher, to bring up more men as fast as they could be got together. By dawn he had with him some seventy-five men at the foot of the rocks, on whom the enemy poured a continuous and heavy fire, hurling down at the same time huge stones, which caused several severe hurts. As soon as it was light enough to distinguish friend from foe, and his left flank was covered by Colonel Brownlow's corps, who moved out into the ravine below, he divided his force into two parties, gave the order to fix swords, and sounded the charge. The Pathans gave a wild shout of 'Allah! Allah!' (in the name of God) and rushed at the Crag, scrambling like cats from rock to rock, by ways through which but one man could pass at a time, in the face of a hot fire and heavy shower of rocks and stones. This daunted some of the men, and Lieutenant Pitcher who was leading at the time being stunned by a heavy stone, but two officers, Colonel Keyes and another, and about twenty-five men, arrived at the summit where they became engaged in an exciting hand-to-hand conflict. Colonel Keyes was severely wounded, but the place was won. The nature of the struggle may be judged of from the fact that sixty of the enemy's killed and wounded were left on the ground, three standards captured, and the rest of their force was so much discouraged by the action as to retire from that flank altogether.’ Captain G. V. Fosbery, V.C., describes the gallantry of Charles Keyes in the fighting at Craq Picquet during the Umbeyla Campaign, for which the latter was recommended for the V.C. - for a second time The outstanding G.C.B. group awarded to General Sir Charles Keyes, Indian Army, the veteran of at least a dozen action-packed North-West Frontier expeditions in the period 1850-78: twice recommended for the V.C. - and thanked by the Government of India on countless occasions - he will best be remembered for his outstanding leadership of Coke’s Rifles in the savage fighting at Crag Piquet during the Umbeyla operations of 1863 - during which he was severely wounded - and for his leadership of the Jowaki Expedition in 1877-78: he was the father of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Roger Keyes, G.C.B., K.C.V.O., C.M.G., D.S.O., Baron Keyes of Zeebrugge and Dover, and the grandfather of Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Keyes, V.C., M.C., leader of the Commando raid on Rommel’s H.Q. The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, G.C.B. (Military) Knight Grand Cross set of insignia, comprising sash badge, silver-gilt, gold and enamel, and breast star, silver, silver-gilt and enamel, the reverse of the latter engraved, ‘General Sir Charles Patton Keyes’, in its Garrard & Co. case of issue; India General Service 1854-95, 3 clasps, North West Frontier, Umbeyla, Jowaki 1877-8 (Major C. P. Keyes, 1st Punjab Infy.), contained in an old Hunt & Roskell leather case, enamel wreaths slightly chipped in places on the Bath insignia, otherwise very fine and better Together with: Bengal Photographic Society Prize Medal, silver, 50mm., the reverse engraved, ‘Lieut. Col. C. P. Keyes, C.B., for the second best series of landscapes, Decr. 1864’; Simla Fine Art Exhibition Prize Medal 1869, silver, 43mm., the reverse engraved, ‘Society Medal for Photographs, Col. C. P. Keyes, C.B., Mds. S.C.’; London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company’s Medal, for Amateur Photographic Exhibition, bronze, 40mm., the reverse engraved, ‘Maj. Gen Sir Chas Keys (sic)’, these very fine or better (6) £8000-10000 Footnote G.C.B. London Gazette 30 May 1891. Charles Patton Keyes was born in India in 1822, but his mother brought him home to England when his father died in 1825, where he was educated at Harrow and the Royal Naval School at New Cross. At the age of twenty-one, he was given a cadetship in the East India Company and appointed an Ensign in the 30th Madras Infantry, of which he became Adjutan