He raised a new regiment of Mazhabi Sikhs, the 15th Punjab Pioneers, which volunteered for service in China and took part in the advance on Peking in 1860. At the age of 33, after 16 years away from England, having risen from subaltern cadet to captain, having fought in two wars, and having won the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy, he sailed back home from China on the SS Emau to see his family again. When the ship arrived, his family were all waiting at the quayside to welcome the hero home; only to be told that he had died en route from an illness, probably malaria, and had been buried at sea in the East China Sea.