Cruel to be Kind c1882

Cruel to be Kind.
Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right ‘R Caton Woodville 1882’ by Richard Caton Woodville (1856-1927), 1882.
Associated with North West Frontier of India, possibly 2nd Afghan War (1878-1880).

With no means of transporting his seriously-injured horse back to base and rather than leave it to a slow but certain death, an officer puts the animal quickly out of its misery.