CHAPTER 1 Mr. Sherlock Holmes
In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London,
and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Army.
Having completed my studies there, I was duly attched to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers
as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could
join it, the seconf Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my crops had
advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy's country. I followed, however,
with many officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar
in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.
The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune
and disaster. I was removed from my bridgade and attached to the berkshires, with whom I served
at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which
shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I sould have fallen into the hands of
murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly,
who threw mw across a packhorse, and succeeded in brining me safely to the British lines.
Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged harships which I had undergone, I was removed,
with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I ralied,
and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a
little upon the veranda, when I was struck down by entric fever, that curse of our Indian
possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I canme to myself and
became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not
a day shoule be lost in sending me back to England. I was despatched, accordingly, in the
troopship Prontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably
ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in
attempting to improve it.