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In the last Sunday of October 1889 I traveled to Aldershot to pay a visit on Henry Wood, who had first gained my acquaintance during my friend Sherlock Holmes’ investigation of the death of Col. James Barclay, a case I published under the title “The Adventure of the Crooked Man.” At Holmes’ urging (and no doubt generous monetary compensation, as the man was nearly a pauper) Wood had traveled to London and paid me a visit in Baker Street when I had been invalided with a foot injury that had conjured up unhappy memories of my wartime service; I found it immeasurably comforting to converse with a fellow Subcontinental soldier, and had promised to repay the favour once my foot was better.
Now here I was, having made good on that promise. The weather was ghastly, but after luncheon at Wood’s room (the hamper a gift from Mrs. Hudson) we two found a convivial atmosphere in the soldier’s pub near the barracks, the “Musket and Shot,” where we were soon settled with two pints and tongues already loosened by the excellent port that had been Holmes’ contribution to our hamper. Teddy, still in his cage, munched on a boiled egg and some cold beef under the table.
“Ah, Doctor, we’ve been overheard,” Henry Wood said, his hideous grimace of a smile creasing his already-lined face and eyes. “See that lad over there who just came in?”
I cast my eyes where Wood indicated without moving my head. The “lad” was a man of no more than five-and-twenty, of medium height and damp brown hair. His eyes were indeed focused like gimlets on us from his own table, the lamplight glinting off his spectacles. He was dressed in simple shirt and trousers, and still wore his coat indoors. No doubt Henry Wood’s Indian-style garb and turban had attracted his attention.
“No soldier, that lad,” Henry Wood said. “Didn’t walk like one.”
“A journalist, I think,” I said. “Born and raised in India. Just recently come to England, and proudly displaying his new independence from his parents’ household.”
“Ha, you sound just like Mr. Holmes himself!” Wood guffawed.
“Simplicity,” I responded, for my constant exposure to my brilliant friend’s methods had greatly enhanced my own perception. “His face is brown as your own from nearly as many years in India – so judging from his age, he’d have had to have been born there. His visa papers are still visible in his coat pocket, when they would have been put away as valuable documents if he’d been in this country long enough to settle in. The moustache is a newly-grown thing despite his years; mothers often discourage their sons from growing facial hair whilst under their roofs,” and I stroked my own moustache with a reminiscent grin.
“That he’s a journalist?” Wood pressed me.
“The ink spattered on his shirt – and his hands, and the side of his neck, and on his ear - that he tries in vain to hide with his coat.” I smiled. “Newspapers are notorious for having vast quantities of both cheap ink and poorly-made pens, which results in the fellows of the press resembling Dalmatian dogs at the end of their work-day – a state often imperfectly remedied by even the most devout laundress.”
“Ah.” Wood nodded. “If he’s a journalist…”
I concluded, “…then he’s as hungry for stories as we were for the curried fowl and walnut tarts the inestimable Mrs. Hudson packed for our Sunday dinner.”
Our eyes reached accord without a word being exchanged. It was Wood who turned and confronted the young man. “Hi! You seem interested in old soldiers’ gossip. Care to join us?”
The rapidity with which the young man joined us, still carrying his beer, answered that question neatly. Introductions were made all around.
But it was our turn to be flabbergasted – Wood and I - when the young man gave his name.
Wood’s face must have mirrored my own amazement. “You’re not the same chap who wrote those amazing stories for the Lahore Gazette?” the crooked man exclaimed.
The youth smiled and ducked his head a little. “The same, sir. I’ve only touched English soil the week before. I went where there were soldiers, as they have been my bread and butter.”
Serendipity upon serendipity.
Wood grinned – a truly terrifying look on his face. “Oh lad, if you only knew how reading those scraps of stories whenever I found them cheered my heart while I was an exile. Your next beer is on me, I insist!”
“And the second is my round,” I insisted in turn. “We all read your books to rags in Afghanistan.”
The journalist – how young, to have done such writing! – laughed in bewilderment. “But I should be the one buying YOUR rounds, as I could not help overhearing your talk and would love to continue doing so.”
“Then the third is yours, of course,” I said airily.
“Lad, it’s an honour, a plain honour. I will happily tell you how I came to look like this, if I may be permitted to shake your hand.” Henry reached over, and his foot must have jostled the cage beneath the table, for Teddy set up an angry chittering at the disturbance.
“A mongoose? Here?” the man said delightedly, looking under the table; his ability to identify the creature by sound alone cemented the proof that he’d been born and bred in India.
“Teddy, come up and meet the gentleman!” Wood hoisted the cage up so that the little red-eyed beast was before our drinking companion. Teddy continued his angry chitter.
“He’s the spitting image of my own Rikki-tikki when I was a lad, before I was cruelly shipped off to England,” the youth said, smiling wistfully. “He slept with me. Scared every snake and cobra away from our bungalow, did old Rikki. I may have to write about him some day.”
“It’d make a capital tale for children,” I said.
“But you’ve a more interesting one to tell me, surely,” the youth said, turning to me eagerly. “Did I not overhear you saying that you were part of the Battle of Maiwand?" He leaned forward, impossibly young-looking and for all the world like a lad begging for a story at bedtime.
I laughed ruefully. “I'm afraid I must disappoint you.” By this time I had come much closer to reconciling myself to my foul memories of captivity and torment at enemy hands during the retreat, and the memories did not pain me as much as they had even three weeks before; but I was glad for Henry Wood’s gnarled hand on my good shoulder. “My account of that battle is not heroic, nor is it amusing – nor fit for the ears of most of your readers. I did little heroic except survive a terrible rout, and stop one Jezail bullet that might otherwise have slain one of my comrades." I held out my left arm, showing how it did not lift to its full extent and moreover was bent at an odd angle from the shoulder. “Unless you find an account of seasickness and enteric fever spellbinding, I have little but the most ordinary of soldier’s stories to share – and you’ve no lack of those.”
“I’ll make up for it, though,” Wood said. It was clear from his own manner that he too was a good deal more reconciled to his tragic life – no doubt through the aid of his beloved Nancy, the Colonel’s widow, both of whom had been wronged by the same man. I could only hope that my own words brought ease to the man. “Betrayal, captivity, torture, slavery, and exile – and finally God’s own justice upon the evildoer.”
Enthralled, the youth pulled out a notebook and pencil not unlike the ones I used to aid Holmes in his cases. He flipped through pages cramped with scribbled notes. “Ach, this one’s almost full – I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Mark Twain while I was in New York earlier this year, and filled this book. Now that man is an amazing writer.”
“Mark Twain?” I laughed in pure delight even as I rummaged about my own person. “You must tell me all about him! Here, use mine. I write a good deal myself and am never without.”
“I reckoned you for a writer – the ink-spots on your cuff, the indentations on your fingers from the quills,” laughed the young man, and took my nearly-new book, flipping through to find a clean page.
I smiled, happy to wait for this young balladeer whose name was uttered like that of a patron saint among the common English soldiers stationed in India.
But the young man’s hands froze and he gaped at my book, before looking at me with the same amazement.
“Sir?” I asked.
“You – you?” he spluttered. “You are Dr. Watson? The writer of those splendid Sherlock Holmes stories?”
I gaped back in dead silence.
Then it was all too much for all of us – and we three bellowed with laughter at the wonder of it all or a full five minutes.
Wood recovered first, and raised his wry right arm to the apprehensive barman. “Three pots of porter, William – the writer’s conference has commenced!”