Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air - or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be.

I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship 'Orontes,' 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. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I followed, however, with many other 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. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy's country. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. 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.

Sherlock holmes & a study in scarlet