2: An Unexpected but Welcome Encounter at Boodle’s

I threw the napkin down. I was disturbed and mortified in equal portions. Was Holmes changing? Was his character deepening and darkening? Had I begun to lose my value to him as biographer? Friend even?

The distressing experience of the morning left me unsettled. Was fame going to my co-lodger’s head? I had recently attended a lecture at the National Gallery on the seventeenth century painter Donato Creti. The curator quoted Creti’s friend and biographer Giampietro Zanotti, that Creti’s desire “to surpass everybody, including the masters of the past, utterly destroyed him; and this desire was combined with another, equally intense need for praise and immortality”.

Would I at some point find myself penning similar words about Holmes? Certainly he was no longer dependent on my share of the rent. The rich and powerful on four Continents had showered gold sovereigns and valuable gifts on him. Some years earlier he had returned to Baker Street with an exceptionally fine emerald tie-pin, a gift from a “certain gracious lady” who may have been our much-revered Queen-Empress. Before that there was the jewelled snuff box with gold accents from the King of Bohemia, the grandly named Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein.

I turned to look through the window. The sun had risen to produce a cyan sky dotted with cotton-like cumulus clouds. The cup held out by the organ grinder’s monkey had received all the farthings and ha’pennies on offer and the duo were moving off. Early summer when shoots of green broke out upon the elms was a favoured time to visit the Royal Parks. I decided to leave the disgruntled Holmes entirely to himself for the morning. I would go to the one-legged news-vendor at the Underground station, hand over three pence for a copy of The Times, and circle round to a spot in the Regent’s Park overlooking the nest constructed by a heron wandering up from the Thames with her brood a few weeks before, as reported in The Evening Standard (complete with a photograph of the nestlings in situ).

I put the unopened letter from Matabeleland in my pocket, snatched my coat and bowler from the stand and went quickly down the familiar seventeen steps to the front door. I crossed the road to the Underground at a run between the cabs and buses and bought the newspaper, turned to recross the road and changed my mind. I would compensate for abandoning Mrs. Hudson’s nourishing fare. The elms and the heron’s nest would be postponed in favour of an early but peaceful lunch at ‘The Rag’, the Army & Navy Club on Pall Mall. En route I could drop by Oxford Street for a supply of my preferred cigarettes from Bradley’s the tobacconist.

In the event, so unsettled was I by Holmes’s unnerving attack, I went straight past Oxford Street and was almost at Piccadilly Circus before I noticed the morning cumulus was developing into deep thunderstorm clouds. I had left my umbrella behind in my headlong exit from our lodgings. Rather than try to reach The Rag before my hat and coat received a soaking, I made a short diversion to the nearer line of London clubs on St. James’s Street. The first crack of thunder reverberated just as I came to the first of them, Boodle’s. Normally I would consider the ancient club’s menu well beyond my pocket, but serendipity demanded I take advantage of the inclement weather and recover my equilibrium by tucking into the luscious dessert concoction known worldwide as Boodle’s Orange Fool, a sponge cake base sopping up the topping of fruit-flavoured cream.

Looking back I am struck by how much Kismet has intervened in my life, how much it cuts into the lives of everyone who’s ever lived, and possibly every other form of life in the universe too. Had two events in quick succession not taken place that morning – Holmes’s aggressive response to my chatter leading me to abandon Mrs. Hudson’s breakfast, and a thunderstorm about to catch me without an umbrella – Holmes and I might never have become involved with one of the most dramatic cases of our professional lives together, a case which was soon to play out off the coast of France, on the Channel Island of Guernsey.

***

At Boodle’s the door-keeper took my billycock and velvet-collared coat and I was shown to the dining-room, an opulent space at the heart of the building. The room was abuzz with waiters marching around with a procession of soups, fish, meats, salads, vegetables, puddings, ices, meringues and pastries brought on exquisite china and serving dishes. Seated alone at one of the tables was a familiar face from nearly twenty years ago.

“My heavens!” we exclaimed at the same instant. “If it isn’t Surgeon-Major John H. Watson!” came the shout from my erstwhile comrade-in-arms as he jumped to his feet.

“Late of – in fact nearly very late of the Battle of Maiwand!” Thirty or so faces turned to stare at us.

I called out in return, “If it isn’t the legendary Maiwand Mike, Captain Michael Fenlon, Royal Horse Artillery, who commanded E Battery of B Brigade at the very same battle!”

I swung round to explain to the other diners, “And who, gentlemen, along with my Orderly, saved me from the chop by Ayub Khan’s murderous ghazis!”

The diners, many in military uniform, applauded.

“Come join me, my dear fellow!” came Fenlon’s welcome invitation. On my arrival at the table he announced “By the way I have taken rank, by brevet. I am now Colonel

Michael Fenlon on extended leave!”

“Then Brevet Colonel, join you I shall,” I replied. I seated myself at the table and cast a professional eye over him.

“Extended leave for what purpose?” I asked. “It can’t be on grounds of ill-health. I discern no hypertrophy of the interlobular connective tissues from too much arrack on The Grim. Nor, surely, can it to be to get married again – The Times recorded your second marriage, to Janet Little Wood, daughter of Major-General Robert Blucher Wood and Lady

Constantia Lowther, but no subsequent notice of divorce.”

“No, not a third knot,” he chuckled.

He beckoned a sommelier.

“Khyber Sling?”

“Ideal!” I replied. “What are you doing in London?”

“I’m about to pay a visit to the Kenya Protectorate. Nyeri Township,” he continued. “Pleasingly arranged little place in the Aberdare foothills. Extensive green meadows and gardens. Magnificent view of Mount Kenya. Buying up some land for an old family friend. He’s about to get married and plans to farm in East Africa. Eventually I plan to farm there too.”

“And the old family friend’s name?” I demanded, inquisitively.

“Hugh Cholmondeley, Sired by the 2nd Baron Delamere out of Augusta Emily Seymour. Marrying Lady Florence Anne Cole, Anglo-Irish. I’ll get you an invitation if you wish.”

My low mood was changing to one of deep warmth towards my companion. Fenlon and I had first met when we ran into each other for a last fitting of mess Dress uniforms at Gieves on Old Bond Street, ahead of embarking for India and the dramatic events in Afghanistan. Now to be able to reminisce about life in the Indian Army was a relief.

Conversationally he asked, “What do you miss most about life on the sub-continent?”

I rattled off a list: “Curry suppers, keeping cool beneath the creaking punkahs, Wheelers’ railway station bookstalls selling copies of The Pioneer. If you want more, riding on an elephant, the shrines to the sun-god Surya. Mostly I miss life alongside native Indian regiments, ones we fought with at Maiwand – especially the Sikhs, Gurkhas and Marathas. What I don’t miss are the cholera belts from the Army & Navy catalogue, the spine-pads and belly-bands. The prickly heat, little pimples rising over every inch of my body. One scratch with a fingernail and soon I’d be running around like a madman, tearing my skin to ribbons to try to stop the itching. How about you? You’re no longer there.”

“The light. The sounds. The smells. The North-West Frontier – always on the boil, minor explosions of hostility every year guaranteed, major uprisings every decade or so. My stable of Australian walers. I could take the snakes and cockroaches and mosquitoes when the rains came,” he added, “but not that small white jute-moth. Knock it away with a hand and you’d get a nasty rash.”

A wave of nostalgia swept through me. I too missed the colour and the light and the skirmishes on the North-West Frontier. The company of ressaidars of the British Indian regiments. Even the brain fever bird and the sound of jackals.

Now and then I may have mentioned my involvement in the Battle of Maiwand. The Emir of Afghanistan, Ayub Khan, defeated a British Indian force near Candahar one July day in 1880. An hour into the action the heat had already risen above 120 degrees in the shade – if there had been any shade. Casualties were as great as those at Isandwhlana a few months earlier where Lord Chelmsford recklessly manœuvered our troops into a deadly position against the Zulu Impi. Maiwand was where my short Army career came to an abrupt halt, ended by a bullet from a jezail rifle.

Official records state my orderly Murray saw the bullet strike and managed to pull me out of danger to join the ignominious retreat. So far so correct – Murray did get me to a hospital in Peshawur. But that was far from the whole story. Such was our disarray in the face of Ayub’s insurgents and his Ghazis it became a case of sauve qui peut. Men were lying down and dying, the horses and donkeys and camels dropping all around us.

Murray was as exhausted as I from thirst and heat. He wasn’t able to drag me off the killing ground alone. The two of us would have spent so much time in the open it was impossible either would have come out alive.

That one dreadful scene looms out in my life like some great landmark. The fanatical Ghazis with their Minié-patterned rifles, battle-axes, lances and swords of various Asiatic makes would have rushed down to cut us to pieces unless we had already succumbed to severe dehydration, our water-bottles long drained to the last drop. Even now, after the lapse of so many years, I cannot think of it without a shudder. It was Fenlon who ran to my rescue. He took my shoulders while Murray pulled me along by my feet until they placed me in a fortuitous dhooly, my broken sword still dangling from a wrist. It meant Fenlon had had to expose his back to an endless enfilade from the insurgents’ sharpshooter 32-bore Jacob’s rifles. He took the first opportunity to steer the dhooly to the safety of a large boulder where he performed an admirable feat of bandaging or surely I would have haemorrhaged to death within the quarter-hour.

While I recovered at Army Headquarters Fenlon visited. He wanted to recommend Murray for meritorious action in the face of the enemy. I replied Fenlon himself should also be commended and that I stood immediately ready to do so. He replied, “That would defeat the purpose. If an orderly and an officer are put forward together for the same action, the High Command will award the medal to the officer while thanking Murray with no more than a “Good show, Orderly!”, far from the medal he deserves for gallant and good conduct in the field. I can do without. My chances will come.”

Fenlon’s prediction was correct. Refusing to allow me to mention his own role paved the way for Murray to get the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the most precious souvenir of a commendable life on the North-West Frontier. Without Fenlon, Murray, as a junior rank, would at most have got a Mention in Despatches, just an oak leaf to attach to the Afghanistan Campaign medal all ranks received for being present at the battle.

I swept a hand around Boodle’s grand Dining-room.

“So it’s Boodle’s these days, is it?” I asked. “Quite a cut above the E/B Battery Mess of the Royal Horse Artillery.” Overcome with curiosity, I added, “You must be doing well to afford to live here. Even a brevet colonel’s pay can hardly…”

“Live here!” came the laughing interruption. “More like expenses paid for one night only. At midnight tonight, tide willing, the S.S. Lynx leaves Weymouth Harbour for Guernsey with me aboard.”

“Guernsey?” I exclaimed. “I wouldn’t have thought that was a coaling station on the way to Mombassa and Nyeri!”

Fenlon leaned back with a wry grin and asked, “You remember Brigadier-General George Delves?”

“Delves!” I exclaimed. “Bombay Native Infantry. Commander of the field brigade, the 1st Infantry, at Maiwand! How would you or I ever forget? Why do you ask?”

Delves was a former infantryman who had become quartermaster general to the Bombay Army. At the time he commanded the fight against Ayub Khan at Maiwand, his most recent active service had been the Indian Mutiny a quarter of a century earlier.

“Delves is the reason I’m en route to St. Peter Port.”

Fenlon withdrew a letter from an inner pocket and tossed it across.

“This reached me last March,” he said.

It commenced ‘March 1st, 1898. For the attention of Colonel Fenlon. Dear Colonel, I hope this finds you well. I wonder if you could take a few days off and meet up on the Channel Island of Guernsey this June? I shall book rooms for you at the Old Government House Hotel where I have been spending the season for the past several years, writing what I consider to be the authentic account of the Battle of Maiwand. I want to be sure I have all the details right – loss of weaponry (Martinis and Sniders), camels, men – that sort of thing. Hence this letter. I am undertaking an hour-by-hour recounting of the actions of the 1st Infantry Brigade under my command, with references to the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot, and the 1st Bombay Native Infantry (Grenadiers), the 30th Bombay Native Infantry, and the Bombay Sappers and Miners (No. 2 Company).’

Here the tone changed. ‘I aim to rebut press correspondents who felt themselves competent to criticise the conduct of the campaign without acquainting themselves with the many and varied reasons a commander must always have before deciding any line of action.’

The letter concluded with ‘Will a hundred pounds and all expenses do (including a stop-over night at one of my London clubs)? A week or two should be enough to check for any errors of detail.’

A postscript added: ‘The OGH hotel serves first-class Indian fare in the Curry Room.’

I passed the letter back, looking quizzically at my old comrade. “‘Many and varied reasons’,” I quoted. “It’ll be interesting to hear his recall of events. We lost far too many good officers. Haslet killed. Osborne killed. Roberts killed. Far too many native troops too. Jats, Sikhs, Muslim and Hindu Punjabis, Pathans, Baluchis. Goorkhas. 969 dead, and most quite unnecessarily.”

“They say artillery wins wars,” Fenlon remarked ruefully. “They’re right, but it isn’t always your own. At Maiwand, E Battery took a pasting from the start from Ayub’s heavy guns. I had to leave sixty-seven horses dead or severely wounded on the field, besides three field carriages completely disabled. Poor Osborne was shot dead just as we were limbering up to retire. Meeting you brings it all back.”

He paused before adding, “I’ve asked myself time and again over the past eighteen years, what was Delves’s hurry to engage Ayub’s forces? We knew they outnumbered and outgunned us several times over, and that many of their guns were rifled for greater accuracy. General Roberts was only two weeks away in Cabul with 10,000 well-trained men. We could have taken up defensive positions around Candahar, fending Ayub off until Roberts reached us with a forced march.”

“Even so,” I replied, “on a multitude of other occasions advantageously posted and well officered, British Armies have held up well against far larger native forces than Ayub’s and inflicted defeat on them. Perhaps you’ll find the answer in Guernsey, though more likely not.”

We stared down at our cutlery in reflective silence. Shortly after the battle, for safekeeping, Fenlon had sent me by Reuters code a memorable description of our retreat to Candahar a terrible 45 miles away – ‘Our guns were overwhelmed by the sheer force of the enemy,’ he wrote. ‘The order for a tactical withdrawal should have been given but was not. Finally men just broke away and fled. All over the wide expanse of desert they were to be seen retreating in twos and threes. Sick men, almost naked, sat astride donkeys and mules. Camels escaped their grooms and threw their loads. The bearers dropped their dhoolies and left their burdens to their fate. The guns and carriages became crowded with the wounded suffering the tortures of the damned. Horses limped along with ugly wounds.

Everyone’s hand was against us. Hordes of irregular horsemen charged amongst our baggage animals, relentlessly cutting down our men and looting. Villagers from all sides crept up behind the low mud walls and fired on us. Many a gallant fellow who had battled against the trials of the fight itself fell victim to the jezail as he struggled towards safety and home.’

My mind returned to the talkative and noisy camp of the night before, the moment at dawn the order was given to start our journey to Maiwand: “Stand by your horses!” “Prepare to mount!” “Mount!” The sinuous column winding its way forward like a leviathan monster, a couple of sowars in front at some 200 yards, vedettes on either flank.

Soon we marched along a wide flat valley, the sandy desert floor cut by dry watercourses and covered with flinty stones and scattered scrub. The shimmering haze had already given way to mirages across the baking ground, making it difficult for anyone to see ahead clearly for more than 500 yards. The growing heat of an Afghan summer’s day was already bringing on the most unbearable thirst. Clouds of suffocating dust kicked up from the loose surface of the unmade road by the marching troops filled our every orifice.

At this point the Boodle’s steward arrived with our food. Fenlon picked up his fork.

“Tuck in, Watson. It’s on Delves!”

“In that case, how about a large dollop each of Boodle’s Fool for dessert?” I asked hopefully.

“Good idea!” Fenlon replied. He beckoned back the steward. “Add servings of Boodle’s Fool to the order – two apiece!”

***

The following hour was deeply enjoyable. At Fenlon’s insistence I recounted the past 17 years in some detail, how on my return to England on H.M.S. Orontes I had run into Stamford, my old dresser from medical school, who that same day introduced me to Sherlock Holmes, which led to moving with Holmes into shared permanent quarters at 221B, Baker Street and on to such cases as ‘A Study in Scarlet’ and ‘A Scandal In Bohemia’. Two further cases in particular, ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’ (solved because Holmes noted the curious incident of the dog in the night-time) and ‘The Adventure Of The Norwood Builder’ had become the topic of conversation through the length and breadth of England.

“Not just England!” Fenlon laughed.

In return he regaled me with his Africa plans. “One day,” he enthused, “I plan to own twenty thousand acres on Mount Kenya at a place called Timau and stock it with Molo sheep. I’ll cross Zebu cattle with Aberdeen Angus and spend my spare time shooting anything which breaks down the fences. Rhino especially.”

He turned to glance up at the clock behind us.

“Well, Watson, I shall settle the bill. It’s time for me to pack up and go. It’s been wonderful to meet again. From Guernsey I sail onwards to Le Havre for a ship to Mombassa via the Suez. After that it’s back to the Brigade. It may be some while before we can meet again – unless you come out to Kenya for a bit of rhino hunting. If so, I’ll have a couple of Rigby-Mauser sporters at the ready.”

“Fenlon, old chap,” I said, rising to offer a goodbye handshake, “one word of caution about your get-together with the Brigadier-General. I doubt if Delves would take lightly even to mild criticism from a brevet colonel – and he has friends in very high places. That ‘Bvt’ before your rank can as easily be taken away as awarded, so I simply signal ‘Beware’. Through Holmes I’ve had a great deal to do with people with an exaggerated sense of entitlement – England’s aristocratic families, prime ministers, Continental royalty. If you undermine their amour propre, these people can be dangerous. Once upon a time Holmes made an arch-enemy of a Professor James Moriarty, known to Scotland Yard as the “Napoleon of Crime”, the central organisational figure in a large portion of criminal activity in London. His amour propre had been undermined by Holmes’s unceasing attacks on his activities. Seven years ago Moriarty very nearly succeeded in killing Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. You may well have read about the confrontation.”

“Thank you for the cautionary tale, Watson,” Fenlon replied, laughing. “I shall have to restrain myself! “The Napoleon of Crime!” Yes I remember! I expect like great Caesar, Delves has the dubious gift of the pen, though not the Roman’s gift with the sword, so one should hardly expect a shower of mea culpas!”

He reached forward to shake my hand.

“Don’t worry Watson. I repeat, I am engaged solely to check the statistics – how many 14-pounder BL Armstrongs Ayub Khan had, how many Martini-Henry breechloaders we left behind when we fled for our lives, that sort of thing.”

A watchful young diner in a lieutenant’s uniform saw Fenlon move away from the table. He sprang to his feet. In an exceptional baritone he began to sing a popular Rudyard Kipling poem in sea-shanty style:

“When first under fire an’ you’re wishful to duck,

“Don’t look nor take ‘eed at the man that is struck,

“Be thankful you’re livin’, and trust to your luck

“And march to your front like a soldier.

“Front, front, front like a soldier . . .”

By the time a smiling Fenlon reached the exit, another half dozen or so guests waving napkins had clambered upon their chairs to join in. The remainder of the diners and the stewards chimed in the chorus lines, “When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains... An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.”

His cheeks scarlet, Fenlon gave a sort of half-wave, half-salute to the ‘house’ and beat a retreat. The diners were still clapping and thumping on the tables as I too went to the door where I gave a rather operatic bow and hurried off-stage, like a spear carrier obeying stage directions to “Exit, pursued by a bear”.

***

A steward directed me to Boodle’s reading room. I settled down with the London Times, starting at the Naval and Military Intelligence column. In Germany a Navy bill proposed by Admiral Tirpitz had been ratified. At immense cost 38 battleships were to be built to defend Germany’s two chief ports, one in the Baltic, the other on the North Sea. The Bill was a continuation of the Kaiser’s ominous pattern of competitive military capability. Germany’s navy had never faced us across the North Sea before. We were not ready for him.

I put the newspaper down and turned to the unopened letter I had put in my pocket at breakfast time. It was from Frederick Selous.

‘Dear Dr. Watson,’ it began, ‘you may recall three years ago I invited you to join me in an enterprise in Matabeleland. Your medical and surgical knowledge would be of inestimable value out here. My plans have progressed. I have moved forward to the extent I have obtained the right to raise cattle on some 400,000 acres, though much of it suffers from permanent infestation of the tsetse fly and a rather dangerous malaria. As you will have read, the African king Lo Bengula was deposed and has since died, and the local area is now quiescent. I could therefore offer you employment here, especially valuable to me and the bushmen as my land is separated by some 600 miles of wilderness from the nearest railway station.

If you accept, I will order a wire-wove bungalow to be sent out in sections from England. We could celebrate your arrival by a trip to the Victoria Falls, starting at Gubulawayo and travelling via the Umguza, Insuza, Bembesi river valleys to the Gwayi River. Plenty of shooting on the way – nyala and kudu especially.’

I went to a window to check the weather. The clouds had dispersed. It was time to wend my way home, hoping to find Holmes in a better mood. After nearly twenty years as his chronicler should I consider whether a break would benefit us both? I would – casually – mention the Frederick Selous invitation. I put the Matabeleland letter back in my pocket and folded the newspaper. Carrying my hat and coat I strode out into the sunshine.

A week later our housekeeper Mrs. Hudson came hurrying up the stairs at 221B. She brought a cable marked ‘URGENT’. It was from Guernsey. The message read ‘AM IN GAOL ON A SERIOUS CHARGE (STOP) COME AT ONCE (STOP) FENLON’