My thanks to Lee Jackson who greatly helped with the research for this book. His excellent website,

I have often reflected upon the strange series of circumstances that led me to my long association with one of the most singular and remarkable figures of my age. If I were of a philosophical frame of mind I might wonder to what extent any one of us is in control of our own destiny, or if indeed we can ever predict the far-reaching consequences of actions which, at the time, may seem entirely trivial.

For example, it was my cousin, Arthur, who recommended me as Assistant Surgeon to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers because he thought it would be a useful experience for me and he could not possibly have foreseen that a month later I would be dispatched to Afghanistan. At that time the conflict which came to be known as the Second Anglo-Afghan War had not even commenced. And what of the Ghazi who, with a single twitch of the finger, sent a bullet hurtling into my shoulder at Maiwand? Nine hundred British and Indian souls died that day and it was doubtless his intention that I would be one of them. But his aim was awry, and although I was badly wounded, I was saved by Jack Murray, my loyal and good-hearted orderly who managed to carry me over two miles of hostile territory and back to British lines.

Murray died at Kandahar in September of that year so would never know that I was invalided home and that I then devoted several months — small tribute to his efforts on my behalf — to a somewhat wasteful existence on the fringes of London society.