Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The Holmesiad Book 1 Part 1

I had taken my degree as a medical MD,
in London and was attached to the corp,
of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers
who marched to Candahar, with fears
and hopes for honour in the second Afghan War.
But when the Jezail bullets flew, it was the Berkshire's standard true,
I served under 'til I couldn't stand to scurry,
Wounded with a shoulder shot,
I raved within a soldier's cot,
Saved by the courage of my orderly, Murray.

Over his pack horse, a mess of war, he took me to old Peshawar,
And there I recovered enough to stumble ,
But the reaper would not let me go, but with enteric fever
Endemic where his rusty blade, a soldier's life would sever,
Laid me back upon my back to keep humble,
After that, I was shrunk and worn, emanciated and forlorn,
As much use for active combat as the Brontes,
Even an army board could see,
No foe would flee from me,
So I sailed home in the troopship "Orontes."
My health was undermined, but the government divined
A pension of nine months to make it right,
I had neither kith nor kin in England and was therefore free as thought,
To drink away my pension, night by night,
I had spend the larger part, far more freely than I ought,
And as I had a metropolitan mind, I concluded I must find
Someone here to share the costs or rusticate,
But where to find such a fellow,
Left my growing mood not mellow,
As I poked the embers dying in the grate.

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