in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment,
and at once entered upon my new duties.

The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for
me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed
from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I
served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on
the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and
grazed the subclavian artery. 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.

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. 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. 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.
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.