It was a long time before I was able to be grateful to him. I should have died-as I had always expected to-and been torn apart by the Fallen’s monstrous claws, if it had not been for my faithful orderly Murray, who flung me across a pack mule and thus ensured that I was part of the retreat and not part of the carnage left behind. Two Afghani Fallen led the charge, and in my attempt to defend my patients, I took a blow that broke my left femur in two places and missed severing my femoral artery by only a fraction of an inch. In May of 1888, a convoy of which I was part was ambushed in a narrow defile near Kandahar. The possibility that did not occur to me was that I would neither die nor see the end of the war. I could go wherever I pleased and be sure of earning a living. And if I did not die and somehow the war with Russia ended, one great truth of the world is that there is always need for doctors, whether you are in England, India, or Brazil. If I died on the plains of Afghanistan in the service of my Queen, I would ask for nothing better. I had my medical degree and a commission in Her Majesty’s Imperial Armed Forces Medical Corps. When I left London in 1878, I intended never to return. THE ANGEL OF LONDON 1 The Exile’s Reluctant Return
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