It was a Bank Holiday, and time for another Sojourn. Making my way to Clapham Junction Station, from here it was an hour’s journey to my first port of call, Basingstoke in Hampshire. From the station it was a twenty-five minute walk to Milestones Museum, a heritage centre that recreates Victorian and 1930s streets and shops. I had visited almost a year before when they had had hosted a Half Term family mystery trail around the Victorian streets - 'Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Emperor's Gold'. A year later, and again for Half Term, they were hosting a similar trail - 'Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Thornycroft Blueprint'. Even better, each entrance ticket lasts for a year, so I was able to re-use the previous year’s one.
The previous year I had to all but beg for a trail booklet (being told that they were meant for children), but this year everyone young and old was being directed to meet a female ‘Mycroft’ downstairs to take part in the trail. Having been given my booklet and a pencil to complete, I walked to the first location, from which a blueprint had been stolen. There were questions at each location to identify more about how the crime was undertaken, which suspects could be discounted by items left at each location, eg. a red thread (the suspects remained the same as the previous year, but the perpetrator of this new crime was different), and a clue as to which location to go to next. There were also puzzles at each location (an addition this year) which allowed the name of the ship on which the perpetrator was fleeing justice to be identified, and additional information boards relating clues to canonical stories. It took me around forty minutes to complete my booklet, with the final puzzle which involved a lamp flashing in Morse Code being more complex than it needed to be, due to it being unclear when the letter started and ended (luckily having five of the six letters indicated the most likely remaining letter, which proved to be correct).
Having identified the perpetrator and ship, I had to go to a ‘Telegraph Office’ where I sent the ship’s call-sign by Morse-tapper, receiving a telegram from Holmes and a sticker once my correct answers had been confirmed.
Making my way back to Basingstoke Station, I had just enough time to grab some lunch from a nearby supermarket before catching a train whose air-conditioning had broken down for a forty-minute trip to Salisbury. From here it was a fifteen minute walk to Choristers Square, just next to the Cathedral, and The Rifles Berkshire and Wiltshire Museum, a public museum for the exhibition to the public, of documents, artefacts and other items connected with The Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire) and its successor regiment, The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry.
The museum includes a section on the Battle of Maiwand, one of the principal battles of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The battle ended in defeat for the British Army and victory for the Afghan followers of Ayub Khan. It was in this battle that Doctor John Watson received his war wound (whether that be in his arm or leg), and was thrown across a packhorse by Murray, his orderly, who succeeded in bringing him safely to the British lines, as outlined in ‘A Study in Scarlet’ [STUD].
“I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand” – Dr John H. Watson [STUD]
However, Watson could not have joined the Fifth Fusiliers at Kandahar, as outlined by him in the opening of STUD, because the regiment was never stationed there. They were part of the Peshawar Valley Field Force employed in the Khyber Pass, the Bazar Valley, Landi Kotal and Jalalabad – all in the northern territories. It is more feasible for him to have joined up with the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment whilst at Bombay, although this would have meant that he did not make it into Afghanistan until over a year later, as they marched into the southern city of Kandahar early in 1880. There was also no ‘Murray’ attached to the 66th, whereas the Fifth Fusiliers did have a Private J. Murray. Hence my attending this museum to mirror my earlier sojourn to the Fusiliers Museum of Northumberland (see here for full write-up).
The entrance hall included a large copy of “Last Stand of the ‘Eleven’ at the Battle of Maiwand” on two banners, along with a quote from William McGonagall’s poem, ‘The Last Berkshire Eleven’.
Giving a donation for entry, I made my way into the museum, and the ‘Battle of Maiwand’ display case which included uniforms, a pocket watch, medals, the regimental mascot Bobbie (also wounded at Maiwand) and even Jezail Afghan matchlock muskets (a bullet from one of these led to Watson being invalided out).
There was also mention of the medical officer for the 66th Regiment, Surgeon-Major Alexander Francis Preston, who was present at Maiwand, who shortly after the action commenced, suffered his own war wound, a bullet passed through his back, fortunately missing the spine. He was then lying on a duli (a covered stretcher) when the native duli-bearers took it up and commenced running off with him as fast as they could go, shouting as they ran along that the Ghazis were on them. The similarities between Preston and Watson are plain to see – both were surgeons with the Berkshires; both were severely wounded, albeit in different parts of the body; and both had to be rescued from the murderous enemy on the battlefield by orderlies, either native or British.
I then went round the rest of the museum, which had a focus on the two World Wars, and ended with displays relating to more recent military action featuring the Berkshires, and spent a wonderful ten minutes in the sunny garden behind. There was also a dress-up section including a Deerstalker, but unfortunately they were all in children's sizes. Purchasing a ‘Royal Berkshires’ lapel pin, I made my way back onto Choristers Close.
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