Little did I realise as Holmes used that description how true it would be.  After we had driven to London, I did, as Holmes had said, join up with my old service.  I, who had faced the horrors of Maiwand, was ready to face the horrors of a new war.  Or so I thought.  But even I was not ready for the new inhumanities man had devised to practice on his fellow man.

I was too old to serve at the Front, for which I was grateful.  So, I was assigned to one of the hastily organised medical posts which cared for those who had survived the journey home.  I was surrounded by the young, the inexperienced, the injured, and those doctors who themselves were suffering from shell-shock.  Throughout it all, I was the one who fielded all the questions no-one else knew the answer to.  “Ask Dr Watson,” became a standard refrain.

The one fixed point in a changing age.

For those fixed points were becoming less and less.  Mycroft Holmes, whose behaviour for many years had resembled that of a tram, keeping to his lines, had been pushed harder and harder.  There were new demands on his time, new questions which needed new answers, and he was indefatigable in dealing with them.  Until finally he simply died at this desk.

I represented Holmes at the funeral.  I had no idea whether he had even heard of his brother’s death, although, I learnt later, he received notification the day before the funeral.  He would have been unable to attend without destroying the disguise he had spent months creating. 

The one fixed point in a changing age.

Hopkins was wounded in the early part of the third year and sent home.  I don’t know how severally he was injured, but I do know he has been declared no longer fit for active service.  It would be a relief to know he was still able to return to the police force, despite his injuries.  I imagine the physical requirements have had to be reduced in the circumstances, certainly for those above the rank and file.

The one fixed point in a changing age.

Holmes is no more, and this time I do not expect him to return from the grave.  I received a covert message from him a few weeks ago, and a brief announcement in today’s papers brings the confirmation.  His country owes him a great debt, one which may never be publicly acknowledged.

#####

Hopkins and his wife stood before the new gravestone.  Leaning heavily on his wife’s shoulder, Hopkins bent to place his flowers in front of it.

“I think the words you chose are perfect,” Mrs Hopkins said.
 

Dr J H Watson

The one fixed point
in a changing age