Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters

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Dr O’Callaghan came through safe too, by decamping for home. He ‘had led a sedentary life and was not adapted, with all the will in the world, for the trying experience which lay before us,’ said Conan Doyle in Memories and Adventures, but his letters indicate that O’Callaghan had simply funked when the going got tough.

  Conan Doyle treating patients in South Africa

  to Mary Doyle THE LANGMAN HOSPITAL, SOUTH AFRICAN FIELD FORCE, APRIL 20, 1900

  I don’t know where to shoot at you but I may as well take Masongill en route so as to make sure. It is curious how in spite of rows, some privation, and much hard work I feel as completely in the hands of fate in this matter and as certain of the propriety of being here that the idea of being anywhere else never occurs to me. We have been most unfortunate in our two heads, the one thinks of nothing but himself and the other of nothing but whisky, but all the others are real good ones, and so we shall pull through against all odds. But it is most certain that there would have been a complete breakdown if I had not been here, so it is as well that I did not go with the Yeomanry, though as far as danger goes I should think I had the worse job of the two. At the same time I have no fear of infection and have plenty of strength with which to resist disease—in fact against all odds I have been very fit. I have 50 enteric cases to look after and that is about enough to keep a man busy all the while, and the atmosphere and surroundings are pretty fetid but the severe pressure will soon pass away when the big hospitals get started and then we shall shake down all right. O’C goes home and very glad I shall be to see the last of his fat body. I hear from India & indeed from all friends. Keep your eye on the Illustrated London News for their artist has been drawing us.

  The Illustrated London News artist, Mortimer Menpes, left a vivid account of Conan Doyle at work in his 1901 book War Impressions:

  It was difficult to associate him with the author of Sherlock Holmes: [H]e was a doctor pure and simple, an enthusiastic doctor too. ‘You’ll make yourself ill,’ I said, as he came up to me: ‘you’re overworking yourself.’ ‘Yes: I am overworked,’ said he. ‘We are all overworked just now. We have such a tremendous incursion of patients that it is almost impossible to cope with them, and we are bound to work night and day. Sometimes I have to drag myself up to the top of a kopje in order to stir up a little energy to go on with my work.’ But Dr Doyle did not seem to lack energy. I never saw a man throw himself into duty so thoroughly heart-and-soul.

  ‘As he spoke,’ Menpes continued,

  he threw open the door of one of the principal wards, and what I saw baffles description. The only thing I can like it to is a slaughter-house. I have seen dreadful sights in my life; but I have never seen anything quite to equal this—the place was saturated with enteric fever, and patients were swarming in at such a rate that it was impossible to attend them all. Some of the cases were too terrible for words. And here in the midst of all these horrors you would see two or three black-robed Sisters of Mercy going about silently and swiftly, doing work that would make a strong man faint, handling the soldiers as though they were infants, bandaging and dressing and attending to a thousand little details, all in a calm unruffled way, never appearing in a hurry. ‘What superb women!’ I exclaimed involuntarily. Dr Doyle smiled as he watched them. ‘They are angels,’ he said simply.

  ‘Café Enterique, Boulevard des Microbes’ was his address, Conan Doyle joked ruefully. When the epidemic was finally under control they moved on with the army, despite near exhaustion. By now, though, more regular army medical units were arriving and taking responsibility for the troops, and he began to yearn for home again.

  to Mary Doyle THE LANGMAN HOSPITAL, SOUTH AFRICAN FIELD FORCE

  I have sent Touie an account of my last weeks adventures. I had some real good ones. On Wednesday I was the first civilian—and almost the first of any kind into Brandfort. On Saturday I had two hours shell fire which is a good spiritual tonic. But you will find it all written in the account.

  We shall not be sorry to leave the fever-bed—though my own health is so good that I find myself playing football with the zest and activity of a boy. I shall not hurt [unreadable] and there is no denying it. I shall want to see you in London as soon as may be after my return so you will kindly streak down to Morley’s Hotel whenever I give the word.

  Of the justice and the necessity I have not a shadow of a doubt though I had grave doubts before I examined the evidence. Without war South Africa would have gone & South Africa is the keystone of the Empire. As to the difficulties of the future I think that you incline to exaggerate them. You speak of another Ireland, but the point is that in Ireland the Irish are in a large majority, but in the Transvaal the Boers, even before this war, were a minority, and in the future will be considerably outnumbered by British Transvaalers. Besides we will give them all those political rights which they denied to us and so we will conciliate them and give them a Constitutional outlet for their discontent.

  Goodbye, my dearest Mam. Never have any uneasiness about me.

  to Mary Doyle THE LANGMAN HOSPITAL, SOUTH AFRICAN FIELD FORCE, JUNE 23, 1900

  I am just starting for Pretoria, dearest Mam, so here is a last line with my love. I may get the post here before I go and I am sure it will have a letter from you which I am very anxious to see. I think it is more & more certain that I shall get the Briton July 11th. Now that the Boers are giving up their arms so rapidly I cannot think that much work lies before us & my true work now is my history which will explain to some at least of the doubters how righteous is the position of my country. My duty, I think, lies in London rather than here. I get by hospital train as far as Kronstadt, and then I hope to get a truck. The Boers are fooling about on the line but I expect they are gone now. Methuen must, I think, be very incompetent. With all the men at his disposal the line should be as safe as the London & North Western. Goodbye, dearest Mam. There are only two things for which I wish to return to England. One of them is to kiss my dear mother once more. I am quite light headed at the idea of going.

  Capturing Pretoria, the Transvaal’s capital, would not be long delayed now. ‘It seemed to all of us that the campaign was over, and that only cleaning-up remained to be done. I began to consider my own return to Europe, and there were two potent influences which drew me, apart from the fact that the medical pressure no longer existed.’

  One of these ‘potent influences’ was seeing his history of the war finished and before the public before others beat him to it. The second, he

  said, was a general election at home in which he might be a candidate. ‘I could not, however, leave Africa until I had seen Pretoria, so, with some difficulty, I obtained leave and was off on the much-broken and precarious railway on June 22.’

  to Mary Doyle PRETORIA, JUNE 27, 1900

  Here I am. We had a great journey of three days. We were the first up train since the line had been raided. We met the down train with several shot holes in her, so we expected ructions but nothing came. Very picturesque all the way, telegraph posts burned down, stations in ruins, charred heaps where our mails were destroyed, pickets and patrols everywhere. The town here is pretty and pleasant and I am in a comfy hotel. There are many Boers about, I smoked and argued with some of them. They are not bad chaps but easily led astray and very ignorant. There is no doubt now, I think, that I shall be back in London at end of July.

  to Mary Doyle THE LANGMAN HOSPITAL, SOUTH AFRICAN FIELD FORCE, JULY 6, 1900

  Is it not strange to think that this letter will come home in the same ship as oneself. And yet I write it now because I want to talk to you and also because I have a quiet day here today in the old camp and I dont know when I may have an equally quiet one again. And so dear mother I sit in my tent and give my morning to you.

  First of all about my return, the whole hospital will be on its way homewards in a fortnight for the very honourable reason that more than half the effective staff have had enteric and cannot carry on their duties.* Besides there is no longer work for us to do as the
military hospitals are half empty and need no supplementing. Besides at the end of August the 6 months which Mr L promised are up. If I come on ahead it is because I come by mail boat and the others will wait for transport. Pray you acquit me of coming prematurely. I have done all, and rather more than all that I came to do. And no months of my life have been better.

  I have my book done within four chapters of the end, unless the end is unduly prolonged. I may hope to have it nearly done before I reach England. But there is considerable rewriting to be done as new light has been thrown on and fuller knowledge gained of the early action. This, and the thorough correction of proofs, will take at least a month or six weeks during which I must be at or near London. My plans are not absolutely formed yet nor am I sure whether I will not at once recall Touie & the family to Undershaw, since the house has not been let. It seems absurd to pay highly for rooms abroad when that fine house is empty. But it will take a little time to get it into order and it is just possible that Terry may in the meanwhile have let it, so I will postpone that point. But I am very clear that I want you in London at Morley’s Hotel just as soon as you can come, and you and I will have a dear little time all to ourselves in town. There is so much that I have to say to you—and do I not deserve a good time after all that work.

  Your letter I only received yesterday when I broke my journey from Johannesburg to Capetown in order to say goodbye to my pals. I had intended to go on today, but I found that Archie and Sharlieb were away so I determined to wait another day in order to see them. They return this evening. Then tomorrow I go south with the feeling that there is not one thing which I have left undone. I believe that between my history and my work there are few men in South Africa who have worked harder, but I have been cheered by loving words from home—yours as valued as any—and, thank God, I am the better, not the worse, for my experience. What adventures I have had too! The typhoid epidemic, which has been far the most important thing in the campaign, the Vaal River battle, Pretoria, Johannesburg, I have dined in Steyn’s house, and smoked in Kruger’s chair, and seen many wondrous things.

  Conan Doyle sailed for home on the S.S. Briton, and was back in early August.

  * * *

  *‘I am on very friendly terms with [Reginald] Smith [at Smith, Elder & Co.] and must return to him, so don’t be hurt when I do so with my next book,’ Conan Doyle told Richards. ‘The fact is that this book ought to be published by a young married couple and so I give you the refusal of it.’ Reg Smith was probably glad in the end.

  *Arthur Bourchier was an important English actor. (For a while Brother Robert was the working title of Conan Doyle’s dramatization of James Payn’s Halves.) Charles Frohman was America’s leading impresario, and since 1897 had also leased the Duke of York’s Theatre in London for his productions.

  *Conan Doyle had visited the Rodgers of Aberdeen in 1880 on his way to his voyage aboard the S.S. Hope, describing baby Christabel in a letter home as ‘an enormous pair of watery eyes’ and ‘a sort of female octopus with four tentacles (Octopus Dumplingiformis)’.

  *According to Shaw’s biographer Michael Holroyd, the Fabian Socialist made the laughable claim that he had converted Conan Doyle ‘from Christmas-card Pacifism to rampant Jingoism’.

  *Simla, in northern India’s mountains, was the summer capital of the British Raj. Umballa had been an important British Army base since the 1840s. And Conan Doyle was seeing new marital possibilities for Lottie in the British colony there.

  *Conan Doyle and Gillette shared credit, but the former always made clear that the script was the latter’s work. ‘The dramatization was done almost entirely by Mr William Gillette,’ he declared: ‘He took my story and used it, as it seemed to him, to the best effect. I must say I think he was very successful. In fact, I have a very high opinion of his idea for situations. I do not know any actor who has this gift so highly developed.’ (‘Conan Doyle’s Hard Luck as a Playwright’, New York Times, November 19, 1905. The ‘hard luck’ referred to his unproduced dramatization of Brigadier Gerard.)

  *Lyman Abbott was a prominent Protestant clergyman and editor, long associated with Henry Ward Beecher, but more a religious liberal than a Puritan in the American sense of the word.

  *While it apparently felt to Conan Doyle as if they were exiling Lottie, in India she did fall in love and marry a British Army officer, Leslie William Searles Oldham, with whom she would have a daughter, Claire.

  †‘Many of us were, and are, ashamed of the absurd and hysterical outcry in this country over the Dreyfus case. Are there no miscarriages of justice in the Empire?’ he asked two years later in The Great Boer War, his history of the conflict: ‘An expression of opinion was permissible, but the wholesale national abuse has disarmed us from resenting some equally immoderate criticism of our own character and morals.’

  *The reviews were grand. ‘Sherlock Holmes’s triumph on the stage will equal if not fairly surpass his triumph in the circulating libraries,’ said the New York Times.

  †‘I knew Sir Henry Thompson, the famous surgeon, very well, and was frequently honoured by an invitation to his famous octave dinners,’ he said in Memories and Adventures, ‘at which eight carefully chosen male guests [once, the Prince of Wales] were always the company.’

  *‘I had the most encouraging letters from him in 1893 and 1894,’ said Conan Doyle. ‘“O frolic fellow-spookist” was Stevenson’s curious term of personal salutation in one of these, which showed that he shared my interest in psychic research but did not take it very seriously.’ Stevenson recognized Joseph Bell in Sherlock Holmes, he revealed.

  *After the war Conan Doyle had Charles Gibbs as his personal physician.

  *Poems based on the three defeats of ‘Black Week’. ‘Who Carries the Gun’, mentioned in the following paragraph, was a tribute to British soldiers from Songs of Action (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1898), set to music. Its first stanza ran: ‘Who carries the gun? A lad from over the Tweed. / Then let him go, for well we know / He comes of a soldier breed. / So drink together to rock and heather, / Out where the red deer run, / And stand aside for Scotland’s pride—/ The man that carries the gun!’

  *‘No men in the campaign served their country more truly than the officers and men of the medical service,’ he wrote in The Great Boer War, ‘nor can any one who went through the epidemic forget the bravery and unselfishness of those admirable nursing sisters who set the men around them a higher standard of devotion to duty.’

  *‘I fell ill myself,’ Conan Doyle wrote in Memories and Adventures, ‘though it was not serious enough to incapacitate me. I still think that if I had not been inoculated I should at that time have had enteric, and there was surely something insidious in my system, for it was a good ten years before my digestion had recovered its tone.’ Some twenty-two thousand British soldiers died in the Boer War—over fourteen thousand of them from disease.

  9

  Politics and Honours

  (1900-1902)

  ‘Surely you don’t really mean that I should

  take a knighthood—the badge of the provincial mayor.’

  England proved a field of battle too. He had the coming election on his mind, but even before the campaign could get underway, he committed an act of indiscretion that plunged him into family discord. He had gone up to Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, often called ‘the home of cricket’, to see some matches, and Jean Leckie had joined him there. And there he had encountered his sister Connie and brother-in-law E. W. Hornung, neither of whom had any idea about his and Jean’s relationship. Nor, when he explained, did they offer sympathy or understanding.

  to Mary Doyle LONDON, AUGUST 1900

  You have been a very real and present help to us in this matter, my dear Mam. I am by no means proud of my own action throughout, but I cant conceive myself with my temperament acting otherwise and I have done my best under very difficult circumstances. I have had a duty both ways and have tried to compromise to satisfy the claims of both.

 
We have spent this week upon the cricket field and had a very sweet time. Dear girl, it is all more difficult to her than to me but she is as brave as a lioness, though as gentle as a dove.

  William came down on Tuesday & found us together here, so in fear of his thinking evil I told Connie the facts that evening, and gave her leave to say what she liked to Willie about it, afterwards speaking a little to him myself, when I went downstairs, and referring him to her for the details. She was very nice & promised to lunch with us at Lords next day. Willie also seemed nice and said ‘that he was prepared to back my dealings with any woman at sight & without question’. Next day however I had a wire of excuse from Connie both for lunch and dinner (toothache—dentist). I went down about 11, found she had gone to bed, and Willie highly critical and argumentative. Both of them seemed to have completely shifted their view since the night before. I suppose their hearts spoke first and then they were foolish enough to allow their heads to intervene. Willie’s tone was that of an attorney dissecting a case, instead of a brother standing by a brother in need. Among other remarks he said that I attached too much importance to whether the relations were platonic or not—he could not see that that made much difference. I said ‘The difference between guilt and innocence.’ But could you conceive such nonsense. Of course when I saw this carping tone I refused to speak further upon so sacred a matter, and I left the house not angrily but in a serious frame of mind which is more formidable. When have I failed in loyalty to any member of my family? And when before have I appealed to them? For two days I hoped for some letter of explanation, especially from Connie, but none came, and now it is too late. There may be some justification for their action but to me it seems more monstrous and unconceivable every time I think of it. But I am so glad I told them.