A quick shave and a change of uniform, and then I was on my way again pronto. However, I had but little time to admire the views, for no sooner had I arrived at my allotted quarters when a message came to me from one Colonel Rawlinson, ordering me to report to him at once. I have always had a love of mountains and Simla, perched high on a promontory above cedars and mists, was certainly a place of striking beauty. There were no details of what the mission might be, but since the heat on the plains was by now pretty sweltering I was not averse to a jaunt up to the hills. In the late summer of 1887, when the boredom of garrison duty had become almost unbearable, I received an unexpected summons to Simla. I come now to perhaps the most extraordinary episode of my whole long career in India.
Whoever you may be, whenever you may read this – do not doubt, please, that what is recorded did occur.Įxtract from the memoirs of Colonel Sir William Moorfield, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., With Rifles in the Raj (London,Ī secret mission – ‘Shmashana Kali’ – a mountain journey – the bloody idol – an ominous discovery. Read them in the order in which they have been placed. Otherwise the papers are arranged by myself. Start with Moorfield’s book, at the chapter titled ‘A Perilous Mission’ – I have left three letters where I found them within the pages of the book.
Indeed, only recently did I understand its full extent when a copy of Moorfield’s book was sent to me from Calcutta, together with a bundle of letters and journals. The lawyers you have approached are under instructions to deliver to you a body of papers.
If you are reading this letter, then you will no doubt suspect the danger you are in. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire. ‘Rubbish, Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with walking corpses who can only be held in their grave by stakes driven through their hearts? It’s pure lunacy.’ No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. He lives in London.Īll characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.Īll rights reserved.
His non-fiction writing includes Rubicon, the bestselling Persian Fire and, most recently, Millennium. Tom Holland is the author of Attis, Deliver Us From Evil, The Vampyre, and The Sleeper in the Sands.
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