The True Story of the Seige of Kandahar...Part 1.

...Why on earth would you maintain such an unruly Tramp in service, you quite reasonably ask?

Well our relationship goes back decades..it is a bond that.. unfortunately for myself.. cannot be sundered - despite almost costing me my fortune, sanity, marriage.. and now footwear!

On Patrol with Sturgeon and the Mounted Indian Guard!

I discovered MacPartout while I patrolled the lawless hills of Southern Afghanistan. He was found (not unsurprisingly for a Glaswegian) screaming incoherently while writhing in a dusty ditch.

My first thought was of course for my fine Arab stallion "Sturgeon" who was easily startled by the foul stench of the lower orders...

It was after a few minutes of disgusted perusal that I determined he was speaking some bastardized form of English..

He garbled about being a lost missionary from Edinburgh, a doctor - who  had been kidnapped by the Pashtuns for 5 years, and had escaped by throwing himself from the Tora Bora mountains. He begged for water. The man was clearly insane with thirst, but I only had a flagon of coolie-rum with me so I - with unwilling distaste - bent closer, and poured its contents into his gap-toothed maw.

For the next few weeks as I finished my tour.. I dragged the crazed imbecile behind my horse; of course I tied his hands with stout rope - for the reputation of a Glaswegian Hobo was... questionable - to put it mildly.

Whats-more... he was so brain-fogged and stupefied that he claimed - to despise alcohol and to be in fact a Methodist Preacher of the Temperance Movement!!

Gufawwwww!..What Balderdash... Hah... I know I know! Both Sturgeon and I whinnied with laughter as we galloped across the Afghan plains.. his scrawny body tripping and skipping behind us, occasionally falling flat on his drink-sodden face to the cheers of my Ghurka horsemen!!

After 3 weeks I returned to Kandahar Fort and the continuous ingestion of Coolie-Rum had returned the hopeless alcoholic to something resembling mental coherence. Yes he slurred and staggered ..  but surely that was the natural state of those unfortunate to have been born on the cobbled yard of a Glaswegian dock.

Bessie was the only one who could bear his stench!

We never heard him mention that brain-fevered nonsense about the Edinburgh Temperance Mission again  - thank god!!

...To be continued.