Colonel Motherspaw's entrance onto the stage of 221B Baker Street was astonishing -- even for a client of my friend, Sherlock Holmes. Regarding that aspect, I remind my reader of the Adventure of the Whirling Dervish and The Case of the Chronic Acrobat. The retired colonel was beside himself with distress and initially unable to sit down or stand still, but only gesticulate, pace, and finally carom about the sitting room like a billiard ball roundly smacked. After spinning off the fireplace, Motherspaw's trajectory propelled him near the carefully observing Holmes. I was prepared to act but was assured by my friend: "Watson, the chair you lift over your head may be lowered to the floor and the cocked service revolver returned to your hip pocket. The Colonel's momentum decreases..."

And with those words he poked the right shoulder of our guest with the stem of his cherry pipe. Motherspaw quickly spun to and sank with a thud into a wicker chair. "Give him brandy, Watson - lots of it!" I withdrew my flask from my coat pocket and tipped it to the lips of our guest."Well done, Holmes!" I ejaculated. "Now, Watson, force him to relinquish the flask which he apparently wishes to finish off."

Within minutes the colonel, becalmed and lucid, began telling a tale that hearkened back in the history of the Empire to Balaklava, the British headquarters from 1854 to 1856 during the Crimean War and site of the bloody battle of Balaklava.

"Mr Holmes I cannot keep the secret any longer for it places my loved ones and me in eminent danger." "You were in part responsible for the countless deaths of British soldiers, were you?" inquired Holmes.

"That would be ghastly, Sir; but no, my deceit influenced literature more than history. I mendaciously reported on the battle and subsequently influenced the writing of that venerated poem,Tennyson's very own: The Charge of the Light Brigade !"

Holmes's face was instantly engulfed in a swirl of pipe smoke. I held my breath in shock. Colonel Motherspaw robustly burped.