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[Assistant] A little section here about just, just fraternization with the prisoners and, and that they could not do that, which is the reason that the reason I said that is because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here are these guys that are trying to kill you. For me this just shows you the-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Predominant spirit of the American serviceman.


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[Assistant] It says here, it was necessary repeatedly to warn the troops against incorrect practice of fraternizing with prisoners and giving them cigarettes which interfered with the proper interrogation. Troops had to be warned not to remove pay books from the prisoners because these books furnished a check to the interrogation officer of the prisoner's statements in regard to his organization and previous services. Just these,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You wouldn't think that after these guys are trying to kill you, that you'd want to give them a cigarette, right? And yet... Respect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Commanding General, Third Division, Sicily. The importance of physical condition cannot be overemphasized. Speed marching proved of great value in developing physical condition, eliminating the unfit and instilling confidence and pride in the individual.


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[Assistant] As a general training objective, all units prepared for landing on defended beaches and an advance inland of about five miles. Speed marching continued, each unit being required to complete five miles in one hour, eight miles in two hours and 20 miles and five hours once a week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This training was largely responsible for the speed with which the assault of this division was executed.


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[Assistant] I mean, what a factor. What a factor the way the warrior kid books, you know, get a kid that doesn't, can't do a pull up, right? And all of a sudden you can do a pull up. You can lift your own weight. You can stand up a little straighter and get your team working out. That's what I'm saying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Writing messages. Reports and messages. Major Robert Wilson, Field Artillery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The axiom of a message can be understood, it will be mis- if a message can be misunderstood, it will be misunderstood, was well proven. The comment here, writing messages during a unit training program is one thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh come on, this is another one of those life ones. A foxhole in time saves lives. Lieutenant Colonel Bogart, Infantry, 5th Army, Italy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only a few of those I saw would dig them prior to that time.


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[Assistant] The code, the evaluation, the protocol. Are you prepared for life emergencies? Are you prepared for emergency situations?


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[Assistant] We as Americans, I totally agree with this. We don't like to worry about anything until it slaps us in the face. In fact, in the SEAL teams, I used to tell my leadership, no one worries about anything until they get slapped in the face with it. Like no one's really concerned about that until you get hit with it and all of a sudden you gotta execute that mission and you don't have the gear that you need.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's get the gear we need. Let's get, do the rehearsals we're supposed to do. Be proactive.


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[Assistant] I guess my wife, when she was growing up, they didn't have batteries. Like, you know, her mom and dad just, batteries weren't on the list.


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[Assistant] This is because you're paranoid? No. Of fire? Or that beep is bothering you?


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[Assistant] Section three mountain operations they go through a big battalion attack here go into a lot of detail. It's another another from another perspective on the battle on the Attu Island and there's the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's some details and maps and charts and you should go check it out online so you can kind of get the full benefit of that. But I just want to get a couple highlights and we're going back to communications here. A rather elaborate system of communications was established to enable the battalion commander to control the fire of supporting weapons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Radio and telephone control was run to all companies in the battalion.


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[Assistant] So, the reason I highlight that, that's a lot of communications.


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[Assistant] Over the ledge, a Jap machine gunner began firing at us. We stayed down until the first excited bursts had gone over. Then we raised up and returned fire. Several Japs had holes near the edge of the ledge we were under and they began to throw grenades over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the hill below is so steep that most of the grenades rolled down and exploded out of range below us. The machine gun was firing again, but several of our men were close enough to, to the ledge to lob grenades over. The machine gun itself was out of grenade range, but some of the Japs near the edge caught hell from the grenades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are you feeling lucky when the people that are throwing grenades at you, they like bounce over your position and don't hurt you? I think that might have been my whole point there. The radio fails. So this is why I get concerned about... About...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Communications, and as a former radio man, it definitely freaks me out. Lieutenant Brown tried again and again to contact battalion headquarters or the artillery, and I'm fast forwarding a little bit, or the artillery with the radio, but the set refused to function. The radio man worked with it and tried again, but failed. The platoon was reorganized and we started up again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're assaulting this hill. We got as high as the ledge once more and had started over the top.


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[Assistant] On the table above when the Jap opened up with machine guns again. We needed artillery and needed it bad. Every time we stuck our noses up, a hail storm of bullets cracked across them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The radio man was trying frantically to contact anybody in the valley below us, but the set remained silent. Several men had crawled around to the left and threw grenades at the Japs near the edge of the table.


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[Assistant] Machine guns remained out of range. Our men were driven back to the cover of the ledge with several wounds. Artillery. If we only had artillery, we could observe the fire. We knew where the guns were. If we could only get some fire, we'd walk over the damn mountains. The radioman was desperate. He tried the set again, but it was silent. In a rage, he threw it down the hill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so there's a bunch of things to think about there. Just, you know, your communications cannot be relied upon. You have to have some kind of backup plan.


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[Assistant] And if you're, if you're expecting you can be able to make communications when, when they're really gonna be need, needed, that is the time they're gonna fail. That is Murphy's Law. If you say, okay Dave, here's what's gonna happen, we have this whole complicated plan, and then when you get to this point, radio me and that's when we'll execute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That radio call has a 4% chance of faking communications. If everything hinges upon one call, the weight of that hinge...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just, just has carm, carmatic, is that a word? A karmic? Karmic impact on that communication system. And it's not gonna work, right? So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their attack gets repulsed. Uhm, he says, he said, we heard the guns in the valley begin firing, the attack was on, we had failed and we felt bad about it, bad, they had the drop on us, they're going through the main attack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Japs were holding the pass on the high ground on both sides of the front two. The ones on the right could fire into the backs of the attackers of the left and vice versa. It was rough going. Lieutenant Clevesy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got me up and we went around the second section to get them started up the hill. The attack was going okay, but it was an awfully tough one. Bullets were flying all over the hillside. Just uphill from the second section was a Jap 37mm. We had watched them fire from that position several days before and we knew there were Japs in that trench.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a little draw until we could grenade the trench above us to clean it out.


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[Assistant] Then they were to come on up. Sergeant Tom Kovick, private first class William Marshall, and I started up with Lieutenant Klevzi.


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[Assistant] He toppled over a little bank and lay still. He was dead. I was just bringing up the rifle as the ja- my rifle as the Jap duck.


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[Assistant] We started back up to check on the mortar possibilities and while we waited and rested, the Jap position was slightly below us and about a hundred yards further into the pass. They were firing almost constantly at the troops we could see moving out in the valley and on the opposite side of the pass.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were quite high up on the side of cold mountain after nearly two hours of lying in the trench and waiting, we heard


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[Assistant] A little hole in the dirt side of the trench a week so that one man could see the whole Jap position below. Then we called mortar and the fun started.


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[Assistant] And told them we were moving in and not to fire. The position was like a big wheel, was a big wheel-like affair with holes all around it and the spokes connecting the trenches with a big center installation in the hub.


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[Assistant] The little so and so's to come up. Man, what positions they have.


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[Assistant] One little fight within a battle, you know, one little tiny fight within a battle and think of all those decisions that got made and all those actions that took place and the mistakes that had to be covered for and the initiative that had to be shown and the bravery and the courage. I mean, it's just,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, they, they go through a bunch of this information, uhm, continuing on. They, there's another group that takes another point and, and again,


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[Assistant] Look, these guys, I can pretty much guarantee are no longer alive, but this is, these are quotes, these are what these guys are saying happened.


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[Assistant] Uhm, you know, things like Lieutenant Wolczak saying, check your bayonets as they get ready to do this assault.


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[Assistant] And there's just, there's, so there's some, some other little battles within fights within battles that they cover. And then it gets into this comment section.


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[Assistant] These accounts bring out some of the characteristics of mountain warfare in which success depends more upon proper adaptation of available means to the terrain than upon their power. So the way you adapt is more important.


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[Assistant] And the initiative and leadership of subordinate commanders are of the highest importance in mountain warfare.


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[Assistant] The actions of small, semi-independent units in seizing or defending heights or in fighting to seize or block passes become of increasing importance.


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[Assistant] So once again, even though this book starts off with the extreme dichotomy of discipline, of following orders, it comes back always to decentralized command.


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[Assistant] An individual initiative by subordinate leaders to make things happen.


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[Assistant] More specifically to ownership and extreme ownership. And that is this. This is what's so beautiful about this.


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[Assistant] You cannot do, you cannot, those mountains are what they are and that's what triggered that thought in my mind was you said, uhm, there's all these variables. But what's interesting is, you're looking at them. You know for days, you understand, you can see it on the map, you can look at it, there's this mountain, and you know what?


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[Assistant] You can't move that mountain. And what you have to do is you have to move yourself. And this is, you know, we talk about this in Jujitsu and someone's across the side on you.


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[Assistant] I can bench press you an inch, you know, maybe two inches. I don't care if you have a 500 pound bench press when you've got a person that's mobile and they're, they're securing you and they've got your chest compressed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can't bench press them off of you. You can move them just enough, then you have to move. It's incumbent upon you. And so, we can't move mountains.


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[Assistant] What we have to do is adapt. What we have to do is figure out how to utilize those things. And what the important thing is, even though we can't move those mountains,


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[Assistant] The person that figures out how to utilize that terrain is the one that's gonna win!


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[Assistant] You utilize the terrain. It's something that I have no control over, but I control how I interact with that mountain, and I know where I need to be, and I know I understand the angles, and I understand what ravine will give me cover, and I understand where it exposes me. Even when he's talking about, hey, this, the way the Japanese were set up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was like, oh, they can hit these guys here in the flank and they can shoot these guys in the back. That's the position that they have. That's a freaking horrible situation to be rolling into. Horrible situation to be rolling into.


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[Assistant] So when you look at things, instead of sitting there and going and saying, I wish the market was different. I wish the competitor would do something different. I wish my employees would act in a different way. These are all things that you can look at and you can wish all day long, just like you can wish that mountain moves, but that mountain's not going anywhere.


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[Assistant] There's a whole bunch of sections here, engineer operations, tanks, infantry notes on jungle operations.


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[Assistant] Dave doesn't like this part of my plan, so I'm gonna attack him on that. Instead of saying, okay, Dave's gonna dig in right there, cool. I'll maneuver around it.


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[Assistant] Right? Bypass. I'm gonna start thinking about that a little bit more often in my daily life. How can I bypass? Maybe not when it comes to working out, because Echo Charles pointed out that might not be the best plan. But.


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[Assistant] If it's things that I don't want to engage in, why am I engaging in them if I don't have to? If I can isolate and bypass and not make it part of my gig, that's fine.


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[Assistant] On many occasions the flank attack preceded the frontal attack coming into Japanese positions from the rear and completely disrupting their defense plans. In almost all cases the maneuver used by units of all sizes from division to squad was the envelopment of one or both flanks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Resistance was made by... Resistance was bypassed, encircled, and reduced later.


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[Assistant] Section on automatic weapons, night operations, security measures, security at night, lines of communication.


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[Assistant] Isn't that crazy? You could be looking at me totally convinced that you went two kilometers, and it turns out when we retrace your steps, you went, whatever, 700 yards, 700 meters.


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[Assistant] Yeah, this last section is very interesting. Evacuation methods. Informal report. Solomon Islands.


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[Assistant] Evacuation of casualties was by hand carry, litter bearers,


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[Assistant] Cable litter slings across jungle gullies, improvised sleds or drags down steep inclines, improvised litter racks on quarter ton jeeps, small boats on mountain streams or along the coast, and finally by field ambulances to clearing stations or hospitals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How's that for a nightmare? When you, when you were in Fallon did you, were you ever a down pilot?


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[Assistant] Did you ever get carried by a seal platoon like, ffff, eight kilometers? No. Okay.


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[Assistant] It's not fun when you're getting carried because you're getting dropped, you're getting slammed, you're getting all over the place.


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[Assistant] And usually we would stick guys with IVs, you know, or like we would try and do some medical training on them as well. But, good lord.


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[Assistant] Cable litters across jungle gullies, improvised sleds, drags down steep, so you're wounded! And what's the method of doing it? Okay, we're gonna drag you down a steep incline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Improvised litter on a quarter ton jeep. Imagine that thing bouncing around. Small boats. Think about a nightmare.


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[Assistant] Evacuation by litter bearers was difficult, tiring, time consuming and involved distances averaging two or three miles and five to six miles in some instances.


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[Assistant] Many more litter bearers had to be utilized than under ordinary conditions. Litter carry in many cases required as high as 16 carriers per patient over almost impassable terrain and can be counted as least efficient. So it takes 16 people to evacuate somebody two miles or three miles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where evacuation by litter was necessary, bearers worked in relays. Eight or even sixteen men accompanying each litter, relieving one another in litter carry and in cutting narrow paths through the dense jungle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sixteen people to move a wounded man. I mean, that's just crazy.


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[Assistant] And obviously it wasn't all of them, but they're saying, Hey, sometimes it was eight. And I'll tell you the reason I was asking you if you'd ever been in that position, number one, you get beat up. But you know, when we would do desert training,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I was running Desert Training Men, those guys would do some down man carries, and I'm sure some of the guys that are hearing me say that now are.


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[Assistant] Smiling with pleasant memories of going eight kilometers through the Imperial Valley desert, carrying, and eventually, like the first, you know, if we had a, uh, a troop that hadn't been through before,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or didn't have any experience? Oh yea. Hey, what's your, you know, what's your casualty evacuation plan? Oh, we're just gonna put two guys on them and we're gonna do, I forget the name, there's some name, there's a couple carries, you know, there's a standard fireman's carry. Oh, we're just gonna fireman's carry. Okay. Cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See how that, see how that works out for you. You can't, I mean it's, it's, you can do it for 100 meters, 200 meters, 300 meters.


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[Assistant] 100 meters you're on night vision you're in the worst freaking terrain rocks shale rocks all over the place and it was great because as we would do these drills and as guys realized what a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] traumatic impact it was when you took casualties and how you had to adjust what you thought you'd be able to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause you can't just freaking Rambo. You can Rambo somebody up. I mean, I've done it like, okay, grab a guy and I'm going to carry him 150 meters, 200 meters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the time you get to that 200 meter mark, like you're, when you get to the spot, you're just falling down with the guy. 300 meters, you're just falling down and you're exhausted and you've lost your weapon and your night vision and his gear is gone. It's a disaster.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Until you figure out, okay, when this happens here's, here's some procedures that we need to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Talks about the improvised jeep ambulances, talks about evacuation by water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Physical fitness, the arduous and fatiguing litter carrying demonstrated the need for physical fitness on the part of medical department personnel, which should correct the impression that physically impaired individuals can be utilized throughout medical department activities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this idea that you can have a bunch of, you know, guy that's injured or hurt and have him working in medical being a stretcher bearer is completely and utterly wrong and that's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, that's a wrap on the highlights that I had from this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I, I don't know. When I think about this whole thing, and we've been referring back to it the whole time, the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So many good lessons, but the, the, the, the key takeaway for me is that whole idea of leader versus inertia. And you know, as soon as I said that today, Dave, I looked at you and I saw you had about a thousand thoughts going through your mind on what that means and how many ways that we can apply that. It's like the world is conspiring against us.


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[Assistant] It's human nature to neglect our duties and I know that sounds crazy and sure there's some outliers out there that are proactive to make things happen, but you've got to assess as a leader that human nature


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is to be lazy and to be careless and you need to definitely look in the mirror.


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[Assistant] And that section where they talk about the hardest job that you have as a leader is getting things done, getting things done by people who know that they're supposed to do them and even in some cases know that those things could cost them their lives. Failure to do things. Failure to take action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So don't allow that. Be on the lookout. How nice is it sometimes when you make the connection between


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something that's there that you've always known was there but you never PID'd it and by that echo I mean positively identified. Like hey, I know now, everyone that's listened to this today now knows that that's a problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And look, we all kinda knew it, right? I mean, I talked about it in Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. Hey, you know, we're walking, wanna move. Like, that's a real thing. I get it. We all kinda get it, but how about a PID on it? And now when it starts happening, either with you, or with your team, or with your family, or with your friends, you can PID it, and then you can address it properly. And you can start with yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How can we do what we're supposed to do? What we know we should do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once you recognize, once you PID those things, man, that blame one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. I had a window closing last night. It was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was like, I can fit in a run right now before dinner. No, just a run. I already worked out. So late night, so my wife was cooking dinner. I had like a 40 minute window. My wife says, Oh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the way, someone's coming over to grab something. I'm like, okay, the run's not happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the windows just, I'm kinda, I'm kinda shrugging it off like, oh well, you know, window closed, you know? But then I PID'd it. And I said, you know what? I ate dinner, which I hate. I ate dinner and then I ran just to punish myself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what's crazy? So as I was running, so now I'm running 20 minutes after I get done eating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think I've run on a full stomach for...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But maybe I can do some pull ups on a four. But yeaah, I was running on a full stomach, I won't do that again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would, next time, cause I wanted to, you know, like eat with my family, you know, like let's eat time. I would have eaten one fork full of food and then not eaten and put it in the, and then go for, hang with the family, go for a run, come back and eat. That would have been the power move.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not the end of the world, but maybe not the best move at that time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can't say that. You can't say that. That's, uh, bad advertising? What's the word? Misadvertising?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, medical claim. So we can't say that, but we can go to war against colds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Little psychological hitter. Little bit of, little bit of go. Jocko Palmer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean I stopped for gas, fuel, but the cool thing was,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, just kinda FYI for your research in the future, two discipline go cans. Just, I had one at about, one at about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe one o'clock in the morning and I had another one at like two or three. That's the, that's the kind of the, that's the, that's, once the sun's coming up, you're good. Once the sun's coming up, rock and roll. But there's, I guess it's maybe around four o'clock in the morning, like you don't see, as soon as you start seeing sun, your body goes, oh cool, we're awake now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Little heavy on squats yesterday, and I have a lot of doms, so I just kicked down some mulk, little extra protein, plus I was in the mood for dessert, even though I didn't have any lunch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We also make, also you can get it at originmain.com if you want to support this podcast, if you want to support America in general, which if you want to support America in general, good on you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For your jujitsu. Get yourself a rash guard for your jujitsu. T-shirts. Jeans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, that's the two models right now. Factory jeans, heavier?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Delta genes lighter, which I know this is a little strange, but you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it wasn't me. But they told me, like, to tell you that they supported. Approved. In Montana by the way, which is surprising.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have a shirt coming that may become sort of like the shirt. I'm not making any predictions. Just for me personally, it might become the shirt that I end up wearing a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we've had Victory for what, 10 years? Oh, 11. Yeah. And so, for a long time, and we've been doing the podcast for 5?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something like that, coming up on five. So that means for five complete years before this podcast, the one free t-shirt I had, which I had a lot of them, actually John Dudley asked me that the other day. We were up in Montana, like the fifth day in a row I posted up in a victory t-shirt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The declassified version, but here's the deal. The difference between a white shirt and a black shirt in the California sun is extreme. Yes, sir. So I like to wear a white shirt. I don't have this one. Echo Charles. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I forget what it was. Because high speed, low drag is definitely a term. Yes. And it has a meaning. I forget the way you used it. I used it


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yea, that's not a serious term. You're not like, that guy is high speed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, I'll send an email out when the new shirt is released. Uh, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. We also have some other podcasts. We have, uh, the new podcast, which is, isn't on its own channel yet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's called The Unraveling. It was called The Thread. We had to change the name. We also have the Grounded Podcast. We also have the Warrior Kid Podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Podcasts on them you can see us except for the first seven because the first seven there was no video involved. It's just voice. Oh, yeah


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even though we did the first podcast on like some kind of live stream, if you remember.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So anyways, or, and then also some of these are, there's some excerpts in there as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's also some things that Echo Charles experiments with random and very over the top special effects.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There will be no excitement other than just watching me crack up at my own jokes at the end of this podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There could be so many good little ex- like extra additions and Easter eggs or whatever you call them in this particular podcast. Talk about flanking people, mortars, 37 millimeters, 88s, grenades. Just think of all the cool stuff that could be flying around in here. It's possible. Blowing up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's available wherever you need MP3s. Also, if you want a visual representation of those types of messages, go to flipsidecanvas.com. My brother Dakota Myers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Makes stuff to hang on your wall. Got a bunch of books, the code.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The evaluation, the protocol, leadership strategy and tactics, field manual, where the warrior kid one, two and three, Mikey and the dragons, discipline equals freedom, field manual.


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[Assistant] And what we do is we solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com for details. If you can't...


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[Assistant] Granular with these things on a regular basis. Where you wanna talk to me?


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[Assistant] You want to interact with me? Go to YefOnline.com. You will, you will ask me questions. Me. On a Zoom call.


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[Assistant] You want to talk to Dave? You want to ask him something? Go to efonline.com. You will interact with him. You will ask him questions. He will give you answers. That's what we do on that channel. There's a bunch of training on that channel. There's a forum on that channel. So go to efon.


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[Assistant] Online.com for that. We also have the muster coming up in Phoenix, Arizona September 16th and 17th.


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[Assistant] And then Dallas, Texas, December 3rd and 4th, check extremers, extreme ownership.com for details. We've, we're going to be doing these looks like with social distancing.


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[Assistant] Firm, we're taking people from the military and placing them into businesses. So if you are a vet looking for work or you are a company looking for leaders to come into your company that understand the principles that we talk about here, go to efoverwatch.com. If you want to help out veterans around the world,


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[Assistant] Service members around the world. Go to americasmightywarriors.org. That is Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee.


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[Assistant] Helping all service people out. You can go there and you can either donate or you can get involved and


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[Assistant] Then you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, Instagram, and on Facebook. Dave is at David Burke. David R. Burke.


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[Assistant] B-E-R-K-E. Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink and of course thanks to all the men and women in uniform who allow us to live our lives the way we want to and that is in glorious freedom.


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[Assistant] And to the police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and border patrol and secret service, thanks to all of you for...


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[Assistant] And it's the same thing with the slings and arrows of life. We get pushed toward inaction and inactivity and indolence.


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[Assistant] And the solution to that is that a determined effort must be exerted.


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[Assistant] And get after it. And until next time, this is Dave and Echo and Jocko.


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[Assistant] From the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department.


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[Assistant] I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London and proceeded to Netley.


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[Assistant] to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army.


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[Assistant] Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time.


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[Assistant] Before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out.


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[Assistant] On landing at Bombay I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes and was already deep in the enemy's country.


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[Assistant] I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself and succeeded in reaching Kandahar in safety.


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[Assistant] Where I found my regiment and at once entered upon my new duties. The campaign brought honours and promotion to many. But for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster.


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[Assistant] There I was struck on the shoulder by a gazelle bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous gazes.


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[Assistant] I did not mean for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a packhorse


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[Assistant] And succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.


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[Assistant] And had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the veranda.


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[Assistant] When I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions.


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[Assistant] And when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated


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[Assistant] That a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troop ship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth Jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government,


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[Assistant] Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London. That great cesspool.


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[Assistant] Into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.


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[Assistant] There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become


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[Assistant] That I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country,


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[Assistant] I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile. On the very day that I had come to this conclusion I was standing at the Criterion Bar when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Barts. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London


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[Assistant] In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he in his turn appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy I asked him to lunch with me at the Hoban, and we started off together in a hansom.


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[Assistant] Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?" he asked in undisguised wonder as we rattled through the crowded London streets. You're as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut. I gave him a short sketch of my adventures


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[Assistant] And had hardly concluded it by the time that we reached our destination. Poor devil," he said commiseratingly, after he had listened to my misfortunes.


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[Assistant] Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.


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[Assistant] That's a strange thing," remarked my companion. You're the second man today who has used that expression to me. And who was the first? I asked.


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[Assistant] A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital.


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[Assistant] He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for his purse.


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[Assistant] By Jove, I cried, if he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense, I'm the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone.


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[Assistant] Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine glass.


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[Assistant] You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet, he said. Perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion.


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[Assistant] Why, what is there against him? Oh, I didn't say there was anything against him. He's a little queer in his ideas, an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough. A medical student, I suppose, said I, no, I have no idea what he intends to go in for.


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[Assistant] I believe he is well up in anatomy and he is a first class chemist.


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[Assistant] But as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric.


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[Assistant] But he has amassed a lot of out of the way knowledge which would astonish his professors.


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[Assistant] Did you never ask him what he was going in for, I ask? No. He is not a man that is easy to draw out.


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[Assistant] Though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him. I should like to meet him, I said.


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[Assistant] If I'm to lodge with anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits.


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[Assistant] I'm not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement.


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[Assistant] I had enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How could I meet this friend of yours?"


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[Assistant] As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Hoburn.


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[Assistant] Stamford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to take as a fellow lodger. You mustn't blame me if you don't get on with him," he said.


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[Assistant] I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in the laboratory.


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[Assistant] You proposed this arrangement, so you must not hold me responsible.


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[Assistant] If we don't get on it will be easy to part company, I answered.


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[Assistant] It seems to me, Stamford, I added, looking hard at my companion, that you have some reason for washing your hands of this matter.


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[Assistant] Is this fellow's temper so formidable, or what is it? Don't be mealy-mouthed about it.


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[Assistant] It is not easy to express the inexpressible, he answered with a laugh. Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes. It approaches to cold-bloodedness.


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[Assistant] I could imagine he's giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry, in order to have an accurate idea of the effects.


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[Assistant] To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness.


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[Assistant] To verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes.


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[Assistant] And yet you say he is not a medical student. No, heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we are, and you must form your own impressions about him. As he spoke we turned down a narrow lane,


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[Assistant] And I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase.


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[Assistant] And made our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall and dun-colored doors,


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[Assistant] Near the farther end, a low arched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.


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[Assistant] This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles.


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[Assistant] Who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work.


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[Assistant] At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. I found it! I found it! he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand.


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[Assistant] I have found a reagent which is precipitated by hemoglobin and by nothing else.


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[Assistant] Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features.


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[Assistant] Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, said Stamford introducing us.


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[Assistant] How are you?" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should have hardly given him credit. You have been in Afghanistan, I perceived.


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[Assistant] How on earth did you know that? I asked in astonishment. Never mind, said he, chuckling to himself. The question now is about hemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine.


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[Assistant] It is interesting chemically, no doubt, I answered, but practically.


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[Assistant] Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years.


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[Assistant] Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains? Come over here now.


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[Assistant] He seized me by the coatsleeve in his eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been working.


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[Assistant] Let us have some fresh blood," he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger and drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette.


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[Assistant] Now, I add this small quantity of blood to a litre of water.


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[Assistant] You perceive that the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million.


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[Assistant] I have no doubt however that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.


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[Assistant] As he spoke he threw into the vessel a few white crystals and then added some drops of a transparent fluid.


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[Assistant] In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour.


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[Assistant] And a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar. Ha-ha! he cried, clapping his hands and looking as delighted as a child with a new toy. What do you think of that? It seems to be a very delicate test, I remarked. Beautiful, beautiful.


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[Assistant] The old guaiacum test was very clumsy and uncertain.


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[Assistant] So is the microscopic examination for blood-core puzzles. The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old.


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[Assistant] Now, this appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.


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[Assistant] Indeed, I murmured. Criminal cases are continually hinging upon one point.


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[Assistant] A man is suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they?


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[Assistant] That is a question which has puzzled many an expert. And why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes test, and there will no longer be any difficulty. His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart and bowed.


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[Assistant] There was the case of von Bischoff at Frankfort last year.


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[Assistant] He would certainly have been hung, had this test been in existence. Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller and Lefebvre of Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it would have been decisive.


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[Assistant] You seem to be a walking calendar of crime, said Stamford with a laugh.


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[Assistant] You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the Police News of the Past.


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[Assistant] Very interesting reading it might be made too, remarked Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger.


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[Assistant] I have to be careful," he continued, turning to me with a smile, for I dabble with poisons a good deal. He held out his hand as he spoke.


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[Assistant] And I noticed that it was mottled over with similar pieces of plaster and discoloured with strong acids.


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[Assistant] We came here on business," said Stamford, sitting down on a high three-legged stool and pushing another one in my direction with his foot.


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[Assistant] My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I'd better bring you together.


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[Assistant] Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his room with me.


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[Assistant] I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street, he said, which would suit us down to the ground.


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[Assistant] You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?


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[Assistant] I always smoke ships myself, I answered. That's good enough. I generally have chemicals about and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you? By no means.


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[Assistant] Let me see. What are my other shortcomings? I get down in the dumps at times and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone and I'll soon be right. What have you to confess now?


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[Assistant] And I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I am well, but those are the principal ones at present.


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[Assistant] Do you include violin playing in your category of rouse?" he asked anxiously. It depends on the player, I answered. A well-played violin is a treat for the gods.


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[Assistant] I badly played one. Oh, that's all right. He cried with a merry laugh.


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[Assistant] I think we may consider the thing as settled. That is, if the rooms are agreeable to you.


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[Assistant] When shall we see them? Call for me here at noon tomorrow, and we'll go together and settle everything," he answered. All right, noon exactly, said I, shaking his hand. We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together towards my hotel.


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[Assistant] By the way," I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon Stamford, how the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan? My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. That's just his little peculiarity, he said.


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[Assistant] A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out. Oh, a mystery, is it? I cried, rubbing my hands. This is very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together.


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[Assistant] The proper study of mankind is man, you know.


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[Assistant] You must study him then, Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye. You'll find him a knotty problem, though.


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[Assistant] I'll wager he learns more about you than you about him. Goodbye. Goodbye, I answered.


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[Assistant] And strolled on to my hotel, considerably interested in my new acquaintance.


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[Assistant] And inspected the rooms at number 221B Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting.


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[Assistant] They consisted of a couple of comfortable bedrooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished and illuminated by two broad windows. So desirable in every way were the apartments.


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[Assistant] And so moderate did the term seem when divided between us, that the bargain was concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into possession.


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[Assistant] That very evening I moved my things round from the hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and portmanteau.


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[Assistant] For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking and laying out our property to the best advantage.


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[Assistant] With that done we gradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our new surroundings. Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his ways and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten at night.


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[Assistant] And he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning.


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[Assistant] Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting rooms, and occasionally in long walks.


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[Assistant] Which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the city.


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[Assistant] Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him, but now and again a reaction would seize him.


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[Assistant] And for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting room.


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[Assistant] Hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night.


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[Assistant] On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes.


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[Assistant] That I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic.


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[Assistant] That not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion. As the weeks went by.


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[Assistant] My interest in him and my curiosity as to his aims in life gradually deepened and increased. His very person and appearance were such.


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[Assistant] As to strike the attention of the most casual observer In height he was rather over six feet.


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[Assistant] Gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision.


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[Assistant] His chin too had the prominence and squareness which marked the man of determination.


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[Assistant] His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch.


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[Assistant] When I confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity.


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[Assistant] And how often I endeavoured to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself.


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[Assistant] Be it remembered how objectless was my life and how little there was to engage my attention.


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[Assistant] My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was exceptionally genial.


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[Assistant] Under these circumstances I eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around my companion


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[Assistant] He had himself, in reply to a question, confirmed Stanford's opinion in that point.


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[Assistant] Neither did he appear to have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in science or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance into the learned world. Yet this zeal for certain studies was remarkable.


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[Assistant] And within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly astounded me. Surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise information unless he had some definite end in view.


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[Assistant] Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.


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[Assistant] His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.


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[Assistant] Of contemporary literature, philosophy, and politics he appeared to know next to nothing.


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[Assistant] He inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however.


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[Assistant] When I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican theory and of the composition of the solar system.


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[Assistant] That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century


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[Assistant] Should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun.


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[Assistant] Appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realise it.


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[Assistant] You appear to be astonished, he said, smiling at my expression of surprise.


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[Assistant] Now that I do know it, I shall do my best to forget it, to forget it.


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[Assistant] You see," he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic.


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[Assistant] And you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.


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[Assistant] A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman


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[Assistant] He's very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain attic.


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[Assistant] That that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent.


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[Assistant] Depend upon it. There comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.


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[Assistant] It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.


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[Assistant] But the solar system, I protested, what the deuce is it to me? he interrupted impatiently. You say that we go round the sun.


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[Assistant] If we went round the moon it would not make a penny worth of difference to me or to my work.


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[Assistant] I was on the point of asking him what that work might be.


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[Assistant] But something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one.


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[Assistant] I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavored to draw my deductions from it.


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[Assistant] He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to him.


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[Assistant] I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down.


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[Assistant] I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran this way.


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[Assistant] Well up in Belladonna, opium and poisons generally.


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[Assistant] Knows nothing of practical gardening. 6. Knowledge of geology


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[Assistant] Practical, but limited, tells at a glance different soils from each other, after walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them. 7. Knowledge of chemistry. Profound. 8. Knowledge of anatomy.


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[Assistant] Accurate, but unsystematic. Nine, knowledge of sensational literature. Immense.


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[Assistant] Eleven is an expert single-stick player, boxer, and swordsman. Twelve has a good practical knowledge of British law.


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[Assistant] When I had got so far in my list I threw it into the fire in despair.


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[Assistant] If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all these accomplishments.


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[Assistant] And discovering a calling which needs them all, I said to myself. I may as well give up the attempted ones.


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[Assistant] I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. These were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments.


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[Assistant] That he could play pieces and difficult pieces I knew well.


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[Assistant] Because at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn's Lieder and other favorites. When left to himself, however,


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[Assistant] He would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognised air.


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[Assistant] Leaning back in his armchair of an evening he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his knee.


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[Assistant] Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy.


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[Assistant] Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful.


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[Assistant] Clearly they reflected the thoughts which possessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts or whether playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy was more than I could determine.


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[Assistant] I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos.


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[Assistant] Had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a slight compensation for the trial upon my patience. During the first week or so we had no callers


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[Assistant] And I had begun to think that my companion was as friendly a man as I was myself. Presently, however, I found that he had many acquaintances.


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[Assistant] And those in the most different classes of society.


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[Assistant] There was one little sallow rat-faced dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade and who came three or four times in a single week.


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[Assistant] One morning a young girl called, fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more.


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[Assistant] The same afternoon brought a grey-headed seedy visitor, looking like a Jew peddler, who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely followed by a slipshod elderly woman.


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[Assistant] On another occasion an old white-haired gentleman had an interview with my companion, and on another a railway porter in his velveteen uniform.


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[Assistant] When any of these nondescript individuals put in an appearance,


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[Assistant] Sherlock Holmes used to beg for the use of the sitting-room, and I would retire to my bedroom.


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[Assistant] He always apologized to me for putting me to this inconvenience. I have to use this room as a place of business, he said, and these people are my clients.


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[Assistant] Again I had an opportunity of asking him a point blank question.


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[Assistant] And yet again my delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me.


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[Assistant] I imagined at the time that he had some strong reason for not alluding to it.


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[Assistant] But he soon dispelled the idea by coming round to the subject of his own accord.


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[Assistant] It was upon the fourth of March, as I have good reason to remember, that I rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock Holmes had not yet finished his breakfast.


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[Assistant] The landlady had become so accustomed to my late habits.


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[Assistant] That my place had not been laid nor my coffee prepared.


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[Assistant] With the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang the bell and gave a curt intimation that I was ready.


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[Assistant] Then I picked up a magazine from the table and attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion munched silently at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the heading, and I naturally began to run my eye through it.


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[Assistant] Its somewhat ambitious title was The Book of Life.


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[Assistant] By an accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way.


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[Assistant] It struck me as being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was close and intense.


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[Assistant] But the deductions appear to me to be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle, or a glance of an eye, to fathom a man's inmost thoughts.


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[Assistant] Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one trained to observation and analysis.


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[Assistant] His conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid.


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[Assistant] So startling would his results appear to the uninitiated?


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[Assistant] A logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara.


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[Assistant] Without having seen or heard of one or the other.


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[Assistant] So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it.


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[Assistant] Like all other arts, the science of deduction and analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study.


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[Assistant] Nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.


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[Assistant] Learn at a glance to distinguish the history of the man and the trade or profession to which he belongs. Pure isle, as such an exercise may seem,


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[Assistant] It sharpens the faculties of observation and teaches one where to look and what to look for.


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[Assistant] By a man's fingernails, by his coat sleeve, by his boot, by his trouser knees, by the colossities of his forefinger and thumb,


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[Assistant] By his expression, by his shirt cuffs, by each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed.


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[Assistant] That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.


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[Assistant] What ineffable twaddle!" I cried, slapping the magazine down on the table. I never read such rubbish in my life. What is it? asked Sherlock Holmes. Why, this article, I said, pointing at it with my egg-spoon as I sat down to my breakfast. I see that you have read it since you have marked it. I don't deny that it is smartly written.


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[Assistant] It irritates me, though. It is evidently the theory of some armchair lounger who evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not practical.


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[Assistant] I should like to see him clapped down in a third-class carriage on the underground and asked to give the trades of all his fellow travellers. I would lay a thousand to one against him.


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[Assistant] The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical, are really extremely practical, so practical, that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese. And how? I asked involuntarily. Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is.


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[Assistant] Here in London we have lots of government detectives and lots of private ones.


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[Assistant] When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent.


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[Assistant] They lay all the evidence before me and I am generally able by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime to set them straight.


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[Assistant] There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends,


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[Assistant] It is odd if you can't unravel the thousand and first.


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[Assistant] Lestrade is a well-known detective. He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case, and that was what brought him here.


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[Assistant] And these other people? They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They are all people who are in trouble about something and want a little enlightening. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my fee.


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[Assistant] But you mean to say, I said, that without leaving your room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of? Although they have seen every detail for themselves, quite so.


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[Assistant] You see, I have a lot of special knowledge which I apply to the problem and which facilitates matters wonderfully. Those rules of deduction laid down in that article which aroused your scorn are invaluable to me in practical work. Observation with me is second nature.


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[Assistant] You appeared to be surprised when I told you on our first meeting that you had come from Afghanistan.


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[Assistant] You were told, no doubt, nothing of the sort. I knew you came from Afghanistan.


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[Assistant] From long habit, the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind that I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps.


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[Assistant] There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran


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[Assistant] Here is a gentleman of a medical type, with the air of a military man, clearly an army doctor then.


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[Assistant] He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair.


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[Assistant] He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a still and unnatural manner.


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[Assistant] Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded clearly in Afghanistan?


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[Assistant] The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from


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[Assistant] It is simple enough as you explain it, I said, smiling, you remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin.


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[Assistant] I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories. Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his


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[Assistant] No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he observed. Now in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friend's thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial.


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[Assistant] He had some analytical genius, no doubt, but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.


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[Assistant] Have you read Gaborio's works? I asked. Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective? Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically.


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[Assistant] Lecoq was a miserable bungler, he said, in an angry voice. He had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so.


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[Assistant] It might be made a textbook for detectives to teach them what to avoid.


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[Assistant] I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired treated in this cavalier style


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[Assistant] I walked over to the window and stood looking out into the busy street. This fellow may be very clever, I said to myself, but he is certainly very conceited.


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[Assistant] There are no crimes and no criminals in these days, he said querulously.


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[Assistant] What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous


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[Assistant] No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done, and what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or at most some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland yard official can see through it.


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[Assistant] I was still annoyed at his bumpsher style of conversation. I thought it best to change the topic.


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[Assistant] I wonder what that fellow is looking for, I ask, pointing to a stalwart, plainly dressed individual who was walking slowly down the other side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers.


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[Assistant] He had a large blue envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a message.


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[Assistant] You mean the retired sergeant of Marines?" said Sherlock Holmes. Bragg and bounce thought I to myself. He knows that I cannot verify his guess.


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[Assistant] The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man whom we were watching caught sight of the number on our door and ran rapidly across the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps ascending the stair.


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[Assistant] For Mr. Sherlock Holmes, he said, stepping into the room and handing my friend the letter.


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[Assistant] Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him.


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[Assistant] He little thought of this when he made that random shot.


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[Assistant] May I ask, my lad, I said in the blandest voice, what your trade may be?


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[Assistant] Commission air, sir," he said gruffly. Uniform away for repairs. And you were? I asked, with a slightly malicious glance at my companion. A sergeant, sir. Royal Marine Light Infantry, sir. No answer? Right, sir.


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[Assistant] He clicked his heels together, raised his hand in a salute, and was gone.


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[Assistant] I confess that I was considerably startled by this fresh proof of the practical nature of my companions theories.


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[Assistant] My respect for his powers of analysis increased wondrously.


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[Assistant] There still remains some lurking suspicion in my mind, however, that the whole thing was a pre-arranged episode, intended to dazzle me.


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[Assistant] The what earthly object he could have in taking me in was past my comprehension. When I looked at him he had finished reading the note.


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[Assistant] Did you swat? said he petulantly. Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines.


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[Assistant] I have no time for trifles," he answered brusquely.


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[Assistant] Then with a smile, excuse my rudeness, you broke the thread of my thoughts, but perhaps it is as well.


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[Assistant] So you actually were not able to see that that man was a Sergeant of Marines? No, indeed. It was easier to know it.


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[Assistant] Than to explain why I know it. If you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty and yet you are quite sure of the fact.


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[Assistant] Even across the street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the fellow's hand. That smacked of the sea.


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[Assistant] He had a military carriage, however, and regulation side whiskers. There we have the


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[Assistant] He was a man with some amount of self-importance and a certain air of command.


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[Assistant] You must have observed the way in which he held his head and swung his cane, a steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the face of him.


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[Assistant] All facts which led me to believe that he had been a sergeant. Wonderful, I ejaculated. Commonplace, said Holmes.


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[Assistant] Though I thought from his expression that he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration.


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[Assistant] I said just now that there were no criminals. It appears that I am wrong. Look at this.


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[Assistant] He threw me over the note which the Commissioner had brought. Why? I cried as I cast my eye over it. This is terrible.


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[Assistant] It does seem to me a little out of the common," he remarked calmly. Would you mind reading it to me aloud? This is the letter which I read to him.


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[Assistant] My dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes, there has been a bad business during the night at 3 Lauriston Gardens off the Brixton Road.


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[Assistant] Our man on the beat saw a light there about two in the morning.


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[Assistant] And as the house was an empty one, suspected that something was amiss.


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[Assistant] He found the door open, and in the front room, which is bare of furniture, discovered the body of a gentleman, well dressed.


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[Assistant] Having cards in his pocket bearing the name of Enoch J. Dreber, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. There had been no robbery, nor is there any evidence as to how the man met his death. There are marks of blood in the room, but there is no wound upon his person.


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[Assistant] We are at a loss as to how he came into the empty house. Indeed the whole affair is a puzzler.


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[Assistant] If you can come round to the house any time before twelve, you will find me there.


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[Assistant] I've left everything in start to quo until I hear from you.


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[Assistant] If you're unable to come, I shall give you fuller details.


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[Assistant] And would assume it a great kindness if you would favour me with your opinion, yours faithfully, Tobias Gregson.


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[Assistant] Grixon is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders, my friend remarked. He and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and energetic, but conventional. Shockingly so. They have their knives into one another too.


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[Assistant] They are as jealous as a pair of professional beauties. There will be some fun over this case if they are both put upon the scent.


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[Assistant] Shall I go and order you a cab? I'm not sure about whether I shall go. I'm the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather. That is when the fit is on me.


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[Assistant] For I can be spry enough at times. Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for. My dear fellow, what does it matter to me? Supposing I unravel the whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will pocket all the credit that comes of being an unofficial personage. But he begs you to help him. Yes, he knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me.


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[Assistant] But he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person. However we may as well go and have a look. I shall work it out on my own hook. I may have a laugh at them if I have nothing else. Come on.


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[Assistant] He hustled on his overcoat and bustled about in a way that showed that an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one. Get your hat, he said.


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[Assistant] You wish me to come? Yes, if you have nothing better to do. A minute later we were both in a hansom, driving furiously to the Brixton Road. It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung over the housetops.


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[Assistant] Looking like the reflection of the mud-coloured streets beneath. My companion was in the best of spirits and prattled away about Cremona fiddles


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[Assistant] And the difference between a Stradivarius and an Amati. As for myself I was silent.


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[Assistant] For the dull weather and the melancholy business upon which we were engaged depressed my spirit.


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[Assistant] You don't seem to give much thought to the matter in hand," I said at last, interrupting Holmes's musical disquisition.


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[Assistant] No data yet, he answered. It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.


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[Assistant] You will have your data soon, I remarked, pointing with my finger. This is the Brixton Road.


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[Assistant] And that is the house, if I am not very much mistaken. So it is. Stop driver, stop.


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[Assistant] We were still a hundred yards or so from it, but he insisted upon our alighting and we finished our journey upon foot.


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[Assistant] Number Three, Lauriston Gardens, wore an ill-omened and military look.


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[Assistant] It was one of four, which stood some little way back from the street, two being occupied and two empty.


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[Assistant] The latter looked out with three tiers of vacant melancholy windows, which were black and dreary.


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[Assistant] Save that here and there a to-let card had developed like a cataract upon the bleared panes.


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[Assistant] A small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly plants separated each of these houses from the street


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[Assistant] And consisting apparently of a mixture of clay and of gravel.


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[Assistant] And against this wall was leaning a stalwart police constable.


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[Assistant] Surrounded by a small knot of loafers who craned their necks and strained their eyes in the vain hope of catching some glimpse of the proceedings within.


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[Assistant] I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have hurried into the house and plunged into a study of the mystery. Nothing appeared to be further from his intention.


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[Assistant] With an air of nonchalance which, under the circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he lounged up and down the pavement.


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[Assistant] Or rather down the fringe of grass which flanked the path, keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground. Twice he stomped, and once I saw him smile.


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[Assistant] And heard him utter an exclamation of satisfaction.


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[Assistant] There were many marks of footsteps upon the wet clay soil, but since the police had been coming and going over it,


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[Assistant] I was unable to see how my companion could hope to learn anything from it


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[Assistant] Still I had had such extraordinary evidence of the quickness of his perceptive faculties.


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[Assistant] That I had no doubt that he could see a great deal which was hidden from me.


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[Assistant] At the door of the house we were met by a tall white-faced flax-haired man with a notebook in his hand.


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[Assistant] Except that, my friend answered, pointing at the pathway.


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[Assistant] If a herd of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess.


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[Assistant] No doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson, before you permitted this.


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[Assistant] I've had so much to do inside the house, the detective said evasively.


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[Assistant] My colleague Mr Lestrade is here. I had relied upon him to look after this.


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[Assistant] Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically.


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[Assistant] With two such men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground,


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[Assistant] There will not be much for a third party to find out," he said. Gregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way.


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[Assistant] I think we have done all that can be done," he answered. It's a queer case, though, and I knew your taste for such things. You did not come here in a cab?" asked Sherlock Holmes. No, sir. Norla Stride? No, sir. Then let us go and look at the room.


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[Assistant] With which in consequent remark he strode on into the house, followed by Gregson, whose features expressed his astonishment.


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[Assistant] A short passage, bareplanked and dusty, led to the kitchen and offices. Two doors opened out of it to the left and to the right. One of these had obviously been closed for many weeks. The other belonged to the dining-room


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[Assistant] Which was the apartment in which the mysterious affair had occurred. Holmes walked in


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[Assistant] Looking all the larger from the absence of all furniture. A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls, but it was blotched in places with mildew.


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[Assistant] And here and there great strips had become detached and hung down, exposing the yellow plaster beneath.


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[Assistant] Opposite the door was a showy fireplace surmounted by a mantelpiece of imitation white marble.


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[Assistant] On one corner of this was stuck the stump of a red wax candle.


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[Assistant] The solitary window was so dirty that the light was hazy and uncertain, giving a dull grey tinge to everything.


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[Assistant] Which was intensified by the thick layer of dust which coated the whole apartment. All these details I observed afterwards.


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[Assistant] At present my attention was centred upon the single grim


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[Assistant] Motionless figure which lay stretched upon the boards.


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[Assistant] With vacant sightless eyes staring up at the discolored ceiling.


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[Assistant] It was that of a man about forty-three or forty-four years of age, middle-sized, broad-shouldered with crisp curling black hair and a short stubbly beard.


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[Assistant] He was dressed in a heavy broad cloth frock coat and waistcoat with light coloured trousers and immaculate collar and cuffs.


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[Assistant] A top hat, well brushed and trim, was placed upon the floor beside him.


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[Assistant] His hands were clenched and his arms thrown abroad.


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[Assistant] While his lower limbs were interlocked as though his death struggle had been a grievous one.


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[Assistant] On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror and, as it seemed to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human features.


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[Assistant] This malignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low forehead, blunt nose, and prognathous


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[Assistant] Gave the dead man a singularly simious and ape-like appearance.


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[Assistant] But never has it appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark, grimy apartment.


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[Assistant] Which looked out upon one of the main arteries of suburban London.


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[Assistant] Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the doorway, and greeted my companion and myself.


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[Assistant] This case will make a stir, sir," he remarked. It beats anything I have seen, and I am no chicken. There is no clue, said Gregson. None at all, chimed in Lestrade.


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[Assistant] Sherlock Holmes approached the body and, kneeling down, examined it intently.


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[Assistant] You are sure that there is no wound? he asked, pointing to numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay all round. Positive, cried both detectives.


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[Assistant] Then of course, this blood belongs to a second individual.


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[Assistant] Presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed.


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[Assistant] It reminds me of the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Janssen in Utrecht in the year 34. Do you remember the case, Gregson? No, sir? Read it up, you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.


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[Assistant] As he spoke his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and everywhere, feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his eyes wore the same faraway expression which I have already remarked upon. So swiftly was the examination made


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[Assistant] That one would hardly have guessed the minuteness with which it was conducted.


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[Assistant] No more than was necessary for the purposes of our examination. You can take him to the mortuary now, he said. There is nothing more to be learned.


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[Assistant] Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand. At his call they entered the room, and the stranger was lifted and carried out.


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[Assistant] As they raised him, a ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor. Lestrade grabbed it up and stared at it with mystified eyes. There's been a woman here, he cried. It's a woman's wedding ring. He held it out as he spoke upon the palm of his hand. We all gathered round him and gazed at it.


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[Assistant] There could be no doubt that the circlet of plain gold had once adorned the finger of a bride. This complicates matters," said Gregson. Heaven knows they were complicated enough before. You're sure it doesn't simplify them? observed Holmes. There's nothing to be learned by staring at it. What did you find in his pockets?


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[Assistant] We have it all here," said Gregson, pointing to a litter of objects upon one of the bottom steps of the stairs.


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[Assistant] Russian leather card case with cards of Enoch J. Drebber of Cleveland, corresponding with the EJD upon the linen. No purse, but loose money to the extent of £7.13. Pocket edition of Boccaccio's Decameron,


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[Assistant] With name of Joseph Stangerson upon the flyleaf. Two letters, one address to E.J. Drebber and one to Joseph Stangerson.


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[Assistant] At what address? American exchange strained to be left till called for. They are both from the Guion Steamship Company and refer to the sailing and air boats from Liverpool.


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[Assistant] It is clear that this unfortunate man was about to return to New York.


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[Assistant] Have you made any inquiries as to this man Stangerson? I did it at once, sir, said Gregson. I've had advertisements sent to all the newspapers, and one of my men has gone to the American Exchange, but he has not returned yet. Have you sent to Cleveland? We telegraphed this morning. How did you word your inquiries?


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[Assistant] We simply detailed the circumstances and said that we should be glad of any information which could help us.


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[Assistant] You did not ask for particulars on any point which appeared to you to be crucial.


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[Assistant] Will you not telegraph again? I have said all I have to say," said Gregson in an offended voice.


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[Assistant] Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself and appeared to be about to make some remark when Lestrade, who'd been in the front room while we were holding this conversation in the hall, reappeared upon the scene.


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[Assistant] Rubbing his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied manner. Mr. Gregson, he said, I have just made a discovery of the highest importance and one which would have been overlooked had I not made a careful examination of the walls. The little man's eyes sparkled as he spoke.


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[Assistant] And he was evidently in a state of suppressed exaltation at having scored a point against his colleague.


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[Assistant] Come here," he said, bustling back into the room.


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[Assistant] The atmosphere of which felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly inmate. Now stand there.


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[Assistant] I have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts.


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[Assistant] In this particular corner of the room a large piece had peeled off leaving a yellow square of coarse plastering.


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[Assistant] Across this bare space there was scrawled in blood-red letters a single word.