Men, Women and Guns by H.C. McNeile — Read

It would be but a small exaggeration to say that in every God-forsaken / hole and corner of the world, where soldiers lived and moved and had / their being, before Nemesis overtook Europe, the name of Spud Trevor of / the Red Hussars was known. From Simla to Singapore, from Khartoum to the / Curragh his name was symbolical of all that a regimental officer should / be. Senior subalterns guiding the erring feet of the young and frivolous / from the tempting paths of night clubs and fair ladies, to the / infinitely better ones of hunting and sport, were apt to quote him. / Adjutants had been known to hold him up as an example to those of their / flock who needed chastening for any of the hundred and one things that / adjutants do not like -- if they have their regiment at heart. And he / deserved it all.

I, who knew him, as well perhaps as anyone; I, who was privileged to / call him friend, and yet in the hour of his greatest need failed him; I, / to whose lot it has fallen to remove the slur from his name, state this / in no half-hearted way. He deserved it, and a thousand times as much / again. He was the type of man beside whom the ordinary English / gentleman -- the so-called white man -- looked dirty-grey in comparison. And / yet there came a day when men who had openly fawned on him left the room / when he came in, when whispers of an unsuspected yellow streak in him / began to circulate, when senior subalterns no longer held him up as a / model. Now he is dead: and it has been left to me to vindicate him. / Perchance by so doing I may wipe out a little of the stain of guilt that / lies so heavy on my heart; perchance I may atone, in some small degree, / for my doubts and suspicions; and, perchance too, the whitest man that / ever lived may of his understanding and knowledge, perfected now in the / Great Silence to which he has gone, accept my tardy reparation, and / forgive. It is only yesterday that the document, which explained / everything, came into my hands. It was sent to me sealed, and with it a / short covering letter from a firm of solicitors stating that their / client was dead -- killed in France -- and that according to his / instructions they were forwarding the enclosed, with the request that I / should make such use of it as I saw fit.