Garn! Discussing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with the eldest gel this morning, she having polished off his “The Devil’s Foot” for school, I mentioned that I believed he had invented a kind of mini-sextant device that could be attached to a rifle and used to calculate the angle for delivery of a dropping fire into an enemy trench. I also mentioned that I thought he had tried to sell the British Army on using it to fight against the Boers, but couldn’t drum up any interest.
A look around the intertubes doesn’t seem to confirm my belief. Pondering further, I wonder if I meant Kipling, instead? Churchill, maybe? I’m pretty sure it was one of those Edwardian literary wallahs.
Does this tale sound familiar to any of my fellow port-swillers, or am I just losing my mind?
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