Arthur told his mam war was coming and he was on a mission to enlist.

He'd written plenty of war heroes, and now he wanted to be one... but Mary Doyle was a woman who knew her own mind.

Oh!

"My own dearest and very naughty son, "how dare you!

"Your very height and breadth will make you a simple and sure target."

That seems a bit harsh.

Arthur's been on his fitness regime for a whole year by this point, and even his mum is saying that he's too big for a bullet to miss.

♪ But buoyed up by patriotism, Arthur applied to the War Office on Pall Mall.

A firm believer in the values of the British Empire, he felt honor bound to fight.

Here's Arthur's poor mum again.

She's getting desperate by this point.

She says, "Listen.

There are hundreds of thousands "who can fight for one who can make a Sherlock Holmes."

There's that name again that Arthur just can't escape.

He must have found this exasperating.

His own mother thinks that his greatest achievement has been his detective.

It's almost like Arthur's willing to risk his life to get away from this, to get away from being haunted by Holmes.

Ultimately, Arthur didn't get to make the choice.

Because of his age, the army rejected him.

He would have to find another way to become the hero of this story... [Ship horn blows] [Cheering] so he boarded a ship and headed to South Africa anyway.

Arthur sometimes seems like a man who is relentlessly in search of a purpose.

Was he a writer, or was he a man of action?

Whenever Sherlock Holmes doesn't have a case on, he sits around, he gets bored, he gets frustrated.

Arthur never has that problem.

Arthur is onwards upwards, looking for the next adventure.

♪ He was also running away from issues in his personal life.

His wife of 15 years Touie was slowly dying of tuberculosis.

She'd been ill for nearly half of their marriage... and Arthur was now developing feelings for a younger woman called Jean Leckie.

Arthur felt like he'd been trapped in Touie's sick room for the last 6 years.

He was really ready to escape.