Henry Wood

Henry Wood meeting Nancy Barclay (The Strand Magazine, july 1893)

Fictional character.

In the Sherlock Holmes stories

• When young, Corporal Henry Wood was the smartest man in the 117th Foot (CROO 318).

• When Sergeant Barclay they were both in love with Nancy Devoy, later Nancy Barclay (CROO 321).

• During the Indian Mutiny, Henry Wood volunteered to slip through enemy lines to get word to General Neill for the relief of Bhurtee. Sergeant James Barclay, his rival, gave him a route that turned out to be a trap (CROO 327).

• He was captured, tortured, and held for years in captivity, and left physically deformed ("with my back like a camel and my ribs all awry") and wandered through remote regions before returning to India, making a living with conjuring tricks and a mongoose as a companion, Teddy (CROO 318).

• Late in life, longing to see England again, he returned and settled near soldiers' quarters in Aldershot (CROO 348). By chance, he met Nancy Barclay in Hudson Street, sparking an emotional confrontation between her and James Barclay that night. When Henry Wood burst into the morning-room, James Barclay died instantly — not from violence, but from apoplexy, apparently triggered by shock at seeing him alive (CROO 235).

• Though wronged, Henry Wood said he wouldn't have wanted Nancy Barclay to see him as a cripple and kept his survival a secret for decades (CROO 344).

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