Parke joined the British Army Medical Services in February 1881 as a surgeon, first serving in Egypt during the final stages of the ʻUrabi revolt in 1882. As a senior medical officer at a field hospital near Cairo, Parke was responsible for treating battle casualties as well as the deadly cholera epidemic that afflicted 20% of British troops stationed there. In late 1883, Parke returned to Ireland, where he was stationed at Dundalk with the 16th The Queen's Lancers. He arrived in Egypt once again in 1884 as a part of the Nile Expedition sent in relief of General Charles Gordon, who was besieged in Khartoum by Mahdists in neighbouring Sudan. The expedition arrived too late and Gordon was killed; Parke would later negatively recount this experience in an 1892 journal article titled "How General Gordon Was Really Lost." Following the expedition, Parke spent the next few years stationed in Alexandria, where he notably introduced fox hunting to Egypt, becoming master of the Alexandria Hunt Club.