Fic: The Waking
The man he was kneeling beside drew his last breath, the fear in his eyes fading, replaced with the blank stare of the recently departed. Watson reached out and closed the man’s eyes. Yet another for whom the call to retreat had come too late.
He stood, and as he stood the bullet left the rifle, his straightening motion took his shoulder directly into its path. It tore through his flesh, and with it came the body’s panic, the searing pain, and worst of all, the shock that caused his careful concentration to fail him. He hadn’t known he’d been putting so much energy into not seeing, not hearing the dead, the screams, the hell that he and every man was in, and with that bullet ripping through his shoulder his concentration failed him, and he saw…
And then the second bullet struck his leg and he collapsed.
Young Murray, the orderly who had rushed into war with his eyes closed, certain that anything battle held in store for him couldn’t be worse than what he’d left behind, saw his mentor and friend struck once, twice, and horror gripped his heart. His sensible mind told him that it would be an impossible task to move the man the whole way back across British lines, but he was already running to where Watson had fallen. “Doctor Watson!” he shouted, and his heart skipped a beat when the man pushed himself up with his good arm and turned to him - thank heavens, thank heavens, Murray thought to himself, falling to his knees next to the wounded doctor.
Watson had made it very clear to Murray that, should he wish to be of significant use, he was to learn the basic procedures to treat a wound. The orderly was infinitely thankful for that as he applied the training to his teacher. One compress would not be enough, but it would suffice, to keep them moving.
Watson, having gotten over the initial shock, staggered to his feet, and spared Murray a smile. “Good lad,” he said hoarsely, and Murray, despite the circumstances, felt a small flush of something like pride, a welcome emotion in this fearful place.
It became quite clear, as they stumbled slowly forward, like some clumsy three-legged beast, that Watson was not equipped to move. “You’ll make better time without me,” the Doctor said, finally voicing that which they’d both been thinking.”
“I’m sure I would,” Murray replied, glaring stubbornly ahead. “But we’ll never find out for sure.”
Watson himself had been concentrating again, mostly on putting one foot in front of the other, sparing his injured leg as much as possible while also sparing his orderly. With the blood loss, though, and the pain, it became harder and harder for him to remember what he was meant to focus on, and he began to see once more, he saw the injured and the dead with their staring eyes, he began to hear the screams of the dying, the pleading of the wounded, the ragged breathing of his orderly half carrying him, and he began to understand, to really comprehend the meaning of war, the meaning of death, and the meaning of fear.
“Dear God,” he whispered, as the screams filled his ears. “How does anyone live through true hell?”
Murray gritted his teeth to keep his voice from shaking. “You’ll find out, Doctor,” he said, his too-young face tinged with fear he could not hide. How far had they gone? Barely any distance, and he knew they couldn’t make it as they were when, oh miracle of miracles, a rider less pack horse! “We’ll both find out,” he said, with as much conviction as he could muster. “Stand here a moment!” He rushed after the animal, calming it as hurriedly as he could before leading it back to where he’d left Watson and heaving him onto its back.
For Watson, as he succumbed to the waiting arms of unconsciousness, the screams ringing in his ears… the nightmare had begun.
-
Watson was in a field, a field full of flowers, and every flower was screaming. He bent to the ground, and each flower had a face, and each face was screaming in pain. Each face had two human eyes, and the eyes were dead. He saw an impossibly enormous figure in the field-tall, skeletal, and clad in a black robe. It was holding a watering can. It tipped the can, and blood poured out in a shower of red. The blood became a river of red, and Watson felt pain in his shoulder and saw that his own blood was adding to the river, until it became so deep that it filled his whole world, and he was swimming in it, and as he swam he saw all around him the bodies of soldiers floating to the surface, their dead eyes staring, their dead throats screaming, and the blood drowned the world. And then there was only the screaming, and the waking.
And with the waking came the pain once more, dull pain, and chill, and voices, hands holding him down, someone’s triumphant shout “He’s awake, sir! Sir, his fever’s down!” and a harsh chorus of relieved laughter. “You’re going to be all right, Doctor!” someone said to him, as he slowly came to his senses, “we thought you were a goner, but you’re as stubborn as they come, aren’t you!” Watson deciphered the words slowly, still gasping for air, still gripped by the fear of the screams of the dead, the ones he hadn’t been able to save, the ones he saw so clearly in his feverish nightmares.
-
For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. -A Study in Scarlet, p. 1
-
In a way, it was easier, being ill and wounded amongst the other ill and wounded. At Peshawar, no one expected you to be healed. No one expected you not to run for cover at loud noises. No one expected you not to have a haunted look in your eyes.
-
The field was full of ghosts, now, and he ran, and the bullet tore through his shoulder, he clutched it and he ran, but then the second seared through his leg and he fell, and when he fell he crawled through a river of his own blood, but there was too much and he began again to swim, sobbing, terrified that the bodies would rise to the surface again, as they always did. Suddenly his arms and legs were too heavy to move and he sank, drowning, while the ghosts whirled around him, screaming, and the blood closed in around him, over his head, filling his lungs, drowning him, and then there was only the screaming, and the waking.
Watson gasped and threw himself out of his bed, heedless of the pain that coursed through his body. He was alone in the room, in London. He checked for corpses, and found none. But the dreams would not leave him. He remembered Peshawar, and how awful it had been, surrounded by the dying, the dead. But he’d been amongst comrades, men who had gone through what he’d gone through, and they could be a comfort, in a way, and he’d been a comfort to them, as well. (A young man named Tom Wilson had been struck with the fever, and in his hallucinations he saw the face of his best friend, as it had looked when the jezail punctured his skull; he’d pushed Tom to the ground not seconds before. “Why did you do it?” Tom screamed, over and over again, beating his fists against the walls of his mind. “It was supposed to be me!” When he finally awoke Watson was there, and he’d sat with poor Tom as the young soldier sobbed, and he’d made sure the lad was alive the next morning, and the morning after that, until eventually Tom Wilson sat by another comrade’s bed, determined now to live for both himself and the friend he’d lost at Maiwand.) More than anything, it meant that they didn’t have to be alone. But now, back in the real world, he was on his own.
He remembered talking with young Murray about the war, how men without a place in the world went to war hoping to find one - they’d both gone looking, though neither of them had been entirely conscious of their motives, but when they got there, they’d learned the truth of the matter, and there was nothing left to do but grit their teeth and bear it. Young Murray, too young for war, running from something, though he hadn’t told Watson what it was; who had cried one night, in great heaving sobs, when he’d thought no one could hear. Young Murray, who had saved his life, and Watson did not even know if he was alive.
(As Watson sat in London, young Murray lay in a sick bed, having just contracted the fever himself. He was dreaming vividly and horribly; the mouth of hell opened behind him and he ran, the demons pointed their talons at him and whispered that they knew, they knew everything, worthless, unnatural, you belong to us, it’s no wonder no one wanted you.
And there was an oasis, full of pure, clear water, the relief that washed over him, water, water, and standing in the water was Watson, stripped to his waist, the water glistening on his skin, his unmarred shoulder, he was whole, Watson was healed and in no pain! And Watson, the only man who had not just tolerated him but been kind, been kind to him, Watson looked into his eyes and smiled, smiled a carefree smile that reflected none of the terror of the war, and held out his welcoming hand, but oh, there were the shots, and Watson’s serene expression turned to horror as the bullet tore through his shoulder, his leg, and Murray screamed as the mouth of hell opened behind the oasis and swallowed it whole)
Watson hoped the lad was all right, alive, hoped he’d find a place for himself once the nightmare released him. He hoped he himself had the strength to find a home in a vast city of strangers.
It was the middle of the night, but he could not bring himself to go back to sleep. Instead he decided to slip out of the hotel, back onto the streets of London, and find what distraction was available to him. He’d resolved to bet no more of his money this month, but he could not, could not face another night alone with his thoughts. Reluctantly, he left his memories of his fellow survivors behind him. It would do him no good to dwell.
-
“I should like to meet him,” I said. “If I am to lodge with anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence…” -A Study in Scarlet, p. 2
-
Any man familiar with his moods, his energy, or his line of work would have marked Mr. Sherlock Holmes as the single worst fellow lodger for a man recently returned from Afghanistan. But somehow, for Watson, it worked out splendidly, better than he could have imagined. In Sherlock Holmes he found not just a fellow lodger, but a man of considerable interest, a source of constant learning, and eventually, a friend. His experiences with Holmes also revealed to him a facet of his own personality of which he’d been previously unaware: His thoughts were infinitely easier to deal with when put down on paper. It was only after he recorded the events he’d titled “A Study in Scarlet” that he made this discovery, but once made it was not forgotten, and he was rarely without some notebook about his person. And life, slowly but surely, became easier to live.
-
It was the night of July 27th.
The dead were piled high, in grotesque mountains of rotting limbs. Between the mountains ran the rivers of blood. Watson could not move, because his limbs were tied to the mountains. The ghosts of every dead man rose out of the bodies, their empty eyes staring at him. Each ghost opened its mouth and screamed, an unearthly wail, and Watson screamed to drown out their screaming, but he could not force the sound from his ears. The enormous skeletal figure in the black robes rose above him, and the mountains grew with him, until they were piled too high and the bodies began to fall, tumbling down towards him, until he was buried in them, and the ghosts chased their bodies down the slope, and Watson was trapped under the pile of corpses, and everything went black, and then there was only the screaming, and the waking.
Watson bolted upright in his bed, gasping for air. He put a hand to his face and felt tears upon his cheek. He still dreamed of terror most every night, but tonight, the night of the anniversary of that fateful battle, his dreams had overwhelmed him. He wished he could banish them, he wished they would leave him in peace, for once.
Downstairs, Holmes heard a muffled groan and the strangled sound of a man gasping for air while trying to remain quiet. He wondered if there was anything to do for the man, imprisoned by his memories, then shook his head irritably, dismissing the emotional response and returning to the problem before him.
-
Years passed. Watson grew stronger, became more adventurous, developed a close friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and eventually found a wife and settled into private practice. His dreams were plagued less and less by the nightmares of his memories, but always, on the anniversary of the fateful battle of Maiwand, his memories returned to haunt him. He never spoke to Holmes about his experiences, and barely even told Mary about them, for he did not like to dwell on them, and preferred to keep them buried. He found that his continued association with Holmes, whose adventures were battles in different sort of war, was of some help; one would think that the danger and constant risk of being shot at would do nothing for Watson’s nerves, but it quenched his thirst for adventure, and reminded him of how lucky he was in what he had, and as he was in pursuit of some evildoer, using wits instead of weapons, Maiwand could not be further from his mind. But for the single anniversary, he could almost forget.
-
…that event which has created a void in my life which the lapse of two years has done little to fill. -The Final Problem
-
It was the night of July 27th.
The field was marshy, soggy, damp, and the water was blood. Watson ran, though it pained his leg, ran between the bodies and the bloody pools. Reflected in the pools were the eyes of the dead, and in the air rang the familiar screams of the wounded and dying, pleading for help, crying in pain, but he could not help them. Behind the voices rang the roar of thundering water. Watson ran, and stopped short as he turned a corner around a cliff of corpses and saw two men struggling on the brink of a chasm, as behind them a tremendous waterfall of blood shouted its endless watery cries. Watson saw Holmes, and ran as fast as he could, he couldn’t let Holmes fall into that chasm full of blood, and the corpses of hundreds of dead men, he would not die too, he couldn’t, but as he ran he watched the men fall, and he dropped to his knees, screaming his remorse and frustration to the skies.
A hacking cough sounded in sudden silence, and he turned and saw the soldier lying next to him, coughing up blood. Only it wasn’t a soldier, it was his Mary, his wife, and her eyes were pleading with him to help her. Her coughs were drowned by the sudden resumed thundering of the falls, and the sound of the falls was made of the screams of the dead, and it was too much, Watson buried his face in his hands, sobbing in helplessness, and then there was only the screaming, and the waking.
Watson sat bolt upright, his chest heaving, desperately trying to get a grip on what was real. He was in his house, in London, Maiwand was long gone, and Holmes, dear God it was still painful after all this time, Holmes was gone too…
His blood froze as the sound of coughing echoed back to him from his dream, far too real to be a memory. He looked around him and realized he’d fallen asleep in a chair at his dying wife’s bedside. The white of her bed sheets was spattered with red.
-
…Once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of London so plentifully presents. -The Empty House
-
It was the night of July 27th, and Sherlock Holmes, who had come to know his friend and colleague’s habits as well as he knew his own (even those habits Watson did not wish to keep, such as his yearly night of restless sleep and terror-filled dreams), decided to make a change.
Watson ran through a field of ghosts. The pools were not liquid, they were made of sound, and the sound was the sound of screaming men, dying, in pain, delirious with fever and fatigue and the horrors of battle. Watson could still hear the sound of the falls, in the midst of the screams, forever thundering in the back of his mind. He came to a forest, and each tree was a corpse, and each leaf was a drop of blood, and as he ran the trees shed their leaves and he was covered, dripping with sticky red liquid. The face of his wife floated before his eyes, and he cried out, wanting her away from the terrible scene, but he looked closer and saw that her eyes were like the eyes of the dead that made the trees. Her mouth fell open, and blood poured out in a waterfall, and at the base of the waterfall floated the corpses he’d come to dread, and suddenly he was swimming once more in the pool of blood, and as his tears fell to mingle with the red liquid he shouted to the sky, and the corpses around him raised their voices with him, until there was only the screaming, and the waking.
Watson woke suddenly, as he had exactly one year before, and one year before that, in a routine that he was long since accustomed to. Tonight, though, as he gasped for breath, something was different. And then he heard music, a favorite of his, played upon a violin.
He threw on his dressing gown and crept downstairs, wondering what Holmes was doing up at so ungodly an hour; he had no case, and so should have been abed at a more regular time. He pushed open the door to the sitting room and saw Holmes standing by the window, playing to the rain. He looked up as Watson entered and nodded towards the doctor’s customary armchair, not even pausing in his music until the piece was complete.
Watson applauded quietly, smiling for the first time on that date for as long as he could remember. “Beautiful, old friend, as usual, but have you chosen the hour at which to grace us with a performance entirely prudently?”
Holmes chuckled as he set his violin down. “Mrs. Hudson is away on a visit, and I’m sure I was not playing so loud as to bother the neighbors.” He sat opposite Watson in his customary place with his back to the window. “As it happened I found I simply could not sleep at all tonight. So I gave up on that endeavor and came in here to make tea, and indulge in a little music.”
Watson furrowed his brow. “You made tea, Holmes?”
Holmes became suddenly engrossed in the business of lighting his pipe, and muttered what sounded like “something very like tea, yes.”
The rain lashed at the windows. “I take it you could not sleep either, Watson?”
“Not tonight, no.” Watson’s face clouded. “Not a good night for sleep.”
“Are the ghosts of Maiwand still troubling you, old fellow?”
Watson was too proud to admit this to any other man, but he knew there was no point in keeping secrets from Holmes, even if he had wanted to. He nodded, once, his eyes dark with memories.
Holmes, unskilled in affairs emotional, said the only thing he could think to say, which happened to also be exactly the right thing to say. “Would you like to tell me about it?”
Watson was surprised at the question, but even more surprised at the answer. “I would,” he said, the novelty of the idea plain in his voice, “if you would care to listen.”
Holmes fixed him with is peculiar gaze and nodded.
And so Watson began to talk. He told Holmes of his choice to join the army, simply for want of other prospects. He talked a bit about his training, and told some stories of the men he worked with. He told the stories of their deaths on July 27th. He talked at length of the retreat, the typhoid fever, and of the hardships and despair which accompanied both. He even told Holmes about his dreams, and it was only through his long association with the detective that Watson could tell how the imagery unsettled his friend, for Holmes gave very little indication.
By the time he was done talking light had begun to filter in through the window, the rain having passed earlier in the dark hours of the morning. Watson’s narrative drew to a halt, and he realized with some embarrassment that he’d been talking uninterrupted for several hours. He sat back, watching Holmes for his reaction.
Holmes’ eyes were dark too, now, as he tried to comprehend everything his friend had been through, and found he could not fathom not how Watson survived, but how he still had such a firm belief in the goodness of mankind, how he managed to remain so good a man, a better man than so many of those who would never see a battlefield. “My dear Watson,” he began, and then stopped, as he did not know what to follow with.
Watson smiled. He understood. “It is rather a lot to take in at once, isn’t it? But I’m sure many other men have gone through worse than I.”
Holmes only nodded. He wished he had some response, but as a result of his long friendship with Watson he’d understood the pain behind the stories, and there was an emotion he was not prepared for lurking in the caverns of his heart.
Watson was looking wistfully out the window. “It’s better now, of course,” he said softly. “Nightmares maybe once or twice a year-it never ends, you know, not really, but it does get better.” He sighed. “I wish I could have found out what happened to Murray. I owe him my life, after all, and I never even got to thank him properly.
Holmes sat up. “Good heavens, Watson, and you never thought to ask me?”
Watson’s eyes widened slightly, and he flushed, because he hadn’t. “It’s hardly your sort of search, Holmes. Nothing extraordinary or gruesome about it, I’m afraid,” he added with a twinkle in his eye.
Holmes snorted. “And do you really think I would not use my rather extensive resources to help a friend? My dear Watson, if you would like me to look up the man who was your orderly, I shall, without a second thought.” He surprised himself with his exclamation, not that he was making the gesture, but that every word of it was true.
Watson stared at him thoughtfully. “Will you?” he asked quietly.
“I will,” Holmes replied.
Watson smiled then, and Holmes was struck, as he sometimes was, by the heartfelt emotion in his companion’s face. “Thank you, Holmes.”
“Think nothing of it, my dear fellow.”
-
It was a week later that Holmes, upon hearing a knock at the door, excused himself from the sitting room and left Baker Street, passing a certain Henry Murray on the way down the seventeen steps. The exclamations of recognition and excitement echoed down the staircase after him, and only the rather confused Mrs. Hudson was privy to the small smile the detective allowed himself as he left Baker Street for a stroll.
-
Watson and Murray talked for hours, for they had much to tell each other. It was revealed that Murray had been discharged not too long after Watson himself had been; he’d been struck with the Typhoid fever as well, and by the time he’d become well again his constitution had been thoroughly shattered. Once discharged, he’d made a modest living as a stable hand until his uncle, whom he’d met but one time, left him a comfortable sum of money, citing in his will that he’d rather it go to the unknown nephew than “any of these other damned money-grubbers.”
Murray shook his head. “I tried to look you up, you know, once or twice, but I was always quite ill the first two years I was discharged, and nothing ever came of it. To think that all this time all I had to do was pick up a copy of the Strand!” He smiled sadly, staring at his hands. “I still dream about it, Doctor,” he admitted quietly.
Watson nodded. “So do I,” he said.
Murray looked up at him, a half smile on his face. “Remember when we talked that one day, about how displaced people marched to war looking for somewhere to belong?”
Watson nodded. “And you and I just ended up more lost.”
“I thought I’d never find my place. Still think that, sometimes.”
“I think you will, lad.” Watson smiled warmly at the younger man. “I truly think you will.”
They heard the door slam downstairs. “I’m glad you’ve found your place, Doctor,” Murray said, rising. He smiled at the man who had once been his only cause to believe in the goodness of humanity. “It suits you well.”
Watson smiled back at him and rose also, holding out a hand. “It was good to see you, Murray,” he said sincerely. “Feel free to drop by again, whenever you like.”
Murray donned his hat, and turned to Watson as he made for the door. “Thank you, Doctor Watson,” he said, the echoes of the boy he’d been still in his voice. “Thank you for everything.”
“Thank you, lad,” Watson responded softly. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have lived to find where I belonged at all.”
-
On the landing outside the sitting room, Murray and Holmes met again. “Thank you, Mr. Holmes,” the younger man exclaimed sincerely. “I cannot even begin… Sir, if there is anything I can do to repay you, please, name it.”
Holmes held up a hand. “You owe me nothing, sir,” he said quietly. “In fact, I believe I remain very much in your debt.”
He paused before entering the sitting room, examining the emotions he still did not fully know how to express. He hoped Watson understood the meaning behind his actions. He wished he knew how to say out loud that he did not want his friend to fight his ghosts alone.
-
It was the night of July 27th.
Watson was running through a field of ghosts, and corpses, and bloody pools, deep enough to drown a man. Reflected in each pool was a face, and the eyes of the faces were dead. The mouths were open, and they were screaming. Watson was surrounded by the dead, staring up at him with their empty eyes, their mouths still wide with the screams that only he could hear. Shots, shots fired, and the sudden pain of a bullet tearing through his flesh, his shout of pain drowned by the sound of the screams all around him. His blood ran down his chest in a river, flooding the field, the corpses floating yet again to the surface. As the river of blood grew he watched it fall off in the distance, and heard a familiar roar, and the tears he cried mingled with the red which engulfed him, engulfed everything. And then Sherlock Holmes was beside him, his long arms supporting him, holding a compress to staunch the flow. “Easy now, Watson,” he said soothingly, and Watson leaned on him as they made their way up a staircase of exactly seventeen steps, out of the river of blood. Holmes set him down on the sitting room sofa and Watson heard his friend move to the door. “Tea, please, Mrs. Hudson!” Holmes shouted, and then returned to where Watson lay. “The screams,” Watson exclaimed hoarsely, for though they had escaped the river, the ocean of blood, the screams had not stopped. Holmes cocked his head to listen, then picked up his violin and began to play, and the sound of the soothing music caused the screaming voices to melt away, and Watson almost sobbed with relief, finally, he was free, and as he drifted back into consciousness the music continued, and Watson knew that though the terrors remained, they were finally beginning to feel like a dream, and he was waking from the unending nightmare at long last.