So, where do I start in describing this story? I've always hankered after writing a historic Holmes but the Victoriana has been so well done by other much better writers than I. Anyway, I was travelling home recently, listening to commemoration events for the recent 100 years since the Battle of the Somme in World War One and it inspired me to write this story.

I have done my best to make it as authentic as possible but at its heart it's Sherlolly pure and simple...just how I like them. I hope you do too.

Thank you, as ever, to Lilsherlockian1975 for all her support and encouragement when writing this one.

Chapter 1

4th May 1918 Northern France

John felt as though he were in a living nightmare. He'd been awake for almost 48 hours, his head was pounding and ringing from the noise of the shells; the screams; the gunfire. He'd lost his way from the hospital station over an hour ago and was staggering through the mud and the gore, almost without any sane thought left in his head. He had memories of bleeding wounds and limbs shorn off, hands grasping at his uniform and faces...always the faces of the wounded and the dying, pleading with him to end their suffering, to pass on their final messages until he hadn't known where he began and they ended.

They'd come out into the melee trying to find the injured and a shell had struck. It had been so close to him he had felt the heat and the blast ripple through his very bones. He had been struck by mud and wood and body parts and as he landed he had struck his head on something unyielding. When he had come to his ears had been ringing from the noise of the explosion and for a blissful time all other noise had been muffled and far away. He felt disorientated and had made his way in what he had thought was the direction of the medical tents but he knew now that he was lost...lost somewhere in no man's land and he was certain he was going to die.

It was strange staring into the face of your own mortality, almost a comfort after the last year spent endlessly, soullessly piecing bodies back together just enough for them to be shipped home. He hadn't had a full night's sleep since he had arrived and he was tired, so very tired.

He had been shot in the shoulder as he'd tried to find his way back and the pain was a dull throb now, he knew he was losing blood and his attempts to pack the wound had been futile but it just didn't seem to matter anymore. It was then that he heard the telltale whistle from above, getting closer, and he closed his eyes and smiled; waiting for the end.

Instead just as the shell exploded to his right he was struck by something which took him to the left. He hit the dirt hard, grateful that the wet mud cushioned his fall even as the thing which had hit him landed heavily on top of him.

For a moment the pain in his shoulder was so intense he thought he might pass out but he couldn't breathe, he felt as though he were suffocating, all the air knocked from his body and so he instinctively pushed up, rolling out from underneath what turned out to be another man, a man who was groaning and shouting.

Bit by bit John's senses came back to him as noise started to bleed back into his world.

'Damn it all, what kind of idiot wanders into no man's land anyway? You're a god damn fool and I should have let you die.' The man tried to stand but fell back yelling in agony; his body twisting to look down at his leg. John followed his gaze and saw the open leg wound, a compound fracture of the right tibia. He'd be lucky to live let alone keep the leg. His training kicked in and he ripped some material off his shirt to make a temporary tourniquet.

He could hear shouts in the direction the man had come from and he saw the trench and the worried, scared faces looking over and calling to him. He just needed to get them there.

He didn't know where he found the strength from, every muscle in his body ached and his shoulder screamed in pain but he took the other man under the arms and pulled, dragging him over the rough ground littered with spent armaments and barbed wire which threatened to catch at their clothes and tear at their skin.

The noise was becoming unbearable again. He could hear the bullets whizzing past them, the whistle of more shells and the relentless swearing from the man who'd saved him who now needed his help. Just as he got close enough to pass the man down to the waiting hands another bullet hit him spinning him around in a graceless circle and he fell to the floor giving in to the welcome blackness of unconsciousness.

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The next time he came to his first thought was how much pain he was in; his eyes snapped open and he gasped in lungfuls of air which never seemed quite enough to give him the oxygen he needed. He wildly looked around himself and realised he was in a medical tent. He was lying on a low canvas camp bed surrounded by other men in various states of consciousness. He recognised nothing and no one apart from a voice off to his right which was berating one of the medical team.

'No, no I'm telling you right here, right now I do not want my leg removed...do you hear...you do not have my permission. I don't care how you do it I just need you to get a message to General Mycroft Holmes in London. Tell him...tell him...his brother...'

John could hear he was on the verge of passing out. He remembered the man's leg wound and knew the pain must be unbearable. He was amazed he was even conscious.

The doctor moved away muttering to one of the nurses that the man was an utter fool but asking for a telegram to be sent. He consulted his notes. 'He seems to be related...Captain Sherlock Holmes. Oh well, we'll patch him up enough to get him to England with the rest and it will be up to them to decide on his leg...if you ask me though gangrene will set in and he'll end up losing it anyway.'

John's head fell back onto the hard, ungiving pillow and he passed out once more.

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The journey back to England was a painful one which just seemed to consist of one dark, cramped space after another. He had survived having the bullet removed from his shoulder, though the use of anaesthetic had been limited and the memory of the pain would be seared into his brain until the day he died. Fortunately the other bullet had hit the side of his body and had gone straight through without hitting any major organs; the field doctor had told him he was lucky and he should recover from both with few problems so long as he didn't get any kind of infection.

Infection was every field doctor's nightmare. With limited drugs and plenty of dirt a front line hospital was a breeding ground for the bacteria that they now knew had the potential to kill. John had lost far too many of his patients to infections which had run rife through their bodies whilst he had stood by feeling useless and impotent. It had been why he'd left the medical Corp for a while; preferring instead to sit in the trenches and fight the enemy face to face, until the gunfire and unnecessary killing had sent him back to his chosen profession. He wanted to at least try to save lives not kill them, no matter how futile it seemed at times.

He couldn't help but notice that the man who'd saved him, and been injured for his troubles, was being sent back to England at the same time. He regularly heard the man's voice telling the staff what they ought to be doing, calling the people around him idiots...he made John laugh with some of his insults and he found himself wanting to know more about who he was. They never seemed to be placed together though and John was too unwell to move himself.

The relief when they finally made it across the English Channel was palpable. There were men crying as they sailed past the the Isle of Wight and the English coastline came into sight. The journey had taken almost a week and John knew they had lost men along the way. The staff had long since given up trying to be discreet and John knew that of the thirty odd who had started the journey from that field in Northern France only twelve had made it back. He hoped someday those brave, lost souls would get a proper Christian burial and that future generations would appreciate the sacrifice that had been made for freedom, a freedom that was still so uncertain.

Finally the ship carrying them docked and John was carried out into the bright English sunshine. The day seemed to be a perfect spring afternoon and the colour of the grass, the green of it after so much mud made John himself well up. He put up his good arm to wipe the tears away, embarrassed at his own sentimentality but this place seemed like stepping out of hell and into a little slice of heaven.

As soon as he saw the building he knew exactly where he was. It was the Royal Victoria hospital in Netley where he had spent his years post medical school in London. It was here he had become an army surgeon before being posted out to France. The hospital was situated between Portsmouth and Southampton and it was a beautiful building but hugely impractical as a hospital, a case of style over substance but John was very glad to see the place. The sweeping lawns rose up from the water, with its wooden and cast iron dock, up to the enormous Victorian hospital which spanned the length of the grass stretching out either side of a large entrance. The longest building in Britain, or so John had been told years ago.

All around them were nurses in their standard grey and white uniforms wheeling patients out into the sunlight or coming forward to greet the new arrivals. John was carried up to the building and stripped of the grimy clothes he'd travelled in. He was bathed and washed until he felt like a whole new person and then he was redressed in a white hospital gown before finally being taken through to the ward where he would make his recovery.

When he got there his erstwhile saviour was in the bed next to him already haranguing a nurse about his treatment.

'I need a competent doctor not just one who's going through the motions. I refuse to have that man Anderson treating me, the man's an idiot and I'll be dead before the week is out if that were to happen.'

The woman sighed and tried to speak. 'Please, if you'll just...'

John felt sorry for her. She was quite petite in build and fairly pretty but she looked tired. He suspected that being a nurse here was quite demanding given the endless number of men being sent here. The next words John heard surprised him though.

'I want you to be my doctor.'

John frowned and looked from the man he knew was called Holmes to the nurse and it was then that he realised she wasn't wearing a uniform like the rest.

'Mister...' She went to look at his notes to find his name but he forestalled her.

'The name's Holmes...Sherlock Holmes.'

'Mister Holmes I'm really not best suited to being your doctor. I'm not long out of medical school and...'

'You're perfect. Do you know why? Because you chose this profession. Even in today's progressive society it can't have been easy for you getting into medical school as a woman. You've had to fight every step of the way and prove yourself to every man and woman who has tried to stand in your way. You have studied longer and harder than every man in your class because you had to be better, anything less and you would have been derided for trying to do your preferred job in a man's world. So that is why I want you as my doctor, because you care more, because you try harder and I need you to use all your skills to save my leg...' He saw her hesitate as did John. He also saw him take this small woman's hand and he heard as Holmes's voice dropped down lower '...please.'

The woman blushed prettily and her breath hitched in her throat and she nodded her head. 'Alright...I will.'

John saw Holmes let go of her hand and immediately lay back in the bed looking relieved. 'Thank God. And your name?'

John watched her give his neighbour a shy smile. 'Molly, Doctor Molly Hooper.'

I just wanted to point out that according to ACD in The Study in Scarlet Watson really did train at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Netley. It was a real hospital; most of which was demolished in the 1960's and the site is now a country park not far from where I live so I'd always wanted to include it in one of my fics.

Anyway, I hope you like the start...do let me know xx