Chapter Three
"Where do you keep getting this stuff from?" Greg asked a few weeks after John's first interaction with Sherlock. John had taken to bringing things back to camp and sharing them with his friends. Greg usually got first pick of the stuff.
"I nick 'em from the Bloodybacks up the road." John replied, nodding in the general direction of the Red Coats' camp. "Their commanding officer is absolute shit. He thinks they've just got a raccoon problem."
Greg shook his head. "I dunno, mate. Seems a bit dangerous."
"Well, there is a war on, you know. Everything is a bit dangerous."
"Just be careful, yeah? We already had to bury ten good men this year. I don't want to have to dig another grave for you. Even if it will be a smaller one."
"Fuck off." John pretended that he was going to take back the biscuit in Greg's hand. Greg swatted his hand away and smiled.
"Oi, get it over and kiss each other already." Mike Stamford grumbled from where he was trying to sleep a few feet away. John flipped him the middle finger with a toothy grin.
Greg smirked to himself and shook his head as they both settled in to get to sleep.
"UP!" General Sholto's frantic voice caused the men to wake with a start, reaching for their bayonets and jumping to their feet. "EVERYBODY UP! THEY'RE COMING."
"Whuthehell?" John slurred as he hastily pulled on his uniform and sought out his bayonet, which was leaning against a nearby tree. "Whusgoinon?"
"The damned Red Coats are on the move. Sholto thinks they're headed for Nelson's regiment. We've got to stop them before they cross the river." Greg explained breathlessly, hopping into his boots before following after General Sholto. John rushed after his regiment, his mind reeling.
He wasn't optimistic enough to convince himself that the Red Coats they were after belonged to a different regiment than Sherlock's. They were the only other troop that John had seen throughout the woods. So he was facing Sherlock as an enemy on the battle field. Right.
He knows that this is war, John reasoned with himself as the telltale Red uniforms began to come into sight. He knows that this battle has to end somehow.
All thoughts of reason evaporated when John caught sight of Sherlock. He was placed atop his favorite horse - Redbeard - and looked terrified. Fear made him look like a child who had gotten himself in over his head. John's chest ached at the sight.
"Watson, we need you!" Mike Stamford called from the other side of the field. He was fighting off two Red Coats at a time. John nodded and dashed over to a group of fighting soldiers. He didn't have time to worry about Sherlock. Sherlock would be fine.
Once he successfully avoided getting shot and stabbed by at least five soldiers and killed a handful himself, John whipped around to see if he was needed elsewhere. He hoped that one of the regiments was on the brink of declaring a retreat - it didn't matter if it was his or Sherlock's - men were dying and at any given moment, he and Sherlock could be next.
In fact, Sherlock was next.
John's eyes widened as he saw Greg move towards Sherlock. Sherlock was turned the other way and would most certainly be impaled on a bayonet in the next minute if John didn't intervene.
Which he wouldn't do.
Sherlock was a Red Coat, he would get what he deserved.
John wasn't going to intervene.
He couldn't intervene.
"Sherlock!" Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Sherlock whipped around and immediately caught side of Greg. Greg turned back to look at John in surprise. That was a mistake. The entire sequence of events was a mistake. John regretted everything.
While John wallowed in premature regret and self-loathing, the inevitable occurred. The blade of Sherlock's bayonet jabbed through Greg's chest. Greg stared up at him in shock for a moment before sinking to his knees. Seconds later, he was lying face-down in the ground. Dead.
"Greg!" John hollered, starting to run towards his best friend. Mike Stamford and a soldier named Hamilton managed to hold him back with some difficulty.
"Let 'im go!" Stamford murmured as John struggled against his grip. "He's gone. That officer'll kill you next if you let him."
John's eyes turned to Sherlock. Sherlock was staring down at Greg with wide eyes. He then looked up at John. He looked shocked. Like he had the right to be shocked. John's blood turned to ice in his veins. He hated him. He hated Sherlock Holmes.
While John was glaring at Sherlock - practically radiating hatred - Sherlock gave the official order to retreat. Sholto did the same. Stamford and Hamilton managed to drag John back into the woods with some difficulty.
Most of the men retreated to their respective camps. John retreated into his mind.
Greg Lestrade had been a good man. He had a wife and three kids. He had plans to buy a farm after the war and earn an honest living. He had been one of John's best - and only - friends. And now he was dead. He was dead because John had gone against everything he stood for and befriended a damned Red Coat officer.
"I'm going to kill him." John vowed as the men sat around the small fire that Mike had built shortly after their return to camp.
Sholto put a hand on John's shoulder and shook his head. "One officer won't make any difference. We've got to think about the entire war, not just a single battle. I think that we had better move tomorrow. We've got to warn Nelson before the Red Coats have another go at him and his men."
John wasn't listening. He didn't care about Nelson or his men. He cared about the fact that his best friend was lying dead, abandoned in a field a few miles away. Greg hadn't even gotten a proper burial.
And it was all because of Sherlock Holmes.
John spent the rest of the evening mulling over his anger and largely ignoring the rest of his regiment. He didn't care about the war anymore. Attaining a new world order seemed completely pointless if it meant losing everyone that mattered in the process.
In simplest terms, John no longer wanted a United States of America.
He wanted Sherlock's head on a silver plate.
