At Portsmouth
John Watson stood at the rail of the Orontes, watching the shore as the ship came into Portsmouth. All the negative thoughts he'd stubbornly suppressed rose to the front of his mind. What was he to do now? Shivering in the chill air, he thought of all his hopes and dreams, plans for a career as an Army surgeon, traveling the world, helping the wounded. Funny how quickly things can change. A single moment, a split second in time, had taken it all away.
Still, given an over-abundance of time to think, he'd come to the conclusion that, bad as his situation seemed, things could have been much worse.
True, he had no job, little money, and fewer prospects. His health and nerves were shattered, he was in almost-constant pain, and his barely-healed shoulder and leg severely limited his ability to remedy these situations. But during these weeks aboard ship he'd met other injured veterans, men who'd lost limbs due to amputation, lost their vision to flash burns, lost hearing from the percussion of gun and canon fire. And sadly, he'd met men who had lost their sanity to the horrors of war.
He rubbed at his eyes wearily, wiping away the sting of sea-spray and the disappointment of a life that had changed in the wake of a single bullet.