Ajax, thanks for the preliminary reading.

"Captain John (non-Gentlemenian exclamation) Watson! No one (non-Gentlemenian synonym for the word "cares") what you want. And what you can or are afraid of. This ("substandard") shelter needs repair! And you're the only one who hasn't a tin ears for this (epithet) music. You will go to this ("unpleasant but necessary") charity concert and ("will make a good impression on") everyone to their stomach and on both sides. And now (exclamation) go and rehearse! That's an order! Fulfill!"

John turned sharply and walked straight out of Major James Sholto, director of the orphanage.

John wasn't angry with Sholto. This man turned his family home (one might say — an estate) into a shelter for the crippled military, and got them out of the horror of municipal apartments, where the sick-nurse comes only twice a week, but the chav-neighbors yell, fight, turn on deafening music and smoke weed around the clock, and heroin syringes are strewn about in the corridors and on the stairs. Or a municipal orphanage that isn't much better than life under a bridge.

To be honest, John was not entitled to Sholto's shelter: his wound was not so severe that he could not work. Just lameness and limited mobility of the dominant hand. A death sentence for the surgeon, but nothing fatal for the therapist. Or you can retrain from a toxicologist, who was an additional specialty of John, into a narcologist. Probably, he would even be paid for retraining — the growth of drug addiction among young people is too great.

However, there is no power. Something broke in the brave cheerful soul of John Watson after being wounded and decommissioned from the army. Working as a doctor for food and lodging at a shelter that doesn't need doctors, but is desperately short of sick-nurses — that's all he can do.

But stop chewing snot! Sholto wants to convert several outbuildings of the house into training rooms, and this is vital if the orphanage really plans to give people recovery, not a pathetic shadow of being. By the way, then there will be real work for John: the rehabilitation of a person after an injury is a difficult task, these are not snotty noses and chronic gastritis. And if you are a traumatologist, then you will have to finish your studies minimally.

Sholto's income was decent, but the orphanage was a very expensive business. It can't survive without donations.

So, he has to sing. And a cappella. Or his hand will definitely cramp in the middle of some important musical phrase.

John always assessed his vocal abilities objectively: it is mediocre, but not bad. However, there are a lot of great songs that don't need an Elton John sip.

There was a clarinet and a left-handed acoustic guitar on the bed in John's room. John could not resist the temptation to touch the strings and the joint of the clarinet. Another loss. Not the most important, but…

John took out his phone. It's a very clever thing, but how, the hell, force it to find training music to warm up his voice? John frowned in concentration, trying to get this device to work properly. There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," John said.

It was Major Sholto.

"John, I'm sorry. It was disgusting. And you mustn't do anything that will harm you."

John smiled softly. Sholto was its very first commander. And John knew for sure that without him he would not have become a good officer and fighter. And when John rose to the rank of captain, the military fate brought them together again. And then, almost equal in statue and often equal in terms of the combat mission, when they were both under the command of a colonel, they became friends.

"James, it's all right. I will perform without music. And although I can't do what you need with the audience, I'll earn money to paint the walls."

"John, are you sure?"

"Should the walls be painted? The Department of Health has no taste for fashion and will not allow a loft-style gym to be used by people with disabilities."

"John, this is not a joke! Are you sure the crowd won't hurt you? It used to be that you could easily rock on stage. But I know how wounds and typhoid change everything."

"It's all right, James, really. I can handle it."

"Can I help you?"

"Oh, yeah!" John was delighted and handed him the phone. "Take the damn thing and find the accompaniment for the vocal warm-up for the tenor. I heard there are many free ones on the Internet."

"I learned to use it for three months after my resignation," Sholto laughed.

He found what was needed and stayed to listen, although John warned him it would be torture for another person's ears. And so it turned out: Sholto escaped two minutes later — John barely had time to ask Sholto to announce over the speakerphone that after five o'clock tea there would be a small concert in the cafeteria.

Sholto nodded. John needs to update his communication skills with the audience, and it's better to do it among people whom John knows well. The shelter, of course, is not a military base for three and a half thousand people, where John once performed, but you have to start somewhere. And the charity concert will be for a much smaller audience than the military base.

John continued to exercise. And then he rehearsed the three most suitable songs for the concert. He chose old ballads so as not to expose the shelter to problems with copyright issues. The author of one song was Christopher Marlowe, and the other two were folk songs.

It didn't turn out as bad as John feared.

Now he can go to five o'clock tea.

In England, everyone has long forgotten this tradition, many people called dinner 'tea', but there is no hurry in the shelter, and the Gregorian mansion evoked the appropriate mood and the inhabitants of the shelter fully revived the ritual of five o'clock tea. It's a little bit of entertainment.

John easily laughed off his neighbors in the dining room at teatime, warmed his throat with hot water, and when the sick-nurse and those residents of the shelter who could take household duties were cleared from the tables, John stood at the opening in the wall through which food was lifted from the kitchen — from here the whole room was best seen. Today, the inhabitants of the shelter brought even those neighbors who could not get out of bed. John said:

"Ladies and gentlemen! I know that I can sing pretty good. Therefore, I do not need compliments and applause. But I vitally need your analytics and intuition. And they are excellent with you, if you are all here, and not in the grave. You have already once been able to defeat death and fate. And now I ask you to help me choose the best weapon to defeat an enemy worse than death: the greed of the rich. If we want to break out of here and conquer the big world, we must break through the convoy of moneybags. And we will do it!"

Sholto had heard that his apprentice had become an excellent commander. And now he has seen it in person. And he understood the words that the true success of a teacher comes when the student surpasses him. Sholto could be truly proud of himself.

The people were collected and focused, with not a hint of anger or depression.

[I'll fire that stupid hen who calls herself a psychotherapist,] Sholto decided. [Watson did more in a minute and a half than this unskilful bitch did in six months.]

The first song was the ballad "Come live with me and be my love"(1). And Major Sholto frantically wondered where in the remote Sussex countryside to urgently find four dozen low-budget, but medically tested prostitutes. Otherwise, there will be a disaster. After such a song, the flag will be raised even among those who considered it impossible. And, given that a third of the inhabitants of the shelter often are at war with their hallucinations, problems are not needed.

Watson's voice, not the strongest, but somehow magical, caressed and delicate, intoxicated like a fairy potion. How was it with that woman, according to whose books his nieces go crazy? Amortentia? Watson's singing was it. Sholto got the answer to a question that everyone who knew John Watson asked themselves: 'How can a man with the appearance of Winnie-the-Pooh and the grace of a Heffalump seduce anyone and everyone he wants?'

Watson is a siren. Veela-male.

[This has never happened before,] Sholto thought bewilderedly. [He was just a nice guy from an amateur group, not even a fortman. I heard that suffering multiplies talents, but so much?! Or before he didn't want to show himself completely, deliberately kept in the shadow of others, was a background voice and a second instrument?]

Watson smiled, began to sing "Tramps And Hawkers" (2) - easily and cheerfully, filling the audience with carelessness. The listeners sang along with him, tapping out the rhythm with their surviving limbs.

And Sholto almost howled when the song "If I Was A Blackbird" (3) started. Pain and hope, collapse and struggle, despair and hope... And no screaming, no tantrums. Everything is very calm and collected, very ... Watsonian. And this something freed in Sholto himself, removed at least one of the old and deep wounds. It felt like the end of a nightmare. 'We survived. We will win.' Sholto knew which song he would vote for.

The ovation that began after Watson's performance was intended not so much for Watson as for the listeners themselves — people need to throw out their emotions. And John slipped behind the backs of the sick-nurses, who began to collect votes.

Sholto thought that there should be those at a charity concert who will cover Watson from fans. But who could it be?!

Songs that gave me inspiration for the chapter and served as the basis for describing John's singing (YouTube):

(1) watch?v=qWCRxTQi4cs

(2) watch?v=19kZHTL3NF4

(3) watch?v=ugQPWvnr0kU