CHAPTER 17: THE FIRST MAN TO SAVE JOHN WATSON

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

They stood shoulder to shoulder at the door.

John put a thumb over the peephole. With his right hand, he slowly lifted the pistol from his jacket pocket and rested it on the top of his thigh, ready to engage. Just in case. He tried to breathe evenly, but his breath stuck in his chest, his palms sweated, and his heart raced as though he had run all the way from London. But his mind was clear, alert to every sound and movement, and most of all to Sherlock, who stood close at his side like a bulwark, hands in his pockets, seemingly cool and dispassionate, as if this were just an ordinary case. But they hadn't had one of those in nearly four years.

He knew Sherlock was waiting for his signal. So he nodded once, sharp and resolute.

Sherlock knocked.

There followed the anticipated silence. If Bill really was on the other side of that door, he was unlikely to answer a knock at the door. The only person who knew he was here (or, rather, should know he was here) had left with a key and so could let herself back in. But if not Anita, then who? Management? Doubtful. And anyone else would be trouble: the police, Moran's people, his wife, even. He would be a fool if he answered.

Sherlock knocked again, insistent.

They heard, or maybe felt through the paper-thin door, the soft approach on the other side, someone cautiously trying to look through the peephole.

'Open up, mate,' said John tersely.

There was a barely discernible click of metal as an invisible hand rested on the door handle on the other side. Then, the slow turn, and the door creaked open by miniscule degrees. John removed his thumb to position the key at the lock, but his grip tightened on the pistol as he angled himself toward the opening to see a single brown eye peering down at him through the crack. He recognised it at once: at last, he stood face to face with Bill Murray.

'Hello, Bill.'

The eye went wide. There was a gasp. And in the instant before it happened, John knew Bill would slam the door shut. So he launched himself forward, and throwing all of his weight into the door.

In the same moment, however, Murray shoved too, and the force of it sent John reeling backward. Sherlock caught his arm at the elbow to steady him.

'He'll escape out the back!' Sherlock shouted, and took off running toward the end of the building to loop it.

But John would not abandon his first pursuit. He rushed the door again, jamming the key into the lock and turning it hard. When he thrust inward again, the slide security lock caught at the ball, giving him only three, maybe four inches of sight into the room, just enough to see Murray throwing open the back sliding door. He shouted in anger, driving his shoulder into the unyielding door. Murray disappeared out the back.

One more time, with all the strength he could muster and a mighty cry, John charged forward. The wooden frame of the door splintered and the door burst inward, bouncing off the back wall. He shot straight through the room and out the back exit, into the dark.

The mist had turned to rain, lashing at his face as he bolted across the clearing toward the treeline, chasing the dark figure of Bill Murray, who was only a short distance ahead. John was moving so fast—one leg labouring harder than the other—that his soles slipped a little on the wet grasses. Somewhere behind him, he heard Sherlock call his name, having just rounded the building, but he paid him no heed. For one wild second, he thought, I'll just shoot him. He could do it. At Sandhurst, and then later in Afghanistan when it really counted, he had always been an excellent shot: still targets, moving targets, even when he himself was on the move, on foot or by truck, he had always been a deadeye.

Murray disappeared into the trees.

The darkness enveloped John the moment he crossed the treeline, where no light—neither streetlamp nor moon nor starlight—could reach him. But though blinded, his pace didn't slacken. His shoulder rebounded off the side of a trunk and a branch lashed the side of his face before his expanding pupils made sense of the dark shadows around him, black against black. Here, the ground was firmer, little affected by rain, and he heard Bill lumbering noisily on ahead of him, also disoriented by the density of the forest.

'Bill!'

His erstwhile friend jumped as if the sound of his name was a gunshot, then changed direction to lose John among the trees.

But John's was a single-minded pursuit, like a dog after a rabbit he didn't know what he would do with once caught, except to sink teeth into his prey and never let go. He no longer felt the cold, or the wind, or the rain, or the burning ache in his leg, not until he suddenly broke into a clearing, and the moon poured through the broken clouds, illuminating the way ahead. Murray was a black figure against the moon-white clearing, which sloped down toward a gully. The grass was slicker here, without the cover of trees, but he put on a burst of speed and closed the distance between them.

He was mere feet away when Murray, panting, wheezing, glanced over his shoulder, and, in taking his eyes off the way ahead, he slipped. John pounced, grabbing Murray around the middle, and together they spun around, and together they hit the ground, and slid down the muddy embankment into the gully.

Murray flailed. He kicked out, tried to dislodge John's grip, tried to fight him. John fought back. He clutched at Bill's clothes, twisted his limbs, took Murray's hits and struck him across the head with the butt of the gun.

At last, he flipped Murray onto his back and threw himself on top of him. John squeezed his ribs with his knees, pressed a hand firmly to his throat, and planted the pistol against his forehead. At that, Murray froze.

'Give me a reason!' John cried.

Murray grasped John's arm, trying to dislodge the grip on his throat. His eyes streamed, a mixture of falling rain and tears. 'John, please!' he gasped.

'Give me a reason not to kill you right now!'

'I didn't know! I didn't know!'

'Didn't know what?'

'I'm sorry, John, please. Please!'

John cocked the pistol. 'You did know, you son of a bitch!'

'John.'

He refused to pull his eyes away from Murray's, but he didn't need to look to know that Sherlock was just over his shoulder, halfway down the slope, coming toward them.

John ignored him. 'You killed Mary. You killed her!' The gun shook in his fierce grip.

Murray sobbed. 'Please!'

'She didn't get to beg for her life!'

'Please!'

'John, listen to me.' Again, Sherlock's voice, floating to him as though from across the sea.

In that moment, he didn't know if Sherlock was real. He couldn't see him. But he thought he could see her at the corner of his vision, standing at a distance on the other side of the gully, her slight figure dark with rain, unmoved by any sweep of wind. Watching him, and waiting to see what he would do. 'Why shouldn't I do it? Why!' he screamed.

Murray sobbed. 'Please! Please! I have wife! I have children!'

John struck him hard across the face with a fist, and Murray's head rolled into the mud. 'What about my wife! My children?'

'John, give me the gun.' Sherlock's hand reached out, palm up, beseeching. Across the way, she did the same. John stared at her, bewildered. He dragged his eyes back to the target.

Murray kept his head angled away as John took aim once again at his head. Another sob tore from his throat.

'You can't kill him,' Sherlock continued. 'We need him.'

'You know what he did, Sherlock. You know what he is!'

'I know what he is,' Sherlock affirmed tensely, his hand still outstretched. 'But this is not who you are.'

John's hand shook. He released Murray's throat to grip the gun more steadily with both hands, but he did not lower the weapon, and he did not relinquish it. 'Maybe it is.'

'No, John. I know you. I know you. And if you do this . . .' Sherlock could no longer maintain its reasoned, dispassionate tone. He was pleading. 'If you do this, you will never forgive yourself. Never.'

Eyes streaming and throat aflame, John screamed through gritted teeth. Beneath him, Bill's body quaked with fear and cold as they sank together, slowly, deeper into the mud.

'Please, John. Give me the gun. We'll deal with him, I promise. But first—give me the gun.'

His fury was like fire in his belly, spreading toward every limb, unstoppable, as though his body was made of dry tinder. He had done this before—he could do it again. For Mary. Daz had been guilty of her death, too, and John had killed him. And Pete, and Lex, and Stubbins, they were all culpable, they had all deserved to die. And Murray. He had known. Not only known about the abduction: he had helped orchestrate it. He had harboured Moran and his people. He was one of Moran's people. Murray deserved death, and John wanted to be the one to deliver it. A bullet through the brain, a slashed throat, ten days of torture and starvation and humiliation, and John would watch, and let it happen, and make the cut himself and . . . oh God!

He looked up and saw her cover her face with her hands, afraid.

'John. This isn't who you are.'

His head dropped and he began to cry. But he took his finger off the trigger, flipped the gun around, and held it out. A moment later, Sherlock relieved him of it.

Next moment, Sherlock grabbed him under the armpit and pulled him off Murray, who remained supine in the mud, breathing hard and choking on his own sobs. John couldn't look at him anymore. He turned away, but one step later, his leg gave out. Sherlock, who still gripped him under the arm, steadied him. 'Stay with me,' he said in a low voice, directly into his ear.

When his feet were steady under him again, Sherlock slowly released him. Then he revolved, slowly, and lifted his other arm bearing the pistol. He aimed it down at Murray.

'On your knees,' he ordered.

'Oh no,' said Murray. 'Oh please no.'

'You want to live? Don't talk. Move.'

Whatever pity for the man Sherlock had implied in sparing his life had washed away in the downpour. John looked back over his shoulder, blinking against the rain, which was beginning to fall in droves. Slowly, Murray pushed himself out of the mud and onto his knees facing them, his hands up and fingers spread in supplication.

Two hands on the gun now, voice dark and dangerous, Sherlock said. 'Hands behind your head. Do it.'

Sherlock shoved a hand inside his pocket and withdrew the silver cuffs. He passed them into John's hands without a word. John breathed deeply, eyes scanning the clearing. But for the three of them, it was empty. Then, hardening his expression, and his heart, he walked behind Murray, grabbed a wrist, and twisted his arm down his back, clicking the silver bracelets into place.

'On your feet,' he said gruffly, though softly, and he hauled Murray upright. Then he looked to Sherlock, waiting for what would happen next.

Sherlock nodded sharply, but the gun remained fixed in space. 'He's coming with us.'

They returned to the treeline, and paused. Lights flashed in the parking lot on the other side of the Goose and Anvil. From here, it wasn't clear how many patrol cars had turned up, but from the erratic flashing, it was certainly more than one. Sherlock wasn't surprised. He and John hadn't exactly been discreet about forcing their way into Murray's room, guns drawn, shouting to wake the devil. Someone was bound to get scared and call the police.

Murray half-gasped and half-sobbed when he saw them. An emotional wreck, he had little control over himself.

'You have three choices, Mr Murray,' Sherlock said in a dark voice. 'One: scream and let the police know you've been taken hostage. Then they'll take you into custody and we can do this in a little room with a two-way mirror. Two: put up a fight and try to run again and let Moran keep chasing you. Or three: shut up and come quietly with us. Don't be fooled—we're the closest thing to a friend you still have in this world. Your call.'

'I'll shut up. Don't . . . don't turn me in.'

'Smart man.'

John said nothing. He hadn't spoken a word since capturing Murray, only stared straight ahead with a deadened expression, though he grasped his prisoner's arms tightly in both hands as he marched him forward.

'Keep to the treeline, and follow me.'

They stayed within the shadows, marginally sheltered from the rain. Then, when Sherlock judged it safe, they picked up their feet and jogged toward the motel, pressing themselves flat against the building as they edged around to the side where the car sat idle. There, they waited, and Sherlock rolled his head around the corner to see two officers questioning a woman in her hotel doorway, the one right next to Murray's gaping door, while she gesticulated wildly. The officers' backs were to him, and so, with the gun, he signalled that John move Murray to the car. He pulled the keys from his pocket to unlock it.

John softly opened the back door, pushed Murray's head down, and shoved him into the backseat before crawling in after him. The time to act was now. Sherlock moved swiftly but silently to the driver's seat. He passed the gun back to John, whom he trusted was no longer a danger to a now compliant and terrified Bill Murray.

He put the key in the ignition and started the engine. But as the headlights announced their location, the woman suddenly started screaming and pointing in their direction. Sherlock checked his rearview mirror, marked the police officers at a distance, and threw the car into reverse.

Murray let out a small scream as Sherlock whipped the car around and threw him into the door. John muttered a tight shut it, and cast Sherlock a reproachful look in the rearview mirror. Sherlock smirked back.

'There's only one road for miles, Sherlock,' John said, having driven it himself. The implication was clear: they wouldn't get far before the police caught them.

Sherlock pressed his foot down on the accelerator and shifted into a higher gear. 'Oh John,' he said mildly, in defiance of the dangerous speed over wet asphalt, 'what is it I always tell you? You see . . .'

Seeing a shadow in the treeline up ahead, Sherlock killed the headlights, slammed the brakes, and pulled the car into a narrow gap in the trees, which he had spotted on their way in. Not twenty down the dirt-and-gravel road, he killed the engine so the not even the brake lights could be seen. Seconds later, as the flashing lights passed them by on the main road, Sherlock said, with a self-satisfied sort of smugness, 'But you don't observe.'

He twisted around in his seat.

'From here, we walk.'

'How did you find me?'

Murray sat despondent, no longer weeping. But his head hung low where he sat on a plastic chair they'd found outside, overturned in the rain. They uprighted it and dragged it inside the lonely barn. There, by the light of a portable halogen work light they'd found on a workbench, they sat their hostage, muddy from head to toe and shivering from the wet. But they did not restrain him. They used no ties or chains or wires. The cuffs had been removed, and the pistols put away.

'Don't be an idiot,' said John. He, too, was muddy and cold, but he stood stalwart on two firmly planted feet, arms crossed and chin raised high. 'You read my blog, you know who my partner is, what he can do.' He sniffed derisively. 'You thought you could hide from the world's greatest detective? Moron.'

Murray didn't lift his head. 'What are you going to do with me?'

He had always been a man of some heft, not particularly tall, but average height and stocky build that the army had sculpted into angles and planes, staving off the roundness that was his natural state. The last time John had seen him, away from the battlefield, he had sported a bit of a gut and fuller face. Now, however, there was something sunken about him, a deflated balloon. They were both changed men.

'It's not your turn to ask questions,' said Sherlock softly, leaving the barn door, now secured, to stand by John's side. His coat was dripping onto his shoes, but he alone was spared the mud. 'You're going to tell us everything, everything you know about Sebastian Moran.'

'I can't,' said Murray, squeezing his eyes shut as though he was in pain. 'He'll kill me.'

'Maybe that's exactly what you deserve,' John spat.

'He'll kill my family.'

'We'll protect them,' said Sherlock. 'We are your only hope for keeping Fran and the kids safe. And we will. So you will talk to us. Right now.'

The rain fell steadily overhead, striking the wooden shingles in rhythmic patters, and the wind whistled through the gaps in the doorframe.

'We don't leave this barn until you do,' Sherlock promised. 'First, you will tell us how long you've been Moran's man—'

'Why?' John interjected. He felt Sherlock's gaze shift to him, but he ignored it and stepped forward menacingly toward Murray, who shrank back. 'That is what you will answer me first. Why? You were my friend. You saved my life. So tell me. Tell me. You tell me why you've come to hate me so much.'

'John . . .' Murray said, his voice cracking.

'That's Captain Watson to you, you—' John screwed up his face, trying to keep a tight rein on his anger. It was all he could do to stop himself from drawing his fist back. Instead, he kept it in a tight ball at his side.

'It's not what you think,' said Murray, before adding a fearful, deferential, 'sir. I didn't want this, any of this!'

'You're well past the point where I give a fuck what you want.' John stabbed a finger down at the ground. 'This is where you are now. This is where your actions have led you. And it has cost me everything!' He stabbed himself in the chest. 'Why do you hate me? What did I ever do to—?'

'You killed James Sholto!' Murray burst, gripping the edges of the chair as though forcing himself to stay seated.

John blanched. He had forcibly dismissed from his mind any insinuation from the mouth of Kitty Riley that Bill Murray's connection to Sebastian Moran was in any way connected to what had happened to the commanding officer both men had so greatly admired. An email from an anonymous source: Ask Murray about a man named James Sholto. That's where John's story starts. But what about Bill's story?

'That was your fault, captain. Your fault! That's where it went wrong, where everything went wrong. You killed Sholto!'

'I didn't,' said John breathlessly, falling back a step.

'You took one look at him and left him to die! I know, I was there!'

Raising his hand as though in defence, John shook his head emphatically.

'Is this what it's all been about, then?' Sherlock asked. 'Revenge?'

Murray ignored Sherlock and continued to rail against John. 'You could have saved him! You didn't even try!'

'I did what had to be done!' John shouted.

'He was your friend!'

'You took up with Moran out of revenge?' Sherlock pressed.

'No!' Murray cried. 'I didn't take up with him, I never took up with him. He trapped me! You have to understand, he trapped me! And it never would have happened if . . . if Sholto had ony lived. If you'd even tried to saved him.'

John was shaking, and it had nothing to do with the cold. 'There was nothing I could do,' he said in a tense whisper.

'You better start making sense real fast,' said Sherlock, crowding closer, towering over Murray, who shrank back again. But his outburst seemed to have given him spirit.

'We served under Major Sholto.' His eyes lifted to John. 'Both of us. He was a good man.'

'The best of men,' John murmured.

'We all admired him. We all trusted him. Even the crows.'

'Crows?' Sherlock echoed.

'New recruits,' explained John. Then to Murray: 'Do you blamehim for what happened to those boys?'

'No,' Murray said fiercely. Then, to Sherlock, 'It was standard procedure. Take the crows into battle, let them get their feet wet, let them know what it's really like out there. Thing is, it's still a training exercise, you see. They only go out when the risk assessment is low. But that day, something went wrong. Wrong intelligence, I guess. They were ambushed by Afghan infantry. The crows freaked. They stopped following orders and scattered like pigeons.' He shook his head. 'Nothing Sholto could do. Even if they'd made it back to base, they would have been reprimanded for ignoring direct commands. But they didn't make it back. Not one of them. They all died out there, and only Major Sholto survived.' He sniffed loudly and sighed. 'There was an investigation. Sholto was found to have acted in accordance with all procedures. No fault. It was a tragedy, but he wasn't at fault. The thing is . . .'

'Not everyone believed it,' John finished. 'That he was innocent, I mean.'

'That's right.' Murray's eyes locked onto John's. 'There were lots of doubts.'

John slowly uncrossed his arms. 'Why are you looking at me like that?'

'You know how it was. Captain. You remember. Everybody was looking at each other sideways back then. The rumours about defectors. And saboteurs. Moles. There were whispers. Was Sholto a turn-coat? Did he lead those boys into enemy hands deliberately?'

'That's insane.'

'I knew that. But someone in the regimen was a traitor. Someone was working for the enemy. We all thought it was a foot soldier, one of the troops, didn't we? But the truth is, no one really knew who they couldn't trust. Call it hypervigilance, or paranoia, whatever you want. But I think we were all waiting for something to go wrong, for someone to turn against his own and how his true colours. And I . . .' He lifted his wet eyes to John. 'I thought it was you, captain. I thought it was you.'

They didn't recognise him, not right away. The field hospital was overcrowded, in chaos. There were more wounded than the space could hold, every bed occupied, and just outside, on blankets on the ground, more casualties of an apparent IED explosion, or was it RPGs, or Molotov cocktails? Details were hazy. Reports contradicted one another. But the aftermath of whatever had happened out there was right in front of them in the form of blood and gore and human suffering.

The man's face was seared as though by fire; blood caked nearly the whole of his head. As for the rest of him? One hand had been blown clean off, that much was certain. The arm had already been fixed with a tourniquet by a field CMT. The rest of him, no tourniquet could save. He needed a surgeon.

While another nurse began cutting the tattered fatigues from the soldier's burned, bloody body, Murray reached for the neck, looking for his ID discs. He had to pull the chain through the torn skin of his throat where it had sunk to read the name:

B Neg
40058399
Sholto
JP

He jolted, his eyes snapping back up to the distorted face. 'Captain!' he cried. 'Captain Watson, you're needed!'

He had worked under Captain Watson's command for several months now, and there was no doctor, neither back home in the civilised world nor out here in the pandemonium of war that he trusted more to save a life. It wasn't just Watson's outstanding record. He had seen the man work miracles. Men who should have died had received a second chance at life under Captain Watson's capable hands. Now, another life needed saving.

'Not now, corporal,' Watson replied. He was on the other side of the tent, bent over the body of a civilian caught in the crossfire, his arms covered in blood from fingertip to elbow as he pulled a thread through an open cavity, closing a wound to stop internal bleeding.

'Now, sir! It's Major Sholto!'

For heart-stopping moment, it appeared the Captain Watson was choosing to ignore him. Then Murray heard him say, 'Magurn, take over. Keep an eye on his blood pressure.' Then he turned to another nurse and extended his arms. The nurse pulled off his bloody gloves and changed them out for fresh ones.

Next moment, Watson was there at the head of the table. On the outside, he was calm, like a sea of glass. He leant over Sholto's head and peeled open his eyes, first one, then the other. 'James,' he said softly.

Murray rapidly recited his vital readings and initial assessment for the doctor. It was bad. Sholto's blood pressure was dropping and he was unconscious, perhaps from shock and lack of oxygen to the brain. They were fitting him with oxygen even now. His clothes had been cut away fully, revealing a concave, bloody chest and exposed ribs.

'Exsanguination level is critical,' someone said. Was it one of the nurses? Was it Watson? Had he spoken those words himself? He couldn't be sure. He felt like he was paralysed, something he hadn't experienced since those first days in the field, when it had all become real. The first time he saw a kid's leg blown apart, he had vomited. No one had judged: they'd all done the same, their first time.

'Prep for laparotomy, doctor?' Was that him again? Or another medical technician?

It wasn't just the carnage this time. Blood and gore was something he'd grown numb to. No, it was that his friend was dying, a man who was never supposed to die. More than a friend. He'd been like a mentor, a role model, a father figure. Wait, did he really think that? The comparison had never really crossed his mind before, but he knew he wasn't the only one to feel that way. Some of the younger soldiers did, especially those who had never known their fathers or had lost them somewhere along the way. Murray supposed he could fit into that category, too, and seeing Sholto now, he was forcibly reminded of the day his own father had died, and the same dread, the same denial of mortality, began to well in him.

He wasn't the only one who thought so. Other men, especially the young ones, had long admired and respected him, which was why the mere suggestion of his being anything less, let alone a turncoat, were so very unpalatable. Even Watson had once described Sholto as the paradigm of a good man, and what they should all strive to be. Murray envied them, actually. As officers, Sholto had more in common with Watson than he did with men like Murray. They seemed particularly close. At least he was here to save the major now.

'He's B-negative,' said a nurse. 'Shall I ready for transfusion?'

'Priority 4,' Watson said in a monotone command. 'Conserve the blood. See that he's comfortable.' He stepped back toward the patient he had already turned over to another's care. Not just a civilian, Murray would later learn. An Afghan teenage boy and son of an enemy soldier.

Murray snapped to attention. 'Priority 1,' he said, a spark of defiance pushing back the dark clouds that had narrowed his vision to a pinprick.

Watson revolved slowly, his face stoic but his jawline hard.

'We should prep for surgery,' Murray said tightly, then added, 'Captain.'

'Supportive care only,' Watson retorted.

'He's going to make it!'

But Watson was unflinching in the face of his impassioned plea. 'Severe head trauma, severe burns to over fifty percent of his body, crushed chest. He's dying, and we don't have the resources or the manpower to sustain him. Priority 4.'

'That's bullshit! You can't do that!' cried Murray.

'I am the senior medical authority in this room. I am the only one who can do it. Priority 4, corporal, and that's an order.'

Having made his command, Watson turned his back, and left James Sholto to die. He didn't even pay him the respect of one last glance.

'I know he was important to you,' said John, and Sherlock recognised in his voice a kind of empathetic pain that meant James Sholto had been important to him, too. 'But there was no saving him. He was dead, Bill. The moment that IED went off, he was dead. It just takes some men longer to leave this world than others.'

'You knew that for sure, did you?' Bill challenged him. 'You spent less than a minute examining him. That's all. And—'

'Yes. And I didn't even need a minute. I knew the second I saw him. Because I had seen it before. A hundred times before! Even if we had had blood to spare, even if we had had the staff, even if we had had every medical tool at our disposal, he was not going to survive. It was obvious. You did your job in trying to save him, and I did mine in letting him go.'

'And you found that easy, did you?'

'Never.'

Sherlock started. He felt like his brain had just jarred unpleasantly in his head.

'It was never easy,' John continued, voice breaking. 'Only necessary.' He winced, as though in pain. 'You're looking at me as though I didn't care that he died. As though every death I witnessed, every man I could not save, didn't carve another scar into my soul. I may not have saved them in the end. But I cared about every man who died on my table, or in my arms. Men have died while I held their hearts in my hands. Did my caring about them help save them? No. But damn you, I cared, just the same.'

Sherlock closed his eyes and turned his head away, recalling the first time he had ever been aware that he had disappointed John. He heard that ancient conversation repeated in his mind now, when Sherlock had asked what must have to John seemed such a heartless question. He hadn't known, then, what John had passed through, the depth of feeling when he talked about actual human lives. Quickly, he cast his eyes downward, ashamed of the man he had once been, and for too long.

Murray scrubbed his wet face with a hand. 'I just wished,' he said quietly, 'that you had tried.'

John's voice was shaking. 'I don't need to justify myself. Not to you. I explained my decision in the report. I presented the evidence to the proper authorities and testified at the official inquiry. They accepted my statements as true and my decision as justified.'

'No, sir,' Murray said. 'They didn't.'

The death of Major Sholto rocked him in a way he didn't understand. Sholto hadn't been the first soldier or officer to die under his care, nor even the first friend to perish in the war.

It was something else. It was that James Sholto had always seemed untouchable, the way heroes in the movies always fought the good fight and made it to the end. He was a leader, a warrior, a survivor, and so to be killed, not in combat or on a mission, but by something as clumsy and indiscriminate as a roadside bomb, seemed simply insulting to the great man he had been. It was beneath him to die in such a pedestrian manner. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. He had been awarded a Victoria Cross medal, and this was to be his end?

As far as Bill Murray was concerned, his inglorious end was not just the fault of the IED, but of the doctor who had refused to treat him.

His doubts began to fester. Camp Bastion was already rife with whispers and dodgy glances, soldiers who half suspected their fellows to be leaking information across enemy lines, or else acting on orders from officers not their own. There had been too many surprise attacks, too much faulty intelligence, too many deaths. Those who had before draped Major Sholto in the pall of suspicion now searched for a new target. Murray's eyes landed on John Watson.

It was an unhappy thought, to be sure. But he couldn't shake the memory of that day in the medical tent. Now, he recalled every time a man had died under Watson's care. He made mental lists of the times Watson had gone out into the field and come back alone. He remembered when Colonel Stephens had died, and Lieutenant Patterson, and Lance Corporal Weech, all when Watson was alone with them, out there on the battlefield. And he remembered the story Watson told earlier that summer, when the siege and an explosion just north of Musa Qala had landed him underground beneath a cement building with a lone Taliban soldier, who had been injured in the fall. Watson had treated him—treated him!—and spoke with gratitude about how the enemy soldier had saved him in return. Gratitude! He had regarded the many with sympathy. Maybe more than that.

And then, the treacherous thought: Watson was aiding the enemy. How? By taking out some of the very best officers of the British Army, in private and discreetly, and with such justifications as a Priority 4. He was, himself, an enemy of the Crown.

Greatly burdened by the thought, Murray confessed it all at the inquiry. The commanding officers said nothing, just let him talk, but as the inquisition drew to a close and he expected dismissal, Brigadier William Keen instead dismissed the stenographer.

'Is it your opinion, lance corporal,' Keen asked, 'that Watson is sympathetic with the enemy or its cause?'

'He does seem to be helping their cause,' Murray murmured unhappily.

'Do you consider his actions to be of his own volition, or do you believe he is following orders from across enemy lines?'

'I couldn't say, sir.'

Brigadier Keen rested his interlaced fingers on the top of the table, leaning into it. 'Answer truthfully: is Watson dangerous?'

'I . . .' Murray swallowed hard, fighting to get the words out, despising himself as he spoke them, 'I believe so, sir.'

It was the middle of the night. Murray rose from his bunk, wiggled his bare feet into his boots, and tromped lightly to the lavs for a piss.

While he stood at the makeshift 'desert rose' urinal, someone came up on his left at the adjacent urinal, but made no move to use it.

'Nice night,' the man said, and Murray recognised the voice as belonging to Brigadier Keen, whom he'd not had any dealings with since the inquiry, some weeks before.

'Yes, sir,' said Murray, trying to piss faster.

'Your official statement at the inquiry into Sholto's death,' said Keen, nose pointing straight ahead, as if he were at an outlook and not facing a wall of plywood. 'Do you stand by it?'

Murray's heart began to race. Why was he being asked this? And right now? 'I do, sir,' he said, not wanting to seem capricious.

'Good.' Keen waited for Murray to finish. Then he turned to face him directly. 'Tomorrow, 800 hours sharp. I'm sending Watson to Ghorak on a civilian medical assessment. You're going with him. You're going to keep an eye on him.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Don't leave him for a second.'

'Understood, sir.'

'Keep him on the road.'

'I will, sir.'

'That's all.'

From Camp Bastion, the road to Ghorak was long and dusty. Murray and Watson travelled in the second of three Land Rovers. Only an hour out of camp, the sun was already beating down. This time of year, is shouldn't have been so warm, but a heat wave was moving through, promising high temps for another week at least. They weren't moving quickly to begin with, what with the shoddy condition of the road itself, and the atmosphere was leisurely. Watson was chatting with the driver, and the men behind were laughing at something or other. Then the Rover slowed, and stopped.

'Ah shit, here we go again,' said the driver.

Murray ducked his head to look out the windscreen and saw a human blockade: about a dozen local men stood in the road, only two of them armed, with their lorries behind them. They would want a bribe for passage. For a while, some soldiers had just paid up to appease them. It was never much. But the army disapproved and had put a stop to it, negotiating with local leaders to keep their people off the roads so the Brits and Americans could come and go without a hassle. But sometimes this kind of thing still happened.

The threat level had been assessed as low before departing camp, so they opened their doors and alighted from the Rovers, readying for the argument. Murray and Watson left, too, but hung back to let the other soldiers do their jobs.

Murray would never be able to say which happened first: the scream or the gunfire. But in an instant, the situation had turned. Suddenly, one of their own was laid out on the ground, and the locals were running back to their lorries, and someone was shouting, Take cover! Take cover! There was an explosion on the side of the road, puffs of dust rose from the hills where hidden assailants fired at them, and bullets pinged off the side of the Rover near where Murray stood. He jumped, and turned to run to the other side for cover, only to see that they were firing from the opposite hills, too. It was an ambush.

Wildly, he looked around for Watson and saw him sprinting toward the fallen soldier.

'Watson!' he cried.

Watson was on his knees, turning the soldier onto his back.

'Watson!'

It was then Murray realised: it was a setup. The intelligence they had been given was wrong, and Keen knew it. He knew there would be an ambush. Was it his own design? Or was he merely taking advantage of enemy presence? Either way, the outcome was exactly what was desired. They were trying to neutralise an internal threat. They meant to take Watson out. And, it seemed, Murray was to be unavoidable collateral damage.

Eyes riveted on a kneeling Watson, Murray cried out to him again. Watson looked up, their eyes met, and then it happened. A spout of blood burst from the front of his shirt, and Watson went down.

Next moment, Murray was running. He became deaf to everything, and his vision had narrowed to a pinprick. Through gunfire and dust-smoke, he reached Watson and seized him under the arms. He hauled the dead weight backward, Watson's heels dragging through the sand-swept roads. Murray was screaming, shouting, crying, he didn't know. The door to the back of a Rover opened, and hands reached out to grab Watson, then him. He fell on top of Watson just as the doors slammed closed. The Rover jolted forward and peeled away.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' he murmured into Watson's ear, but the man wasn't moving and his eyes were sealed. Dead, he thought. Just like they wanted him. 'I'm sorry.'

He had taken a single bullet to the left shoulder. Pain and blood loss had sent him into shock. But he survived.

While Watson languished in the infirmary and papers were drawn up for his discharge back to England, Bill Murray received commendation. There was talk that he might even be awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry in the presence of the enemy. The mere suggestion of it made him feel ill. Major Sholto had been awarded the Victoria Cross, and rightfully so. They didn't make heroes of men who had first colluded to murder a fellow soldier, only later to save them.

He stayed away for about a week, until he heard that Watson would be shipping out soon and had been asking after him. Murray didn't think he could face him. Did he know? Had he figured it out? But when he came to Watson's bedside, where the man lay with his chest wrapped in bandages and IVs still hooked to his arms, he received only gratitude.

'You saved my life, Bill.'

Murray made no reply, just smiled his stupid smile, forcing himself to look Watson in the eye.

'I promise, I won't forget it.'

Not long after, he was gone. Murray felt left alone in a war zone.

He saw Brigadier Keen only once more, from across the refectory. They locked eyes for only a second, but it was all Murray needed to know he was in danger. Keen had sent him to kill and be killed, and he had failed in both respects.

Faking DVT was easy. He complained of pain in his right calf, tenderness when walking, sitting, or even lying down. He faked a cough, a headache, shortness of breath. He even set his leg under a heat lamp just before it was examined so his skin was warm. What's more, he knew just which of the doctors to complain to.

'I think it might be DVT,' he said, with fabricated concern. When he received no reply, he slowly lifted his gaze and saw the doctor studying him carefully.

'Could be serious,' the doctor said at last.

'Yeah.' He held his breath, not daring to hope.

Next day, his discharge came through. The reason cited: medical complications, owing to deep-vein thrombosis. Recommended treatment: blood thinners, specialist care.

The war hero was going home.