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The first time the young John Watson goes into combat for real, where it's not just an exercise that'll be picked apart in a class room later, he's fresh out of Sandhurst and as green as his combat gear. It's a minor skirmish in the long war in Sierra Leone but to him it's a life altering experience a validation of his chosen way of life. Up to now it's all been dry words and carefully controlled staged managed games, now, oh now it's a raw visceral rush of adrenalin heightening every sense. He clings to the side of a truck as it bounces along the dirt track too fast and a fraction out of control as it hits every rut and hole, swinging into a smoking collection of once upon a time huts he drops to the ground and charges after his squad leader legs pounding, lungs heaving, heart thundering its way out of his chest yelling as loud as he can the raw sharp sound stretching out behind him mingling into the communal song of battle.
Over time of course that initial raw rush of fear, anger and determination softens, like his gear its seen hard use and given a bit round the edges, become comfortable and familiar. Now as the APC bumps along the cold windswept track out of Port Stanley he's got stars on his shoulders and scars underneath his uniform and the wild wordless yelling has transmuted into words, semi wild and not always wise, but words. He has a part in directing the song now, no longer just a member of the chorus line. He feels a bit of a fraud sometimes reprimanding some green 2nd lieutenant or squaddie for reckless behaviour, he still feels the pull of mindless action sometime, the urge to give in to the wild song that thrums though his blood and sings out in his actions.
It's in Iraq and Afghanistan that he finally feels at home in his role, three stars and half a lifetime of war have left their mark, now when he calls the charge and scrambles up and onward he welcomes fear, determination and a sharp stinging joy as old friends. Directing and shaping the song with a steady practised hand, he's at his best here out under the unforgiving sun amid the whine of bullets and the thudding of rocket fire. His men follow him gladly, they can see that he's as possessed by the song of war as they are, that he lives for the thrill of battle and they know he can, will and does, help them deal with it's aftermath. It's here where he sits on the edge of helicopters swinging through the wide clear blue skies desert jacket billowing like a pennant in the air stream that song of Captain John H Watson is in full irresistible spate, confident, complex, joyful and full of promise.
It is in Afghanistan after the fire fight and once he's been evacuated to hospital that his men gather silently remembering the steady banner of their captains courage in combat, the sometime wild recklessness of his tactical decisions, the reliability of his word and in the end the seemingly endless red pennant of his blood that streamed out behind him as the medics fought a different kind of war to save him.