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Five Minutes
Nice to meet ya, Mr. Holmes.
Read your blog, don’t y’know? Pity you took down the neat stuff about the tobacco ash. There’s a lot of neat stuff you can tell about people, only if you look real careful-like. Me - I see lots of stuff, only people call me crazy and make those funny rolling gestures with their fingers, like I wouldn’t know what that meant.
They think you’re crazy too? Sociopath? Load of bollocks, mate. Anyone with eyes and ears can see you’re the furthest thing from that and I guess I said too much, Mr. Holmes. Don’t reckon you’d like me giving the game away.
Sherlock, is it? Awfully neat name you got there. In return, I’ll tell ya what the H.M. in my name really stands for. Oh, you figured it out? That’s awesome. You’re right - people just need to pay attention and in my case, just have a little more knowledge of the history of the U.S. Marine Corps - though I ain’t a Marine, I’m a Ranger, baby!
Not that we got anything against Marines, mind you. Remind me to tell ya about the time me and Facey got ourselves out of a spot of trouble. If you ever want to cause a serious distraction, all you gotta do is yell “Chesty Puller is a wuss!!!” in a bar full of Marines.
Just make sure you blame the other guy and you’ll get out of there in one piece. Promise.
All right, so I’ll tell ya about Captain Watson.
I was playing taxi that day - you know how it is. We Yanks and you English chaps have regular playdates together and it should’ve been a routine “pick-em-up and get the hell out of Dodge” thing. I just had Facey and Kirby, our medic, with me that day - we were supposed to grab Hannibal and B.A. at the next LZ.
Except some wise ass decided to tag me with an RPG and down we went. We’d just gotten starring roles in the sequel to Black Hawk Down and it was all FUBAR in a matter of minutes.
Our medic was KIA, I got knocked hard on the head and was seeing pretty colors and lights for a couple of minutes, Face was bleeding like a stuck pig. We had three guys on your side - Ryan, the Irish guy was walking wounded too. Cullen was still in one piece and we had your Captain Watson with us.
And we were surrounded by Taliban and Hannibal and B.A. were ten minutes away from getting to us.
FUBAR, like I said.
And then, there goes Captain Watson and he tells me, “I’m a doctor too, let me have a look at him.” Calm as you please, like we weren’t getting shot at and in imminent danger of being blown off the face of the earth.
Oh. Captain Watson wasn’t just an army doctor - you didn’t know that? Soldier with an MD, that was what he was and that MD damn well came in handy that day. He kept Face from bleeding to death, patched Ryan up, kept me from going all to pieces and I managed to let Hannibal know what was going on.
ETA five minutes our Colonel says and he had that tone in his voice telling me he and B.A. were hatching up a Plan. Colonel Hannibal’s always one for Plans and they are made of win and awesomeness. So basically, all we needed to do was stay alive for five minutes.
Those five fucking minutes were the longest in our lives.
We didn’t have much in the way of ammo left, so every shot we had needed to count. You know that Face is our sniper? He’s a pretty good shot, our Facey, but on that day, he didn’t have a lot of mobility with that leg. I managed to stop seeing stars and pretty lights long enough to focus. Cullen got winged a minute into the fighting and Ryan worked on getting him patched up, following Captain Watson’s orders.
Your Captain Watson’s a hell of a crack shot. Got that fucker with the RPG with his pistol - it was beautiful, I’m telling you. Brought down a few more of the enemy and I swear to you, Sherlock Holmes, he pretty much bought us those five minutes so Hannibal and B.A. could make it to us in that General’s Humvee they managed to scrounge up somewhere. Most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
We got our guys and yours out that day and except for Kirby, nobody else got killed. Still owe Captain Watson a drink and let me tell you, Sherlock, it is a guarantee that Colonel Hannibal here’s gonna move heaven and earth to make sure nothing happens to your Captain.
Captain Watson saved Face’s life and mine that day - we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.
Oh? You figured out the deal with Hannibal and Face too? Yeah, they’re pretty sweet - it’s adorable, let me tell you. Took them a helluva long time to stop pussyfooting around and pretty much drove me and B.A. crazy with all the UST but, hey - love’s a beautiful many-splendored thing.
If you got any sense at all, you’d better not waste any time with your Captain once you get home, Sherlock Holmes. Sure he’ll probably deck ya once he works out what you did but I reckon if you tell him you’re sorry, you’ll get to snog him good and proper soon enough.
Aww, he’s blushing, Colonel! Ain’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?
Oh, was I saying too much again? Never mind, I’ll shut up now.
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