On John

 (Sherlock Meta by thecutteralicia)

I’m definitely working on that body language meta, which was the winner of my little poll last week. But bear with me, because first I have some thoughts regarding one Captain John H. Watson.

It seems to be fanon that John was medically discharged from the British Army for either his shoulder wound or for psychological issues. wellingtongoose sums it up in one of her excellent metas on John in the military:

"If you like the idea that John is still in the RAMC at the time of his discharge the army must have either thought he was an immediate danger to his patients due to his psychological condition or possibly not going to recover mentally in a workable timeframe. Army doctors are a very valuable commodity. The army does not spend hundreds of thousands of pounds training a doctor only to discharge him for a gunshot wound that would heal up (and we have seen that John doesn’t have mobility problems with his shoulder).

Wounds can be slow to heal but the army would be losing far too much if they discharged a doctor because they didn’t want to give him long enough sick leave for his arm to heal. Doctors are highly valued commodities which is why they are never put in the line of fire and the army also works very hard to retain RAMC doctors after their contract ends. They get many benefits such as free accommodation on site, bonuses and scholarships for their children to private schools.

I think it is more likely that John might have made it back to work after the gunshot wound and then had some kind of a nervous breakdown or did something untowards to one of his patients. Basically John couldn’t function as doctor because of his mental, not his physical, health."

But I think there’s another option. I’m going to indulge my military history geekery and give you my headcanon about what happened to John in Afghanistan.

Background

First, let me look at ACD canon. In A Study in Scarlet, the original Watson writes of his injury, "There [Maiwand] I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery." Jezails were long barreled muskets, often homemade. In the modern day war in Afghanistan, insurgents use whatever guns they can scrounge up. Often that means Russian made assault rifles leftover from the Soviet war, PK machine guns or old (as in WWII era or earlier) bolt action rifles like Lee-Enfields (which are British), along with a range of smaller arms.

If I were to guess, I would say that John was probably shot by someone using an older bolt action rifle. There are two reasons for that. One is that those guns have a longer range and better accuracy, and so are particularly popular in places like Kandahar Province (where Maiwand is located) which are known to have a lot of snipers. The second is because - if we are to assume that our John had the same injury as original John - I think an assault rifle would’ve resulted in a much uglier wound. A single shot from a bolt action rifle could have shattered his bone and grazed the artery and while that’s obviously a serious injury, we know it was clean enough that it didn’t result in a permanent loss of mobility. [Smaller arms can be ruled out because they wouldn’t be high enough caliber to shatter bone.]

Watson continues,

"Here [at Peshawar base hospital] I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions."

So no wonder John in the series doesn’t seem to have any lingering shoulder problems. If we take the original Watson as a guide, he recovered from the actual gunshot wound just fine. It was an infection that waylaid him.

"For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it."

That process is still the same as it was in Conan Doyle’s day; an Army medical board still reviews each soldier on a case by case basis to determine whether they’re entitled to a medical discharge. I couldn’t find the British Army’s criteria, but I imagine it’s similar to the U.S. Army’s:

"Medical conditions and physical defects are those that, individually or in combination -

a. significantly interfere or limit the Soldier’s performance of their duties;

b. may compromise or aggravate the Soldier’s health or well-being if they were to remain in the military Service (this may involve dependence on certain medications, appliances, severe dietary restrictions, or frequent special treatments, or a requirement for frequent clinical monitoring);

c. may compromise the health or well-being of other Soldiers; and/or may prejudice the best interests of the Government if the individual were to remain in the military service."

Original Watson was nearly killed by enteric fever a.k.a. typhoid, which our John would’ve been inoculated against. However there are still plenty of other infections and diseases our modern soldiers have been suffering from in Afghanistan: MRSA, gastroenteritis, malaria, Q fever, leishmaniasis, etc. Pick any one of those and they could result in a long serious illness like the one original Watson describes.

So with that canon background in mind, we come to my personal headcanon.

My Scenario

2009 marked a geographical shift in the war from eastern to southern Afghanistan, particularly Kandahar Province. With this came an increased reliance by the Taliban on asymmetrical warfare (things that require less direct contact with the enemy, like bombs and snipers). John, like his predecessor, was stationed in Kandahar Province and saw the increased fighting there. The flashback in his dream of a battle may have been something he witnessed, but it wasn’t when he was injured. Rather, John was going about his business (maybe traveling to or from base) when he was hit in a random sniper attack by a Taliban insurgent using a WWII era long range bolt action rifle. The bullet hit him clean in the shoulder, shattered bone and nicked his subclavian artery. The immediate danger was of him bleeding out, but thanks to Bill Murray he survived.

The injury was painful but after treatment and a short period of rest, the wound began to heal nicely. John expected to recover totally without any permanent disability and to return to his duties with nothing more than a nasty scar. However, in the middle of his recovery he contracted an infection. Perhaps it was complicated by another concurrent infection, like malaria or dysentery, but either way John became critically ill and almost died. It took him months to recover, much longer than he expected. When he finally started to come back from it, he was severely weakened and underweight. Maybe there were also complications like anemia or kidney or heart damage.

Having been out of commission for months, John was required to go before the medical board to determine whether he could go back to active duty. They decided that he was so weakened and still suffering too many lasting effects from his illness to adequately fulfill his duties without risk to his health, and so they permanently discharged him on medical grounds. Although John should have expected that, it still came as a complete shock. He’d expected to recover and go back to his duties.

Shipped back to England, John found himself adrift. He had no friends or family he could rely on and was left to deal with the after effects of his illness alone [this again is borrowed from A Study in Scarlet]. He’d almost died when he was shot, but felt like he’d gotten a second chance when the injury turned out to be non-permanent and non-career threatening. Then, suddenly, boom! He had the rug pulled out from under him and had to battle for his life once again. It would have been a devastating blow.

On top of the stress of being ill for months, John also had to deal with the sudden loss of his military career and his friends in the Army, who were probably like family to him. Sick, alone and with no personal or professional purpose in life, he spiraled down into a deep depression. When that stress and despair started to manifest itself in a somatoform disorder (the limp and the hand tremor) someone (let’s say from the Veterans Welfare Service) advised that he see a therapist. Which brings us to Ella and the beginning of A Study in Pink and, well, you all know the rest.