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holmes_minorTitle: Relativity
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: ACD (in my "Wounded Warriors" series)
Pairing: John Watson & Corporal Henry Wood
Word Count: 221b
Rating: G
Warning: None
Summary: One man's balmy spring is another's heat wave.
Author's Notes: Written for the June 2023 Holmes Minor monthly prompt, "collar."
***
At the Aldershot tavern The Musket and Shot, off-duty soldiers at an adjoining table blew and gasped, red-faced, downing their beer. "Blimey, I was feeling the collar at guard-change," puffed one crimson lad with an accent straight from Northumberland.
Corporal Henry Wood buried his face in his porter to hide his grin. Pursing my own lips, I murmured, "Surely they don't mean this balmy spring day?"
"Balmy? My dear Captain, it's downright chilly." My nut-brown companion wore a wool coat, even as July sun beat down outside and his fellow soldiers sweltered at their exercises.
I'd worn a wool coat as well but had shed it indoors. "You did spend more time in India than I, Corporal. And returned more recently."
The bent-backed older man, his body permanently crooked from maltreatment by his captors, took a fortifying draught of his hearty beverage. "Aye, well. I may have a bit of a laugh at their expense when the day's like this, Watson. But the rest of the time? It's as if I've moved to a land where it's always winter."
Decades of acclimation to tropical heat would not readily leave a man so soon returned to this cold northern island.
I finished my pint. "Corporal? I propose we take advantage. Let's walk outside and enjoy that April weather."
The crooked man beamed.
#
Author's Note: "Feeling the collar" is Victorian slang for sweating as one walks.
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: ACD (in my "Wounded Warriors" series)
Pairing: John Watson & Corporal Henry Wood
Word Count: 221b
Rating: G
Warning: None
Summary: One man's balmy spring is another's heat wave.
Author's Notes: Written for the June 2023 Holmes Minor monthly prompt, "collar."
***
At the Aldershot tavern The Musket and Shot, off-duty soldiers at an adjoining table blew and gasped, red-faced, downing their beer. "Blimey, I was feeling the collar at guard-change," puffed one crimson lad with an accent straight from Northumberland.
Corporal Henry Wood buried his face in his porter to hide his grin. Pursing my own lips, I murmured, "Surely they don't mean this balmy spring day?"
"Balmy? My dear Captain, it's downright chilly." My nut-brown companion wore a wool coat, even as July sun beat down outside and his fellow soldiers sweltered at their exercises.
I'd worn a wool coat as well but had shed it indoors. "You did spend more time in India than I, Corporal. And returned more recently."
The bent-backed older man, his body permanently crooked from maltreatment by his captors, took a fortifying draught of his hearty beverage. "Aye, well. I may have a bit of a laugh at their expense when the day's like this, Watson. But the rest of the time? It's as if I've moved to a land where it's always winter."
Decades of acclimation to tropical heat would not readily leave a man so soon returned to this cold northern island.
I finished my pint. "Corporal? I propose we take advantage. Let's walk outside and enjoy that April weather."
The crooked man beamed.
#
Author's Note: "Feeling the collar" is Victorian slang for sweating as one walks.
