From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 104)

The most puzzling encounter I have had to date still returns to haunt me in the loneliest hours of the night. Early on in my career, I had cause to kill an opponent with a knife. Knife fights are uncommon, not only because they require a degree of skill that most do not bother to attain, but because you must have a strong stomach. If you are well matched it is more than likely you will only suffer glancing wounds, but more than this, you are extremely close to your opponent as you inflict very visceral damage to his form. The slicing and stabbing of another human being, usually to death, is not pleasant for either opponent (though, admittedly, even less pleasant for the other chap). Even surviving such an encounter does not mean you will see the day out. Suffering from blood loss can be a death sentence in itself. This is without even considering the possibility of infection.

But I digress. I had landed what I felt must surely be the killing blow, when my opponent paused, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ Then he died.

I confess, at first, I was afraid his weapon had been poisoned, or that he had somehow inflicted mortal damage on me that I had not yet noticed. Neither proved to be the case.

It has been many years since this event, and still I wake having seen his face in my dreams and having heard his final words.

I have not had many occasions when I have heard a man’s last words, but when I have, they have usually been phrases such as ‘tell her…’, sometimes ‘tell her I love her’, or if the person has enough presence of mind, ‘tell Doris I love her.’ As I invariably don’t know who Doris (or whoever) is, said person remains untold. A colleague of mine used to consider it his duty to lean over the dying person to hear if they had a final message. Very sentimental I thought. My colleague stopped doing this when one foe beckoned him closer, closer, until the dying man was able to raise his head and take a chunk out of my colleague’s ear as a last petty moment of revenge. It left him with a rather interestingly shaped appendage. He has made up many a tale to account for it, none of which mention his sentimental stupidity.

I do not lean in to hear last words. More often than not, after delivering a killing blow, I am legging it away from the scene of the crime as fast as I can. Sometimes, when caught unawares, I even have Jack barking happily at my heels. I do wish I could convince him that watching his master kill isn’t done for his benefit. The few times he has been with me, and such an occurrence has taken place, he has considered it a rare treat and reacted in a most excited manner.

Needless to say, when I heard the dying man’s apology, it was long before Jack existed. I sometimes wonder if my deceased foe only said what he did to puzzle me - and make me more likely to recall his demise. In which case he has been most successful.