Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 1) (13 page)

Aboard the HMS
Orontes

1880

Doctor John H. Watson awoke from a dream of fire and blood, of shooting and clattering sabers and men breathing their last breaths as he worked feverishly to save limbs and lives.

It was Afghanistan, of course, and it seemed for a long moment as if that land of sere deserts and floating mountains was at hand, just beyond the canvas walls of his field surgery, but then it all shimmered into darkness. He was not in a tent, he realised, not encamped in the midst of war, but far from land, surrounded by the rolling sea, alone in the endless night.

Watson sat on the edge of his bunk and reached for a towel. Despite the chill, he was sweating, but he could not say whether it was from the nightmare that had again come upon him, or from the lingering effects of emetic fever. He wiped perspiration from his face and neck, then threw the sodden cloth aside.

And his bullet wound was paining him greatly. As the years passed, the discomfort might (or might not) lessen, but it would never vanish entirely. No matter how he shifted about, it still hurt. That Afghani tribal fighter, shooting blindly into the encampment from the boulder-strewn hillside at Maiwand with a primitive Jezail flintlock, would never know the outcome of that shot, nor the lifelong embarrassment it would give Watson. He
knew
where he had been shot, but as far as what he
told
others…he only hoped he could keep straight the revealed location, as the last thing he needed was a phantom bullet wandering from limb to limb, not that anyone but he would ever truly care.

No use trying to seek sleep again, he thought. Between the nightmares, the pain, the sweats and the claustrophobic closeness of life aboard the troopship, any sort of rest was impossible. And there was the forced idleness. He had obtained his medical degree at the University of London in 1878, then had trained as an army surgeon at Netley before joining his regiment in Afghanistan, so, surely, there was some practical work he could put his hands to aboard ship, but that suggestion, when put to Captain Perkins, had been met with a cold eye.

The enlisted men had their non-coms to keep them in line, and the regular officers certainly did not mind the long hours of drinking and playing cards, but Watson fit into neither group, and the discipline aboard ship was to keep the crew as separated as possible from the soldiers returning to England.

He usually busied himself with books brought on board, but he had exhausted all but one medical journal six months old, and the
Orontes
itself held a very poor selection in its meager library. Climbing out of bed and pulling on his clothing, Watson seated himself at the tiny desk in the cramped quarters and lit the small lamp bolted to the desk-top. From a dispatch bag wedged between a trunk and a desk-leg he pulled a neat sheaf of papers, which contained notes he had jotted in England and later upon his sojourn. He had had in mind publishing a journal of his experiences during the Second Afghan Campaign, for although he had a literary turn of mind he did not feel he had the talent for writing popular fiction of any kind, but even that modest idea now seemed less tenantable: his training had been rushed, his service had been brief, and he was faced with the very real question of who would want to read anything written by a former military man on half pay who had so far accomplished so little in any career. It was more likely he would either purchase some retiring physician’s private practice or, much more likely, serve as locum for doctors and surgeons until he could get onto more solid footing. If for no other reason than financial, he would have to put aside any thoughts of becoming a writer, just as he would have to seriously consider finding a flat-mate upon his return to London.

Time and circumstance conspire to poison dreams
, he thought as he considered his present and immediate future.
There is no profit in cursing fate. At least I can squarely face the truth – any truth is better than indefinite doubt. Perhaps I shall not be a writer, but, nevertheless, I shall do something worthy of note
.

Still, he jotted down some odd ideas and musings that had come to him during evening mess, as well as scraps of overheard conversation, for it was his nature to observe and record, a nature he could not deny, nor did he truly desire to; he returned the papers to the bag, and the bag to its place. Grabbing a coat and his pipe, Watson quietly departed his quarters and made for the deck.

They were somewhere in the vicinity of the Cape, or so he had picked up from various comments  at the Captain’s Table that night. The brilliant stars, brighter than he had ever seen before, even in the crystal-aired deserts of Afghanistan, were mirrored in the sea, so it appeared to him as if the ship were adrift in the vastness of the cosmos, a small and insignificant craft, less than a mote in the Eye of God. He did not recall ever having felt so alone, so far from the haunts of man.

He filled his pipe with rough-cut shag from the pouch in his jacket pocket and lighted it. He exhaled a lazy stream of blue smoke into the velvet night.

“Good evening, Doctor Watson,” greeted a soft voice. “Having trouble sleeping? Same here, I’m afraid. Whoever said an ocean voyage was the most relaxing mode of travel has never had the pleasure of sailing on a troopship. I wonder, could I bother you for a bit of that shag? I’ll gladly pay.”

It was Moresby, a young lieutenant of Cavalry who had lost an eye and his right leg during the battle, and nearly his life when his horse was shot from under him; his left arm, too, was of limited use – though the bones had been reset as best as possible the damage had just been too severe. A once-fit young man had been reduced to dependency upon canes and society’s pity.

“Here you go,” Watson said. “Keep your money, lad. I have plenty. Besides, fellow travellers and all that. How are you feeling?”

“Not as well as I should hope, but thanks.” He stuffed the pungent tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, lighted it and took a contemplative puff. “Thank you, Doctor. Much appreciated.”

“It’s filthy stuff really,” Watson commented. “Local mix, definitely
not
with a touch of latakia; I shudder to think what went into it.”

“My tobacconist would probably be appalled,” Moresby admitted.

“But out here…”

“Yes, like bad port wine and any book,” Moresby agreed. “Out here, you learn to appreciate even the smallest comfort.”

“Yes,” Watson allowed, “but when I get back to England I’ll dispose of this native weed; if I ever again smell the strong stink of rough-cut shag it will be too soon.”

“Nights like this make a chap feel very small, don’t you agree?” Moresby murmured.

Watson nodded. Though the
Orontes
was well over three hundred feet in length and 44 feet at the beam, displacing in excess of five thousand tons, it really did seem much smaller than a child’s toy boat, afloat within a shimmering washbasin. At this neap of the morning there were stiff and steady winds out of the south-southeast, so the ship’s boilers were being rested, and all the shrouds of the three-master were billowing.

“What are your plans when we return to London, Moresby?” Doctor Watson asked.

“I haven’t really given it much thought,” Moresby admitted.

“Got a girl waiting back home?”

“Not anymore?”

“Oh.” Watson eyed the young man, pale in the starlight of the southern climes. He hesitated. While he was no alienist, he knew very well ailments of the flesh could exacerbated by turmoil of the mind; still, he had no real desire to delve into that private maelstrom. He held silent, but felt guilty for so doing.

“She broke it off,” Moresby explained, biting the words sharply. “I wrote to her, telling what happened to me. Her return letter arrived just before we sailed. Seemed she could not face life with a cripple. Not that I blame her, not really…who could?”

“Damned shame,” Watson muttered, discomfited.

“I don’t resent her decision,” Moresby continued.

“That’s decent of you, old man.”

Moresby shrugged. “What else can I do?”

For long minutes they smoked their pipes in silence, each man occupied with his own thoughts. The sea splashed rhythmically against the hull as the ship cut a luminescent swath through the star-filled sea beneath swirling constellations never seen above the dark domes and spires of London.

“What the devil was that?” Moresby asked suddenly.

Watson shifted his gaze from the dizzying reaches of the sails to the southern darkness, where Moresby was peering intently.

“What is it?” Watson questioned. “I don’t see anything.”

“I thought I saw…” the young lieutenant said. “Yes, there it is, a light, moving just above the horizon…do you see it?

The stars were so bright and abundant that the darkness of the sea created a more definite horizon than existed during the brief daylight hours, when ocean and sky met in a vague grey haze. At first Watson saw nothing but the sharp line where the glimmering stars of the sky met the reflected shimmering stars of the sea. Then he saw it, a faint reddish light in the distance.

The light might have been mistaken for another star, but it moved, and as it moved it pulsed in a very slow interval. For long moments it remained barely visible, then faded to nothingness, dark so long that Watson wondered if he had really seen it at all, if it had not been a trick played by the deepness of the night and the desire to not be alone in the immensity of the world, whereupon it slowly pulsed back into visibility, slightly brighter than before, and nearer.

“It must be another ship,” Watson commented.

“That far south?” Moresby questioned. “Only whalers haunt these waters so close to the southern polar wastes, and it is not the season for them.”

As they watched, the intervals of light and dark shortened until the mysterious fire gleamed continually; while still very faint it was noticeably closer to them. And it was pacing their ship.

“You keep an eye on it, Moresby,” Watson said, “and I’ll get the officer of the watch.”

Moresby only nodded.

Watson returned a few moments later with a thin dark man very annoyed to see two passengers up and about.

“What the devil is going on here? You two should…” His voice trailed away as he beheld the object of the men’s concern.

During Watson’s brief absence, the nebulous glow had drawn much closer to the troopship. It still had no definite outline, nor could the ship carrying the light be seen, but now the ruddy glow was reflected in the glassy sea, seeming as if a fiery dagger were pointed directly at the
Orontes
. After a long moment of deliberation, the officer of the watch called to a sailor and ordered the Captain to be fetched.

“What is it,  Mr Larson?” Captain Perkins demanded when he appeared with the sailor.

“Unknown light off port amidships,” Larson reported.

“Humph, so there is,” Captain Perkins murmured, raising a brass telescope to his eye. “No ship should be out there.”

“And I did not like it pacing us, sir,” Larson added. Though he had paused before summoning Captain Perkins, he now sensed he had done the right thing, and the captain’s apparent concern caused him to speak out of form. “Could be an enemy craft.”

The officer fell abruptly silent as the Captain gave him a sharp glance.

“Get the lantern,” the Captain said to the sailor who had fetched him. “Give a light signal.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr Larson, rouse Mr Barthorpe and the remainder of the crew.”

“Aye, sir.”

“No alarms, as yet,” Captain Perkins cautioned. “Just tell the Executive Officer to set the men to their posts.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the chastised officer of the watch fled to carry out his orders, the sailor returned with the ship’s Begbie Lamp, its paraffin flame already lit. He fitted the housing to its tripod stand, uncovered the lens and began flashing coded signals toward the other craft. After sending the standard sequences, the sailor waited for a reply.

“Seems whoever it is doesn’t want to talk to us,” Captain Perkins mused, keeping his brass telescope trained on the light. “Let them have the signals again, lad, then add a warn-off. If she’s in no need of assistance, best for her to keep her distance.”

The sailor did as he was ordered.

Again there was no reply.

And still the light paced them, matching speed and course, while seeming to draw nearer.

“Don’t like it,” Captain Perkins muttered. “Not at all.”

All about them the crew of the
Orontes
assumed their posts, including, or so Watson assumed, the gunnery mates assigned to the ship’s three four-pounder guns.

“Sir, I’ve sent the warn-off signal three times, but she’s still closing,” the sailor said.

“Peculiar, damned peculiar,” Captain Perkins murmured, but obviously not in response to the sailor’s observation of the obvious. “I should be able to see something of the other ship in the glare of its running lamp, or even just a silhouette against the star field, but all I can make out is the lamp, as if it is suspended in the air.”