Mycroft Holmes (33 page)

Back on board, Holmes read the water’s pull, its temperature, and the Merikens’ average weight, and estimated their time to the breakwater as between sixty and sixty-two minutes.

Here and there, fishing boats large and small dotted the landscape. Holmes and the Harmonious Fists took advantage of this cover, venturing as close to the mercenaries as they dared.

* * *

The water was cool, a relief from the mugginess of the day. That much was a blessing, Douglas mused as he fought past the initial shock of what he had volunteered to do. At first, it was difficult to keep his mind from wandering, or from giving in to anxiety.

Why on earth did I not allow a younger man to take my place?
he scolded himself.
Even if I make it to shore, if I am too exhausted to fight, what earthly good will I be?

After a few minutes he relaxed and thought only of keeping his feet kicking evenly and smoothly, and as close to the surface as possible in order to preserve energy.

He could feel his gun where he had put it, strapped between his shoulder blades, still dry and protected against his skin. And when he looked around, he was gratified to learn that he was still neck and neck with the Merikens, every one of them younger than he by a decade, at least.

The men were perfectly equidistant from each other. If all continued well, they would surround the beach, surprising and disarming the guards.

* * *

As the group of swimmers approached the breakwater, Douglas had no idea how long it had taken them, as he had left his timepiece, most of his clothing, and other belongings back on board. From the soft play of light behind the cover of clouds, he assumed that Holmes’s estimation of one hour had been accurate, and that the boats would soon be joining them in their first salvo.

The closer he came, the more he sacrificed form for determined effort as he fought hard against a strong current. His legs felt like rubber. Above him, the light rain kept trickling down, which was quite useful in keeping visibility low.

He noticed that the mercenaries had taken shelter from the wet under a canopy of trees. The moisture-drenched air, which carried every sound, was carrying the growl of snoring. They seemed so relaxed that Douglas was concerned that this was indeed a ruse—until he reminded himself about men for hire.

Unless they believed in whatever cause they had been engaged to uphold, such men did not often make the best combatants, as they were rarely willing to sacrifice their lives for the handful of shillings they would receive—usually at the end of their service, and not before.

I hope they have been promised very little pay indeed
, he thought ruefully. With that he pulled himself up out of the water, keeping low while hastening to his agreed-upon hiding place.

Then he waited for the others to get into position.

As he fought his own exhaustion, he thought of the men who were to join him in securing the beachhead. In particular, he thought of Jessup Jones, saying a silent prayer for him and the other youngsters, asking that their youth, determination, and idealism would preserve them intact.

* * *

On the beach, the sleepy and distracted guards were completely shocked to see men rising up out of the water from all directions, like fully armed phoenixes raking them with bullets. Then, not a moment after, a dozen warriors in very peculiar clothing scrambled out of fishing boats anchored nearby and propelled themselves forward at inhuman speeds, their bodies contorting and twisting in impossible directions.

* * *

From his vantage point, Holmes saw unmitigated panic in the guards’ eyes, and he recalled Douglas’s words.

There is nothing quite so frightening as to have the human body come at you in some unexpected way.

It seemed the mercenaries indeed had nothing to prove, and no one for whom they would lay down their lives. They immediately dropped their weapons, raised their hands in the air and fled, hastening onto half a dozen small boats that had been pulled ashore, or diving into the water fully clothed and swimming frantically away.

Rather than pursue them, Holmes, Douglas and the emboldened men gathered up the abandoned weapons, and pushed onward toward the island’s interior.

FIRST ISLAND IN THE BOCAS DEL DRAGÓN BEGAN WITH A FLAT
, warm beach, and then rose into a hilly terrain of tropical dry forest, sometimes called a monsoon forest. This monsoon forest sustained mostly deciduous trees—mountain ebony and teak, the sorts of growth that thrived in an uninviting and sandy soil.

The forest did not rise up in the center of the island in a neat and orderly fashion. Instead, it seemed as if it had been crushed and pushed to one side, allowing the large crescent of beach below.

In its long history, the misshapen island had seen few humans. It was normally alive with the cries of parrots and monkeys, and the rustle of big cats that moved so stealthily through the green that they were all but invisible. Those sounds had been stilled by another, a foreign one that cut most unpleasantly through the air.

It was the zing of bullets bursting out of unseen chambers in rapid succession, as deadly as the deadliest cat and flying by at unmatchable speeds.

Holmes, Douglas, and the Merikens had left the expanse and easy sightlines of the beach crescent and begun their trek up through the scrub. Walking at the head of the pack, Holmes caught a glimpse of a human-made structure at the promontory, though with the low-lying clouds and the drizzling rain, it was impossible to tell if it was a ruin or something of more recent vintage.

He was pointing it out to Douglas when the shooting began.

The men dove for cover as best they could while firing back at their targets, very nearly blindly. This time it wasn’t just a handful of quickly vanquished opponents, as they’d encountered upon landing, but seemingly hundreds of unseen enemies—all so well armed that reloading was not a concern, as there were few intervals in the deadly volley.

Within moments, a thick cloud of gunpowder had insinuated its way from amongst the trees and into the atmosphere. In the wet and humid air, it spread and settled and formed a canopy over the entire area, so that pinpointing the shooters’ locations proved futile.

Holmes crouched in a groove in the brush. He had been provided with a weapon but, unlike Douglas, he was not a brilliant shot, as he had never had much cause to practice. He was even less adept when he could not see the target.

So, instead of firing back, he did the next best thing.

He began to listen, as if to a strange, discordant melody, to the pings of ammunition in the trees and the rocks and the dirt. As firepower continued to assail them from the hills, he noticed something altogether unusual.

“Douglas!” he called.

But his friend could not hear. He was some fifty feet away, and so intent on preserving the lives of those around him that the cry dissipated into the air.

So there was no alternative but to test his theory on his own. Before anyone could stop him, he rose from his cover, the cane clutched firmly in his fist, and moved quickly toward the shooters while bullets hummed on either side of his head.

Douglas gaped at his friend, then he called out for the Merikens to cover this recklessness, which they did, shooting back as best they could. Suddenly Holmes turned and headed back the same way he had come.

“Drop and hold!” Holmes thundered to the Merikens as he slid back into his crevice. The command made its way down the chain. The men ceased fire as bullets from the hills continued to whiz and ping against every rock, tree and stump.

Holmes waited a moment to catch his breath; then he crawled upon his belly the fifty feet toward Douglas.

“Gatling guns!” he proclaimed, enthused.

Douglas stared at him, incredulous.

“You
saw
one?” he asked.

“No, but I witnessed their effect! The Union put them into service during the American Civil War, but just this year, Mr. Gatling brought their manufacture to the United States. Their value is quite underestimated, Douglas! You may buy one for seven hundred pounds, even less if—”

“Holmes,
please
…” Douglas said through gritted teeth.

Holmes scooted closer to him, very nearly giddy with the joy of discovery, all sense of danger apparently forgotten.

“Their gravity feed reloading system allows even the untrained to fire some two hundred rounds per minute! The Gatlings are the reason there seem to be a hundred men under cover, and why they have no need to reload.”

“A Gatling can still kill you,” Douglas objected vehemently, “so why on earth would you run into the line of fire?”

“I did no such thing! I ran
between
the lines of fire, do you see? My guess is they have…”

He listened to the bullets vibrating through the atmosphere, then landing, and he began to estimate.

“…three Gatlings. With slaves at each.”

“
Slaves?
” Douglas repeated, aghast.

“Of course! Certainly, it
must
be. Who else? Because whoever is manning the guns is doing us no harm, but rather coming to our rescue!”

“Holmes,” Douglas warned. “Do not force me to commit violence.”

“Douglas,” Holmes exclaimed in return, “do you not see? Someone is turning the crank of the guns, but not altering their positions, thus allowing us set rows in which to advance. Listen!”

He pointed to the brush and trees around them. As the volley of bullets continued unabated, Douglas attempted to do what Holmes had requested, though it was no easy task.

“There are no orders being issued,” he said at last. “No commands to flank the guns right, left, up or down!”

“And here’s something else,” Holmes added, looking up the hill. “My assumption is that the slavers are no longer on this island. They left their captives behind to defend against us, perhaps with a warning of some sort that would force them to comply. My guess is, the slaves believe the slavers can still hear them—and so they continue to shoot.”

“Yet they are creating a clear path for us—is that it?” Douglas pressed.

Holmes nodded. “Perhaps they hope that, whoever we are, we are preferable to what came before.”

Huan made his way over, and Douglas’s own excitement was beginning to percolate:

“Holmes believes that there are Gatlings,” he told Huan, “manned by slaves, and that they are simply shooting straight ahead. Which means that whatever space is formed between the guns themselves are byways, of sorts—paths we can utilize to make our advance up the hill. Is it worth the risk?” he added, for the Harmonious Fists were unarmed, and so were particularly vulnerable.

Huan stared at both of them.

“You are certain of this?” he asked.

“No, but it is what we surmise,” Holmes replied.

“We must test your theory, must we not?” Little Huan said to Holmes, joining in. “I can take the path you took, make sure it holds, before we put other men in danger.”

“I will not permit this,” his father responded. But when Little Huan could not be persuaded to stand down, the older man looked at Douglas.

“Then I go with him,” he said.

“You cannot
both
go!” Douglas protested.

“Fathers should not outlive their sons,” Huan said with a shrug.

“Fine,” Douglas said. “Then I will go with you.”

“Perfect,” Holmes cried, and he grimaced. “Then if I am wrong, I lose the three of you!”

“But you are never wrong, are you, Holmes?” Douglas said.

“I have never hoped for more from my own intellect,” Holmes declared, “than I do now.”

Little Huan smiled shyly.

“To fools,” he cried out.

“To fools!” the others exclaimed.

* * *

The three men followed the selfsame path that Holmes had taken. In spite of the hail of bullets whizzing by them, they remained unscathed.

Holmes’s theory stood fast.

At his direction, the rest of the men regrouped in single file behind the initial three and began their march up the hill.

As they climbed, the Merikens shot into the air as infrequently as they could without arousing suspicion, should the slavers still be listening. They made their way past the lower brush and toward the trees, where the smoke from the Gatling guns was most dense.

At last Huan and Little Huan, at the front of the line, caught the glint of the Gatlings’ burnished gold barrels among the green.

A moment later, they were greeted by a most terrible sight.