Mycroft Holmes (34 page)

THERE WERE INDEED THREE GATLING GUNS, AS HOLMES HAD
predicted. From the looks of it, they had been set up to protect a crumbling edifice that stood in a clearing at the pinnacle of the hill. The Gatlings had been positioned equidistant from each other in such a way that the barrels, when turning, could cover the entire terrain, thus easily felling anyone foolhardy enough to attempt an ascent.

As his men reached the guns, the Merikens continued to shoot sporadically into the air, while the slaves continued to fire into the brush below. The din was overwhelming.

Holmes peered around cautiously. If the slavers were indeed close enough to monitor the engagement, he saw no one.

“Huan!” he said. “Have your men scout about and see if anyone is still within hearing range.”

Huan and his men immediately complied, while Holmes turned back to the terrible sight before him.

Twelve black men had been shackled four to a gun. Each of them had a clamp about their necks, with chains that held them fast so that they could move less than a foot in either direction. Their clothing was threadbare—moth-eaten and torn, and the holes revealed bruises from beatings, along with the deep and ugly gashes that only whips could bestow. They had no water to drink. They’d been starved to skin and bones.

It was the inhumanity that was anathema to Holmes, something he could not have fathomed.

Even Douglas, who had witnessed his share of evil, stood dumbfounded in the face of it.

The prisoners kept at their labors, though they were barely able to stand. At each gun, one man dutifully soaked fibrous matting in water to cool down the barrels. The water had been dosed with sulfur, from the smell of it, so as to make it undrinkable. A second man was stationed to the left of the gun, while to his right were stacked dozens of boxes of cartridges. Every three seconds he’d pick up a box and place it in the rails, which automatically discharged the cartridges. Spring-loading the rails with his thumb would drop the cartridges down into the hopper. By repeating that sequence over and over, the six barrels at his command could each shoot two hundred rounds per minute.

A third man turned the crank that shot the bullets, while the fourth was tasked to position the gun left, right, up or down, depending on the location of the enemy. At each gun, it was this fourth operative who had purposely shirked his duty, thus giving Holmes and his men a way to reach them.

The captives stared at the newcomers with the wide-eyed, nearly innocent gaze of human beings who had nothing left to sustain them, while the Merikens stood back in respectful silence, their eyes downcast.

Holmes, feeling the burden of leadership, began to move toward them, his mouth rising into a badly formed smile.

“Do you speak English?” he called out over the cacophony.

They cowered, then dutifully continued their assigned tasks.

Douglas laid a restraining hand on his friend, but there was hardly the need. Holmes himself had ceased mid-stride, struck with the realization that perhaps a white man with a cane in his hand wasn’t a wholesome sight, no matter how friendly his smile might appear.

After that, Douglas calmly attempted, in Spanish, and then in Portuguese, to communicate that they’d come in friendship, and to be of aid. Most of the slaves looked at him, uncomprehending. But one, the man on the central gun, lifted up a hand. His weapon fell silent, though the other two weapons continued their din.

He was a big man, easily as tall as Douglas but thicker, though his muscles were beginning to atrophy. His head had been shaved, and he still bore the wounds of a haphazard and unfriendly blade. His gaze was coal black and piercing, and the other men eyed him with deference.

“I am Tomas,” the big man told Douglas in halting Portuguese. “You understood our trick.”

“
He
did,” Douglas said, indicating Holmes. “He is useful on occasion. They call me Cyrus. I thank you for saving our lives—now we wish to return the favor. Might you allow it?”

Tomas translated Douglas’s words for the others. As two Gatling guns continued to fire—and the Merikens fired back just enough for effect—the captives nodded agreement. Several Merikens finally approached them and offered them water from their flasks. Then they picked up large rocks and used them, along with knives, to crack the links of the shackles.

“Where are you from?” Douglas shouted to Tomas.

“The Gold Coast,” he replied as a couple of men worked to free him. “White men caught us, put us into a boat.”

“How many were caught?”

“Forgive me. I cannot count,” Tomas told him. “But many. Like small fish in a very large net.”

“You were on the water for a very long time?” Douglas asked, though he knew the answer.

“Yes,” Tomas confirmed. “We lay on our backs side by side on the boat, not much food, almost no water.”

“Did many die?”

“Oh, yes. Many. One dies, one lives, one dies… like that.”

“And you did not see what they did with the bodies,” Douglas assumed.

“No,” Tomas replied. “I was inside the belly of the boat. Most likely, the bodies fed the sharks.” He stumbled a bit for want of strength but quickly regained himself, and indicated to Douglas that he could go on.

“When you first reached land,” Douglas asked, “did you hear the name of the place?”

“No. Though a few of the white men spoke Portuguese, they were careful around me…”

Huan’s men returned with their report.

“We cannot say for certain that the island is deserted,” Little Huan announced, “but there is no organized force. Or if there is, they cannot reach us quickly enough to do damage.”

Douglas translated this last for Tomas, who did the same for his men. Then he lifted up a shackled hand—and the firing suddenly ceased.

The captives looked around warily, as if expecting retribution to rain down from the skies at any moment. When it did not, they gratefully accepted more water and allowed Holmes’s men to proceed with the task of freeing them from their chains.

“From there,” Tomas continued, “they took us to another island nearby. Bigger. Not many trees. The white men, they were building something, but I cannot say what, for I do not know. They put us into groups. Women and children, too.”

“Did they tell you what you were to do there?” Douglas asked.

“They told us nothing,” he said. He flinched from the strikes as the men continued to try to break the bolt that held the neck brace in place.

“Then, something happened,” he went on. “They take some of us, some who still look strong—men, women, children. They clean us, remove chains, cover us with clothes—good soft clothes. Some white men even take off their own clothes to give us. All of it quick. So many unhappy faces! I tell my people, ‘Someone comes that they did not expect.’”

He stopped as the chain jerked, pulling at his neck. Douglas reached over to hold the collar steady while the others continued to hammer at the links.

“So we do what they want,” Tomas continued. “We stand in our new clothes, and a boat arrives, with a woman. With hair like his.”

And he pointed to Holmes.

“Was there a man with her?” Douglas asked. “Green eyes? Mustache?”

“Yes,” Tomas said. “We had seen him before. He was quick to hit, that one! And he never smiled. But this day, he was smiling.

“First, he takes her to what they are building,” he went on. “She seems happy. Then he brings her to us. And she greets us. And we sing a welcome to her in our own tongue, as they told us to—but behind us, we have a surprise.”

One last blow, and his neck brace finally fell to the ground with a soft thud. All around them, more shackles fell the same way. Tomas rubbed his neck—but gently, for the bruises were large and painful. He drank a bit more water as slowly as he could manage, considering his great thirst.

“We had hidden a young boy behind us. When she is there, looking so happy, we step aside.”

“Holmes?” Douglas called to him. He recounted what Tomas had told him thus far. Then, as Tomas continued his story, Douglas translated.

“The slaves parted to reveal the boy. He was stripped to the waist. He’d been beaten, with old scars crisscrossed under the fresh ones.”

Douglas paused, then continued.

“He fell to his knees before her, while the others began to plead with her, in their own tongues, to help them…”

“She starts to cry,” Tomas said. “And the white men, they yell and beat the ones who hid the boy. And the man with the green eyes, he is very angry. He pulls her away.”

“Did she go?” Douglas asked.

“Oh, yes. Still crying,” Tomas told him. “In the morning they moved a great many prisoners to boats, and from there back to the ship. And they left us” —he motioned to the men around him— “here to fight.”

Douglas quietly finished his translation. Holmes took a deep breath.

If these men can endure the horrors they’ve been through
, he thought to himself,
surely my own sorrows are of little consequence
.

“And what’s that?” Douglas asked, motioning to the remnants of the building at the pinnacle of the hill.

“Again,” Tomas said, “there is much that I don’t know.”

As the last shackle fell, a rousing cheer filled the air, one that took nothing into consideration—not the danger the men were in, nor the ordeal the slaves themselves had suffered.

The Merikens quickly dismantled the Gatlings, separating the barrels from the carriages so that they could be easily pulled along. And while the Harmonious Fists took the guns and the desiccated slaves back down the hill toward the boats, the Merikens, Holmes, and Douglas prepared to climb the remainder of the way to the crumbling building.

“Let me go with you!” Tomas beseeched Douglas in Portuguese, as he was too mindful of rank to join without permission.

Douglas turned and stared at him. He understood the man’s good intentions, along with his need to remain viable in his people’s eyes. Yet he was reluctant to allow it. Though still a strapping man, Tomas could barely stand. He had been so maligned that he would be more hindrance than asset.

He conferred with Holmes, who was of another opinion.

“This man is a born leader,” he declared. “To send him down with the others is to demean him further.”

“Let us hasten him to safety, then, to restore him sufficiently,” Douglas countered, “after which he’ll be of more service to them, and to his cause.”

Still Holmes insisted.

“He must be allowed his dignity, no matter how untimely it may seem.

“Permit it, Douglas,” he said.

Douglas sighed.

In spite of his every instinct to the contrary, he beckoned Tomas up the hill.

THE GROUP CONTINUED THEIR DILIGENT CLIMB TO THE SUMMIT.
Tomas, by some miracle—or perhaps through sheer force of will—kept up with the others.

At the pinnacle was the ramshackle old structure. It seemed to have been abandoned years before. The large door swung off its hinges. Boards covered rectangular holes where windows once had been. The only thing to recommend it was that its entrance faced the expanse of the hill, while behind it lay a precipitous drop to the ocean, waves beating against the rocks below.

It would have made a good fortress, a good lookout. But it was none of those things at present.

And yet, the Gatlings were set up to protect it
, Holmes mused.

A cry rose up from the beach below, as various voices called out:

“
Huo yao!
”

“It means ‘fire medicine,’” Douglas translated, “though I can’t imagine what they are referring to.” He and the others looked around to ensure that they were not being ambushed before making their cautious way forward.

The Merikens, weapons out, surrounded the building from all sides, while Holmes, Douglas and Tomas ventured within. Even as their eyes adjusted, with no windows and only one door to provide feeble light, the men struggled to discern anything within that could be of worth.

“
Huo yao
,” Douglas repeated, and he pointed at the ground just outside of the door. There was a sprinkling of something dark, as if someone had spilled a line of pepper upon the ground.

Holmes hurried over, bent down and put a speck of it on his tongue. Then he lifted his eyes up and to the right, as if tasting a complex wine.

“Equal parts sulfur and charcoal,” he mused. “French blend, from the Essonne outside Paris. Best gunpowder in the world, reasonably priced, does not absorb moisture. This is either spillage from a weapon, or…”

He stared at Douglas.

“Get the men away from here!” he commanded. “Get everyone back down the hill.
Now!
They have rigged this thing to blow!”

Douglas rounded up several of the Merikens, including Jessup Jones, and pushed them outside. Holmes was about to follow when he noticed that Tomas, instead of leaving with the rest, was peering intently at something in a dark corner and walking slowly toward it.

“Mera hai, jee nahin! Jee nahin, mera hai…”
he said, his voice pleading.

“What is it, Tomas?” Holmes asked. “What do you see?
Que ves?
” he added as an afterthought, remonstrating himself that it was Spanish and not Portuguese. But Tomas did not respond and did not turn. Instead, he moved more quickly toward the crevice, repeating the same words as before. Holmes wondered if it might be a religious plea of some sort.