Snake Bite (25 page)

‘So he was a hero, in the end?’ Cameron asked quietly. ‘He tried to do the right thing?’

‘Yes,’ Sherlock said. ‘He did.’

It was possible to see across the river now. The sun wasn’t yet visible above the horizon, but the stars had vanished and the sky itself was dark blue rather than black. The river was
already filling up with other boats as people took the opportunity to make an early start.

‘Which boat belongs to Arrhenius?’ Wu asked. Sherlock and Cameron both scanned all the boats they could see.

‘Impossible to tell,’ Cameron called back. ‘It’s still too dark, and they’re all too far away. If the plan is to try and intercept him, then we’ll probably
never make it. He’s got a head start on us, and we can’t spot which boat is his.’

Sherlock felt his fists clench in frustration. Their only chance was to stop Arrhenius from sending the signal, but if they couldn’t spot him, and couldn’t catch up with him, then
what chance did they have?

The USS
Monocacy
was going to blow up, and people were going to die, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He felt so powerless.

Sherlock noticed one particular boat which was floating outside the main throng. It was long and thin, and made out of wood that had been painted a bright red. The edges of the boat were
decorated with gold paint, and the front had been carved into the head of a dragon: all sharp teeth and flaring nostrils and, bizarrely, strands of beard hanging down beneath its jaw. Ten men were
in the boat: eight of them held oars, one operated a rudder at the back while the tenth sat in the front facing backwards with a drum between his knees.

‘What’s that?’ Sherlock asked, pointing.

Cameron looked over. ‘It’s called a Dragon Boat,’ he said. ‘Each village has one. They race against one another at festivals.’

‘Fast?’ Sherlock asked.

‘Very,’ Wu called from the back of the boat. ‘Look at the muscles on the rowers.’

Sherlock glanced at the Dragon Boat. The oarsmen’s arms were thicker than his legs.

‘What are they doing out here?’ he called to Wu.

‘Practice,’ Wu replied. ‘They practise every morning before they go to work in the fields. There’s a big festival coming up.’

‘Steer towards them. I want to talk.’

Wu adjusted the rudder to bring them towards the Dragon Boat, while Sherlock and Cameron furled their sail so they wouldn’t be carried straight past. The oarsmen and the drummer in the
front watched them curiously.

‘We need your help,’ Sherlock called. ‘We need to get upriver quickly.’

The men stared at him.

‘I can pay,’ he said. He glanced at Cameron, who nodded. ‘How much to take us?’

The men briefly conferred. The drummer called across: ‘Five
cash
.’

‘Agreed,’ Sherlock said automatically, not sure how much that was in coins but knowing that he had to get their help.

‘Each.’

Sherlock looked at Cameron again. ‘Agreed,’ he sighed.

‘We can’t just leave my uncle’s boat drifting here!’ Wu called from the rudder.

Sherlock nodded. ‘We’ll leave three of the oarsmen on board. They can take it to the bank. We’ll retrieve it later. That’ll create room for us to sit. We’ll have to
row, I’m afraid.’

Cameron shrugged. ‘It’s a new experience. My life at the moment seems to be full of new experiences.’

Within a few minutes the three of them had swapped with three of the oarsmen, and Wu’s uncle’s boat was heading for the bank. Other boats diverted around them.

Sherlock glanced at the paddle. It was broad at the base, with a long handle. He hefted it experimentally, then glanced at the drummer. The man was naked to the waist, and as muscular as the
rowers. His black hair hung down his back in a plait.

‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Sherlock said.

The drummer grinned at him, then deliberately brought a drumstick down on the drum. A deep
dumm!
vibrated through the boat. He hit it again, with the other stick –
dumm!
The
oarsmen all held themselves ready. As the third
dumm!
shook Sherlock’s bones all of the oarsmen leaned forward and pushed their oars into the water. Sherlock, Cameron and Wu joined
in.

The boat shot forward, white spume splashing up from the bows.

The man holding the rudder steered them so that the boat was heading upriver. Sherlock was amazed at how quickly they picked up speed. Other boats flashed past them, and Sherlock caught
momentary visions of faces frozen in various expressions ranging from annoyance to surprise. They were easily travelling three or four times as fast as the other boats. At first he tried to keep a
watch out for Mr Arrhenius, but everything began to blur into a continuous stream of images from which it was difficult to pick out anything in particular. Sherlock quickly fell into an exhausting
routine of rowing. The muscles in his arms and shoulders burned with the unexpected exercise. The torn flesh on his chest felt as if liquid fire was dripping out of it. Water splashed his face, and
he kept licking his lips just to get some moisture into his body. The sound of the drums became the sound of his pulse throbbing in his ears:
dumm! dumm! dumm!

He glanced over his shoulder to where Cameron sat behind him. Cameron’s face was set, his jaw clenched, and his gaze seemed to pass across Sherlock without really recognizing him.

After a period of time that might have been minutes or might have been hours, he heard Wu Fung-Yi’s voice calling his name. ‘Sherlock!
Sherlock!
’

‘What?’ he called, shaking his head to clear the fog from it.

‘What’s that up ahead?’

Sherlock looked past the oarsmen in front of him. Beyond the bows of the Dragon Boat and past the carved wooden head of the dragon itself he saw a great wheel rising from the water.

‘It’s the
Monocacy
!’ His voice was hoarse. ‘We’ve made it! Tell them to steer for the ship!’

The
Monocacy
was stationary, close in to the riverbank. It was moored to a wooden pier. Hills rose up sharply from the edge of the river. Across on the other side were the ruins of what
looked like an old military fort. One tower and a few walls still stood, but the rest was rubble.

The Dragon Boat carved its way through the water, heading for the USS
Monocacy
. Sailors on board noticed its approach and guns were trained on the Dragon Boat.

Sherlock motioned to the drummer in the front of the boat to slow the pace down, and bring them to a halt a hundred yards or so away from the ship. He set his oar in the boat and stood up
cautiously, feeling the boat rock beneath him. He tried hard to keep his footing: if he fell into the water now then he wasn’t sure his arms had the strength to stop him from sinking.

‘My name is Sherlock Holmes,’ he shouted in English across the water to the sailors. ‘I am a British subject. I need to speak to Captain Bryan urgently.’

‘Do not approach!’ a voice called back. ‘If you do you will be fired upon!’

‘It is imperative that I speak to Captain Bryan!’

The fact that he knew the Captain’s name obviously impressed the sailors. They conferred among themselves, and then eventually someone of higher rank was called.

‘My name is Lieutenant MacCrery. What is your message?’ he shouted down from his position on the deck of the
Monocacy
.

‘Explosives have been hidden on board!’ Sherlock yelled.

‘
What?
’

‘There’s a
bomb
on board your
ship
!’

More frantic conferring, then: ‘Did you say there’s a bomb on board this ship?’

‘That’s exactly what I said.’

‘Come alongside the pier. Be aware: there are weapons trained on you. Any sign of trouble and we will fire!’

Sherlock gestured to the oarsmen to take the boat over to the pier. They obviously couldn’t understand what had been said, but they knew that there were guns pointed at them and they were
nervous. Sherlock could hear muted discussions behind him along the lines that they ought to have asked for more money.

The Dragon Boat moved closer to the pier. Sherlock waited until they were beside the wooden structure, then he grabbed for a ladder that had been fastened to the side. The USS
Monocacy
rose above him like a dirty white cliff.

‘I’ll warn Captain Bryan,’ he called to Cameron and Wu. ‘You two keep an eye out for Mr Arrhenius. He can’t be that far behind us, and I’d hate him to give
the signal while I was on board.’

‘What do we do if we spot him?’ Wu asked.

‘Raise the alarm,’ Sherlock suggested. ‘And then go after him.’

‘He killed my father,’ Cameron pointed out grimly. ‘And he killed your father as well. I can think of a whole set of things I want to say to him if I see him.’

‘Don’t do anything . . . final,’ Sherlock suggested. ‘We may need him alive to corroborate our story. If we can get him on board the ship then I doubt he’d either
want or be able to send the signal to the man with the explosives.’ He glanced up at the ship and the cluster of sailors who were waiting for him. ‘Wish me luck. This might be the most
important and difficult conversation of my life.’

‘If Arrhenius is here and we can’t find him,’ Cameron said, ‘it might also be the shortest.’

As Sherlock pulled himself up on to the pier he realized that he was more tired than he had ever been in his life. Every muscle in his body ached, and his chest and legs
throbbed with pain from where the alligator had scratched him. What he really wanted was to lie down and rest for a while, but he knew that he couldn’t.

A gangplank led up from the pier to the
Monocacy
. A group of uniformed sailors were at the top. One of them gestured to him to go up. For a moment he thought about asking them to come
down – he wasn’t sure his legs could manage the climb – but he needed their help, so it was best that he went to them.

By the time he was halfway up his legs were trembling. By the time he reached the top he had to pull himself forward with his hands.

A group of sailors with rifles stood on deck. The rifles weren’t pointed at Sherlock, exactly, but they weren’t pointed away either.

As Sherlock caught his breath he noticed Captain Bryan approaching. He was checking his watch and talking with one of his officers. He looked stressed. Glancing around, Sherlock noticed that
there were no Chinese people on deck. The Governor’s party obviously hadn’t arrived yet, but the way Captain Bryan was looking at his watch suggested that there wasn’t long to
go.

Bryan’s first words seemed to confirm Sherlock’s deduction. ‘Be quick, young man. I am expecting important guests. You have something to say to me?’ He frowned when he
saw Sherlock’s face clearly for the first time. ‘I remember you. I saw you at the dinner party at the Mackenzie residence, and again on the quayside yesterday.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you for coming out to see me.’ Sherlock took a deep breath. ‘Malcolm Mackenzie is dead. He was murdered because he was going to warn the Prefect of Shanghai
about a plot to blow up your ship.’

‘Why would anyone want to blow up this ship?’ Captain Bryan asked. He scowled. ‘No, forget that question – I can think of several reasons. The United States of America is
not best liked in this part of the world.’

‘Someone wants to get the American Government to interfere militarily in this region,’ Sherlock said. ‘It’s all about trade.’

‘Isn’t it always?’ Bryan replied. He glanced down the gangplank to the pier, and checked his watch again. ‘Blast it, the Governor of Jiangsu Province will be here any
moment.’

‘That’s when the bomb will go off,’ Sherlock said. ‘A signal will be given from somewhere on shore to light the fuse.’

‘Where is this bomb?’ Bryan barked. One of his officers caught at his arm and muttered something in his ear. Bryan shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter whether I believe the
kid or not,’ he snapped. ‘If there’s the slightest chance of a bomb on this ship then it needs to be searched. Besides – look at him. He’s been through hell to get
here.
He
obviously believes the story.’

‘I think it’s near the galley, disguised in barrels of water,’ Sherlock admitted, ‘but I might be wrong. It might have been hidden anywhere.’

‘Who planted it?’

‘Your new Head Cook,’ Sherlock said.

Captain Bryan led the way into the body of the ship and down a ladder. For a man who was in overall charge of everything, Sherlock reflected, he was very involved in details. He seemed to want
to do everything himself. Sherlock followed, and behind him came a gaggle of officers. They marched along a corridor, around a corner, down another ladder and along another corridor. Sherlock tried
to work out where they were in relation to the deck and the pier, and decided that they were on the other side of the ship, near the hull.

Captain Bryan pushed open a door and entered a large room filled with ovens, sinks, work surfaces and hanging pots. It reminded Sherlock of Wu Chung’s galley on the
Gloria Scott
,
but magnified a hundred times.

The galley was deserted. Captain Bryan clicked his fingers at two of his officers. ‘Search everywhere,’ he snapped.

On the far side of the galley, a door led into a storage area. Bryan crossed to it, with Sherlock and the rest of the officers close behind. He opened the door and went through.

This was obviously a larder. It was shadowy, lit only by two hanging oil lamps. There were shelves everywhere, stacked with boxes of provisions. Fruit and vegetables hung from hooks, along with
legs and sides of pork, lamb and beef. Along the far wall, barrels were lined up and stacked three-deep, except for a space at one end.

‘Check those barrels,’ Bryan said to the rest of the officers. ‘See if they weigh too much or too little. Break them open if you have to.’ He glanced around.
‘Where’s that damned cook? Off smoking his opium pipe or something, I’ll be bound.’

Sherlock and Captain Bryan watched for the next five minutes as the officers moved the barrels, shaking them to see if their contents were liquid or solid. The tops had to be prised off some of
them with the crowbars hanging from hooks on the wall. Eventually every barrel had been checked. An officer crossed over to where Bryan and Sherlock stood. ‘Nothing,’ he said, glancing
sneeringly at Sherlock. ‘The barrels contain water, or rum, or salted meat. That’s all.’