The Amazing Dr. Darwin

by Charles Sheffield

  “Now.”

  A dazzling white light was shining from the barrel’s mouth. Hohenheim lifted it out and dropped it over the side. The flare sank at once to the bottom, but instead of being extinguished by the water it seemed to burn brighter than ever, with a blue-white flame.

  The bottom of the loch was suddenly visible as a rugged, shiny floor of rock and sand. Close to the coble, just a few feet from the underwater flare, Jacob Pole could see the outline of a long ship’s hulk. As he crouched by his cannon, almost too excited to breathe, he saw the naked form of Zumal slip over the side of the coble, swim to the float, and move hand-over-hand down to the anchor that marked the wreck.

  Shielding his eyes from the direct light, Pole peered at the shape of the hulk. After a few seconds he could make out details through the unfamiliar pattern of light and shadow on the bed of the loch. He gasped as he realized what he was seeing.

  * * *

  In the village, the fading light had been the signal for new activity. Darwin could sense the bustle of movement through the walls of the house and there was a constant clatter of footsteps in and out of the kitchen.

  It was one of the few signs of a rising tension. After Jacob Pole left, Maclaren had dropped in every half hour, trying to appear casual, and spoken a few distracted words to Darwin before hurrying out again. At five o’clock Maclaren had made a final visit and departed with the woman who did the cooking, leaving Darwin to dine as best he might on cold goose, oat bread, chicken fricassee, and bread pudding, and to order his thoughts however he chose.

  When Maclaren finally appeared again he looked like a different person. His lowland garb was gone, and in its place were brogues, knee-length knitted socks, the kilt, and a black waistcoat with gold-thread buttons.

  “Aye, I know,” he said at Darwin’s inquiring look. “ ’Tis against the law yet to bear Highland dress. But I’ll do no less to welcome my brother home, whatever the law says. An’ there’s talk of a change of the rule in a year or two, so what’s the harm? Surely a man ought to be allowed to dress any which way he chooses. But would ye be all ready then?”

  Darwin nodded. He stood, picked up the well-worn medical chest that had been his companion on a thousand journeys, and followed Maclaren outside into the warm spring night. The Highlander led the way at a stately pace to the stone house with the black shutters. In spite of the darkness, Darwin had the feeling that many eyes followed their progress from the shadows.

  At the door Maclaren halted. “Dr. Darwin, I’m not one to want to deceive myself. It’s a bad wound, that I know, and I’m a man that respects the truth. I’m not after lookin’ for ill news, but will ye gi’ me the word, that ye’ll tell me honest if it’s good news or bad?”

  The light was spilling out into the quiet night. Darwin turned to look steadily into the other man’s worried eyes.

  “Unless there is good reason to do it, to save life or lessen suffering, it is my belief that a full and honest diagnosis is always best. You have my word. No matter where the truth may take us tonight, I will provide it as I see it. And in return I ask that what I say should not create ill feeling to me and to Colonel Pole.”

  “Ye have that word, an’ it’s my life that stands behind it.” Maclaren pushed the door wide open and they went on in.

  The room had not changed, but now lamps had been placed in eight or nine places around it. Everything was well lit and spotlessly clean. There were lamps on each side of the big bed, where a man lay covered to the chest by a tartan blanket.

  Darwin stepped forward. For many seconds he was motionless, scrutinizing the man’s chalk-white face and loose posture.

  “What is his age?”

  “Fifty-five.” Maclaren’s voice was a whisper.

  Darwin stepped forward and turned the blanket back to the thighs. When he rolled back an eyelid under his thumb the man did not move. He opened the mouth, studying the decaying teeth, and grunted to himself thoughtfully.

  “Here. Help me turn him to his side.” Darwin’s voice was neutral, giving no clue as to his thoughts. With Maclaren’s help they moved the man to his right side, revealing the red cicatrix that ran all the way from the crown of his head down to above the left temple. Darwin bent close and moved his hand gently along it, feeling the shape of the bone beneath the scar. The wound was indented, a deep cleft in the skull, and no hair grew above it.

  Darwin sucked in a deep breath. “Aye, a sore wound indeed. One cleavage, straight from the sphenoid wing to the top of the calvaria. It is a wonder to see any man living after such an injury.”

  He pulled the blanket back farther, to show the legs and feet covered in a white and gold robe. Then he was a long while silent, scowling down at the patient. He sniffed the man’s breath, examined nose and ears, and finally lifted the arms and legs to palpate the joints and muscles. The palms of the hands and the short, well-trimmed nails came in for their own brief examination, and he felt the condition of the sinews in wrists and ankles.

  “Lift him to a sitting position,” he said at last. “Let me see his back.”

  The skin over the ribs was white and unmarked, free of all sores and blemishes. Darwin nodded, looked again at the white of the eye that showed beneath the lid, and sighed.

  “You can let him lie back again. And you can tell some man or woman that I have never in my life seen an injured person better cared for. He has been fed, washed, exercised, and lovingly looked after. But his condition…”

  “Tell me, Doctor.” Maclaren’s look was resolute. “Do not disguise it.”

  “I will not, though my medical opinion will bring bitter news for you. His wound will prove mortal, and his condition cannot be improved. It can only worsen, and you must not expect there will be any waking from unconsciousness.”

  Maclaren clenched his teeth, and the muscles stood out along his jaw. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said in a whisper. “An’ the end, how far away will it be?”

  “I can answer that only if you will give me some information. How long has he been unconscious? It is apparent that this is not a recent wound, with the degree of healing that it now exhibits.”

  “Aye, ye speak true there.” Maclaren’s face was grim. “Near three year, it has been. He was hurt in the summer of ’73, an’ has not wakened after that. We’ve tended him since then.”

  “I am sorry to end your hopes.” Darwin drew the sheet back over the man on the bed. “He will die within the year. You brought me a long way for this, Malcolm Maclaren. Your devotion deserves a better reward.”

  Maclaren looked swiftly to the door, then back again. “What do ye mean, Doctor?”

  Darwin waved his arm to door and window. “Let them all come in, if you wish. They are as worried as you are, and it serves no purpose to have them hide and listen outside.”

  “Ye think…” Maclaren hesitated.

  “Come on, man, and do it.” Darwin leaned again to look at the figure on the bed. “If you worry still about my state of knowledge and discretion, I could offer you a tale. It is a story of loyalty and desperation. Of a man, who might be this very man here”—he touched the smooth brow of the unconscious patient—“returned after many years to his homeland. There was an accident. Let us put it that way, although a sword or axe could leave just such a wound. After the accident the man was lovingly cared for, and the doctors of these parts did all they could, but there was no progress in his condition. At last, despite daily exercise of muscles and the best food that could be found, he began to weaken, to show signs of worsening. More expert advice and medical attention seemed to be the only hope. But how to obtain it, without revealing all and risking the wrath of a still vengeful government?”

  “Aye, how indeed?” said Maclaren. He sighed and walked over to the door. A few words of Gaelic, and a file of somber men and women came into the room. Each went to the bed, knelt there for a moment, then moved back to stand by the wall. When all had entered, Maclaren spoke to them again, a longer speech this time. While Darwin wa
tched, the faces in front of him seemed to fold and crumple as all hope drained from them.

  “I have told them,” said Maclaren, as he turned back to the bed.

  Darwin nodded. “I saw it.”

  “They are brave folk. They will bear it bravely, whatever I tell them. But to ye I have told nothin’, not one word, an’ yet ye seem to know all. How can that be?” Maclaren’s voice was husky but he held his head up high. “How can ye know this, as well as I know it? Are ye what Hohenheim has claimed to be, a man who can divine all by magical methods?”

  “I would never claim what I believe impossible for any human.” Darwin had moved forward again to the bed and was gently turning the head of the unconscious man. “I proceed by much simpler methods, ones available to all. Let me, if you will, continue with my tale. This man needed help, if help could be found, from other physicians. It would be futile of me to plead excessive modesty, and to deny that in the past few years my reputation as a court of last resort for difficult medical cases has spread throughout England—aye, and through Europe, too, if my friends are to be believed. Let us suppose it is true, and that my name was known here. Perhaps I could help, or at least tell the worst. But the idea of a direct approach, with a patient who was perhaps an outlaw and an exile—not to add that he is one of royal blood—why, that would be unthinkable. A subterfuge of some kind was necessary, one that would allow an examination without revealing too much. And if the patient could not easily be carried for a long distance, the presence of the physician in the Highlands must somehow be assured.”

  He paused and looked up at Maclaren. “Who was it worked out the details of the plan?”

  Maclaren was sitting on the stone floor, his chin resting on his cupped hands. “It was I,” he said softly. “An’ God knows, it came from desperation, not from choosin’. But I still do not see how ye could know any of this.”

  “I was suspicious before I left Lichfield. You followed the first rule of successful deception: build upon what is real, and invent as little as you must. But you went too far, with a double lure, of great treasure and of a fantastic animal. The beast in Loch Malkirk would have been sufficient to bring me here without further embroidery, but you could not have known that. So there was added the galleon, and the priceless treasure, all to be revealed to me by the words of a dying man.”

  Maclaren smiled ruefully. “It worked. Ye came here, an’ that was a surprise to me. So where was the error in it?”

  “Your plan went astray not in outline, but in detail. You had hired good actors, that was necessary, and they were well grounded in their roles—enough to convince Dr. Monkton. You had also told them to beware my examination, I surmise, since I would surely see through the deception. But Colonel Pole was there, and he was an accurate reporter. How could a tinker have the hands of a gentleman, or a delirious man suffer no fever?”

  “We were not careful enough in choosin’—but still ye came, an’ I don’t see why ye did.”

  “The mystery that you had never intended brought me, more than treasure or Devil. Before we left Lichfield, I was asking myself, what would make anyone try to draw me here, three hundred miles from home? That curiosity was my motive, but what could their motive be? From the moment that we set out I was vastly curious, and when I arrived here my perplexity was increased. For here was Hohenheim, and I could not readily see how he fitted the situation at all.”

  Maclaren glanced around him at the circle of grieving faces. He shrugged. “Dr. Darwin, I said that I will tell ye true, an’ I will. But I swear by the man who lies there helpless before us—an’ I know no higher oath than mine to Prince Charles Edward—I cannot tell why Hohenheim came. He was no part of my thoughts or plans, an’ his arrival surprised me totally. I am sorry to disappoint ye.”

  “You do not,” said Darwin. He had a satisfied look on his face. “What you have just told me fleshes out the picture, and I can tell you the answer myself. As to how Hohenheim knew at once that I was a doctor, upon my arrival, that is easy. You had told him, by referring without thinking to a ‘Doctor Darwin’ who was coming to Malkirk. Hohenheim thought of me that way from the time you did it—but when he first spoke that knowledge perturbed me mightily. As for the rest, Hohenheim has been the unintentional confusion factor, the place where your plan suffered an accidental complication. Look back to the instrument by which your scheme was carried out—the hired players—and you will see the rest. Hohenheim—”

  The boom of a cannon sounded through the quiet night, shockingly loud and near. Darwin and Maclaren looked at each other in confusion. There was a rush to the door of the house as the echo carried back from the eastern hills.

  * * *

  It was not a Spanish galleon. Jacob Pole was sure of it, sure as soon as he saw the ship’s lines by the light of the flare. Everything stood out clearly in that white and penetrating light, and even the crusting of silt and the deep corrosion of iron parts were not enough concealment. A man without naval experience might be fooled, because there were similarities enough to cause confusion; but Pole saw through those, and was stunned by the knowledge. He was looking at a coastal cargo ship, high in the stern and with three masts, and he had seen many like it in English and Irish waters. It was not—could not be—the galleon they were seeking. And Hohenheim and Zumal did not know it!

  Pole squatted by Little Bess and frowned down at the scene below. Zumal was down on the wreck’s listing deck, prying the forward hatch with a long iron bar. It was slowly opening and releasing a cloud of fine silt that fogged the water. Outside that cloud the bed of the loch showed as a dazzling confusion of white sand and black rock. Above, Hohenheim was busy in the coble, lowering other tools and preparing a second underwater flare.

  They did not know enough about ships to realize that this was not a wreck likely to bear treasure of any kind. But if they had discovered and were exploring the wrong ship, so much the better. The galleon must be somewhere else in the loch.

  Pole nodded to himself and looked back along the length of the inlet. If he had to search for another wreck, there could be no better time for it than now, when the floor of the loch was so brightly lit. The powerful light made every detail in the water visible for scores of yards. He could see schools of fish, flashing here and there in panic from the alien glare in the water. Away from the loch’s entrance the whole underwater panorama was a frenzy of darting silver shapes. And a great shadow moved swiftly among them, scattering them wildly from its path.

  The light allowed Jacob Pole to see what had been hidden from them the previous day. The Devil was speeding along, the crest of its back a couple of yards below the surface as it moved away from Zumal and the bright flare. Pole could see a small head and long neck leading a massive body and powerful tail. The back was grey, and as it rolled to make a turn there was a flash of pink on its sides, and a brief sight of a red underbelly. It was at least seventy feet from head to tip of tail, and its swift forward motion came from the powerful body and winglike side fins.

  The creature was flying blindly along the loch, seeking escape from the light. Its frenzied rush set up a big wave and brought the beast closer to the surface as it neared the inland end of the loch. The surface was foaming under the power of the lashing tail. As the Devil turned, the flare near the loch entrance began to fade. A moment more, and the bow wave was racing back along the loch, with the beast close enough to the surface for the smooth back to be revealed.

  Hohenheim had the second flare ready and Zumal was hanging on the side of the coble, taking breath before he dived again. They were both looking uncertainly along the water, not sure what was causing the sudden pattern of choppy waves.

  Pole stood up and waved. “Hohenheim! Look out—you’re in danger.”

  Without waiting to see the effects of his shout, he bent over the cannon. It took a second or two to line Little Bess to fire along the loch, and another second to strike the spark and apply the match at the breech. His hands were trembling with tension, an
d he could not control them.

  The beast in the loch was less than fifty yards from the coble, and both men below were now aware of its rapid approach. Zumal cried out and tried to hoist himself into the coble, while Hohenheim left the second flare to burn in the bow while he took up the paddle and tried to move the boat away toward the safety of the shore. They were going too slowly. Pole glanced up, and saw that the Devil’s dash toward the sea would take it straight into the coble.

  As he straightened to shout again the cannon beside him roared and leapt backwards in recoil. He was surrounded by black smoke and could scarcely see where the ball went. The direction was good, but the timing a little too late. Instead of hitting the Devil’s body the ball grazed the long tail and spent its energy uselessly in the waters of the loch. The beast leapt forward even faster.

  A second shot would take minutes to make ready. Pole watched helplessly as the Devil surged frantically for the loch entrance.

  The second flare was still alight. At the impact it flew high in the air. Fragments of the coble went with it and Hohenheim’s body spun away, the limbs loose and broken like a wrecked puppet. There was an agonized scream—Hohenheim or Zumal, Pole could not tell which—and a crash of splintered wood. Then the Devil’s broad back was standing six feet above the surface of the water as the beast thrashed and wriggled its way through the shallows to the open sea. It headed west and plunged into the deep water beyond the reefs.

  Jacob Pole did not wait to chart the course of the Devil’s departure. He was running down the hill, with the cannon’s blast and the human scream of final agony still loud in his ears.

  The surface of the loch was calm again. There was nothing to be seen but the bobbing light of the flare and shattered remnants of the coble.

  * * *

  At the sound of the cannon shot Malcolm Maclaren’s face turned white. He looked at the figure on the bed.