Sherlock Holmes - Gods of War
Page 26
Holmes, as my readers may know, played a part in foiling the machinations of various of the Kaiser’s agents in the run-up to the conflict. Indeed, not long after I left him and returned to London, he became fully engaged in the matter of closing a security leak by which British military secrets were reaching the Germans through the auspices of the spy Von Bork and his ally Baron Von Herling, the diplomat. The case took him to America and Ireland, but I was unaware of any of this until August 1914 when Holmes drew me in to assist at the dénouement, which took place at the port of Harwich. By then I had become the owner and licensed driver of a car of my own – albeit not a Mercury, for that marque had gone into receivership following the death of its owner.
Thereafter, I signed up once more with my old regiment, the Army Medical Department, now known as the Royal Army Medical Corps, and served behind the lines in France and Flanders, as an ambulance driver among other things. Holmes, meanwhile, continued to do his bit for the war effort back home, fighting the good fight against our enemy’s subtler, more insidious campaigns.
Whether or not the deities who were invoked by Craig Mallinson and his friends were in any way responsible for the war is moot. The only recorded instance of any kind of manifestation of the divine during the conflict is the legendary apparition known as the Angels of Mons, an omen which occurred in the self-same month that Holmes thwarted Von Bork. The forces of good prevailed nonetheless, through commitment and determination, not to mention colossal sacrifice of life, and perhaps also through the grace of the one true God.
In December of 1913, Holmes reported to me by letter that he had engineered a meeting with Clive Mallinson shortly after he arrived in England from Egypt. He wished to pay his respects and offer his commiserations. He said he found the young man to be in low spirits, which was hardly unexpected given that he had just suffered the loss of his father, his brother and his childhood home in one fell swoop. Nonetheless Clive, who was the spitting image of the elder Mallinson, right down to the shock of raven-black hair, seemed sanguine. He was, it would appear, made of the same stern stuff as his father. Holmes foresaw that he would not be destroyed by this tragedy.
In this, my friend was both correct and incorrect. The following year, Clive Mallinson signed up as a member of the British Expeditionary Force and marched across France to the Western Front. He was killed during the very first German assault at Ypres.
The gods of war got him too, in the end. Or perhaps it’s the case that the young Mallinson felt he had nothing to risk by becoming a soldier. Death had flapped its dark wings over him already. It had gorged itself on Mallinson blood. Why would it need to take any more so soon?
As a footnote, in the spring of 1914 I received an anonymous letter by steam-packet mail, postmarked Mysore.
All it said was:
Kali has sheathed her swords and retreated to her palace on the hill with the monkeys and mynah birds. She limps a little when she walks, but otherwise she is well and all is well.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As a prize at a charity auction, I offered the opportunity for someone to have their name appear in Sherlock Holmes: Gods of War. The winning bidder was Craig Mallinson, on behalf of his girlfriend Ellie, a.k.a. Elizabeth Vandenbergh. So generous was the donation Craig made to the Chestnut Tree House children’s hospice in Arundel that I insisted he too lend his name to a major character in the book. After no consideration at all (his words) he agreed to adopt the role of chief villain.
I am indebted to William Maness, who serendipitously came along and helped me out with his expertise on aviation and particularly planes from the pioneering era such as the Grahame-White Type VII.
I am also deeply indebted to Miranda Jewess for her keen editorial insight and encyclopaedic knowledge of Sherlockiana.
J.M.H.L.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Lovegrove is the New York Times best-selling author of The Age of Odin, the third novel in his critically-acclaimed Pantheon military SF series. He was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1998 for his novel Days and for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2004 for his novel Untied Kingdom. He also reviews fiction for the Financial Times. He has written Sherlock Holmes: The Stuff of Nightmares for Titan Books, who will be publishing his third Holmes novel, The Thinking Engine, in August 2015.
SHERLOCK HOLMES
THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES
James Lovegrove
A spate of bombings has hit London, causing untold damage and loss of life. Meanwhile a strangely garbed figure has been spied haunting the rooftops and grimy back alleys of the capital. Sherlock Holmes believes this strange masked man may hold the key to the attacks. He moves with the extraordinary agility of a latter-day Spring-Heeled Jack. He possesses weaponry and armour of unprecedented sophistication. He is known only by the name Baron Cauchemar, and he appears to be a scourge of crime and villainy. But is he all that he seems? Holmes and his faithful companion Dr Watson are about to embark on one of their strangest and most exhilarating adventures yet.
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SHERLOCK HOLMES
THE THINKING ENGINE
James Lovegrove
March 1895. Hilary Term at Oxford. Professor Quantock has put the finishing touches to a wondrous computational device which, he claims, is capable of analytical thought to rival that of the cleverest men alive. Indeed, his so-called Thinking Engine seems equal to Sherlock Holmes himself in its deductive powers. To prove his point, Quantock programmes his machine to solve a murder. Sherlock Holmes cannot ignore this challenge, so he and Watson travel to Oxford, where a battle of wits ensues between the great detective and his mechanical counterpart as they compete to see which of them can be first to unravel a series of crimes. But as man and machine vie for supremacy, it becomes clear that the Thinking Engine has its own agenda. Holmes’s and Watson’s lives are on the line as a ghost from the past catches up with them…
AVAILABLE AUGUST 2015
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SHERLOCK HOLMES
THE WILL OF THE DEAD
George Mann
A rich elderly man has fallen to his death, and his will is nowhere to be found. A tragic accident or something more sinister? The dead man’s nephew comes to Baker Street to beg for Sherlock Holmes’s help. Without the will he fears he will be left penniless, the entire inheritance passing to his cousin. But just as Holmes and Watson start their investigation, a mysterious new claimant to the estate appears. Does this prove that the old man was murdered? Meanwhile Inspector Charles Bainbridge is trying to solve the case of the “iron men”, mechanical steam-powered giants carrying out daring jewellery robberies. But how do you stop a machine that feels no pain and needs no rest? He too may need to call on the expertise of Sherlock Holmes.
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SHERLOCK HOLMES
THE SPIRIT BOX
George Mann
Summer, 1915. As Zeppelins rain death upon the rooftops of London, eminent members of society begin to behave erratically: a Member of Parliament throws himself naked into the Thames after giving a pro-German speech to the House; a senior military advisor suggests surrender before feeding himself to a tiger at London Zoo; a famed suffragette suddenly renounces the women’s liberation movement and throws herself under a train.
AVAILABLE AUGUST 2014
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SHERLOCK HOLMES
THE ARMY OF DR MOREAU
Guy Adams
Dead bodies are found on the streets of London with wounds that can only be explained as the work of ferocious creatures not native to the city. Sherlock Holmes is visited by his brother, Mycroft, who is only too aware that the bodies are the calling card of Dr Moreau, a vivisectionist who was working for the British Government, following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin, before his experiments attracted negative attention and the work was halted. Mycroft believes that Moreau’s experiments continue and he charges his brother with tracking the rogue scientist down before matters escalate an
y further.
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