Mycroft Holmes

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  * * *

  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.

  38

  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.

  39

  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 ha
mmer 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.”