Death on a Pale Horse (39 page)

Screams burst from the people gathered in the bows at what they saw coming upon them. There was turmoil on the deck. Passengers began to run for the stern, knocking open the low gate that enclosed the first-class promenade. They would not be safe anywhere on board, but they could not imagine what else to do in the last few dreadful seconds except to get away from the point of impact. I remember thinking that so long as the oncoming bow hit our paddle-box, our steel paddle blades might take the full force of it, and the wound to our ship would not be mortal.

Captain Legrand shouted down to the helmsman: “Let go of that wheel and look after yourself.”

The helm was useless now in any case. Much good would the ship's wheel or rudder be in this predicament! But when I looked again, I saw that the helmsman had already taken flight without waiting to be warned.

And then the bows of the vessel above us drove into our paddle sponson. That is to say, it had missed the paddle wheel and carved through the wooden platform forward of it, where the ship's main deck is extended outwards over the paddle-box for twenty feet or so. On the bow of the other steamer above us was the name of a newly-built “luxury” ferry also constructed for the Belgian government, the
Princess Henriette
, no doubt bound from Dover to Ostend.

The starboard sponson of the
Comtesse de Flandre
crunched inward like matchwood under the sharp cleaving of the
Henriette
's steel bow. I snatched at one of the tall deck ventilators to steady myself. Oddly as it seemed to me, I felt no impact at first beyond a quivering of the deck planking underfoot. Perhaps we should be saved after all. I thought I had known much worse than this when a Scottish steamer bumped awkwardly against a harbour quay or an island pier. But then the heavy bow of the
Princess Henriette
was halted, as it came up with a violent shudder against the main iron frame of the
Comtesse de Flandre
's engine-room.

On the helmsman's platform, now deserted, the ship's wheel spun from port to starboard and back again. Lamps and bollards rolled about the deck. There was a smashing of glass and crockery in the saloons. Then I heard two distinct grinding sounds beneath my feet, short and sharp. I knew at once that this had been a mortal blow after all. Had it not been for the iron frame of the engine room, I fully believe the larger ship would have cut us clean in two at once and sent everyone on board to the bottom of the English Channel in the next minute. At a mere seven or eight knots, you might suppose that the damage from such a collision would be slighter, but there was a weight of almost a thousand tons of riveted iron and steel behind it.

How had it happened? I was to find out much sooner then I expected.

The captain of the
Princess Henriette
must have known our position from the blasts on our whistle to which he had responded. He had appeared to slow down, for seven or eight knots was probably less than half the full speed of such a leviathan.

I drew away and by some instinct headed towards the port paddle-box on the other side of the deck. Napoleon-Jerome's party was well escorted, but there was something I must confirm before I searched for Holmes. I could not get Rawdon Moran out of my head. Could he be on board after all? I pushed my way through the groups of bewildered passengers as they jostled on to the deck from the saloon below. I walked round the port paddle-box to examine its forward edge, and saw that someone—or something—had extinguished the red port riding-light. I put my hand on the metal lantern, in case the impact had knocked the light out. But it was not even warm. I thought of the foremast hand trimming the wick and knew that the light had been put out a little while ago—deliberately.

This was no time for ancient history, but I recalled an instance in my boyhood of a collision at night caused by a ship's navigation light that guttered and failed—port or starboard, I do not recall. It was not a common cause of accidents at sea, but neither was it unknown.

And then—where was that foremast hand who had presented a lucifer to the ship's boy to light this starboard lamp and who had appeared to be trimming the wick just now? There was no sign of him. In the last minutes of our voyage, could he also have been the helmsman enveloped in the sou'wester? Could the captain tell, in such visibility and with eyes straining to see the outline of the oncoming ship, whether his orders were being precisely carried out? Could he be sure that some slight manoeuvrings of the helm would not carry us closer to disaster?

What had seemed to take a lifetime had been all over in a couple of minutes. As I turned, I heard a distant but ominous rushing sound below me. The sea was beginning to flood the bowels of the ship. Captain Legrand was stooping at the engine-room skylight on the deck, shouting directions to the chief engineer through cupped hands. Despite the wail of the ship's whistle, I caught his words.

“Evacuate the engine-room. Ease the safety valves if you can. Leave the furnace doors, open the tubes. The companionways are almost impassable. Evacuate yourselves and the stokers through the hatch in the forward stoke-hold.”

I found myself struggling against passengers heading against me for the gangways, as though that would save them! Even before they could reach them, they were driven back by billows of steam from the wrecked starboard paddle-box.

I looked around in case Holmes was already on deck. Though the oil-lights still shone, it had become more difficult to see. There was a hissing curtain of steam rising between the joints of the deck planking as the water entered the fires of the after boiler. Then towards the bow there was an ominous roar as the remaining fires were drowned out by the incoming flood. The navigating-bridge was enveloped in smoke and steam from the cracked boilers. The structure itself had been knocked askew by the impact, and it seemed that the vessel now listed increasingly to leeward.

With a feeling of numbed anxiety I thought that if Holmes was still below and had been near the point of impact, he might already be dead. But if he had survived—and surely he had—he might choose to die rather than abandon his protégées. He would have tried to reach Napoleon-Jerome and his companions in the after-saloon. That was where he was most likely to be. I struggled to reach it, pushing my way through the confusion as fugitives from the lower saloons forced a passage up the steps of the companionway, adding to the bewildered crowd on the upper deck. Those in the so-called royal saloon on the after-deck might be safe if anyone was.

I found my way back to the saloon and slid open the door at its side. It is no cliché to say that my heart sank when I saw no sign of Holmes. Napoleon-Jerome sat more than ever like a banker or a gentleman farmer at one end of the sofa. General Boucher and Lieutenant Cabell stood on either side of him. Cups and glasses, some broken, were scattered on the carpet. Inside the saloon, it was more evident than out on the deck that the wreck of the
Comtesse de Flandre
had tilted several more degrees to starboard. Somewhat to my irritation, the prince folded his hands as if composing an address to an ambassador in precise and correct English.

“We shall not sink, I do not believe so, doctor,” he said primly. “I know steam paddle vessels. They are flat-bottomed boats. They are like a wooden box. They float a very long time after an exchange of blows. I was in the Crimea, you know, in the war against the Tsar. Our monitor
Rochefort
was engaged and suffered an unlucky hit. Much of her side was blown away. She was disabled, but she did not sink. She floated until she became a nuisance to navigation and had to be sunk by our own gunfire.”

To dispute with royalty, even if it has neither a throne nor a crown, is not easy. I tried to think how Sherlock Holmes would have put it to him. It was no good.

“Sir, I must go below and search for my colleague. The sea is coming in by the paddle sponson. It may not yet be flooding beneath the waterline, but it is very close. You can see from the steam outside that it has already filled the stoke-hold sufficiently to put out the fires. The boilers have cracked and steam is escaping from them as well. There is no pressure left to work the pumps, and the ship will fill with water below the Plimsoll line. That will sink her.”

Lieutenant Cabell was blunter. “You must go now, Your Majesty. There is a boat just outside which we are attempting to lower.”

The prince waved his hand side to side.

“They will come from the other ship and fetch us. I think they have boats enough. I will not have it said that I was rescued and that all the other people on this steamer were left to take their chance. We shall all go in the proper manner. I do not care a lot to be seen scrambling down the side of a ship to save myself. I fear every chance of an accident in such weather as this, and being myself in the water. I shall remain for a time.”

I made one more effort and wished afterwards that I had not. “I too know something of ships, sir. This vessel is listing. The movement is gradual. But when the moment comes, she will go over without warning. You will not get as far as the door of this saloon. Whatever your decision, I am going down below at once.”

“You will go down below to look for your colleague, Doctor Vastson?”

“At once, sir. I can do no more here. Please take the advice of Lieutenant Cabell.”

Plon-Plon waved his hand side to side, rather like a fan.

“If you are going anyway, monsieur, there is a box belonging to me which I should like, if it is still there. It lies in the
coffresforts
of the Messageries Impériales. It is consigned to myself at Lancaster Gate. There is an armed guard, but I expect they will have run away. It is marked with a crown.”

General Boulanger intervened before I could reply. There was a chain at the belt of his morning dress, and from it he unhooked two keys on a ring.

“This, monsieur, is all the authority you require. I have an oil-lamp at my disposal. You will please take that for your safety.”

Safety! There is a French phrase—
un mauvais quart d'heure
—which refers to an anticipation of disagreeable experiences. It describes precisely my feelings as I felt my way down the half-lit steps of the companionway. The fog had shown no sign of lifting, and no lifeboat had yet reached the stricken
Comtesse
from the vessel that had run her down. But the rush of passengers from the lower saloons to the upper deck had ceased and I had the lower deck pretty much to myself. Below-decks, the stricken steamer was silent now except for the wash of water that swilled to and fro across the planking. Only the echo of distant voices above indicated the turmoil and panic there. I found my way by a glimmer of mounted oil-lights overhead which the water had not yet reached and which showed me the way dimly.

The worst thing belowdecks was a fetid stench from the bilges of the sinking vessel, as the contaminated water ran erratically about the sloping deck. The engine-room passage stretching aft was more than ankle-deep in it. My lamp shone upon the heavy pistons of the ship's engines, now silent and motionless in mid-stride. There was a creaking of the hull as it seemed to heel over a little more. But that was no more than a tidal swell catching the flank of the vessel. Where was Sherlock Holmes? The deep well of the engine-room that lay beneath the heavy machinery was flooding steadily. Passing the paddle-box, I came to the open sponson. Here one could stand on the platform and step down twelve or eighteen inches into a lifeboat held alongside. But as yet there was no boat.

I came to the steel grille beside the
bureau de change
, guarding the mailroom and its high-value packages. I had no need of Lieutenant Cabell's key to open the gate. The three guardians had left the steel grille open as they fled when the bow of the
Princesse Henriette
crunched into the side of the steamer. What else should they do, as the sea began to flood this lower deck? They must have expected that the ship would capsize at any second, and they had run for their lives, leaving the mailroom of the
coffresforts
unlocked. Who shall blame them for that?

The shouting on the deck above me had diminished. If I heard the sounds correctly, the two lifeboats of the
Comtesse de Flandre
were being lowered, and no doubt the first rescue boat from the
Princesse Henriette
had been launched. I shone my lamp on the cavernous cage with its high-value packages. Where was Holmes? My oil-lamp was giving out little more than a glow. Yet from what I could now see of the interior of this strong-room, everything was as it had been. Napoleon-Jerome's coffin-like war-chest lay in its place. Yet how was it to be rescued before the ship foundered? I should never be able to shift it on my own. I tried to lift one end, but only to ensure that it had not been tampered with. To judge from its weight, I was sure that it had not been.

“Watson!”

He was carrying no lamp of his own. I had neither seen nor heard him approach along the engine-room passageway.

“Leave that!” he called. “There is every chance that we shall break in two after such a blow.”

I had expected that at the least we would lug the war-chest to the sponson, where a boat might be brought alongside.

“Leave Plon Plon's war-chest?”

I could see his aquiline profile against that failing glow of my oil-light.

“My dear fellow, there is nothing in that chest worth the loss of a human life. Not yours and certainly not mine.”

“But there must be enough in there to start a revolution in Paris!”

He smiled, though at what I could not say.

“If it pleases you to think so—but not a revolution of the kind you suppose. To tell you the truth, I have been in possession of the keys to it ever since I left Brussels, thanks to Brother Mycroft. But you shall have your way, old fellow. And you shall carry away as payment however much of the contents you think worth carrying. Stand back.”

He knelt down and I held the lamp closer. Apart from the polished brass lock-plate, there were subsidiary keyholes at either end of the glossy oak chest. The well-oiled levers of the locks moved smoothly and easily in obedience to the key, hardly touching the wards as they rose to ease back the bolts. Holmes took the edges of the lid and lifted it silently back. Napoleon-Jerome's treasure trove was covered by a sheet of heavy silver foil, for all the world like the lining of an ammunition box. He rolled this back, and I stared at the royal fortune that was intended to restore the descendants of Napoleon Bonaparte to the throne of France.