Rebel Fire (15 page)

Captain Charles Henry Evans Judkins was a tall man with an impressive set of white whiskers adorning his cheeks. His uniform was black, spotless, and perfectly pressed; decorated with bright gold braid; and he carried himself with an upright, military bearing. He was a hit with the ladies, who had all dressed in their finest clothes for the occasion, and he told many strange stories of his time working for the Cunard Line. The ones that impressed his audience the most concerned creatures such as whales and giant squid that were sometimes seen in the distance, and great storms that sometimes appeared on the horizon like black walls and which tossed ships about on the waves so much that at times the deck appeared to be as vertical as a cliff face. Judkins told these stories with a showman's flair, pulling his attentive audience in with his words and giving the impression that sea travel was a dangerous activity which they would be lucky to survive, but Sherlock could tell that he was acting a part and providing a form of entertainment that would tinge the way the passengers saw the rest of the voyage. After all, if he told them it was as boring as a walk in the park, then what stories would
they
have to tell to their friends when they disembarked?

One story in particular that he told caught Sherlock's attention. Judkins had been talking about the various attempts to lay a cable across the Atlantic, from Ireland to Newfoundland, in order to allow the sending of telegraphic communications. If that could be done, then rather than a message taking well over a week to make it across from one country to the other in mail bags in the hold of a ship, information could be passed almost instantaneously via electrical pulses. The idea of telegraphic communication fascinated Sherlock. He could already see, after what had happened back in Amyus Crowe's cottage, that the letters of the message would have to be replaced by easily transmitted codes—long and short pulses, maybe, or just a simple “on” and “off” arrangement—but the idea of laying a cable some three thousand miles long, from one coast to another, across the bottom of the sea without it breaking under the strain, made Sherlock's mind boggle. Was there nothing that the mind of man could not accomplish, once it set itself to the task? The original method, according to Judkins, had two ships starting out in the middle of the Atlantic and laying their cables in different directions until they both hit land, but that had immediately run into problems when the crews tried to splice the cables together in the middle of a storm. The next attempts had taken place with ships setting out from Ireland and heading for Newfoundland, laying out the cables as they went, but the cables often broke and had to be dredged back up so that the crews could repair the breaks and keep going.

“I recall one occasion,” Judkins said in a low, deep voice, “when a broken cable was dredged up from the abyssal depths of the ocean,
and there was a creature holding onto it
!” He glanced around the table, his eyes bright beneath bushy brows, while the various passengers who were hanging on his every word gasped. “A godless creature like a marine earwig, if you would credit it; white in colour, but fully two feet long and with a set of fourteen clawed legs that gripped hard onto the cable and would not let go. It was still alive when they dragged the cable onto the deck, but it soon died, being removed from its natural habitat amongst the murk of the ocean floor.”

One woman let out an inadvertent shriek.

“I understand from the men who were there,” Judkins continued, “that the creature tasted something like lobster, when cooked.”

His audience dissolved into relieved laughter. Sherlock caught Amyus Crowe's eye. Crowe was smiling too.

“I've heard similar stories,” Crowe murmured, just loud enough for Sherlock to hear. “The things are called ‘isopods.' They're something like prawns, but the conditions at the bottom of the ocean allow them to grow to prodigious size.”

The steward who was serving Sherlock's part of the table—up near the captain, as Mycroft had promised—was the thin man with short blond hair who had helped Sherlock with directions earlier. He nodded at Sherlock as he reached out to place a dish of soup in front of the man sitting opposite.

There was no lobster, which was probably a blessing.

After dinner Sherlock had headed for bed, leaving Amyus Crowe in the bar, and if Crowe had come to bed at all then Sherlock had been asleep in his bunk when he had done so. When Sherlock woke up and got ready for breakfast, Crowe had already left the cabin. He seemed to be able to survive on small amounts of sleep.

Despite the fact that it was being cooked at sea in a cramped galley, the food was excellent. Each meal had something different in it, and waiting to see what would arrive on the plate at breakfast, lunch, or dinner was one of the highlights of the day. Everything was prepared fresh, of course—it would be difficult to store anything for very long—but even though the numbers of animals on the foredeck would diminish during the voyage there was no obvious sign of their being slaughtered—no washes of blood across the deck, no piteous bleats as the animals were taken away to their final end. The crew clearly had their own routine, which they had been following for years.

The skies on that first day were clear and blue, and the waves were small enough in comparison to the size of the ship that they just slapped across its sides without making it pitch and toss at all. Sherlock had read about storms at sea, and he overheard a couple of the passengers who were scaring the rest by telling stories of horrendous previous passages across the Atlantic where vast waves had hung above the ship before crashing down and sweeping animals overboard. But so far the ocean had been calm enough that some people were actually playing bowls in a clear area on deck.

The steerage passengers had their own fenced-off area of deck for walking and for washing their clothes. It was at the top of the stairs that led down to the dark areas of the ship where their hammocks were slung. The smell that sometimes wafted up was an eye-watering mix of bodily odours. Presumably, down there where there was no breeze and nobody could see the sky and the horizon, seasickness was a constant companion. When they came on deck they either watched the first-class passengers with subdued malice in their eyes or stared at the deck in weary depression. Every time Sherlock passed them by he thanked God that Mycroft had paid for them to travel first class. He wasn't sure he could have survived steerage. He didn't know how anyone could.

The massive paddle wheels on each side of the ship were in constant motion, driven by the steam engines whose rumbling could be felt whenever one touched a wooden surface. The paddles that were spaced around their circumference pushed against the sea as they rotated, propelling the ship forward. The captain had ordered the sails to be unfurled shortly after Southampton dropped out of sight beneath the horizon, but the way they hung limply suggested to Sherlock that there wasn't enough breeze to keep the ship moving very fast.

Surprisingly, for much of that first day after breakfast he hadn't seen much of Amyus and Virginia Crowe. She had seemed subdued and had taken to her cabin, and her father seemed to be spending his time alternately checking that she was all right and brooding in the cabin that he shared with Sherlock. Something was bothering her. Casting his mind back, Sherlock tried to remember whether Virginia had mentioned anything about the trip from America to England that she and her father had taken apart from the fact that they hadn't travelled first class but weren't in steerage either. He had a feeling that she had said something important when they first met, but he couldn't remember what.

Somewhere towards the back of the ship Sherlock could hear music playing. He turned from his position staring out at the waves, trying to trace its source. The music floated overhead, as light as the seagulls that followed in the wake of the ship and hung in the air, barely moving their wings. It sounded like a violin playing a melody that swept up before pausing at the topmost note and then crashing down again.

Leaving his place at the rail, Sherlock walked back towards the stern, looking for the source of the music. There was precious little entertainment on the ship as it was: anything that broke up the monotony of the day should be investigated and treasured.

Past the long single storey of the saloon, in a clear area of deck, a man stood playing the violin. It was the man he had seen the day before when they had been leaving Southampton—the man with long black hair and green eyes. He was still wearing the same corduroy jacket and trousers, although he appeared to have changed his shirt. The violin was pressed into his neck and his head was tilted, chin holding the body of the instrument steady while his left hand fingered the neck and his right hand sawed the horsehair bow across the strings. His eyes were closed and his face bore an expression of intense concentration. Sherlock had never heard a piece of music like that before: it was wild, romantic, and turbulent, not ordered and mathematical, like the pieces by Bach and Mozart that he was used to hearing in the occasional recitals at Deepdene School for Boys.

Several other passengers were gathered around the man, listening to him with quizzical smiles on their faces. Sherlock watched and listened, as he swept to a climax, held the note, and then stopped. For a moment he kept the violin up to his chin, eyes still closed and a smile on his face, then he let it fall and opened his eyes. The crowd applauded. He bowed. His violin case was on the deck in front of him, Sherlock noticed, and some of the passengers threw some coins in before they wandered away.

After a few moments, only the violinist and Sherlock were left. The violinist bent to scoop the coins from the case, then glanced up at Sherlock.

“Did you enjoy that, my friend?”

“I did. If I had some money I'd give it to you.”

“No need.” He straightened, having left the violin and bow in the case. “The money offsets my expenses and allows me a little extra for the occasional drink, but I'm not trying to make a living by playing. Not here on the ship, anyway. I do, however, have to practise, and my roommate does not appear appreciative of anything apart from German polkas.”

“What was that piece?” Sherlock asked.

“It's a newly written violin concerto in G minor by a German composer by the name of Max Bruch. I met him in Coblenz, last year. He gave me a copy of the score. I've been trying to get it right ever since. I think one day it will be a part of the repertoire of every classical violinist.”

“It sounded incredible.”

“He uses some ideas from Felix Mendelssohn's works, but he gilds them with a particular glint of his own.”

“Are you a professional musician?”

He smiled; an easy, unforced grin that revealed strong white teeth. “Sometimes I am,” he said. “I can turn my hand to many trades, but I seem to keep coming back to the violin. I've played in orchestras in concert halls and string quartets in high-class tearooms, I've busked on the streets and accompanied singers in music halls while beer glasses fly overhead and shatter against the stage. My name, by the way, is Stone. Rufus Stone.”

“I'm Sherlock Holmes.” Sherlock walked over and extended his hand. Rufus Stone took it, and they shook for a few moments. Stone's hand was firm and strong. “Is that why you're going to America?” Sherlock continued. “To play the violin?”

“Opportunities are drying up in England,” Stone replied. “I was hoping that the New World might have some use for me, especially after the cream of their manhood was cut down in the War Between the States.” His gaze flickered up and down Sherlock's frame. “You have the build of a good violin player. Your posture is upright, and your fingers are long. Do you play?”

Sherlock shook his head. “I don't play any instrument,” he admitted.

“You should. All the girls love a musician.” He tilted his head to one side, almost as if the violin were still there. “Can you read music?”

Sherlock nodded. “I learned at school. We had a choir, and we had to sing every morning.”

“Would you like to learn the violin?”

“Me? Learn the violin? Are you serious?”

Stone nodded. “We've got a week before we dock, and that time will pass awfully slowly if we don't find some way to amuse ourselves. When I get to New York I'm going to be looking for employment as a violin teacher. It would help if I could actually say that I've taught somebody. At the moment I have some good ideas about how to do it, but I've never turned them into practice. So—what do you say? Are you willing to help me out?”

Sherlock thought about it for a moment. He didn't play whist or bridge, and the only alternative was laboriously translating the copy of Plato's
Republic
that Mycroft had given him. This sounded far more interesting. “I can't pay,” he said. “I haven't got any money.”

“There will be no financial encumbrance on you. You'll be doing me a favour.”

“What can you teach me in a week?”

Stone considered for a moment. “We can start with posture,” he said. “The way you stand and the way you hold the violin. Once I'm happy you've got that right, we can move on to getting the various right-hand techniques correct—
détaché
,
legato
,
collé
,
martelé
,
staccato
,
spiccato
, and
sautillé
. Once I'm happy with that, we can move on to the left-hand techniques—finger dropping and lifting, shifting, and
vibrato
. And then, I'm afraid, it's practice, practice, practice—scales and arpeggios until the tips of your fingers are sore.”

“I said I can read music, but I can't hold a note,” Sherlock admitted. “Our choirmaster said I had a cloth ear.”

“No such thing,” Stone said dismissively. “You may not be able to sing, but I guarantee I can get a tune out of you by the end of the week that people will throw coins for, even if it is just a German polka. What do you say?”