Convergence of the Twain, a Doc Martin and Sherlock Crossover Story
Doc Martin belongs to Buffalo Pictures. Sherlock belongs to Arthur Conan Doyle and the BBC. I own nothing but my imagination.
Set between episodes 3 and 4 of Doc Martin series 5 and between episodes 1 and 2 of Sherlock series 2
Author's Notes:
Thanks to all of you for sticking with me. This chapter has been exceeding difficult for me – it is my first time writing from inside Sherlock's head and I found it to be quite a trip.
Confidential to the guest who complained that I was posting one chapter at a time: I couldn't respond by PM to your comment as you did not login when you commented. You are welcome to wait until this is finished to read it. I will mark it complete when it is. I will continue to post chapter by chapter as I write as the interaction with the reviewers is, for me, a big part of the writing process. But I thank you for reading and for taking the time to comment thoughtfully. All feedback is important to me.
Chapter 9 – Serpentes
Sherlock's heart leapt in his chest when John didn't respond, and adrenaline pumped through his veins. John. Danger. That was all it took for Sherlock to pack the snake and its fascinating venom sac into a mental box, relegated to a remote and dusty cupboard in his mind palace.
He spun on his heel, mind racing. Medical emergency, John Hamish Watson, age 39, non-smoker, no known heart defects or serious allergies . . . overindulgence in alcohol or other mind-altering substances . . . known to drink socially but rarely to the point of incapacity, illegal drugs highly unlikely – there was virtually no possibility John could have hidden that sort of predilection from him,, the rate of abuse of prescription drugs among medical professionals was measured to be . . . interrupted burglary. . . room contents limited to shabby pub furniture and two cases, John's containing one Army issue washbag with toiletries from Boots, three tartan button-up shirts, size 15 ½ x 32, jeans, inseam 28, khaki trousers without turn-ups, three white vee-neck vests, three pairs of blue cotton boxers, four pairs of brown wool socks, green striped pyjama bottoms, grey t-shirt . . . enemy attack . . . known adversaries: Ella Harper, therapist with no prior history of violence, various Army veterans, the Tesco CHIP and PIN machine. . . vengeful ex-girlfriend . . . Sarah, Jeanette, that blonde who laughed like a horse. . . Thirty-eight possibilities for John's call came immediately to mind. No, wait, thirty-nine.
And John was sleeping in Sherlock's room. Whatever was happening had been intended for him, of that he was sure. John didn't have independent enemies. That cut it down to twenty-five possibilities. James Moriarty, currently in the custody of Her Majesty's government but not without resources . . .
As his mind whipped through the matrix of possibilities at lightning speed, Sherlock opened the drawer in the bedside cabinet where he'd seen John stash his SIG (Army issue sidearm, unregistered, eight 9mm rounds ...) before leaving on his date with the local Detective Inspector. He checked the magazine and the safety, and then slid the gun into his waistband at the small of his back. He toed-off his shoes to improve his chances of a silent approach.
Rapidly, he opened the door a crack and glanced up and down the empty corridor before crossing to room 6. He fished in his trouser pocket for his lock pick, and then frowned when he saw that the door was ajar. Examining it further for evidence of a forced entry, he noted that the lock on the door knob was still engaged, meaning that the door had been opened from the inside. Hypothesis: John knew his attacker and opened the door . . . Hypothesis: Alternate means of entry to the room . . . Hypothesis: An attacker with a key . . . Twenty-two possibilities, then. He pushed the door in with his shoulder to avoid disturbing any useful fingerprints.
The room was dark and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. Whatever was going on in there had taken place in the dark unless John or his adversary had cut the lights for some reason afterwards. The range of possible causes on his list now narrowed to fourteen. Burglary, assassination, seduction gone wrong . . .
"John . . ." he hissed. "John?" His whisper echoed in the silence. Where was John and why wasn't he saying anything? None of the possible causes was comforting. While Sherlock's hands were steady, the neurons in his brain were firing at a dizzying speed and his pulse galloped along like a racehorse. Find John, find John, find John . . .
Sherlock froze when he heard a moan from the far corner of the room and realized John must be lying on the floor on the far side of the bed, and seriously incapacitated. Had John been poisoned by his date? Poison was a woman's weapon. Was she actually a police officer? Why hadn't he verified her credentials? He didn't sense anyone else in the room, but he raised the gun and released the safety to be prepared if he was wrong before switching on the overhead light.
Shit. The bed sheets were blood-stainedand gory in the bright light, an image searing itself into his retina. So much blood. Not a scratch or a nosebleed but a life-threatening wound. A ceramic lamp had been knocked off the bureau below the window. No mere misunderstanding, then. An altercation of some kind. A weapon. He hadn't heard the sound of a gunshot, possibly beaten – the proverbial blunt instrumentobject, or stabbed . . . What was the probability that the blood wasn't John's?
His whirring brain cataloged the window, which was opened six inches (too small an opening for an adult but perhaps a child . . .), and the half-closed door to the en-suite bath. He scanned his own unopened suitcase, John's tidy holdall, and John's watch on the bedside table – clearly not a robbery then. Intentional, not likely a crime of opportunity. As he strode across the room towards John, movement in the opposite corner caught his eye and suddenly the pieces all fell into place.
The snake was huge. Snake. Phylum chordata, Class Reptilia, Order Squamata . . . Even after performing the necropsy on the snake from the power station, he had not imagined the menace and power that a live snake of that size would project; one that was threatened, cornered, hissing and coiling. A Tiger Snake, like its mate across the hall, six feet long, he estimated, orange on the underbelly and with distinctly patterned olive and black stripes on the back, a clear indication this specimen was of the Chappell Island subspecies. Notechis scutatus of the family Elapidae. And clearly agitated.
The copious amount of blood on the sheets clearly indicated John had been bitten by the beast, and the fact that John was struggling to speak and breathe meant it hadn't just been a dry bite. A snake, one like the dead snake he'd been dissecting. It wasn't difficult now to open that box in his mind palace, to resurrect the facts about the dead snake, complete with cross-references to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Steve Irwin, the Book of Genesis, Riki Tiki Tavi and that scene with the snakes from the Indiana Jones film he and John had watched on Boxing Day. An unaccustomed fear coiled like a spring in Sherlock's gut as he ticked through the components of the snake venom he'd researched in the lab in London and the effect those toxins were having on John's body. Pain, tingling, numbness, impaired breathing, paralysis. Mortality rate for untreated bites over fifty percent. . .
Keeping the gun and his eyes trained on the snake (steady, Holmes, keep it steady), he sidled towards the bed, trying to reach John. If the light had startled the snake, Sherlock's movement across the room provoked it. . . . Highly developed senses of smell and taste, acute ability to sense motion. . . With a mesmerizing and terrifying reptilian grace, the snake slid towards him, showing its fangs and coiling and uncoiling itself in preparation for battle before stopping in the distinct pre-strike pose. A deranged dance of death.
Sherlock didn't hesitate. Kill the snake, save John, kill the snake, save John . . . He braced his hand, took aim and let out a long slow breath, recalling every long session in the shooting range and even afternoons spent shooting the wall in the Baker Street flat. He pulled the trigger and kept going until the snake stopped moving, emptying the magazine into the beast until it was nothing more than a limp and gruesome mess on the carpet, taking no small satisfaction in the accuracy of his shots. The smell of gore mixed with the hot metal of the spent casings and the overwhelming scorching sweet miasma of gun powder. Dropping the gun, Sherlock vaulted the bed and found John semi-conscious on the floor, bleeding profusely from his wrist and breathing laboriously. Loss of 15-30% of total blood volume constitutes a Class II Hemorrhage, resulting in tachycardia, peripheral vasoconstriction, requiring volume resuscitation . . .
"John . . . John! Can you hear me? Stick with me. Keep your eyes open." He saw Watson's eyelids struggle, ever the obedient soldier when it came to direct orders.
He grabbed John's mobile from his hand. In a sleepy town like Portwenn, the gunshots would serve to summon the police more quickly even than a call to 999. He had a more important call to make if he was going to save John's life. He pushed aside his extreme dislike, hatred, even loathing, of his brother. Rescuing John warranted calling upon his archenemy, even with the possibility of obligating himself to solve another tedious case for the government. Scrolling through the contacts, (how had he not noticed before that John alphabetized them by first name?) he stopped at M. Mycroft. As the ringing commenced, he swallowed and prepared to grovel.
X
Martin sighed. His stomach grumbled again, making it difficult to concentrate on the monograph he was reading on bowel diversion surgeries for patients suffering from ulcerative colitis. He'd only eaten a few bites of his supper before the row in the restaurant. After arriving home and finding Louisa frosty and distant, picking at cornflakes and generally ignoring him, he'd retreated to his office to do some work. It was not a satisfactory solution on any count but the only one he could think of.
Now it was ten, he was cross, worried about Louisa, and quite frankly a bit miffed that she had misunderstood what was going on in the restaurant and jumped to some silly conclusion. And, if he admitted it, bewildered and more than a bit annoyed with himself for once again flat-footing it with Louisa. He didn't think he would ever understand her behavior, as much as he desperately wanted to.
Why was it so bloody confusing? Women, Louisa in particular, he meant. Living with them. He'd pined for her for so long, hoping against hope he'd just catch a glimpse of her, then counted himself the luckiest of men when she'd agreed to be his wife; he'd thought his heart was broken when she'd went away, and had truly believed his world was ending when she'd come back and shut him out of her life and her pregnancy. Now she was here, with the baby, under his roof and part of his life, something he'd never dared dream of, something that should have made them all over the moon with happiness. But instead it was awkward, beyond belief; a life filled with rows, exhaustion and uncertainty about how to behave. And even though she'd come to her senses and agreed to move to London with him, she still seemed distant and stressed and sad. He had a terrible feeling he'd unknowingly caused that. He found himself coming back to this point endlessly without knowing what to do.
His stomach rumbled again – apparently the topic of the monograph had not been sufficient to curb his appetite. It was not at all an appropriate time for eating. Still, he wondered how badly he'd sleep if he had just a slice of toast with a cup of hot milk before going to bed. Maybe just this once it would be alright.
He listened carefully, trying to gauge whether or not Louisa was asleep. He'd heard her take James upstairs, heard the sounds of running water in the lavatory as she prepared for bed. But the footsteps had stopped. Perhaps the coast was clear. He was rubbish at comforting anyone – it would be better not to go up until she was asleep, he told himself, so they could start fresh tomorrow.
But before Martin had a chance to leave his office and head for the kitchen, the silence in the house was shattered by a ringing telephone, and Martin's thoughts of a late-night snack evaporated. At this time of night, it wouldn't be a social call, not that he received many of those anyway. No this would be a medical question and it was his duty to answer, even if the odds were that it would be a frivolous issue that could have waited until morning surgery.
"Ellingham!"
"Doc, it's Mark Bridge, down at the Crab. You've got to come quick; there's a bloke here in my pub who's been bitten by a poisonous snake . . ." Martin could here other voices in the background, including one with a lofty public school accent correcting the publican's terminology. "Er . . . make that a VENOMOUS snake. . ."
A venomous snake? In Cornwall? That would be unusual, although P.C. Mylow HAD encountered one, a nasty one. Still, it was not very likely. Bridge might know something about running a pub but there was no reason to think he had any specific knowledge of snakes.
"Slow down, Mark. A snake? What type of snake – has someone who knows anything about snakes determined it was a venomous bite? Where was he bitten?"
"Er – here, in the pub, in his room, like . . ."
"Not where in the building, where on his BODY, you imbecile! And have you called for an ambulance?" Balancing the telephone on his shoulder, Martin pulled out his medical bag to make sure he had plenty of adrenaline and antihistamines.
"Yeah, yeah – right. Doc? There's a detective here you'd better speak with . . ."
A detective? Surely he didn't mean Penhale – there wasn't anyone in Portwenn who would make that mistake. It surely wasn't that London detective Morwenna had been gushing about, was it? The man in the black suit at the pharmacy, who'd diagnosed the boy's scarlet fever? There was a rustling sound and muffled voices while the telephone was handed over.
Martin automatically ran through the prescribed first aid steps for snake-bite in his mind while he waited, not very patiently.
"Doctor Ellingham." Now he was hearing a was speaking to that deep baritone voice with anthe accent that marked him as a tourist. "Sherlock Holmes, here." So it WAS the Londoner. Well he'd been right about the scarlet fever; maybe he knew something about snakes too. "My colleague has been bitten by an Australian Tiger Snake, Chappell Island subspecies. I need you to perform pressure immobilization and treat him for shock and hemorrhage." The man spoke more rapidly than an auctioneer and Martin was having a hard time following him with all of the background noise.
"A venomous Australian snake?" Martin didn't stop to think about how that had happened. He'd heard about the extreme toxicity of Australian snakes in his training but had never expected to treat one, not in Portwenn. "We'll need anti-venom. I don't have anything that exotic on hand here. Best bet is to get him to hospital." Defibrillator, he thought to himself, I'd better bring the defibrillator.
"Anti-venom is on its way; I have called upon the assistance of a military contact to obtain it. But surely you know that the protocol for this type of bite is pressure immobilization before relocating the patient. Are you familiar . . ."
"Of course I am, you idiot. I'm a doctor. I'll be there shortly." Martin started rifling through his cupboard for wide, strong bandages and a long splint. "Be sure someone calls 999 and orders an air ambulance. And whatever you do, don't move him."
"Yes, of course. We're applying pressure to the bleeding – quite copious, I'm afraid. I estimate 20 percent blood volume loss or more. He'll need a drip. He's in shock too, I think. Pale and labored breathing."
Martin nodded to himself, thankful that for once he was dealing with someone who wasn't panicking or undertaking some weird folk remedy or an outrageous treatment they'd seen on Peak Practice. He checked the inventory o f supplies in his bag again, adding an intravenous cannula as he spoke. "Where is the anti-venom coming from and when will it get here? I can't imagine they stock it at the Royal Cornwall." Martin was thinking about time, glance at his clock, knowing that he had roughly two hours from the time of the bite to get this man the proper treatment if he was going to have a chance of saving his life.
"Ah yes. My contact has located the anti-venom at an MOD installation in Hampshire. It is being dispatched by an RAF helicopter which can land at the old search and rescue base at St. Magwan's in Truro. The air ambulance will take us there to meet it."
"Right. On my way." This had to be one of the weirder call outs of his practice – not as bad as the badger-eater, perhaps, or the sisters with the deadly home-made antibiotics. But up there, definitely up there.
Martin picked up his medical bag, his defibrillator, and a carrier bag filled with the bandages and splints and hurried out the door and down the hill towards the pub. Belatedly, he realized he perhaps should have let Louisa know where he was going. Too many years of not having anyone to be accountable to, he guessed. He hoped Louisa would connect the sound of the telephone ringing and the sound of the door closing and realize he'd been called out to a medical emergency. Hazards of being a doctor's . . . well wife wasn't the right word, much as he wished it were, but hazards of being part of a doctor's household anyhow. Besides, maybe she'd sleep through the whole thing and never know he'd gone.
And what was this business with snakes? First the dead one in the power plant, then the ones Stuart had found in the woods. And now a live, biting snake and a very sick man. Somehow this didn't sound like a circus anymore.
To be continued . . .
Glossary:
Serpentes is the Latin name of the taxonomic suborder of snakes.
A necropsy is the animal equivalent of an autopsy.
The MOD is the Ministry of Defense.
The RAF is the Royal Air Force, which has a helicopter base at Odiham in Hampshire and has a former helicopter base at St. Magwan's in Cornwall.
