Chapter 31:"Hidden Reefs"
Watson
I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the now-unconscious Culverton Smith was taken away from the room by the sailors Lachlan had commandeered, to be placed in the brig under the custody of the Lieutenant we had encountered earlier.
I felt Holmes slowly untense beside me and knew that he had to be feeling nearly as limp as I was – indeed, I could not remember the last time I had felt so tired. This case had been one horrific turn of events after another, and we were both devoutly glad to have it over with at last. We drew comfort now from each other's presence and wellbeing, paying no heed to the whispers and looks we were drawing from the crowd.
We had done it - we had come through it alive and, though not unscathed, at least in one piece.
Lachlan finished with his calming of the disturbed crowds, who went back to eating with a disdain that was a sole characteristic of the upper classes, and turned at last to us looking as equally relieved.
"Well, Mr. Holmes," he said, "it seems that your 'pretty little problem' is finally over with. Are you satisfied?"
Holmes laughed slightly.
"It was far more interesting than I first believed it would be. Thank you Lachlan, not only for bringing it to my attention, but also for services rendered."
The seaman snorted and his blue eyes twinkled.
"You make it sound like I did something grand…I am only a midshipman."
Holmes fixed him with a sharp and appraising glare, cutting short the seaman's flippancy.
"We all know that you are more than a simple midshipman, Mr. Lachlan."
"A great deal more," I said, unable to keep a smile from my own face.
Smith was in custody and his germs were in the sea, and with this knowledge came a sense of security that I had not possessed for more than two weeks. I felt nearly limp with the relief of it.
Lachlan returned my smile and clapped me on the back.
"I think you'd better be changin' into some dry clothes, Doctor; we just can't seem to keep you dry tonight."
"And get your side looked at," Holmes said with a trace of worry in his eyes.
I glared at him, not eager to be submitted to an examination by one of the ship's doctors.
"There is no great damage done, Holmes. A few minor bruises…"
"Have you looked at it?"
"No, but I shall once I get to my cabin." said I.
"What happened?" Lachlan asked as we exited the now serene dining area.
"The fool tried to shield me from an avalanche of luggage in the cargo bay that Smith pushed over on us!"
"That fool probably saved you from a fractured skull, Holmes," I replied dryly.
Lachlan laughed aloud at our childish bickering, leading the way through a curious crowd who had heard the commotion and saw Smith being dragged away from the dining area. Holmes and I followed in his wake and within minutes had reached our staterooms –
Just as a familiar squalling started up once more.
"Oh, good heavens – not again!" Holmes moaned.
"I don't blame the poor thing," I replied, unlocking my stateroom door, "that sea was so rough earlier I thought I should be sick as well – I still feel a little off, actually."
Lachlan chuckled at Holmes's dismayed looks and offered to go and fetch us something hot to eat, for I at least had lost everything in my stomach from my experience in the sea earlier.
"You can eat something now, Holmes – the case is over," I teased as I sat.
"Hmph."
"Do not make me force you to!"
"Oh, stop it. Yes, make it two, Lachlan, if you'd be so kind," my friend said, his grey eyes twinkling with the merriment that always accompanied the successful closure of a case.
The seaman grinned and nodded as he shut the door behind him.
"Now, Watson – let me look at that side."
"How is your head, by the way?" I asked as I gingerly began to unbutton my shirt.
Holmes grimaced but showed no other signs of pain, as was usual for his stalwart nature.
"Just a bruise, no lump," he assured me. I gave him a pointed look that told him I disbelieved him, and he merely grinned at me.
The bruise on my side appeared to be only superficial, to his relief and mine. I rubbed some liniment on the painful areas and then inspected the back of Holmes's head.
"Ouch! Stop that!"
"Hold still, Holmes."
"Watson! Where the devil did you get your medical degree, correspondence school? OUCH!"
"At least I have a college degree, Holmes," I retorted, probing the sore area, "and you told me there was no lump."
"Well?"
"Well there's a good-sized one!"
"I thought that was just my head."
"You are an idiot," I said fondly, digging through my medical bag for a pain reliever that would not make him drowsy.
"I? The world's most famous consulting detective? An idiot?"
"Oh, honestly. My stories were what made you famous, anyhow."
"They were not!"
"They certainly were. Admit it – your business doubled after I published The Sign of the Four," I said mischievously, snapping the bag shut.
"Poppycock."
I laughed and began to change out of my still slightly damp shirt and collar, feeling much the better once in dry clothes for the second time that night. Then I flopped down tiredly on the bunk and closed my eyes, reveling in the softness of the pillow – tonight would be the first night we could sleep without dread of Smith and his machinations.
Holmes glanced out of the porthole.
"Storm's stopped for now, but it still looks rather like a cloudburst is still hanging about us," he remarked.
I moaned at the thought – it was only a Providential miracle I had escaped seasickness tonight; if the storm kicked up again I would likely be in the same predicament as poor Helen by sunrise.
"Getting sick, are you?"
"Not yet," I muttered, glancing up at him – he was trying desperately not to smile at my dismay. "I hope you get desperately ill on the return voyage, Holmes, do you can know what it feels like for once!"
He chortled and pulled a chair up beside the bed, pulling his pipe out of a soggy pocket.
"I really am sorry, old chap," he said.
I snorted. "You have rather an odd way of showing it – laughing at a fellow when he's miserable."
"You are not even sick yet!"
"No, but if I were you would still laugh."
"I would not!" he replied indignantly, trying to get a damp match to light unsuccessfully.
I rolled onto my elbow and grinned at him.
"You really have terrible people skills, Holmes."
His eyes grew large over the bowl of the pipe as he tried another match, this time with more success.
"I?"
"Yes, you. You would make a perfectly terrible doctor. You would probably laugh when a patient came down with pneumonia or something."
"I would not!"
"Mmhm."
"You are horrid, Watson," he scowled petulantly, sitting back in his chair and glaring at me.
It was my turn to laugh now, and I was still chuckling as Lachlan came back into the room with a large tray of foodstuffs. The tempting smells made my empty stomach growl, and I sat up eagerly and came to the table. Holmes and Lachlan joined me, and for a few minutes nothing was said as we made short work of the meal.
"Lachlan, the captain said we have to take Smith off at the next port – that will be in just a few days," Holmes said, chewing thoughtfully, "but you are still under contract to the ship, are you not?"
"Aye, Mr. Holmes. So I suppose I shall just have to say au revoir until I reach port again in London," the seaman said, watching us eat with approval.
"Be sure to look us up the instant you get back," I said, taking another bite.
The food was delicious, and I had been half-starved it seemed, but now that I started in on it I grew full very rapidly, only half-finishing the meal.
"Not seasick, are you Doctor?" Lachlan asked, eyeing the half-finished plate.
"I do wish no one knew of that weakness; that is all I've heard about ever since the storm started up," I growled, pushing my chair back from the table.
"He is always a little testy after the culmination of a case, Lachlan, don't mind him," I heard Holmes lean over and whisper in a confidential tone.
"I heard that, Holmes!"
"Well?"
"At least I do not sit around depressed for days upon end and moan and complain about the criminal being locked up and now there is nothing to fasten my mind upon," I said pointedly, stretching out again on the bunk, propped up on my elbows to look at my two friends.
"I do not complain!"
"You do so. You complained for two hours straight before this case came along about how much you missed Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran. You've got to stop this complaining, Holmes – I want no more villains from our past getting resurrected and coming back to haunt us!"
Holmes laughed.
"No, no. After Smith, I do believe no more would be possible. No ghosts need apply to this agency, Watson."
"Do you believe in ghosts, Doctor?" Lachlan asked with interest.
I opened my mouth to reply as Holmes snorted and muttered something about lurid romanticism, stuffing his pipe with more tobacco and leaning back with a bored expression.
Lachlan was informing me of some fascinating sea legends about ghostly ships and figureheads coming to life in the dead of night, etc., etc., when Holmes finally could stand no more of it.
"Honestly, Lachlan, you're as bad as Watson. You should become a writer too," he said derisively, glaring at the both of us.
"You should, Lachlan," I replied seriously.
Holmes moaned and collapsed back into his chair.
"I give up," he informed no one in particular.
I laughed as Lachlan rose, saying he had to be 'gettin' along back before the cap'n sent that pompous Lieutenant after him'.
"I'll check in on you tomorrow – now get some sleep, the both of you. I daresay you've more than earned it," the man added with a smile, "Oh, and Mr. Holmes, the captain has taken that trunk full of antidotes and given them to the ship's doctors. They are working steadily now to dole them out to the poor souls who've been infected by that devil."
"Dear heaven, I'd completely forgotten!" I cried with a pang of remorse.
"Have no fear, Doctor. Within the night all those who are ill now should be on their way to recovery. Now you just worry 'bout you. Get some rest, both of you – g'nite gents," Lachlan said, shutting the door with a smile.
"He is as bad as Mrs. Hudson with that infernal fussing," Holmes muttered.
I chuckled softly and leaned back, feeling the reaction of relief washing over me like a wave, making me almost unusually drowsy.
"Watson?"
"Mmm?"
"Game for a fencing rematch?"
"Mmm? What? Right now?"
"No, no," he laughed, "tomorrow. If the storm lets up, that is."
I sighed and opened one eye to look at him.
"I suppose."
I was rewarded with a flash of an excited smile.
"Excellent! I shall have to give you some lessons in the more advanced moves before we land in port."
"I am simply thrilling with excitement, Holmes."
"Are you being sarcastic, Watson?"
"Use your powers of deduction, my dear fellow," I murmured, closing my eyes again.
I heard an undignified snort.
"Your sense of sarcasm seems to have returned with the removal of Smith from the scene."
"It usually is rather hard to possess humour when you know that somewhere out there a mad scientist lurks, ready to inject you with a deadly disease the moment your back is turned."
"Dear me, such lurid description! Sounds like one of your stories!"
"Can you not manage to work my writing into every single conversation we have, Holmes?"
"I don't."
"You do."
"I do not!"
I sighed wearily, burying my face in the pillow's beckoning softness.
"Watson?"
"What."
"Are you going to sleep on me?"
"Holmes, it is almost midnight and I nearly drowned earlier in the evening – that takes a good deal of strength out of a man," I said dryly. "Besides, I spent a half-hour outside that dining hall watching you and feeling my hair turn grey even as I stood there. That is also rather tiring."
"I am sorry, Watson," I heard him say, and I opened one eye to see him fidgeting uncomfortably, "I did not mean to worry you like that."
"I will always worry about you, my dear fellow, so nothing you can do will ever stop it," I sighed, closing my eyes again.
Holmes
That last statement was uttered in a tone of simple fact, and it touched me deeply although I would never in a hundred years admit it to a soul.
Watson really did look absolutely done in, and so when I saw that he was nearly asleep right there in the midst of our conversation, I turned the gas down and asked him if he needed anything. He made some incoherent reply, already nearly unconscious, and I had not the heart to waken him fully – it would do no harm for him to sleep in his clothes.
I turned down the gas and left the room without a sound, glancing back to see him curled up upon the bunk, sound asleep and snoring softly.
I sighed and closed the door firmly, feeling the need to make certain that Watson was safe and secure as he slept. He really did need the rest, and I would be very happy to get back to the familiar streets of London again. We had both come far too close to losing our lives in this case and I longed for the safety and assurance of Baker Street, for the familiar sights and sounds and smells; perhaps this was one thing that I had in common with Mycroft.
I turned tiredly towards my own cabin, suddenly aware of my own exhaustion and growing lethargy. Perhaps in reaction to the case, without the threat of Smith or the promise of intellectual challenge I was going limp.
Watson had the right idea – a night of uninterrupted rest would set me to rights.
I entered the cabin, sat on my bunk, and flinched as the baby Helen fell into another bout of screeching.
Yes, I would be very grateful indeed to return to Baker Street.
Thankfully the fit did not last long and by the time I had finished pulling off my jacket, waistcoat, shoes, and cravat, all was silent again.
I allowed myself to collapse onto the soft mattress, my mind falling into a blissful state of unconsciousness.
When next I awoke it was to a room not much different from the room I had fallen asleep in. The moon had broken through the cloud cover and its silver rays streamed in through the porthole illuminating everything with a ghostly light, which was interspersed with the waving patterns of the water as it reflected off the walls.
I blinked about me, shaking off the last vestiges of what had been a comfortable if light sleep.
What had woken me?
A sudden light rapping on the door drew my attention…although it was far too slow and soft to be considered a knock.
I sat up, rubbing a hand over my face and called out in a voice slurred with sleep.
"Come in."
The door creaked open and I made out a familiar figure standing in the doorway, one hand on the knob and another on the frame as he entered.
His gait was clumsy and halting as though he himself had only just been woken from sleep, which was plausible as Watson was a heavy sleeper and always disoriented when he was forcibly awoken.
I sighed and kneaded my eyes for a moment, still trying to adjust to the brighter light.
"Watson, old chap. What is it?"
"Holmes," his voice was very soft, more a whisper than anything else, but it sounded far clearer than it should have been at that time of night.
In fact it rang with an unusual amount of clarity.
I sat up straighter, pushing back the covers, genuine concern creeping into my mind.
Something must have happened. Perhaps Smith had caused trouble…but no…they would not have alerted Watson on that count. And if there was something wrong with the ship in general where was Lachlan?
"What is it, Watson?" I asked again, trying to make out more of my friend for he stood not in the light from the porthole but in the shadow from the door.
He took another step into the room and my concern heightened when he stumbled slightly.
"Holmes, I…"
I swung my feet over side of the bunk and stood, quickly making my way to his side.
"Are you seasick, old fellow?"
"I don't…I don't know."
He said this in a shaky voice as I took hold of his arm.
He pulled away from my touch, but not before I felt that how very shaky he really was.
I took a firmer hold on his arm so that he could not pull away and confirmed my assumption. Watson was not only shaky…he was trembling.
Recalling to mind the night when I had told him of one of my cases to help him overcome his nightmares I concluded this might be a similar episode. And that like some child going to a parent in the dark watches of the night, he had come to reassure himself of my wellbeing, to comfort himself with a quick peek into my room.
He would no doubt be embarrassed at being found out.
Was that all it was, some terrible nightmare? Was he afraid?
I pulled him forward out of the shadow of the door; he stumbled again, and my alarm grew.
No…that could not be it, he was trembling too badly for that, and Watson had far greater control of his nerves than a lot of men.
My suspicions were confirmed at the sight of his pale face and limp posture, his somewhat dazed expression. It seemed that he was suffering from a delayed bout of seasickness, and perhaps his dunking from earlier. A terrible thing to happen just at the end of a case.
There went our fencing match for tomorrow.
I smiled reassuringly at him and led him to the bunk, pushing him down to sit onto it.
"I am sorry, old fellow, rest here for a moment and I'll get you a drink of water, shall I?"
He nodded heavily, his head bent, his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him, his hands gripping the frame of the bunk.
I went to the sink and got him a glass. Returning, I held it out for him.
He reached up with a shaky hand to take it and I moved to place it in his fingers. He took hold, raised it to his lips and took a rather noisy sip, almost choking in his haste to swallow.
I placed a bracing hand on his shoulder.
"Slowly, old fellow. It's not going to run away from you."
Watson gasped in a bit of air and coughed slightly. "I know - its just…I'm very thirsty."
"I'll have to take your word for it. I've never been seasick myself."
He nodded again, rather listlessly, and coughed once more before raising the glass to his lips.
The trembling had not abated and before I could move to catch it the glass slipped from friend's fingers to the floor.
Watson coughed again, lowering his head in a shamefaced fashion. "I'm sorry, Holmes."
But I was not listening, I was watching my friend with a far more alert and critical eye.
Something was not right…I had seen him seasick before.
"Watson, look at me."
He shivered, coughed again.
"Watson!"
The urgency in my tone got his attention and he jerked his head up to look at me.
I took in the alarming pallor of his face, the brightness of his eyes.
With a wave of apprehension I laid my hand on his forehead, and cursed roundly at what I discovered there.
Watson was warm, not alarmingly so but enough that even I could tell it was a growing fever, and beads of cool sweat stood out against his skin.
He coughed again, looking at me, his eyes questioning.
"Holmes?"
I swallowed the sudden bile that rose in my throat and tried my best to quell the combination of anger and fear in my mind.
"How long have you felt this way, Watson?"
Watson took a shallow breath and I berated myself for only just now realizing that it was more labored than usual.
"Woke up - just now. Knew it wasn't…Holmes I don't - think its seasickness…came to…to tell you."
"I know." I took a bracing breath. "And I am afraid it is not, Watson."
My friend shuddered and I put my hand on his shoulder.
"It's Smith."