Holmes first smiled at Victor and then turned to me, “My dear doctor, you and Victor are the only true friends I have. I would have done then same if it meant protecting you.”
I appreciated his sentiments but was still thoroughly annoyed at the prospect of now having to spend the next day and a half locked up below deck. I harrumphed and stretched out on one of the bunks. The other three followed my example and did the same.
I must have dozed off for several hours, lulled by the gentle rocking of the yacht on the night swells. I was awakened by the jovial shout of loud voice.
“Avast there, me mates! Rise and shine! All hands on deck,” shouted the Captain.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I looked through the small porthole window and could glimpse first light in the morning sky. I staggered to my feet and out of the cabin.
“Fastnet Rock will soon be upon us. To your stations,” continued the orders.
In the distance, I saw the emerging dark mound of Fastnet with the spire of the lighthouse silhouetted against the slowly lightening sky. When I glimpsed over the surrounding waters, I noticed the sails of a score other boats beating their way along the same bearing as we were. Several were well in front of us, and a mass of them were trailing. It had become a very strange adventure, but I permitted myself the comforting thought, that, all told, we were doing not too badly in this race.
Within twenty minutes, the mass of Fastnet Rock was looming off the starboard bow. Following the Captain’s commands, we tacked several times as we approached and then swung around it. Standing on the lookout deck of the lighthouse was a race signalman. He waved his flags at us and the Captain signaled back.
Ten minutes later, we had changed course a full one hundred and eighty degrees and were headed back on a southeast bearing and across the Celtic Deep. I relaxed and determined to enjoy this most unusual adventure on the sea.
That was not to be.
“Thank you, mates. Well done. Now, back into the cabin,” said the Captain.
That was just a bit too much.
“Look here,” I said. “There is no reason we cannot stay on deck. It is not as if we can run away.”
On my right ear, I felt something cold. I turned my head and found myself peering down the barrel of a revolver.
“The captain said, get back into the cabin,” said Senator Tom. “Was there some part of the command you failed to understand, doctor?”
I became an obedient if unwilling sailor and shuffled my way back down the staircase. The door of the cabin was closed behind us and I heard a clunking sound coming from the far side of it. I spun around and attempted to open the door, only to find that while the handle turned the door was fast in place. It had been barred somehow from the other side. We had become captives, imprisoned below deck.
“So,” said Miss Moly. “Would you blokes like some breakfast? If those old blighters up there dare ask for anything, I’m declaring a mutiny.”
We laughed and cheered her on and soon were enjoying a hearty English breakfast, making fun of our increasingly hungry captors above us. I imagined that they would soon be opening up and demanding their victuals.
They did no such thing. An hour passed, and then another. There was no change in our direction or speed.
“Where are we?” I asked of anyone who might have had a better idea than I did.
“We're moving quickly, at about eight to ten knots an hour,” said Molly. “We’re on a beam reach and if the prevailing winds stay constant, we won’t have to tack until we round Lands End. They won’t need us on deck until this evening.”
I resigned myself to spending what would have been a splendid day in the sunshine confined to a stuffy cabin and filled the time by writing the story of this adventure in my mind. The morning, mid-day, and the afternoon all passed. We chatted with each other from time to time but for the most part remained silent.
Somewhere close to six in the evening, Victor spoke up.
“They must not be hungry,” he said.
“Nor need to use the head,” added Miss Molly. “Or else they’re fouling the ocean.”
We offered a few forced chuckles and returned to the doldrums.
As the sun was setting, I had expected the breeze to die down. Instead it was stiffening and the yacht was heeled over more than it had been all day. Molly walked over to the starboard porthole and peered out.
“Oh, ****,” I don’t like the looks of what’s coming our way.”
I got up off of my bunk and took a look. The sky to the south had darkened and the shadows of rain falling in the distance were scattered across the southern horizon.
“We’re in for a walloper,” said Molly. “They’re going to need us on board.”
Another half hour passed and the wind was now howling around the cabin. The Captain must have been in a hurry to get to a port and then make a run for it in order to escape the Pinkertons for, as far as I could tell, he had not let out the mainsail and we were now heeled over at a racing angle.
Miss Molly looked out again from the porthole window.
“They’re daft. It all lightning out there and it’s coming our way.”
She walked over to the door and started banging on it.
“You! Out there! You’re in a storm. Don’t be daft. Open the door and let us out. We’re not going to run away!”
There was no response.
She banged harder and shouted louder, but still received no answer.
“I have not been paying attention,” said Holmes, “but I do not recall hearing a sound from up above us for at least the past several hours. Either they are sitting in one place silently or they have abandoned ship.”
“Bloody, hell,” shouted the girl. “Then break down the door, or this thing’s going over and we’re going down!”
In turn, Victor, Holmes, and I all tried pounding our shoulders against the door, but the position of the doorway in the cabin made it impossible to take a run at it. Try as we might, it did not budge.
“I fear,” said Holmes, “that they have barred it securely on the other side. Equipping it in that manner would come in handy when imprisoning kidnapped victims.”
He had no sooner spoken these words that we felt the boat heel over sharply to the port side. For a terrible few seconds I held my breath, certain that we were about to roll over. As we righted ourselves a flash of lightning lit up the porthole and the entire boat shook.
“We must find a way out of here,” said Holmes. “Is there any tool we can use to unfasten the door hinges?”
This led to a mad scramble as we looked for anything resembling a screwdriver, but to no avail.
I looked over at the porthole. The window covering it was secured with bolts and butterfly nuts. We might be able to unfasten them but the hole was hardly more than sixteen inches across and there was no way we could squeeze through it.
A quiet voice beside me spoke up. “I can get through there.”
“Good heavens, child,” I exclaimed. “We’re not sending you out there to climb up the side of the cabin in the midst of a storm. You’ll be blown away.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll tie a line onto me and you can pull me back if you have to. Just loosen the clamps and help me get through.”
I looked at the other two men and we shrugged and then nodded. I turned to Molly and was somewhat shocked to see that she had dropped her dress on the floor and was standing in the middle of the cabin in just her corset and underwear, busily fastening a bowline around her slender body.
“You’re a doctor, right?” she said, looking at me.
“I am.”
“Well then you can put your hand on me arse and hold me in the air whilst I wiggle through.”
Holmes had undone the fastenings and removed the window. Quick as a wink, Molly raised her hands above her head and extended them and then her head through the narrow opening. I lifted her lithe body in the air. She could not have weighed more than ninety pounds. With one hand on her spine and
the other on her posterior, I lifted and shoved while she wriggled.
We were making good progress when a wave suddenly slammed against the side of the boat. Water rushed past her body and into the cabin. I could hear her choking and sputtering, followed by some rather dreadful curses and oaths that were quite unseemly for a girl of her age. I pushed and she wriggled some more and then I felt her body start to move on its own.
“I’ve got the edge of the deck!” she shouted.
Soon her legs and feet disappeared through the hole and we moved quickly to fasten the window back in place before another wave poured in.
A minute later we heard metallic sounds against the door of the cabin and it swung open.
“There’s no one out here. The dinghy’s gone,” she yelled. In truth, those were not her exact words. What was actually uttered gave evidence of her having spent far too much of her youth in the company of sailors.
The three of us hastened out of the cabin and up onto the deck. The sky was dark and the wind was screaming like a banshee. Rain was falling sideways but the temperature, thankfully, had not dropped more than a few degrees. Victor immediately let out the main sail and the boat righted itself. Holmes and I did likewise to the Yankee and the foresail. Molly had taken over the helm and once I cleated my line in place I walked back to her.”
“Any idea where we are?” I asked.
“Not the foggiest.”
We sailed on in the dark for several more minutes and then I felt a small hand clasping on to my arm.
“Doctor John,” she whispered. “Can you hear that?”
“What?’
“Listen.”
Chapter Eight
Into the Storm
I DID AND I HEARD a distinct sound that did not seem to be too far in front of us. I looked at our young helmsman.
“What is it?”
“It’s breakers. There’s rocks or shoreline or shoals or something directly in front of us.”
An extended flash of lightning revealed the disaster we were rushing towards. Molly quickly looked back behind us and to both port and starboard.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph! We’re in the middle of the Lizard shoals.” And again, she added a few choice words that I have not recorded.
“All of you,” she shouted. “Tie a line around your body in case you get washed overboard. We’re going over the shoal,” she shouted. “And get out on the rail and hike for all you’re worth. I’ll tip her up on her side and get the keel as far away from the rocks as I can. Haul your sails in hard when I yell.”
We instinctively obeyed, found a line, tied one end around our chests and fastened the other end to the base of the mast. Then we hustled to mid-ship, fastened our feet under the hiking strap, and leaned back. The cutter was on a close reach as we headed toward towards the surf breaking over the shoal. I was not sure what Molly was waiting for but suddenly she screamed at us.
“Now! Haul in! Hike!”
As we pulled tight on the lines and hauled the sails in as far as we could, the boat quickly turned so that it was on a beam reach at right angles to the powerful wind. We heeled over, and then heeled some more, and more yet, until I was sure that we were about to turn turtle. I felt a swell lift the boat and carry us into the shoal. On either side of the boat I saw surf emerging as the base of the large wave was breaking up against the rocks below us.
There was a moment when my heart stopped and the boat shuddered. The keel had struck rock and the entire craft was shaking as we touched one, and then another and then another. But we kept moving. It seemed like an eternity but then the bouncing ceased and we were back in open water.
“Right. Let out,” came the command from the helm.
We did and the boat came back to a more or less upright position. Again, I clamped my Yankee sail in place and made my way over to Molly at the helm.
“Fine sailing, Captain.”
“We’re not through yet.”
I looked ahead but, in the darkness, could see nothing. Then another flash of lightning lit up a wall of rock that appeared to extend several hundred feet to starboard.
“There’s dark water on the port side,” cried Molly. “We have to jibe. Pull in the sails. Hard! Now, and get ready to duck.”
I started to run back to my post. Molly swung the boat to the port and the wind caught the back of the mainsail and whipped it around from one side to the other. I ducked but not fast enough or far enough. The boom crashed against the back of my head and sent me sprawling to the deck.
I think that perhaps I was knocked out for a second or two but quickly came to my senses and felt for the back of my head. I could tell that a goose egg would soon be emerging and I forced myself to count to ten backwards and recite the Lord’s Prayer. Good. There was no serious damage and I now moved over to join Holmes and Victor on the port rail.
“There’s more rocks ahead,” our captain shouted. “But there’s open sea to the south. Hold on. We’re going directly into the waves.”
On the ocean, in the dark, it is difficult to estimate the height of a wave as it approaches you. Perhaps experienced sailors have their ways of doing this task but I did not. I assumed that we would simply be rising and falling as if we were on a carriage and galloping through some rolling terrain. The next thing I knew I was struck by a wall of water and doing backward somersaults with water on all sides of me. I felt my ankles strike the rail and then I was upside down falling headfirst into the ocean. I had enough sense to reach for the line I had attached to my chest and start pulling. My first three pulls encountered no resistance. My line was slack. In a second of passing terror, I thought I had broken free of the mast and was adrift. But then it went taut and I began to pull myself hand over hand up toward the surface. A few seconds later I felt a sharp tug on my line and could feel myself being pulled powerfully forward. My head broke the surface of the water and I gasped for air. In the darkness, I could see the form of Holmes standing at the edge of the deck and reeling me in.
When I arrived at the side of the boat two sets of hands reached down and grasped my arms and lifted me back on board.
“Really, my dear doctor,” said Holmes. “You already went for a swim on Thursday last. Must you do so again?”
Both of us wanted to spare a moment and have a chuckle together but our young captain again shouted at us.
“Back to your posts. We’re not done yet.”
And true, we were not. For the next ten minutes, we slid up one side of a massive wave, crested, and then sped down the other side into the trough. Once we were well away from the rocks and shoals, we swung to the port.
“Any port in a storm. We can sail direct to Coverjack. It’s not far,” said Captain Molly.
None of us answered her, having no idea whether Coverjack was a good idea or not.
“But it should be clear all the way now to Plymouth,” she said. Then paused, and added,
“Are you up for it? Shall we finish the race?”
We gave her a rousing cheer of “Aye, Captain.”
“Right then, mates. You can let the sails out. We should be able to run free from here.”
We opened the sails and soon we were racing over the great waves with the wind at our back. It was an exhilarating few hours in the middle of the night. And then it stopped. The storm had blown past us and clear skies were coming up from the south along with the first light. The wind dropped and once again we sailed with a light summer breeze.
I looked out over the open water to see if I could see any other yachts. There were none in front of us, but off to the west I noticed a few near the horizon, the morning sun now lighting up their sails.
“I say, Holmes, it looks as if we might be in the lead.”
“A pleasant thought, but highly improbable. There were at least a dozen craft ahead of us as we rounded Fastnet.”
We set a bearing of fifty-five degrees and cruised towards the finish line some sixty miles in front of us.
We had been on a
dead run for about half an hour when I spotted something far out in the water in front of us.
“Molly,” I said. “Is that a rock out there? Or is it a marker? That round white object straight ahead.”
She strained her eyes and looked intently for a minute.
“It the hull of a boat. Upside down. One of the yachts has flipped over. If there are any sailors in the water we have to go and rescue them. We’re the closest boat. It’s the law of the sea.”
She had us trim the sails and we slowed down. As we got closer we could see several hands waving at us. We were still moving at a good speed and I feared we would run over top of them with no chance to haul them on board.
“We’ll have to sail past and come back,” said Molly and that is exactly what we attempted to do. There were six men in the water, all clinging to the keel and rudder of their yacht. We exchanged shouts as we neared them and confirmed that all of them were safe and accounted for. Once well past, we came completely about and sailed toward them, close hauled and sailing as close to the wind as our cutter could manage. Once we were almost on top of them, Molly turned the helm quickly and threw us into irons. Holmes, Victor and I had lines in hand ready to heave to the chaps in the water, but the wind was blowing us away from the swamped boat too quickly.
“We’ll have to do it again,” said Molly. With that, we turned around and sailed away, turned again and sailed back. This time, however, she went about ten yards past the boat, close to its stern, before taking us into irons. Now we drifted backwards toward the overturned vessel. We would have no trouble getting the men out of the water.
“My dear,” I whispered to Molly, “I think you might want to run down into the cabin and pull your clothes back on.”
She first looked shocked and let loose with one or two more choice words and then laughed and hopped down the staircase.
One by one we lifted in the soaking wet sailors. The waters of the North Atlantic are never warm, even in the middle of summer, and half of the fellows were shivering. But soon we had blankets wrapped around them and they were thanking us profusely. The entire rescue had taken no more than forty-five minutes, but during that time another six yachts passed us on their way to Plymouth. Each of them signaled asking if we needed help. We signaled back that we were fine and they sailed on.
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Five: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition Page 15