Mycroft Holmes (32 page)

“To fools, then!” Little Huan exclaimed.

“To fools!” the others declared.

* * *

Night had already fallen by the time their little scouting party arrived at the largest of the seven villages, with Nico braying happily as if he were leading a parade. The presence of strangers thus announced, men and women, boys and girls quickly gravitated toward the newcomers, most greeting them like old acquaintances, though they had no idea why these men had come, or who they might be.

Others arrived from nearby villages, and soon the welcoming committee had swelled to nearly four hundred. The local women brought sustenance—plates and platters of fried chicken, pan-fried pork, okra, grits, shoofly pie, and other culinary delights that had been handed down through the generations—while the men provided ale and musical instruments, including guitars and drums.

Holmes, focused on his mission and desperate to get on with it, looked askance at the festivities, while Douglas, Huan, and Little Huan took it all in their stride.

“What a sour countenance,” Douglas declared. “Might I remind you of certain protocols that you yourself attended to with the governor before we could even mention the business at hand?”

“I will grant you tea and small talk, yes,” Holmes objected in a whisper, “but not a bacchanal! How long is this to last?”

Douglas simply rolled his eyes, and clapped along with the music.

* * *

Objections notwithstanding, Holmes sat on the ground, and listened and watched politely. After a while he found himself, if not joining in with the singing and the dancing, then certainly clapping along.

Douglas was gratified that his friend seemed to be on the mend.

After the music died off, and everyone had eaten their fill, a large group settled down and listened dutifully to the point of the visit. It fell to Douglas to rise to his feet and deliver the unhappy news—that a group of white men was attempting to reinstitute slavery, right under their noses, and that their little scouting party was seeking the Merikens’ help.

“We have three hundred fighting men—” Douglas announced.

“I see only ten,” someone called out. “No more drinks for you, brother!” he concluded while others laughed.

Douglas smiled gamely and cleared his throat.

“As I was saying,” he continued. “We have three hundred fighting men available, if need be, but our mission at the moment is to get a group of scouts onto First Island so that we might discern who these enemies are, and what their plans might be. To do that, we must have vessels. We realize that you make your livelihood on the sea, and that four or five boats is a sacrifice indeed, but that is what we require.”

The raucous gathering became ominously silent.

Holmes, Douglas, and Huan waited in the unnatural stillness for someone to say something—anything at all.

Finally, one of the elders, halt and nearly blind—but who wore the decorations of his former glory upon his cap—crossed his arms at his chest and shook his head no as vehemently as he could manage.

“This is a suicide mission,” he called out in a quaking voice. “You shall all die… and lose our boats into the bargain.”

Holmes shook off the shudder that went through him.

A moment later, an older woman spoke.

“You are asking us to lend you our boats,” she opined, “even though you admit you do not know, other than some forty men on shore, how many other enemies there might be. You do not even know if anyone on the island needs to be freed at all.”

“That is a fact,” Douglas admitted. “We know only that a group of investors has bought some islands, and we know its intent. We do not know how far it has gone to execute it.”

“Or even if,” a man called out.

“But let me say again,” Douglas continued, “that we have three hundred Chinese brothers who are prepared to follow us there, and to die, if need be. These ten have come as potential lambs to the slaughter.” He pointed to the Harmonious Fists who stood in regal dignity on the sidelines.

“All for a cause that, frankly, is not theirs at all—but ours! Yes, this is
our
cause,” he said, his voice growing in conviction. “Yours and mine! And so I am asking you, as brothers and sisters who share the same skin color, to supply us with what we need so that we might do what needs to be done, and do away with this scourge once and for all!”

“Hear, hear!” Holmes said aloud, but nobody joined him. The large group behaved as if they were a large flower, shutting down for the night. There was hardly the sound of breath in the air.

He was trying to think of what the deuce he could say that could move them, if Douglas hadn’t, when a young man rose to his feet. He was perhaps twenty years of age, with the bearing and the direct gaze of a born soldier.

“For those who don’t know me, my name is Jessup Jones,” he declared in an accent that was a mix of American and Trinidad patois. “Grandson of the Noah Jones as fought in First Company alongside the Britishers. My grandpa was my age when he ran away from the plantation. Didn’t have no shoes on his feet, had never shot no musket. But he volunteered just the same, because he knew what was right.

“And the Britishers took him, because that’s how desperate they was.”

The assembled crowd chuckled at this.

“When he left the American states back in 1812, my grandpa Jones was one of a million slaves. He died right here in this village, ten years back, and on the day he died, the number of slaves in America had grown to four and a half million.”

He paused and let the words sink in.

Murmurs of disapproval rippled through the crowd.

“We know how quick things can go bad,” he went on. “Look what happened in less than one man’s lifetime. Now these good folks—” He pointed to Douglas and the Harmonious Fists “—have come to try to stop the bad before it starts.”

Holmes noticed as a few glances of respect, however reluctant, turned their way.

“Your livelihood depends on the good Lord giving you fish so you can feed your families,” the boy reminded them. “How many fish you think the good Lord’s gonna give you if you turn your back on your brothers in chains? So I say, whatever we can do, that’s what we do. If it be boats, then boats! If it be lives, then lives! Who knows but that we have been chosen for such a time as this,” he concluded to the rousing cheers and “amens” of those present.

“He paraphrased the Book of Esther,” Holmes whispered to Douglas.

“A good touch,” Douglas admitted with a slight nod. “Wish I’d thought of it.”

From that moment on, there were many volunteers, buoyed by the women’s blessings and promises of bounteous treats to take along—accompanied by threats of hungry bellies if they were to refuse.

It was all Douglas and Holmes could do to choose the hardiest of the lot to join them. As it turned out, that was no easy task. Hardiness seemed to be part of the Merikens’ heritage.

Finally, Douglas begged them to decide amongst themselves, and so the elders—some of whom had done their stint as colonial marines—made the final choice. Ten of their ablest men were picked to join the newly formed ranks, including the young orator Jessup Jones.

Douglas, Holmes and Huan spent the rest of the night going over a battle plan, such as it was—given that they knew neither the topography of the island nor who might be protecting it.

As the Merikens cleaned and oiled their weapons like people born to it, the women continued to ply them with food enough for a king’s feast, though the ale had been cut off and replaced with a bitter-sweet ginger brew that eased the spiciness somewhat. Nevertheless, for the duration of the meal Holmes’s tongue was definitely on fire, and remained that way.

Try to enjoy it, Holmes
, he reminded himself.
It will be the last respite you shall see in a while.

AT FIRST LIGHT THE FOLLOWING DAY, THE FIVE FINEST BOATS
were selected for the journey; a remarkable sacrifice for the community, as they would most likely not return.

Nevertheless, the ancient colonial marine, led by two younger men, hobbled up to Holmes. He said not a word, but handed him a gift—a gleaming spyglass.

“He had it since he was a young man himself,” Jessup Jones whispered.

“I am honored,” Holmes responded.

The old man brought his gnarled and trembling hand to his forehead and saluted smartly before being led off.

The three commanders—Holmes, Douglas, and Huan—surveyed the tiny force who had been willing, upon their word alone, to follow them into what could be a slaughter, along with hundreds of others who were supporting them with encouragement, equipment, victuals, and prayer. For the first time since their journey began, Douglas’s eyes grew moist, and he stifled a sob.

“Pray hush now…” Holmes started to say, but before it had quite left his lips, he felt his own throat catch.

Douglas took a deep breath—the sort that let Holmes know just how much responsibility his friend was placing upon his own shoulders. They climbed into the boat alongside Huan, Little Huan, and Jessup Jones, and set off out of the bay, then into the open waters. The other four boats carried nine Merikens and ten Harmonious Fists, numbering twenty-four fighters in all. As they made their way through the Columbus Channel into the Gulf of Paria, the late April heat was already descending upon them even before the sun had fully risen.

* * *

It was an inspiring sight, black and Chinese fighters sitting shoulder to shoulder as they set off for a speck of land halfway between Trinidad and Venezuela, each of them willing to die so that they might free a group of men they had never even met.

So as not to think about the trial ahead, Douglas focused instead upon all the changes that had transpired in such a relatively brief span of time. Since their adventure had begun, he himself had not altered much—or, not in any significant manner, as even his bruises had all but healed.

Holmes, on the other hand, was not the same young man who had left the Liverpool docks almost three weeks before, a bit pampered, a bit spoiled, a bit too cocky for his own good, too conscious of status and of the secure and pleasant future he had mapped out. This new Holmes had a long straight scar that ran down one cheek. He was balanced on the prow of his boat like a taller, sun-washed Napoleon, his skin burnished by the sun, his hair tousled, and his muscles hardened by use.

The most important alteration, however, was not in his physique but in his eyes. Wisdom lingered there now, as well as a deep sadness—far more than a boy-man of three and twenty should know.

Douglas wondered if his friend would make it out of this alive. He realized, not for the first time, that life or death was not the most important thing. The most important thing was the mission, their own small attempt to “proclaim liberty to the captives,” as the Book of Isaiah had commanded nearly three thousand years before. To engage in a war where there would be no material benefit for the victor other than the liberation of oppressed and victimized human beings.

This is a holy war
, he thought.

And every so often, holy wars must be fought.

* * *

The group of five boats reached First Island around noon. Even from afar, the speck of land offered no solace to their group. Its foliage was dense, and its interior hilly, automatically pressing the advantage to whomever had gotten there first.

Holmes called the others to a halt just more than a mile from shore. He pulled out the precious spyglass and surveyed the land. Off to one side, a clump of reeds swayed in the hot wind—but on the banks he could see some forty guards, their sole purpose to prevent intruders.

Georgiana’s warning had been accurate. From what he could make out, they did appear to be mercenaries. Only a dozen or so wielded rifles, and most were far from watchful, but were instead lounging about, laughing, talking, drinking, and even napping.

He handed the spyglass to Douglas, who quickly verified his impressions.

“The possibility of attack was clearly an afterthought,” the latter mused aloud.

Holmes nodded. “Either that, or the guards are only the first obstacle.” Both men fervently hoped that this was not a premonition.

By this time, a small storm was brewing. Within the span of minutes, the wind picked up considerably and a light rain began to fall, turning the water brackish and churning the seaweed to the top, which was to their advantage. But it also meant that the slack tide would be against them, pushing them away from shore rather than closer in.

Eleven men, including Douglas and Jessup Jones, were ready to make use of their first vital weapon.

An equal number of crocodile lungs—eleven—had been wrapped in dried seaweed, and then sealed with a smattering of pitch so that the air became locked inside. They were the handiwork of the Meriken women, designed to keep fishermen alive, should their vessels sink or capsize. The men pulled the lungs from the boat, where they had been stacked like so many oversized pillows, and threw them into the water.

They then jumped in, positioned the objects underneath their chests and rode them, thereby keeping themselves buoyant and their weapons dry.