The platform was silent, but not the beautiful silence of watching the moon in the early hours of the morning in the country, this was the most unnatural silence, an area of such industrial development, technology and populace, silenced by our very guns, the thought made be slightly sick, and yet, thankful, that I was one of the few still standing.
“We must surely make the rest of the journey in England on foot,” exclaimed Holmes.
He was right, Moriarty had not known we would be here, but he had spread his net wide and snagged us anyway, we must abide by less predictable rules.
“We will walk the rest of the way, then take a private boat to Dieppe, public transport is now just too dangerous to us. Many lives will be lost in the coming days, but if we do not escape our homeland, a great many more again will be sacrificed.”
In hindsight, it is always so clear why Holmes is so great at what he does, but at the time, as was this time, he appeared a cold, hard and calculating man, yet, one of the few capable of getting the task done. Can a man be described as cold for saving the maximum lives possible long term? Holmes is a man who sees beyond what is in front of most of us and what is far beyond, I trusted him then because I always had, I am now only glad that I had the trust in him to do so.
We walked back to the carriage and to our table of equipment, our fellow occupants stunned and speechless stood and sat staring out at the carnage that lay before them. Most people would run from this situation, but running would involve stepping through lines of blood and bodies, and away from the only men here capable of defending them. We reloaded all of the weapons we had used in the battle and tied up the roll bag ready to leave.
“Inform the driver that you are to return to Lewes and inform the authorities immediately of what you have witnessed,” said Holmes to young Winston.
As the boy hurried off, movement on the planes of our peripheral vision alerted us to the presence of someone or something maybe a hundred feet in the distance. Holmes peered out of the carriage door and squinted to make sense of what he saw, he spun around with the utmost urgency.
“Winston! Delay that order, inform him to take us to Eastbourne, and to be rather expedient.”
The boy nodded quickly, evidently understanding the urgency of our situation and ran with all effort down the corridor towards the engine. Standing with our weapons at the ready, Holmes would not let us fire unless they got upon us, for with what little ammunition we had, it could not be wasted if we could get away from this fight without firing a shot. I argued with him for a short while, as leaving these monsters alive and the country’s citizens at the mercy of them was a frightful thought, and yet, as Holmes quite bluntly explained at the time, our survival was more important than anything else at this stage. Without us, the ones with the information required to end this, the country may fall.
This explanation of events led us on to the next question, what was Moriarty’s aim in all this? The train lurched forward, as the horde was just thirty feet from us, still shambling forwards; it was a small consolation really.
“Moriarty must have truly gone mad.”
“It is a capital mistake to theorise before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”
I asked Holmes, what it was that he predicted was Moriarty’s ultimate intentions; his answer sent a shiver down my spine.
“A villain such as himself craves power. That could be control of the criminal underworld as he has so far gained, but could extend to genuine public power and credibility, which could lead to control, directly or indirectly of the country. As we two are theonly men who fully understand his position and intentions, but cannot prove as such, we are the same two who have a single chance at stopping such a villain.”
At this stage Moriarty was heading for what he evidently considered vital, Switzerland. Neither I nor Holmes could predict what that might be, but its very importance meant that further information was not essential at this moment in time. The monsters he had released were now creating more monsters, which would undoubtedly lead to a state of war in England before the weekend was over.
We now had no support, no allies, limited weapons and ammunition, and were merely gambling on a safe way to reach Europe, to pursue a villain’s lair that we did not know the exact location. It was a bleak situation, and yet, no other option presented itself. Both Holmes and I had friends on the Continent, but they were few are far between. Whether we could cross paths with them as much down to luck as anything else, but predominantly as to which direction we would be forced to take on this adventure.
We sat back and contemplated the day, for neither of us had ever experienced anything like it. Our work was that of working in fine details and delicate procedures and calculation, not the all out violence and combat seen by soldiers, and yet that is what we were forced to become, soldiers.
At this stage both Holmes and I knew well that we faced a major problem, beyond any adventure we had faced, either together or individually. The attack on the carriage at Newhaven was merely a small taste of what was to come. Had we known that fact at this time, I wonder if we would have had the will to go on, or the faith that we could complete our task.
Fatigue was already settingin, despite the short distance we had travelled and minor action we had faced. I am sad to say that I was not in the condition of fitness and strength that I kept during my army days. My body was already bruised from the scuffle the night before, and worn from the disrupted sleep.
“So these creatures can only be killed by a shot to the head or decapitation?” Holmes asked.
“It would appear so, but I believe that is a deception, resulting from some form of intoxication,” I replied.
“How so?”
“These henchmen feel no pain, or emotions at all in fact. If they feel no pain then only a shot or strike that would quickly end a human’s life would stop them, and therefore, they appear near invincible, when in reality they would die in the same time and fashion as us.”
“Agreed, that appears to be the logical reason based upon what we have seen. But what of them infecting others? The previous creatures we faced appeared to be set on a clear task to harm us, as opposed to any other. Likewise, the first attack I faced by one of these ruffians was a targeted assault, not a random act of violence like we have seen here,” said Holmes.
I sat back and considered all of the facts, it was not an easy solution to find the answer to, nor one which was pleasant to think about.
“Then perhaps Moriarty controls those who he creates, whilst those infected by the original few become beasts without a master,” I finally said.