Holmes down.
A hail of bullets drowned out the horrible buzzing. I found it oddly comforting. That noise was a continual part of my existence. The reason I could only be happy in the tumult and confusion of London was knowing that something terrible would eventually happen.
I found myself laughing at this carnage in the tranquil Sussex countryside.
And that laughter brought me back to myself. I had conquered fear many times. Bloodlust, always so close to me, and its attendant emotionless calm, were my friends now.
One, two, three deep breaths. I pushed myself up and onto my feet. The thought of action, of volition, was a sweet, raging song in my blood. I drew my pistol—my companion in many a battle—and ran, crouching, along the hedge to where it stopped, just three feet from the corner of the house. I was now directly across from where I had seen Holmes go down. A clear path seemed to spread before me, but some blessed instinct told me to hold. If it was in fact so clear, Holmes himself would have fled.
There. One of Sewall’s men was positioned behind the low stone wall that stretched to my left, his rifle seeking potential enemies. In the melee beyond the walls, the shrieks of wounded and dying men were terrible.
I stepped back into the shadows, then glanced at my friend. He was tying a handkerchief around his left forearm, his pistol cast aside, bullets spent. I could see blood, glistening black in the fading light, on his sleeve. Holmes’s long legs were tucked up to his chest, and while he had made himself almost invisible, I could not understand why Sewall didn’t simply shoot Holmes. He knew his location—
Ah. Sewall was also out of ammunition, his last bullet having found its mark in my friend’s arm. He did not dare go find more, for fear of me. And he didn’t dare approach Holmes for fear of the bees swarming around the hives between them.
Sewall did not know I only had one bullet left. There had been no time to arm ourselves properly before we left London.
I had to choose between shooting Sewall—and giving away my position to the man with the rifle—or shooting the rifleman and leaving Holmes to Sewall’s nonexistent mercies.
There was no choice at all.
I stood up, stepped from behind the wall to find my angle, and raised my pistol. Gunshots filled the air, but they were a secondary concern, now. Once you have a plan in mind, and are fully dedicated to its achievement, it is really no matter at all to disregard your surroundings and get to work. I have found this to be true not only in soldiering and medicine, but in all things in life, except for writing.
Before I could take the shot, Sewall went down, with a blood-curdling screech. A cloaked figure ran toward him from the right, scrambling over the wall. Even more upheaval outside the little farmhouse yard, a skirmish growing into a pitched battle.
I turned and fired on the sharpshooter. I hit him, just as his bullet found my left shoulder.
I felt a sharp blow, biting pain, and the cold rush of air into an open wound in the muscle of my right shoulder; warm blood spilled down my arm. More gunshots, and I ran, keeping as low a profile as I could. An unfortunate familiarity with being shot told me that this, unlike my wound in Afghanistan, did not threaten to be a mortal one. What I’d do when I reached Holmes, I did not know; perhaps I could move him to safety.
Cries from around me, and more gunshots—too many of both. Holmes yelled, “Mycroft, for the love of God almighty, stop firing!”
“This matter is beyond you, Sherlock!”
“It will be a matter bloody well within me, if one of your lunatics shoots me!”
Mycroft Holmes—outside of London?
I reached the wall along which Holmes the younger was hiding. Bullets continued whizzing past, shouts increasing, the screams of horses adding to the chaos.
The same cloaked form that shot Sewall was now beside Holmes. A flash of bright metal—someone was trying to cut Holmes’s throat!
“Unhand him!” I reached them and seized the cloaked shoulder, pulling for all I was worth, which thanks to the bullet in my shoulder, wasn’t much. “Damn it!”
It was Miss Hartley.
While my brain struggled to catch up with my eyes, she shoved me over. I fell hard, momentarily paralyzed by shock and confusion, and watched as she ran toward a horse.
Then I scrambled to my knees. “Are you all right? Did she—?”
But the only wound I could see was where Sewall’s bullet hit. I immediately went about stanching it, then paused, realizing that Miss Hartley was escaping.
“Let her go, Watson,” Holmes said. “All is well.”
“How can that be?”
“I have what we need. Help me up.”
I did so.
Suddenly, Mycroft Holmes was beside us, a lantern in one hand, pistol in the other.
“Stop her!” Mycroft bellowed, then raised his pistol, aiming at Miss Hartley.