Andrew Lane - Red Leech

A figure moved out of the shadows. Sherlock flinched, expecting it to be Grivens, but it was another member of the crew, an engineer. He was naked to the waist and massively muscled, and where his skin wasn’t blackened with coal dust it was streaked by sweat, so that his face and body were covered with a series of black and white stripes, like the engravings of zebras that Sherlock had seen in books about Africa in his father’s library. His moleskin trousers were sodden with sweat, and he carried a shovel over his shoulder. His entire demeanour — the way he carried himself, his expression, everything — spoke of bone-aching weariness. As Sherlock watched he walked along past the pounding engine and vanished through another doorway without looking up, probably heading for a swinging hammock in the dark depths of the ship.

Aware that Grivens was only moments behind him, Sherlock hurried along the balcony until he got to a ladder that led both upward and downward. Which way to go? Upward would lead him towards the deck, but there might not be a way out up there. He’d certainly never seen any of the engineers or stokers on deck. They were probably forbidden from emerging into the open; condemned to spend the entire voyage in the darkness below. Down, then, and he just had to hope there were other ways out of the engine room.

He clambered down the iron ladder as fast as he could, his fingers burning on the hot rungs. The vibration of the engines was transmitted through his hands to the point where he could feel his teeth shaking. The heat and the lack of breathable air were making him feel weak; twice his sweat-slicked hands slipped off the rungs and he nearly fell. Eventually he got to the bottom, and rested his forehead gratefully against the ladder before he pushed himself away and moved off.

Up on the balcony the door smashed open again. Sherlock could hear it striking the wall. Silence for a moment, and then a pair of booted feet clanked on the metal grille flooring.

Sherlock slipped into an alley running between two large parts of the engine: irregular masses of black iron festooned with pipework. His shoulder brushed against one of them and he flinched back. It was boiling hot.

The alley ended in a rivet-covered curved metal surface; part of a pressure vessel of some kind. It was a dead end. No way out.

The shadows between the parts of the engine shielded him. He tried to make himself as small and as quiet as possible.

Footsteps on the ladder, and then silence as the newcomer reached the floor.

“Kid,” shouted Grivens’s voice, “let’s talk about it. Got off to a bad start, we did. I overreacted. Come out into the light, there’s a good boy, and we can chat it through like old friends. We’ll laugh about this all, one day, I promise we will, yes?”

Sherlock didn’t trust the man’s words and he didn’t trust the man’s tone of voice. If he came out, he knew he’d be killed.

“All right,” Grivens went on. “All right then.” It was difficult to hear him above the clanging and thudding of the machinery. “You’re scared. I understand that. You think I’m going to do you harm. Well, let’s talk about money, then. I’ve been paid to off you, that much you already know, but I’m a practical man. A businessman, if you’d credit it. I’m sure the big Yank can more than match the money I’m being paid by the blokes who hired me. Let’s you and me go up to see him together and set the situation out, like men of the world. He can write me a cheque, and I’ll forget all about the three of you. How’s that sound?”

It sounded like a trick, but Sherlock wasn’t stupid enough to say so. Instead he just kept silent.

Somewhere nearby, a valve snapped open and released a plume of steam with a deafening hisssss.

“Kid? You still there?” The voice sounded closer this time, as if Grivens had moved. He was looking for Sherlock, not content with just hoping that his reassuring words would persuade him to emerge from hiding. “I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I want to make it up to you. Come out and talk.”

Sherlock realized that his back was pressing against a pipe, or a section of engine, that had steam in it. The heat was spreading through his jacket and his shirt, blistering his back. He tried to edge forward, but that meant moving part of his body into a patch of light. He moved slowly, but the heat was too much and he had to jerk away before he was badly burned. His foot hit a section of pipe. The noise rang out round the engine room like a bell.

“So, you are here.” Grivens sounded as if he was just a few feet away. “Well, that’s a start, anyway’

A shadow fell across the mouth of the alley in which Sherlock was hiding. In the ash-grey light that shone through the gratings above, Sherlock could make out the silhouette of Grivens’s head and shoulders. He was holding something in his hand, which was raised above his head, ready to strike. It looked like a spanner; a very large, very heavy spanner.

It occurred to Sherlock that down here, in the bowels of the ship, Grivens didn’t even have to worry about getting Sherlock’s body up to the deck and throwing him overboard. He could just chuck it in the fire and let it burn. All he would have to do was to bribe the stokers with a couple of shillings to look the other way, and Sherlock would be reduced to grit and dust.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Grivens sang. His body blocked out all the light entering the alley now. He seemed to sense where Sherlock was. Rather than moving on, he turned into the alley.

Sherlock ducked down, trying to stay in the shadows. Another few seconds and Grivens would see him, and then it would all be over.

His hand touched the warm floor, and it took him a couple of seconds to realize that it had slipped past where the pipe he was pressed against should have met the floor. He moved his hand around, exploring. It seemed as if the pipe didn’t go all the way down to the floor, but curved around underneath. It was sitting on struts which were bolted to the floor, but there was enough room there for Sherlock to slide underneath. Hopefully there would be a way out on the other side. If not, he would still be as trapped as he was now but considerably more uncomfortable.

He dropped to his hands and knees, then to his stomach. The floor was uncomfortably hot against his skin. His shirt was wet with sweat, and it stuck to the floor as he tried to slide under the machine. He reached out and grabbed one of the struts supporting it, hoping he could pull himself along, but the strut burned his hand and he cried out in pain.

“Aha!" Grivens rushed into the alley, his spanner clanking against the pipes. “Where are you, you little cur?”

Sherlock braced himself, and reached out for the strut again. The metal seared against his palm but he endured it, pulling hard, scrabbling with knees and feet, dragging himself under the engine part and away from Grivens. He suddenly sensed space above him, and climbed shakily to his feet. His hand throbbed, but he was in a different part of the engine room. Another alley led away from him, the walls formed by an interlocking series of pipes. He ran down it, looking for a ladder or a door.

Something went clang behind him. He turned, to find Grivens standing at the other end of the metal-walled alley. He’d just hit his spanner against a metal stanchion.

“All right, kid. End of the line. You’ve had a good run, but it’s time to call it a day. Let old Grivens just put you out of your misery, yes?”

“Is it too late for that deal you mentioned?” Sherlock prevaricated.

Grivens smiled. “Far too late,” he said. “Sad to say, I’m a man of my word. I shook hands on a deal, and I have to see it through. Couldn’t really break my contract now, could I? What kind of man would that make me?”