George Mann - Associates of Sherlock Holmes

“Indeed.” Clearly Fraser had been seized by a fervour for some imaginary beast, and we might as well be setting out to hunt dragons or manticores. “What makes you think we’ll find one of these ‘big men’ of yours?”

“I have many recent reports of activity in the forest not far from here.” He tapped a map laid out on the table, but I didn’t bother to look at it closely; it showed a great tract of trackless woods, more or less. “There have been recent sightings of immense, shambling creatures, and verified accounts of two small children being snatched away from a local village, with a third taken while you were en route. The big man of the woods is here, Moran, and we can kill it.”

My disappointment was vast, but perhaps something could be salvaged. In a forest like this, surely there would be some beast worth shooting. Perhaps we’d encounter a grizzly bear. They were supposed to be formidable quarry, and taking one would salvage something of this trip. “When do you propose we set out?”

He chuckled. “Tomorrow before first light, unless you need more time to settle in.”

“I’m settled enough. I just need time to clean my guns. Are we to be the whole of the party?”

He waved his hand. “I have a man-of-all-work, named Newman, to fetch and carry and perform other tasks as needed. He’s mute from an old throat injury, and illiterate besides, which makes him more discreet than most men.”

“Where’s he lurking about, then?”

“Oh, I sent him out to procure some essential supplies. I’d hoped to employ an Indian tracker from one of the local tribes, but my approaches were rebuffed. They don’t believe we should trouble the ‘big men’, it seems. No matter. We’re up to following the signs ourselves, I daresay.”

“If there’s anything to track, we can track it.” I thought we’d find nothing at all, or else discover some filthy madman of a hermit with a long beard. As long as the brandy didn’t run out, I supposed I could stand the indignity.

We let the subject of the wild men of the woods lapse, then, reminiscing instead about our campaign days, and hunts we’d both enjoyed over the years. After so long enmeshed in the professor’s plots, it was pleasant to return to thoughts of a simpler time. We ate a dinner of roasted game birds, moved along from brandy to port, played a bit of cards (for negligible stakes, and there aren’t many two-handed games worth playing anyway), and then I retired early to a bed that felt stuffed with equal parts hay and loose pebbles.

In the first glimmerings of dawn, we stepped into the damp air. A thin fellow with stringy grey hair stood waiting placidly outside, an overstuffed pack resting by his feet. Fraser nodded to him. “Newman, this is Colonel Moran. Heed his words as you would my own.” The man nodded solemnly. There were scars all around Newman’s lips, down his chin and on his throat, leading me to speculate on how he’d become mute.

We clambered onto the cart, Newman perched in the back with the camping gear and supplies, and we set off along a rutted logging road, bouncing abominably.

Fraser said, “I’ve tracked the sightings, and particularly the disappearances of children, and have a good sense of the monster’s territory. We’ll get as close as we can by road, then hike in and look for signs.”

“If these ‘big men’ of yours leave eighteen-inch long footprints, it shouldn’t be hard to find some trace of them in this muddy ground. Indeed, it’s remarkable one has never been tracked before.”

“I understand your scepticism.” Fraser’s voice was low and calm. “Surely a creature like this couldn’t escape capture for so long. If it were real, there would be a specimen by now. But the forests here are vaster than you realise, and more thinly peopled. Even so, there have been scores of sightings in recent decades and old tales from the indigenous savages going back centuries. The beasts are wily, that’s all. As cunning as any tiger, and hard to capture.”

I looked at my one-time fellow soldier for a long time. I’d known him as impetuous, but never credulous, or prone to fancies. “You’ve seen one, haven’t you?”

He bowed his head for a moment, then nodded. “I have. I was walking in the forest, three years ago, when suddenly the birds fell silent, and a great hush descended. I stopped because I know when the prey fall silent, the predator is often near. I had the most peculiar sense that someone was watching me – you know the feeling, when you can feel a sniper has you in his sights?”

I didn’t reply. I’d fired my rifle at enough unsuspecting targets to know the ability to sense a watcher was unreliable at best.

“I turned my head, and there it was, not ten yards away. A figure standing at least nine feet tall, with long arms, covered all over in thick hair, watching me. After a long moment it darted out of sight, faster than I could credit. At first, I feared it was circling to attack me, but soon the birds began their song again, and I knew it was gone.” Fraser shrugged. “What had been mere curiosity became my singular passion after that encounter. Still, I’m not without a sense of proportion. I don’t wish to become Ahab, pursuing my obsession even to death.”

“Eh? Ahab?”

“From an American novel, written, oh, forty years ago, about a sea captain obsessed with a great white whale.”

I grunted. I’d never hunted whales. Seemed like too much mucking around with boats, though there were no heavier game, I supposed. “I don’t read Americans.”

Fraser chuckled. “I have missed you, Colonel. This expedition will either see my passion satisfied or disappointed, and either way, after this I am done pursuing the oh-mah . I’ll return to London either way, be it empty-handed or covered in glory.”

I was glad to hear he hadn’t lost all his sense. Only most of it. “Let’s hope for the latter, then.”

The sun was well up by the time he stopped the cart, at the end of a grassy track that didn’t merit being called a road. We were surrounded on all sides by evergreen forest, dense and damp and scented with the astringency of pines.

Newman unhooked the horse from the cart and hung packs on it, then took the animal’s tether and nodded his readiness. “Lay on,” Fraser said cheerfully, and we set off through the trees. I had one of my favourite long guns (a four-bore that had once taken down a charging elephant) slung over my back, a revolver at my hip, and a walking stick made of stout black wood (among other things) in my hand.

“Newman scouted ahead and found a suitable campsite,” Fraser said, and the truth of that was revealed in due time. We settled in the lee of a house-sized heap of mossy boulders, on a level stretch of ground still relatively bare from the depredation of some past fire. It was hard to imagine a forest as sopping as this one could ever burn, but ashes do not lie. We set up our tents and secured our food in the branches of a nearby tree to stymie any bears attracted by the scent. After that, we checked our weapons, and declared ourselves ready to begin.

Newman lifted a coarsely woven sack from the back of the packhorse – and the sack whimpered audibly. The man froze, staring at me, and in turn I looked at Fraser.

He cleared his throat. “I haven’t been entirely forthcoming about my plans for the hunt, Colonel, for fear you’d disapprove, I suppose. The particular oh-mah we’re hunting has shown an interest in children. As I mentioned, three have been stolen away in recent months, and in all cases a huge, hairy figure was sighted in the vicinity shortly before the disappearance. With that in mind, I sent Newman to secure… bait.”

I looked at the sack, judging its size. “You’ve stolen a child.”