Charles Sheffield - The Amazing Dr. Darwin

“I did not,” said Darwin curtly. He sat down at the table and pulled a deep dish toward him. “I found one bowl of Malcolm Maclaren’s lemon punch more than enough strange drink for me last night. My stomach still gurgles. Come, Colonel, sit down and curb your impatience. If we are to head for Loch Malkirk, we should not do so until we have food in us. The good woman is already making porridge, and I think there will be more herring and bowls of frothed milk. If we are to embark on rough water, at least let us do so well-bottomed.”

Pole sat down bad-temperedly, glared at his offending pipe, and pecked halfheartedly at porridge, oatcake, and smoked fish. He watched while Darwin devoured all those along with goat’s whey, a dish of tongue and ham, and a cup of chocolate. But it went rapidly, and in five minutes the plates were clear. Pole rose at once to his feet.

“One moment more,” said Darwin. He went across to the woman, who had watched him eating with obvious approval. He pointed at a plate of oatcakes. She nodded, and he gave her an English shilling. As he loaded the cakes into a pocket of his coat, Jacob Pole nodded grudgingly.

“Aye, you’re probably right to hold me there, Doctor. There’ll likely be little hospitality for us at the loch.”

Darwin raised his eyebrows at the sudden truce, then turned again to the woman. He pointed at the rising sun, then followed its path across the sky with his arm. He halted when he had reached a little past the vertical, and pointed at the cauldron and the haunch of dried beef hanging by the wall. The woman nodded, spoke a harsh-sounding sentence, laughed, and came forward to pat Darwin’s ample stomach admiringly.

Darwin coughed. He had caught Pole’s gleeful look.

“Come on. At least dinner is assured when we return.”

“Aye. And more than that, from the look of it.” Pole’s voice was dry.

The path to Loch Malkirk was just as Maclaren had described it, running first seaward, then cutting back inland over a steep incline. The ground was still wet and slippery with a heavy dew that hung sparkling points of sunlight over the heather and dwarf juniper. By the time they had travelled fifty yards their boots and lower breeches were soaked. When the loch was visible beyond the brow of the hill, they could see the mist that still hung over the surface of the water.

Darwin paused at the top of the rise and laid his hand on Pole’s arm. “One second, Colonel, before we head down. We could not find a better place than this to take a general view of how the land lies.”

“More than that,” said Pole softly. “We’ll have a chance to see what Hohenheim is doing without him knowing it. See, he’s down there, off to the left.” The shape of the loch was like a long wine bottle, with the neck facing to the northwest. An island offshore stood like a cork, to leave narrow straits through which the tides raced in and out. Once in past the neck of the bottle, the water ran deeper and the shore plunged steeply into the loch. Hohenheim and Zumal stood at the head of the narrows, looking to the water.

Darwin squinted across at the other side, estimating angles and widths. He sucked his lips in over his gums. “What do you think, Colonel?”

“Eh? Think about what?”

“The depth, out in the middle there.” Darwin followed Pole’s gaze to where Hohenheim and his servant had moved to a small coble and were preparing to launch it. “Aye, it seems they may be answering my question for me soon enough—that’s a sounding line they’re loading with the paddles. Steep sides and hard rock. It would not surprise me to find that the loch sounds to a thousand feet. There’s depth sufficient to cover a galleon ten times over.”

“Or hide a devil as big as you choose.” Pole wriggled in irritation, and Darwin patted him on the arm.

“Hold your water, Colonel. Our friends there will not be raising any treasure ship today. They lack equipment. With luck they will do some of your work for you. Do not overestimate Hohenheim.”

“You saw that he has great powers.”

“Did I? I am less sure. Observe, he uses a boat, so at least he cannot walk upon the waters.”

Their voices had been dropped to whispers, and while they spoke Zumal had pushed the boat off, Hohenheim sitting in the bow. He was in the same motley clothes, quite at ease and holding the sounding line in his lap. At his command Zumal paddled twenty yards offshore, then checked their forward motion. Hohenheim stood up, swung his right arm backward and forward a couple of times, and released the line. Darwin muttered to himself and leaned in concentration.

“What’s wrong?” Pole had noticed Darwin’s move from the corner of his eye.

“Nothing. Only a suspicion that Hohenheim…”

Darwin’s voice trailed off as the weighted line unwound endlessly into the calm waters of the loch. Soon Hohenheim had paid out all that he held, still without touching bottom. He spoke to Zumal, gathered in the line, and sat quietly as the coble moved slowly off toward the mouth of the loch. He tried the line again, and as they moved farther the depth gradually decreased until it was less than twenty feet in the neck at the entrance.

Hohenheim nodded and said something to his companion. They both had all their attention on the line. It was Jacob Pole, looking back along the length of the inlet, who noticed the swirling ripple spreading across its surface. It showed as a line of crosscurrent, superimposing itself on the pattern of wavelets that was now growing in response to the morning sea breeze. The forward edge of the moving ripple was running steadily toward the coble at the seaward end of the loch. Pole gripped Darwin’s arm hard.

“See it there. Along the loch.”

The ripple was still moving. Now its bow was less than fifty yards from where Hohenheim was reeling in his line. As the spreading wave came closer, there seemed to be a hint of lighter grey moving beneath the surface. The wave moved closer to the boat, thirty yards, then twenty. Pole’s grip had unconsciously tightened on Darwin’s arm until his knuckles showed white. At last, where the bed of the loch became sharply shallower, the moving wavefront veered away to the left. Another moment and it was gone. All that remained was a spreading pattern of ripples, lifting the coble gently up and down as the light craft was caught in their swell.

Hohenheim looked round as he felt the motion of the boat, but there was nothing to be seen. After a moment he turned his attention back to the line.

Pole released his hold on Darwin. “The Devil,” he said softly. “We’ve seen the Devil.”

Darwin’s eyes were glittering. “Aye, and it’s a Devil indeed. But what in the name of Linnaeus is it? That’s a real test for your systems taxonomical. It is not a whale, or it would surface and sound for its breathing. It is not a great eel—not unless all our ideas on size are in preposterous error. And it cannot be fish or flesh in any bestiary I can construct.”

“Be damned with the name we give it.” The shaking in Pole’s hands was more pronounced, from excitement and alarm. “It was big , to make a wave that size—and fast. You scoffed at me when I brought Little Bess, but I was right. We’ll need protection when we’re on the loch. I’ll have to carry it here and set it up to train where we need— forget the muskets, they’ll be no better than a peashooter with that monster.”

“I am not sure that the cannon will serve any useful purpose. But meanwhile, we have a duty.” Darwin started heavily down the hill toward the loch side.

“Here, what are you up to?” Pole hesitated, then bent to pick up his pipe and spyglass from the heather as Hohenheim and his servant turned to face the sudden sounds from the hillside.