Young Sherlock Holmes_ Death Cloud - Andrew Lane [85]
Her spirit gave Sherlock the courage to carry on.
‘It’s a grandiose plan,’ he said towards the darkness, ‘but it just won’t work.’
There was silence for a moment, broken only by the strange creaking noise that Sherlock remembered from the house in Farnham, like the sound of sea-dampened ship’s rigging being strained by the wind and by the pitching and tossing of the ship’s hull.
‘You seem very sure of yourself,’ the Baron’s voice came back. ‘For a child.’
‘Think about it. Just because two men have died as a result of your schemes, that doesn’t make your plan foolproof. All kinds of things could wash the chemical from the uniforms, for instance. Remember, it rains in England. It rains a lot. Some of the soldiers will have their uniforms laundered before the bees can get to them – especially the officers.’ He was getting into his stride now, his mind sparking with ideas as to why Maupertuis’s colossal scheme was doomed to failure. ‘Some soldiers might prefer their old uniforms, and keep them, or get their regimental tailor to make them a new one rather than using the ones you’ve sent out. I don’t know about France and Germany and Russia, but people in England don’t like being told what to do and what to wear. They find ways around orders like that.’
‘What about the bees themselves?’ Virginia added unexpectedly. ‘How many of them will actually get to the mainland? How many bees do you need to cover all those areas where the Army are based? Have you got enough? And what happens if there’s a cold spell and the bees die off, or if there’s something in England that eats the bees, or if they just settle down, build a hive and become part of the natural order there? The chances are they’ll end up interbreeding with the local bees, the British bees, and lose all traces of the aggression that your plan depends on.’
‘All of these factors have been accounted for,’ the Baron replied in his dry-as-dust voice, but to Sherlock he sounded unsure of himself for the first time. ‘And even if some uniforms are laundered, and some bees die, what of it? Many of the attacks will be successful nevertheless. Widespread death will occur. The British Army will be paralysed by fear. Paralysed.’
‘You just don’t understand the way the English think, do you?’ Sherlock scoffed. His mind ranged back over his lessons at school, over what he had read in the newspapers, curled up in a chair in his father’s study, or heard from his brother Mycroft. ‘Have you ever heard of the Charge of the Light Brigade?’
The sound of creaking in the darkness stopped abruptly. Sherlock had the sudden sense that many ears were listening intently to what he said.
‘Oh yes,’ the Baron hissed. ‘I have heard of the Charge of the Light Brigade.’
‘In 1854,’ Sherlock continued, regardless, ‘during the Crimean War, the soldiers of the 4th and 13th Light Dragoons, the 17th Lancers and the 8th and 11th Hussars were ordered to charge the Russian lines during the Battle of Balaclava. They were charging down a valley that had Russian cannons on each side and in front of them, and they just kept on going. They followed orders, without panicking and without mutinying. I’m not saying that mindless obedience to orders is a good thing, but discipline is built into the British soldier like a rod of iron right down their backs. I know that – my father is an officer. They don’t panic. Not ever. No, even if there are deaths it’ll be treated just like an outbreak of smallpox or cholera. Don’t you understand? They will ignore it. That’s what the British do. That’s why the British Empire is so widespread and so strong. We just ignore the things we don’t like.’
‘You speak well,’ the Baron said, ‘but I do not believe you. Obviously you want to believe that your Empire is built on rock-solid foundations, but you are wrong. The foundations are rotten, and the edifice will crumble if it is pushed hard enough. You want to believe that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday,