Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [78]
‘Don’t be a fool, kid,’ Berle said. ‘Ives is angry enough already. Don’t make him worse. He kinda gets . . . out of control sometimes. Bad things happen then.’
Sherlock glanced back and forth between Ives and Berle. Between the Devil and the deep blue sea.
His heart felt leaden in his chest. No way out. Two choices, each of which led to captivity.
No, he told himself. What would Mycroft say? What would Amyus Crowe say? ‘When you’ve only got two choices, and you don’t like either of them, make a third choice.’
He opened the door of the carriage and stepped out into the open air.
The green, lush landscape of the New York countryside flashed past in a blur. He heard Virginia gasp behind him, and Ives curse. He kept his left hand gripping the doorframe and his left foot wedged against the point where the frame met the floor, and as the wind whistled past him it pushed him backwards, and he swung out and around, into the area between the carriages. He’d spotted a ladder there earlier, leading up to the roof of the carriage, and he grasped for it with his right hand. His fingers closed on a rung, and he stretched with his right leg, trying to get purchase on the ladder. After what seemed like minutes but was probably only a second or two, his foot hit a rung. Releasing his grip on the doorframe, he pulled himself up the ladder.
A hand closed on his left foot before he could pull it up. He kicked downward, feeling his heel hit someone’s face. The grip released abruptly, leaving an ache behind where the fingers had clamped down hard.
Within a moment he was on top of the train.
He had to crouch, and keep one hand gripping the guide rail that ran along the roof from front to back.
Ahead of him he saw the train curving away. Smoke from the funnel was streaming backwards. It made his eyes water, and made it hard to breathe.
He hesitated for a moment. Rather than be captured he had taken the only other option – escape – but his escape was limited. He was still on the train – literally on the train – and he didn’t have a plan. No matter where he went, Ives and the other men would find him. Find him and probably kill him. And he couldn’t just escape, just jump off the train into a convenient river or something. He had to rescue Virginia and Matty.
He felt despair looming over him like a black wave but he pushed it backwards with a massive effort of will. Time for that later. Now he had to think.
If he could scramble along the roofs of the carriages to the front of the train then maybe he could alert the driver. Maybe he could find a way to get a message to the authorities, or get the points switched around to take them back to New York, or something. Anything!
Still crouching, he scrambled along the roof of the carriage. The wind was against him, pushing him back like a giant hand in the centre of his chest, but he pushed back. He had to. His eyes were streaming with tears where the steam was stinging them, and his breath was catching in his chest, but he couldn’t stop. Matty and Virginia depended on him.
The train shuddered over some rails, and Sherlock nearly lost his grip. He swayed back and forth for a moment or two, trying to get as low as he could, before he thought he was safe.
Well, safer, he thought, glancing around at the landscape that flashed past in green and brown blurs.
A river was coming up. He could see it ahead of the train, which was curving around towards a bridge that looked like it was made out of matchsticks. He felt his heart pounding.
And then it threatened to explode completely as Ives’s head and shoulders appeared at the junction between the carriage Sherlock was climbing along and the one ahead of it. The man must have doubled back along the carriage and climbed up the next ladder.
He pulled himself up to the roof and stood upright. The steam from the engine, pushed backwards by the wind, billowed around him like a white cloak.
‘You’re not thinking straight, kid,’ he yelled. ‘Where are you goin’? You’re safer down there with the others.’
Sherlock shook