Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [99]
‘So what are they going to do about it?’ Sherlock asked. ‘They can’t be letting it go ahead, surely? It’ll poison relationships between America and England for generations.’
Crowe shook his massive, craggy head. ‘They got a plan,’ he rumbled. ‘Can’t say I think much of it, but Secretary of War Stanton has personally endorsed it, so that’s about all a man can say’
‘They’re going to attack?’ Matty asked, mouth still full of fried potatoes.
‘The Army’s been mobilized, an’ they’re forming a cordon somewhere ’tween here and the border ,’ Crowe said. ‘But there’s somethin’ else afoot. The Government wants to resolve this without hand to hand fightin’, if at all possible.’ He sighed, and glanced away, towards the front door to the hotel. ‘Secretary of War Stanton was quite taken with the use of balloons for reconnaissance durin’ the War Between the States. He reckons that balloons are the future for warfare. He’s directed that the Army Corps of Engineers deploys with as many hot air balloons as it has. Come evening, he intends floatin’ the balloons over Balthassar’s encampment an’ droppin’ explosive devices on them.’
‘But—’ Sherlock started, then stopped, appalled. ‘But that would be a massacre! I know these men are about to invade another country, but to drop bombs on them! Can’t he at least give them a chance to surrender?’
Crowe shook his head. ‘It don’t work that way. Secretary of War Stanton wants to send a message. He wants everyone to know that the war is over an’ the Union won, an’ any attempt to revive Confederate fortunes will be met with overwhelmin’ force.’
‘But hundreds, maybe thousands of men will be killed!’ Sherlock protested. ‘And not even in a battle, where they might defend themselves. They’re going to die when fire rains down on them from above! That’s just wrong!’
‘It may be wrong,’ Crowe said quietly, ‘but it’s goin’ to happen that way. Welcome to the world of what the Germans call Realpolitik, Sherlock.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sherlock’s dreams were full of fire, falling from the sky, and the screaming of charred and stick-thin figures running around in chaos. He woke up after a few hours, still tired but unable to sleep any more.
The bedroom was one of three spare ones the hotel manager had found for them to sleep in. Sherlock had wondered if the empty train in the station had meant that the hotel would be full of travellers, but in fact the train had been hired as a special by Amyus Crowe and a small group of Pinkerton’s agents who were monitoring the situation.
As he lay there, his mind kept coming back to what was going to happen in a few hours. It wasn’t as if the men in Balthassar’s Army were necessarily evil – they just had a different idea on how they wanted to be governed. Invading another country was wrong, obviously, but did that mean they deserved to be wiped out like ants?
Mycroft would have found a way to stop it. Sherlock was sure about that. Mycroft was a cog in the machinery of the British Government, of course, but he had beliefs, and morals, and convictions. The same beliefs, morals and convictions that had been inculcated into Sherlock by their father, Major Siger Holmes of the King’s Dragoons. They were both Siger’s sons, and they had inherited his values in the same way that they had inherited his blue eyes.
He had to do something. But what? What could he do to stop the Army Corps of Engineers?
Maybe he could send a telegraph message to Mycroft, in England. He didn’t know how much that might cost, although he suspected it would be expensive, but he still had some money left from earlier. Mycroft could call in the American Ambassador, or something, and get it stopped.
Or could he? Would he? And, more to the point, did Mycroft have enough time? He was several thousand miles away, after all, and perhaps his superiors in the Foreign Office would be more concerned with preventing an invasion of a British territory than in saving the lives of men they had never even met.
Sherlock knew that he needed