The above is expressed in the deepest confidence that it will find a place in your and Dr. Watson’s minds and not an inch further. This was followed by the cautionary words, ‘I need not remind you, dear brother, I have a comfortable chair here in Whitehall. With time and usage it has taken on the curvature of my back (and rump) and I hope to remain in it for many moons to come. After you have fully absorbed its content burn this document.’
‘Burn this document’was heavily underlined.
The last of London was now behind us. We were puffing towards the forbidding bulwark of the White Cliffs and, beyond, the English Channel and France. I put Mycroft’s letter away and pulled my tin box from the rack, riffling through case-notes yet to see the light of day.
I smoothed out the pages and spread them on the seat beside me.
Days and nights passed. We rattled through France at forty miles an hour aboard a succession of wind-splitting ‘pig-nosed’ trains. A hundred hamlets passed by in a blur. Restaurant cars serving hearty food and fine wines ameliorated the long evenings. I picked up and put down and picked up The Best Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Diary of an Idle Woman in Constantinople. I alternated staring out of the carriage windows with seizing the chance when Holmes dozed to continue my transcriptions. Finally we were within shot of Algeciras. Beyond lay Gibraltar. Soon we would be sailing through the Mediterranean into the Aegean Sea.
Hundreds of miles into our journey, irrevocably committed to our new adventure, I returned to the final paragraph of Mycroft’s letter.
‘I think Sir Edward and I have covered the politics enough. You will be received by the Sultan at Yildiz Palace in your guise as naval emissaries acting on requests from the Royal Botanical Gardens and the Zoological Society Gardens. You will not be shown the Sultan’s Harem, the Harem-i Hümâyûn. English feet have stamped their mark on much of the world, Whymper’s on the peak of the Matterhorn, Speke’s at the source of the Nile, but along with the North Pole and the summit of Everest the Harem remains among the few places on earth no English (or American) foot has yet trod.’
We Board HMS Dreadnought
I awoke next morning to find Holmes changing into the Commander’s uniform and pulling on his boots. I flung myself into the Surgeon Lieutenant’s dress uniform. The train slowed and came to a halt at our final station, Algeciras. I jumped out. Across the bay we could see the rock of Gibraltar towering above the sea.
A porter unloaded our luggage and placed it alongside us in a cab to the harbour. Holmes murmured, ‘Watson, I understand old Army habits die hard but if you are to pass as a naval officer you must rid yourself of the custom of placing a handkerchief in your sleeve. It might well be remarked upon by the crew.’
The paddle-steamer Elvira was waiting to take us across the water to the spanking new Edward VII Dock. To reinforce our subterfuge we made a point of going at once to inspect the pile of Wardian cases delivered to the dockside ahead of us. The sealed glass protected plants imported from faraway regions. Several cases were filled with plants personally requested by the Sultan from the Royal Botanical Gardens - bulbs of an exotic lily discovered in the I’Chang gorges of the Yangtze River in 1881, cushion plants with their origins in the Peruvian Andes, and the gigantic Victoria regia lily, brought to England from the shallow waters of a river in British Guiana.
The mighty HMS Dreadnought, built at a cost of £1,783,883, was to become the defining artefact of the Age. Colourful flags flew from her masts and sternpost. Before boarding the battleship we collected a package of letters forwarded to us care of Messrs. Cox & Co’s correspondent bank in Gibraltar. One letter was directed at Holmes from his brother, the other to me from the Congo. I retained considerable loyalty to Cox’s. The Bank served me well in India and during a short stint in the barrier-colony of Burma.
With the letters in our pockets we went aboard and were shown to our cabins. I unpacked and opened Pretorius’s letter. It had passed mine in transit, probably at one or other end of the Suez Canal. He was anticipating my arrival with a keen interest, and that of my ‘magic box’ (the medicine chest).
I put the document down with a heavy heart. Our plans would now have to take their place on the back-burner.
Well before dawn a Yeoman boarded with the final telegraphs from the Signal Tower. Dreadnought cast off her moorings and slowly swung away from land. I stared out of the porthole. Even in the dark, a large patriotic crowd gathered along the dock to watch the impressive sight. The great vessel gathered speed. She cast off the tugs and we steamed away as though on a course for the Caribbean. At our back lay the Mediterranean, formed where Africa crashes against Eurasia, a million square miles of sea of a shape and clime almost perfect for the development of civilization. Out of sight of land we would make an about turn, steam through the Pillars of Hercules and run as secretly as possible to the shores of Stamboul, 2,101 nautical miles distant.
Dinners aboard were remarkably friendly affairs. The pudding served, Commodore Bacon would give orders no-one was to enter the Wardroom without his express permission unless war was declared. The first night he raised a glass and addressed Holmes and me with ‘I advise you to snatch whatever sleep you can. We shall be steaming at 21 knots, testing the new Parsons turbines to the limit, big guns and torpedoes too. There’ll be long range battle practices, short range battle practices, night battle practices and several advanced day battle practices - firing in indirect mode through smoke screens. We’ll also be testing whether our torpedoes can hit a target at 4,000 yards.’
He planned at least one experimental practice, to explore Dreadnought’s ability to keep on target during a radical turn. ‘Nevertheless, gentlemen, despite all the action we should have time for the occasional glass of port and conversation.’
The Commodore looked across at Holmes and me. In a lowered voice he said, ‘Only the officers around this table know who you are. The crew have been told you’re visiting Anatolia and East Thrace to purchase exotic birds for the Zoological Society of London and rare plants for the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. The large pile of Wardian cases has impressed them no end. I think it best from now on if we become accustomed to using your pseudonyms. Once we’ve coaled and my men go ashore it’s not unknown for them to take a Mastika or a Raki or two - banana raki, mustard raki, pomegranate raki, aniseed raki - or other tongue-loosening concoctions. Everyone aboard has arrived within the last couple of months or so from other ships of the line. I suggest you stay entirely non-committal if asked where and on which ships you’ve served, in case you give yourselves away.’
Thus eight days passed with tranquil intervals between the uproar of the great guns and torpedo-firing. I spent hours with the binoculars purchased for the Congo trip staring at passing islands wreathed in the legends of noble Hector, brave Achilles and cunning Ulysses.
On the last evening during drinks in the Mess a signal was brought in by a Petty Officer and handed to the Commodore who took us to one side.