Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Doctor Moreau

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“I call him my father but in that he was one of many. That is why he grew to hate me. Fathers, like gods, are quick to grow angry at others who claim their title. The special creatures he has sired, the pure-bloods, who find their life through scalpel and needle, are perfect in his eyes. He loves them dearly. But those like me, his mongrels, built from a butcher’s shop of ingredients, to him we are nothing, we are empty and worthless creatures.

“But I am far from empty, I am filled with lives lived. I remember the warmth of the litter and the taste of sweet milk. I remember the feel of thick grass parting before me as I run, the sound of a rabbit’s heartbeat in my ears and the taste of its fear once it’s in my mouth. I remember the sun on my back and salt wind in my face—a face that now rots, torn away and left to decay; the feel of tarred rope in my hands and the solid decking shifting beneath my feet as the waves throw me towards the sky. I remember the pull of rope around my throat and the glint of a belt buckle in the gaslight; the feel of leather cracking against my back.

“I remember that last best of all and I tell you, Gentlemen, no man will strike me again without knowing consequences, not now I have the strength to strike back.

“How I fell into the hands of that final, terrible father of mine is simple enough. Some of me was sold to him by the man with the eager belt and strong swinging arm. The rest was acquired by criminal means. I have a memory of the taste of beer in my mouth, shore leave and the need to spend the few pennies in your pocket. I was abroad in the backstreets, unsteady due to drink and hopeful of finding someone to keep me warm for a few hours. Then there was the most terrible pain on the back of my head and the next thing I know, I’m waking up on a bed of straw, the stink of animal scat and rotten food in my nostrils. If I had owned the nose you see now, this fine organ that would know what your landlady was cooking for supper as soon as twitch, then I think that smell would have driven me mad. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe what the sailor found distasteful would have been like fresh fruit to me now—so many things have changed, my tastes more than anything else.

“As he screamed and shouted, yanking at the irons that had been placed around his hands and legs—irons like these, Gentlemen, and do not think that I will tolerate them long, for I won’t—the hound that had cowered in fear at the sound of its master’s tread cowered still, its simple mind not knowing what lay ahead. But then, how could it have predicted it? No beast, walking on two legs or four, could have had the first idea what was in store.

“The future was darkness. The prick of a needle, like an insect bite, that hid the cut of a scalpel. There were many times when I experienced consciousness, for the process was not one operation but a whole string of them. I awoke with shifting agonies from the many incisions all over my body. The terror felt when the mind of that old sailor, a man who remembered everything from the burn of rope to a woman’s cheeks gracing his palms, looked at the abomination now attached to his wrists—terrible, ugly, brutal things! Hands made for violence and harm. Hands made to beat and punch, something he had more than enough anger for.

“Then, a few hours later, awake again and the knowledge that he has acquired a tail, an angry, thrashing thing that beats at the back of his legs like a whip, spurring him on like a slave. Oh that makes him angry, that makes him boil! But still there is no freedom and soon the darkness descends again and the knives part flesh and sew meat.

“I understand the problems of such operations, the impossibility of making one creature’s muscles tug at another’s limbs, and I cannot begin to explain how he makes it work. I know that he was not always successful. There are many chambers that run alongside his workroom filled with his failures. Creatures that shout, or mew, or bark, or chirp like birds as they hurl their useless flesh against the walls, flesh that bubbles and rejects itself, falling off in lumps or swelling up in angry, purple balloons. Some of these creatures are useful deterrents, terrifying monstrosities that act as guards and weapons, happy to vent their terror and fury on whatever or whoever he wishes them to attack. Others are little more than walking supply cupboards, living cultures that he raids for parts and organs whenever he has need. You do not know real misery, Gentlemen, until you have lain on cold stone and listened to the sound of abomination praying for death! Abomination that bears more than a passing resemblance to your own reflection in the glass.

“That final series of operations: where my throat bristled and burned with nerve-endings yanked together like a boatman’s twine; my eyes raged in their sockets at the bright lights, my mouth screaming wider than the height of my own head. It took him a week to change that head, a connection at a time, a cut here and a cut there.

“And then there was the work he undertook within my skull, replacing one brain with parts of another. I have lost a few handfuls of this tissue along the way, Gentlemen. I heard them fall onto the cool stone behind me while he cut and tore. But don’t think it’s made me a fool, for I manage only too well with what I have. It hurts, by God it does. My head feels like its splitting most of the time. But, after a while, pain becomes just another thing you accept. You know how a stench in a room can vanish after you’ve been in it a while? The familiarity makes the nose ignore it. Pain is like that once you’ve suffered it for long enough. I think his work has helped there too. I am not as sensitive as I once was. Sometimes when I pick up an object, I crush it quite by accident, it’s so difficult to feel.

“Finally, it was done and I have the face you see now—a face that roars, a mouth with teeth that can tear through flesh like a fistful of knives. Not that I often have cause to use them, not on living flesh at least. I may be a monster in the eyes of most, but I try to be a civilised one. Oh yes, you doubt that, given my profession. Well, perhaps I am not the perfect citizen but I don’t hurt for the sake of it, however tempting it might be. And it is tempting, Gentlemen, you have no idea how strong the urge rises within me when I look upon your fragile, pink faces. Sometimes I think there’s nothing that would feel better than taking them between my jaws and snapping these teeth of mine shut. I always knew anger, all of me—the sailor and the hound. But now we are combined. Lord! I sometimes wonder that there can be so much rage in any one creature.

“But I control it. Yes, because I will not be the worthless creature my father considers me. I will be better than they could ever have dreamt. I will be a thing of wonder, not an atrocity; a thing that makes a man’s lip curl in disgust.

“For that’s the first thing these new eyes saw, looking up into the face of the man that stitched them into place—disgust. You might think that a man would take some pride in his work, would create a thing he wanted to see. Apparently not. When my father looked down on this, this … body, this … creature that he had spent so many weeks—so many hours of work, so much effort—creating, his only response was repulsion and disappointment. I ask you, what is the point of that? What did he think he was building with his offal-stained fingers?

“No matter. I was a thing to be ignored. He gave me lowly tasks, manual jobs that suited my strong arms. Outside of those tasks I was ignored so I made the most of the fact. I hunted in the tunnels, learning the geography of the under-city, where I still make my home. Why would I rise to the city above? I belong down there, flushed away with the rest of the waste, hidden in the dark, forgotten.

“I worked my way through father’s library, reading—though not always understanding—his books and notes. I tried to better myself, to be more than he believed me to be. Perhaps I sought approval. Why lie? I know I sought it. But there was no approval to be found. He was too all-consumed with the children he made after me, refining his science, learning new techniques and experimenting with new ideas. I was no more interesting than a sketch on a piece of scrap paper, rolled into a ball and tossed to one side.

“Is it any wonder I wished for freedom?

“I began to appreciate the fact that I was almost invisible within the confines of those tunnels and chambers. I watched father work, noting his methods, trying to understand his plans. That understanding, with every stab of pain it brought upon this ruin of a brain I have, was knowledge hard-earned but I think I have his measure now. In fact I know I do. Because there’s one thing that will always retain its value, Gentlemen—knowledge, and with it I am wealthy indeed.

“Once I felt I had understood all I could, I decided the time had come to leave my father’s company. My time there would always have been short, he was never a man satisfied with the quantity or quality of materials, and sooner or later I would represent a greater value to him as organs and tissue as I did as—yes, the joke is clear—as his dogsbody. I would sit and feed the other creatures left to rot in their cells, watching as some of them diminished, driven mad by pain or infection, crippled further and further by scalpel or saw, and I resolved never to join them. Whatever the shortcomings of this grotesque form it—and the life within it—is all I have and I intend to keep hold of it for as long as possible.

“Father was not permanently in residence so leaving was never going to be difficult. He could sometimes be absent for days at a time. I couldn’t say whether he was gathering fresh subjects or simply going about a life outside that he kept hidden away beneath the streets. To be frank I didn’t care. I simply waited for his next absence and took my opportunity. Only too aware that my appearance would be a handicap, I adopted a rough version of the costume you see before you and made my way to the surface. Though I had never left father’s lair, the route was extremely simple; I had cause to be thankful of this sensitive nose of mine as it sniffed out his trail all the way to the surface.

“And what a world that now seemed to me! The noises were more grating, the smells sharper. It was a world that hurt just to be in it, a place that beat at the senses. I stumbled upon a small man selling roasted chestnuts and was nearly paralysed by the experience. As if his shouting were not enough, there was the roar of his fire, the crackle of the nutshells, the hiss and pop of coals fracturing, the chink of metal expanding in the heat. Then the smell, the smoke, the browning meat of the nuts, the sweat of the man—his stench alone was like a factory floor.

“It felt like being attacked. It was all I could do not to tear out his throat in response. My temper is not good, Gentlemen, as you will have no doubt remarked. Perhaps you begin to understand why?

“It was soon clear to me that I could not tolerate a normal life above ground. A piece of the underground was the place for me. I am a creature that suits shadow, am I not?

“But what could I do? How should I provide for myself?

“Oh I dare say you do not approve of my solution to that problem, but I have finished seeking approval from you or anyone else. Criminality is something I am suited to. I have the anger and strength for it. And yes, I have a lack of consideration towards ‘my fellow man’. For, let us be honest, there is no such thing anymore is there, Gentlemen? I am a species all of its own.

“Nonetheless, my business matters are sure to be beneath your concern, Mr Holmes. What do you care if the inventory of a ship becomes light once in a while? Is it any business of yours if the walking wounded of our society take to the opium pipe? Why should Sherlock Holmes, London’s greatest consulting detective, trouble himself if a little counterfeit money works its way into the system? I have very little blood on my hands, Gentlemen, and the few stains there are came from men who work the same business as I. It is not something that troubles me.

“And it must not trouble you if you wish my assistance in this matter, and you do, believe me, for who else do you know that can lead you straight to the door of the man you seek? Who else knows the details of what he is planning? Who else can salvage this mess before the country is brought to its knees?

“Gentlemen, I rather think you and I are going into business!”