“Gorillas, like the other apes, share many similarities with men—be they mad or simply English, Miss James,” the scientist said reassuringly. “Of course, it is unlikely that we need to worry. Research on captive specimens suggests they are herbivores—excuse me, plant eaters. However, the science is in its infancy, and few of the creatures have been studied in the wild. Hunters given the task of collecting specimens report that the beasts are capable of great violence when defending their young.” He smiled and then stroked the moustache and goatee that jutted out from his narrow face. “Do not be concerned, my good friends. Apes may be terrifying to behold...” He looked toward Holmes. “But the evidence suggests they would prefer eating apples to a gentleman’s leg.”
“Suggests?” Holmes blurted, completely unnerved.
“Africa is a vast continent,” the scientist explained. “It would be profoundly arrogant for us to presume that Victorian biologists have identified all classes and varieties of anthropoid ape which means the greater mystery will have to be solved by 20th century minds.” He frowned. “We may find a carnivore among them yet...” Then he smiled. “Similar to a species, perhaps, from which our own fine families may have sprung...”
“Oh, doctor, you’re not starting up on Darwin again,” Mrs. Quarrie interjected weakly. She remembered their conversations aboard the ship and had detested his views.
“Come dear, we need to find safety,” her husband interrupted, nudging her elbow from behind as he sought the scientist’s eye and his agreement. “Surely this conversation can wait...”
He was anxious to keep a sense of calm about the proceedings. On this desolate stretch of beach, with such a noise still echoing in their ears, these musings were ridiculous and provocative—but he knew fear goaded his wife on.
She insisted, “I refuse to believe that we are related to the beasts...whether they bear some comic resemblance to us or not. Christianity tells us...”
“...much that remains to be seen, Mrs. Quarrie,” the scientist finished her sentence, taking a step toward the thick vegetation that crowded the edge of the beach. “And indeed you might very well see it, for here stands a veritable laboratory for the biological sciences.”
He bowed toward the forest, sweeping his hands apart, before returning his gaze to his companions. “In this place, we can study the plants and those creatures that consume them such as giraffe and hippopotamus and monkeys, yes, even the ape. As we can also observe the beasts that prey upon those life forms in turn: the lion, the jackal and yes as I have mentioned, perhaps the ape again.”
“Darn it, doctor!” Clive Quarrie grumbled. With his frustration came a pronounced Texas twang. Additionally, his fleshy face grew red and caused his thick sideburns to gleam the whiter. He could see that his wife was growing more terrified despite her calm demeanor, and her part of the conversation was born of her nervous disposition. “We must find some shelter. The women...”
“Mr. Quarrie forgive my practical nature, but neither you, I, nor the women will have time for superstition if we are to survive...” Dr. Van Resen took a step toward the others to emphasize his point. “In lieu of fact, doubt is a more welcome replacement for ignorance, and religious certainty has no place here at all.”
On the water behind them, thick black smoke rose from the steamer’s funnel. The mutineers had killed the officers and honest crewmen of the Lancet, thrown their bodies overboard in the night and commandeered the vessel before sunrise.
“We must embrace this—our reality—to understand its nature and identify its threats,” Van Resen snapped, crossing the sand to the group as his face darkened and a sad look came over him. He reached out and caught up Mrs. Quarrie’s soft hands.
“Forgive me, my lady,” he said, and then begged the same of the others. “I am a pragmatic man who is inclined to empirical evidence—a student of Descartes—and so I can seem painfully blunt when my heart is broken. I believe that is why I so miss Captain Seward’s company.”
Van Resen hung his head. “He did not allow for hopelessness.”
Captain Theodore Seward had been hired a decade past to guard the Quarries and their small entourage back home in Texas and he had steadfastly fulfilled that duty on their many trips abroad. His companions had joked on their most recent that the retired ranger stood out in the streets of London as though Buffalo Bill himself had ridden into town.
With his sweeping gray moustache, tall “Stetson” and folksy ways right down to bolo tie, piping on his frontier lapels and the seams of his riding britches, the man drew a crowd whenever he performed his duties in the public eye.
The captain had suffered the exposure with a dignity that belied his extreme discomfort, so he had been tickled pink to learn that his employer Archibald “Gusher” Quarrie wanted him to accompany his parents Clive and Abigail, daughter Lilly and retinue on a journey that would take them from foggy England to South Africa where Gusher had been engaged with an expedition to discover and secure oil supplies.
Apparently things had gone well, and the Quarrie patriarch was in the midst of signing contracts with the ruling government that would engage him and his company for several more years in the development of those resources.
So Gusher wanted his family near.
And Captain Seward had been only too happy to oblige. The idea of traveling to the Dark Continent and going cheek and jowl against dusky warriors and savage beasts appealed more to him than the “polite” society he had been plunged into while wrangling the Quarries.
“I like looking my enemies in the eye,” he had said to Dr. Van Resen during their first meeting on the S.S. Dunwich. “Some of these dinners the Quarries go to, hell, it’s gotta be something like Custer felt in the
