The Devil's Making
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Authors: Seán Haldane
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Contents
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To Ghislaine
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And since this outward I, you know,
Must stay because he cannot go,
My fellow-travellers shall be they
Who go because they cannot stay â¦
Across the mountains we will roam,
And each man make himself a home:
Or, if old habits ne'er forsaking,
Like clockwork of the Devil's making,
Ourselves inveterate rogues should be,
We'll have a virtuous progeny;
And on the dunghill of our vices
Raise human pineapples and spices.
From
The Delinquent Travellers
by S T Coleridge, 1824.
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It is a world by itself, with no law ruling except force, no compunction except fear, no religion except that of the devil.
Description of âThe Happy Land'
from
The Sliding Scale of Life,
by James McLevy, 1861.
27th May â 20th October 1868
Tellurophobia.
The only word (apart from
Chad Hobbes
on the fly leaf) I have written until now in the one hundred and forty days out of Portsmouth to Vancouver Island. Perhaps it's my anger at the maniac Captain which has kept me staring at the blank first page, whenever I have opened this maroon leather journal my mother gave me. His intention â announced at the first of one hundred and forty hellish dinners in his cabin â was to make the voyage without a single landfall. The
Ariadne,
âone of her Majesty's men of war' (she is only a three masted corvette with 18 guns) would be dependent on no Blacks (by which he meant the inhabitants of South America) or Yankees (ditto of North). He wasn't going to dirty his decks with soot, he declared glowering at Mr Scott the engineer, chugging in and out of the Plate, or Callao, or San Francisco. The
Ariadne
would enter Esquimalt Harbour as it had left Portsmouth, under pristine sail.
My first fantasy of the voyage was dashed. Not even the one or two day stops for supplies which I had expected in the parts Darwin had visited with the
Beagle.
Not even a distant sight of the pampas. Or of the Galapagos, which we avoided in a wide arc. The Captain, once underway, had a rabid phobia of land. Or to be exact it was the opposite of rabies, not a fear of water, a
hydrophobia,
but an equally furious fear of earth, a
tellurophobia.
(I am proud of this coinage.)
The closest we got to land after Land's End and the Scillies was Tierra del Fuego. Even the Captain couldn't avoid this. After crossing the Equator at English midsummer, we had gone through autumn into winter in a few weeks. There was an increasing pall of cloud and drizzle then wet snow as in early August we passed through a Strait before rounding the Horn. I leaned for a whole afternoon over the starboard rail, with snowflakes catching in my beard and dripping down my neck from my sou'wester, peering at the gloomy headlands. There Darwin, in 1835 on the
Beagle,
had seen the beacon fire lit in farewell by the poor Fuegian, Jeremy Button â who had been bought for a pearl button, taken to London for five years, almost forgetting his own language, then returned by the
Beagle
to this wilderness. Now there was not a spark to be seen. Where was Jeremy Button?
Two months later, after passing through another brief summer on the water, with the orange sun bisecting the sky as if tracing the equatorial on the first mate's sextant, we sighted land again, a wall of dark grey, blanketed in lighter grey cloud, not unlike Tierra del Fuego. âForty eight North,' Robbins remarked. (He has been my only friend on this voyage). âWhere Drake gave up searching for the North West passage in fifteen-whatever-it-was, turned around, then headed South again.' Robbins had joined me at the rail for a moment and muttered, âI'd better move on, or that bloody man will have my shore leave.'
As night fell we beat in towards the coast, which divided around us into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and as the twin bluffs of cloud-covered land on each side darkened and disappeared, the sails were run down, the anchor dropped with a rattle and splash, and lights set. The ship strained like a dog at a leash. For a while I stared out into blackness. Then as the rain battered more heavily on the foot-smoothed familiar deck, I picked my way across it and into the hatchway. A hurricane lamp swung jerkily above the steps which I descended, as I thought, with the sea legs of an old sailor.
The 140th â I'll spell it out, the ONE HUNDRED AND FORTIETH â evening at the Captain's table. He sat at the head, with 5 naval officers, 3 officers of Marines, the ship's surgeon, and myself, cramped together down the sides. I was the only landsman, and the only one with a beard, since the navy required its officers and men to be clean shaven. I was on sufferance, an unwelcome guest. Not that the Captain was friendly with his officers either. I had given up wondering how such a man could exist, breed children as he evidently had on his poor wife in Norfolk, and go to sea and live close-quartered with his officers for months, yet keep all conversation to brief discussions of the weather, supplies, and ship's management â from which, of course, I was excluded.
This had suited me, or so I told myself on my long deck walks, or my days out of the rain looking at this blank journal or reading Darwin again, at the small table in the cabin I've shared with Robbins who was seldom there until dog-tired at night. Sometimes I could keep him awake for a while, the candle sputtering between our narrow grey-blanketed bunks, and ask him about the navy, his life at home in England, his undeclared love for the inevitable local maiden â âa dear girl.' But nothing about the future. Robbins himself had never left home waters. He had no more clue than I about the New World, although he had found time to read a few chapters of my
Four Years on Vancouver Island
by Mayne. I had not had the courage to quizz the Captain about the place, although he had already spent a year at Esquimalt, where he was now returning with a hold full of arms and ammunition and a fresh Company of Marines.
Normally the Captain would wash down his salt beef with half a bottle of claret, then sip one glass of Port with his indescribable Stilton cheese on indestructible biscuit. But this evening he was into a second bottle of claret in no time, and the officers who had religiously followed him for 139 evenings in drinking half a bottle of claret each and one glass of Port, now sent the cabin boys for a second bottle each. I had been economizing and would have to settle my bill before leaving the ship the next day, but I finished my own bottle which had lasted me four dinners, and recklessly sent for another. Was this the Captain's way of celebrating the end of the voyage? But he was choleric as ever, fixing me with eyes like cold blue taws â as we used to call marbles at school:
âNot every immigrant arrives in British Columbia on one of her Majesty's Ships of War.'
âI dare say. I'm sorry I couldn't have made myself useful in some way.'
âUseful? At what?'
âI'm not sure.' I looked at the officers across the table for support. Robbins's face was as stony as those of the others, none of whom had ever spoken a word to me beyond âPass the mustard.'
âNothing for you to do', the Captain went on. âA Man of War doesn't usually take passengers. Unless a political bigwig. You're not that, are you? It might have looked better if you'd been hired on as something or other. But as what? You read that scoundrel Darwin, but you're not a naturalist. And this is not a survey ship. I'm damned if I'm going to let the
Ariadne
become the
Beagle
!'
(This was a reference to his terror, as Robbins had described it, that his ship would be used in survey work around Vancouver Island). âYou studied Divinity at Oxford, I was told, but you're not a parson. Anyway, I'm the parson here. I conduct the services. I read the funerals. You're not a surgeon, Mr Giles here is that. So what are you?'
âNo idea.' I took a large sip of my claret and studied the lumps of mashed potato on my plate.
âYou're a young man with pull!' Glaring around at the stony faces. âHis uncle is Captain Hobbes, of the
Adverse.
It's his father who's the parson. Another parson's son for the Colonies!'
The others, sat tightly around the table, guffawed obediently.
âMy uncle assured me I'd be a welcome guest on this ship. He insisted, in fact. I was quite ready to take passage on one of the Hudson's Bay Company's ships or another merchantman.'
âFor £60 in steerage with a pack of scum, or £90 first class with shopkeepers and pen-pushing clerks.'
The Captain set down his knife and fork with a clash. The cabin boys scurried to take away the plates. They brought in dishes of pudding â prunes in lukewarm custard â at the same time setting the battered curved wall of the huge Stilton in front of the Captain, and bringing biscuits, new plates, glasses, and the crystal decanter of Port, although everyone still went on with their claret.
Later, after we had gobbled up our pudding, the Captain started up again. âWhy didn't you join the navy then?'
âI first wanted to go into the church, like my father. Then I changed my mind.'
âAnother young man who believes we're descended from the apes! I know it all! The broken-hearted mother, the outraged father! The bitter arguments around the vicarage table! The crisis of faith! Am I correct?'
âMore or less. Not quite as simple, if you'll forgive me.' I took a glug from my second glass of Port, come around from Mr Giles. âYes, of course. You're right. The family quarrels and so forth. But what happened was simply that I changed from reading Divinity to reading Jurisprudence â a new subject at Oxford, since only 1850. You might say that from studying the divine law I had changed to studying natural law.'
There was a sudden snort from Robbins, who covered it up with a cough, glancing at the Captain who said sharply,
âYes, Mr Robbins?'
âWell, I mean, really, Hobbes, you do sound niminy-piminy.'
âI'm sorry.'
âAh! You're a barrister.' The Captain again.
âNo. I took my degree, but I had run out of money. More was not forthcoming from my family. I can't afford at the moment to go to an Inn of Court, although perhaps I shall when I return to England. The other option of course is to become articled to a solicitor. But I want to see the world, and I thought I might try British Columbia.'
âWhat? Try what?'
âThere are at least a dozen solicitors in the Colony. I've written ahead. And I have a letter of introduction toâ¦'
