This Thing Of Darkness (12 page)

Food was brought: mussels, sea-eggs, yellow tree-fungus and a huge slab of putrid elephant seal blubber two and a half inches thick. This last item reeked more fiercely - if such a thing were possible - than any of the inhabitants of the tent. The Fuegians took it in turns to heat the blubber on the fire until it crackled and bubbled, before drawing it through their teeth and squeezing out the rancid oil. Then the slab was passed on so that the next person might repeat the process, all of them expressing exaggerated delight at the richness of this delicacy. Finally, the blubber was offered to King.

‘I would refrain from trying that if I were you, unless you wish to spend the next fortnight clutching your stomach in the heads,’ remarked FitzRoy, to a chorus of imitations.

Both men politely declined the offer, which seemed to cause not the slightest offence. The blubber slab was passed instead to a small child, whose mother tried ineffectively to hack off a piece with a sharpened mussel shell. FitzRoy drew his knife and came to her assistance, an action that drew gasps of admiration - not for his gallantry but for the razor-sharp blade he had produced. Making beseeching noises, the white-painted Fuegian who had traded the dog for King’s tobacco now indicated that he wished to have the knife as a gift. FitzRoy demurred: it would not do, he reasoned, to start arming the natives.

A general consultation followed, and with great reverence a wicker basket was produced for FitzRoy’s benefit. He opened it. Inside was a sailor’s old mitten, and a fragment of Guernsey frock.

‘These are regular museum pieces,’ breathed FitzRoy. ‘They must be all of a century old.’

‘I wouldn’t give a farthing for them,’ snorted King under his breath.

Encouraged by the apparent show of interest, the white-painted Indian patted his stomach enthusiastically, then patted FitzRoy’s stomach and chest in a show of friendship, but to no avail. Still the Englishman would not trade. Rebuffed, the Indian left the tent in some dudgeon, whereupon the nocturnal silence outside was interrupted by curious thrashing and beating sounds, as if the would-be trader was laying about the nearby vegetation with a switch. After a minute or two he returned, flushed but evidently pleased with whatever he had done. FitzRoy and King were on the point of dismissing the episode as just one more of the evening’s inexplicable curiosities, when the man suddenly lunged forward, grasped the knife from its sheath on FitzRoy’s belt, and hurled himself at one wall of the tent. The skins on that side gave way immediately, and the white-painted man was gone, away into the night air by means of the passage he had just created.
Of course. How could I have been so foolish?
FitzRoy admonished himself.
He has built himself an escape route while we sat here like two idiots.

The other Fuegians in the tent now flinched in fear, as if afraid that the Europeans might lash out and strike them, as a punishment for the misdeeds of their fellow. But so nonsensical was the whole episode that FitzRoy burst out laughing instead, as much at his own stupidity as at the antics of the thief.

‘I think we can overlook the loss of one case-knife in the circumstances,’ he conceded, and King concurred gratefully.

The evening had not delivered its last surprise, however. Within a quarter-hour the man had returned, painted black this time, his hair fluffed up wildly, and without a grass pleat that had previously functioned as a headband. FitzRoy, astonished, jutted out a hand to demand the return of his knife. Assuming an expression of aggrieved innocence, and with much headshaking and shoulder-shrugging, the Indian endeavoured to indicate that he had no idea what the Englishman was talking about.

‘Extraordinary,’ murmured FitzRoy to King. ‘He thinks that this disguise - for such we must presume it - has fooled us thoroughly.’

‘Extraordinary,’ agreed a nearby woman.

‘Fooled us thoroughly,’ added the blue-painted man.

‘They’re like a crowd of little kids,’ scoffed King.

The newly blackened Indian went on the attack now, shouting angrily at King, pointing at the puppy and demanding its return. He was sweating profusely in the fire-heat, FitzRoy noticed, as were all the Indians, even though they were naked and the outside temperature had dropped below freezing.

‘I feel it would be best if you returned the dog,’ he whispered to King.

‘But the savage has got all my tobacco, sir.’

‘On this occasion, the better part of valour is discretion. Let us take our leave.’

So they bade farewell to the assembled throng, and made their way down to the boats by moonlight, expertly parroted quotations from
Henry VI Part 2
ringing in their ears.

 

As winter had given way imperceptibly to spring, the
Beagle
had finally battled its way up to the Pacific, where the three boats had made a rendezvous once more. This time King had ordered the
Adelaide
north, to explore the galaxy of tiny islands which constituted the coast of Araucania, while the
Beagle
had been sent south, down the storm-beaten west coast of Tierra del Fuego, a maze of islets, rocks, cliffs and fierce breakers. Ceaselessly they probed for channels, close-working against the wind and tide amid howling blizzards; it was, as FitzRoy wrote in his log, ‘like trying to do a jig-saw through a key-hole’. He had become as bearded, wiry and weatherbeaten as his crew, but he prided himself that their morale had stayed high, and that not one man had been lost to disease or sickness.

After the disaster of the Maldonado storm, the barometer and sympiesometer had proved reliable watchdogs, warning them to find sheltered anchorage ahead of the worst gales, and no further crew members had been lost to the elements. It was not the same, he knew, on board the other ships. Mr Alexander Millar of the
Adelaide
had died of inflammation of the bowels, and both vessels had as many as a quarter of their people in the sick lists. The
Beagle’
s only casualty had been Mr Murray, who had slipped on a wet deck and dislocated his shoulder, in a bay that had subsequently been named Dislocation Harbour; the master had since made a complete recovery.

Slowly the map of the west coast had taken shape. They had discovered Otway Bay, Stokes Bay, Lort Island, Kempe Island and Murray Passage, and had successfully climbed Mount Skyring, a peak discovered by the
Adelaide
in the Barbara Channel the previous winter. The rocks on the summit had been so magnetic as to render FitzRoy’s compass useless; he had reason once more to regret the absence of a stratigrapher on board. What if there was mineral wealth waiting to be discovered in the mountains of Tierra del Fuego? There had been shell beds, too, on Mount Skyring. Was this further proof of the Biblical flood? As he dined in his cabin on soup and duff, the rain lashing against the skylight, he wrestled alone with these great questions.

January - high summer, although it was hard to discern any difference from the southern winter - had found the
Beagle
warping in and out of Desolate Bay; a risky process, with the ever-present danger of losing an anchor, but nonetheless safer than trying to close-manoeuvre a square-rigger in such a confined space. She had anchored at last in a narrow road, and boats had been sent out to survey the barren granite hills of Cape Desolation. FitzRoy and Stokes, their work done, had made it safely back to the ship. Now Murray and his men were missing. The search parties had found no sign of a sail. Had Murray struck a rock and drowned? To lose so many men ... It simply did not bear thinking about. FitzRoy shivered, turned up his collar against the rain, shut his eyes momentarily against the stress, and steadied himself instinctively against the pitching of the deck. He headed for the companionway and the sanctuary of his cabin.

 

He was awakened just after six bells of the middle watch by his steward pounding on the door. ‘By your leave, you’d better come quickly, sir. There’s a sail.’

FitzRoy fumbled for his watch. Ten past three in the morning. He grabbed his uniform, struggled into it and made his way up on deck. On the port side of the ship, lookouts with lanterns were straining their eyes towards a tiny, indistinct shape in the water. It most certainly wasn’t the whaleboat. It wasn’t a native canoe either.

Boatswain Sorrell, who had charge of the middle watch, was directing operations with more agitation than ever; he seized upon the advent of FitzRoy’s authority with conspicuous relief.

‘I called, “What ship?” sir, but the wind was too loud for them to hear - leastways, they never replied.’

‘Send up a night signal, Mr Sorrell. A flare.’

‘Aye aye sir. Which signal, sir?’

‘Any
signal, Mr Sorrell. Something we can see them by,’ said FitzRoy, exasperated.

A moment later, the flare went up.

‘Bless my soul,’ exclaimed FitzRoy.

There, fifty yards off the port bow in a choppy sea, was some kind of ... basket, roughly assembled from branches, canvas and mud, half full of filthy water. Inside, drenched, emaciated and shaking with cold, were three white-clad figures. The man at the paddle FitzRoy recognized from his hair as Coxswain Bennet. The other men, bailing furiously with their south-westers, were two of the sailors - Morgan and Rix, by the look of it. They were clad only in their flimsy cotton undershirts. How the ramshackle vessel had ever made it on to water at all, let alone half a mile out into the bay, was a complete mystery.

‘Hoist out the cutter at once!’

‘Aye aye sir!’

A burst of frenzied activity followed, and within five minutes FitzRoy was lifting the sodden, exhausted men aboard personally. Blankets were furled round them, and hot soup forced between chattering teeth. Concerned as he was, it was clear that FitzRoy could not afford to waste a second.

‘What happened, Mr Bennet? Where is Mr Murray?’

‘We were attacked, sir, by the savages. They stole the whaleboat in the night, with its masts, sails and all our provisions and weapons. Their vicinity was not at all suspected.’

‘Were not lookouts posted, as I ordered?’

‘I repeat, sir, that their vicinity was not at all suspected. Cape Desolation is a most remote location. They showed a most dexterous cunning, sir.’

‘And this - this basket?’

‘Morgan is from Wales, sir. They sail such baskets on the rivers there.’

‘We call it a coracle, sir,’ chipped in Morgan.

‘Morgan constructed it from a canvas tent and some branches and mud. We volunteered to paddle it back to the
Beagle,
sir, but we were attacked by more savages - maybe the same ones, I don’t know. They were armed with spears, and took our clothes. We have been two days and nights on our passage, sir, with only one biscuit each.’

‘Good God, you poor wretches. But where are Mr Murray and the rest of the men?’

‘Still at Cape Desolation, sir.’

‘Then they must be rescued at once. Morgan, you have my congratulations and my heartiest thanks. And now we must get the three of you to the surgeon forthwith.’

Within a quarter-hour, the cutter had been fitted out with a fortnight’s provisions, two tents, six armed marines and five hand-picked sailors: Robinson, Borsworthwick, Elsmore, White and Gilly, who had become the stoutest of loyalists since his first-day flogging. They pushed off at once, just as a few early grey streaks pointed up the horizon, into a dreary maze of splintered islets and black, surf-battered headlands. The wind being against them, they did not even try running up a sail: instead, seven hours’ hard pull found them off the Cape, where the stranded survey party was easily spotted, huddled together on a cheerless beach. An almighty roar went up from the rescued men at the familiar sight of the cutter, and within a few minutes they, too, were being treated to soup and blankets.

The marines, meanwhile, fanned out and searched the island for the stolen whaleboat. They found deserted wigwams, a smouldering fire and half of the whaleboat’s mast, which appeared to have been chopped apart with the boat’s own axe. Perhaps inevitably, they found no other trace of the thieves or their prize.

‘I’ll order the surveying equipment stowed on board the cutter, shall I, sir?’ enquired Murray cautiously, still unsure whether or not any blame was to be apportioned.

‘That won’t be necessary. The second whaleboat will be here soon, to furnish your passage back to the
Beagle
.’

‘But what about the cutter, sir?’

‘The cutter and its full complement, Mr Murray, is to go in search of the whaleboat that you have mislaid.’

Sarcasm aside, FitzRoy had decided not to pursue Murray’s failure to post sentries. The missing whaleboat, however, was not a matter he could easily overlook.

‘But it could be anywhere, sir. You may never find it in such a labyrinth. It may well have been scuttled until we’ve gone, or chopped up for firewood.’

‘It is our duty to try. That boat is the property of His Majesty, which has been entrusted to our safe-keeping. Without it our surveying capacity is cut by one-third. Furthermore, it is our duty as emissaries of a civilized nation to teach these people the difference between right and wrong. We cannot simply sail away and let them keep it.’

‘But there must be upwards of a hundred islands hereabouts, sir. We haven’t even named most of them.’

‘Then we shall remedy that omission on our passage. Have you christened this island yet?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then we shall call it “Basket Island”, in honour of Morgan’s ingenuity.’

‘Right sir. If you please sir - may I have your permission to accompany the search party?’

Murray was clearly exhausted, but if he wanted to atone for losing the whaleboat, fair enough.

‘Permission granted, Mr Murray.’

 

Late afternoon found FitzRoy’s party heading north-east across Desolate Bay, in the direction taken by Bennet’s attackers. They made good progress, the sail filled out by a blustery breeze chasing in from the sea behind them. Ahead in the distance, the bay narrowed into a sound, a line of islands marking its north-western, boundary. Behind these to the north rose ranks of snow-capped peaks, smothered for the most part by cloud; hidden somewhere among them was the mighty southern face of Mount Sarmiento. The cutter headed for the northern shore. The thieves were unlikely to hide on one of the outlying islands, FitzRoy reasoned, because their retreat might be cut off. More likely, they would have taken refuge in some cove or inlet. Murray and some of the others might have been sceptical of his plan, but with the cold spray biting his face, FitzRoy felt seized with optimism. The anxiety that the survey party might be dead had given way to a burst of exhilaration. This was, after all, why he had joined the Service as a child. Mapmaking was all very well, but he was twenty-four years old and - if one did not count the boarding of a rotting Brazilian gunship - he had never seen action. This might be his chance. His fingers closed instinctively around the pistol handle at his belt.