This Thing Of Darkness (64 page)

They recrossed the Andes by a different route, taking the Uspallata Pass, a long, barren valley populated by innumerable wretched dwarf cacti. After a hard day’s ascent through crumbled rocks, at a height of seven thousand feet, they came upon another marvel: an entire grove of petrified fir trees, jutting out from the mountainside at an acute angle. There were perhaps fifty marbled columns in this ghostly forest, as snow-white as Lot’s wife, their trunks a stout five feet in circumference, their leaves and branches long since lost to history. They were perfectly crystallized: the tiniest details of the bark were visible, and the rings within the wood were as easy to count as those of a living tree. They projected from a sandstone escarpment, which meant that they must once have lain at the bottom of the sea. This eerie grove high in the freezing mountains, Darwin realized, had once waved to the breezes of the Atlantic shore. The trees must have become submerged and petrified
before
they were uplifted into the mountains. The land had sunk before it had risen. The surface of the earth must be in a state of continuous agitation, no more than a thin crust over a viscous layer, that heaved and buckled throughout countless millions of years. Once more his whole being thrilled to the enormity of his discoveries; once more he had to bite his lip in frustration that there was no one present to discuss them with, no one to sit back and whistle at the size of the fire he would light beneath orthodox opinion.

The pass itself was a chaos of huge mountains, criss-crossed haphazardly by profound ravines, a place so cold that the water froze solid in their bottles. The
guasos
called it Las Animas - the souls - in memory of all those who had slipped and plunged to their deaths. The mule train, piled high with bulging sacks of geological specimens, snaked the whole length of the treacherous pass and across the Bridge of the Incas, a flimsy arch dripping with icicles; a seemingly bottomless abyss yawned invitingly below. Darwin’s bed sashayed at the back, its swinging motion caricaturing the gait of the animal that bore its weight; but the mule, like its companions, stayed surefooted throughout.

Shortly before they reached the top of the first ridge, they came upon low walls - the ancient ruins of a long-forgotten Indian village.

‘Who lived here?’ asked Darwin.

‘Nobody lives here, Don Carlos,’ explained Gonzales. ‘Nobody can live here. It is too cold. There is
puna.
And there is no food, no water. Only snow, for the whole year.’

‘I know that nobody lives here
now,
but obviously, somebody once did.’

‘¡Quien sabe,
Don Carlos?’

‘How old are these ruins?’

‘¡Quien sabe,
Don Carlos?’

It was incredible. An entire mountain village, its walls thrown down by countless earthquakes no doubt, situated in a location where human life was completely unsustainable. There was only one possible conclusion: that the whole village had been jolted high above the snowline over thousands of years, by the monstrous, churning, grinding, heaving forces at work far below.

 

A golden dusk was settling on the lush green fields above Valparayso as Darwin marched down the valley, striding out in front of his mule train, bursting with energy, life and confidence for the future. The boughs hung heavy with glowing peaches, and the scent of drifting woodsmoke infused the air. A sweetly competing aroma of drying figs wafted down from the flat rooftops and out across the sunlit fields, where weary labourers could be seen walking home from their day’s toil in the orchards. A church bell tolled lazily in the warm summer air. After the freezing, barren heights of the Andes and the stifling, deathly stillness of Mendoza, there was something welcoming, something ... well, almost English about the scene. Perhaps a certain pensive English stillness was missing from the mood, but otherwise the similarities were unmistakable. As Darwin stood admiring the view, Covington, who was leading his master’s horse, caught up.

‘My water bottle, if you please, Covington.’

‘Aye aye sir.’

I do wish he would leave off the nautical responses,
thought Darwin irritably.
He’s not on the ship now.

Covington shuffled round to the horse’s flank to retrieve the water bottle, placing his left hand clumsily on the animal’s withers as he did so. Suddenly, with a strangled cry, he leaped back as if stung by a wasp.

‘What is it?’ snapped Darwin.

‘There!’ was Covington’s garbled shout.

An indistinct black shape flapped unpleasantly between the animal’s shoulder-blades.

‘What on earth — ?’

Mariano came up and shooed the creature away. It vanished into the dusk in a rustle of leathery wings, leaving two small bloody wounds where it had sat.

‘Vampire bat, Don Carlos,’ said the
guaso
matter-of-factly.

Darwin shuddered. No, this was not England. This was a very, very long way from England, a very long way indeed. And it was time, frankly, to be going home.

They attained the sanctuary of Corfield’s mansion on the afternoon of the following day, to be greeted by the master of the house with his customary unflappable, immaculate style. White wine was brought, a great fuss was made of the explorer, and Darwin sat back in the garden to regale his host with tales of geological castles in the air: the beaches in the mountains, the river bed that flowed upward, the two sorts of mouse, the petrified forest, the deserted village in the clouds.

‘Do you not see, Corfield?’ he pressed home the point excitedly. ‘There can be no reason for supposing that any great catastrophe has
ever
been visited upon the earth, in any former epoch! The Biblical flood is a myth!’

‘I don’t gainsay it, old man,’ murmured Corfield soothingly.

As he spoke he blurred horizontally in the oddest fashion, before dividing into two Corfields, one on either side of Darwin’s field of vision. All of a sudden, a huge wave of nausea welled up from below, far worse than anything Darwin had ever experienced on the
Beagle.

‘Corfield, old fellow?’

‘Yes?’

‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

 

A dark, fuzzy shape obscured the daylight that streamed in through the window. Somebody’s silhouette. His sister Susan, perhaps, or Catty come to read to him from one of her Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge publications. Except that this did not look like his bedroom at the Mount. Where the deuce was he? A noise burbled from the mouth of the silhouette - words, soothing words, like running water gurgling across pebbles. He tried to make sense of them. As his eyes adjusted to the light, the silhouette took on a familiar aspect. The features blurred into view. A nose, eyes, a mouth. He remembered that face from somewhere. The face was telling him that everything was going to be all right. The face was something to do with a sea voyage he had once been on. The
Beagle
. That was it. It was all coming back now. He was the ship’s natural philosopher on HMS
Beagle
. He could hear waves - waves on the shore.

‘Philos? Are you awake?’

Bynoe tried again, still softly, but with a little more urgency this time. Darwin was stirring. ‘Philos? It’s me, Bynoe.’

‘Bynoe?’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘I ... Where am I? How came I here?’

‘You are at the house of Mr Alexander Caldcleugh.’

‘Who?’

‘Caldcleugh - he is a British mine-owner. You were taken ill at Mr Corfield’s house, but he is from home. He had to visit St Jago on business last month. You were moved to Mr Caldcleugh’s house because he resides closer to the shore - I estimated that the sea air might hasten your recovery.’

‘Last month? How long have I been here?’

‘Six weeks.’

‘Six
weeks?
Then it is 1835! But what — ?’

‘You have had a high fever - possibly typhoid, I’m not sure. But you are much better now. Here, I have brought you some calomel. The Indian servants wanted to treat you using traditional herbs, all sorts of mumbo-jumbo, but I have been sure to keep you well supplied with modern medicine.’

‘My dear Bynoe, how long have you attended upon me?’

Bynoe’s vigil had stretched through every long day of the previous six weeks. ‘Not long ... just long enough to see you well again.’

‘I had some wine - I think the wine was bad ...’

‘Perhaps it was the wine.
¿Quien sabe?
But you are on the mend now, Philos, and that is all that matters.’

A sudden stab of fear sliced through Darwin’s brain, as the details of his Andean expedition came jolting back. ‘My specimens! Where are my specimens?’ He raised himself weakly on to one elbow.

‘Do not trouble yourself, Philos. Your specimens are in good hands, you may be satisfied of it. Sulivan and I labelled them all up in your behalf, and had them packed into cases, with the help of your servant Covington. He is a most assiduous and intelligent fellow - I think you underestimate him.’

‘But where are they?’

‘Lieutenant Wickham said they were too many for the hold of the
Beagle,
especially as we are revictualling. But luckily for you the
Samarang
was in port, and Captain Paget agreed to take them on board. He will make sure they are delivered to your Professor Henslow, you can rely upon it.’

‘Thank goodness for that.’

Darwin sank back into his pillow, relief washing over him. Then a further shaft of clarity pierced his delirium. ‘Bynoe?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why is Lieutenant Wickham in the
Beagle
? He is the commander of the
Adventure.’

A cloud passed across Bynoe’s sunny countenance.

‘Things have changed in the
Beagle,
Philos.’ He sighed, turning his face to the window.

‘What do you mean?’

‘All is not well in our little vessel, my friend. I had hoped not to bring such matters to your attention, in your enfeebled state. But you have always been too sharp for me, Philos.’

‘What has happened? What is the matter?’

‘You will find out when you are recuperated. But I adjure you not to bother yourself now. You will be up and about soon, I am sure of it, but you need be in no hurry. The
Beagle
will wait for you. To be honest, Philos, there is not a great deal of activity aboard the
Beagle
at present. Everything has ground to a halt.’

FitzRoy sat in his darkened cabin, staring at the charts of Tierra del Fuego that lapped meaninglessly across his table. He had put aside his pen several hours ago. It lay idle beside his mapping instruments, its nib dry and tired. The steward had brought dinner many hours previously, but FitzRoy had not acknowledged the knock at the door. Not a morsel of food had passed his lips all day. He was no longer hungry. It was as if all visible life in the cabin had slowed to a stop: the only movement remaining between the four walls was his pulse, beating quietly and desperately in his wrist.

His mind, though, was too filled with thoughts to be stilled, rushing, tumbling thoughts, each individual idea shining with clarity, but when mixed together, a dazzling incoherent whirl of insight that came too fast to be unravelled, marshalled or properly evaluated. Concentrating hard, he grabbed a passing gem from the torrent, and tried his damnedest to isolate it and appreciate its import.
The survey of Tierra del Fuego is not good enough,
the thought commanded him.
It needs to be done again. There are unnamed islets, imperfect depth-soundings, uncharted rocks. All of it must be done again, and done properly this time.

He knew deep down that this was the only course. Sitting motionless in his seat, he experienced the same rising and falling sensation in his stomach that one endures when passing rapidly over the brow of a hill - a combination, he realized, of exhilaration at the chance to put right his mistakes, and fear at the thought that it might yet prove an impossible task. The solution to this dichotomy came to him in another brilliant revelation. This time he would not plot a course through the labyrinth. That had been his mistake. He would let the path choose itself. The pure light of heaven would shine forth in the darkness and illuminate their way.

As if on cue the door opened, flooding the little cabin with a dazzling light. The dust-motes went scurrying into the corners in a panic. Had the Lord sent a messenger? No. It was Darwin. He seemed excited. He was brandishing a piece of paper. Had he not been ill, been gone a long time?

‘FitzRoy - my dear man - how are you? The most marvellous news! I have a letter from Henslow. The
Avestruz Petise -
the little ostrich, you remember? — it has arrived safely in Cambridge, and has been christened Rhea
darwinii!
And moreover - the specimen of that yellow tree fungus which the Fuegians eat has also been catalogued — it too is new to science and has been named
Cyttaria darwinii!
This is an auspicious day indeed!’

Darwin continued talking, but the words melded into an unbroken babble in FitzRoy’s head. Something about a letter. How Darwin was a sensation in England. Then he remembered, grasping a hard concrete fact from the racing flow of his subconscious, that he, too, had received letters. Letters that Darwin ought to read. He pushed them across the table.

Stopped in his tracks, Darwin read the first missive with horror-stricken fascination. It was from the Admiralty.

The second letter commenced with a severe reprimand for the time taken in completing the survey of Tierra del Fuego and the Falklands, before going on to address the hiring of the
Unicorn
and its rebirth as the
Adventure: