This Thing Of Darkness (7 page)

And then he saw Sulivan, like an extra sail tangled in the mizzen-tops, screaming soundlessly and pointing to the stern. He followed the line of Sulivan’s jabbing finger but there was nothing there, only blackness. Another big sea furled over the prow. The
Beagle
shuddered and backed off, but she had ridden the wave sufficiently to hold her course. By now Sulivan was positively frantic. FitzRoy’s eyes tried to follow his wild signalling once again, and there, framed by an encompassing sheet of lightning, he saw what Sulivan had been trying to warn them of: the sheer rock face of Lobos Island, not eighty yards off the stern. Gesticulating for all hands to follow him, he lunged across the deck and fell upon the larger of the two remaining bower anchors, still attached to the ship by thick iron cables. Other crewmen fought with the second anchor, and with a clanking rush that in ordinary circumstances would have been deafening, but could barely be heard above the crash of the storm, several hundred pounds of cast iron disappeared over the side and into the water. The anchors bit immediately. Just how shallow the water was became apparent as another wave slammed into the prow, and the
Beagle
juddered back again, her hull actually scraping across the smaller of the two anchors as she did so. The chains began to pay out, and they could all now see the face of the island rearing behind them, maddened white surf thrashing about the rocks at its base. It was a matter of yards now. The Beagle shipped another towering sea, which forced them to give yet more ground, towards the solid wall at their backs. To have come this far, to have fought against such odds, only to be dashed to pieces against the shore!

Then, a shuddering sensation, which ran the length of the deck, announced that the cable had run to the end of its scope. Now it was up to the anchors to hold them. FitzRoy thanked God he had ordered the boatswain to inspect every link of her chains, and hoped to Christ that Sorrell had done his job properly. Another wave thumped into the prow, and all of them felt the rudder scrape against shingle; but the
Beagle
gave no more ground. As long as the cables did not part, they might yet be safe from destruction. FitzRoy stared back up into the mizzen-tops once more, hoping to acknowledge Sulivan’s presence, hoping to let him know that he had saved them all, but there was no sign of life from the young midshipman.

Exhausted, every drop of energy spent, Sulivan clung, barely conscious, to the swaying rigging, a shapeless white bundle of rags flapping against the night sky.

 

‘By the looks of it you were knocked about like peas in a rattle.’

Admiral Otway chuckled to himself, while FitzRoy wished he had moored somewhere else. Once more, he found himself standing to attention in the admiral’s cabin, this time with the Beagle clearly visible through the sternlights. She did, he had to admit, look a sorry sight: not only was she battered almost beyond recognition, but what remained of her rigging was festooned with drying clothes and hammocks. Ragged wet sails hung limp from her booms.

‘The locals say it was the worst storm for twenty years. You must have enjoyed a pretty half-hour.’

Half an hour?
FitzRoy’s mind reeled. It had felt like eternity.

‘If you ask me, it’s your own deuced fault, Mr FitzRoy, for cutting matters so fine.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘So, what damage to report?’

‘Both topmasts were carried away, with the jib-boom and all the small spars. I didn’t even hear them break. We lost the jib and all the topsails, even though they were in the gaskets. Two boats were blown to atoms — just shivered to pieces - and ... and two men were drowned. Another two were crushed by a falling yard, and another badly cut by a snapped bowline.’

‘A couple of matlows are neither here nor there. You can have some of mine. But the damage to the ship is more serious. You’ll have to put into Monte Video for new boats and running repairs.’

Otway’s tone mellowed, as he sensed FitzRoy’s distress. ‘Would you care for a glass of madeira? It’s a devilish fine wine.’

FitzRoy demurred.

‘Don’t censure yourself unduly, FitzRoy. The
Adventure
was laid right over on her side and lost her jolly-boat, and she was safe in harbour. The
Adelaide
didn’t go undamaged either. Sailors die all the time.’

‘I don’t understand it though, sir. The barometer gave no indication there was going to be such a blow.’

Otway grunted. ‘Still taking the advice of the little gentleman and lady in the weather-box? That machine of yours is little more than a novelty, and the sooner you appreciate it the better.

That’s the only wisdom I’ve ever needed in thirty years.’

FitzRoy remained silent.

‘Now. One other matter. This Midshipman Sulivan of yours. What sort of fellow is he?’

‘He’s a trump, sir. I never saw his equal for pluck and daring. He can be eager and hasty, it’s true, and he is, well, not the neatest of draughtsmen. But I’d say there’s not a finer fellow in the service, sir.’

‘Excellent, excellent.’

‘He’s a Cornishman, from Tregew, near Falmouth. He has the most extraordinary powers of eyesight. He can see the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye. He’s also an exceptionally devout officer, sir.’

‘What sort of “devout”?’

‘Midshipman Sulivan is a sabbatarian, sir.’

A harrumph from Otway. ‘Can’t say I hold with evangelicals myself. The Church of England should be good enough for any civilized man. Still, he sounds just the fellow. A vacancy has arisen for an officer of the South American station to study for a lieutenant’s examination back in Portsmouth. He can join the
Ganges
for a week or two, then transfer to the
North Star
under Arabin. She’ll give him passage home. It’s a splendid opportunity for the boy.’

FitzRoy bit his lip. ‘Yes sir. Yes it is.’ As weary and exhausted as he felt, the spirit drained from FitzRoy more profoundly than it had at any point during the previous evening’s ordeal. They were taking away his only friend.

 

Sulivan found FitzRoy seated at the table of his tiny, sopping cabin, adrift on a sea of home-made charts and diagrams scribbled across salt-damp paper. The young man ducked his head to enter and rested his hand on the washstand; his body was still weak from the effects of dysentery.

FitzRoy gestured for him to sit. ‘You are supposed to be in the sick list, Mr Sulivan. I’m surprised the surgeon has allowed you up and about.’

‘He ... I didn’t really feel it necessary to tell him, sir. I’m really very much better.’

‘You don’t look it. But, as it happens, it was necessary for me to pay you a visit. The entire vessel owes you a vote of thanks for your bravery. Your foolhardy bravery, I should attest.’

Sulivan coloured. ‘Not a bit of it, sir. That’s why I came to see you ... I felt you should know that the crew are saying you saved their lives. The officers and the men. Nobody else could have navigated us through that maelstrom.’

‘I didn’t save anybody’s life. I cost two sailors theirs by my own incompetence.’

‘That’s not true!’ Sulivan blurted out.

‘At the first sign of those unusual cloud formations, I should have stood in to the shore, reefed the sails, struck the yards on deck and sat tight. I made a serious mistake.’

‘You had orders to follow!’

‘Orders set out a month previous, with no foreknowledge of the weather that was to befall us. I should have had the courage to act by my own initiative.’

‘Orders must be obeyed. You know that - sir. You did the only thing you could do.’

‘Did I? I misread all the meteorological signs. The state of the air foretold the coming weather, but I did not have the experience to diagnose it.’

‘Nobody can foretell the weather, sir. It’s impossible.’

‘Come, come, Midshipman Sulivan. Every shepherd knows the value of a red sky at night.’

‘Those are old wives’ tales, surely.’

‘I grant you they have little obvious basis in natural philosophy. But they are valid observations all the same. Look at this.’ FitzRoy indicated a pencil sketch of what looked like a small white cheese wedged beneath a large black one. ‘Remember the conditions before the storm hit us? Warm air blowing from the north-east, barometric pressure high, temperature high. Then the conditions when the tempest began - cold air from the south-west, the temperature right down, pressure collapsing. This white wedge is the warm tropical air from the north. The black wedge is the cold polar air from the south. The cold air was moving so fast it dragged against the surface of the land, so the forward edge of it actually flowed over the warm air and trapped it underneath. Hence all those giant clouds. And it trapped us underneath with it.’

Sulivan’s mind raced to keep up.

FitzRoy’s eyes were alight with enthusiasm. He flung out a question. ‘What causes storms?’

‘High winds.’

‘No. High winds are the
result
of storms, not the cause of them. That storm was caused by warm air colliding with cold air. Where are the stormiest locations on earth?’

‘The Roaring Forties. The South Atlantic. The North Atlantic ...’

FitzRoy let Sulivan arrive at his own conclusion.

‘... The latitudes where the cold air from the poles meets the warm air from the tropics?’

‘Exactly. The barometer didn’t get it wrong yesterday. I did. The barometer stayed high because we were at the front of the heated air flow just before it was overwhelmed by the colder air above.’ Excited now, FitzRoy warmed to his theme. ‘What if every storm is caused in the same way? What if every storm is an eddy, a whirl, but on an immense scale, either horizontal or vertical, between a current of warm air and another of cold air?’

‘I don’t know ... What if?’

‘Then it could theoretically be possible to predict the weather - by locating the air currents before they collide.’

‘But, FitzRoy — sir, there must be a myriad uncountable breezes ... The Lord does not make the winds blow to order.’

‘Every experienced captain knows where to find a fair wind or a favourable current. Do you think the winds blow at random? Those two poor souls who died yesterday - was that God’s punishment or the result of my blunder?’

‘I know it was God’s will.’

‘Mr Sulivan, if God created this world to a purpose, would He have left the winds and currents to chance? What if the weather is actually a gigantic machine created by God? What if the whole of creation is ordered and comprehensible? What if we could analyse how His machine works and foretell its every move? No one need ever die in a storm again.’

‘It is too fantastical an idea.’

‘What if the elements could be tamed by natural philosophy? What if the weather is really no more than a huge panopticon? It’s not a new idea. The ancients believed there was a discernible pattern to the weather. Aristotle called meteorology the “sublime science”.’

Sulivan looked amiably sceptical at the notion that pre-Christian thinkers might have had anything valid to say about the Lord’s work. ‘But even if you could predict these ... these air currents, how could you communicate with the vessels in their path?’

‘What is the prevailing direction of storms?’

‘From the west.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Neither do I. Perhaps it is something to do with the rotation of the globe. But if the winds and currents in one place could be logged and analysed, and the results sent hundreds of miles to the east ... Think about it. The Admiralty can get a message from Whitehall to Portsmouth in thirty minutes by semaphore telegraph. Surely it might be possible to get a message to every fishing fleet in Britain in advance of any impending storm. Think of the lives that could be saved!’

‘From the middle of the Atlantic? How?’

The runaway carriage of FitzRoy’s enthusiasm came to a juddering halt. He laughed, and released his grip on the pencil that he had been waving about like a magic wand. ‘I don’t know.’

Sulivan grinned too, and despite his objections FitzRoy could see the excitement in the boy’s eyes, dark and shining in his pale, drawn face. Not the excitement of discovery, but the excitement of friendship.

And then he remembered what he had to say to him. ‘Mr Sulivan, I’ve been across to the
Ganges
to see Admiral Otway.’

The youngster grinned conspiratorially. It was as if their old friendship had been revived, refreshed, allowed to resurrect itself here in the private confines of FitzRoy’s cabin. ‘What did the old goose want?’

‘The “old goose” wants to send you to England, to make of you a lieutenant.’

Silence. Sulivan froze in his seat as if a dagger had been plunged into his back. Eventually, he spoke. ‘How did you respond?’

‘I coincided with him. It is an opportunity you cannot afford to turn down.’

Sulivan’s eyes filled with tears. ‘No, you cannot. Hang me if I shall go — ’

FitzRoy interrupted softly: ‘Sulivan, I don’t set up to disappoint you - I am as wounded as you are. But this is the best step for you, as we are both well aware. I would not have acceded to his request without it were so.’

‘I will not go.’

‘Orders must be obeyed. You know that.’

Sulivan’s face was sheened with wet. He dragged back his chair, raised himself to his feet and fled, the door slamming shut behind him.

With a heavy heart, FitzRoy returned to his meteorological calculations. The clouds that had advanced so menacingly on the Beagle had been hard-edged, like Indian-ink rubbed on an oily plate ... Hard-edged clouds always seemed to presage wind ... It was no use. He could not concentrate. He thought of putting down his pencil, and going in search of Sulivan. He need not have bothered, however, because a moment later a gentle knock announced that Sulivan had returned. ‘Commander FitzRoy, sir. I wondered ...’ Sulivan hesitated. ‘When I first went to sea, sir, my mother made me promise to read from the psalms daily, and to pray the collect. I have never omitted that duty. She also gave me this. I have read from it every day.’ He pushed a battered red copy of the scriptures across the captain’s table. ‘I’d like you to have it.’