This Thing Of Darkness (70 page)

Seaman MacCurdy began to raise his pistol, but FitzRoy gestured urgently for him to lower it again, for it was clear now that the horseman was not alone. The mists were scurrying away apprehensively, chasing one another hurriedly into the woods, to reveal that the wide clearing was no longer fringed with trees. Rather, a ring of horsemen surrounded the little party, upwards of three hundred in number. They had stumbled right into the Araucanian battle-lines.

’D-dear God,’ said Hamond.

‘Nobody is to fire a shot, or we shall be cut to pieces,’ whispered FitzRoy. ‘Place your weapons slowly and carefully on the ground.’

His men complied. Deliberately, FitzRoy stepped out in front of the group, towards the lead horseman, and laid his pistol before the horse’s forelegs. The Araucanian raised his
chuzo,
handling it as deftly as a lancet despite its immense length, and placed the point under FitzRoy’s heart. FitzRoy felt the iron tip gently pierce his uniform: a trickle of warm blood mingled with the icy rain running down the spearshaft, hot and cold pooling together against his undershirt.

‘Us’hae iblca,’
FitzRoy said, in Alikhoolip. Put down your spear.

An amused ripple ran through the ranks of Araucanian warriors. A lieutenant trotted over and consulted briefly with his leader.

‘Who are you, Spaniard, that you speak the language of the
Sapallios?’

‘I am not a Spaniard.’

‘You look like a Spaniard.’

Desperately, FitzRoy fought to remember some of the entries in the Patagonian glossary he had compiled at Gregory Bay six years previously: unfortunately, it lay gathering dust somewhere in the British Museum, waiting to be catalogued, along with the other specimens from the first voyage.

‘Catiam comps español. Catiam
English.
Auros chuzo.’

The horse-captain narrowed his eyes at this novelty. A Spanish officer who refused to fight and die like a man, but who insisted, in different languages, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he was not a Spaniard. His curiosity pricked, the warrior gestured for the other white men to remain where they were, and for FitzRoy to go ahead of him at spearpoint. The ranks of horsemen parted silently to let them through. FitzRoy walked uphill, his heart thumping in his chest; only the clanking of their spurs signalled that the Araucanian captain and his lieutenant were still behind.

Presently, they arrived at a rain-soaked encampment of smoke-shrouded tents. In the centre, rising above the others, was the dwelling of the
cacique,
or chief, guarded by a brace of fierce-looking warriors. The escort dismounted and, without further ado, prostrated themselves on the ground. FitzRoy was not quick enough following suit, and found himself hastened on his way by a heavy blow across the middle of his back. One of the guards placed a foot on his neck, pushing his face down into the mud. He could hear whispered consultations, all but drowned out by the spattering of the rain, which flicked off the mud into his eyes. Finally two feet, tightly clad in hand-stitched seal-fur riding-boots and surmounted by extravagant iron spurs cut in a sunburst design, made their elegant way out of the tent and stopped just before FitzRoy’s nose.

He waited.

Surely these people possessed too much dignity, too much honour, to kill him here, now, in cold blood?

A commanding voice addressed him, in rough Spanish: ‘I am the
cacique
of these people. These are my lands. Who are you, Spaniard, that you dare to enter my lands?’

‘I am not Spanish, but English. I am a ship’s captain. My name is Robert FitzRoy.’

‘I am Lorenzo Colipí.’

FitzRoy craned his neck, and looked up at the chief in amazement. He found himself staring into the scarred, pitted and painted face of a fifty-year-old white man.

 

‘You wish to know why I have white skin, like you.’

It was more of a statement than a question. His wrists bound, head hanging, FitzRoy knelt before Colipi in his tent. The Araucanian leader sat on a pile of skins, surrounded like a Turkish pasha by a flock of wives. The women were draped with beads and brass ornaments, their mantles secured by large, flat-headed ornamental pins. One was breast-feeding a boy who must have been all of ten years old. A guard stood with a sort of halberd pressed to the back of FitzRoy’s neck, the cold iron blade pushing his head downwards at a suitably respectful angle.

‘My mother was taken, when she was twelve, from an
estancia
on the other side of the mountains. My father’s people drove the farmers from our lands and burned their farms. She was the only survivor - fortunate to be spared, and fortunate to be taken from her people. She was given to my father as one of his wives. My father was Hueichao, who once had land in that place. Lorenzo was the name of her youngest brother, who was two when he died. She named me for him, and taught me the language of the enemy. You see, white man, among our people the leadership does not pass to the oldest son of the chief, for this has always made the Spanish weak. Our people choose the strongest man, the bravest man, to be their leader. They chose me. With my face, with my blood, I had no choice but to be the strongest and the bravest. It is my task now to lead my people to victory, to kill every Spaniard who sets foot in our country.’

‘I apprehend that the Spanish are gone now, Great Chief. There are only the Chileans, and on the other side of the mountains, the Buenos Ayreans.’

‘They are the same people. They have the same forefathers. Forefathers who agreed, three hundred years ago, that they would keep to the north of the Bío- Bío river. But again and again they have broken their forefathers’ word. What kind of people are these, who do not respect the word of their ancestors? Their farmers take our land. Their soldiers kill our people. In the old days, their priests burned our people alive. Now there is a new butcher on the other side of the mountains, this Rosas, who sends the black-faced men to murder our families. He has big guns, which can kill many warriors with one shot. But he cannot drag his guns into the mountains. When he and his men try to take these mountains, they shall dig their own graves - you may be satisfied of it.’

‘I am no friend to Rosas, Great Chief. One of his ships fired a cannon at my ship.’

‘Then why do you trespass in my nation, like one of his spies? My men would have killed you, otherwise that you spoke in the language of the southern people. What is your business? Tell me why I should not have you put to death right here.’

‘I make charts - maps of the ocean - so that other English ships will not be wrecked in the rough seas to the south. I have come to rescue the men in the camp on the hill.’

‘Ah, the Spaniards in the little fort. They have guns, but they are in want of food and they are becoming sick. Their days are few.’

‘They are not Spaniards. They are English, like me. They intended only to sail past your land. But the earthquake - when the ground shook — changed the currents, and their ship was wrecked upon your shore.’

‘Ha, the shaking of the ground.’ Colipi laughed bitterly, his greying topknot quivering with indignation. ‘When we see the Spanish dig deep foundations for their buildings, we see them constructing their own sepulchres. They go in and pray to their God, then the building falls on their heads! He cannot protect them. Only the volcano-god can command the bulls below ground that cause the ground to shake. Always knowing this, at every full moon we sacrifice a bull to him so that he will protect us from the great bulls in their tunnels.’

It is exactly like ancient Crete
, FitzRoy realized.
They share almost the same beliefs.

‘How many gods do the Araucanians have, Great Chief?’ he ventured.

‘We are not Araucanians,’ spat Lorenzo Colipi angrily. ‘That is the Spanish word. We are Mapuche. We have resisted the Spanish for three hundred years, and before them we resisted the great Inca. That is because the most powerful of all Gods, the God of Gods, El Chaltén, the God of Smoke, is our protector.’

‘Where does El Chaltén live, O Chief?’

‘Where does he live?
He
is a mountain, far to the south of here. A great mountain, which cannot be climbed. No white man has ever seen El Chaltén, and no white man ever shall. He is tall, and he reaches in pain to the sky itself, with two smaller pinnacles, one to each side.’

Like Jesus on the cross
, thought FitzRoy.

‘He has protected my people for thousands of years, since we came to these lands from the west.’

‘Your people came across the sea from the west?’ Excitement speared through FitzRoy. ‘I knew it. I have seen the
piragua
canoes. They have exactly the same canoes in the lands to the west.’

‘Once we lived in the land of the setting sun. Our forefathers had red hair and blue eyes. Then the gods sent a great flood to punish the world, a flood that covered the land. The great ancestor, Chem, built a boat, which came to rest on the mountain of Theghin. The volcano-god signalled to him with spark and fire to come to the mountaintop, for it protruded safely from the waters. Then he sent Chem far to the east, to live here, in these lands. But every time a
cacique
dies, his spirit follows the setting sun west, back to the mountains of his ancestors. One day my spirit will make that journey.’

FitzRoy’s mind reeled.
The flood. Shem, Noah’s son. The ark on the mountaintop. The story is the same.

‘Is this what your father told you, Great Chief, or your mother?’

‘It has been known to my people for thousands of years, for this is how the world was begun. You know it to be true, white man, for you have seen the boats of the west.’

It was incredible.
Proof, surely, that early man had spread over the earth after the deluge, that all men had shared a common ancestor not once, but twice. Proof of the universality of the deluge
. He had to get out of here alive, if only to tell this remarkable tale.

‘And now, white man, you have come with fifteen warriors to rescue your friends. Fifteen warriors to throw down the Mapuche, who could not be thrown down by the Spanish or by the Inca? You are very brave, or very foolish, or both.’

‘It was not my wish to throw down the Mapuche. Quite the reverse. I have given aid to the men of the south. I wished only to find my friends and leave your lands as soon as possible. I adjure you to show mercy.’

Colipí smiled. ‘Your bravery as a warrior has come in aid of your cause. Because I believe that you are no Spaniard, you and your friends shall have until sunset tomorrow to leave our lands. Anyone remaining after that will be killed. Tell your friends in the land of the English that anyone who comes here to take our land will also be killed.’

‘You are most merciful, Great Chief.’

The watching small boy detached himself from his mother’s breast, and gazed at the Englishman with undisguised contempt.

Breathing hard, FitzRoy was led to the edge of the encampment, where his bonds were cut and he was pushed down the slope. A winter’s dusk was settling upon the sombre, silent woods. Squelching downhill as fast as he could in the gloom, he located the meadow where they had been surrounded, but there was no sign of anyone from the
Beagle
, or of any tribesmen. It was almost dark now, and his options were few. He chose to gamble once more, and plunged into the impenetrable blackness of the fringing forest, heading upwards in a southerly direction. Even if he could not locate Seymour’s hilltop position, he might at least find some vantage-point from which to view the surrounding country when it became light again. Time was short, but he had to move with caution, for he could see nothing at all. Again and again he stumbled over tree-roots, slipped into streams or crashed into low branches, until he was transformed into a terrible ogre of the forest, his body caked from head to foot in mud, his uniform ripped and flapping behind him. At long last, after several hours of patient struggle, he saw a solitary pinpoint of light flicker briefly between the trees. He called out, at the top of his voice, ‘Challengers ahoy!’

A faint answering shout of ‘Hallo!’ came back from the pinnacle above, and a more welcome sound he had never heard. Blazing torches appeared at the walls of the British encampment, and within a few minutes, the muddy apparition that had emerged blinking like some stone-age tribesman from the forest was being hauled to safety over the makeshift barricades.

‘Our tried friend Captain FitzRoy!’ exulted a voice. It was Michael Seymour, a great beaming smile on his face, missing a stone in weight and with several weeks’ growth of beard clinging to his face. A huge cheer arose from the defenders, and Seymour embraced FitzRoy so tightly that when he finally withdrew the two were almost as muddy as each other.

‘Mr Hamond has told us all about your efforts in our behalf.’

‘Hamond is here?’

‘They are all here.’

FitzRoy breathed a sigh of relief. ‘The Araucanians have given us safe passage until nightfall tomorrow.’

‘Thank the Lord. God bless you, FitzRoy - some food, here, for the captain!’

A plum-dough was brought out, which Seymour had been saving for the event of their rescue, and the lion’s share was forced on an embarrassed FitzRoy. The massed ranks of Araucanians - wherever they were in the maze of trees - would no doubt have been bewildered, later that night, to hear an outbreak of spontaneous singing, comic songs and shanties overlapping, spilling over the little palisade and out into the night.

Daybreak found FitzRoy and Seymour still deep in conversation, laughing and joking about what they would say at each other’s courtmartials. The camp was abandoned soon after, with the mixture of relief and nostalgia that attends the end of any shared difficulty successfully overcome. Only the essentials were carried down to the cutter: it would take at least four trips to get the
Challenger’s
company off the beach. They found Bennet blue-nosed with cold, but otherwise hale and hearty, and immensely cheered to see his fellows again. Seymour, it was decided, would be the last man off; FitzRoy and Hamond would command the first run, and take charge of the wounded and the sick. The elements were still squally and tetchy, but in nothing so terrible a mood as they had been the previous day. They could see the
Blonde
clearly across a mile of broken grey water. FitzRoy had been concerned that Biddlecombe’s short tacks might have taken her ever further from the coast, but the stern figure of Bos’n Sorrell, arms folded behind the wheel, had obviously attended to that difficulty. It was a rough crossing: the cutter was tossed about, her head turned this way and that by waves slugging at her from the opposite direction, and all aboard had to endure repeated facefuls of spray. A quarter-mile out from the beach, Hamond knelt over the side and, with what looked curiously like gratitude, voided the contents of his stomach into the sea.