FitzRoy was quiet. ‘Mr Kempe, would you complete the distribution of the mail, please?’
‘Aye aye sir.’
He took the letter from Fanny into his cabin, and leaned back against the bookshelves, his heart pounding against his chest wall, and he broke the black seal, and read what she had written.
His father was dead.
In a rush, all the air was forced out of his lungs, as if he had been kicked in the gut. His head swam. A wave of nausea rose in his throat, and he thought he would be sick there and then. Everything he had become, everything he had achieved, he had done with the purpose of his father’s approval at the back of his mind. Why? He had barely seen his father since he had been sent away to school at six, and only twice since he had joined the Service at twelve. His father never wrote to him. His memories of his mother, who had died when he was five, were richer and more tangible than even his most recent recollections of his father. It was not as if he could ever have confided in his father, or opened his heart to him. And yet ... and yet I looked to his approbation as the true reward of any hard times I might pass. I have been influenced throughout everything by the thought that I might give him satisfaction. I always valued his slightest word.
He wanted to confide in somebody now, to sit one of the officers down and tell them all about his father. The way his father spoke, the way he smiled, the way he sat on his favourite horse, the way he had once held his little boy. But it was out of the question. Even if naval etiquette had not forbidden it, he knew that any potential listener would be paralysed by rank, any sympathy they had to offer lost in the abyss between the two pillars of their respective status. A captain simply did not invite his subordinates to explore his personal grief.
FitzRoy looked up as the door of his cabin creaked open slowly. He was about to upbraid his visitor for failing to knock, and the marine sentry for failing to see that such formalities were observed, when he saw the reason for it. The visitor was Fuegia Basket, who peered wide-eyed past the door jamb. She wore a bright yellow home-made dress, like a single flower against the dark wood of the little cabin.
‘Capp’en Fitz’oy,’ she said. She crossed the floor and climbed into FitzRoy’s lap. ‘Fuegia love Capp’en Fitz’oy,’ she said. And he put his arm round her, and he held her as tightly as he possibly could.
They made the Beagle fast to the quay with the anchor cable, which was unshackled and heaved around a quayside bollard, then lashed to the bitts. FitzRoy went ashore with Bennet and the four Fuegians, who were dressed as inconspicuously as possible, their hats pulled down over their eyes. He need not have worried. In their European clothes they passed easily for local Indians, and did not merit even a passing glance.
The reactions of the four Fuegians themselves were not so incurious, however; as the party made slow progress through the sweating crowds thronging the mole, and across the praça before the palace and the cathedral, lines of half-naked blacks carrying huge bundles atop their heads passed glistening in the other direction. Boat, Jemmy and Fuegia quailed visibly, the little girl clinging to York’s breeches for protection, no doubt mindful of the black man in the woods who controlled the weather. Even York himself, FitzRoy thought, appeared less assured than normal: an air of tension pervaded his usually rock-like calm. Then, the sight of an ox-cart before the cathedral pulled them up in their tracks. All the sculpted baroque wonders above their heads were of scant interest compared to this fascinating horned beast, which set the three Alikhoolip chattering eagerly among themselves. FitzRoy had to pull them away before a crowd could gather to see what was so riveting.
He decided they should take the Rua do Ouvidor, where ox-cart traffic had been banned, to avoid any further zoological confrontations. It was, as Bennet remarked, ‘precious warm’, and even without the usual farmyard-deep carpet of ox dung, the stench in the city centre almost made the officers gag after two years at sea. A babbling brown brook of human effluent ran down the cobbled gutter in the middle of the street, naked children paddling and splashing therein with happy abandon. Crooked, maimed blacks stared at the little group, leaning pitifully on their sticks, the offensively poor, unemployable detritus of the slave trade. Others peered through rusty wrought-iron balconies that seemed to imprison them behind pastel walls of mildewed, peeling stucco. FitzRoy felt faintly ashamed that the modern civilization to which he had brought the Fuegians appeared even more desperate than their own.
A padre with a long coat and a square hat bade them good day, and a handsome West African woman sailed by in muslin turban and long shawl, dripping with amulets and bracelets. At the mighty door of the Church of São Francisco de Paula they headed south, past the magnificent arched aqueduct that fetched the city’s water down from the mountains, climbing now towards the more respectable suburbs of Santa Tereza and Laranjeiras. Imported trees grew everywhere here, plum and banana and breadfruit trees by the roadside, and long stands of bamboo transplanted from the East Indies. The houses were bigger, with tumbling vines and verandahs, each one a barrack square for a platoon of potted poinsettias. There were glimpses of olive-skinned children playing in back gardens, under the care of black nurses. FitzRoy took the piece of paper with the address from his pocket to check it once more. They ascended two more narrow cobbled streets, the roads here too steep and twisting for carriages, the Fuegians sweating copiously now in the heat, until eventually a sign in Portuguese indicated that they had arrived at their destination: the premises of Dr Carson Figueira, physician.
FitzRoy pulled the bell, and a silent black serving-girl came to the gate. She showed them through a terracotta-coloured patio lined with potted palms, into a dark, cool, empty room containing only a wall cabinet and a scratched mahogany desk, where she left them to themselves. A few minutes later Dr Figueira himself, a man as colourless as his office walls, appeared in the doorway.
‘You must be Captain FitzRoy. I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Dr Figueira.’
The physician’s accent was novel to say the least: it was flat and buttery like that of a New Englander, but it had also been dipped in the dark honeypot of Brazilian Portuguese. It was hard to equate such a rich, dominating voice with its undistinguished-looking, world-weary owner. ‘My mother was American,’ added Dr Figueira, in response to FitzRoy’s unspoken question.
FitzRoy introduced himself, the coxswain and the four Fuegians, and wondered privately about the bareness of Figueira’s consulting room.
‘So these are the Indians your message spoke about?’
Figueira opened York’s mouth and began to inspect his teeth as if he were a horse. York’s eyes bored into the physician’s, but otherwise he reacted with diffidence to being manhandled.
‘My name is Boat Memory, sir. This is my friend Mr York Minster, whose teeth you are making inspection of.’
‘Nossa Senhora. You’ve been teaching them English, Captain.’
Dr Figueira ignored Boat Memory’s greeting, and it occurred to FitzRoy that he did not entirely take to the Brazilian physician.
‘It is my belief, Dr Figueira, that the Fuegian nation shows a considerable potential to be elevated above its savage state. That is why I am bringing them to Europe. It is why I have brought them here.’
‘You’ll need to make uncommon haste, then. The Buenos Ayreans are heading further south every day. When they reach Tierra del Fuego, the Indians will go the way of the blacks, and be fit only for slaves.’
‘Do you believe that blacks are fit only for slaves, sir? This very afternoon we have encountered most handsomely dressed black gentle-women, habited in turbans and shawls, who had nothing whatsoever of the slave about them.’
‘Those will be Mina Negroes from West Africa. Handsome they may be, but they’re quite unfit for domestic service. They’re too wild, too independent. But they are less than slaves, Commander. Lusheys, for the most part.’
Figueira had completed his cursory examination.
‘The inoculation for smallpox is an expe
nsive business, Commander. If you wish me to inoculate four savages I will, as long as your money is as good as the bank.’
‘I shall have no trouble meeting your settlement here and now,’ said FitzRoy coldly.
Figueira produced a metal tray, upon which lay a lancet, a cloth, a jar of vinegar and a glass phial containing a clear liquid. Dipping the cloth in the vinegar he cleaned a spot on Boat Memory’s upper left arm, and prepared to make a small incision with the lancet. Boat’s eyes widened. ‘It’s just a variolation,’ explained the surgeon. ‘A series of small cuts with a lancet dipped in the cowpox vaccine.’
‘It’s all right, Boat,’ said Bennet softly. ‘We’ve all had the same treatment.’
‘It’s medicine, Boat,’ FitzRoy added. ‘It will keep you safe from illness in England. You must have it done now, because it takes some weeks to work. If you like, I will take it first.’
‘No, Capp’en Fitz’oy. I believe you.’
And he shut his eyes and submitted to Dr Figueira’s ministrations.
Jemmy, who was quaking like a jelly, came next. He winced and gasped in fear as Figueira cut into both arms, then promptly smiled again the moment it was all over. Fuegia Basket, who was third, had seemed unconcernedly braver than the other two until the physician had her in his grasp, whereupon she began to whimper loudly. Both FitzRoy and Bennet started forward instinctively to comfort her, but Figueira was there first, placing his hands squarely on her shoulders. ‘Do not fret, little miss. I will not hurt you, I promise.’
And with that he cut into her arm. Fuegia squealed and burst into tears. Before anybody could move, York was across the room, and had slammed Figueira up against the wall by the throat. FitzRoy and Bennet tried to pull him off, but York’s arm was as rigid as gunmetal. Now it was Figueira’s turn to widen his eyes in fear. York’s fingers squeezed gently into the physician’s neck; and then, to everyone’s surprise, he spoke, in a low, harsh voice that came up from the depths of his throat: ‘Hurt her, I will kill you.’
FitzRoy and Bennet slackened their futile grasp in sheer astonishment. Figueira, whose windpipe was too constricted to speak, shook his head as best as he could to indicate that nothing could be further from his mind.
‘York ... you can speak English!’ gasped Bennet redundantly.
‘He! He! He!’ Jemmy, in the corner, was laughing. ‘Mr York, he learn English all time! Fool Capp’en Fitz’oy, fool everybody. He! He! He!’
The packet Ariadne sailed into Rio de Janeiro harbour the next morning with the news that George IV was dead. The King had passed away at Windsor six weeks previously, on 26 June. It took some time for the news to percolate through the South American fleet, as there was no actual signal to indicate the King’s death — it having been decided by Sir Home Popham some time previously that it would demoralize the men to include such a communication in the signal vocabulary. In fact, most of those on the Beagle were secretly delighted at the news: the new king, William IV, was a Navy man, who had served as Lord High Admiral in Rio. He had been known as a drinking man, a no-nonsense officer and a good sport. There was a general consensus among the crew that — as a former matlow - King Billy would see the Service all right.
An official period of mourning was declared throughout the fleet, as per regulations, and FitzRoy sat down to prepare the divine service that must be held in memory of His Majesty. His mind, though, was still reeling with its own grief, too consumed by its own misery to care about the death, six thousand miles away, of the man he had served so assiduously for two years. He had to force himself to concentrate. I must throw myself fully into my employment. Only through forced occupation will I get through the days. I must not allow myself to be unemployed and alone, or the demons will come again.
He remained stunned, too, by the revelation of the afternoon before. He had been obliged to part with a handsome sum to placate the aggrieved Dr Carson Figueira, but not before both Fuegia Basket and York Minster had consented to be inoculated; this after a nice speech in their own language by Boat Memory, who had — he later explained — urged them to put their trust in Capp‘en Fitz’oy. The capp‘en had given them his word, he said, that the white man’s medicine would protect them against ill health in the future, and the capp’en’s word was his bond. The momentarily loquacious York Minster had not uttered a single word since.
FitzRoy opened the battered copy of the scriptures that Sulivan had given him, and leafed through it. Whether he found the text of chapter fourteen of the Book of Job by accident, or whether he had read so much of the Old Testament by now that the chapter lay buried in his subconscious, he did not know. As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up; so man lieth down, and riseth not.
He felt suddenly weary in himself, and at that moment he saw life as a struggle to placate an uncompromising Old Testament God; a as a struggle to placate an uncompromising Old Testament God; a God who could wipe out most of the earth’s population in an instant with a mighty deluge, or take the life of one defenceless man, however good, however powerful, as was His wont.
The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man. Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.
It was not the most immaculately turned-out group of men that had ever bidden farewell to a monarch. The crew had been drawn up in two rectangles on either side of the upside-down whaleboat, which bisected the maindeck on its skids, its keel slicing the air like a half-submerged shark. They were as smartly dressed as they could manage, but the innumerable repairs and patchings-up that quilted their motley garments testified to the constant needlework required on a long voyage south. The file of red-jacketed marines to the left, their drummer boy at the far end, did lend the occasion an air of formality, although their uniforms would hardly have borne close inspection either. The officers at least presented a dignified prospect, a row of peaked caps behind their commander on the raised poop, their formal black frock-coats and white stockings cleaned and crisply pressed by their servants.
‘Caps off!’ commanded Lieutenant Kempe.
For a moment there was silence on board the Beagle, broken only by the creaking of the rigging as she rode, windlessly, at anchor. FitzRoy stepped forward to the azimuth compass, which had come to serve as his lectern whenever he needed to address the men. The creaking of the ship seemed more insistent now; almost rhythmic. He fought hard to keep thoughts of his own father from overwhelming his mind. ‘We are gathered to give thanks for the life of His Gracious Majesty King George the Fourth.’
The rhythmic creaking was coming faster now, not loudly but insistently, from somewhere close by. King and Stokes exchanged questioning glances. Kempe glared inquisitively at Sorrell, who shrugged his shoulders in mystification.
‘I shall read from the Book of Job, chapter fourteen. “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not.”’
Even FitzRoy was forced to take note now. The creaking, accompanied by a gentle knocking noise, insinuated itself relentlessly into his concentration. He paused, and murmured to Sorrell, ‘Mr Bos’n, is every member of the crew present?’
‘Yes sir, excepting those in the sick list, sir.’
The sound was coming from one of the tiny cabins under the poop deck companionways, the one to the starboard side, which was occupied by Midshipman Stokes. Now it was Stokes’s turn to shrug his shoulders with bemused innocence.
FitzRoy cleared his throat and began to read: ‘“And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgement with thee?”’ He broke off. There seemed to be a jaunty, almost enthusiastic quality to the creaking and knocking now.
He strode briskly down the companionway, turned
sharply at the bottom and flung open the door to Stokes’s cabin. Stokes’s hammock, the source of the creaking, was up on its hooks, stretched from one wall to the other. In it, his face a mask of furious concentration, his breeches about his ankles, lay York Minster. Bouncing astride York, her skirts gathered about her waist, her head bent against the ceiling, sat Fuegia Basket. Still bouncing, she turned delightedly and favoured FitzRoy with her most beaming smile. ‘Fuegia love Capp’en Fitz’oy,’ she said.
Chapter Eight
Plymouth Sound, 13 October 1830
‘They must be married at the earliest convenience.’
‘Married? How can she be married, sir? She is not yet thirteen.’
‘I mean, they must be betrothed. At the very least, we must have the banns published in Plymouth, or I shall obtain a marriage licence from Doctors’ Commons when we reach London.’
The issue of York and Fuegia continued to vex FitzRoy. As her legal guardian — for such he surely was, ever since the Admiralty’s acknowledgement of his letter - he was responsible for the child’s welfare. To allow her relationship with York Minster to continue unchallenged was out of the question. But to separate the Fuegians from each other would surely go against the purpose of his scheme, as well as being an interesting physical proposition, given York’s frankly superhuman strength. The only answer FitzRoy could find was to legitimize their union. How he wished for spiritual guidance on the matter, but as there was no chaplain aboard such a small ship, he himself was the sole source of spiritual authority on the Beagle. Instead he had turned for solace to the wholly inadequate figure of Wilson, the surgeon, whose reaction to FitzRoy’s concerns was predictably dismissive.