They headed back by the southern arm, to the indignant fury of various kelp geese, steamer ducks and magellanic oyster-catchers. FitzRoy and Darwin even hauled one of the giant kelp strands out of the water on to a shingle strand, to see how far the plant’s tendrils delved beneath the surface. The kelp was nearly four hundred feet long, and teemed with life: thickly encrusted corallines, molluscs, fish, cuttlefish, sea-eggs, starfish and, hiding in the monstrous entangled roots, a battalion of crabs of every size and variety. An excellent supper of kelp and baked crab followed.
As they approached the divide in the channel once more, they saw flashes of colour in the distance: a daub of pink here, a dash of scarlet there. FitzRoy reached for the spyglass. It was a small flotilla of native canoes. Even distorted by the spyglass lens, what he saw turned his stomach to ice. One man wore a beaver hat. Another had an earthenware chamber pot on his head. A laughing child brandished a soup ladle and a piece of tartan rug. The flashes of colour were strips of cloth, tied about wrists and foreheads, cloth which FitzRoy immediately recognized as having belonged to Jemmy’s suits.
‘Dear God,’ he said, and passed across the spyglass.
‘Savages,’ growled Darwin. ‘Damned savages.’
‘Shall we apprehend them, sir?’ asked Bynoe.
‘There is no point. Let us make all speed to Woollya. We have no other recourse. Oars and sails. Row as if your lives depended on it!’
As they shot past the little flotilla, a Fuegian pulled a face at them, and mockingly waved an elephant’s foot umbrella stand above his head.
As the two whaleboats determinedly rounded the headland into Woollya Cove, every gun bristling, upwards of a hundred Fuegian natives scattered simultaneously, like a shoal of fish surprised by approaching sharks. Two removed their feet from a round pink object as they fled, which revealed itself to be the foetal, naked person of Mr Matthews. Thus released, the missionary leaped to his feet and ran screaming towards the boats, all pretence at passivity gone, yelling the Lord’s Prayer at the top of his voice. ‘Our Father! Our Father who art in heaven! Hallowed be thy name, O Jesus Christ, oh hallowed be thy name!’
Matthews splashed frantically into the shallows, oblivious to the icy cold, and leaped into the burly red-coated arms of Marine Burgess, bringing him down in a tangled, soaking heap. So hysterical was the missionary that he refused to release his protector; Bynoe and Hamond had to disconnect his desperate bear-hug limb by paralysed limb before they could haul him into their boat. The other marines moved to secure the now empty beach.
‘Matthews! Are you all right! What were they doing to you?’
‘Yes! Yes! I think so! Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed, hallowed, hallowed be thy name!’
‘Matthews!’ FitzRoy grabbed a freezing ear in each hand. ‘What were they doing to you?’
‘They were shaving me.’
‘Shaving you?’
‘They put their feet on my head, and plucked the hairs from my upper lip one by one with mussel shells! The savages! By God, FitzRoy, it hurt like the devil!’
‘Where are your clothes, man?’
‘They took them! They took everything! They took them and tore them into strips and distributed them among the other savages!’
‘Where is Jemmy? Is Jemmy all right?’
‘I think so. They took everything of his, all his clothes too.’
‘And York and Fuegia?’
‘Oh, York is fine. York is just fine.’
There was no time to find out what this last remark meant. The sailors fanned out to search the property. They found Jemmy, crouched, naked and mud-stained, in the trampled remains of the vegetable garden, his hands covering his genitals in shame. His bare feet were sore and bleeding, unprotected by the hard calluses that soled the other Fuegians’ feet. Anger, misery and embarrassment curdled as one on his features.
‘Jemmy, are you all right?’
‘My people,’ he spat bitterly, ‘are fools. Damned fools.’
‘They took everything?’
‘Everything. They are all bad men, they no sabe nothing, nothing at all. They are all very great damned fools.’
‘Did your family not try to help you? Your friends? Your brothers?’
‘My brothers steal most things of all! What fashion do you call that? My brotbers!’
‘What about York? Did he not try to protect you?’
‘You ask York,’ said Jemmy savagely. ‘You ask York why he no help me.’
As if on cue, York Minster opened the door of his cottage and strolled nonchalantly out. Unlike the homes of Matthews and Jemmy, which had been gutted of their contents, their doors left hanging limply from their hinges, a glimpse over York’s shoulder revealed a picture of domestic contentment. A smiling Fuegia Basket - or was it Fuegia Minster now? — sat in a rocking chair by the hearth, swaying gently back and forth, her stockinged feet stretched out on a woollen rug, a rag doll cradled in her arms. Improving religious prints decorated the walls. A half-eaten pot of marmalade sat on an occasional table. Clearly, York and his belongings had survived the return of the natives utterly unscathed.
‘York?’ said FitzRoy, in disbelief. ‘They took none of your property?’
The big Fuegian said nothing, but merely glanced back inside the hut, as if to say ‘Is that not self-evident?’
‘Why did you not help Jemmy and Mr Matthews?’
York smiled one of his cruel, wolfish smiles. ‘They are many men. York is only one man.’ And he strolled back inside and took his place at the hearth alongside Fuegia.
‘Jemmy is rude,’ confided Fuegia to FitzRoy through the doorway. ‘Jemmy has no clothes!’ she giggled.
When Matthews had calmed down sufficiently, he was able to tell his story.
‘For the first few days after you left, there was quiet. Then, on the third day, the savages came back. They sat there, like a pack of hounds waiting to be unleashed. The next morning at sunrise they all began to howl - a sort of lamentation. Then that old scoundrel made a great parade of threatening me with a rock. I had to give them presents - clothing, crockery and food. Then they made the most hideous faces at me, and held me down and tore off my clothes and pulled out some of my hair. They did the same to Jemmy — Tommy Button burst out crying to see it, then they shouted at him and he joined in! They destroyed the garden - Jemmy tried to tell them what it was for, but they destroyed it anyway. Of course that filthy swine York did nothing to help. Didn’t lift a finger. They didn’t dare touch him, oh no. And everything they stole, they distributed equally between all the savages. Everyone got a share.’
‘How primitive,’ said Darwin.
‘Ah, but they did not find the really valuable things they wanted! They did not find the secret cellar with the tools, or the compartment in the roof. The stupid, filthy, godless savages.’
‘I presume,’ said FitzRoy gently, ‘that you would prefer to leave off this place, and take up your berth on the Beagle once more.’
‘Captain FitzRoy,’ gasped Matthews, ‘wild horses could not persuade me to remain for one second further in these detestable latitudes. I cannot return home - the disgrace would be too great. My brother is a missionary in New Zealand. I shall make my way there.’
This was a very different Matthews, naked in his candour, from the young man who had been so ready to clothe himself with truisms and platitudes.
Once the excitement of the rescue had subsided, it was a subdued FitzRoy who took stock of the situation. The prospects for the little settlement, he realized, were bleak indeed. The seeds of civilization had been sown, but it was too late in the season for them to come to maturity. Jemmy, at least, was determined to continue, determined to make something of the Woollya mission. Like Matthews, the attack by the locals seemed to have wrought a change in him, but change of a more positive kind: a kernel of resistance had been exposed, once the soft outer layers had been peeled away. FitzRoy did all that he could to help: Jemmy was clothed once more, the whereabouts o
f the mission tools were revealed to all three Fuegians - each of whom was sworn to secrecy - and it was impressed upon York, in no uncertain terms, that the three must stick together through all their tribulations. That, said FitzRoy, was the civilized, Christian way. He would visit them again, he promised, in a year’s time, when the surveying expedition left Tierra del Fuego for the last time, on its way home to England.
‘I do hope,’ said FitzRoy to Darwin, ‘that our motives in taking them to England will become understood and appreciated among their fellow natives over the coming year so that our next visit might find them more favourably disposed towards us.’ It was, he knew, a near-forlorn hope. ‘After all, our three Fuegians possess the sense to see the vast superiority of civilized over uncivilized habits.’
‘Indeed so,’ said Darwin with a tinge of regret. ‘Yet I am afraid that it is to the latter they must return.’ Their visit to our country has been of no use to them, he thought. No use whatsoever.
Once more there were farewell hugs and tears, and once more sleeting rain attended their departure. Only this time there was no oil-lamp glow to act as a parting beacon, for it had been smashed and stolen, the meaningless pieces shared out as far-flung booty. As the whaleboats glided out into the sound, the three little cottages were soon lost to view, swallowed by the primitive dark.
Chapter Seventeen
The Falkland Islands, 1 March 1833
As the Beagle weathered the northern opening of Falklands Sound, the lookout spied a sail nosing above the northern horizon. The pendant numbers were prepared for the call-and-response.
‘From the cut of her topsails, she’s British,’ said FitzRoy, squinting into his spyglass, ‘but in these waters it pays not to take chances.’
‘Why? What chances are there to take in these waters?’ enquired Darwin peevishly.
‘Because our friends in Buenos Ayres are forever beating the drum about the islands belonging to them.’
‘I would have thought that Buenos Ayres was welcome to them.’ Darwin indicated the miles of low, dismal moorland and sodden peat bog rolling away to starboard. He pulled his benjamin tighter about him, as the raw wind sent another squall of hail clattering off his back.
‘My eye, Philos!’ objected Sulivan. ‘Why, this is God’s own country! There are fish in the sea and cattle on the land, and not a factory or coach road in sight. Here is nature in the raw! And where else, Philos, could you enjoy all four seasons in one day, except perhaps up a Welsh mountain?’
Darwin smiled. ‘I think you make my point for me most admirably. But what business have we here anyway, grabbing an island hard by the back door of Buenos Ayres?’
‘On the contrary, Philos,’ said FitzRoy patiently, ‘we did not “grab” the islands. John Davis discovered them in 1592, when they were quite empty. The French thought they had discovered them in the last century, and founded Port Louis, then sold the place to Spain. The British in Port Egmont only discovered the Spanish in Port Louis five years later. Not long after that the Spanish were kicked out. But they, and their heirs, the Buenos Ayreans, have been bleating about it ever since.’
‘Well, I think it looks a squalid little place.’
Sulivan clapped Darwin on the back. ‘That’s as may be, Philos - Port Louis is also the only place to take in supplies within three hundred miles of jolly old Terra del, and we have no supply tender. So you had better learn to enjoy it!’
Hamond brought news of the other vessel. ‘It’s HMS Challenger, sir. One of our b-brigs. B-bound for Valparayso, Chili via P-Port Louis. C-Captain Seymour, sir.’
‘Not Michael Seymour? He was a fellow pupil of mine at the Royal Naval College. So old Seymour has himself a brig! What splendid news.’
Within the quarter-hour, the Challenger had run the Union flag up her mizzen-mast, inviting the captain of the Beagle to come aboard. Side-ropes and a boat-rope were rigged to receive the visiting cutter, and FitzRoy soon found himself on the Challenger’s poop deck receiving an enthusiastic welcome from his old schoolfriend.
‘FitzRoy, my dear chap. Thank God you are alive.’
‘Should I not be?’
‘We knew you to be surveying in the vicinity of Cape Horn - those terrible storms! At least five vessels are missing, presumed lost. You were able to find a safe anchorage?’
‘A safe anchorage? Far from it! We were under way throughout, for twenty-four days. We were lucky not to be taken by Old Davy.’
‘By the deuce, you must have the best of sea-boats to have come through such a blow in one piece.’
‘She’s a good old girl. But, my dear Seymour, you have your own fine brig - my congratulations to you, old friend. These are splendid news indeed. What business have you in Port Louis?’
“Tis but a flying visit. The Falklands are to have a permanent garrison, and we are merely their transport. Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance Lieutenant Smith.’
Smith stood drinking at the scuttle-butt with four of his marines. He was young and rosy-cheeked, and his curly blond locks gave him the air of a mother’s boy, but his bearing and handshake told FitzRoy otherwise.
‘I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant. How many are to be in your garrison?’
‘Just myself and the four men you see here, sir.’
‘You are to garrison the Falkland Islands with five men?’ FitzRoy could not hide his disbelief.
The young man coloured. ‘I gather, sir, that our presence is to be symbolic. As I understand it, the belief in Whitehall is that Buenos Ayres would not dare attempt to occupy a territory defended by British troops for that would constitute an act of war.’
Or they might just consider such a small garrison to be evidence of a lack of will on London’s part, thought FitzRoy.
‘Well, Captain Seymour, the Beagle is bound for Port Louis so I can save you a journey. I should be delighted to ferry Lieutenant Smith and his men the rest of the way.’
‘FitzRoy, old man, that would be capital! You oblige me by your kindness, you really do. By the bye, do you have a Mr Darwin in the Beagle?’
‘He is our natural philosopher.’
‘Excellent. I have a letter for him, which I was to have left in the store at Port Louis. It is from a Professor Henslow at Cambridge University, marked “Most Urgent”, so the port-admiral in Rio decided to forward it post-haste. Now you may pass it to him directly.’
Darwin stood clutching the letter in a lather of excitement.
‘Well?’
‘The Megatherium heads, FitzRoy, and the other fossils, have been displayed before the cream of the academic world, at the Cambridge meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. They were announced by Buckland himself. Buckland himself! Listen to this: “The fossil Megatheriums were fabulously prized, revealing features never seen before. Darwin is the word on everybody’s lips. Your name is likely to be immortalized.” Did you hear that, FitzRoy? My name is likely to be immortalized!’
‘Philos, this is the most wonderful intelligence! Let us hope that some of your escalating fame shall accrue also to those officers who have furnished you with specimens. Mr Sulivan, Mr Bynoe — ’
‘But, of course, my dear FitzRoy. You have my every assurance on that point.’
‘I must say I am relieved that the packing-crates were consigned to England in one piece. I was not entirely convinced of Mr Lumb’s reliability on that count.’
‘Well, most of them were. Henslow says, “The majority of specimens arrived in good order, but what on earth was in packet 223? It looks like the remains of an electric explosion, a mere mass of soot!” Good Lord, I wonder what it can have been. I fear I do not have an adequate record, after our soaking off the Horn.’
‘Excuse me sir,’ piped up Edward Hellyer, from the corner, ‘but I have a record of the contents of every packing-crate consigned by the Beagle, sir. I maintained my paperwork in waterproof bags, sir.’
‘You did? Well done, young man! Capital news!’ Darw
in was so delighted he looked as if he might burst.
‘Well done indeed, Mr Hellyer,’ said FitzRoy with quiet pride.
‘The future has become a brilliant prospect, FitzRoy. I must collect as many specimens here in the Falklands as I possibly can.’
‘Indeed you must. A Falklands kelp goose is the thing, I am told. It is different from the Fuegian variety, and no specimen has yet been captured. Let us see who can bag one first, shall we? Although I fear my skills with a rifle are as naught compared to yours.’
‘Nonsense, my dear FitzRoy. I am sure you are my absolute equal in that respect. But let us have ourselves a sporting contest: the Captain’s Cabin versus the Library. The first to boast a Falklands kelp goose is the winner!’
They shook hands on the wager.
They were still sixty miles short of the mouth of Berkeley Sound, the long inlet that sheltered Port Louis, when a reception committee appeared to shepherd them into land: swarms of tiny prion birds fussed about the rigging, black-and-white Commerson’s dolphins formed a guard of honour before them, and tiny penguins with extravagant orange eyebrows splashed perplexedly in their wake. There was even a new kind of dolphin that nobody had seen before, which Darwin insisted be logged for posterity as Delphinus FitzRoyi.
As they rounded Volunteer Point, they overtook another sail: the sealing-schooner Unicorn, labouring eastward, which vessel signalled the Beagle to heave to. She was low in the water and clearly overloaded, but not with seals; rather, she was full to the gunwales with people. The Beagle pulled alongside, and this time it was FitzRoy’s turn to receive a visitor. The Unicorn’s master, a short bustling sealer with side-whiskers and the broken remnants of a Scottish accent, panted up the man-ropes and made himself known.