This Thing of Darkness

  ‘American sealers? But — ’

  ‘I have memorialized the Admiralty requesting twenty supernumerary sailors for the longer term, and for the cost of her purchase to be defrayed. You do realize, Mr Sulivan, that the Beagle is the only survey vessel in operation today with no support tender? On our last voyage we were three ships, surveying only Tierra del Fuego. Now we are but one vessel, given a much wider area. The only way for us to complete our allotted task is if the Adventure surveys the Falklands for us, and is then adapted to carry our forward provisions. We shall get on faster, and much more securely, with a consort.’

  ‘You know what I am saying to you!’ burst out Sulivan. ‘What if the Admiralty will not defray the cost? You have yet to hear about the Paz and the Liebre!’

  ‘What if they will not?’ asked FitzRoy lightly. What if they will not indeed? He thought of the letter he had just penned to Beaufort. ‘I beg you, sir, pray fight my battle,’ he had written.

  ‘What is most clearly expected of a gentleman,’ he told Sulivan, ‘is public service. Given voluntarily, and if necessary at his own expense. My conscience, Mr Sulivan, goads me to do all I can for the sake of what is right, without seeking for credit, or being cast down if everyone does not see things in the same light. I do not think there will be any more surveys of this area. Anything left undone by ourselves will remain neglected, to the detriment - very possibly the fatal detriment - of mariners to come. Further, the credit of the British as surveyors will be injured. I am not prepared for either of those eventualities to happen.’

  ‘I know, sir, but thirteen bundred pounds?’

  ‘Come, Mr Sulivan.’ FitzRoy placed a hand upon his lieutenant’s shoulder. ‘What if our forthcoming action is a disaster? What if, by some mischance, the Unicorn is lost or taken? I have no other recourse — without you would prefer me to risk Mr Low’s boat at no cost to myself?’

  ‘No sir, but — ’

  ‘I may not proceed very quickly at my work, being only a beagle. But, at the end, a beagle is an animal with other worthwhile characteristics, I believe. Now, I think we have more important business at hand, do we not?’

  ‘Yes sir, but . . .’

  Sulivan gave up. Overwhelmed with concern as he was, he knew that nothing would divert FitzRoy from his course, once his mind was set. He could only pray that his friend had not just brought about his own financial ruin. The Beagle’s contingent of officers had now been reduced to a mere skeleton - the two of them apart, there were only the bos’n, the purser, Mr Bynoe, Mr Hamond and little Mr Hellyer remaining. Somehow, they would just have to make do.

  Dense forests of entangled foliage writhed and coiled about each other, the swaying verdure teeming with life. Broad streams rolled and tumbled down side valleys before rushing to join the main torrent that parted the sodden moorland of the valley floor. But these teeming forests lay below the surface, on the kelp-choked coast of the islands, and the rivers and streams did not move, for they were rivers of barren, lifeless rock: great boulders and tiny pebbles of quartz, seemingly frozen in the act of flowing down the shallow valleys. How typical of this wretched place, thought Darwin, that everything should be so topsy-turvy. But from what peak had these numberless rocks been torn? There were no mountaintops here. Had they been brought from somewhere else by the deluge? How had Lyell’s ‘gradual change’ turned parts of these drab, flat islands into what resembled the aftermath of a huge explosion?

  The Unicorn slipped cautiously into Port Salvador, rain lashing her decks, the grey dawn slanting its uncertain light between the lowering clouds and rolling moors. It rained persistently in the Falklands, of course, but this was relentless. Let us hope the marines have managed to keep their powder dry, thought FitzRoy. Scouts had located Rivero’s band the previous evening, exactly where he wanted them, grilling beef on the shore in the eastern reaches of the inlet, at the base of the Arroyo Mato. Let us hope they have not had the wit to move position by night. Let us hope they are sufficiently unimaginative to head straight up the valley when they are disturbed. Let us hope that Smith and his men have located them too, and are in position. What had seemed such a simple plan three days previously now seemed riddled with imponderables.

  As FitzRoy intended, the Unicorn’s masts came into plain view long before the vessel itself, so that by the time they caught sight of Rivero’s camp, it had become a scene of frenetic activity. Men were unravelling themselves from saddlecloth blankets and fumbling for guns and knives; others were on their feet already, untethering the horses. There were hasty confabulations on the shore.

  Come on, come on, thought FitzRoy. Make a run for it.

  He became aware of a set of white knuckles, gripping the rail to his right. It was Hamond. ‘W-will we engage them, sir?’

  ‘No, Mr Hamond, not if everything goes according to the plan. That side of things is up to Lieutenant Smith.’

  ‘I h-hope everything goes according to the p-plan, sir.’

  FitzRoy took pity on his old shipmate. ‘If we find that we must engage them on shore, Mr Hamond, I should like you to stay aboard, and take charge of the Unicorn. Is that understood?’

  ‘Y-yes sir. Th-thank you sir.’

  But there was to be no shore engagement. The Buenos Ayreans were mounting their horses and trotting west up the valley, following the course of a muddy stream that tilted up between the boulders. It was all going according to plan. So far. FitzRoy raised his spyglass.

  ‘They are putting the horses along.’

  Come on, Smith. Where are you?

  Rivero and his men had ridden a hundred yards up the valley now, their riderless mounts roped obediently behind, but there was still no sign of the marines. Perhaps the forced march had proved an impossible task? Perhaps they were trapped in a bog somewhere, up to their knees in stinking, cloying mud?

  Suddenly a shot rang out, and the lead rider tumbled from his horse. A volley of firing followed, as Smith’s marines stepped out from their concealing boulders on either side of the valley. Four or five more horsemen toppled from their saddles. The riderless horses, panicking, careered off in all directions. One Buenos Ayrean was dragged away by his terrified mount, his foot caught by the stirrup, his arms desperately shielding his head from the rocks that threatened to batter him to pieces. Another horse and rider could be seen galloping away at full speed up the valley. Two or three men had their arms up in attitudes of surrender.

  ‘One of them at least has made his escape,’ said FitzRoy, ‘but I think we have the majority.’

  ‘Bravo!’ said Sulivan.

  ‘Yes! B-bravo!’ echoed Hamond.

  The survey party worked with a renewed will thereafter. With Captain Rivero held in irons in the Beagle‘s hold, awaiting trial in Rio de Janeiro, and all but one of his men killed or captured - Lieutenant Smith and his men had ridden off in pursuit of the escapee — the sailors’ spirits were high on victory. By day they sprayed their names, and those of their friends and family, about the islands: Port FitzRoy, Darwin Harbour, Mount Usborne, Mount Sulivan, Port King, the Wickham Heights, and - in honour of FitzRoy’s sister — the Fanny Isles. By night they sat around wreckwood fires telling stories and singing comic songs, and the devil take the hail-showers. They were, as Sulivan put it, ‘in high feather’. They had two months to fill while the newly fitted-out Adventure was born from the remains of the old Unicorn, and they used them to cover huge swathes of territory.

  A blustery morning found them setting up their lead- and transect-lines in a nearly closed bay to the south of Berkeley Sound - which, being naturally sheltered against the worst gales, seemed a better site for a harbour than Port Louis. The sudden bustle of unusual activity had not gone unnoticed, however. As the officers began to take their initial measurements of time, latitude and true bearing, an interested pair of eyes kept watch from the tussock grass above the beach. Yet although he could not be seen from the shore, the watcher was himself vulnerable to being observed from the higher ground behind; and so
it came about that Darwin, returning from collecting geological specimens, caught sight of the watcher without being spotted in return. As stealthily as he could, heart pumping with excitement, he withdrew his geological hammer from his bag, and crept forward. So intent was his victim upon the inexplicable activities of the surveyors, that he seemed oblivious of what was about to befall him. Darwin raised the hammer high above his head, and brought it down with all his might. His victim collapsed with a howl of agony.

  It was the last sound he would ever make, his skull smashed in two as if it had been a boiled egg. On the beach, every man in the surveying party stood rooted to the spot, chilled by the sudden cry of mortal pain.

  ‘Mr D-Darwin!’ said Hamond. ‘G-Good God, what was that sound?’

  Darwin stood there looking sheepish. ‘I’ve just killed the most enormous fox,’ he said.

  ‘It’s fascinating. Either its senses have been quite dulled by the absence of predators, or it was so tame that it did not care.’

  Darwin wriggled closer to the embers of the fire in his sleeping-sack. At the invitation of Mr Low, four officers were spending the night in the comparative warmth of the late Mr Brisbane’s front parlour. Mr Hamond lay curled on the table-top, Mr Sulivan across three aligned chairs, the captain in a sagging flock sofa a good foot shorter than he was, while Darwin had bagged the warmest spot: he lay in the fireplace, staring at the orange glimmer of the peat as it ebbed in the darkness.

  ‘I got the notion to use my hammer from Pernety,’ he went on. ‘I read that when he came here in 1764, the birds were so tame they would sit on his finger and allow themselves to be killed with a blow to the head. Since then they have been shot for food, and are more wary. I do believe that some of the birds here are migratory, and in Europe their nestlings are afraid from birth. There are rooks in Britain that will flee at the mere sight of a raised gun. What I should like to know is, has this acquired knowledge become hereditary? Has learning transmuted, if you will forgive the expression, into instinct?’

  ‘It is a fascinating argument,’ said FitzRoy. ‘There is no question that mutability takes place within species, in consequence of altered climate, or food, or habits. Look at the Falklands cattle. But by what mechanism could knowledge be passed on through heredity?’

  ‘I r-remember three hairy sheep being b-brought to England from S-sierra Leone as a c-curiosity, sir,’ chipped in Hamond. ‘Within a year they b-became woolly!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said FitzRoy. ‘They were changed by external factors. It would not surprise me, for instance, to discover that the Falklands fox and the Fuegian fox are one and the same. That the animal has migrated eastward on the Falklands current, perhaps carried on floating ice or driftwood, and has increased in size here. All those penguins are obviously highly nutritious.’

  ‘I’m afraid that point of view puts you in direct opposition to Lyell, my friend,’ said Darwin. ‘His latest volume rules out that very thing. He would ascribe every variation of that kind to its own “centre of creation”, and therefore to its own species.’

  ‘I am beginning to be less impressed by Mr Lyell with every passing day. He extols the virtues of gradual geological change, yet rules it out in animal variation.’

  ‘Is that the johnny who denied the Biblical flood?’ asked Sulivan.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He should take an excursion to the South Atlantic by surveying-boat. The evidence would be right before his jolly old eyes.’

  ‘Mr Lyell is a genius,’ said Darwin sniffily. ‘He believes that the differences between two species of the same animal in two different regions cannot be superinduced during a length of time on account of the immutability of species.’

  ‘It all depends on how one defines a species,’ suggested FitzRoy.

  ‘Every animal varies more or less, in outward form and appearance, from its fellows that habit different surroundings. But to fancy that every kind of mouse which differs externally from the mouse of another country is a distinct species is to me as difficult to believe as that every variety of the human race is a distinct species. A mouse is a mouse. A human is a human, be he an Englishman or a Fuegian. A fox is a fox, whether it be a Falklands fox or one of the type that Philos spends his days hunting to extinction in Shropshire. But a mouse cannot transmute into a cat. A fox cannot transmute into a penguin. A monkey cannot transmute into a human.’

  ‘Philos is making a damned good job of extinguishing the race of Falklands foxes too, if you ask me,’ said Sulivan. ‘Expect to see it classified with the dodo soon.’

  A chuckle ran round the room, and the hot breath of Darwin’s laughter momentarily flared the glowing peat in the grate. ‘I intend to make a special study of the tameness of the animal population before we leave,’ he said. ‘To ascertain by experimentation how fast each species learns from danger — then, perhaps, to take specimens on board, and see if their offspring really can receive their parents’ newly acquired knowledge at birth. That way, I hope to prove whether or not Mr Lyell - Eeeegh!’ He let out a piercing yell of disgust.

  ‘W-what is it?’ said Hamond, quaking.

  ‘A rat! A huge rat!’ shouted Darwin. ‘Two huge rats! Oh, my God, they are attempting to share my sleeping-sack! Aaaah!’ He wriggled frantically in the hearth.

  ‘Sounds like they have heard about your special study, Philos, and are putting themselves forward!’

  A roar of laughter rolled about the room at table-top level, punctuated by the anguished squeals of the philosopher, twisting and squirming below.

  The next morning after breakfast they retreated to the Beagle — the rats having become something of a handful during the night - still debating the issue of animal variation. It was with regret that FitzRoy told himself he must break off to catch up with the ship’s log, and requested his steward to locate Mr Hellyer. But a few moments later the steward returned with the news that Mr Hellyer was not to be found.

  FitzRoy strode out on deck. ‘Mr Bos’n, have you seen Mr Hellyer this morning?’

  Sorrell fidgeted uncomfortably. ‘Mr Hellyer, sir? I ain’t seen him since yesterday, sir. I thought he was with you, sir.’

  Further searches revealed that Hellyer was not on the ship.

  ‘I thought I gave express orders that no one was to go out of sight of the vessel by himself except in civilized parts,’ fumed FitzRoy. ‘It is a standing order that every man who goes ashore must be accompanied by at least two others.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ stumbled Sorrell. ‘I can’t say I saw him leave the ship, sir.’

  Eventually, it was discovered that one of the Frenchmen had spotted Mr Hellyer the previous afternoon, heading east along the shoreline, away from the Beagle. The whaleboats were launched, but it seemed to take an age to lower them into the water. FitzRoy and Bynoe and Sulivan ran along the beach instead, fanning out as they did so, calling Hellyer’s name, panic inflecting their voices, fear energizing their efforts.

  In a little creek, a mile from the ship, Bynoe found Hellyer’s clothes, together with his watch, in a neat pile. Beside them lay his gun, which had been discharged. Hellyer himself looked almost angelic, calm-featured, eyes closed, mouth open, floating palely just below the surface; his ankles still entwined by the kelp fronds that had held him in their sinuous embrace as the tide rose over his head. Not a foot from his outstretched hand, its neck broken by the bullet’s impact, floated the wave-tossed body of a Falklands kelp goose.

  FitzRoy came in response to Bynoe’s shouts; he said nothing, but drew his sword. Without removing his coat, he plunged into the water up to his chest, cutting back the kelp fronds. He raised Edward Hellyer’s white, lifeless body up high, and lifted it out of the creek and on to the shore. There, he fell to his knees, wrapped the boy’s pale form tightly in his arms, and he began to heave, uncontrollably, with great, shaking sobs. Tears coursed down his cheeks, running unchecked, until they mingled with the seawater that streamed from his uniform into the cold Atlantic.

  Cha
pter Eighteen

  Patagones, Patagonia, 6 August 1833

  The tiny settlement of Patagones, defended by nothing but a wooden palisade, huddled against the crumbling bank of the Rio Negro. Only the fortified stone church stood out and beyond the defences, atop the bank, as if daring the godless Indians to do their worst. Just a few years back, there had been no white settlement this far south, but the fort at Argentina had held, and now more and more settlers were pouring across the Rio Colorado, fired by greed and bravado, ready to risk all they possessed to join the great land grab. But Patagones felt alone and exposed. Every whisper, every waving grass-stalk in the plains to the north, west or south occasioned a twitch of fear from its inhabitants. The east, where the blue Atlantic formed an implacable bulwark, was the only direction upon which they could safely turn their backs. The Horse Indians never attacked across water. They did not care for water. So the arrival of the Paz on this August morning was an unremarked event. The little village lay hushed in its inconspicuous hollow as James Harris, Charles Darwin and his new servant Syms Covington rode the tide in through the estuary.

  In truth, Darwin was glad to be off the Beagle. Since Hellyer’s death, a vexation of the spirit had seemed to settle upon her company. FitzRoy’s agony had been almost unbearable to watch. Unable to deal with his own helplessness in the matter, he had surrendered to the foulest of tempers instead. The officers had a code for it: ‘How hot is the coffee this morning?’ they would ask each other. The crew had learned to be more unstinting in their efforts than before, more exact in their work, to avoid their master’s terrible displeasure. FitzRoy had wrestled with his faith, trying to come to terms with the act of God that had robbed an innocent, well-meaning boy of his life. The more he tried to convince himself that the tragedy had been part of some greater plan, the more uneasy Darwin had become. The moral certainty of Christianity was starting to exasperate him. He was a Christian, of course, but he was not certain of anything.