‘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.’
‘I cannot accept. Your mother meant for you to have it.’
‘I’d like you to have it, sir. It would mean a deal to me.’
‘My dear fellow, every lonely old captain on the seas turns to God or the bottle. It is considerate of you to drive me away from the latter prospect but ...’ FitzRoy tailed off.
Sulivan summoned up all his resolve, more than he had required to climb the mizzen-mast during the previous night’s storm, and addressed his captain. ‘“Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Joshua one, verse nine.’
And with that, tears stinging his eyes, he turned and left FitzRoy’s cabin for the last time.
Chapter Four
Dungeness Point, Patagonia, 1 April 1829
The three motionless figures stood sentinel on the shore, drawn up on horseback in line abreast. Some twenty feet up the beach, a lone horse stood to attention, riderless, without a saddle, but perfectly still.
‘They’re Horse Indians. Patagonians.’
FitzRoy took the spyglass from Lieutenant Kempe. It was difficult to make out many details of the distant trio and their solitary companion, but it was clear from their attitude that they were an advance guard, posted to greet the ships.
‘Whoever named this place Dungeness was spot o
n,’ piped up Midshipman King. ‘I’ve been to the real Dungeness with my father. This is the living spit.’
It was indeed. A deep indigo sea smeared against a beach of rounded shingle, backed by a low, thorny scrub. The sky was a pale cornflower blue. It could easily have been a beautiful, breezy autumn day on the Kentish coast, except for two crucial differences. First, the beach was dotted with penguins: fat, fluffy ones moulting in the sunshine, downy feathers floating off them like dandelion seeds puffed in the wind; and sleek, more confident black-and-white birds, slithering down to the sea on their bellies and launching themselves into the surf. The shallows were thick with bobbing penguin heads. The three statuesque sentries and the riderless horse, who provided the second aberrant note, now came into focus.
‘Either their horses are very small, or the Indians are extremely big,’ observed FitzRoy, squinting through the lens. ‘The giants of Patagonia, perhaps?’ he murmured.
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ enquired Kempe.
‘I’ve been reading about the Patagonians in one of Captain Stokes’s books. A Jesuit missionary called Faulkner met one chief who was seven and a half feet high. Admiral Byron apparently met a man so tall he couldn’t reach the top of the fellow’s head. And Magellan reported giants here too. When he saw their footprints in the sand he exclaimed, “Que patagones!” What big feet. Hence the name of the place.’
‘I can’t say we ever encountered any that big, sir, but they certainly average more than six feet. You should converse with Mr Bynoe, sir. He’s interested in the savages.’ Kempe’s tone made it clear that he found Bynoe’s interest a trifle eccentric.
Midshipman Stokes attracted FitzRoy’s attention. ‘The Adventure is signalling, sir.’
All hands looked across to King’s vessel, a hundred yards away across a field of white horses, where a line of little flags was in the process of being hoisted. King was back in charge now, with the admiral gone to do His Majesty’s business at Monte Video, and would remain so for the rest of the expedition.
‘Captain King wants you to lead a shore party, sir.’
‘Very well. Mr Bennet, if you’d care to prepare the whaleboat and select six men. We’ll need firearms and ammunition. And ask Mr Bynoe if he would be good enough to join us.’
‘I’ll go below and get the medals ready, sir,’ offered Kempe.
‘Medals?’
‘Presents for the savages. They have a moulding of Britannia on one side, and His Majesty on the other. Savages love shiny things, sir.’
‘I am told you are something of an anthropologist.’
Bynoe’s earnest young face flushed slightly. They were bouncing towards the shore in the Beagle’s whaleboat, pulled along by six pairs of wiry arms. ‘I wouldn’t say that, sir. That is, I’m interested in all areas of natural philosophy but I have no great learning. Stratigraphy is what really interests me, sir, but I know so little.’
‘Well, you’ve had ample opportunity to study the coast of Patagonia as it hasn’t changed one whit these last thousand miles. How would you diagnose it?’
Bynoe stared across at the featureless plain that stretched hundreds of miles into the interior, which found its end here at the southern tip of Dungeness Point. There were no hills to break the monotony, no trees, not even a solitary thicket. There had been only salt flats, low, spiny bushes and tufts of wiry, parched grass since the last white settlement at the Rio Negro; and no sign of life either, other than a few grazing herds of guanaco and the occasional disturbed, flapping ibis. ‘It’s not very interesting, is it, sir? Well, not to the other officers. They don’t reckon it much of a hobby to have the steam up about a lot of rocks.’
‘Is it not part of the officers’ duties to take a keen interest in the surrounding landscape?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so, sir, but that rather became pushed to one side when we reached Tierra del Fuego. Conditions are so tough there. It’s just me interested now, sir - and Mr Bennet, of course, sometimes.’ Bynoe hastily added the last part, having noticed a cloud of panic pass over the coxswain’s normally sunny countenance.
‘And your stratigraphic diagnosis?’
‘I’d say there were three layers to the coastline, sir. Gravel on top, then some sort of white stone - maybe a pumice, I don’t know - then a layer of shells in the ground. I’ve had a look on a shore expedition. I couldn’t identify the white stone but I’ll tell you a curious thing about the shells. They’re mostly oyster shells, but there are no oysters hereabouts. So it looks as if the oysters have become extinct since the shell beds were laid down.’
‘That’s very good, Mr Bynoe, very good indeed. Has it occurred to you that the central white layer might also consist of shells, but shells that have been crushed to a powder and compressed into stone?’
‘Crushed by what, sir? There’s only a thin covering of gravel above.’
‘By the action of the water, perhaps. Why is the land hereabouts covered in salt flats? I would hazard a guess that this country was once submerged under a great many feet of seawater. A sudden inundation, perhaps, that deprived the oysters of the oxygen needed to sustain their life.’
‘By Jove, sir, I do believe you’ve got it!’
‘I wouldn’t go that far, Mr Bynoe. I am only hazarding a guess, but tell me what you know of our friends on the shore there.’
‘They’ll be from the settlement at Gregory Bay, sir. We stopped there in ’twenty-seven. They’re led by a woman called Maria, who speaks a little Spanish. The Horse Indians have been trading with the sealing-ships for hundreds of years, so they’re well used to Europeans. I doubt we’ll be needing those.’ He indicated the Sea Service pistols, the bag of shot, the wad cutters, rammers and the box of flints in the bottom of the boat.
‘A few hundred years ago they were hostile, and armed with bows and arrows. Sarmiento built two settlements, called San Felipe and Jesus. I believe there were three hundred settlers at Jesus, but the Indians left no survivors. Then in San Felipe there were about two hundred settlers, who starved to death for the most part. There were only fifteen left when Thomas Cavendish sailed by. They being Spaniards, he ... well, he put the rest to death. He renamed the bay Port Famine. You can still find a few ruined walls in the beech forest. It’s where Captain Stokes took his life, God rest his soul.’
‘We must thank God that we live in civilized times.’
absolutely, sir.’
FitzRoy sat back. Inquisitive penguin heads surrounded the boat now, craning to look over the side as it passed, then darting forward to the prow to get another look. On the beach, the three sentries were close enough to examine in more detail. There were two men and a woman, tall, muscular and broad-shouldered, each over six foot in height, with long, luxuriant black hair divided into two streams by metal fillets at the neck. What was visible of their skin was dark copper, but their faces were daubed with red pigment and divided in four by white crosses, like the flag of St George reversed. Their flesh was further ornamented by cuts and perforations. Their noses were aquiline, their foreheads broad and low beneath rough black fringes. The woman’s eyebrows were plucked bald. About their shoulders they wore rough guanaco-skin mantles, the fur turned inwards. They were armed with bolas and long, tapering lances pointed with iron. They carried an air of lean strength and wary pride. Their horses, by contrast, were small, woebegone, shaggy creatures, controlled by single reins attached to driftwood bits. Rough saddles and spurs cut from lumps of wood completed the rudimentary trappings. For FitzRoy, the comparison with Don Quixote was irresistible.
As the whaleboat scrunched into the shingle, scattering penguins, he stepped lightly ashore. One of the horsemen broke ranks, trotted forward and gravely handed him a stained piece of paper. He unfolded it with what he hoped was comparable gravity and read:‘To any shipmaster:
From Mr Low, master of the Unicorn sealer. I write hereunder to emphasize to him the friendly disposition of the Indians, and to impress him with the necessity of treating them well, an
d not deceiving them; for they have good memories, and would seriously resent it.
I beg to remain Sir
Wm. Low
Master, the Unicorn
6 February 1826
FitzRoy refolded the paper and returned it with a nod that indicated he had understood. The horseman spoke in a low, guttural language - rather as if his mouth was full of hot pudding, thought FitzRoy - and produced a spare guanaco skin from under his saddle. Leaning forward, he proffered it to the Englishman. FitzRoy could smell him at close quarters, a deep, pungent animal smell.
‘¿Agua ardiente?’ the man asked, in Spanish. FitzRoy shrugged his shoulders to indicate that he had none. ‘Bueno es boracho.’
‘¿abla español?’ FitzRoy asked.
‘Bueno es boracho,’ the man repeated. It’s good to get drunk. With that he turned and galloped away with his two companions. The lone, riderless horse further up the beach remained, as before, utterly motionless. Only then did FitzRoy and Bynoe notice that the animal was quite dead. And, furthermore, that it had been stuffed.
‘They’ve gone without their medals,’ murmured Bynoe.
Dungeness was drawing round to the Beagle’s quarter when the ship caught the first gust of the howling gale that blows perpetually through the Straits of Magellan. Funnelling through the narrows, where the rocky banks are so close that it seems as if a passing vessel cannot but scrape her spars against one side or the other, the winds exploded from their constricting bottleneck and swept at high speed across the shoals and sandbanks of Possession Bay. Windbound, with topmasts struck, the Beagle, the Adventure and the Adelaide approached the narrows in tight formation, jinking delicately between the underwater obstacles: not just sand and rock, but huge tangled gardens of giant kelp, whose strands can grow to twenty fathoms long in just fifty feet of water.
‘Apart from the westerlies, there’s an opposing tidal stream of eight knots,’ explained Kempe. ‘The tide here is above seven fathoms. Last time out it took us more than a week to get through the first narrows.’