This Thing of Darkness

  Jemmy looked aggrieved. ‘Capp’en Fitz‘oy say I am English gen’leman.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ continued the clerk, ‘but the area of Woollya Cove from which the defendant hails is claimed by the government in Buenos Ayres, a claim our own government has fully recognized. Therefore technically, under international law, the defendant is a citizen of Argentina. Indeed, it is with the permission of the Argentinian government that we are able to go forward with these proceedings, sir.’

  ‘Very well. Let us proceed with the oath.’

  A Bible was fetched, and Jemmy stumbled through the responses.

  ‘James Button, you are hereby charged with the murder of Captain Robert Fell, the Reverend Mr Garland Phillips, Mr John Fell, Seaman John Johnstone, Seaman John Johnstone, Seaman Hugh McDowall, Seaman John Brown and Seaman August Petersen. How do you plead?’

  Jemmy looked puzzled.

  ‘Did you kill those men?’ interpreted Moore once again.

  ‘No, sar! Jemmy kill nobody, sar!’

  ‘Enter a not guilty plea,’ Moore instructed the clerk.

  Jemmy being further charged with incitement to murder, and with being an accessory to murder, not-guilty pleas were entered on all charges. Then the first witness was called, Captain William Smyley, a rumbustious American sealer in his mid-sixties.

  The prosecuting counsel, for want of a genuine counsel on the islands, was to be Mr J. R. Longden, the colonial secretary. Longden stood up nervously, sniffing from the after-effects of a cold.

  ‘You are Captain William Smyley?’

  ‘I am, sir, though everyone here knows me as Fat Jack of the Bonehouse.’

  ‘You are the captain of a sealing-ship?’

  ‘Skipper of the brigantine Nancy, out of Rhode Island, as you well know, Mr Longden, sir.’

  ‘Would you care to tell the court how you came to visit Woollya Cove?’

  ‘I stood in to Stanley for supplies, and I was hired by the reverend over there’ - he indicated Despard, who was perched like a vulture at the far side of the courtroom - ‘to go to Woollya to search for the Allen Gardiner. He said it was overdue. The reverend wanted me to skipper his boat, but I preferred to take my own with my own crew. They’re true sailors and men, sir. Anyhow, it was a rough crossing. On our first day out, a living gale struck the ship about three points off the weather quarter, at the very moment that the helmsman was in the act of putting her away to run before it. In an instant she was knocked down, with her yards in the water. Well, she gradually came to the wind and righted — ’

  ‘If you would confine your remarks to the events at Woollya Cove, Captain Smyley,’ grumbled Moore. Court cases in London, he knew, could be interminable. Not so in his colony.

  ‘Sure ... so, we made all speed to Woollya Cove. We found the Allen Gardiner - she was deserted. She was just a shell. All her iron-work was gone, her sails had been stripped and her instruments stolen. There were scorchmarks on deck where the savages had lit fires. She’d dragged her anchor and drifted, but luckily the chain had gotten trapped under a submerged boulder, shortening her leeway, so she’d avoided the rocks.’

  ‘You say she was deserted, that her crew was missing,’ sniffed Longden. ‘Were any of the natives present?’

  ‘Soon after we arrived, a whole stack of canoes turned up. There was a white man in one of them - Mr Coles over there. He was with the accused. So we threw down ropes, and the two of ’em came aboard. The savage said he was hungry and thirsty, so I sent him to the galley for some scoff. Then Coles told me his story - all about the murders - and I figured if things got serious, we wouldn’t have the ghost of a show. It was time to get the hell out of there. Also, I reckoned by the sound of it we had the ringleader on board, so I cut the painter of his canoe. The ship was put away immediately, we ran down Ponsonby Sound and were into Nassau Bay before the savage even noticed. And that’s how he got here.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain Smyley No further questions, sir.’

  The defence was to be conducted by Lieutenant Lamb, the local marine commander, a tall, well-bred youth who had never attended a court case before. He shuffled a stack of papers in what he hoped was a convincing manner, and rose to his feet.

  ‘Captain Smyley, you are saying you abducted the defendant?’

  ‘I’d call it a citizen’s arrest, Lieutenant.’

  ‘And how would you describe the defendant’s demeanour upon boarding the Nancy?’

  ‘The defendant’s what?’

  ‘His conduct, his bearing.’

  ‘Well, that was the damnedest thing. He was real friendly, like he thought he was one of us. And he spoke better English ’n half my crew.

  ‘He made no attempt to resist abduction?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did that not strike you as curious behaviour for a guilty man?’

  ‘Stupid behaviour. He is a savage, after all.’

  Murmurs of assent could be heard from the jury.

  ‘Captain Smyley, is it not the case that three years ago you acted in support of an American corvette threatening to bombard Stanley during a trade dispute, an action which I myself witnessed?’

  ‘Objection sir,’ butted in Longden. ‘Captain Smyley is not on trial here.’

  ‘Objection sustained.’

  Lamb faltered. ‘No further questions.’

  Smyley stepped down with a grimace at the young lieutenant, and was replaced in the witness stand by a startled-looking Alfred Coles, who had been shoehorned into a borrowed suit. The cook’s face had been scrubbed red and his hair tackled by a barber for the first time in many years: it stood up vertically in the blacking-brush style, as if he had been connected to an electric current. Guided by Longden, he talked the court through the terrible events at Woollya Cove, leading up to the shooting of Garland Phillips.

  ‘And who would you say was the ringleader of this murderous gang, Coles?’

  ‘Well, I can’t be all that sure, ’cause the savages look uncommon alike, but it looked to me like Jemmy, sir. It wasn’t him as killed the Scandihoovian, or as shot Mr Phillips, that was Threeboys, but I’m sure I saw Jemmy in the thick of it, I think.’

  ‘Jemmy kill nobody!’ burst out the defendant.

  ‘You will be silent, Button, until it is time for you to give evidence,’ rapped the governor.

  Longden blew his nose and resumed his prepared questions. ‘You say you are sure Jemmy was at the head of the mob?’

  ‘I - I reckon so, sir.’

  ‘Now is not the time for imprecision, Coles. Either you are sure or you are not.’

  ‘Yes, sir ... I’m sure, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Coles. No further questions, sir.’

  Lieutenant Lamb took over the inquisition. ‘Would you care to tell the court what happened, in your own words, immediately after Mr Phillips was shot?’

  ‘Well, I took a short survey, like, and I sees them canoes coming towards the ship. So I says to myself, you’d best get on, Alfred, or there’ll be trouble. So I goes to the gig hanging in the davits, cuts her free, picks up a paddle from the scuppers, and starts rowing for the far side of the cove. One of them sees me, and they starts rowing in my direction. I was mortal afraid, sir, ’cause they was faster ’n me, and was gaining on me, but I got to the shore first and ran into the woods. I climbed up a tree, so’s they couldn’t see me, but I could see them, looking for me. So I waits until dark and I’m sure they’ve gone, then I comes down, and I be hanged if the bugg — if the natives haven’t stolen the gig, sir.’

  ‘One moment, Coles. May I ask, was the defendant part of the mob that pursued you?’

  ‘Not so far as I could make out, sir, no.’

  ‘Carry on, Coles.’

  ‘So I says to myself, what’s-a-do, Alfred? So I starts walking east. Four days I walked, living off berries like, hiding up in the day and walking at night. After four days I comes to a big river, too deep to ford and too cold to swim - like as not I’d freeze to death, I thinks to myself. By t
his time I’s getting mortal hungry and sick, like, so I hails a native canoe.’

  ‘You actually hailed a native canoe?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘And where did they take you?’

  ‘Right back to Woollya, sir.’

  ‘They returned you to Woollya Cove?’

  ‘Yes sir. And they’s all there, sir, hundreds of ’em, sir. I sees one of ‘em wearing the captain’s coat, sir, and some of ’em in mission guernseys. They takes my clothes off me, and plucks my beard ‘n’ eyebrows out with sea-shells, one hair at a time. I thought I was a dead ‘un, sir. Then there’s these big rows goin’ on, about what to do wi’ me, I thinks. Then Jemmy, sir, he sticks up in my behalf.’

  ‘The defendant actually interceded for your life? What did he say?’

  ‘Well, I don’t rightly know, sir, not speaking the lingo an’ all, but he tells me later, he’s told ‘em English gentlemen don’t kill their prisoners, sir. Leastways, they gives me over to him, and he finds me some stockings, my own hat and trousers, and the captain’s boots, and he gives me some food, sir. Then later on he gives me Mr Phillips’s musket, a nightcap full of powder, some shot and some percussion caps, so’s I can hunt for myself, sir.’

  ‘He actually gave you Mr Phillips’s musket? And ammunition?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He said it was the good Christian thing to do, sir. And he said he’d buried all the bodies, sir, given ’em all a Christian burial, like. He said it’s what Captain FitzRoy would have done, sir. He kept goin’ on about the captain. He was no end funny about him, sir. He used to go on board the Allen Gardiner and sleep all night in the captain’s cabin. I reckon it made him feel closer to old Captain FitzRoy in a funny way, sir. Not that there was anything left on board, mind - they even ate the soap. I heard two of ’em died from doin’ that. They even smashed up the ship’s clock when it stopped ’cause they reckoned it was dead.’

  ‘So the defendant looked after you and kept you safe, until Captain Smyley arrived in the Nancy?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Then I passed over here, sir.’

  ‘Let me take you back now, Coles, to conditions at the Cranmer Mission on Keppel Island. Would you say that the Fuegians were happy there?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t, sir. They wasn’t happy at all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, ’cause they was little more ’n slaveys, sir. Reckon as they didn’t like that much. Then Mr Despard, sir, he kept orderin’ they’s stuff to be searched. There was a few scuffles, like. Things was gettin’ out o’ hand once or twice.’

  Despard, from across the courtroom, fixed Coles with a fiery glare that threatened to scorch him to a crisp.

  ‘Were you ever involved in any of these “scuffles”?’

  ‘No more than I never ought to,’ replied Coles uncomfortably. ‘That’d be Mr Phillips, in the main.’

  ‘So you deny that you yourself, Coles, once pushed one of the Fuegians into the hold of the Allen Gardiner?’

  ‘Does you intend to ’criminate me sir? ‘Cause I won’t be ’criminated, sir, ‘cause I ain’t done nothin’ sir.’

  ‘Objection sir,’ sniffed Longden, haughtily.

  ‘Objection sustained,’ agreed Moore.

  ‘Er, thank you, Coles,’ said Lieutenant Lamb, retreating once again in disarray. ‘There are no further questions, Your Honour. I mean, sir.’

  The next witness was to be Jemmy himself. A buzz of genuine hostility circulated around the cramped courtroom, rising above the flapping and banging of a few badly fixed planks, which were being shoved and slapped by the relentless winds outside. The little Fuegian looked frightened, aware at last perhaps that he had got himself into a precarious situation.

  ‘Tell me, Jemmy,’ said Longden in a deceptively friendly manner, ‘did you enjoy your stay at Keppel Island?’

  ‘No sar. Jemmy don’t like Keppel Island, don’t want to stop there, don’t like it. Too much work, no seals to eat. Always Jemmy has to work.’

  ‘And Mr Phillips and Captain Fell - were they among those who ordered you to do too much work?’

  ‘Yes sar, Mister Phillips, Captain Fell, Mister Despard, always say do too much work sar. Not let Jemmy go home, sar.’

  ‘So all in all, you might think you had a reasonable grievance against those gentlemen - kept there longer than you wished, made to work hard?’

  ‘Yes sar, yes,’ agreed Jemmy enthusiastically, pleased that at last someone was prepared to entertain his point of view. ‘Reasonable grievance sar, yes.’

  ‘Tell me, Jemmy, did you witness the deaths of Captain Fell and the others?’

  ‘Yes sar, I see Captain Fell killed, all men killed, I put them in ground.’

  ‘But you say you did not kill anybody yourself.’

  ‘No sar. Jemmy kill nobody’

  ‘The court has heard, Jemmy, that your son Threeboys shot Mr Phillips. Is this what you saw?’

  ‘No sar. Threeboys a good boy sar. No kill anybody. Please sar, do not punish Threeboys sar. He is a good boy.’

  ‘So if you did not kill anybody, Jemmy, and Threeboys did not kill anybody ... who did?’

  ‘Oens-men, sar.’

  ‘“Oens-men”?’

  ‘Yes sar. Oens-men. The same as Patagonia bow-and-arrow men. Big bad men sar, come to my country, kill many people. No sabe God sar. Yamana man run away, sar.’

  ‘I see.’ Longden raised an eyebrow. ‘And did you sleep in Captain Fell’s cabin after his death?’

  ‘No sar.’

  ‘No? Who did?’

  ‘Oens-men, sar.’

  ‘The Oens-men slept in Captain Fell’s cabin?’

  ‘Yes sar. And - and men from York’s country sar,’ added Jemmy, desperately.

  ‘“mean from York’s country”.’

  ‘Yes sar — York Minster’s country sar. Very bad men — eat other men. No sabe God sar.’

  ‘And you say that your own tribe, your own family, was entirely innocent in this matter?’

  ‘Yes sar, yes sar,’ agreed Jemmy, clinging with relief to the fact that this man was clearly on his side.

  Longden smiled. ‘No further questions, Your Honour.’

  Lamb rose with an overwhelming feeling of futility. By apportioning the blame to every conceivable demon that he could dredge from his imagination, his ‘client’ had as good as tied the noose about his own neck.

  ‘Jemmy, the court has heard that you saved the life of Alfred Coles. Why did you do that?’

  ‘Mr Coles is English gen’leman sar, like Jemmy.’

  ‘And how long did you look after Coles, once you had saved his life?’

  ‘Four moons sar. Then Capp’en Smyley come, sar.’

  ‘Whereupon you personally escorted him on board the Nancy and out of harm’s way.’

  ‘Yes sar. Mr Coles is Jemmy’s frien’ sar. Capp‘en Smyley is Jemmy’s frien’ sar.’

  Lamb could think of nothing else. ‘Thank you, Jemmy No further questions, sir.’

  Beaming optimistically at having been allowed to make his position clear, Jemmy was led back to his seat. The final witness, the Reverend George Packenham Despard, then took the stand; but before he could answer any questions, a rotund, black-gloved Irishman rose to his feet, his face a tracery of tiny broken veins, and made his presence known. ‘I am Mr Lane, sir, a solicitor of this town,’ he informed the governor.

  ‘Yes, Mr Lane, I know perfectly well who you are,’ replied Moore brusquely. Lane was the only professional solicitor in Stanley: a notorious drunk, he had been struck off in Dublin, and had headed south to make his fortune, somewhat unsuccessfully to date. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘My services have been retained, sir, by the Reverend Mr Despard.’

  ‘You have been retained by Mr Despard?’ said a puzzled Moore. ‘Mr Despard is merely a witness. He is not on trial.’

  ‘Nonetheless, sir, in view of the importance of this case to the future operations and reputation of the Patagonian Missionary Society, Mr Despard has r
etained me as his attorney.’

  ‘Well, this is most irregular.’ Moore did not press the matter. The entire proceedings, in a town devoid of judges and containing only one professional lawyer, were most irregular. ‘Your witness, Mr Longden.’

  Longden sniffed again, to Moore’s considerable irritation.

  ‘Mr Despard, would you say you are well acquainted with the defendant?’

  ‘Most certainly. I came to know him extremely well after he volunteered to stay at Keppel Island.’ Despard looked across at Lane for approval. Clearly, he had been coached to steer well clear of any possible accusations of slavery.

  ‘And how would you describe the defendant’s character? Was he well conducted?’

  Despard drew himself up to his full height and assumed an expression of pious regret. ‘I am afraid he was without doubt the most lazy and lackadaisical of the natives at Cranmer. I found him to be dishonest, untrustworthy and argumentative; and, what is more, I had strong reason to suspect him of being a persistent thief.’

  ‘You lie!’ exploded Jemmy Button.

  ‘You will be silent,’ commanded Moore, ‘or I shall have you removed from this court.’

  Longden continued: ‘Were you surprised, Mr Despard, when you heard of the tragic events that had unfolded at Woollya?’

  ‘My heart was heavy with sorrow but, no, I was not surprised. Such an act of treachery was not at all inconsistent with what I had come to know of the defendant’s character. But while we must all lament the cruel treachery of a supposedly friendly people, should we not thereby recognize the even more urgent duty of making known to them the word of truth and righteousness? Is the faithfulness unto death of the men whose loss we now deplore a signal for us to forsake the work they loved? I think not, gentlemen!’ Despard looked round questioningly, in full pulpit mode now, his upper teeth bristling.

  ‘That such a barbaric act should take place on the Sabbath day must have been particularly upsetting for you.’

  ‘Do you know, Mr Longden,’ smiled Despard, ‘that was my first thought. But then I reasoned that God Himself must have appointed this day for the commission of these terrible crimes, in order to communicate the fact that here was Satan, raging against His work.’