This Thing Of Darkness (102 page)

The earl relaxed into his armchair, beneath a patriotic painting depicting the advance of the 7th Madras Native Infantry into Rangoon.

‘Dreadful news about Freddie Beechey.’

‘Most regrettable, my lord.’

And, of course, it will mean a shake-up at the Marine Department. A man of your experience will be absolutely vital in the coming weeks. I tell you, FitzRoy, I don’t know where the country would be without your knowledge, your dedication and your grasp of meteorologic science. I hear golden opinions of the work you are doing over at the Statical Department.’

Derby’s tones were mellifluous and soothing. Hearing them was like being lulled to sleep by a favourite nanny.

‘Thank you, sir. I am glad that our work is appreciated. If I may be so bold, I came here on the strength of that work, to see if the party would press my claim to be allowed to succeed Admiral Beechey as chief naval officer.’

Derby was not just the leader of the Tory Party; his cousin was president of the Board of Trade.

‘Well, of course, it is a job you could do in your sleep. And it carries with it the rank of rear-admiral. And, I dare say, the one thousand pounds a year would not go amiss either!’ Derby chuckled sympathetically. ‘Where is it you are living now? Upper Norwood? Bad business - bad business.’ The last few words were mumbled, a mutual embarrassment to be hurried past as quickly as possible. Derby cleared his throat.

‘Well, let me say first that I have been working
extremely
hard in your behalf - you may be satisfied of it. As I am sure you are aware, a position of this importance attracts the very best of candidates. And I have some good news for you — qualified good news, I should say, but good news nonetheless. I hear that your seniority has come through. You are to be made rear-admiral, effective immediately. Congratulations, Rear-Admiral FitzRoy.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’

was to the matter of your promotion within the Board of Trade, I am afraid that the news on that count is not quite as good. Despite the best efforts of the party, the government has decided by the narrowest of margins that the claims of another candidate should be preferred.’

‘Another candidate?’ croaked FitzRoy. The disappointment was crushing. He felt both angry and humiliated.

‘Oh, he is a splendid candidate, I am sure you will agree. He has our every support, and I have no doubt that you will feel privileged to serve under him. He distinguished himself considerably during the war - I appreciate, FitzRoy, that you were unlucky enough not to secure a command yourself but, damn it, the man is a bona-fide war hero and we should not begrudge him that — distinguished himself, I should say, not just by innumerable acts of bravery, but by several technical innovations as well. It was he who came up with the idea of cladding wooden hulls with iron plates, and fixing ships’ guns to the deck. Then when the Russians filled the sea with infernal machines that exploded on impact with our ships, he invented a creeper device to sweep them out of the water. And he also dreamed up the idea of bombarding fortified Russian positions aerially, instead of front-on: a sort of concentrated vertical fire. His vessel fired more than three thousand “mortar bombs” during the taking of Sweaborg. He is just about to be made Companion of the Bath and, between you and me, he would have had a knighthood were it not for the jealousy of one or two of the senior admirals. You might even know him. Your new superior’s name is Captain Bartholomew Sulivan.’

‘Bartholomew Sulivan?’ gasped FitzRoy. It was almost impossible to take in. If he had not been sitting down, his legs would no doubt have given way.

‘That’s the chap. You don’t have any objections, I take it?’

FitzRoy paled. How could he?

‘No . . . none whatsoever.’

Derby smiled, the winning smile of a master strategist.

‘No . . . I thought you might not.’

‘All rise for the governor, Mr Thomas Moore, and justices of the peace, Mr Arthur Bailey and Mr John Dean.’

Everyone in the shabby wooden courthouse rose to their feet as the only gentlemen of any official consequence on the islands swept in. Outside, the baying of the angry mob could still be heard: a small rip to Moore’s coat and Bailey’s disarranged hair bore testimony to the buffeting they had taken on their way in. There was an expression of grim defiance on Moore’s face. He would be damned if lynch law were to prevail in his colony. ‘Bring in the prisoner,’ he commanded.

Two gaolers entered, flanking the pathetic, bewildered figure of Jemmy Button, clad in rough overalls and bearing a cut forehead where a brick had glanced off his cranium. He had only narrowly escaped with his life. As he shuffled forward to the dock, the manacles that bound his ankles together clinking at the limit of every step, twelve furious, hostile faces glared at him. The jury was an extension of the crowd outside: this savage had murdered an entire party of white men, and they wanted to see him swing.

‘Please state your name,’ said the clerk.

‘Jemmy Button, sar.’

‘Please state your nationality.’

Jemmy looked confused.

‘To which country do you belong?’ interpreted Moore.

‘I am English gen’leman, sar.’

‘Excuse me, m’lud, but I believe that to be incorrect,’ whispered the clerk.

‘Button, you are not an English gentleman,’ said Moore testily. And do not call me “m‘lud”, Haskins. “Sir” will suffice.’

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 this 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.’