This Thing Of Darkness (22 page)

The three officers and the four Fuegians were now arranged in the front parlour of Castle Farm cottage, watching the drizzle fleck the panes of the little windows embedded in the thick walls. The officers, especially, were not used to inactivity. FitzRoy had hired the phrenologist — which he had been meaning to do for some while — from the extremely limited selection available in the Plymouth area, in order to kill time. Boat Memory, who was to be the object of study, remained wary. ‘Will it hurt, Capp’en Fitz’oy? Like Dr Figueira and his medicine?’

York Minster wore a contemptuous expression.

‘No, Boat, it won’t hurt. Dr Morrish is a phrenologist. He surveys the human head, just as I survey the seabed and the coast. He will feel your head, and make a map of it. It will be quite painless.’

‘I do not feel well, Capp’en Fitz’oy. Boat Memory feels too sick for his head to be maked into a map.’

‘I told you, Boat, you will feel nothing, and it will all be finished in a minute or two. Just a minute or two. That’s all.’

Reluctantly the Fuegian signalled his acquiescence, as Morrish produced a variety of sinister-looking measuring devices in metal and polished wood, and proceeded to calculate the size of Boat’s head from every conceivable angle. Then he set to work with his fingers, probing smoothly and expertly through the dark thickets of Boat’s hair.

‘The head is uncommonly small at the top and at the back. There are fewer bumps for the craniologist than one would find in the skull of a civilized man - but that in itself is significant. The forehead is ill-shaped. The propensities are large and full. The sentiments, however, are small, with the exception of cautiousness and firmness. The intellectual organs are small, as one would find with the coloured races or, of course, with the French and the Irish.’

Morrish paused as Boat leaned forward to scratch his ankle. ‘Please, Capp’en Fitz’oy, I do not understand.’

‘Phrenology is the science of the brain, Boat. The shape of the skull - the bone - corresponds with the shape of the brain. Experts have identified thirty-five areas of the brain, each of which can be read from the outside.’ FitzRoy aspired to his most reassuring tone, but privately he was irritated at these medical men who continued to examine the Fuegians as if they were deaf and dumb animals.

‘There is cunning here, and indolence, and passive fortitude. A want of energy and a deficient intellect.’

‘That is if the physiology can be trusted, Dr Morrish,’ said FitzRoy, feeling himself bound to disagree.

‘Oh, the physiognomy of man will always reveal its secrets to the trained hand, Commander. You are not to worry: this is anything but an unexpected diagnosis. Savages are entirely different from civilized men, both in outward feature and in mind. They are incapable of progress.’

‘But surely, Dr Morrish, all men are equal before God.’

‘The presence of the organ of veneration in all men, Commander, is direct proof of the existence of God. But if all men were equal, then all men’s skulls would be equally configured. A savage cannot progress into a civilized man.’

Boat scratched his ankle again. ‘A m I a savage, Capp’en Fitz’oy?’

FitzRoy did not know what to say.

‘A m I a savage, Capp’en Fitz’oy?’ parroted Fuegia.

‘No, Boat, you are not a savage.’

‘Then one day, Capp’en Fitz’oy, I too will be a phrenologist.’

Morrish raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Jemmy, bored, fixed his gaze on his looking-glass, and pushed his nose up to see what it looked like reflected.

‘Please, Capp’en Fitz’oy, Boat feels sick.’

‘It is almost over now, Boat. The doctor will finish examining your head in a moment.’

‘Boat’s head does not feel sick. Boat feels sick. Boat’s ankles hurt.’

‘Your ankles, Boat? What is wrong with your ankles?’

Obligingly Boat leaned forward once more and hitched up his left trouser leg. There was a bump as Morrish dropped his measuring-tool in shock, his chair and its occupant clattering back into the table. FitzRoy stood rooted to the spot, and thought for sure that his heart had stopped. The red rash about Boat’s ankle was unmistakable. The first spots were already beginning their transition into the clear pustules, which - within a week or two - would signify the onset of full-blown smallpox.

 

FitzRoy paced his side of the quarterdeck bitterly, left alone by the crew, who knew better than to trouble him. The fresh grey air of the Channel ballooned the
Beagle’s
sails and flung FitzRoy’s hair hither and thither till it stung his cheeks, but could not shift the weight of putrefying fear that sat heavy in his stomach.

He had called in the Admiralty’s offer of assistance -
how
he had called it in - by arranging for the Fuegians to be admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital at Plymouth, quarantined in a whole ward of their own, under the care of the eminent specialist Dr David Dickson. He had ordered Bennet and Murray to remain at Castle Farm to monitor Boat’s progress. FitzRoy thought keenly of the Fuegians now, bewildered and alone in their empty ward, watching the disease take hold, watching Boat’s open, friendly features becoming increasingly and hideously disfigured before their eyes. The cavernous Royal Naval Hospital, so packed with the wounded in wartime, boasted few patients now: just the odd pneumonia case, and one or two sailors driven out of their senses by syphilis. The corridors echoed only to the clacking footsteps of the doctors and orderlies. Or would they be echoing now to the screams of Boat Memory? FitzRoy shuddered and pulled his coat about him.

The
Beagle
swung to westward at the Isle of Thanet, beating up the Thames estuary against the previously friendly breeze. The river traffic thickened as the banks came in sight of each other: elegant frigates with uniformed crews, dark barges swarming with silhouetted figures in coal-dirty smocks, tiny skiffs scurrying to avoid being run down, all went about their business oblivious to the little brig that had travelled to the far end of the world and had returned with such an unusual cargo. There were East Indiamen loaded with cotton and pepper, West Indiamen bearing coffee, rum and sugar, and tobacco ships from the United States, awaiting clearance to enter the mighty fortress gates of the new dockyards. This was the throbbing, filthy hub of the greatest modern commercial city in the world: the newly constructed tobacco warehouse at Wapping, it was said, was the largest building to be constructed since the Egyptian pyramids. The Beagle picked its way through a converging winter forest of bare masts, sidestepping shoal after shoal of struggling oars, the water by turns stained purple with wine and white with flour. A clangorous noise, half-familiar but its sheer intensity forgotten, assaulted the eardrums of the crew; the unflinching stench of stale herrings and weak beer insinuated itself into their nostrils.

They berthed their vessel at the Naval Dockyard at Woolwich, there to be paid off, stripped and cleared out, her pendant hauled down, her company dispersed, never - in all probability - to meet again.
All of us who have passed so many rough hours together, scattered like chaff on the wind
. They were expected at Woolwich, their berth already prepared, the Admiralty as always aware of the exact movements of each and every one of its ships; the precision with which their lordships gathered each vessel in at the end of its voyage matched only by the careless abandon with which each and every crewman was tossed aside. It should have been a proud, emotional time, of farewells and handclaspings and promises to meet again, when old shipmates’ virtues loomed large and their vices were generously set aside, to be diminished for ever by the sentimental glow of memory. But FitzRoy could think of nothing except the young man who lay fighting for his life in the Royal Naval Hospital, beset by a strange disease in a strange land, a young man who had put his trust in him, a young man to whom he had given his word that he would become an English gentleman. Oh, there were handclaspings all right, for Kempe and King and Stokes and Wilson and Boatswain Sorrell and all the others, but these were uncommonly muted farewells on both sides. Eventually, his duty of care towards the
Beagle
finally discharged, FitzRoy said his own silent farewell to her, and stepped on to the wharf. He adjusted his watch by twenty minutes, from Plymouth time to London time, signalled to the waiting coachman, carefully supervised the loading of his trunk, climbed aboard his carriage and set off for London.

 

‘I may - ah - I may be able to be of assistance to you.’

The Reverend Joseph Wigram, a young man prone to slight, mannered hesitations, tapped out his pipe and lit it anew. The smoke curled upward, searching for an escape route from the study, but the heavy moreen curtains that stood guard against the daylight forced it to circle restlessly above his head. Really, Wigram was too young even for a post of such uncertain status as the secretaryship of the National Society for Providing the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church. Without doubt, it was an appointment that owed much to the good offices of his father, Sir Robert Wigram of Walthamstow House. But the younger Wigram’s earnest countenance and his obvious eagerness to be of assistance betokened well. The clergyman smoothed his hair down for the third or fourth time: the presence of such a distinguished visitor as Commander FitzRoy of HMS
Beagle
had obviously unnerved him. He maintained the air of a man who had arrived late for an important appointment.

‘I have the - ah - the honour to be the governor of Walthamstow School. I share the honour with the rector of Walthamstow, William Wilson. Are you familiar with Walthamstow? It is - ah - a small village to the north-east of London. Most agreeable. I am sure it would be possible to enter the - ah - the four savages as boarders and pupils. They can start as soon as they are ready.’

‘I am most indebted to you, sir, for your kindness. You are more than generous.’

‘Not a bit of it, sir, not a bit of it. We are all as one before God. But I must own that ours is only a small and ill-funded institution, ill-equipped for all but the most basic instruction. As I am sure you are aware, sir, these are straitened times.’

‘The most basic instruction, Mr Wigram, is all that could be wished for in the present circumstances. I would desire the Fuegians to become fluent in English and the plainer truths of Christianity, as the first object, and in the use of common tools, a slight acquaintance with husbandry, gardening and mechanism as the second, all areas of instruction which you have convinced me are well within your capabilities.’

‘Absolutely - absolutely. And may I enquire as to their - ah - their present whereabouts?’

‘They are currently residing at Plymouth.’

FitzRoy paused. Should he convey the full, awful circumstances to Mr Wigram, that one of the Fuegians - and perhaps before long all of them — was engaged in a desperate struggle for life? His hesitation was brief. He had no right to withhold the truth from anyone, particularly not a man of the cloth who had so generously answered his prayers.

‘They are at the Royal Naval Hospital. Tragically, one of them has contracted smallpox. I had them inoculated, but it was not properly imbibed. I am, however, confident that he will make a full recovery.’

‘Indeed - indeed. So I have read in the
Morning Post
.’

FitzRoy was exceedingly glad that he had not sought to dissemble. The young man’s question, it seemed, had been disingenuous.

‘We must hope, Commander FitzRoy, that the good Lord in His infinite mercy will spare them the ultimate punishment for their formerly base lives. Might I enquire the - ah - ages of the four savages?’

‘York Minster, the oldest’- the Reverend Wigram raised one eyebrow at York’s unusual name -‘appears to be about twenty-six. Boat Memory, the, ah, patient’ - FitzRoy discovered Wigram’s verbal tic to be infectious - ‘is of some twenty summers. The boy Jemmy Button is perhaps sixteen or seventeen, while the little girl Fuegia Basket is, I would guess, eleven or twelve.’

‘Excellent, excellent. I am sure that the - ah - age gap will not present a problem. It is, after all, a uniform level of ability that determines the homogeneous composition of any classroom.’

‘The age gap, Mr Wigram?’

‘Did I not say, Commander FitzRoy? Walthamstow is an infants’ school. The average age of our pupils is between four and seven.’

 

FitzRoy emerged into broken sunshine, walked down the rectory steps and turned through the wrought-iron gateway. He hired a hackney coach at the stand on Piccadilly, tipping the waterman a penny. Judging by the faded coat of arms, the deep, comfortable seats and the exhausted suspension, the vehicle had once belonged to a nobleman. He felt like an infant, swaddled and jiggled helplessly by its nurse, as the coach shuddered its way through the London traffic. He paid off the driver outside the Admiralty, where he was to begin the task of supervising the final drafting of several hundred charts and plans.

A familiar figure was waiting for him on the Admiralty steps, but the extreme unfamiliarity of the context led him to hesitate for a moment, trying to place the apparition. It was a figure he was better used to seeing at the wheel of the
Beagle
as she bucked into a head-on gale.

‘Mr Murray?’

Murray said nothing, and FitzRoy ran the whole gamut of emotions in an instant, from fearing the worst to believing that events must have come to a satisfactory conclusion. The Scotsman simply handed him a letter, his face a blank canvas on which FitzRoy had painted a thousand imaginary expressions before he had even broken the wafer and unfolded the wrapper.