This Thing Of Darkness (58 page)

‘This is the famous British
naturalista
Don Carlos and his servant. They are guests of General Rosas.’

‘What is in these bags?’

‘Specimens. Don Carlos is a
naturalista
.’

‘What is a
naturalista
?’

‘One who collects specimens.’

‘The revolutionary government cannot permit foreign agents to enter Buenos Ayres. The British have seized the Islas Malvinas, our sovereign territory as determined by God.’

‘These are not foreign agents. These are the guests of the general.’ The cut-throat leader jammed his rifle under Darwin’s chin and motioned for him and Covington to dismount. Darwin, shaking, climbed down from his horse. Covington did likewise, mutely obedient.
We might be about to face our deaths, and he steps down like a misbehaved dog,
thought Darwin disgustedly.

‘All foreigners have the potential to act as foreign agents. You gauchos may proceed. These two we will have to execute.’

‘No! Wait! Wait one minute! Please!’ Darwin, his words tumbling over one another in agitation, fumbled in his saddlebag, and finally - after a prolonged agony of searching that could not have lasted more than a second or two - produced General Rosas“passport’. The sentinels unfolded it with exaggerated gravity, and scanned it for several long minutes.

They cannot read,
realized Darwin eventually.
They cannot damned well read.

‘This is General Rosas’ seal. You may proceed. We are sorry to have held you up, sir.’

Relief sluiced through Darwin’s mind, the lock-gates thrown open. His breathing came in short, deep gasps.
Thank you, Lord, oh, thank you, Lord.

He touched his horse’s flanks lightly with his big, burnished spurs and the beast began to walk slowly forward towards safety.

‘Wait.’

‘This one.’ The leader of the roadblock indicated Covington. ‘Does he have a document?’

‘No,’ answered Darwin on Covington’s behalf. ‘He is my servant.’ Thankfully, Covington did not understand Spanish.

‘Then he must remain in custody until his credentials have been established. He must wait here with us.’

‘Covington? They say you must wait here. With them. Until your ... credentials have been established.’

Sir.’

‘I am sure you will be fine, Covington.’

‘Sir.’

Grabbing his reins, Darwin urged his horse towards Buenos Ayres as quickly as dignity would permit, Esteban and his gauchos hard behind.

‘ “Until his credentials have been established”?’ asked Darwin disbelievingly of Esteban, when they had rounded a bend in the road. ‘How on earth can we “establish his credentials”?’

‘How much money have you got?’ asked Esteban.

 

‘Philos! You are here, you are alive and well, and what is more you are become a gaucho!’

‘I may thank kind Providence I am here with an entire throat.’

The lean, bronzed, powerful-looking stranger in gaucho rig who had thrown open the door of the captain’s cabin of the
Beagle
bore only a passing resemblance to the pink, soft-cheeked young man dropped off at the Rio Negro six weeks previously. FitzRoy was extraordinarily glad to see him: as the ship had inched its way back up the coast, he had found himself frustratingly reminded at every turn of how solitary was the life of a naval captain. The slightest attempt to initiate a serious conversation with any of his officers, be it about geology, theology or zoology, had foundered on their continued respectful deference. He could have propounded any view, however nonsensical, and it would have met with polite acquiescence. He wanted to be
challenged.
He wanted to use his
mind.
Darwin, meanwhile, was solicitous.

‘My dear FitzRoy, what news of the
Paz,
and the
Liebre,
and the
Adventure?
Will their lordships pay?’

‘There is no decision yet. In truth, Philos, I am upon thorns to know the result. I must wait until Chili, it seems. But, my dear friend, tell me of your hair’s breadth escapes and accidents! How many times did you flee from the Indians? How many precipices did you fall over? How many bogs did you fall into? How often were you carried away by floods? I am vexed to think how much sea practice you have lost, but I am so envious and jealous of all your peregrinations.’

‘I’m sorry about the sea practice but, my dear FitzRoy, it is such a fine, healthful life on horseback all day - eating nothing but meat and sleeping in a bracing air! One awakes as fresh as a lark. Harris hired five gauchos. They were so spirited and bold, so modest respecting themselves and their country, so invariably obliging, so polite and so hospitable. I am sad to say, though, that they laugh at all religion.’

‘So you have not passed your time among gentlemen?’

Darwin laughed. ‘The complete and utter absence of gentlemen did strike me as something of a novelty.’ He proceeded to describe his journey in detail, right up to and including the Buenos Ayres revolution that even now was making itself heard: occasional distant gunshots ricocheted within the walls of the city, before reverberating out into the harbour. He did not, of course, mention that he had very nearly returned to the
Beagle
minus one of her crew. Amazingly, as luck would have it, he had found a bank open and functioning amid all the looting and carnage, and had managed to draw a bill for fifty pounds against his father’s account with Robarts, Curtis & Co. of Lombard Street. The entire sum had been used to purchase Covington’s freedom, and not, he had sensed, before time: the servant’s trigger-happy jailers had quite clearly grown bored with their supine hostage.

FitzRoy’s eyes narrowed when he heard of the roadblock and its cohort of armed thugs. ‘This city is an absolute mess. It is all the fault of that butcher Rosas.’

‘Come, come, my dear chap, the general cannot have known that this revolt was to take place in his name. This, doubtless, was the act of the general’s party, and not of the general himself.’

‘Philos, I doubt that anything very much happens in this country without the general has intended it, or sanctioned it at the least.’

‘Personally, I found him to be a most charming and charismatic man. He is a strong commander, perhaps even a ruthless one, but are not all the most successful military men so?’

‘Charming and charismatic he may be, but he is engaged upon the most barbaric war of extermination against the Indians.’

‘I think you will find it is the Indians who are responsible for the most barbaric of atrocities. Why, one of the
posta-keepers
I met was brutally murdered not a few days afterwards.’

‘He was not by any chance black, was he, this
posta-
keeper?’

‘How did you know?’

‘Were not the majority of the
posta-
keepers black?’

‘Yes, but I fail to see ... ?’

‘Rosas makes officers of the blacks and he makes the
posta
a command. But the price of their promotion is death. It is the same with his armies. The front ranks, those who must take the most risks, are always black troops. Or they are “friendly” Indians, like the Tehuelches, to whom he has given the ultimatum, join the extermination or be exterminated.’

‘I find your cynicism hard to credit. I tell you I have met the man

- he is not some cold-eyed, calculating Tory minister. He is young, he is enthusiastic, and sincerity radiates from his every pore. As he told me himself, he is a liberal man.’

‘A man should be judged by his actions, not by his own assessments of those actions.’

‘Of course there are atrocities committed by both sides, FitzRoy. It is a brutal war against a godless enemy who is prepared to torture and kill without limit. Rosas has to meet fire with fire. But he does, at least, have the grace to spare the children of his enemies.’

‘Spare them? He sells them as slaves!’

‘They are sold as servants. There is a distinction. I believe that in their treatment there is little to complain of.’

‘Well, the slavers’ days are numbered. The news from London is that slavery has been banned throughout the empire. There are to be police ships hunting down the slavers. I am hopeful of a command myself in future.’

‘This is excellent news. But we must not confuse the inhuman trade in human flesh with what is happening here in Latin America. What we are witnessing is the process of history. The inevitable eclipse of a weaker, primitive, heathen race by a stronger, more civilized Christian race. Be those races black or white is neither here nor there.’

‘Is not one of the essential tenets of Christian civilization the
protection
of the weak, rather than their extirpation?’

‘You are talking of mercy, of charity and of compassion - qualities that determine
how
a Christian should go about his business. But such qualities alone cannot prevent the victory of the strong over the weak. It is an unstoppable process. It is what happens throughout the animal kingdom every day, and humans are no different.’

‘Perhaps they should strive to be so.’

‘Perhaps, but Rosas is the stronger so he will win. It is clear to me that ultimately, he must be the absolute dictator of his country. It is the only way forward.’

‘That is certainly the general’s intention. Although whether the medieval dictatorship that will result constitutes progress, or will merely be a measure of how far man has fallen from his original state of innocence is open to debate.’

‘You must forgive me, FitzRoy, but my appetite is getting the better of me - food supplies in the city were somewhat limited. I will take my supper in the gunroom, if they will have me - I believe that gunroom tea is at six - that is, if you don’t mind?’

‘No ... of course not. As you will.’

Darwin swept out, his white gaucho robes rustling behind him. Suddenly, FitzRoy felt crestfallen.
Six weeks I have waited for someone to talk to, he thought. And now he is gone to gunroom tea, because I will not allow him his opinions without contradicting every single one.

 

‘Shall I be footman? Or, as in the household of a
Yorkshire
gentleman such as Mr Stokes, maid-of-all-work?’

A chuckle ran round the table. Gunroom tea that night was indeed a jolly affair, for Wickham, Stokes and the other officers had come across from the
Adventure
for a final meal together before heading south once more. It was Wickham who was ribbing Stokes now, passing around big hunks of roasted ostrich, the gunroom table being far too crowded for the steward to squeeze in and attend to his duties as he should.

‘I’ll have a leg, please,’ replied Stokes, raising another laugh, for each of the bird’s legs was bigger than his own brawny arm.

Darwin felt in his element. Here, embraced by the collective warmth of the gunroom, he felt able to recapture some of the camaraderie of the pampas, where he had enjoyed so many marvellous roast-meat suppers. And this evening there was snuff to follow. He proceeded to regale the company with tales of his
bolas-
lessons, the bringing down of his own horse and, finally, his successful capture of a rhea in full flight.

‘Sounds a whole lot easier than shooting the blighters,’ remarked Sulivan. ‘This little fellow ran like the wind, scooting in and out of the bushes on his little furry feet. It took Martens three shots to bring him down.’

The little artist blushed in acknowledgement of his marksmanship.

Something jarred in Darwin’s memory, but he could not work out what.

‘How prime, though,’ said Stokes through a mouthful of meat. ‘Tastier than usual. It had odd feathers, didn’t it?’

Sudden, hideous realization flooded through Darwin’s mind.

‘Oh, my God. Put that down!’ he shouted, grabbing the bone from Stokes’s hand just as the mate was about to take a bite, his teeth clamping shut on empty air.

‘Philos? What’s the flurry?’

‘Stop eating! Stop eating! Give me the bones!’ Darwin was positively frantic. He could quite clearly make out traces of feathers just above the claws of Stokes’s ostrich leg.

‘What is it?’

‘It is the
Avestruz Petise!’

‘The have-a-what?’

‘The
Avestruz Petise
! Where is the skin of this bird? The beak, the feathers?’

‘In the galley, I suppose, but — ’

‘Nobody is to touch a morsel of this bird until I get back, do you hear? Not a morsel!’

Darwin tore out of the room, his striped poncho flapping behind him, leaving behind a bewildered silence.

‘Whatever has got into old Philos?’ wondered Sulivan at last.

‘It’s all those wide open spaces. One tends to lose one’s sense of perspective, out on the plains,’ suggested Conrad Martens, taking a discreet bite of
Avestruz Petise.

The weather had deteriorated on their final approach to Woollya, and with it a blanket of apprehension had been cast across the spirits of the crew. All were afraid of what they might find. It had been more than a year since their previous visit: only the Reverend Richard Matthews, perhaps, secretly wished ill on the fortunes of the settlement - if not those of its inhabitants - for fear that he be cajoled into taking up his place at the head of the mission once more.

‘Terra del has recollected her old winning ways, I see,’ said Darwin bitterly. The deck heaved beneath his feet, as the ship beat against a blue swell that was obstinately forcing its way up the Beagle Channel. ‘How I have missed her gentle breath. What a charming country.’

Nobody spoke. Nobody felt like replying.

‘If anyone catches me here again, I will give him leave to hang me up as a scarecrow for future naturalists,’ he continued, addressing his remarks to no one in particular. As the old, familiar waves of nausea wallowed up from his gut, he stomped off below to ‘take the horizontal for it’ before it became too late.