This Thing Of Darkness (71 page)

‘Lost your sea-legs, Mr Hamond?’ enquired FitzRoy cheerfully.

‘It’s not s-seasickness, sir,’ admitted Hamond, looking fleetingly guilty. ‘It’s sheer relief at g-getting away from there alive.’

FitzRoy had thought about not taking Hamond on the expedition but the man had volunteered, after all. In fact, Hamond had been as brave as any of them, in his way, and FitzRoy had appreciated a quiet, intelligent voice amid all the bravura aggression.

‘I-I’m not sure I can t-take any more of this, sir.’

‘Not long to go now, Mr Hamond. Another twenty minutes and we shall be in the
Blonde
.’

‘Th-that’s not what I m-meant, sir.’

FitzRoy looked into Hamond’s eyes, two saucers in a pallid face, and at his hands, which were literally shaking with released tension. The young midshipman’s nerves, he realized, were completely shot to pieces.

‘I m-meant, sir, that I c-can’t go on serving in the Navy. I just c-can’t go on. I’m too f-frightened, sir.’

 

‘I have come to report the successful rescue of the crew of HMS
Challenger
, sir, with no further casualties.’

Once again, FitzRoy found himself before Commodore Mason in the well-manicured setting of that officer’s rented garden. The open geneva bottle stood to attention on the table.

Mason grunted. ‘Do not think for one second that you have saved your skin, FitzRoy. I shall make damned sure you are court-martialled as a mutineer.’

‘An accusation of the kind you describe could hardly fail to be damaging,’ conceded FitzRoy expressionlessly, ‘as, indeed, would a counter-accusation of cowardice in the face of the enemy and dereliction of duty. In fact, it is hard to see any benefit accruing to either of us from this sorry affair. But I should say, sir, that I have already composed a ... rough draft of my report of the expedition.’

‘To the devil with you and your report.’

‘It is not a very detailed report, sir. It merely credits the successful rescue of the
Challenger
to the bravery of the officers and men of HMS
Blonde
, and by implication to her commanding officer, sir. No names are mentioned in this rough draft of what would — under normal circumstances - be regarded by the Admiralty as a most heroic action, sir.’

FitzRoy paused, to let this sink in. He could see the light dawning, gradually sweeping the shadows from Mason’s furrowed brow.

‘No names?’

‘No sir. Just a straightforward rescue.’

Mason considered further.

‘You have important business in Tahiti, do you not?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Then you had better get on with it, had you not? And this time you will obey your orders to the very letter. Is that clear?’

‘That is clear, sir.’ Mason, it appeared, had accepted FitzRoy’s face-saving proposal.

‘One further thing, sir.’

‘Don’t push your luck, Mr FitzRoy.’

‘I have reluctantly agreed to terminate the commission of one of my officers. Mr Hamond is to leave the
Beagle
forthwith. I should like, with permission, to take Mr Davis from the
Blonde
, sir.’

‘Who?’

‘Your assistant master, sir. I should like him to remain behind and skipper the
Constitución,
a surveying schooner I have borrowed, on an expedition to northern Chili and Peru.’

‘Should you indeed? Very well. If you say so,’ acquiesced Mason gruffly. ‘What’s the matter with this Hamond fellow?’

‘He is too frightened to continue in the Service, sir.’

‘Cowardice, eh?’

‘No sir. Mr Hamond is very far from being a coward. He appears to be suffering from a sort of extended shock. I think him an immensely brave man to admit to it, and to face up to it, sir.’ FitzRoy touched the peak of his cap insouciantly and, without waiting to be dismissed, took his leave of the commodore. Only upon reaching the safety of the street did he allow himself a smile of relief.

‘It is indisputable evidence!’

‘My dear FitzRoy, one piece of evidence can rarely be said to be indisputable.’

“‘Chem” is clearly Shem. “Mount Theghin” is indisputably Mount Ararat. The legends of the Araucanians testify to the global nature of the deluge. My dear Philos, what more proof could you desire?’

‘But the story could have been introduced into the Araucanian tradition at any point — by the
conquistadors
perhaps - or even earlier, by a lone Christian travelling across the Pacific. Without a weight of evidence to back them up, the tales of this chief of yours - half a Spaniard, by his own admission - would scarcely hold up as scientific evidence.’

‘But the word of God is not a matter of scientific conjecture! Even if there were not a huge weight of evidence for the flood, God’s word is absolute!’

‘You will allow me to observe, I hope, that there is also direct evidence
against
the flood.’

‘Direct evidence against the flood? What evidence?’

‘Evidence I have witnessed with my own eyes.’ There was no other way forward now. His enthusiasm for argument heated under the broiling, oppressive, leaden Galapagos skies, Darwin blurted out the most controversial of his conclusions. ‘I did not wish to say this before, FitzRoy, for fear of offending you, but the natural life that I witnessed on the Patagonian side of the Andes was entirely different from that on the Chilean side.’

‘What of it?’ -

‘The Andes are newly uplifted land, which means that the differing species on either side of the
cordillera
came into being
after
the mountains were created. Those species were not created on the sixth day. They have - they have — ’

‘Transmuted?’ FitzRoy uttered the word calmly but grimly.

‘Yes, damn it, they have
transmuted
into existence, in relatively recent geological times. You will find an entirely different species of mouse on either side of the
cordillera.
If God created mice at the beginning of time, then why do not identical mice swarm over the western and eastern slopes today?’

‘What you speak of is adaptation. Variation within a species. Species themselves are immutable.’

‘I tell you they were different species of mouse.’

‘Come, Philos, if transmutation between species is possible, then show me
your
direct evidence. The fossil record does not convincingly document a single transmutation from one species to another. Where are the countless fossils of intermediate species, embedded in the crust of the earth? If wings grew from forelegs, where are the half-winged animals, and how could they have half flown? If lungs grew from gills, where are the half-lunged fish, and how could they have half breathed? If giraffes grew from antelopes, where are the fossils of all the short-necked giraffes?’

‘The fossil record is less than perfect, I grant you, but geology is a new science. In future ages, perhaps the fossil links you speak of will be discovered. Discontinuities in nature do not by themselves speak against transmutation, because these intermediate forms are now extinct, and may have become so very quickly. Did we ourselves not find the remains of an aquatic rodent the size of an elephant? Who knows what two orders of animals that creature might have bridged?’

‘Are you suggesting that your Chilean mice transmuted from aquatic elephants, or vice versa?’

‘No, of course I am not. I have simply come to realize that creation is far more fluid a business than our Church allows. How different are the fat little Fuegians from their lean, tall Araucanian neighbours? Yet all are supposedly descended from Noah and his wife. Where are the intermediate fossils there? And both species shall become extinct, I fear, when General Rosas has his way.’

‘Both species? The Fuegians and the Araucanians are men - one species - equal before the Lord, who one hopes in His mercy will save them from the depredations of your friend the general.’

‘You believe God will save those heathen savages from the Christian armies? From white men?’

FitzRoy reacted with anger.

‘Those “heathen savages” are heathens because they have yet to receive the word of God, and savages because they have yet to receive the blessings of civilization that attend it. Your friend Rosas may profess Christianity, but he is little more than a tyrant and a murderer who takes God’s name in vain.’

‘Perhaps the Fuegians are not men as we are, created indivisibly by God. Perhaps they are a separate species of man, more akin to the higher apes. I do not know.
I do not know
, FitzRoy. But I do know that to believe in every word of the scriptures, the ark, the creation of all life in a matter of days, is to believe in the impossible and the unintelligible.’

‘If what you say is true, then the stars of heaven, the showers and the dew, the mountains and the hills may no longer be called to exalt the Lord with us by praise.’

‘No. I merely question the word of God
as it is written by man
in the scriptures.’

‘This won’t do, Philos. The scriptures themselves say, “If any man shall take away the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city.” You are risking damnation in the hereafter!’

‘Hang it, FitzRoy, such threats are themselves a damnable doctrine. The Old Testament is a manifestly false history of the origin of the world, and I do not believe that the true story of the creation of life by God is to be found there.’

‘But look what you seek to put in its place!’ Both men were fairly screeching at one another now. ‘What are the chances of species somehow transmuting out of nothingness in the first instance? Something as beautiful and complex as a flower cannot result from a random process! An earthquake destroys a cathedral - it does not construct one! The grain that man makes into bread, the cattle that provide his meat and milk, the dogs that aid him in his work - did all these transmute by some accident of nature? A spider’s web? A beautiful butterfly? An electric eel? Did all these transmute by accident as well?’

FitzRoy pulled a book from the shelf above. ‘Listen to Paley: “The marks of design are too strong to be gotten over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is God.”’

‘I do not deny that the Lord God has designed all living things! I just ... I just ...’ Darwin faltered, his sails sagging as the initial blast of his enthusiasm began to subside. ‘I just believe that once an animal has been divinely created, it is free to transmute itself gradually, by some unexplained mechanism, into another related species.’

‘Tell me, Philos, on your expedition, were there ants to be found on either side of the Andes?’

‘Of course.’

‘Different species of ant?’

‘I dare say - I do not recall.’

‘And the sterile worker ants - how precisely had they transmuted gradually from one species into another when they cannot breed?’

‘I do not know.’

‘You do not know. There is no mechanism to explain it - that is why you do not know. I repeat, what you have witnessed is variation. An adaptation from one mouse to another mouse through the vagaries of climate, which has been presupposed by God as part of His divine plan. A secondary consequence of a primary act of creation. There is a moral aspect to nature as well as a material aspect, and it is the task of science to link the material to the moral. Any man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly.’

Darwin attempted one last throw. ‘If there is no such thing as transmutation, then why do the most closely allied species occur in the same countries? Why did the Lord place many species of penguin towards the South Pole, but none towards the North Pole?’

‘You have yet to visit Australia, Philos. When you get there, you will find a swan identical in every respect to its British counterpart — except that where the British swan is white with a yellow beak, the Australian version is jet-black with a scarlet beak. The two birds were created many thousands of miles apart, in perfect isolation. Why? As objects of beauty, and no more.’ FitzRoy folded his arms with cold satisfaction and sat back.

Darwin looked down at his shabby, sweat-stained shirt. All his shirts and waistcoats were showing their age now, patched and repatched as they had been during the preceding five years. He wanted to wear clean, new clothes again. He wanted to relax in his favourite armchair at the Mount. He was fed up with quarrelling. He was fed up with this wretched little cabin. He was fed up with ceaselessly feeling seasick. He was fed up with the dyspepsia and constipation and piles that had pursued him here from Valparayso. He seriously doubted whether any schoolboy had ever longed for the holidays as much as he craved his home and his family. The day when the lookout hailed the Lizard lights ahead would be a momentous one indeed. He no longer had the strength or the inclination to argue.

 

A few days later, Darwin, Covington and Midshipman King were landed in high surf on the north-east coast of Chatham Island, with armfuls of collecting-boxes. The water was goosepimple-cold on account of the polar current - Stebbing had fetched up a bucketful, which had measured 58 degrees Fahrenheit - but the air, roasting slowly in the glare of a high, burnished sun, had registered closer to 90. Darwin jammed his thermometer into the black sand, whereupon the mercury promptly shot off the scale, meaning that the ground temperature exceeded 137 degrees Fahrenheit. Within seconds, the glimmering heat had dried out their clothes, then resoaked the trio once more in their own sweat.

Before them lay a buckled, rippling, jagged country, black as anthracite, except that it resembled sea more than land, a churning nocturnal sea that had been paralysed in an instant. Everywhere they looked in this tortured, twisted wasteland were volcanic craters: craters bursting like sores from other craters, little craters concealed within bigger craters, craters with solidified lava spilling over their rims like boiling pitch caught at the moment of tipping from a cauldron. Here and there were fumaroles, smoking vents and steaming fissures that ran in angular, contrary splits against the flow of the rock. It was, reflected Darwin, reminiscent of the iron-foundry country around Wolverhampton. The south side of each crater was the lower, he noticed, and in some cases it had been destroyed altogether.
These cones have been formed under water, he realized. The wind and the waves here arrive from the south. They have battered at these rocks while they lay in the sea, before they ever were raised out of the water.