This Thing Of Darkness (97 page)

‘He is ... close by,’ said Phillips. ‘My name is Garland Phillips. I am a missionary.’

‘Like Reverend Mister Matthews? Mister Matthews is my frien’.’

‘That’s right, Jemmy. Like the Reverend Mr Matthews. I am a reverend also.’

‘Me know you flag. Me say to family, “Capp’en Fitz‘oy’s flag.”’

‘Would you like to come below, Jemmy?’ enquired Snow. ‘My wife is resting below. I should very much like you to meet her.’

‘English lady your wife? English lady very pretty - very good looks. Like Capp’en Sisser.’

Jemmy’s enthusiasm was abruptly replaced by a look of embarrassed realization, as he placed his hands over his genitals.

‘Jemmy want breeches, if you please. Want braces, thank you very much.’

Phillips, who clearly thought this a promising sign, called for shirts and two pairs of breeches, although it was a while before any could be found that would stretch across Jemmy’s near-spherical belly. Then, while their fellows waited patiently in the boats, the two Fuegians were led below and introduced to Mrs Snow. The captain, meanwhile, hurried to his shelves and returned with a copy of FitzRoy’s book,
Narratives of the Voyages of the
Beagle.

‘Look, Jemmy. Two portraits of you.’

Jemmy laughed, at first. The left-hand portrait showed a wild, shaggy-haired native, while the right-hand effort depicted him as the starched, preening dandy he had once become. Then, as he traced the line of the high, elegant collar with the tip of his forefinger, his expression became downcast.

‘Beautiful clothes,’ he said wistfully. ‘Beautiful clothes for Jemmy.’

‘What do you remember of God, Jemmy?’ demanded Garland Phillips.

‘Me remember God. People say in my country, no God. Me go tell them people, yes, God is in my country. He made me and them. Made trees, moon.’

Phillips rubbed his hands together with excitement.

‘And what do you remember of England, Jemmy?’ asked Mrs Snow, an earnest, long-nosed woman, her face restrained by a lilac bonnet.

‘Jemmy stayed at Wal’amstow with Schoolmaster Jenkins. There was a great church-house, two churchmen, one white gown, one black. An organ make music, much noise. Jemmy meet King. All good in English country. Jemmy make many frien’s. Capp‘en Fitz’oy. Mr Bennet. Mr Bynoe. Many frien’s.’ Jemmy looked up at Mrs Snow with big, sad eyes.

‘Is this your son, Jemmy?’ she prompted.

‘Yes. This my son - Wammestriggins! My wife in canoe!’

‘Peased to meet you, ma’am,’ said Wammestriggins.

‘This is incredible,’ breathed Phillips. ‘He’s taught his entire family to speak English.’

‘Would you like some food, Jemmy?’ asked Snow.

‘Yes, if you please, Capp’en,’ Jemmy nodded. ’English food good.’

Coles was quickly put to work, and before long a presentable meal of fresh fish, boiled duck and double-shotted plum duff had been rustled up. Both Jemmy and Wammestriggins picked up their knives and forks as if eating with European cutlery was second nature to them.

‘What immaculate table manners you have, Jemmy,’ Mrs Snow congratulated him.

‘Capp’en Fitz‘oy, he teach Jemmy how to eat like English gen’leman. Jemmy teach all family. Not eat like savage — eat like gen‘leman. You see? My son Wammestriggins — eat like gen’leman.’

Wammestriggins had begun to transfer dainty portions of fish into his mouth, but Jemmy could not bring himself to start.

‘Is everything all right, Jemmy?’ asked Phillips. ‘Is the food not to your liking?’

‘Capp’en Fitz‘oy gone for long time,’ said Jemmy, almost inaudibly. ‘But Jemmy know he come back. Jemmy tell his family, “Capp’en Fitz‘oy will come back. He is Jemmy’s frien’. He will come back for Jemmy ...”’ He tailed off.

‘Are you all right, Jemmy?’ asked Mrs Snow.

For the second time in his life, big wet dollops were running down Jemmy’s nose and splashing on to the table beneath.

 

Following dinner, the canoes that had relentlessly pursued the
Allen Gardiner’s
trail began to arrive at last. Jemmy preferred not to spend the night on the ship, for his wife was starting to panic, but returned at dawn, his new clothes caked in red mud because he had slept in them. By morning there were perhaps a hundred canoes packed with excited natives buzzing round the ship, like wherry-boats swarming about a prestigious launch on the Thames. Presents were distributed, of blankets, knives and carpentry tools; then Snow lowered the dinghy, and he, Phillips and his fellow-catechist Charles Turpin went with Jemmy to inspect the scant remains of FitzRoy’s mission buildings. A silent host of curious Fuegians shadowed their every footstep, intent on every English word.

‘Here Jemmy’s house . . . Here York and Fuegia’s house . . . Here Mister Matthews’s house . . .’ Jemmy marched them past three discoloured squares in the grass, a few splinters of rotting board the only tangible reminder of FitzRoy’s great experiment. Remarkably, Snow found a potato in the debris of the garden. Then, Jemmy produced a twenty-year-old axe, its blade worn to a sliver but still as sharp as the day it had been made. ‘Capp’en Fitz‘oy give me this,’ he announced proudly.

Garland Phillips seized the Fuegian by both arms. ‘We can build it again, Jemmy,’ he said.

‘What you mean? Jemmy no understan’.’

‘Yes you do. We can rebuild the mission. But first you must come with us on the
Allen Gardiner.
Not to Britain - that is too far. But we have built another mission on the Falkland Islands. Come with us - bring your family, bring your friends - learn the ways of mission life!’

‘Is too far. Jemmy go long way to Englan’. Maybe someone else want go to mission. Maybe my brother Macooallan.’

‘Jemmy, it is just a few days’ sail.’

‘Mrs Button no want Jemmy to go.’

‘Then bring her, Jemmy - bring her with you. Bring your whole family!’

‘Will Capp’en Fitz‘oy be there? At Falk’and?’

‘No. He won’t.’

It was Snow who had cut in bluntly. Phillips glared daggers at the burly captain.

‘No, he won’t be there now, Jemmy, but he will be there soon. Captain FitzRoy will be there soon. And Captain Sulivan - he lives at the Falklands - he will be there too.’ Phillips gave Snow a look of triumph.

‘Mister Sulivan good man. Good frien’. Mister Sulivan is Capp‘en Sulivan now?’

‘Yes. He is Captain Sulivan now.’ Phillips could tell that Jemmy was wavering. ‘It is a beautiful mission, Jemmy, on Keppel Island. You will have your own house, made of brick, like the houses in London. Our mission is named Cranmer, after the greatest Christian martyr, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.’

‘If you please, what is martyr?’

‘A martyr, Jemmy? Martyrdom is the greatest accolade that can be bestowed upon any Christian. To die for one’s faith. To die for the love of God. That is a martyr. God wants you to come to Cranmer, Jemmy. It is God’s wish.’

Jemmy hesitated, dreaming of a pink suit he once owned. His son came to his side and took his hand affectionately.

‘I can bring Wammestriggins?’

‘You can bring Wammestriggins.’

Jemmy paused for a further second, then made his decision.

‘Very well. Jemmy will come, for five moons. No longer.’

 

The former Port William, recently made capital of the Falkland Islands and renamed Stanley in honour of the previous colonial secretary, stretched in three lines of damp wooden huts along the shore of a cigar-shaped natural harbour. It was the site chosen by FitzRoy himself as an alternative to Port Louis, a three-mile strip of sedate water studded with jetties and linked to the ocean by a rumbustious narrow channel. Snow thought that he had never seen such a drab settlement. Maybe it was the institutional white paint that had been chosen to decorate every hut in a dismal attempt at collective gaiety, already peeling in protest at the pounding it was taking from the elements. Maybe it was the dispiriting, regimented rows in which Stanley had been laid out. Or maybe it was the listlessness of the inhabitants, pensioners and poverty-stricken Irishmen all, who had been induced to remove themselves here by the official promise of a hundred acres of farmland each, plus a cow and a pig. The hundred-acre plots, the settlers had soon discovered, were parcels of worthless bog many miles deep in the interior; the pigs and the cows were feral beasts, roaming the islands in wild herds that, frankly, were anyone’s for the taking if they were brave enough. To make matters worse, the prices of ordinary household goods in Stanley - all of which had to be imported from Britain — were running at four times the normal.

The hut of the islands’ governor, Thomas Moore, was no better or worse than any of the others. A vicious wind cut through the cheap planking, whirling his official paperwork about the top of his rudimentary desk. Snow and Phillips stood uncomfortably to attention on the governor’s rough dirt floor.
This truly is the end of the world,
thought Snow.

‘Do you not think it discourteous, gentlemen, even impudent, that the Patagonian Missionary Society should see fit to take possession of an island under my governorship, without any reference to myself?’ Moore glared at the pair.

‘I supposed, sir, that the Reverend George Packenham Despard, the president of the Patagonian Missionary Society, had written to you regarding the establishment of our mission,’ replied Garland Phillips coolly.

‘Oh, Mr Despard wrote to me indeed,’ growled Moore, a stout and pugnacious former military man. ‘He wrote demanding that I allow him land to build a mission, “away from the depraved, low and immoral colonists of Stanley”. I can assure you that his opinion of the settlers has caused much offence here. I can also assure you that he has received no affirmative response from myself, and yet here you are, sirs, demanding retrospective permission for the construction of a mission on Keppel Island!’

Snow wished that the ground would swallow him up.

‘And let me assure
you,
sir,’ replied Phillips even more smoothly, ‘that the Cranmer Mission is a project dear to God’s heart. It has the support of no less a dignitary than Captain Bartholomew Sulivan, of these very shores. If you would only contact Captain Sulivan — ’

‘Don’t you know there is a war in Europe?’ barked Moore. ‘Captain Sulivan is from home. He has been called to fight the Russians.’

‘Nonetheless, sir, his support for the Reverend Mr Despard’s project has been unwavering throughout. Mr Despard is a visionary, sir, one of the greatest men of our times, and it has been a privilege for me to serve the Lord through him. With his guidance, the savage Jemmy Button and his fellow natives — ’

‘Jemmy Button, who was once bought for a button? I would remind you both of the slavery laws.’

‘Jemmy Button, who has now
volunteered
to bring his family to Cranmer,’ stressed Phillips. ‘With the Reverend Mr Despard’s guidance —

‘How many natives are in the party?’

‘About twelve, sir.’

‘And you are aware, I trust, of the Alien Ordnance passed by the Falklands Legislative Council, which imposes a levy of twenty shillings per foreign worker?’

‘These are not workers as such, sir. If you would — ’

‘I consider it my duty, gentlemen,’ cut in Moore, who was fast losing patience not just with Phillips but with life in the Falklands in general, ‘to make strict enquiry as to whether these miserable savages have come voluntarily and with lawful contracts, as far as can be intelligible to their limited intellects. Not,’ he added witheringly, ‘that I wish to pour cold water upon your romantic enterprise.’

‘You may be satisfied, sir,’ retorted Phillips, ‘that no less a person than the Reverend Mr Despard himself is due in Stanley ere long on the
Hydaspes,
a Patagonian Missionary Society vessel bound from Plymouth. I have no doubt, sir, that he shall settle any of the minor difficulties you have raised to your complete and utter satisfaction.’

Moore grunted, only partly mollified.

 

It was indeed just a few days later that the
Hydaspes
stood into the next jetty along from the
Allen Gardiner,
whereupon gangs of eager sailors in matching guernseys could be seen unloading Despard’s wife, children, pigs, sheep, goats, ducks, hens, books, furniture and grand piano. Despard himself swept among the matlows dispensing God’s blessings with a munificent air; but his smile faded and his brow clouded when Snow and Phillips emerged from the
Allen Gardiner
to welcome him to Stanley and to organize the transfer of his goods to their vessel.

‘Captain Snow,’ he boomed, ‘I have received a communication in Monte Video, a most disturbing communication, from my catechist here’ - Phillips, impassive, did not bother to look embarrassed — ‘suggesting that you actively encouraged the savage Jemmy Button to remain at Woollya, and not to make the passage to Keppel Island.’

‘I did so, sir, because I had my doubts - genuine Christian doubts - regarding the manner in which he was enticed to make the passage.’ Snow gave Phillips a filthy look.

‘You are a paid employee of the society, Captain Snow, and as such you are not one of God’s elect. You are not qualified to express such doubts.’

‘Missionary work, Mr Despard, should be about good deeds, poor relief and spreading knowledge and understanding. It should not be about planting an idol in the heathens’ hearts; introducing them to mystic ideas which they can only understand as you may choose to make them understood; and doing so by various methods which are neither straightforward nor truthful.’

Despard looked as if he would like to lean forward and bite the captain. ‘I would advise you, sir, to know your place.’

Snow was getting hot under the collar now. ‘My place, sir, is the place of any good Christian, to question the immoral removal of these uncomprehending natives many hundreds of miles from their home-land. Evil must not be done that good may perchance - and only perchance - come out of it.’