This Thing Of Darkness (108 page)

‘Vice-Admiral FitzRoy, sir?’

‘That is I.’

‘Begging your pardon to be disturbing you on the Sabbath, sir, but I come at the express request of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria. Her Majesty wishes to make the sea-crossing to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight later this afternoon, sir, and enquires as to the likely state of the weather in the Solent.’

‘When shall Her Majesty leave?’

‘The Royal Train departs at one.’

‘Then I have an hour at most. Hetty, will you kindly entertain our visitor in the pantry? If you will excuse me ...’

‘Of course, sir.’

FitzRoy returned to the morning room, made his apologies, and explained that the womenfolk would have to take their stroll around Beulah Gardens without him, for - yet again - he had work to do. His sister blessed him with a rueful smile of concern as they made their way out.

 

‘The infernals were cone-shaped, and made of zinc, about two feet deep and fifteen inches wide. The Baltic was full of ’em. There was a small glass tube of ignitable stuff in each one, hanging on an iron slide with springs. Well, our lads fished one out of the water and brought it to Admiral Seymour. Some of the officers remarked on the danger of it going off, whereupon Seymour said, “Oh no, this is the way it would go off,” and shoved the slide in with his finger. It instantly exploded, burned every item of clothing off the admiral, and propelled him straight down the companionway, completely unhurt! - which was extraordinary enough. Then, even more extraordinarily, Admiral Dundas and Admiral Pelham demanded one of the infernals be brought to them, to see what had injured Seymour. Caldwell explained that whatever happened, they should not push in the slide like Seymour had. Whereupon Dundas replied, “What? You mean like this?” and pushed in the slide. So the deuced thing went off and blew the three of them off their feet. We found out later from a prisoner-of-war that the infernals were only prototypes - the real ones contained thirty-five pounds of powder, and would have taken both flagships to the bottom!’

FitzRoy laughed more from the pleasure of Sulivan’s companionship than at the story, which he had heard at least four times - Sulivan did have a weakness for retelling old stories. The relentless official untruths, incompetence and confusion, the needless sacrifice and helplessness in the face of disease that had characterized the Crimean War had affected Sulivan badly, he knew; indeed, his friend was one of the very few officers to have emerged from the conflict with any credit. Retelling the famous tale served not just to cheer FitzRoy up but to gloss over a dark period in Sulivan’s own life.

It was lunchtime, and the two admirals were feeling their way through a bilious, jaundiced mist, across Parliament Square to the Abbey. The traffic was almost impenetrably thick. Less robust these days, they paid a crossing-sweeper to negotiate their way through a bedlam of sheep and cattle, part of a herd being driven across Westminster Bridge that had become entangled with a carriage and pair, a hansom cab, a costermonger’s cart and one of Dr Tivoli’s patent omnibuses, the top hats of its passengers lining up in silhouette like smoking factory chimneys on the fog-shrouded roof. The heady stink of summer was a few months off yet, but in the meantime the bleating, mooing, whinnying, cursing mêlée gave off a thick, cloying stench that offered an appropriate foretaste. The brand new clock tower housing Big Ben soared above the tumult, not yet soot-blackened like the other buildings round the square, but pale and stately: by common consent, the design of Britain’s newest landmark harked back to her medieval Gothic past, as if to ward off the encircling filth that poured forth from her factories, tramped across her fields and pastures, and laid siege to the remnants of her chivalric tradition.

FitzRoy and Sulivan found sanctuary in the pitch-dark vault of Westminster Abbey, her stained-glass windows shaded with soot. FitzRoy normally worked through luncheon without a break and without food, just as he often did at dinnertime; but today was different. Today he had no choice but to absent himself from work, for they had come on an important pilgrimage. Today, they had come to say a prayer for their old friend John Wickham. Wickham’s health had taken a beating on the Beagle’s surveying voyage around Australia, forcing him to invalid from the Service in Sydney and to hand over the captaincy of the vessel to Stokes. He had taken more sedentary employment in the colony’s government instead, eventually rising to become the governor of Queensland; in which exalted post, while relaxing with his wife one evening, he had started up suddenly, with his hand to his head, before falling dead in an instant. He had suffered - it was subsequently discovered - a massive stroke.

The two men offered up their prayers in silence, then Sulivan whispered, ‘“All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it.”’ And then: ‘God bless you, Johnny.’

‘The first of us to go,’ reflected FitzRoy, and he remembered Wickham’s booming voice, his tireless good nature, his broad, powerful shoulders, seemingly capable of bearing any load, and the cheery smile for ever set in his round, rosy-cheeked face. Peering back with tired eyes across the undulating landscape of the last thirty years, every day spent on the Beagle now seemed to him a time of untempered bliss; and he found himself overwhelmed with that profound nostalgic sadness that attends the memory of happy days gone by.

Silently, they shared their memories of their old shipmate. Then they made their way back out into the murk of Parliament Square, through besieging hordes of beggars and street-traders selling lucifers, dog-collars, nutmeg-graters and all manner of useless articles.

‘How is your boy Tom going on?’ asked FitzRoy, ignoring the pressing crowds.

‘Splendidly well, thank you. He is just returned from three years in the West Indies. He is paying off at Sheerness, and should be home in a few days. What of young Robert?’

‘He is a lieutenant now, on the Far Eastern station. He wrote me a letter from the Great Wall of China.’

‘I am glad for you. I am sad to say, though, that Philos has lost another son - Charles, his youngest - to scarlet fever. He was weak in the head from birth, by all accounts. It is the third child he and his poor wife have laid to rest.’

‘I am sorry. No doubt he will tell the poor woman that the race is to the strong - that nature is up to her usual tricks of ruthlessly weeding out imperfection.’

‘You must not hate him, FitzRoy, for he is a good soul, despite what he has done. If he is indeed being punished by the good Lord, then surely he has suffered enough. I have prayed to the Almighty to show mercy upon him.’

‘Oh, I do not hate him, my dear friend, you need have no fear on that score. I feel only the most acute pain that he has gone astray. He put himself under my protection, and I failed him as surely as I failed young Hellyer and Musters.’ Had they lived, he reflected, Hellyer and Musters would have been in their mid-forties now.

‘You have failed nobody.’

‘I should have failed poor Jemmy too, had you not journeyed to his rescue. What a mess I have made of things.’

‘I will not hear it. How many lives have been saved by your system of storm warnings? Several hundred, I’ll wager. Fatalities have plummeted since you began issuing forecasts. There are many in this country who owe you a great debt.’

‘The Times
does not seem to think so.’

Sulivan made a rueful face, as FitzRoy stopped to buy the afternoon edition from a news-vendor.

‘The Times
is full of the most awful gammon, FitzRoy, you know that. It always has been.’

‘I do find it confusing, I must say, that they run the daily weather forecast on one page while attacking it on another.’

For weeks now,
The Times
had been mounting regular editorial assaults on the work of FitzRoy’s department, ridiculing weather-forecasting as a preposterous pseudo-science with no more basis in truth than the astrological weather predictions issued every January. The culprits were not hard to identify: each time a flotilla of fishing boats or a collier fleet stayed in port because of one of FitzRoy’s storm warnings, the owners lost money. The fleet-owners were rich and influential people, more than one of whom had the ear of the editor of The Times. FitzRoy turned to the editorial page. Sure enough, the jibes were still coming thick and fast:

FitzRoy folded up the paper in exasperation.

‘I shall have to write to them again,’ he said wearily.

 

‘The Right Honourable Member for Truro.’

Augustus Smith, MP, rose to address the Commons, although in truth there was not a great deal of difference between Augustus Smith standing and Augustus Smith seated, so limited was the honourable gentleman’s stature. He did, however, compensate in girth for what he lacked in height: there was quite a lot of Augustus Smith, but most of it liked to stay close to the floor. Augustus Smith, MP, was the owner of a fleet of fishing-vessels.

‘Mr Speaker, gentlemen. I propose to address the disturbing fad for weather prophecies, as propagated by Vice-Admiral FitzRoy’s department of the Board of Trade. Last Tuesday week, what did the board prophesy with regard to the weather? “Wind south-east to south-south-west, fresh moderate.” And what was the fact? The wind did not blow from those quarters at all. In fact, a gale blew down from the north! These “forecasts”, gentlemen, are no more than a disgraceful hoax, perpetrated on an unwitting public at their own expense. Why on earth should the government spend our money on a system that might encourage fishermen and coastal sailors, calculating a mere possibility of storm, to stay at home idly by the fireside, when we ourselves are ready to struggle through the wind and rain to our places of work? It appears that the Vice-Admiral’s telegraphic system has cost the country, altogether, the sum of forty-five thousand pounds! Whereas the other purveyor of this vulgar and fallacious practice, Moore’s Almanac, offers predictions of a similar nature for the princely sum of one penny! I assure you, gentlemen, that the results worked out by Vice-Admiral FitzRoy are yet more wonderful than even the various professors of the black arts have ever offered us.’

A contented chortle rumbled through the House. Few MPs on either side had much sympathy with lazy fishermen or collier crews who were not, like themselves, prepared to put in a full day’s work.

Colonel Sabine rose to reply on behalf of the government.

‘I can inform the honourable gentleman that out of fifty-six ship-masters queried to the end of last month, forty-six were in favour of the system of storm warnings; and that out of a total of 2,288 warning signals issued, a total of 1,188 were subsequently justified by the state of the weather within forty-eight hours. As regards to the telegraphic costs, I am able to reassure the House that a special rate has been arranged between Vice-Admiral FitzRoy and the telegraphic companies, thereby keeping costs to a minimum.’

Augustus Smith, who had never actually been to sea himself, but who saw no reason for sailors to be mollycoddled, rose with a cunning smile extending from one chubby cheek to the other. He planted both his thumbs in the pockets of his well-filled waistcoat. ‘The honourable gentlemen informs us that of just over two thousand warning signals issued, just over one thousand of them were subsequently justified: a success rate, if I am not mistaken, of about fifty per cent. In other words, for a total expenditure of forty-five thousand pounds, Her Majesty’s government has produced a set of statical results that could just as easily have been obtained by tossing a coin!’

A roar of approving laughter besieged the helpless Colonel Sabine. ‘Should it not perhaps have occurred to the government to employ a gentleman of high scientific attainments in such a post, rather than a mere armchair sailor? Vice-Admiral FitzRoy, I have heard, is not a man of means. The gentleman - if indeed he is a gentleman - has clearly assumed a higher station in life than he can afford to sustain!’

Enthusiastic cheers followed hard on the approving laughter. Colonel Sabine glanced embarrassedly round at his colleagues on the government benches. It was debatable, in fact, whether they could afford to sustain this whole meteorologic business.

 

By ten o’clock, the busiest time of the morning, the telegrams were pouring into the little office in Parliament Street like storm-water through a burst dyke. Babington fought to stay abreast of the flow, logging each one and reducing it or correcting it for scale-errors, elevation or temperature as required. As soon as they had been adjusted they were passed to FitzRoy, to be entered on to that day’s chart of the British Isles. They did not have much time: the first forecast of the day had to be ready by eleven, for the
Shipping Gazette
and the second edition of
The Times.
Nobody spoke, but three pairs of hands fairly raced across the paper in front of them. It was like this every day: the preceding years had seen their routine become extremely well practised. Sulivan knew this, which was why he delayed his visit until the initial morning rush had begun to wane, and the copyists had taken on the burden of replicating the forecast goodness knows how many times, for the benefit of goodness knows how many recipients.