This Thing Of Darkness (98 page)

‘Your place, Captain Snow, is on the
Hydaspes,
as a paying passenger,’ trumpeted Despard haughtily. ‘You are dismissed - dismissed, do you hear? - from the society’s employ. Captain Fell of the
Hydaspes
— a decent, God-fearing sailor, sir - shall take your place at the helm of the
Allen Gardiner.
When, and only when, a new captain is appointed to the
Hydaspes,
you shall be free to quit these islands. In the meantime, I bid you good day, sir.’

‘You are a charlatan, sir!’

‘And you are a scoundrel, sir!’

Only then, as they finally gave full vent to their anger, did the two men realize that all work on the jetty had come to a halt and that the entire company of ship’s matlows stood frozen with surprise, staring in their direction.

 

Jemmy Button rested a weary boot on his spade, as Mr and Mrs Despard picked their way carefully down from Sulivan House. As was so often the case at Cranmer, a cold, sleeting rain was whipping eastwards out of a glowering sky. Jemmy was bundled up in a south-wester, a red comforter, a pea-jacket and heavy boots, not for warmth or protection - he actually felt rather overheated in such an ensemble - but because it was the most elegant sartorial combination he could concoct. The fact that he resembled a Dutch lugger had passed him by, although it made the crewmen laugh. He really should have resumed digging when the Despards came into view, but they had almost certainly spotted his inactivity already, so there was little further point pretending: he contented himself instead with straightening his aching back in a vaguely respectful manner. They were passing the cattle corrals now, where a sudden ‘moo’ caused Mrs Despard to leap quickly to her left. Jemmy suppressed a grin.

‘Good morning, James,’ called Despard, his huge semicircle of upper teeth on confident display. The Despards invariably called him James.

‘Good morning, sar.’

‘You have ceased digging, James.’

‘Jemmy’s boots get muddy. Jemmy not like his boots get muddy.’

‘God loves good men, James. Good men are not idle. God does not love idle men.’

‘No sar.’

‘The Queen’s birthday is in three days’ time, and by then I want to see all five flagstaffs erected. Would you have Her Majesty’s birthday pass without the Royal Standard and the Union flag flying over her distant domains?’

‘No,’ replied Jemmy, sullenly.

‘No what?’

‘No sar.’

‘No sir, and no ma’am. There is a lady present. Do you see the other diggers being idle?’ He gestured across the landscape, which was dotted with stocky Fuegians at work. ’I think not. Do you see Jamesina being idle? I think not.’ Jamesina was the name the Despards had given to Lassaweea, Jemmy’s wife. ’Jamesina has learned to work at the needle, in her rough way. She washes and irons clothes, prepares food and performs all manner of household duties. I expect you to follow her example, James.’

‘Yes sar. Yes ma’am.’

‘That’s better, James,’ said Despard, and he and his wife continued on their way, the clergyman audibly lamenting the general state of his charges. ‘What you must remember, my dear, is that the savages are as self-willed and capricious as grown spoiled children, and require great patience and firmness to manage them, as well as an undaunted spirit.’

‘I see that, my dear, I see that all too well.’

‘I have great hopes, however, for young Threeboys.’ Threeboys was the name the Despards had devised for Wammestriggins. ‘His diligence as regards cleanliness is remarkable. So ambitious is he to become white that he ablutes often, in the hope of washing the brown out of his complexion. It is a most promising sign — a most promising sign indeed.’

By now the pair had arrived at Button Villa, the name given to the ten-foot-square brick hut into which all the Fuegians had been crammed. Gingerly, Despard pulled aside the calico window-blind, and peered in. He could see Jamesina sitting with her eight-year-old daughter Fuegia, as they had renamed Passawullacuds, her baby Anthony, as Annasplonis had been christened, and Threeboys himself. She was polishing a tin cooking utensil. Despard pushed open the door.

‘Good morning, Jamesina.’

The Fuegian gave a little curtsy.

‘Good morning, sar. Good morning, ma’am.’

‘This is very good, Jamesina,’ said Despard, taking the utensil from her. ‘You have cleaned this very well.’

‘I have brought you a gift, Jamesina,’ said Mrs Despard, opening her bag. ‘It is a woven shawl, knitted by Mrs Harvey of York.’

‘It is a woven shawl, knitted by Mrs Harvey of York,’ replied Mrs Button, who still clung to the traditional Fuegian practice of repeating anything said to her that she did not understand.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ prompted Despard.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Jamesina, uncertainly.

‘And you, Threeboys. What are you about this morning?’

‘I have written a letter, sar, to Queen Victoria.’

‘Indeed, Threeboys? May I see it?’

Threeboys handed over a piece of paper, upon which he had written in a painstaking hand:

‘That is excellent, Threeboys. Very good indeed. I shall post it for you.’

Despard slid the letter into his pocket; he would consign it discreetly to the fire later.

‘I pray to God for Jesus Christ’s sake to make me a good boy,’ said Threeboys.

‘God shall hear your prayer, Threeboys, I am certain of it,’ said the delighted clergyman.

Mrs Despard, meanwhile, had plucked the sleeping Anthony deftly from his cot, and now cradled the child lovingly in her arms. ‘Look, dearest. Is he not the
sweetest
little boy?’

‘The Lord has blessed you, Jamesina, with a most attractive baby. I am sure that he will grow into a strong and healthy Christian.’

Something stirred beneath Mrs Button’s newly acquired veneer of faith, and she held out her hands for the return of her son.

Reluctantly, Mrs Despard complied. ‘Dearest,’ she said to her husband after they had left Button Villa, ‘do you think it would be possible for us to keep Anthony? I mean, after the Fuegians are gone?’

‘Keep him, Mrs Despard?’

‘We could give the child a healthful and civilized upbringing - a far cry from the life of savage despair that awaits him. And is it not said that savage mothers do not feel the same attachment to their children as would be felt by mothers of a more advanced race?’

‘That is indeed said, my dear. You have made an interesting proposal — a most interesting proposal indeed. Perhaps it is not impossible that - on this point at least - the savages shall be able to see reason.’

 

In a graceful, lazy arc, almost the same one that had measured its flight in life, the goose plummeted soundlessly to the grass. Impressed with himself and grinning with pleasure, Threeboys lowered the gun.

‘Well done! Well done, Threeboys!’ said Despard, and clapped the boy on the back.

Really, things could not have been going better for the Reverend George Packenham Despard. The Fuegians had been at Cranmer for six months now, and despite the odd grumble at the length of their stay and the regime of continuous hard labour, there was no doubt that the mission and its inhabitants were finding mutual benefit in the arrangement. Jemmy and his relatives spent their days digging peat for fuel, painting window-frames, carrying paving slabs, tending the vegetable gardens, building bridges across streams and foraging for wreckwood on the beaches; gradually, they were learning the virtues inherent in honest servitude and Christian prayer and, gradually, the mission was nearing completion. The business with Snow had been awkward - Mrs Snow had virtually succumbed to a hysterical breakdown on the jetty at Stanley - but the man had clearly been a troublemaker from the start. Captain Fell was a vast improvement, quiet but firm, and studious in his devotions. With Garland Phillips as a more than able sergeant-major, Despard was confident that he had assembled the right team to commence the building of another mission on the mainland of Tierra del Fuego itself. That jumped-up foot-soldier Moore had sent men down from Stanley to sneak around, but the natives had been on their best behaviour, and the governor’s hirelings had returned empty-handed: there would be no more trouble on that score.

Now the Lord had further rewarded his humble endeavours by guiding his footsteps to Threeboys. Jemmy Button’s son really was a most remarkable lad, being intelligent, loyal and devout. He would much rather keep this child than the gurning, fat-faced brown baby his wife seemed so enamoured with. Perhaps it might be possible to retain both. Certainly, the boy was a far better marksman than any other at the mission. Why, that morning alone he had shot no fewer than five wild geese and five loggerhead ducks. Despard decided that he would keep the geese for the white men - the flesh tasted better - and allow the boy to take the ducks back for the more primitive palates of his father and the other Fuegians. Really, the boy’s father was the only remaining cloud on the Keppel Island horizon. It was hard to see why FitzRoy and Sulivan had made such a fuss about him. He was one of the dullest of his race, miserable, lazy, preening and stupid. All he did, it seemed, was complain continuously, about FitzRoy’s absence, about Sulivan’s absence, and about the fact that he had not been allowed to go home after ‘five moons’, a length of time he had apparently stipulated with no reference to anyone else. How much easier would it have been for all concerned if he had never come to Cranmer?

Despard and Threeboys marched triumphantly down from the rain-swept, misty hills, taking the footpath home across the Despard Plain, the young boy struggling manfully under the weight of the ten limp-necked birds. They were no more than a few hundred yards short of their goal when a distressed Mrs Despard emerged from Sulivan House, her skirts billowing, her bonnet flapping. ‘Mr Despard! Mr Despard!’ she cried.

‘What is it, Mrs Despard?’ replied her husband, hastening towards her.

‘I cannot find my comb.’

‘Your comb?’

‘My jewelled comb. I put it on the dresser this morning. Then, when I came to pick it up, it was gone. Vanished! I can only presume that the natives have stolen it.’

‘Have they indeed?’ Despard’s broad jaw set tight. He was not the sort of man to see his wife standing distressed in a wet field, the wind tugging stray locks from beneath her indoor bonnet. He would punish most severely whoever it was that had reduced her to this.

‘Come, Threeboys!’ he commanded, and set off towards the mission cottages to fetch Phillips and Turpin. A minute later, the party had arrived at Button Villa, where an angry Despard flung open the door. A roomful of startled Fuegian men looked round from their luncheon.

‘Search the property,’ ordered Despard.

‘What is — ’ began Jemmy.

‘Somebody has stolen a comb. A jewelled comb. I intend to discover the identity of the thief,’ announced Despard grimly.

Phillips and Turpin moved in and began to toss aside clothing, bedding, animal skins, anything they could find.

‘You say we are thieves?’ snapped Jemmy, openly angry for the first time since arriving. He made a stumbling translation for the benefit of his fellows, one of whom, Schwaiamugunjiz, began to shout at the missionaries in Yamana.

‘Keep your temper,’ ordered Despard.

‘We are innocent as the newborn Christ!’ insisted Jemmy, his wife cowering behind him as Phillips ripped open a home-made cushion.

‘Never, ever take the Lord’s name in vain again!’ said Despard, with a voice of steel. He resorted to a much-taught formula to keep order. ‘Who made the world, James?’

‘God,’ said Jemmy sullenly.

‘Who made the sun and the moon?’

‘God.’

‘Who made you, James?’

‘English God,’ said Jemmy, diverting from the prepared text.

‘God,’ corrected Despard.

‘English God — I am English gen’leman.’

‘English gentlemen do not steal. Only bad men steal.’

‘We not stay Kebbel Island,’ spat Schwaiamugunjiz. ‘We go away when schooner come.’

There was silence in the little hut.

‘There’s nothing, sir,’ reported Phillips. ‘Leastways, it’s not hidden in here, sir.’

Despard breathed hard. ‘Very well. But do not for one minute think I have forgotten this. The search will continue. Remember this, James — all of you — we are all of us sinners. Do you understand?
We are all of us sinners.
And Christ our Lord suffered on the cross for our sins.’

Jemmy touched his forelock resignedly. ‘Yes, sar. I know Son of God came down to die,’ he replied. ‘He died for his God, sar.’

 

Just after eleven o‘clock on the morning of 28 September, Captain Fell decided that the tide and winds were fair, and a scowling band of departing Fuegians were allowed to assemble at the mission jetty at last. The start of the wild-bird-egg season, they had insisted, was only a week away, and they were more anxious than ever to be off. Despard was reluctant to see them leave, but his broaching of the possibility that Threeboys or Anthony be left behind to be fostered by his own family had soured relations to a near-critical level. An unsteady truce now prevailed, fragile enough for Despard to keep an escort of heavily built sailors at hand. As the Fuegians deposited their cloth bundles in a slovenly heap ready for embarkation, he rapped out a command to his bodyguard: ‘Search them!’

The sailors moved forward and began to untie the bundles.

‘We no thiefs!’ shouted Jemmy. The missing hair comb had been found in the mission yard. Nobody knew how it had got there.

‘Search their packs,’ repeated Despard.