The Darwin Conspiracy (22 page)

Aware of his destitute state, his colleagues—‘including your own papa’,
said Frances—got him elected to the Royal Society. The Society recommended
him to the Board of Trade to be appointed weather statistician, a post that
was not glamorous but held interest for a scientific man. He remarried and
attempted to make the most of his new position, embracing the use of the
barometer, and had tried to collect all sorts of observations not simply to
record weather as it occurred but to make predictions for the future. He called
it ‘weather-forecasting’ and thought it could save ships at sea; but despite
some initial successes, it had not worked out. His faulty predictions were
widely ridiculed—and
The Times
had recently dropped his ‘forecasts’.

‘You should know too he is no friend of your dear father’s,’ Frances said.

‘I am aware of that,’ I replied. ‘Papa says he has been attacking him in
reviews under the name of “Senex”. He recognises his arguments from the old
days.’

‘There’s little doubt that his religious fervour has increased. He’s become
a strict literalist of the Bible. My husband has often remarked on the turn of
fate that made the
Beagle
into a cradle for the faith of one man and a coffin
for the faith of another.’

Frances then said that of all the shocks and jolts FitzRoy had received, the
one that cut the deepest was the news of the massacre of the crew of the
Allen Gardiner
and the accusation that Jemmy Button himself had led it. We
began to discuss the shocking tale, but at that point others joined us in the
garden and so we broke off.

21 April 1865

I am staying with Uncle Ras, who is amused by my interest in Papa’s past
and has kindly agreed to arrange a meeting with FitzRoy in a week’s time,
promising to keep the matter ‘our own little secret’. He, too, warned me about
 
the Captain, saying that the man was succumbing to what he himself has
termed ‘the blue evils’.

To pass the time, I decided to learn more about the massacre in Tierra del
Fuego, and so I called upon William Parker Snow, the Captain who found
Jemmy Button twenty-two years after Captain FitzRoy had returned him to
the wild. Mr Snow, then employed by the Patagonian Missionary Society and
now its major antagonist, has seized upon Jemmy’s vengeful guilt in the massacre as part of his campaign to bring the Society’s work to an end.

He received me most graciously in his second-floor office on Harley Street,
holding a chair for me to be seated and saying that it was an honour to meet

‘Professor Darwin’s daughter’. I promptly assured him that my father was
not a professor by any means, but simply an amateur naturalist, to which he
replied: ‘Were all amateurs of his ilk, we would be fortunate indeed.’

After such inconsequential talk, I asked him to recount the story of the
massacre. His brow furrowed and he told me the bare bones of what was
known. I made notes of what he said.

‘When Jemmy was returned to Tierra del Fuego, he disappeared for
years. I found him in November 1855 and was astounded at the change in
him. We sailed in through the narrows into Yahgashaga and spotted fires
burning on a small island. I ran up the ensign and two canoes approached,
one carrying a fat, dirty, naked Indian who stood up and shouted “Where’s
the ladder?” We brought him on board and couldn’t believe it was really
Jemmy Button: he seemed to have totally reverted to a primitive state. But
he hadn’t forgotten his English. And another curious thing—he refused to
answer to the name Jemmy. He said he wanted to be called Orundellico
instead. I have no idea what that was all about.

‘It was awkward and Jemmy was none too friendly. He demanded clothes
and so I gave him a pair of my own trousers and a shirt, but he was too fat to
wear them. He wanted meat, but when we took him belowdecks to feed him,
he was too overwhelmed to eat. I asked him if he wanted to go to the new
mission station on the Falklands and he resolutely refused. I gave him some
gifts, including a music-box, which delighted him, and I told him to come
back the next morning for more.

‘At daybreak, more canoes surrounded us. Jemmy and his brothers and
other men came on board and the mood turned ugly. I gave Jemmy more presents than he could carry. They were shouting
“Yammerschooner”
over and
over. That means “give me” and believe me, once you’ve heard it you never
forget it. Some of the others pushed me, saying “Ingliss come—Ingliss give—

Ingliss plenty.” Jemmy would not help us. So I shouted for the sails to be
loosened, which made them think we were leaving, and fearful that we would
kidnap them, they scrambled over the side. That was my last sight of Jemmy,
as we sailed off—he and his wife in a canoe, fighting off the others to keep
their pile of gifts.’

Mr Snow explained what happened next. A new missionary leader
arrived, the Reverend G. Pakenham Despard, fixed on the idea that Jemmy
should become the spearhead of a mass conversion. He hired a new captain,
who returned to Tierra del Fuego and somehow brought Jemmy and his
family to the mission settlement at Keppel in the Falklands. They learnt little,
did little and stayed there only four months. To go home, they had to promise
others would take their place, and so an exchange was made on the next
trip—Jemmy returned to his island and nine more Indians came. They had
appeared to fit in at the settlement, singing hymns and being baptised. But
their return voyage began badly. Despard believed they had stolen things
from the missionary workers and ordered a search. They threw their bundles
down on the deck of the ship, furious at being called thieves, and when articles were indeed discovered and confiscated, they became even more angry.

Their fury did not dissipate during the rough crossing. When the
Allen Gardiner
dropped anchor, and the other Indians rowed out to the ship, those
on board raised a clamour. Jemmy was brought on board to mediate and he
took the side of his tribesmen, demanding more gifts as compensation. But
there were no more. Then a sailor told the Captain that some of his personal
items were missing. Another search was ordered—the items were discovered—
and the Indians went into a frenzy, tearing their clothes off, throwing away
their Bibles and all trappings of civilisation, and, naked, clambering down
into the canoes. Their shrieks resounded from shore until nightfall and fires
were lit, billowing smoke into the dark sky.

For days the ship gently rocked in the bay, as the crew constructed a rudimentary mission-house on a quiet spot above the beach and hundreds of
canoes bearing Indians arrived from all directions. On Sunday, the missionary decided to hold a service in the house. Dressed in clean shirts, leaving
only the cook on board, the crew rowed to the beach and made their way
through crowds of Indians. The cook watched from the boat. Once the Captain and crew were inside, the Indians seized the long-boat and pushed it into
the water. A hymn struck up from within the house, then an outcry, then
shrieks. The white men stumbled out into the sunlight, as the Indians pursued them, beating them with clubs and stones. Others arrived with spears.

One sailor reached the water, waded out to his waist and was felled with a
stone to the temple. The beach was soaked in blood. The terrified cook lowered a dinghy, rowed frantically to shore and disappeared into the woods. He
was rescued half-crazed, months later, by a ship sent to investigate, naked
and covered with boils, his eyebrows and beard plucked out by the Indians.

He told a tale of horror. The ship that returned him to the Falklands also
brought Jemmy Button.

Mr Snow sighed and said, ‘I expect you know the rest from the newspapers.’ And indeed, I did. An official enquiry was held. Amid a welter of
confusing testimony and political opinion running against the Patagonian
Missionary Society, Jemmy was not found guilty, despite the statements of the
cook, who said, among other things, that Mr Button had climbed aboard
the ship after the massacre and spent the night sleeping in the Captain’s
quarters.

‘All very sad,’ opined Mr Snow. ‘But I knew in my bones that something
like this would happen. It was a chain of events set in motion by the meeting
of the first Englishman and the first Indian. It was pre-ordained from the
moment that Captain FitzRoy tore that button from his uniform and paid for
that young boy.’

I felt myself nodding in agreement.

‘And as I expected, it has ended badly for the Indians. At last report, their
ranks have been decimated by disease. Here, look at this—’

And so saying, he handed me a copy of the Mission’s newsletter,
The Voice of Pity.
I saw there an article reporting ‘a burst of mournful news’—

the death of Jemmy Button. Mr Snow waited until I had read it, then spoke
again.

‘I knew that underneath all the smiles and bowing, Jemmy didn’t really
respect the glories of Western culture. That very first evening on board, when
I found him after his long reversion to his primitive habitation, he said something I have never forgotten. He said: “Inglish sigh-eenz is for the Devil.”

It took me some time to understand what he was saying—that our science
is not all that he expected it to be. He said it with what can only be called
contempt.’

Mr Snow looked me in the eye and added: ‘It seems strange to be telling
that to Darwin’s daughter.’

28 April 1865

My interview with Captain FitzRoy did not go at all well. I was totally
unnerved by it and I fear that it did little good to the Captain—quite the contrary. I fear I have worsened his condition, which, I can now attest, is quite
wretched.

At Uncle Ras’ suggestion, I asked for the Captain in the antechamber of
the Meteorological Office, where I arrived without an appointment, knowing
that he would be there to meet with Lieutenant Maury. An assistant, hearing
my request, raised an eyebrow and smirked in a most disconcerting way, as if
to say I did not know the half of it, and appeared to be weighing whether or
not he should notify the Captain of my arrival. He held a ruler in his left
hand, banging it on his opposite palm, and kept me standing there while he
thought upon the matter. I doubt I have been treated so rudely in all my life.

When finally he did agree, he left the room, making it clear that he would
not return, so that the idea of being alone with a person who might not be
quite right in the head filled me with apprehension.

The room itself was oppressive and might have been described by our own
Mr Dickens. It was heavily curtained and quite dark, with a single gas-lamp in the centre. Old wooden cabinets lined the walls up to midway, above
which hung yellowed charts and water-stained prints of ships, the frames
tilting at odd angles. Dust was everywhere, covering even the inkwells on the
cracked leather desk and the faded green velvet chairs. A threadbare carpet
completed the picture. It had the appearance not of a Government office but
of a mortuary.

I was musing on the disarray when I heard a step bounding down the hall
staircase. In popped Captain FitzRoy, looking most queer. He had lost his
military bearing and was oddly stooped, his head hung slightly to one side,
his eyes so wide-open as to appear bulging. His hair was unkempt, his beard
scraggly. Indeed, it seemed he had travelled a long and arduous road from
those days when he proudly commanded a ship in Her Majesty’s Navy.

He appeared puzzled by my presence, but thrust out his hand in some vestigial memory of politeness, gave a short awkward bow and proceeded to sputter, thus: ‘Captain Robert FitzRoy . . . To what do I owe . . . To whom . . .

What is the purpose . . . hmmm.’ And so on—unable to complete a thought.

He had a most daunting sense of energy, like a tightly wound spring in a
child’s toy, and he kept moving his hands up and down and his legs side to
side. His constant agitation made it most difficult to concentrate. Gathering
my courage, I led him to a chair and forced him to sit down. I sat next to him.

There was nothing for it but to start right in.

‘Captain FitzRoy,’ I began, ‘I am sorry to burst in on you, and I pray you
will not think me unmannerly, but I would dearly like to ask you some questions pertaining to the
Beagle
and her voyage.’

‘By all means . . . by all means . . .’

I then mentioned South America and Tierra del Fugeo, and the very name
seemed to derange him further. ‘The land of fire . . . land of fire,’ he began,
and his words poured out so quickly that I could hardly catch them. I realised
he was talking about the early explorers who named it for the fact that the
natives lighted fires on shore, leading the sailors to believe they were gazing
upon Hades itself—which was not, he said in a bitter aside, far from the
truth.