What if my master were to lose his life so young and only part way through his voyage? All his observations and measurements, all his ideas lost . . .
I put my hand to my chest and waited for my thumping heart to slow. Letting my thoughts run this way would do no good at all. When my da was teaching me the fiddle, he’d say, ‘If you hit a duff note, son, breathe. Walk that breath all the way upstairs to the attic, then right the way back down to the cellar. Not too fast mind, step by step. Breathe, and pretend like it’s the best performance of your life. You keep right on playing and stay bricky.’
That’s what I had to do now. I pulled in a breath slowly, step by step and back out again, and felt calmer. I uncurled and stood up straight.
Stay bricky.
Mr Darwin was alive, he would make it back to the Beagle and then he would search for me. Robbins too. Captain Fitzroy would figure out the wind direction and speed, and make calculations with the maps and his fancy navigation equipment to work out where I was likely to have ended up. I just needed to stay calm and survive until they arrived.
I forced myself to look around me and concentrate hard on what I saw. As Mr Darwin said on the first day he took me as his own servant, ‘You will learn to observe and adapt, Covington. Open eyes lead to an open mind.’
I’d prepared enough expeditions to know what was needed, but all of them had been well planned and provisioned. Maudlin thoughts of thick canvas tents I didn’t have weren’t going to help me find water, and I now remembered that most of the Galapagos islands had no fresh water supply. Suddenly the driving rain went from being my enemy to my closest friend. I raised my face to the sky and let the rain tumble into my mouth until my neck cricked but my belly was tight.
It wasn’t easy to get a sense of the time in the endless grey, but a patch of cloud glowed lighter than the rest and I guessed it was afternoon; might be time to find shelter before dark.
I struggled to my feet and began to stumble inland towards the dots of greenery in the direction of the volcano. Anything would be better than the bare rock I was currently surrounded by.
A tremendous screech sent my hands clinging to my ears. The sound jangled through my bones and I stumbled forward on to my hands and knees.
What the blazes?
A shadow swept over, blocking the rain, beating me with gusts of new wind. I covered my head as it passed, a second sickening shriek pounding my ears. What on God’s earth could make such a racket? A bird? The frigate birds and albatross were big, but . . .
I staggered back to my feet, searching the sky before being punched forward, something gripping me from shoulder to leg. I was plucked from the ground, as an owl might snatch a mouse, and swept up, unbelievably, into the air.
CHAPTER FIVE
The rocks I had been walking upon seconds ago were left far below as I was swept higher and higher, face down and carried side on, the wind whistling in my ears and watering my eyes. Could this be all in my own mind? Was I off my chump? Sent into a flight of fancy by my ordeal at sea? I kicked at the air, my arms pinned tight to my sides in the grip that held my whole torso captive. I twisted and writhed, trying to get free, before realizing that this may not be a good idea at such a great height . . .
I tried to slow my ragged breaths, taking them up the stairs and down, and forced my legs to hang limp. I looked down to see what imprisoned me. Colossal claws, as long as my forearm, attached to scaled bronze toes. They circled me from my chest to the top of my legs.
And these monstrous claws were all that stopped me from dropping to my death on the rocks below.
I was prey in the clutches of a flying predator. A bird, a beast – I couldn’t tell.
I heard myself make a strangled sound, half sob, half feverish laugh. We were gaining height, and through my streaming eyes I saw we were heading out to sea. I kicked out again in terror, I couldn’t help myself. My boot fell from my foot and spun through the air, hitting the rock below with a bounce. My skull would not bounce.
Stay bricky.
I gripped tight, as jolts passed through the beast’s claws in time with the flap of its wings, which sounded like the snap and creak of a ship’s sails. We were now over the sea. If I was dropped, would I have some chance or would the height make the sea as hard as rock?
A yelp was snatched from my mouth as my captor dived like an arrow, so fast all was a blur and the wind screeched in my ears . . . then the claws opened, and I was released.
Empty air was all that held me.
I tumbled head over foot, kicking and flailing at nothing, and hit the water so hard I thought the beast had dropped me on the rock after all, like a bird drops a mussel to break the shell. I never thought I would be pleased to be back in the sea, but when it washed around me, I felt a gush of relief. I kicked with all I had and swam to the surface, where I took in a lungful of water as a wave slapped me. I thanked the Lord over and over for the miracle that I was not yet dead.
Body aching, I struck out for shore and crawled on to the black rocks once again, coughing and sucking in heaving breaths before flipping to lie on my back among the uninterested iguanas, so I could scan the sky for the beast. No sign. What was it? The wind had dropped to nothing and it had stopped raining, an island storm that ended as suddenly as it started. If only Mr Darwin and I had waited it out on Albemarle . . .
I gazed up to see a huge mass hurtling towards me. The beast had returned. Silhouetted against the grey of the sky, I couldn’t make out any details, but its wings were as big as the Beagle’s sails and strangely angular. It was coming for me again. I scrambled to my feet, but it swooped too fast for me to even attempt to run. I saw that its head was shaped like no bird I had ever—
I was grasped once more in those impossible claws and plucked from the rocks. This time I did not hold still, but squirmed and kicked, yelling all the while. It dropped me quickly, from less of a height but further out to sea.
The next time I crawled out of the sea, it didn’t even wait for me to drag myself ashore but tweaked me right out from the breaking waves.
CHAPTER SIX
I was swept into the air at a sharp incline and quickly dropped over the sea again. This time I did not fight as I fell, and landed easier. The sky beast circled above and I stopped short of the shore, beyond the white water. I needed to do something different, I couldn’t be grabbed and dropped over and over; it would eventually kill me. There – seaweed and driftwood were tangled together in a floating mass. I ducked under and surfaced in the centre of it, a wig of slimy kelp fronds perched on my head. In this camouflage, I floated. I had nothing left but my life, and I wasn’t about to let that go. My mind raced as I peered upwards through the weed at the empty sky.
Unless it liked its food pickled in salt water, the creature might not intend to eat me after all. Exhausted, I swam very slowly sideways along the shore, behind the breakers, hauling my disguise with me like a hermit crab in its shell.
I waited . . . and just as I thought it had truly gone, it returned, circling high above, a dart of menace waiting to strike again. But what was it doing with me? I was unharmed.
‘You could easily kill me,’ I muttered, ‘but you haven’t, have you? You’ve bruised me something awful, but not even pierced the skin. Are you toying with me, like a cat with a mouse? Or is me being on your island making you as mad as hops? Cos I hardly have much choice, do I?’
Speaking out loud helped me get my thoughts running again. All very well Mr Darwin’s ‘open eyes, open mind’, but I could make no sense of what business this giant beast had with me. I peered through the seaweed to see it hovering high, over the place it had last dropped me. It seemed like my disguise was holding up.
Its silhouette really was mighty strange. It had a long tail, like a snake, and four legs ending in those huge claws, like a reptile. Its wings were more like a bat than a bird. It banked and swooped scanning the shoreline for me. I ducked lower in my seaweed nest so only my eyes and nose were above water.
Well . . . Galapagos was as wild and distant as it was possible to be.
Could this thing, swooping in huge circles above, be a living example of one of those fossils? As I bobbed there, praying I wouldn’t be discovered, it was the only explanation I had.
I forced myself to stay in the water long after the flying predator had disappeared inland towards the smoking summit of the volcano.
I had once heard Captain Fitzroy and Mr Darwin talk about how, back in 1525, a Spanish priest had been blown off course in the Galapagos – a bit like me – and had named the islands after the twitchy currents and the mysterious fogs: Las Islas Encantadas.
The Enchanted Islands.
If a colossal sky beast needed a secret home, the Galapagos was the place for it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When the sun disappeared, I finally dared to untangle myself from my seaweed camouflage and haul myself ashore once again. The wind had died and the moon was half full, with scraps of silver clouds crossing it wearily. I couldn’t bear the thought of being seized by the sky beast again and dropped out to sea, this time in the dark. My lips were cracked from saltwater, my ears were ringing, my fingertips were the texture of tree bark.
I’d now lost both boots, but I was in one piece.
I stumbled across the rocks, shaking warmth back into my arms. Where I’d swum further along the shoreline, there were fewer iguanas. Instead there were scuttling red Sally Lightfoot crabs covering the rocks like a moving rag rug. The sound as they moved, strangely reminded me of my Sunday School teacher’s clicks of disapproval: tut, tut, tut. I needed shelter. I crouched for a moment, scanning above for any sign of the sky beast either inland or out to sea. I was safe for now. Then I spotted something rolling in the surf. I knew that shape . . .
I staggered back into the waves, scooped up that battered old fiddle case – still closed, with its wax seal unbroken – and hugged it to my chest. In that moment I could not have been happier if I had found a knife, fire flints or anything else I so dearly needed, because now I was not completely alone.
Mr Darwin might not be awful keen on my tunes himself, but sailors love a shanty, which was how I’d ended up on board the Beagle in the first place. It wasn’t the most tuneful of instruments, the young sir was right about that, but it had been my da’s.
‘If you can survive, Scratch, then I can too,’ I whispered. There was a hitch in my voice because despite what the fiddle meant to me, I knew it must surely be ruined. Still, best be grateful for what I’d got.
I stumbled from the surf. When the clouds fluttered across the moon it was frightful dark. I imagined the others about the ship – mending ropes, smoking their pipes. They would surely miss my jigs and the hymns would be very mean without my accompaniment. But would they miss them enough to come and look for me? I had to believe they would. I’d build a fire, make a signal. Mr Darwin would have them row here as soon as the weather allowed.
If the master was alive.
Of course he was alive. They were all safe aboard the Beagle by now.
I remembered the gale that had hit the Beagle two years before, when we were rounding Cape Horn, the southernmost point of Chile. The ship had been hit beam on – directly in the side – and had nearly tipped right over, so half the deck was beneath water. For a teetering moment, all hands must have thought as I had, that we were lost, yet she had rolled upright again and the sea had poured back out through her ports. I smiled at the thought. The Beagle would easily ride out a common squall.
I picked up my pace as I hit scrubby grass – much more comfortable walking for my bare feet. The sky was still clear, although looking upwards made my heart race, expecting another attack.
In the far distance, the volcano was capped with a red glow; a cloud of smoke, lit from below. The volcano was active! Mr Darwin had always said how much he would like to witness an eruption. Well he could keep it, and good luck to him, because it was the last thing I needed right now. I gripped Scratch tighter to my chest and strode on. If ever a time were right for a fit of the vapours, this was not it. Stay bricky.
I found a cactus. I didn’t know the name of it, but it was one of the taller types with a central trunk and then a branch either side at the top. It looked like the captain’s brass candelabra, which I’d seen on his table when serving Sunday dinner for the officers. I sat beneath it, even though it would barely disguise me from above and the spikes meant I couldn’t even lean against it. But it was better than sitting in the open, and my legs felt like a pair of jellied eels, they were that exhausted. I laid the fiddle case over my knees. It didn’t slosh with water when I tipped it. I couldn’t bear to feel hopeful, nor to see Scratch’s ruin just yet. I’d leave that until morning, when I was feeling steadier.
No food, no water skin, no knife, no fire flints. No canvas for shelter. Not one of the items I always packed for our shore expeditions. I had wished for adventure all those years ago as I left England, but not like this.
I curled around Scratch’s case, resting my cheek on the damp wood. When I closed my eyes, I felt the motion of the Beagle as if I were back aboard, and how I wished I was in my hammock below decks, the creaks of the ship and snores of my crewmates a strange but familiar lullaby. But somehow, there on the black volcanic rock beneath a cactus so spiky I couldn’t touch it, I slept.
I emerged from a nightmare of my time overboard – of losing grip of the rope, of my marooning, of the sky beast and my fantastical trip into the air. Something had woken me.
A strange sound – between a growl and a hoot – low and very close. Something touched my leg.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The moon was behind the clouds and all I could make out was a shadow at my feet, a patch of greater darkness big enough to frighten me. Very slowly, I pulled back my foot. Mr Darwin had told me that when faced with a wild animal, it was best to remain still so as not to startle it further. I tried to slow my thumping heart. Well Mr Darwin wasn’t here, was he. And he hadn’t seen the gigantic sky beast sweep me into the air, so his knowledge wasn’t awful helpful right now.
Neither the shadow nor I moved. This was a stand-off – who would strike first? I slowly clutched two handfuls of black dirt then sprung up with a scream, hurling it in the direction of the animal. I was about to run, when the moon left the clouds and I got a better look.
At first, I thought it was one of the marine iguanas. In the moonlight I could see it was a reptile, but smaller than I had thought, more like the size of a large house cat. I blew out a long breath of relief; this creature wasn’t going to kill me, at least not easily, though small animals could be surprisingly vicious.
It was using a pair of front claws to rub the dirt from its eyes and its face was tapered, like a fox’s. It was definitely some kind of lizard, but it stood high on its legs, which were beneath its body rather than splayed to the sides like the other reptiles of these islands. The moonlight shone off its smooth green scales, more like those of a snake, and a spiked ridge ran the length of its back right to the tip of its long tail. Although I didn’t have the education to keep up with all of Mr Darwin’s ideas, I’d paid close attention over the last two and a half years as his servant, collecting and observing thousands of animals. I was certain this was not a species of lizard we’d set eyes on before.
&n
bsp; I edged back, cradling my fiddle. We stared at each other. Its eyes were large and round, and shone copper in the moonlight.
It took a step towards me, tossed its head and released that sound again, between a hoot and a growl.
All the creatures we came across either responded to us with blank fear or disinterest. If they knew mankind well, they sensibly fled for their lives. If they had young to defend, they might attack. This lizard did none of those things. It shook its head and released a strange little sneeze. I suddenly wished I hadn’t thrown the dirt in its face.
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ I found myself whispering.
The lizard raised its snout and sniffed. Then it stared beyond me, inland, and with a wrenching grind the earth beneath my feet rippled and I staggered to catch my balance, cursing. A spray of glowing orange spurted from the peak of the volcano. The ground quivered again, and an unearthly groan travelled through my bare feet to my chest, then my throat, until it vibrated my jaw and my eyeballs in their sockets.
Stone me, this whole island was a volcano! And it didn’t seem to want me here any more than the sky beast did.
When I turned round, the little lizard was stalking away towards the sea. It did not look back.
The ground fell quiet again, but the smoke above the volcano glowed a hellish orange. It was terrible bad luck, to be shipwrecked on an island with a sky beast and a volcano.
I laid my head back on Scratch. ‘I wonder how fast lava travels,’ I said to my waterlogged fiddle.
Was there any chance I would live long enough to find out?
CHAPTER NINE
I woke to the deep blue of dawn and rose up on my elbows as I remembered where I was. Dark smoke and white steam had replaced the spitting orange at the volcano summit, and the ground remained steady. No sign of the sky beast. Could I have imagined it? I wished I had.
Darwin's Dragons Page 2