Darwin's Dragons

by Lindsay Galvin

  ‘Farthing,’ I said again.

  I uncurled my cramped arms and legs and found the pain in my head had faded. I’d stopped trembling, but my tongue was gummed to the roof of my mouth and I suffered a terrible thirst. There was something pink in the lizard’s mouth, and then it was dropped at my feet.

  A ripe prickly pear – the spikes removed. It had split, and the juicy contents leaked out. I crawled to the food, my body weak and shaky, scooped out the pink pear flesh with my fingers, and shovelled it into my mouth, seeds and all. The lizard – Farthing – watched.

  My stomach grumbled, woken by this morsel. My brain woke up too. This was the real world, and I had escaped death. Again. At least for now, because the juice of the fruit reminded me how parched I was.

  What a clever little beast this lizard was! To kill the centipede, stay through my illness and now find me food. Only the most intelligent, highly trained dog would do that. Or maybe a counting horse, like the ones at the circus sideshow.

  ‘Do you belong to someone? Are you . . . a pet?’ I said.

  The lizard tilted its head to one side at the sound of my voice.

  People living here? Impossible. But wild animals simply didn’t behave like this. Except . . . I recalled how a pod of porpoises had swam alongside the Beagle and Mr Darwin had commented that they seemed to deliberately seek out the company of men.

  Was I still half mad with the poison and this whole scene part of my delirium? Well if I was, this was a darn sight better than the nightmares.

  ‘Thank you . . . Farthing.’

  The lizard tilted its head to the side, and snorted. Then it walked towards the sea, in the direction of the plain of prickly pear cactuses. I checked for the sky beast, then limped after it.

  The old sailors were wrong. My life had passed before my eyes, but I was not ready to make peace with my maker – not yet.

  After all, I had never been a very peaceful sort of a boy.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The sun rose high beneath a white haze, and the air above the earth rippled with midday heat. With no sign of the sky beast I almost convinced myself that I had imagined it, but I still felt its claws wrapped around me, the wind in my face, that drop through the air and the smash into the sea. Farthing stopped at one of the chimney-like fumaroles, as dead as all the others. A fruitless prickly pear sprouted from it and a small black bird pecked at a yellow flower. I noticed this bird’s beak was longer and more pointed than those on similar finches we’d observed pecking at mites on the iguanas and tortoises. I was so taken with peering at it, I forgot where I was and almost turned to Mr Darwin to point it out. I’d been with the master so long, it was mighty strange to be alone. Well . . . not completely alone.

  I sighed. ‘Flowers are good for birds but not for me, Farthing.’

  Farthing rested both claws on the rim of the fumarole and gave me a long look.

  I shrugged and peered inside. Around the base of the plants was water. The fumarole was a black stone bucket filled with rainwater! I splashed it into my mouth and it was warm and fresh, not salty, and I laughed out loud as I scooped up gulp after gulp until my stomach sloshed.

  My reflection stared back at me. My thick black hair was a fright and my dark eyes wild. I’d grown strong in my years at sea, but my ragged clothes and smudged skin made me look like a street waif. Me and the reflection grimaced at each other.

  ‘Well, you really are a useful little thing, aren’t you?’ I said to Farthing.

  The lizard tilted its head to one side and its ruff of spines rose at the back of its neck, like a little coronet. Looking, for all the world, like the animal was proud of itself.

  My dull headache began to clear with the water. Even the puncture on my foot felt better as I followed Farthing to the prickly pear field. When it plucked me another fruit, I decided Farthing must be a she. The clue was in her ladylike fruit picking technique. The lizard sniffed at the fruit and chose one of the ripest, pink and yellow, rather than tough green. Smart. Then with a foreclaw all delicate – like the little finger of a fancy lady drinking her tea – the fruit was skewered and twisted from its tough stem. She rolled her prize on the ground to break off the hairs. After, she slit it lengthways with that dainty foreclaw before nudging it with her muzzle towards me. What would Mr Darwin make of her? I thought of the hundreds of specimens we’d preserved in barrels, and shivered.

  After gobbling down another three pears, delivered by the little lizard, I felt positively cheerful.

  ‘I am in your debt,’ I said with a little bow.

  The lizard slowly moved closer. I reached out my hand to her and she watched it approach with narrowed eyes, but she did not move as I touched her on the shoulder, just with two fingers. Her scales felt like overlapping fingernails, nothing like the rough wrinkled skin of the sooty iguanas scattered on the shoreline.

  A large dragonfly swept over us and Farthing leapt into the air, clawing at nothing as it darted away, then she fell over on to her back. She seemed to catch sight of her tail and mistake it for the dragonfly because she chased it, snapping and whining, then collapsed to the ground with a snort. I laughed out loud. She looked like . . . a green scaly puppy. She suddenly stopped, shook her head and raised her ruff of scales. She snorted again as if daring me to make fun of her and I pressed my lips together. What a peculiar little creature.

  I sighed. For a moment watching Farthing’s antics, I’d forgotten my situation. Thanks to the lizard I wasn’t going to starve to death just yet, but I still needed to find shelter and the sun still wasn’t clear enough to try a fire with the eyeglass.

  Rumbles travelled through the ground and then my bones, juddering my teeth, and I turned to see gouts of smoke rising from the summit of the volcano. No spits of red this time, but the ground settled more quickly than my heartbeat did.

  I stood and brushed my sticky fingers on my breeches and headed parallel to the shore, just inland from the rocks draped with iguanas. I hoped to find an area of larger rocks or cliffs like we’d seen on other islands, where there might be caves and shelter. Farthing followed me, and I was glad of her company. I wished I could give her something to show she’d done well, that I was grateful for her staying with me and finding food and water, but she didn’t need anything from me.

  As the afternoon passed, any breeze died along with my hopes of finding a cave. It was back to the tight breathless Galapagos heat, and a band of grey fog squatting over the horizon – the same soupy mist which had made the first visitors call these islands enchanted. Was the fog concealing the Beagle? Farthing trotted by my side as I limped back inland through the cactuses, listless now, still weak from the poison. I picked up some dead grass and brushwood to use as kindling later on and stuffed it in the pocket of my breeches. The volcano continued to rumble and release occasional bursts of steam and smoke.

  Farthing turned, her ruff flat against her head, and I followed her gaze.

  Above the volcano was a black silhouette.

  My stomach plummeted as if to make more space for my loud-pumping heart. I told myself it could be a huge hawk, a heron or even an albatross; I’d seen all of these with Mr Darwin on the other Galapagos Islands.

  But I knew it wasn’t.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  My scalp and neck prickled, and my legs twitched with the urge to flee. The silhouette of the sky beast hovered above the volcano and then swooped. It was coming for me. Where to hide? I’d never wished to see a tree so much in my life. Farthing sniffed the air, then darted off in a flash of green.

  I needed to get down low, but the lizard turned and gave that distinctive hoot, and pawed the ground as if impatient for me to follow.

  The black outline of my tormentor was growing bigger. What choice did I have?

  Scratch bounced on my back as I ran.

  The odd little reptile is our navigator now?

  ‘All right, Scratch! Do you have any better suggestions?’ I hissed.

  Didn’t think so.
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  The sky beast disappeared over the other side of the volcano. Maybe it hadn’t seen me. Farthing picked up her pace and I did the same, my bitten foot throbbing.

  We crossed another sloping lava field, heading uphill. This whole island was either lava fields or rough scrubland, could I have landed anywhere worse? We reached a more densely covered area, one of those patches of greenery I’d seen scattering the lower slopes of the volcano. I recognized ferns, and here and there the plants reached my waist. I almost laughed in between my heaving breaths.

  ‘See, Scratch? She’s found us some shelter.’

  Or is leading us right to the beast.

  I crouched low, tugging the fronds of ferns to cover me, and stared up as the sky beast swept high overhead, a silhouette of angular shapes. There was a metallic glint as the sun caught its hide. The day before I’d only been able to make out a giant mass of brutal speed. Now I saw – the sky beast was . . . gold.

  Where was Farthing? I mustn’t move, even the slightest twitch of the ferns could give me away. The beast passed again, cruising lower, and my heart pummelled so loudly I felt it must give me away. I could think of no living thing with four legs and wings, and of that golden sheen. My mind raced. Open eyes, open mind. Birds and bats had wings instead of forelegs, Mr Darwin had shown me that. This creature was no real living thing. This creature was from story, from myth.

  From myth.

  Those spiked wings . . . that almighty size.

  No. What with being here alone, the centipede bite . . . I couldn’t trust either my eyes or my mind any longer.

  I thought of those huge ancient bones, the fossils that fascinated Mr Darwin. That was what the master called hard evidence. Those enormous animals were real, or at least they had been once.

  Creatures of myth were not.

  My heart thumped and then Farthing’s green fox-snout nosed through the ferns.

  ‘Shhh! Keep still, or you’ll give me away,’ I whispered.

  I wasn’t completely concealed here, but I didn’t dare stand to see if there was thicker shelter ahead. It would be a risk to go any further.

  Farthing pawed the ground with one claw and growled.

  No! I shook my head, pinching my lips together.

  She disappeared again, between the ferns, then came back and scuffed at the ground once more, this time flattening the ruff at the back of her head. I remembered that gesture from her attack on the centipede.

  Danger. She wanted me to follow her.

  I peered upwards. I couldn’t see the sky beast between the fronds. But maybe Farthing knew I wasn’t concealed enough, wasn’t safe . . .

  It is a lizard.

  Yes. A lizard who knows this island. I crawled on hands and knees behind Farthing, as she threaded on through the low ferns again, ploughing a narrow path for me.

  The ferns were thinner here, I should have stayed where I was. I could clearly see the volcano ahead, and the creature was hovering above it, like a hawk watching its prey, black against the glowing orange smoke cloud.

  Should I have trusted Farthing to help me in the face of this giant beast?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  If I had laid flat and stayed completely still, covered by the ferns, I might just have had a chance. Yet here I was, stumbling over the bare lava field once more, chasing a green lizard much faster than I was, in clear view of the sky beast . . . and it had seen me. It swooped in lazy circles above.

  Farthing sped along so fast her claws were a blur. She had spotted the flying beast too but she was so small, she’d be less than a mouthful for it. So, what was she doing?

  ‘By the stones, Farthing, where are you leading me?’ I whispered, panting.

  Farthing was just an animal, she didn’t have reason, and I’d been a fool to follow her. But my stride widened to keep up.

  Too late.

  The beast dived towards us.

  I had no idea what the lizard was doing now because she was running towards the beast, not away. I was following at full pelt, even though I knew I’d taken leave of my senses! My lungs were bursting, my foot throbbing.

  I glanced up and my breath caught.

  It was the best view I’d had of the beast yet and it was what I had thought it was, what I had known it was . . . but it wasn’t possible. I had eaten and slept and it was daylight, so it couldn’t be a nightmare, could it?

  Which meant it was a myth. A myth come to life.

  I was being stalked by a dragon.

  Yes, a dragon.

  Now it seemed it had been blindingly obvious all along.

  Its scales glistened in the sunlight, gold as a sovereign. Its four legs were powerful, and its wings were bigger than the main rig on the Beagle, yet thin enough that the sunlight shone through from above, deep bronze.

  I gaped as it streamed past, my legs pumping as if they’d forgotten how to stop, the wind in its wake chasing water from my eyes. Soon it would either kill me or snatch me up to drop me into the sea again, or on the rocks, or just crunch me to bone broth in its claws. Even if – for whatever strange reason – it toyed with me like last time, I’d now been weakened by the centipede poison and surely wouldn’t survive another ducking.

  I’d be killed by the only dragon in the world – if there were others, even folks like me would have heard of them – and no one would even know what happened. I supposed, as deaths went, at least it was interesting.

  But I was determined to live.

  My legs found new life as I wove at top speed after Farthing, ducking as the air from the beast’s wings buffeted me. We hit another patch of vegetation, but only grass and low ferns, nowhere to hide. Any second I’d be swept into the air.

  Well I wasn’t going to make it easy for the beast, not this time. It came for me head on, its wings tucked back, like an almighty golden spear. The speed of it! I needed to keep my nerve. Use what I had.

  I was small, and small things are difficult to get hold of.

  The dragon’s claws extended, its wings opened, and I knew what I had to do. When it lunged, I ducked and rolled to the side, then sprang to my feet and kept running. The monstrous claws gouged the ground just to my right, ripping out ferns. With a bellowing shriek it swooped off behind me, the sound ringing in my ears.

  It wouldn’t take long for it to gain height, turn, and come at me from behind, and I didn’t know if I could dodge it again. But my triumph gave me strength. I picked up pace, still following the path Farthing had made for me through the vegetation. She stopped and turned. I risked a glance behind and, just as I suspected, the dragon was back up in the sky and making an arrow-straight line for me. I could already feel those claws, and every hair on my body stood on end with dread.

  Last time it had dropped me in the sea. Three times! Why? Because it didn’t want me on this island, it had to be. And yet here I was. I hadn’t got the message, hadn’t heeded the warning. This time it would kill me for sure.

  Farthing stopped so quickly, I almost tripped as I raced on past her – and then the ground beneath my feet was . . . gone.

  I screamed as the earth swallowed me.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  My legs circled in the air and my arms grasped at nothing. I was engulfed in darkness, then hit the ground with a thump.

  I lay on my back, winded and gasping for breath, and stared up at the hole I’d fallen through. It was around ten foot up and lined with grass. The opening wasn’t big enough for the dragon to get to me, but it might force a claw down here, like a blackbird’s beak pecking into the ground for a worm. I scuttled out of the pool of light and into the shadows.

  Now I saw what that little green lizard had been up to. Farthing must have known about this hole and led me here to be safe from the beast, the dragon. But where was she now?

  An unearthly scream ripped through the air, a shriek like a banshee or some other horror from a penny dreadful pamphlet, and then flames billowed through the opening above. I sprang to my feet and stumbled back into the d
arkness finding I was in a tunnel, then turned to watch from a safe distance.

  This inferno could not be caused by the volcano. This was pure, burning fire ballooning in great clouds of yellow and orange. My eyes stung and my skin tingled in the heat.

  Dragon.

  Fire. Breathing. Dragon.

  Another screech and the flames continued to swirl and rush, a hissing hungry cascade, pummelling the floor of the tunnel until it glowed red.

  ‘Farthing!’ my voice was lost over the roar of the blaze.

  She’d brought me to safety and then . . . I spun, searching the tunnel for a sign of her, but I’d have seen—

  Farthing wasn’t here. She was out there, I’d almost tripped over her when I fell.

  Little lizard like that. Be burnt to cinders.

  With a final scalding lick at the cave floor, the flames disappeared.

  A gust of scorching air hit my face, and I pictured the beat of wings.

  Silence. I collapsed back against the cave wall. Farthing. I had to accept she had been directly in the path of the flames. It wasn’t fair, she’d brought me here, and she’d saved me. My eyes blurred, I pulled in ragged breaths and then coughed them back out again in the smoke. What were those dots of shattered light? I rubbed my eyes with my fists. The red-hot rock of the cave floor was cooling to black, circled by patches of moss, alight. Fire. I could hardly think for the shock, but I knew I needed fire.

  I scrambled at my pocket with shaking hands to fetch out the kindling I had picked up earlier and fed the small fire furthest away from the hole above. There were scraps of scrub around that must have fallen from above, and I crawled around to fetch them all up, moving like a clockwork automaton I’d once seen in a shop window, my mind on Farthing.

  When I had used everything that could be burnt, save the clothes on my back, I sat by the flame and clasped my hands together to stop them shaking. A dragon. A dragon.