But this one just stands up straight, straining his weak human eyes, eyes that were not made for seeing clearly through the darkness.
"What year is it, lad?"
"The year is 1817," he says. "I thought Father was fibbing. I mean about you. Of course, I can't see you—so you could be fibbing, too. This could all be part of my punishment. Are you a man pretending to be a dragon?"
"Why in the world would I want to do that?"
"Maybe Father is paying you."
"I am not so easily bribed." I flare a nostril, and reveal just enough of my flame to illuminate the corner of the wine cellar where I lie resting.
The youngster edges closer.
"Well, my boy," I say smugly, "do I pass the test? Man or beast?"
"You do look different. Is that green fur?"
"Land scales, actually."
"And that big head with the long nose—"
"Snout."
"And those long floppy—"
"Wings."
"I think your ears are bigger than my whole head," he says, his voice filled with more curiosity than awe. "Do you have four legs or two?"
"Two hind legs. Two front forearms. Fourteen digits in all." I wiggle my fingers and toes.
"Those are awfully small arms," he says. "And awfully big legs. And just look at the size of your toenails!"
"Talons."
"And there's that fire in your nose, too. I don't know of any man who can light a room with his nose."
"Snout." I haul myself up to get a better look at the boy. He doesn't back off, even though I'm as tall as two men and as round as ten. He's a skinny cub, but handsome for his race, nothing at all like the other Darwins I've seen. Erasmus was ugly as sin, and Robert was a fat pig of a child, an awkward, weary specimen with nerves like glass trinkets. The Darwins, historically, have been an absolutely hideous-looking clan. "If it makes you feel any better to believe I'm a man, then I'm a man."
The boy frowns. "You smell different, too. Like . . . like . . ."
"Wine?" I suggest.
"How many years have you been down here?"
"That's a good question." I pause. "Let me think. I was sleeping under a tree, and when I woke up this wine cellar was all around me. I don't remember much before that."
"You mean we built Mount Darwin right on top of you?"
This seems to upset the lad, although for the life of me I can't understand why. I lie down and get comfortable again, resting my chin on the floor.
The boy strides right up to me, sticks his candle in my snout, and lights the wick. He reaches out and touches my land scales. "They don't feel anything at all like fur or fish scales. They feel like . . . I don't know . . ."
"Peat moss."
"You can put your fire out now if you like. It must be painful for you to have it burning inside your nose like that." He stares at me. "Do you get headaches? Father gets them badly sometimes. Where do you come from? Do you have any family?"
"My fire is not painful; I don't get headaches; and I don't come from anywhere, nor do I have any family."
"Everybody comes from somewhere."
"Is that so?" I retort. "Says who?"
The lad sits down cross-legged on the hard-packed dirt and holds the candle out in front of him, inspecting me. I shut down my nostril, and a small cloud of smoke wafts in the air between us. A pensive look crosses the cub's face, too serious a look for a young human boy—at least from what I can remember of them. I've come across a few in my lifetime. They always look a little stupid and very frightened in my presence, never pensive. In any event, I am intrigued, as much by the boy as by the fact that I seem to be carrying on a conversation with him.
"What are you doing down here in my wine cellar?" I ask him.
"Father is punishing me for making too much noise in the house. He's always punishing me for something. I think he doesn't like me much. He says I'll never amount to anything. He says I lack ex-pe-di-en-cy, whatever that means. Just now he told me I've pushed him to the limits of his endurance so he's locking me in the dungeon until after dinner."
"The dungeon?" I repeated. "Is that what he calls it?" The boy nods. "What's your name, lad?"
"Charles. Charles Darwin."
"Your father wouldn't happen to be Robert Darwin, would he?"
"Do you know Father?" he asks.
"I've met a few members of your lineage. Apparently it is a Darwin tradition to punish their cubs by banishing them to the wine cellar—excuse me, the dungeon—where the sight of me is supposed to terrify them."
"I don't find you scary at all."
"Come to think of it, I don't find you scary either," I say.
The boy nods, apparently satisfied with the arrangement.
"Expediency," I say. "A concentrated effort in pursuing a particular goal or self-interest with efficiency and haste."
"I think you might be a very big bird. Do you come from a family of birds? Do you know how to fly? Are you lonely down here all by yourself?"
"I prefer solitude."
"Or maybe you are a fish, because of your scales."
"Land scales. I'd rather be a bird, anyway. I don't know how to swim, but I do know how to fly." I try to flex my wings, but it has been such a long time since I've used them that they flap just once, awkwardly and stiffly, so I give it up.
"I promise you, when I get out of here, I'll figure out where you come from," he says with exaggerated pride, tucking his thumbs under his suspenders.
"What if I don't want to know where I come from?"
"Everybody wants to know where he's from."
"I wouldn't bet my last shilling on that."
The boy puffs out his candle, and curls up on the wine cellar floor. "Do you mind if I take a nap, Birdie?"
Birdie?
In a matter of minutes he is sleeping peacefully. I smile. I do not ever remember smiling with any of the other Darwin stock. This one is different.
Charles Darwin.
"This is an incredible opportunity, Birdie! I must go, I simply must!"
Charles is talking about the expedition, of course, as outlined in this letter from the botanist, John Stevens Henslow. Charles, only twenty-two years of age, has been recommended by Henslow to a Captain FitzRoy, R.N., commander of Her Majesty's Ship the Beagle, preparing for a journey to survey the coasts of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and several islands in the Pacific, to record chronometrical measurements around the globe. The short of it is, FitzRoy needs a nature lover who can keep meticulous records.
"A trip around the world! And listen to this. Henslow recommended me as 'the best qualified person he knows likely to undertake such a situation.' "
"Not exactly a rave review," I say dryly. "You could well substitute 'madman' for 'person.' "
He ignores my sarcasm. "There's more, Birdie. Henslow says Captain FitzRoy is 'A public-spirited and zealous officer of delightful manners, and greatly beloved by all his other officers!' "
"And were you the first chosen to undertake this situation, Charles?"
"Well, no," he admits.
"Others turned it down?"
"Well, yes. Henslow himself turned it down, but he didn't want to leave his wife, and Leonard Jenyns is a top-notch naturalist, but he is a clergyman first and foremost and he doesn't want to leave his parish in the lurch."
"Might I remind you that you are a clergyman, also?"
"I am not," he replies heatedly. "Well, not yet, anyway. And you're not going to talk me out of this expedition, Birdie. I've already discussed it with Father, and I've sent my letter of acceptance to the captain. This is the perfect opportunity for me to document new species." He paused and stares at me. "Don't you see what this means, Birdie? At last I might be able to pinpoint your origins!"
"Ah-ha! You're doing this for me, aren't you Charles?"
Silence. Of course I am correct. Ever since the first moment he saw me he has been driven to discover who and what and why I am.
He be
came interested in natural history, in minerals and sea shells and fossils, in pigeons, in marine life, always searching for clues to my origins. The Greek and Latin that Dr. Butler tried to teach him at Shrewsbury Grammar School made no impression upon him whatsoever.
When Charles turned sixteen, his father gave up on the boy ever gaining a classical education, and decided to send him to Edinburgh to study medicine. Alas, the sight of blood disgusted him, and he hated inflicting pain as much as most men hate bearing it, so he began to cultivate new and more interesting hobbies—zoology, geology, botany—and without the support or encouragement of his family or his masters at school, Charles continued to pursue my past, even though I constantly tried to dissuade him.
"Give it up, Charles. Get on with your life," I would lecture him. "I was here a long time before you were born, and I'll be here a long time after you are gone. I don't need to know where I came from. I will survive."
"I'll find you somewhere, Birdie. You'll see. I'll find you."
After Charles' failure at Edinburgh, old Robert Darwin began to think that the clergy might be the only respectable career left to his son—a fate, as far as I was concerned, that did not frighten Charles nearly enough. So, in 1828, off to Christ's College, Cambridge he went, just in time for the Lenten term. Mathematics, theology, languages—how frustrated poor Charles became at this sacred institution of higher learning! The administration had absolutely no use for his true love, the natural sciences, and excluded them from the curriculum.
He wrote me from Cambridge about how his father, on one of his visits to the college, had berated him: "Father said I care for nothing but rat-catching, and that I will forever be a disgrace to myself and my family."
But Charles kept on.
It was at Christ's College that Charles met Henslow, and the opportunity for this boat ride came about.
As I look at the lad now, young and strong and healthy, full of red-faced determination, I see that his curiosity is stronger than any of the opposing forces in his life, and in a way I am almost jealous of his sense of urgency and wonder and purpose. What would it be like to feel such feelings?
"As I mentioned," Charles says, sitting cross-legged on the wine cellar floor, reminding me of the little Darwin who could so easily make me smile, "I have already sent my letter of acceptance to Captain FitzRoy, on one condition."
"One condition?"
"Yes. That I might be allowed to bring my faithful dog along with me, for comfort and companionship. It is a two-year expedition, after all."
"You don't own a dog."
"You noticed," he grins.
So in the end, I agree to the expedition for Charles as much as Charles agrees to it for me.
It is a bright, December morning, in the year 1831. Charles and I stand on a hill in Devenport, overlooking the dockyard where the beleaguered Beagle sits half-sunk, looking more like a shipwreck than a ship. I appear in the guise of a dog: there is no limit to what dragons can do when they set their minds to it.
"She may appear to be in dire straights," says Charles, "but Henslow has assured me she's seaworthy."
"Ah, yes," I say. "Your dear friend Henslow, who so graciously turned down this commission so he could offer it to you."
"The Beagle has been five years at sea, so she's a bit battered, but she's been rebuilt from the inside out."
"How reassuring," I mutter.
"She used to be a three-masted, twenty-five-ton brig, carrying up to ten guns," he says as we walk through the shipyard and up to the Beagle , where some of the crew are busy loading supplies by winch and crane. Their sharp voices cut through the crisp morning air.
As we walk up the gangway he whispers to me, "Remember, don't talk to me in front of FitzRoy or the crew. You're supposed to be a dog."
"Aarf!" I say, and he shoots me a behave-yourself glare.
I entertain hopes that this FitzRoy might just be bright enough to deny me passage—the sea is no place for dead weight, after all—but when we board the regal Beagle, FitzRoy, dressed in a spectacularly clean English Naval uniform, rushes up to us, salutes us both, and shakes Charles' hand.
"FitzRoy, Captain FitzRoy!" he exclaims, scooping a monocle out of his breast pocket and slapping it over his left eye. "And you must be the young Darwin chap I've been expecting. And this must be your dog. What's her name?"
"Birdie," says Charles.
"Birdie, yes, of course, Birdie!" FitzRoy reaches down and scratches my snout. I snarl.
"What strange green coloration you have, and what a unique short-hair fur, the likes of which I have never before felt on any animal!" He adjusts his monocle, which makes his eye appear larger, while simultaneously making him squint. He smiles at me, then turns to Charles. "You'll have to keep her in the aft holds, below sea level."
"I understand," says Charles, without asking my opinion.
"One last thing before you board, Darwin. I run a clean ship. That means no rum or whiskey or spirits of any kind, including wine. Do I make myself clear?"
Charles is taken aback for a moment, then he nods. "Ah, yes, that smell. That's just Birdie. I gave her a wine bath before we arrived in Devenport. When I was at Edinburgh studying medicine, our professors discussed this new theory that alcohol might actually be used to sterilize—"
"Ah, say no more!" FitzRoy raises his hand. "We don't want the beast in heat. Progressive thinking, Darwin, We're going to get along just fine, you and I."
So I'm led by two members of FitzRoy's crew into the bowels of the ship, where I'm shoved into this dark room, and the hatch is slammed shut and padlocked over my head, at which point I gratefully assume my true shape. I can hear the tired old wood of the hull creaking against the waves. The hold smells of seaweed and mold.
I can only hope that this trip makes Charles happy, that he finds the treasure for which he has so earnestly been searching all these years. My origins. He's a good lad, after all, but he suffers from the same incurable ailment as all the others of his race: restlessness.
I curl up in the corner, and sleep.
"It's about time you woke up," says Charles.
I yawn, stretch my arms and legs and wings. It's so hot and stuffy in the aft hold I can barely breathe, but the heat has made my wings more flexible, and for the first time in centuries I am aware of their strength.
"Is it morning already?" I ask.
"It's July already," he replies with a touch of disapproval in his voice. "We're in Maldanado, in case you're in the least bit interested." He stares at me and frowns. "I never knew you to be such a sound sleeper."
"I was hoping I would sleep through the entire expedition. If it weren't for this infernal tropical weather, I might have been able to do it."
"Honestly, Birdie, I don't even know why I bothered bringing you along."
"Nor do I. All I've done is trade one dungeon for another."
I notice Charles is almost as pale as the first time we met, and he's sitting on the floor in a rather hunched position, as if ill. He rubs at the dark circles under his eyes.
"What's wrong, Charles?"
"Would you like something to eat?" he says without lifting his head. "The seamen have been netting shark for two weeks."
"No, thank you."
"Don't you ever get hungry? I don't believe I've ever seen you eat. To tell the truth, that bothers me. Are you a carnivore? Are you going to suddenly burst into a feeding frenzy and consume the crew?"
I search my memory. "I seem to remember eating once, a long time ago. Something makes me say a spinach salad, somewhere in France. Now why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?"
"Would you really like to know?" he says, raising his voice, glaring at me through glossy, red-streaked eyes. He pushes himself up off the floor. "I've been seasick since the first day we set sail. FitzRoy is an ass—that's right, an ass! He's a Creationist for God's sake, Birdie! He thinks God snapped His fingers and created all living things in their past, present, and future forms, just like tha
t!"
Charles tries to snap his fingers but he's shaking so badly he can't quite pull it off. In this day and age, ardent Creationists aren't scarce enough, as far as Charles is concerned, and those who believe in Progressionism are just as bad. Progressionists would explain fossil discoveries and archaeological finds as proof of nothing more than successive intermittent catastrophes, with God destroying and replenishing the globe with new species after each cataclysm, Noah's flood being the last of them. ("The existence of all species can be explained using the sound principles of science," Charles once told me. This from a graduate of Christ's College, Cambridge. Amen.)
"And that crew!" Charles raves on. "You'd think a bunch of seamen who have sailed to almost every known port in the world would have something a little more stimulating to discuss than food, ale, and naked women!"
Charles begins to sob. I reach out and take him under my wing. "There, there, Charles, everything will be fine. The longer they're at sea, the less interested they'll be in talking about food and ale."
"Try to stay awake, will you, Birdie?" he snuffles. "Just so I have someone intelligent to talk to."
I get him to relax a bit, and then I get him talking, which is something he seems to need desperately.
He tells me about the lofty mountains of Porta Praya, and their groves of cocoa-nut trees and tracts of lava plains and herds of goats. He tells me of the octopus that sprayed him with a jet stream of water on the rocky shore of St. Jago. He tells me of the stark-white rocks of St. Paul, the vast Brazilian forests, the reddish-brown sea of the Abrolhos Islets. He tells me of the vampire bats in Engenhodo and how they bite the horses there, and how the large black-and-ruby spiders of St. Fe Bajada feed upon prey ten times their own size.
All of this between bouts of tears, while I rock him gently in the crook of my wing.
And then, exhausted, in the middle of a sentence about a sparkling apricot-and-flamingo-colored sunset in Rio de Janeiro, he falls fast asleep. I feel his fragile body shivering beside me like that of a tiny butterfly. The heat is stifling. The H.M.S. Beagle rolls helplessly in the waves, like a wine barrel, and I think: Oh, how I miss the sweet smell of wine! I smell nothing here but salty sea water and fish, fish, fish, like a Venetian summer (although how I remember a Venetian summer I do not know). Charles is feverish. Why did I ever allow him to go through with this?
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