Landfalls

by Naomi J. Williams

  “The pass? What were they doing there?”

  Vaujuas hunched his shoulders as if to deflect the question. “He said the current drove them there. He managed to get free of it. But their pinnace did not.”

  Langle felt an electric surge of alarm. “It capsized?”

  Vaujuas nodded.

  “But its men—Lieutenant d’Escures—?”

  Vaujuas shook his head.

  “And our pinnace?”

  Vaujuas shook his head harder. “Monsieur de Boutin lost sight of it in the confusion. He thought they might have come back before he did.” He stopped, but as Langle continued looking at him, added shakily, “They haven’t, sir.”

  Langle looked behind him, toward the southwest, the direction in which the three boats had gone that morning, willing the pinnace to reappear from behind the island. Perhaps the La Borde brothers and the seven crewmen they had gone with were still out there, wending their way back. Perhaps they had managed to help the men from the Boussole’s capsized pinnace. Perhaps in his distress and hurry to return, Boutin had missed all of this. But there was no sign of them. Instead, Langle saw a group of native canoes approaching—canoes rowed with great speed and urgency, the speed and urgency of bad news. No, he thought. No, make this not be. Turning back to the rail, he put his glass to his eye and watched as Boutin and his men were helped up the side of the Boussole. One sank to his knees on reaching the deck and had to be helped away. Boutin was the last to climb aboard. Langle watched as Lapérouse, his round face looking oddly deflated, stepped forward and grasped Boutin by the arm. In the moment before he led his officer away, he looked across and seemed to catch Langle’s eye. Confusion, disbelief, dread, entreaty—was it possible for a single look to convey all that? Langle put the glass down. He wondered what his own face betrayed. The only sensation he felt was a creeping dryness at the back of his throat.

  The natives arrived in their red cedar canoes, all of them talking at once in their highly fricative, sing-songy language that even the expedition’s savants could make no sense of. But no interpreter was needed to read the horrified excitement on their faces. Their lithe hand gestures were clear enough: they’d watched from the shore as two boats capsized at the mouth of the bay. The same mouth that had nearly devoured both frigates the day they arrived—how was it possible? They all knew the danger. And the La Borde brothers—oh, why had he let them both go? Langle clenched himself against a dizzying wave of shock and anger and regret.

  “Monsieur de Langle!” Lapérouse was calling over through a speaking trumpet. “Lower gifts to the canoes. Make it clear there will be more, much more, for the rescue of even one man!”

  Langle shook off his torpor and motioned for Vaujuas to comply; the young lieutenant leaped into action, relieved to have something to do. Lapérouse called over again. He was sending the Boussole’s longboat to search the southern shoreline. “Send your longboat to the northern side,” he shouted. “Do you have an officer to spare for the task?”

  “I’ll go myself,” Langle shouted back.

  * * *

  The entrance to the bay was now so still it seemed impossible that a disaster had just occurred there. Langle, standing at the stern of the longboat, felt his panic and grief evaporate strangely at the sight, as if the drama of the last hour had been so much playacting. He could see several native canoes and the Boussole’s longboat making their way along the opposite shore. With one of his own men bent over the side taking depths to ensure against running aground, Langle could almost imagine that they were in fact the soundings expedition, and that nothing was amiss.

  “Sir, there’s something over there among the rocks,” one of his men called back.

  Langle put his glass to his eye and scanned the area the crewman had pointed out. Yes, there was something there, something not part of the natural landscape. He felt a sickening return to the task at hand as he directed the rowers to approach the object.

  “It’s the grapnel from Monsieur de Boutin’s boat,” the same keen-eyed man announced. “Shall we try to grab it, sir?”

  “Yes.” Langle watched as the men wrestled the anchor off the rocks with a long pole and hauled it on board. Its cablet was still attached to it, and the men clucked in wonder as they examined the end that had sheared off the boat. Langle said nothing, but he knew what they were all thinking: only a boiling sea could have spat an anchor back out onto the rocks. He tried to imagine for a moment such a sea, the two doomed boats floundering in its waves, the cries of drowning men inaudible over the roar, their open throats filling suddenly and fatally with tide water.

  “Captain de Langle.”

  He looked up; his men were waiting for him. “There’s a convenient landing just ahead,” he said. He chose four men to join him on foot, then instructed the men left in the boat to continue their search along the shore. They agreed to meet when the sun was directly south. He knew they would not be late; the fear of getting caught in the reverse current when the tide came back in through the pass weighed heavily on all of them.

  He headed southwest with his men, toward where the northern side of the bay ended in a long, low spit of land. It curved in toward the mouth of the bay like a lupine fang, and was a place that might snag survivors, wreckage, bodies. They spread out along the bay side of the spit, and Langle found himself alone, with the silent bay before him and a narrow band of spruce trees separating him from the ocean on the other side. Sometimes a gap in the trees would let in a windy blast and the roar of the ocean. Langle stepped into the bay once, thinking a shiny thing he saw there might be a button from one of the officer’s jackets. But it was a flat yellow pebble, rubbed perfectly round by its time in the sea. He pocketed it to send home to his son, Charles, who was almost two years old. By the time it reached him, of course, he would be closer to three.

  He spotted something gray and rounded on the rocky shore, and his stomach contracted with dread and hope. But a step closer revealed that it was just a dead gull. He was relieved, but only for an instant. The only thing they had recovered so far was the anchor from Boutin’s boat, the boat that escaped. An apprehension that they would find nothing—no one to bury, no mementos to send home, no spar from the lost boats, nothing even to confirm that the accident had occurred—grew in his mind. It would be as if two boats and all their men had simply vanished from the world. He kicked the dead gull into the water with a curse.

  A voice made him spin around. A native girl, eleven or twelve years old, he guessed, stood under a spruce tree watching him. He didn’t understand what she’d said, of course, but he did notice how the language that sounded so harsh spoken by the native men was less grating coming from her. She was barefoot, wore a sleeveless goatskin shift that hung unevenly above her knees, and at her hip held a small round basket filled with berries. An assiduous berry-picker, Langle thought, noting the twigs and leaves stuck in her black, shoulder-length hair. Her lips were purple. She had a drop of juice trapped below her lower lip—but no, it was a piercing. He wondered what she was doing there; the spit didn’t seem like a place where berries grew. He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile in return.

  He stepped closer and sat on a boulder. She didn’t speak again, but she didn’t seem afraid either. Even in his distress he was pleased by this. He liked to think he was the sort of European who put natives at ease. “We experienced a calamity today,” he said. He took his copper canteen from its pouch, pulled off the cork stopper, and drank a long, cool draught of water. “We’re looking for survivors,” he said, then took another sip. The girl watched him in silence, her eyes betraying nothing he could read—not compassion, not wonder, not understanding, not even curiosity. He offered her the canteen but she drew away, her purple lips thinning in what he guessed was disapproval.

  “This water,” he said, “it’s the best thing about this sorrowful place.” He drank again, then found his eyes filling with tears. He was aware of the girl’s nearness, and his body tensed with the certainty that she w
ould touch him. But instead she stepped back, her eyes looking past him up the beach. Langle turned to see one of his men approaching.

  “We haven’t found anything, sir,” the man said when he came within earshot. He looked wary, frightened even, but when he noticed the girl, he stopped, and his pale eyes widened in open interest.

  Langle stood up and glanced behind him at the position of the sun. “We should go back,” he said. “The tide will be in soon.”

  The sailor stood, still ogling the girl. Langle spun the man around by the shoulder. “She is a child.”

  “Oh, no, sir, I—” the man protested as Langle marched him off.

  Langle looked back once, but the girl was gone. He was sorry. He felt sure she knew about the accident; perhaps she’d even witnessed it from this lonely strip of land. She must have surmised he was looking for survivors or bodies. Yet they could not talk to each other. Something about that—the shared knowledge and the inability to communicate about it—had been soothing.

  They were in the longboat, rowing back to the Astrolabe, before he missed his canteen. The girl—she must have taken it. She had distracted him with her voice and her purple mouth and that dispassionate stare.

  * * *

  It could not be put off any longer: his next duty was to go to the Boussole and meet with Lapérouse. First he returned to the Astrolabe to wash up and put on his formal coat. When he entered his cabin, the sight of the dead otter on the table startled him extremely. Its exposed flesh looked painfully raw, like a burn. The whiskered face, so charming in life, looked cruel—one eye half-shut, the other open and staring, while the stiffened jaw muscles revealed a sharp row of bottom teeth. Had it only been that morning when he’d been cheerfully skinning the creature while disaster struck not one league away? He tried to swallow, but his throat felt sandy, his tongue large in his mouth. He moved to the wash basin and rinsed his face, then reached for his pewter water pitcher but knocked it to the floor.

  “François,” he called. “François!”

  The boy appeared in the doorway, rubbing the back of his hand under his nose.

  “Clean this up,” Langle said. “But first, get me some water.” Waiting for François to return, he watched the spilled water spread across the floor then sink into the grain of the wood, staining it dark. He imagined it melting from the snows and glaciers above the bay, then growing brackish as it flowed toward the ocean, brackish and turbulent, turbulent enough to drown two boatloads of men. François returned with the refilled pitcher, but Langle waved it away. “My coat,” he said hoarsely.

  A few minutes later, sitting in the Astrolabe’s small boat with only the silent boatswain’s mate for company, his mind lulled into numbness by the rhythmic slap of the oars, Langle wished the short trip between the two ships could last forever. It wasn’t that he didn’t wish to see Lapérouse; he wanted—needed—to see him. Only with the commander, his friend since the American War, could he allow himself the luxury of grief. But he also understood that once they saw each other, it would become impossible to ignore the enormity of what had happened. The expedition would not sail the next day, of course. They would have to continue searching for the lost men, no matter how futile the endeavor. Then there would be the surviving men to console, burials for any bodies they recovered, a memorial for all the dead, the sale of the lost men’s possessions, the reassignment of their duties, and afterward, reports for Paris, and—oh, God—letters to the families.

  He thought of the powerful Marquis de La Borde, and his mind recoiled. The marquis had not wanted his sons to serve on the same ship. “An ocean voyage is still a dangerous endeavor, even in this scientific age,” the marquis had said. Langle had promised to keep them safe. He’d specifically promised not to assign the brothers to off-ship expeditions together. That was when most mishaps occurred—when men left the safety of their ships. And until this morning, he had kept his word. But the brothers’ request—it had been so reasonable! Refusing would have seemed churlish, arbitrary. But how could he explain this to the marquis, now that both sons were lost?

  He sat in the commander’s cabin, choking down a glass of wine. Lapérouse, never one to stand on ceremony, had forgone it altogether, doffing hat and coat as soon as they’d entered the room. His vest was unbuttoned, his shirt wrinkled and untucked, and his hair, just beginning to gray at the temples, pulled back in a careless knot at the nape of his neck. He paced the room, tears spilling from his eyes as he railed against d’Escures.

  “I told him to avoid the pass if there was any danger at all,” Lapérouse cried.

  “Boutin says they were driven there by the current,” Langle said.

  The commander shook his head. “Boutin’s asked to write an official report on the incident. He’s the most senior survivor, so it’s right he should do so. But he’s also trying to protect a dead friend from blame. It’s no use, however.” Lapérouse handed a piece of paper to Langle. “I gave d’Escures explicit written instructions before he left this morning.”

  Langle scanned the writing:… Monsieur d’Escures is forbidden from exposing the boats to any danger whatsoever, or from approaching the pass if it is rough. If the ocean is not breaking over the pass but the water is turbulent, he will put off taking soundings, as the work is not urgent. I ask again that he exercise the greatest possible caution …

  Langle found himself wondering if the commander had written out the instructions after the accident in order to protect himself. They had, after all, sent three boats toward a pass they knew to be dangerous. Langle touched his thumb to the paper to test the ink. It felt dry, yet the suspicion persisted.

  “Was I not clear enough?” Lapérouse demanded.

  “Absolutely clear.”

  “Do you know what d’Escures said when I gave this to him?”

  Langle shook his head wearily. Lapérouse’s anger, so pointless now, exhausted him.

  “‘Do you take me for a child?’ he said. ‘I have commanded the king’s ships,’ he tells me. And now twenty men are drowned, five of them officers!”

  “Twenty-one,” Langle said.

  “What?”

  “Six officers.”

  Lapérouse stopped pacing, and stood before Langle. “Who else was in your boat?”

  Please, sir. It’s our only chance to go hunting together. Maybe we’ll bring back a bear. “I let the younger La Borde join his brother.”

  He felt Lapérouse’s hand on his shoulder, then its weight increase as the commander lowered himself to the floor and crouched beside him. Lapérouse looked up at him; the anger had left his face. “Paul,” he said, dropping the formality between them. Langle covered his face and wept. Lapérouse remained at his side, saying nothing. Langle finally sat up and emptied the wine in his glass, but it tasted spent and moldy. He coughed a few times, afraid he might retch. He wanted Lapérouse to stop looking at him; the pity in those searching eyes unmanned him completely. Lapérouse took the wineglass from him, then stood, buttoning the top of his vest, as if to signal his resumption of duty, as if he knew to relieve Langle of his sympathy.

  * * *

  A few hours later, the officers of both ships ate in near-silence aboard the Astrolabe. Langle pressed the side of his fork repeatedly into his fish, separating it into many small pieces that he did not eat. It was poached salmon, just as he’d requested of Deveau that morning. Cooked to pink perfection, it was served alongside sorrel they’d found in the woods.

  Lapérouse cleared his throat. “Tomorrow,” he whispered, as if testing his voice, then louder, “Tomorrow—we’ll move our anchorage away from the island, and closer to the entrance of the bay.” There was a ripple of barely suppressed reaction down the row of officers, shorter now by one table length. Lapérouse looked up from his plate and the men stilled themselves. The urgency that had fueled their earlier exertions in the bay had given way to exhaustion, sadness, and fear. No one wanted to spend time near the site of the disaster.

  Langle knew he should say
something. He understood the need to continue searching, how important it was that the accounts they sent back to France leave no doubt about their conduct in the hours and days following the tragedy. But it was already hopeless. He continued to shred the salmon on his plate, his mind pitching between fretfulness and grief. Something struck the back of his head, and he lurched forward.

  “Oh, Captain de Langle, please excuse me!” It was François, holding a carafe. “More wine, sir?”

  “For God’s sake,” Langle cried. “Go away.”

  François stepped back into the shadows, but not before Langle saw how his nose had pinked with shame, and that his eyes were red from long crying.

  Across from him, Lapérouse took a great bite of salmon. Langle felt a flash of contempt. Only a man of shallow feeling would be able to eat with such relish after losing so many of his men. At least François, for all his ineptitude, was showing proper emotion. But as Langle watched, he saw how his friend labored to get through the mouthful he’d assigned himself, his jaws working with grim determination. Ashamed, Langle brought a forkful of fish to his lips, then another and another. He stumbled into his cabin afterward, feeling almost drunk with grief. The musky smell of the otter carcass assailed him; he couldn’t help but look at the dark mass of it lying on his table, then rushed to a basin to be sick.

  * * *

  The fair weather held the next day. They paid the natives to guide them around the headlands, and searched all day along the rocky, oceanside coast outside the bay. The search continued the next day under overcast skies, and the day after, with more wind, and then for two days in the rain, a nasty, changeable rain that seemed to drive at the men’s faces no matter which direction they turned. They found nothing and no one, and Lapérouse announced that the sixth day would conclude the search.

  That morning Langle rose at dawn and left his cabin, only to trip over someone lying in front of his door. “What the devil!” he cried, grabbing the figure and heaving it to its feet. It was someone thin and light, and for a confused moment he imagined it was the native girl he’d met out on the spit. Maybe she’d come back with his canteen. But it was François, sleepy, embarrassed, and dressed for an outing.