A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees (14 page)

Outside, rain is coming down in a heavy burst.

‘Just like Welsh rain,' Silas tells Megan, and laughs grimly. She groans and throws another shawl over the one she has wrapped around her already.

‘Good for the crops,' he says, and imagines the tiny potatoes and the shoots of maize he has planted drinking it up and growing stronger.

But this Patagonian rain doesn't stop. It goes on: a downpour and then a drizzle, a shower and then another torrent, rain driven into sheets by the wind then falling quietly and continually, on and on until the river creeps upwards over its levees and banks, seeps onto the lower ground by the side, forms pools which grow larger which interconnect to form swamps, then lakes, until the valley is just one big lake – the sky reflected in it like a hazed mirror. Meanwhile the walls of the houses start to weep: tears wash down their outer skins, exposing the capillaries and veins of roots. The land is reclaiming its own, Silas thinks, mud going home to mud, as if the house is melting like tallow before the flame, everything becoming slurry.

Silas wakes. There's that emptiness again. That feeling that something's missing. Then his eyes open wide. The walls are coming away from the roof and water is running across the floor from the back wall to the front. Part of another wall collapses softly into the pool outside with a subdued splash. He walks over to the hearthstone and lifts it. The tiny shoe is still there. For a few minutes he looks at it, then carefully replaces the stone into position. He rouses Megan, quickly scoops up Myfanwy and a few of their more fragile possessions, and they all run to the fort.

The warehouse is crowded. There is little room to lie down and rest. Bodies lie jammed next to each other breathing in the stench of the churned-up river, and the pervasive smell of mud. Outside the sludge sticks to clothes, to shoes, to skin. It comes over the rims of boots and oozes inside. Every movement is difficult and slow, and the children demand to be picked up because the mud sucks them down so fiercely and deeply they are afraid of drowning. In front of the fire it dries and falls off in flakes. The flakes disintegrate into a dust that is spread with every movement. It is in everything they eat and drink and in every gulp of air. Outside something bleats and bleats again, but no one takes any notice. It is too wet to go anywhere.

One day of rain follows another: sheets of water that are blown around in eddies; heavy bursts that batter walls and faces; interminable drizzle that penetrates through to the skin; and then an onslaught of drops that seem as hard as small pebbles.

Silas lies on a mattress of grain next to Megan and Myfanwy and listens with his eyes shut. The relentless drumming makes his mind wander. He imagines himself falling in time with its beat, deeper and deeper.

And then it stops. In the sudden strange silence everyone looks out. Before the rain started, and it is a time difficult to remember now, there were the sounds of animals all around them: pigs grunting, cows lowing, but most of all sheep bleating – eight hundred of them, enough to cover a sizeable hill. Now it is quiet.

‘The sheep,' Megan says, and looks at Silas, ‘I can't hear them!'

Silas and John Jones rush out to the pens but they are not there. The earth walls have been washed away and next to them the ground is churned up by many running hooves. A few of the men follow the tracks a couple of miles to the north but they peter out at the edge of the valley. The sun is shining now, and the air has become humid and hot. They shade their eyes and look, but the sheep have gone as far as their feeble little legs will carry them. Silas notices one guanaco that tears off in the distance but not a single white behind. John says he thinks he hears a distant bleat and for a few seconds the rest of them hear it too. But it is far, far away, as if it is taunting them, and although they go on a little way to see if they can see it, there's nothing there and that is the last they hear or see of them. They walk slowly back to the fort to tell the rest.

‘All of them?' says Edwyn incredulously. ‘All eight hundred?'

The voices in the warehouse stop to listen.

Silas and John nod.

The
Meistr
looks at them both for a few seconds then abruptly turns away. Jacob chases after him and taps him on the shoulder. ‘Perhaps we should call a meeting. Perhaps I should discuss my inventory, Edwyn, so we know exactly what we have left and how long it will last.'

Edwyn nods curtly, then takes a breath so deep his shoulders rise a couple of inches and then sink again. Then, without turning, he walks quickly away to the outside of the village.

When they see him again he is smiling. But it is the smile Megan smiles these days – not a smile at all but a determined stretching of the mouth. ‘All will be well,' he says with a forced brightness. ‘You'll see.' He sits, and then gestures to Jacob to continue.

Silas sits silently, but is not listening. All gone. It's as if something inside him has collapsed and left a void. Everything – sheep, crops, houses, shelters. All that work. All those days scraping at the mud.

Jacob takes the floor. He describes the items from his inventory that are probably safe and then pauses for approval. When no one speaks he frantically fills the silence with more words. Eventually he finishes and looks around the room as if he is waiting for someone to stand up and speak, but no one moves. In fact everyone is so intensely still and silent Silas looks around him. People are either looking at each other with frightened faces or glaring at the figure who sits at the front of the room next to Jacob: Edwyn Lloyd. The
Meistr
sits quietly. From time to time his eyes flick around the room as if he is looking for something, but whatever it is he doesn't find it.

Faces turn. Now Mary Jones is standing up and quoting from the report they all know so well: ‘Meadows and tall trees, wild cattle and other game… that's what it says, does it not?'

Edwyn says nothing – instead he seems to be waiting for someone else to speak with a weary silence. He does not have to wait long.

‘And where exactly did you see these wild cattle, when you first came over here, Mr Lloyd?' Annie Warlock asks. ‘Because they're not here now, are they?'

‘They were here.' Edwyn's voice sounds strained. ‘It must be the Indians, maybe they chased them away, like they did before.'

Mary opens her mouth to speak again but Caradoc Llewellyn interrupts her. ‘The important thing,
chwaer
, what we should be concerning ourselves with, is our current predicament, and what we should do about it, not prodding bruises we can do nothing about.'

She opens her mouth, looks to her husband for support but he shakes his head so she sits down.

Caradoc stands, and leaning on his walking stick, looks at Edwyn: ‘The important question is how long will the supplies that we have left keep us?'

Edwyn Lloyd looks around at them all and then looks down again at his hands. The glares are becoming more intense. A few people around Silas are tutting loudly. The
Meistr
looks more than weary, Silas decides, he looks broken. ‘Without the ewes, without crops – I would say five months, at the most.'

  A few of the women gasp. Each face is directed towards him, listening intently.

‘There is nothing else? You've made no other plans?' Caradoc says sharply.

The
Meistr
looks down, shakes his head slowly, ‘No'.

Mary Jones tuts loudly.

‘Nothing at all?'

Again his head shakes.

‘What about the wildlife?' Jacob says. ‘Couldn't we live off that like the Indians do?'

‘We'd have to trap them,' says Selwyn. ‘Do you think we could do that, find enough to feed the entire village?'

‘What about the guns?'

‘We have to preserve the ammunition,' Caradoc says firmly, ‘in case we have to defend ourselves against the Indians.'

‘But there're none here.'

‘They'll be here soon,' Selwyn says. ‘You can count on it.'

Everyone seems to be holding their breath. Edwyn Lloyd seems to be becoming smaller.

‘So we are going to starve, then, unless something is done,' Annie says shrilly from the back, but no one looks around. Everyone is still looking at Edwyn Lloyd, watching him crumple. Mary speaks again, ‘Well, we're going to have to ask for help. Sometimes, Mr Lloyd, even God needs a helping hand.' She rocks her baby in her arms so resolutely it seems afraid to cry. ‘Someone,' she says, ‘is going to have to go to Buenos Aires to ask for more supplies.'

Edwyn looks up, a faint glimmer of hope in his eyes.

‘But I don't think it should be you, Mr Lloyd,' Mary says, ‘I think you have let us down. I think it should be someone who has gone through all that we have gone through, and still shown their mettle.'

‘Selwyn Williams would do very well,' says Jacob, and Edwyn's head jerks suddenly towards him as if he's been stung. His mouth opens and then closes again. Jacob blushes and then bows his head. There is a general murmur of agreement.

Selwyn looks embarrassed and pleased at the same time. ‘But I don't speak much Spanish.'

‘It's good enough, I think,' says Mary, ‘and you speak English?'

Selwyn nods.

‘Then I think you'll do.'

Everyone is standing now, crowding around Selwyn to congratulate him.

‘Shouldn't we put it to the council?' says Jacob, plaintively, ‘vote for him, properly?'

‘We have voted,' says Caradoc loudly and there is a general agreement. No one except Silas has noticed that Edwyn Lloyd has crept away, down the side of the hut where it is dark.

There is something in the way the
Meistr
moves that causes Silas to follow him, carefully, slowly, out onto the broad flat plains where they are clearly visible from the surrounding escarpments and Silas shivers, imagining who might be watching them.

Silas looks around him as if seeing it all for the first time: after the rains it has suddenly become high summer and already the plants are changing colour from green to something more yellow. They look as if they are ripening, swelling with something as if they might burst and he stoops down to inspect a bush – something like a thorn that grew outside his mother's house but with tiny green leaves and red buds. He looks closer – there are orange things like beads dotting the branches. Each one is pitted with a hole that looks too perfectly bored to be the work of an insect. He picks one off – it is just like a bead – then puts it in his pocket to show Myfanwy. Another plant smells vaguely of pine when he steps on it. But it's not pine, he reminds himself, of course it's not pine. He feels a sudden intense desire – a
need
– to walk under trees, to feel the crowded loneliness of the woodland, with the branches crackling beside him with the weight of animals and birds. But instead there is this, and only this – mile upon mile of scrub and grass interrupted by occasional lifeless slopes – a wasteland leading onto a desert. He looks again for Edwyn Lloyd – the man is still striding away to where the land rises in white cliffs. They look unnatural, too white, as if they are made from salt.

Edwyn doesn't look back. Silas watches from the shelter of one of the larger beaded bushes. The
Meistr
reaches the base of one of the cliffs and begins to climb. There is no easy way up. He reaches just a few feet up and then comes slithering back, then tries again somewhere else with the same result. Silas smiles. He takes a step forward out of the shelter of the bush and Edwyn Lloyd chooses that moment to turn round. For a few seconds Edwyn stops. He sees him. Silas stands his ground. Edwyn moves back towards him, his gaze never moving from Silas. Silas stares back, ignoring his urge to run back into the fort and hide with the rest.

As Edwyn comes closer Silas is aware of his eyes. Blue. Out here, in the achingly bright sun of a Patagonian summer, they seem to have acquired an extra intensity. As the
Meistr
comes closer Silas notices them briefly leap around in their housing as if they are following a bird or a butterfly in flight.

‘Why did you follow me?' The eyes become still, and the effect is even more unsettling. His intense unwavering stare gives Silas the uncomfortable impression that he can see inside Silas' skull. He can't think of an answer so instead he lies. ‘I was after one of our hens.'

Edwyn Lloyd snorts derisively but then seems to decide to continue the polite charade: ‘Well, no sign of her out here.' For a few seconds he seems to inspect Silas' mind a little more then says, ‘I would have liked to have known you a little more, Silas.' Then when Silas says nothing in return, ‘you have suffered more than most, I know that, but I think we could have been useful to each other.' He reaches out to touch him but Silas steps back and for an instant Edwyn's arm is held in front of him, the cloth of his sleeve emptily drooping down. Silas' eyes flick over him. The
Meistr
too has lost weight. His face is drawn; there are small hollows where there should be flesh.

‘Ah well,' Edwyn's arm drops again. ‘So be it. I have tried with you, Silas. The Lord knows.' He sighs and turns slightly away. ‘I had such plans... I imagined you my comrade.' He laughs dryly. ‘Too late now, though. I am taking Cecilia back to Buenos Aires.'

Silas' mouth opens. ‘Why? There is no need for you to go too. Selwyn Williams is our representative now.'

Edwyn's eyes drop. His eyelids are long, elegant, fringed with luxuriant eyelashes. A spasm seems to pass over the rest of his face and when he looks up again his face seems to be held tightly in position. ‘My wife is not well, and besides, my place is not here. That has been made perfectly clear to me by all of you.' He walks stiffly back towards the settlement.

The
Maria Theresa
has been patched with pieces of timber from the wreck in the river. She looks old and ill, as if her voyage with the women and children exhausted her; even her sails are bedraggled and yellowing. Edwyn and Cecilia's journey to her is stealthy. When Jacob sees them carrying their bags and boxes from the entrance of the fort he just stands there with his mouth gaping open for a few seconds. Then, as Silas watches him, he runs, his arms like broken windmill sails, his feet making an uneven pattern of thuds, until he is standing next to them, grabbing hold of their arms and then gesticulating for them to go back. Edwyn glances back at the fort and shakes his head. When they go to move on again towards the ship Jacob runs on a little further, holding his arms out wide, blocking their passage, remonstrating with them once again. But Edwyn forces a way past him and Cecilia follows, their bodies straight, their faces looking ahead of them. Jacob goes to follow them again, runs a few paces and stops. He continues to stare after them and then his shoulders sink. They are going and there is nothing he can do. He slumps back, face downwards, looking at no one.

All of the colonists watch the
Maria Theresa
depart. As they lose sight of her Silas turns and reads the faces around him. They are depleted and vulnerable. Besides Selwyn Williams and Edwyn and Cecilia Lloyd, there are others on board who could take no more and have given up – the doctor, one of the three ministers, and several others. They have the means to go elsewhere, and it is not just Silas who envies them. There are just over a hundred souls left now, and as they turn to troop back to the fort Silas realises their isolation: to the north, four hundred miles away over a dry wasteland is the nearest settlement – the outpost of Patagones on the Río Negro, a lawless place; to the west are unexplored mountains reportedly riddled with savagely ruthless Indians; and to the south there is just more wasteland becoming colder and colder until the land ends at Tierra del Fuego; and to the east an empty ocean. They can call on no one. Their one link with the outside world is disappearing beyond the headland. They have to survive alone on the little they have left, and unless Selwyn can persuade the Argentine government to help them and send more supplies they will starve to death. Patagonia is not somewhere anyone passes except to round the straits, and not many people look landwards as they do. No doubt they are forgotten already – completely out of sight and utterly out of mind. The adults walk silently back to the fort, even the children are subdued.

Jacob is standing at the front of the warehouse wearing his best clothes – a darker version of the clothes he always wears: a black woollen three-piece suit, with small white collar showing. He is thinner than he was of course, they all are, but this loss of weight suits him.

He smiles uneasily and clears his throat, but no one looks up. The council members are slumped around the room as lifeless as the sacks of flour they are sitting on.

‘
Ffrindiau
, we must not give up,' he says, ‘there is still time to sow seeds if we work hard.'

No one replies. A few of the men sink back against the wall, their faces dour and immobile.

Jacob tries again. He claps his hands half-heartedly and forces a smile. ‘
Brodyr
! Listen to me! All is not lost. The good Lord means for us to be here.'

One man snorts, ‘I think you're wrong there, Mr Griffiths, I don't know where the Lord meant us to go, but if it was this place then He has a strange way of showing it.'

His neighbour nods in agreement.

Slowly Jacob's smile fades. He searches the face of one man then the next, but they all look down or pretend to be engaged in conversation with the man next to them.

‘Well, there are still things that need to be done. I need a volunteer to help me with the track into the fort…'

Silas sighs. It's hopeless, everyone knows it. He eases himself forward off the sack. There is no point in staying here – no one is deciding anything. He starts off towards the door but someone else is moving too, someone at the back: Caradoc Llewellyn.

Caradoc simply stands where he is and looks slowly around the room with a deliberate eye. He's a stout small man, but with both hands on his walking stick, holds himself high. ‘Mr Griffiths is right. We have to continue,
brodyr
. There is still hope, still something we can plant. Let us show the Lord what we can do.'

‘It's too late now,' Silas says flatly. ‘Summer, it is, not spring. No one tries to sow seeds in the summer.'

‘But no one can know what will happen in this place! It is untouched, untried. It is up to us. With the Lord's help we could still make the desert bloom.'

John sniffs quietly. ‘I suppose it would do no harm to try.'

Caradoc looks over at him and nods. ‘Yes! We must try. The ground is prepared. It is soft now, ready for planting.'

Two of the men near John sit up slightly and look at each other.

‘It should be easier this time.'

‘And the weather is fine.'

Caradoc looks at them too. ‘Exactly. What is there to lose?'

There is a murmuring as if they are rousing from sleep.

Caradoc marches over to where Jacob still stands, his stick against his shoulder, talking quickly. ‘We can still succeed, my friends, I am sure of that. The Lord is with us. He has left us with enough grain to try. It is a message. Hope. Remember the dog he sent us? Antur. Our future. Our promise. There is still something we can do.' Now, standing next to Jacob he breathes in and then out noisily, and then taps with his stick against one of the sacks. ‘Come, gentlemen! Look lively!'

Silas looks around him. Something has fallen from all their faces. They are talking, planning, and some of them are beginning to stand up. Yes, they should try, they might yet succeed, certainly if they do nothing they will not.

Caradoc looks around at them, nodding his approval. ‘Yes, yes, that's right.' His voice is becoming louder and more clipped. ‘We should start today. This minute. No time to lose…'

‘Yes, indeed!' says Jacob, his face brightening too. ‘We should…'

But Caradoc is already leading them out into the sun like the Pied Piper.

Silas follows. The rest of the colonists are walking briskly now; some of the younger men are actually trotting. They call to each other and soon everyone is there, chatting and laughing – even Megan – almost as if Caradoc has announced a celebration. They go in groups to their plots, concentrating on ground they worked before – between the meanders where there used to be grass. Silas rakes over the soil. It does not take long – the soil is light and already prepared. At the end of it he looks at his work and shrugs. It will do.