Read Online This Thing Of Darkness by Harry Thompson - Free Book Online

deck and sat tight. I made a serious mistake.’
    ‘You had orders to follow!’
    ‘Orders set out a month previous, with no foreknowledge of the weather that was to befall us. I should have had the courage to act by my own initiative.’
    ‘Orders must be obeyed. You know that - sir. You did the only thing you could do.’
    ‘Did I? I misread all the meteorological signs. The state of the air foretold the coming weather, but I did not have the experience to diagnose it.’
    ‘Nobody can foretell the weather, sir. It’s impossible.’
    ‘Come, come, Midshipman Sulivan. Every shepherd knows the value of a red sky at night.’
    ‘Those are old wives’ tales, surely.’
    ‘I grant you they have little obvious basis in natural philosophy. But they are valid observations all the same. Look at this.’ FitzRoy indicated a pencil sketch of what looked like a small white cheese wedged beneath a large black one. ‘Remember the conditions before the storm hit us? Warm air blowing from the north-east, barometric pressure high, temperature high. Then the conditions when the tempest began - cold air from the south-west, the temperature right down, pressure collapsing. This white wedge is the warm tropical air from the north. The black wedge is the cold polar air from the south. The cold air was moving so fast it dragged against the surface of the land, so the forward edge of it actually flowed over the warm air and trapped it underneath. Hence all those giant clouds. And it trapped us underneath with it.’
    Sulivan’s mind raced to keep up.
    FitzRoy’s eyes were alight with enthusiasm. He flung out a question. ‘What causes storms?’
    ‘High winds.’
    ‘No. High winds are the result of storms, not the cause of them. That storm was caused by warm air colliding with cold air. Where are the stormiest locations on earth?’
    ‘The Roaring Forties. The South Atlantic. The North Atlantic ...’
    FitzRoy let Sulivan arrive at his own conclusion.
    ‘... The latitudes where the cold air from the poles meets the warm air from the tropics?’
    ‘Exactly. The barometer didn’t get it wrong yesterday. I did. The barometer stayed high because we were at the front of the heated air flow just before it was overwhelmed by the colder air above.’ Excited now, FitzRoy warmed to his theme. ‘What if every storm is caused in the same way? What if every storm is an eddy, a whirl, but on an immense scale, either horizontal or vertical, between a current of warm air and another of cold air?’
    ‘I don’t know ... What if?’
    ‘Then it could theoretically be possible to predict the weather - by locating the air currents before they collide.’
    ‘But, FitzRoy — sir, there must be a myriad uncountable breezes ... The Lord does not make the winds blow to order.’
    ‘Every experienced captain knows where to find a fair wind or a favourable current. Do you think the winds blow at random? Those two poor souls who died yesterday - was that God’s punishment or the result of my blunder?’
    ‘I know it was God’s will.’
    ‘Mr Sulivan, if God created this world to a purpose, would He have left the winds and currents to chance? What if the weather is actually a gigantic machine created by God? What if the whole of creation is ordered and comprehensible? What if we could analyse how His machine works and foretell its every move? No one need ever die in a storm again.’
    ‘It is too fantastical an idea.’
    ‘What if the elements could be tamed by natural philosophy? What if the weather is really no more than a huge panopticon? It’s not a new idea. The ancients believed there was a discernible pattern to the weather. Aristotle called meteorology the “sublime science”.’
    Sulivan looked amiably sceptical at the notion that pre-Christian thinkers might have had anything valid to say about the Lord’s work. ‘But even if you could predict these ... these air currents, how could you communicate with the vessels in their