by Vicky Adin
“I heard what you did,” added Maggie. “It were brave. Aye.”
“Where are you from, Miss O’Neill? That’s no Irish accent I’m hearing.”
“Ah. Noo, it’s a wee bit mixed up. I were born in County Antrim, but Faither took us back and fore to Scotland for work so I grew up in both countries.” Maggie bent her head and cleared her throat several times. Next time she spoke, her speech had returned to its formal tone. “I must get out of the habit of slipping into dialect when I’m nervous. Forgive me. I should know better.”
Brigid instantly distrusted the chameleon-like character of the girl, but she’d promised Jamie to be polite. “Why should you need to know better? What’s wrong with the way you speak?”
“My employer, Miss Jenkins – may she rest in peace – always said that if we wanted to get on in the world, we had to speak proper, I mean, correctly.” Brigid watched as Maggie took in a deep breath and sighed. “It was so much easier while I was living in England. I was with people who spoke like that all the time, but now I’m finding it too easy to slip back into what is natural.”
“So why did you leave then, if everything was so good?” Brigid said, echoing the question Sally had asked earlier. She hadn’t intended to be so sharp with the girl and was startled to see Maggie’s eyes fill.
“I had no choice.” Head bent, she stared at the sandstone-scrubbed deck beneath her feet.
Brigid held her tongue.
Slowly, hesitantly, Maggie started to tell her story. “Faither died some years ago. My brother Michael – and his wife what’s passed now – and his two girls lived with our mother. But then Mam fell ill.” Maggie lifted her head and looked straight at Brigid, searching for understanding. “It was as if the whole world had turned against me all at the same time.”
Before Brigid or Maggie could say anything further Sally strode along the deck towards them. “Ah, there you are. I’ve been searching the whole ship for you.”
Maggie made to leave, but Sally blocked her way. “Oh hello, then. Who might you be, I wonder? Don’t think I’ve come across you before.”
“Maggie O’Neill. Please excuse me.” She stepped to one side and made her escape.
“What’s up with that one?” Sally pursed her lips, watching the girl disappear around the corner.
“We were just talking about family and she got a bit upset.”
“No matter. Tell her family’s no use to anyone. Come on, lass. There’s some deck games going on, and I’ve got my eye on a sailor.”
Monday, 25th October 1886
We’ve settled into a routine of sorts as we’ve got further from England. The weather’s been dry and the sea’s calm so far, thank the Lord, and I’m surprised I’ve not felt at all seasick – others are. But I am finding it mighty warm.
A lot of folk spend more time on deck where it’s cooler than below, but the officers say we can’t sleep up there, more’s the pity. And with so many people on board it’s nigh on impossible to find a quiet spot; there’s always a body or two hovering around. But there’s one thing I can say – there’s such hope on board, it’s a joy to share. Everyone is expecting Australia to give us a better life.
We’ve lots of food, mostly meat and praties, but it lacks taste. They’re right stingy on the salt, but it’s regular as the clock. I think most are eating for something to do, instead of something to enjoy. Some complained at the start, but cook swore his head off at them. The grumbles soon stopped after that and cook’s a bit friendlier since. The bread’s fresh made, so I’m happy about that.
Sally has taken the upper hand and likes to say what is what. She and I have become friends – you need friends on this ship. It gets mighty lonely at times. I do Sally’s hair when I can, but it’s got a will of its own with all those curls.
The sisters Annie and Lettie quietly stick together and have so far not upset Sally, but I’ve not got to know them much. They’re an odd pair, who speak little, and we can’t hear them when they do.
Then there’s Wilhelmina, the German woman who is tall and heavy built and called Minnie. I tried to speak to her once, but she has such very little English that neither of us really knew what the other was saying. Minnie found a few women who spoke her own language and somehow managed to shift the woman from Denmark, who’d taken the top bunk, to another place so she could share with Rosina, one of her newfound fellow countrymen. Since then, Minnie and Rosina have kept to themselves, as much as Sally will let them. She niggles at them all the time about how much room they take up. We’ve had a bit of music to help cheer us up a little, and most seem happier than they were. I enjoy the dancing.
I wish I could tell Ma I say my daily prayers like I promised. We had church this morning with Father Flanagan. He’ll be leading the weekly service and will give us news of what’s happening aboard and what to expect up ahead.
The days passed peaceably enough as mothers chattered over the wash barrel or entertained the younger children while the older ones found their own mischief. She wished she could tell some of them salt water was no good for the cloth, but Brigid found honing her skills alongside the other women who did handicraft a daily pleasure.
Agnes and Ester, who shared quarters in the midships with their spouses and children, had formed an early friendship and were soon spending their days together creating or teaching some of the younger women. Brigid liked to help them, glad to pass on her skills.
But to Brigid’s mind the pair moaned too much about everything.
“I’m so sick of the sight of water. When are we going to reach land?” grumbled Agnes, her fingers flying as she crocheted.
“We saw land a few days back when we came through them straits. What were they called?” asked Ester, without raising her head from her embroidery.
“Gibraltar,” replied Brigid. “And we can’t be that far away from the next stop. The ship needs to fill up with coal and water, so I was told.”
Agnes snapped her head round to glare at Brigid. “That wasn’t what I meant. Seeing it in the distance ain’t the same. I wanted to see what the people looked like and how they lived.” She stood to adjust her position and flap her skirts to let some air circulate before sitting again. “My, it’s hot.”
“Aye, ’tis. Clammy like.” Ester flapped her hands in front of her highly flushed face and appeared quite put out.
“Maybe we should in sit the shade, it’d be more comfortable,” suggested Brigid.
“But the shady side of the ship is the windy side and I hate the wind. No, we’ll stay where we are.” Agnes was adamant.
Nobody moved; their hooks and needles flashed back and forth unabated until the murmur of voices grew afresh.
Brigid didn’t bother to point out that the wind shifted and could blow from any direction, or that the shady side of the ship was dependent on the time of day. Agnes was a creature of habit so nothing would move her, and the other women accepted her decision without dispute.
“So where’s we stopping next then, Breeda?” asked Annie, the more vocal of the quiet sisters, to fill a lull in the conversation.
“There’s some islands called Galite in the Bay of Tunis, today, then Malta ...” began Brigid.
“I don’t like the look of those clouds coming towards us. I’ve never seen them move so quick,” Agnes interrupted, and craned her neck around to see where the dark cloud was coming from.
“I’m starting to feel right queasy an’ all,” agreed Ester, lifting her head. Like a rabbit coming out of its burrow, she jerked her head left and right to see what dangers might be lurking.
One woman put a hand out to steady herself; another leaned into the next as the ship seesawed through the surging swells. Voices stilled. Nervous eyes scanned the horizon.
“Ooh, I don’t like it. Why’s it doing that?” Annie’s querulous voice didn’t help steady anyone’s nerves.
“I was told Galite had an eruption last month making the sea swell. Maybe that’s got something to do with it?” suggest
ed Brigid, hoping a reason for the extra surge might ease their minds – and hers. The one thing she feared more than being alone was the power of the ocean. It had taken many a fisherman from home to his death.
“How come you know so much, missy?” She guessed Agnes had a nasty side, but until now it hadn’t been directed at her.
Everyone turned to stare at Brigid. The hairs on her arms stood on end at the unnecessary hostility.
“I don’t know more than what I’ve been told,” she murmured.
“Aye. And why would anyone tell a slip of a girl like you anything?” Another voice joined in – someone she didn’t know – an older woman with a dark scowl.
Brigid flushed and tears threatened. Her stomach turned in confusion. She dropped her head and clenched her fists to steady her nerves, feeling the sticky sweat beneath her fingers as blood pounded through her veins. If she was to make a new life, she could not – no, she would not – let others stand over her.
“There’s no need to be nasty. I’ve done you no harm. I asked a sailor and he told me.”
She gathered up her belongings and, with a brief nod of farewell, gracefully but determinedly made her escape.
Brigid edged her way unsteadily around the bow to the other side of the ship, only to walk headlong into the windstorm. Overhead, the darkened clouds moved closer, swirling and changing shape as they travelled rapidly across the sky. A strange smell of damp metal and salt twitched her nose, and she shivered, despite the humid air.
For the next day and night the seas heaved up and down like lungs gasping for oxygen. The wind howled at a frightening pitch and buffeted those hale enough to attempt to stand on deck. Waves washed over the bow as the ship plunged headlong into the next trough, sending even the hearty below.
The horizon disappeared sickeningly with each nosedive, while sailors strung storm ropes from one end of the ship to the other for people to hang on to – saving more than one life as the ship rolled first to one side, then the other.
Weakened, people took to their bunks, trying to still their rebellious stomachs. The air reeked of vomit and anxiety. Fear spread its insidious wings.
“Our Father who art in heaven ...” began the murmur of numerous voices not far from where Brigid lay. Above it, “Hail Mary, full of grace ... ” followed in waves as the familiar chant grew louder. In need of comfort, she added her cry to theirs.
“Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death ...”
Harmoniously, the chant rose and fell. Voices came and went as it was repeated again and again, calming her alarm. Foreign words Brigid didn’t understand, but familiar because of their cadence, intermingled with the pulsing rhythm of the prayer.
A woman called out, “Oooh, I can’t stand it any longer. Help me.”
From nowhere it seemed, Miss O’Reilly, the matron, appeared and moved easily from berth to berth, her soft tone offering succour to those who needed it most.
A soothing male voice started to sing, his strong incantation piercing the thin partitioning. “Hail Queen of Heaven the Ocean Star ...”
Above the din, children cried and begged their mothers for comfort, but if she listened hard, Brigid could still hear the man singing: “... save us from peril and woe.”
Nerves stretched and tempers shortened.
“Shut that bleedin’ child up afore I kill the little monster,” someone yelled through the dividing wall.
“Don’t you go threatening my Arthur. It ain’t his fault. You lay one finger on him and I’ll swing for ya, that I will.”
More shouting. Over it all, the prayers and hymns continued accompanied by sounds of crashing and thudding. Anything not tied or weighted down slid haphazardly around, banging into walls, furniture or people, who yelped in pain. Brigid’s head thumped louder, she shivered in the clammy, damp air and wished for the salve of sleep.
“Stop that noise. Oh, please. Stop.” A girl’s voice: begging, rising, sharp.
“Shut yourself up, ya little sniveller.”
Shrieks and moans continued. Insults flew. Hysteria flared.
“Stop now. Stop, I say. That’s quite enough of that talk.” Miss O’Reilly calmly asserted her authority. “We need to support one another during this time. We must wait out the storm and make the most of what strength we have.”
Matron soon directed those with hardier stomachs into caring for those incapacitated, and organised the necessary clean-up. Soon the smell of carbolic soap filled the air, replacing one stench with another only slightly more tolerable. Tortured stomachs turned as the acid bit into the back of the throat. Those who couldn’t reach the bathrooms on deck or didn’t have the strength to hang on to the rail or rope on the way resorted to using the fire buckets, which then had to be emptied. The task was not pleasant, but no one argued with Matron.
Brigid fitted neither camp. She managed to hold her own but couldn’t stay on her feet long enough to do anything to help anyone. Yet, thanks to Miss O’Reilly’s calm manner and orderliness, the panic soon abated. Voices quieted, and Brigid drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Another day and night passed. The strange Maggie, Jamie and the gentleman from first class haunted her dreams.
And then the weather worsened.
They’d been at sea for nine days. The remaining forty-seven days and nights stretched before them with nightmarish intensity as the terror returned.
Most people tried to avoid the nerve-wracking trek to the toilet and washhouse on the forward deck, but eventually need outstripped dread. Brigid eased herself up the ladder and was instantly buffeted by the howling wind and drenched by the cresting waters. Swallowing the rising bile of panic she edged her way along the rope. The ship suddenly dived under yet another massive wave and she was knocked off balance, landing with a hefty thump.
“Help ... Help ...” she yelled, desperately clinging to the now-slackened rope. Her arms, stretched painfully in their sockets, extended behind her head as her feet slid under the bottom rail and dangled over the edge. “Oh Lord, save me ...” she sobbed. “Oh. Mammy ... Mammy ... help me.”
Soaked through and shivering, she gritted her teeth and pulled on the rope with all her strength until her booted feet found traction. Frantically scrabbling backwards away from the edge, with her hands still locked over the rope, she curled into a semi-foetal position. Bits of flying wood from the smashed bathroom and washhouse crashed about her before being swept away by raging water and angry winds. She wrapped an arm over her head for protection and turned the other way.
She screamed. Not more than a few feet away lay a man with blood pouring from his head. She stared at him, fascinated by the way his blood mingled with the seawater, diluted and changed colour as it washed away. She screamed again.
Unable or unwilling to let go of the rope for one second, she twisted and turned until she could pull herself to her knees and manoeuvre into a sitting position, the rope across her lap and her back against the hatchway wall. Bile rose in her throat time and again, until she choked. With her breath coming in rasping gasps, she closed her eyes and waited for her pounding heart to ease.
After a few moments, her head began to clear and her breathing settled. She opened her eyes again and stared at the man, his body bent awkwardly against the bollard that prevented him from being washed overboard. Feebly, she tried to gather her wits but, too afraid to let go of the rope to go to him, she sat motionless, her skirt billowing with the waves that continued to wash over the deck.
Out of the murk, sailors appeared from all directions. Amidst loudly shouted commands and one gruff query to check she was not injured, Brigid lost sight of the man behind the mass of bodies as they took him away. Another pair of sailors, headed in the same direction, nearly tripped over her outstretched legs while carrying a young boy whose leg stuck out at a sickening angle. It was Arthur. She’d seen him a few times hanging around his mother in the women’s handicraft group. Poor boy, she thought.
Some time
later, the pain in her hands awakened her from her stupor. She eased her grip, waiting for sensation to return to her fingers before she got to her feet and inched her way aft, back along the rope, in search of the relative calm of the single women’s quarters below deck. Tears of exhaustion blurred her vision as she struggled to open the door against the wind and the ship’s relentless pitching and rolling. She eventually opened the door enough to squeeze through, only to lose her footing and slither and bounce her way down to the bottom of the ladder, landing in a heap.
She was only vaguely aware of the hands that grasped her and stripped her of her wet clothing. Someone forced a liquid down her throat before the world turned black.
By the time they reached Malta on 29th October, a mere day later, the storm had abated. The sailors were out and about as if nothing had happened, busy loading extra coal and new supplies, and repairing the damage.
Brigid opened her eyes to find Sally seated on the edge of the bed, watching her. “My, you gave us a scare. I thought you were a goner. Truly, I did. How ye feeling now, lass?”
Brigid forced her lips into a semblance of a smile and tried to move. “Ah ... rather stiff and sore, that I am. But I’ll live. Was it you who helped me?”
“Aye. Me and the matron. Good ol’ stick, that one. Kept everyone in line. Gave you some stuff to help you sleep.”
“Oh. Hmm.” Her head felt so heavy for a moment she couldn’t think what was vexing her. She tried to change her position and groaned with the pain.
“Easy now, hen.” Sally helped her to sit up and pushed her coat behind Brigid’s back. “There, now. Better?”
Brigid nodded. She covered her face with her hands as memory returned. “I saw a man up there, bleeding heavily from his head. What happened to him? Or was I imagining it?” She rubbed at her temples to ease her head.
Sally didn’t pretend. News of the man’s death had spread rapidly. “Nay, lass ... you didna imagine it. Wee laddie’s name was Niels Pederson from Denmark. Bashed his head in, he did. Reckon he was dead before he hit the deck. Weren’t nothing you nor nobody could do about it, so don’t you fret none. But better news about young Arthur; his broken leg’s been set and he says it dinna hurt much any more. The doc says it’ll take some weeks to heal but ’twill mend by the time we’ve landed.”