Dan had the pity of his heart for the woman, but he could not invite her inside. His own wife and children were only yards away from her and she clearly had fever.
‘Mrs Keating, you should not be on the streets, for you are unwell,’ he advised.
‘A coffin is all I am asking for,’ she repeated, her hollow, near fleshless eyes mad with grief. ‘I am fixed in my purpose. I’ll not let the dogs in the fields eat him.’
‘I’m sorry but I cannot help with your son’s coffin,’ Dan said regretfully. He desperately wanted the sick woman away from his family and his doorstep. ‘My duty is to care for the living. Do you have other children?’
‘I have a boy and a girl waiting on me back home,’ she admitted.
‘Then you must return to them, Mrs Keating, for they are the ones who need you,’ he cajoled, hoping that she would take her leave. He simply could not put his family at risk.
He felt in his pocket and found a shilling, which he gave to her.
‘Please take this money. Go and purchase meal and some victuals to nourish you and the children.’
‘Thank you, doctor,’ she said, her claw-like fingers grabbing at the shiny coin.
He sighed with relief that at last she might go.
‘What about my boy, Dr Donovan?’ she continued. ‘What am I to do? I cannot leave him in the ditch. He was the blood of my heart and I am lost without him.’
Immediately Dan felt guilty. Here was a mother, who was ill herself, standing in the bitter cold before him, showing how desperately she cared for her lost child. What kind of man was he if he ignored her plea for help?
‘I will come and visit you later, to see if we can resolve the situation,’ he promised as he watched her shuffle away in the darkness.
The rain had eased but it still was near freezing outside by the time Dan and his assistant, apothecary Jerrie Crowley, drove out to Letterlishe and found Mrs Keating. Her cabin was an absolute hovel. The water poured through the rotten thatched roof and on to the muddy floor.
Jerrie had brought his lantern with him and in the darkness they could see the two surviving Keating children lying on the floor like small skeletons, their ribs and other bones protruding under their skin. Outside, in the ditch near the front door, was a small coffin containing the putrid body of a boy of about seven years old, who must have died ten or twelve days ago.
‘Where did you manage to get the coffin?’ Dan asked Mrs Keating.
‘I bought it with the shilling you gave me,’ she admitted. ‘And I carried it home.’
‘Mrs Keating, I gave you that money to buy food for you and your children,’ he admonished her gently.
‘The children and I do not care about food now,’ she replied flatly. ‘It is so long since we’ve had any to eat, we have forgotten the taste of it.’
Jerrie could not hide his upset at such suffering as he looked over at her starving children.
‘I want my boy buried decently,’ Mary Keating demanded. ‘That is the only help I ask of you.’
‘Well, that is what we will do then,’ Dan promised, as he and Jerrie took up the shovels they had also brought with them.
They carried their lantern to an abandoned patch of ground at the side of her cabin.
‘Will some of your neighbours give us a hand with the digging?’ he asked.
‘The neighbours did not a lift a finger to help us in our time of need,’ she pronounced bitterly. ‘Not even a sup of water would they bring to us.’
The ground was wet and heavy as they began their sombre task. Dan found it hard to believe that not one of the neighbours made any offer to help while they continued to dig out the sodden earth, making a large hole rather than a deep grave in which to bury the boy.
They worked in the bitter cold and near darkness until both he and Jerrie were exhausted, sweating and unable to dig any more. Prayers were said as they solemnly lowered the coffin into the ground. The boy’s mother seemed satisfied as they began to shovel the soil back into the makeshift grave to fill it in.
Back inside, Dan examined the boy and girl.
‘Mrs Keating, both you and the children are sick,’ he told her. ‘I can make a special arrangement to admit you all to the Union’s fever ward tomorrow morning. I promise you will be cared for there.’
‘I am grateful to you, doctor, and to you, Mr Crowley, for what you have done here tonight, but I’ll not go to the Union and have my children taken from me,’ she said, shaking her head stubbornly. ‘We are better staying here, in our place.’
As he and Jerrie drove the icy road home to town, they both were filled with concern for Mrs Keating and her children.
‘I suppose you cannot blame her reluctance, Dan. We all know how bad things are in the workhouse,’ Jerrie sighed.
It was nearly eleven o’clock when Dan reached home. The house was asleep except for Henrietta.
‘Dan, you are freezing cold,’ admonished his wife. ‘You will get a chill after being out so late on such a night.’
She pulled up the blankets and piled them around him, before settling her own warm and drowsy body against his. She rubbed her legs and feet up and down his to warm him up.
‘I am a fortunate man,’ he said as she touched her warm hand to his icy face, ‘to have you, my dearest, to come home to.’
CHAPTER 42
DAN STUDIED THE TORN FLESH … AND EXPOSED BONE … BITE MARKS were clearly visible on the corpse. One arm had been torn from its socket and chewed. Part of the torso had been gouged out and the dogs had done their worst in trying to feed off the man’s putrefying body.
Dan sat on his haunches, holding to his nose the lavender-scented handkerchief Henrietta insisted he carry. It was evident that Mr Leahey’s body had been savaged by the starving canines. He had seen the damage a few rats inflicted on the dead, but this was different. He detailed the injuries carefully in his notepad, for he had not seen the like of this before. Judging by the various-sized bite marks all over the body, five or six dogs had been involved. The only saving grace was that poor Mr Leahey had been long dead from fever when the pack of starving mongrels had found him in his cabin.
From the reports Dan had received, Mr Leahey’s wife and children had kept his body in the cabin for days. They had no way of burying him, but the stench of his decaying corpse finally drove the family out and they had fled.
Mr Leahey’s elderly mother had heard growling and barking inside the cabin. On opening the door she came upon the hungry dogs, chewing and gnawing the flesh from her son’s bones. She and some neighbours had managed to beat and drive away the animals but, to Dan’s mind, the dogs entering the Leaheys’ cabin in the first place was his primary concern.
Dogs were known to dig up corpses buried in shallow graves or to prey on bodies left awaiting burial, but for the animals to enter a dwelling to feast on human flesh wasn’t something he had come upon before.
Most of the dogs were crazed, abandoned by owners who had died, fled or could no longer feed them. The starving creatures roamed the fields, roads and lanes of the district. It alarmed Dan to see that they were becoming bolder, packing together unafraid, and likely to attack those who were weak.
The matter was serious and Dan intended to write an urgent report. He would recommend that, for the safety of the public during this crisis, all dogs in Carbery be culled. He found it deeply offensive that those with position and money still fed and kept their pet dogs and hunting hounds while the children of the poor starved.
On his return to the dispensary, he felt someone grab and tug at his coattails. Turning around, he discovered Mrs Keating, who was carrying her young daughter in her arms. Dan immediately went to help her but was shocked to discover that the small girl was already dead.
‘She died yesterday,’ Mrs Keating explained, caressing her daughter’s thin face. ‘As no Christian will come near me, I carried her into town myself to lay her alongside her father in the graveyard in Chapel Lane.’
Dan tried not to
betray his emotion as he imagined the terrible journey the poor woman must have made along the roads. He ushered her to the dispensary immediately, where he took the girl from her gently and promised the woman that he would look after the burial of her child.
‘I am grateful to you, doctor, but it is my poor boy in the grave that you and your friend made the other night that I am worried over,’ she explained. ‘My neighbours’ pigs are scratching and digging at the ground. I fear they will uproot the grave and his coffin if they get a chance!’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Keating, but we did not know there were pigs roaming close by.’
‘Doctor, won’t you send someone to bury him properly?’ she begged. ‘Away from the pigs and other animals.’
After seeing what the dogs had done to Mr Leahey, Dan found himself agreeing to help Mrs Keating again. He sent two men to drive out to Letterlishe, exhume the boy’s flimsy coffin and have it transported to Skibbereen where it would be buried in consecrated ground. He also agreed to provide a coffin for the little girl’s burial.
A few hours later the men returned empty-handed.
‘I’m sorry, doctor, but there is no moving that putrefying corpse,’ Dinny Burke told him stubbornly. ‘’Tis in a terrible state and best left buried where it is. Paddy and I will not touch it!’
Mary Keating, however, was made of sterner stuff. She returned home and somehow found the strength and resolve to lift her son’s coffin from the earth by herself. The following day she carried it heroically all the way into town, so that her son could be buried properly, with his father and sister.
A week later, Mary Keating accosted Dan once more. Her gaunt face remained pale and worn, her eyes red-rimmed.
‘Doctor, I need another coffin to bury my youngest boy. He is the very last of my family,’ she pleaded, broken-hearted.
Dan was torn. He had given her the money for two coffins now and she was expecting him to pay for a third. Although he was a doctor and held a good position, he was certainly not a wealthy man!
‘In the name of the great God,’ she implored him, ‘don’t let my fine boy, who would be my help and support if he lived, be thrown into the grave like a dog.’
Dan looked at this ghost of a woman, who seemed near death herself. How could he possibly refuse her plea?
Mrs Keating took the money and disappeared to purchase another small coffin. He caught sight of her from the dispensary window as she set off for home with it placed on her head. She was far too weak to be carrying such a load and he ran down the street after her.
‘Mrs Keating, you are too sick to go home.’ He tried to persuade her to let him help. ‘I will endeavour to arrange a bed for you today in the fever ward. Please, I beg you, stay here in town.’
She shook her head firmly, refusing his offer. As he watched her walk away, Dan was overcome with a strange sense of foreboding.
A few days later, Dan heard of Mrs Keating’s death. The poor woman had collapsed and was found dead at the door of her cabin, the empty coffin beside her. The neighbours were too terrified of contagion even to come near her.
Dan arranged immediately for both her youngest son’s body and hers to be transported to Skibbereen for a proper burial in Chapel Lane with her husband and other child. At least she might sleep in death with those she had loved so much in life.
Her passing affected Dan so deeply that he vowed in time to erect a headstone over her grave.
Mrs Keating’s reaction to her children’s deaths, and Mr O’Shea’s to his son’s, demonstrated to Dan that people were fixated on the dead and their need for a coffin. In his opinion, the need for prompt burials before putrefaction set in was the most pressing concern. Proper arrangements needed to be made for a cart and a man – or two – to collect the dead both in the town and the district and bring them for immediate burial in Abbeystrewery to stop the spread of disease.
As a doctor, Dan’s focus needed to remain on the living. There was little he could do for the growing numbers of dead, except ensure that their corpses were collected and safely interred, but something had to be done to persuade the people to take action swiftly.
CHAPTER 43
FATHER JOHN FITZPATRICK WAS BUSY WRITING HIS SUNDAY SERMON when Bridey showed in Dan Donovan. The housekeeper knew well that he did not like to be disturbed when preparing for the following day’s service.
‘John, I need to talk to you urgently,’ Dan said, sitting down across from him. ‘As you and I are the ones in this town who give care to the dying and the dead.’
‘That is the way, with any physician or priest,’ Father Fitzpatrick sighed, putting away his pen.
‘It is the dead that are my great concern,’ the doctor said with worry, wringing his hands.
It was evident that the priest’s friend was upset over some matter.
‘The starving and poor are spending every last penny they have on the dead,’ Dan continued, exasperated. ‘They are set on purchasing coffins in which to bury their loved ones despite not having a scrap of food in the house to feed their children, or a warm coat, a shawl or shoes to wear! They come to me, or to the dispensary, begging for money for one. Even worse, they’ll keep a putrefying body in their home with the rest of their family rather than admit they cannot afford to bury them in a coffin.’
‘I fully agree with you, Dan. They accost me in the street too, or come here to the presbytery, looking for me to arrange the price of one. Poor people, they have no care for their own misery and misfortune, even though some of them are so weak with hunger they can barely walk.’
His stomach turned as Dan told him of a man whose corpse had been attacked by dogs and a poor woman who spent the shillings given to her by the doctor on coffins for her children instead of food! He himself had witnessed the dead bodies of children and parents lying beside the living when there was no money to purchase a coffin.
‘The authorities do not seem one bit concerned on the issue,’ Dan railed angrily. ‘But the situation is now urgent. I intend on putting in place arrangements to have a public cart to transport bodies away from the town and district as swiftly as possible for safe burial in Abbeystrewery. I have also heard of a new type of coffin being made. It has a hinged base that can be used for such occasions and then be reused again and again. It is something to be considered.’
Father John felt a deep despair at the prospect of such necessities. However, he knew Dan Donovan to be a man of great integrity, who would only ever act in the best interests of the community.
‘Something must be done to stop this repugnance the people have to bury the dead without proper coffins,’ the doctor continued. ‘I have told my patients again and again: it is the living we must care for and nourish, not the dead. They do not listen to me, Father. I implore you, speak out about this. You are the only one to whom they will listen.’
‘I’m not sure they will listen to me, Dan, but I promise that I will try to convince them.’
Father Fitzpatrick looked down from the pulpit at the good people of Skibbereen. Many of the congregation who sat quietly and respectfully in the pews at Sunday mass, awaiting his sermon, were in rags and tatters, half-starved. These days, he found it difficult to speak to them and console them; to promise them that though they may suffer greatly in this life on earth, they would find their reward in the next life when they entered the heavenly kingdom.
How could he utter such inane words to a man who had just buried his three children in the pit in Abbeystrewery, or to an old woman left to die at the side of the road!
He knew all too well their hardship. Day after day, he visited cottages and cabins where entire families were sick with fever. Often they lay together on nothing but straw, clad only in rags with not even a blanket to cover them, as he gave them extreme unction.
But they were a simple people, who put their trust in the church. Many who continued to attend mass had lost children, husbands or wives and neighbours to the hunger and fever, yet somehow, despite their distress, they
retained their faith and belief in God.
Of late, his own belief was being challenged, and his own faith tested every day as he asked himself, where was God’s hand in all this? The hand of the merciful God about whom he preached?
‘My dear people,’ he began, addressing them from the pulpit.
All raised their eyes to him, and the coughing and nose-blowing ceased.
‘We are all possessed of a soul,’ he continued. ‘Even the tiniest baby in arms. For the glory and majesty of the human soul is the most important part of our creation as divined by God himself. Our soul makes us human; the people we are. We all strive to live the best life we can. Some will enjoy a great age while others will have a life shortened by disease and hunger; others may not even get to enjoy a childhood. But it makes no difference, I tell you, for when the time comes to leave this earth, no matter the circumstances of our death, our soul flies heavenward, returning back to God from whence we came.’
He could see and sense that he had their full attention, from the town’s well-to-do citizens to the poor dwellers of Bridgetown and the homeless wanderers who took refuge in the church during mass.
‘As the soul flies, we leave our frail and often scarred human body. We must leave the world of human flesh behind. The rituals of burials and funerals must be observed as we place and inter our dead in the ground, but it has come to my attention that many here are deeply worried about this, during this terrible time of rampant hunger and disease among us. Many parishioners believe that they must somehow provide a wooden coffin for the burial of the departed, for this is what is expected by our church.
‘Unfortunately, with the times we are in, I know well the difficulties faced by many, and there are few coffin-makers. So I say to you today that the purchase of a coffin for a loved one when you, or your wife or children, are in desperate need of nourishment or shelter is not what the Lord expects.
‘Remember, my good people, that the Bible tells us that Jesus himself was taken down from the cross and wrapped in a simple material – a shroud – and laid in a cave as his tomb. There was no coffin, no great funeral, no multitudes, for his was just a simple burial.
The Hungry Road Page 14