The Hungry Road

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  No sooner had the voyage begun than they had fallen seasick, like most of the passengers. The rough motion of the ship as it was tossed by the ocean waves left them puking and retching, covered in sour vomit. Their throats burned and they lay curled together in their bunks, clammy and miserable.

  ‘Let me die,’ roared an old man, crouched in his bunk like a child.

  Their clothes and blankets reeked, for there was not enough fresh water for washing to rid the hold of the pervading stench. Water was strictly rationed, with only one gallon allowed per adult for drinking, cooking and washing, no matter how much the passengers begged for more.

  Annie got the seasickness worst. She lay beside her mother like a little ghost, whimpering and distressed. Dark circles grew under her eyes as she became ever more listless, unable even to hold down a few sips of water.

  John recovered first, followed by Con and Jude, who found their sea legs quickly, running and playing around the steerage accommodation.

  ‘Mr Dwyer showed us four dolphins swimming by the side of the ship this morning, when we went up on deck to empty the piss bucket,’ Con declared with excitement. ‘Mam, you should see them. They are the biggest fish, and he said they can talk and signal to each other, and jump and swim faster than any horse. The ocean is full of such creatures!’

  The rest of them suffered terribly. It was five days before the awful queasiness and retching began to ease. The captain agreed to let the steerage passengers up on deck to take some air while they tried to clean part of the hold.

  As she gazed at the vast blue ocean, spread like a field all around them, Mary made the children take in deep breaths of fresh sea air to try to revive them. The wind and salt and spray stung her skin, and though there was no sight of land, only endless blue sea and sky, life coursed through her, for the past and their home place now seemed so far away.

  Mary had never imagined such a voyage, cramped together with barely space to walk around or turn in your sleep. The air below deck was heavy and pungent from foul human ordure as people shared buckets and chamber pots or tried to use the water closet that hung over the side of the ship, perilously close to the waves. Most just chose to do their business in corners and hidden parts of the deck with no regard for their neighbours.

  Every day the routine was the same. The ship’s mate would ring the bell to summon the passengers to line up for their food rations.

  ‘There’s barely enough to feed us,’ complained John as they each were given only a pound of bread, or meal or hard biscuits. Con, Jude and Nora got half portions, while the younger ones received barely a third. Some days, there were no rations at all, and the mate simply ignored their complaints. The bread and rock-hard biscuits often were green and mouldy, and the meal was not much better.

  Up on deck was a caboose, with a grate for cooking over the fire. Crowds gathered around it with their pots and pans, and Mary waited patiently for her turn to use it to cook her family’s portion of the meal.

  ‘I’ve no pot of my own,’ wailed a young woman from Coronea who was travelling with her husband and a three-year-old. ‘What use is a pound of meal if I cannot cook it?’

  Mary took pity on her and generously let her use her pot.

  Con and Jude befriended the Murphy and Collins boys, who were about their own ages. The seven youngsters, their heads down, jostled and laughed, whispering and plotting together to pass the time. Nora and Sarah grew to become like sisters. They slept curled up beside each other and walked arm in arm around the crowded hold as if they were strolling down an avenue in New York, both of them full of plans for the future. Tim and Annie stayed close to Mary, frightened by the rough men who played cards and drank and cursed each other, day and night.

  ‘They are just bored like us all,’ she tried to reassure them.

  In the murky gloom of steerage, the days ran together. Sleep was their greatest friend as it helped to pass the desperate hours. However, even that was usually disturbed by the cries of children who had woken, terrified or sick, and who clung to their mothers as Mary lay awake in the cramped bunk, listening.

  Then there was the constant snoring and sounds of the other passengers at night. The loud, rough banter of some men who played cards into the early hours of the morning as they smoked their pipes; while others looked to satisfy themselves with a wife or woman under the cover of darkness. Women, on the other hand, desperately sought some privacy to relieve themselves.

  John was quieter than Mary had ever seen him since they had first walked out together. She knew that his heart was broken by the loss of their land and home place. He brooded over it and it was doing him no good.

  ‘John, we have to try to be glad that we and the children have a chance of a new life where we are not beholden to any agent or landlord.’

  ‘It is not that easy to leave the place where I was raised, where I farmed, and where our children were born,’ he told her despairingly. ‘I think of it night and day.’

  ‘You and I will never forget it, I promise, but America is where our new home will be. Let us talk of New York,’ she encouraged. ‘Do you think Pat will be able to help you to get a job and help us find a place to stay?’

  ‘My brother will likely suit himself, as he always does.’

  She pondered on it.

  ‘He is your flesh and blood and cares for you and the children. I’m sure Pat will do his best for us when we arrive.’

  One of their fellow passengers, Johnny Meagher, had a tattered map of New York which he had acquired from one of the sailors in place of a half bottle of poitín. He and John and the rest of the men pored over it for hours, sharing information they had, and trying to learn the names of the districts and streets where they might find work or rooms to rent. John’s eyes lit up when he recognized his brother’s address.

  ‘There are factory and labouring jobs aplenty to be found,’ John reported to Mary, ‘and up north or out west there are thousands and thousands of acres of government land being sold cheaply to any man who has a few dollars and is prepared to clear the land and farm it.’

  ‘Land that would be our own!’ she ventured, seeing the hope in his eyes.

  ‘Aye, all legal and proper like, once a man has the money in his pocket to pay for it. ’Tis not like at home at all. In America work is rewarded and we will be no man’s servant.’

  Relief flooded her heart. She could see that planning for the future finally was helping her husband to banish the terrible despair that had clung to him since they had boarded the ship.

  She too had her own ideas for life in America. Once the family and children were settled, she would try to find work as a seamstress. In a city the size of New York, there would surely be a workroom or dressmaker’s or garment factory that would employ her or give her piece work. She had no intention of sitting idle.

  CHAPTER 74

  Skibbereen

  DAN DONOVAN WAS RETURNING FROM OVERSEEING THE OPENING OF A fresh pit in Abbeystrewery graveyard. Despite his best medical efforts, the numbers of those falling ill with fever continued to grow, and the fever wards and sheds were now full.

  The Union had opened a new auxiliary workhouse for women on Levis Quay, and another, smaller government soup kitchen had been set up on North Street. They were feeding near eight thousand people. Two men with a horse and cart brought soup and biscuits to be distributed to outlying areas such as Kilcoe, Ballydehob and Rath, and also to the sick and weak. The guardians and the relief committee were doing what they could to cope with the enormous numbers now being dispossessed who found themselves in need of assistance. It was disheartening to say the least.

  He stopped to gather his thoughts and took in the sight of the riverbank and the beauty of the Ilen as it wound its way towards the curving stone arches of the town’s bridge. It was a calm spot away from the misery and deprivation all around him. Scraggy thorn branches bowed low over the river, and a light breeze rippled through the rushes that grew along its edge. The sunlight sparkled on
the clear water, where ducks, swans and waterfowl aplenty used to swim and dabble. However, such creatures were long gone.

  The river was low that day and Dan’s eyes were drawn to something caught among the silt and stones and rushes. He left his horse and walked down to the water’s edge to investigate. It soon became apparent to him that what he could see was a body that somehow had fallen into the river and become trapped among the rushes. He surmised that it had been there for a few weeks at least, for nature and the river had done their worst.

  He climbed back up the bank, mounted his horse and returned to the graveyard where he ordered the men there to give him a hand in raising the body. Between them, they managed to use their shovels to catch the dead man by his coat and drag him out and up on to the riverbank.

  ‘Putrid,’ grumbled Martin, the older gravedigger.

  Dan knelt to examine the body, which was clearly emaciated. Most likely the man had drowned either by throwing himself in the river or falling into the fast-flowing water. It was hard to tell, but then he noticed the remnants of a fishing line and two hooks that had wrapped themselves around his torso, which indicated that his fall had probably been accidental. There were no signs of identification on him and the state of the decomposition made recognition impossible.

  ‘What do you want us to do with him, doctor?’

  ‘You can put him in the cart and bury him today.’

  There was no need for Dan to do an autopsy on this poor fellow who had been fishing and likely fallen into the river when he lost his footing.

  He wondered if the man was from Bridgetown or Windmill Lane. Did he have family there, or was he just another stranger passing through the town? At least whoever the poor man was, he would be buried in Abbeystrewery.

  CHAPTER 75

  Atlantic Ocean

  THE LADY JANE HAD BEEN AT SEA FOR NEARLY THREE WEEKS, WHEN THE Sullivan family noticed people sickening around them, coughing and spitting up and burning with ship fever.

  The woman they had seen at the chandler’s office, Mrs Cassidy, had died a few days earlier. Her scrawny body had been committed to the ocean by the captain and his men, with a few prayers said by her fellow passengers. Her son, a sickly boy, soon followed his mother to a watery grave, for there was no doctor on board.

  One of the Murphy boys, Michael, also had taken bad with the fever. He began to complain that his head was going to burst and then developed pains in his legs and all over his body. Within a day or two, he was covered with spots and awful sores.

  ‘Keep away from him,’ Mary scolded Con and her nephew. ‘Or else you will get sick too.’

  ‘But we are friends,’ her son pleaded.

  ‘Friends doesn’t come into it!’ she warned, giving him a sharp clip to his head to scare him into obeying her. ‘You stay far away from those Murphy boys.’

  Fear stalked her that the ship fever would spread to her children and she kept them close to her and John. The boys grew scared when thirteen-year-old Michael Murphy lay quiet and still after drawing his last breath in his bunk. At midnight, his poor mother’s wailing at the loss of her once healthy boy woke them all.

  ‘We should never have come on this voyage to hell,’ Mrs Murphy lamented as her husband and younger sons tried in vain to comfort her.

  CHAPTER 76

  MARY WORRIED FOR ANNIE, WHO WAS FADING AWAY LIKE A LITTLE BROWN bird. She was watchful for any change in her, coaxing her gently to try to eat or drink a little. Con too had grown quiet since his friend had died. He no longer played with the other boys and at night she could hear him cough in the darkness in the bunk above her.

  ‘Mary! Mary, wake up!’ John was standing before her. ‘It’s Con. He’s burning up.’

  Mary moved Annie off her. Climbing out of her bunk, she could see that Con was curled up tightly on his side, his head and neck wet with sweat. Jude and Tim lay beside him fast asleep. She woke them gently and told them to go down below with the girls as she tried to rouse Con. He moaned and complained that his stomach and head hurt before lapsing back into sleep.

  Mary tried not to give in to the panic she felt. John fetched a damp rag with which to cool him down, despite her son’s groans of protest. For the rest of the night, she sat on the corner of the bunk, watching over him as John lay beside him. In the morning, he was no better and pulled the blanket over him as the others got up. His cough had worsened, racking his chest, and he had developed a few sores on his body.

  ‘What are we to do?’ she pleaded with John. ‘There is no physician on the ship.’

  John and Nora took over caring for Annie as Mary minded Con. She spent the hours talking and singing to him, as she had done when he was younger. He was drowsy most of the time, retching bile into the bucket a few times before slumping back on to the bunk. Although his body was burning up, his teeth were chattering, and he shivered with rigors as he groaned and mumbled in his sleep, thrashing around on the mattress. With a damp piece of cloth, she desperately tried to keep his fever down.

  Kate Connolly, a kindly woman from Sherkin Island, gave her a special poultice she had made of herbs and seaweed from the island to put on his chest.

  ‘It may do your boy some good,’ she offered quietly, but Con pushed it off him roughly.

  As time went on, her eldest son’s condition worsened. Though she tried to make him drink, he refused, saying he was not thirsty. His breath grew laboured and it sounded as if he had a whole bag of water in his chest.

  The other children were scared. They tried to talk to him and encourage him to get better, but Con looked away and closed his eyes. It was as if he could no longer see them.

  Mary railed against God for allowing her child to fall ill. She had done everything in her power to protect him from the hunger and fever, and still her boy was sick … Sicker than she had ever seen him, struggling for his life.

  For two full days he thrashed and moaned as she sat with him and stroked his head.

  ‘We will be in America in a few days, Con,’ she promised him. ‘You will see your uncle Pat and New York. Everything will be grand there for us.’

  She rambled on, trying to get him to fight and cling on to life. John told him of the day he was born and how much he loved him from the first second he held him in his arms. Mary’s eyes welled with tears at the memory of it.

  But all their words and all their prayers and all their love were not enough. Late into the long night, as the ship moved on the ocean waves, Con simply closed his eyes and, with only a few deep, shuddering breaths, was still …

  With his arms stretched out peacefully on the mattress beside them, Con’s young beating heart finally stopped. Mary sat in silence, holding her own breath, for she too felt that she might die, while John sobbed openly, his head in his hands, broken-hearted.

  CHAPTER 77

  MARY WASHED HER SON’S BEAUTIFUL LONG BODY AND COMBED HIS light-brown hair. She had taken her scissors and cut a few locks of it, sewing them quickly into a small pouch she had fashioned from a piece of material from his shirt. She kissed his handsome face for the very last time as the first mate, Mr Dwyer, and two of the sailors came to take him from her to bury him at sea.

  ‘I’ll carry my boy,’ John insisted hoarsely.

  Mr Dwyer told the others to step back as he helped John wrap Con’s body loosely in a light sheet and carry him up on to the deck.

  The sun nearly blinded Mary as she stepped into the light. The sky and the sea were so blue that they made her feel giddy. Nora, Sarah and the boys all cried as the ship’s captain appeared. He began to read slowly two passages from the Bible and they all said the ‘Our Father’. Annie stared out at the sea, still as a statue, and said nothing.

  There were two bodies to bury at sea that morning. The other casualty was a thirty-year-old man who was travelling on his own and planning to journey out west and stake a claim for some government land. Three of the men he had befriended on the ship were the only ones there to pray over him.

  ‘Let us
pray for the soul of Peadar O’Malley, who has gone to his rest and is now reunited with the Lord,’ said the captain, blessing himself.

  The sailors lifted the loosely wrapped body on to a wooden plank, which was tilted and then lowered into the sea, consigning the man to the deep water.

  Mary began to shake with disbelief as they took Con’s body and moved it on to the plank in the same way. John came and stood beside her, gripping her shoulders.

  ‘May God and his grandparents watch over him!’ prayed John.

  The captain began to recite the ‘Our Father’ again and everyone present joined in.

  ‘Let us pray for the soul of this young man, Cornelius Sullivan, nearly thirteen years old and taken before his time, who has this day gone to his rest and is now reunited with the Lord,’ the captain intoned.

  Mary watched as they began to lower and tilt the plank towards the water. Con’s body slipped down into the cold, cold sea, floating there for a few minutes before the ocean’s waves knocked and pulled him down below into the dark blue depths that would for ever be his grave.

  She wanted to fling herself into the churning water after him, but Nora and Annie had taken a grip of her hands. She began to sob and ran to the side, peering down into the depths to see if she could catch any further glimpse of him.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Sullivan, I am sorry for your loss,’ the captain said solemnly as he took his leave of them, gesturing for Mr Dwyer to escort them all back down to steerage.

  ‘Please, I want to stay here with him,’ Mary begged. ‘Just for a little while longer.’

  Two sailors suddenly appeared, carrying the ticking mattress and soiled blanket on which her boy had lain. Despite her protests, they tossed them into the waves.

  Mary watched the ship lurch and roll, the wind in her sails, as the vessel skimmed and moved through the waves, carrying them further and further away from her first born. Her eyes raked the rippling field of waves, but she could see no trace or sign of Con.