Maura Hanrahan - Tsunami

“Shush, John!”

“Shush, Margaret! You’ll be all right now. Be a good girl and you can have some more jam tomorrow.”

Mothers were comforting their children and she was in a black, draughty kitchen in a remote village in Newfoundland and her grandmother was buried in a hill in Farnworth in the southwest of Bolton. She pulled the thin flannel blanket over her shoulders and stretched her back a little. From one of the bedrooms she thought she heard a low rattle, a signal that someone had the beginnings of bronchitis. “Oh no,” she muttered. Again she cursed the helplessness that dogged her. She wondered if the quake and the fierce waves that came after it had affected the telegraph wires. Goodness, she hoped not. If the cables were broken, there would be delays in getting messages out. This, of course, would postpone the arrival of any ship that might bring much needed medicine, clothing, and lumber to rebuild fallen houses.

As the first light of day began to show, Dorothy Cherry thought of these things and could not fall back to sleep. Besides, Deborah Woodland was up now and fastening her apron around her slim waist. She went into the long pantry and plunged a metal scoop into her flour barrel, emptying the flour into a large bowl. Then she tiptoed back into the kitchen and began the age old task of making bread. This day, too, the comforting smell of rising bread would awaken the mourning people of Taylor’s Bay.

The journey to Point au Gaul, which involved backtracking over familiar ground, was made arduous by the frozen mud on the road. Thomas’ mare and Albert’s bay horse hesitated and then slipped and stumbled over large ridges of earth encased in ice, shaped by the tsunami and then the snowstorm of the day before. This time the animals carried no food or blankets; they had all been distributed at Taylor’s Bay.

In Point au Gaul, Nurse Cherry ministered to Jessie Hipditch, still prostrate in her sister Nan Hillier’s bed, and hysterical with grief over the deaths of all three of her children, Thomas, Henry, and baby Elizabeth. Nan’s eyes were rimmed with deep creases, betraying her own lack of sleep as she tended to Jessie. Nurse Cherry ordered Nan to bed and delegated a neighbour to stand in for her at Jessie’s bedside, at least for a day.

The nurse sat with Jessie and spoke to her.

“Jessie, do you remember me?” she asked. When there came no answer, she repeated the question, not once but three times above Jessie’s babbling. Finally Jessie calmed.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Jessie,” Nurse Cherry said, “it’s terrible, what’s happened. It’s so very sad.” She stopped while Jessie stared at her, the young woman’s eyes great with grief.

“Your little children are all angels in Heaven now, dear,” Nurse Cherry continued softly. “You’ve got to cry for them and then you’ve got to help your husband, David.”

Jessie continued staring at her and then released a new flood of tears. She began to babble again but suddenly stopped and sobbed. Dorothy held her. By now, Nan’s eight-year-old daughter, Ruby, had joined them and she sat on the bed and crawled into her aunt’s arms. Huge tears slid down Ruby’s face.

“I miss my little cousins, Aunt Jessie,” she said.

“Oh Ruby!” Jessie cried. “I don’t know how I can go on without my babies!”

Jessie sobbed from the bottom of her gut till she flopped back down on her pillow, utterly spent. Her dark hair spread out behind her, damp with tears and sweat. As she fell into a deep sleep, Nurse Cherry stood at the foot of the bed and Jessie’s husband, David, tiptoed into the room. He eased in behind Nurse Cherry, saying nothing. Dorothy turned and smiled at him. She noticed the wet shine on his eyelashes.

“I’m so very sorry for your loss,” she whispered.

David nodded.

“Will Jessie be all right?” he asked quietly, his eyes full of fear.

Nurse Cherry nodded quickly.

“With time, with a lot of time,” she said. “And she has the love of her family. That’s so important.”

“Will we be able to have more children, Nurse Cherry?” David asked almost in a whisper, his eyes fixed on the floor.

Nurse Cherry smiled and looked at Jessie’s sleeping body.

“I think Jessie will want more children, with time. She’ll always mourn her lost children, but give her time, David. Don’t worry. There’s no reason you can’t have more children.”

David looked at his wife. Then he walked alongside the bed to her side, sat down, and stroked her long hair as she slept.

After a night in Point au Gaul, Nurse Cherry and her escorts travelled to Lord’s Cove. By now, they had heard of the miraculous rescue of toddler Margaret Rennie, whose mother, Sarah, had drowned in the family home with three of her children. Margaret had been given up for dead when Lord’s Cove men retrieved her from her house, which the first wave had thrown into an inland pond. The whole village had rejoiced when the little girl had awakened after being plunged in a tub of hot water. All along the coast stricken people were taking some comfort from this story.

The road between Point au Gaul and Lord’s Cove was all beach now. Instead of earth, it was filled with round grey, blue, and white rocks, smoothed by centuries of wave action, pitched there by the tsunami . Albert had borrowed a carriage from a Point au Gaul man and hitched his horse to it, but the animal could not stand the strain of hauling the carriage over the rocks. Before long, Albert unhitched the carriage and abandoned it. Thomas turned around and brought his mare back to Point au Gaul. When he returned to the beach road, he and Albert had to pull the horse over the rocks til they got to Lord’s Cove. Although it was a cold November day, sweat ran down their faces and backs.

In Lord’s Cove, Nurse Cherry tended to baby Margaret Rennie who, she was glad to see, was in fine shape. Alberta Fitzpatrick had taken great care of her and doted on her. The child kept asking for her mother, though, and she wanted to go home. Her father, Patrick, was in shock, having lost his wife and three children as well as their home. Nurse Cherry was a little worried that the remaining family members were split up, with Patrick staying at one home, his surviving sons, Martin and Albert, with other friends, and little Margaret with the Fitzpatricks. They needed each other now, she worried, but it was hard for a man left on his own with no house. Here again, she would have to give in to that feeling of helplessness and trust in the ways of the people, who certainly seemed to be doing everything possible for the Rennies. Letting go went against her nature, but she had already seen how their wisdom worked.

She reminded herself of this as she tended to a man’s crushed finger and treated several lingering cases of shock. At night she went back to Alberta Fitzpatrick’s, where people had gathered once again to retell the tale of little Margaret’s rescue. They told it like a prayer and as they told it, a much-needed feeling of serenity settled upon them.

Albert and Thomas, Nurse Cherry’s companions from Lamaline, turned back toward home after a night at Lord’s Cove. Thomas was eager to see Ada and their daughter, Mary, and to make sure they were all right after his absence. Albert, too, wanted to see his relatives and ensure they were well. Both men were desperate to see that communications with Burin and St. John’s were established and ongoing. Above all, they wanted to alert the telegraph operators to the devastation in Taylor’s Bay and the urgent need for provisions of every kind. Nurse Cherry impressed on them that it was necessary to evacuate people from the village lest an epidemic develop.