Maura Hanrahan - Tsunami

“Perhaps we can talk to some of these people and see what they think about their future,” Dr. Campbell suggested, taking a slim pen out of his breast pocket.

“Jim’s still over in St. Pierre,” Crews responded. “He hasn’t been able to get back yet.”

Campbell’s right eye widened.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Fudge, the M.H.A., said. “People here go to St. Pierre for all sorts of reasons, not just to get a bottle of rum. Many of them even have family over there. There’s a long history of marriages between people here and the French.”

“There is no need for your rash reaction,” Campbell answered, turning to his government colleague. “I implied nothing sinister at all. I just wondered how Mr. Hooper could travel, given his ill health.”

There was a moment of silence before Dalton broke it.

“I’m governed by the weather, gentlemen,” he said. “We have to keep a close eye on it, this being late November. So I suggest we keep these meetings to the minimum time possible and do our business in as expedient a manner as possible. Our focus here has to be on assessing the need and getting supplies to the victims. We’ve got a fair bit of ground to cover yet.” Then he added with the slightest of tremors in his voice, “And I’m sure we want to do everything we can for these stricken people.”

Before the group dispersed, the South Coast Disaster Committee had commandeered all the stocks of coal available in Lamaline and Minister Lake had dispatched a ship from the town to North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada to get more coal for use in the villages of the southern Burin Peninsula. The committee also telegraphed an order of clothes to stores in the town of Fortune. A truck filled with dresses, coats, pants, and boots arrived in Lamaline that same afternoon. When the members of the local committee handed the new clothes out to families from High Beach to Lord’s Cove, frozen mouths broke into smiles for the first time since the great waves hit the shores that awful night. Little girls twirled on their toes, letting their new dresses blow full. Boys hitched up their new dungarees and nodded proudly. For the first time in days, the children of Allan’s Island and Point au Gaul began to feel like they wanted to put their coats on and go out to play.

But everything Captain Dalton feared about Taylor’s Bay turned out to be true. As the Meigle approached the harbour—quiet as a graveyard though it was midday—Dalton gripped the ship’s rail and drew his breath in. He made a grim count; only five of the original seventeen houses in Taylor’s Bay remained standing.

“Very worrying,” said Dr. Mosdell. “All those people crowded into those few houses, and they’re small houses at that. It’s a health menace to be sure. If one gets a serious sickness, it’ll spread like wildfire.”

Suddenly heads began emerging from windows and from the sides of buildings; they put Dalton in mind of snails coming out of their shells. How different it is from sailing into a port and everyone comes out to the wharf to meet you, he thought. These poor people almost look afraid. Once outside, they went no farther than their windows and doors; they stood there, waiting.

On Mosdell’s orders, the medical staff left the ship and dispersed to the five remaining houses, doctor’s kits in hand.

When Nurse Rendell from the Meigle reached Deborah and Sydney Woodland’s house, she entered and said, “I’m so sorry for what’s happened…” Then she stopped, looked around at the cluster of people in the Woodlands’ kitchen and continued, “But you seem in better shape that I expected.”

“Nurse Cherry’s been here,” came a little voice from a corner of the room. “And she told us what to do!”

Deborah smiled. “She did. And we were lucky. We lost no food and I’ve been sparing it along. You’ll want to tend to some people, though. They’re homeless and have no prospects at all for the winter.”

Deborah motioned toward a row of children who sat on a sunken daybed. The nurse nodded and turned in their direction. The girls and boys lazily swung their legs back and forth, the biggest child scuffing her bare feet on the floor.

“We’ll get shoes for her,” Nurse Rendell offered, smiling brightly.

“Their mothers are in the parlour,” Deborah said, in a quieter voice. “They say they don’t want to stay in Taylor’s Bay. They want to go to Fortune where they’ve got friends and family. They think they’ll be safer there.”

Suddenly Nurse Rendell felt someone behind her. She turned abruptly and saw a small woman with great black eyes in a face the colour of the moon.

“I’ll not stay in this harbour another winter,” she said firmly. “I can’t stand the thought of it.”

Nurse Rendell opened her mouth to speak but closed it again when she saw the firmness in the woman’s jaw.

That night three women and their youngest children slept on board the Meigle . The mothers had shaken Captain Dalton’s hand, pumping it, as they climbed onto the ship. Fudge, the M.H.A., had taken the Taylor’s Bay refugees under his wing; he’d see to it that they got clothing and boots once the Meigle arrived in Burin, he announced. Then he would travel west to Fortune Bay with them on the Glencoe .

Now, in the sharp night air, Captain Dalton stood at the wheel as the little party slept below, feeling safer than they had in well over a week. He laughed softly at the irony of how being on waves rather than land reassured and comforted them. He would tell Cora about this, he thought, and, next to the fire, they would have a grand discussion about the complexities of the human mind.

“She was reluctant to come, Captain,” Dr. Mosdell tut-tutted as he made his way onto the Meigle , tied up in St. Lawrence harbour after a snowy and windswept morning. “But I did manage to get her here.”

“Welcome on board the Meigle , Nurse Cherry,” Captain Dalton said formally, bowing his fair head to the slightly stooped woman following the doctor up the gangplank. He could see that beneath her cap, her brown hair was unkempt and her eyes were narrow in the manner of one who has recently awakened. He guessed that Mosdell had woken her. Doctors are odd beings, he thought.

“If anyone deserves a rest, it’s you, Nurse Cherry,” Dalton said firmly.

“I should have thought that if anyone deserves a rest, it would be you, Captain!” Nurse Cherry answered quickly.

Dalton drew back at the sharpness in her voice. He stepped back to let her pass.

“One of the nurses will show you to a cabin, Nurse Cherry,” he said. “We hope you’ll be most comfortable on board.”

Nurse Cherry stood erect and grimaced. She studied the deck and then the captain. “I don’t know who gave the orders to bring me on board,” she snapped. “But I had work to do, plenty of it, and I was interrupted in my tasks.”

“I beg your pardon, Ma’am,” Dr. Mosdell said, suppressing a smile. “You were, in fact, prone on a daybed when I found you.”

Nurse Cherry’s mouth opened wide but no sound emerged.

“I mean, Nurse Cherry,” the doctor continued. “Not that you were sleeping the days away or that you had neglected your duty in any way. I mean that you had travelled along the entire shore in the worst kind of weather and in so doing had worked yourself into a state of exhaustion, so much so that you had collapsed in the middle of the day in a stranger’s house.”

Nurse Cherry’s mouth still gaped open.

“Ma’am, Dr. Mosdell is only concerned about your health,” Captain Dalton interjected. “As we all are. As we have moved from one village to another, we have heard about your visits, made on horseback and on foot, and your work, done at all hours of the night and day. Do you not think it is time for a rest?”