Captains and The Kings (4 page)

One porthole was suddenly rosy with dawn, and Joseph stood up on his tiptoes and looked outside. Almost imperceptibly the ship was moving to a pier among a forest of bare masts and crowded hulls. Sailors were already working on the anchored ships, and their rude hoarse voices came faintly to Joseph whose face was pressed against the salt-crusted thick glass of the porthole. The slow oily water of the harbor was black and sluggish, but its small crests were lighted with cold pink. Now Joseph saw the long piers and wharfs and warehouses in the growing light, and beyond them crowded brick houses and other low buildings. Their roofs were wet with moisture and here and there a street could be seen from the ship, narrow and cobbled and winding, with patches of gray leprous snow piled along the curbs. Drays and wagons were beginning to move along those streets, horses straining. A nearby packet, soaked sails billowing, bowed and withdrew from a pier and Joseph could hear the shrill hiss of its passing, so near did it venture. Curious seamen's faces peered at the desolate Irish ship which was to take its place at the pier. Some of the vessels were of the new steam variety and they suddenly poured black smoke and soot into the silent morning air, and their horns bellowed for no reason at all. Foot by foot the Irish Queen moved to the docks and the long sheds upon them, and Joseph strained fiercely to see the faces of the lonely crowds gathered on the wooden wharf. Was his father among them? There were many there, including some women, and they were weeping, for they already knew that the steerage passengers would not be permitted to land. Some forlorn hands waved in greeting. A man was raising a flag on a staff nearby and for the first time in his life Joseph saw the stars and stripes whipping wetly in the cold wind of winter and unfurling heavily to the new and hopeless day. "So, and that is the brave flag," said a man at another porthole, and other men joined him to gaze at the forbidden land. One laughed derisively, then burst into a fit of coughing. Others joined him, as if a signal had been given. "They don't want the likes of us," said another voice. "Sure, and they do, and we go to Philadelphia," said still another. "I have heard it, meself, with these ears, from Father."
The door at the end of the deck opened and three seamen appeared with a cart on which steamed bowls of oatmeal and fresh tea, and there were tin plates of hard biscuits and bread. The men and boys rushed eagerly to seize the food but Joseph did not move. Was that his father there, that tall man whose fair hair showed under his workman's cap? Joseph struggled for a moment with the fastening of the porthole, but the iron had corroded and it could not be moved. Ah, yes, it was surely Daniel Armagh there waiting, for the quickening light showed his fine features and Joseph's eyes were keen. Joseph's thin fist beat impotently on the porthole, and he shouted. His cries awakened Scan, who began to whimper, and Joseph pulled him upright in the bunk and forced his face against the porthole. "There!" he cried. "There is Dada, Scan, waiting for us!" Scan wailed. "It's not Dada," he protested. "I want my brekky." Joseph had forgotten. He looked about him anxiously. The cart with its steaming but depleted load was about to pass behind the curtain to the women. Joseph raced after it. "My little brother," he said. "He has not eaten." The seamen, in their dirty and crumpled uniforms, glared at him suspiciously. "You'll not be wanting extra for yourself, then?" one demanded. "There's not enough." "I don't want it for myself," said Joseph. He pointed at Scan who was sitting and crying on the edge of the bunk in his drawers. "My brother. Give him mine, too." A hot bowl was thrust into his hands and a hunk of moldy bread, and he was pushed away. He carried the breakfast to Scan who looked at it and whimpered again. "I don't want it," he wailed, and retched. Joseph's heart clenched in fresh dread. "Scan!" he exclaimed. "You must eat your breakfast or you will be ill, and there is no time." "I want Mum," said Scan and turned away his pretty face. "But first, you must eat," said Joseph with sternness. Was that indeed fever on Scan's thin cheeks? Oh, God, Joseph muttered with hatred between his clenched teeth. He felt Scan's brow. It was cool but sweaty. "Eat," Joseph commanded, and the new note in his voice affrighted his little brother who began to cry again and sniffle. But he accepted the tin bowl and the big spoon and, sobbing, forced the porridge into his mouth. "Good boyeen," said Joseph. He looked at the bread in his hand and hesitated. There was a gaunt hollow in him. But if he sickened, himself, then there would be no help for the other children. He began to chew on the hard bread, and now and then he rose on tiptoe to watch the slow moving of the ship to the wharfs. The man with the fair hair had disappeared. Then there was the rattling of chains, a loud thump, and the broad wooden gangplank was lowered to the wharf. A chorus of voices rose, and disturbed gulls began to wheel in clouds above the ship and against a sky from which the red light had faded and had now become dun and threatening. Joseph could hear the cheeping of the gulls, and from below the movement of cattle. A wet sail fell to the deck. Water muttered and hissed about the hull. The harbor waters were filled with refuse and floating wooden beams, and now the ocean was the color of pewter. In a moment it was pitted by a harsh and driving rain mingled with snow. Joseph shivered, and chewed somberly. This was not the golden land of which his father had written. The streets looked alien and sullen and deserted for all the wagons and the carts and the occasional gleaming umbrella that scuttled along the cobblestones or on the bricked walks. The land was little and low and the skies were immense, and there was only desolation and icy chill and loneliness and abandonment. This was no green Ireland with enormous skyscapes of fairyland and the fresh fragrance of grass and trees and the still metallic glitter of blue lakes and snug thatched roofs and gardens knee-deep in bright bloom and racing streams filled with fish and herons, and songs of larks and hedgerows shining with buttercups and the pungent smell of burning peat and warm little fires and laughter in the pubs and the gay lilt of fiddlers. Here were no mysterious lanes overhung with oaks and hollyhocks, no welcome cries, no songs, no smiling lips. Joseph, still peering out at New York, saw the coming to life of factories and their heavy black tides of smoke darkening a sky already torn with storm. A mist was beginning to rise from the water and soon there would be fog as well as rain and snow. Joseph could hear the winter wind, and the ship rocked against the wharf. The boy's mouth opened in soundless pain and misery, but he immediately quelled the shameful emotion. He had terrible news for his father, and now he thought of Daniel as a child who must be protected. There were hurrying loud footsteps on the decks above, and calls, and Joseph knew that the fortunate passengers were disembarking and their trunks and boxes with them. By straining he could see the first passengers leaving, the women in furs, the men in thick greatcoats and tall beaver hats. Carriages were appearing on the wharfs, with coachmen. The wind whipped coats and the men, laughing, held their hats to their heads and helped their ladies against the blast and to the carriages. The horses' sleek bodies smoked. The water smoked. The sky appeared to smoke. And the morning steadily darkened. Luggage was taken ashore, and waiting crowds embraced the passengers, and even from the closed steerage Joseph could hear laughter and excited twitterings, and could see the happy movements of snugly clad bodies. The crowd waiting for steerage passengers had retreated like a frightened band of cattle, and huddled together to let the fortunate pass to their carriages, followed by carts of leather luggage and trunks banded in iron and brass. These were not those whom the Queen called "the Irish peasantry," but were landed gentry or Americans returning from sojourns abroad. Joseph watched them enter their closed carriages, laughing at the wind, the ladies' bonnets whirling with ribbons, their skirts ballooning. The carriages rumbled away at last, and now there was only the wretched crowd who would not be permitted to enter the ship nor even to see their relatives in the steerage, for fear of contagion. Nor were steerage passengers, not even during the long voyage, ever permitted to climb to the upper decks for air and sunshine. For the first time in his life Joseph felt the awful sickness of humiliation. True, in Ireland, the Irish were despised and reviled and persecuted by the Sassenagh, but then one in turn stoutly despised and reviled the Sassenagh, himself. No Irishman ever felt inferior even to his "betters," or to the English. He walked and lived proudly, even when starving. He never raised a piteous cry for succor and sympathy. He was a man. But Joseph now guessed that in America the Irishman was not a man. Here he would be permitted no pride in his race and in his Faith. He would meet only with indifference or contempt or rejection, less than the cattle which were now clambering down the oily wet gangplank, accompanied by amorphous figures huddled against cold and storm. How Joseph guessed the truth he never fully understood, except that he suddenly remembered that though his father had written joyously of warmth and "good wages" he had not written of the people among whom he had found himself but only of brother Irishmen who had fled the Famine. There had never been any mention of Americans nor gossip of neighbors nor bits of news concerning fellow workers. There had been one remark about the "little church" near the rooming house where Daniel worked as a janitor, and where he attended Mass. "But it is closed in the day, and there are no visits to the Blessed Sacrament but on holy days," Daniel had written, "and there is but one Mass on Sunday." Daniel had spoken often of the freedom in America before he had left Ireland. He had not written of it but once during these last months. Joseph looked at the flag twirling and tugging in the wind on the wharf. Now nothing was on the wharf but piles of freight and seamen pushing barrows and carts, and the silent and rain-soaked crowd of wretched folk still hoping and praying numbly for the sight of a beloved lost face on the ship. The heavy dimness of the stormy morning was too deep now for the identification of any features. The watchers seemed but of one body and one mass, hopeless and unmoving. Fog mingled with smoke. The water quickened and began to boom restlessly. "There is naught here for us, I am thinking," said a man near Joseph, and his voice was sick with despair. But Joseph's young face grew smaller and tighter with resolution, and his exhausted eyes were charged with angry bitterness. Scan moved against him, whimpering insistently. "I want my Mum," said the child. "Where is Mum?" I do not know, thought Joseph. Sure, and it must be nowhere. He said to Scan, "Soon. She is sleeping." The child had left a spoonful or two of cold porridge in the bowl and Joseph ate it. Scan watched him, then he began to cry. "Mum," he sobbed. "Mum?" "Soon," said Joseph again. He thought of his infant sister. He hesitated.
Then he said to Scan, "I will look for Mum. Stay here a bit, Scan." He gave the child a hard and commanding look and it was frightening to Scan who saw it in the swinging light of the lantern on the ceiling. The child shrank and watched his brother go down the deck. The women's quarters were silent and muffled in the total surrender to hopelessness. Some sat on their bunks, nursing or soothing little children in their arms. Some only sat, staring at wall or ceiling emptily. Some wept without sound, the tears dripping down their faces, to be wiped away with quiet hands. Even the children were still, as if recognizing calamity. Joseph found Sister Mary Bridget, who was administering to a sick woman and her child. She turned her old head and looked in silent compassion at the boy. "The babe?" said Joseph. The old nun tried to smile. "She is with Sister Bernarde, and there was warm milk, and she is a lovely babe, Joey. Come, and see for yourself." She led the way to the bunk of the young sister who sat like a childish Madonna with a bundled infant in her arms. She lifted her beautiful pale face to Joseph and her blue eyes sparkled bravely. Slowly she unwrapped the ragged wool bundle and showed Joseph his sister. "Mary Regina," said Sister Bernarde with maternal pride. "And is she not a darling?" "And she is an American too, for sure she was born in American waters," said Sister Mary Bridget. Joseph was silent. The child had been born under disastrous circumstances, but there was no mark on her waxen little face. She slept. Long golden lashes lay on her cheeks but her wisps of hair were glossily black. "She has eyes like an Irish sky," said the young nun and gently stroked the small white cheek with her finger. Joseph felt nothing at all except a fierce resolution that this daughter of his mother must survive. The curtain was pushed aside, and Father O'Leary's face peered around it. "Joey," he began, and then faltered and bowed his head and he let the curtain fall. But not until Joseph had seen his devastated face clearly. Joseph returned to the men's quarters, his thin shoulders squared, and he went to learn all that he needed to know, and he knew it would be evil.
Chapter 3

Father O'Leary wras sitting in a broken attitude on the edge of Scan's bunk, and he held the little boy on his knee and stroked his bright hair with a tender and shaking hand. He saw Joseph approaching. He saw the strength in the thin rigid body, the set of the shoulders, the fixed hardness of the young face, and the freckles that seemed to protrude on the white cheeks, and the mouth that was as firm as stone, and as implacable. Joseph reached him and stood before him. "Well, and you must tell me," he said, and his voice was the voice of a man who can endure. "And is it my Dad?" '"Yes," said the priest. He patted Scan's cheek and piteously smiled. "It's a good boyeen, this," he said. "He will not cry while Joey and I speak together." He fumbled in the pocket of his frayed habit and brought forth an apple and held it high, and Scan looked at it with wonderment, his mouth opening. The priest put it with a flourish in Scan's hands, and the little fingers stroked it with awe, and puzzlement, for he had never seen an apple before. "It is good, Scan," said Father O'Leary. "Eat it slowly. It is sweeter than honey." Scan stared at him and then at Joseph, and clutched the fruit as if in fear that his brother would take it from him. The priest said, "I bought it on the wharf, for Scan." His old voice strived for lightness, and pride. "Fifty cents, and that would be two shillings, I am thinking, for it is not the season and it was in gilt paper." He showed Joseph the paper but the boy said nothing. The priest stood up, and then he staggered with weakness and he bowed his head as he caught at the edge of the upper bunk to steady himself. Only yesterday Joseph would have helped him, but now he held himself away, and stiffly, as if he feared he would shatter and this was no time to shatter. "Come," said the priest, and led the way down the deck to the end near the door where they could have a small privacy. Once there Joseph said in a rough voice, "You did not see my Dad." "No," said the priest. He lifted his head and his dim eyes were filled with tears. Joseph considered him without pity or emotion. "You saw my Uncle Jack," said Joseph. "It was him I saw, on the wharf." "Yes," said Father O'Leary. He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. He studied the floor. Then he reached into his pocket again and brought out a crumpled green bill. "Two dollars, almost half a pound," said the priest. "It is all your uncle could spare." He pushed the money into Joseph's hand. Joseph leaned against the door and folded his arms across his bony chest. He surveyed the priest with what the old man knew for cold hate and revulsion. "And my Dad?" he said at last, when the priest did not speak. The priest's mouth shook, and he squeezed his eyes together. "You will be remembering, Joey," he said in a very low voice, "that your mother, before she was taken, and after she had received, looked beyond us and cried out to your Dad, as if he were there, and she smiled and died with a smile of joy, recognizing him." He paused. The coughers had begun again, drearily. Joseph did not move. "You are telling me, I think, that my father is dead, too?"