Authors: Peter May
His eyes twinkled with mischief. ‘I’ve never given the English the pleasure of hearing me speak their bloody language yet. And I’m not about to start now.’
I laughed and shook my head. ‘But these people aren’t English, Michaél. They’re Canadian. And they only speak English or French.’
He guffawed again. A big, loud, infectious laugh. ‘In that case, it looks like I’m going to have to learn the fockin’ French, then.’
*
They gave me access to the arrival and departure records in the administration office this afternoon, and I sat at a table
with a great big log that listed the arrival of every boat – where it was from, when it arrived, how many people were aboard, how many had died and were sick.
I looked for the
Heather
, sailing from Loch Glas in the Hebrides. But I couldn’t find any record of it. I asked the clerk if every boat that arrived stopped here at Grosse Île. He was a grey little man, with not much hair left, and sad green eyes. He said that every boat got stopped here, but because of pressure of numbers this year if the doctor found no disease aboard then the boat would be allowed to continue without quarantine.
And from that I took heart and hope that my mother and sisters had not faced disease aboard the
Heather
, and that they had passed on directly to Quebec City. I would find out when I got there.
I turned my attentions then to the passenger list for the
Emily
, whose arrival I found had been registered on July 2nd. The crossing had taken fifty-one days, with a hundred and fifty-seven passengers in steerage. Nine had died during the crossing and sixteen were sick on arrival. And there among the surviving passengers was one Seamus O’Connor. The grey clerk with the green eyes raised his head wearily when I troubled him for some further information. ‘Seamus O’Connor,’ I said. ‘Arrived on the
Emily
from Cork, Ireland, on July 2nd. Can you tell me when those passengers left for Quebec?’
He opened another huge ledger, and ran a bony finger with a dirty fingernail down columns of entries. ‘Here we
are,’ he said. ‘The
Emily
was held in quarantine for just four days. Six of the sixteen that were put in hospital died.’ He ran his finger down another column, then looked up. ‘Seamus O’Connor was one of them. He’s buried in the mass graves.’
*
The mass graves are to be found in a flat, grassy area near the south-western tip of Grosse Île. The ground rises up on both sides, rocky and tree-covered. But through the trees beyond the graves, you can just see the sluggish swell of the river. Quebec City is somewhere there, not far upriver. So the dead were almost within sight of it.
Rows of crude white crosses pepper the grass that has grown freshly here over the recently disturbed earth. I found Michaél standing among the trees, sheltering from the drizzle and looking out over the crosses. He wore a blue woollen jacket and torn, baggy trousers held up by braces. The stitching in his boots was rotten and barely held them together. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets.
He nodded towards the graves. ‘That’s my countrymen buried out there,’ he said.
‘And mine.’
He looked at me. ‘Did you people have the famine, too?’
‘Yes.’
He turned away again. And I sensed anger in the way he clenched his jaw. ‘There’s not one of these poor bastards who would have chosen to leave. But if they’d stayed, they’d have
starved to death.’ Anger flashed in his eyes now as he turned them on me. ‘With not a single landowner lifting a finger to help them.’ And then he blurted the question I knew he’d been afraid to ask. ‘So what did you learn about Seamus?’
I had been dreading the moment almost as much as he had. I was not at all sure how to tell someone that the person they love is dead. But I didn’t have to. He saw it in my face. And he turned away again quickly.
‘He’s out there, isn’t he?’ But I knew he didn’t expect an answer, and I saw big silent tears running down his cheeks to be lost among his whiskers. ‘Why couldn’t he have waited for me?’ He wiped away his tears with the back of his hands and I could see his embarrassment. ‘I pleaded for him to let me go with him. But, oh no. Too risky for his little brother. He wanted to go ahead on his own, establish himself here and make sure I had something worth coming to.’
He stood for a long time trying to contain himself. I had no idea what to say.
Finally he spoke again. ‘Looked out for me all our lives, did Seamus. Didn’t want to put me at risk. Mam starved to death, you see. And Da died of the cholera. So I was all he had left.’ He turned towards me. ‘I’d have starved to death too, if it hadn’t been for my brother. I never asked where the food came from that kept us alive, but he always came home with something.’
His face cracked open into a mirthless grin to disguise his grief.
‘Then he had this bright idea of coming over here. Great things he’d heard about the place. How you could have your own bit of land. Be a free man. Not in the pocket of some fockin’ landlord. Left me with an aunt and told me he’d send for me as soon as he’d found us something better. Only, I couldn’t wait, could I? Stole a bit of cash and bought my passage aboard the
Highland Mary
from Cork.’ His voice choked off, and he fought back his emotions again before gathering himself once more. ‘And now …’ He turned to look at me and I saw the pain in his eyes. ‘Now I’ve no idea what to do with my life.’ There was a long pause. ‘But I’ll tell you one thing.’ And suddenly the fire was back. ‘I’m not hanging around in this fockin’ place.’
*
I was sitting at the table in our Lazaretto when Michaél came looking for me this morning. I have spent the last few days teaching Catrìona’s children to count in English, as well as giving them some basic vocabulary. The Gaelic’s not going to take them very far in this land of English and French.
The boy’s eight, I think, and the girl about six, but not like children that age I remember from Baile Mhanais. There’s no play in them. No sparkle. Hunger and loss have taken their heart. So they sit docile and do what I say, eager simply for the attention. Anxious to please in the hope of some comfort in return. Like pet animals.
All the mischief was back in Michaél’s eyes and he could hardly contain his excitement. He grabbed me by the arm
and pulled me outside, walking us briskly away from the Lazarettos towards the shore, anxious that no one should overhear us.
His voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘I’m getting off Grosse Île tonight.’
I was surprised. ‘How?’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t even ask. It’s costing an arm and a leg. And the guards’ll bloody shoot us if they see us. There’s a boat going to meet us on the north-east shore and take us over to the north bank of the St Lawrence. We can make our way west from there to Quebec City. Me and three others. All Irishmen.’ He paused. ‘But we might make room for a Scotsman if he wanted to come along.’
My heart was banging in my chest. A chance to escape. ‘I do,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got no money.’
‘You bloody Scots never do!’ he said. ‘But don’t worry about that. You can pay me back sometime. As long as you don’t mind travelling second class.’ And he grinned at me through his whiskers. ‘Are you in?’
I nodded.
*
Despite my desperation to get off this damned island, by late afternoon I was regretting my impulsive decision to go with Michaél and the Irish. I had promised Catrìona Macdonald that I would take care of her children. And although I told myself it was unfair of her to burden me with that responsibility I still felt guilty at abandoning them. So I decided to go to the hospital to speak to her myself.
It was my first visit to the hospital shed, and when I crossed the threshold I felt as if I had passed from one world to another, from hell on earth to hell below it.
It was long and dark, windows blanked to keep out the daylight. The smell was worse than on the boat. And having breathed God’s own clean air for three days it was all the harder to take. Beds were lined up side by side, with the narrowest of spaces between them. Just wooden frames with boards and filthy mattresses.
Nurses in dirty, stained and worn uniforms moved among the dying like angels of mercy, doing what they could to relieve pain and suffering. But they were little more than sanitation workers cleaning up in the wake of death. The strain was clear on pallid faces with deeply shadowed eyes. Even although the doctor had told me there was a reasonably high recovery rate, it seemed hard to believe that anyone could survive this place. The medical practitioners here wore long gowns and hats and face masks to protect them from the miasma of infection that permeated the very air they breathed.
I wanted to turn and go back out immediately. But I steeled myself. The very least I owed Catrìona Macdonald was an explanation. I stopped one of the nurses and asked which bed she was in. She lifted some charts hanging from the wall and riffled through several sheets, running her finger down the names. At length she stopped at one. ‘Ah, yes. Catrìona Macdonald. She died this morning.’
It was hot outside, the sun showing itself periodically through a broken sky. I stood gulping down fresh air and fighting mixed feelings. A part of me was relieved that I wouldn’t have to face her. Another part of me wanted to weep for the woman from whose loins I had torn life. And yet another part of me died a little bit for her children, and her baby who would never know her.
I found Michaél in Lazaretto No. 3, he and a little group of co-conspirators gathered around a table. My fellow escapees. ‘I need to talk to you,’ I said, and we went outside.
I suppose I must have had something of an aura of death around me, for he gave me an odd look. ‘What can I do for you, Scotsman?’
‘I need some money.’
He frowned. ‘What for?’
‘It’s a long story. I’ll pay you back when I can.’ I couldn’t tell him I needed it to buy off my conscience. But even in the short time that I have known him, I have realised that Michaél has a way of reading folk.
He looked at me for a long time. A gaze that penetrated my very soul, it seemed. Then he grinned and said, ‘What the hell. What we need we’ll fockin’ steal.’ And he dug into an inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small purse with its strings pulled tight and tied in a knot. He took my hand and pressed it into it. ‘Ten gold sovereigns in there. I hope they’re going to a good cause.’
I nodded open-mouthed, barely able to believe such generosity. ‘They are. But I don’t know that I can take this much.’
‘Take it!’ he bellowed. ‘And never ask where I got it. The bloody things are far too heavy anyway. And besides, they’ve got the head of the fockin’ English queen on them. No self-respecting Irishman would be found dead with those in his pocket.’
*
I went straight to the Mackinnon family who had been looking after Catrìona’s children when I wasn’t there. I was blunt with them. Told them that Catrìona was dead and that I was leaving tonight. I produced the coins and laid them out on the table, and said this was to pay for the children’s keep. They had three children of their own already, but the husband and wife both looked at the money with eyes like saucers. It was more than either of them had ever seen. Or me, for that matter. And for a moment I wondered how on earth I was ever going to pay Michaél back.
The children themselves took the news of their mother’s death in a strangely solemn silence. I wondered if perhaps they had just seen so much of it that death no longer registered They were more upset to learn that I was leaving. They clung to me, silent tears running down their cheeks, little hands clutching my jacket. And I held them both, fighting hard not to weep myself, and wondered how I could be so selfish.
I kissed them, then tore myself free to stand and take the baby in my arms, just as I had that night on the ship. She looked up at me, almost as if she knew that she would never
see me again, and gripped my thumb with tiny fingers, such focus in those little eyes staring into mine. I kissed her forehead and whispered, ‘Stay safe, little one.’ And she smiled.
*
I can hardly write as I squat here in the dirt, shaking from the cold and wet, sitting as close to the flames as I dare, to warm my bones and light my pages. Michaél watches me with curiosity in his pale eyes. He has no understanding of this compunction I have to put my life on paper. Somehow in these last two months it has become the only thing that gives my existence any point.
I can see the slow movement of the river through the trees below us where we shelter from the rain and the cold beneath this overhang of rock. And somewhere across the water, unseen, lie the horrors of Grosse Île. It hardly seems possible that it is less than two hours since we left the Lazarettos under cover of darkness, and that only Michaél and I remain alive.
There were five of us altogether. Earlier the sky had been clear, but by the time we left after midnight it had clouded over and was threatening rain. The dark seemed impenetrable.
We moved within touching distance of each other, away from the huts, and across the wide, flat, boggy ground that lay between the Lazarettos and the village. It was just possible to see the darker shadow of the tree-covered escarpment that rose away through tangling briar towards the
north side of the island. That part of it had never been settled and we knew it would be difficult terrain to negotiate.
We were almost there when God intervened, and a great hole opened up in the sky to let moonlight flood down across Grosse Île. For a moment it was like midday, and there we were, caught in the full glare of the light for anyone to see. And seen we were. By the guards on the edge of the village. A shout went up, voices were raised and a shot rang out in the dark.
We ran for our lives, seeking the cover of the trees, and once there went ploughing through briar and undergrowth that shredded our clothes and skin. Climbing. Up over rock and tree roots, stumbling and tripping, fuelled by panic.
We could hear the soldiers in pursuit, and as we reached the crest of the rise a volley of shots rang out, and one of the Irishmen went down. ‘Leave him!’ one of the others shouted, but Michaél stopped, crouching beside him to turn him over. I stopped, too, scared as hell and breathing hard. Michaél looked up grimly. ‘Dead,’ he said. ‘Nothing we can do for him.’ And he was on his feet in an instant, pulling on my sleeve to drag me running off through the trees.