I decided that because a few people had recently commented on my old story, "Where Lies the Ocean," which I wrote almost a year ago, I should probably post the revised (and historically accurate!!!) version. So here it is.
Note: This is up for constant revision to ensure the historical accuracy.
Snow seldom kisses the hills of Ireland. When the rolling meadows are graced by a gentle dusting, it is usual to wake to a cool breeze that moves one to stand bemusedly at the door step, and watch the frost melt away. This all sounds very blissful, and it once was. But now each fragile snowflake, dissolving as soon as it meets the earth, reminds me of the years of hunger and longing; the years where in place of potatoes, we found endless snow.
Two years into the famine, my mam came to me with the tidings I had often feared: she had found a way to get a ship. She did not say how, for we were among the most destitute wretches of Ireland, but I was to go alone, to stay with a distant relative I had never heard of in America. The day I boarded the ship as a famished eight year old, my mother trailing wistfully beside me, is as fresh in my memory as this morning's breakfast.
Snow was falling particularly heavily that day, gathering on my flaxen eyelashes, and melting into my tears.
"I don' want to go, mam," I pled. She bent down to me, pulling my tattered scarf closer around my neck as she said:
"I wan' you to remember this, Murchadh, anytime you get lonely. You e'er heard this saying? I'll tell you: There is hope in the ocean, not in the grave. I'm sending you across the ocean because somewhere, there is hope, and Ireland right now is like the grave."
I hugged her tightly, never wanting to leave her, my hot tears gathering in her hair. She was my world—she was all I had left. My younger brother had already fallen to starvation, and my father, in an effort to curb our own malnourishment, resorted to thievery, for which he now served his final years exiled in Australia.
"Listen," she said gently, propping up my chin. "As soon as your grandmam gets her strength, she an' I'll come too. It won't be long."
It seemed an empty promise, and as unfathomable as the voyage I would soon begin. But through the whistling wind, I heard that captain's voice, and I looked to my mam, who, for the first time since she had told me I was leaving, had tears in her eyes.
"Be safe, an' remember that sayin'. I surely love you, don' forget it. We'll be seein' you soon as possible," she said, placing one more kiss on top of my head.
My frail hand slipped reluctantly from hers. I ran to the dock, turning back to wave once more, the snow swirling in my face as if to hide what wistful fate lie before me.
There are all kinds of adventures: searches for riches, or unknown lands. My own, on the rotting heap of wood disguised as a ship, was not so much an adventure as it was a time of recalling the rotten potatoes at home, and wishing I even had those to eat. Among the rats and the sickness, there was never a point in the exploit on that Coffin Ship when we stopped our lonely cries for home, and our retches from sea-sickness within our lowest-class, below-deck cell to admire the single meal served each day. The stench of too many bodies crammed into too small a space was enough to drive one into madness, if our spinning heads had not already done so. Unfortunately, too many bodies would not always be a problem. In the dank prison sentence of a voyage, many had not even the strength to make it to the New World, hunger, or the diseases that accompany having struck them before the boarding, slowly feeding on the living remains as the journey continued. The crowd surely thinned, but the stench remained, a mixture of human waste and agony, death personified in a sulfurous desolation. When I could process thoughts, my mind could only see the devastation around me, making me worry how it was at home, if it were worse, or if the Sassenach* had lightened their hearts, and given some sort of aid.
Anytime I looked at the other passengers, their eyes were distant, not as I remembered my people to act before An Gorta Mòr*. Their ravenous forms neither improved nor worsened, the meager food given to us a waste among the seasickness. They seemed to somehow try to disconnect themselves from the present, and live in a world apart from the horrors of our past and approaching future. Words were rarely spoken, the same fear alive in each of us. None could tell what the New World would bring. Few of us, myself not included, even spoke English.
When at last the ship made berth in the St. Lawrence River, we were made aware that our vessel was one among many others waiting deliver their passengers to the medical inspection facilities.
For fifteen days, our ship was quarantined in the harbor. Scarcely more than two weeks, this was the most torturous part of the voyage. The survivors were ready to be let loose from this purgatory, to see where we had landed. Fifteen days was too long to wait when you knew just outside the derisory wooden walls of the ship was the future incarnate in the landscape.
At last we were allowed to walk above deck. The clean air that met our faces was as refreshing as a morning rainfall in my homeland. But it was not enough to cheer me, not enough to turn my face from the past. I missed my mother, and my grandmother. My mind was fraught with worry on their behalf. I longed for my mother’s voice; the way she would sing as she tried to boil the nettles she had gathered from the churchyard. I missed Ireland herself, for it wasn’t the country herself who had caused this calamity, but the ones who subjugated her. The fresh atmosphere of the St. Lawrence was bracing, but not promising. I didn’t know who exactly I was to look for, or where to go. For the first time, I felt as if I must act as an adult, for I was on my own. Of all places, I was in Canada, a place I had never heard of until the letter from mysterious Mr. O’Malley. That was his name, the man I was supposed to stay with. I had also seen a picture, a rare keepsake he had sent so I could recognize him upon arrival. All other details were left behind; that’s all I knew.
Quickly, I, along with my fellow passengers of the ship, was ushered to the dock, where waited expectant family members, and to my astonishment Mr. O’Malley. This time, he was in color, but still strangely alien to me. He was dressed all in gray, and reminded me much of two Englishmen who had once driven through my old town of Skibbereen. Loathingly, I stepped toward him. The meeting was at the most, unceremonious, for I was too weak and leery to care. His greeting was warm enough, and he told me he would wait at the door, for we were then hurried off to the tiny medical facilities.
There were no more than 150 beds available, and a number exceeding the limit had come off the ship. The inspectors would sit us down upon one of the paltry beds to check for any signs of disease. Many of us were ridden with lice and an assortment of other maladies, and the acerbic truth for those found to be infected was a trip right back to Ireland, so they could continue the starvation that had first rendered them in this state.
The physical inspection was brief and shoddy at best, and all but cruel in the way it was administered. However effective this was, was to be seen, for I know many died shortly after examination from disease that they had contracted before the ship set sail.
Thankfully, I passed the check up. I was not limping, apparently a good sign. They checked my breathing, and looked in my hair and ragged clothing for lice. Somehow I had come away from the louse-ridden ship without contagion. But the most frightening procedure I received last. The doctor’s rigid face is now permanently etched into my consciousness. Sketchily, he rolled back my eyelids with his bear hands. Out of fear, I pulled away, causing me pain and him frustration. He held my chin forcefully in his hand, so I could not move again, and checked for trachoma, and word to this day I have not cared to find the meaning. The only problem they could diagnose me with was "Excessive Malnourishment" which to me and my protruding cheek bones meant little more than everyday life.
I ran to the door at which Mr. O'Malley said he would wait, and there he was, tall and slim. His eyes were squinty and cheeful, the skin around them crinkled, with bushy white eyebrows framing his expression. Something about him reminded me of my grandmother. Not so much a resemblance as an aura.
As I approached him, I never once looked up, afraid to meet his gaze. My head was still reeling with all that had gone by; not two months before, I had been in my beautiful homeland, with my mother, and though we were starving, at least everything was familiar; an uncomfortable monotony, perhaps. Now everything was different. This port city was bustling with all sorts of people, dressed oddly, and seemingly always in a hurry. It had been a long time since I had seen a properly fed man, but now they surrounded me.
He put a warm hand on my frail shoulder, not afraid of my filthy rags, and to my greatest surprise, said hello to me in Gaelic.
“Dia Maire dhuit,” I replied reluctantly, shivering at the icy cold, but feeling some comfort in the use of my own tongue.
“Come to the stagecoach, you’ll keep warm in there,” he continued, leading me to a horse-drawn carriage. Next to his fine apparel, I was ashamed at my soiled clothes, but they were all I had left of home. We had been forced to sell the rest of my clothes for food, but not before my mother had sold her own. I had brought nothing with me.
He picked me up without effort, placing me within the warmth of the carriage, where he had placed blankets. I gathered one around me, having been cold for so long without succor, as he sat beside me and said: “My Gaelic isn’t good. I’m out of practice.”
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