August Gale (13 page)

“Dear Lord!” Lillian screamed. Startled, her eyes scanned the horizon for an oncoming storm. “Where did such a wind come from on such a still night?”

Paddy shook his head and reached across the table for his wife's hand.

“It's just a whirlwind, m'dear. Nothing to worry yurself over.”

Paddy stood and placed his cap on his head.

“I've delayed it long enough, Lil. I best be off 'n have another look on board the schooner before we set out.”

Lillian followed her husband through the hall, her long skirt dragging along the pine boards beneath her. The smell of salt-water and freshly cut hay drifted into the parlor as Paddy pushed open the front door. Lillian stepped outside onto the porch and turned to the sky. In the east, a single cloud, black as tar, loomed in the otherwise clear night.

Lillian shook off a chill and remembered the date: August 20, the day her daughter Mary Bernice died of pneumonia. Dread and fear struck her heart.
Surely, the sudden whirlwind, the dark cloud portended death, disaster
. And in just a few hours, her eldest son, James, would sail off on
Mary Bernice
, trailing Paddy's schooner.

“Paddy, please do not sail tonight,” she begged, pointing to the large, ominous cloud.

Paddy looked into his wife's eyes, saddened by her sudden fit of terror. He pulled her close and tucked her head against his shoulder.

“If it will comfort ye, we will sleep on board tonight; we will not sail until daylight.”

Lillian nodded and whispered in her husband's ear. “Look after them, Paddy. Bring my sons home, safe ashore.”

She watched him go, a shadow in the dark, his figure growing smaller as he disappeared beyond their white picket fence to the footpath that led to the wharf.

On the southern shores of Marystown, lamps cast shadows on the faces of other fathers, husbands, and sons who bid their own families farewell. In the small, modest homes nestled along the bay, the crew of
Mary Bernice
and
Annie Anita
packed their seabags. Spare woolen socks, extra jumpers and pants, sou'wester hats, oilskins, tins of tobacco, boxes of matches, and pictures of their families—daughters, mothers, and their betrothed—pictures they would hang in their bunks or keep in pockets pressed against their hearts.

In their small drawstring bags, they placed their religious tokens: palm-size crosses, Blessed Virgin medals, tiny bottles of holy water, and bits of burned Ash Wednesday palms. If the waves grew to mountains and the wind roared, they held the crosses and medals, and they prayed; they sprinkled holy water and ashes into the angry sea, beseeching Mary the Mother of God to calm the waters, to guide them home.

It was never easy for the fishermen to bid their families farewell, but an August journey conjured more than the usual discontent among the dorymen. Still, their tongues did not speak of the gales, their voices did not utter apprehension about the violent storms that struck suddenly, stirring a silent sea into a roiling devil. No, it was no good talking about such worries, but each of them—the fishermen and their wives—felt the fear as if it were a living, breathing being that walked among them.

Odd misgivings gripped Dominic Walsh as he paced the floor of his family's kitchen. Paddy's nephew, Dominic had a berth as a doryman on board
Annie Anita
. Rattled about his unease, Dominic turned to his mother, who sat before the fire cradling a cup of tea. “Should I go, Ma? Should I leave? I've a peculiar feeling about this trip.”

His mother Margaret understood her boy's angst. Soon to be married, Dominic did not want to leave his betrothed behind. But she also harbored misgivings about this August journey. She feared the storms that had no mercy for the lives of fathers and sons.

“Don't go, Dominic,” she told him. “I have me own worries about this trip.”

“But how will I be paying for the house I'm building for meself and me bride? I can't be slackin' off now.”

Dominic hoisted his duffle and hugged his mother goodbye. “I'll see ye in a week or so,” he told her. She watched his thin frame retreat down the hill. “Safe seas to ye, son,” she whispered, pushing back her tears. “Safe seas, please God.”

Past the hills leading to Little Bay, Bride Hanrahan watched her father pack for his journey. The fifteen-year-old girl relished time with her father when he was ashore. She had hoped her da would treat her and her siblings to some singing, dancing, in the kitchen before his journey, but her father's mouth organ had remained untouched in its place by the mantel.

Bride had noticed her father's sullen spirits over the past few days. She knew he regretted his decision to accompany James Walsh on board
Mary Bernice
. Sure now, her father was quiet on a good day, but she could barely stand his sorrow on this evening. She hated to see him go with such a heavy heart. Though he had spent much of her childhood away at sea, her da always had time for her when he was home. Bride chased him from morn to night then, shadowing his every move. She followed him into the forest to cut wood and helped him haul the kindling into the horse cart. She would do anything to be near his side; chores never bothered her a bit, as long as her father returned her efforts with a soft smile.

She blinked back her tears as her father lifted his head to her now.

“Good-bye, Da,” she told him as he held her close.

He nodded and tossed his burlap bag over his shoulder. Bride watched as her father stepped out the door and down the small hill to the harbor. She held her eyes steady on his silhouette as he flung his duffle in the dory and seated himself inside the boat. Setting the oars in the tholepins, his thick arms rowed slow, steady strokes, rippling the waters as he pointed the bow toward Marystown and the schooner that waited for him. Bride knew he would not turn to look at her, would not turn to wave for fear of summoning ill luck. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer for her father's safe return.

“Love you, Da,” she whispered in the chill night air.

As Richard Hanrahan pulled on the dory oars in the dark, thousands of miles to the south, a small storm brewed in the warm Caribbean waters. Just northwest of the Turks Islands, the tempest continued to gather strength as it whirled past the Bahamas and headed north.

I
reach for my father's hand as the jagged coast of Newfoundland appears.

The barren landscape rises up from below: unforgiving patches of boulders, soaring cliffs, and scrub brush. Fishing boats provide the only sign of life, their wakes white feathery trails, stark against the dark ocean.

Three thousand feet above the sea, my father, sister, and I sit in a small plane that carries us north toward the land where our Irish ancestors immigrated more than a century ago. We have remained quiet during most of our early morning flight, lulled into silence by the rhythmic drone of the propeller that whirs loudly outside our window.

Two hours into our journey, the province known as “The Rock,” for its rugged, glacier-ravaged terrain, comes into view. The sight of this island, the sight of Newfoundland, the realization that we are actually nearing my grandfather's homeland—jars me awake. I breathe deeply, trying to contain the rush of emotions this country stirs.

From his aisle seat, my father leans toward the window. His brown eyes take in the coast of Newfoundland as it grows larger, closer. The knowledge that we are almost there, nearing Ambrose's birthplace prompts him to sigh, a breath that is long and deep. For much of the flight from Boston, he has exhaled often, as if trying to release the worries that bubble up inside him. He has had many second thoughts since he agreed to accompany my sister Joanie and me to Marystown. A few days before our journey, my younger sister Laura spoke with him on the phone. “So,” she asked, “are you excited about your trip?”

“How the hell do you think I feel?” he erupted. “I don't know these people or what they're going to say about my father.”

The night before we left, he sipped from his red wine glass as Joanie, my mother, and I sat in the living room of my parents' home. Our suitcases sprawled out on the floor, Joanie and I tried to repack our clothes, eliminating extra baggage for our early morning journey.

My father, who hated to be late—especially if it involved a flight, church obligation, social event, or a golf tee time—had already packed his small duffle and watched as his daughters folded and refolded piles of clothes.

“You know, if you two weren't going, I'd be changing my mind right now,” he told us.

I, too, worried that maybe this trip was a bad idea. Though I was excited to learn more about the August Gale and my Great Uncle Paddy, I was not so eager to hear stories about Ambrose, stories that would rekindle my father's childhood pain and anger. Neither my dad nor I slept well the night before our flight. Both of us fret before long-distance travel, and this particular journey presented more than the usual “will I make the plane, will there be delays?” angst. The following morning, we rose at five a.m. with dark circles beneath our eyes. After quick cups of coffee and a forty-minute ride south to Boston's Logan Airport, we dragged our suitcases and carry-on bags from the car. My mother hugged and kissed each of us good-bye, and as I drew her close, I noticed her eyes were shiny with tears. I hugged her one more time as she told me, “I wish I was going with you.”

My mother, Patricia Enis Walsh, loved travel and adventure. At a young age, she acquired her father Daniel's curiosity and a yearning to explore. On Sunday mornings, Daniel Enis packed his five kids and wife in the sedan and set off determined to find new vistas. Carrying on her father's wanderlust, my mother has traveled to Portugal, England, Ireland, and New York City with my sisters and me, trips she savored more than all of us put together. And though she knew this excursion to Newfoundland would be memorable, she decided that it was best experienced without her, a journey to be made by two daughters and their father. At the airport curb, she stuffed her homemade granola bars into my pocketbook and waved good-bye before retreating to the car.

Hours later in the small Air Canada plane, I stare at the dark blue sea and consider the
Titanic
, which lies somewhere deep in the dark caverns below. Though it is the one of the most memorable ships to have sunk off Newfoundland's coast, it is but one of the ten thousand or more vessels that have shipwrecked or disappeared in these waters since the sixteenth century. North of the forty-degree latitude, sailors contend with more than a wild and unpredictable sea. Year-round, icebergs drift south from Greenland and along Newfoundland's east coast. Monster mountains of ice, they can tear a ship in two. In the summer months, the collision of the warm Gulf Stream and the cold Labrador Current creates curtains of fog, relentless and thick banks that shroud fishermen and boats for days, leaving them lost and at risk of deadly collisions with other vessels. And then there are the rogue waves, freaks of nature that tower seventy, eighty, and sometimes even ninety feet high, carrying a lethal force capable of capsizing and destroying cruise liners, tankers, and three-hundred-foot-high oil platforms.

Ever present along the island's six thousand miles of coastline in good weather and bad, there are numerous sunkers, deadly reefs hidden below the ocean's surface. Thousands of years ago, glaciers stripped Newfoundland's soil and cast the deposits into the sea, creating the underwater ledges that threaten unwary captains and ships tossed about by storms and violent hurricane winds. I picture Paddy in these fierce and unforgiving waters, a skipper who had shipwrecked in heavy seas, sailed through blinding fog, and remained trapped for weeks in winter ice floes. With nothing more than his compass, charts, and the “glass”—the barometer that foretold foul weather—he sailed these seas for much of his life. I imagine him on his schooner,
Annie Anita
, on his August journey, a careful eye trained on the sky and the sea, searching for a change in the current, a shift in the wind, a gale that might descend without warning.

And like many other August gales, the 1935 hurricane roared up the North Atlantic coast with a vengeance. In our research, my father and I have recreated bits and pieces of the gale. We have collected newspaper stories, talked with dozens of relatives, and have read firsthand accounts about the hurricanes that have plagued Newfoundland's coast for centuries. For much of our flight, my father has dutifully reviewed our material. He has studied notes from my interviews and reread the Marystown census names. He has pulled papers from his leather zippered briefcase, methodically reading each page. From my own files, I have scanned notes from my phone conversations with Marystown residents. I am eager to see their faces, these children who lost fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and brothers to the gale. I am anxious to glean more details from their memories, to hear them talk about the storm that forever changed their lives and their small rural outport.

I am curious, too, about our relatives, the Brentons, who invited us to use their summer cabin during our stay. A month or so before our trip, my father contacted his cousin, Alan Brenton, to let him know we would be coming. Brenton's mother, Donalda, was Ambrose's older sister. My Nana wrote her several letters and developed a long-distance friendship with Donalda through their correspondence. Alan Brenton, like most of his Newfoundland relatives, had been fond of his Uncle Ambrose, and he looked forward to meeting my father. Nine years earlier, Brenton had met my Uncle Bill when he made an unexpected trip to Newfoundland. Wanting to know more about his namesake, William Patrick “Paddy” Walsh, my uncle surprised Brenton with a phone call.

“I'm William Patrick Walsh, Ambrose's son,” my uncle told Brenton. “I'm in Newfoundland. I'll be in Marystown in a few days.”