CHAPTER 77

MARY WASHED HER SON’S BEAUTIFUL LONG BODY AND COMBED HIS light-brown hair. She had taken her scissors and cut a few locks of it, sewing them quickly into a small pouch she had fashioned from a piece of material from his shirt. She kissed his handsome face for the very last time as the first mate, Mr Dwyer, and two of the sailors came to take him from her to bury him at sea.

‘I’ll carry my boy,’ John insisted hoarsely.

Mr Dwyer told the others to step back as he helped John wrap Con’s body loosely in a light sheet and carry him up on to the deck.

The sun nearly blinded Mary as she stepped into the light. The sky and the sea were so blue that they made her feel giddy. Nora, Sarah and the boys all cried as the ship’s captain appeared. He began to read slowly two passages from the Bible and they all said the ‘Our Father’. Annie stared out at the sea, still as a statue, and said nothing.

There were two bodies to bury at sea that morning. The other casualty was a thirty-year-old man who was travelling on his own and planning to journey out west and stake a claim for some government land. Three of the men he had befriended on the ship were the only ones there to pray over him.

‘Let us pray for the soul of Peadar O’Malley, who has gone to his rest and is now reunited with the Lord,’ said the captain, blessing himself.

The sailors lifted the loosely wrapped body on to a wooden plank, which was tilted and then lowered into the sea, consigning the man to the deep water.

Mary began to shake with disbelief as they took Con’s body and moved it on to the plank in the same way. John came and stood beside her, gripping her shoulders.

‘May God and his grandparents watch over him!’ prayed John.

The captain began to recite the ‘Our Father’ again and everyone present joined in.

‘Let us pray for the soul of this young man, Cornelius Sullivan, nearly thirteen years old and taken before his time, who has this day gone to his rest and is now reunited with the Lord,’ the captain intoned.

Mary watched as they began to lower and tilt the plank towards the water. Con’s body slipped down into the cold, cold sea, floating there for a few minutes before the ocean’s waves knocked and pulled him down below into the dark blue depths that would for ever be his grave.

She wanted to fling herself into the churning water after him, but Nora and Annie had taken a grip of her hands. She began to sob and ran to the side, peering down into the depths to see if she could catch any further glimpse of him.

‘Mr and Mrs Sullivan, I am sorry for your loss,’ the captain said solemnly as he took his leave of them, gesturing for Mr Dwyer to escort them all back down to steerage.

‘Please, I want to stay here with him,’ Mary begged. ‘Just for a little while longer.’

Two sailors suddenly appeared, carrying the ticking mattress and soiled blanket on which her boy had lain. Despite her protests, they tossed them into the waves.

Mary watched the ship lurch and roll, the wind in her sails, as the vessel skimmed and moved through the waves, carrying them further and further away from her first born. Her eyes raked the rippling field of waves, but she could see no trace or sign of Con.

Back below deck, John cared for Annie, for all Mary wanted to do was lie down in the bunk, close her eyes and somehow pretend that Con was still alive. She imagined she would hear him laugh or talk beside her.

For three days, Mary could not eat or drink, though she had no fever. The young woman from Coronea kindly offered to cook meals for their family, while her friend from the island, Kate Connolly, gave her a bitter herb to take at night to dull her terrible pain.

As she lay in the bunk, watching the ship’s timbers and feeling the constant rise and fall of the vessel, she knew her heart was broken. She had been fooling herself to think that somehow they could escape fate and the hunger. Like a ghost, it had followed them on to this ship and across the ocean.

‘Annie needs you,’ said John tentatively. ‘I need you.’

She could see the fear in his pleading eyes. She nodded dumbly as he helped her up. Though her legs felt weak, they walked slowly around the narrow rows of steerage.

‘We are sorry for your loss,’ people murmured.

‘He was a fine boy!’

‘Thank you.’ She nodded, trying not to cry.

The children stared at her as she fetched the cooking pot.

‘What is this I hear, Annie Sullivan, about you not taking a sup of food from your father?’

‘I don’t like it!’ the small child said stubbornly, her face the colour of snow.

‘Well, there will be none of that kind of talk. I am going up top to make us some gruel and woe betide anyone who doesn’t eat it. We all need to keep our strength up.’

Her nephew was quiet and she feared he too might be getting ship fever.

‘Are you sick?’ she asked him, feeling his brow.

‘No!’ Jude blurted out tearfully. ‘I’m so sorry, Auntie Mary, but Sarah and I are the ones who brought the sickness to your door. It should have been me that died, not Con!’

‘Jude, hush with that talk.’ She could not believe that he was blaming himself. ‘Con’s death was not of your doing. He was as right as rain when we all boarded the ship. It was here that he got the fever, the same fever that took that boy Michael and a few others.’

She could see the relief in the young boy’s eyes as she hugged him and kissed the top of his head.

‘Now, Jude. You stay well, do you hear?’ She smiled. ‘I made a promise to your mam that I would look after you.’