Hollett was at the front of the crowd that came out to meet the Meigle. He pumped Captain Dalton’s hand as the skipper jumped onto the wharf.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he said, nodding. Then he spoke quickly. “These are the members of our local committee, representing the villages from Rock Harbour to Corbin. Mr. Cheeseman, from Port au Bras… Mr. Lefeuvre, from Bull’s Cove… Captain Foote, from Stepaside… Mr. Albert Grant, from Corbin… Reverend Miller… Reverend Hiscock… Reverend Morris…”
Dalton’s face registered surprise as he shook hands with each of the men.
“We had to be organized, Captain,” Hollett explained. “The tragedy is so great.”
Dalton nodded.
“We have twenty homeless families between here and Corbin, sir,” said Albert Grant loudly.
Oddly, Dalton found himself feeling guilty at this; he said nothing. Then his first mate stepped up and listed off the food and building supplies that the Meiglehad brought.
“We’re very grateful and will convey this gratitude to Prime Minister Squires and his government,” Magistrate Hollett said. The scores of people that surrounded him remained quiet, and for the first time Dalton noticed the dark circles under their eyes. “I fear it will not be enough, though.”
“No?” Dalton said, realizing how inadequate he sounded. “My God, did you say there are twenty families homeless?”
“Indeed, I did, Captain,” Albert Grant spoke up again. “Indeed I did.”
Dalton caught the angry tone in the fisherman’s voice again.
“We don’t have anywhere near enough supplies to help them,” Dalton said as a thumping gathered steam in his chest.
“No, sir, we don’t,” the first mate echoed.
“We expected that,” said Hollett. “Food is more important now, it’s our first priority for this area. We’ve put the homeless families in with other families and that will have to do until other plans can be made.”
Dalton nodded slowly. Think, he told himself, think! Slowly he shifted himself out of his catatonia. The disaster was of greater proportions that Squires, Lake, and everyone in St. John’s realized, that much was sure. Other ships might have to join the Meigle. He thought of his blue-eyed wife, Cora, at home on Old Topsail Road in St. John’s; she’d probably be setting out the supper dishes now. Take one step at a time, she’d say.
“You said food is the first priority for this area, Magistrate Hollett,” Dalton began. “What are the other priorities?”
“Coal,” Hollett answered quickly. “Most families are in desperate need of it, so much of it was swept away, and here we are on the cusp of winter.”
“I can purchase coal for you on behalf of the Newfoundland government,” Dalton said. “When a ship comes into Burin with coal, let me know.”
“There’s one here now, sure,” someone called out from the crowd.
“There is indeed,” said Reverend Miller, a member of Hollet’s committee. “The Newcastle—perfect.”
“I can buy two hundred and fifty tons and your committee can distribute it,” said Dalton. “It’s not much but it’s a start.”
Hollett and his colleagues nodded. Dalton noticed that Hollett’s frown never went away.
“We appreciate that, Captain. Our other priority is that you get to the southern parts of the peninsula as fast as you can,” said the Magistrate. “We’ve heard that things are really bad in Taylor’s Bay and Point au Gaul. We’re very worried about those places. They’re on flat land and very exposed to the water.”
Hollett’s face was tight when he finished.
Dalton recalled the villages of which the magistrate spoke. Hollett was right; those little villages and others like them would indeed be particularly vulnerable to the tidal wave of November 18. He wondered what remained of them. He studied Hollett for a moment, seeing the intensity under the magistrate’s bushy eyebrows and hooded eyes. He knew the man was learned; Hollett had been Newfoundland’s Rhodes Scholar and studied at Oxford University. He was no coward either, Dalton reckoned, recalling that he had served in the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and been seriously wounded by shell-fire in France in 1916 before being invalided back to his home country. If Hollett said things were bad here and farther down the coast, then they probably were.
“We should take as many supplies as we can to those communities,” Dalton said. “But you’ll need some, too.”
“Take three-quarters of the food south of here,” Hollett said, meeting the eyes of his fellow committee members. “That’s where the need will be greatest.”
20
Besides some of the food, Captain Dalton and the Meigleleft the Burin Committee with three of the physicians on board. Nurses from St. John’s accompanied each of the doctors.
Captain Dalton knew that it was impossible for a vessel of the Meigle’s size to land at Taylor’s Bay and other low lying places at night so he over-nighted in Burin. Early the next morning the Meigleleft Burin, but as soon as Burin harbour faded into the distance, snow began falling. Very soon, winds blew out of the northeast, quickly encasing the Meiglein ice. The cold was jarring. The ship inched through the gelid waters of Placentia Bay, a little tub on an angry November sea that would not quit.
Finally, a full twenty-four hours later, the Meiglereached Point au Gaul. Captain Dalton stood on deck and surveyed the harbour. There was not a single wharf standing—nor were there any stages or flakes. The giant waves had destroyed a hundred out-buildings, taking their contents—gear, food, fuel—to the bottom of the sea, or pitching them in a meadow two hundred yards behind the village where they lay in ruins. Over forty boats had been swept away, most of them torn to smithereens.
It took all day but Dalton and his crew lowered food into the Meigle’s lifeboats and then landed them to a grateful populace. One of the Point au Gaul men collecting the food onshore was twenty-eight-year-old William Lockyer, a fisherman who had lost his motor dory, stage, and store to the tsunami. William and his wife, Rebecca, had got their three little daughters to safety as the first wave raced into the harbour.
Dalton shook his head in sympathy as he looked at the harbour and William in one of the lifeboats with the Meigle’s crew, a sack of flour on each slim shoulder. He guessed, rightly, that the young man was pleased to have something useful to do after a week of loss.
“It’s three houses gone, Captain, sir,” William called up. “Three houses.”
“My God,” Dalton responded. “And how many dead?”
“Well, sir, we’ve done nothing but bury people here in Point au Gaul lately,” came the sombre reply. The Meiglecrew members laid down their sacks of flour and balanced themselves in the lifeboat to listen.
“Miss Mary Ann Walsh and Mrs. Eliza Walsh, they lived together in a house that was over there,” William said, pointing. “They were washed away. We got their bodies, first one and then the other. And it was the funniest thing—we found a tin box full of money, completely dry mind you, next to Miss Mary Ann’s body. When the women laid it out for counting, it covered a double bed. They gave it to Miss Mary Ann’s church, as she would have wanted.”