No Safe Harbour

by Julie Lawson

  Charlotte’s Composition:

  Thursday, December 6, 1917

  On Thursday morning, December 6, I laced up my boots and put on my coat. The ground was white with frost. Mum told me to wear my warm hat. I remembered to take my diary to show Haggarty.

  Kirsty was waiting in the front yard. We chased each other around until Haggarty came.

  We went from stop to stop as usual. People came out for their milk as usual.

  I showed Haggarty my diary between the stops, and read bits out loud. Like the part about Mum living in a castle and Dad coming to her rescue. I was begging Haggarty to tell me the true story, and he was making up one tall tale after the other. We were laughing, Kirsty was woofing hellos to anything that moved. Just like a regular Thursday.

  Then we heard the clanging screech of metal against metal. People started rushing out of their houses. I remember Mrs. Reilly waving to us and shouting, “Never mind the milk you look to the Narrows a collision two ships!” All in one breath.

  We looked to the harbour and saw the ships. Imo, with big letters saying BELGIAN RELIEF, and Mont-Blanc. Mont-Blanc was on fire and drifting close to the piers.

  People from everywhere, throngs of people, were running down to the harbour for a better look, standing on the docks and on flat roofs like the one at the Acadia Sugar Refinery. I remember saying to Haggarty, “Lucky Dad, he’ll have a right good view. So will Edith, from her office window.”

  We were mesmerized. The fire had only just started, but great clouds of steam and black smoke were already gushing into the air, and blue and orange flames were billowing way up to the sky.

  I wanted to get Duncan, to make sure he didn’t miss it. So I said goodbye to Haggarty, grabbed my diary and ran off towards home with Kirsty. I don’t know exactly where I was when the explosion happened, because I was still keeping an eye on the fire. It was spectacular, like nothing you could ever imagine.

  There was no warning for the explosion. It happened fast, and all at once.

  The roar of the flames just stopped. I saw a white flash shoot up from the burning ship and felt a tremendous blast of air, a whirlwind that swept me up and hurled me around until it suddenly gave out and dropped me. I didn’t know where I was, only that I’d come close to landing on a picket fence. Bodies were lying everywhere. Nothing moved, no one spoke. And then the screaming began.

  I thought it was the end of the world.

  I have to stop now. Volunteers are coming around with tomato soup. It must be almost noon.

  Tuesday afternoon

  A soldier brought me my soup. His name is Eddie. He has one arm. He and some other wounded soldiers were recovering here, but they had to make room for all the people hurt in the Explosion. The soldiers who can move about are helping the volunteers.

  Eddie talked and made little jokes while I was eating my soup. He said he’d go back to France one day and look for his other arm.

  After lunch I hobbled up and down the corridor using a cane.

  There are lots of patients in worse shape than I am. I mean, worse on the outside. Eddie says that the wounds you can’t see are often the worst.

  The bandages are off my face. My cheek feels puffy. I don’t know what it looks like because the mirrors were shattered like the windows.

  Later

  This morning, once I got started on my composition, it felt as if I were looking on from a faraway place, and writing about somebody else. Now I’m going to try and write a bit more.

  Luke, when you’re reading this, what happens next is the hardest part.

  Charlotte’s Composition, Part 2:

  Thursday, December 6, 1917

  After the explosion, a horrible black, oily rain started to fall. It soaked through my dress, my underwear, my stockings and stuck to my skin like tar. My coat and hat were torn off by the blast and one of my boots was gone.

  I stood up, scared and shaken to the heart, and tried to get my bearings. There was so much wreckage, and so many bodies, I had to watch every step. That’s how I stumbled on my diary. I wasn’t even surprised, just picked it up and kept going.

  Nothing looked the same. I heard myself say out loud, “This must be No Man’s Land.”

  Streets gone, trees uprooted, telegraph poles knocked down, wires tangled and shooting sparks, a trolley hurled from the tracks. Every house in ruins, and in some, flames leaping from the wreckage. Black smoke overhead and over the harbour.

  My only thought was going home. Mum and Duncan were there and they’d know what to do, they’d keep me safe. But where was home? My whole neighbourhood, the whole of Richmond, was flattened.

  It was hard to move through the rubble. Glass everywhere, and I cut my foot badly. I remember tripping over a dead dog and lurching out of the way of a panicking horse. I saw a man who’d lost every stitch of clothing, but I wasn’t shocked to see him stark naked. All this time I was praying. Our Father who art in heaven … Please, God, let this not be happening … Please, God, please let Mum be safe, let Duncan be safe …

  A storm of people, faces black from the rain and streaked with blood. People rushing to escape, to put out fires, rushing to help those who needed help, using boards or doors to carry away the injured, searching through the wreckage for survivors. People in shock, not moving at all. Others dead or dying. Ambulances, soldiers, all trying to get in past the frantic crowds that were desperate to get out.

  Somehow I got home. Our house was mostly in ruins. One section was still standing; the rest was splintered wood, broken furniture, the stove overturned and coals spilling out, shards of jagged glass, clear glass, stained glass, the floor inches deep in glass and wood and plaster.

  I stumbled through what had been the kitchen and found Mum. Buried but still breathing.

  I remember saying, “Mum, I’m here, I’ll get you out.”

  And she cried, “Ruth, is it Ruth? I can’t see!”

  I told her it was Charlotte, but I don’t know if she heard me.

  I tore at the wreckage, lifted and heaved with a strength that came from somewhere, I don’t know where, and managed to get her free. Except for a part of her skirt stuck under a ceiling beam, so heavy it wouldn’t budge. I was trying to tear the skirt with my teeth when I heard Mum say, “Ruth, find Father … Young. Tell him …”

  I didn’t understand. “Who? Tell him what?” I kept asking, and “Where’s Duncan? Is he in the house?” But she never answered.

  By then there were soldiers coming and I yelled for them to help. One of them took Mum’s pulse and shook his head. He used a knife to cut her skirt loose, carried her out and put her inside a delivery wagon. Another soldier asked me for her name and address. I couldn’t think clearly, but I must have told him because he wrote something down. I think he asked for my name, too, but I was frantic about Duncan and was already going back inside the wreckage.

  The soldiers followed, yelling for me to stop, the fire was spreading, but I didn’t.

  I went in from the other side, the living-room side, and saw that the piano had collapsed. Someone was trapped underneath. I saw their hand.

  Duncan.

  It couldn’t be Ruth. She’d gone off to her job at the telephone company, and Mum had thought I was Ruth. So it had to be Duncan.

  I started to scream. A soldier picked me up and carried me out, said it wasn’t safe, the fire was spreading too fast. Seconds later the piano was in flames and the other walls came crashing down.

  I tried to go back. I was screaming, “My brother! He’s still alive! You can lift up the piano!” but the soldier held me tight. “No one could survive that,” he said.

  I can’t go on.

  Wednesday, December 12

  I didn’t want to write this morning. I limped down the corridor, trying to put a bit of weight on my foot, but mostly used the cane, and tried to avoid bumping into people.

  The corridor is always crowded. People looking for their families, soldiers carrying away bodies, doctors, nurses, volunteers, comi
ng and going, coming and going.

  Helen changed the dressing on my foot and said the wound is healing. The swelling has gone down. Same with my cheek. She gave me a peppermint to suck on.

  I let her read my diary. All she had time for was what I wrote yesterday, but now she knows the worst, and why it’s so hard for me to speak. But I can still write, and I’m determined to finish my composition.

  So, Luke, here is the next part.

  Charlotte’s Composition, Part 3:

  Thursday, December 6, 1917

  Our house was in flames.

  A soldier was holding me, telling me that no one could survive, and suddenly everyone stopped what they were doing and started to run. “It’s Wellington Barracks! The magazine’s on fire! It’s going to explode!” People were crying, hysterical, and soldiers were shouting, “Leave the area! Go to open spaces!” They were knocking on doors and warning everyone to get out before the next explosion.

  People who could barely walk had to drag themselves outside, stumbling, or leaning on others.

  An old man in his nightclothes, hobbling along on crutches, kept saying, “The Germans done this, the Germans done this,” over and over until another man told him to shut up, it wasn’t the Germans, it was the Mont-Blanc burning in the harbour — a munitions ship.

  A little Negro girl from Africville took hold of my hand. She was clutching a doll and crying for her mother, but I didn’t know what to do, just held her hand and went on.

  There was a barricade at the edge of the ruined area. Dozens of people had been wanting to go in to help, or to look for someone, but now they were being turned away. When they found out the reason, there was more panic.

  Streets were clogged with horse-drawn carts, fish trucks, wagons, motor cars, motor trucks, anything that could carry away the injured and the dead, all trying to turn around and get away before the next explosion.

  The Commons, and the slopes leading up to the Citadel, were crawling with people, like ants stirred out of an ant hill. Moving about in confusion, huddling by small fires, standing in groups, praying, searching, waiting, calling out names …

  The girl with the doll spotted her mother and went running off.

  I just stood there.

  After a while I forced myself to move, praying I’d find Dad or Edith or Ruth. Because I didn’t know then what I know now.

  My bare foot was bleeding from broken glass and I was trembling all over. I sank down on the ground and reached into my pocket for my diary.

  My latest entry was December 6, that very morning, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it.

  So I stared at the town clock and prayed. Please God, let this not be happening …

  Later

  Eddie with the one arm just brought me some bread and cheese. He’s nineteen. I showed him the letter Luke wrote in my diary.

  I’m still thinking about the people who were trapped in the ruins. What happened to them when their rescuers were forced to leave? Duncan could have been saved. There was so much wreckage, the piano could have collapsed on top of something else, something that was protecting him. I couldn’t see clearly because of the smoke and the plaster dust, but if the soldiers had put out the fire, if they’d moved the piano …

  Thursday, December 13

  My heart’s about to burst, it’s beating so hard, and my hands are shaking, but I have to write this down before I forget.

  I woke up to the sound of my own screaming. “Duncan! Get Duncan! He’s trapped inside!”

  Nobody in the ward seems to be awake, so the screaming must have been part of my dream. I was in our house. The roof had caved in to the second floor and the second floor smashed down to the first, and down to the basement and everyone was buried. I saw a hand and heard a cry. Duncan. Pinned under a beam.

  I took Dad’s handsaw, tried to cut through the beam, but with every cut the wood closed back in, and the house was on fire, the flames coming closer, and Duncan shrieking but I couldn’t save him, the wood kept closing in. Then another voice, “Save me, get me out!” but I was surrounded by flames and I couldn’t. Someone was pulling me and a voice was screaming, “Duncan! Get Duncan!” — my voice, and that’s what woke me up.

  And now I remember. It came to me, sudden and clear. Ruth’s locket. I saw it in the dream. I’d seen it in the ruins, beside the hand, but there was so much wreckage, it didn’t register. And now I know. I know it wasn’t Duncan under the piano.

  It was Ruth.

  Something must have happened with her telephone-company job, or she changed her mind and went home. That’s why Mum kept saying her name. She knew that Ruth was in the house.

  I think the dream was a message, telling me that Duncan is still alive.

  Late Thursday afternoon

  I slept for a long time after writing down my dream. When I woke up again, it was time for tomato soup and a visit from a special children’s committee. Two nice ladies with a list of questions.

  This time I managed to speak, although my voice was barely more than a whisper. There were so many questions. Name, age, address, religion, church, school? Names of parents, brothers, sisters? Relatives in Halifax, relatives in Nova Scotia, relatives in Canada, relatives overseas?

  No, no, no, no.

  I told them what Mum had said at the end, and they’re going to put a notice in the paper about Father Young because they didn’t recognize the name. They told me that Luke might be sent home on “compassionate leave” because I’m an orphan now and he’s my only adult relative. And since he’s been wounded, he might be able to continue his recovery here in Canada. But I’m not to get my hopes up.

  I told them about Duncan. I’m not sure they believed me, but they said there have been miracles, with people thought dead turning up alive, and they’re going to put a notice in the paper that says Urgent Contact Requested.

  After they left I took my corridor walk, this time without the cane. My bandaged foot is still sore.

  Tomorrow I’m leaving the hospital. I remember how scared I was about coming here, but now I’m afraid to leave.

  Thursday evening

  A few minutes ago, on my way back from the bathroom, I passed Eddie and another soldier-patient talking to a tall, white-bearded man. The man was holding a walking stick with a silver knob shaped like a dragon.

  Dragon Man. Duncan’s drawing come to life. It wasn’t a hallucination, not like some of the patients are having, and it wasn’t a dream. I was awake, so it had to be real.

  Now I’m thinking about Duncan’s drawing and our book. If Dragon Man is real, then Charlotte the Fearless is real. She can’t be afraid. She must do whatever it takes to carry on. She must find Duncan the Brave.

  Later

  Duncan wasn’t at home when the explosion happened, and now I have proof.

  I went for another corridor walk, but this time I went into the wards. I’d just gone into a ward on the second floor when I heard someone call my name.

  It was Carl. His leg was smashed above the ankle and his head was badly cut. He was lifted off his feet by the explosion and landed on a fence.

  He told me that Duncan had come to fetch him just after the Mont-Blanc caught fire. They were on their way to the harbour to watch the burning ship, but had no sooner got to the bottom of Carl’s street when everything blew up.

  That was all he could tell me, but at least I know where Duncan was that morning. It’s a start.

  Everyone in Carl’s family was badly cut but they all survived.

  I’ll miss Helen when I leave the hospital. Today she brought me a sweater she’d outgrown, a flannelette nightgown, and some warm socks and mittens.

  Friday, December 14

  I woke up a couple of hours ago thinking, I can tell Mum and Dad about Duncan, they’ll be so happy. Then it hit me. The hurt was so sharp I couldn’t bear to face anyone, so I pulled the soldier’s greatcoat over my head and pretended to be asleep. Then I went to sleep for real.

  The children’s committe
e ladies have just come by and I gave them a new notice about Duncan. I wrote it last night.

  MISSING — Duncan Blackburn. 12 years, dark hair, blue eyes. Wore brown pants, long black socks and brown tweed coat. Morning of explosion was on or near Campbell at Warden. Notify Information Bureau.

  I remember his clothing because it’s what I wore on Hallowe’en.

  Now it’s time to put on my outside clothes.

  Late afternoon

  I’m at the Chisholms’ house. It was damaged, but it’s outside the area where everything was destroyed.

  There are fourteen of us here. Muriel, her mum, her granny, her three brothers and baby sister, two aunts, one uncle and three little cousins, and we’re living in the four rooms that aren’t too badly damaged. They’ve put tarpaper over the missing windows and a blanket where the front door used to be.

  Right now I’m sitting in a corner out of everybody’s way. It’s cold, and snowing heavily, so everyone’s inside.

  It was good to see Muriel, but it’s strange living in her house. If only our house, if Mum and Dad —

  I have to stop thinking “if only.” It’s hard not to think that way, when every little thing is a reminder, but I have to try.

  Everything I’m wearing used to belong to someone else (except for the long woollen underwear, which is new). Fleece-lined boots, stockings, brown corduroy dress, furry hat, a black sealskin coat that’s warm but too long. I don’t suppose everything came from one girl, but from several. Could we have been friends? Maybe. But maybe they don’t live in Halifax, or even in Nova Scotia. Mrs. Chisholm said that some of these clothes might have come from Boston or Vancouver or Montreal, because people from all over are helping out.

  It felt odd wearing someone else’s clothes until I remembered that Mum was always fixing up Ruth’s hand-me-downs for me to wear. Or Edith’s. But that was different.

  My head feels different with my hair cut off. Even my skin feels different.