I was exhausted but I fought sleep, terrified I might wake up in a worse nightmare than the one I was in. Instead, I scrutinized the faces of the injured for anyone I knew. Soldiers in khaki went by with boards and sheets to cover broken windows, while nurses in crisp white aprons floated like ghosts up and down the gloomy hall.
“I want my grandmother,” Catherine suddenly announced.
“We could look around for her,” Patrick suggested. “Mama and Dad might be here, too. And Granny and Grandpa.”
It was too much effort to get up. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep.
“Your father and Fred might be here.” My eyes flew open. He was right. I still didn’t know what had happened to Da and Fred or Mary. And where had Winnie and Ernest been taken? And what about Aunt Ida and Uncle James? Only yesterday Aunt Ida had told me I had such a large family it would take some doing to make me an orphan. I had to find out who had survived. I didn’t want to be an orphan. I scrambled to my feet and started down the hall.
We stepped over people and peered into faces. Between the gloom of boarded windows and the black and battered faces, it was difficult to make out features—but not to make out the terrible injuries. I shrank from them at first, then made myself look. One of these people could be family.
Desperate, I searched inside myself for a prayer. Our Father. . . . But I could go no further. I felt nothing: no presence, no peace. He had left me, too. Well, I thought as I stared into yet another man’s broken face, who needs You? Look what You’ve done.
But had He done this? Again, I had the suspicion of a secret hidden deep inside me. A horrible secret. One that threatened to come to the surface. One that could destroy me if released. Let me out. As before, I forced it down.
We went up a staircase to the second floor. Here, people lay unmoving in long rows of beds and mattresses crammed into every corner of a large room. The stench made Catherine gag. We stopped, none of us willing to go any farther.
“Are they dead?” Patrick asked.
“They’re sleeping.” A solidly built nurse came up behind us. She circled in front and blocked our view of the ward. “They’ve had surgery. You shouldn’t be up here.”
“My brother and sister. The nurse out front, she said they needed surgery. Are they here? Their names are Winnie and Ernest Dunlea.” I tried to peer around her, but she stood her ground.
“I don’t know most of these people’s names and I don’t have time to find out,” the nurse said. “You need to go back downstairs.” She herded us toward the staircase. “Wait.” She gently lifted the doll blanket from my arm. Blood dripped from my fingertips. Seeing it made me suddenly woozy. “That needs looking after.”
She pushed me back toward the ward. The floor tilted crazily. I leaned against the wall as beds whirled about me.
“What about you two?” she said to Patrick and Catherine. She examined Patrick’s head. “That needs stitching, too, but not as badly as that girl’s arm.” She felt Catherine’s head. “You’re not too bad off. That cut just needs a dressing. You two go back downstairs.”
“No!” Catherine shrieked. “I’m with her.” She began to cry. “I have to stay with Rose.” She darted past the nurse, grabbed my skirt and began to wail. I slid down the wall, sweat pouring off me. Catherine’s voice echoed in my head.
“Stop that dreadful noise. You’ll wake these people,” the nurse scolded. “Very well. You can stay, but keep out of the way.”
“I have to stay, too. I’m Rose’s cousin,” Patrick said. “I’m responsible for her.”
I felt my dander go up at that. He wasn’t responsible for me. Patrick didn’t even like me. I wanted to tell the nurse that, but tiny black dots crowded my eyes. I shook my head to clear my vision. In a bed halfway down the ward was a face I knew. I had to reach it. I staggered to my feet, but the black dots floated together and a roar filled my ears.
I woke to find myself bundled in a cot with Catherine beside me. A soldier’s greatcoat lay over us as a blanket. My arm burned. I probed it with my fingers and felt a bulky bandage. I had a dim memory of a man dressed in white bent over me, and a nurse holding my arm as a needle slipped in and out. I felt slightly ill remembering.
The black of the hospital ward was broken by sporadically spaced lamps. I could see a denser black through a gap where the blanket over the window beside me didn’t quite reach the sill. Night had obviously fallen while I slept, though I had no idea how much time had passed.
Two women stood like shadows at the end of my bed. They weren’t nurses, as they were dressed in street clothes rather than white uniforms. One was slight—Mary’s build. I struggled to sit up, but when the woman spoke her voice wasn’t Mary’s, so I lay back down and listened.
“I came to help out as soon as I heard,” she said. A liquid, south Halifax voice. “These poor, poor people.”
“The hospitals can’t take any more. I heard they are sending some of the injured away to Truro and anywhere else that can take them in to be nursed,” said the second woman. Her voice was older, more practical and definitely Richmond.
“How will these people ever get back on their feet?” said the first one. “Some of the things I’ve seen today, I never thought to see in all my life. One of the soldiers told me it was worse than anything he’d experienced in the war. And the children. So many of them left alone in the world.”
“They’ll manage. They’ll have to,” replied the first one, brusquely.
A powder of snow drifted through the gap. The older woman ran over and tucked the blanket securely around the window frame. She turned and caught me watching.
“You’re awake,” she whispered. “Do you need something for pain? I can get a nurse.”
“No,” I croaked. My tongue felt furry.
“A little water, then.” The woman hurried off, and returned shortly with a glass of water, which she held to my lips.
“Your sister is very devoted to you.” She smiled at the sleeping Catherine. “She insisted on staying with you the entire time the doctor fixed your arm.”
I opened my mouth to tell her Catherine wasn’t my sister. In fact, I wanted to tell the woman that Catherine made my life a daily misery, but a glance at the girl beside me held my tongue. What did it matter if they thought her my sister? Catherine didn’t have anyone, and I hated to admit it, but neither did I. I raised my head and glanced around the ward. Was this the same one I’d fainted in? If so, I had to find that familiar face. I started to swing my legs over the bed, but the woman pushed them back beneath the greatcoat.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Doctor said you were to stay right here tonight.”
“But . . .” I protested. “I have to find . . .” I sank weakly back into the bed, too exhausted to speak. I’d search in the morning, I promised myself as sleep closed my eyes. I’d find him then.
Chapter 13
When next I opened my eyes, watery light filtered between the blanket and the window frame. Outside held the hushed feel of a snowfall—the snow Grandpa had predicted for Ernest and his sled.
Patrick materialized at the end of my bed, a bandage wrapped around his head. Enough of the black had been washed from his face to show purple half-moons beneath his eyes.
“They’re sending the children to live with people away from Halifax,” he said.
I sat upright, jolted my arm and grimaced at the pain. I put it out of my mind. I had more important things to think about right now. If I was sent away, I’d never find Da or Fred, and no one would be able to find me. I was the only one who knew where I was. Suddenly, I craned my neck to see up and down the hospital ward.
“Patrick, is this the same room I fainted in?” I asked urgently. I kept my voice low so as not to wake the people who slept.
“What?”
“Is this the same hospital room I fainted in yesterday?”
“I—I guess so.” Patrick shrugged. “They all look the same to me.”
“I saw Bertie here yesterday.”
“Bertie?”
“I saw Bertie. In a bed. Halfway down the room,” I insisted. I swung my legs over the side of the cot. My head swam momentarily, then cleared. I looked down to see myself fully dressed. The only things missing were my boots. I bent and saw them tucked under the bed. I pulled them on and quickly laced them up. It hurt to move my arm that much—hurt enough that the black dots crowded into my eyes again, but I blinked them away. No time to faint, I told myself. I took deep breaths to ward off waves of sickness.
“We have to go if we don’t want to be sent away,” I said.
“What about her?” Patrick pointed at Catherine.
I debated leaving her alone in the hospital bed. I’d be free of her, but strangely, I felt reluctant to do so.
“She can come with us,” I said. I poked Catherine’s arm. Sleepily, she pushed me away, so I prodded her harder.
“Why are you bringing her?” Patrick asked.
“She hasn’t anyone else,” I told him.
“What about her grandmother?”
“Get up!” I whispered in Catherine’s ear.
Her eyes flew open and stared at me, confused.
“The children are being sent away to stay with families outside Halifax. You can go with them if you want, but Patrick and I are leaving the hospital right now,” I explained hurriedly. “You can come with us if you like.” I realized it almost sounded like a plea. Two days ago, I would have been pleased to see the back side of Catherine, but now I wanted her to say she’d come.
Catherine felt around in the bed and pulled out her doll. Obviously she felt the same.
“Bring that soldier’s coat,” I whispered. “It’s cold out and we’ll need it.”
Catherine wrapped the greatcoat around herself and the doll. Patrick headed for the door of the ward.
“Wait,” I whispered. “I know I saw Bertie yesterday.”
“He couldn’t be here. Ernest said he was in the house near the stove. Duncan said he . . .” Patrick hesitated.
“I know what I saw,” I said stubbornly. I turned away and walked down the room. People lay, some two to a bed as Catherine and I had been, others on the floor between, wrapped in blankets and coats. I carefully peered at each face.
“He’s not here,” Patrick said impatiently.
Desperate, I continued my search. “I know I saw him.”
People stirred. Soon nurses would swarm in with bedpans and thermometers. I had to hurry. Then I was at the end of the room—and no Bertie. “Maybe it’s the wrong floor,” I said.
“He’s dead, Rose.”
I whirled on Patrick. “Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that. I won’t believe it until I see his body. This is the wrong floor. We’ll have to check the others.”
I stalked up the ward, then abruptly stopped. Another face, not as familiar, but still one I recognized. I turned back, and a man’s feverish eyes watched me approach.
“I remember you from the dock, girl,” he said. “Bringing your brother’s lunch, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. That’s where I’d seen him before. He worked with Da.
“One of Michael Dunlea’s brood, right?”
I nodded again. I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut. If I asked the question then I’d know the answer, and I’d never not know it again.
Somehow, I found the courage. Did you see my Da? I mouthed the words, unable to speak them aloud.
“What’s that?” The man shifted restlessly in the bed.
I licked my dry lips. “Did you see my Da? Or Fred? My brother, Fred Dunlea?” I didn’t need to tell the man when I meant.
He shook his head. “I was behind a boxcar. It shielded me from the blast somewhat, though I still lost this—” He gestured down at the bed, and I saw the sheets flat where his left leg should have been.
“Last I saw, your dad and brother were stacking supplies on the dock. The one nearest the burning ships. They couldn’t have lived through that explosion, girl. I’m sorry.”
“But you’re alive,” I protested. “Maybe . . .”
The man pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“But maybe . . .”
He looked away from me.
No! I don’t know if I screamed aloud or not, though the word vibrated resoundingly inside my head. No! Not Da. Not Fred. I felt myself pulled down a dark tunnel, around twists and turns, toward an even greater black. There’s comfort here, it promised. The cries, the wails, the broken bodies, the pain in your heart, they’re not here. You can stay forever in this dark place—no thoughts to torture you, no grief to tear you apart.
Fingers wrapped around my upper arm and white hot pain shot through me. Patrick immediately dropped his hand from my elbow.
“Sorry,” he muttered quickly. “I forgot about your cut.”
I dashed tears from my eyes and rounded on him, ready to lash out—but stopped. He’d brought me back from that dark place.
With Catherine following, we walked quickly toward the door of the ward. As we reached it, a nurse in a starched white uniform covered by a navy wool cape stopped us. “Where do you children think you’re going?” she asked.
“We’re going to find our families,” I told her.
“There’s a blizzard starting. Outside is no place for you now.” She began to herd us back into the room.
“No.” It was difficult to stand up to her. I could hear Mam’s voice in my ear telling me to be polite to my elders, but this was one time I would disobey her. “We’re going to find our families,” I repeated to the nurse, my voice shaking. “We’re the only ones left who can.”
“Some people have offered their homes to children like you who are left alone. Only until your families are located and come for you,” the nurse said.
“But what if they never come?” I asked.
She stared at me for several moments. “Well, you can’t go out like that.”
I planted my feet firmly, ready to do battle.
The nurse undid a clasp at her neck and took off the cape. She wrapped it around me. “That will keep you warm,” she said, briskly.
“I’ll return it,” I promised.
She nodded. She picked up a couple of towels from a tray and tied them around my head and Catherine’s to cover our ears. “Don’t want to add frostbite to all your problems.”
“My brother Ernest and my sister Winnie were brought here,” I said. “Do you know where they are?”
The nurse shook her head. “So many people have been brought in. There’s a list being compiled downstairs of everyone in the hospital, though it’ll take a while to draw up. You might want to check. Also, downstairs they are handing out cups of hot soup. You each have one before you go out—you hear?”
We nodded.
“There was a little boy yesterday . . . four years old . . . in a bed halfway down . . . red hair,” I said haltingly. Had I wanted to find Bertie so bad that my mind had made him up?
“I don’t know, dear. So many—” A second nurse called to her and she made to move away. “I must go. You children take care.” She turned back. “I hope you find them, and God bless.”
I didn’t want God’s blessing. I was angry that He had let this horrible thing happen to us. But mostly I was scared. Scared that if I asked Him why, this time He might answer. And my secret would get out.
Before we went downstairs, I led Patrick and Catherine on a grim tour of the rest of the hospital. Tucked in a bed in a corner of a ward, we found Ernest, eyes bandaged.
“Ernest.” I put a hand on his leg and shook it, but he didn’t stir.
“Been like that all night, poor tyke. Never saw him move once.” A woman in the bed next to him propped herself on her elbows to speak. “You family?”
I nodded.
“Lost an eye, I heard.”
Stunned, I stared at her in disbelief, then turned and started to leave.
“Is there a message for him?” the woman called after me.
I sto
pped. “Tell him—” My mind reeled. What was there to say? I shook my head and left. I continued my search, but could not find Winnie or Bertie. I saw a couple of girls from school, and three women from our church, but no one else from our family, nor Catherine’s grandmother.
We went downstairs to the main floor. Confusion still reigned, but it had an ordered air about it this time. People milled about a desk. I pushed through and saw two women with a sheaf of papers in front of them. One wrote frantically, while the other leafed through the pages.
A man elbowed me aside, enveloping me in the sour smell of wet wool. Snow melted in his hair. “Is my wife here? My children? Katherine Black? Anyone by the name Black?” he asked.
The woman ran a finger down a page, flipped it over and continued her search on a second one. “I have no one named Black.”
“They must be here,” he insisted. “I’ve been to the other hospitals. This is the only one left.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The army has set up a tent city on the Common. There were people there overnight. Plus, many people took shelter in private homes. There’s also a temporary morgue set up in Chebucto Road School. You could try there.”
My mouth dropped open at her mention of the morgue. She had as good as told this man that his family might be dead. Then I saw the distress in the woman’s eyes and realized she had only done what she had to do.
The man’s shoulders slumped and he stumbled back through the crowd. I squeezed into the space left.
“Dunlea?” I asked. “Anyone named Dunlea? D‒U‒N‒L‒A‒E.”
“That’s not how you spell it,” Patrick snapped. “Don’t you even know how to spell your own name!” He turned to the woman. “Don’t mind her, she’s slow. D‒U‒N‒L‒E‒A. And my parents are named Murphy. M‒U‒R‒P‒H‒Y.”
The woman went quickly down her list. “There’s no one here by that name. But there are a lot of people in the hospital whose names we don’t know. They haven’t been able to tell us, or they’ve been in surgery and are unconscious still.”
“Rose?”
I turned to see Sister Therese smiling shakily at me. Dried blood stained the front of her habit and a bandage was wrapped around her forehead, its white melting into that of her wimple.
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