Come to Grief

by Wendy M Wilson

  Then she remembered where she was. “Frank?”

  The three men surrounding her eyed each other, waiting for someone else to speak.

  “What happened to my husband? He was on the ship that went down.“

  “I haven’t received a list of fatal…of survivors yet,” said the telegraph operator. “There’s a lot of confusion. No one seems to know anything. Just that…”

  She finished his sentence, her heart heavy. “…a hundred people drowned.”

  “Twenty survived,” said the man she thought was a policeman. “If your husband can swim, he’s probably one of them. All the survivors were men, most of them passengers.”

  “He’s a very good swimmer,” said Mette. She pressed her hand against her mouth and tried not to sob as a memory rose in her mind: she was in the creek that ran beside their property up near Feilding, on a sweltering hot day last summer. They were soaking themselves in the cool waters of the creek, in the pool above the waterfall, when Frank swam from the far side and grabbed her by the foot, without surfacing to take a breath. She had laughed and accused him of showing off. He must be among the survivors.

  “How can I find out?”

  “I’ve had a couple of telegrams,” said the telegraph operator. “But it’s been a different list of names each time. I don’t remember seeing a Hardy on any of the lists. The best way know for certain would be to go there and search for him. “

  She knew he meant search for his body, but brushed the thought aside. Frank was alive and she had to find him. “Go where?”

  “Fortrose.”

  She was about to ask him how she could get to Fortrose, when he added, “There’s a coach to Fortrose leaving within the hour. It’s the last one today and it arrives in Fortrose in the night. It’s not a good coach for a lady, if you don’t have anywhere to stay.”

  She took Sarah Jane from the policeman and struggled to her feet.

  “I want to go there. To Fortrose.”

  “I’ll come with you then,” he said. “I’d like to understand what happened and to see if I can do anything; I’m sure you could do with the assistance.”

  “Weren’t you on your way somewhere?”

  “At times like this, everything stops,” he said. “And one has to do what’s necessary.”

  Before she had a chance to be more worried about Frank, she was in the coach, the policeman sitting across from her. He’d sent a telegram to someone in Dunedin telling them where he was going, and had climbed in to the seat across from her, where she sat with Sarah Jane on her knee, her bags by her feet.

  He made himself comfortable in the centre of the seat. “This won’t last long.”

  “What won’t last long?” Nothing was making sense to her at the moment.

  “No other passengers. By tomorrow the whole world will be heading for Fortrose. Friends and relatives, newspapermen, government officials, men from the shipping company, police…”

  Mette was trying to ignore the dreadful image of Frank’s body sprawled on the beach, so she said the first thing that came into her mind

  “You’re a policeman, aren’t you?”

  He stared at her, his eyebrows raised. “Now what makes you think that?”

  “I’ve known a lot of policemen. And you look like one.”

  She realized she had allowed him to help her because she assumed he was a policeman. But what if she was wrong? Frank would be annoyed if…but she couldn’t think about Frank. He was alive. She refused to imagine her life without him.

  “Well, are you a police constable?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “A private investigator?”

  “You know about private investigators as well, do you?”

  She looked at him closely for the first time. He was young — not much older than she was. Probably twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with a thin face and long nose. He had the kind of face you might not remember and would find hard to describe. Not a constable, she decided. Perhaps someone who worked for a private investigator and followed people for a living. “My husband was once a private investigator.”

  “Was he indeed?” He smiled knowingly.

  Sarah Jane had been behaving herself since they got off the train. But things had gone too far, and she pulled at Mette’s buttons, whining, and wanting to feed. They wouldn’t arrive in Fortrose for another hour and a half, and Sarah Jane wasn’t going to wait that long.

  “I’m sorry Mr….what did you say your name was? I need to feed and change my little one. You can ride up the front with the driver for a while if you wish.”

  “Smith,” he said. “Roderick Smith. Go ahead. I’ve seen women feeding babies before.”

  He watched her closely as she unbuttoned her dress and put Sarah Jane to her breast, seeming surprised when the baby latched on. Had he not expected Sarah Jane to find anything?

  “Is it difficult feeding a baby who isn’t yours?” he asked as she was moving Sarah Jane from one side to the other.

  For a minute she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “Not mine? Of course Sarah Jane is mine.” Her beautiful baby was so much like Frank; she wanted to cry.

  “She doesn’t resemble you at all. You’re so fair, and she’s dark-eyed and olive skinned. I didn’t think that was possible.”

  Mette didn’t answer, but stared out the window as they bumped through the approaching twilight along the rutted, un-metalled road towards Fortrose. She felt like she was in limbo. Where was Frank, and was he still alive?

  They arrived in Fortrose to find a small town in chaos. Dozens of people had arrived already, and a coach was sitting outside a ramshackle hotel while the driver argued with the hotel keeper, standing on his verandah with a coach light in his hand and a blanket over his shoulders. No room at the inn, apparently, not tonight, even for a member of parliament. She didn’t care where she spent the night. She could sleep under a bridge if necessary. She carried Sarah Jane down the steps, and watched as the coachman unloaded her bags.

  “Where should I take these?” he asked. “Have you booked a room at a hotel? There’s nothing available, you know.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I need to get out to the shipwreck. I don’t want to spend the night in Fortrose. I want to keep going. I have to.”

  “Hmmm. You can’t go out there now. It’s getting dark,” he said. “You’ll fall off a cliff.”

  “Where can I stay then?”

  Mr. Smith had come around the coach and was standing behind her. She wished he would go away. The coachman looked from one to another, and she realized he thought they were husband and wife.

  “Why don’t you sleep in my coach? I’m not leaving until mid morning tomorrow. I have a room with a lady friend. I’ll leave the coach down near the jetty overnight. When you’re ready, just slide in and find yourself a place to sleep.”

  Mr. Smith thanked the driver. She was annoyed. Now she would be spending the night in the coach with this man; she wanted to be alone with Sarah Jane so she could cry herself to sleep.

  A dusty, pot-holed road ran beside the ocean, with a few wagons and horses still at work. At one end of the road, a wooden jetty pushed out into the water, with small ships and fishing boats moored on either side. Two more ships sat at anchor in the bay. Above the harbour to the east, a pale sliver of moon surrounded by cloud reflected the pink and orange of the setting sun to the west.

  She left her bags in the coach and walked along the harbour, trying to calm herself. She heard Mr. Smith behind her, which made her walk faster. If only she could get away from him. Her fear for Frank had turned to anger, and she wanted nothing more than to hit someone. If he didn’t go away soon, she would slap him.

  On the jetty, people milled around the goods shed, watching two men carrying a body from a small ship docked at the jetty. Anxious to find out what they were carrying, she ran towards the goods shed clutching Sarah Jane in her arms, pushing past crowds of men.

  She reached the shed as the body ar
rived at the shed; one man held the body — the long body — under the knees, another under the arms. Her throat tightened again.

  “Who is it?” She scrabbled at the corner of the tarpaulin with her free hand, trying to pull it away from the face. She was sure it was Frank.

  “It’s the captain,” said the man who had the body by the shoulders. “Captain Garrard. We found him at the far end of the beach on the other side of the point, north of where the boat went down. His body was brought in by the high tide and left there. His legs were entangled in kelp, which would have hampered his efforts to save himself.”

  “Lying in the shallows, his arms stretched out like he was still swimming,” said the man holding the lower end. They carried the body into the shed, and Mette and Smith followed them as they laid it on the floor at the end a row of other shrouded bodies. She could not see anyone else tall in the row, but there were several very small shapes; she hugged Sarah Jane and turned away. It was unimaginable.

  “Poor sod would have made it, if not for the kelp,” said the first man, shaking his head.

  “I heard he was a first class swimmer,” said the second man. “And he’d been shipwrecked before, so they say, on an island in the Bay of Fundy in the middle of winter. He made his way up an icy cliff and through the snowdrifts to a fisherman’s cottage and saved…”

  Although she was not used to being rude to men, Mette could stand it no longer. “Please…I’m trying to find my husband. He was on the ship.”

  “Name?”

  “Hardy. Sergeant Frank Hardy.”

  The men exchanged glances and shrugged.

  “Haven’t heard that name. What does he look like?”

  “Tall, dark eyes and hair…”

  “They found the body of a tall dark man on the beach near the wreck,” said one. “Came in holding on to a plank. The settlers tried to pull him in but couldn’t. The sea kept taking him back out. When they finally got him in, it was too late. He died on the beach without telling them his name.”

  Mette turned to Mr. Smith, who had followed her and was watching her closely. He suddenly seemed more necessary. Her throat was tightening again, and she found it hard to speak above a whisper.

  “I have to go there, to the beach. Tonight. I can’t wait until morning. Will you come with me?”

  “It’s a good ten-mile walk, miss,” said one of the men. “And terrible in the dark. You’d be walking along a stony beach most of the time, although the lagoon on this side of the point is smooth when the tide’s out. I think they might have taken that particular body to Otara Station. Mr. Brunton comes in to town every day with his wagon, bringing in food for the workers. The next time he comes in you could ask him if he’s seen the…your husband, or you could go with him to look for yourself.”

  A third man had come through the door, and interjected. “Mr. Brunton is bringing in coffins now. We’re burying the bodies out near the point, in a special graveyard. They’re calling it Tararua Acre. I’m getting a team together to dig the graves.”

  That was worse. She might walk all the way to the beach near the wreck and find nothing but unmarked graves. She might never know what happened to him.

  “Is there someone who could take us out there in a wagon, first thing in the morning?” asked Smith.

  “I’ll be loading the bodies tonight and taking them out tomorrow at sunrise,” said the man. “Help me get a few of these bodies on the wagon and I’ll take you with me. There won’t be much room, but enough for the two of you. Who did you lose?”

  “My husband,” said Mette. “At least, I hope he isn’t lost. But I need to be sure.”

  The man nodded. “I understand. The shipping office will have a list of who died in due course. But you’ll want to know as soon as you can.”

  “Does anyone have list of passengers?” asked Smith.

  The man pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “I got this passenger manifest from the shipping office in the Bluff. When I hear about a body or someone being saved I make a mark beside the name on the list.”

  Smith scanned the manifest and looked sideways at Mette. “There’s no Hardy here. Was he travelling under a false name?“

  She took the manifest from him. He was right. Frank’s name was not there. She returned it, puzzled. “But he was on the ship. We both were. I disembarked in Port Chalmers and went into Dunedin for the night, because I had a manuscript to pick up. I stayed with Mrs. Bentley on Moray Place. Then I took the train…I was on my way to Bluff…”

  He looked at the list again. “Are you sure he didn’t disembark in Dunedin? This passenger manifest is for passengers who were still on board when the ship left Dunedin.”

  “He took me to the train and went back to the ship.”

  “You saw him boarding? Actually on the gang plank?”

  Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen him after he left her. Perhaps he’d followed someone. But she didn’t want to say that to Mr. Smith, who did not seem to believe that Frank even existed. “He went back on board. He had something important he had to do.”

  After an uncomfortable night in the coach, pretending she was alone and not sleeping at all, Mette was up as soon as she caught the faintest pink streak in the eastern sky. Mr. Smith, who had sat with his arms crossed in the corner of the coach, snoring, woke up as soon as she moved. He yawned. “Best get to that wagon,” he said. “You stay here and I’ll help load the bodies.”

  The wagon left Fortrose as soon as the sun broke above the horizon, with Mette and Mr. Smith squashed up on the front seat with the driver. Behind them, five bodies were piled up like logs. She tried to keep her eyes on the road in front of them, concentrating on Sarah Jane, but could not avoid the smell emanating from the back of the wagon. She had her small bag with her, and had left the heavy one at the post office, saying she would send for it when she could. The ridiculous manuscript had made things more difficult for her.

  As they left town, they passed another wagon entering Fortrose.

  The driver raised his whip in salute. “There’s Mr. Brunton, bringing in coffins. And some more searchers, I hope.”

  Mette had been hugging Sarah Jane, resting her head on the baby’s head for comfort, finally letting the tears flow. She glanced up. The wagon had moved past them quickly, but for a wonderful minute she thought she saw Frank. The man was facing away from her. She stared back as the wagon receded. It could be Frank, but she was overcome with the knowledge that she would see him everywhere, for the rest of her life. The man had his head down, gazing at a child he held in his arms. Not Frank then, but a grieving father who had lost some of his family, coming to Fortrose to search for a survivor or a body, as she herself had done.

  An hour later, they arrived at the new graveyard near the site of the wreck. Ominous cliffs rose in the distance, shrouded by low-lying clouds, and a cold wind was coming in off the ocean. Closer, the cliffs turned into sand hills fronted by a beach covered in debris from the shipwreck. Teams of men were working in a grassy paddock, digging one grave after another to accommodate the neat rows of bodies nearby.

  While the driver and Mr. Smith carried the bodies from the wagon and laid them with the others, Mette went along the row of bodies and looked for Frank. Only one was tall enough to be him, and she tugged back the tarpaulin. A tall, dark-haired man, but not Frank.

  “That one came ashore yesterday,” said one of the diggers. “He was alive and holding on to a board, and the settlers tried to help him. He died on the beach after they got him in.”

  “Have you seen another tall, dark man?”

  The grave digger shook his head. “Not me, no. But there are people on the beach who’ve been here a lot of the time, like Mrs. Brunton from Otara Station. I saw her arrive a few minutes ago. Look for her by the fire.”

  Without stopping to tell Mr. Smith where she was going, Mette dragged herself and Sarah Jane over the sand hills to the beach. She could see a group of people gathered around the fire. A
stream of searchers were coming and going, carrying things they’d found on the shore. As far as she could see, items from the ship littered the beach: doors, ladders, clothing and suitcases. One man held two mail bags, another a small wooden chest.

  An older woman seemed to be in charge, directing the searchers and handing out food. Mette went up to her and asked abruptly, “I’m looking for my husband. Have you seen a tall, dark man…”

  “Sergeant Hardy, you mean?”

  Mette almost dropped Sarah Jane on the sand, but managed to catch her before she hit the ground. “You’ve seen him? His body?”

  “Not his body, my dear,” said the woman, smiling. “Sergeant Hardy himself. He spent last night at our station and went into Fortrose with my husband in the wagon this morning. I’m Mrs. Brunton.”

  Mette was overcome with joy. Frank was alive. Now all she had to do was get to him. She would go back to Fortrose and everything would return to normal.

  She turned, wondering what had happened to Mr. Smith.

  Mr. Smith was with an older man sporting a thin moustache, obviously a senior police officer. They walked over, Mr. Smith talking and gesturing, the other man frowning and nodding.

  Mrs. Brunton stroked Sarah Jane’s head. “He’ll be pleased to see you both, my dear. He’s been carrying the baby around, and he…”

  “The baby?” said Mette. “Whose baby?”

  “Whose baby?” Mr. Smith repeated. “You see Tuohy? She doesn’t even know whose baby it is.”

  No, no. You misunderstood. I didn’t mean this baby. I meant the baby with my husband.”

  Mrs. Brunton stepped in to defend Mette. “I’m Mrs. Brunton from Otara Station,” she said briskly. “And I don’t have a clue whose baby it is, but her husband saved its life.”

  The man with Roderick Smith glanced at him and said in voice that sounded much too deferential for Mette, “What would you like me to do, sir?”