“My neighbor’s boy keeps calling it the night of doom and he’s not far off. After all that, I’m not waiting in line,” she insisted. She looked around, picked up a pebble, and threw it at the window. “They got another thing coming,” she added.
She told Will also that she was now very thirsty and suffered severe blisters on her feet, as well. Hattie then motioned toward three men on the other side of the window, the thick glass of which was shattered in place in a spider-web pattern. She pointed inside, insisting these important men were certainly considering her immediate needs which, she told Will again, included her unwillingness to wait in line. Will craned his neck to see and told her she must surely be right.
She was, in fact, correct in the most general sense. Clara Barton of the National Red Cross had sent her nephew, Stephen, to Galveston earlier in the week as soon as word of the storm had reached Washington D.C. As Hattie had roughly surmised, Stephen Barton was working on all she required on the other side of the glass. Appearing calm—as was his nature—giving instruction with clarity—as was his habit—he was in the midst of explaining to two of the mayor’s aides the systematic methods the Red Cross had followed over the last quarter century when faced with disasters such as this. What Barton revealed to no one but his aunt, was that in his experience, nor even likely hers, there had never been a disaster such as this. Often, the first report of such a catastrophe was exaggerated. This one was not.
“The most immediate problem,” he explained to the mayor’s twin aides, “is lack of sanitation. The bodies. That’s first. Then water, food, then clothing, then housing. The family is the primary unit of treatment.”
Hattie and Will watched outside as two of the men scribbled furiously and the other continued to talk.
“Supplies,” he said, setting out the Red Cross’s philosophy of necessity, “are rationed according to need—not loss.” The mayor’s aides would brief the Central Committee on these lessons in an hour. “It’s not tomorrow that we must act, gentlemen, but today.”
Holding a fountain pen tightly, Barton spoke with the sort of conviction that pushes plans spoken into the air inside toward fruition and reality outside. “My aunt has assured me more supplies will come, but disposition of what we have today must be made to accomplish the greatest degree of immediate relief. Think in terms of today, boys, not tomorrow,” Barton continued.
He explained that the Red Cross aimed to merge its operations into the existing local relief structure as it emerged, so that soon the Central Committee would be relieved of such immediate needs and could focus on rebuilding.
“Tell the mayor his committee should transfer authority to the Red Cross for the entire work of distribution of food over the next week. Clothing, supplies, let us handle all of it. You must begin to think in terms of reconstruction. You must speak of reconstruction, of restoration as soon as possible or people will leave hopeless. They won’t return.”
Will and Hattie were impressed by how this man continued to emphasize his points with vigor using his fountain pen, stabbing it into the air with evident purpose.
“As needs are met and people learn of plans to rebuild, they’ll see they have a future here. This is imperative.”
Stephen Barton had struck quickly, as his aunt had urged in her initial instructions before he left Washington. She had reinforced this same message to him by telegraph again just the day before. Lines of authority, she told him, must be established immediately while good will was at its highest level. Over the last few years, especially since the great Jonestown flood eleven years before, Stephen had seen in the aftermath of these disasters that if a hierarchy of command could be established before his aunt arrived, miracles of efficiency ensued when she did. With the application of her actual presence and her personality, the logistical issues and logjams that invariably arose in every relief effort were easier to solve. With an organization in place, through her sheer will to move people and get things done, recovery advanced with remarkable swiftness. Aunt Clara, who turned seventy-eight on Christmas Day of last year, had in fact arrived this morning, but was now recuperating from her grueling travels across the way at the Tremont. She suffered from a case of what she colloquially called, the gripe. Stephen told the men she would be ready to meet the mayor and the committee in the morning, assuming the gripe subsided.
While Aunt Clara’s health was a concern, her moral authority was augmented, not decreased due to her age and infirmity. Stephen knew her command was irresistible, her expertise unassailable. Wherever she went she was, to put it simply, obeyed. He had seen time and time again in these situations, local men—strong and independent leaders—profess that they had no intention of being ordered about in their own city by an aged nurse. As soon as she arrived, though, they always quickly fell into line. Even nearing eighty, his aunt was a force of nature. A legend. Likewise, he had seen that wherever she went, her demeanor came as a revelation to local women. As they began to administer the relief stations, the men moved on to physically rebuilding. The women in these circumstances rapidly concluded that they were superior to the men in administering the government. In this way, it was invariably the case that after the Red Cross left a city or a region, a different and favorable dynamic took hold, one of a distinctly feminine bent.
As the mayor’s two aides left the company of Stephen Barton inside the building, outside, Hattie, placated for the moment, told Will that the blisters on her feet already felt much better.
63
A MAN CROSSES the Street
Leaving Hattie and her miraculously healing blisters, Will, concluding it impossible to get in, moved back through the crowd against the grain. Across the block, a man, square-jawed and with a long, regal neck and bright, round eyes, crossed the street. He tried to don his iron-colored dress coat as he walked, but his shoulder was uncooperative.
“Can I help you with that?” Will asked, helping him with his jacket so that he could negotiate his arm through the sleeve. The man winced in pain.
“Much obliged, son,” he said. He shook his shoulders and his coat settled. The man looked even more distinguished now that he was fully dressed. “You alright? You look vexed,” he said to Will.
“The mayor’s meeting back there with his committee,” Will replied. “But no one can get in. Certainly not people like me and Hattie.”
“What do you need, son?”
“I just need to tell them something.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m from St. Mary’s,” Will said in a unity of bitterness and pride. “The orphanage was carried out to sea and sank down to the deep. Into the hoary depths,” he added. “All were drowned except me and Frank and Albert.” The man’s bearing changed. His eyes were a sermon of solemn sympathy. This humbled Will, mid-explanation. “So, there’s no orphanage, but we’re going to need a new one, though Duell says there’s not as many children as there were before.”
“I’m afraid that’s true.”
“But I met two new ones right off, Althea and then Sam. Not to mention me and Albert. And they ought to know all that. But they’re too busy dropping the bodies in the blamed ocean. It’s sacrilegious,” Will said piously to the stranger having resolved the tension he felt earlier which pitted necessity against his soul. “No one cares,” he concluded.
“It’s difficult. Impossible really, but there may be no alternative,” the man said.
“Only the St. Mary’s sisters care, but most of them are dead now.”
“The committee’s meeting with Clara Barton tomorrow. She cares. Orphans are practically her whole business. She arrived this morning.”
“She’s too old and sick to do much I heard tell.”
The stranger bent down on one knee and shook his head, animating his features with considerable empathy. “Miss Barton can do more than all of us combined. The whole country will care when they know she’s here. She’ll tour th
e city. She’ll make arrangements for those like you. She’ll make pleas in her own pen. Carnegie and Standard Oil. Hearst too. They’re all sending money already. She’s staying at the Tremont. She’s there now.”
Will, unconvinced, turned back to the condensing crowd gathered closely around the building. His eyes landed on a distinguished gentleman in a top hat at the top of the steps near the entrance. “Who’s that?”
“Sealy,” the stranger said.
“The hospital fellow?” Will asked.
“Yes. Well, his son actually. The hospital is named for his father, but this building is his. He’s donated it for use by the Red Cross. A good man.”
“How about the short man on the big white horse? How’s he getting in?”
“Ben Levy. He’s an alderman. That is a big horse.”
“The undertaker? He’s the one who wanted to sink all the bodies with rocks or chains. I don’t know which. Now he wants to burn them all.”
“He doesn’t want to,” the man said, pulling at his starched cuffs. “Levy’s in charge of all this, not by choice, I assure you. He’s doing what he must.” The man seemed utterly self-possessed, humble, yet so effortlessly sure about everything around him.
“It’s unholy,” Will argued vaguely. “Whose ward are you in?”
The man looked at Will squarely. “I guess I’m in Kempner’s.”
The Central Committee had formed the city into twelve wards and empowered a single administrator over each.
“Kempner’s,” Will said looking down and shaking his head. “Bad luck. Me too.” Will had heard that although Kempner’s ward was ordered more meticulously than the others, Kempner himself was staying behind the scenes at the customs house, his headquarters, issuing orders. “Nobody’s even seen him for a while,” Will said.
“Perhaps, he’s been too busy to get out,” the man said. “Perhaps, he’s been assembling a team to multiply his work.”
“Sounds like he wants everything to be his own way.”
“Well,” the man allowed, “people say he can be stubborn.”
Will recalled Sister Elizabeth once saying Mr. Kempner cared little for how he was viewed by the citizenry, but rather simply did things the way he felt he ought.
“Bull-headed’s what I heard.”
“That’s what his own wife says,” the man replied.
“Figures. Do you know him?” Will asked, gratified that he had stumbled upon someone with whom he could speak with such cordial frankness.
“Do I know him?” the stranger asked.
Will, not waiting for his response, continued. “I’ve heard he’s spoken warmly about martial law in these committee meetings,” Will rushed on. “About seizing the food in his ward.”
“I’m sure he’ll see that everyone gets paid a fair price. There are the wholesale grocers, the flour mills and the dairies.”
Will mocked the man’s evident naivety. “Expect he’s denying food unless you do exactly what he says. I’ve heard his ward’s soldiers are guarding all the food so no one can get any.”
The man responded with the same manner of peace that characterized all he had said so far. “In cases of unconstrained talk,” he said, “ignoble themes endure even when unconfirmed. Has anyone you know been denied food?”
“No, but I’ve got food from the sisters, so I’m fine. I’m just worried about everyone else, like poor Hattie. The hospital’s full up with the infirm and sorrowed.”
“No able-bodied man is given anything unless he volunteers to work. That’s the policy. We need everyone to help clear the ward.”
Perhaps the man had a point, but Will thought this notion stretched the meaning of volunteer pretty thin.
“He may be less fair than others,” the man continued. “But it’s a difficult ward. Most of the telephone and telegraph poles are down. The wires are down everywhere. The bridge is down. There’re big ships marooned in the shallows. The elevators in the warehouses are unfit. The electric plant, the cotton factory, both collapsed. You say you’re from St. Mary’s?”
“Yes, sir. My name’s Will.”
“You’ve got shelter at the hospital, Will?” the man asked, taking a black notebook and a pencil from his jacket. He grimaced again with the movement, then began to flip through the notebook slowly. Page after page was filled. In flashes, Will read some of the words in the man’s fine handwriting as he flipped the pages.
Order by dray load: flour, coffee, potatoes. Feed from central point.
He turned the pages and Will read a few more lines.
128 unknown female: soiled pink dress, approx. twelve years old.
He turned a few more pages.
456 unknown male: approx. 35 years; old pocket knife engraved AJ.
A few more pages.
617 unknown female: approx. 60, blue shoe.
The pages went on and on.
789 unknown woman: approx. twenty-five; body scarcely marked in any way; gray wool socks.
The man finally found a blank sheet and wrote something on it. Tearing it out, he folded it in half with precision and gave it to Will.
“Yes, I’ve got a roof over my head,” Will said, accepting the note.
The man returned the black book to his pocket with another sharp, painful expression.
“Will, do this for me. Speak to the sisters tomorrow. Make a list of what’s needed and come Friday. Arrive at the customs house at ten in the morning. Give them your list. I’m sure it can be provided directly.”
“How will I even get in? The lines.”
“Just walk in the front door,” he said. “A lot of people need help. You’ll have to be a little patient. Show them your note. They’ll let you through.”
Will concluded this stranger, like the contractor, was suffering from some sort of delusion common to those in the aftermath of catastrophe, sending folks all over town to different wards, promising implausible solutions to intractable problems.
“Just walk in the front door?” Will questioned. “They’ll just let me in?”
“They will if they’re following instructions. Customs house. Friday. Ten. Ask for the ward chair.”
“Right,” Will said. “How do you address a ward chairman anyway?”
“Most people call him Ike. That’s his name.”
As the man headed toward the building, Will unfolded and looked at the note. In a penmanship which Will associated with being invited to a fancy ball at the Garten Verein it said: Attn: Miss Sara Wright/for St. Mary’s Hosp. Fri., 10 a.m.
64
THE OLD WOMAN AT THE TREMONT
Upon leaving the Red Cross Building and the earnest stranger, Will walked to the Tremont just a few blocks away to see if his shoeshine kit, the vocational tool of his primary source of income, had survived. The staff at the Tremont welcomed Will like the prodigal son or some other character making the most unlikely, but joyful of returns. After a series of warm embraces and the exchange of stories, Will asked the bell captain, Felix, about his shoeshine kit. Felix pointed him up to the second floor and Will bounded up the muddy stairs to the doors of the hotel’s exquisite public parlor, the most likely storage place. He knocked, then waited, then nudged opened the double doors.
An old woman dressed severely in black sat erect at a writing desk near the corner window. A delicate white bib formed into a high collar about her neck. She held a delicate white handkerchief which matched the cuffs of her blouse. Her dark gray hair, parted severely in the middle and pulled back tightly, formed a stern bun in the back. Her face was wide, her brow furrowed, a deep crease between her light eyebrows. Fifty years ago, she had probably been quite attractive.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Will said, so as not to alarm her. She turned toward him calmly, her pen poised above the inkwell on the desk. He saw she was not one who startled easily, probably not at all. Her eyes
were a clear, delicate, sea blue. Will was caught up in them at once.
“Go back to Washington?” she huffed to the room more than to Will. She put the pen down on the desk with a sharp clack. “Nonsense. God forbid.”
Will looked behind him for the person she was addressing.
“Are you under par, ma’am?”
“A case of the gripe,” she said, her voice purely American. “Nothing more.”
“Sister Elizabeth used to give us dill licorice for the gripe,” Will said.
“I saw you yonder through the window by the Red Cross just now, didn’t I?”
“Yes, ma’am. I was trying to tell them. Our orphanage was carried out to sea and sunk. As I just told that man out there, it sunk deep into the hoary depths. We need to start another one up directly for Sam and Althea, not to mention me and Albert. Frank said we ought to start to collect one another.”
“You’re an orphan? Come to me, young man.”
Her presence dictated obedience. “Yes, ma’am,” Will said, looking through the large patched up window with her. “I’d been an orphan for some time before the cyclone. Now I’m one even more.” He moved his eyes across the city. “It looks even worse with some elevation.”
“It defies exaggeration. Do you have shelter?”
“You should look south. It’s even worse. No one’s exaggerating. I’m staying at the hospital. The St. Mary’s one. I’m not contagious. I know the sisters. I’m staying just off the nervous wing with a boy named Caulk, who I mentioned before.”
“Yes, well,” she said. “I need to look south tomorrow.”
She picked up the pen again, looking back out over the ruins. The ivory-colored sheets of the Strand’s market billowed slowly below, surely bringing to mind a score of surrender flags from her distant past.
The Mourning Wave Page 16
