by Charles Egan
I note that you say that I must wait until you have a fixed address before I leave, but how long will that be my love? My plan would have been to leave in April, a month after our son is to be born, but this will no longer be possible. (Your mother has just asked how I know it is to be a son. I just know, and there’s an end to it). But if I do not leave by August the season for crossing may be over and so we may not meet until 1849. So please give me a fixed address as soon as you can.
If your friend Conaire is still with you, you may tell him that we sent a letter to his family after your first letter but have had no answer yet, and are sending another letter tonight.
Your mother and father join me in sending all our love.
Your loving wife,
Winifred
He looked at the date. Two months past. There was nothing surprising in that. Five weeks at least on the Atlantic. A week overland from Halifax, because the St. Lawrence was frozen. A week or two going in circles around Gilmours in Quebec, and more time to make it out to the Gatineau.
And all alive, too. Potatoes enough – for the family at least. And Winnie coming out in the summer. That would be best. What a risk she would be taking though, with a young baby. Would they meet in New York, or miss one another? Would he get there in time? How long was he himself going to stay in New York if she had not arrived? Could he get work in New York? Would it not be better to go straight to Harrisburg, and meet with Farrelly and the gang?
One way or another, Winnie could not leave until he had a fixed address. But when would that be?
He put it in his pocket, and returned to work. He hefted a sack of flour up to Jack.
‘Well, who was it?’ Jack asked.
‘My wife. Writing from Mayo. It’s a miracle I got it at all. She just sent it to Gilmours, and Larry saw it. At least he knew where I was. No one else would have.’
‘So what’s she got to say? How’s Mayo?’
‘Better and worse. The fever is less than before. There was no blight in the last harvest, but it seems there was very little planted, so the hunger goes on.’
He leaned against the side of the horse. He was thinking about Winnie, and the whole family. Could the farm survive? There was little he could do about that, but it was crucial to get Winnie out to America as soon as he could.
He lifted another sack of flour.
‘There’s one thing that still worries me though. We won’t have a fixed address until June at the earliest. That’s assuming we make New York, get work and have somewhere settled to stay. What do I do then? Buy the ticket for her, and send it over? Or just send her the money?’
‘Best send the money,’ Jack said. ‘Then she can make her own choices.’
‘That’s true. But if she doesn’t move fast enough, it’ll be a winter crossing.’
‘I don’t know that it has to be,’ Jack said, ‘and even if it is, we’d be talking about New York, not Quebec. Direct from Westport too, on a proper passenger ship. No, I wouldn’t worry about a winter crossing. All she’d have to do is get to New York, money in her pocket, and all will be fine.
He found his way to the office shanty and agreed a price of two cents for a sheet of paper, and the loan of a pen and ink. He sat at a desk and started to write.
Gatineau Forests
Canada
Ryan Family
Carrigard
Kilduff
County Mayo
Ireland
10 February
My Dearest Winnie, Dear Mother and Father,
I have just received your letter, and was most surprised that it arrived. A friend in the Gilmour offices in Quebec saw the address, and sent it on to me here in the forest. By rights it should never have arrived, but I was mighty glad to see it.
I was happy to hear that all are well, in our family at least. The stories we hear here of famine and fever in Ireland are terrible though, and I pray to the Lord it will ease soon. Perhaps the early harvest will be a good one.
As for you travelling, Winnie, I am not so certain when this will be possible. Like I said it would be better to wait until I have at least a fixed address, and at present I do not know when I will arrive in New York, nor indeed whether I will have an address I may call my own for a good time after. I do not know what the chances of work in New York are, nor when I will travel to Harrisburg or wherever Farrelly and the boys are, so I may be only a few days in New York. I would ask you for patience therefore, and wait until I can give you more certain information. I have heard of many families who have been separated in this way, and are forced to advertise in the newspapers for their husbands or wives.
I hope too that I will be able to send you more money, when I am paid and can buy a bank draft. I still work with Conaire, who is now learning English, and I am sure he will speak it better by the time he arrives in New York. I also work with a man of the name of Jack Kilgallon who comes from Turlough, beside Castlebar.
I have nothing more to say, but remain your loving husband and son,
Luke Ryan
He went to post the letter. It was more expensive than it had been in Quebec. ‘Twenty per cent for commission,’ the clerk explained to him.
Luke cursed. He had not enough money. ‘You can sign for it,’ the clerk said.
Luke signed for the amount to be deducted from his wages.
Afterwards Luke shook hands with Conaire, though the other Mayo men stayed away. He thought it better not to mention Winnie’s letter to Conaire, since she had no news of his family in Erris.
Then he scrambled up the sleigh, sitting on top of a pork barrel, and whisked the reins. Breslin went ahead of him, leading the horse. They were only half way up when it began to snow. They went on through it. This time, they had no one following them to offload and reload the sacks when they came to the steep part.
They pulled the sleighs in to the side and unhitched the horses, tying them to the side of the sleighs.
‘There’s no shelter,’ Luke said.
‘Just shelter as best you can.’
Luke sat down in front of the barrels and pulled his coat up around his cheeks and neck. It was bitterly cold, and through the night he kept rubbing his face to keep the blood moving. But his feet were numb.
‘You fellows awake?’ Jack whispered.
‘Never more so,’ Luke responded.
‘Now you know what cold is,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll wager it was never as cold as this in Mayo last year.’
‘Not as cold. More snow though. And we’d houses and cabins to live in. Turf to burn too.’
Breslin had woken.
‘But when you were coming across from Quebec, was it as cold then?’ he asked.
‘Not so cold,’ Jack answered. ‘There was almost a warm spell.’
‘I remember,’ Breslin said. ‘It was strange, that. Ye were lucky to come over at that time. It got a lot colder for us fellows who came later.’
‘I can believe that,’ Luke said.
‘Yes, we had to walk the whole way, the ships were frozen hard. But even before we left Quebec, you could see the bodies frozen in the snow.’
‘Bodies?’
‘Men, women and children. Irish, I’d say. All the way along the road to Montreal. If the fever didn’t get them, the cold did. You were lucky you didn’t have to see the likes of that.’
Luke rubbed his legs. He had heard of frostbite. He didn’t know if rubbing would help, but there was no way he was going to take off his boots.
‘I won’t say we saw bodies on the way across. We saw enough men, women and children who wouldn’t have long to live. I know the smell of fever. People who are weak like that, they don’t fight it off.’
‘Nor would they be invited into anyone else’s house,’ Breslin said. ‘All along, they’re terrified of fever. Why would any man save another life, only to risk his own family?’
‘They wouldn’t, is the answer,’ Jack said. ‘There’s those who would though. The Grey Nuns, that’s who. Luke will tell you
all about those.’
‘Will I?’
‘Well, you know more about them than any of us.’
‘What’s he on about?’ Breslin asked.
Luke shook his head.
‘He’s on about the Emigrant Hospital in Montreal. A place you wouldn’t want to go.’
‘I would not,’ Breslin said.
‘Well, I had to,’ Luke said. ‘One night, when we were lodging close to it, without even knowing it, two nuns came over to us, looking for someone Irish, able to write. The other fellows here weren’t too eager to say they could write, so I had to go with them to the hospital. A terrible place it was too. They gave me a pen and paper, and I had to go around the beds, writing out letters as best I could, and taking down the addresses in Irish, but I’d have to put the addresses in English also for the envelopes. I did as many as I could, excepting those that were past talking.’
‘And where were these fellows from?’
‘The West. All the way from West Cork to Donegal.’
‘And what kind of things were you writing?’
‘Only to tell their families that they were alive and well. None of them wanted to tell the truth. And sure why would they? It’d only upset people.’
By morning, the blizzard had cleared. They went on, and reached the shanties as the sun was high.
Three times more, Luke brought timber down to the river dock, and provisions back. Then he was sent back to the higher trails, hauling the longer logs from the edge of the forest down to the first assembly station.
Late one afternoon he was skidding a sixteen foot log as dusk came on. Without warning, one of the horses stumbled and fell. The log kept moving. Panicked, the horse tried to get up again but the log had already caught one of his legs. Luke heard the sharp crack as the cannon bone snapped. The log came to a stop, as the horse whinnied wildly.
Luke saw the next gang hauling a log behind him. He ran back up ‘I’ve a horse down. Stop, stop.’
With difficulty, the next teamster brought the log to a halt. Within minutes, the trail was stationary, six teams of horses behind.
Jack arrived from one of the teams.
‘We have to shift the log,’ he said. ‘There’s no other way. It’s too much to go forward, we’ll have to drag it back.’
They unhitched two horses behind, and attached chains to the back of the log. Then they were driven back. Slowly the log moved, as the horse whinnied. Almost like a human sound, Luke thought.
‘I’ll go for the gun,’ one of the other men said. They waited, watching as the horse tried to stand, but each time it collapsed again. Time dragged.
At last the man arrived back with a shotgun, and leading another horse. They placed the gun to the horse’s forehead, and shot it. It whinnied, and rolled over kicking. A second shot silenced it. Six men dragged the horse’s carcass well in off the trail.
‘Do we bury it,’ Luke asked.
‘Not a chance of that,’ Jack said. ‘It’ll be frozen hard in a day. When spring comes, the foxes will see to it.’
Foxes! He thought of Lisnadee. Croghancoe. No, that’s all in the past. Forget that.
He hitched up the fresh horse and started driving the log down to the shanties.
Roarty was waiting. ‘So who’s responsible for this little mess?’
‘It slipped on the snow,’ Luke said. ‘I couldn’t stop the log.’
‘And where do you think we get fresh horses up here?
Luke said nothing.
‘Right,’ Roarty said. ‘What’s done is done. Two weeks wages deducted.’
‘Two weeks…?’
‘Yes. And more if you go on about it.’
‘Rough on you,’ said Jack, that night.
‘Two weeks,’ Luke said. ‘As if they didn’t need all that back home?’
‘I know,’ said one of the other men. ‘They’re right hoors, the lot of them.’
‘Only because the Gilmours drive them to it.’
‘I don’t think they need to be driven,’ Jack said. ‘That’s the class of man they take on for this kind of job.’
‘I know,’ said Luke. ‘The Wrights, Gilmour, Egan, the whole damned lot of them. Never giving a thought for the men under them, though they pretend they do.’
‘Roarty and his breed too,’ the other man said. ‘And none of the gangers have to pretend anything.’
Luke did not go down to the river again. He and Jack stayed working as teamsters in the forests, skidding the loads down from the forest edge to the first assembly station at the shanties. Often in the morning, they carried meals for the axe-men working in the bush, and sometimes carried the axe-men too. Luke was surprised to note that the weather had become colder, even as it went into January, though by February the extreme cold was lessening.
Often in the evenings, he would take out Winnie’s letter and read it, again and again.
‘You’ll have it worn out,’ Jack said.
‘Arra, what.’
‘Sure you know every word that’s in it now. You could say it back to me backwards without looking at it at all.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ Luke said, ‘but it’s the only news I have from home.’
Yes, the only news. The only hope of meeting Winnie again. And a new child too by then. He wondered how he would find that, holding a son or a daughter. His own and Winnie’s.
Still, not all of the news was good. The family would not starve, he knew that, but the talk of local starvation was disturbing. How many people he knew around Carrigard and Kilduff would be dead by now. Was the fever worse? Winnie had not said anything about that. Was it still going on? Who knew? And Winnie had not said anything about Brockagh either. He thought of Winnie’s family and wondered.
It seemed that the winter dragged on forever. He was getting hardened to the conditions though. He felt he was stronger than he had ever been working on farms and quarries in Mayo, but there it hadn’t been as cold. Or had it? He remembered the desperate winter in the mountains of Mayo last year. The worst in memory, everyone had said. Was the Gatineau worse? Maybe, maybe not. One way or another, he was used to freezing cold by now.
After that, he had no more accidents, though there were a few frightening moments from time to time. Yes, Roarty was tough as a ganger, but even this no longer bothered Luke.
In April, the thaw began. Fewer logs were being taken down from the forest, and Luke was not surprised when he was asked to take a twenty foot log down to the Gatineau. This time, Jack came with him.
When they arrived at the dock Luke unhitched the horses as Jack went to one of the shanties. Luke asked a group of men for Conaire. No one answered. Still bitter, he thought. They still remember Lisnadee. Who can blame them for their bitterness?
Finally, Jack joined him. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘No-one knows. All they’ll say is he’s gone.’
‘Damned bastards.’
They walked to the end of one of the piers. All along the Gatineau, the ice was breaking, pools of melt water on top of the floes, the black water of the river showing through in parts.
‘Won’t be long now,’ Jack said.
‘Aye,’ Luke said, ‘and time to leave this damned place.’
‘I wonder how much better New York might be.’
‘Isn’t it bound to be better? All the stories back in Mayo – they tell us great things about New York. And it sure as hell can’t be as hard as this.’
They slept in one of the lower shanties that night, but the other Mayo men did not talk to them. Early the following morning, Luke and Jack left before the other men were awake, and led the horses back to the higher shanties.
They did not stay long.
Luke had been wondering when they would have the chance of travelling to New York, but the decision was abruptly made for them. Roarty came into the shanty one evening.
‘Some of you lads were talking of going to New York?’
‘What about it?’ asked o
ne of the other men.
‘The Gilmours and Egan are talking of sending a cargo of lumber down from Bytown. They're looking for men to float rafts down towards Montreal and over the Champlain to the Hudson.’
No one said anything.
‘Of course’ said Roarty, ‘once the news gets out, everyone on the Gatineau will want to be on it. You'll have to move fast. Now who wants to sign?’
Luke and Jack joined the lengthening queue at the table by the camboose. Luke was disturbed to see that many of the men were being refused.
When they got to the top, Roarty asked them if they could read and write.
‘We can,’ Luke said. ‘Both of us.’
‘Well sign your names here.’
Luke signed.
‘What about our wages?’
‘You’ll get them down at the dock.’
Jack signed.
‘You’ve a good hand,’ Roarty said to Luke, ‘but this fellow would need to work on his writing though.’
‘I’m sure it’s good enough,’ Luke said.
‘Fine,’ Roarty said, ‘get moving. There’s more waiting.’
They walked back and sat on Luke’s bunk.
‘Hard to believe, isn’t it. We might even get to New York,’ said Jack.
