Dark Tide (19 page)

Martin Clougherty was sinking, drowning …
smothering
, but he didn’t know why or how. Awakened by his sister, Teresa, he had rolled over in bed, saw her heading toward the doorway, heard her scream,
“Something awful has happened to the tank!”
and then felt his bed overturn. He had had the sensation of falling overboard, had felt his head go under, and it was only then—when the liquid rushed into his nose and mouth, when he could taste it—that he realized he was immersed in molasses. He felt himself sliding downward, out of control, as though riding the churn of the most violent river rapids or being swept over a waterfall. Flailing, he battled the suction, struggled to lift his head out of the clammy molasses, used his powerful arms to break the surface, and finally, he breathed fresh air and actually
tread molasses
as he rode the pounding wave that dumped him into the middle of Commercial Street. The ride stopped then and Martin stood in chest-deep molasses, wood and debris pressing against his back and neck. He cleared his eyes and mouth, looked around and was stunned to see that his house had been swept into the street, smashing into the elevated railroad trestle, and splintering into pieces.

While horrified spectators look on, rescuers try desperately to save the occupants of the Clougherty house, which was torn from its foundation and smashed against the elevated railroad trestle by the molasses wave. Bridget Clougherty, sixty-five, was buried by debris and timber, and died from terrible injuries one hour after crews pulled her from the wreckage. Her son, daughter, and a boarder living in the house survived the disaster.

(Photo courtesy of Bill Noonan, Boston Fire Department Archives)

He struggled frantically to pull himself from the molasses, which clung to his pajamas and his hair like wet wool. He spotted what looked like a raft, waded through the thick molasses until he reached it, and heaved himself aboard. He realized the raft was his bed-frame, but for now it provided him with a refuge from which to collect his bearings. Taking in the destruction around him, he called for his family, but no one answered. Then he saw a thin hand to his right, protruding from the molasses like a white stick. He lay down on his bed-frame-raft, stretched his arms out and pulled the hand up … up, with all of his strength, the quicksand-like molasses fighting him the whole way. A head emerged from the dark sea and he saw that it was his sister, Teresa. She was choking and gasping, but alive, thank God. “Hold on, sis, I’ve got you—I’ve got you,” Martin cried, and with one mighty tug, he yanked her onto the makeshift raft. He wiped molasses from around her eyes and from inside of her ears, while she choked and coughed it from her breathing passages. Then he hugged her with his strong arms, their molasses-soaked clothing making a
whapping!
sound as their bodies came together. She was crying and he held her close, whispering in her ear, “Okay, it’s okay.” Then he looked into her eyes and said: “Stay here, you’ll be safe on the raft. I’m going to look for Ma and Stephen.”

He rolled off the bed-frame, splashed back into the black ooze, and waded forward, pushing aside molasses-covered timbers and debris in a frantic effort to locate his mother and his mentally retarded brother.

Giuseppe Iantosca recoiled from the second floor kitchen window of his home, which looked out over Commercial Street. Giuseppe had been keeping an eye on his son, Pasquale, easily tracking him in his bright red sweater as he gathered firewood by the molasses tank. Then Pasqualeno had suddenly disappeared—a dark wall had consumed him as though he had never existed. The wave bore down on Giuseppe, too, and before he could cry out or move his feet, the older man felt the house tremble and he was thrown from the window and onto the floor. As he fell and struck his head, he saw his wife and children tumble to the floor, and then he blacked out. He awoke a short time later, bruised and shaken, saw his daughter comforting his wife, Maria, even as his wife was sobbing and screaming uncontrollably in Italian: “My son is lost! Pasqualeno is lost!”

Walter Merrithew barely had time to turn after the deaf-mute, Ryan, had screeched. Instantly, Merrithew had found himself in the middle of black muck, his eyes squeezed shut, preparing to die. For now he had survived. He was pinned up against the back wall of the freight shed, his feet three feet off the floor, by a wall of debris—timbers, freight cars, automobiles, a suffering horse struggling silently in the molasses. To his left, in the corner, the freight shed wall had opened up and he could see the harbor. He believed it was only a matter of time before the pressure from the mountain of debris burst the wall and carried him into the water. When that happened, he would either be pulled to the bottom of the harbor to drown amidst a tangle of wood and metal, or he would be injured when he tumbled into the water, with a chance to swim to safety.

Something had to give soon. The weight of the debris against his chest was crushing him, and his foot was somehow trapped, so that he could not move. He heard noises then, caught movement through the pile, and wiped away the molasses that had begun to crust around his eyes. Ryan, the deaf mute, was pulling debris away! Ryan was trying to shout again, calling for survivors, but Merrithew only heard a strangled whistle from the man’s throat, an eerie
wheeeeeeee
,
wheeeeeeee
, as Ryan worked.

“Back here!” Merrithew shouted. “I’m alive back here.” He knew Ryan could not hear him, but maybe the railroad clerk would sense a motion, a vibration,
something
that would indicate to him that a person was buried alive back here, at least until he cleared away enough of the mess and could actually see Merrithew trapped against the back wall. Merrithew’s hands were free, although wedged tightly against his body. He managed to bring them up directly in front of his face, and waved them back and forth with the hope that Ryan would notice the movement through the small openings in the wreckage. “I’m here, back here,” Merrithew shouted again.

No answer from Ryan—just the
wheeeeeeee
,
wheeeeeeee
, as he kept working.

Hurry, Merrithew thought. Damn it,
hurry!

The fifty-six-year-old stonecutter John Barry heard moaning in the darkness, felt searing pain across his back and legs, smelled and tasted the sweet molasses as it tried to flow into his nostrils and mouth. He was pinned face down, his cheek mashed into the sticky molasses, only his left arm free. He used the arm as a sweeper to keep the molasses from smothering him. He tried moving other parts of his body, but other than his neck, which he could twist, he couldn’t budge. Whatever was pressing on his body was crushing the life out of him. It hurt to breathe, whatever breath he
could
draw seemed insufficient to fill his lungs, and he had to be careful not to inhale a mouthful of sticky molasses.

The darkness was total. The moaning continued, but he couldn’t tell from which direction, or from how far away. He heard a skittering sound. A rat? Oh, God, Barry hated the filthy rodents. Terror gripped him as he imagined a fat, hungry, gray water rat chewing at his face while he lay helpless, trapped in the blackness, buried alive. He called for help, his voice raspy. Could anyone hear him? Did anyone know he was there? He felt on the brink of madness, and with a mighty, panic-filled effort tried to lift his body, but to no avail. He had worked as a stonecutter since he was fourteen years old, but with all of his strength and his skill, he couldn’t lift a hammer or a blade or a chisel to help himself—he could barely lift his head to keep from smothering in molasses. John Barry knew he was going to die, here, buried under the firehouse in this dark stinking space, anonymous and unable to move, a pool of molasses ready to swallow him, rats ready to tear him apart, his screams falling on deaf ears. He would soon join two of his children who had perished from influenza last fall. But what would become of his other ten? Would they become wards of the state when their father was gone?

He began to itch all over and couldn’t do anything to stop it. He felt his body bleeding and could not stanch his wounds. His chest and back burned like they were on fire. He summoned up strength and cried for help again, and this time heard his voice resonate in the darkness. And then, a miracle: a
response!
He recognized the voice of firefighter Paddy Driscoll, trapped under here with him, one of the moaners he had heard. “Keep up your courage, John,” Driscoll said, his voice cracking. “They’ll get us out.”

John Barry tried to answer aloud, but could not. His initial shout for help had drained him of energy. Overcome with exhaustion and emotion, his broken body wracked with pain, he could barely manage a whisper: “I hope they hurry, Paddy,” he choked. “I hope they hurry.”

He lay sobbing in the darkness, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the molasses that stained his cheeks and threatened to drown him.

Lying just a few feet away from John Barry, though unaware of how close he was to the stonecutter, firefighter Bill Connor realized that there was only one way he and his buddy, Nat Bowering, could remain alive until rescuers reached them. Connor had just extricated himself out from under a steam column-radiator that had pinned him facedown in the molasses. He had managed to turn over onto his back, and there was Bowering, right alongside him, trapped by what once was a firehouse support beam resting across his midsection.