The Star of the Sea (62 page)

‘Come into the boat,’ Mary Duane said to the old Galwayman.

Sleet began falling. He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I have nothing left,’ he reportedly said. And some say he briefly continued, in Irish: ‘Nothing in the world. Only my name.’

Again Mulvey came forward and pleaded to be given a chance. Again she accused him of deserving none. He had been spat on by now and his clothes were torn. He seemed almost impervious to the kicks and punches being thrown at him. Reportedly he was quaking with fear or pain but he did not raise a hand to shield himself.

‘Is there no doubt in you, Mary? Not an ounce itself of doubt? Is this what Nicholas would have wanted, are you saying? Can any of it mend the wrong? Will it turn back the times? I’ll die if you want it.
I am already dead
.’

I think I know the answer I myself would have given. I believe I know even the words I would have used, every curse, every spite,
every last denunciation. I have heard the anathema I would have rained on Pius Mulvey. I have seen my dagger stab into his betrayer’s heart; the dizzying exhilaration of white-hot hatred I would have felt. Or perhaps I would have said simply: ‘I do not know you.’ I have never seen you. You are no part of me.

But it is not the answer that Mary Duane gave.

It is almost seventy years since the events of that night and not a day has passed in those seven long decades – I mean literally not one single day – without my searching my mind for some explanation of what happened next. I have spoken to every living person who witnessed the occurrence: every man, every woman, every child and every sailor. I have discussed it with philosophers, doctors of the mind. Priests. Ministers. Mothers. Wives. For many of those years I saw it in dreams; sometimes, still, I see it even now. And I believe when my own time comes, I will see it again; an event I never saw, but only heard reported. Pius Mulvey on his knees, begging for his life. Mary Duane above him, shaking with tears; for she wept that night on the
Star of the Sea
, as perhaps only the mother of a murdered child can weep. Nobody ever drew Alice-Mary Duane, whose ruined father snuffed out her agonised life. Her mother wept as she uttered her name. ‘Like a prayer’, as many of the witnesses said.

And as the name was uttered, some began to pray; and others began to weep in sympathy. And others again who had lost children of their own began to utter their children’s names. As though the act of saying their names – the act of saying they ever had names – was to speak the only prayer that can ever begin to matter in a world that turns its eyes from the hungry and the dying. They were real. They existed. They were held in these arms. They were born, and they lived, and they died. And I see myself on the deck in a scream of vengeance; as though it was my own spouse who had been scourged to despair; my own helpless child so cruelly destroyed.

Was it forgiveness? Gullibility? Power? Loss? Some dark aggregation of all these things, or something else more dark again? Perhaps even Mulvey would not have known the answer. Perhaps Mary Duane did not know it herself.

If it was mercy – and I simply cannot say what it was – whatever made Mary Duane show it may only be guessed. Wherever she found it can never be known. But she did show it. She did find it.
When the moment of retribution rolled up out of history and presented itself like an executioner’s sword, she turned away and did not seize it.

Instead, still weeping and now being helped to stand, she confirmed that Pius Mulvey of Ardnagreevagh was the brother of her late husband; her only living relation in three thousand miles.

She was asked if she wanted to remain on the ship, to take her chances of being sent back to Ireland alongside him. She hesitated for a moment and then said no, she did not.

They entered the second lifeboat together, taking up the last two places, and were last seen drifting in the direction of the dock.

The thirty-first day out of Cove

L
ONG
: 74°.02′W. L
AT
: 40°.42′N. A
CTUAL
G
REENWICH
S
TANDARD
T
IME
: 00.58 a.m. (9 December). L
OCAL
T
IME
: 7.58 p.m. P
RECIPITATION
& R
EMARKS
: New York Harbour. Low tide.

On this eighth day of December, in the year of Our Lord, Eighteen hundred and Forty-Seven, it is my grievous duty to record the news of the heinous murder of Lord Kingscourt of Carna, our friend David Merridith, the ninth Earl. His body was discovered by Countess Kingscourt this morning, just after dawn in the First-Class quarters. Surgeon Mangan attended immediately but pronounced death to have occurred at about eleven o’clock last night. The cause was seven deep stabs to the upper back, and one to the back of the skull. Yet more horrifically, the throat had been so severely cut that the head was almost completely separated from the body.

No weapon was found and the search for one continues. His Lordship must have been most horribly surprised, for there were no defence wounds to the hands or arms, nor were any cries heard from his cabin.

Full searches were made of the First-Class quarters, a strange note being found torn up into pieces, in the wastage-disposal canister on the Main Lower Landing, as though a kind of blackmail letter. It has been preserved and will be handed to the police at New York.

As Master all responsibility for the security of the vessel weighs exclusively upon myself; and accordingly I hereby tender my resignation from command of this ship, also from the employment of the Silver Star Shipping Line & Co., to be effective from debarkation and unloading at New York.

I sent a boat in to the wharf and explained the frightful happening and asked in the circumstances to be allowed to come in; but permission was strongly denied by the authorities. A large party of police officers and immigration officials came out and took-down testimonies from a great number of steerage passengers and others. It
was confirmed that Shaymus Meadowes, formerly of Ballynahinch, County Galway, one of those who fled the ship last night, had indeed threatened extreme violence towards Lord Kingscourt and other landowners of Ireland in the past, and so must be deemed the principal suspect, or at very least, the ringleader of the evil. Mister Mulvey was not alone in thinking him a danger. He was believed by many passengers to be a member of the ‘Liable Men’ of Galway, and apparently had often himself claimed so to be; on several occasions boasting that he knew for a certitude Lord Kingscourt would never leave the ship alive.

The First-Class passengers may be allowed to land in a few days; but those in steerage shall have to delay until all are questioned and examined and cleared for disease.

I explained to Captain Daniel O’Dowd of the New York Police that we had a number of human remains in the hold, with the inevitable consequences which must attend, and I was anxious regarding the health of those in my charge. I suggested that perhaps a large quantity of rat poison might be supplied but was told that such would not be possible, at least not for the moment, but arrangements would be made for disposal of the bodies.

Two barges came alongside shortly before noon, and the remains we had below were loaded upon them, including those of Lord Kingscourt. We had no colours with which to enshroud him so we lowered the Union pennant from the mainmast and used that. To the great distress of Lady Kingscourt and her sons, a small number of passengers were heard to cheer as the colours were lowered. I appealed to them to have a care for the simple respect of the dead and they desisted. They said it was not the deceased they were jeering, but only the flag. When I said it was the flag under which he had once served his country, one man said many an Irishman had served it too, and had no flag of his own in which he might be buried, as did none of those who had died on the
Star
. No flag nor fuss for them, he said. The very day he had boarded the
Star of the Sea
, nine hundred bodies of those who had starved had been shovelled into a pit in his home town of Bantry. No cross. No stone. No coffin. No flag. I answered that I understood his feelings on the matter, as indeed I do, but this was not the time for such a discussion, since the grief of any widow must surely be the same, as must be the
sadness of any little child bereft of his father. We shook hands and he removed his hat as Lord Kingscourt’s body was lowered down, though others were seen to turn their backs.

The barge being small, there was little room for mourners. Places were allowed to Lady Kingscourt and her children, to Mr G. Dixon as friend of the family, to Minister Deedes and to myself as Master of the vessel. The steerage passengers who had lost loved ones were greatly upset but the Pilot said he simply had not the capacity on board. Mr Dixon said he would be willing to give up his place but the two little boys seemed very distressed and pleaded with him to remain. The Pilot made to bear off but was affected by the crying of the bereaved on board. He was a kindly man, a Hebridean Scotsman, and one could see he had sympathy for the people. Finally he said he would take one more mourner as representative for all the others, if a choice could be made quickly. They drew lots to decide their representative, and Rose English, a married woman of Roscommon was selected, her husband being among the dead.

We were towed back out a few miles through Gedney’s Channel, a short distance west of Sydney’s Beacon; and further out past the Verazano Narrows into Lower Bay. There we were ordered to wait for the rising tide. At seven minutes to one, the Pilot gave us the signal. Mrs English asked if we might delay another very few short minutes. The poor lady was by now very distressed but trying to speak calmly. At one o’clock in New York it would be six in the evening at home, she said. The bells would be tolling all over Ireland for the Angelus. The Pilot agreed that we could wait until then.

Mrs English, a Roman Catholic, began quietly to recite the Rosary in Latin and was joined by the Pilot’s mate, an Italian man of Naples. The rest of us stood together in silent prayer for a time and added an amen at the end. The two boys were attempting to be brave, but how could they be in such terrible circumstances? Lady Kingscourt began to weep; and I noticed Mrs English, also weeping, take her by the hand.

At the signal from the Pilot for one o’clock, we committed David Merridith’s remains to the deep, also those of nine men, women and children of Ireland, and those of our gentle comrade, William Gunn of Manchester. With the assent of Mrs English, Reverend Deedes read quietly from the Book of Common Prayer:
that we look for the Resurrection of the body (when the sea shall give up her dead), and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who at His coming shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto His glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself.

May God almighty grant him peace. He leaves a wife, Lady Laura, and two small sons: Robert and Jonathan, the tenth Earl. It is believed they will stay at Albany, New York, for a time, at the home of a married sister of Mr Grantley Dixon.