Sinking of the S.S Victoria. May 24th, 1881.
by Ben Hallahan
We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world– the company of those who have known suffering. – Helen Keller, We Bereaved
It was just past dinner-time when Father dragged me out of the house. His tight lips weren’t able to keep everything hidden from me; something happened near the river past Wonderland Road. Something bad. We never went out for a ride into town when it was so close to dusk. On the rare occasion we did, my father never brought me with him alone. When I was told that Phillip, Andrew and Mother weren’t coming with us, I pestered Father for a reason why. He left my question unanswered in the windy night.
The rest of the ride was quiet, leaving plenty of space for my thoughts. The roads were silent. Where were all the carriages at this time? I wondered. Father had piles of white sheets at the back of the carriage. When I asked about their purpose, he merely told me that he was asked to assist near the river, and the sheets were necessary to do that. What was my part? I wondered. He told me that I had a very special task, but he could not tell me until we arrived. With this, I settled down, and watched, as we rode through the town.
As we left the settlements, and ventured past any sense of community, I began watching carriages like ours, as they joined our journey to a destination I was unsure of. This convoy of horse-accompanied men eventually broke off as I began to see the darkness of the Thames River on my left. We kept walking parallel to it.
We arrived at the river past Wonderland Road, and I immediately recognized a disassembled cluster in the centre of the water. I could see shadows in the water beneath the surface. I jumped off, wishing to investigate. Father yanked my arm back, and instructed me to stay near the carriage. He gave me the task of helping him and the other men in the water, but my task required me to stay where I stood. Father told me that there were dead animals in the water, and I had to watch over their wrapped remains as the men brought them back to the carriages. I nodded; I was in no position to object. He left me with the horses as he joined in the mysterious efforts that the groups of men were obviously aware of.
As the sunlight began to fade, more men arrived – some in carriages, and some only by foot. They did not acknowledge me as they walked around my carriage to the river where the rest of the men waded. As time progressed, the men would walk back, hauling wrapped remains to my carriage. Each time they met me back here, they insisted I stay away from the cargo.
More time passed; more remains were brought back to me. Father was still at the river, some fifty paces away. When I knew he and his fellow men were preoccupied in the water, I knelt down, and pulled at the white sheet, covering the wrapped lumps lying still in the grass. I poked, then shook, to which I only felt something soft, damp and gritty on the outside. My hands were trembling and my breathing became fraught as my fingers traced where one of the sheets ended. I pinched the flap with my fingers, and yanked it. As I unfolded it, I was not greeted by large fish, or pieces of a cattle carcass, but rather, I found something not unlike myself. The hair on its head was matted, but it was no thicker than mine. I knew the honeyed-tint of it well; it was the same colour as Father’s. Philip and Andrew shared that tint. I still have it.
My throat closed up and my impulses raced; I yanked the sheet further down to see the head of a man. His eyes were glassy and white as the coat of a goat, except for the tiny parts that hadn’t become foggy yet. He had eyes as green as mine. I felt as if I wanted to run into the river to purge my feelings which were crawling up into my mouth, but I knew where the man’s body had come from, and wished to keep away from the source. I crouched over him, and began to peel away the rest of the cloth, before I heard a voice, like cold water, shocking me back to life.
He called out my name. I threw the sheet back over the face and turned around to see Father charging over. He fell on his knees before me, grabbed my shoulders and shook me so hard that I felt the spray of water from his sopping,wet shirt. I felt my face go as cold as the man who laid motionless behind me. Father shouted my full name, and asked what had gotten into me. I demanded to know what was wrapped behind me and what he was looking for in the water?
He dragged me up to my feet and grabbed my collar; this was the first time I ever looked my father in the eyes. I demanded an answer for what I laid my hands on, but he became silent and would not give me an explanation. Injured by tragedy, he fell to the earth and lay there in the mud. When he finally took hold of the moment, he told me where the body came from, and all the others, and how the ship went down without showing mercy for the hundreds crushed under it. He told me about the ship floating down the Thames earlier that day with hundreds of passengers aboard, and what happened when too much weight stressed the old bones of the ship.
He talked on in windy gusts of details that I no longer wanted to hear. Gently, he pulled me close. Now, that I had seen him falter and fall in despair, I offered comfort. Together, we went to the stomach of the river and joined the rest of the men in the water.
