Neither is there privacy when you perform your toilet. Which is embarrassing for everyone, but for the women in particular. Most use blankets held up by family members to screen them.
It is dark down here, and oppressive. In bad weather they batten down the hatches and we see no daylight for days on end. The only illumination comes from the oil lamps that swing overhead, releasing their fumes into already unbreathable air. There are times I cannot even see to write this account of my life, and when the boat yaws and pitches in a storm I am inclined to think that no one will ever get to read it. I have been fortunate to be taken under the wing of the captain’s wife, as almost the only passenger in steerage who speaks English. She has provided me with materials to write my journal and a place to keep it safe. The writing of it is the only thing that keeps my sanity intact during these interminable hours and days.
The seasickness is bad, and the music of human misery that I am now used to hearing day and night is almost constantly punctuated by the sound of vomiting. I often think of my mother and sisters aboard the Heather, and how it must be for them, too. It is a thought I can hardly bear.
There is another sickness as well. Not caused by the motion of the boat, but by some malady. There is one man, I have noticed, who seems sicker than the rest. A young man, fit and strong, maybe five or six years older than myself. His name is John Angus Macdonald, and he has two young children and a wife pregnant with a third. He has violent sickness and diarrhoea and has not eaten for two days now. And just tonight I noticed an eruption of red spots on his chest and abdomen.
*
We have been at sea for two weeks, and John Angus Macdonald is dead. He and his family were in the stall next to mine and I watched him wither in front of my eyes.
We held a brief funeral service for him this morning. Just a handful of us allowed up on deck for the ceremony. I cannot describe how wonderful it was to breathe fresh air, although in the end it only made it harder to return below deck.
John Angus was wrapped in the sheet he died in. Crudely sewn into it. I was only there because I am one of the few aboard who can read and write, and someone thrust the Gaelic bible in my hand and asked me to read from it. I remembered the passage old blind Calum had recited over my father’s coffin. Although it took some time, I found it eventually: John, chapter 11, verse 25. I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.
And they slid his body over the rail. I saw the tiny splash it made in heaving seas, and realised, possibly for the first time in my life, how utterly insignificant we all are.
I have no idea how many weeks his widow Catriona’s pregnancy has left to run, but her bulge is substantial, and it cannot be too long before she will give birth. A baby that will never know its father.
Somehow I feel a responsibility for her now that her man is gone. I am right there in the next stall, and the closest thing to a father her children have. Even as I write this by the feeble light down here, the little boy and girl are curled up at my legs, sharing my sheet now that their father’s is gone. All that I can really do for them is try to make sure they each get a little extra food.
*
The weather continues to be abominable. The hatches have been shut for days to keep the weather out, and I feel that I could cut the air into slices with my knife.
I spoke earlier today with a member of crew who told me the average sailing time is normally four to six weeks. But because of this weather we are already well behind schedule, and he thinks it could take up to two months. I took an immediate inventory of our larder, such as it is, and did a quick reckoning. It seems to me that we will run out of food and water long before we get to our destination.
*
John Angus Macdonald’s sickness has spread. Eleven people have now died and been dropped overboard. Many of my fellow passengers have relentless diarrhoea. It soils the boards we sleep on. It makes a porridge along with vomit to render the floorboards treacherous underfoot. We have no way of cleaning it up, and the stink is beyond unbearable.
I am acutely aware of the symptoms of the sickness that stalks us in steerage, and watch keenly for any sign of it in myself. Thus far I have been spared the malady, but not the misery.
*
Tonight has been one of the most distressing of my life.
Catrìona Macdonald finally went into labour. The ship was pitching violently, and shadows cast by the swinging oil lamps danced among us like demons. It was well nigh impossible to see or focus clearly.
The poor woman was in terrible distress, and the more experienced older women gathered round to help with the delivery. Catrìona’s screams rose above even the roar of the storm, and her terrified children clung to me in the stall next door.