The Girl Who Came Home(22)

We stood for a while among the other passengers outside the offices of James Scott & Company, shipping agents. I enjoyed listening to the conversations; hearing accents from other parts of Ireland which I haven’t heard before, and watching people arrive from the train station or by cart and gather, with the rest of us, on the wharf side. Some were dressed like ourselves; others in finer clothing and with grander luggage. I thought it funny that we would all sail on the same ship, no matter how fine our case or how shiny our shoes.

Queenstown harbour was a much nicer sight in the bright, morning sunshine than it had been the previous night. The colourful houses lining the seafront looked pretty and we could see the Cathedral we had just prayed in, standing out on the skyline. Although we were all still a bit jittery and anxious now to get going, there was a much happier mood about us. Dear God, nothing could be worse than that terrible maudlin feeling which had hung about us all a day earlier. Katie said that she feels so far away from home now that it’s almost impossible to be sad about it. I think I know what she means.

The two tenders ‘Ireland’ and ‘America’ were moored alongside the wharf. They were nice-looking boats themselves. We stood together, the fourteen of us, some talking, some thinking of home and some, like me, watching the piles and piles of mailbags being loaded onto the boats, the red flags of the White Star Line and the colourful bunting fluttering in the breeze. It must have been quite a spectacle for the newspaper reporters and the crowds who had gathered to see people off.

It was a bit of a struggle to get us all and our luggage aboard the tender ‘America’, but once on board we huddled around the front of the boat, I think it is called the bow. It felt a bit odd swaying from side-to-side as the boat rocked in the water. We had to wait for a while as a late-running train from Cork had just arrived into the station carrying more passengers. I thought how lucky they were not to have missed the tenders altogether, or Titanic itself for that matter! Ellen Joyce went a bit green while we stood there – I think she was struggling not to get sick.

While we waited for the delayed passengers, a young photographer from one of the local papers climbed from the other tender ‘Ireland’ onto ours, saying it would give a better viewpoint for his pictures. I thought him a bit reckless jumping from one ship to the other; I hope his pictures are worth the risk of falling overboard!

All the passengers seemed to be in good spirits. We talked among ourselves and to strangers, sharing stories of the journeys we’d already travelled and talking about where we were headed to in America. I spoke to a friendly, nervy-looking girl who told me she was also from Mayo. We didn’t know of each other or our families. She was travelling alone to join her five brothers who were already in America. I said she should look out for me on board the ship and to come and chat or play cards if she was feeling lonely.

‘All 113 third class aboard sir,’ I heard someone call.

With the ‘Ireland’ in front of ours, the two tender boats left the wharf then, chugging back along the waterfront of Queenstown, passing the White Star Wharf again. We each blessed ourselves with the sign of the cross as we sailed past the Cathedral and a tall man standing just near to me began to play ‘A Nation Once Again’ on his Uilleann pipes. He played well and the gathered passengers sang along and clapped when he finished. He smiled at me and played ‘Spancil Hill’ then, a sadder tune which made some people cry. I didn’t look at any of our group, afraid that I would take to weeping again if I did.

As we moved further away from the wharf, the boat became quieter. The men shuffled their feet and the women cuddled their children into them or stared into the distance. Everyone had their own private thoughts at that moment; mine were of Séamus and the time we had danced at Maura and Jack Brennans’ wedding. I wondered if he was thinking of me at all.

The boats then turned a bend in the channel, and that was when we saw her.

All that could be heard were gasps. The piper stopped his playing altogether.

Not one person spoke, stunned into silence by the towering mass of this ship which was anchored in the waters before us. I have never, and doubt that I will ever again, witness a sight so astonishing.

Some of our group, who have travelled on steam liners before, seemed less impressed than the rest of us who have rarely seen a row boat on Loch Conn, but I even heard Aunt Kathleen comment on how large and magnificent the ship appeared.

As our now tiny tender ‘America’ pulled alongside the wall of steel, a door opened in the side of the ship and a gangway was lowered. At the top of the gangway were the ticket inspectors and the doctors who carried out the health inspections. Slowly, we started to make our way up the gangplank, not one of us able to stop ourselves from craning our necks to take in the height of the decks and masts soaring high, high into the clouds above. I didn’t want to look down, didn’t want to see the swell of the ocean under my feet.