The Emerald Key - By Christopher Dinsdale Page 0,19

home. You have my word.”

Grimacing in pain, she lowered her head back onto the pillow. “This is selfish of me to ask, but would you have another one of those special handkerchiefs?”

Jamie touched the cloth covering his face. “These medicines won’t help you get better. It only helps those who haven’t been infected. Otherwise I would have given one to you a long time ago.”

“It’s not for me,” she whispered, out of breath. “It’s for Colin. I would do anything to keep him from catching this sickness. Do you think your handkerchief might help him too?”

Jamie looked to the sleeping boy. He berated himself for not thinking of it sooner. “It might. I’ll prepare one for him right away.”

“You are an angel,” she said softly, then drifted off into a feverish sleep.

The crew murmured with excitement as the ship pushed deeper into the narrowing valley of the St. Lawrence River. The end of the voyage was near and everyone was itching to get off the disease-ridden ship. Officer Keates told Jamie that Quebec City lay just a few hours ahead. He also said the crossing had been one of the worst in recent memory. Sixty-two passengers had succumbed to typhoid. A third of the crew was bedridden. Without the help of Jamie and several other willing passengers acting as crew, the ship could have found itself in serious peril during the dangerous final leg of the Atlantic crossing. Jamie stared over the railing at the distant shores on either side of the ship. He couldn’t convince himself that they were actually sailing up a river. It was an absolutely enormous river, much larger than any river he’d ever crossed in Ireland. He would not have believed it had Officer Keates not lowered a bucket and offered him a drink of the gloriously cool, fresh water. Jamie surmised that Canada was indeed immense, in every sense of the word.

Captain O’Malley approached the two men at the railing. Jamie was surprised the captain wasn’t at the wheel during their upstream sail, and from the lined expression on the captain’s face, he sensed there was something wrong.

“I’m sorry, Jamie.”

“Sir?”

“Erin O’Connor. We heard her son crying in your cabin. When a crewman went in to investigate, she was dead. I know you two had become friends. Again, I’m sorry.”

Jamie hung his head in guilt. “I should have been there for her.”

Officer Keates put a hand on his shoulder. “You did everything you could for her. There was nothing else you could have done, even if you had been there by her side. The ship needed you, too.”

“Captain, I would like the honour of helping to carry her to the railing.”

O’Malley shook his head. “We won’t be performing an ‘at sea’ burial now that we’re sailing up the St. Lawrence River. The recent dead will be unloaded with any passengers heading to quarantine at Grosse Isle. She will be properly buried there. And don’t worry about Colin. He seems healthy enough. Our chaplain is currently looking after him.”

“Thank you.”

“There is one more thing. This note was found lying next to the deceased. I believe it was for you.”

Jamie carefully took the folded note from the captain. Not wanting to read it in front of company, he stowed it away in his shirt pocket. Captain O’Malley nodded, then walked back to the bridge.

Jamie turned to Keates. “Grosse Isle?” Jamie asked. “Is that part of Quebec City?”

“No. Grosse Isle is a quarantine station. It’s an island in the middle of the St. Lawrence River where passengers suspected of harbouring infectious diseases have to wait before being allowed to step onto Canadian soil. With all of the sickness we’ve experienced on board, there will no doubt be some who will be asked to unload there.”

“And it’s supposed to help stop the spread of disease to the Canadian people?”

Keates shrugged. “From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t work very well. If too many boats arrive at the same time, the facilities at Grosse Isle become overwhelmed and they simply send the surplus boats on to Quebec City or Montreal without proper quarantine. Because of this oversight, thousands of Canadian people have already died from typhoid or dysentery.”

“I guess we Irish are not well-liked, then.”

“Some understand that it’s not the Irish immigrant’s fault. But others are trying to keep new immigrants out of the cities — for fear that an infected newcomer might start a new wave of infection.”

Jamie shook his head. “It seems that one can’t escape disease or starvation