prime minister had already disappeared from his office and was dashing down the hallway.
23
Some of the tension in Magistrate Hollett’s shoulders was finally released when he received news that the South Coast Disaster Committee had been formed and had begun receiving public donations from all over the country. His heart leapt when he heard that money had begun to trickle in from the United States, Canada, and England as well. It was all badly needed, he knew, and he would make sure it would be put to good use.
One of the villages Hollett was most concerned about was Port au Bras, another peninsula community with French roots. Migratory fishermen from St. Malo, France, christened the village “port of arms,” which might have been an indication of the sporadic ethnic conflicts over cod that marked Newfoundland history. By the late 1700s, both English and French settlers had made Port au Bras their permanent home, living in a collection of houses that seemed to tumble onto the rocks and almost into the sea. By 1900, three hundred people lived in the village. Known for its skilled fishing captains and masters of foreign-going trading vessels, there was something of the invincible about Port au Bras.
That ended on the night of November 18, as Port au Bras native Ern Cheeseman wrote in a letter to his brother, Jack:
Monday evening at 5.20 we had an earth tremor, all the houses and the ground shook for about 5 minutes. This put everyone in a panic. Women screamed and prayed and we stood silent and scared but we were just trying and had finally succeeded in quieting the women when we had a tidal wave of the worst kind. Enormous waves twenty feet high swept into the harbour…
Charlie Clarke’s store went first, taking Henry Dibbon’s with it into the Pond, taking everything as it came with a thunderous roar. It swept around by Ambrose’s up to Jack Bennett’s out our way bringing all the stores and houses that stood in its way. Then all the boats went mad (and) came in.
The harbour was cleaned (by) the first wave. Then the second one came and brought it all in again. Such noise and scrunching you never heard.
By this time we had all fled to the hills, the highest places we could find. From there we watched the third wave come and go. You could hear the poor humans who were caught, screaming women and men praying out loud. Oh God, Jack, it was terrible…
Fifty-three-year-old Tom Fudge had been in his stores with his two sons, John and Job, when the ground began to tremble. John, just entering his twenties, laughed at the unexpected sensation. Job, at thirteen, blanched and looked to his father for words of comfort.
“You’re not scared, are you, Job?” John teased.
Before Tom could answer, his wife, Jessie, appeared at the door, followed by the couple’s three daughters, Gertie, fifteen, Harriet, eleven, and Hannah, only nine. The two youngest girls held hands and Tom noticed that Hannah was walking on her tiptoes as if to protect herself from the rumbling of the earth.
“What’s going on, Tom?” Jessie asked urgently.
“I don’t really know,” her husband answered. “It must be some kind of earthquake, though they’re not generally known in Newfoundland. Usually they happen in warmer parts.”
“God save us!” said Jessie.
He looked at his daughters and then at white-faced Job.
“It won’t last long,” he said. “And it won’t be a powerful one like they have in the West Indies. Don’t fret now.”
Little Hannah looked up from under her chestnut curls and smiled at him. Tom winked at her. As the tremor died away, Jessie shooed her girls back to the house. Tom watched their long skirts swish as his wife and daughters went inside.
Not long afterwards, a wall of seawater rushed into the Fudges’ garden and pulled the family’s house away with it. Tom was still working in the nearby store with his sons. Oddly, the smell of kelp and salt filled Tom’s nostrils before he heard the roar of the wave. The smell jolted him and he jumped to the doorway to see rushing grey water where his house had been. He let out a deep cry and froze. Then he shouted at John and Job, “Get to high ground! Move! Quick!”
The boys ran from the store toward the hills, joining their panicked neighbours. At one point John turned around and called, “Come on, Dad!”
But he could no longer see his father.
From the high land, Ern Cheeseman and dozens of other people saw Tom Fudge’s store swallowed by the tail end of the wave. They could hear the screams of women and children trapped in houses borne on the tidal wave, Jessie Fudge and her three daughters, among them. In short order, the first wave had torn eleven houses from the ground. It drove Bill and Mary Clarke’s twostorey, eight room house into Path End, a neighbouring inlet, where it would have to be towed down. It destroyed the house of Gus and Jessie Abbott and their six children and that of their kin, John and Annie Abbott, and their seven children. It swept away the house of eighty-one-year-old pensioner William Allen. Tom Fudge’s brother Job, after whom his younger son had been named, was in poor health; now his house was gone. John Dibbon, who lived alone, was homeless. So was sixty-seven-year-old Mary Dibbon, who was widowed by the
As the first wave emptied the harbour, Ern Cheeseman and the others tried to follow what was happening, though their eyes could scarcely comprehend it. They tried to count the houses that were hauled up, and then to figure out who was on the high ground and who wasn’t. Ern saw young Job Fudge shivering on the hill not far away. Though he was well-dressed for a November evening, Ern realized the boy must be in shock. He approached young Job.
“Where’s the rest of your family, Job?” he asked gently.
“John is near the bottom of the hill trying to find Dad,” Job answered, his eyes staring at the dot below that represented his brother.
“And where did you last see your father?” Ern persisted quietly.
“Our house is gone and Dad’s gone to get it,” Job said. “Mommy and Gertie and Harriet and Hannah are in it. Dad’s gone to rescue them.”
“Take my jacket, Job,” Ern said, laying his coat over the boy’s shoulders. “It’s getting a little chilly.”
Ern leaned back on a boulder that emerged from the earth and buried his face in his hands. There wasn’t a single store left in the harbour. The houses were all out to sea now. He couldn’t see Tom Fudge from where he sat. He could hardly see Job’s older brother. His helplessness was in danger of congealing into red hot anger unless he did something with it.
He rose again.
“Job, you stay right here,” he said. “Don’t move. Promise me that. I’m going to get your brother.”
Ern bolted down the hill until he reached John.
“Come up to the high ground with me,” he ordered the young man. “Your little brother needs you.”
“I’ve got to find Dad,” John protested. “Mother and the girls are swept away.”
“I know,” Ern said. “I’m sorry. But that wave is going to come in again—look at how empty the harbour is. And it might take you with it if you stay here. At this point you seem to be all Job has.”
John froze. “But my Dad… I… I…”
“Come with me,” Ern said, quietly but firmly.
John looked at the sea, then turned to follow his neighbour.
“We’ve got to hurry,” Ern added.
On top of the hill, Job’s shivering seemed to have subsided a little. The boy collapsed into his brother’s arms
