How the Finnegans Saved the Ship, page 1
MAP
The Goat Who Sailed the World
• Notable Book, CBC Awards Book of the Year (Younger Readers), 2007
• Shortlisted, Fiction for Older Readers, Young Australian’s Best Book Award (YABBA)
• Shortlisted, Koala Awards, 2008
• Shortlisted, Croc Awards, 2008
• Shortlisted, Cool Awards, 2008
Hitler’s Daughter
• Winner, CBC Awards Book of the Year (Younger Readers), 2001
• WOW! Award Winner, UK National Literacy Association, 2001
• Notable Book, US Library Association
• Koala Awards Roll of Honour, 2007 and 2008
• Semi-Grand Prix Award, Japan
Pharaoh
• Shortlisted, CBC Awards Book of the Year (Older Readers), 2008
• Shortlisted, ACT Book of the Year (competing with general adult titles), 2008
Macbeth and Son
• Shortlisted, CBC Awards Book of the Year (Older Readers), 2007
They Came on Viking Ships
• Shortlisted, (UK) Essex Book Award
• Winner, West Australian Young Readers’ Book Award (WAYRBA), 2007
• Shortlisted, NSW Premier’s History Award (Young People’s History Prize), 2006
DEDICATION
To Rory and Emily,
whose Nanna Mary helped save the ship.
Special thanks to Nina Burnett and her
friends at Grimwade House who became
‘The Finnegan Children’, and to
Margaret Ruck for her memory of Gaelic!
CONTENTS
Map
Dedication
Leaving Home
On Board
In the Dark
Underway
Mrs Finnegan Searches for Icebergs
Out at Sea
Crossing the Equator
Wondering
The Whale
The Albatross
The Iceberg
The Storm
Postscript
Notes on the Text
Migration
A Short History of Ireland
The IRA
The Irish and Potatoes
The Irish in Australia
Spitting
Pot Holes
Pigeons Scratching in the Droppings
Steam Power
Morse Code
Clothes
Luggage
Washing
Turf or Peat Fires
Working in England
The Irish-Gaelic Language
The Hedge Schools
Some Irish Recipes
Glossary
About the Author
Copyright
CHAPTER 1
LEAVING HOME
There were eight Finnegans on the quay that morning in 1913, with their portmanteaus and their brown paper packages in their hands.
There was Mary, who was thirteen too — the same age as the century. There was Edmond, who was ten, Bridget, Michael, Catherine, Norah, and there was Mrs Finnegan, short and square in her old black coat, holding little Patrick in her arms.
Norah wasn’t born a Finnegan like the rest of them. She was Mrs Finnegan’s cousin’s child, born out of wedlock, but the Finnegans had taken her in.
A Finnegan always does their duty, said Mrs Finnegan, who’d been born a Finnegan and married one too, though he was from the next village and no near kin.
The wharf smelt of salt and old smoke. It was made of ancient planks, so thick and full of crevices that they looked more like stone than wood. There were carts and crates and tall cranes that creaked as they swung from wharf to ship, and a mob of sailors with brown bottles who laughed and sang.
Mrs Finnegan glanced at the sailors suspiciously. ‘Don’t you be listening to them,’ she whispered sternly to her children. ‘You shut your ears!’
Ma had never explained exactly how you shut your ears. When she was small Mary had wondered if every one else except her had earflaps.
The wharf creaked as the sea lapped against the barnacles on its piers. There were fishing boats on the oily water and tugboats and cargo boats that smelt of sheep and coal. There was the Anna Maria too, which was going to take them to Australia.
The seagulls shrieked and the wind smelt of tar and seaweed and spat in their faces.
It was the most exciting, terrifying sight that Mary had ever seen.
‘Is she going to sink like the Titanic, Ma?’ whispered Michael, gazing at the Anna Maria.
‘Hold your nonsense,’ said Mrs Finnegan, though her voice was a bit uncertain. ‘Sure, she’s nothing like the Titanic.’
The Anna Maria was certainly no Titanic.
The Anna Maria was fat-bellied and shabby and made of wood, not like the Titanic’s shining metal. She was a one-class steam ship, carrying a handful of immigrants and cargo to South Africa and then to Australia. Her paint was peeling and her single funnel was wide and squat and as black as the smoke that burped out into the cold grey air.
‘It’s enough to put the heart crossways in you!’ whispered Mrs Finnegan, staring at the wide-mouthed funnel. ‘The rain will flood in! What can they be thinking of?’
‘I’m sure it’s safe, Ma,’ said Edmond. ‘All ships have funnels, so they must be safe.’ He gazed with wonder at the crane with its rusty-toothed bucket that was loading the coal onto the deck of the Anna Maria for the bare-chested crew to shovel down into the hold. ‘Do you think if I asked them nicely, nicely mind, that they’d show me how to work it?’
Mrs Finnegan ignored him. She had seen the line of tiny holes in the Anna Maria’s side, just above the lapping sea. Liquid oozed out of them, thick and red with algae. ‘Sábhála Dia sinn, will you look at that, will you?’ she whispered. ‘The ship’s leaking already.’
‘Will we drown?’ asked Bridget with eyes wide.
Mrs Finnegan straightened her shoulders. ‘There now! That’s enough! No ship is going to sink with my family on it,’ she announced. ‘There is only one thing to be doing. Mary, you must go and tell the Captain the ship is leaking.’
‘But Ma!’ protested Mary.
‘I’m sure there’s no need, Ma,’ said Edmond, dragging his eyes away from the crane.
‘But me no buts,’ said Mrs Finnegan.
‘Can’t you do it, Ma?’ pleaded Mary.
‘What, with all your brothers and sisters to be looking after?’ Mrs Finnegan inspected the dribbling ooze down the side of the ship. ‘Well, now, it’s not leaking that bad yet,’ she judged. ‘We’ve time enough to get settled while you tell the Captain.’
‘What if I can’t find him?’ asked Mary hopefully. ‘It’s a big ship!’
‘Then Edmond, you take Michael and go and find him too. Sure, between the three of you you’ll find him. If they work hard at it, they can have the ship fixed by the time we have to sail.’
Little Bridget looked at the small fat ship. ‘Can’t we just not get on it?’ she whispered. ‘We could just go home.’
‘And have the lives of all the passengers on our consciences? A Finnegan always does their duty,’ said Mrs Finnegan. ‘Besides, your Da is waiting for us in Australia.’
Mrs Finnegan straightened her shoulders, as was befitting a woman who was to take her family across wide and dangerous waters to a new land, and marched up the gangplank, lifting her skirt in front (but not so high that the men on the wharf could see her ankles) and shepherding her children like a fluffy Buff Orpington hen with all its chickens.
‘Look up there!’ whispered Edmond.
Mary looked. A small white boat hung above them, its paint peeling.
‘That’s a lifeboat!’ whispered Edmond. ‘That’s what you have to get into if the ship sinks!’
‘How do you know?’ she whispered back.
‘I asked a man on the wharf. He knew all about it.’ Edmond was always finding a man who knew all about something. ‘He said that sometimes the ropes give way when they try to lower the lifeboats and everyone goes crashing down into the sea and drowns anyway.’
Mary shuddered.
‘Or there aren’t enough lifeboats,’ added Edmond gleefully. ‘And the Captain yells “Women and children first” and gets his pistol out, and shoots any man that tries to get on board, but sometimes they overpower him and . . .’
Mrs Finnegan glanced back at them. ‘Hold your noise and lift your feet,’ she ordered.
The ship seemed even smaller as they clattered up the gangplank. How could something as small as this sail such a long way, thought Mary, when a giant ship like the Titanic had sunk to the bottom?
‘What’s that roaring sound?’ she whispered to Edmond.
‘It’s the steam engine,’ he whispered back. ‘That’s what drives the ship. They burn the coal in the furnace and that boils the water in the boiler, and that makes the steam that pushes the pistons that push the crankshaft that pushes the propeller!’ Edmond took a deep breath. ‘And that pushes the ship along! They must be getting up a good head of steam for when we set sail.’
It didn’t sound like an engine, thought Mary, following Mrs Finnegan along the deck, though the only engine she had ever heard was when the bright green motorcar had driven through their village. Edmond had been helping Uncle Pat singe the bristles off the pig, he’d been heartbroken he’d missed it, but Aunt Catherine had been afraid the hens would take a fit at the sound of it . . .
This sounded nothing like the motor engine. It sounded more like a dragon deep inside the ship, decided Mary, a giant snoring dragon, muttering ‘chugga chugga chugga’ in its sleep.
A sailor crossed the deck and came over to them. Mary supposed he was a sailor. He didn’t wear a uniform, just a dark jacket and thick trousers, but his face was brown and more wrinkled around the eyes even than Uncle Pat, who was a farmer. Uncle Pat just looked to the edge of his fields but the sailor gazed to the edge of the ocean every day.
‘Looking for the purser are you, missus?’ he asked. ‘Through that door then, and follow your nose.’
‘What’s a purser?’ Mary whispered to Edmond.
‘He’s the . . .’ began Edmond.
‘Hold your noise the both of you,’ hissed Mrs Finnegan, hiding her nervousness in sharp words.
The purser was a small dark man in an even smaller office with a small dark wooden desk in front of him. Even the office smelt of coal and smoke, thought Mary.
The purser studied the ledger in front of him. ‘Mrs Finnegan is it?’ he asked. His voice sounded strange, without the soft music that Mary was used to in the voices of everyone around her.
‘And Edmond and Mary and Bridget and Michael and Catherine. And Norah and Patrick,’ put in Edmond.
Mrs Finnegan shot Edmond a stern glance. The purser grinned. ‘All present and accounted for then, are ye? Well, Mrs Finnegan, your cabin is number four; go down the stairs and follow your nose. And yours, young lads, is number eight, just down the corridor. You’ll be sharing with the . . .’ the purser glanced down at his ledger again, ‘with the O’Gorman boys. Now Mrs Finnegan, they’ll be bringing your portmanteaus aboard in an hour or so and someone will take them down to your cabins for you.’
Mrs Finnegan shook her head. She nodded at the carpet bags and packages in their hands. ‘We’ve brought them with us, thank you all the same.’
‘Less work for the wicked then,’ said the purser easily. ‘And I hope you have a pleasant voyage with us.’
Mrs Finnegan fixed him with a steely glare. ‘Sure I’ll rest easier when I know this ship of yours is sound. Did you know that it was leaking down below?’
‘Leaking is she?’ The purser tried to hide a brown-toothed grin and failed. ‘Now Mrs Finnegan, you’re not to worry yourself about any of that. You just go down to your cabin and have a lie down and leave the ship to us. All right?’
Mrs Finnegan glared at him. But to Mary’s relief she said nothing, just turned on her heel and marched down the corridor, her children straggling in her wake. Mary hurried to catch up with her.
‘See, Ma? she said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’
Mrs Finnegan snorted. ‘Nothing to worry about, the girl says! The man’s a booby and no mistake, any fool with half an eye in their head can see that! You get yourself off and find the Captain, Mary. He’ll be a man of sense, not like that blatherumskite in there!’
Mary glanced at Edmond. He shrugged, as though to say, ‘There’s no dealing with Ma when she’s got a bee in her bonnet.’
Mrs Finnegan caught the glance. She dumped her port in the passageway and folded her arms. ‘And off with you too, Edmond, and take your brother with you!’
‘Yes, Ma,’ said Edmond.
‘Yes, Ma,’ said Mary. She watched the family file down the narrow stairway.
‘You go that way and I’ll go this way,’ said Edmond, waving his hand towards the front and back of the ship.
‘All right,’ said Mary unenthusiastically.
CHAPTER 2
ON BOARD
Mary wandered along the side of the ship, nodding politely to another family of passengers heading the other way to the purser’s office. They were all so wrapped up in coats and shawls it was hard to tell what they looked like underneath, a tall man and steps and stairs of children, and a woman whose eyes were red and tearful above the shawl pulled over the bottom of her face.
A narrow stairway, like an overgrown ladder, loomed above Mary’s head, with a sign saying ‘No Access to Passengers’. A sign above the door announced ‘Dining Room’ but it was shut, so she couldn’t even look inside. Then suddenly the way was blocked by another narrow set of stairs down to the deck at the back of the ship. This too was blocked with a chain and a sign that said ‘No Access’.
Mary peered over the chain. A line of sailors was crouched over the deck, each one pushing something back and forth. None of them even glanced up at Mary.
Mary sighed. She’d have to tell Ma that . . .
‘What you after, missy?’ said a voice behind her.
Mary turned. A sailor was coming up the stairway from the deck below. He too wore dark pants and a dark canvas jacket. He carried a bucket and mop and there were white wrinkles in the brown skin around his eyes, and his smile was a bit like Da’s, who was waiting for them with a house with twenty-one windows and an inside bathroom and a thing called a ‘shower’ that shot water out of the wall in Australia.
‘I’m after the Captain, sir,’ said Mary.
‘And what would you be wanting with the Captain?’ asked the sailor, grinning. His teeth were brown and stumpy and he pushed a big sweet to one side as he spoke.
‘It’s Ma, sir,’ said Mary. ‘She told me to give a message to him.’
‘A message to the Captain is it?’ The sailor gave his sweet a thoughtful suck. ‘Well, if you’ll be telling me, then I can be telling the Captain, how about that then?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Mary in relief. ‘Ma says to tell the Captain that the ship is leaking.’
‘Leaking is she?’ asked the sailor, grinning even wider. ‘Well, the Captain will be worried about that, indeed he will. And exactly where is she leaking then?’
‘There’s holes all around the bottom and there’s water coming out of them.’
The sailor tried to swallow his grin before it choked him. ‘Well, missy, I don’t think we need trouble the Captain about that. Those are the overboard drains, you see.’
‘The overboard drains?’
The sailor nodded. ‘All the water from on top of the decks drains down.’ He nodded at his mop and bucket. ‘Like when I swab the decks, you see? And the boys down there,’ he gestured at the line of sailors, ‘they’re scrubbing the decks with their holey stones. The deck gets dirty with the soot and all, and your Ma wouldn’t be wanting that under her feet now, would she?’ Mary shook her head. The sailor shifted his sweet to the other side of his mouth. ‘So the water from their scrubbing and the rain and the spray, it all collects in the bilges and then it drains out those holes. You thank your Ma very much from me and tell her she has nothing to worry about.’
Mary felt the blush collect in her cheeks and trickle down her neck too. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said quickly, and hurried down the stairs past him.
The stairs were steep, almost like a ladder, and narrow too. Down in the corridor it was dark and windowless, and the lanterns hung unlit from the wooden ceiling. The smell of coal smoke had collected here too, and the mutter of the dragon was even closer. ‘Chugga chugga chugga’, deep in the heart of the ship . . .
Mary wondered how close the engines were. Edmond would know . . .
She peered at the doors in the darkness. Number 2, number 3 . . . Mary opened the door of number 4 and blinked. The cabin was so crowded already it looked impossible to fit one more person in.
Mrs Finnegan looked up from trying to shove the last of the bags under a bunk. ‘Don’t just stand there gawping like you’re waiting for the pig to sing,’ she said impatiently. ‘Come and be making yourself useful.’
Mary edged into the tiny cabin and gazed around. It was small, of splintery wood. It smelt of salt and smoke and a hundred passengers before them. She could hear the clatter of boots on the deck above and the far-off snorting of the engine dragon, and an even deeper vibration as though the whole ship shuddered slightly, almost too faint to feel.
The cabin held only four bunks, two on each wall, and even narrower than the bed she’d shared with Norah at home. Mary supposed they’d have to share again like they did at home. Each bunk had two sheets and a blanket and a thin narrow pillow. Under the dirty glass of the porthole there was a tiny dressing table with a chipped enamelled washing basin and a jug of water. A lamp swung from the ceiling — and that was all.
