On September 8, 1900 a fierce hurricane ripped through Galveston, Texas and killed more than 6,000 men, women and children.  Among the dead were 90 children and 10 Catholic Sisters at the St. Mary’s Orphanage, despite the nuns’ efforts to save the children by securing them to their own bodies with clothesline. Only three boys and a hymn called “Queen of the Waves” survived from the orphan’s home.

September 8, 1900

Early Morning/ St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum

Lost children, orphans in walking quiet line, bookended by black-cloaked women of faith, up and into the dormitory.  Single file as is the wont, eyes aloft and noses moving, smelling salt and something unfamiliar and cold in the familiar coastline air.  The Sisters, quiet and sullen, raise noses to air, feel the wind’s cold breath rising, and share sullen stares.

A small child steps out of line, eyes following the pace of birds above, the squawk and fever there, pushing past the dormitory roof on dozens of frenzied wings.

Back in line, child.

He obeys, body pressing forward, up front stairs, head and neck craned back and watching this agitated passage of ten, twenty, thirty birds.  He smiles small.  They fly in lines, he thinks.  They are separate and yet together, like us. Ordered.  This insight comforts him.

Into chapel they go, still single-lined and quiet, knowing prayer thoughts each early morning.  They whisper gossip, kneeling serious-faced in high-ended pews.  Sisters walk and settle on either side of rows, ever-watchful for disorder, so the children use their full faces, arch their brows and move fingers to talk.

Prayer begins this morning, eyes squinted against the glare of light from many-windowed room.  Knees up and bodies settling now into the cold surface of pew-wood.  Glances today nervous, between songs and breaths, wind-gusts hitting playful against building-side, so early.  Something unsettling in it, they catch eyes, drop stares to pray hard without knowing why.

 

Late Morning/ St. Mary’s Inland Hospital

Mother Gabriel sniffs air, works old bones hard and catches pace with Sister Elizabeth.  She moves behind, behind until she is next to the younger Sister, both a brisk-walk to the front drive.  Elizabeth there, all-movement, nestling boxes and bins of supplies in cart stern, dark arched brow furrowed with effort.  Mother Gabriel purses lips, is anxious eyes.

Stay here.  It’s not safe to return to the orphanage.

I cannot, Mother.  If I stay, the children go without supper.

A pause.  Gentle dark eyes meeting older, hazel and steadfast.

If you go, there will be danger. I feel it on the wind.  The school’s right on the water.

If I stay, the children will be hungry.  The Sisters will worry.

If you go, I will worry for you, all of you.  The air smells strange.

Pray, Mother.  Pray for us.

Mother Gabriel does not say what she senses, salt-air strange and enveloping her body.  It takes over senses and pronounces death, a bundle of suffer.  She watches Elizabeth, pretty eyes and full lips set in white line, long and lovely hair modest and hidden beneath habit.  Her fine and frail body, cloak-covered.

You are little more than child yourself, she thinks.  Remembers cheap-framed Order picture hanging in school hall among others. Elizabeth staring soulful, ever-young.  No way to coax this dutiful one back, she knows.

Elizabeth’s hands find reins, move and cluck tongue, shoving out of the drive and into danger.  The winds build and build, thrust at her in cold gusts.  Mother Gabriel lifts gnarled pale hand to call once more, her sound lost with the whistle and grunt of their fierce bluster.  She pulls arm down from air, kneads and rubs thin fingers there, rubs hard while drooping in the front doorway of Infirmary.  It is fear, palpably thought, shaking her.  It makes her already-arthritic body shiver and quake with heavy weight.  She prays strong, eyes peeled tight on Elizabeth, a receding form.  Blurs of shadow and light only, moving away.

 

Early Afternoon/ St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum

Sister Elizabeth stands, moving supplies to sisters quick, all nine others up and out of cart.  They form a chain of women, standing and passing up front stair, cart to door, inside.  Some children perch at front window, neglecting book and work, whisper fear among themselves, anxious-growing on the first floor of the boys’ dorm.

They watch the Sisters enter, lock door bolted, hear the pounding of wave-crash on sand.  Howling anger-wind now, rattling the two-story structure.  It pushes and clatters at green-lined window frames, whips along upper balcony.  Nature’s ferocious lilt and settle this particular day.  Too late to leave the shore, move inland, it comes.

Fear makes the young ones cower, hold hands.  Others cover heads in older, still-fearful laps, intake breath.  Still they cannot help stare out,  first the front window then the side.  A line of faces peering there.  They watch sand lift and whirl from over-large double dunes between buildings.  Hear the grainy thrash hit the rooftop and billow down, clanking and jangling wood all the way, wanting inside.

Upstairs, children.  Single-file.

Sister Elizabeth’s loud call summons them over whips of wind.  They catch the look between Sisters, the calm, brown eyes meeting the other nine sets, fear-filled.

Yes, yes, upstairs. Every one of us.

Grab some supplies, one bin or box each, you older children.

Commotion in the boys’ dormitory hall as clamber of feet creak the staircase up.  Ten nuns rushing ninety-three throw-away children.  Small hands laden with water, cans of fruit and meat.  Sister Elizabeth becomes a black and white swirl of gown, a flurry of hand gestures, motioning up, ever-up and away from here.

Tender quiet, huddling close and labored breath, a tight catch in each tiny throat as the tenor of howl-wind increases.  Warm rain covers part of tide-rise out balcony window.  Sister Elizabeth frowns out thought, shakes hard her head.

No, this is no good.  Out, children! Out and down.

A fluster of tiny faces.

I don’t want to go down. It’ scary there.

And—

Why, Sister? We are already all up and safe.

Sister Elizabeth’s stoic face, impassive and chilled.

We must get to the girls’ dormitory building.  It’s newer, safer.

Yes, yes. Some other nuns nod uncertain assent.

Come children, quickly.  Stay together.

Girls hold blankets under arms while boys stuff cold tins of food beneath shirt-tops, moving as one unit, down.  They clasp at cold glass, heads now bent from wind’s fury as front door looses on its own, all-force.

Roar enormous, some children in the line cry out, try to run back are caught and managed with a Back in line or Stay together.

Crash of waves reaching high-pitch as they move more-ordered into newer building.  Elizabeth last in the door, bolting noise out, but not the panic.

Quiet children, please, all quiet, she says.  Some children have taken to wailing, scream high-nasal fear above the din of wind thrusting at the building.  A whistle and grunt of air.  Quiet now, let’s sing a song.

Elizabeth’s lilting alto wavers in air as the rush of small soles up stair, this new and creaking staircase so like the last.  They huddle while Sisters catch eyes, motion them into second-floor room, bolt again a useless, dark door.

But fear we not,

tho’ storm clouds round us gather,

The motley chorus sings, over-loud and off-key the words they know.

Lamentable God of the sea and of the temp—est wild.

One verse and the children calm more.  Peering out upper balcony window.  A tiny boy perches tiptoe near glass, watches sand dunes eroded full down to beach-height.

Sister, the sand dunes there. They’re going or will be gone soon, I think.

Hush now.  Stay calm.  It is only the Lady of the Waves calling.

It looks like they’re made of flour out there.  Disappearing.

It is only the Lady calling us.  If we stay here and together, we will be safe.

Doubting eyes at Sister Elizabeth’s words, but only, only her loving calm can soothe.

Pray and listen.  It will pass, children.  I know this.

 

Late Afternoon/ St. Mary’s Inland Hospital

Mother Gabriel watches from second-floor landing of the church’s hospital.  Even this far inland, water rises to pool bottom floor.  She sets lips and bites down, hears the call of Sisters from balcony.

Mother, come.  Please.  You have to see.

A younger Sister beckons her.  She wobbles unsteady on still-tingling legs, looks out glass into wall of water.  It is as if land never was, down there, nothing but cold wet leaping at this building, this room where the entire hospital has been brought.  Bodies stand, shoulder to shoulder.  Others lie on makeshift sick-beds, coarse and thin linen to cover.

A burst of water brings limp local bodies past wide window.  Sisters pull in through the wide glass and into the room who they can, those near-drown, some already faded.  This strange flurry of activity before bolting the window against howl outside.  The only sounds hacking coughs, whispered and quiet fear, mostly the awful bellow of nature’s inherent rhythm.

Mother Gabriel wills herself out into the deluge to glimpse in mind’s eye the orphanage, lets her mind and heart wander past water-covered roofs of lower buildings.  She passes the swirl of current into the orphanage dormitory near the coast, seeking Elizabeth’s eyes and the children.

She almost-sees them in her mind’s eye, the Sisters and children huddled there on second floor of girls’ dorm.  They lift chins to sing high-pitched ballad.  Mother Gabriel sighs as rough shoulder-shake calls her back to herself.  They are safe for now, singing for calm.  This is Elizabeth’s doing, she knows.

 

Early Evening/ St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum

Shattering glass upstairs and down, Elizabeth hears the breakage and knows something she did not before.

From far-back windows, children call loud and scared.

I see people standing on that roof over there, the far-away one, see?

There’s so much floating in the water, Sister.

Waves on land.  Pushing at rooftops, concealing life.  Moving tree limbs, horse carts, corpses further inland.  Elizabeth motions the Sisters, corner-talk and private, winds pulsing over a hundred miles per hour outside, unabating.

Move away from the windows, children.

Everyone, gather in here. Only here.

A deft removal of bed cloth, a rip and tear into long thinness.  Sisters’ deft fingers move quick and light with pliable fabric.

Children’s questions and whimpers.  Water seeping light on the stair outside door.  They see this moving, up toward them, it is a newness they are not prepared for.  Not yet ready for the deluge that will come.

Children, line up.  Here, here now.

The flurry of frightened feet and Sister Elizabeth tying one end of thin cotton strip around first tiny waist.  She gathers eight of them, ties strip around each tight, connecting her own body at end of linen cord.

Flimsy connections made.  Groups of eight to ten children per nun, tied together and giving order.  A possible saving thing, Sister Elizabeth thinks.

We will stay together.

Do not panic, children.  Stay with the Sister you are assigned.

Some terror-screams despite the soothe.  The nuns closest to balcony window turn and see the main wave, how it pulses near for the first time.   A tidal crash against outer wood, now the horrific grunt and squeal of roof caving.  Harsh pushing down on them while the structure’s foundation groans heavy, also heaves itself up and out of place.  They are quiet save for small intakes of breath, the occasional cry.  They listen and wait to the building settle itself, no longer an up or down.  A lost in-between-ed-ness.

Sisters call to one another above the heave and settle of the roof-cave, a low splinter sound.  Elizabeth’s low voice heard loudest.

Hold tight, children.  We are here with you.

Sing, children. Sing.

The verse begins low but cannot maintain as the water rushes in to fill the rooms they huddle in.  Few voices offer sound.  Sputter and darkness of the roof caving in takes over.  Water pouring through now-breaking balcony door, through windows, up stairs and down.  Wood splintering, giving way.

 

Early Evening/ St. Mary’s Inland Hospital

Mother Gabriel perches behind balcony-glass.  There is a great wall of debris moving toward the Hospital.  She questions and prays for next move, realizes there is only the stand and wait in this room for all of them.  Her eyes scan fearful faces, a huddling and hush of many bodies.  They are lucky.  There is safety in this far-inland building, she knows.

She moves to corner, ignores the pull and tug of other Sisters, closes eyes to here and tries to move there.  She almost-sees Elizabeth as waters rise, surge up and out.  She sees liquid death sweep past and through each living body.  She closes her eyes to the sight, shakes her body back to here.

 

Late Evening/ St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum

Floodwater builds in once-square rooms.  A gurgling of tiny lungs to fill.  Strange death throes and undertow pulls as water rushes at quickening pace.  There is no time to flee.  Thin, cotton strips connecting their bodies bear down first one, then many.  Elizabeth opens her mouth to scream as she is the last of her line to suffer harsh torrent-tug.

Her eyes take in small and limp bodies, all fluid motion now.  Limbs succumbed to the rush and rumble of water-anger.  She cannot see past her own line of bodies, but knows they are lost.  A grotesque dark and quiet.  The water fills her eyes and lungs, her mouth.