~ Dark Tides ~

by

Irene Pascoe

I knew the horrors of the past four years would haunt me forever, and that I must accept what I’d seen and heard and go on with my life. But I hadn’t expected ghastly visions to torment me in sleep, to shake me awake with my body bathed in cold perspiration. Night after night it was the same. And I wasn’t certain if I had set sail from San Francisco because I was trying to put as much distance between myself and the painful memories as possible, or if I was running to the man I’d met mere months ago.

From my shipboard bunk I frowned up at the ceiling. In the past I’d always known my mind, always known the path I wished to follow. Only then I’d had a home and a family. Now both were gone, and I felt lost without a foundation upon which to rebuild my life.

“We can change that,” Drew Phillips had murmured when he’d proposed to me on our last evening together. That was in the spring of this year, 1865. Now it was November, and I was on my way to be with him and his family. Not to become his bride, though, as he hoped. A part of me wanted to think that maybe one day marriage between us would come to pass. One day when I felt whole again and not just this shell of Rachel Montgomery.

The thought of seeing Drew brought a smile to my lips. How well I remembered his smile, so easy and infectious. It had been a balm to my battered emotions, and even the exhaustion that had gripped me back then seemed to fade in his presence.

Another heavy swell tossed the ship, and I was nearly pitched off my bunk. This wasn’t my first time at sea, and I was used to rough water. But the voyage across the Pacific Ocean had been miserably turbulent, and the handful of other passengers and I on board this merchant steamer had, for the most part, kept to our quarters. For that reason this trip had also been lonely, but that was soon to end. Within the next two hours we would be making port, the journey would be over, and I hoped that in this new land my heart would heal, and my life would once again go forward. Equally important, I hoped--no prayed--the plaguing nightmares would end.

I left the bunk and navigated across the heaving plank floor to the porthole and glanced out. My mind was so intent on Drew that all I really saw was his well-chiseled face. He was handsome beyond compare, but it wasn’t his dark good looks that attracted me. I was drawn by his devil-may-care attitude, his intelligence, and the intriguing shadows I’d seen flicker across his features on two or three occasions when he thought I wasn’t looking. There was more to Drew Phillips than met the eye. At times I’d had the strange feeling he was harboring a deep, dark secret. In all likelihood, though, the shadows were reflections of the profound sorrow he and I had shared with scores of other Americans.

We’d met in a makeshift Union Army field hospital during General Sherman’s march across Georgia. While under the general’s command, Drew had suffered a near-mortal wound from a Rebel blast. For two days he’d drifted in and out of consciousness. I was cleansing and re-dressing his wounds when he’d at last come around. He’d gazed up at me; wonder struck, and whispered “Angel.” For a disoriented moment he must have thought he had passed to the great beyond. In my work-stained clothing and with smudges of fatigue beneath my eyes, I didn’t see how I could have been mistaken for an angel.

Drew had blinked, and when he’d looked up again, his next words were, “You’re beautiful.” The death and suffering I’d witnessed had left me too numb to give even a passing thought to my appearance. In fact I was grateful that no one else heard the compliment, for military nurses were not allowed to be attractive. At least not according to Miss Dorothea Dix, who had established the Female Nurse Corps as part of the army’s Medical Department. If I hadn’t donned a Mother Hubbard, hiding the gentle curves I’d been blessed with, and pulled a mobcap over my thick hair, she would not have certified me for duty.

As I’d moved from one field hospital to another, following the troops, my only concern for myself had been to remain healthy so that I could continue with my work. And Drew’s further compliments scarcely registered in my mind. “Your hair is the color of the sun,” he had whispered, lifting a bandaged hand to caress the blond tendrils that escaped my side combs. “Soft as silk. And your eyes are as clear and blue as the water back home.”

It wasn’t until sometime later that I learned “back home” was the tropical island of Maui, in the Hawaiian chain. And it certainly never occurred to me that I might one day leave the mainland for that far-off place.

A huge wave flung a heavy spray over the grimy porthole, and I braced myself as the ship rocked perilously. There was no blue to be seen in the island waters today, or in the brooding sky. By the time we cast anchor just offshore Lahaina, the wind had dropped to a heavy breeze, and rain was pouring down.

Drew had told me that the valley on the leeward side of the island was normally hot and arid, but even when gusting kona storms blew in, the air was still fairly warm. With that in mind I slipped on the summer-weight mantle, which matched my plum-colored percale. As I was adjusting the hood over my upswept hair, a brawny crewman, wearing a slicker over coarse clothes, came to help me with my bags.

Back when I’d served briefly on a hospital ship, I’d mastered negotiating narrow stairs during harsh weather, and I reached the deck of this vessel unscathed. However, my seagoing confidence fell to the pit of my stomach and refused to rally when an unexpected wind gust propelled me to the rail, and I saw the rope ladder that had been thrown over the side. Below, bobbing like a cork in the choppy water was the small passenger boat that would take me ashore. “Isn’t there any other way off this vessel?” I sputtered.

“This ain’t a passenger ship,” the crewman tossed back, and urged me onto the rail. “Jest hold on tight to the ladder. You’ll be safe. I’m right behind you.”

His reassurance brought me some comfort, but it too quickly vanished when my right foot slipped as I began my descent. “Careful,” a man from the boat below shouted as I clung to the swaying ladder with a death grip. Salty air dried my mouth, and my skirts whipped and ballooned. Still, I had no fear they would be blown skyward, for the beating rain kept them in place. Another minute in the torrential downpour, and the garments would be plastered to my body.

I closed my mind to the spectacle I surely made, flapping in the wind as I struggled to keep from becoming airborne and plummeting to the deck below, or worse yet into the deep, dark water. I hadn’t been this frightened since the war when shells whizzed by the hospital tents. The only blessing, if one was possible in this hair-raising circumstance, was that I was too preoccupied to notice if anyone was laughing at me.

By the time I reached the bottom of the ladder, I was shaking visibly. I nearly collapsed with relief when a sailor helped me into the passenger boat, then showed me to a bench in a covered area. It was cramped, scarcely large enough for me and my three bags. But what did that matter? I was still alive! This place was dry, and since I was the only passenger who had disembarked for this island, I wouldn’t have to share the tight quarters.

I caught my breath, and after thanking the crewman who’d helped me off the merchant steamer, I settled back for the short, but rough, ride over the water. From where I sat all I could see through the windows was the long line of ships anchored offshore.

When we came alongside the dock, a sailor hoisted my bags. I ducked my head against the elements and followed him from the boat. For weeks I’d looked forward to my arrival on Maui, to seeing the lush landscape, and volcanic mountains Drew had described. But all I managed to glimpse on my flight to shelter in one of the buildings at the head of the wharf was a stretch of white sand, and the wind bending coconut palms to submission. If this was paradise, it was a far cry from what I had imagined.

For sinking moments I was struck by overwhelming loneliness and the sense of not belonging. Back on the mainland I’d been excited by the prospect of being among people whose culture and language were foreign to me. Now I felt at a complete loss, and I couldn’t even remember the dozen or so Hawaiian words Drew had taught me. Drew! I glanced around the official-looking office we had entered and issued a small prayer that he was here to meet me. There were several men working at scattered desks. All of them were Caucasian and dressed in American-style clothing. But there was no Drew. Despite the prayer I hadn’t expected he would be here. He knew I was on the way, but one Pacific storm after another had delayed my arrival. Since Drew had said that was a likely possibility, and we might miss each other, he instructed me to go straight to his office in town. Or if my ship anchored after nightfall, a room would be waiting for me in his family’s hotel.

“You’ll be taken care of right proper here, miss.” The sailor put down my bags. Overhead, the rain drummed on the tin roof. “Thank you.” I looked out the window at the wharf. On this late, stormy afternoon, activity was light. At least all I saw were a few barges being unloaded. Without thought my attention drifted to the forest of masts and spars rising from the dozens of ships moored offshore. In a heartbeat I found the one I’d just left, and an unexpected lump stuck in my throat. That vessel was my last tie to home! True, ships sailed to the mainland regularly. Still, San Francisco was over two thousand miles east, and Ohio, where I was born and raised, again that much farther.

Shoulders drooping, I swung about. I was the only woman in the office. As I stepped forward, shaking the rain from my mantle, a balding man rose from his desk and came my way. He acknowledged me with the Hawaiian greeting, “Aloha.” I was thankful that his next words were spoken in English. “May I see some identification, please?”

I nodded and fished in the drawstring bag I’d secured firmly over my arm. He scanned the document I’d handed over. As he returned it to me I inquired, “Where might I find the Phillips Land Development Corporation, sir?” An eyebrow went up, and his sagging features took on a curious expression. Did he think I was a woman of means, here to invest in property? All I had to my name was the small inheritance from Father and the pittance I’d managed to save from my twelve-dollar-a-month nurse’s pay. The ordinary cut and quality of my apparel was visible proof of my station in life. Most women, and perhaps even some men, would deduce that immediately. This male, however, might be wondering if I was a poor relative seeking a handout from the wealthy side of the family. In any case whatever had piqued his sudden interest in me remained unclear. But at least he answered my question politely and without further delay.