Dark Tide (21 page)

Near the roof, Boston mayor Andrew Peters stood shin-deep in molasses, and, with a crowd of reporters and rescue workers gathered around him, Magrath heard him react to the disaster in a firm, strong voice: “Boston is appalled at the terrible accident that occurred here today … An occurrence of this kind must not and cannot pass without a rigid investigation to determine the cause of the explosion—not only to prevent a recurrence of such a frightful accident—but also to place the responsibility where it belongs. Such an investigation has been instituted this afternoon by corporation counsel [city law office] at my direction.” Magrath took note that the mayor used the word “explosion” and clearly implied that the collapse of the tank had not been an accident.

When the mayor finished, Magrath decided the best place for him to be was back at the morgue. The bodies would be arriving soon, and would continue to arrive well into the night, and probably for many days afterward. He would officially pronounce dead more victims from this disaster than any single event since he had become medical examiner in 1907. He wanted to make sure things were ready at the mortuary, so he left the waterfront by 3
P.M.
, aware that his day was just beginning.

Photo shows scene in the immediate aftermath of the flood, from approximately where the tank stood. In the foreground is the top of the tank (vent pipe extending), which hit the ground virtually intact. Firefighters opened hydrants in a largely unsuccessful effort to clear the molasses, which began to harden quickly, and they eventually had to pump seawater directly from the harbor. In the background, on the elevated tracks, is the train that was stopped just in time by engineer Royal Albert Leeman, whose own train barely escaped derailment as the main trestle buckled. Leeman’s action probably saved scores of lives.

(Photo courtesy of Bill Noonan, Boston Fire Department)

By leaving early, Dr. Magrath missed a statement issued by USIA attorney Henry F. R. Dolan, one of Boston’s most prominent attorneys, shortly after Mayor Peters finished speaking. Dolan’s message was similar to the mayor’s, though his language was much stronger. Dolan went on the offensive, blaming “outside influences” for the tank’s collapse, most likely North End anarchists who planted a bomb to advance their radical agenda. “We know beyond question that the tank was not weak,” Dolan said. “We know that an examination was made of the outside of the base of the structure a few minutes before its collapse. We know, and our experts feel satisfied, that there was no fermentation because the molasses was not of sufficient temperature to ferment. The company contends that there was no structural weakness, but we do venture the opinion that something from the outside opened up the tank.”

Arthur P. Jell arrived at the waterfront shortly before 2
P.M.
, shaken by both the level of destruction in front of him and the short telephone conversation he had had a half-hour earlier with USIA headquarters in New York. His bosses had instructed him to remain silent, to let the company attorney, Dolan, issue any statements about the disaster, and, above all, to ensure that no city inspectors or law enforcement officials confiscate USIA property—specifically, pieces of the tank. USIA engineers, based in Baltimore, would be in Boston tomorrow, Thursday, January 16, to begin the process of collecting the remnants of the tank and transporting them to safe storage.

Jell approached the police ropes, about 150 feet from where the tank had been located, his mouth agape at the incredible scene before him. He had not believed it at first when William White called to tell him about the tank, how White had returned from lunch with his wife to discover the catastrophe that had occurred while he was away. White had described the extent of the damage, but no explanation could have prepared Jell for
this
.

He tried to duck under the ropes but was stopped by a Boston police officer. Jell explained his reason for wanting to reach the tank site, but the officer rebuffed him. A rescue operation was under way and unauthorized persons whose presence might hinder it could not pass. Jell turned and walked away without a fight. Rescuers were concentrating on removing the dead and injured from the molasses; no salvage work had begun yet. He doubted anyone would remove the tank pieces today.

He would return tomorrow with USIA engineers and take control.

As the frantic rescue teams worked to save victims trapped in the hardening molasses, doctors and nurses were scrambling to help others in the nearby Haymarket Relief Station. Located about a half mile from the disaster scene, the small hospital, an adjunct to the large Boston City Hospital in the South End, was transformed into a triage facility as the wagons rolled in with the injured. Fortunately, the hospital was in the midst of a shift change when the molasses tank collapsed, so doctors, nurses, and orderlies from both shifts were at the relief station when the injured began arriving. The relief station, with twenty-five permanent beds, was quickly swamped with more than forty victims, the overflow relegated to temporary cots that were jammed into small hospital rooms.

Hospital personnel removed molasses from the patients’ breathing passages and cut off molasses-soaked clothing so they could learn the gender of the victims and the extent of their injuries. “Those already on duty were soon covered from head to foot with brown syrup and blood,” the
Boston Post
reported. “The whole hospital reeked of molasses. It was on the floors, on the walls, the nurses were covered with it, even in their hair.”

Dr. John G. Breslin had been superintendent of the relief station for two years and had never seen chaos like this. He tried to remain calm, to prepare his doctors and nurses for the worst, but no one could have foreseen the terrible trauma the victims suffered, nor the difficulties the molasses presented as the staff tried to treat the injured. Within an hour, the wheeled stretchers became immovable because the hospital corridors were covered with congealing molasses. Corridor floors and walls became so slippery with molasses that dripped from the clothing of the injured that attendants found it necessary to repeatedly swab the entranceways with hot water. Doctors and nurses were smeared with the liquid after the first few victims were treated, and the heads of patients who lay in bed were soon encircled by rings of brown molasses that flowed from their hair and clothes onto the white linen pillowcases.

Clergy members arrived at the relief station, and then shortly thereafter, the relatives of victims—men, women, and children—began to stream into the small hospital and seek information about their loved ones, their sobs filling the hallways and small waiting areas. Some relatives begged Dr. Breslin for information about their family members; others who had seen their husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons wracked with pain pleaded with him to treat their loved ones first. Breslin heard awful moaning from a nearby room and stepped inside. A nurse stood at the foot of the bed while a woman dressed in a hat and coat comforted the man lying motionless beneath the sheets, his arms folded on his chest, his pallor as white as the bedclothes. His hands and face had been washed, but Breslin noticed the molasses smears that stained the pillow behind his head. The man’s moaning was the only indicator that he was still alive.

“This is Margaret McMullen,” the nurse said softly. “This is her husband, James, who works for Bay State Railroad. I told her she could see him for just a moment if she could remain composed.” Breslin nodded, knowing he should get back out to the main entrance and direct traffic, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from McMullen, away from his parchment-like skin, bleached so white that Breslin thought he might see
through
the man if he looked long enough.

Breslin heard the wife speak to her husband. “You are one of the unfortunate ones,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “I am here but I don’t know how long. Keep up the courage and I will make a battle for you all.”

“Where were you?” Margaret McMullen asked her husband, a catch in her throat. “Where were you when it happened?”

“Right next to the tank,” McMullen rasped. “I was trying to run some kids off, a little girl collecting firewood. I think she’s dead.”

“How do you feel? The pain?”

Breslin saw McMullen move his hands from his chest down his body. “I am all to the bad, hon, from here down. From here down. And I am so thirsty.”

“Mrs. McMullen,” the nurse said in a hushed tone. “Time to go now.”

“Yes,” she said, bending to kiss her husband on the forehead, clutching his face between her hands. “I must go now, my love. I will be back later tonight.”

“Please hon,” Breslin heard the man say. “Bring me something to drink when you come back. They give me some water here, but water doesn’t help. I’m so thirsty.”

Breslin and the nurse stepped out of the room. “Injuries?” Breslin asked.

“Compound fractures of both bones in both lower legs,” the nurse said. “Fragments and splinters in wounds, considerable trauma. He’ll need an operation.” She added, looking directly into Breslin’s eyes: “The wound is badly soiled.” He knew these injuries meant that severe infection was likely imminent. If that happened, surgeons would need to amputate both legs to save McMullen’s life. Breslin nodded to the nurse and she walked away to treat other patients.

Moments later, Margaret McMullen emerged from her husband’s room, her face drawn, eyes red from crying, clutching at the front of her overcoat as though to steady her hands. Head down, she walked shakily toward the front door of the relief station. Breslin thought she would go home for a few moments, take care of her children, perhaps get a bit of rest, and then return for the grueling, sorrowful vigil at her husband’s bedside. James McMullen was forty-six years old, and if he survived, there was a good chance he would never walk again.

Breslin thought: What the hell had happened on the waterfront?

And how bad was it going to get?

For the third time in as many hours, John Barry watched the rescue worker wriggle toward him, pulling himself forward on his elbows, inch by inch through the molasses-drenched dirt and debris. The scruffy-faced fireman needed to use his elbows, because both hands were occupied; one carried a syringe filled with morphine, the other a bottle of brandy. Twice before, this man had crawled to Barry and injected morphine into his spine to relieve the astonishing pain that wracked the stonecutter’s body. Barry was still pinned, facedown, under the firehouse, head facing left, his right cheek squashed into the molasses, his free left hand wiping molasses from his face, the searing pain returning to his back, chest, and legs now that the previous morphine injection was wearing off. Barry longed for the needle again, not just to relieve the pain, but to provide the drug-induced haze that would transport his mind away from this hell. He had stopped screaming hours ago, more from total exhaustion and the morphine than anything else. But still, terror gripped him, squeezing his throat until he was reduced to shallow and ragged breaths. He would become too weak to wipe the molasses away, and it would clog his nostrils and smother him. He would never get out—the unbearable pain would not end and the unbearable fear of being buried alive would not end, and he would die in the dirt.