SCENES AT HEADQUARTERS AS SAD NEWS CAME
Another crowd thronged the Temple two days later—an anxious, fear-haunted crowd, awed into an ominous silence by the dreadful news of the loss of the Empress of Ireland. Round the doors the press of men and women blocked the street, each anxious to catch a glimpse of the bulletins posted up every few minutes.
Colonel Rees, who was temporarily head of the Army in Canada, paced the room with hasty steps. His eyes were dim with tears, and his voice trembled slightly as he said: “This suspense is the worst of all. We can only wait and pray till the news comes.” The other officers were holding themselves well in hand, but the atmosphere was one of tense anxiety and unrelieved strain.
“It is terrible; we are almost driven distracted,” declared Major McGillivray, who was left in charge of the immigration department. “It does not seem possible that it can be true. All our best men in the Dominion were on board that vessel, and it does not seem possible that they can be drowned.”
At first the messages delivered to the waiting crowd were hopeful; then one came saying that all the passengers were saved. As its purport became known a wave of combined relief and thankfulness swept the crowds. A sigh went up, a sigh which breathed aloud the inward, pent-up feelings of the palpitating hearts of men and women. Many sank on their knees and with bared heads poured out their thanks to God.
But the report was only the preliminary to a more cruel blow, for scarcely had they risen to their feet when the crushing news of the loss of nearly the whole ship’s complement stared at them from the bulletin boards.
Inside the building deeper feelings were stirred. There sat those whose nearest and dearest lay sunk in a watery grave. Dry-eyed, silent, hoping against hope, they sat—young, fresh maidens, round whose grief-stricken faces the Army bonnet threw a shadow of gathering sadness, young men, buoyed up only by physical strength, and old men with drawn faces and aureoles of snow-white hair. Silent as ghosts, the stream of humanity, picking its way around them, passed unnoticed.