In an hour the sea increased from a small jubble to a short swell, and the crowds on deck began to grow silent. As my wife and I walked about watching faces growing pale, it was a study indeed. Those who have known the first throes of seasickness will understand why these poor people grew sorely afraid. If it had not been for the jesting of those who had crossed before, or who were inured to a reeling deck, they would have been almost panic-stricken. Our party, all except Nunzio Giunta, my wife, and myself, wilted before the wave.
In fifteen minutes two thirds of the crowd had hurried below, and the other third were a sight to behold. I made Camela and Concetta, who were deathly sick as a result of their over-indulgence at dinner, stay up in the rushing air until both were unable to hold up their heads. Concetta’s heart-action was very bad, and it seemed best to get her to bed, so Nunzio Giunta shouldered one and I the other, and though the ship was rolling savagely by this time we managed to get them aft and below. As I came back after Ina, she was crying beside Antonio, who was very sick indeed.
“What is the matter, Ina?” I said.
“O, Uncle Berto, I’m all sicked, and I’m going to die, ‘n’ they’ll throw me overboard, ‘n’ I’ll never see Giuseppe” [her father].
For the emigrants it was a frightful afternoon, and the compartments below and the deck above were in a condition that is beyond the scope of any tale.
At supper time about one sixth of the crowd lined up to get rations. So many of the capo di rancio phalanx were sick that nearly all of those who did draw rations did it on borrowed tickets. I saw one man get the full portion for six. The others of his group were unable to touch a mouthful, so he sat down in a corner out of the wind and ate every particle. It was a gastronomic feat worthy of record.
The worst feature of this stormy afternoon was that the ship’s officers chose it as the time to deliver to the emigrants the passports which had been taken from them for inspection by the police in the Capitaneria at Naples. It was also made the occasion of the “counting of noses,” when it was made sure that Caterina Fancetti No. 214, and Giovanni Masuolo No. 468, etc., were duly aboard. Since the United States authorities exact a fine of $200 from any ship which delivers less emigrants to the Ellis Island or other port authorities than the ship’s manifest shows to have been aboard, the ship’s people take great care that for every number and name they have on the manifest there is an emigrant to deliver.
This would have been all well and proper the next day, for instance, but this afternoon one half of the steerage passengers were so wretchedly sick that it was nothing short of cruelty to compel them to get up out of their beds and come up on deck, where they were passed in line before the officers, and the passports were delivered as names and numbers were answered and checked off.
Nunzio Giunta, who had no qualm of seasickness, attended to getting Antonio and the men and boys up, while I went below for the women. They were in a condition that was truly pitiable. Concetta’s white face had a purple tinge in it, and she lay gasping for breath; her heart-action really dangerous. Camela could scarcely lift her head. The steerage stewards in their dirt-smeared working rigs were in the compartment, pushing, shoving, jerking, and cursing the women and children to get them out and up the companion-way. The result of their efforts was to clear the place of those who were not too sick to go readily, but the large number that remained in bed were not given any great length of respite. One of the stewards came around with a stick, a piece of pine box, rapped on the sides of the bunk, and poked them with it, and soon they were herded at the foot of the steps, where the greater number of them sank down in a heap, unable to attempt to force their way up through those who had dropped down on the stairs. My wife and I contrived to get Camela and Concetta up the companion-way. The others were able to help themselves. In the alley-way we found a state of things of which it is as revolting to write as it is to read. There was not a spot on which it was fit to step, yet here was jammed a mass of sick women and children, many of them sunk down against the wall. The officers were not yet through with the people coming up from the next compartment forward, and so two sailors were guarding the door to prevent any more women coming out. I contrived to work Concetta through to the door, and just outside the portal, in order that she might get the air, and in so doing placed some ten feet between my wife and myself.
Just then there came along one of the steerage cooks, bearing a big can of supplies from the storeroom. There was no room for him to pass in the alley-way. He cried out in German for the people to make way for him, but of course they did not understand, and were too closely packed to do so even if they had. He was a big fellow of a very brutal type, and when he found that the path was not cleared he turned his shoulder, drew back, and drove his shoulder into the mass of women and children. I saw what he was going to do, but could not reach him. Women with babies in their arms, children deep down in the press of their elders, were knocked back in a heap. One of the women he struck was my wife. Quick as a flash, she recovered herself and drove a blow straight from the shoulder, landing under his left ear. One of the sailors from the outside started in, but I blocked him. A more surprised man than that steerage cook it would be difficult to imagine. He went on about his business very meekly. The women around gazed at my wife in awe, and one of them asked Camela later what manner of woman she was to imperil her chances for admission to the United States by striking one in authority.