Chapter 32

September is the peak of the hurricane season. The month has the most Hurricanes or tropical storms of any month in the season, averaging three storms including 2 hurricanes. Few of them come ashore ... mostly, they play themselves out at sea. The nastiness that is September was over

The favorable conditions found during September begin to decay in October. Cooler ocean surface temperatures are the main reason for the decrease in activity. Still, October is the Second most active month. Activity falls markedly with 1.8 cyclones developing ... on average ... with a third hurricane developing before the end of the month. These seldom reach above category 2 ... but they generally raise havoc mid ocean in a line about the 49th parallel. In addition to tropical storms, the arctic northeaster season has begun.

I make this known to explain why mother wished me dead.

A woman who braved Lake Michigan in reasonably foul weather with never a quiver, quease or quake was totally overset by the Atlantic long swells ... before we ever reached the ocean. Mother was seasick in the St. Lawrence river.

Very seasick.

Green even.

"Four days? What do you mean ... four days?"

"Maybe six, mom ... if the weather is bad."

"If?" mother questioned, "David, the weather is already bad."

"Mom? Look out the porthole?"

The sun was shining. For October, the weather was miraculous. September had been a series of storm after storm ... one storm after another, the tropics had pushed wind and rain from Cuba to Greenland ... every day ... or so it seemed.

Tourism, not the power it would become, but a goodly portion of the coastal states annual income, was down, fishing was disrupted and boating ... the pleasure kind ... the kind that brought the ding of marine fuel pumps and the crash of closing cash drawers had been non existent. The locals had never seen so bad a September ... but they said that every year.

The Duchess of Bedford was one of the several "sturdy Canadian Pacific liners which were known as "Drunken Duchesses" for their lively performance in heavy seas." At the outbreak of war in September 1939, the Duchess of Bedford was commandeered by the Admiralty to bring civil and military officials from England to India. The Duchess was amongst the ships which evacuated Singapore in 1941. Her war service included support for the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. She was refitted in 1947, then renamed in that same year as the Empress of France and placed in service on the run from Montreal to Liverpool and return. The most important part of that entire statement is lively performance in heavy seas.

We were in first class accommodations on the Empress.

Mother was sick in the river ... what would the real ocean do?

"Look out the port?" mom replied with a whine, "The land is moving up ... and down ... up ... and down." She had recourse to her pail ... the basin had not nearly enough room. Wiping her mouth with the proffered towel she groaned, "David ... I never how cruel you could be."

"Mom! It's not even rough..." a very long pause and a secret chuckle. She was, after all was said and done, here by her own demand ... not request ... demand.

The orgy I had envisioned was not to happen ... all my conniving was gone for naught. I had just spent thirty thousand dollars to isolate Grace from parental interference and was forced to bring said interference along. If she didn't come neither would I.

The pause was long, yet not long enough for mom to lose the original statement. I completed my thought and vocalized it... "Yet."

"Not rough ... yet?" she cried.

"No, mom ... we're still in the river."

"Oh God, David ... why have you done this to me?"

"You're the one who insisted ... no ... demanded I take you with us. No one else is sick. I've spoken to the Ships Physician ... you'll get over it ... everyone does."

Learn-ed Physician that he was, educated in Scotland, England and Canada. Highly respected in his field ... he was also wrong ... Mother did not get over it.

We left the river and 'crossed the bar, ' as the transition from river to ocean is called. The sea was ... lively ... The motion of the ship ... brisk. The ship provided a Nursing Sister, dramamine, nostrums, morphine ... Mom was sick through it all.

In the very middle of the crossing ... the exact center according to the second officer, I stepped into her darkened room and said, "Don't forget, Mom ... we have to come back." I silently shut the door.

The rest of my party did ... party. Grace fell madly in love with a Duke ... or so he claimed. Sally never left her side ... much to His Grace's disgust.

Ellora disappeared ... Sari wrapped ... with all the gold trappings of her caste, she was asked to waltz by a young, handsome, turbaned and tuxedoed Raj and dissolved into the mist. I didn't see her again until we disembarked in Liverpool.