Page 1 of All Our Beautiful Goodbyes

On the night of May 8, 1946, a wild and terrible gale whipped up fifty-foot waves and swept a British merchant ship off course, thrusting her hard and fast toward the dangerous shores of Sable Island.

Crescent shaped, like a narrow sliver of the moon, Sable is remote and desolate—a burial ground for hundreds of wrecked ships, their wave-battered remains concealed beneath the ever-shifting shoals. From time to time—after a storm that leaves the island’s landscape forever changed—a long-forgotten vessel emerges like a skeleton from a shallow grave.

Yet Sable is also a place of rare beauty, an island of sand and grass where wild horses run free and a small, close-knit community of residents maintains two lighthouses, a telegraph station, and a lifesaving establishment to rescue shipwreck survivors from the Atlantic.

The British ship that fought those giant swells on the evening of May 8 was no stranger to turmoil at sea. She and her captain had served heroically in World War II. They’d patrolled trade routes in search of German U-boats and provided rescue support during one of the largest convoy battles of the war.

Why—exactly one year after VE Day celebrations—would wind and water thrust her so cruelly and undeservedly upon such treacherous shores? It’s a question that has no answer—because nature answers to no one. She simply does what she wants.

On the island, however, people fight for some semblance of order amid the chaos of their surroundings. To preserve life and provide an oasis of calm, they willingly go to battle with the waves.