The summer of 1913 had been particularly punishing. For five long and uninterrupted months, not a drop of rain, not the distant expectation of a cloud. Crops and trees wilted in parched fields, as did the last hopes of farmers.

Then with a loud sigh of national relief, some rain timidly licked the islands. The Daily Malta Chronicle exulted editorially: “At last the blessed rain has come. The hot and thirsty earth is now refreshed, the oppressive air is cooled, the shrunken, shrivelled and dust-covered leaves of still green trees and shrubs are revivified. Children clap their hands and shout a welcome to the long-absent and long-wished-for downpour.” The editor waxed poetic, unable to muffle the muse. Not Shakespeare poetic, more romantic lyrical weary.

No wonder the rain was welcome, the editorial added. Malta’s only hope lay in copious waters from the sky. May the rainy season make amends for the grimly arid summer. At that moment, no one could predict how lavish the torrents would be, almost before the ink of the Chronicle had a chance to dry.

What followed was to be a deluge never seen before in living memory. In the shortest span of time, tropical rain flooded parts of the island, bizarrely leaving other areas virtually dry. The densest concentration poured on the Cottonera area, with Vittoriosa registering 41.4cm. The quirks of meteorology spared Gozo, which enjoyed quite fine weather, with Għarb smiling at 1.19cm.

But the deluge killed two young boys, and it is on this tragedy that we should home.

The same paper that the previous day had turned lyrical in praise of rain, the following day had to report the disasters the gentle rain had wreaked. “One of the most violent thunderstorms within modern recollection.” At noon, the paper reported, rain fell in torrents, at two o’clock “vivid lightning flashes and thunder crashes of terrific violence… a perfect deluge” which swept the island with such force as to suspend traffic and render the streets almost desolate. The tram and the ferries stopped service and no cabs could be found for hire. Low-lying fields were completely flooded. But no mention of the drowned boys.

The Italian language Malta had more lavish detail. It claimed this was the worst deluge in the past 35 years, but that the earlier one did not compare with the present one in violence with only nine inches (22.86cm) of rain. Most houses in low-lying areas ended flooded – all the ones in Msida, where the roads became veritable rivers.

Many roofs all over Malta caved in, and thunderbolts hit and damaged the United Services Hotel in Sliema and the church of St Paul in Rabat. Cabs plying between Valletta and Sliema took shelter, and the few which remained in service were assaulted by desperate passengers who paid exorbitant fares. The drainage could not cope and overflowed disgustingly in various places, and most of the roads needed resurfacing. Still no mention of the drowned children.

The following day, a Saturday, the Chronicle detailed the storm and its aftermath on two pages. It remarked on its track of wreckage and ruin, reaching unparalleled proportions. The winds had hurtled with hurricane force, the peals of thunder undistinguishable from the roar of artillery. Although the heaviest rain fell in the afternoon “the island was palled in darkness”. Those who lived in basements faced and feared death. The people “in the poorer quarters” could only recur to “loud and fervent invocations”. The electric tram, which had never before suspended service because of the weather, gave in, even because its electrical connections became lethal.

The paper then listed by name the principal victims, and the policemen who had offered help in very dangerous circumstances. Blackley’s Bakery and “the little old church next to it” in Pietà were singled out as having sustained some of the worst effects of the flooding.

The United Services Bar on the Sliema marina, run by the Falzon brothers, had all the bottles and glasses swept off the shelves, and at Tal-Mensija, St Julian’s, all the bulls in a farm were drowned. In the Msida police station, a thunderbolt shot through and reduced some furnishings to ashes. The Marsa Sports Ground and adjacent fields turned into one great lake, which boats could navigate.

All the telephone lines fell, rubble and garden walls and often solid masonry ones and roofs caved in all over, blocking many roads. The paper ended its minute inventory of wreckage with a weird comment: the absence of injury to life and limb was truly remarkable!

The Chronicle, a morning newspaper, still seemed oblivious to the fact that two days earlier, two young boys had lost their lives tragically. The first to break the news was the Malta, published in the evening. “It was believed that no fatality had occurred during that cloudburst. But that is not the case.”

The names of the two heroes remained unknown, though one was said to be the brother of one of the boys who drowned

Two children had been found drowned in a tunnel in the vicinity of Għajn Dwieli. Some details are given, but I believe it is best to resort to the original acts of the magisterial inquiry, which are still preserved at the National Archive.

The Malta added to the list of losses to property: two farmers from Għargħur, Salvu Bonnici ta’ Zikki, and Pawlu Deguara ta’ Wajwara suffered severe damages. All the land below the Savoy Hotel in Sliema had turned into a lake. Mr L. Lanfranco’s villa close to the police station in Msida had its walls splintered and its balustrade toppled over. This represents only a small fraction of the inventory of devastation.

The other Malta daily, the Herald, gave no coverage at all to the immense natural disaster, except for a letter in its correspondence columns, written anonymously by “One of the damaged by the flood”. He lamented how poorly the rainwater drained in Cospicua, especially in its lower parts, and how it left so much damage to property behind. The author recommended a petition to request the Governor to do something about it.

This letter mentions the two dead children, in a callous, matter-of-fact way, “two boys were thrown by the flood into the circular pit outside Polverista Gate and carried through the drain to its exit near the sewage machine, and a horse belonging to a poor cabman was also drowned near the place”. The only commiseration seems reserved for the cabman who had now to spend money to buy a new horse. The author never allowed his concerns to stray from the purely monetary.

Almost the same fate as befell the two boys overtook the archpriest of Senglea, Don Giuseppe Adami. He too was dragged by the roaring floods and knocked over twice near St Thomas Gate, outside St Helen’s Gate in Cospicua. The waters forced him helpless to a certain death were it not for two young men who, risking their own lives, jumped in to rescue him. The names of the two heroes remained unknown, though one was said to be the brother of one of the boys who drowned.

The duty magistrate of the criminal courts on October 18 received reports that the bodies of two young children had been found in the ditch of Għajn Dwieli, near the gates of the naval dockyard, “half buried in the mud”. They had been later identified as Carmelo Baldacchino, aged 12, and Giuseppe Bugeja, aged 13, both from Żejtun. They were in rigor mortis with initial signs of decomposition.

The magistrate ordered that their bodies be taken to the mortuary outside Notre Dame Gate. He made an in situ inspection and appointed Dr Francesco Jaccarini, district medical officer of Cospicua, and Dr Massimiliano Micallef Eynaud, to conduct a post mortem and report back to the court under oath. The magistrate, Dr Ambrogio Mercieca, ordered the police to investigate further and search for witnesses. He established that the boys had been overtaken by the floods on the evening of Thursday, October 16, while passing under the tunnel of St Thomas at Cospicua. Inspector J. Calleja filed the initial report.

The witnesses heard by Magistrate Mercieca included Spiru Attard from Gudja, who had won the contract to cart away and dispose of the refuse collected by public cleaners from the streets of Cospicua and then deposited in Piazza Santa Margherita. Among his employees were the two Żejtun boys. When the rains started, they tried to find their way back home, but all the roads leading to Żejtun proved impassable, more so as they had to lead two donkeys who refused to move further.

Two underage street sweepers more or less, did not really make much difference, did it?

They stopped near St Thomas tunnel, where a karrozzin and many people were waiting, unable to move forward. Attard tried to cross the tunnel, but was dragged by the floods and only managed to save himself by grabbing and holding on to a chain on the nearby bridge. He heard a karrozzin pass and the screams of two boys and the people shouting “hold fast, hold fast”. He too started calling the two boys he had left on the other side, near the karrozzin.

He received no reply, and took the road to Tarxien, where he met Carmenu tal-Avarisk, who took him home, gave him a change of clothes and let him sleep there till morning. His brother called for him the next day and told him he too had been overcome and dragged by the torrents and had saved himself purely by a miracle. In the morning his brother informed him that the mothers of the boys Baldacchino and Bugeja had told him the children had not returned home. Giuseppe Attard and Giorgio Baldaccino virtually confirmed Spiru’s evidence.

Carmela, wife of Michele Mifsud from Żejtun, recognised the body of Carmelo Baldacchino, her nephew, who she had raised herself. She had not been alarmed that he did not return at night, as he often slept at his employer when they finished work late.

Sergeant Gregorio Sacco, stationed in Cospicua, stated that in the early afternoon of the 17th, he had received a circular from his superintendent to start searching for two boys who had gone missing the previous evening. He toured the area of the disappearance and found a jacket of a child stuck to a metal gate of a tunnel. His inquiries confirmed that it belonged to the missing Bugeja child. PC Ettore Micallef from Sliema came across the bodies of the boys at the mouth of the tunnel that ends near Polverista Gate.

The two doctors filed their post-mortem findings. On Carmelo Baldacchino they reported that the body was encased in mud, particularly his mouth and nostrils, which were clogged solid. The doctors noted the pupils widely dilated and a considerable contusion to the left of his chest. The body had various cuts and bruises all over. A detailed description of the internal findings followed. The examiners certified him dead through asphyxia by drowning. A similar report was drawn up for Giuseppe Bugeja.

These tragic deaths do not seem to have raised any particular outcry. Two underage street sweepers more or less, did not really make much difference, did it? The Chronicle reported that when the bodies were conveyed from the mortuary to the hospital, no one accompanied them, except for a priest. And none of the papers reported, or even mentioned, the children’s funeral.

Those were sad times before compulsory elementary education was introduced, when the law envisaged no minimum age limits for employment, and no wage constraints regulated a famished labour market. The survival of the fittest started early, next victim please.

And trust the vultures to circle. A professional photographer from Cospicua thought this a great occasion to make some money. He had a photo taken of the bodies of the two boys lying drowned in the ditch, and turned it into a marketable postcard, now quite rare. Tragedy was allowed to leave tears behind, but had to leave profit.

The colonial government’s reaction to all this was, not unexpectedly, negligible. The bureaucrats opened two official files. One with a letter from Enrico Magro, Director of Public Instruction and rector of the University. In it he informed the Governor that Valletta measured a rainfall of 11.50 inches (29.21cm) “considered as a record reading for a great number of years”.

The Governor noted: “What a quantity of useful water must have run to waste – and what a pity no effort has been made in past years to initiate a system of storage for this bountiful supply of one of the necessities of life.”

A few days later Magro wrote again to the Governor, giving him a detailed breakdown of the levels of rain from all the observatories of Malta and Gozo. He commented: “Rainfall of 16.30 [inches, 41.40cm] in a few short hours, in Malta at least, is simply phenomenal”. This time round, the Governor filed away and found no comment to add. Not one word about loss of life, of family bereavement, of forced labour of children. The dead were only natives.

Acknowledgements
My thanks to Leonard Callus, Maroma Camilleri and Stephen Spiteri.