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Title: Adrift on an Ice-Pan
Author: Wilfred T. Grenfell
Release Date: August 14, 2006 [EBook #19044]
Language: English
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| Transcriber's Note: |
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| The appendix contains dialect that has been carefully |
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| By Wilfred T. Grenfell |
| |
| THE ADVENTURE OF LIFE. |
| ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN. Illustrated. |
| |
| HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY |
| BOSTON AND NEW YORK |
+--------------------------------------+
ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN
[Illustration: (signed) Wilfred Grenfell]
ADRIFT ON AN
ICE-PAN
BY
WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL
M.D. (OXON), C.M.G.
ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BY DR. GRENFELL AND OTHERS
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT 1909
BY WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PUBLISHED JUNE 1909
CONTENTS
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ix
ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 1
APPENDIX 59
ILLUSTRATIONS
WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL, M.D. (OXON), C.M.G _Frontispiece_
THE SETTLEMENT AT ST. ANTHONY 2
ON A JOURNEY FROM ST. ANTHONY 4
TRAVELLING ON BROKEN ICE 8
PART OF DR. GRENFELL'S TEAM 12
DR. GRENFELL AND JACK 20
WITH THE JACKET MADE FROM MOCCASINS
DOC 30
MEMORIAL TABLET, ST. ANTHONY'S HOSPITAL, NEWFOUNDLAND 54
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
"MOST NOBLE VICE-CHANCELLOR, AND YOU, EMINENT PROCTORS:
"A citizen of Britain is before you, once a student in this
University, now better known to the people of the New World than to
our own. This is the man who fifteen years ago went to the coast of
Labrador, to succor with medical aid the solitary fishermen of the
northern sea; in executing which service he despised the perils of the
ocean, which are there most terrible, in order to bring comfort and
light to the wretched and sorrowing. Thus, up to the measure of human
ability, he seems to follow, if it is right to say it of any one, in
the footsteps of Christ Himself, as a truly Christian man. Rightly
then we praise him by whose praise not he alone, but our University
also is honored. I present to you Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, that he
may be admitted to the degree of Doctor in Medicine, HONORIS CAUSA."
Thus may be rendered the Latin address when, in May, 1907, for the
first time in its history, the University of Oxford conferred the
honorary degree in medicine. With these fitting words was presented a
man whose simple faith has been the motive power of his works, to whom
pain and weariness of flesh have called no stay since there was
discouragement never, to whom personal danger has counted as nothing
since fear is incomprehensible. "As the Lord wills, whether for wreck
or service, I am about His business." On November 9th of the preceding
year, the King of England gave one of his "Birthday Honors" to the
same man, making him a Companion of St. Michael and St. George
(C.M.G.).
Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, second son of the Rev. Algernon Sydney
Grenfell and Jane Georgiana Hutchinson, was born on the twenty-eighth
day of February, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, at Mostyn House
School, Parkgate, by Chester, England, of an ancestry which laid a
firm foundation for his career and in surroundings which fitted him
for it. On both sides of his inheritance have been exhibited the
courage, patience, persistence, and fighting and teaching qualities
which are exemplified in his own abilities to command, to administer,
and to uplift.
On his father's side were the Grenvilles, who made good account of
themselves in such cause as they approved, among them Basil Grenville,
commander of the Royalist Cornish Army, killed at Lansdown in 1643 in
defence of King Charles.
"Four wheels to Charles's wain:
Grenville, Trevanion, Slanning, Godolphin slain."
There was also Sir Richard Grenville, immortalized by Tennyson in "The
Revenge," and John Pascoe Grenville, the right-hand man of Admiral
Cochrane, who boarded the Spanish admiral's ship, the Esmeralda, on
the port side, while Cochrane came up on the starboard, when together
they made short work of the capture. Nor has the strain died out, as
is demonstrated in the present generation by many of Dr. Grenfell's
cousins, among them General Francis Wallace Grenfell, Lord Kilvey, and
by Dr. Grenfell himself on the Labrador in the fight against disease
and disaster and distress along a stormy and uncharted coast.
On his mother's side, four of her brothers were generals or colonels
in the trying times of service in India. The eldest fought with
distinction throughout the Indian Mutiny and in the defence of
Lucknow, and another commanded the crack cavalry regiment, the
"Guides," at Peshawar, and fell fighting in one of the turbulent North
of India wars.
Of teachers, there was Dr. Grenfell's paternal grandfather, the Rev.
Algernon Grenfell, the second of three brothers, house master at Rugby
under Arnold, and a fine classical scholar, whose elder and younger
brothers each felt the ancestral call of the sea and became admirals,
with brave records of daring and success.
Dr. Grenfell's father, after a brilliant career at Rugby School and at
Balliol College, Oxford, became assistant master at Repton, and later,
when he married, head master of Mostyn House School, a position which
he resigned in 1882 to become Chaplain of the London Hospital. "He was
a man of much learning, with a keen interest in science, a remarkable
eloquence, and a fervent evangelistic faith."
Mostyn House School still stands, enlarged and modernized, in the
charge of Dr. Grenfell's elder brother, and in it his mother is still
the real head and controlling genius.
Parkgate, at one time a seaport of renown, when Liverpool was still
unimportant, and later a seaside health resort to which came the
fashion and beauty of England, had fallen, through the silting of the
estuary and the broadening of the "Sands of Dee," to the level of a
hamlet in the time of Dr. Grenfell's boyhood. The broad stretch of
seaward trending sand, with its interlacing rivulets of fresh and
brackish water, made a tempting though treacherous playground,
alluring alike in the varied forms of life it harbored and in the
adventure which whetted exploration. Thither came Charles Kingsley,
Canon of Chester, who married a Grenfell, and who coupled his verse
with scientific study and made geological excursions to the river's
mouth with the then Master of Mostyn House School. In these excursions
the youthful Wilfred was a participant, and therein he learned some of
his first lessons in that accuracy of observation essential to his
later life work.
Here in this trained, but untrammeled, boyhood, with an inherited
incentive to labor and an educated thirst for knowledge, away from the
thrall of crowded communities, close to the wild places of nature,
with the sea always beckoning and a rocking boat as familiar as the
land, it is small wonder that there grew the fashioning of the purpose
of a man, dimly at first, conceived in a home in which all, both of
tradition and of teaching, bred faith, reverence, and the sense of
thanksgiving in usefulness.
From the school-days at Parkgate came the step to Marlborough College,
where three years were marked by earnest study, both in books and in
play, for the one gained a scholarship and the other an enduring
interest in Rugby football. Matriculating later at the University of
London, Grenfell entered the London Hospital, and there laid not only
the foundation of his medical education, but that of his friendship
with Sir Frederick Treves, renowned surgeon and daring sailor and
master mariner as well. With plenty of work to the fore, as a hospital
interne, the ruling spirit still asserted itself, and the young
doctor became an inspiration among the waifs of the teeming city; he
was one of the founders of the great Lads' Brigades which have done
much good, and fostered more, in the example that they have set for
allied activities. Nor were the needs of his own bodily machine
neglected; football, rowing, and the tennis court kept him in
condition, and his athletics served to strengthen his appeals to the
London boys whom he enrolled in the brigades. He founded the
inter-hospital rowing club at Putney and rowed in the first
inter-hospital race; he played on the Varsity football team, and won
the "throwing the hammer" at the sports.
A couple of terms at Queen's College, Oxford, followed the London
experience, but here the conditions were too easy and luxurious for
one who, by both inheritance and training, had within him the
incentive to the strenuous life. Need called, misery appealed, the
message of life, of hope, and of salvation awaited, and the young
doctor turned from Oxford to the medical mission work in which his
record stands among the foremost for its effectiveness and for the
spirituality of its purpose.
Seeking some way in which he could satisfy his medical aspirations, as
well as his desire for adventure and for definite Christian work, he
appealed to Sir Frederick Treves, a member of the Council of the Royal
National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, who suggested his joining the
staff of the mission and establishing a medical mission to the
fishermen of the North Sea. The conditions of the life were onerous,
the existing traffic in spirituous liquors and in all other
demoralizing influences had to be fought step by step, prejudice and
evil habit had to be overcome and to be replaced by better knowledge
and better desire, there was room for both fighting and teaching, and
the medical mission won its way. "When you set out to commend your
gospel to men who don't want it, there's only one way to go about
it,--to do something for them that they'll be sure to understand. The
message of love that was 'made flesh and dwelt amongst men' must be
reincarnate in our lives if it is to be received to-day." Thus came
about the outfitting of the Albert hospital-ship to carry the message
and the help, by cruising among the fleets on the fishing-grounds,
and the organization of the Deep Sea Mission; when this work was done,
"when the fight had gone out of it," Dr. Grenfell looked for another
field, for yet another need, and found it on that barren and
inhospitable coast the Labrador, whose only harvest field is the sea.
Six hundred miles of almost barren rock with outlying uncharted
ledges,--worn smooth by ice, else still more vessels would have found
wreckage there; a scant, constant population of hardy fishermen and
their families, pious and God-fearing, most of them, but largely at
the mercy of the local traders, who took their pay in fish for the
bare necessities of living, with a large account always on the
trader's side; with such medical aid and ministration as came only
occasionally, by the infrequent mail boat, and not at all in the long
winter months when the coast was firm beset with ice,--to such a place
came Dr. Grenfell in 1892 to cast in his lot with its inhabitants, to
live there so long as he should, to die there were it God's will.
As it stands to-day the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, which Dr.
Grenfell represents, administers, and animates on the Labrador coast,
not only brings hope, new courage, and spiritual comfort to an
isolated people in a desolate land, but cares for the sick and
injured, in its four hospitals and dispensary, provides house
visitation by means of dog-sledge journeys covering hundreds of miles
in a year, teaches wholesome and righteous living, conducts
coöperative stores, provides for orphans and for families bereft of
the bread-winners by accidents of the sea, encourages thrift, and
administers justice, and adds to the wage-earning capacity and
therefore food-obtaining power by operating a sawmill, a
schooner-building yard, and other productive industries.
To accomplish this, to make of the scattered settlements a united and
independent people, to safeguard their future by such measures as the
establishment of a Seamen's Institute at St. John's, Newfoundland, and
the insurance of communication with the outside world, and to raise,
by personal solicitation, the money needed for these enterprises,
requires an unusual personality. Faith, courage, insight, foresight,
the power to win, and the ability to command,--all of these and more
of like qualities are embodied and portrayed in Dr. Grenfell.
CLARENCE JOHN BLAKE.
ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN
It was Easter Sunday at St. Anthony in the year 1908, but with us in
northern Newfoundland still winter. Everything was covered with snow
and ice. I was walking back after morning service, when a boy came
running over from the hospital with the news that a large team of dogs
had come from sixty miles to the southward, to get a doctor on a very
urgent case. It was that of a young man on whom we had operated about
a fortnight before for an acute bone disease in the thigh. The people
had allowed the wound to close, the poisoned matter had accumulated,
and we thought we should have to remove the leg. There was obviously,
therefore, no time to be lost. So, having packed up the necessary
instruments, dressings, and drugs, and having fitted out the
dog-sleigh with my best dogs, I started at once, the messengers
following me with their team.
My team was an especially good one. On many a long journey they had
stood by me and pulled me out of difficulties by their sagacity and
endurance. To a lover of his dogs, as every Christian man must be,
each one had become almost as precious as a child to its mother. They
were beautiful beasts: "Brin," the cleverest leader on the coast;
"Doc," a large, gentle beast, the backbone of the team for power;
"Spy," a wiry, powerful black and white dog; "Moody," a lop-eared
black-and-tan, in his third season, a plodder that never looked behind
him; "Watch," the youngster of the team, long-legged and speedy, with
great liquid eyes and a Gordon-setter coat; "Sue," a large, dark
Eskimo, the image of a great black wolf, with her sharp-pointed and
perpendicular ears, for she "harked back" to her wild ancestry;
"Jerry," a large roan-colored slut, the quickest of all my dogs on her
feet, and so affectionate that her overtures of joy had often sent me
sprawling on my back; "Jack," a jet-black, gentle-natured dog, more
like a retriever, that always ran next the sledge, and never looked
back but everlastingly pulled straight ahead, running always with his
nose to the ground.
[Illustration: THE SETTLEMENT AT ST. ANTHONY]
It was late in April, when there is always the risk of getting wet
through the ice, so that I was carefully prepared with spare outfit,
which included a change of garments, snow-shoes, rifle, compass, axe,
and oilskin overclothes. The messengers were anxious that their team
should travel back with mine, for they were slow at best and needed a
lead. My dogs, however, being a powerful team, could not be held back,
and though I managed to wait twice for their sleigh, I had reached a
village about twenty miles on the journey before nightfall, and had
fed the dogs, and was gathering a few people for prayers when they
caught me up.
During the night the wind shifted to the northeast, which brought in
fog and rain, softened the snow, and made travelling very bad,
besides heaving a heavy sea into the bay. Our drive next morning would
be somewhat over forty miles, the first ten miles on an arm of the
sea, on salt-water ice.
[Illustration: ON A JOURNEY]
In order not to be separated too long from my friends, I sent them
ahead two hours before me, appointing a rendezvous in a log tilt that
we have built in the woods as a halfway house. There is no one living
on all that long coast-line, and to provide against accidents--which
have happened more than once--we built this hut to keep dry clothing,
food, and drugs in.
The first rain of the year was falling when I started, and I was
obliged to keep on what we call the "ballicaters," or ice barricades,
much farther up the bay than I had expected. The sea of the night
before had smashed the ponderous covering of ice right to the
landwash. There were great gaping chasms between the enormous blocks,
which we call pans, and half a mile out it was all clear water.
An island three miles out had preserved a bridge of ice, however, and
by crossing a few cracks I managed to reach it. From the island it was
four miles across to a rocky promontory,--a course that would be
several miles shorter than going round the shore. Here as far as the
eye could reach the ice seemed good, though it was very rough.
Obviously, it had been smashed up by the sea and then packed in again
by the strong wind from the northeast, and I thought it had frozen
together solid.
All went well till I was about a quarter of a mile from the
landing-point. Then the wind suddenly fell, and I noticed that I was
travelling over loose "sish," which was like porridge and probably
many feet deep. By stabbing down, I could drive my whip-handle through
the thin coating of young ice that was floating on it. The sish ice
consists of the tiny fragments where the large pans have been pounding
together on the heaving sea, like the stones of Freya's grinding mill.
So quickly did the wind now come off shore, and so quickly did the
packed "slob," relieved of the wind pressure, "run abroad," that
already I could not see one pan larger than ten feet square; moreover,
the ice was loosening so rapidly that I saw that retreat was
absolutely impossible. Neither was there any way to get off the little
pan I was surveying from.
There was not a moment to lose. I tore off my oilskins, threw myself
on my hands and knees by the side of the komatik to give a larger base
to hold, and shouted to my team to go ahead for the shore. Before we
had gone twenty yards, the dogs got frightened, hesitated for a
moment, and the komatik instantly sank into the slob. It was necessary
then for the dogs to pull much harder, so that they now began to sink
in also.
Earlier in the season the father of the very boy I was going to
operate on had been drowned in this same way, his dogs tangling their
traces around him in the slob. This flashed into my mind, and I
managed to loosen my sheath-knife, scramble forward, find the traces
in the water, and cut them, holding on to the leader's trace wound
round my wrist.
[Illustration: TRAVELLING ON BROKEN ICE]
Being in the water I could see no piece of ice that would bear
anything up. But there was as it happened a piece of snow, frozen
together like a large snowball, about twenty-five yards away, near
where my leading dog, "Brin," was wallowing in the slob. Upon this he
very shortly climbed, his long trace of ten fathoms almost reaching
there before he went into the water.
This dog has weird black markings on his face, giving him the
appearance of wearing a perpetual grin. After climbing out on the snow
as if it were the most natural position in the world he deliberately
shook the ice and water from his long coat, and then turned round to
look for me. As he sat perched up there out of the water he seemed to
be grinning with satisfaction. The other dogs were hopelessly bogged.
Indeed, we were like flies in treacle.
Gradually, I hauled myself along the line that was still tied to my
wrist, till without any warning the dog turned round and slipped out
of his harness, and then once more turned his grinning face to where I
was struggling.
It was impossible to make any progress through the sish ice by
swimming, so I lay there and thought all would soon be over, only
wondering if any one would ever know how it happened. There was no
particular horror attached to it, and in fact I began to feel drowsy,
as if I could easily go to sleep, when suddenly I saw the trace of
another big dog that had himself gone through before he reached the
pan, and though he was close to it was quite unable to force his way
out. Along this I hauled myself, using him as a bow anchor, but much
bothered by the other dogs as I passed them, one of which got on my
shoulder, pushing me farther down into the ice. There was only a yard
or so more when I had passed my living anchor, and soon I lay with my
dogs around me on the little piece of slob ice. I had to help them on
to it, working them through the lane that I had made.
[Illustration: PART OF DR. GRENFELL'S TEAM]
The piece of ice we were on was so small it was obvious we must soon
all be drowned, if we remained upon it as it drifted seaward into more
open water. If we were to save our lives, no time was to be lost. When
I stood up, I could see about twenty yards away a larger pan floating
amidst the sish, like a great flat raft, and if we could get on to it
we should postpone at least for a time the death that already seemed
almost inevitable. It was impossible to reach it without a life line,
as I had already learned to my cost, and the next problem was how to
get one there. Marvellous to relate, when I had first fallen through,
after I had cut the dogs adrift without any hope left of saving
myself, I had not let my knife sink, but had fastened it by two half
hitches to the back of one of the dogs. To my great joy there it was
still, and shortly I was at work cutting all the sealskin traces
still hanging from the dogs' harnesses, and splicing them together
into one long line. These I divided and fastened to the backs of my
two leaders, tying the near ends round my two wrists. I then pointed
out to "Brin" the pan I wanted to reach and tried my best to make them
go ahead, giving them the full length of my lines from two coils. My
long sealskin moccasins, reaching to my thigh, were full of ice and
water. These I took off and tied separately on the dogs' backs. My
coat, hat, gloves, and overalls I had already lost. At first, nothing
would induce the two dogs to move, and though I threw them off the pan
two or three times, they struggled back upon it, which perhaps was
only natural, because as soon as they fell through they could see
nowhere else to make for. To me, however, this seemed to spell "the
end." Fortunately, I had with me a small black spaniel, almost a
featherweight, with large furry paws, called "Jack," who acts as my
mascot and incidentally as my retriever. This at once flashed into my
mind, and I felt I had still one more chance for life. So I spoke to
him and showed him the direction, and then threw a piece of ice toward
the desired goal. Without a moment's hesitation he made a dash for it,
and to my great joy got there safely, the tough scale of sea ice
carrying his weight bravely. At once I shouted to him to "lie down,"
and this, too, he immediately did, looking like a little black fuzz
ball on the white setting. My leaders could now see him seated there
on the new piece of floe, and when once more I threw them off they
understood what I wanted, and fought their way to where they saw the
spaniel, carrying with them the line that gave me the one chance for
my life. The other dogs followed them, and after painful struggling,
all got out again except one. Taking all the run that I could get on
my little pan, I made a dive, slithering with the impetus along the
surface till once more I sank through. After a long fight, however, I
was able to haul myself by the long traces on to this new pan, having
taken care beforehand to tie the harnesses to which I was holding
under the dogs' bellies, so that they could not slip them off. But
alas! the pan I was now on was not large enough to bear us and was
already beginning to sink, so this process had to be repeated
immediately.
I now realized that, though we had been working toward the shore, we
had been losing ground all the time, for the off-shore wind had
already driven us a hundred yards farther out. But the widening gap
kept full of the pounded ice, through which no man could possibly go.
I had decided I would rather stake my chances on a long swim even than
perish by inches on the floe, as there was no likelihood whatever of
being seen and rescued. But, keenly though I watched, not a streak
even of clear water appeared, the interminable sish rising from below
and filling every gap as it appeared. We were now resting on a piece
of ice about ten by twelve feet, which, as I found when I came to
examine it, was not ice at all, but simply snow-covered slob frozen
into a mass, and I feared it would very soon break up in the general
turmoil of the heavy sea, which was increasing as the ice drove off
shore before the wind.
At first we drifted in the direction of a rocky point on which a heavy
surf was breaking. Here I thought once again to swim ashore. But
suddenly we struck a rock. A large piece broke off the already small
pan, and what was left swung round in the backwash, and started right
out to sea.
There was nothing for it now but to hope for a rescue. Alas! there was
little possibility of being seen. As I have already mentioned, no one
lives around this big bay. My only hope was that the other komatik,
knowing I was alone and had failed to keep my tryst, would perhaps
come back to look for me. This, however, as it proved, they did not
do.
The westerly wind was rising all the time, our coldest wind at this
time of the year, coming as it does over the Gulf ice. It was
tantalizing, as I stood with next to nothing on, the wind going
through me and every stitch soaked in ice-water, to see my
well-stocked komatik some fifty yards away. It was still above water,
with food, hot tea in a thermos bottle, dry clothing, matches, wood,
and everything on it for making a fire to attract attention.
It is easy to see a dark object on the ice in the daytime, for the
gorgeous whiteness shows off the least thing. But the tops of bushes
and large pieces of kelp have often deceived those looking out.
Moreover, within our memory no man has been thus adrift on the bay
ice. The chances were about one in a thousand that I should be seen at
all, and if I were seen, I should probably be mistaken for some piece
of refuse.
To keep from freezing, I cut off my long moccasins down to the feet,
strung out some line, split the legs, and made a kind of jacket, which
protected my back from the wind down as far as the waist. I have this
jacket still, and my friends assure me it would make a good Sunday
garment.
I had not drifted more than half a mile before I saw my poor komatik
disappear through the ice, which was every minute loosening up into
the small pans that it consisted of, and it seemed like a friend gone
and one more tie with home and safety lost. To the northward, about a
mile distant, lay the mainland along which I had passed so merrily in
the morning,--only, it seemed, a few moments before.
By mid-day I had passed the island to which I had crossed on the ice
bridge. I could see that the bridge was gone now. If I could reach the
island I should only be marooned and destined to die of starvation.
But there was little chance of that, for I was rapidly driving into
the ever widening bay.
[Illustration: DR. GRENFELL AND JACK
WITH THE JACKET MADE FROM MOCCASINS]
It was scarcely safe to move on my small ice raft, for fear of
breaking it. Yet I saw I must have the skins of some of my dogs,--of
which I had eight on the pan,--if I was to live the night out. There
was now some three to five miles between me and the north side of the
bay. There, immense pans of Arctic ice, surging to and fro on the
heavy ground seas, were thundering into the cliffs like medieval
battering-rams. It was evident that, even if seen, I could hope for no
help from that quarter before night. No boat could live through the
surf.
Unwinding the sealskin traces from my waist, round which I had wound
them to keep the dogs from eating them, I made a slip-knot, passed it
over the first dog's head, tied it round my foot close to his neck,
threw him on his back, and stabbed him in the heart. Poor beast! I
loved him like a friend,--a beautiful dog,--but we could not all hope
to live. In fact, I had no hope any of us would, at that time, but it
seemed better to die fighting.
In spite of my care the struggling dog bit me rather badly in the leg.
I suppose my numb hands prevented my holding his throat as I could
ordinarily do. Moreover, I must hold the knife in the wound to the
end, as blood on the fur would freeze solid and make the skin useless.
In this way I sacrificed two more large dogs, receiving only one more
bite, though I fully expected that the pan I was on would break up in
the struggle. The other dogs, who were licking their coats and trying
to get dry, apparently took no notice of the fate of their
comrades,--but I was very careful to prevent the dying dogs crying
out, for the noise of fighting would probably have been followed by
the rest attacking the down dog, and that was too close to me to be
pleasant. A short shrift seemed to me better than a long one, and I
envied the dead dogs whose troubles were over so quickly. Indeed, I
came to balance in my mind whether, if once I passed into the open
sea, it would not be better by far to use my faithful knife on myself
than to die by inches. There seemed no hardship in the thought. I
seemed fully to sympathize with the Japanese view of hara-kiri.
Working, however, saved me from philosophizing. By the time I had
skinned these dogs, and with my knife and some of the harness had
strung the skins together, I was ten miles on my way, and it was
getting dark.
Away to the northward I could see a single light in the little village
where I had slept the night before, where I had received the kindly
hospitality of the simple fishermen in whose comfortable homes I have
spent many a night. I could not help but think of them sitting down to
tea, with no idea that there was any one watching them, for I had told
them not to expect me back for three days.
Meanwhile I had frayed out a small piece of rope into oakum, and mixed
it with fat from the intestines of my dogs. Alas, my match-box, which
was always chained to me, had leaked, and my matches were in pulp. Had
I been able to make a light, it would have looked so unearthly out
there on the sea that I felt sure they would see me. But that chance
was now cut off. However, I kept the matches, hoping that I might dry
them if I lived through the night. While working at the dogs, about
every five minutes I would stand up and wave my hands toward the land.
I had no flag, and I could not spare my shirt, for, wet as it was, it
was better than nothing in that freezing wind, and, anyhow, it was
already nearly dark.
Unfortunately, the coves in among the cliffs are so placed that only
for a very narrow space can the people in any house see the sea.
Indeed, most of them cannot see it at all, so that I could not in the
least expect any one to see me, even supposing it had been daylight.
Not daring to take any snow from the surface of my pan to break the
wind with, I piled up the carcasses of my dogs. With my skin rug I
could now sit down without getting soaked. During these hours I had
continually taken off all my clothes, wrung them out, swung them one
by one in the wind, and put on first one and then the other inside,
hoping that what heat there was in my body would thus serve to dry
them. In this I had been fairly successful.
My feet gave me most trouble, for they immediately got wet again
because my thin moccasins were easily soaked through on the snow. I
suddenly thought of the way in which the Lapps who tend our reindeer
manage for dry socks. They carry grass with them, which they ravel up
and pad into their shoes. Into this they put their feet, and then pack
the rest with more grass, tying up the top with a binder. The ropes of
the harness for our dogs are carefully sewed all over with two layers
of flannel in order to make them soft against the dogs' sides. So, as
soon as I could sit down, I started with my trusty knife to rip up the
flannel. Though my fingers were more or less frozen, I was able also
to ravel out the rope, put it into my shoes, and use my wet socks
inside my knickerbockers, where, though damp, they served to break the
wind. Then, tying the narrow strips of flannel together, I bound up
the top of the moccasins, Lapp-fashion, and carried the bandage on up
over my knee, making a ragged though most excellent puttee.
As to the garments I wore, I had opened recently a box of football
clothes I had not seen for twenty years. I had found my old Oxford
University football running shorts and a pair of Richmond Football
Club red, yellow, and black stockings, exactly as I wore them twenty
years ago. These with a flannel shirt and sweater vest were now all I
had left. Coat, hat, gloves, oilskins, everything else, were gone, and
I stood there in that odd costume, exactly as I stood twenty years ago
on a football field, reminding me of the little girl of a friend, who,
when told she was dying, asked to be dressed in her Sunday frock to
go to heaven in. My costume, being very light, dried all the quicker,
until afternoon. Then nothing would dry anymore, everything freezing
stiff. It had been an ideal costume to struggle through the slob ice.
I really believe the conventional garments missionaries are supposed
to affect would have been fatal.
My occupation till what seemed like midnight was unravelling rope, and
with this I padded out my knickers inside, and my shirt as well,
though it was a clumsy job, for I could not see what I was doing. Now,
getting my largest dog, Doc, as big as a wolf and weighing ninety-two
pounds, I made him lie down, so that I could cuddle round him. I then
wrapped the three skins around me, arranging them so that I could lie
on one edge, while the other came just over my shoulders and head.
My own breath collecting inside the newly flayed skin must have had a
soporific effect, for I was soon fast asleep. One hand I had kept warm
against the curled up dog, but the other, being gloveless, had frozen,
and I suddenly awoke, shivering enough, I thought, to break my fragile
pan. What I took at first to be the sun was just rising, but I soon
found it was the moon, and then I knew it was about half-past twelve.
The dog was having an excellent time. He hadn't been cuddled so warm
all winter, and he resented my moving with low growls till he found it
wasn't another dog.
[Illustration: DOC]
The wind was steadily driving me now toward the open sea, and I could
expect, short of a miracle, nothing but death out there. Somehow, one
scarcely felt justified in praying for a miracle. But we have learned
down here to pray for things we want, and, anyhow, just at that moment
the miracle occurred. The wind fell off suddenly, and came with a
light air from the southward, and then dropped stark calm. The ice was
now "all abroad," which I was sorry for, for there was a big safe pan
not twenty yards away from me. If I could have got on that, I might
have killed my other dogs when the time came, and with their coats I
could hope to hold out for two or three days more, and with the food
and drink their bodies would offer me need not at least die of hunger
or thirst. To tell the truth, they were so big and strong I was half
afraid to tackle them with only a sheath-knife on my small and
unstable raft.
But it was now freezing hard. I knew the calm water between us would
form into cakes, and I had to recognize that the chance of getting
near enough to escape on to it was gone. If, on the other hand, the
whole bay froze solid again I had yet another possible chance. For my
pan would hold together longer and I should be opposite another
village, called Goose Cove, at daylight, and might possibly be seen
from there. I knew that the komatiks there would be starting at
daybreak over the hills for a parade of Orangemen about twenty miles
away. Possibly, therefore, I might be seen as they climbed the hills.
So I lay down, and went to sleep again.
It seems impossible to say how long one sleeps, but I woke with a
sudden thought in my mind that I must have a flag; but again I had no
pole and no flag. However, I set to work in the dark to disarticulate
the legs of my dead dogs, which were now frozen stiff, and which were
all that offered a chance of carrying anything like a distress signal.
Cold as it was, I determined to sacrifice my shirt for that purpose
with the first streak of daylight.
It took a long time in the dark to get the legs off, and when I had
patiently marled them together with old harness rope and the remains
of the skin traces, it was the heaviest and crookedest flag-pole it
has ever been my lot to see. I had had no food from six o'clock the
morning before, when I had eaten porridge and bread and butter. I had,
however, a rubber band which I had been wearing instead of one of my
garters, and I chewed that for twenty-four hours. It saved me from
thirst and hunger, oddly enough. It was not possible to get a drink
from my pan, for it was far too salty. But anyhow that thought did not
distress me much, for as from time to time I heard the cracking and
grinding of the newly formed slob, it seemed that my devoted boat must
inevitably soon go to pieces.
At last the sun rose, and the time came for the sacrifice of my shirt.
So I stripped, and, much to my surprise, found it not half so cold as
I had anticipated. I now re-formed my dog-skins with the raw side out,
so that they made a kind of coat quite rivalling Joseph's. But, with
the rising of the sun, the frost came out of the joints of my dogs'
legs, and the friction caused by waving it made my flag-pole almost
tie itself in knots. Still, I could raise it three or four feet above
my head, which was very important.
Now, however, I found that instead of being as far out at sea as I had
reckoned, I had drifted back in a northwesterly direction, and was off
some cliffs known as Ireland Head. Near these there was a little
village looking seaward, whence I should certainly have been seen.
But, as I had myself, earlier in the winter, been night-bound at this
place, I had learnt there was not a single soul living there at all
this winter. The people had all, as usual, migrated to the winter
houses up the bay, where they get together for schooling and social
purposes.
I soon found it was impossible to keep waving so heavy a flag all the
time, and yet I dared not sit down, for that might be the exact moment
some one would be in a position to see me from the hills. The only
thing in my mind was how long I could stand up and how long go on
waving that pole at the cliffs. Once or twice I thought I saw men
against their snowy faces, which, I judged, were about five and a half
miles from me, but they were only trees. Once, also, I thought I saw a
boat approaching. A glittering object kept appearing and disappearing
on the water, but it was only a small piece of ice sparkling in the
sun as it rose on the surface. I think that the rocking of my cradle
up and down on the waves had helped me to sleep, for I felt as well as
ever I did in my life; and with the hope of a long sunny day, I felt
sure I was good to last another twenty-four hours,--if my boat would
hold out and not rot under the sun's rays.
Each time I sat down to rest, my big dog "Doc" came and kissed my face
and then walked to the edge of the ice-pan, returning again to where I
was huddled up, as if to say, "Why don't you come along? Surely it is
time to start." The other dogs also were now moving about very
restlessly, occasionally trying to satisfy their hunger by gnawing at
the dead bodies of their brothers.
I determined, at mid-day, to kill a big Eskimo dog and drink his
blood, as I had read only a few days before in "Farthest North" of Dr.
Nansen's doing,--that is, if I survived the battle with him. I could
not help feeling, even then, my ludicrous position, and I thought, if
ever I got ashore again, I should have to laugh at myself standing
hour after hour waving my shirt at those lofty cliffs, which seemed to
assume a kind of sardonic grin, so that I could almost imagine they
were laughing at me. At times I could not help thinking of the good
breakfast that my colleagues were enjoying at the back of those same
cliffs, and of the snug fire and the comfortable room which we call
our study.
I can honestly say that from first to last not a single sensation of
fear entered my mind, even when I was struggling in the slob ice.
Somehow it did not seem unnatural; I had been through the ice half a
dozen times before. For the most part I felt very sleepy, and the idea
was then very strong in my mind that I should soon reach the solution
of the mysteries that I had been preaching about for so many years.
Only the previous night (Easter Sunday) at prayers in the cottage, we
had been discussing the fact that the soul was entirely separate from
the body, that Christ's idea of the body as the temple in which the
soul dwells is so amply borne out by modern science. We had talked of
thoughts from that admirable book, "Brain and Personality," by Dr.
Thompson of New York, and also of the same subject in the light of a
recent operation performed at the Johns Hopkins Hospital by Dr. Harvey
Cushing. The doctor had removed from a man's brain two large cystic
tumors without giving the man an anæsthetic, and the patient had kept
up a running conversation with him all the while the doctor's fingers
were working in his brain. It had seemed such a striking proof that
ourselves and our bodies are two absolutely different things.
Our eternal life has always been with me a matter of faith. It seems
to me one of those problems that must always be a mystery to
knowledge. But my own faith in this matter had been so untroubled that
it seemed now almost natural to be leaving through this portal of
death from an ice pan. In many ways, also, I could see how a death of
this kind might be of value to the particular work that I am engaged
in. Except for my friends, I had nothing I could think of to regret
whatever. Certainly, I should like to have told them the story. But
then one does not carry folios of paper in running shorts which have
no pockets, and all my writing gear had gone by the board with the
komatik.
I could still see a testimonial to myself some distance away in my
khaki overalls, which I had left on another pan in the struggle of the
night before. They seemed a kind of company, and would possibly be
picked up and suggest the true story. Running through my head all the
time, quite unbidden, were the words of the old hymn:--
"My God, my Father, while I stray
Far from my home on life's dark way,
Oh, teach me from my heart to say,
Thy will be done!"
It is a hymn we hardly ever sing out here, and it was an unconscious
memory of my boyhood days.
It was a perfect morning,--a cobalt sky, an ultramarine sea, a golden
sun, an almost wasteful extravagance of crimson over hills of purest
snow, which caught a reflected glow from rock and crag. Between me and
the hills lay miles of rough ice and long veins of thin black slob
that had formed during the night. For the foreground there was my
poor, gruesome pan, bobbing up and down on the edge of the open sea,
stained with blood, and littered with carcasses and débris. It was
smaller than last night, and I noticed also that the new ice from the
water melted under the dogs' bodies had been formed at the expense of
its thickness. Five dogs, myself in colored football costume, and a
bloody dogskin cloak, with a gay flannel shirt on a pole of frozen
dogs' legs, completed the picture. The sun was almost hot by now, and
I was conscious of a surplus of heat in my skin coat. I began to look
longingly at one of my remaining dogs, for an appetite will rise even
on an ice-pan, and that made me think of fire. So once again I
inspected my matches. Alas! the heads were in paste, all but three or
four blue-top wax ones.
These I now laid out to dry, while I searched about on my snow-pan to
see if I could get a piece of transparent ice to make a burning-glass.
For I was pretty sure that with all the unravelled tow I had stuffed
into my leggings, and with the fat of my dogs, I could make smoke
enough to be seen if only I could get a light. I had found a piece
which I thought would do, and had gone back to wave my flag, which I
did every two minutes, when I suddenly thought I saw again the glitter
of an oar. It did not seem possible, however, for it must be
remembered it was not water which lay between me and the land, but
slob ice, which a mile or two inside me was very heavy. Even if people
had seen me, I did not think they could get through, though I knew
that the whole shore would then be trying. Moreover, there was no
smoke rising on the land to give me hope that I had been seen. There
had been no gun-flashes in the night, and I felt sure that, had any
one seen me, there would have been a bonfire on every hill to
encourage me to keep going.
So I gave it up, and went on with my work. But the next time I went
back to my flag, the glitter seemed very distinct, and though it kept
disappearing as it rose and fell on the surface, I kept my eyes
strained upon it, for my dark spectacles had been lost, and I was
partly snowblind.
I waved my flag as high as I could raise it, broadside on. At last,
beside the glint of the white oar, I made out the black streak of the
hull. I knew that, if the pan held on for another hour, I should be
all right.
With that strange perversity of the human intellect, the first thing I
thought of was what trophies I could carry with my luggage from the
pan, and I pictured the dog-bone flagstaff adorning my study. (The
dogs actually ate it afterwards.) I thought of preserving my ragged
puttees with our collection of curiosities. I lost no time now at the
burning-glass. My whole mind was devoted to making sure I should be
seen, and I moved about as much as I dared on the raft, waving my
sorry token aloft.
At last there could be no doubt about it: the boat was getting nearer
and nearer. I could see that my rescuers were frantically waving,
and, when they came within shouting distance, I heard some one cry
out, "Don't get excited. Keep on the pan where you are." They were
infinitely more excited than I. Already to me it seemed just as
natural now to be saved as, half an hour before, it had seemed
inevitable I should be lost, and had my rescuers only known, as I did,
the sensation of a bath in that ice when you could not dry yourself
afterwards, they need not have expected me to follow the example of
the apostle Peter and throw myself into the water.
As the man in the bow leaped from the boat on to my ice raft and
grasped both my hands in his, not a word was uttered. I could see in
his face the strong emotions he was trying hard to force back, though
in spite of himself tears trickled down his cheeks. It was the same
with each of the others of my rescuers, nor was there any reason to be
ashamed of them. These were not the emblems of weak sentimentality,
but the evidences of the realization of the deepest and noblest
emotion of which the human heart is capable, the vision that God has
use for us his creatures, the sense of that supreme joy of the
Christ,--the joy of unselfish service. After the hand-shake and
swallowing a cup of warm tea that had been thoughtfully packed in a
bottle, we hoisted in my remaining dogs and started for home. To drive
the boat home there were not only five Newfoundland fishermen at the
oars, but five men with Newfoundland muscles in their backs, and five
as brave hearts as ever beat in the bodies of human beings.
So, slowly but steadily, we forged through to the shore, now jumping
out on to larger pans and forcing them apart with the oars, now
hauling the boat out and dragging her over, when the jam of ice packed
tightly in by the rising wind was impossible to get through otherwise.
My first question, when at last we found our tongues, was, "How ever
did you happen to be out in the boat in this ice?" To my astonishment
they told me that the previous night four men had been away on a long
headland cutting out some dead harp seals that they had killed in the
fall and left to freeze up in a rough wooden store they had built
there, and that as they were leaving for home, my pan of ice had
drifted out clear of Hare Island, and one of them, with his keen
fisherman's eyes, had seen something unusual. They at once returned to
their village, saying there was something alive drifting out to sea on
the floe ice. But their report had been discredited, for the people
thought that it could be only the top of some tree.
All the time I had been driving along I knew that there was one man on
that coast who had a good spy-glass. He tells me he instantly got up
in the midst of his supper, on hearing the news, and hurried over the
cliffs to the lookout, carrying his trusty spy-glass with him.
Immediately, dark as it was, he saw that without any doubt there was a
man out on the ice. Indeed, he saw me wave my hands every now and
again towards the shore. By a very easy process of reasoning on so
uninhabited a shore, he at once knew who it was, though some of the
men argued that it must be some one else. Little had I thought, as
night was closing in, that away on that snowy hilltop lay a man with a
telescope patiently searching those miles of ice for _me_. Hastily
they rushed back to the village and at once went down to try to launch
a boat, but that proved to be impossible. Miles of ice lay between
them and me, the heavy sea was hurling great blocks on the landwash,
and night was already falling, the wind blowing hard on shore.
The whole village was aroused, and messengers were despatched at once
along the coast, and lookouts told off to all the favorable points,
so that while I considered myself a laughing-stock, bowing with my
flag to those unresponsive cliffs, there were really many eyes
watching me. One man told me that with his glass he distinctly saw me
waving the shirt flag. There was little slumber that night in the
villages, and even the men told me there were few dry eyes, as they
thought of the impossibility of saving me from perishing. We are not
given to weeping overmuch on this shore, but there are tears that do a
man honor.
Before daybreak this fine volunteer crew had been gotten together. The
boat, with such a force behind it of will power, would, I believe,
have gone through anything. And, after seeing the heavy breakers
through which we were guided, loaded with their heavy ice
battering-rams, when at last we ran through the harbor-mouth with the
boat on our return, I knew well what wives and children had been
thinking of when they saw their loved ones put out. Only two years ago
I remember a fisherman's wife watching her husband and three sons take
out a boat to bring in a stranger that was showing flags for a pilot.
But the boat and its occupants have not yet come back.
Every soul in the village was on the beach as we neared the shore.
Every soul was waiting to shake hands when I landed. Even with the
grip that one after another gave me, some no longer trying to keep
back the tears, I did not find out my hands were frost-burnt,--a fact
I have not been slow to appreciate since, however. I must have been a
weird sight as I stepped ashore, tied up in rags, stuffed out with
oakum, wrapped in the bloody skins of dogs, with no hat, coat, or
gloves besides, and only a pair of short knickers. It must have seemed
to some as if it were the old man of the sea coming ashore.
But no time was wasted before a pot of tea was exactly where I wanted
it to be, and some hot stew was locating itself where I had intended
an hour before the blood of one of my remaining dogs should have gone.
Rigged out in the warm garments that fishermen wear, I started with a
large team as hard as I could race for the hospital, for I had learnt
that the news had gone over that I was lost. It was soon painfully
impressed upon me that I could not much enjoy the ride, for I had to
be hauled like a log up the hills, my feet being frost-burnt so that I
could not walk. Had I guessed this before going into the house, I
might have avoided much trouble.
It is time to bring this egotistic narrative to an end. "Jack" lies
curled up by my feet while I write this short account. "Brin" is once
again leading and lording it over his fellows. "Doc" and the other
survivors are not forgotten, now that we have again returned to the
less romantic episodes of a mission hospital life. There stands in our
hallway a bronze tablet to the memory of three noble dogs, Moody,
Watch, and Spy, whose lives were given for mine on the ice. In my
home in England my brother has placed a duplicate tablet, and has
added these words, "Not one of them is forgotten before your Father
which is in heaven." And this I most fully believe to be true. The boy
whose life I was intent on saving was brought to the hospital a day or
two later in a boat, the ice having cleared off the coast not to
return for that season. He was operated on successfully, and is even
now on the high road to recovery. We all love life. I was glad to be
back once more with possibly a new lease of it before me. I had
learned on the pan many things, but chiefly that the one cause for
regret, when we look back on a life which we think is closed forever,
will be the fact that we have wasted its opportunities. As I went to
sleep that first night there still rang in my ears the same verse of
the old hymn which had been my companion on the ice, "Thy will, not
mine, O Lord."
[Illustration: MEMORIAL TABLET AT ST. ANTHONY'S HOSPITAL,
NEWFOUNDLAND]
+----------------------------------------+
| TO THE MEMORY OF |
| THREE NOBLE DOGS. |
| |
| MOODY. |
| WATCH. |
| SPY. |
| |
| WHOSE LIVES WERE GIVEN |
| FOR MINE ON THE ICE. |
| |
| April 21st. 1908. |
| |
| WILFRED GRENFELL, |
| ST. ANTHONY. |
| |
+----------------------------------------+
* * * * *
APPENDIX
One of Dr. Grenfell's volunteer helpers, Miss Luther of Providence,
R.I., contributes the following account of the rescue as recited in
the Newfoundland vernacular by one of the rescuing party.
"One day, about a week after Dr. Grenfell's return," says Miss Luther,
"two men came in from Griquet, fifteen miles away. They had walked all
that distance, though the trail was heavy with soft snow and they
often sank to their waists and waded through brooks and ponds. 'We
just felt we must see the doctor and tell him what 't would 'a' meant
to us, if he'd been lost.' Perhaps nothing but the doctor's own tale
could be more graphic than what was told by George Andrews, one of the
crew who rescued him."
THE RESCUERS' STORY
"It was wonderfu' bad weather that Monday mornin'. Th' doctor was to
Lock's Cove. None o' we thought o' 'is startin' out. I don't think th'
doctor hisself thought o' goin' at first an' then 'e sent th' two men
on ahead for to meet us at th' tilt an' said like 's 'e was goin'
after all.
"'Twas even' when us knew 'e was on th' ice. George Davis seen un
first. 'E went to th' cliff to look for seal. It was after sunset an'
half dark, but 'e thought 'e saw somethin' on th' ice an' 'e ran for
George Read an' 'e got 'is spy-glass an' made out a man an' dogs on a
pan an' knowed it war th' doctor.
"It was too dark fur we t' go t' un, but us never slept at all, all
night. I couldn' sleep. Us watched th' wind an' knew if it didn' blow
too hard us could get un,--though 'e was then three mile off a'ready.
So us waited for th' daylight. No one said who was goin' out in th'
boat. Un 'ud say, 'Is you goin'?' An' another, 'Is you?' I didn' say,
but I knowed what I'd do.
"As soon as 'twas light us went to th' cliff wi' th' spy-glass to see
if us could see un, but thar warn't nothin' in sight. Us know by the
wind whar t' look fur un, an' us launched th' boat. George Read an'
'is two sons, an' George Davis, what seen un first, an' me, was th'
crew. George Read was skipper-man an' th' rest was just youngsters.
The sun was warm,--you mind 'twas a fine mornin',--an' us started in
our shirt an' braces fur us knowed thar'd be hard work to do. I knowed
thar was a chance o' not comin' back at all, but it didn' make no
difference. I knowed I'd as good a chance as any, _an' 'twa' for th'
doctor, an' 'is life's worth many_, an' somehow I couldn' let a man go
out like dat wi'out tryin' fur un, an' I think us all felt th' same.
"Us 'ad a good strong boat an' four oars, an' took a hot kettle o' tea
an' food for a week, for us thought u'd 'ave t' go far an' p'rhaps
lose th' boat an' 'ave t' walk ashore un th' ice. I din' 'ope to find
the doctor alive an' kept lookin' for a sign of un on th' pans. 'Twa'
no' easy gettin' to th' pans wi' a big sea runnin'! Th' big pans 'ud
sometimes heave together an' near crush th' boat, an' sometimes us 'ad
t' git out an' haul her over th' ice t' th' water again. Then us come
t' th' slob ice where th' pan 'ad ground together, an' 'twas all
thick, an' that was worse'n any. Us saw th' doctor about twenty
minutes afore us got t' un. 'E was wavin' 'is flag an' I seen 'im. 'E
was on a pan no bigger'n this flor, an' I dunno what ever kep' un fro'
goin' abroad, for 'twasn't ice, 'twas packed snow. Th' pan was away
from even th' slob, floatin' by hisself, an' th' open water all roun',
an' 'twas just across fro' Goose Cove, an' outside o' that there'd
been no hope. I think th' way th' pan held together was on account o'
th' dogs' bodies meltin' it an' 't froze hard durin' th' night. 'E
was level with th' water an' th' sea washin' over us all th' time.
"When us got near un, it didn' seem like 'twas th' doctor. 'E looked
so old an' 'is face such a queer color. 'E was very solemn-like when
us took un an' th' dogs on th' boat. No un felt like sayin' much, an'
'e 'ardly said nothin' till us gave un some tea an' loaf an' then 'e
talked. I s'pose e was sort o' faint-like. Th' first thing 'e said
was, how wonderfu' sorry 'e was o' gettin' into such a mess an' givin'
we th' trouble o' comin' out for un. Us tol' un not to think o' that;
us was glad to do it for un, an' 'e'd done it for any one o' we, many
times over if 'e 'ad th' chance;--an' so 'e would. An' then 'e
fretted about th' b'y 'e was goin' to see, it bein' too late to reach
un, an' us tol' un 'is life was worth so much more 'n th' b'y, fur 'e
could save others an' th' b'y couldn'. But 'e still fretted.
"'E 'ad ripped th' dog-harnesses an' stuffed th' oakum in th' legs o'
'is pants to keep un warm. 'E showed it to we. An' 'e cut off th' tops
o' 'is boots to keep th' draught from 'is back. 'E must 'a' worked
'ard all night. 'E said 'e droled off once or twice, but th' night
seemed wonderfu' long.
"Us took un off th' pan at about half-past seven, an' 'ad a 'ard fight
gettin' in, th' sea still runnin' 'igh. 'E said 'e was proud to see us
comin' for un, and so 'e might, for it grew wonderfu' cold in th' day
and th' sea so 'igh the pan couldn' 'a' lived outside. 'E wouldn'
stop when us got ashore, but must go right on, an' when 'e 'ad dry
clothes an' was a bit warm, us sent un to St. Anthony with a team.
"Th' next night, an' for nights after, I couldn' sleep. I'd keep
seein' that man standin' on th' ice, an' I'd be sorter half-awake
like, sayin', 'But not th' doctor. Sure _not_ th' _doctor_.'"
There was silence for a few moments, and George Andrews looked out
across the blue harbor to the sea.
"'E sent us watches an' spy-glasses," said he, "an' pictures o'
hisself that one o' you took o' un, made large an' in a frame. George
Read an' me 'ad th' watches an' th' others 'ad th' spy-glasses. 'Ere's
th' watch. It 'as 'In memory o' April 21st' on it, but us don't need
th' things to make we remember it, tho' we 're wonderful glad t' 'ave
'em from th' doctor."
* * * * *
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
U.S.A.
* * * * *
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