_Dr. Frank Johnson to Mrs. Charlotte Johnson_
_Dearest Mother_:
I had expected to sail away from St. John's on the twentieth to return to
you before resuming the hard search for something to keep together the
body and soul which struggling young doctors without means have so hard a
time to maintain in their proper relation. Since the old _Chandernagore_
limped into St. John's with its bow stove in, after that terrible
collision, and the underwriters decided that she was hopelessly damaged,
my prospects have been those of a man living on a pittance and merely
entitled to his passage home and a trifle of salary.
A ship-surgeon utterly stranded can hardly be a very merry soul, and the
day before yesterday I was strolling rather disconsolately about the
docks, when I saw a stunning yacht come in. She was a sight to feast
one's eyes on, and until the last moment was under a cloud of sail while
her funnel belched black smoke. For a few minutes I saw some of the
smartest handling of canvas it has ever been given me to behold. As she
came on the great, silken, light sails fluttered, shrank and disappeared
as if by magic; her headway stopped and the screw ceased its throbbing.
She was just like a grand, white bird folding its wings and going to
sleep. But even before she had ceased to move a boat was overboard and
four men were at the sweeps, pulling for shore. A few minutes later I was
passing in front of Simpson & Co., the big ship-chandlers who were the
_Chandernagore's_ agents, when one of the clerks came out and ran towards
me.
"Won't you come in?" he asked, excitedly. "There is the skipper of that
white yacht that just came in who wants a doctor at once, and at any
cost. We supplied that boat after she left dry-dock here, some weeks ago.
She belongs to regular swells, awfully rich people."
"Is the man hurt or ill?" I asked.
"No, he's all right. There is sickness at a little outport, diphtheria, I
hear, and they want a man at once. Money's no object."
It really seemed as if a bit of luck might be coming my way, at last.
Indeed I wanted badly to see your dear face again, and that silver hair
I think so beautiful, but here was a prospect of sailing away on that
stunning little ship and of earning some badly needed money, so that I
felt like whooping with joy. I leaped through the open door and saw a
very gold-laced man who was talking very fast to the head of the firm.
"Here's just the man you want," said the latter. "He's a first-rate young
chap who will go anywhere and do anything. His skipper of the
_Chandernagore_ swears by him. I can send for him, if you like."
"No time for that," interrupted the yacht's captain. "There is diphtheria
at Sweetapple Cove, and a doctor there who is nearly dead with it, I
believe. I've sent our mate for all the antitoxine he can buy, and he's
driving around to all the druggists in the place. We also want a nurse,
several nurses, all you can get. I'm keeping steam up and will start the
minute you're ready."
"And the remuneration," suggested Mr. Simpson.
"Anything he wants to ask," said the captain, hurriedly, turning again to
me; "just get a move on you, young man. Run off and get some nurses;
promise any money they want to charge, and I won't wait over an hour."
He saw a cab passing in the street and ran out to hail it.
"Here," he said, "get into this thing and hunt for nurses."
In his excitement he actually pushed me out of the shop and I jumped in
the cab, without the slightest idea of where I might find the desired
nurses. At the nearest pharmacy, however, I obtained a couple of
addresses. I 'phoned to the hospital but there was none there who could
be spared. On following up my clues I found both nurses away on cases.
More telephoning brought the information that several might be had in a
day or two, and finally I called up Simpson & Co., who informed me that
the skipper was tearing his hair at the delay.
"He says you're to return at once. You can kill the cab-horse if you want
to. He'll pay for it."
These were the last words I heard. I dashed off to the little hotel where
I stayed, for my trunk, and soon we were galloping along the peaceful
streets, here and there encumbered by pony-carts laden with vast piles of
codfish, and finally reached the chandlery.
"Well?" asked the captain, rushing out.
"Not a nurse to be had to-day," I announced. "To-morrow or next day
several may be disengaged."
There was an ejaculation excusable under the circumstance and the skipper
grabbed my arm.
"I won't wait a minute," he said. "I've got a doctor, that's the main
thing, and all the antitoxine in the place. Come along."
We jumped in the cab, which drove off rapidly, and in a minute we reached
the dock, where the yawl was waiting. Two of the men grabbed my trunk and
put it on board and the skipper tossed a banknote to the driver, without
waiting for change, and we were off.
The men pulled towards the yacht, and they must have been watching for us
on board for I heard the clanking of the small donkey engine and the
anchor-chain stiffened and began to draw in, fast. We scrambled on board,
the trunk was tumbled in, and before the yawl was half way up to the
davits we were steaming away.
"Come up on the bridge if you want to, Doctor," the captain called down
to me, civilly.
I accepted his invitation and ran up the steps. At his side stood a
grizzled old man with a seamed, kindly face and the wrinkled eyes of the
men who spend their lives searching through fog and darkness.
"Good day, sor," he said to me. "You're a man as is real sore needed at
Sweetapple Cove."
"I hope I may be of service," I answered.
"Ye will be, God willin'," he assured me.
By this time we had gathered full speed and were steaming fast between
the narrow headlands. The pilot was dropped a little later, without
slackening our way much. We had passed swiftly by the crowded flakes
which clung to the steep, rocky shore, inextricably mixed with
battered-looking fish-houses. As soon as we struck the swelling seas
outside we saw many little smacks engaged in fishing. We bore no canvas,
for the wind was against us on the return journey. Then I noticed that
the skipper was looking anxiously ahead, where, at a distance, a low
fog-pall was gathering.
"Yes, sor," said the old man, guessing at his thoughts, "it's a-comin' on
real thick, but we's goin' ter pull her through."
I ran below and got my oilskins out of my trunk, which I discovered in a
beautiful little state-room, prettily furnished and dainty-looking indeed
to a surgeon of tramp steamers. I did not waste much time in inspecting
it, however, as I was interested in our progress towards that ominous
bank of fog. When I reached the bridge again I was conscious of the moist
chill of northern mists, and saw that the vapor was closing down upon us
fast. The land astern was disappearing in a grey haze, while ahead the
thickness was becoming more and more impenetrable. The skipper kept
walking from end to end of the bridge, restlessly, and I could sympathize
with him. He was in a hurry, a deadly hurry, which he had shown plainly
enough from the first moment my eyes had rested upon him, and now this
mist was rendering all his haste futile, as far as I could see. Every
moment now I expected to see him ring down to the engine room for reduced
speed, but we kept on going, doggedly, blindly, until at last we were
pitching over long, smooth swells that were covered by a blanket of murk.
"We'll have to slow down, Sammy!" he suddenly cried, impatiently, to the
old man. "That fog's too much for us, and getting worse every minute."
"Keep on a bit yet," advised the latter. "'Tis all clear goin' fer a
whiles, and we's too close inshore ter run into any big craft. They'll
all be standin' out to sea."
I could see that the captain was torn between his keen desire to keep on
speeding and his fear for the safety of his beautiful ship. He was
utterly unable to keep still more than a minute at a time, but the old
fisherman looked as cool and collected as if he had been puffing at his
rank old pipe within the four walls of a house.
And those minutes seemed very long, then, as they always do when men are
laden with the weight of constant suspense. Presently even the grey and
blue waters our sharp bow was cleaving lost their color and the whole
world was dismal, and grey, and dripping.
This went on for long hours, as it seemed to me, and finally the captain
could stand it no longer.
"I'm going to ring for half speed," he shouted. "We can't keep this up,
Sammy!"
"Let be, let be fer a whiles," the old man counselled again. "I knows
jist where I be. I'll not be runnin' ye ashore, lad."
And the yacht kept on for a long, long time, cleaving the grey water and
the fog, between which there was no difference now. It was really a
spooky thing, even if a sporting one, to be dashing at fifteen knots
through that wall of vapor. Our steam whistle was sounding constantly,
and old Sammy listened with his grey head cocked to one side, in a tense
attitude of constant attention.
"We's gettin' nigh," he said, quietly. "I knows the sound o' he."
Then, after a long, wailing blast, he suddenly lifted up his hand.
"Port a bit till I tells yer," he called. "That'll do. Keep her so."
The next sobbing cry of the siren brought a dull prolonged echo that
reverberated in the air.
"I knowed we must be gettin' close to un," he said; "now we'll be havin'
all open water again fer a whiles."
The captain was tremulous with the excitement he bravely sought to
suppress, and my own heart was certainly in my throat. We were all
straining our eyes at this moment, and all at once we dimly had revealed
to us something like the shadow of a great ghost-like mass that slipped
by us, very fast, with a roar of the great swells bursting loudly at its
foot.
"Thunder! you Sammy!" shrieked the skipper. "I won't have you taking such
chances. I'm just as crazy to get there as you are but I'll be hanged if
I'm going to smash my ship."
"We's all right now, Cap'en," answered the old man, quietly; "I sure
knows all right what we is doin'."
The captain had taken the wheel, and he glared at his binnacle like a
wild man. Now and then he gave a swift look around him, nervously, but
the old man's assurance had some effect upon him. Yet once I heard him
snarling:
"Any man who ever catches me cruising around this country again can have
me locked up in an asylum. After I get shut of this job they can get some
one else if they ever want to come back."
And still the fog seemed to deepen, and the moisture dripped from
everything, and the very air seemed hard to breathe. The darkness began
to come and all our lights were burning, while the siren continued to
moan. Several times, in answer to it, we faintly heard mournful sounds of
fishermen's horns, and once we blindly swerved just in time to avoid
running down a tiny schooner.
"Beggin' yer pardon, sor," the old man said to me, "seem' as how ye ain't
busy it might be yer wouldn't mind startin' a bit of prayer as how we
don't smash up one o' them poor fellows. We jist got ter take some
chances, fer I mistrust th' Lord he be wantin' ter save that doctor o'
ours an' only needs be asked the right way."
We were now shooting through that fog like lost wild things, like the
ducks and geese bewildered of a stormy night, which mangle themselves
against the wire nettings of light houses. Now and then the land abeam
would give forth response to the booming of our whistle. The old man
Sammy had taken the wheel and his grim face was frozen into an expression
of desperate energy, as his keen little grey eyes peered through the
murk. By this time there was a heavy roll and our tall spars were
slashing at the mist as if seeking to cut down an unseen enemy. Every
man on board was under a nervous tension, conscious that a big thing was
being done. For a time there had been something akin to fear in all
our hearts, but after a while it left us, to make room for the delirium
of blind, reckless speed.
And then, suddenly, like a flash, the captain grasped the old fellow's
shoulder.
"Slow down, man," he shrieked. "I bet all I've got you don't know where
you are, and I can hear waves breaking ashore."
But Sammy lifted up his hand, with an authority that seemed inspired, and
gave another pull at the whistle cord. It brought forth a sound that was
repeated, again and again, confusedly. For a frightfully long half minute
we kept up our speed; then the bell jingled in the engine-room and we
slowed down a little. Under the old fisherman's hands the wheel began to
spin around while we breathlessly watched him aim the ship at the furious
breakers inshore, at the foot of dark cliffs.
"For God's sake! What are you doing?" yelled the captain.
The bell rang in the engine room to slow down and suddenly, on both sides
of us, appeared like devouring jaws great mass of rock upon which the
huge rollers were crashing in a smother of spume. Between them the yacht
slipped, gracefully, and this time the siren's shriek was like a
victorious cry. The bell sounded again and the _Snowbird_, after her long
swift flight, came to a stop between the hilly sides of Sweetapple Cove,
where men's voices roared indistinctly at us, and their forms stood dimly
revealed by twinkling lanterns.
And now, mother dear, I am writing at the bedside of a man lying in a
poor little hut, whom I shall leave soon for a few hours of badly needed
rest. I shall stop for the moment, but I have a great deal more to say.