wife was in agony and in a critical condition. Doctor Grenfell
relieved her pain at once, and by skillful treatment in due time
restored her to health. Had he hesitated to face the storm or had he
been made of less heroic stuff and permitted himself to be driven back
by the blizzard, she would have died. Indeed there are few men on the
coast that would have ventured out in that storm. But he went and he
saved the woman's life, and today that young fisherman's wife is as
well and happy as ever she could be, and she and her husband will
forever be grateful to Doctor Grenfell for his heroic struggle to
reach them.
In a few days Doctor Grenfell was back again in St. Anthony, and then
a telegram came calling him to a village to the south. The weather was
fair. His own splendid team was at home, and he was going through a
region where settlements were closer together than on the Cape Norman
trail.
The first night was spent in his sleeping bag stretched on the floor
of a small building kept open for the convenience of travelers with
dog sledges. The next night he was comfortably housed in a little
cabin in the woods, also used for the convenience of travelers, and
generally each night he was quite as well housed.
He was going now to see a lad of fifteen whose thigh had been broken
while steering a komatik down a steep hill. Dog driving, as we have
seen, is frequently a dangerous occupation, and this young fellow had
suffered.
In every settlement Doctor Grenfell was hailed by folk who needed a
doctor. There was one broken leg that required attention, one man had
a broken knee cap. In one house he found a young woman dying of
consumption. There were many cases of Spanish influenza and several
people dangerously ill with bronchial pneumonia. There was one little
blind child later taken to the hospital at St. Anthony to undergo an
operation to restore her sight. In the course of that single journey
he treated eighty-six different cases, and but for his fortunate
coming none of them could have had a doctor's care.
He found the lad Ambrose suffering intense pain. After his accident
the lad had been carried home by a friend. His people did not know
that the thigh was broken, and when it swelled they rubbed and
bandaged it.
The pain grew almost too great for the boy to bear. A priest passing
through the settlement advised them to put the leg in splints. This
was done, but no padding was used, which, as every Boy Scout knows,
was a serious omission. Boards were used as splints, extending from
thigh to heel and they cut into the flesh, causing painful sores.
The priest had gone, and though Ambrose was suffering so intensely
that he could not sleep at night no one dared remove the splints. The
neighbors declared the lad's suffering was caused by the pain from the
injured thigh coming out at the heel.
Ambrose was in a terrible condition when Doctor Grenfell arrived. The
pain had been continuous and for a long time he had not slept. The
broken thigh had knit in a bowed position, leaving that leg three
inches shorter than the other.
It was necessary to re-break the thigh to straighten it. Doctor
Grenfell could not do this without assistance. There was but one thing
to do, take the lad to St. Anthony hospital.
A special team and komatik would be required for the journey, but the
lad's father had no dogs, and with a family of ten children to
support, in addition to Ambrose, no money with which to hire one. A
friend came to the rescue and volunteered to haul the lad to the
hospital.
It was a journey of sixty miles. The trail from the village where
Ambrose lived rose over a high range of hills. The snow was deep and
the traveling hard, and several men turned out to help the dogs haul
the komatik to the summit. Then, with Doctor Grenfell's sledge ahead
to break the trail, and the other following with the helpless lad
packed in a box they set out, Ambrose's father on snowshoes walking by
the side of the komatik to offer his boy any assistance the lad might
need.
The next morning Doctor Grenfell was delayed with patients and the
other komatik went ahead, only to be lost and to finally turn back on
the trail until they met Grenfell's komatik, which was searching for
them.
The cold was bitter and terrible that day. The men on snowshoes were
comfortable enough with their hard exercise, but it was almost
impossible to keep poor Ambrose from freezing in spite of heavy
covering. Now and again his father had to remove the moccasins from
Ambrose's feet and rub them briskly with bare hands to restore
circulation. He even removed the warm mittens from his own hands and
gave them to Ambrose to pull on over the ones he already wore.
At midday a halt was made to "boil the kettle," and by the side of the
big fire that was built in the shelter of the forest Ambrose was
restored to comparative comfort. On the trail again it was colder than
ever in the afternoon, and they thought the lad, though he never once
uttered a complaint, would freeze before they could reach the cabin
that was to shelter them for the night. At last the cabin was reached.
A fire was hurriedly built in the stove, and with much rubbing of
hands and legs and feet, and a roaring fire, he was made so
comfortable that he could eat, and a fine supper they had for him.
At the place where they stopped the previous night Doctor Grenfell had
mentioned that the oven that sat on the stove in this cabin, was worn
out. One of the men immediately went out, procured some corrugated
iron, pounded it flat with the back of an ax and then proceeded to
make an oven for Grenfell to take with him on his komatik. Upon
opening the oven now it was found that the good friend who had made
the oven had packed it full of rabbits and ptarmigans, the white
partridge or grouse of the north. In a little while a delicious stew
was sending forth its appetizing odors. A pan of nicely browned hot
biscuits, freshly baked in the new oven and a kettle of steaming tea
completed a feast that would have tempted anyone's appetite, and
Ambrose, for the first time in many a day relieved of much of his
pain, through Doctor Grenfell's ministrations, enjoyed it immensely,
and for the first time in many a night, followed his meal with
refreshing sleep.
The next morning the cold was more intense than ever. Ambrose was
wrapped in every blanket they had and, as additional protection,
Doctor Grenfell stowed him away in his own sleeping bag, and packed
him on the sledge. Off they went on the trail again. Late that
afternoon they crossed a big bay, and St. Anthony was but eighteen
mile away.
When Ambrose was made comfortable in a settler's cottage, Doctor
Grenfell directed that he was to be brought on to the hospital the
following morning, and he himself much needed at the hospital pushed
forward at once, arriving at St. Anthony long after night.
But before morning the worst storm of the winter broke upon them. The
buildings at St. Anthony rocked in the gale until the maids on the top
floor of the hospital said they were seasick. And when the storm was
over the snow was so deep that men with snowshoes walked from the
gigantic snow banks to some of the roofs which were on a level with
the drifts. Tunnels had to be cut through the snow to doors.
The storm delayed Ambrose and his friends, but after the weather
cleared their komatik appeared. The lad was put on the operating
table, the thigh re-broken and properly set by Doctor Grenfell, and
the leg brought down to its proper length. Presently the time came
when Grenfell was able to tell the father that, after all their fears,
Ambrose was not to be a cripple and that he would be as strong and
nimble as ever he was. This was actually the case. Doctor Grenfell is
a remarkably skillful surgeon and he had wrought a miracle. The
thankful and relieved father shed tears of joy.
"When I gets un," said he, his voice choked by emotion, "I'll send
five dollars for the hospital."
Five dollars, to Ambrose's father, was a lot of money.
Winter storms, as we have seen, never hold Doctor Grenfell back when
he is called to the sick and injured. Many times he has broken through
the sea ice, and many times he has narrowly escaped death. The story
of a few of these experiences would fill a volume of rattling fine
adventure. I am tempted to go on with them. One of these big
adventures at least we must not pass by. As we shall see in the next
chapter, it came dangerously near being his last one.
XX
LOST ON THE ICE FLOE
One day in April several years ago, Dr. Grenfell, who was at the time
at St. Anthony Hospital, received an urgent call to visit a sick man
two days' journey with dogs to the southward. The patient was
dangerously ill. No time was to be lost, for delay might cost the
man's life.
It is still winter in northern Newfoundland in April, though the days
are growing long and at midday the sun, climbing high now in the
heavens, sends forth a genial warmth that softens the snow. At this
season winds spring up suddenly and unexpectedly, and blow with
tremendous velocity. Sometimes the winds are accompanied by squalls of
rain or snow, with a sudden fall in temperature, and an off-shore wind
is quite certain to break up the ice that has covered the bays all
winter, and to send it abroad in pans upon the wide Atlantic, to melt
presently and disappear.
This breaking up of the ice sometimes comes so suddenly that traveling
with dogs upon the frozen bays at this season is a hazardous
undertaking. Scarcely a year passes that some one is not lost.
Sometimes men are carried far to sea on ice pans and are never heard
from again.
A man must know the trails to travel with dogs along this rough coast.
Much better progress is made traveling upon sea ice than on land
trails, for the latter are usually up and down over rocky hills and
through entangling brush and forest, while the former is a smooth
straight-away course. When the ice is rotted by the sun's heat,
however, and is covered by deep slush, and is broken by dangerous
holes and open leads that cannot safely be crossed, the driver keeps
close to shore, and is sometimes forced to turn to the land and leave
the ice altogether. When the ice is good and sound the dog traveler
only leaves it to cross necks of land separating bays and inlets,
where distance may be shortened, and makes as straight a course across
the frozen bays as possible.
There is a great temptation always, even when the ice is in poor
condition, to cross it and "take a chance," which usually means a
considerable risk, rather than travel the long course around shore.
Long experience at dog travel, instead of breeding greater caution in
the men of the coast, leads them to take risks from which the less
experienced man would shrink.
These were the conditions when the call came that April day to Dr.
Grenfell. Traveling at this season was, at best, attended by risk. But
this man's life depended upon his going, and no risk could be
permitted to stand in the way of duty. Without delay he packed his
komatik box with medicines, bandages and instruments. It was certain
he would have many calls, both for medical and surgical attention,
from the scattered cottages he should pass, and on these expeditions
he always travels fully prepared to meet any ordinary emergency from
administering pills to amputating a leg or an arm. He also packed in
the box a supply of provisions and his usual cooking kit.
Only in cases of stress do men take long journeys with dogs alone, but
there was no man about the hospital at this time that Grenfell could
take with him as a traveling companion and to assist him, and no time
to wait for any one, and so, quite alone and driving his own team, he
set out upon his journey.
It was mid-afternoon when he "broke" his komatik loose, and his dogs,
eager for the journey, turned down upon the trail at a run. The dogs
were fresh and in the pink of condition, and many miles were behind
him when he halted his team at dusk before a fisherman's cottage. Here
he spent the night, and the following morning, bright and early,
harnessed his dogs and was again hurrying forward.
The morning was fine and snappy. The snow, frozen and crisp, gave the
dogs good footing. The komatik slid freely over the surface. Dr.
Grenfell urged the animals forward that they might take all the
advantage possible of the good sledging before the heat of the midday
sun should soften the snow and make the hauling hard.
The fisherman's cottage where he had spent the night was on the shores
of a deep inlet, and a few rods beyond the cottage the trail turned
down upon the inlet ice, and here took a straight course across the
ice to the opposite shore, some five miles distant, where it plunged
into the forest to cross another neck of land.
A light breeze was coming in from the sea, the ice had every
appearance of being solid and secure, and Dr. Grenfell dove out upon
it for a straight line across. To have followed the shore would have
increased the distance to nearly thirty miles.
Everything went well until perhaps half the distance had been covered.
Then suddenly there came a shift of wind, and Grenfell discovered,
with some apprehension, that a stiff breeze was rising, and now
blowing from land toward the sea, instead of from the sea toward the
land as it had done when he started early in the morning from the
fisherman's cottage. Still the ice was firm enough, and in any case
there was no advantage to be had by turning back, for he was as near
one shore as the other.
Already the surface of the ice, which, with several warm days, had
become more or less porous and rotten, was covered with deep slush.
The western sky was now blackened by heavy wind clouds, and with
scarce any warning the breeze developed into a gale. Forcing his dogs
forward at their best pace, while he ran by the side of the komatik,
he soon put another mile behind him. Before him the shore loomed up,
and did not seem far away. But every minute counted. It was evident
the ice could not stand the strain of the wind much longer.
Presently one of Grenfell's feet went through where slush covered an
opening crack. He shouted at the dogs, but, buffeted by wind and
floundering through slush, they could travel no faster though they
made every effort to do so, for they, no less perhaps than their
master, realized the danger that threatened them.
Then, suddenly, the ice went asunder, not in large pans as it would
have done earlier in the winter when it was stout and hard, but in a
mass of small pieces, with only now and again a small pan.
Grenfell and the dogs found themselves floundering in a sea of slush
ice that would not bear their weight. The faithful dogs had done their
best, but their best had not been good enough. With super-human effort
Grenfell managed to cut their traces and set them free from the
komatik, which was pulling them down. Even now, with his own life in
the gravest peril, he thought of them.
When the dogs were freed, Grenfell succeeded in clambering upon a
small ice pan that was scarce large enough to bear his weight, and
for the moment was safe. But the poor dogs, much more frightened than
their master, and looking to him for protection, climbed upon the pan
with him, and with this added weight it sank from under him.
Swimming in the ice-clogged water must have been well nigh impossible.
The shock of the ice-cold water itself, even had there been no ice,
was enough to paralyze a man. But Grenfell, accustomed to cold, and
with nerves of iron as a result of keeping his body always in the pink
of physical condition, succeeded finally in reaching a pan that would
support both himself and the dogs. The animals followed him and took
refuge at his feet.
Standing upon the pan, with the dogs huddled about him, he scanned the
naked shores, but no man or sign of human life was to be seen. How
long his own pan would hold together was a question, for the broken
ice, grinding against it, would steadily eat it away.
There was a steady drift of the ice toward the open sea. The wind was
bitterly cold. There was nothing to eat for himself and nothing to
feed the dogs, for the loaded komatik had long since disappeared
beneath the surface of the sea.
Exposed to the frigid wind, wet to the skin, and with no other
protection than the clothes upon his back, it seemed inevitable that
the cold would presently benumb him and that he would perish from it
even though his pan withstood the wearing effects of the water. The
pan was too small to admit of sufficient exercise to keep up the
circulation of blood, and though he slapped his arms around his
shoulders and stamped his feet, a deadening numbness was crawling over
him as the sun began to sink in the west and cold increased.
Though, in the end he might drown, Grenfell determined to live as long
as he could. Perhaps this was a test of courage that God had given
him! It is a man's duty, whatever befalls him, to fight for life to
the last ditch, and live as long as he can. Most men, placed as
Grenfell was placed, would have sunk down in despair, and said: "It's
all over! I've done the best I could!" And there they would have
waited for death to find them. When a man is driven to the wall, as
Grenfell was, it is easier to die than live. When God brings a man
face to face with death, He robs death of all its terrors, and when
that time comes it is no harder for a man who has lived right with God
to die than it is for him to lie down at night and sleep. But Grenfell
was never a quitter. He was going to fight it out now with the
elements as best he could with what he had at hand.
These northern dogs, when driven to desperation by hunger, will turn
upon their best friend and master, and here was another danger. If he
and the dogs survived the night and another day, what would the dogs
do? Then it would be, as Grenfell knew full well, his life or theirs.
The dogs wore good warm coats of fur, and if he had a coat made of dog
skins it would keep him warm enough to protect his life, at least,
from the cold. Now the animals were docile enough. Clustered about his
feet, they were looking up into his face expectantly and confidently.
He loved them as a good man always loves the beasts that serve him.
They had hauled him over many a weary mile of snow and ice, and had
been his companions and shared with him the hardships of many a
winter's storm.
But it was his life or theirs. If he were to survive the night, some
of the dogs must be sacrificed. In all probability he and they would
be drowned anyway before another night fell upon the world.
There was no time to be lost in vain regrets and indecision. Grenfell
drew his sheath knife, and as hard as we know it was for him,
slaughtered three of the animals. This done, he removed their pelts,
and wrapping the skins about him, huddled down among the living dogs
for a night of long, tedious hours of waiting and uncertainty, until
another day should break.
That must have been a period of terrible suffering for Grenfell, but
he had a stout heart and he survived it. He has said that the dog
skins saved his life, and without them he certainly would have
perished.
The ice pan still held together, and with a new day came fresh hope of
the possibility of rescue. The coast was still well in sight, and
there was a chance that a change of wind might drive the pan toward it
on an incoming tide. At this season, too, the men of the coast were
out scanning the sea for "signs" of seals, and some of them might see
him.
This thought suggested that if he could erect a signal on a pole, it
would attract attention more readily. He had no pole, and he thought
at first no means of raising the signal, which was, indeed, necessary,
for at that distance from shore only a moving signal would be likely
to attract the attention of even the keenly observant fishermen.
Then his eyes fell upon the carcasses of the three dogs with their
stiff legs sticking up. He drew his sheath knife and went at them
immediately. In a little while he had severed the legs from the bodies
and stripped the flesh from the bones. Now with pieces of dog harness
he lashed the legs together, and presently had a serviceable pole, but
one which must have been far from straight.
Elated with the result of his experiment, he hastily stripped the
shirt from his back, fastened it to one end of his staff, and raising
it over his head began moving it back and forth.
It was an ingenious idea to make a flagstaff from the bones of dogs'
legs. Hardly one man in a thousand would have thought of it. It was an
exemplification of Grenfell's resourcefulness, and in the end it saved
his life.
As he had hoped, men were out upon the rocky bluffs scanning the sea
for seals. The keen eyes of one of them discovered, far away,
something dark and unusual. The men of this land never take anything
for granted. It is a part of the training of the woodsman and seaman
to identify any unusual movement or object, or to trace any unusual
sound, before he is satisfied to let it pass unheeded. Centering his
attention upon the distant object the man distinguished a movement
back and forth. Nothing but a man could make such a movement he knew,
and he also knew that any man out there was in grave danger. He called
some other fishermen, manned a boat and Dr. Grenfell and his surviving
dogs were rescued.
XXI
WRECKED AND ADRIFT
It happened that it was necessary for Dr. Grenfell to go to New York
one spring three or four years ago. Men interested in raising funds to
support the Labrador and Newfoundland hospitals were to hold a
meeting, and it was essential that he attend the meeting and tell them
of the work on the coast, and what he needed to carry it on.
This meeting was to have been held in May, and to reach New York in
season to attend it Dr. Grenfell decided to leave St. Anthony
Hospital, where he then was, toward the end of April, for in any case
traveling would be slow.
It was his plan to travel northward, by dog team, to the Straits of
Belle Isle, thence westward along the shores, and finally southward,
down the western coast of Newfoundland, to Port Aux Basque, from which
point a steamer would carry him over to North Sydney, in Nova Scotia.
There he could get a train and direct railway connections to New York.
There is an excellent, and ordinarily, at this season, an expeditious
route for dog travel down the western coast of Newfoundland, and
Grenfell anticipated no difficulties.
Just as he was ready to start a blizzard set in with a northeast gale,
and smash! went the ice. This put an end to dog travel. There was but
one alternative, and that was by boat. Traveling along the coast in a
small boat is pretty exciting and sometimes perilous when you have to
navigate the boat through narrow lanes of water, with land ice on one
side and the big Arctic ice pack on the other, and a shift of wind is
likely to send the pack driving in upon you before you can get out of
the way. And if the ice pack catches you, that's the end of it, for
your boat will be ground up like a grain of wheat between mill stones,
and there you are, stranded upon the ice, and as like as not cut off
from land, too.
But there was no other way to get to that meeting in New York, and
Grenfell was determined to get there. And so, when the blizzard had
passed he got out a small motor boat, and made ready for the journey.
If he could reach a point several days' journey by boat to the
southward, he could leave the boat and travel one hundred miles on
foot overland to the railroad.
This hike of one hundred miles, with provisions and equipment on his
back, was a tremendous journey in itself. It would not be on a beaten
road, but through an unpopulated wilderness still lying deep under
winter snows. To Grenfell, however, it would be but an incident in his
active life. He was accustomed to following a dog team, and that
hardens a man for nearly any physical effort. It requires that a man
keep at a trot the livelong day, and it demands a good heart and good
lungs and staying powers and plenty of grit, and Grenfell was well
equipped with all of these.
The menacing Arctic ice pack lay a mile or so seaward when Grenfell
and one companion turned their backs on St. Anthony, and the motor
boat chugged southward, out of the harbor and along the coast. For a
time all went well, and then an easterly wind sprang up and there
followed a touch-and-go game between Dr. Grenfell and the ice.