"WHO HATH DESIRED THE SEA?"
We are somewhat superstitious down here still, and not a few believe
that shoals and submerged rocks are like sirens which charm vessels to
their doom.
On one occasion, as late in the fall we were creeping up the Straits
of Belle Isle in the only motor boat then in use there, our new toy
broke down, and with a strong onshore wind we gradually drifted in
toward the high cliffs. It was a heavy boat, and though we rowed our
best we realized that we must soon be on the rocks, where a strong
surf was breaking. So we lashed all our lines together and cast over
our anchors, hoping to find bottom. Alas, the water was too deep.
Darkness came on and the prospect of a long, weary night struggling
for safety made us thrill with excitement. Suddenly a schooner's
lights, utterly unexpected, loomed up, coming head on toward us. Like
Saul and his asses, we no longer cared about our craft so long as we
escaped. At once we lashed the hurricane light on the boat-hook and
waved it to and fro on high to make sure of attracting attention. To
our dismay the schooner, now almost in hail, incontinently tacked,
and, making for the open sea, soon left us far astern. We fired our
guns, we shouted in unison, we lit flares. All to no purpose. Surely
it must have been a phantom vessel sent to mock us. Suddenly our
amateur engineer, who had all the time been working away at the
scrap-heap of parts into which he had dismembered the motor, got a
faint kick out of one cylinder--a second--a third, then two, three,
and then a solitary one again. It was exactly like a case of blocked
heart. But it was enough with our oars to make us move slowly ahead.
By much stimulating and watchful nursing we limped along on the one
cylinder, and about midnight found ourselves alongside the phantom
ship, which we had followed into the harbour "afar off." Angry enough
at their desertion of us in distress, we went aboard just to tell them
what we thought of their behaviour. But their explanation entirely
disarmed us. "Them cliffs is haunted," said the skipper. "More'n one
light's been seen there than ever any man lit. When us saw you'se
light flashing round right in on the cliffs, us knowed it was no place
for Christian men that time o' night. Us guessed it was just fairies
or devils trying to toll us in."
We had no lighthouses on Labrador in those days, and though hundreds
of vessels, crowded often with women and children, had to pass up and
down the coast each spring and fall, still not a single island,
harbour, cape, or reef had any light to mark it, and many boats were
unnecessarily lost as a result.
Most of the schooners of this large fleet are small. Many are old and
poorly "found" in running gear. Their decks are so crowded with boats,
barrels, gear, wood, and other impedimenta, that to reef or handle
sails on a dark night is almost impossible; while below they were
often so crowded with women and children going North with their men
for the summer fishing on the Labrador shore, that I have had to crawl
on my knees to get at a patient, after climbing down through the main
hatch. These craft are quite unfitted for a rough night at sea,
especially as there always are icebergs or big pans about, which if
touched would each spell another "vessel missing." So the craft all
creep North and South in the spring and fall along the land, darting
into harbours before dark, and leaving before dawn if the night
proves "civil." Yet many a time I have seen these little vessels with
their precious cargoes becalmed, or with wind ahead, just unable to
make anchorage, and often on moonless nights when the barometer has
been low and the sky threatening. As there were no lights on the land,
it would have been madness to try and make harbours after sundown.
I have known the cruel, long anxiety of heart which the dilemma
involved. It has been our great pleasure sometimes to run out and tow
vessels in out of their distress. I can still feel the grip of one
fine skipper, who came aboard when the sea eased down. The only
harbour available for us had been very small, and the water too deep
for his poor gear. So when he started to drift, we had given him a
line and let him hold on to us through the night, with his own stern
only a few yards from the cliffs under his lee, and all his loved
ones, as well as his freighters, a good deal nearer heaven than he
wished them to be.
We had frequently written to the Government of this neglect of lights
for the coast. But Labrador has no representative in the Newfoundland
Parliament, and legislators who never visited Labrador had
unimaginative minds. Year after year went by and nothing was done. So
I spoke to many friends of the dire need for a light near Battle
Harbour Hospital. Practically every one of the Northern craft ran
right by us many times as they fished first in the Gulf and later on
the east coast, and so had to go past that corner of land. I have seen
a hundred vessels come and anchor near by in a single evening. When
the money was donated, our architect designed the building, and a
friend promised to endow the effort, so that the salary of the
light-keeper might be permanent. The material was cut and sent North,
when we were politely told that the Government could not permit
private ownership of lights--a very proper decision, too. They told us
that the year before money had been voted by the House for lights, and
the first would be erected near Battle Harbour. This was done, and the
Double Island Light has been a veritable Godsend to me as well as to
thousands of others many times since that day.
[Illustration: FISH ON THE FLAKES]
[Illustration: DRYING THE SEINES]
One hundred miles north of Indian Tickle, a place also directly in the
run of all the fishing schooners, a light was much needed. On a
certain voyage coming South with the fleet in the fall, we had all
tried to make the harbour, but it shut down suddenly before nightfall
with a blanket of fog which you could almost cut with a knife, and
being inside many reefs, and unable to make the open, we were all
forced to anchor. Where we were exactly none of us knew, for we had
all pushed on for the harbour as much as we dared. There were eleven
riding-lights visible around us when a rift came in the fog. We hoped
against hope that we had made the harbour. A fierce northeaster
gathered strength as night fell, and a mighty sea began to heave in.
Soon we strained at our anchors in the big seas, and heavy water swept
down our decks from bow to stern. Our patients were dressed and our
boats gotten ready, though it all had only a psychological value.
Gradually we missed first one and then another of the riding-lights,
and it was not difficult to guess what had happened. When daylight
broke, only one boat was left--a large vessel called the Yosemite, and
she was drifting right down toward us. Suddenly she touched a reef,
turned on her side, and we saw the seas carry her over the breakers,
the crew hanging on to her bilge. Steaming to our anchors had saved
us. All the vessels that went ashore became matchwood. But before we
could get our anchors or slip them, our main steam pipe gave out and
we had to blow down our boilers. It was now a race between the
engineers trying to repair the damage and the shortening hours of
daylight. On the result depended quite possibly the lives of us all. I
cannot remember one sweeter sound than the raucous voice of the
engineer just in the nick of time calling out, "Right for'ard," and
then the signal of the engine-room bell in the tell-tale in our little
wheel-house. The Government has since put a fine little light in
summer on White Point, the point off which we lay.
Farther north, right by our hospital at Indian Harbour, is a narrow
tickle known as the "White Cockade." Through this most of the fleet
pass, and here also we had planned for a lighthouse. When we were
forbidden to put our material at Battle Harbour, we suggested moving
to this almost equally important point. But it fell under the same
category, and soon after the Government put a good light there also.
The fishermen, therefore, suggested that we should offer our
peripatetic, would-be lighthouse to the Government for some new place
each year.
We have not much now to complain of so far as the needs of our present
stage of evolution goes. We have wireless stations, quite a number of
lights, not a few landmarks, and a ten times better mail and transport
service than the much wealthier and more able Dominion of Canada could
and ought to give to her long shore from Quebec to the eastern
"Newfoundland" boundary on the Straits Labrador.
He is not a great legislator who only makes provision for certainties.
True, the West has shown such riches and capacity that it has paid
better to develop it first. But there is no excuse now whatever for
neglecting the East. The Dominion would have been well advised,
indeed, had she years ago built a railway to the east coast,
shortening the steamer communication with England to only two nights
at sea, and saving twenty-four hours for the mails between London and
Toronto. The war has shown how easily she could have afforded it. Most
ardently I had hoped that she might have turned some of her German
prisoner labour in so invaluable a direction.
Had the reindeer installation been handled by the Newfoundland
Government years ago as it should have been, Labrador would have
yielded to our boys in France a very material assistance in meat and
furs. Canada now could and should, if only in the interest of her
native population, begin on this problem as soon as peace is declared.
The fact that a thing possesses vitality is a guarantee that it will
grow if it can. Each new focus will expand, and caterpillar-like cast
off its old clothing for better. The first necessity for economy and
efficiency in our work has been to get our patients quickly to us or
to be able to get to them. Experience has shown us that while boats
entirely dependent on motors are cheapest, it is not always safe to do
open-sea work in such launches without a secondary and more reliable
means of progression. The stories of a doctor's work in these launches
would fill a volume by themselves. The first Northern Messenger, a
small "hot-head" boat, was replaced and sold to pay part of the cost
of Northern Messenger number two. This in its turn was wrecked on an
uncharted shoal with Dr. West on board, and her insurance used to help
to procure Northern Messenger number three--which is the beautiful
boat which now serves Harrington, our most westerly hospital. We are
largely indebted for her to Mr. William Bowditch, of Milton,
Massachusetts.
Dr. Hare, our first doctor at that station, never wrote his own
experiences, but one of the Yale volunteers who worked under him wrote
a story founded on fact, from which the following incident is
suggestive.
Once, running home before a wind in the Gulf, the doctor suddenly
missed his little son Pat, and looking round saw him struggling in the
water, already many yards astern. Dr. Hare, who was at the tiller at
the time, instantly jumped over after him. The child was finally
disappearing when he reached him at last and held his head above
water. Meanwhile the engineer, who had been below, jumped on deck to
find the sails flapping in the wind and the boat head to sea. With the
intuitive quickness of our people in matters pertaining to the sea, he
took in the situation in a second, and though entirely alone
manoeuvred the boat so cleverly as to pick them both up before they
perished in these frigid waters. Pat's young life was saved, only to
be given a short few years later in France for the same fight for the
kingdom of righteousness which his home life had made his familiar
ideal.
The forty-five-foot, "hot-head" yawl Daryl, given us by the Dutch
Reformed friends in New York, was sold to the Hudson Bay Company. At
first she was naturally called the Flying Dutchman, and was most
useful; but here we have learned when a better instrument is available
that it is the truest economy to scrap-heap the old. We were to give
delivery of the boat in Baffin's Land. There were plenty of volunteers
for the task, for the tough jobs are the very ones which appeal to
real men. It would be well if the churches realized this fact and that
therein lies the real secret of Christianity. The impression that
being a Christian is a soft job inevitably brings our religion into
contempt. I had been in England that spring, and had been able to
arrange that the mail steamer bound for Montreal on which I took
passage should stop and drop me off Belle Isle if the crusaders who
were to take this launch on her long voyage North would stand out
across our pathway. Mr. Marconi personally took an interest in the
venture. The launch was to wait at our most easterly Labrador station,
and we were to keep telling her our position. The boat was in charge
of Mr. John Rowland and Mr. Robert English, both of Yale. It created
quite a furor among the passengers on our great ship, when she stopped
in mid-ocean, as it appeared to them, and lowered an erratic doctor
over the side on to a midget, whose mast-tops one looked down upon
from the liner's rail. The sensation was all the more marked as we
disappeared over the rail clinging to two large pots of geraniums--an
importation which we regarded as very much worth while.
With an old Hudson Bay man, Mr. George Ford, to act as interpreter,
and a Harvard colleague, who to his infinite chagrin was recalled by a
wireless from his parents almost before starting, the little ship and
her crew of three disappeared "over the edge" beyond communication. I
should mention that the Company had promised an engineer for the
launch, but he had begged off when he understood the nature of the
projected expedition; so Yale decided that they were men enough to do
without any outside help.
September had nearly gone, and no news had come from the boys. I owe
some one an infinite debt for a temperament which does not go halfway
to meet troubles; but even I was a little worried when unkind rumours
that we had sold a boat that was not safe were capped by a father's
letter to say that he "had heard the reports"! Fortunately, two days
later, as the Strathcona lay taking on whale meat for winter dog food
at the northernmost factory, the Northern mail steamer came in. On
board were our returned wanderers, and papa, who had gone down as far
as the Labrador steamer runs to look for them, as proud and happy as a
man has a right to be over sons who do things. The boys had not only
reached Baffin's Land, but had explored over a hundred miles of its
uncharted coast-line, crossed to Cape Wolstenholme, navigated
Stupart's Bay--northeast of Ungava--and finally returned to Baffin's
Land, coming back to Cartwright on the Hudson Bay Company's steamer
Pelican. It was a splendid record, especially when we remember the
fierce currents and tremendous rise and fall of tides in that distant
land. This latter was so great that having anchored one night in three
fathoms of water in what appeared to be a good harbour, they had
awakened in the morning to the fact that they were in a pond a full
mile in the country, left stranded by the retiring tide.
Our last "hot-head," the Pomiuk, in a heavy gale of wind was smashed
to atoms on a terrible reef of rocks off Domino Point a mile from
land--fortunately with no one aboard. Yet another of our fine yawls,
the Andrew McCosh, given us by the students of Princeton, was driven
from her anchors on to the dangerous Point Amour, where years ago,
H.M.S. Lily was lost, and whose bones still lie bleaching on the rocky
foreshore at the foot of the cliffs. Much as I love the sea, it made
one rather "sore" that it should serve us such a turn as wrecking the
McCosh. I have been on the sea for over thirty years and never lost a
vessel while aboard her, but to look on while the waves destroyed so
beautiful a handmaid almost reconciled me to the statement that in
heaven there shall "be no more sea."
It was near this same spot that in November, 1905, a very old vessel,
while trying to cross the Straits in a breeze, suddenly sprung a leak
which sent her to the bottom in spite of all the pumping which could
be done. The six men aboard were able to keep afloat at that time of
year in the open Atlantic out of sight of land for five days and
nights. They had nothing to eat but dry bread, and no covering of any
kind. The winds were heavy and the seas high all the while. By
patiently keeping their little boat's head to the wind with the oars,
for they had not any sails, day after day and night after night, and
backing her astern when a breaker threatened to overwhelm them, they
eventually reached land safe and sound.
The special interest about the launches has always been the pleasant
connection which they have enabled us to maintain with the
universities. Yale crews, Harvard crews, Princeton crews, Johns
Hopkins crews, College of Physicians and Surgeons crews, and combined
crews of many others, have in succeeding years thus become interested.
Occasionally these men have taken back some of their Labrador
shipmates to the United States for a year's education, and in that and
other ways, so they say, have they themselves received much real joy
and inspiration.
In order to maintain the interest which Canada had taken in our work,
it had in some way to be organized. We had volunteer honorary
secretaries in a few cities, but no way of keeping them informed of
our needs and our progress. In New England a most loyal friend, Miss
Emma White, who ever since has been secretary and devoted helper of
the Labrador work there, had started a regular association with a
board of directors and had taken an office in Beacon Street, Boston.
This association now and again published little brochures of our work,
or ordered out a few copies of the English magazine called "The
Toilers of the Deep." It was suggested that we might with advantage
publish a quarterly pamphlet of our own. This was made possible by the
generous help of the late Miss Julia Greenshields, of Toronto, who
undertook not only to edit, but also personally to finance any loss on
a little magazine to be entitled "Among the Deep-Sea Fishers." This
has been maintained ever since, and has been responsible for helping
to raise many of the funds to enable us to "carry on."
We had also begun to get friends in New York. Dr. Charles Parkhurst,
famous especially for his plucky exposure of the former rottenness of
the police force of that city, had asked me to give an illustrated
lecture at his mission in the Bowery. After my talk a gentleman
present, to my blank astonishment, gave me a cheque for five hundred
dollars. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship with one who
has, for all the succeeding years, given far more than money, namely,
the constant inspiration of his own attitude to life and his wise
counsel--to say nothing of the value of the endorsation of his name.
His eldest son, one of the ablest of the rising New York architects,
became chairman of the Grenfell Association of America, and gave us
both of his time and talent--he being responsible, as voluntary
architect, for many of our present buildings, including the Institute
at St. John's, Newfoundland.
This spread of interest in the United States greatly increased our
correspondence, with an odd result. Americans apparently all believed
that this Colony was part of Canada, and that the postage was two
cents as to the Dominion. This mistake left us six cents to pay on
every letter, and sixteen on any which were overweight. On one
occasion the postmaster offered me so many taxable letters that I
decided to accept only one, and let the others go back. That one
contained a cheque for a hundred dollars for the Mission. I naturally
took the rest, and found every one of them to be bills, gossip, or
from autograph-hunters.
On inquiry, our Postmaster-General informed me that it was not
possible to arrange a two-cent postal rate with America. It had been
tried and abandoned, because Canada wanted a share for carrying the
letters through her territory. He told me, however, that he would
agree gladly if the United States offered it. On my visit to
Washington I had the honour of dining with Lord Bryce, our Ambassador
there and an old friend of my father's, and I mentioned the matter to
him. He could not, however, commend my efforts to the Government, as I
had no credentials as a special delegate. There was nothing to do but
take my place in the queue of importunates waiting to interview the
Postmaster-General. When at length I had been moved to the top of the
bench, I was called in, and very soon explained my mission. I received
a most cordial hearing, but merely the information that a note would
be made of my request and filed.
It suddenly flashed upon me that Americans had equal fishing rights with
ourselves on the Labrador coast, and that quite a number visited there
every year. Possibly the grant of a two-cent postage would be a welcome
little "sop" to them. Mr. Meyer, who was the Postmaster-General at the
time, said that it made all the difference if the reduced rate would in
any way encourage the American mercantile marine. He bade me draw a
careful list of reasons in favour of my proposal, and promised to give
it careful attention.
It so happened that a few days later I mentioned the matter to Colonel
McCook at whose home I was staying in New York. Colonel McCook, known
as "Fighting McCook," from the fact that he was the only one of nine
brothers not killed in the Civil War, at once took up the cudgels in
my behalf, left for Washington the following day, and wired me on the
next morning, "All arranged. Congratulations"--and I had the pleasure
of telegraphing the Postmaster-General in St. John's that I had
arranged the two-cent postage rate with the United States and
Newfoundland. A few days later I received a marked copy of a
Newfoundland paper saying how capable a Government they possessed,
seeing that now they had so successfully put through the two-cent post
for the Colony--and that was all the notice ever taken of my only
little political intrigue; except that a year or two later, meeting
Mr. Meyer in Cambridge, he whispered in my ear, "We were going out of
office in four days, or you would never have got that two-cent post
law of yours through so easily."
* * * * *
In the spring of 1907 I was in England, and before I left, my old
University was good enough to offer me an honorary degree of Doctor of
Medicine of Oxford. As it was the first occasion that that respectable
old University had ever given that particular degree to any one, I was
naturally not a little gratified. The day of the conferring of it will
ever live in my memory. My cousin, the Professor of Paleontology, half
of whose life was spent in the desert of Egypt digging for papyri in
old dust-heaps, was considered the most appropriate person to stand
sponsor for me--a would-be pioneer of a new civilization in the
sub-arctic.
The words with which the Public Orator introduced me to the
Vice-Chancellor, being in Latin, seem to me interesting as a relic
rather than as a statement of fact:
"Insignissime Vice-Cancellarie vosque egregii Procuratores: Adest
civis Britannicus, hujus academiae olim alumnus, nunc Novum Orbem
incolentibus quam nostratibus notus. Hic ille est qui quindecim abhinc
annos in litus Labradorium profectus est, ut solivagis in mari Boreali
piscatoribus ope medica succurreret; quo in munere obeundo Oceani
pericula, quae ibi formidosissima sunt, contempsit dum miseris et
maerentibus solatium ac lumen afferret. Nunc quantum homini licet, in
ipsius Christi vestigiis, si fas est dicere, insistere videtur, vir
vere Christianus. Jure igitur eum laudamus cujus laudibus non ipse
solum sed etiam Academia nostra ornatur.
"Praesenta ad vos Wilfredum Thomassum Grenfell, ut admittatur ad gradum
Doctoris in Medicina Honoris Causa."
As we, the only two Doctors Grenfell extant, marched solemnly back
down the aisle side by side, the antithesis of what doctorates called
for struck my sense of humour most forcibly. I had hired the gorgeous
robes of scarlet box cloth and carmine silk for the occasion, never
expecting to wear them again. But some years later, when yet another
honorary Doctorate, of Laws, was most generously conferred upon me by
a University of our American cousins, I felt it incumbent on me to
uphold if possible the British end of the ritual. A cable brought me
just in time the box-cloth surtout. Commencement ceremonies in the
United States are in June; and the latitude was that of Rome. For
years I had spent the hot months always in the sub-arctic. The
assembly hall was small and crowded to bursting--not even all the
graduating class could get in, much less all their friends. The
temperature was in three figures. The scarlet box cloth got hotter and
hotter as we paraded in and about the campus. My face outrivalled the
gown in colour. I have made many lobster men out of the boiled limbs
of those admirable adjuncts of a Northern diet, but I had never
expected to pose as one in the flesh. The most lasting impression
which the ceremony left on my mind is of my volunteer summer
secretary, who stood almost on my toes as he delivered the valedictory
address of his class. I still see his gradually wilting, boiled
collar, and the tiny rivulet which trickled down his neck as he warmed
to his subject. We were the best of friends, but I felt that glow of
semi-satisfaction that comes to the man who finds that he is no longer
the only one seasick on board.
About this time King Edward most graciously presented me, as one of
his birthday honours, with a Companionship in the Order of St. Michael
and St. George--most useful persons for any man to have as companions,
especially in a work like ours, both being famous for downing dragons
and devils. My American friends immediately knighted me. The papers
and magazines knighted me in both the United States and Canada. But
that got me into trouble, for only kings can make pawns into knights,
and I had to appeal several times to the Associated Press to save
myself being dubbed _poseur_. I have protested at meetings when the
chairman has knighted me; at banquets, when the master of ceremonies
has knighted me. I gave it up lest accusation should arise against me,
when at a semi-religious meeting I uttered a feeble protest against
the title to which I have no right, and my introducer merely repeated
it the more firmly, informing the audience meanwhile that I was "too
modest to use it."
There was attached to the conferring of the Order one elective
latitude--it could either be sent out or wait till I returned to
England and attended a levee with the other recipients. I had a great
desire to see the King, and, though it meant a year's waiting, I
requested to be allowed to do so. This not only was most courteously
granted, but also the permission to let my presence in England be
known to the Hereditary Grand Chamberlain, and the King would give me
a private audience. When the day arrived, I repaired to Buckingham
Palace, where I waited for an hour in the reception room in company
with a small, stout clergyman who was very affable. I learned later
that he was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was carrying a fat Bible
from Boston, England, I believe, to be presented to the United States
of America.
At last Sir Frederick Treves, who kindly acted as my introducer, took
me up to the King's study--that King whose life his skill had saved.
There a most courteous gentleman made me perfectly at home, and talked
of Labrador and North Newfoundland and our work as if he had lived
there. He asked especially about the American helpers and interest,
and laughed heartily when I told him how many freeborn Americans had
gladly taken the oath of loyalty to His Majesty, when called up to act
as special constables for me in his oldest Colony. He left the
impression on my mind that he was a real Englishman in spirit, though
he had spoken with what I took to be a slight German accent. The
sports and games of the Colony I had noticed interested him very much,
and all references to the splendid seafaring genius of the people also
found an appreciative echo in his heart. When at last he handed me a
long box with a gorgeous medal and ribbon, and bade me good-bye, I
vowed I could sing "God save the King" louder than ever if I could do
so without harrowing the feelings of my more tuneful neighbours.
When later, as a major in an American surgical unit in France, I was
serving the R.A.M.C., the ribbon of the Order was actually of real
service to me. It undoubtedly opened some closed doors, though it
proved a puzzle to every A.D.M.S. to whom I had to explain the anomaly
of my position when I had to go and worry him for permission to cross
the road or some new imaginary line. In England, and even in America,
I found that the fact that the King had recognized one's work was a
real material asset. It was a credential--only on a larger scale--like
that from our Minister to the Colonies, the Marquis of Ripon, who
kindly had given me his blessing in writing when first I visited
Canada.
How far signs of superiority are permissible is to my mind an open
question. Hereditary human superiority does not necessarily exist,
because selective precautions are not taken, and the environment of
the superior is very apt to enfeeble the physical machine, anyhow. The
question of the hereditary superiority of a man's soul, being outside
my sphere, I leave to the theologians. History, which is the school of
experience, belies the theory, whatever current science may say. As
for the giving of hereditary titles, it is significant that they do
not as a rule go to scholars or even scientific men, but to physical
fighters, being physical rewards for material services. When these are
in the possession of offspring no longer capable of rendering such
services, it appears ridiculous that they should sail under false
colours.
To make a man a hereditary duke for being humble and modest, or
hereditary marquis for being unselfish and generous, or an earl for
being a man of peace, and a benefactor in the things which make for
peace, such as a good husband and father and comrade, has, so far as I
know, never been tried. Some of the so-called lesser honours, such as
knighthood, are reserved for these. However, an order of knightly
citizens, so long as they are real knights, is, after all, little
more than the gold key of the Phi Beta Kappa, or the red triangle of
the Y.M.C.A. worker, or the Red Cross badge of the nurse. We are
human, anyhow, and such concessions, seeing that they do have an
undoubted stimulating value in the present stage of our development,
to an Englishman seem permissible.