Heavy seas and head winds met theAlbert, and she ran in at the Irish port of Cookhaven to await better weather. In a day or two she again spread her canvas, Fastnet Rock, at the south end of Ireland, the last land of the Old World to be seen, was lost to view, and in heavy weather she pointed her bow toward St. Johns, Newfoundland.
Twelve days later, in a thick fog, a huge iceberg loomed suddenly up before them, and theAlbertbarely missed a collision that might have ended the mission. It was the first iceberg that Doctor Grenfell had ever seen. Presently, and through the following years, they were to become as familiar to him as the trees of the forests.
Four hundred years had passed since Cabot on his voyage of discovery had, in his little caraval, passed over the same course that Grenfell now sailed in theAlbert. Nineteen days after Fastnet Rock was lost to view, the shores of Newfoundland rose before them. That was fine sailing for the landfall was made almost exactly opposite St. Johns.
The harbor of St. Johns is like a great bowl. The entrance is a narrow passage between high, beetling cliffs rising on either side. From the sea the city is hidden by hills flanked by the cliffs, and a vessel must enter the narrow gateway and pass nearly through it before the city of St. Johns is seen rising from the water's edge upon sloping hill-sides on the opposite side of the harbor. It is one of the safest as well as most picturesque harbors in the world.
As theAlbertapproached the entrance Doctor Grenfell and the crew were astonished to see clouds of smoke rising from within and obscuring the sky. As they passed the cliffs waves of scorching air met them.
The city was in flames. Much of it was already in ashes. Stark, blackened chimneys rose where buildings had once stood. Flames were still shooting upward from those as yet but partly consumed. Some of the vessels anchored in the harbor were ablaze. Everything had been destroyed or was still burning. The Colonial public buildings, the fine churches, the great warehouses that had lined the wharves, even the wharves themselves, were smouldering ruins, and scarcely a private house remained. It was a scene of complete and terrible desolation. The fire had even extended to the forests beyond the city, and for weeks afterward continued to rage and carry destruction to quiet, scattered homes of the country.
The Labrador 'Liveyere'"THE LABRADOR 'LIVEYERE'"ToList
"THE LABRADOR 'LIVEYERE'"ToList
The cause or origin of the fire no one knew. It had come as a devastating scourge. It had left the beautiful little city a mass of blackened, smoking ruins.
The Newfoundlanders are as fine and brave a people as ever lived. Deep trouble had come to them, but they met it with their characteristic heroism. No one was whining, or wringing his hands, or crying out against God. They were accepting it all as cheerfully as any people can ever accept so sweeping a calamity. Benjamin Franklin said, "God helps them that help themselves." That is as true of a city as it is of a person. That is what the St. Johns people were doing, and already, while the fire still burned, they were making plans to take care of themselves and rebuild their city.
Of course Doctor Grenfell could do little to help with his one small ship, but he did what he could. The officials and the people found time to welcome him and to tell him how glad they were that he was to go to Labrador to heal the sick of their fleets and make the lives of the fishermen and the natives of the northern coast happier and pleasanter.
A pilot was necessary to guide theAlbertalong the uncharted coast of Labrador. Captain Nicholas Fitzgerald was provided by the Newfoundland government to serve in this capacity. Doctor Grenfell invited Mr. Adolph Neilson, Superintendent of Fisheries for Newfoundland, to accompany them,and he accepted the invitation, that he might lend his aid to getting the work of the mission started. He proved a valuable addition to the party. Then theAlbertsailed away to cruise her new field of service.
It will be interesting to turn to a map and see for ourselves the country to which Doctor Grenfell was going. We will find Labrador in the northeastern corner of the North American continent, just as Alaska is in the northwestern corner.
Like Alaska, Labrador is a great peninsula and is nearly, though not quite, so large as Alaska. Some maps will show only a narrow strip along the Atlantic east of the peninsula marked "Labrador." This is incorrect. The whole peninsula, bounded on the south by the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Straits of Belle Isle, the east by the Atlantic Ocean, the north by Hudson Straits, the west by Hudson Bay and James Bay and the Province of Quebec, is included in Labrador. The narrow strip on the east is under the jurisdiction of Newfoundland, while the remainder is owned by Quebec. Newfoundland is the oldest colony of Great Britain. It is not a part of Canada, but has a separate government.
The only people living in the interior of Labrador are a few wandering Indians who live by hunting. There are still large parts of the interior that have never been explored by white men, and ofwhich we know little or no more than was known of America when Columbus discovered the then new world.
The people who live on the coast are white men, half-breeds and Eskimos. None of these ever go far inland, and they live by fishing, hunting, and trapping animals for the fur. Those on the south, as far east as Blanc Sablon, on the straits of Belle Isle, speak French. Eastward from Blanc Sablon and northward to a point a little north of Indian Harbor at the northern side of the entrance of Hamilton Inlet, English is spoken. The language on the remainder of the coast is Eskimo, and nearly all of the people are Eskimos. Once upon a time the Eskimos lived and hunted on the southern coast along the Straits of Belle Isle, but only white people and half-breeds are now found south of Hamilton Inlet.
The Labrador coast from Cape Charles in the south to Cape Chidley in the north is scoured as clean as the paving stones of a street. Naked, desolate, forbidding it lies in a somber mist. In part it is low and ragged but as we pass north it gradually rises into bare slopes and finally in the vicinity of Nachbak Bay high mountains, perpendicular and grey, stand out against the sky.
Behind the storm-scoured rocky islands lie the bays and tickles and runs and at the head of the bays the forest begins, reaching back over rolling hills into the mysterious and unknown regionsbeyond. There is not one beaten road in all the land. There is no sandy beach, no grassy bank, no green field. Nature has been kind to Labrador, however, in one respect. There are innumerable harbors snugly sheltered behind the islands and well out of reach of the rolling breakers and the wind. There is an old saying down on the Labrador that "from one peril there are two ways of escape to three sheltered places." The ice and fog are always perils but the skippers of the coast appear to hold them in disdain and plunge forward through storm and sea when any navigator on earth would expect to meet disaster. For the most part the coast is uncharted and the skippers, many of whom never saw an instrument of navigation in their life, or at least never owned one, sail by rhyme:
"When Joe Bett's P'int you is abreast,Dane's Rock bears due west.West-nor'west you must steer,'Til Brimstone Head do appear."The tickle's narrow, not very wide;The deepest water's on the starboard sideWhen in the harbor you is shot,Four fathoms you has got."
"When Joe Bett's P'int you is abreast,Dane's Rock bears due west.West-nor'west you must steer,'Til Brimstone Head do appear.
"The tickle's narrow, not very wide;The deepest water's on the starboard sideWhen in the harbor you is shot,Four fathoms you has got."
It is an evil coast, with hidden reefs and islands scattered like dust its whole length. "The man who sails the Labrador must know it all like his own back yard—not in sunny weather alone, but in the night, when the headlands are like black cloudsahead, and in the mist, when the noise of breakers tells him all that he may know of his whereabouts. A flash of white in the gray distance, a thud and swish from a hidden place: the one is his beacon, the other his fog-horn. It is thus, often, that the Doctor gets along."
Labrador has an Arctic climate in winter. The extreme cold of the country is caused by the Arctic current washing its shores. All winter the ocean is frozen as far as one can see. In June, when the ice breaks away, the great Newfoundland fishing fleet of little schooners sails north to remain until the end of September catching cod, for here are the finest cod fishing grounds in the world.
In 1892 there were nearly twenty-five thousand Newfoundlanders on this fleet. Doctor Grenfell's mission was to aid and assist these deep sea fishermen. In those days there was no doctor with the fleet and none on the whole coast, and any one taken seriously ill or badly injured usually died for lack of medical or surgical care. Of course, Grenfell was also to help the people who lived on the coast, that is, the native inhabitants, who needed him. This service he was giving free.
At this season there is more fog than sunshine in those northern latitudes. It settles in a dense pall over the sea, adding to the dangers of navigation. Now the fog was so thick that they could scarcely see the length of the vessel. On the fourth day out the fog lifted for a brief time, and Cape Bauldthe northeasterly point of Newfoundland Island, showed his grim old head, as if to bid them goodbye and to wish them good luck "down on The Labrador." Then they were again swallowed by the fog and plunged into the rough seas where the Straits of Belle Isle meet the wide ocean.
No more land was seen, as they ploughed northward through the fog, until August 4th. This was a Thursday. Like the lifting of a curtain on a stage the fog, all at once, melted away, to reveal a scene of marvellous though rugged beauty. As though touched by a hand of magic, the atmosphere, for so many days dank and thick, suddenly became brilliantly clear and transparent, and the sun shone bright and warm.
Off the port bow lay The Labrador, the great silent peninsula of the north. Doctor Grenfell turned to it with a thrill. Here was the land he had come so far to see! Here he would find the people to whom he was to devote his life work!
There before him lay her scattered islands, her grim and rocky headlands and beetling cliffs, and beyond the islands, rolling away into illimitable blue distances her seared hills and the vast unknown region of her interior, whose mysterious secrets she had kept locked within her heart through all time. Back there, hidden from the world, were numberless lakes and rivers and mountains that no white man had ever seen.
Sails North To Remain Until The End Of Summer Catching Cod"SAILS NORTH TO REMAIN UNTIL THE END OF SUMMER CATCHING COD"ToList
"SAILS NORTH TO REMAIN UNTIL THE END OF SUMMER CATCHING COD"ToList
The sea rose and fell in a lazy swell. Not far away a school of whales were playing, now and again spouting geysers of water high into the air. Shoals of caplin[A]gave silver flashes upon the surface of the sea where thousands of the little fish crowded one another to the surface of the water. Countless birds and sea fowl hovered before the face of the cliffs and above the placid sea.
A half hundred icebergs, children of age-old glaciers of the far North, were scattered over the green-blue waters. Some of them were of gigantic proportions and strange outlines. There were hills with lofty summits, marvellous castles, turreted and towered, and majestic cathedrals, their icy pinnacles and spires reaching high above the top-masts of the ship and their polished adamantine surfaces sparkling in the brilliant sunshine and scintillating fire and colour with the wondrous iridescent beauty of mammoth opals.
"There's Domino Run," said the pilot.
"Domino Run? What is that?"
"'Tis a fine deep run behind the islands," explained the pilot. "All the fleets of schooners cruisin' north and south go through Domino Run. There's a fine tidy harbor in there, and we'd be findin' some schooners anchored there now."
"We'll go in and see."
"I think 'twould be well and meet some of the fleet. There's liviyeres in there too. There's someliviyeres handy to most of the harbors on the coast."
"Liveyeres? What are liveyeres?"
"They're the folk that live on the coast all the time,—the whites and half-breeds. Newfoundlanders only come to fish in summer, but liveyeres stay the winter. The shop keepers we calls planters. They're set up by traders that has fishin' places. The liveyeres has their homes up the heads of bays in winter, and when the ice fastens over they trap fur. In the summer they come out to the islands to fish."
Doctor Grenfell had heard all this before, but now as he looked at the dreary desolation of the rocks it seemed almost incredible that children could be born and grow to manhood and womanhood and live their lives here, forever fighting for mere existence, and die at last without ever once knowing the comforts that we who live in kindlier warmer lands enjoy.
Presently a beautiful and splendid harbor opened before theAlbert. Several schooners were lying at anchor within the harbor's shelter, and the strange new ship created a vast sensation as she hove to and dropped her anchor among them, and hoisted the blue flag of the Deep Sea Mission.
From masthead after masthead rose flags of greeting. It was a glorious welcome for any visitor to receive. A warmer or more cordial greeting could scarcely have been offered the GovernorGeneral himself. It was given with the fine hearty fervour and characteristic hospitality of the Newfoundland fishermen and seamen.
TheAlbert'sanchor chains had scarce ceased to rattle before boats were pulling toward her from every vessel in the harbor. Ships enough sailed down the coast, to be sure, but if they were not fishing vessels they were traders looking to barter for fish, bearing sharp men who drove hard bargains with the fishermen, as we shall see. But here was a different vessel from any of them. Everybody knew thatthiswas not a fisherman, and that she wasnota trader. Whatwasher business? What had she come for? What did her blue flag mean? These were questions to which everybody must needs find the answer for himself.
Great was their joy when it was learned that theAlbertwas a hospital ship with a real doctor aboard come to care for and heal their sick and injured, and that the doctor made no charge for his services or his medicine. This was a big point that went to their hearts, for there was scarce a man among them with any money in his pocket, and if Doctor Grenfell had charged them money they could not have called upon him to help them, for they could not have paid him. But here he was ready to serve them without money and without price. The richest, who were poor enough, and the poorest, could alike have his care and medicine. Here, indeed, was cause to wonder and rejoice.
Many of the fishermen took their families with them to live in little huts at the fishing places during the summer, and to help them prepare the fish for market. Forty or fifty men, women and children were packed, like figs in a box, on some of the schooners, with no other sleeping place than under the deck, on top of the cargo of provisions and salt in the hold, wherever they could find a place big enough to squeeze and stow themselves. Under such conditions there were ailing people enough on the schooners who needed a doctor's care.
The mail boat from St. Johns came once a fortnight, to be sure, and she had a doctor aboard her. But he could only see for a moment the more serious cases, and not all of them, hurriedly leave some medicine and go, and then he would not return to see them again in another two weeks. The mail boat had a schedule to make, and the time given her for the voyage between St. Johns and The Labrador was all too short, and she never reached the northernmost coast.
There were calls enough from the very beginning to keep Doctor Grenfell busy with the sick folk of the schooners. All that day the people came, and it was late that evening when the sick on the schooners had been cared for and the last of the visitors had departed.
Thus, on that first day in this new land, in the Harbor of Domino Run, Doctor Grenfell's lifework among the deep sea fishermen of The Labrador began in earnest.
But even yet Doctor Grenfell's day's work was not to end. He was to witness a scene that would sicken his heart and excite his deepest pity. An experience awaited him that was to guide him to new and greater plans and to bigger things than he had yet dreamed of.
For a long while a rickety old rowboat had been lying off from theAlbert. A bronzed and bearded man sat alone in the boat, eyeing the strange vessel as though afraid to approach nearer. He was thin and gaunt. The evening was chilly, but he was poorly clad, and his clothing was as ragged and as tattered as his old boat.
Finally, as though fearing to intrude, and not sure of his reception, he hailed theAlbert.
[A]A small fish about the size of a smelt.
[A]A small fish about the size of a smelt.
Grenfell, who had been standing at the rail for some time watching the decrepid old boat and its strange occupant, answered the hail cheerily.
"Be there a doctor aboard, sir?" asked the man.
"Yes," answered Grenfell. "I'm a doctor."
"Us were hearin' now they's a doctor on your vessel," said the man with satisfaction. "Be you arealdoctor, sir?"
"Yes," assured the Doctor. "I hope I am."
"They's a man ashore that's wonderful bad off, but us hasn't no money," suggested the man, adding expectantly, "You couldn't come to doctor he now could you, sir?"
"Certainly I will," assured the Doctor. "What's the matter with the man? Do you know?"
"He have a distemper in his chest, sir, and a wonderful bad cough," explained the man.
"All right," said the Doctor. "I'll go at once. How far is it?"
"Right handy, sir," said the man with evident relief.
"Pull alongside and I'll be with you in a jiffy," and the Doctor hurried below for his medicine case.
The man was alongside waiting for him when he returned a few moments later, and he stepped into the rickety old boat. As the liveyere rowed away Grenfell may have thought of his own famous flat-boat that sank with him and his brother in the estuary below Parkgate years before when they were left to swim for it. But in his mental comparison it is probable that the flat-boat, even in her oldest and most decrepid days, would have passed for a rather fine and seaworthy craft in contrast to this rickety old rowboat. The boat kept afloat, however, and presently the liveyere pulled it alongside the gray rock that served for a landing. They stepped out and the guide led the way up the rocks to a lonely and miserable little sod hut. At the door he halted.
"Here we is, sir," he announced. "Step right in. They'll be wonderful glad to see you, sir."
Grenfell entered. Within was a room perhaps twelve by fourteen feet in size. A single small window of pieces of glass patched together was designed to admit light and at the same time to exclude God's good fresh air. The floor was of earth, partially paved with small round stones. Built against the walls were six berths, fashioned after the model of ship's berths, three lower and three upper ones. A broken old stove, with its pipe extending through the roof into a mud protectionrising upon the peak outside in lieu of a chimney, made a smoky attempt to heat the place. The lower berths and floor served as seats. There was no furniture.
The walls of the hut were damp. The atmosphere was dank and unwholesome and heavy with the ill-smelling odor of stale seal oil and fish. The place was dirty and as unsanitary and unhealthful as any human habitation could well be.
Six ragged, half-starved little children huddled timidly into a corner upon the entrance of the visitor from the ship and gazed at the Doctor with wide-open frightened eyes. In one of the lower bunks lay the sick man coughing himself to death. At his side a gaunt woman, miserably and scantily clothed, was offering him water in a spoon.
It was evident to the trained eye of the Doctor that the man was fatally ill and could live but a short time. He was a hopeless consumptive, and a hasty examination revealed the fact that he was also suffering from a severe attack of pneumonia.
Doctor Grenfell's big sympathetic heart went out to the poor sufferer and his destitute family. What could he do? How could he help the man in such a place? He might remove him to one of the clean, white hospital cots on theAlbert, but it would scarcely serve to make easier the impending death, and the exposure and effort of the transfer might even hasten it. Then, too, the wife and children would be denied the satisfaction of the lastmoments with the departing soul of the husband and father, for theAlbertwas to sail at once. The summer was short, and up and down the coast many others were in sore need of the Doctor's care, and delay might cost some of them their lives.
Grenfell sat silently for several minutes observing his patient and asking himself the question: "What can I do for this poor man?" If there had only been a doctor that the man could have called a few days earlier his life, at least might have been prolonged.
There was but one answer to the question. There was nothing to do but leave medicine and give advice and directions for the man's care, and to supply the ill-nourished family much-needed food and perhaps some warmer clothing.
If there were only a hospital on the coast where such cases could be taken and properly treated! If there were only some place where fatherless and orphaned children could be cared for! These were some of the thoughts that crowded upon Doctor Grenfell as he left the hut that evening and was rowed back to theAlbert. And in the weeks that followed his mind was filled with plans, for never did the picture of the dying man and helpless little ones fade as he saw it that first day in Domino Run.
Another call to go ashore came that evening, and the Doctor answered it promptly. Again he was guided to a little mud hut, but this had anadvantage over the other in that it was well ventilated. The one window which it boasted was an open hole in the side wall with no glass or other covering to exclude the fresh air. There was no stove, and an open fire on the earthen floor supplied warmth, while a large opening in the roof, for there was no chimney, offered an escape for the smoke, an offer of which the smoke did not freely take advantage.
On a wooden bench in a corner of the room a man sat doubled up with pain. Here too was a family consisting of the man's wife and several children.
"What's the trouble?" asked the Doctor.
"I'm wonderful bad with a distemper in my insides, sir," answered the man with a groan.
"Been ill long?"
"Aye, sir, for three weeks."
"We'll see what can be done."
"Thank you, sir."
"We'll patch you up and make you as well as ever in a little while," assured the Doctor after a thorough examination, for this proved to be a curable case.
"That'll be fine, sir."
Medicine was provided, with directions for taking, and, as the Doctor had promised, and as he later learned, the man soon recovered his health and returned to his fishing.
TheAlbertsailed north. Into every little harborand settlement she dropped her anchor for a visit. She called at the trading posts of the old Hudson's Bay Company at Cartwright, Rigolet and Davis Inlet and the Moravian Missions among the Eskimos in the North. She was welcomed everywhere, and everywhere Doctor Grenfell found so many sick or injured people that the whole summer long he was kept constantly busy.
The waters of this coast were unknown to him. He knew nothing of their tides or reefs or currents. But with confidence in himself and a courage that was well-nigh reckless, he sought out the people of every little harbor that he might give them the help that he had come to give. If there was too great a hazard for the schooner, he used a whale-boat. Once this whale-boat was blown out to sea, once it was driven upon the rocks, once it capsized with all on board, and before the summer ended it became a complete wreck.
Nine hundred cases were treated, some trivial though perhaps painful enough maladies, others most serious or even hopeless. Here was a tooth to be extracted, there a limb to be amputated,—cases of all kinds and descriptions, with never a doctor to whom the people could turn for relief until Doctor Grenfell providentially appeared.
With all the work, the voyage was one of pleasure. Not only the pleasure of making others happier,—the greatest pleasure any one can know,—but it was a rattling fine adventure finding the wayamong islands that had never appeared on any map and were still unnamed. It was fine fun, too, cruising deep and magnificent fjords past lofty towering cliffs, and exploring new channels. And there were the Eskimos and their great wolfish dogs, and their primitive manner of living and dressing. It was all interesting and fascinating.
Never, however, since that August night in Domino Run, had the little mud hut, the dying man, the grief-stricken, miserable mother, and the neglected and starving little ones been out of Doctor Grenfell's thoughts, and often enough his big heart had ached for the stricken ones. He had never before witnessed such awful depths of poverty.
In other harbors that he had visited in his northern voyage similar heartrending cases had, to be sure, fallen under his attention. In one harbor he found a poor Eskimo both of whose hands had been blown off by the premature discharge of a gun. For days and days the man had endured indescribable agony. Nothing had been done for him, save to bathe the stubs of his shattered arms in cold water, until Doctor Grenfell appeared, for there was no surgeon to call upon to relieve the sufferer.
Everywhere there was a mute cry for help. The people were in need of doctors and hospitals. They were in need of hospital ships to cruise the coast and visit the sick of the harbors. They were inneed of clothing that they were unable to purchase for themselves. They were in great need of some one to devise a way that would help them to free themselves from the ancient truck system that kept them forever hopelessly in debt to the traders.
The case of the man in the little mud hut at Domino Run, however, first suggested to Grenfell the need of these things and the thought that he might do something to bring them about. As a result of this visit, he made, during his northward cruise, a most thorough investigation of the requirements of the coast.
It was early October, and snow covered the ground, when theAlbert, sailing south, again entered Domino Run and anchored in the harbor. Grenfell was put ashore and walked up the trail to the hut. The man had long since died and been laid to rest. The wife and children were still there. They had no provisions for the winter, and Grenfell, we may be sure, did all in his power to help them and make them more comfortable.
His plans had crystalized. He had determined upon the course he should take. He would go back to England and exert himself to the utmost to raise funds to build hospitals and to provide additional doctors and nurses for The Labrador. He would return to Labrador himself and give his life and strength and the best that was in him for the rest of his days in an attempt to make these people happier. Grenfell the athlete, the football player,the naturalist, and, above all, the doctor, was ready to answer the human call and to sacrifice his own comfort and ease and worldly possessions to the needs of these people. The man that will freely give his life to relieve the suffering of others represents the highest type of manhood. It is divine. It was characteristic of Grenfell.
And so it came about that the ragged man in the rickety boat who led Doctor Grenfell to the dying man in the mud hut was the indirect means of bringing hospitals and stores and many fine things to The Labrador that the coast had never known before. The ragged man in going for the doctor was simply doing a kindly act, a good turn for a needy neighbor. What magnificent results may come from one little act of kindness! This one laid the foundation for a work whose fame has encircled the world.
When Grenfell set out to do a thing he did it. He never in all his life said, "I will if I can." His motto has always been, "Icanif I will." He had determined to plant hospitals on the Labrador coast and to send doctors and nurses there to help the people. When he determined to do a thing there was an end of it. It would be done. A great many people plan to do things, but when they find it is hard to carry out their plans, they give them up. They forget that anything that is worth having is hard to get. If diamonds were as easy to find as pebbles they would be worth no more than pebbles.
That was a hard job that Grenfell had set himself, and he knew it. When you have a hard job to do, the best way is to go at it just as soon as ever you can and work at it as hard as ever you can until it is done. That was Grenfell's way, and as soon as he reached St. Johns he began to start things moving. Someone else might have waited to return to England to make a formal report to the Deep Sea Missions Board, and await the Board's approval.Not so with Grenfell. He knew the Board would approve, and time was valuable.
Down on The Labrador winter begins in earnest in October. Already the fishing fleets had returned from Labrador when theAlbertreached St. Johns, and the fishermen had brought with them the news of theAlbert's visit to The Labrador and the wonderful things Doctor Grenfell had done in the course of his summer's cruise. Praise of his magnificent work was on everybody's lips. The newspapers, always hungry for startling news, had published articles about it. Doctor Grenfell was hailed as a benefactor. All creeds and classes welcomed and praised him,—fishermen, merchants, politicians. Even the dignified Board of Trade had recorded its praise.
It was November when Grenfell arrived in St. Johns. He immediately waited upon the government officials with the result that His Excellency, the Governor of the Colony, at once called a meeting in the Government House that Grenfell might present his plans for the future to the people. All the great men of the Colony were there. They listened with interest and were moved with enthusiasm. Some fine things were said, and then with the unanimous vote of the meeting resolutions were passed in commendation of Doctor Grenfell's summer's work and expressing the desire that it might continue and grow in accordance with Doctor Grenfell's plans. The resolutions finallypledged the "co-operation of all classes of this community." Here was an assurance that the whole of the fine old Colony was behind him, and it made Grenfell happy.
But this was not all. It is not the way of Newfoundland people to hold meetings and say fine things and pass high-sounding resolutions and then let the whole matter drop as though they felt they had done their duty. Doctor Grenfell would need something more than fine words and pats on the back if he were to put his plans through successfully, though the fine words helped, too, with their encouragement. He would need the help of men of responsibility who would work with him, and His Excellency, the Governor, recognizing this fact, appointed a committee composed of some of Newfoundland's best men for this purpose.
Then it was that Mr. W. Baine Grieve arose and began to speak. Mr. Grieve was a famous merchant of the Colony, and a member of the firm of Baine Johnston and Company, who owned a large trading station and stores at Battle Harbor, on an island near Cape Charles, at the southeastern extremity of Labrador. He was a man of importance in St. Johns and a leader in the Colony. As he spoke Grenfell suddenly realized that Mr. Grieve was presenting the Mission with a building at Battle Harbor which was to be fitted as a hospital and made ready for use the following summer.
What a thrill must have come to Grenfell at thatmoment! The whole Newfoundland government was behind him! His first hospital was already assured! We can easily imagine that he was fairly overwhelmed and dazed with the success that he had met so suddenly and unexpectedly.
But Grenfell was not a man to lose his head. This was only a beginning. He must have more hospitals than one. He must have doctors and nurses, medicines and hospital supplies, food and clothing, and a steam vessel that would take him quickly about to see the sick of the harbors. A great deal of money would be required, and when theAlbertsailed out of St. John's Harbor and turned back to England he knew that he had assumed a stupendous job, and that the winter was not to be an idle one for him by any means.
It was December first when theAlbertreached England. With the backing and assistance of the Mission Board, Doctor Grenfell and Captain Trevize of theAlbertarranged a speaking tour for the purpose of exciting interest in the Labrador work. Men and women were moved by the tale of their experiences and the suffering and needs of the fishermen and liveres. Gifts were made and sufficient funds subscribed to purchase necessary supplies and hospital equipment, and a fine rowboat was donated to replace theAlbert'swhaleboat which had been smashed during the previous summer.
Then word came from St. Johns that the greatshipping firm of Job Brothers, who owned a fisheries' station at Indian Harbor, had donated a hospital to the Newfoundland committee. This was to be erected at Indian Harbor, at the northern side of the entrance to Hamilton Inlet, two hundred miles north of Battle Harbor, and was to be ready for use during the summer. This was fine news. Not only were there large fishery stations at both Battle Harbor and Indian Harbor, but both were regular stopping places for the fishing schooners when going north and again on their homeward voyage. With two hospitals on the coast a splendid beginning for the work would be made.
But there was still one necessity lacking,—a little steamer in which Doctor Grenfell could visit the folk of the scattered harbors. At Chester on the River Dee and not far from his boyhood home at Parkgate Grenfell discovered a boat one day that was for sale and that he believed would answer his purpose. It was a sturdy little steam launch, forty-five feet over all. It was, however, ridiculously narrow, with a beam of only eight feet, and was sure to roll terribly in any sea and even in an ordinary swell.
But Grenfell was a good seaman, and he could make out in a boat that did a bit of tumbling. He was the sort of man to do a good job with a tool that did not suit him if he could not get just the sort of tool he wanted, and never find fault with it either. The necessary amount to purchase thelaunch was subscribed by a friend of the Mission. Grenfell bought it and was mightily pleased that this last need was filled. Later the little launch was christened the "Princess May."
Then theAlbertwas made ready for her second voyage to Labrador. The Mission Board appointed two young physicians to accompany Doctor Grenfell, Doctor Arthur O. Bobardt and Doctor Eliott Curwen, and two trained nurses, Miss Cecilia Williams and Miss Ada Cawardine, that there might be a doctor and a nurse for the hospital at Battle Harbor and a doctor and a nurse for the hospital at Indian Harbor. The launchPrincess Maywas swung aboard the big Allan linerCoreanand shipped to St. John's, and on June second Doctor Grenfell and his staff sailed from Queenstown on theAlbert.
Grenfell was as fond of sports as ever he was in his boyhood and college days, and now, when the weather permitted, he played cricket with any on board who would play with him. The deck of so small a vessel as theAlbertoffers small space for a game of this sort, and one after another the cricket balls were lost overboard until but one remained. Then, one day, in the midst of a game in mid-ocean, that last ball unceremoniously followed the others into the sea.
Grenfell ran to the rail. He could see the ball rise on a wave astern.
"Tack back and pick me up!" he yelled to thehelmsman, and to the astonishment and consternation of everyone, over the rail he dived in pursuit of the ball.
Grenfell could swim like a fish. He learned that in the River Dee and the estuary, when he was a boy, and he always kept himself in athletic training. But he had never before jumped into the middle of so large a swimming pool as the Atlantic ocean, with the nearest land a thousand miles away!
The steersman lost his head. He put over the helm, but failed to cut Grenfell off, and the Doctor presently found himself a long way from the ship struggling for life in the icy cold waters of the North Atlantic.
The young adventurer did not lose his head, and he did not waste his strength in desperate efforts to overtake the vessel. He calmly laid-to, kept his head above water, and waited for the helmsman to bring the ship around again.
A man less inured to hardships, or less physically fit, would have surrendered to the icy waters or to fatigue. Grenfell was as fit as ever a man could be.
In school and college he had made a record in athletic sports, and since leaving the university he had not permitted himself to get out of training. An athlete cannot keep in condition who indulges in cigarettes or liquor or otherwise dissipates, and Grenfell had lived clean and straight.
It was this that saved his life now. He knew he was fit and he had confidence in himself, and was unafraid. While he appreciated his peril, he never lost his nerve, and when finally he was rescued and found himself on deck he was little the worse for his experience, and with a change of dry clothing was ready to resume the interrupted game of cricket with the rescued ball.
With no further adventure than once coming toclose quarters with an iceberg and escaping without serious damage, theAlbertarrived in due time at St. John's, and Grenfell was at once occupied in preparation for his summer's work on The Labrador. Materials with which to construct the Indian Harbor hospital were shipped north by steamer. Supplies were taken aboard theAlbert, and with Dr. Curwin and nurses Williams and Cawardine she sailed for Battle Harbor, where the building to be utilized as a hospital was already erected.
Then the launchPrincess May, which had been landed from theCorean, was made ready for sea, and with an engineer and a cook as his crew and Dr. Bobardt as a companion, Dr. Grenfell as skipper put to sea in the tiny craft on July 7th.
There were many pessimistic prophets to see thePrincess Mayoff. From skipper to cook not a man aboard her was familiar with the coast, or could recognize a single landmark or headland either on the Newfoundland coast or on The Labrador.
They were going into rugged, fog-clogged seas. They might encounter an ice-pack, and the sea was always strewn with menacing icebergs. True, they had charts, but the charts were most incomplete, and no Newfoundlander sails by them.
ThePrincess May, a mere cockle-shell, was too small, it was said, for the undertaking. She was six years old and Grenfell had not given her a try-out. The consensus of opinion among the wise oldNewfoundland seamen who gathered on the wharf as she sailed was that Doctor Grenfell and his crew were much like the three wise men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl. Still, not a man of them but would have ventured forth upon the high seas in an ancient rotten old hull of a schooner. They were acquainted with schooners and the coast, while the little launchPrincess Maywas a new species of craft to them, and was manned by green hands.
"'Tis a dangerous voyage for green hands to be makin'," said one, "and that small boat were never meant for the sea."
"Aye, for green hands," said another. "They'll never make un without mishap."
"If they does, 'twill be by the mercy o' God."
"And how'll they make harbor, not knowin' what to sail by?"
"That bit of a craft would never stand half a gale, and if she meets th' ice she'll crumple up like an eggshell."
"And they'll be havin' some nasty weather,Isays. We'll never hear o'sheagain or any o' them on board."
"Unless by the mercy o' God."
Such were the remarks of those ashore as thePrincess Maysteamed down the harbor and out through the narrow channel between the beetling cliffs, into the broad Atlantic. Dr. Grenfell has confessed that he was not wholly withoutmisgivings himself, and they seemed well founded when, at the end of the first five miles, the engineer reported:
"She's sprung a leak, sir!" and anxiously asked, "Had we better put back?"
"No! We'll stand on!" answered Grenfell. "Those croakers ashore would never let us hear the end of it if we turned back. We'll see what's happened."
An examination discovered a small opening in the bottom. A wooden plug was shaped and driven into the hole. To Doctor Grenfell's satisfaction and relief, this was found to heal the leak effectually, and thePrincess Maycontinued on her course.
But this was not to end the difficulties. In those waters dense fogs settled suddenly and without warning, and now such a fog fell upon them to shut out all view of land and the surrounding sea.
Nevertheless, thePrincess Maysteamed bravely ahead. To avoid danger Grenfell was holding her, as he believed, well out to sea, when suddenly there rose out of the fog a perpendicular towering cliff. They were almost in the white surf of the waves pounding upon the rocky base of the cliff before they were aware of their perilous position.
Every one expected that the little vessel would be driven upon the rocks and lost, and they realized if that were to happen only a miracle could save them. Grenfell shouted to the engineer, the engine wasreversed and by skillful maneuvering thePrincess Maysucceeded, by the narrowest margin, in escaping unharmed. To their own steady nerves, and the intervention of Providence the fearless mariner and his little crew undoubtedly owed their lives.
Grenfell suspected that the compass was not registering correctly. Standing out to sea until they were at a safe distance from the treacherous shore rocks, a careful examination was made. The binnacle had been left in St. Johns for necessary repairs, and the examination discovered that iron screws had been used to make the compass box fast to the cabin. These screws were responsible for a serious deviation of the needle, and this it was that had so nearly led them to fatal disaster.
A heavy swell was running, and the little vessel, with but eight feet beam, rolled so rapidly that the compass needle, even when the defect had been remedied, made a wide swing from side to side as the vessel rolled. The best that could be done was to read the dial midway between the extreme points of the needle's swing. This was deemed safe enough, and away thePrincess Mayploughed again through the fog.
At five o'clock in the afternoon it was decided to work in toward shore and search for a sheltering harbor in which to anchor for the night. Under any circumstance it would be foolhardy for so small a vessel to remain in the open sea outside, after darkness set in, in those ice-menaced fog-chokednorthern waters. The course of thePrincess Maywas accordingly changed to bear to the westward and Grenfell was continuously feeling his way through the fog when suddenly, and to the dismay of all on board, they found themselves surrounded by jagged reefs and small rocky islands and in the midst of boiling surf.
Now they were indeed in grave peril. They must needs maintain sufficient headway to keep the vessel under her helm. Black rocks capped with foam rose on every side, they did not know the depth of the water, and the fog was so thick they could scarce see two boat lengths from her bow.