The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador Part 17

Setting the kettle on the stove, Will, standing by the stove, proceeded to fill and light his pipe while Doctor Grenfell opened his dunnage bag to get the tea and sugar. Suddenly Will's pipe clattered to the floor. Will, standing like a statue, did not stoop to pick it up and Grenfell rescued it and rising offered it to him, when, to his vast astonishment, he discovered that the man, standing erect upon his feet was fast asleep. He had been nearly sixty hours without sleep and forty-eight hours of this had been spent on the trail.

They aroused Will and had him sit down on the bench. He re-lighted his pipe but in a moment it fell from his teeth again. He rolled over on the bench and was too soundly asleep to be interested in pipe or tea or anything to eat.

Daylight brought no abatement in the storm. The ice was deep under a coating of slush, and quite impa.s.sable for dogs and men, and the sea was pounding and battering at the outer edge, as the roar of smashing ice testified, though quite shut out from view by driving snow. There was nothing to do but follow the sh.o.r.e, a long way around, and off they started.

Here and there was an opportunity to cut across small coves and inlets where the ice was safe enough, and at two o'clock in the afternoon they reached Crow Island, a small island three-quarters of a mile from the mainland.

Under the shelter of scraggly fir trees on Crow Island an attempt was made to light a fire and boil the kettle for tea. But there was no protection from the blizzard. They failed to get the fire, and finally compelled by the elements to give it up they took a compa.s.s course for a small settlement on the mainland. The instinct of the dogs led them straight, and when the men had almost despaired of locating the settlement they suddenly drew up before a snug cottage.

A cup of steaming tea, a bit to eat, and Grenfell and his men were off again. Cape Norman was not far away, and that evening they reached the fisherman's home.

The joy and thankfulness of the young fisherman was beyond bounds. His 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sistance. 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 a.s.sistance 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 appet.i.te, 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 pa.s.s 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-sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.ses 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 pa.s.s, 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 a.s.sist 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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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.