A Labrador Doctor Part 23

My long-time fellow worker and one of my best of friends, Francis B.

Sayre, was to be married on November 25, 1913, to Miss Jessie Wilson.

Her father, who, when first I had had the honour of his acquaintance, happened to be the President of Princeton University, was now the President of the United States. So we had all the fun of a White House wedding. Not less than fifty of our fishermen friends from Labrador and North Newfoundland were invited, and some members of our staff were present.

We started the wedding procession upstairs, and came down to the fanfare of uniformed trumpeters. Our awkwardness in keeping step, though we had rehea.r.s.ed the whole business several times, only relieved the tension that must exist at so important an event in life.

Trying to dodge the reporters added heaps of fun, which I am sure that they shared, for they generally got the better of us; though the thrill of escape from the White House and Was.h.i.+ngton, so that the honeymoon rendezvous should not be known, was practically a victory for the wedding party. As it would never be safe to use the tactics again, I am permitted after the lapse of many years to give them away.

As soon as dark fell, and while the guests were still revelling, the bride and groom were hustled into a secret elevator in the thickness of the wall, whisked up to the robing chambers, and completely disguised. Meanwhile a suitable camouflage of automobiles had arrived ostentatiously at the main entrance, to carry and escort the ill.u.s.trious couple in fitting pomp to the great station. From the landing the couple were dropped direct to the bas.e.m.e.nt to a prearranged oubliette. The pa.s.sword was the sound of the wheels of an ordinary cab at the kitchen entrance. The moments of suspense were not long. At the sound of the crush on the gravel a silent door was opened, two completely m.u.f.fled figures crept out, and the conspirators drove slowly along round a few corners where a swift automobile lay panting to add _liberte_ to _egalite_ and _fraternite_.

CHAPTER XXIII

A MONTH'S HOLIDAY IN ASIA MINOR

After the fall spent in America in raising the necessary funds, it was the now famous Carmania which carried us to England. In spite of a few days' rest at my old home, and the stimulus of a Grenfell clan gathering in London, my wife and I were both in need of something which could direct our minds from our problems, and Boxing Day found us bound for Paris, Turin, Milan, and Rome.

Just before Christmas I had had a meeting at the famous office of the Hudson Bay Company in London, and attended another of their interesting luncheons where their directors meet. My old friend Lord Strathcona presided. I could not help noting that after all the lapse of years since we first met at Hudson Bay House in Montreal, he still retained his abstemious habits. He was ninety-three, and still at his post as High Commissioner for a great people, as well as leading councillor of a dozen companies. His memory of Labrador and his days there, and his love for it, had not abated one whit. Hearing that the hospital steamer Strathcona needed a new boiler and considerable repairs, he ordered me to have the work undertaken at once and the bill sent to him. He, moreover, insisted that we should spend some days with him at his beautiful country house near London, an invitation which we accepted for our return, but which we were never fated to realize, for before the appointed date that able man had crossed the last bar.

It is said to be better to be lucky than rich. We had expected in Rome to do only what the Romans of our pocket-book do. But we fell in with some old acquaintances whose pleasure it is to give pleasure, and New Year's night was made memorable by a concert given by the choir of the Sistine Chapel, to which we were taken by the editor of the "Churchman" and later of the "Constructive Quarterly," an old friend of ours, Dr. Silas McBee. A glimpse into the British Emba.s.sy gave us an insight into the problem of Roman modern politics and the factions of the Black and White.

Rome is always delightful. One is glad to forget the future and live for the time in the past. Sitting in the Coliseum in the moonlight I could see the gladiators fighting to amuse the civilized man of that period, and gentle women and innocent men dying horrible deaths for truths that have made us what we are, but which we now sometimes regard so lightly.

I confess that religious buildings, religious pictures, religious conventions of all kinds very soon pall on my particular temperament.

It is possibly a defect in my development, like my inability to appreciate cla.s.sical music. On the other hand, like Mark Twain, I enjoy an ancient mummy just because he is ancient; and were it not for the irritation of seeing so much religious display a.s.sociated with such miserable social conditions in so beautiful a country, I should have more sympathy with those who would "see Rome and die." The sanitation of the one-time Mistress of the world suggests that it could not be difficult to accomplish that feat in the hot weather.

Brindisi is a household word in almost every English home, especially one like ours with literally dozens of Anglo-Indian relatives. I was therefore glad to pa.s.s _via_ Brindisi on the road to Athens. Patras also had its interest to me as a distributing centre for our Labrador fish. We actually saw three forlorn-looking schooners, with cargoes from Newfoundland, lying in the harbour.

One poignant impression left on my mind by Greece, as well as Rome, was its diminutive size. I almost resented the fact that a place civilized thousands of years ago, and which had loomed up on my imagination as the land of Socrates, of Plato, of Homer, of Achilles, of Spartan warriors, and immortal poets, all seemed so small. The sense of imposition on my youth worried me.

In Athens one saw so many interesting relics within a few hundred yards that it left one with the feeling of having eaten a meal too fast. The scene of the battle of Salamis fascinated me. When we sat in Xerxes' seat and conjured up the whole picture again, and saw the meaning to the world of the great deed for which men so gladly gave their lives to defeat a tyrant seeking for world power, it made me love those old Greeks, not merely admire their art.

On Mars Hill we stood on the spot where, to me, perhaps the greatest man in history, save one, pleaded with men to accept love as the only durable source of greatness and power. But every monument, every bas-relief, every tombstone showed that the fighting man was their ideal.

The idea of sailing from the Piraeus reconciled us to the very mediocre vessel which carried us to Smyrna. Our visit to Asia Minor we had inadvertently timed to the opening of the International College at Paradise near Smyrna. This college is the gift of Mrs. John Kennedy of New York. Mr. Ralph Harlow, our host and a professor at the college, with Mr. Ca.s.s Reid and other friends, made it possible for us to enjoy intelligently our brief visit. It was just a dream of pleasure. Time forbids my describing the marvellous work of that and other colleges.

Men of ambition, utterly irrespective of race, colour, creed, or sect, sit side by side as the alumni. The humanity, not the other-worldliness, of the leaders has made even the Turks, steeped in the blood of their innocent Christian subjects, recognize the untold value of these Christian universities, and kept them, their professors, and buildings, safe during the war.

Dr. Bliss, of Beyrout, once told us a humorous story about himself. He had just been addressing a large audience in New York, when immediately after his speech the chairman rose and announced, "We will now sing the one hundred and fiftieth hymn, 'From the best bliss that earth imparts, we turn unfilled to Thee again.'"

The preservation of Ephesus was a surprise to us, though of late the Turks have been carrying off its precious historic marble to burn for lime for their fields. One large marble font in an old Byzantine baptistry was broken up for that purpose while we were there. We stood on the very rostrum in the theatre where St. Paul and the coppersmith had trouble--while at the time of our visit, the only living inhabitant of that once great city was a hungry a.s.s which we saw harboured in a dressing-room beneath the platform.

The anachronism of buzzing along a Roman road, which had not been repaired since the days of the Caesars, on our way to Pergamos, in the only Ford car in the country, was punctuated by having to get out and shove whenever we came to a cross-drain. These always went over instead of under the road--only on an exaggerated Baltimorian plan.

One night at Soma, which is the end of the branch railroad in the direction of Pergamos, we were in the best hotel, which, however, was only half of it for humans. A detachment of Turkish soldiers were billeted below in the quarters for the other animals. Snow was on the ground, and it was bitterly cold. The poor soldiers slept literally on the stone floor. We were cold, and we felt so sorry for them, that after we had enjoyed a hot breakfast, in a fit of generosity we sent them a couple of baskets of Turkish specialties. Later in the day we noticed that wherever we went a Turkish soldier with a rifle followed us. So we turned off into a side street and walked out into the country. Sure enough the soldier came along behind. As guide to speak the many languages for us, we had a Greek graduate of International College, a very delightful young fellow, very proud of a newly acquired American citizens.h.i.+p. At last we stopped and bribed that soldier to tell us what the trouble was. "Our officer thought that you must be spies because you sent gifts to Turkish soldiers."

At Pergamos, a Greek Christian--very well off--invited us to be his guests on Greek Christmas Eve. It was the occasion of a large family gathering. There were fine young men and handsome, dark-eyed girls, and all the accessories of a delightful Christian home. When the outer gates had been locked, and the inner doors bolted and blinds drawn down, and all possible loopholes examined for spies, the usual festivities were observed. These families of the conquered race have lived in bondage some four hundred years, but their patriotism has no more dimmed than that of ancient Israel under her oppressors. Before we left they danced for us the famous Souliet Dance--memorial to the brave Greek girls who, driven to their last stand on a rocky hilltop, jumped one by one over the precipice as the dance came round to each one, rather than submit to shame and slavery. From our friends at Smyrna we learned subsequently that when, a few months later, and just before the war, the German general visited the country, making overtures to the Turks, the blow fell on this family like many others, and they suffered the agony of deportation.

At Constantinople the kindness of Mr. Morgenthau, the American Amba.s.sador, and the optimism bred by Robert College and the Girls'

School, left delightful memories of even the few days in winter that we spent there. The museum alone is worth the long journey to it, and when a teacher from the splendid Girls' School, herself a specialist on the Hitt.i.tes, was good enough to show it to us, it was like a leap back into the long history of man. It seemed but a step to the Neanderthal skull and our Troglodyte forbears.

Owing to shortage of time we returned to England through Bulgaria, pa.s.sing through Serbia, and stopping for a day at Budapest and two at Vienna. We would have been glad to linger longer, for every hour was delightful.

The month's holiday did me lots of good and sent me back to England a new man to begin lecturing again in the interests of the distant Labrador; and with the feeling that, after all, our coast was a very good place for one's life-work.

We helped to lessen the tedium of the lectures by doing most of the travelling in an automobile of my brother's, in which we lived, moved, and had our meals by the roadside. The lectures took us everywhere from the drawing-room of a border castle on the line of the old Roman Wall--which Puck of Pook's Hill had made as fascinating for us as he did for the children--to the Emba.s.sy in Paris.

Once more the Mauretania carried us to America. April was spent partly in lecturing and partly in attending surgical clinics--a very valuable experience being a week's work with Dr. W.R. MacAusland, of Boston, at his orthopedic clinics in and around that city. He and his brother "Andy" had pa.s.sed a summer with us in Labrador. May found us in Canada visiting our helpers, and stimulating various branches by lectures.

While loading the George B. Cluett in early June in St. John's, Newfoundland, we organized an education committee to work with the Inst.i.tute Committee, to give regular educational lectures throughout the winter. Dr. Lloyd, our present Prime Minister, and Sir Patrick McGrath, always a stanch friend of the Mission, helped materially in this new activity.

The Inst.i.tute at the time was housing some of the crew of the Greenland, who had come through the terrible experiences at the seal fishery in the spring of 1914. Caught on the ice in a fearful blizzard, almost all had perished miserably. Some few had survived to lose limbs and functions from frostburns. The occasion gave the Inst.i.tute one of the many opportunities for a service rather more dramatic than the routine, which did much to win it popularity.

Midsummer's Day and the two following days we were stuck in a heavy ice-jam one hundred miles south of St. Anthony. My wife and boys had arrived in St. Anthony before me, and to find them in our own house, and the hospital full of opportunity for the line of help which I especially enjoy, afforded all that heart could wish.

Early in July the Duke of Connaught, the Governor-General of Canada, paid us a long-promised visit. It was highly appreciated by all our people, who would possibly have paid him more undivided attention had he not been kind enough to send his band ash.o.r.e--the first St. Anthony had ever heard. The resplendent uniforms of the members totally eclipsed that of the Duke, who was in "mufti"; but he readily understood that the division of attention was really not attributable to us. He proved to be a thorough good sport and a most democratic prince.

The war having broken out in August, we had only one idea--economy on every side, that we might all be able to do what we could. We had not then begun to realize the seriousness of it sufficiently to dream that we should be welcome ourselves. We closed up all activities not entirely necessary, and even the hospital s.h.i.+p went into winter quarters so early that my fall trip was made from harbour to harbour in the people's own boats or by mail steamer or schooner, as opportunity offered.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE WAR

In the fall of 1915, I was urged by the Harvard Surgical Unit to make one of their number for their proposed term of service that winter at a base hospital in France. Having discussed the matter with my directors, we decided that it was justifiable to postpone the lecture tour which had been arranged for me, in view of this new need.

We sailed for England on the Dutch liner New Amsterdam and landed at Falmouth, pa.s.sing through a cordon of mine-sweepers and small patrols as we neared the English sh.o.r.es. My wife's offer to work in France not being accepted, since I held the rank of Major, we ran down to my old home, where she decided to spend most of her time. My uniform and kit were ready in a few days; and in spite of the mult.i.tudinous calls on the War Office officials, I can say in defence of red tape that my papers were made out very quickly. I was thus able to leave promptly for Boulogne, near which I joined the other members of my Unit, who had preceded me by a fortnight.

It was Christmas and the snow was on the ground when I arrived in France. There was much talk of trench feet and the cold. Our life in the North had afforded experiences more like those at the front than most people's. We are forced to try and obtain warmth and mobility combined with economy, especially in food and clothing. At the request of the editor, I therefore sent to the "British Medical Journal" a summary of deductions from our Northern experiences. Clothes only keep heat in and damp out. Thickness, not even fur, will warm a statue, and our ideal has been to obtain light, wind-and water-proof material, and a pattern that prevents leakage of the body's heat from the neck, wrists, waist, knees, and ankles. Our skin boots, by being soft, water-tight, and roomy, remove the causes of trench feet. Later when I returned to England I was invited to the War Office to talk over the matter. The defects, either in wet and cold or in hot weather, of woolen khaki cloth are obvious, and when subsequently I visited the naval authorities in Was.h.i.+ngton about the same subject, I was delighted to be a.s.sured that on all small naval craft our patterns were being exclusively used. Who introduced them did not matter.

I had also advocated a removable insert of sheet steel in a pocket on the breast of the tunic, this plate to be kept in the trenches and inserted on advancing; and a lobster-tail steel knee-piece in the knickers. Of this latter Sir Robert Jones, the British orthopedic chief, appreciated the value, knowing how many splendid men are put _hors de combat_ by tiny pieces of sh.e.l.l splinters infecting that joint. But the "Journal" censored all these references to armour. A wounded Frenchman at Berck presented me with a helmet heavily dented by shrapnel, and told me that he owed his life to it. Later at General Headquarters, General Sir Arthur Sloggett showed me a collection of a dozen experimental helmets, each of which stood for a saved life.

One of the soldiers who came under my care had a bullet wound through the palm of his hand. I happened to ask him where his hand had been when hit. He said, "On my hip. We were mending a break in our barbed wire at night, and a fixed rifle got me, exactly where it got my chum just afterwards, but it went through him."

"Where did your bullet go?"

"I don't know," he answered.

An examination of his trousers showed the bullet in his pocket. It was embedded in three pennies and two francs which he happened to be carrying there, and which his wounded hand had prevented his feeling for afterwards.

Pathos and humour, like genius and madness, are close akin. One of the boys told me of a chum who was very "churchy," and always carried an Episcopal Prayer Book in his pocket--for which he was not a little chaffed. For a joke one day he was presented with a second that a messmate had received, but for which he had no use. His scruples about "wasting it" made him put it in his pocket with the other. Soon after this, in an advance, he was shot in the chest. The bullet pa.s.sed right through the first Prayer Book and lodged in the second, where it was found on his arrival at hospital for another slight wound. He at least will long continue to swear by the Book of Common Prayer.

One day, walking with other officers in the country, we stumbled across a tiny isolated farm. As usual the voice of the inevitable Tommy could be heard from within. They were tending cavalry horses, which filled every available nook and corner behind the lines at a period when cavalry was considered useless in action. Having learned that one of these men had been body servant to a cousin of mine, who was a V.C. at the time that he was killed, I asked him for the details of his death. The Germans had broken through on the left of his command, and it was instantly imperative to hold the morale while help from the right was summoned. Jumping on the parapet, my cousin had stood there encouraging the line amid volleys of bullets. At the same time he ordered his servant to carry word to the right at once.

Suddenly a bullet pa.s.sed through his body and he fell into the trench.

Protesting that he was all right, he declared that he could hold out till the man should come back. On his return he found that my cousin was dead. But help came, the line held, and the German attack was a costly failure. His servant had collected and turned in all the little personal possessions of any value which he had found on the body.

"I think that you should have got a Military Cross," I said.