Part 10

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.

VII

IN THE BREAKERS

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 to close quarters with an iceberg and escaping without serious damage, the Albert arrived 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 the Albert, 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 launch Princess May, which had been landed from the Corean, 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 the Princess May off. 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.

The Princess 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 old Newfoundland 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 launch Princess May was 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, I says. We'll never hear o' she again or any o' them on board."

"Unless by the mercy o' God."

Such were the remarks of those ashore as the Princess May steamed 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 without misgivings 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 the Princess May continued 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, the Princess May steamed 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 was reversed and by skillful maneuvering the Princess May succeeded, 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.