by Paul Butler
Darkness sweeps over him as the howls start up again, and this time the feeling has the flavour of a premonition. He was sure of Florence once, of a noble, upright nature, and though he knew she was too assertive to be his wife, he did believe in her discretion. He thinks of Anne, and her likely disappointments when she comes, and wonders how much he really knows women, and to what extent his upcoming marriage might be an extraordinary gamble.
He slides the plate away and listens to the grandfather clock ticking through the music of animal howls and window-rattling breezes. His knowledge of drama tells him that downfall, slow or rapid, always comes when a man has attained his desires, or is very close to doing so. He is almost where he needs to be, but not quite. Any great tragedian would surely choose a moment very soon to precipitate his decline. Perhaps this is the reason for his gloom, the inevitability of an oncoming collapse.
He wonders about Florence and her husband. Would they be sly and determined enough to approach his intended wife’s family? Do they still have the note he penned so many years ago outlining his vision? Would they slip it to them if they refused to believe?
It seems unlikely, fantastic, but then so did being challenged openly by Florence Mills twenty-five years on, until it happened. The thought of letters makes him glance again at the opened note by his plate, a rather timid missive sent by a mother in Brent Island, and brought my sled messengers who had come and gone in a hurry, bartering for extra fuel for the last of the winter.
The Brent Island woman wanted to thank him for operating on her son. The boy had an infection near the bone. It had needed to be cleared out quickly to prevent deterioration. The letter was pleasing enough to receive, or would have been were he in a better temper, but it was hardly an unusual thanks for any family doctor, let alone one who commanded nursing stations and strove so hard to be a community leader.
The grandfather clock seems to tick louder, and for the moment the dogs are silent. He hears Mrs. Evans moving pots and pans in the kitchen, and pulls his plate rather guiltily forward again. Taking a scoop of potato on his fork, he raises it to his lips and chews without relish. The languid hand of failure weighs down upon his shoulders with more force, and he tries to take stock again. It’s true he attracts people to the mission. It’s true he’s an efficient doctor, conscientious and focused. But he’s only half-accepted as leader here, and Anne would soon see this and be surprised. She’d soon notice the contrast between this and the assumptions people made in New York and Gloucester and Boston. They all thought of him as a giant among pygmies, a man of learning and charisma, and they merely presumed his people would be breathless with gratitude all the time. But the reality is more prosaic. He works at the hospital, occasionally goes on the hospital ship, and treats serious and routine conditions like any other doctor. Some people like him and some people don’t. And occasionally, very occasionally, the people who don’t like him—like that wretch who called him a liar in New York—surface where one least expects.
One day he will wake up an old man. Friendly adventurers will find him and be filled not with admiration but with a kind of curious pity. They will see what he has been at pains to conceal from himself and from others: that he is a kind of exile, his life a tribute to an age long past. How many of his kind litter the outposts of the colonies? Human driftwood bleaching in the sun, part of a quaint landscape which will have ceased to exist at home.
What was lacking, he knew, was drama. He remembers reading about Moody on the red-soaked killing fields of the Civil War. Moody would walk on tiptoes among the dying, crouching toward each head. Failing eyes would flicker toward him in hope or respite from the pain, or some promise of recovery. But always the same austere question would leave Moody’s lips. “My friend, are you a Christian?” If the answer was yes, he would hear the final penance and move on, leaving men to choke or wheeze their last. If only he could somehow clutch onto some elements of that uncompromising spirit.
He had no illusions. It wasn’t mended bones or stitched-up guts that made reputations when word of a man’s exploits reached civilization. People demand something extreme, images that harness the lurid power of classical mythology. They want blood and the vicarious terrors they are too afraid to sample for themselves. This, not plodding competence, kindliness, or living peacefully among the natives is how a man distinguishes himself.
He puts down his fork and picks up the note again— “Just a note, dear Doctor, that my boy seems to be recovering very well from his operation. We thank you sincerely”—then drops it in disgust.
A fight breaks out beyond the door. The dogs pull on their ropes and bark once more as the wind rises. Grenfell hears the slap of the sled rope against the runner. It occurs to him he has simply been too careful. Each step, thoughtfully enough planned, has been designed for a painfully slow rise toward ambitions.
Driftwood beckoning.
His pulse quickens as unexpected hope grips him. He picks up the letter once more, reads, and then slips it back into its envelope. Mrs. Evans didn’t see him open the note, doesn’t know he has read it already. The rope slaps against the runner again. Moody howls. Adventure and risk, he thinks; once formed in his thoughts, the syllables begin to echo in the slapping of the rope and in the cozy-sinister tocks of the grandfather clock. It seems so obvious all of a sudden. Jack London and The Call of the Wild; Charles Kingsley and Westward Ho; the Klondike gold rush; great tests of courage and self-sacrifice are what fires the modern imagination—man against nature and the elements.
He stuffs the note in his jacket pocket and stands.
“Mrs. Evans,” he calls. “I have to leave for Brent Island. Straightaway!”
— Chapter Twenty-Three —
The snow ridges sparkle under a pale sky like shards of crystal. Speed and emptiness quicken his thoughts, make them electric and brilliant. Like jagged teeth of Himalayan peaks, the twin destinies of glory or death race with him. Sled-runners hiss and ice stars fleck his cheeks. The grey tails of the dogs sway like disconnected rudders. The animals, in V formation, roll like a river of fur, racing into nowhere.
Grenfell’s heart beats fast as he thinks back through the short conversation with Mrs. Evans; in a few words he took a plunge from which there would be no easy return.
“You can’t do that, Doctor. It’s thirty miles distant and the ice is breaking up.”
“I have to go, Mrs. Evans. It’s a matter of life or death.”
He fingered the note in his pocket.
“Why didn’t you go with the messengers?”
“They thought they’d slow me down. The note explains.”
“Let me fetch my husband. He’ll talk to you about it.”
But he was already marching out the door, ears stinging with cold and heart pounding with panicky delirium as he untied the dogs’ reins. Fur bristled and Moody’s pale grey eyes fixed him suspiciously as he cut a stubborn rope and pocketed the knife.
“No time for that!” he yelled. “Fetch my bag, my oilskins, and food for the dogs.”
The exchange was decisive. It amputated all alternatives but that of being hailed as a hero or denounced as the most abject and desperate of liars. Once upon the ice, he reasoned, he could avoid too much physical danger by not going too far out. His plan was uncertain except for vying hopes of clear obstacles that might prevent him from achieving his destination while at the same time preserving the heroism of the act. He might either be caught in a sudden squall or be trapped upon breaking ice. Either way, he would make a miraculous escape. This would be enough to cement his reputation, especially allied with the child’s life in the balance and his stubborn determination to go no matter the advice. If successful, he could change the details, too. It won’t be too much of a stretch to say he was returning from morning prayers, or that a desperate-looking boy scampered up to him with a note. Or he could recount an imagined exchange with the messe
nger sled before he decided to go on his own for speed.
***
The sled swerves wildly on its runners. But what if they found out the truth? This was a peril more real than any squall. Grenfell grips the whip and almost strikes but sees in time the dogs are still straight and in formation. The sled rights itself, serves again, and speeds along the narrowing band of ice. Black water circles at the ice’s melting edge.
Communication from Brent Island to the outside world is sporadic, especially at this time of year. The supply boat goes direct to the island, and then comes to St. Anthony. Messages of sympathy or concern would have to wait half a year or more. And there’s little need for the boy’s mother to speak or write to any person in St. Anthony until the next time a doctor is needed. At such a time he could insist that doctor should be himself.
Unless he is touring. His stomach jumps as the sled goes over a sharp ridge and dips down again. The dangers are manifold, of course. But the very danger is what gives him right to think of a reward. In life there’s success or failure and no in-between. This much he has found out to his cost already.
The hope, he tells himself, is this: No one will remember the identity of the woman and the boy; they will fade in contrast to his own act of heroism, and certainly no journalist will ever come here to try and track them down. The woman’s memory of the contents of her note might be fuzzy, too. When she is eventually told the good doctor misunderstood her letter and thought he had to come without delay, she will be puzzled, surely, rather than suspicious, or at least not suspicious enough to pursue the matter. The sled team who came for the fuel will merely assume there was another team from the region and will think no more about it.
Breaking ice vibrates the sled from below. Spy’s tail drops between its legs. The animal is hauled along for a number of yards, a bundle of fur, before unrolling itself with a high-pitched yelp, finding its feet and running once more with the rest. The dogs group closer together, fur spiking. The sled tips too close to the black waters and Grenfell’s heart lurches. It rights itself again, but the ice groans hungrily. This time Grenfell watches as a fissure opens into an abyss, a foot from the sled-runner. Salt water hisses over the lips of the ice, dancing dark circles as it retreats. The sled races through, leaving the danger behind, for the moment.
The sun shows like a pale disc beyond the clouds and the cold closes in on him. For the first time Grenfell’s entrails shrink with fear. It’s the kind of fear he once knew as a child when he strayed out after dark for the first time, a self-dare turning bad as nature, once inviting, became agitated and sullen.
Suddenly, the life he’s been risking doesn’t seem so bad after all, a future of driftwood, perhaps, of aging into an object of pity, but at least he would be warm and safe and he would have Anne by his side. She might take to the life here more than he thinks. The possibility creates a rare pang of longing for her.
The sound of the runners changes from a hiss into something mellower, less defined, and Grenfell knows there is water and slush as well as ice. He can taste the thaw on his tongue. To his left the snowscape rises, dotted with small, dark trees. If he becomes stranded here—and this is as near as he has got to a plan—he might be difficult to distinguish in the landscape. Traplines scatter the place like a loose spider’s web. Komatiks will speed along within sight, but the drivers would spot him only if they are looking and awake to the possibility of someone needing help.
But there is no way back. He left the impression he was determined to make Brent Island, desperate to help that poor sick boy. How can he claim to have since received news the child had recovered? The sled jolts to the right, halts, and spins around. Moody plunges through the ice and gives a squeal. He paws frantically at the ice as the others heave sideways from the water, claws scampering on the slush. The brutes merely drag the right runner hard against the underside of the ice lip.
The hope the sled might jolt itself free vanishes this time. It digs itself deeper into trouble by the moment, rising high on the left, almost upending. Grenfell holds on, still waiting, but the sled tilts farther, and the bag with his change of clothes slides off, falls into the water and sinks beside the struggling Moody. With another howl the animal finally scrambles onto the ice and safety.
Grenfell’s hand plunges into his oilskins and pulls out his knife. Throwing off his gloves, he cuts the rope connecting the sled from the harness, replaces the knife in his oilskins, then he leaps.
He seems to hang in the grey-blue air for a moment before the ice races up to meet him. He closes his eyes for impact, but his boots shrug through the crisp surface. Time slows like molasses as his legs flap in the heavy water. His head plunges last. Freezing sea stings his ears, cheeks, neck, and scalp like a hundred angry bees.
Everything is dark save a halo of wavering light which beckons from above. His upstretched hands haul at the ice water, flap at his sides, reach again, and haul until the light-halo approaches. He’s in Moody’s tent, hearing the babble of the congregation. Images spin. Light ripples carry fractured parts of Florence, himself, and his rival intern: first Florence’s penetrating eye; then the sloping shoulders of his rival; then himself as he studies the face in his mirror: his thick moustache shielding youthful features which seem too open and revealing by far. The pictures weave themselves into short scenes.
“If you followed me,” the intern says quietly, his breath laced with stale liquor, “then you’re the spy now.” The words fade into the muffled hiccoughs of water and ice. Now he’s standing with Florence outside her lodgings. She demands he return the rival’s note. He stands firm, sure of his ground despite the growing heat of her indignation. He flaps at the ice water again, feels the ache of freezing muscles. Florence brandishes her captured wrist. Let go, she mouths, though he hears only gurgles. A burning pain stabs his chest as the light wobbles above. A riverbank, the second button of a cotton blouse, her fingers on his, a warning. He’s held aloft now, rough hands gripping his ankles, his underarms. They swing him, “One . . . two . . . three!” and he flies through the air.
***
The howl terrifies him—a savage, animal sound. The water is gone, his head light like a balloon, the sting of the air on his forehead is harsher even than the ice water below. The wind travels right through to his skull. With surprise he realizes the howl was his own. Gasping air, he reaches for the ice ridge, but the surface of the lip burns his ungloved fingers. The dogs gather calmly above him, watching. He treads water one-handed and reaches in his oilskins for his knife. Hacking the ice will surely make it easier to grip.
He clasps the knife handle and catches a glance at the dispassionate, watching eyes of Moody. The dog’s fur drips but he seems calm, almost happy as he licks its lips. On Moody’s left stands Spy, bristling, nose curling as he sniffs; on his right, Watch.
Grenfell’s stomach lurches. In his throat a burning sensation rises and spreads in all directions. He brings the knife down on the ice and tries to grip the white surface with his free hand, but slips away and yells. The dogs move, gathering more closely together.
Ice air fills Grenfell’s lungs as he recovers and takes another more forceful stab. He recognizes the emotion: pure rage. He’s furious with these callous beasts. Such a cruel contrast, he thinks, to the way dogs are usually depicted. He brings the knifepoint down a third time. Ice pellets leap, scattering over Spy’s whiskers. The animal shakes its head and continues to stare, malignant and appraising.
Grenfell pushes his numbed fingers into one of the cracks his knife has made, and with his other hand plunges the knife an arm span’s distance. He hauls himself clear at last, using crevice and blade as anchors. The anger runs deeper than the dogs. Gasping now, he lies with his cheek against the ice, his feet still dangling in the water, knifepoint still lodged in the snow, handle gripped in his frozen hand.
What images assailed him when in mortal peril? Not something f
rom his years of selfless devotion, not his nursing stations or his hospital, or even his public meetings to gather support for a fishermen’s co-operative. No, a useless, drunken intern challenging him; Florence Mills turning from future disciple to judge; and then, briefly, two young ruffians from his hometown, putting the vicar’s son in his place.
He feels stranded, marooned upon the ice, miles from St. Anthony, stranded in Labrador, exiled in middle years, and everything points to a few days in 1883 when things went slightly off course, when his dream became infected.
The pain in his frozen fingers is so severe his lips give way to whimpering. The sounds reverse into his lungs, filling them with burning air. Soon the whimpering becomes a moan and then one quick, loud roar. He hears the animals’ paws lifting and touching down upon the slush and ice as though they are gathering for a conference.
He’s shamed to admit that a nurse’s disbelief in him could have affected him so much, even more ashamed that her decision, so easily reached, to replace him with the young man they once both despised, should have sent through him such tremors of self-doubt. But it’s these things, above all else, the urgent reminder of them in New York, that have pushed him into the extremities of deceit.
He has to prove himself a giant now. To do otherwise would be to lie and cheat for no reason at all. It would make him smaller than Florence and her rival. It would turn him into the kind of liberty-taking mongrel that the two young men saw on the riverbank near Parkgate.
