in the fall of 1916, a month or two across from canada, i was posted for duty at shorncliffe military hospital, major c. reason of london, ont, commanding. i was billeted for a few weeks in a sandgate private house where the landlady used to do a little cheap profiteering on our coal allowance. she gave me mostly cinders for my grate, mixed with a modicum of coal. the room was altogether too large for the fireplace, and anyway i was fresh from canada and wasn't inured to the rigorous climate that prevails inside english homes in winter. i used to write my letters in bed. it was the only way i could keep warm in my room for any length of time.
major reason soon arranged a place for me in the officers' quarters and there i was quite cosy and happy. the medical officers were congenial and made my initiation into army life a pleasant experience. the style of men they were can be judged by the fact that by common consent we decided to read aloud a portion of some worth-while book four evenings a week in the mess after dinner. we chose "the professor at the breakfast table" by holmes, and that winter we read it through and no one played truant. is there another officers' mess that has that record?
the officers were all strangers to me except captain ferris of edmonton, president of the mess. i knew him in my toronto university days in the class of '98, as "buster ferris," when he was one of the scrimmage bunch on the varsity senior rugby team. those were the days of "biddy" barr, counsell, hobbs and mcarthur on the football field, and hamar greenwood, mackenzie king, arthur meighen, tucker, billie martin, and eddie beattie in the literary society. in 1894 the students boycotted all lectures because of the senate's action in regard to tucker and prof. dale. we were all wild "bolshies" for a few weeks and those i have mentioned were our leaders. i wonder if they still remember those revolutionary meetings in the spadina ave. hall!
the nursing staff under miss urquhart gave their services in a wholehearted spirit that was beyond praise. indeed, throughout the whole hospital staff "one unceasing purpose ran" and that was to serve the patients in every possible way.
the hospital was finely located on a slope running down to the sea. it looked south over the straits of dover, where we saw the destroyers and transports crossing and recrossing continually, with usually a "silver queen" or two floating overhead on the watch, their sides glittering in the sunshine. on a clear day we could faintly discern the cliffs of france where great deeds were being done, and whither, some impatiently awaited day, it would be our good luck to go, if only the war lasted long enough!
i quickly learned my duties in the hospital and liked them. we had an officers' hospital, also large surgical, venereal, and medical divisions, usually full. there was work for me in great plenty and variety. apart from the regular parade services there were communion services and informal evening meetings at convenient times and places. nearly every day i walked through all the wards and as it seemed opportune would sit down by a bedside to chat, write a letter, or get directions for my errands. how varied these requests were! one wants me to look after his mail which he thinks is being held up somewhere; some ask for a new testament or a recent book; this one has a roll of films to be developed; another wants me to find if a certain battalion has arrived safely from canada and where it is stationed for his brother is in it; another asks me to buy two xmas cards, "real nice ones," one for his mother and one for his "next-best-girl." this one wants a money-order cashed; a homesick fellow wonders if i could possibly get him one of his home-town papers; another gives me his watch to be mended, or would like some good stationery, or a fountain pen. in every case i promise to do everything i can and all that the law allows.
then there are those, always some, who are passing through the valley of the shadow who want to hear again about jesus and his love and power. nothing else will do. also there are men, not many, who are downhearted, sad, or bitter. you wonder indeed how certain of the poor fellows can smile at all. ask them how they are and they would say through clenched teeth and pain-drawn lips, "all right." what plan did i follow in dealing with these numerous needs? i had no plan, except to place all my resources of body, mind and heart freely at their disposal. you would have done just the same, you couldn't help yourself. they repaid me a thousand-fold with welcomes and friendship, intimate confidences, and marvellous stories of their experiences.
apropos of the variety of a chaplain's opportunities to serve, here's a story that was current around the wards. it was told to me as a good joke on the padre. a wounded australian soldier had been taken to one of the big imperial hospitals in the north. none of his own chaplains were near and so a fine old english padre took upon himself to visit him. for days the chaplain's best efforts to get on friendly footing failed. one evening, however, after a very satisfying dinner at the mess the clergyman felt he would make a special try, and with his bible in hand went into the ward and sat down by the bedside. "now, my boy," he said, "i am going to read you a few verses of scripture, and i hope they will impress you." the soldier shammed sleep and said nothing, seeming as unresponsive as ever. after a verse or two, however, he opened his eyes and sighed deeply. the chaplain stopped reading and looked at him in pleased surprise. he smiled and said, "go on sir, it is good." thus encouraged he read on through the whole chapter, hearing many deep-drawn sighs of satisfaction from the bed. when he was finished the soldier assured him the reading had done him a world of good, it had been just what he needed to make things look brighter, and he asked the chaplain to draw his chair up as close as he could and do him the favor of reading it again. this was getting on with a vengeance, and the padre was highly pleased with himself. when he ended and was warmly thanked he was curious to know what there was in the chapter that had benefited the soldier, and so asked him. "well sir," said the tommy, "you're a good sort, and i'll be honest with you. it wasn't what you read that did me good, but all the same you've made a hit with me. they've kept me on the 'water-wagon' ever since i came to this hospital, and, sir, your breath has been just like a taste of heaven to me." collapse of the padre!
my first attempt to tell klondike stories in public overseas was in an entertainment given by the sergeants' mess at which i had been asked to be the speaker. that day i had married one of our convalescent patients named pte. trainer to a devonshire girl. my thoughts were running in matrimonial channels and so i decided to narrate some incidents connected with two or three of my klondike weddings.
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nearly sixty miles into the hills back of dawson a new run of gold had been discovered on the dominion creek flats, a district that looked so unpromising to prospectors that it had been so far left untouched. some claims had been staked on it but no prospecting done. ole tweet, a norwegian, had taken over one of these claims as all he could get out of a bad debt. he sank a hole on his ground and found first-class pay. the inevitable stampede followed and soon cabins, windlasses, and dumps commenced to show in all directions. tweet's cabin was the first to be built and so many stampeders had to be sheltered, that he turned temporarily from his mining, got out logs, and built a good roadhouse. it was a profitable business, for he ran a clean place where you could get plenty to eat and a comfortable bunk, and it became the popular resort of the miners. he hired a cook, an unmarried woman of middle-age, whom he had met in dawson. she was a good woman in a country where women of the right kind were scarce, so she soon had many admirers. of all the suitors for her hand there were two whom she favored, one a scottish canadian, whose first name was archie, and the other ole tweet. as time went on she became worried because of her continued inability to decide which of these two men she would marry. both were equally pleasing to her and they were both worthy fellows. she spoke to her heart and no clear answer came back. yet she knew she could not rightly keep them in suspense any longer.
sitting one summer day by her open window, wishing for something to help her to come to a final decision, it chanced a little bird alighted on the sill, looked up at her and said, "tweet, tweet!" the bird's chirp settled it. her difficulty was solved and she accepted ole tweet. that was his real name, not "fixed" for the story. i married them in that same roadhouse on dominion.
it is said, but i cannot vouch for the truth of this, that archie was missing for a day or two after the engagement was announced, until someone found him in his cabin with a number of little birds he had caught and caged, trying to teach them to say, "airchie, airchie." but it was too late!
one of my friends, (call him jones if you like), a miner on hunker creek, had been having such heavy clean-ups one spring that he determined to write to his sweetheart in tacoma announcing his intention of coming out before the freeze-up that fall to marry her. sensible woman that she was, she wrote back to tell him not to come. she would come north instead, he could meet her in dawson and so save the expense of his trip out and back. she had her way, and i was asked to tie the knot at the third avenue hotel in dawson. i shall not attempt details of the affair, only to say that i never came so nearly disgracing myself at any sacred ceremony as on this occasion. the little room was crowded with guests, standing around the walls, sitting on chairs, on one another's knees and on the floor, closing in around the little six-foot space in the centre reserved for the wedding party. the room grew very warm and close. i knew jones was nervous for he had privately and very earnestly pleaded with me to "make it short." he and his best man had been standing in front of me for full ten minutes expecting the bride and her attendant momentarily. ten minutes is a long time for a man to wait in such circumstances and we were all on pins and needles. by the time the door opened to admit the bride the atmosphere had become electrical, and when in entering, her dress caught in the doorway and something ripped, there were little outbursts of choked-back laughter, and i could see poor jones fidgetting more than ever. i hardly dared look at his anxious face for it took me all my time to keep my voice at a proper reverential pitch. as i went on i heard, whenever i paused, a low, persistent, irritating noise that seemed in the room and yet was hard to place. i thought it must be either the humming of the wind through a window crack, or the distant buzz of a gasoline-saw making fuel for dawson's homes. i located it at last. it was the subdued chattering of the bridegroom's teeth, as if he had a severe chill! it is an absolute fact. it almost floored me for a moment and i thought i could not go on. i paused to regain my composure. the silence made the noise more distinct and explosive gurgles of laughter here and there told me that others had noticed it. the perspiration ran down my face in streams. there was nothing for it but to struggle on, and in an abnormally sad voice i continued without pause, until i came to the question asked of the groom, where i had to stop for his reply. if jones had stammered his answer i could not have held in any longer, but would have burst into nervous laughter. i am thankful to say he said "i will" with never a tremor, and i was able to finish without disgracing "the cloth."
my last story is of a creek wedding held in last chance roadhouse on hunker. it was christmas day. i had just come down the mountain trail from mcdougal's where i had my christmas dinner. the wedding party was waiting for me when i arrived. the roadhouse was a low, log building about fifty feet long and twenty wide. there were no partitions. the bar was at one end, the kitchen at the other, and the part in between was a sort of "anyman's land." it was dining-room, parlor, and gambling room in one. the bunkhouse was separate. things were "humming" from kitchen to bar, for remember it was christmas at a roadhouse on a main creek trail in the klondike in early days.
not the most suitable place in the world for a wedding. for all that, it went through in fine style. we stood up beside the table and the place grew quiet. a blanket was hung up by the roadhouse man in front of the bar—done because of his innate sense of the fitness of things. there was no bothersome noise, except the opening and closing of the doors as people came in and went out, and the stage-whispering of a few men in the bar who had got too far along with their celebrations for their fellows to control them completely. the names of the bride and groom, their true names, were, jensine kolken and john peczu kazinsky. she was a norwegian lutheran, he a hungarian roman catholic, married by a canadian presbyterian minister in a klondike roadhouse. rather an unusual combination but it turned out splendidly. they loved one another sincerely and all these years have lived happily. they are prosperous and have several children.
after the wedding many toasts were drunk. i drank mine in soda-water. before the toasts mrs. kazinsky had gone to the kitchen and was there busy about supper. she was the roadhouse cook and had a lot of work to do preparing and serving meals to the holiday crowd. i said good-bye, put on parka and mitts, and set out on my seven mile tramp to gold bottom, where we had arranged a camp christmas tree entertainment for that night.
it was cold, bitter cold, the roadhouse thermometer said 50 below zero, and yet it was a grand night. we had seen no sun night or day for weeks, but for all that it was clear as day with a light more beautiful than that of the sun. the whole broad, snow-white gulch around me was flooded with light. i looked up to the sky and there my eyes beheld a wondrous sight, magnificent beyond imagining. the dome of heaven, from east to west and from north to south, was filled with an iridescent misty glory, glowing with strange light in which gleamed lovely, delicate shades of green and gold. you could see this luminous mist and yet see through it as if it weren't there at all. it was almost uncanny, like seeing the invisible. in the midst of it floated the moon at the full, ablaze with abundant light, spilling it down in wasteful abundance mixed with the aurora, coming to the silent earth to change it to a glistening, white fairy-land of unrivalled beauty. far, far beyond in the clear depths of the cloudless sky a thousand, thousand stars sparkled intensely like well-set jewels. as i gazed the misty glory disappeared as if by magic and in its place i saw great arrows of witching light shooting in masses back and forth through the air.
i stood, as many times i did those winter nights, spellbound and reverent in the presence of god's handiwork. fancy took wing. perchance this fair light was from the shining pinions of angels as they flew hither and thither on heavenly errands. perchance it was the gleaming from a myriad spears, as the armies of the lord of hosts marched and countermarched in some grand parade. or were these the wild, elemental forces of nature playing at games that the creator had taught them and that they had played from all eternity?
apart from these dreamings, i know i shall never see anything, with my mortal eyes at least, so startlingly and mystically beautiful as these canvasses which god hangs out night after night in the far north for all to see who will but lift up their eyes to the heavens.
my talk was ended. captain ferris, my old friend, was in the chair and after the usual courtesies he brought us down to "terra firma" with a joke on the padre. "now, captain pringle," he said, "those were wonderful sights you saw after you left the wedding in that roadhouse where you took only soda-water in the toasts. we know you so well that you didn't need to tell us what you took. we know you are a teetotaller. but, padre, for the sake of the strangers here, and in view of the amazing things you saw after leaving the roadhouse, say again to the crowd distinctly, that it was "only soda-water." i "said it again," we all had a good laugh, and dispersed.
