Chapter Five
The officers returned to the Latimer to prepare for the unloading of the freighters. The LST came in to the edge of the tidal water, opened its huge bow doors, and began unloading jeeps, trucks, and construction equipment. Luke and two of his corpsmen went aboard the LST and drove their jeep and ambulance down the ramp onto the rock-strewn beach. The tide was coming in so they had less than a mile to drive up to the air base.
Luke was assigned one room in the enlisted men’s barracks to use as his aid station. They unloaded their medical equipment, and Luke made out the twelve hour shift assignments for his corpsmen at the aid station. They were ready for business, and just in time, as the transportation troops were already using their DUKWs to unload the freighters.
The DUKWs were versatile and unusual amphibious vehicles. They looked like a huge truck shaped like a boat with wheels. While floating in the water, the engine drove the propeller, which pushed the vehicle forward or backward. They could drive out of the water right up on land, and the power was then shifted to the wheels.
Luke returned to the Latimer for the night. After dinner he went to the Officers’ lounge, turned on the short wave radio, and monitored several bands. He really pricked up his ears when he hear a female announcer saying, "This is Radio Moscow and your announcer is Molly who brings you news about the arctic. We want to welcome the 373rd Transportation Major Port of the United States Army and the 973rd Engineer Construction Battalion, Company A, to Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island. We know you are planning to build a radar installation and other things there. We also know that the runway there is in need of repair, and that the second lights at each end of the runway are out! We shall tell you more on subsequent nightly programs!"
Luke was flabbergasted! This was supposed to be a secret mission. And how did this announcer, who spoke perfect English, gain access to all this intelligence information? Several other Officers in the lounge also heard the program, and one of them had already heard about "Moscow Molly", who was like the "Tokyo Rose" who broadcasted from Japan to American troops during World War II. The next day they found out from Air Force Officers that the second lights at each end of the runway were indeed out!
They all went to Major Pane and told him about Moscow Molly’s broadcast. His face showed concern, and he said, "It sounds as though we have a spy here at Frobisher who is radioing secret information to Moscow. I’ll alert everyone up and down the chain of command, the Navy, the Canadians, and our intelligence group. Hopefully we can plug this breach in our security."
The next morning Luke went ashore and took a walk around the base. He entered the large Hudson Bay Trading Post, which carried on a big business trading with the Eskimos. Luke purchased a beautiful cribbage board made from the tusk of a walrus. He vowed to shop there more in the future.
As he walked away he saw a striking sight! Coming towards him was a very tall, handsome man dressed in the uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was dressed in his scarlet red tunic, Stetson hat, riding breeches, and boots. He was at least six feet five inches tall and must have weighed about two hundred pounds. He was indeed a striking figure!
He introduced himself as Constable Ian Bullock, RCMP He was going to a blanket toss and drum sing in the Eskimo village, and asked Luke if he would like to come along. He jumped at the chance. All the Officers and men of the task force had been warned not to enter the Eskimo tent village, and never to fraternize with any of the women. This was part of the agreement that the Americans had made with the Canadian government. However, the only exception made was Luke, and actually they had encouraged him to examine and treat any sick Eskimos who needed it.
Constable Bullock told Luke that he had now been stationed at Frobisher Bay for about two years. He had a good knowledge of the Eskimo language. He briefed Luke about the village, and asked him if he would check a woman in labor before they went to the party.
Luke found her to be multiparous, with an uncomplicated pregnancy, and fairly far along in labor. A midwife was in attendance, and she seemed to know what she was doing. Luke suggested that they go to the drum sing, and return afterwards to see how the patient was doing.
The constable introduced Luke to the assembled Eskimos in English and Eskimo. He explained to Luke that the younger generation was learning English at the mission school, but that the older people tended to stick with their own native language.
The drummers sat on blankets in a semicircle. Their drums were made of wooden hoops, on one side of which hide was tightly stretched. They held the drum by the hoop with the left hand, and beat on the back of the drum with a single drumstick. At times they struck the wooden hoop instead of the hide, making a loud clicking noise. The drummers were all men.
There were two women dancers who went through a series of intricate dances, keeping time with the drum beats. At times the performers and the audience joined into a sing-song chant in Eskimo. It was all very unusual, and not at all like the Indian dances Luke had seen back in the States.
He noted that all the Eskimos looked very oriental, and men and women alike were all wearing their white cloth summer parkas, with cloth pants, and boots with cloth tops.
After about an hour the concert was concluded, and the crowd moved to a nearby open area for the blanket toss. The participants were mostly boys who appeared to be about twelve years old. Four to six husky men acted as the tossers. The boy would stand or lie supine on the blanket, and the men on signal would toss him into the air. Some of the boys were thrown as high as ten feet into the air. Some would land in the supine position; whereas, others would land standing. And some of the more skilful performers would do flip while in the air. Each toss was accompanied by much shouting and cheering from the audience. Luke thoroughly enjoyed himself.
Afterwards Luke and Constable Bulloch returned to the tent of the woman in labor. Sure enough, the head was crowning, and she was delivering. Luke made a few suggestions to the midwife, who did a good job with the delivery. Soon a full-term baby boy appeared, who cried lustily! The midwife tied and cut the umbilical cord, and handed the baby to his mother, who looked very happy.
They waited for half an hour, but there was no sign of delivery of the placenta. The midwife grew impatient and started pulling on the umbilical cord. Luke cautioned her to stop because of the danger of inducing more hemorrhage. He asked the constable to go to the aid station and get a pair of sterile gloves on the double in case Luke needed them. When Bullock returned with the sterile gloves, Luke took over and exerted pressure on the uterus through the lower abdominal wall in what was called the Crede maneuver. This soon resulted in the expulsion of the placenta. Luke was relieved that he did not have to remove it manually because of the danger of infection.
Luke thanked the constable, and returned to his aid station where several patients were waiting.
Several days went by and some of the sick Eskimos began appearing at the aid station, usually accompanied by Constable Bullock. Luke was very happy to have this opportunity to study and try to help these natives of the Canadian north country.
On another day, Bulloch asked Luke to accompany him to a tent where there was a very sick baby. Upon arrival, they found to their dismay that the baby was already dead, and the mother was in the process of sewing the body up in a bag. Luke could tell from quick inspection that dehydration was a significant factor in the baby’s demise. He felt upset at the mother’s sadness, and urged the constable to call him sooner, should similar cases arise.
Both men expressed their sympathy to the family and quietly withdrew. The constable told Luke that the Canadian government was concerned over the high infant mortality rate among the Eskimos, but had been unable to do much about it because of the harsh, primitive conditions they lived in. He thanked Luke for his concern, and asked Luke to walk with him to the rather large local cemetery, which was nearby.
He saw many small white crosses marking the graves, with the names of the deceased marked thereon in the syllabic language of the Eskimos. Bulloch told him that because of the permafrost, they were unable to bury at a full six foot depth, even in mid-summer. And in winter, the bodies had to be saved until the following spring or summer because of the frozen condition of the ground. The bodies did not decompose because of the very cold temperatures in the winter.
Luke assured Constable Bulloch that he would be glad to see sick or injured Eskimos at any time without charge, either at the aid station or in their tents if they were unable to ambulate. Bulloch thanked him and said that the Eskimos and the Canadian government were most appreciative of his services.
The constable gave Luke a pamphlet which contained a descriptive summary of the Eskimo language. He returned to the ship by catching a ride on a DUKW to the water’s edge, where a Mike boat took him the rest of the way. After chow, he retired to the Officers lounge to read about the Eskimo language.
The pamphlet was written by an unknown missionary on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in 1883. It stated that the Eskimos had no written language of their own, so missionaries developed a syllabary writing for them. Their alphabet has the same letters as English, excepting e, f, j, q, and x. They have no articles. Nouns have no form to express gender, which must be indicated by adding a word for sex, e.g., a male dog would be "kingmuk angot", literally "dog man". the number of nouns is indicated by the ending, e.g., "noona" indicates land, "noonak" – two lands, "noonat" – more than two lands. There are nine cases for nouns making them quite complicated, and there are two declensions.
Adjectives may follow, or be incorporated into nouns. They have names for only the numbers one through five. Beyond that they have a very cumbrous system of doing arithmetic.
Verbs make "the language". They may be very complicated. Adverbs, adjectives, and conjunctions may be embodied in the verb, which may have voice, five different moods, tense, number, and person. To show the complexity, one verb may make up an entire sentence, e.g. "Nagligeongnatyangelapsinga," means, "You are not able to love me." Verb conjugation is very complicated. It may take fifteen printed pages to completely conjugate some verbs.
The pamphlet concluded by listing 48 Eskimo syllables, and eleven characters for certain letters. Luke also learned that most Eskimos can read the syllabarium well. The Canadian government was also promoting the teaching of English and French, but this could be done only where there were established mission or government schools. And this was difficult to achieve because of the nomadic life style of the Eskimos.
Luke decided the language was much too difficult for him to tackle in the short time he would be with them. He would have to count on Constable Bulloch to translate for him.
The next day while Luke was at his aid station on the beach, he heard shots ring out from several storage sheds nearby. Soon Constable Bulloch appeared holding his service pistol on one of the construction workers, who was handcuffed and bleeding from his left shoulder. Bulloch pushed the man into the aid station and said, "Doctor, please check this man’s bullet wound in the shoulder. Believe I have found your spy! He was broadcasting in Russian on a hidden radio in one of the sheds. He shot at me when I discovered him, but he missed! I did not miss, so here he is! If he is not badly injured, I shall radio the RCMP plane to take him to Ottawa, where he will face espionage charges."
Luke found only a superficial flesh wound, treated it, and turned him back over to the constable. He reported the incident to Major Pane, who was delighted to hear that their security leak had been plugged.
Subsequently Moscow Molly stopped broadcasting intelligence tidbits to them, but fed them propaganda to the effect that the Americans were losing the Cold War, and that the Soviet Union was winning. She also kept mentioning that the APA-152, the USS Latimer, had fired on a Soviet submarine in international waters in the Labrador Sea. The Soviets threatened reprisal.
Around August 15, a MATS plane flew in from Goose Bay, bringing orders from the chief port surgeon of the 373rd TMP which read as follows:
"1st Lt. Luke Martin
1st Prov Med Det.
You are advised that your mission with the 973rd Engineer Company will continue until the final increment departs. You will then, accompanied by one remaining corpsman, leave via air for the ZI with this contingent. Before proceeding to your Parent organization, you will report to Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
s/
George E. Cantrell
Colonel, MC
Port Surgeon"
Luke realized that this meant he and one corpsman would remain at Frobisher Bay after the naval task force left, until the engineers completed all their work. He had mixed feelings about it, but quickly decided that he really wanted to spend more time in the far north, which he found fascinating. So he was not sorry at the new orders.
The next day, Constable Bulloch brought in a young Eskimo woman who had cut her finger while flensing whale blubber. It was a deep cut on the distal end of the left third finger. Luke had her soak it in clean soapy water, applied pressure to stop the bleeding, flushed the wound with antiseptic, and prepared to anesthetize the wound with a local anesthetic.
She stopped him, and said in perfect English, "I do not need anesthetic. I have been taught to bear pain. But, please give me a tetanus booster injection, since I have not had one for many years."
Luke was surprised, but proceeded to suture up the laceration, applied a dry sterile dressing, and gave her the tetanus toxoid injection. She did not even flinch. He asked what her name and age were.
She replied, "My Eskimo name is too difficult. Please just call me Sarah Caribou. I am nineteen years old, and I have recently finished high school at the government school for Eskimos at St. Johns. I want to become a nurse, and I am very interested in your work, doctor."
Luke looked at her more closely. She was truly the most attractive Eskimo woman he had ever seen. She about five feet, three inches tall, very shapely, with a beautiful face, and long coal-black hair. She had beautiful oriental eyes. And she was thin, not dumpy the way so many of the older women were. Luke found it difficult to take her eyes off her. But he did, and requested her to return the next day for a check on the wound.
As she was leaving she asked the constable if it would be all right for Luke to come down to the water’s edge to watch the butchering of two beluga whales that had just been caught. The constable assented, and the three of them walked down to the water.
There they found the bodies of two beached, dead whales, which were all white, and thus also had the name of white whales. They were adults of some nine or ten feet in length. The Eskimos had eviscerated the creatures, and were now pulling the skin back to remove the thick subcutaneous layer of fat called blubber. Sarah cut a piece of the skin called Mukto and gave it to Luke, telling him that this was "Eskimo candy". To him it had a rather sharp, fishy taste, and was not pleasant, but he forced himself to eat it all. He decided at once that American candy tasted much better.
He thanked Sarah and the constable, and returned to the ship. That evening he was called back to shore on an emergency. One of the construction workers was supervising a caterpillar tractor, which was pulling a heavily loaded trailer up the beach by a long cable. The worker was standing between the tractor and the trailer, when the half inch cable snapped and whiplashed around the worker’s chest.
Luke was immediately brought ashore by Mike boat, and a waiting jeep whisked him to the site of the accident. There he found the ambulance and one of his corpsman from the aid station working on the unfortunate patient. Luke quickly realized that the man was in extremis, gasping his last. The broke cable had wrapped itself around the middle of his chest with terrific force, tearing skin, fracturing ribs and the sternum, and opening up a large hole in the front of the chest. Luke could see the heart through the hole and it was not beating. Both lungs had collapsed, and he was not breathing. A large amount of blood was spilling out of the cavity in the chest, which was bright red, so Luke was sure that a major artery or pulmonary veins had been torn open.
Luke realized that the situation was hopeless, and reluctantly called a halt to the resuscitation efforts. He pronounced the man dead at 8:00 pm. He was told that the patient was only 45 years old.
The next morning Sarah Caribou returned to the aid station to have her finger laceration checked. Luke found the wound in good condition, with no sign of infection. He advised her to return in one week to have the sutures removed. He showed her around the station. She was very interested in the surgical instruments and equipment. She was obviously very intelligent, and asked to see the ambulance. Luke showed it to her, and explained about the stretchers, oxygen, and first aid equipment packed in the rear of the vehicle. Luke noted to himself again that she was one attractive woman!
The weather was bad, with rain and fog. It was getting colder, and the days were shortening. The first heavy, wet snow arrived on August 22.
On August 23, the weather was better, but the mood of the men was not. There were rumors that the task force would have to go to Cape Chidley or back to Saglek before returning to the ZI. More men came to sick call who had nothing wrong with them, and they were angry with Luke when he sent them back to duty. And Luke had to get after one of his own corpsmen, who was filthy and dirty when he stood inspection.
But there was one ray of sunshine on that day. Sarah Caribou came in with the constable to have the sutures removed from her finger. The wound looked fine, and the sutures came out easily.
Sarah asked him if he had seen the three Eskimo men who had come by umiak from the Cape Dorset settlement, which was on the southwest corner of Baffin Island, and some 600 miles by sea from Frobisher Bay. She said the main reason they had come was to see the black American soldiers attached to the 373rd TMP.
She went on to say that an Eskimo folk story was behind it. Luke urged her to tell the story, partly because he was interested, but mainly so that she would share her company with him for awhile.
She told him that four races were formed when the first woman mated with a male dog. This resulted in the birth of four pups, which were brown, white, grey, and black. These pups grew up and turned into men of the Indian, Caucasian, Eskimo (oriental), and black races. There was no indication as to where their wives came from.
The three men from Cape Dorset had seen white men, Indians, and Eskimos, but they had never seen blacks. Now all facets of the tale were completed.
She pointed out the window, and sure enough, Luke could see three Eskimo men watching and pointing at some of the black American troops working on the beach. Their eyes were filled with wonder! Their folktale had been fulfilled!
She also told him another brief legend. Her ancestors were driven south from northern Baffin Island many years ago by a band of giant Eskimos. Her people returned one night, and slaughtered them all in their sleep, regaining their lands.
Then she gave him a serious look, and said, "Dr. Martin, I heard a rumor that you may be leaving Frobisher soon with the task force. Is that true: I was hoping you were staying awhile, and would teach me more about medicine and nursing".
He replied, "I have received orders to remain here with the engineers when the task force leaves, and I shall probably be here several more months. If your parents and the constable are willing, I shall be glad to teach you first aid and other medical things."
A look of relief and pleasure came over her face.
The next day Luke was ordered to move from the Latimer with his personal belongings, and to pick one corpsman to remain with him at Frobisher until the engineers had finished their mission. He chose Staff Sergeant George Redd, a quiet, but reliable man, who was his best corpsman. His other corpsman backloaded the ambulance and the jeep onto the LST in another heavy snowstorm.
On August 25, the ships steamed away from Frobisher, leaving Luke behind.
Updated: August 1, 2002