Читать книгу Canadian Adventurers and Explorers Bundle - John Wilson - Страница 9

“Phyl,” began one of her colleagues at the hospital, “how can you be so perky at work every Monday when I know that you have been tramping in the bush and pushing your way through the forest climbing up some blasted mountain? Why aren’t you exhausted?”

“Oh, it’s not exhausting, I mean yes, it is exhausting, but it’s exhilarating at the same time. It’s hard work, but because it’s hard, you feel so great when you’ve accomplished your goal. I never tire of that. Oh, I know I’m contradicting myself, but until you do it, you won’t really understand how it can be.”

Phyl James and Don Munday on the windswept summit of Mount Blanshard, 1918. Don poses with his camera while Phyl holds up a handkerchief to disguise her ripped clothing.

Don’s first cabin on Dam Mountain. Here he and Phyllis stand beside the unfinished verandah, ca 1919–1922.

“I don’t know if I’d ever want to do that – climb mountains, that is. I’d get all scratched and muddy and rip my skirts.”

“We don’t wear skirts. That would be nonsense. We would have to stay on nice, cleared trails and ramble ever so slowly if we dressed in skirts.”

“But I’ve seen you on the streetcar on your way back home. Remember last month when you told me you had been up Mount Seymour?”

Phyl laughed. “Well,” she said. “It’s a better-kept secret than I thought. You don’t honestly think we could get up the way we do and cut trails in a skirt? No, we start off from home in skirts but we always wear bloomers underneath. Some girls even wear britches underneath. Anyway, we can’t be seen with anything like that, so we keep the skirts on over top until we’re past civilization, where we can take them off and cache them under a log or something until we come back. Then the skirts go back on, and we’re all ready for the streetcars and the ferry and for walking into the house.”

“Well, that makes sense. I couldn’t really figure out how you could do so much.”

“You know the really funny part?”

“No.”

“The worst thing is that when we cache our skirts, we lose our flexibility. We have to come back to the same spot at the end of the hike to collect them. Otherwise we can’t get home! Did you know that it’s against the ferry policy to allow women with bloomers on to the ferryboat? I’ve heard of a girl who had that happen to her. She came down at dusk, desperate to catch the last ferry from Lonsdale or else she would be stuck on the North Shore overnight and wouldn’t be able to get home until the next day Well, do you think she could find her skirt anywhere? She was running out of daylight and she came out of the bush a little west of where she went in, and in the failing light, she couldn’t quite recall where she stashed it. She finally gave up and jumped on the streetcar to get to the ferry dock. But they wouldn’t let her on the ferry. The purser told her that he was unable to accept her as a passenger unless she was appropriately dressed. So without her skirt, she lost her chance to get home that night!”

“That’s hilarious. I can just see some poor girl who’s miscalculated where she stashed her skirt turning over every rock and windfall desperately searching so she can run to the streetcar and not miss the last ferry. What a world we live in!”

“That never happened to me, but something really embarrassing did happen just a few weeks ago. We were on Dome¹, and it was a regular club hike. I was climbing over a great big log. It was on a slope, and a little bit off the ground, and as I got over it, the elastic in my bloomers got hooked on a snag and hung me up. There I was, suspended in the air, and I couldn’t reach the ground. I was held up by the leg of my bloomers! Well, the boys all began to laugh, but eventually someone helped unhook me. I still haven’t lived that one down. It will be a while yet until something equally embarrassing happens to someone else and I’ll be out of the limelight.”

“Oh Phyl,” said Nina, as the two young women walked down the hill towards their streetcar stop. Remember at tea break I mentioned my two new patients? Well, one of them seems like someone you should know. I asked him if he knew you, but he said ‘No’ he didn’t, but that he had been away so long there were bound to be lots of new people in Vancouver.”

“What’s his name?”

“He told me his name was Don Munday. And he is a mountaineer! Just like you!”

“Don Munday – wow! He’s almost a legend at the club. He’s climbed all over Garibaldi and on Baker, and everywhere.”

“Well, he was wounded at Passchendaele. It’s a nasty one. A shell went clear through his left wrist and arm to the elbow. He won’t be climbing any mountains for a while yet. He’s got several more months of therapy – building up his strength. He’s a brave man. Did I tell you also that he was given the Military Medal for valour during the Battle of the Triangle at Vimy Ridge? Say, shall I introduce you sometime?”

“Yes. I’d like to meet him, I’ve heard so much about him. I hear he’s a little odd though – very intense. The way people speak, I’ve wondered if they are not just a little frightened.”

One morning as Phyl worked at typing letters for the officer in command and patient reports for the matron from her shorthand notes, she heard a shuffling across the room and there, looking in the glass partition door, were Nina and a patient. The patient, a small man with closely cropped brown hair, hung a little behind her.

“Come on in,” she gestured, signalling that it was all right to open the door and enter the office.

“Phyl, I’ve brought someone to meet you. It’s his first really big excursion since surgery, but as he claims to be a great walker – what better therapy could there be than having to walk the length of the annex to the Orderly Room?”

Unconsciously Phyl’s hand reached up to smooth back errant hair strands from her cheek. She smiled and rose to greet them. She pushed back the wooden office chair, then stretched across her desk and extended a hand.

“Hello, I’m Phyllis James. Nina mentioned that you were a new patient here. Pleased to meet you.”

“Yes, Don Munday is my name.”

“Although if you believe his charts, his name is Walter,” interjected Nina.

“Oh, that is easily explainable,” Don replied. “My complete name is Walter Alfred Don Munday, but when I registered for service, somehow they never got past my first name. Don will do. Pleased to meet you Miss James.”

As they briefly shook hands, Phyl thought it was a shame he was so pale. His lower left arm and hand was swathed in bandages and immobilized by his side. He had obviously lost a lot of weight. His cheekbones protruded sharply. In contrast, his eyes sunk beneath his brow. His blue eyes looked straight at her. Phyl saw the same look she saw in all the vets: a guardedness and avoidance.

He is still a long way from recovery, she thought. Physical wounds aside, he has the look of a lost man.

“I’ve heard about you at the BCMC,” she blurted out. “You’ll have to tell me some time about climbing on Garibaldi. I haven’t been yet – it’s hard to get the extra days off work.”

Phyl was extremely uncomfortable. Part of her was intensely curious to ask Don about the war and his wounds. She wondered if he would ever be able to climb again. The other part of her knew it was none of her business. There were so many men recuperating and each had his own horrible war memories. She was a little taken aback too. This small man didn’t look strong enough to have done everything she had heard of him.

“Well, it seems I’ll be here for a while yet, so maybe we’ll meet up and you can fill me in on all the club news. How is Tommy Fyles?”

“As busy as ever. He is still organizing all the trips, and leading most of them as well. We have a system. Are you familiar with Dunne and Rundle’s camera shop on Granville near Dunsmuir? Well, one of our members works there and they keep a special drawer in the shop just for the club. The weekend trips are all posted there. If you want to go on the weekend trip you go in and put your name down. Then they divide the names into messes, and you go back to find which mess you are in. It works out rather well. The list says what food you are responsible for bringing – enough for the four or five people in the mess. We all camp together and it’s wonderful fun. But I expect you know that already.”

“Well, I did most of my climbing with a few pals. We didn’t go in for the big crowds. Sounds like hiking is pretty popular now.”

During the summer of 1918 Munday continued his recuperation, which involved extensive massage and physiotherapy for his left arm and hand to repair the nerve and soft tissue damage. The ligaments and muscles required constant work, first re-establishing the gross motor movements and then the fine ones. As his arm healed, his general physical condition improved, and soon the two began to go for walks in the evening. Later he was well enough to walk with Phyl to the BCMC meetings in town.

Don talked, haltingly at first, of his war experiences. He had not wanted to go to war; in fact, he struggled with his conscience for some while, but the responsibility proved too great. On 27 June 1915 he climbed alone. This day was the day of decision. “As I stood on the snowy summit of Cathedral Mountain I found it very hard to renew my resolve to enlist until a strange coldness crept down over the mountains, as though their aspect declared, ‘Unless you are worthy to make this sacrifice you are unworthy to frequent our shrines.’”

Two days later, Munday enlisted as a private with the Scout Division of the 47th Infantry Battalion. Scouting was a job that suited him well. His mountaineering background, his map reading and use of compass, and his other orienteering skills held him in good stead. A scout’s business was to see that the men got to the places they were supposed to when they were at the Front and to get them back again. This meant Munday had to “take their position” so he could find it again upon return. He had to know exactly where they were physically on the ordnance map and then “scout out” the area into which they had been ordered to advance, noting all the hazards, such as enemy gun emplacements and trenches. Then he had to guide the men forward to their destination, whether it be a visible geographic site such as a ridge or hill, or more likely than not, just another muddy indefinable spot in a sea of blasted land devoid of landmarks. Coming back from one of these ventures on 24 October 1917 at Passchendaele in Belgium, he was hit with a shell and wounded. Passchendaele, the last major offensive of the war, was also one of the most horrendous. In this battle alone, 15,654 Canadian soldiers were killed or injured. Munday, like so many others, was patched up on the battlefield and eventually shipped home,

Although repeated surgeries repaired much of the damage, he couldn’t use his hand for all functions. He could not grip or pull his fingers together. In the early days of recuperation, what would be a lifetime disability was especially challenging for this man who was passionate about strenuous outdoors activities.

In August 1918 Munday was granted weekend leaves from Royal Columbian Hospital, and unbeknownst to the officer in command (O.C.) at the hospital he immediately commenced weekend hikes. He was still a patient at the hospital and not yet discharged from the army. Some of the nurses (and Phyl) knew his plans but chose not to distress the O.C., for it would certainly have meant trouble for all. As a matter of fact, Don’s first major transgression on weekend leave was at the invitation of Phyl and Peggy Worsley. These two had earlier made an attempt to explore an area accessible from Alouette Lake but ran into logistical problems that they had not anticipated. Access to the area was dependent upon the good wishes of a power company gauge-reader stationed at the lake. He controlled the canoe and was reluctant to permit two unescorted young women into the area. Evidently he relented, but only late in the day. Phyl and her friend were unable to do more than reach the base of Mount Blanshard that weekend.

Well, they thought: Why not invite someone we know, who happens to be male, as an escort? Thus, Don Munday found himself tramping the shadowy trail along Alouette River, autumn leaves swirling and fluttering in the breeze. The three slept on the lakeshore in front of the gauge-reader’s cabin, having successfully negotiated with him to carry them the next day by canoe across the lake. The hike took them westward to a ridge paralleling the lake, through heather and stunted alpine trees. On they went, and the afternoon was half spent before they began the ascent of Mount Blanshard (elevation 1706 metres). They believed that they would climb the reddish tooth of the summit and return before dusk. So confident were they that they only brought along with them a few scraps of chocolate and no lights. They left the remainder of the supplies in a camp struck on the heather. The climb was strenuous: steep cliffs covered with a good deal of matted growth – scarred, contorted tree trunks of subalpine conifers with trailing branches at knee height. Climbing over these wiry obstacles was not often practical, and struggling through was not only hard on their clothes but took more time than they realized. Don had his compass and always knew where they were, but travelling was a little different as they had to avoid difficult left-hand pitched routes because of Don’s hand. He couldn’t use it to full strength, and he was still in the midst of treatments. The three climbers finally got to the summit in time to see the sinking sun cast the shadow of the mountain in a slim violet wedge for miles across the forested fringes flanking the Fraser Valley.

But they made it. To prove their ascent – which was the first one recorded – they took photographs of themselves on the summit and built a rock cairn. Climbers left evidence of their ascent usually in the form of a signed and dated note with their names. This note was sometimes encased in a glass jar, or tin box, protected from the weather and placed beneath rocks on the summit. In this way, future climbers knew that others had preceded them. To pose for one of the photos, Phyl had to hold a handkerchief at a curious angle to cover the devastation to her clothing from the climb! Off with the packs, Phyl, Peggy, and Don slid to the ground and congratulated themselves on their efforts. They were not as fresh as they thought and yielded to the temptation to stay too long on top. By the time they began the descent, light had faded. There was no moon. In the darkness they could not distinguish one essential bit of the route, and it was soon unsafe to continue. The only place to spend the night where they would not be required to stand up was on a ledge just wide enough to sit upon with their legs dangling over the sharp edge above a long drop below.

Despite the uncomfortable positions, they slept. At first light they resumed their descent. The homeward tramp to get the last train developed into a dull grind. Phyl and Don saw Peggy Worsley off at her train stop outside Haney and exchanged weary goodbyes. The train continued its journey along the valley heading west. Rest was not possible. A weekend holiday crowd had made the train late, and it was packed with passengers. Phyl and Don had to stand in the jammed aisle, heavy packs on the floor between their legs. The train arrived late at the station, and they missed the last streetcar in New Westminster. Sore beyond belief, Phyl took her boots off and walked in her stocking feet. Don walked with the automatic movement of a soldier, but literally went to sleep on his feet, again and again. Not a single automobile was to be seen. No police patrol car (which might have stopped to question their clumsy movements and perhaps taken pity on them, or transported them back to the hospital). Ascending Mount Blanshard was not a wise weekend activity for a recuperating soldier, but it was typical of Munday: he continually pushed his limits and by example encouraged those around him to do the same.

1. Now called Mount Fromme, elevation 1175 metres.