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.
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