If the seaman could not be left, neither could he be carried, for Anderson was one of the largest and heaviest men of the crew, while the marine was one of the smallest and lightest. At last the thought came to Woon that he could drag the seaman in to the ship. Not daring, for fear of the wolves, to quit his gun, he slung both muskets across his shoulders, and clasping Anderson's arms around his neck started to drag him in this manner through miles of snow to the ship. Such a task was of the most herculean and exhausting character. The only relief that he had was when the trail brought him to the top of a hill or the edge of a ravine. Stopping and laying Anderson on the snow, he rolled him down the hill-side to the bottom, in this way giving himself a rest and at the same time stirring the dormant blood and breaking the lethargic sleep of the steadily freezing seaman. In fact this rough treatment was the saving of Anderson, as a fresh wind had sprung up with the temperature fifty-seven degrees below the freezing-point.
For ten long hours this heroic sergeant struggled on, while the situation seemed more and more critical. The seaman was growing stupider, while his own strength was decreasing from hour to hour, although his courage was unfailing despite cold, darkness, and snow. At length, when within a mile of the ship, he felt that he could not drag his man a step farther. While resting and planning what next to do, he saw a rocket shoot up, leaving its train of welcome blazing light. Pointing to it, he called on Anderson to stand up and walk on as he was now safe. Again and again he uttered such words of cheer, with alternate threats and orders, but alas! without avail. The seaman only asked in feeble voice "to be left alone to die," having reached that benumbed state so dangerous to a freezing man.
Seeing that he could get him no farther, Woon laid him down in a drift of snow, covered him with such of his own clothing as he felt he could spare, and throwing quite a thick coating of snow over him, so as in a measure to protect him from the awful cold, went ahead for aid, which most happily proved to be near at hand.
The precautions that the sergeant had taken on leaving the man saved his life, as a half-hour's longer exposure to the extreme cold would have proved fatal. As it was, Anderson was brought to the ship insensible, with his heart scarcely beating, with clinched, frozen hands, rigid limbs, glassy eyes, and hard-set jaws. He lost parts of both feet, of both hands, and of his nose by amputation, but with his robust constitution recovered his general health and returned safely to England.
The courage and devotion of Woon was recognized by his promotion to be color-sergeant, the highest grade to which Captain M'Clure could advance him. Welcome as was this increase of rank to Woon, it stood second in his mind to a sense of the high honor and deeper regard with which he was ever after held by the men of the ship. All felt that to his strength of will, powers of endurance, and heroic spirit of comradeship was due the life of the ship's favorite, first from death by exhaustion and exposure and then from a more horrible fate at the ravenous jaws of the greatly feared wolves.
In after time when, in the midst of a heated argument as to service matters, some exultant marine would refer to the story of the big seaman and the little sergeant, with a modesty equal to his courage and creditable to his spirit of comradeship Color-Sergeant Woon would at once interrupt the speaker and change the subject of conversation.
Nor is Woon's heroism an especially unusual episode in the thrilling history of arctic service. In countless and too-often unrecorded cases not only the officers, but especially also the rank and file, have practically and gloriously illustrated by personal heroism those splendid qualities of uplifted humanity—fortitude, loyalty, patience, best of all, solidarity and the spirit of self-sacrifice. These unheralded and humble heroes have at the call of duty, as circumstances required, done their part each in his own way. Among these the name of Color-Sergeant Woon stands high, simply because his rising to a noble occasion is a matter of written record.
We know not his later career in war or in peace, but we feel sure that as color-sergeant he lived up to the ideal of an American private when, as others of his caste, for the honor and safety of a nation—
"He shows in a nameless skirmish
How the color-guard can die."