Through St. Dunstan's to Light

by James H. Rawlinson

For about five seconds (it was no longer) the night that sealed my eyes seemed to clutch my soul. I was for the moment "down and out"; but I braced my spirits in the presence of this dominating man. I would show him how a Canadian soldier could bear misfortune. So I gathered myself together as best I could under the circumstances; swore just a little to ease my nervous strain, and replied: "That's a hell of a thing to tell a guy."

Then came words that rolled a mighty load from heart and brain. Captain Towse praised my soldierly bearing under misfortune, and praise from this blind double V.C. meant much. He had been sorely smitten at a time when there was no St. Dunstan's, no Sir Arthur Pearson, to make his blindness into just a handicap, instead of what it nearly always was before the days of St. Dunstan's, an unparalleled affliction. But Captain Towse beat blindness, and did it, for the most part, alone.

Now the cruel fact had to be faced; the only world I would see henceforth would be that conjured up by the imagination from memories of the past. Then the difficulties of the future crowded upon me. Even if I were not to see as other people do I should still have to eat; and dinners do not grow by the roadside, and if they did I could not see to pick them up.

"Well, Jim," I said to myself, "you are in a fine fix; what are you going to do to get those three square meals a day that you were accustomed to in civil life?" Then I began to wonder what particular street and what street corner in old Toronto would be best suited for selling matches, bootlaces, pencils, and postcards. While in this vein, I conjured up visions of cold, grey days, days when customers did not appear, and imagined myself led home at night without having enough to buy even a meal. My humour suggested strolling along the roadside singing doleful songs. I even chose a song, "The Blind Boy," by the late W. G. Chirgwin, on which I might try my voice.

All this passed through my mind while Captain Towse was still standing by my cot.

I was suddenly startled from my gruesome speculations by the captain asking me if I had made up my mind to go to St. Dunstan's. I had to confess that I did not know the place, where it was, or what it was for. Then he told me that he wished to take down some particulars regarding me. He wanted to know my full name, regimental number, when I was hit, where I received my wound, who was my next of kin, and many other particulars, all of which I, at that time, thought a most unnecessary and foolish proceeding.

While the Captain was questioning me, I heard a rapid, clicking sound following each of my answers. The noise fascinated me, and after a brief time I made bold to ask him what it was. The answer fairly staggered me.

"It's a Braille machine," he replied. "I am writing down your answers."

I knew he was blind—blinder than any bat; and, in my ignorance, I asked him, in an irritated voice, if he thought that it was fair to try "to kid" a man who had just been told that he would never again have the use of his eyes. He uttered no word, but I had a feeling that a smile was playing on his lips; and the next moment the machine he had been operating was placed in my hands. He then began patiently to explain its use, and what a moment before had seemed an utter impossibility I realized to be a fact. Although the blind could not see, they at least had it in their power to put down their thoughts without the aid of a second party; and, not only that, the world of knowledge was no longer a sealed book—they could read as well as write. The eye had been accustomed to carry the printed word to the brain; now the finger tips could take the place of eyes. I now recalled that I had seen a blind man sitting at a street corner, running his fingers over the pages of a big book; but I had paid no heed to it, thinking it merely a fake performance to gain sympathy from the public. I told this to Captain Towse, and he replied kindly that I should soon learn much greater things about the blind. At St. Dunstan's, he said, there were about three hundred men, all more or less sightless, making baskets, mats, hammocks, nets, bags, and dozens of other useful articles, mending boots, doing carpentry, learning the poultry business, fitting themselves for massage work, and, what seemed to me most incredible, taking up stenography as an occupation.