“It’s No Time for Fear: Voices of American Military Nurses in World War II” is a non-fiction book written by Diane Burke Fessler. The book provides a compelling account of the experiences of American military nurses during World War II. Drawing from interviews, personal diaries, letters, and other primary sources, Fessler paints a vivid picture of the challenges, sacrifices, and contributions of these brave women who served on the frontlines of the war. Read More Class 11 English Summaries.
No Time for Fear Summary
No Time for Fear Summary in English:
This chapter describes the story of two young Canadians Malcolm and Barb who displayed rare courage and bravery in the face of certain death. Malcolm was a young man of 19 and Barb was a young girl of 18. They had met only two months before.
Both of them had a deep love for mountains. They went on a hiking trip to Balu Pass (in British Columbia’s Glacier National Park). The climb up to the Pass was smooth. But an unexpected snowfall forced them to spend the night in one of the Park’s mountain cabins.
Late next morning, when it had stopped snowing, the young couple began their downward journey. As they reached midway, they were caught in a dangerous situation. They saw two bear cubs playing about 20 metres to their right.
They felt certain that the mother bear must also be not far. (The mother bear was a grizzly a large fierce grey-brown bear of North America.) Malcolm and Barb decided to slip away quietly. But as Malcolm lifted his foot to go forward, the grizzly came charging towards him in full rage.
Within no time, the huge beast hit Malcolm with her paws. Malcolm fell down senseless. But when he raised his head, he saw the grizzly standing on Barb’s leg and biting hard near the back of her neck. Malcolm doeided there was no time for fear.
Without losing a moment, he rushed at the grizzly and plunged his hunting knife in her back. She roared loudly and shook her head backwards. The grizzly’s twist was so powerful that Malcolm’s knife was thrown away and his wrist was broken.
Now the growling bear attacked Malcolm again. Squeezing him tightly with her paws, she gave him such a blow that most of his scalp along with the hair was gone like a wig. Malcolm hit her on the nose again and again, but it had no effect on the huge beast.
The grizzly mauled his face badly. Malcolm thought he would certainly die now. He closed his eyes and became motionless. As soon as he stopped moving, the grizzly left him and went away. Malcolm called out to Barb in a weak tone if she was all right. But Barb did not answer for she was afraid that the grizzly was still around.
She crawled nearer and looked at Malcolm’s seriously wounded face. She told him to hold on, and ran back to the lodge for help. Malcolm lay there in a serious condition. His face had been split. His one knee-cap was torn off; his front teeth were broken and his one eye was badly wounded
No Time for Fear story
Meanwhile, the rescuers reached there. They sent a wireless message and arranged for a helicopter. Malcolm was taken to Queen Victoria Hospital in Revelstoke. An emergency operation, lasting seven hours, was performed on him. More than 1000 stitches were put on his body.
Then he was taken to a hospital in his hometown, Edmonton. Here 41 skin-graft operations were done on him. The doctors assured him that he would look fine after the grafts were finished and the bandages removed. One day, close to Christmas, Malcolm was alone in the hospital room. He slowly moved to the bathroom and saw his unbandaged face in the mirror.
What he saw in the mirror made him sick. His face was horribly ugly and disfigured. It disappointed him so deeply that he refused to meet even his parents and close friends. He began to hate himself and the world. He stopped sending replies to Barb’s letters.
However, Barb continued writing to him regularly. One fine morning, Malcolm was filled with surprise when he saw Barb walking into his hospital room. She had reached there after a long journey of 1250 kilometres. The two sat together and talked for a long time.
Malcolm couldn’t decide whether Barb still loved him. However, his doubts were removed when in January 1972, he received from her a proposal for marriage. Finally, they married on 21 July, 1973.
Malcolm was awarded many medals for his rare courage, bravery and sense of sacrifice. Today Malcolm and Barb are a happy, married couple. Sometimes, people ask Barb if she married Malcolm out of a sense of obligation. She replies that she loved Malcolm before the accident and she will always love him as before. She firmly declares that scars don’t change a person.
No Time for Fear Translation in English
A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Philip Yancey earned his graduate degree in communications and English from Wheaton College Graduate School and the University of Chicago. He joined the staff of Campus Life Magazine in 1971, and worked there as Editor and then Publisher.
He looks on those years with gratitude because teenagers are demanding readers, and writing for them taught hirti a lasting principle : The reader is in control ! In 1978 Philip Yancey became a full-time writer, initially working as a journalist for such varied publications as Reader’s Digest, Publisher’s Weekly, National Wildlife, Christian Century and The Reformed Journal. For many years he wrote a monthly column for Christianity Today magazine.
No Time for Fear’ is a story about the bravery of a young Canadian named Malcolm. He saved his friend Barb from a grizzly . His terrible encounter with the grizzly explains the title No Time for Fear’. He .was reduced to a frealf but Barb still loved him and married him. Her true love brings back hope in Malcolms life.
The two young Canadians huddled close to the rusty steel heater. Malcolm Aspeslet, 19, and Barb Beck, 18, were on their longest date yet a hike to Balu Pass, 2050 metres up in British Columbia’s Glacier National Park. Yesterday, the climb had seemed a pleasantly uncomplicated way to celebrate a day off from their hot, noisy kitchen work in the Park lodge.
The hike had gone smoothly until they reached the top. But there they had been unexpectedly caught in a freak snow flurry and forced to spend the night in one of the Park’s alpine cabins. Now, next morning, the two sat on the floor, talking and laughing. They had met two months before, and had spent many hours together.
Both loved the mountains enough to spend their holidays doing kitchen work just to be near the Canadian peaks. It was the first day of October, 1971, and the summer season had just ended. There were no unshuttered windows in the cabin, so periodically Malcolm would open the door and check weather conditions.
About mid morning the snow stopped, and the young couple began their descent hike. Barb, wearing smooth-soled, knee-high fashion boots, kept slipping and falling on the ice . The five-kilometre trail marked with frequent zigzags, followed a creek bed down the mountains. It took the couple only an hour to reach the half-way point.
They stopped to rest for a minute, leaning against a bank of piled-up snow. The sun, out now, had warmed them, and both were wearing only sweaters, their coats tied around their waists. A nearby waterfall gurgled with newly-melted snow. They dipped their hands in the cold water and playfully splashed each other. Then they started off again, Malcolm in the lead.
Hidden Danger : A hundred metres further along the trail, Malcolm stopped short6. Two bear cubs were playing in the creek gully, about 20 metres to their right. The day before, they had seen another grizzly and two cubs.
No Time for Fear Class 11
They had shouted and waved and watched through binoculars as the mother reared up and roared at them. That had been more funny than frightening, with a safe kilometre and a half of distance separating them. But now a mother bear — perhaps the same grizzly — could be just over the ridge, obscured by the bushes.
Malcolm stood stiffly, trying to decide what to do. Perhaps they could slip by quietly. But as he lifted his boot for the first step, the mother bear suddenly came charging over the ridge with a half-growl, half-scream of rage. Barb saw immediately
Malcolm saw the charging grizzly’s open mouth. The bear was drooling flecks of foam and making short, grunting4 sounds. A second before the bear was on him. He ducked, but one swat of the grizzly’s paw knocked him senseless.
For a moment he went blank. When he raised his head he saw that he’d been thrown three metres. The grizzly had found Barb. The girl was face-down and motionless in the snow and the giant beast was standing on her leg, gnawing near the back of her neck.
Malcolm did not hesitate there was no time for fear. Instinctively he grabbed a hunting knife from his belt and ran towards the bear, shouting. The mother bear stood well over two metres and probably outweighed him by 250 kilos.
When he leaped on her back, she didn’t even quiver. Malcolm could hear the gnawing sound of teeth against bone. Crazed with anger and desperation, he plunged himself the knife clear up to the handle into the grizzly’s neck fur.
He pulled himself higher on the thick hump back and slashed at her neck. Warm blood spurted. The grizzly let out a deafening roar and snapped her head backwards. That quick, head motion sent Malcolm’s knife flying and broke his wrist.
BEAR HUG : Now the snarling grizzly turned towards Malcolm. She grabbed him with both paws and squeezed him against her chest. The smell of blood and bear nauseated him. The grizzly swatted at him with her huge claws.
No Time for Fear Book
The first blow took off his hair in one piece like a wig, most of his scalp going with it. Then he was rolling over, clutched by the bear. The dizzying motions stopped, when they reached the gully bottom. The bear raked”1 his face repeatedly.
As she bent to rip into his neck and shoulder with her teeth, Malcolm freely jabbed with his fist at her sensitive nose. His jabs had no effect. Malcolm closed his eyes. It’s all over, he thought, and stopped struggling. Incredibly
almost as soon as he stopped moving, the grizzly let go. She swatted him once more, then scraped dirt and twigs over him and lumbered away. At first Malcolm wasn’t sure he was even alive. He was lying half in and half out of the creek.
He felt no pain except a throbbing in his wrist. Slowly he wriggled out of the creek and called weakly, “Barb, are you okay ?” Barb, afraid the grizzly was still around, didn’t answer. She crawled to the edge of the gully and saw a bloody clump of hair.
Then she saw Malcolm, half-buried. His face had been split with a wicked slash, and the right side of it was peeled back to reveal muscle and sinew and a nearly severed eye. She shouted, ‘Malcolm, hold on I’m going for help.’ Tossing her coat to him, she started running towards the lodge.
Malcolm lay still for a while, trying to take stock of his injuries. His wrist wouldn’t move and must be broken. One knee-cap had been torn off, and he couldn’t feel any front teeth with his tongue. He could partially see out of one eye, but was afraid to turn his head because he saw loose facial skin hanging down. He felt no revulsion, just an aching hope that it hadn’t happened, that it was all a nightmare.
Spotting his haversack up toward the trail, he determined to reach it and use it as a bandage. Tediously, he dragged himself up backward. His one good eye kept sticking shut and periodically he’d have to stop and open it with his good hand.
Finally, he reached the haversack and lay back, physically drained from the exertion. He prayed and wondered whether he would live, and what he’d look like if he did.
LONG ROAD BACK : Meanwhile, Barb, her arm slashed and her hair flecked with blood, had run along the winding trail to the lodge. Staggering into the lobby, she cried, ‘A grizzly got Malcolm ! He can’t walk ! Help’ And then she burst into sobs. People appeared from nowhere wardens, fellow workers, lodge guests.
The first that Malcolm heard of his rescuers was the static of a walkie-talkie. He had sat propped against a stump for an hour and a half, and was still conscious. Warden Gordy Peyto, Malcolm’s good friend, ran to him. ‘Well, pal,’ he said, ‘I always end up looking after you. How you doing, man ?’
Im okay, but kind of hungry,’ Malcolm replied gamely. ‘Guess I really did it this time, Gordy. I think my wrist is broken.’ Gordy sucked in his breath. He saw bloodless white head. The bear’s swipe had cleanly lifted off the scalp and blood vessels , exposing a layer of tissues next to the skull.
Summary of No Time for Fear
Ned Clough, a first-aid attendant, wrapped Malcolm’s face and the chewed gashes on his legs in gauze , then strapped him in a stretcher. They radioed for a rescue helicopter to pick him up at a clearing down the trail and take him to Queen Victoria Hospital in Revelstoke.
Surgery began with a seven-hour emergency operation. The surgeon put in more than 1,000 stitches. ‘Restoring Malcolm’s face was like putting a jigsaw puzzle1”1 together,’ one attending doctor later said.
Malcolm was then moved to a hospital in his hometown, Edmonton. He remembered little of the first weeks. He was under heavy sedation, and his mind wandered endlessly, drifting between dreams and semi consciousness. He underwent 41 skin-graft operations.
In time, life began to look up. Doctor assured Malcolm that he would soon look fine, after the grafts were finished and the rolls of gauze came off. But one day close to Christmas, when the nurse was changing his bandages and was called away momentarily, Malcolm edged over to the bathroom mirror for the first look at himself.
It almost made him sick. The doctors had tried to repair the damage by constructing a nose from arm muscle and by grafting skin from leg across his face. He had no hair, and thick scars’ criss-crossed one side of his face. The skin was still puffy and an ugly shiny-red.
That one incident started a rejection period lasting weeks. Malcolm refused to see parents or friends, hating the world and himself. He couldn’t bear the thought of people’s stares . He ignored the growing stack of letters from Barb.
How could anyone love a freak ? But Barb wouldn’t give up. She wrote to Malcolm faithfully five to seven letters a week even though he never responded Malcolm’s friends who knew Barb wrote to her about his self-pity. ‘He simply can’t believe you care about him, looking the way he does,’ they told her.
One day, shortly after his Christmas-time despondency, Barb surprised Malcolm by walking into his hospital room after a journey of 1,250 kilometres. The two spent long hours together, talking across the barriers of bandages. Malcolm was stubbornly alo of.
But her presence forced him to reminisce about the good times he had shared with her. Perhaps she does love me, he thought. After all, I’m the same person she said she loved last summer. Whatever doubts Malcolm had were dispelled in January when he received a marriage proposal in the mail. ‘It’s a leap year,’ Barb explained demurely Her persistence began to pay off.
Though Malcolm would not answer her proposal, he did promise to visit her. In February 1972, five months after the accident, an unsteady, slim figure with a badly scarred face and one arm in a cast stepped off a train at Fort Langley, near Vancouver. Malcolm was promptly smothered by a delighted Barb.
And a few days later she had her answer. Malcolm drove her to the town of Langley and stopped at a jewellery store so that they could choose an engagement ring. Barb, smiling and crying simultaneously , was overwhelmed.
No Time for Fear essay
On 21 July 1973, they were married. Meanwhile, Malcolm discovered that word of his exploit had spread all across Canada.(To his surprise, it had never occurred to him that he could have run and left Barb with the grizzly, and he had never seen his.
deed reported that year in the entire Commonwealth. He received the Gold Medal for bravery from the Royal Canadian Humane Association and the Carnegie Medal for heroism from the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.
Today, Malcolm and Barb live near Vancouver. Except for scars and harrowing memories, they seem little different from any of Vancouver’s other couples. Sometimes people ask Barb if she married Malcolm out of a sense of obligation . She says, “I loved Malcolm before the accident and I always will love him. Handicaps’ should be accepted in life. Scars don’t change the person.”