In the Thick of It
A hundred miles or more from Mostyn,
right out on the sandy plains, beyond the gap in the
mountains which they called the Devil’s Bridge,
there had been a gold find. A gold prospector
had been found lying in the mulga scrub with a big
nugget in his hand, while his swag, when unrolled,
had shown a whole handful of lesser nuggets.
The poor wretch had found gold, but
had died of thirst, and those who found him came perilously
near to sharing the same fate, so keenly anxious were
they to make the dead yield up the knowledge of his
find, by tracing his poor wandering footprints round
and round and in and out among the hillocks of sand,
the clumps of spinifex, and the mulga scrub.
But one man, more human than the rest,
elected to dig a grave where the dead might rest secure
from the ravages of the wandering dingo, and although
the others laughed at him, calling him names, and going
away leaving him to do his work of mercy alone, he
stuck grimly at his task, probing down between the
roots of the mulga bushes to make a hollow deep enough
to form a decent resting place for the nameless dead.
He was quite alone now, save for the
quiet figure on the ground and a hoodie crow which
was perched on a swaying branch at a little distance,
watching the living and the dead with anxious beady
eyes.
Down under the top layer of sand the
ground was stony, and the man who dug was weak from
long tramping in search of the gold he could not find.
Of choice he would have gone away and left the still
figure where he had found it, but it might be that
some day he too would lie like this, with staring
eyes that could not see the sun, and then, surely,
it would be good if some kind hand would make a hole
in the hot, dry ground, where his body might lie at
rest until the day of days, when the dead shall rise
and the earth and the ocean give back that which they
have taken.
What was that?
The prospector’s shovel struck
something hard, something which was so much heavier
than ordinary stone, and that had a peculiar ring when
struck by the shovel.
He leaned forward then, and picked
it up, casting a scared look round, fearful lest any
of his chums had repented and come back to help him.
But no, he was alone, save for the dead; even the hoodie
crow had flown away because it did not seem of any
use waiting any longer, and instinct had told the
creature that a horse was dying by a dried-out water-hole
some two miles away.
The man dug another hole after that,
at some little distance, and, dragging the body there,
gave it decent burial, even kneeling with clasped
hands and closed eyes for a few minutes when his task
was done, trying to remember “Our Father”,
which was the prayer he had learned at his mother’s
knee many years before. It was the only prayer
that occurred to him then, and it was not so inappropriate
as it seemed. Then he went back to the first
hole that he had dug, and, carefully filling it in,
made a little cross of plaited sticks, which he planted
at the head of the grave that held no dead.
“I guess that will about do,”
he muttered to himself, and then, with a final look
round, he picked up his swag, and, hoisting it to his
back, set his face towards the hills and civilization
once more. Tucked away in his belt he carried
fragments of the stone he had taken from that first
grave he had started to dig, and he meant to raise
money on his expectations, then come back with horses
and tools to dig up the fortune upon which he had
stumbled when performing that act of mercy to the
nameless dead.
He was worn out and half-starved;
he had been so near to despair, too, that this tremendous
find proved too much for him, and when three days
later he staggered into the main street of Latimer,
which was a township some fifty miles from Mostyn,
he was too ill to tell anyone of what he had found,
or even to get the help for himself that he so sorely
needed.
Most likely he would have lain on
a dirty bed at the one hotel until he died, and so
the secret of that empty grave on the sandy plain would
have never been revealed; but it so fell out that two
other men in the township were ill with a mysterious
disease which looked so much like smallpox that a
doctor was sent for in all haste because of the danger
to other people.
The nearest medical man lived at Mostyn,
and he had not been there long, and was indeed on
the point of going somewhere else, because the people
of Mostyn seemed to have no use for doctors, and only
died of drinking bad whisky.
With so little chance of work the
doctor was in a fair way of being starved out; so
when the call came for him to go to Latimer, eager
though he was for work, he had to admit that he had
no horse to ride and no money with which to hire one.
But when men are desperate enough
to ride fifty miles on the off chance of finding a
doctor it is not likely that a trifle of this kind
will turn them from their purpose. A horse for
the doctor was quickly forthcoming, and he rode out
of Mostyn in the company of his escort, just as the
cart which was bringing the weekly mail entered the
town.
“Would you like to wait and
claim your mail, doctor?” asked the man who
rode on his right hand.
“No, thanks; I do not expect
any letters,” replied the man of medicine, and
a pang stole into his heart as he thought of the big
family of seven motherless children in far-away England,
whom he had virtually cast off, just because he was
writing himself down a failure, and would not be an
object of pity to his friends and relations.
If only he had known it, there was
a letter for him by that mail, a letter which had
come from England, written by Mr. Runciman, and posted
on the very day the children sailed for Sydney.
The writer confessed that he ought to have followed
his first letter with a second long before this; perhaps
he ought to have waited until a letter came from Dr.
Plumstead before letting the children start, but there
had been so many difficulties in the way of taking
care of them in England, and so on, and so on, which
in plain English meant that as Mrs. Runciman was not
willing to have them under her roof, the harassed guardian
had not known what to do with them.
But it was a long time before that
letter really reached the hands for which it was intended,
and then it was Nealie who handed it to her father,
and at his request read it to him.
It was a horrible journey for the
doctor and his escort. The demon drought was
stalking through the land, there were wicked little
whirlwinds to raise the sand and fling it in blinding
showers on to the unlucky travellers, water-holes
had dried to mud puddles, and the broad lagoons, beloved
of waterfowl, were thickets of wilted reeds, with never
a trace of moisture to be found anywhere.
The travellers pressed on as fast
as they could go, for who could tell what grim tragedies
were taking place in Latimer since the two had ridden
forth to find a doctor? There were stories of
whole townships having been wiped out in ten days
or a fortnight by smallpox, when no doctor had been
forthcoming to tend the patients and insist on isolation
and sanitation, with all the other precautions that
belong to law and order.
“There are only eight hundred
people all told in Latimer, and we may easily find
half of them dead,” said one man, with a pant
of hurry in his voice, as the tired horses toiled
up the last long hill into Latimer.
“But how many sick did you say
there were when you left the town on the day before
yesterday?” asked the doctor, who privately believed
the men to be panic-stricken.
“There were two that had spots,
and then there was that prospector who came in from
the track across the sandy plain. He dropped like
a felled ox in front of Jowett’s saloon, and
so they took him in there, because Jowett had a bed
to spare and there was not another in the township,”
said the other man, who was tall and gaunt, and only
about half as frightened as his companion, who was
a small fat man with a tendency to profuse perspiration.
“Had he this prospector,
I mean any spots on him also?” asked
the doctor, frowning heavily. He had had more
than one fight with smallpox in mining camps, and
he knew by sad experience that the terror was worse
to combat than the disease.
“I don’t know. Folks
were too scared to look, I fancy; but old Mother Twiney,
who doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything, said
that she would see that he had food and drink until
we got back, and Jowett will let the man have houseroom,
for the simple reason that he is afraid to turn him
out,” returned the tall man.
Fully half the population of Latimer
gathered to welcome the doctor when at last he rode
up to the open space in front of Jowett’s saloon,
and half of these demanded that their tongues should
be looked at and their pulses felt without delay.
But the doctor had always been impatient
of shams; indeed more than one candid friend had told
him that in this matter he had done himself much harm
from a professional point of view, as a doctor who
wants to get on can do it most quickly by trading
upon the fears of the foolish.
Pushing the candidates for examination
to right and left as he went, he sternly demanded
to be taken at once to the sick those who
had the dreaded spots most fully developed and,
as he was not a man to be gainsaid or put aside, old
Mother Twiney was at once pushed forward to take him
to the patients.
Snuffy and dirty though the old crone
was, there was a gleam of true kindliness in her eyes
hidden away behind bushy grey eyelashes, and she hobbled
off in a great hurry to a wooden building standing
remote from the houses, and which had formerly been
used as a store for mining plant.
“Are all the patients here?”
asked the doctor, as he followed her across the parched
and dusty grass.
“All but the man who was taken
into Jowett’s, your honour,” she answered;
then, sidling a little closer to him, she said in an
undertone: “It is not smallpox at all; I
am quite sure of it. Why, the two men are not
even ill, only nearly scared to death.”
“Then why was I sent for such
a long way, and for nothing too?” he asked angrily,
knowing well that his fee would be according to the
need there was for his services.
“Hush!” breathed the old
woman, and now there was keen anxiety in her manner.
“Whatever you do, don’t let anyone know
for a few days that it is not smallpox. These
men are not ill, and the spots are only a sort of
heat rash, I think, but the poor fellow at Jowett’s
is real bad, and he would have died if he could not
have had a doctor. He may even die now, in spite
of all you can do. I knew that no one in the town
would send for a doctor to come so far on account
of a man who was ill from a complaint that was not
infectious, so when I saw the other two with the spots,
I just made the most of it, and because all the well
people were afraid that they would catch the disease,
there was no time lost in sending for you. Now
you must just put them into strict quarantine, and
make as much fuss as possible; then they will let you
stay here long enough to pull the poor fellow round
who is lying at Jowett’s, and they will pay
you according to the trouble you put them to,”
said the old woman, with a sagacious nod of her head.
The doctor frowned, but there was
sound reason in her arguments, and he decided to see
all the patients before committing himself to any course
of action concerning them.
The two men with spots were in a state
of terror that was pitiable to see, and from outward
appearances might be said to be suffering from a very
bad form of the dreaded scourge. True to the lines
he had laid down for himself, however, he said nothing
to allay their fears, only looked very grave, issued
a hundred commands for safeguarding the rest of the
community, and then demanded to be taken to the other
sick man, who was lodged at Jowett’s.
The prospector’s quarters were
not sumptuous. He was merely laid in a shed recently
tenanted by calves, and which had been hastily cleared
for his use. The man was very ill, and Mother
Twiney had not exaggerated about the gravity of his
condition.
Here indeed was scope for the doctor,
and instead of wearing a face of gloom, as when he
examined the men with spots, his face was bright, and
his tone so brisk and cheerful that it looked as if
he were going to enjoy the tussle that was in front
of him.
“Can you pull me through, Doctor?”
asked the sufferer, looking at the doctor with lack-lustre
eyes.
“I am going to try, but I don’t
mind admitting that I shall have my hands full,”
replied the doctor, who had never been in the habit
of hiding from his patients the gravity of their condition.
“Well, if you do get me on my
feet, I promise you a 10-per-cent commission on all
I can make during the next year,” said the sick
man, with a sudden burst of energy, and then he called
on the old woman to witness to what he had said, after
which he sank into a condition of apathy, looking
as if he might die at any moment.
Never since he was a young man and
just starting in his profession had the doctor worked
harder than for the next few days. He was happier,
too, than he had been for years, and in the hush of
the quiet nights, when he watched alone by the man
who was really ill, he thought of his children and
resolved that no longer would he shut them out of his
heart and out of his life just because he had been
a victim to circumstances.
He was thinking of them one night,
as he strode across to the shed where the two victims
from spots were beginning to recover, when suddenly
he noticed another odour on the hot air; usually it
was the pungent smell of eucalyptus leaves, but now
it was the reek of burning timber that smote upon
his senses, and turning sharply in the track he saw
to his horror that there was a red glow in the sky
over Jowett’s. The place was on fire.
“It will blaze like matches,”
he groaned, and then turned to run, thinking of his
patient.
But, despite his haste, the flames
were shooting out through the holes in the roof of
the shed where the sick man lay, by the time the doctor
turned the corner by the store.
He tried to shout a warning, and to
call for help, but it was as if his voice had dried
up in his throat.
No one else appeared aware of the
danger. The place seemed solitary and silent,
save for the hiss and crackle of the fire.
Then he heard a cry for help.
It came from the inside of the shed, and dashing forward,
regardless of his own danger, he groped his way in
through smoke and flame, then, seizing the sick man,
turned to carry him out to safety, but even in that
moment was stricken to the ground with the burden
he bore, and pinned there by a fall of roofing.