Then a man rode
into our lives who was to teach us the depth and breadth of the meaning
of the word mate - a sturdy, thick-set man with haggard, tired eyes and
deep lines about his firm strong mouth that told of recent and prolonged
tension.
"Me mate's sick; got a touch of fever," he said simply dismounting near
the verandah. "I've left him camped back there at the Warlochs"; and as
the Maluka prepared remedies - making up the famous Gulf mixture - the man
with grateful thanks, found room in his pockets and saddle-pouch for
eggs, milk, and brandy, confident that "these'll soon put him right,"
adding, with the tense lines deepening about his mouth as he touched on
what had brought them there: "He's been real bad, ma'am. I've had a bit
of a job to get him as far as this." In the days to come we were to
learn, little by little, that the "bit of a job" had meant keeping a sick
man in his saddle for the greater part of the fifty-mile dry stage, with
forty miles of "bad going" on top of that, and fighting for him every
inch of the way that terrible symptom of malaria - that longing to "chuck
it," and lie down and die.
Bad water after that fifty-mile dry made men with a touch of fever only
too common at the homestead, and knowing how much the comforts of the
homestead could do, when the Maluka came out with the medicines he
advised bringing the sick man on as soon as he had rested sufficiently.
"You've only to ask for it and we'll send the old station buck-board
across," he said, and the man began fumbling uneasily at his
saddle-girths, and said something evasive about "giving trouble"; but
when the Maluka - afraid that a man's life might be the forfeit of another
man's shrinking fear of causing trouble - added that on second thoughts we
would ride across as soon as horses could be brought in, he flushed hotly
and stammered: "If you please, ma'am. If the boss'll excuse me, me
mate's dead-set against a woman doing things for him. If you wouldn't
mind not coming. He'd rather have me. Me and him's been mates this
seven years. The boss 'll understand."
The boss did understand, and rode across to the Warlochs alone, to find a
man as shy and reticent as a bushman can be, and full of dread lest the
woman at the homestead would insist on visiting him. "You see, that's
why he wouldn't come on," the mate said. "He couldn't bear the thought of
a woman doing things for him "; and the Maluka explained that the missus
understood all that. That lesson had been easily learned; for again and
again men had come in "down with a touch of fever," whose temperatures
went up at the very thought of a woman doing things for them, and always
the actual nursing was left to the Maluka or the Dandy, the woman seeing
to egg-flips and such things, exchanging at first perhaps only an
occasional greeting, and listening at times to strange life-histories
later on.
But in vain the Maluka explained and entreated: the sick man was "all
right where he was." His mate was worth "ten women fussing round," he
insisted, ignoring the Maluka's explanations. "Had he not lugged him
through the worst pinch already?" and then he played his trump card:
"He'll stick to me till I peg out," he said - "nothing's too tough for
him"; and as he lay back, the mate deciding "arguing'll only do for
him," dismissed the Maluka with many thanks, refusing all offers of
nursing help with a quiet "He'd rather have me," but accepting gratefully
broths and milk and anything of that sort the homestead could furnish.
"Nothing ever knocks me out," he reiterated, and dragged on through
sleepless days and nights, as the days dragged by finding ample reward in
the knowledge that "he'd rather have me", and when there came that deep
word of praise from his stricken comrade: "A good mate's harder to find
than a good wife," his gentle, protecting devotion increased tenfold.
Bushmen are instinctively protective. There is no other word that so
exactly defines their tender helpfulness to all weakness and
helplessness. Knowing how hard the fight is out-bush for even the strong
and enduring all their magnificent strength and courage stand ready for
those who would go to the wall without it. A lame dog, a man down in his
luck, an old soaker, little women any woman in need or sickness - each and
all call forth this protectiveness; but nothing calls it forth in all its
self-sacrificing tenderness like the helplessness of a strong man
stricken down in his strength.
Understanding this also, we stood aside, and rejoicing as the sick man,
benefiting by the comparative comfort and satisfied to have his own way,
seemed to improve. For three days he improved steadily, and then, after
standing still for another day slipped back inch by inch to weakness and
prostration, until the homestead, without coercion, was the only chance
for his life.
But there was a woman there; and as the mate went back to his pleading
the woman did what the world may consider a strange thing - but a man's
life depended on it - she sent a message out to the sick man, to say that
if he would come to the homestead she would not go to him until he asked
her.
He pondered over the message for a day, sceptical of a woman's word -
surely some woman had left that legacy in his heart - but eventually
decided he wouldn't risk it. Then the chief of the telegraph coming
in - a man widely experienced in fever - and urging one more attempt, the
Dandy volunteered to help us in our extremity, and, driving across to the
Warlochs in the chief's buggy worked one of his miracles; he spent only a
few minutes alone with the man (and the Dandy alone knows now what
passed), but within an hour the sick traveller was resting quietly
between clean sheets in the Dandy's bed.
