The Outspan: Tales of South Africa

“Joodge!” he called, “Joodge, how vos dot wiper shpell?”

Key dictated calmly:

“W-h-y-p-e-r, whyper,” and Soltké with infinite pains put it down. But we heard him a moment later from his place in the tent of the waggon murmuring:

“Lieber Himmel! dot vos un oogly name.” He kept his diary in English, and many a perspiring hour did he spend in his struggles with our language; but he never quailed once, never even slackened, for he said it was “goot to make him friends mit der English, and he can talk him when he shall coom on der prospect.”

Soltké could hardly have taken down the name of this new wonder, when the sight of a blue jay flying past – one marvellous blaze of gorgeous colour as its shiny feathers caught the sunlight – sent him into a perfect paroxysm of excitement. He had seen the honeysuckers, and knew them in the diary as “birds of Paradise;” he knew the ordinary or cockyolly bird as the small “pheasant of Capricorn”; he had shot dicky-birds by the dozen and stuffed them, and their noxious odours seemed to add zest to his ornithological pursuits; but he had never seen, never dreamed of, anything like this. For one spellbound moment Soltké watched the bird sail by, and then gasped out:

“Gott in Himmel! what woss dat? Christnacht, be shtill, und I shot him.”

Diary, pen, ink and blotter were thrust aside, and Soltké scrambled for the gun. We turned our backs on him to watch the bird. Soltké jumped from the waggon. The report of the two barrels was so loud and close that it made us duck; but the blue jay sat unmoved.

There was a curious silence that made several of us look round together. The gun had fallen, and Soltké was standing above it, rigid and ghastly white, with one hand gripping a burnt and blood-spattered tear in his right leg. As we sprang to him open-armed he seemed just to sway gently towards us with closed eyes and a soft murmur of words in his own tongue. It sounded like a prayer.

I think he fainted then; but we were never sure, as he was always so still with it all that one couldn’t tell at times whether he was dead or alive. The medicines we had, and the remedies we knew, did not run to gunshot wounds and broken legs, but we made shift to fix him up somehow with a rough ligament.

It was here that Key came in. Quiet and self-possessed, firm and kind, he cut away the burnt, torn clothing. He washed out the ragged, blackened wound; he tried the leg, and told us it was fractured – shattered – and would have to come off. And Soltké lay there, under the big tree, on a blanket spread on a heap of grass, as white as alabaster and as still, while we watched silently beside him, fanning him with small green boughs, and keeping off the flies.

Donald Mackay had started off at once for a doctor; but we knew that, with the best luck in finding him, and riding day and night, it must be over two days before we could get him down there. Bobbie went with his brother to the nearest waggons a few miles on ahead, where Donald raised a horse and went on alone on his long ride for help. Robbie came back with a few things that we hoped would help a little, and then we settled down to watch in silence the awful race between ebbing life and coming help.

Through the hot, long, quiet day we watched and tended him, and so on into the cool of the evening. We could do nothing, really; but it seemed to please him and us to whisk away the flies, and say a word of cheer to him, or now and then to shift the cotton sheet that covered him. When the stars came out, and the soft cool feel of night grew up around, and the ruddy flicker of the fire worked its magic on the encampment, changing and beautifying everything with sudden lights and weird shadows; when the cattle were tied up to the yokes, and one by one lay down to sleep with great restful, deep-drawn sighs; when there were no sounds but the steady chewing of the cud and the occasional distant howl of a hyena or the sharp, unreal laugh of the jackal – then did we really seem to settle down to the business of waiting.

Now and then, perhaps three or four times in the night, Soltké asked for water; once or twice towards morning he sighed a suppressed tired sigh; but not a word of complaint, not a sign of impatience, not one evidence of the torture he was enduring, escaped him. When morning came, cool and fragrant, and the blue smoke of the camp-fire curled up straight and clean into the pure air, he was as quiet and uncomplaining still, though not for one second had his eyes closed nor the deadly numbing pain ceased its ache.

Soltké seemed to me to look younger than ever, though terribly white and fagged. His eyes looked blue and brave and trustful – childishly trustful – as ever, and he alone, of all the party, did not keep looking towards the west for the return of Donald Mackay and his charge.

All that day we watched and waited, and on through another slow and silent night; but we could see then that Soltké could not last out much longer without a doctor’s help, and that his chance was becoming a poor one.

It must have been about three in the morning when, lying flat on my back, looking up into the wonderful maze of stars that spatters our southern sky, I heard or felt the tiniest tap, tap, tap under my head. I shot up with the cry of, “There’s Donald at last!”

We were all up and listening, but could hear nothing when standing, of course. However, there was no mistake, and after five minutes we could hear on the cool, clear, still air the footfall of a horse —one horse, as we all remarked with an awful heart-sinking.

Two of us – Key and I – went on to meet the horseman, and in a few minutes came upon Donald leading a horse, upon which, by the aid of a propping arm, was balanced a man whom we all knew – only too well.

In a breath Donald told us that he had sent on from the first camp for the district surgeon, but, chancing on Doc Monroe, had packed him on the horse and come back with him as a makeshift. Munroe was a quack chemist of morose and brutal character, and a drunkard with it. His moral status might be gauged by the fact that no patient among those who knew him personally or by repute ever approached him professionally except upon the contract system – so much the job, payment on delivery, cured. He had a certain repute for ability. God knows how it was earned, for he had killed more men than any other agency in the country; but I believe that his brutal and sardonic indifference to public opinion, his fiendish hints that there was no accident about the deaths of his patients, and that “those who want Doc Munroe can pay for him, by God!” inspired a weird dread which, irrationally, perhaps, yet not unnaturally, begot a sort of blind awed belief in the man’s ability.

Men hardly stricken have been known to sit on the bar-step and wait while Doc, having drunk himself drunk, would drink himself sober, and then, with implicit faith, swallow down mixtures to which the bloodshot eyes and the trembling hands of the Doc added the interest of a blind gamble.

By the uncertain light of the stars I had not recognised him, until Key, who was a few paces in front, said softly:

“It’s Doc Munroe – dead drunk!” Donald was utterly worn out, and wild with despair. Doc had been drunk when he found him, but (as Donald said) he was always that, and he had hoped that a forty-mile ride would sober him. However, it seems that twice on the road he had got liquor, and the second time, when Donald had caught him and taken it away, he had sat down by the roadside stolid and immovable until the liquor was returned to him.

There were reasons why we bottled up our rage and treated the Doc with a show of civility, and even conciliatory respect. We knew, firstly, that he had his instruments, and that only he could use them; and, secondly, that, however drunk he might be, he never lost his senses until delirium set in; and, moreover, that he was intensely suspicious of offence when in this state, and if once huffed, was indifferent to prayers and threats alike. The look on Gowan’s face was positively murderous when he saw in what manner our waiting was rewarded. I am sure he would readily have killed Munroe at that moment.

Poor Soltké showed his first signs of anxiety then, and we had to make what excuses we could – the want of light, first of all, and then the long ride – to account for the doctor’s not seeing him now that he had come. But the hours went by, the last chance was ebbing away, and we could do nothing – absolutely nothing – with the man.

We tried him with everything. We gave him black coffee – he wouldn’t touch it; we tried soup – he kicked it over; food, sleep, a bath – everything was rejected with a sullen and stolid shake of the head, and the one word “W’isky.” That we would not give. For four mortal hours the man lay sullenly by the waggon on a pile of blankets, and only the one word passed his lips. We dared not give him more – it would have destroyed our only chance; and without liquor he would not budge.

Day was well advanced when Munroe stood up quietly, and walked over to where Gowan stood beside his waggon. I suspected that the Doc had noticed Gowan’s look when he came into camp with us, and now it was clear that he had.

“You think I’m drunk,” said Munroe, with a malignant sneer. “I saw you look at me when I got off that damned horse! You think I’m drunk, do you?”

Gowan looked him steadily in the eyes, but made no answer, and Doc resumed:

“Are you going to give me that whisky?”

Again no answer; but I walked nearer, as I could see Gowan’s hands close and go back, and his chest came up with hard breathing.

“Are – you – going – to – give – me – that – whisky?” asked Munroe again, slowly and deliberately.

“No!” roared Gowan, with a tiger-like spring at the other man; “I’ll see you in hell first!”

I caught Gowan’s uplifted arm, but Munroe never flinched, and, pulling himself together with something of a shake, he said in a perfectly sober, even tone and with diabolical malevolence:

“Then I’ll see your friend dead and rotten before I stir a hand to help him;” and with that he marched back to the blankets and lay down again.

An hour passed, and he never stirred a finger – never even blinked his staring eyes. Then the Mackays, Key, and I held a council, and decided to give him the liquor as a last – a truly forlorn – hope. It was left to me to see him, and I went over bottle and glass in hand.

He wouldn’t touch it.

I argued, begged, and prayed; but it had no effect whatever. He just lay there, resting on one arm, with the cruel, shallow glitter in his eyes that one sees in those of wild beasts. I returned to the others, and we had another talk, and then I offered him money – a price: all that we could give! That fetched him. He sat up, and looked at me for about a minute, and then said, shaking with hate:

“Your liquor I won’t touch. Your money won’t buy me. As soon as it’s cool enough to move, I go back; and if you’ve ever heard of Doc Munroe, you’ll take that for a last answer.”

That was a facer, and when I went back and told the others, opinions were divided as to what to do. Gowan and Key were for the rifle cure. If he wouldn’t operate, shoot him!

But we urged another – a last – delay, say till noon; and they gave way, but warned us it would be useless.

The heat that day was awful. No breeze, no relief – only dead, oppressive heat, reflected to and fro the steel-blue sky and the hard-baked earth.

The fires were out – we had cooked nothing that day – and the camp looked dead and deserted. One or more of us would always be with Soltké; the others would be lying in the shadow of a tree or under a waggon. We had some faint hope that the district surgeon would turn up, but not before the morrow, and, knowing Soltké’s condition, that seemed useless, so that our only real chance was with Munroe.

As we lay there, dismally and hopelessly waiting, we were suddenly startled by a most peculiar and unnatural bark. The two dogs also jumped up and ran out on to the road. We could see nothing except that Munroe had gone. The noise was repeated, and the dogs growled, and every hair stood up on their backs.

“Great God! look there!” came from Donald.

Following his glance, we saw, low down amongst the thick buffalo grass, the wild, haggard face of Doc Munroe. His shock red hair half covered his eyes, which glittered and glared like a lioness’s. As we stood he barked again, and made a jump out to the margin of the grass. He was mad – stark, staring mad – with delirium tremens! In one of his hands, half hidden by the grass, we could see a Bushman’s friend, and the bright blade seemed to catch an ugly gleam from the man’s eyes and reflect it malevolently back on us.

Munroe was a big man, and, although ruined in health by years of hard drinking, would have been a very ugly customer while the mad fit lasted; so we just stood our ground, ready to take him any way he wanted to come. After a minute or two he seemed to feel the effect of four pairs of eyes looking steadily at him, and the wild beast died out, and his body, which had been as rigid as a “standing” pointer’s, became visibly limp and nerveless. He got up heavily, with a silly, hysterical laugh, and stood meekly before us, looking as foolish and harmless as a human being might. He sidled over towards Donald Mackay, keeping as far as possible from Gowan, whom he clearly distrusted, and looking furtively about, as though others besides us might hear him, he said, with a sickly smile and in a thin, uncertain voice:

“I was playin’, Donald, old man, only playin’. You know me – old Doc Munroe. You weren’t frightened, Donald, eh? He! he! I like to bark, ye know. I like it, and who’ll stop me if I like it, eh? You could see I was playin’, old partner. You knew it, didn’t you?”

The man was wretchedly weak and shaky, and as he continued to look about anxiously, he wiped the heavy drops of cold perspiration off his colourless face with the dirty strip of kapalaan which did service for a pocket-handkerchief. He sidled up closer and closer to Donald, and watched with growing intentness and terror the place from which he had just emerged. Mackay quietly imprisoned the knife-hand, but Munroe never noticed that, and only clung closer to him, and began to mutter and cry out again, quivering with excitement and terror, which grew on him, until he shrieked to Donald to save him, and to “knife him over there” – pointing to the tree beneath which he had hidden. Key took the proffered knife, and, walking quietly towards the tree, began to hack it in an unenthusiastic manner; and the relief that this seemed to give Munroe would have been ludicrous but for the desperate hopelessness it brought for poor Soltké.

It was no longer possible to keep up our well-intended fiction about the doctor requiring rest, for Munroe’s maniac laughter and shrieks of terror became so frequent and awful that they must have startled one half a mile away. He became so violent that we were obliged to take him down to the spruit, and to tie him down there in the shadow of a high bank, with one of the niggers to look after him, and an occasional visit from one of us to see if all was well.

Soltké bore the news as he had borne all that went before, with silent, martyr-like patience. He seemed to have guessed it: not a muscle moved, not a feature changed. He listened to it as calmly as he listened to our expressed hope that the district surgeon would turn up by sundown, and with as little personal concern.

Towards evening he spoke a good deal to us all, but in a way that made our hearts sink. He spoke of his home and his past life – for the first time – and of something that was troubling him greatly. He also admitted that his leg was feeling very hot, and that he felt twinges of pain shooting up into the groin and body.

At sundown he asked for his Prayer-Book, and later on, when we had left him alone for a while, and sat in silent, helpless despair by the neglected fire, he asked for Robbie. At last, at about ten o’clock that night, we heard the welcome sound of a horse’s trotting, and to our unspeakable delight the cheery little doctor turned up. Poor old Soltké did brighten up then, and the smile which had never failed him throughout the days of suffering seemed to me more easy and hopeful. In less than an hour the shattered leg was off. In spite of the bad light and the rude appliances all went well, and with infinite relief we saw Soltké doze off under the merciful influence of the morphia which the doctor had brought. We felt that we had rounded the turn, and could afford to sleep easy. The little doctor, who had ridden seventy miles since sun-up, rolled into his blankets near where Soltké slept, and was in the land of dreams long before we, who were restless from very relief and joy, could settle down to close our eyes.

I seemed to have dozed for but a few minutes, when in my dreams, as it seemed to me, I heard in the faintest but clearest whisper the doctor saying: “Mortification, you know! I couldn’t see it by candle-light, or we might have spared him the operation.”

He was just dead. He sighed himself out, as the doctor said, like a tired child to sleep. We buried him close to the road under a big thorn-tree, which we stripped of its bark for a couple of feet to serve for a headstone for his grave. It was the tree where we had seen him on his knees at prayer. And as it neared sundown, we called for the oxen, and inspanned for the evening trek.

The doctor had gone. He had to get back those seventy miles to see another patient, whose life perhaps depended upon the grit of his gallant little horse.

During the night Munroe had managed to get loose, and with a madman’s cunning had got away with his horse and disappeared, which was perhaps a good thing for him.

The boys had packed everything on the waggons, and were lashing the bedding in the tent waggon so as to be out of the way of the dust and the thorns, when one of them picked up and handed out to us the open book and writing materials, just as Soltké had left them three days before, when he had jumped out to shoot the blue jay.

The diary lay open at the last-written page, and we read:

“The most verushius of reptile is the Whuy-per – ”

Robbie closed the book gently and put it away. It didn’t seem the least bit funny then.

At midnight, when the long night trek was over, and we were rolled in our blankets near the camp-fire, Robbie’s heart was full, and he spoke – slowly and in half-broken tones:

“Ye mind the time he sent for me? Ye do? Yes; well, it was to ask my forgiveness for what he said the day I struck him. Ay, he did that!”

Robbie looked slowly round the circle through dimmed glasses, and then went on hesitatingly:

“And he said, too, that we had all been too good to him, and that he had played it low on us; and that he – he hoped the good God would pardon him the greatest crime of all. And he said that I must give his Prayer-Book and his zither,” (Robbie continued in a lower and reverent tone) “to – to his child – his little boy.”

“Soltké’s child?” came from all together.

Robbie nodded, and there was a space of time when everyone shifted a little and felt chilled; but it was Gowan who put our common thought into words.

“Where is his wife?” he asked slowly. “Dead!” said Robbie. “I – I didn’t know he was married.” Robbie’s look was a prayer for mercy, as he answered: “He wasn’t!”