The breakfast hour permitted a free and full [99] ]discussion of ways and means—men and machinery—past and present—with sketch notes of the general rise and progress of the partnership during his absence.
Nothing could have been more satisfactory. ‘The men had all worked first-rate,’ old Jack said—‘the swell as hard as any of ’em—perhaps harder.’ Mr. Southwater was a terror for hard graft, and would have a claim of his own some day. He was a born bushman, could work dead reckoning, and would make a smart sailor-man, if ever he got the chance. He’d come to something, no fear! Con Heffernan was as good a chap as ever handled a pick—a ‘rale white man.’ Everything had gone on first-rate—no rows, and all as smooth as a greased hide rope.
Mr. Newstead said he thought he would go home, now he could raise the passage money on his shares; but he’d leave a good man in his place. To which determination he promptly gave effect. All was now plain sailing. Of course there was hard unremitting work. From daylight to dark, no rest for head and hand; but then there was much to show for it. The arrivals of men and merchandise were large and exciting. Carpenters, machinists, ‘wages men’—as ordinary mine labourers were called—arrived in hundreds.
Claims were taken up for miles around the Pilot Mount, in every direction: claims for alluvial; reef claims, wherever there was a lump of quartz as big as a cricket ball; water claims, wherever
the drainage from a ‘soak’ would fill a bucket in a day; ‘dry-blowing claims,’ wherever a [100] ]speck of gold could be extracted by one of the most primitive of all processes. All this various assemblage contributed doubtless to the name and fame of the far-bruited ‘Last Chance,’ of which the shares rose in value until the original holders looked on themselves as prospective, if not indeed, actual millionaires. But there was another side to the shield, which commenced to make itself clearly apparent through the somewhat blurred and distorted social atmosphere.
Among the miscellaneous crowd of adventurers and tourists who had dared the privations of desert travel, was a contingent of lady nurses. These meritorious women, not less daring than the reckless miners who had faced death in so many shapes, in so many lands, had joined the army of hope at the earliest stage that transit could be guaranteed. They knew, none better, how soon the fever scourge of crowded camps, civil or military, would ‘take up a claim,’ ever widening and expansive, sheltered by the dark wing of Azrael. How many a day, how many a night, in burning heat or freezing cold, had each volunteer for the ‘forlorn hope’ of Christian charity watched by the delirious, fever-stricken patient, whose fate it was to sink lower and lower, until he gasped out his life, holding the hand of his truest friend in need, or, faintly rallying, lived to greet the ‘opening paradise’ of ‘the common air, the fields, the skies,’ and to know himself once more a man among men!
At first, in the inevitable turmoil, the rush and hurry of a big and daily-growing field, but [101] ]scant attention was bestowed upon the dread disease, or the ‘cases’ which began to multiply. The report that Jack Wilson was ‘down with the fever,’ or Pat Murphy had ‘got it bad, and mightn’t recover,’ was little heeded, but when poor Pat died, and was followed to the grave by an imposing array of miners, public interest was aroused. A committee of miners and citizens was elected, a hospital site was determined upon, and on the following day (Monday) a building of hessian and poles was commenced, and notable progress made before nightfall. Subscriptions poured in: the big mine gave twenty guineas, other firms and claims in proportion, but all liberally, not to say generously, and, within a week, a building not particularly ornate, but weather-tight, and suitably provided with beds and subdivisions, with the all-sufficing corrugated iron roof, was ‘inaugurated,’ as the local journal proudly described the opening ceremony, by a large and influential gathering of citizens. It may be mentioned that the mining arrangement of eight-hour ‘shifts’ was resorted to, the urgency of the occasion justifying this departure from routine and trade habitudes.
The ex-Commissioner had always, at his several commands and headquarters, taken an interest in the hospital question, having in his official life been brought into contact with the dreadful accidents and deadly epidemics from which no mining communities are free. So he made it his business to call in due form upon the nurses, who formed the vanguard of the Nightingale [102] ]battalion, and assure them of his sympathetic aid if such should be needed. He ordered improvements to be made in the buildings, and guaranteed the expense incurred. He also arranged a ‘little dinner’ in their honour at the principal (and only) hotel, to which, besides his partner, Mr. Southwater, he invited the Warden of the district, as well as other persons in authority, and a few leading citizens with their wives. The entertainment passed off extremely well, and was appreciated by the mining contingent, as recognising the lady nurses’ position and, as such, giving them social standing.
It was just as well that Mr. Banneret made himself acquainted with the hospital and the personnel of its guardian angels—a term used by himself in the aftertime—as, within a month after the official opening, he was himself an inmate of the institution referred to.
Yes! there was no immunity, no safeguarding by means of careful sanitation at the claim, temperate living, box baths (though these were in the nature of luxuries), an elevated situation—precautions which, under other circumstances, and in other places, had baffled the fever fiend. First a queer feeling, half-cold and shivering, half-hot and feverish; then a racking headache, vainly endured, and struggled against in hope of relief—worse on the next day; then the ordinary symptoms: a sleepless night, a half-conscious feeling of ‘lightheadedness.’ On the morrow, word went through the camp that Mr. Banneret, of the great Reward Claim at Pilot Mount, was [103] ]in the hospital, ‘down with typhoid.’ The building had been full for days, but one bed had been vacated, at the instance of Head Physician Death, and into the empty cot the ‘respected chief shareholder in the well-known Reward Claim’ (see the Miner’s Mentor of the day, ‘Personal Column’) and ex-Commissioner of Barrawong was deposited. On the morning which followed, the patient was in a high fever, raving in delirium, temperature 105 degrees. The doctor pronounced it a definite case of typhoid. On the first day of the seizure—how sudden and cruel it was!—he had written to his wife that he had dropped in for a ‘feverish attack,’ but not to be alarmed—would probably pass off in a day or two—she knew he had felt that way before; but had thought it wiser, considering the heat of the climate, to go to bed for a day or two. The hospital was really most comfortable, and well managed; in Mrs. Lilburne he had, she would be glad to hear, a most capable and attentive nurse. She was on no account to be alarmed, or to dream of coming over—which would only be an expensive and disagreeable journey for her. Mrs. Lilburne would write and tell her how he was getting on. It was a great nuisance—indeed, most disappointing—that this sort of thing should have happened, and that he had more than once been tempted to wish himself back at poor old Barrawong; though, of course, they had gone through the same epidemic there, when poor young Danvers, the curate at the township, and Mr. Thornton, who was past middle age, with ever so many other people, had [104] ]died, and it seemed to be in the nature of a lottery who should catch it and who should escape, who should live and who should die. He was glad to hear that Reggie was getting on so well at school, and that the other children were thriving. He had got little Winnie’s letter, and would answer it to-morrow, etc. When the morrow came, as before stated, he was not in a condition to write or read letters, or indeed to perform any of the literary duties which had previously occupied much of his time. The doctor and the nurse were engaged in anxious consultation—the one taking his temperature, which the nurse registered very carefully; both faces wearing a very serious, indeed anxious expression.