T G H Strehlow

by Journey to Horseshoe Bend (retail) (epub)

  Mrs Elliot pulled up a chair and sat down close to him so that he did not have to raise his voice much above a whisper. His breath was coming in half-choked gasps, and she wished to save him any unnecessary physical strain.

  ‘I must be brief,’ Strehlow explained. ‘My strength has almost gone.’ She nodded sympathetically.

  He paused for a moment, summoning up his courage to give his final confidences to a young woman who had been a virtual stranger to him before she had come to take him away from Idracowra. Always self-reliant in the extreme, he had never fully put his trust in any man, still less in a woman, but always only in God. Mrs Elliot, however, had been different. Though she still looked only a charming young girl, she had proved herself to be a spirited woman whose strength of purpose and physical stamina were beautifully matched by her deep compassion for him and by her kindness to everyone who needed her help. Strehlow felt that, of all the people present at Horseshoe Bend, she was the only person who could now be told the full truth about his condition and given the last directions for assisting his loved ones after his death.

  ‘Mrs Elliot,’ he began hesitatingly, ‘I am dying. I have not many more hours to live.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ she urged, trying to comfort him though she knew only too well that he was speaking the truth. ‘You are much stronger than you think. Gus’ll bring the doctor back by Saturday afternoon, and after that everything will be all right with you.’

  ‘No, Mrs Elliot,’ he continued, ‘I know that I am dying. And I think you know too. And so does your husband. But my wife does not. And she must not be told. I want her to have peace while I am still alive. I am afraid that she will break down completely when I’m gone. It will be hard on her. She has always relied on me in everything. She will not know what to do once she is a widow.’

  Although he had spoken in short sentences to save any undue exertions in breathing, he now had to pause for some moments to regain his strength. The young woman waited in silence. She knew that there are moments when being listened to in unspoken sympathy brings more comfort to a sufferer than all the words of comfort that may be stored in the listener’s vocabulary. For when death approaches, not even a lifelong partner or the closest and dearest friend may accompany the dying person on his last grim and lonely journey.

  Strehlow continued slowly, ‘Please, Mrs Elliot, comfort my wife when I’m gone. Only a woman can understand a woman’s grief. I am glad that I will die at a place where there is a woman to comfort my wife. And please help her and my son to get down safely from here to Oodnadatta. All our horses are knocked-up. Many of them have already been left behind. And my wife will need supplies for the road – I can no longer attend to anything.’

  ‘Don’t worry about anything, Mr Strehlow,’ replied Mrs Elliot, glad for this opportunity of saying some words of cheer at last. ‘Gus and I will look after everything, if anything happens. We’ll let you have fresh horses from The Bend for a start, and there’ll be the car to take your family down from The Charlotte. Gus’ll look after the supplies from the store. So, please, don’t worry about what might happen to your family. Gus and myself, and all the other station people between here and Oodnadatta, will look after them. Everybody’ll treat them like their own folk. And, in any case, I’m sure the doctor will still be able to pull you through when he comes.’

  Strehlow shook his head wearily and continued hesitatingly, ‘And here’s my last request. Mrs Elliot, you and your husband and all the station people along the Finke have been so very good to us. But I am not leaving much money behind, and I can’t do much to repay your many acts of kindness.’

  ‘Nobody would think of accepting anything from you, Mr Strehlow,’ swiftly interposed Mrs Elliot, in a tone of light indignation. ‘It’s one of the laws of the bush that everybody has to help the man who’s down and out. All of us would be offended if you’d offer us any money for doing what is only right and proper. That’s the sort o’ thing people down south might do, but nobody up here’d ever dream of accepting payment for helping somebody that needed it.’

  ‘I know,’ replied Strehlow; ‘and that is why I am asking you to help me now. The bush people won’t accept any money from me. But they’ll never refuse a bottle of brandy or whisky. Would you please ask your husband when he returns to send a couple of bottles of brandy or whisky up to Bob Buck and Allan Breaden, and to let the men in your hotel have a few rounds of drinks in your bar on my account? And I also want your husband to put aside a couple of bottles for himself at my expense. After all, that’s the custom of this country. I saw it for myself when I buried old Mr Sargeant here ten years ago. And please send this chair back to Henbury – I promised Bob Buck he could have it when I no longer needed it. I want the bush people to know how much I have appreciated all they have done for us. Please give all of them my thanks. And may God bless you and your husband and all the bush people for what you and they have done for me. And I pray He will reward you richly by giving you all the happiness that you want in your life.’

  At the last remark the young woman suddenly started as though someone had touched a hidden sore with a sharp point. But she composed herself again in a few moments and looked at him with deep compassion. She quietly brushed some tears from her eyes and forced herself to smile at him.

  ‘I promise you that I’ll do everything you’ve asked me to do,’ she said in a firm voice, suppressing an almost overwhelming urge to sob. ‘Gus’ll help me. He always has in the past. And one thing more: Gus and I, like the rest of us bush folk, are only too proud to have this chance of showing you and your wife how much we all admire and respect both of you.’

  Strehlow wearily laid his chin back on his cupped hands, and his elbows once more dug deeply into his swollen knees. ‘May God bless you all,’ he whispered as he shut his tired eyes. Seeing that he was too exhausted to continue talking, Mrs Elliott excused herself and softly went out of the room.

  Her place was taken once more by Mrs Strehlow. But though the latter wondered what had passed between her husband and Mrs Elliot, she did not ask him any questions. It was sufficient for her to know that her husband, though still in extreme physical distress, was clearly looking much more composed after this confidential talk than he had done earlier that afternoon.

  AN OMINOUS, LEADEN FRIDAY morning dawned after an oppressively hot night. It had been a night when the thermometer had not fallen below ninety degrees; a night when sleepers had tossed off all blankets and spent most of the snail-paced hours perspiring lightly even when lying on top of their bed sheets or camp sheets; a night when the easing of the hot north-west gale that had roared, raged, and rampaged during the day had served only to increase the breathless closeness of the overheated and stifling atmosphere; a night when even those sleepers who had moved their beds into the illusory freedom of the open air had still felt oppressed by a sky that seemed to shut in as with a blanket the heat reflected against it during the day by the sun-scorched ground; a night in which sleepers had tossed, turned, complained, groaned, sworn, and cursed loudly, debilitated by almost intolerable and completely enervating discomfort.

  Mrs Elliot had been disturbed at three o’clock in the morning by a knock on her door. Victoria, one of her half-caste kitchen women, had roused her with the news that the camel-mail team had returned, and that in addition to the mailman there was a passenger waiting outside who required accommodation in the hotel. This passenger was Pastor Stolz, and it was at his urgent pleading that the mailman had agreed to do a special night-stage to Horseshoe Bend. Normally the southern-stage mail-driver, after leaving Oodnadatta on the Saturday following the arrival of the fortnightly train from Adelaide, would reach Old Crown Point, some two hundred miles away, late on the following Thursday afternoon. Here he would meet the northern-stage mail-driver, who had come down from Alice Springs via Horseshoe Bend with the down-mail both from Alice Springs and from the Finke River stations. Both men would leave their tired camels at Old Crown Point, and exchange their mailbag
s. Next morning they would set out on their separate return journeys. In view of Strehlow’s desperate state of health Stolz had pleaded with the Alice Springs mail-driver to have his fresh camels saddled up as soon as possible after the Oodnadatta mailman had reached Old Crown Point, and to return to Horseshoe Bend that very night. The Alice Springs mail-driver agreed without hesitation; for camels, like donkeys, kept to pads and trails, and could hence be used in safety for travelling at night.

  Worn out by his marathon ride from Oodnadatta, Stolz slept in till the Friday morning breakfast session was over. Strehlow, who had been awakened from his laudanumdrugged sleep by throbbing pains in his chest long before sunrise, was even more restless than he had been on the previous day. The moment of death was clearly drawing nearer. It might be even closer than he had thought only yesterday. Was he in a fit and prepared state to meet God? In his sermons he had often stressed the fact that believers resembled living stones that were being shaped by a master hand so that they could be built into a spiritual house of worship, erected on the eternal foundation stone of Christ Himself. But the shaping of these stones had to go on all through the lives of the believers. God’s chiselling away of man’s imperfections did not end till the moment of death. It was only after death that man could become a perfectly fitting stone in the eternal temple of God. Hence Strehlow had preached more than one funeral sermon based on the Old Testament verse describing how all the stones from which skilful masons had built Solomon’s temple at Jerusalem had been cut and shaped in the quarries from which they had been taken: already perfect in shape, they had merely been fitted together on the temple site – ‘And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.’ Strehlow grew more and more restless with pain-inspired self-questionings – had God’s hammer-blows succeeded in shaping him into a stone fit for the edifice of that new Jerusalem in which he believed with unbroken firmness of faith, or were there still left in him rough, untrimmed edges that had to be chiselled away before death?

  Finally he asked his wife to call Heinrich into the sickroom. Since the day when he had read the bitter attack made on him by Heinrich in the letter written to the Munchenbergs, he had felt deeply resentful towards the young teacher who had, in his opinion, talked about him in such treacherous terms. But with the hour of his own death approaching fast, Strehlow began to feel that the time had come when he would have to face his Maker with a heart free from all vindictiveness and resentment. ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us’: this injunction from the Lord’s Prayer had never before appeared as necessary to him as it appeared now. He asked that Heinrich should be invited to come into the sickroom. When Heinrich came in, he asked him to sit down on the chair opposite to him and to join him and Mrs Strehlow in singing a hymn. Heinrich and Mrs Strehlow did most of the singing, with the sick man coming in whenever his difficulty of breathing permitted it. The verses sung were the first few stanzas of the German hymn Wer sind die vor Gottes Throne:

  Who are these like stars appearing,

  These, before God’s throne who stand?

  Each a golden crown is wearing,

  Who are all this glorious band?

  Hallelujah!, hark, they sing,

  Praising loud their heavenly King.

  These are they who have contended

  For their Saviour’s honour long;

  Wrestling on till life was ended,

  Following not the sinful throng;

  These, who well the fight sustained,

  Triumph through the Lamb have gained.

  But the singing of this hymn and the prayers offered by his wife and by Heinrich could not bring complete calm to Strehlow’s troubled mind. Soon, too soon, he knew that he would have to face Stolz himself in this room. It could be a trying meeting, and one that he would gladly have avoided in his present state of helplessness. But it was clearly God’s will that he should fully compose his differences with Stolz before he stood face to face with his Master.

  For many weeks previously Strehlow had discussed with his wife what he would say to Stolz when they finally talked together confidentially. He had known Stolz most of his life, having first met him at Killalpaninna thirty years previously. Stolz had been a son of Mrs Reuther, the Killalpaninna Mission Superintendent’s wife, by her first marriage to the deceased Pastor J.M. Stolz; and Strehlow, who had been only a few years older than the younger Stolz at the time, had been his tutor in Latin and Greek during his stay at Killalpaninna. He had therefore always felt that he was standing in a privileged position towards the new chairman of the Hermannsburg Mission Board. Stolz, in his turn, had always held Strehlow in pleasant memory as the kindhearted and cheerful tutor who had given him his grounding in the two classical languages required for his theological studies. Strehlow had often rehearsed with himself what he would say to Stolz when the latter came into his sickroom. He would reproach Stolz in a fatherly way for his failure to come to Hermannsburg on an inspection visit despite repeated requests in former years. For how could anyone be an effective chairman of a mission board if he had never set eyes on the station that he was helping to administer? He would remind Stolz of the Finke River Mission Board’s ingratitude for not taking any vigorous steps to save his life while there had been time to do so, and he would compare the indifference of Stolz and his clerical colleagues with the humanity, the sympathy, and above all, the practical helpfulness of the churchless bush people. He would quote Christ’s own injunctions to Stolz; for Christ himself had taught in his sermons, and shown in his parables and stories, that practical love towards one’s neighbours came second only to the love due to God Himself. He would further stress that even St Paul, whose clear statement that man was justified by faith without the deeds of the law had always been regarded as a cardinal element of Lutheran doctrine, had also rated love as being greater than hope and greater than faith in that magnificent thirteenth chapter of his First Letter to the Corinthians. It was the failure of the Lutheran clergy to give due weight to the God-established supremacy of love that had constituted such a grave weakness in the doctrinal soundness of much of their preaching.

  But now that Stolz had arrived at Horseshoe Bend, Strehlow lacked both the physical strength and the mental calmness for indulging in any hard and intellectual theological arguments. Within hours he himself would be standing before his Master and be called upon to give an account of his stewardship in this life. A man who deeply needed God’s forgiveness for himself could not call any of his fellow men to account for any apparent neglect of duties or responsibilities. He would have to forgive all, just as he hoped to be forgiven all, for Christ’s sake.

  It was still in the early part of Friday forenoon when the two men met. Physically, no greater contrast could have been imagined than that which existed between them. Strehlow, even in sickness, was a large, heavily built, cleanshaven man. Stolz, on the other hand, was slight and short of stature, and wore a dark, pointed beard. Again, whereas Strehlow’s manner of speech was measured, resolute, and authoritative, Stolz’s speech habits and movements, particularly in moments of excitement, had something of the mercurial nature of quicksilver about them. After the preliminary greetings Stolz expressed his deep sympathy for Strehlow’s condition. He had come prepared to see a very sick man; but his first glimpse of Strehlow obviously shocked him almost beyond words. He could scarcely believe the testimony of his own eyes.

  ‘Brother Stolz,’ said Strehlow slowly, ‘I have been waiting for you for many years. You have come at last, but it is too late.’ Stolz was about to break into a voluble account of the many excellent reasons he had for the lateness of his visit; but Strehlow cut him short with a tired wave of his hand. ‘I am too weak to say more than a few words to you today. I have been disappointed and very bitter during these last few weeks; but there must be no words of anger between us. We are both
standing here in the sight of God. Let us do what He wants us to do.’ He paused, for one of his spasms of difficult breathing was beginning to come upon him. When it had eased once more, he continued, ‘Brother Stolz, for twenty-eight years I have tried to be a faithful shepherd to God’s congregation at Hermannsburg. I have had to abandon the people entrusted to my care. I have not been able to install anyone else to take my place. Please see to it that a successor is appointed who will guard my congregation faithfully. Remember that it is God who jealously watches over all work that is done in His mission field. Don’t let Hermannsburg die as Bethesda has died!’

  Stolz had involuntarily started at the mention of Bethesda – the official Church name of the Killalpaninna Mission Station. Though he had not personally been involved either in its long decline or in its final and utter ruin during the war years, its destinies had for years been guided by his stepfather. The final abandonment of Bethesda had been preceded by many dark and tragic events which had enabled the tough-skinned cattlemen on the surrounding stations to point fingers of scorn and disgust at this long-established Lutheran mission station. Strehlow had blushed when hearing some of the worst stories that came to his ears, and so had many other loyal supporters of Bethesda. For the unsavoury pages in the annals of a Church can do far greater damage to its reputation than any of the unfounded slanders of its worst enemies.

  ‘Brother Strehlow,’ Stolz replied earnestly, and there could be no doubt about his deep sincerity and whole-hearted determination, ‘the Finke River Mission Board knows that it is responsible to God for what happens to Hermannsburg; and I give you my full and loyal assurance that I, as the chairman of the Board, will never allow the Church to abandon Hermannsburg, so far as this lies in my power.’ Strehlow, who had not taken his searching gaze off Stolz’s face while he was making this declaration, relaxed visibly and said, ‘May God grant it!’ Stolz grasped Strehlow’s tired hand lightly. ‘I make this promise before God. And now may God bless you for the loyalty you have shown to His cause during those twenty-eight years in the heart of Australia; and may He be your help today and your comfort in the illness that has stricken you down.’