Constable Jack Macky appears in Robert Plowman’s book, "The Man From Oodnadatta", albeit with a different spelling - Mackay.
In "The Man", Plowman writes fondly of the policeman, whom he met a number of times during his travels across Central Australia. He describes Mackay as an 'unusual looking type of policeman' who 'carried himself as unlike a trained policeman as posible'. He goes on to describe Macky as:
'...tall and broad, but not fleshy, he was so loosely built as to suggest that he would have been an easy mark for any moderately active man. His slow drawl and his sleepy look helped the illusion. There was not a man in the force, however, who was smarter and more active than this deceptively simple looking chap. Those loose limbs were as if made of tempered steel; behind those quiet eyes was an uncommonly active brain; that simplicity was a mask from behind which he looked through other men. A grand mate, and an efficient officer as well as a man of great courage and resource, he was a credit to the fine body of men of which he was a member. There was not a white man, nor a black, within a hundred miles or more, but knew that once Trooper Mackay started on his track neither hunger nor thirst, neither time nor distance, neither heat nor cold, would prevent him for accomplishing his purpose' (43-44).
The book goes on to relate a story about the kindness and hospitable showed by the trooper to Plowman during one of his visits. (See reference.)
According to Plowman, Macky tragically drowned while on holiday.
REFERENCE:
R. Plowman, The Man from Oodnadatta, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1933, pp 43-44
