To Chase the Storm: The Frontier Series 4

by Peter Watt

  He paused and stared up at the silent sky above. The constellation of the Southern Cross was low on the horizon and across the dusty yard he could see the outline of their hut where Jennifer had once baked bread and waited anxiously for his return from the dangerous places where the Kalkadoon stalked the unwary. Turning to look down at the mound, he could make out the now desiccated posy of wild-flowers he had left a week earlier. As he reached down to touch them, the pain came to his body in a way that he knew it would never again.

  Terituba saw Ben slump forward with a low groan. The old Kalkadoon warrior rose from the earth. He padded to the body and squatted beside his old friend, crooning a song softly so that he did not disturb the spirits of the night. He sang until the Southern Cross was gone from the dark sky then rose to his feet and walked away. No-one would ever again see the last true warrior of the Kalkadoon.

  In the morning Ben’s two sons found their father slumped over their mother’s grave, clutching a dry posy of flowers as if taking them into the next world to greet her. Jonathan’s was the greater grief, the guilty sorrow of a man who had long been away.

  ‘He died alone and without the prayers,’ Jonathan cried quietly. ‘Someone should have been with him to say the prayer for the dead.’

  ‘He did not die alone,’ his brother said. His keen eyes had read the footprints in the red dust beside his father’s body. ‘He had a friend with him.’

  Jonathan glanced at his brother with a questioning look but Saul only shrugged and walked back to the hut to fetch a shovel. Jonathan would never understand the spirituality of the Kalkadoon, Saul thought as he walked towards the bark hut that had been his home.

  Together the brothers buried their father beside their beloved mother. Despite Ben’s apparent return to the religion of his ancestors he was also at one with the spirits of the red earth, lagoons, rocks and trees.

  The old bull stood under the shade of the scrub trees, eyeing the young man who was afoot. He watched with suspicion as the man raised a stick-like thing to his shoulder and pointed it at him. Annoying flies buzzed around his thick and powerful head and he snorted irritably.

  Saul trained the foresight of the Snider rifle squarely below the thick neck and over the scrawny bull’s heart. It was better to kill the stock than leave them to the mercy of the savage land of drought and flood. It was an easy shot, and the old bull would finally be freed from its harsh life in the scrub, Saul thought.

  But the shot was never fired. The rifle was lowered and the young bushman smiled. ‘You have sired a family that has learned to live in this land, you old bastard,’ he said softly. ‘Maybe your progeny will be around when we are all gone from these lands. You have earned the right to live.’

  He hefted the rifle over his shoulder and strode back to where his horse grazed contentedly on the wild grasses of the vast inland plain. With easy grace he swung himself into the saddle and pointed his rifle at the sky. The shot rolled its echo through the scrub, causing the old bull to turn and trot away. The sound was like that of the stockwhip and the old bull knew its stinging bite.

  FOUR

  For as long as men have gone to war, barking voices have harried civilian recruits into untidy squads, platoons, companies and eventually battalions. The voices that abused their motley assemblies as poor excuses for fighting men belonged to the senior non-commissioned officers of the army: corporals, sergeants and, above all, sergeant majors. And mere hours after the news that Britain had declared war on the Boer Republics in South Africa, the barking voices were mustering their unruly flocks at military depots across the length and breadth of the colonies of Australia.

  Major Patrick Duffy stood by the brigadier’s window and gazed out onto the parade ground of Sydney’s Victoria Barracks. Although a major with a colonial regiment, Patrick was not in his military uniform but wore a suit, the more familiar uniform of his daily working life. He watched with a certain amount of nostalgia as straight-backed sergeants with quivering moustaches waxed to pencil points bawled incomprehensible orders at the civilians. Soon they would be soldiers in the mounted infantry, facing new terrors in the coming battles against the Dutch farmers across the sea. These recruits could ride and shoot with all the skills of their soon-to-be adversaries, tough men from the colony’s Outback where they had worked under the southern skies like the Boer. The sights and sounds were all so familiar to Patrick and he was momentarily transported back to the British army campaigning in Egypt and the Sudan.

  ‘Patrick, old chap, so good to see you again after all these years.’ The man who had entered the office offering his hand and a genuinely warm smile stood almost as tall as Patrick. He wore the uniform of a Scottish Highlands regiment and the rank of colonel.

  ‘Good to see you, John,’ Patrick replied as he grasped the hand of Colonel Hughes. ‘Must be at least fifteen years since we last met in Suakin.’

  ‘Must be, old chap,’ the colonel replied. ‘I remember then I was trying to talk you out of resigning your commission with us.’

  ‘You still have me, in a manner of speaking. If you can call command of a colonial militia regiment being part of the British army.’

  ‘My opinion is that your Tommy Cornstalks will well and truly be a part of Her Majesty’s imperial army in South Africa. This is not going to be like it was back in the Sudan in ’85 when all we faced were spear-wielding fuzzy wuzzies. I have spent time in the Boer Republics and our experience at Majuba a few years back has shown us the Boer is a tough customer. My views – not necessarily shared by my colleagues in London – is that our colonial troops are just the right material we need to fight fire with fire. But that is an opinion I fear puts me off side with the War Office, old chap.’

  ‘So that’s how you ended up here,’ Patrick grinned. ‘They shuffled you off to the colonies as your punishment.’

  ‘Sort of,’ Colonel Hughes said with a frown. ‘That and a posting to damned intelligence.’

  ‘At your rank it must be a command posting of staff? Sounds rather mysterious.’

  The colonel gestured for Patrick to take a seat on the other side of the dark timber desk clearly meant to be functional rather than decorative. He felt comfortable around Patrick, with whom he had soldiered in two North African campaigns. Despite the difference in rank and the resulting formalities between soldiers, in private they related as old friends who had shared much together in a way that only seasoned soldiers could understand: desert, dust, flies and violent death.

  ‘It is a command well enough,’ Hughes replied bitterly, ‘but not one that I sought. I wanted to command a brigade – not a bloody desk.’

  Patrick nodded his head in sympathy. Soldiering was really about the comradeship of soldiers facing the enemy, not endless files and staff meetings. Hughes’ views on the tenacity of the Boers must have bordered on heresy to bring about such a posting.

  ‘But so much for my woes,’ the colonel sighed. ‘What I cannot understand is why one of Britain’s finest colonial officers would ever decline the command of a colonial regiment. It’s almost inconceivable, Patrick. Absolutely inconceivable.’

  ‘I can assure you that my decision now is no less painful than the one I made when I resigned from the regiment back in ’85,’ Patrick replied.

  Colonel Hughes could tell from Patrick’s voice that the decision not to take his regiment to Africa was probably one of the most difficult he had ever made in his life.

  ‘Family matters?’ he asked gently.

  Patrick nodded. ‘I have a duty to my family as much as I have a duty to my regiment. And under the rather difficult circumstances of managing the family concerns I have a particular duty to my grandmother.’

  ‘Lady Enid Macintosh,’ the colonel said. ‘A fine woman, I have heard.’

  ‘God almighty – I would give my life to be with the men when they sail,’ Patrick continued in an agonised tone. ‘I feel like a damned deserter.’

  Although Patrick did not elaborate further, Hughes guessed that
all was not well at home, but it was not his affair to make further inquiries in the matter. Upon reaching Sydney the colonel had been stunned to hear of his friend’s decision. And while Patrick’s men in the mounted infantry had been bitterly disappointed by their commanding officer’s decision, there was also some understanding of the heavy responsibility ‘the boss’ had in managing the Macintosh companies. Hughes had hoped at this informal meeting to perhaps persuade him to retain his command, but he also had another agenda. A more distasteful matter in relation to his new appointment as the head of military intelligence for the War Office. A matter that directly involved his friend.

  ‘Despite the fact that you have decided not to go with the regiment to Africa, I would presume your loyalty to Her Majesty is in no doubt?’ Hughes asked, noticing the expression of disbelief on Patrick’s face.

  ‘That’s a rather insulting question,’ Patrick growled. ‘I will continue in Her Majesty’s uniform and seek a training command.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Patrick, but I had to be sure. And from your reaction I have not the slightest doubt of your loyalty. You see, I have to confess that I arranged this meeting for reasons other than just renewing our acquaintance. It happened that, before I sailed for Sydney from London, I received a file on someone close to you as part of my briefing.’

  ‘My father?’ Patrick asked hopefully. ‘He is alive?’

  The colonel shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Not your father. It’s your cousin, Father Duffy.’

  ‘Martin?’

  ‘Father Martin Duffy S. J. A rather colourful – and some would say dangerous – man.’

  ‘Martin dangerous!’ Patrick exclaimed. ‘Martin’s just a priest. How could that be dangerous?’

  The intelligence officer rose and walked across to a wooden filing cabinet, opened it and rustled through folders until he found what he was looking for. Returning to the desk he sat down, flipping open the manila folder and peering at the reports relating to a Jesuit priest trained in Rome, but originally from the Colony of New South Wales.

  ‘How much do you know about your cousin?’ he asked quietly.

  Patrick frowned as he recalled the boy he grew up with. Martin was reserved to the point of timid. How could such a boy grow to be a man considered dangerous by the might of the British Empire?

  ‘I have not seen Martin in over twenty-five years. Unfortunately my choice to renounce my Catholic religion put me on the wrong side of the Duffys. Only my Aunt Kate in Townsville still corresponds with me. So there is little I know of Martin – I heard through Aunt Kate that he had gone to Rome to be ordained as a Jesuit priest. Then I heard that he was on missionary work in Africa . . . Africa! That’s the connection, isn’t it?’ Patrick exclaimed suddenly.

  ‘Yes,’ the colonel replied. ‘That, and his anti-British activities in Ireland. I think under the circumstances, old chap, I can tell you a certain amount, without compromising secrecy. Most of what I will tell you is common knowledge in Ireland and Africa. Father Duffy is currently in Ireland covertly recruiting young men to join an Irish Brigade to fight on the Boer side,’ Hughes said grimly. ‘He had a rather lot of success recruiting around the mines and goldfields in the Boer Republics when he was in Africa. We fear he may also have secret contact with the Kaiser’s people in Germany in his crusade against us. We have been assured by the Vatican that his secular work is not condoned by the Catholic Church.’

  Patrick sat in stunned silence as the colonel outlined the picture of a fearless, if misguided, fighter for Irish freedom from Britain – a picture of a man so much the opposite of the one he remembered when his cousin and he were growing up together at the Erin Hotel in Redfern.

  ‘Why doesn’t the Church discipline him then?’

  ‘They would if they had proof. Your cousin is a Jesuit and it seems that they have trouble controlling the Soldiers of Christ,’ Hughes answered with a note of sarcasm. ‘The founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, was once himself a mercenary soldier of some enviable repute and I suppose some traditions die hard. From what I have heard even the occasional excommunication of the Jesuits does not seem to deter them.’

  ‘I was taught by Jesuits when I was young,’ Patrick said quietly. ‘They are the brightest and toughest the Church has.’

  The colonel nodded. He had a grudging respect for priests whose rigorous training and dedication were not unlike those of a good soldier. They had a reputation as fearless and learned warriors of God, and their crusades had taken them to some parts of the world long before the great imperial powers of Europe reached them officially. From India to Japan they had gone, at great risk to themselves, and now one of them had taken on a crusade against his own government in the name of justice for the Irish. A very dangerous undertaking!

  ‘I know there is little you can do,’ the colonel said gently, seeing the pain in his friend’s face, ‘but if Father Duffy ever returns to Sydney you might attempt to reason with him. Point out that his activities also put Australian lives at stake in a war with the Boers, that he has a greater loyalty to the land of his birth than to the land of his fathers.’

  ‘What makes you think he would listen to me, a man who has renounced the religion that Martin was ordained into? I am probably just as much an enemy to him now as the British government.’

  ‘You are right in all you say, Patrick, but at least it’s worth a try. There are others around me who would prefer to just quietly do away with him. Any violent act that might be exposed against him by those same people naturally cannot be entertained. Should it become public knowledge that a priest was summarily executed it would bring down international sympathy on his side. There are too many damned Irishmen in the United States with growing political power to allow that to occur. Not to mention the record of Irish rebellion in the Australian colonies over the years – Vinegar Hill, the Eureka Stockade . . . No, better that your cousin somehow be persuaded to give up his secular cause and concentrate on ministering to his congregations.’

  Patrick felt stiff with tension. He stood and again walked to the window overlooking the parade ground outside the solidly built sandstone barracks. He gazed across the sacred ground of sergeant majors, deep in thought.

  Finally Patrick turned to speak. ‘I know the Duffys. Their blood runs within me. They have been fighting the British as far back as my grandfather and his war did not end in Ireland. He was one of the miners who stood at the Ballarat goldfields back in ’54. You may not have any other option than to do as you say – quietly remove him.’

  Patrick’s cold-blooded statement surprised the colonel. He was a man used to making difficult decisions in battle but the colonial major’s quietly delivered words chilled his soul. Something must have died in Patrick, perhaps after his terrible experiences wandering in the Sudanese desert after the advance on Tamai village. How else could a man condone the possible killing of his own blood? There was only one question that remained and he was reluctant to ask it.

  ‘If the circumstances ever arose, Major Duffy, could you bring yourself to remove your cousin?’

  There was a cold dead look in the eyes that stared into his. Patrick slowly nodded his head before replying. ‘If my cousin’s actions in any way put the life of even one of my men in peril, then he is a sworn enemy of mine.’

  On the carriage journey back to his offices through the streets of Sydney, Patrick felt the air of gaiety in the crowds thronging in and around the shops. The news that the colonies would be sending troops to assist the British lion was welcomed as a chance to show the English that their colonial cousins were more than equal to the task as fighting men.

  Those who had misgivings about the war against a small nation of farmers wisely elected to remain silent amongst the fiercely loyalist Sydneysiders. For now, the important conferences planning the uniting of the colonies as one nation under one Australian flag were forgotten. All that mattered was a patriotic outburst from the crowds to prove the worth of those transplanted sons to the Southern Hemispher
e.

  Patrick had not found the festive mood contagious. He brooded about all that had occurred in his meeting with Colonel Hughes and struggled with his deep-seated sense of guilt at deserting his regiment on the eve of war. But something else had influenced his decision, something he could never tell Colonel Hughes or anyone else: the sense that had he gone he might return to a life without Catherine. Her many mysterious absences ate at him – he could not bear the thought that she might be having an affair, but if she was he hoped that it would simply burn itself out and she would return to him. To date he had not questioned her activities away from the house. A matter of trust, he told himself. But the trust was growing thin.

  Patrick returned to the harbourside mansion late that evening. The two-horse carriage trundled up the gravel driveway, through the impressive established garden, to deliver him at the front door. He was met by Betsy, the domestic who had been with his grandmother for many years. She greeted him politely and informed him that the children were already in bed and that Lady Enid had taken supper with them. It seemed that his grandmother had stepped in once more to fill the children’s need for a mother. He thanked Betsy for the news and requested that the cook bring his supper to the verandah, a place where he could be alone and take in the salty smells and lulling sounds of the broad expanse of water below.

  It was a pleasant, balmy evening and under other circumstances he might have shared it with Catherine. In the past they had often sat here, enjoying the peace and the wonderful climate of Sydney. But tonight Patrick would pick at his supper alone and probably get very drunk on a couple of bottles of excellent colonial wine.

  As he seated himself in one of the cane chairs, the cook brought his supper. Cold mutton, pickles and bread on a silver salver were placed beside him on a small table. He requested two bottles of sauterne and his cigars from the library and when the cook returned with them he settled back to reflect on his life. The cigar glowed in the dark, its thick grey smoke curling lazily away on a gentle evening breeze. The wine was superb but Patrick ignored the supper and stared across the dark harbour at the tiny lights that marked fishing boats and houses on its lower reaches. The night air carried the rough voices of fishermen to him as soft whispers.