'An absorbing view of a harsh slice of Australian history.'
Melbourne Herald Sun
'A broad, bold narrative, a stirring historical adventure-romance'.
Gold Coast Bulletin
THE LIGHT HORSEMAN'S DAUGHTER
by David Crookes
First Published in 1999 by Hodder Headline (Australia)
Republished Hodder Headline (Australia) in 2000
Republished again Hodder Headline (Australia) in 2000
This Smashwords ebook edition published in December 2010
by David Crookes
ISBN 978 0 9808252 3 7
Copyright © David Crookes 1999
CHAPTER ONE.
Daylight had not yet come to Yallambee but already the heat was stifling.
Emma McKenna lay wide awake in her bed, tormented by an all-consuming foreboding which had denied her a normal night’s sleep for almost a month. The hour before dawn was always the worst. It was then that the absolute blackness and stillness of the night cruelly played upon her senses and filled her heart with emptiness and despair.
She heard the floorboards creek on the veranda outside her bedroom and knew her father was taking up a pre-dawn vigil, watching for the intruders. He had told her that, like the enemy in Palestine, they would come out of the sun at first light when they were least expected. But unlike the Hun and the Turk, the respected foe at Jericho and Beersheba, the adversaries about to descend upon Yallambee were just spineless lackeys, sent to carry out their callous but lawful deeds at the bidding of the Victorian Mercantile and Pastoral Company.
Emma rose from her bed. Her nightdress, damp with perspiration, clung to her slim young body as she crossed the room to the window. With two fingers she drew back the white lace curtain just enough to see outside. The first traces of dawn were beginning to appear. Emma could see her father, sitting with his back toward her on the veranda, his tall lean frame slumped deep into his favorite cane chair.
She heard a soft padding sound, then saw Trip, her father’s old Kelpie, emerge from the shadows and lie down at his master’s feet. Beyond the veranda were the silhouettes of several of the homestead outbuildings. Beyond them, but not yet clearly visible, were gently rolling grasslands with scattered clumps of tall gums. The undulating meadows gradually rose up to a high ridge which formed the horizon about three miles to the east. Streaks of light, a prelude to the imminent sunrise, were already piercing the night sky above the ridge.
Soon the relentless summer sun of the Queensland outback would mercilessly burn the brown, drought-stricken face of Yallambee. Emma ran the open palm of her hand over her throat, catching a rivulet of perspiration before it ran down her nightdress. An icy chill passed through her body. Tears welled in her dark eyes at the thought of what lay ahead.
This property was all she knew. Nineteen years ago she had been born in this very room. Emma had watched the glory of the sun rise over Yallambee countless times, either from this window, or from the saddle on a dawn ride. But never before had she watched a sunrise with such apprehension. Suddenly she could restrain the tears no longer. As they streamed down her pretty face she prayed aloud:
‘Oh dear God. Please… please don’t let it all end now.’
The six thousand acres of Yallambee had been the home to the McKennas since Emma’s great grandfather and his family came to Queensland from New England as overlanders in the summer of 1865. Three generations of McKennas had been born on the property. And each had sent its young men to far-off battlefields to fight for Australia when its heritage and way of life had been threatened.
The first had gone to the Crimean war. Later, others went to the Boer war, then finally to the war to end all wars. The young McKennas had gone willingly and eagerly. Some never returned—their blood spilled and their short lives snuffed out prematurely in defense of Yallambee, their homeland, and what they believed in.
Emma ran her hands through her long black hair and anxiously bit her trembling lips. She wiped away her tears, then turned to look out of the window again.
The sun was beginning to peep over the ridge. A kookaburra mocked her from a nearby leopard gum, its loud laughing cackle the first sound to break the stillness of early morning. Now she could see the ribbon of road which led down from the ridge, the only way into the homestead.
Movements on the gently winding road has always signaled the impending arrival of visitors at Yallambee. Emma saw the flash of what looked to be the reflection of sun on metal at the top of the ridge. Someone was coming. Soon a long cloud of swirling dust moved down the road. Trip’s old ears pricked up as he heard hear the whine of the engines. Soon a motorcade of three vehicles became clearly visible ahead of the dust.
When the motorcars neared the fence surrounding the house, Emma’s father rose to his feet. Emma was startled to see he held his old .303 Enfield service rifle in his hands. The bedroom door behind her creaked and her mother, Kathleen, a petite, dark-eyed woman, with black hair prematurely streaked with grey, deftly propelled her wheelchair into the room, her useless legs hidden from view beneath a thick plaid blanket.
‘They’re here, Mother,’ Emma choked. ‘I was just coming to get you. They’re almost at the gate. And Daddy’s got his gun.’
‘I know, dear,’ Kathleen said gently. ‘I know.’
‘Mother, what can we do?’
‘Nothing, Emma. I’ve tried.’
‘Talk to him, Mother. Please talk to him.’
‘I’ve talked to him all night, my darling. It’s no good. He says he won’t just walk off Yallambee. He’s going to ask the regional manager of VMP for an extension. Kathleen paused as Bruce and Jack, Emma’s twelve year old twin brothers burst into the room. The boys were in their pajamas, both were crying unashamedly. ‘Don’t worry,’ Kathleen continued. She placed an arm around each of her sons. ‘Your father won’t use his rifle. He’s only carrying it to make sure he gets a hearing.’
Outside, the noisy throbbing of engines stopped abruptly. They heard a loud voice call out.
‘Captain McKenna.’
Kathleen and the boys moved to the bedroom window and Emma opened it wide. Her father stood just inside the gate, his back to the house. He cradled the rifle in one arm, its barrel pointing to the ground. Old Trip, barked once then stood at McKennas heel, ears cocked, head lowered, growling through bared teeth.
The loud voice belonged to an obese middle-aged man in a dark three-piece suit. He stood beside the open door of a chauffeur-driven Ford parked just outside the gate. Two more black motorcars with police markings pulled up behind the Ford. Two men dressed in business suits stepped out of the first car. Four uniformed policemen, three young constables and a burly middle-aged sergeant quickly got out of the second. All the policemen were armed with batons and holstered revolvers. All six men joined the fat man at the fence.
‘Captain McKenna,’ the fat man repeated loudly. ‘My name is Frank Peables. I have come here today to take possession of this property which has now legally passed into the hands of the Victorian Mercantile and Pastoral Company.’ Peables gestured to the men around him. ‘I am accompanied by court bailiffs who will ensure that all chattels included in the repossession order remain on the property and also by policemen who will enforce the eviction order against you should the need arise.’ Peables paused briefly then said solemnly: ‘Captain McKenna, I see you are carrying a firearm. I must ask you to lay it aside and leave this property peacefully. Otherwise, I will be obliged to ask these police officers to disarm you and force you off. Now, are you and your family prepared to leave?’
‘No, we are not,’ McKenna said defiantly.
Emma gasped in dismay as she saw the policemen nervo
usly finger their weapons. Trip began to bark wildly and paw the ground.
Kathleen’s arms tightened around her sons.
‘I want to discuss an extension of time, Peables.’ McKenna said.
‘I won’t listen to anything you have to say while you have a gun in your hand, McKenna,’ Peables shouted back.
‘And will you listen if I lay it down?’
The burly police sergeant intervened. With baton in hand he stepped up to the gate.
‘Lay the gun down, McKenna,’ he ordered. ‘We’re coming in.’
When the sergeant kicked open the gate, Trip pounced. He was in full flight when the sergeant’s baton slammed hard into his head and knocked him to the ground. The Kelpie recovered quickly and renewed the attack only to drop to the ground again, shot through the head by one of the young constables. Then, for good measure, a second constable fired two more rounds into the old dog’s already lifeless body.
It all happened so quickly. McKenna was bewildered, stunned, and enraged all at the same time. In the heat of the moment he instinctively raised his rifle. The policemen’s response was immediate. An instant later, as his horrified family looked on, Captain Jack McKenna, veteran of the 2nd Brigade, Australian Light Horse, patriot, gentleman, loving husband and father of three, died penniless and dispossessed in a hail of gunfire.
It was January 21st, 1931.
CHAPTER TWO
Kathleen froze into shock even before the barrage of gunshots ended. She sat rigid, her eyes unblinking, staring straight ahead but seeing nothing, her white knuckles grasping the arms of the wheelchair, her mouth wide open with a look of horror and utter amazement on her face.
Emma stood absolutely still, wide-eyed in shock and disbelief, oblivious to the shrieks and screams of her young brothers. Outside, no one moved for what seemed an eternity. The men in the yard stood like statues, as if frozen to the spot as the reality of the grotesque situation and the terrible consequences of their actions sank in. Then the police sergeant and Peables began to move towards McKennas lifeless body.
‘Stay with mother,’ Emma shouted to the twins as she flew from the room. In a moment she was out of the house, racing across the yard in her night-dress to where her father lay. Tears streamed down her face as she ran. ‘Leave him alone,’ she screamed out at the top of her voice. ‘Keep your filthy hands off my father.’
The sergeant and Peables quickly stood back and everyone looked on as Emma fell to the ground and held her father tightly in her arms. For a long time she hugged him, crying uncontrollably, her eyes closed, her cheek to his.
When eventually her sobs began to subside she heard the sergeant say: ‘I’m so sorry, miss. I only wish circumstances hadn’t forced us to be here today. But my officers and I were only doing our job.’ The policeman paused for a few moments then added softly, but firmly, ‘Now, I’m afraid you and your family must leave this property, and according to the eviction notice it must be vacated today.’
Suddenly Emma’s tears gave way to unbridled rage.
‘You bastards,’ she shouted angrily. ‘You heartless, ruthless bastards. What kind of men are you? Have you no feelings, no compassion, no common decency? You have just killed my father. We will not leave until we have buried him here at Yallambee’.
The sergeant cast a sympathetic eye towards Peables. Emma saw the fat man quickly shake his head. Just for a moment her lips quivered in despair then her young face hardened into a mask of hatred.
The sergeant knelt down beside Emma. ‘I’m afraid that isn’t possible Miss,’ he said softly. ‘But I’ll make arrangements with the nearest undertaker, and under the circumstances, I’ll have a police vehicle take you and your family to alternative housing. You must have relatives on a nearby property, or perhaps in town?’
For a long time Emma said nothing. Then she said despondently, ‘We have only an aunt, Sergeant, my father’s sister. She lives on a property just outside Augathella. We have nowhere else to go. There are no McKenna men folk left now, except for my two young brothers. My father’s three brothers never returned to Yallambee from the war.’ She looked up at Peables, her anger rising again. ‘They died fighting for Australia and for people like you, Mr Peables, in places like Egypt and Palestine, and at Gallipoli in Turkey. My grandmother died in childbirth and my grandfather died of a broken heart. And all for what? So swine like you could hound and persecute us over a few pieces of silver.’
Emma rose to her feet and turned towards the house. She saw her brothers standing crying at the bedroom window. They stood each side of their mother who still sat motionless in her wheelchair. Emma trembled and wondered how she could summon the strength to face what lay ahead without her father.
*
The police car turned off the dirt road into Essex Downs. The family home of Patrick and Laura Coltrane lay just over fifty miles to the south of Yallambee, a few miles outside the township of Augathella. Like Yallambee, it was a pastoral property but much larger. Unlike Yallambee, it had an air of permanent prosperity, in spite of Australia being in the grip of an ever-worsening depression.
The fences, stockyards and outbuildings clustered around the homestead were all in immaculate condition. And the large homestead itself, built well before the turn of the century, was still as pristine as the day it was built. In stark contrast to the brown, drought-ravaged landscape surrounding it, the grand country home boasted colorful flower gardens and green lawns, irrigated with water bored especially for the purpose.
The McKenna family had been rare visitors to Essex Downs over the years. It held no good memories for Emma. For as long as she could remember there had always been deep animosity between her father and Patrick Coltrane. It was something which even her mother was unable to explain. Eight years had passed since the McKennas’ last visit. And that had only occurred because her father had thought Patrick Coltrane was away from the property at the time.
Emma had only been eleven years old then, but still old enough to sense, beneath the strained niceties of the brief visit, the ill-will between her father and her uncle Patrick, who was one of Queensland’s wealthiest pastoralists. Now, as two cattle dogs barked loudly and scampered around the car as it neared the house, Emma was despondent that Patrick Coltrane was the only person the McKennas could turn to in their desperate situation.
The front door of the house opened and her uncle and aunt stepped outside onto the veranda. They were followed by a slight young man in his early twenties wearing a striped shirt and baggy white flannels. Emma took the young man to be her cousin Elliot, who was now quite obviously grown up. She watched as he joined his parents on the veranda. Everyone was surprised by the unexpected arrival of a police car.
‘Better stay in the car while I talk to your kin for a moment, miss,’ said the sergeant. He swung open the car door and stepped out.
Emma sat in the back seat with her mother between her and her brother Bruce. Kathleen remained as she had since the shooting and all the way down from Yallambee, absolutely silent, her dark eyes vacantly staring out in front of her.
Emma glanced at Bruce. He tried to smile. His eyes were very red, but they were dry now, at least for the moment. Emma turned away quickly when his lips began to tremble. She reached for Jack in the front seat. He was the quieter of the twins. Normally he was just as rowdy and mischievous as Bruce, but sometimes he was given to quiet moodiness. He sat with his head in his hands, still sobbing intermittently. When he felt his sister’s touch, he drew away quickly and buried his face deeper into his hands.
Emma watched the policeman step up onto the veranda and begin to explain what had happened. She fought to suppress a new flood of tears when everyone turned toward the car in shock and amazement. Then suddenly, her Aunt Laura, a short plump woman, left the men on the veranda and ran toward the car, her arms outstretched and her round face wet with tears.
Emma opened the car door as Laura Coltrane approached. In a moment they were in each others arms, embracing tightly, cons
oling each other for the loss of a brother and a father. Then Aunt Laura leaned into the car and took her sister-in law’s hand gently in hers but there was no response from Kathleen.
Aunt Laura called out to her son on the veranda. ‘Elliot, tell Mary and Beth to come to the car, then get down here and help your Aunt Kathleen into her wheelchair.’ She turned back to the boys in the car. ‘Won’t you both come on up to the house?’ Aunt Laura smiled encouragingly through her tears. ‘Come on. Come and have some freshly baked biscuits and cool lemonade.’
Jack took his face out of his hands and slowly opened the door. Bruce stayed in the car, his arm gently supporting his mother. Elliot came down to the car. He glanced awkwardly at Emma. He tried to speak but found no words, then went to the back of the car and opened the boot. He reached in and lifted out a few suitcases and Kathleen’s wheelchair.
As he unfolded the contraption, two Aboriginal women came out of the house and hurried over to the car. One was old and quite frail with thinning hair and deeply wrinkled black skin. The other was a young girl about fifteen or sixteen years old, strong, healthy and well proportioned with skin several shades lighter than the older woman. Aunt Laura told them to carry the suitcases into the house.
Elliot and Bruce maneuvered Kathleen into her wheelchair and Elliot pushed it toward the house. When they reached the foot of the steps, the police sergeant and Patrick Coltrane broke off their conversation to help lift the chair up onto the veranda. Then everyone began to file into the house. Just before Emma crossed over the threshold, her uncle gently led her aside.
Coltrane was a big expansive man with a ruddy complexion and a thick shock of red hair already graying at the temples. Even in the bush and on such a hot day he wore a full suit of clothes and a buttoned-up waistcoat. He waited until everyone was inside then turned to Emma.
‘I’m sorry things have turned out this way, my dear. The sergeant has informed me of the whole situation and I’ve told him to have the undertaker contact us here about the funeral arrangements. I’ll send Elliot and some station hands to Yallambee to collect whatever furniture and other personal effects the bailiffs have allowed you to keep. Apparently everything else, including motor vehicles and livestock, must remain on the property. Do you understand that?’
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