by Peter Watt
As they steamed for Sydney Alex stood at the stern of the Osprey II, gazing at the headlands of Rabaul harbour. The mission had proved to be very successful so far, especially obtaining the assistance of the Italian missionary and his parishioners. He would be returning within a month but still his mind drifted to Giselle and he was tempted to have the captain alter course to once again see her on his way south, but he knew he must stick with the plan outlined by his father. He was joined by the Scottish engineer, now covered in grease from the engine room, who was wiping his hands on a rag.
‘Glad to be out of there,’ he said, taking a place beside Alex.
‘You still have that bad feeling, Jock?’ Alex asked, turning away from his view of the horizon gently bobbing under blue skies and a few high level clouds.
Jock stared across Alex’s shoulder at the tiny stretch of huts and houses at the harbour’s mouth. A thin plume of smoke rose from the volcano overlooking the settlement. ‘I dinna know why,’ he replied with a frown, ‘but I have a bad feeling, something I cannot put my finger on. It’s a bit like that wee volcano out there. I feel something is going to explode around me and I canna put it out of my mind.’
As Alex listened he wondered if things were going smoothly after all. He could not see the Italian priest revealing his plans to the German authorities. After all, only his father and a handful of carefully selected people knew of what was being planned. How could they be compromised? He attempted to reassure himself but the Scot’s words of warning echoed in his mind. Who could possibly betray the scheme?
Matthew Duffy held the reins of his horse with one hand and a small, paper-wrapped parcel with the other, and stared up at the heat shimmer surrounding the craggy, scrub-covered hill. It was as if an invisible shield had fallen between him and the summit and he could not proceed any further. ‘Bloody stupid,’ Matthew growled, shaking his head at the superstitious fear he was experiencing. But no matter how much he wanted to climb the hill to that place where it was said was a sacred cave, he could not motivate himself to move his feet.
Matthew had visited his mother in Townsville and the reunion had been poignant. Kate Tracy held her son to her with all the maternal love a woman could muster and chided him for his long silences, while praising Randolph Gates for continuing to keep her up to date on his welfare. She had recovered her health although was under strict orders from her doctor to get plenty of rest.
Matthew remained only three days and nights in his mother’s sprawling house in Townsville and after listening to her less than subtle hints that he should return, marry and produce children to carry on the name, he left with promises of returning within the year.
Kate had farewelled Matthew from the verandah of her house, watching her beloved only child walk off on his way to their property adjoining Glen View in central west Queensland. Matthew would first travel by train south and then by a Cobb & Co stage coach to his destination. When he was out of sight, she returned to her living room where she could sob in private. It was not that Matthew was selfish, she attempted to console herself, but that he had inherited his father’s character. Luke had been a drifter, always searching for his mountain of gold, and his son was the living spirit of the father, searching for the intangible thing that meant putting his life on the line. The mix of the wild Irish and pioneering American blood was a terrible thing, Kate sniffed, drying her eyes and considering the lonely years ahead.
Matthew was met by the property manager and his wife and given quarters. They proved to be warm hosts and, sleeping in the guest room, Matthew was swamped with memories of his youth working the Kate Tracy properties – from the horseback mustering of cattle to riding the fences. But his visit was not intended to remind him of the earlier life he led before he ran away to war. For the many years he had roamed the world he would often find himself dreaming of this hill that haunted him. It was as if the sacred hill of the Nerambura people was drawing him to it, no matter how much he attempted to resist its magnetism.
He knew about the hill and its eerie history from his mother – and the significance to both his bloodline and that of the Macintosh family. It was said that a curse had been placed on both families for a terrible incident that had occurred in the district over half a century before – a massacre of innocent Aboriginal men, women and children by the Native Mounted Police led by a Lieutenant Morrison Mort.
The mid-afternoon sun was softening the heat from the baked, spindly scrub. Matthew stood, staring up at the hill, seeking out the shadows that might divulge the whereabouts of the cave entrance. He had tethered his horse and took a few steps forward only to halt and scan the stunted trees again. Something from his days soldiering warned him that he was not alone in this vast sea of sand and scrub. From the corner of his eye he thought that he saw a bush move. Slowly turning his head to where he caught the movement, he could only see a patch of brigalow trees.
Matthew gasped, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. There he was! He stood tall and almost naked where seconds before was only a small clearing; a young warrior holding a long, lethal spear – with its shaft in the sand and its deadly tip to the sky. The warrior was watching him silently as if contemplating whether he was friend or foe. Matthew slowly raised the parcel in his hand towards the Aboriginal warrior silhouetted against a strange shimmer of heat mist.
‘Tobacco,’ Matthew said loudly.
The shape shifted and when the warrior approached across the earth between them Matthew could see that what he first took for a young man was in fact an old man whose body bore many scars, most from his initiation as a young man when he belonged to a clan that roamed the plains now known as Glen View station.
Wallarie reached out and took the parcel from Matthew, sniffing it before lowering his spear. ‘You Matthew,’ he stated rather than asked. ‘You boy who fly with my totem, great eagles.’
Matthew did not reply immediately but he stood awestruck before the old man. He could have sworn that he had seen a very young man but perhaps it was a hallucination in the shimmering heat. ‘I am Matthew, son of Kate Tracy,’ he finally replied. ‘My mother said that the tobacco is a gift to you – her old friend.’
‘Hill not let you go up it,’ Wallarie chuckled, tucking the parcel into a small bag hanging from the only piece of clothing he wore – a hair-string belt with a woven bark bag around his waist into which was tucked two small wooden clubs. ‘The ancestor spirits not let you go to the cave.’
Matthew felt sheepish. How could the old man know of his superstitious fear? ‘I came to give you the gift,’ he replied as Wallarie turned to stride towards a well-worn path among the rocks at the base of the hill.
‘You follow me,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Ancestor spirits say it all right you walk with me.’
Matthew scurried to catch up with the Aboriginal he knew was the last of his people in the district. For an old man he walked with strong strides.
‘How did you know who I am?’ Matthew asked when he caught up.
‘Station hand tell me you come to big house,’ Wallarie answered with just a hint of humour for the young man’s awe. ‘Sometimes, by and by, they leave food at hill for me – but not much baccy. Your mother told me by and by that blackfellas from north of here say you fly with eagles. I hear that the whitefella have a machine that fly in the sky with the eagle. I hear that you fly in one of those whitefella machines.’
Matthew smiled. Wallarie was a wily old man who had both Aboriginal and European people fooled with his supposed mystical powers, he thought, but checked himself when he remembered how he could have sworn that Wallarie had suddenly appeared out of thin air in the form of a young man, only to change to the old man now beside him. It made the hairs on the back of Matthew’s neck bristle. ‘Do you know why I have come?’ he asked.
Wallarie halted and turned to him, his opaque old eyes starting to show the initial signs of blindness. ‘I know you believe in the curse,’ he said quietly, looking quickly around at the slope of th
e scrub-covered hill as if expecting to see something frightening. ‘You want to know if the curse is still on you and the others.’
Matthew was dumbfounded by the old man’s perceptiveness. ‘Yes,’ he said equally as quietly, lest he also disturb something unseen around them.
‘The ancestor spirits come to you in the night,’ Wallarie said. ‘They show you the hill in your dreams. You have the gift – like Kate. You know the answer already.’
‘I don’t,’ Matthew protested. ‘All I see is these strange dreams – and you are in some of them – but you are sitting under a tree as a very old man, talking to someone I cannot see.’
Wallarie turned and continued the climb up the winding track to the summit. Matthew followed. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked, frustrated by the Aboriginal’s silent reaction to his question.
‘We sit tonight and I smoke some baccy,’ he replied. ‘The ancestor spirits say you able to enter the cave. Only woman not allowed in the sacred place of the men. Maybe ancestor spirits visit us – maybe not. Maybe need more baccy for them to come.’
When at length they reached the summit Matthew could look out from the vantage point over a sea of flat, grey scrub. The sun hovered on a dusty horizon, undisturbed by any sign of a breeze. It was as if the bush had suddenly fallen into a silence, listening to the two men standing atop the only high point in the immediate area.
Wallarie ducked his head under an outcrop of rock partly concealed by the roots of a big dying gum tree that had long ago taken root in the crevices of the hill. Matthew reluctantly followed him inside, and immediately could smell the ancient mustiness of the place dimly lit by the last of the sun’s rays. A tiny glow of coals shone at the centre of the cave marking a fireplace.
Wallarie tossed a few small dry sticks on the embers, causing tiny flames to flicker into life and cast dancing shadows on the walls of the cave. Matthew stood in awe of the tiny ochre-painted figures depicting long-ago hunts for kangaroos as well as other animals which were now extinct, like giant wombats and lizards. A stick-like figure of a hunter with spear raised had an old scratch through it as if someone had attempted to erase the figure from the panorama of life depicted in the paintings.
‘We sit and smoke,’ Wallarie said, squatting by his fire and reaching inside his bag to remove the package.
Matthew sat opposite the old Aboriginal, the fire between them. As if by magic, Wallarie produced a battered smoking pipe and plugged it with a precious wad of tobacco which he lit with a burning twig from the fire. Puffing contentedly on the pipe, he seemed to be unaware of any other presence in the sacred cave.
Matthew sat watching him and wondered at the sanity of his visit. Had it all been a waste of time? He could be halfway back to Sydney by now and looking forward to a cold beer with Texas Slim in the bar of their favourite hotel.
Then Wallarie began to sing in a language Matthew guessed was that of Wallarie’s people. Matthew listened patiently, thinking of an excuse to bid the old man farewell and make his way back to the Glen View homestead. Matthew did not remember anything else after that. For a time he imagined that he was on a brigalow plain and could hear the happy chatter of women digging for tubers and children playing at being hunters and warriors with their spindly stick spears. It was as if he had been transported to this place a long time before the uniformed men came on their horses to kill the people with rifles and swords. He found himself being lifted beyond the cave and drifting over a harsh land not dissimilar to that of the semi-arid plains of Queensland. He was flying like the great wedge-tailed eagle and knew that what lay below him was his destiny. Then came a blackness, so complete that it would take weeks for his memory to return to the events of that night, and by then he was a long way from the hill at Glen View and in a place of extreme danger.
The sun had risen when Matthew finally came awake in a sitting position opposite the now dead fire. He roused himself and realised that he was alone in the cave.
‘Wallarie,’ he called but received no answer. The old man had simply disappeared. When Matthew stepped outside the cave into the early morning light his attention was drawn to one of the majestic wedge-tailed eagles circling above the hill. Matthew smiled. ‘Wallarie,’ he whispered in a reverential tone.
Matthew made his way down the ancient track to find his horse at the bottom of the hill grazing on the shoots of the arid lands. Although most of what he had experienced in the night seemed on the outer edges of his consciousness he sensed that the old Aboriginal was looking over him in a warm and protective way.
Matthew swung himself into the saddle and kicked his horse into a canter. He knew at least one thing: Wallarie had opened a window into the future and somehow he had seen his destiny.
11
Rain swept the empty parade ground of Sydney’s Victoria Barracks. The old sandstone buildings stood as a reminder of the state’s colonial era when the military ruled with an iron hand. Standing at a window, Colonel John Hughes surveyed the empty parade ground. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back. In his British officer’s uniform he looked every part a professional soldier, with boots so highly polished that they reflected the light like a mirror.
‘Sir,’ came a voice from the doorway of his office. ‘Colonel Duffy, Captain Macintosh and Mr Duffy are here.’
‘Thank you, Major Oaks,’ Hughes replied to his aide, also a British officer and veteran of colonial wars for the Crown. ‘Send them in.’
A uniformed Patrick Duffy entered first, saluting his senior officer. Alex wore his uniform and Matthew a smart conservative suit.
‘Good to see that you survived your mission into German territory, Captain Macintosh,’ Hughes said, shaking the young officer’s hand warmly. ‘Your father informed me that you had a bout of fever while you were away.’
‘Malaria, it seems, sir,’ Alex replied. ‘I have had a couple of relapses since returning – but nothing serious.’
The British colonel’s eyes rested on Matthew. ‘I have heard also from Colonel Duffy that you have mastered our flying machine with flying colours – forgive the pun – and that your friend Mr Randolph has proved to be rather a dab hand with the camera. I am sorry that we had to exclude him from today’s meeting but protocols dictate that we cannot officially engage a foreign national in our mission, albeit a covert one. But I am sure that you will be able to personally brief him at a later date. Needless to say we cannot officially recognise his part in our operation.’
‘I understand, sir,’ Matthew replied. ‘Mr Gates is just along for the ride.’
‘Good man,’ Hughes replied. ‘I know that he will prove to be a valuable asset to our mission when the time comes. I only wish that Patrick and I could be with you on this one.’
Hughes walked across his office to where a blanket was draped against the wall. He pulled it aside to reveal a map of German territory in the Pacific. ‘Our aim is to have Mr Duffy fly his aircraft along the length of the coast, with Mr Gates acting as the cameraman to provide a bird’s-eye view of the possible landing places for a combined army and naval force,’ Hughes said, pointing with his swagger stick to Neu Pommern. ‘Needless to say if anything goes wrong we can claim that Mr Duffy and Mr Gates have nothing to do with the military of the British Empire and are simply adventurers acting on their own.’
When Hughes glanced at him Matthew nodded his understanding.
‘Good,’ Hughes continued. ‘Captain Macintosh has made contact with the Italian priest east of Rabaul and has briefed Colonel Duffy that we will receive help from Father Umberto. Colonel Duffy has allocated one of his company’s steamers to transport the aircraft in crates and unload the aeroplane for assembly in the area chosen. I believe we will have help from the natives of Father Umberto’s parish.’
‘That is correct,’ Alex said. ‘His services will be generously compensated.’
‘So all we need to do now is get the aeroplane aboard and await confirmation that Father Umberto has carried out his part of the bargai
n,’ the English officer said, once again covering the map with the blanket. ‘And pray that none of this operation is revealed to anyone outside this room.’
‘I am sure that our security is tight,’ Patrick said. ‘I cannot imagine how anything we are planning could possibly fall into German hands.’
‘For the sake of the young men’s lives I hope you are right,’ Hughes said. ‘Otherwise we will have hell to pay. Now, I think it is a good time to retire to the mess.’
Hauptmann Dieter Hirsch snapped to attention. The major dressed in full uniform did not at first appear very impressive. He was short and in his late forties, with an obvious liking for good food – his stomach strained against his waist-line – and he wore spectacles. He looked more like the mayor of a Bavarian town than an intelligence officer with a formidable reputation for gathering vital information in Germany’s far-flung imperial outposts from Africa to the Pacific.
‘It is a secure area to speak?’ Major Paul Pfieffer asked, gazing around at the cluster of filing cabinets and pictures of the Kaiser hanging from the wall.
‘Yes, sir,’ Hirsch replied stiffly, still standing to attention although he wore his civilian clothing.
‘You may stand at ease,’ Pfieffer said in a friendly tone. ‘Please brief me on the situation to date.’
Hirsch took a shallow breath and recited everything that had occurred with Alexander Macintosh when he was escorted to the Italian priest’s mission station. He also informed his visitor of what he thought the Australian was planning and when he would be covertly returning.
‘You think that the English are going to use an aircraft,’ the German intelligence officer asked, ‘to reconnoitre Rabaul? It is obvious that we would see the aircraft and its presence would attract immediate diplomatic action from our government.’