Shadow of the Osprey

by Peter Watt

  The red earth was warm beneath the warrior’s feet even as the sun cooled in the shadow of the range of low and broken hills that rose from the drought-parched plains. Beyond the hills once sacred to his people the plains stretched to a limitless horizon that petered out to the great desert marking the desolate and lonely heart of the ancient continent.

  To Wallarie, the last full-blooded Nerambura clansman of the Darambal people, the sun was a spirit that marked each day of his tenuous freedom from the men who hunted him across the length and breadth of the colony of Queensland – a spirit fire that had marked the land for the twelve dry seasons he had known since the slaughter of his people by the Native Mounted Police under the command of the devil he had come to know as Morrison Mort. Since then the former police lieutenant had moved on to command a blackbirding ship belonging to the Macintosh family. But his evil went with him and its shadow still fell on the place where his small troop of heavily armed Aboriginal police had attacked and slaughtered the peaceful Nerambura clan by the waterholes one early December morning in 1862. No-one was to be spared and only a tiny group managed to flee the killers. Even they were gone now. Only Wallarie lived to remember the horror of that day: the screams of the women and children as the bullets scythed them down; the sickening crunch of bone shattering under the impact of a police boot and the sobbing of the survivors begging for mercy – to no avail. A dispersal was the name the white police called the brutal massacre.

  The Nerambura warrior was also known to his hunters as the myall who had once ridden with the notorious Irish bushranger Tom Duffy. But Tom Duffy was long dead to the bullets of the Native Mounted Police.

  Wallarie was alone to face the wrath of the British legal system. He had eluded his hunters until the younger Mounted Police recruits began to doubt that he actually existed; he was just a figment of the older troopers’ imaginations, used to colour their stories of past exploits. Nobody could remember what he looked like and the wild bush blackfellas never spoke his name for fear that his spirit would come for them in the night.

  But Wallarie was flesh and blood and felt the weariness of the hunted man. Nothing really mattered in his lonely life anymore except returning to the sacred site that nestled in the folds of the ancient volcanic hill. For there lay the timeless spiritual heart of his people.

  And the beating heart could be felt in the place where the giant slab of rock concealed the cavern that held the fossilised bones of the mystical giant creatures that once roamed the land: the carnivorous kangaroo and the tiny, ferocious marsupial lions. Wallarie had seen the bones and marvelled at the strange creatures that had existed in the time of the Dreaming.

  In that sacred place his people had recorded life and death, things witnessed and events unexplainable as far back as the original Dreaming. Even the coming of the white squatter and his shepherds had been faithfully recorded by the last of the Nerambura elders. That was before they too fell to the guns of the invaders and destroyers of the land.

  Wallarie faltered in his stride as he drew close to the hill. He could see the evil spirit which fed on death watching him with its reptilian eyes. Instinctively he raised a long hardwood spear to defend himself. But the crow cawed a lazy defiance at the frightened warrior’s gesture, and hopped arrogantly away from the rotting carcass of a cow, to flap its wings and rise with a shimmer of purple-black light into the darkening sky.

  The warrior lowered his spear and muttered a frightened curse on the crow as it flew on and up towards the craggy hills starkly outlined by the setting sun. This was not a place to be when the night came. The vengeful spirits of the dead roamed the bush in the dark hours. Although Tom Duffy had tried to convince him the night was their ally, Wallarie still avoided places of the dead.

  Even the European stockmen of the Glen View run avoided the hills. A primeval superstitious dread, inherent in long forgotten memories, caused them to give the eerie place a wide berth. Had not six years earlier the owner of Glen View been found in the same area with a spear through him? The same magical spear that had killed Sir Donald Macintosh, had flown from the body of his son, to kill the tough Scot squatter. The magical spear of the spirit warrior Wallarie, who roamed in the night, seeking revenge on all those who should foolishly dare threaten the sacred site of the Nerambura people – or so the Aboriginal stockmen whispered amongst themselves. And via the station kitchen the whispered stories had been carried to the European and Chinese workers at the homestead.

  Had Wallarie known of his elevation to the mystical world of legend he might have smiled sheepishly with embarrassment. Tom’s laughter would have boomed around the ancient, eroded hills they once rode through in far off Burkesland. ‘You black bastard. No-one will remember Tom Duffy. But old women will frighten kids to bed with threats that Wallarie will come and get them if they don’t do as they are told. Long after we’re gone from this world people will remember you, not me.’

  And so it would be.

  Tom was gone now. Also Mondo, Tom’s Nerambura wife, who had borne him three children, Wallarie mused as he continued striding towards the ancient hills misted in the filter of red dust that hung in the air.

  He knew about Tom and Mondo’s children. It was his duty. They had the last remnants of Nerambura blood in their veins and were with the white woman called Kate O’Keefe who had been Tom Duffy’s sister.

  And there was a strange link with the white woman that Wallarie knew was one with the spirit of the white warrior of the cave. He did not know what the link was. Maybe the spirits of the cave would tell him this night as he sat cross-legged before the fire he would make in the cave. He would sing the sacred songs of the elders that only he and the possums living in the trees above the cave remembered.

  In the early evening Wallarie climbed the old path and found again the entrance to the cave. He paused before entering the cavernous structure and gazed across the plains bathed in the soft silver glow of the rising full moon. He gazed across a land now occupied by the employees of the Macintosh companies: black stockmen who worked for tobacco, flour, sugar and tea. They had replaced the old-time shepherds who had once guarded the ill-suited flocks of sheep. Chinese gardeners tended the vegetable gardens around the sprawling timber and corrugated-iron residence. The homestead set on the land marked the permanent occupation of Darambal lands by the former tough old Scot squatter’s new manager.

  Wallarie hesitated. Was it that the surrounding bush had fallen into an expectant hush? Was it that he had been too long away from his country and that the sacred place might have forgotten him? He chanted a song asking permission from the spirit guardians to approach, took a deep breath, and forced himself to enter the darkness of the sacred place.

  Fear pounded his heart and his head throbbed. He trod cautiously as the smell of wood ash from long-dead fires, and the desiccated droppings of the animals which continued to visit the cool sanctuary of the overhang on hot days, drifted to him on the evening breeze. He felt the crunch of bones underfoot and recoiled in terror. His nerves were at a breaking point and he expected an evil spirit to rise up to meet him. But nothing happened. Wallarie froze until he could feel his heart pounding once again reassuring him that he was still in the lonely world of the living. He continued into the cave until at last his foot touched the dry ends of old logs.

  Wallarie slid his hand inside his belt and his fingers wrapped around the only white man’s invention he carried with him – a small tin of wax matches. In the inky, brooding darkness he pulled apart shreds of a log and stacked them into a tiny pile. The match flared and the wood caught alight.

  He averted his eyes from the shadows that danced tentatively on the walls. For he needed the full and secure comfort of light before he dared view the sacred icons of his people.

  Flames danced as brazen spirits greedily devoured the spirit of the timber. The spreading glow illuminated the interior of the cave as he sat cross-legged facing the wall at the back of the cave.

  There! There they were! />
  The ancient images came alive as the light of the fire touched them and joined the fire spirit’s dance in a corroboree. Ancient and mystical figures interspersed with the outlines of stick-like warriors hunting the giant kangaroos. And, always, the mysterious white warrior, alone with his spear poised seeking a target. An ochre panorama depicting all that was important to his people – earth, rocks, waterholes and the trees of the sprawling brigalow plains of central Queensland.

  Wallarie felt cold awe grip him. The fire rose to the ceiling, revealing the scattered bones of Kondola, the old warrior, who had last sung the sacred songs to the spirits. The possums said that he flew to the cave as the spirit of the wedge-tailed eagle to escape the white shepherds who had hunted him long ago.

  Wallarie did not look upon the scattered bones as he was afraid Kondola’s spirit might be vengeful to any intrusion on his sleep. Instead, he began to chant the songs of his people. He clacked his two hardwood nullahs together. The sound echoed eerily and soon the warrior heard the voices whisper to him from the corners of the cave.

  He was no longer afraid of the awesome power of the sacred place and only felt an unfathomable sadness for the loss of all the children’s laughter, the raised voices of the old people bickering in the spreading shade of the bumbil tree with its broad canopy of cooling leaves, and the soft murmur at night of a contented people with full bellies sitting around the campfires gossiping, laughing and recounting exploits of the day. Campfires, the ashes of which were long scattered by the hooves of stock searching for the life-giving water of the nearby creek.

  In the distance the mournful, wailing cry of curlews drifted to the cave. But Wallarie did not hear them. He was absorbed in a world beyond the Dreaming where he saw things he did not fully understand. Strange things that he instinctively knew were linked to the future memories of his people. He chanted until he could chant no more then curled up on the cave floor and fell into a deep sleep.

  The fire spirits died when they had devoured the spirits of the burning logs and Wallarie slept in a troubled sleep of visions until the first rays of the morning touched the face of the hill.

  The warrior rose from his sleep and picked up his spears. The whispers in the dark had told him to leave the sacred place and trek north once again. They told him that his lonely journey was not over and that he must go to the country of the fierce warriors of the rainforest and the eucalypt plains of the Palmer River. He had a sacred mission passed on to him by the ancestor spirits: to find the last remaining blood relative of his people and warn him of the future. Wallarie knew his name. He was the one called Peter Duffy, son of Tom and Mondo.

  The spirits had also told him that the spirit of the white warrior was restless. He had been awakened and had set out in his quest for vengeance against the blue-eyed devil known as Morrison Mort, the man who had carried out the terrible dispersal on Wallarie’s clan.

  TWO

  The graceful clipper rose and fell. Under a mass of square-rigged sail her ornate bow slipped between the scrub-covered headlands marking the gateway to one of the world’s most magnificent natural harbours. Once past Sydney’s rugged sandstone cliffs, the captain tacked to port putting his ship on course for the busy southern shore.

  The Yankee clipper Boston had made good time on the Samoa to Sydney passage and her captain was a happy man as his ship glided past the tiny sand-fringed coves. There would be a bonus for him at the end of the journey to reward him for his competent seamanship.

  The clipper only carried a handful of passengers on this run. One of them, standing alone on the portside, was taking in the beauty of the harbour. He was a man who had taken leave rather suddenly from Samoa and had the unremarkable name of Horace Brown, a name that seemed to reflect an unremarkable physical appearance. Of medium height, portly and balding, with spectacles perched on the end of a podgy nose, Horace Brown was not a man who stood out in a crowd. He was known to his fellow travellers as a remittance man, one of the lost sons of Britain who wandered the Pacific colonies endeavouring to live off the allowance sent to them by their wealthy – or at least moderately wealthy – families from the old country. Families who could not afford to have their sons at home for one scandalous reason or another.

  Horace was no longer a young man. Nearing fifty he had long lost his youth and, in his middle years, lost the family which had banished him from their fold for his sexual indiscretions with similarly inclined young men.

  But the nondescript man had an interesting history. That is, if he would ever talk about his life, which he was not prone to do.

  Two decades earlier Captain Horace Brown had worked on Lord Raglan’s staff in the Crimea. Although he did not ride in the great charges against the Russian infantry, nor stand shoulder to shoulder with the Thin Red Line repulsing the Cossack cavalry, the British Army could ill afford to lose a man with the uncanny skills that he possessed. An expert in languages and the subtle workings of the human mind, Captain Brown had controlled one of the most efficient intelligence networks on the Russian Peninsula. Although he had not claimed for himself the glory of the dashing cavalry officer, nor the stalwart infantry commander, he was probably responsible for many victories. An essential of waging war is to know the intentions of your enemy and Horace had made a lifetime career out of knowing what his country’s enemies were thinking.

  Since leaving the army and joining the Foreign Office in the service of Her Majesty he found his cover as a remittance man made him inconspicuous to those he spied on. He was well placed in the Pacific and Far East as he spoke Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, German, French and Russian fluently and with just the merest trace of an English accent.

  Had he not commenced his working life as a soldier and developed a taste for adventure and intrigue he would most probably have taken a position as a professor in one of Britain’s more prestigious universities teaching exotic languages. Now his considerable analytic and linguistic skills were used to assess the intentions of the French, German and American interests that might be considered a threat to British strategic interests in the Pacific and Far Eastern regions.

  But for the moment, his interest was focused solely on an American gun dealer Michael O’Flynn, who also travelled on the Yankee clipper. A tall and broad shouldered man, Horace guessed O’Flynn was in his early thirties. He could plainly see why women would be attracted to the man with the eye patch. He had an open, handsome, clean-shaven face tanned by years in the sun and only slightly marred by a once-broken nose. But none of his imperfections seemed to detract from the man’s obvious charisma.

  The English agent wiped away the thin crust of salt spray from his spectacles and peered myopically along the ship’s rail to where the big American stood gazing at the tree-lined shore. The day was exceptionally warm, but such days were not unusual for Sydney as Horace knew from his previous visits. He fervently hoped that the afternoon would see a summer storm, rather than the weather remaining uncomfortably muggy, as trailing a man as athletic as Mister O’Flynn could be hard work. Once ashore the American gun dealer would have to be followed until Horace was satisfied he had identified who he was meeting in Sydney.

  He knew enough about Mister O’Flynn to arouse more than usual interest in the man. He knew that he was a New York Irishman who had fought on the Union side in the recent Civil War and that as a captain he had lost his left eye to Confederate shrapnel at the battle of Five Forks south west of Petersburgh in ’65. But his gallantry under fire had earned him a Congressional Medal of Honour. A recognition of courage which was the American equivalent of Britain’s Victoria Cross.

  Although the American had a glass eye he preferred to wear a black leather eye patch to cover his disability. And he had not let the disability affect his skill with firearms. After the war O’Flynn had followed the great migration West and it was rumoured that he had also served as a mercenary in Mexico for the rebels under Senor Juarez.

  O’Flynn had first come to the attention of the British intelligence net
works when he had travelled to South America where he had got himself into a bit of a bother in one of the many small wars raging. He was a mercenary soldier whose skills were in great demand and he was now working for German interests in the Pacific. But what vital German interest had caused the Irish-American to sail across the Pacific from Samoa to Sydney? That was the question Horace knew he must find the answer to.

  He had gleaned from his contacts in Samoa that the man was now working for the Prussian aristocrat Baron Manfred von Fellmann. Horace knew that the Prussian was one of the best intelligence agents the aggressively expansionist German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, had in the Pacific. Until now the Iron Chancellor’s ambitions had all been in Europe where he had waged war against his Danish, Austrian and French neighbours. So what was Bismarck up to by sending one of his best agents to the Pacific?

  Horace turned his attention once again to the Irish-American with the black leather eye patch. O’Flynn was also a skilled card player, as Horace had learned to his dismay during the passage from Samoa. He had not let himself dwell on his loss at cards as he was able to learn much about Mister O’Flynn from the way he played the game of poker. Horace had a firm belief that a poker player’s style was very much like the man himself and Mister Michael O’Flynn was exceptionally good at the game.

  Horace had noted too that both married and single women, charmed by his good looks and old fashioned courtesy, had vied for the American’s attention. But Michael O’Flynn had discreetly sidestepped any shipboard romances.

  This avoidance had intrigued Horace. He had wondered if the man might have similar sexual preferences to himself. But as he got to know the American better he strongly doubted that O’Flynn was inclined towards the sensual pleasures of the male body. It was as if the man could not afford to draw attention to himself in any way that might cause scandal.