by Peter Watt
SEVENTEEN
Wallarie knew that this would be the most dangerous section of his trek south. He was in the territory dominated by the swarms of gold prospectors, and the land of the ferocious tribesmen, who fought a guerilla war against all who should trespass upon their sacred lands.
Hunting had proved fruitless. He had been hampered by the need to move stealthily in enemy territory and game was in short supply. He was weak with hunger and what he had been able to scrounge from the earth in the way of insects, tubers and small marsupials had been barely sufficient to keep him alive.
He sat with his back against a rock that provided little shade, and gazed at the heat shimmering off the undulating rocky hills, covered with stunted, dead-looking scrub. Tom Duffy had once taught him to count, so Wallarie now knew he was at least twenty-five days south of where he had left the Kyowarra tribesmen. His mission – to seek out and warn Peter Duffy – was completed. Now he yearned to return to the brigalow plains of his ancestors where he would camp by the billabongs and live off the bounty of his people: the fat fish and ducks of the water; the small wallabies and prickly echidnas whose delicious flesh was much prized; and, if he were fortunate, the dark honey of the small bush bees.
But he knew it would not be easy as now the white man dominated his ancestral lands – a price paid in the blood of Wallarie’s people, slaughtered a dozen years earlier by the Native Mounted Police, and the armed shepherds of Donald Macintosh.
He sat and dreamed of food. The heat and silence, like a comforting blanket, lulled him into a doze.
Suddenly he tensed. The voices were unmistakably European. With no discernible movement Wallarie gripped a spear. He calculated that the voices belonged to two men located at about twice the range of his spear. Slowly he turned to see the two prospectors clumsily approaching along a low ridge. One of the men carried a rifle. If he remained still they would probably not see him in the tangle of scrub and rocks. They would pass, oblivious to his presence and continue blithely on their way.
Against all the caution that he should have exhibited for his survival in hostile territory however, Wallarie thought about the food they most probably carried in the swags slung over their shoulders. The white man’s tea and sugar was too tempting to resist.
When they had passed he stood up without his weapons. ‘Hey whitefellas, you got baccy?’ he called. The two men spun to face him with expressions of utter surprise and fear in their bearded faces. Wallarie grinned reassuringly. ‘Me good blackfella boss,’ he said showing his empty hands. ‘No baal blackfella.’
The two men heard the words spoken in broken English from the tall and muscled Aboriginal standing unarmed a hundred paces away.
‘A bloody myall,’ the man with the rifle muttered to his companion who glanced furtively around the scrub.
Maybe it was an ambush, he thought fearfully. ‘Watch him Frank,’ he hissed. ‘I heared they drag their spears between their toes. When they get up close they use ’em.’
‘This darkie’s not gonna get the chance,’ Frank said, raising his rifle to his shoulder, ‘he’s gonna be dead.’
Wallarie knew instantly that he was in serious trouble and cursed himself for allowing his hunger to overcome his caution. He turned to run but the shot took him through the flesh just below his armpit. The impact knocked him off his feet and he was flung into the hot earth.
‘You got ’im!’ he vaguely heard, as he slammed into the sandy ground. ‘Bloody good shot!’
Wallarie was well acquainted with European firearms. His dead brother Tom Duffy had claimed he was a better shot than he when they had ranged the Gulf country years earlier as men outside the law. He knew that the rifle the prospector used was a single shot and would need time to reload. Despite the terrible pain that was threatening to overwhelm him, he forced himself to his feet, and ran.
‘Jesus!’ Frank blasphemed. ‘He’s getting away.’ The bearded prospector fumbled with a cartridge which fell from his hand. His error gave Wallarie valuable yards to lengthen the distance between them.
Frank’s companion tugged at his sleeve. ‘I think we should get out of here,’ he said fearfully. ‘He might be goin’ for help, bring back a lot more of his darkie mates.’
Frank scooped up the cartridge and slammed it home in the breech. ‘Think you might be right,’ he replied. With frightened glances over their shoulders both men hurried away.
When he was satisfied he was not being followed – and that he was safely out of range – Wallarie collapsed amongst the rocks. He felt the waves of pain swamp him, as they had so many years earlier, when the devil Morrison Mort had shot him in the side. Any movement of his left arm caused him to cry out in his pain. The bullet had passed through the flesh between his ribs and shoulder. It had lodged firmly in the muscle. ‘Bloody bastards,’ he groaned, as he gritted his teeth and swore. It was an English expression Tom Duffy had used when he was most angry. ‘Bloody bastards shoot a blackfella.’
Weak from hunger and loss of blood Wallarie was hardly aware that he was slipping from consciousness. The flies and ants came seeking nourishment from his wound. But Wallarie did not feel their bites. He was slipping into a world of visions.
A little over two weeks out of Sydney Michael stood alone on the Cooktown jetty gripping a battered carpet bag. He wondered how his contact would recognise him in the mass of eager, newly arrived miners disembarking with him who forced their way through disillusioned miners fighting to get a berth on the ship that had brought them north. Some had even foolishly leapt into the river inhabited by the giant saltwater crocodiles to swim towards the boat before it had docked. The disembarking miners looked upon the departing ones with bewilderment. What was ahead that could cause them to be so desperate to leave?
Cooktown had the same raw feeling of the frontier towns that Michael had once known in his years travelling in the American West. It was a town of freshly cut timber buildings, tents and roads rutted by the wagons at the end of the Wet season. On the mangrove banks of the Endeavour River, the town had exploded from the earth with the hardiness of a pestilent weed, and taken root at the foot of the forested hills surrounding the settlement.
‘Mister O’Flynn?’ The voice called to him from the crowded river bank. Michael found himself being pushed backwards as the miners stampeded the gangplank to board the ship. The man who had called to Michael had to fight his way through the frenzied crowd. But he was a big and formidable man and, between the two, they were able to get ashore with Michael’s luggage.
‘Mister O’Flynn. May I introduce myself,’ the man said when they were clear of the wharf. ‘I am Herr Karl Straub. I work for Baron von Fellmann.’ Straub was about Michael’s age and had short clipped blond hair. He was clean shaven and had a distinctive and impressive Teutonic appearance about him that made him stand out from the sun-tanned and bushy-bearded miners. He thrust out his hand. His grip was strong and brief.
‘Ich nehme an, sie sind Herr Straub,’ Michael replied and the German appeared surprised to hear his native tongue used by the Irishman.
‘Sie sprechen Deutsch,’ he commented. ‘Mit einem Hamburger Akzent.’
‘I picked up some as a kid,’ Michael said switching back to English. ‘From an old friend who happened to be from Hamburg.’
‘You speak German very well,’ Straub complimented, as he guided Michael away from the jostling crowds around the river bank. From the way Straub held himself – his straight back and measured pace – Michael guessed that he was a military man. Most probably an officer.
As they walked along the busy street Michael took in the sights, sounds and smells of this new environment. Cooktown was beginning to take on an air of permanency, if not respectability, he mused as he compared it to similar boom towns he had known in his travels on the American frontier.
Bordering the street he could see that man’s basic needs were well catered for. There were hotels, saloons and grog shanties for the thirst the tropics brought on and the le
ss than subtle signs of houses where a man’s carnal needs were taken care of. In between these less salubrious places of business were merchant stores, pharmacies, butchers, bakers and other more respectable businesses.
Large signs hastily nailed up advertised wares eagerly sought by the men and women heading down the track for the Palmer River goldfields. There was even a touch of the Orient about the town with the faint scent of incense and Eastern spices on the tropical breezes.
‘The Baron has written to tell me that I am to look after you,’ Straub said as the two men made their way along Charlotte Street. ‘It appears that you impressed the Baroness while you were in Sydney.’ Michael flinched. Sleeping with another man’s wife was not something he normally found honourable. The wound that Penelope had slashed across his chest now formed a scar, a reminder of her ownership of him.
‘I must thank the Baron sometime for his courtesy,’ he replied as they passed a melee of drunken men brawling in the middle of the street. ‘And compliment him on his choice of such a charming wife. She was most generous with her courtesy towards me whilst I stayed over in Sydney.’
But Straub did not seem unduly interested in Michael’s response. He appeared distracted and unimpressed by the behaviour of the brawling miners. ‘It is like this day and night,’ he scowled. ‘The law is unable to control the miners. They are ignorant men who gamble away their gold. Or end up dead in some backyard with their throats slit. I should warn you that Cooktown is not a place to tread heavily Mister O’Flynn. There are many here who would slit your throat for nothing more than the clothes you wear.’
After a short time of dodging drunken miners spilling out of cheap hotels and brothels and declining the invitations from hard-faced women on the street to go with them to secluded and private places, the two men arrived at one of the better hotels. It was a two-storey wooden plank building with an upper wrought iron railed verandah that faced across the street to the mangroves of the river.
Straub ushered Michael inside the hotel where men lined the bar conversing in raised voices. As it was only mid-morning Michael wondered what the hotel would be like at night. A veritable riot, he mused.
‘We go upstairs,’ Straub said bluntly. ‘You have a room here. Rooms are not easy to get.’
Michael was pleased that he was not paying the bill for the room when Straub ushered him inside. It would have cost a small fortune in a place where men paid for their drinks with gold nuggets.
The room was simple and clean. It opened onto the wide verandah overlooking the street. A gap between the buildings opposite allowed Michael to catch a glimpse of the river and feel the strong breeze that blew through the town, without which he guessed Cooktown could prove to be as hot as an oven under the tropical sun.
He dumped his bag on the sagging bed and followed Straub outside onto the verandah. They slumped into comfortable weather-beaten cane chairs and it was good to be off the cramped deck of the ship that had brought him north.
While he had been forced to wait a couple of days in Brisbane on his journey north, Michael had learned much about his brother Tom’s life and tragic death, as well as his sister Kate O’Keefe’s rise to fame. Both were now legends in their own right. Very few old timers whom he had talked to in the hotel bars and on the waterfront had not heard of them both. To those of Irish blood Tom Duffy was a hero. To any others he was nothing more than a murdering thief who had thrown in his lot with an equally vicious blackfella. But all had to agree that Kate O’Keefe was beyond reproach.
‘How did you know who I was when I got off the ship?’ he now asked Herr Straub, snapping back to the present once they were both comfortably seated on the verandah.
‘I did not expect to see many men with an eye patch disembark from the ship, Mister O’Flynn,’ Straub answered with a chuckle. Michael smiled. He sometimes forgot that his eye patch made him stand out in a crowd.
‘So here I am Herr Straub. And here I get told why I am here,’ Michael said wryly, as he gazed across the rooftops of the buildings adjacent to the river choked with ships of every shape and description.
‘Not completely Mister O’Flynn,’ the German cautioned. ‘I am to tell you what you are to do next. But not why. You are being paid good money I believe, to obey orders.’
‘Orders are things issued to soldiers Herr Straub,’ Michael said quietly. ‘And if I gather correctly you know a lot about giving orders.’
Straub stiffened. Michael’s remark had hit a nerve. ‘It is not important who I am,’ he replied. ‘Better you ask only questions, how you say, relevant to what you are to do for the Baron.’
Let them play their games, Michael thought peevishly. They were, after all, paying the bills. ‘Seems reasonable Herr Straub,’ he said, shrugging off Straub’s formal sense of secrecy. ‘So what do I do?’
Straub rose from his chair. ‘First I will get us a drink. What is your drink? Rum, gin?’ he asked politely.
‘Rum will be fine,’ Michael replied gratefully. He was thirsty and the thought of a drink sounded like a good idea.
When Straub left to get the drinks Michael removed his coat. In the side pocket of his jacket he carried a small Colt revolver. He was never very far from some kind of firearm. Guns were his living – and might possibly be his death.
Straub returned shortly with a bottle and two glasses. Michael could see that it was good rum. The Baron was certainly looking after him – or was it Penelope’s doing, albeit through her husband?
Straub poured them both a generous tot. ‘Cheers,’ he said, and Michael responded by raising his glass. When they had both emptied their glasses Straub refilled them. ‘You can get anything in this cursed town. So long as you have the money,’ he said as he took a sip of his rum.
‘Reminds me of other places I’ve been,’ Michael reflected. ‘All life gets measured in how close to the top of the dung hill you are. But if you are not careful you can get buried under it.’
Straub glanced quizzically at him. ‘I do not understand this philosophy,’ he frowned.
‘Doesn’t matter Herr Straub. Just a thought on life,’ Michael said, as he finished the tot and refilled his glass.
The German followed suit and leaned forward in his chair. ‘Tomorrow Mister O’Flynn, you are to start recruiting six men,’ he said, as if he were reciting a military order. ‘They are to be bushmen who have preferably had military or police experience, men of sober habits and who are prepared to obey orders without question. You will be given an account with one of the banks here to pay them. The account is in your name. The men must be prepared to undertake a prospecting expedition but they do not have to be proven miners. Their ability to live under harsh conditions is preferred above all other qualities,’ he concluded.
‘I would have thought their mining experience would be preferred, if we are looking for gold,’ Michael said facetiously. His sarcasm was not missed by the German.
‘As I said Mister O’Flynn, no questions, unless they are on matters directly concerning your briefing,’ he replied in an even tone, ignoring the Irish mercenary’s gibe.
‘I understand,’ Michael answered. ‘Is there any more that I should know?’
‘That is all I have to tell you. Except that should at any stage you be asked, you are to say you are organising a prospecting party,’ Straub answered. ‘The Queensland government pays rewards for discoveries of gold here. That should be good enough to stop any further questions. I need not tell you, that you do not know me or the Baron. I think that goes without saying.’
Michael nodded. After all he had taken the job for the money. Legal or not – it paid well.
Before they had finished the bottle Straub briefed him on details of the bank account and how much he was to offer each man. It was a generous amount. And as they talked together the Irishman had the feeling that he was the appointed commander of a small private army under the overall generalship of the Baron. It had all the odour of a military expedition and nothing to do with prospecting
. But if it was an army, who were they going to fight?
Michael had killed many men over the years. From the forests of New Zealand to the jungles of South America, he had learned and practised his deadly profession. He no longer moralised on political issues; he was after all a soldier of fortune.
Straub finished briefing him and answered as many of Michael’s few questions – covering technical matters relevant to the recruiting and equipping of his select group of fellow adventurers – as he could. When they were satisfied that they had exhausted the briefing, Straub invited Michael to take lunch with him in the hotel’s excellent dining room. The meal was excellent: fried steak with boiled potatoes and cabbage, and the two men switched to imported English beer with their meal.
Over lunch Karl Straub proved to be a different man from the one that Michael had known on the hotel verandah and was extremely interested in the fact that Michael spoke German. Michael used their time at lunch to practise his rusty German and Straub proved to have a rich sense of humour, along with interesting observations of the Australian colonies. But although they talked on many subjects of local interest, Straub gave nothing away about himself. Michael was able, however, to ask questions about his employer the Baron, Straub having decided that information on the Baron’s personal life was not as confidential as his public life.
From Straub Michael learned how Penelope had met Manfred von Fellmann while she was staying with relatives in Prussia. The Baron had married her on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War where he served with distinction against the French. After the war Penelope had returned to Australia with her husband whose family had commercial interests in the Pacific. From his base in Sydney the Baron roamed the Pacific, managing the considerable family financial interests in the region.