Shadow of the Osprey

by Peter Watt

  ‘I hope so,’ Christie answered with a grim smile, and rose to his feet.

  John left Hue while he attended the impromptu briefing Michael had called. She was much calmer and had steeled herself against the stinging pain that continued to plague her. He glanced back at her sitting at the edge of the creek and smiled when he caught her eye. Hue returned a weak smile of reassurance. She thought about his gentle and caring manner and tried to dismiss the disturbing thoughts that she was attracted to a man who was neither European nor Chinese. In her culture such people were non-people.

  The men gathered around Michael in a small clearing by the creek. ‘Mister Palmerston is going to try and make contact with the local blackfellas,’ Michael said, turning to Christie who crouched sketching a map in a patch of earth he had cleared.

  ‘I will get food,’ Christie explained. ‘And maybe they can help us with this Mort fellow if he is still following us. Best you stay put until I get back.’

  ‘For how long?’ Henry asked quietly.

  ‘Until tomorrow morning,’ he replied. ‘If I’m not back by then you carry on. Take this valley until you come to where the creek strikes a river. When you are across the river you’ll come to some hills. When you get to the hills strike north. That’ll take you into Cooktown – a day’s walk.’ When he had finished his briefing, he snapped the twig he had used as a pointer for his crude map and tossed it aside. He rose, slung his rifle on his shoulder, and was swallowed by the thick scrub as he strode away.

  When he was gone Michael organised the camp for the night. Luke attempted to catch the tiny crustaceans that hid around the rocks in the calmer waters of the stream. He was only partly successful, however, and the few he did catch were eaten raw.

  During the night they shivered and slept only in snatches between sentry duty. It was going to be a long and uncomfortable night, Michael realised, and felt the gloomy darkness of indecision. Should he have pushed on regardless of Hue’s injuries? Had he decided wisely in letting Christie go in search of the tribesmen?

  Just after midnight Michael inched his way into the scrub. It was his turn to relieve Henry of sentry duty. Vigilance was an utmost priority as the trail they had left when they hacked their way through the dense scrub was like a finger pointing in their direction. But at least the night concealed them so utterly that even Michael had to move by feel, using landmarks he had memorised before nightfall.

  ‘It’s me Henry,’ he hissed when he was close to a tree with a massive trunk.

  ‘Over here Mister O’Flynn,’ came the soft reply from the inky darkness. Michael adjusted his course to grope towards the disembodied voice and found Henry sitting with his back against the rainforest giant. He plumped himself down beside the Englishman. ‘How is your leg?’

  ‘It’s not good,’ Henry sighed, and instinctively rubbed the old injury. ‘But I think it will keep me going for one more day. Then I don’t know.’

  ‘If it gets so bad that you can’t go on,’ Michael said softly, ‘I will stay with you. Luke can keep going and send help back to us when he gets to Cooktown.’ Henry attempted to protest but was cut short. ‘You don’t have any say in the matter Henry,’ Michael said roughly. ‘You are in my command for the duration of this expedition. As such, I am responsible for making the decisions as to what happens to my men.’

  ‘Thank you for the offer Mister O’Flynn,’ Henry replied quietly. ‘But it’s not necessary. Some things are ordained in life that we cannot change. Tomorrow, I either keep going or I die, one way or the other.’

  ‘Nothing’s ordained in this life,’ Michael snapped angrily. Henry was talking like a man who was already dead and he had heard men talk that way before. It was usually the night before a battle when the agonising wait released the demons of despair that plagued men’s imaginations. ‘If life ordains whether we live or die then let life tell us to our faces. No. If that was so then I should have been dead a long, long time ago. We, Mister James, ordain by the choices we make whether we live or die.’

  ‘My fate has been told to me in a way I do not expect you to understand,’ Henry sighed sadly. ‘From the day I followed that murdering son of the devil on the dispersals, he and I have been under a death sentence. The how I do not know. But I think I know the when of my death.’

  Michael felt a spark of anger. ‘No-one can know when they will die. That’s foolish talk.’

  ‘Foolish it may be to you Mister O’Flynn,’ Henry replied sadly, ‘but there are things about this land and its people we will never truly understand no matter how many years we are here.’ He paused and stared into the night. Yes, Emma would miss him and grieve for a time. Gordon would some day grow to know of his father as a memory. ‘I have known many men in my lifetime,’ he continued. ‘Men I have whored with in the brothels. Young men who I saw dead before they grew a week older. Strange, when I think about them. Young men who will be forever young. And I have known the men of this land. Fine men as you could know anywhere. One of the finest men I ever knew was a bushranger I once hunted the length and breadth of the colony. I think you know who I am talking about. Don’t you Michael?’

  Michael felt a stillness descend on him like an icy cloak. The disembodied voice in the dark was not that of the crippled former sergeant of the Native Mounted Police but the intimate voice of his dead brother Tom. He felt a hush descend on the bush as if all nocturnal life had stopped to listen to his reply. ‘How did you . . . ?’ he whispered hoarsely as his throat was suddenly dry. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I wasn’t completely sure until now,’ he replied gently. ‘You gave yourself away when you answered me.’

  ‘But you thought you knew. How?’ Michael asked. ‘Did someone tip you off?’

  ‘No. But I was a trap long enough to see things others missed,’ he answered. ‘And your sister Kate told me enough about you to make you as real to me as your brother Tom was. The way you talked. The way you were . . . are. Do you know that you look so much like your brother Tom you could have passed for him? Maybe it was a good thing you weren’t in Queensland when we were hunting him or someone might have got you two mixed up. But it was something else about you. It took the blindness that night gives our eyes for me to see you clearly. I cannot explain what I do not understand myself. Except to say that when you called to me a little while ago, I thought I was hearing Tom. It was like he was calling to me in the dark. But I know he’s dead. I know because I watched him die out there in Burkesland. So when you called, something told me that Tom was also alive in you. The nights out here in the bush can do strange things to a man’s soul. That’s all I can tell you though I know it doesn’t make sense.’

  A silence fell between them and the soft sounds of the night returned: the rustle in the treetops of tiny glider possums seeking the branches of trees on which to land, the distant gurgle of the stream and the monotonous whirr of crickets. Finally Michael spoke. ‘Tomorrow we go on and my order still stands. If you cannot go any further with your leg, we stick together until Luke sends back help.’

  Henry rose stiffly to his feet and Michael felt his hand on his shoulder. ‘We will see,’ he said simply. ‘We will see.’ How could he tell Michael that an old Aboriginal elder had come to him in his dreams, night after night, to stand in the dark corners of his mind. Logical and learned men could explain the visits as nightmares brought on by his guilt for his participation in the murderous dispersals under Mort’s command. But no, Henry thought, the old Aboriginal was real. As real as Michael Duffy who now sat vigil in the night.

  The mist-covered mountains felt the first touch of the rising sun as the damp fogs retreated to the cool safety of the valleys. Mists settled on the placid stream and by the time the warm sun had swallowed the last of the night fogs on the creek, Christie Palmerston had not returned.

  Michael had half-expected the worst. Still days from Cooktown they were missing the man with the most experience to guide them out of the rainforests. The previous day had sapped precious energy
reserves and left them hungry and tired. He gave the order to move out and, as exhausted as they were, they obeyed. It was just after midday when they stumbled into a broad, flat valley under a sea of waving grasses. Tattered clothes streaked with dried blood marked their battle with the cruel-hooked barbs of jungle vines. Sweat-soaked shirts clung to their backs which were wet and clammy, and salty moisture dripped incessantly from their foreheads to sting their eyes. Exhausted, they paused to gaze down the valley. To be out of the cloying forest was a welcome relief.

  Michael scanned the valley of waving grasses high as a man’s waist and his eye followed the line of ridges either side of the valley. His military instinct told him to use the high ground to traverse the valley. But when he glanced back at his straggling file he noticed Henry rubbing his leg and knew that an attempt to climb another ridge could possibly lame him for life.

  Hue’s condition was little better than Henry’s. Her sandals had finally given out and her feet were cut and swollen. John had been forced to carry her piggyback fashion for the last four hours of the trek. The Irish mercenary made his decision. They would traverse the valley floor and gain precious time.

  When Mort emerged from the rainforest and onto the plain of the grass-covered valley he brought his party to a halt. The Chinese squatted and produced small round bowls and chopsticks and quickly devoured a cold meal of gluey rice and dried fish.

  Mort chewed on a stick of jerky as he scanned the way ahead. He had a good view of the broad valley with its flat open spaces and his gaze settled on the two low hills either side under a heavy growth of rainforest. If he could get up there he could command a panoramic view of the valley below, he mused. He may have lost the Irishman’s trail but he was determined to keep on his present course; he had calculated that his enemy would have had to traverse the valley if they were still travelling north to Cooktown. ‘Mister Sims. Get the men on their feet. We have a climb ahead of us.’

  Suddenly something caught Mort’s eye. He could not believe his good fortune when he looked down on a tiny file of figures winding their way across the valley floor below. The Devil was on the side of those who cursed God! He spat in triumph. He was now going to use O’Flynn’s tactics against him!

  Quickly seizing the initiative, he doubled his men into an ambush site at the end of the valley, where it was only a matter of waiting. With muskets and rifles ready Mort’s men waited for the tiny party to file into his killing ground.

  FORTY-FIVE

  The clipper creaked and groaned as she sailed into the rolling seas of the Great Australian Bight. Having departed the port of Melbourne the sleek ship was now on a westerly course and well on her way to England.

  Patrick Duffy spent most of his time above decks where the salt-laden sea winds crusted his hair, much to the despair of his fastidious grandmother. She had hoped that he might spend more time with her and in the company of the first-class passenger clique. But he seemed more at home sharing the companionship and conversation of the working-class crew who had taken a liking to the confident but not brash young man. He displayed an interest in their work without being intrusive and the sailors wondered at how Patrick failed to notice the small party of young girls around his own age who unabashedly followed him everywhere he went aboard ship. Their shy giggles and flirtatious behaviour had no impact on Patrick. They weren’t to know he was absorbed in deep thoughts about his turbulent past and his uncertain future.

  He stood at the starboard side of the clipper and gazed across the rolling waves at a grey horizon. He knew that somewhere below the horizon was the colony of South Australia and soon enough they would round the southern tip of the colony of Western Australia. At that point he would have left the land of his birth for the land of his grandmother’s birth.

  ‘Patrick,’ the voice called gently to him, ‘do you not feel that it is time to go below and join the captain? He has invited us to dine with him tonight.’

  Patrick did not need to turn to see who had spoken to him.

  ‘I will,’ he replied quietly, ‘as soon as the sun is just off the bow five degrees.’

  Enid raised her eyebrows in surprise. The boy was a quick learner. He was even absorbing the language of the mariner.

  ‘You will catch your cold if you remain too long above deck,’ she said, and startled herself by placing her hand on his shoulder in a maternal manner. She wondered at the gesture as she had very rarely done the same to her own children. Emotional displays were something of an indulgence for the working classes. Patrick, however, did not seem to notice her touch and continued to stare at the distant horizon. ‘Are you frightened Patrick?’ she asked, and his gaze dropped to the hissing seas kissing the hull of the ship.

  ‘No Lady Enid,’ he answered without looking at her. ‘I was just thinking that a lot of things have happened.’

  ‘Of what things were you thinking?’ she asked, and he finally turned to face her.

  ‘I was thinking of how things might have been different if my father were alive.’

  Enid suddenly stiffened and felt a stab both of guilt and fear. She knew Michael was somewhere on the northern frontier of Queensland. But she had her reasons for concealing from Patrick her knowledge of his father’s existence. Patrick was hers to use in her ongoing war with her evil son-in-law Granville White. And from what she had gleaned from Penelope, it did not seem that Michael Duffy was a man likely to survive Baron von Fellmann’s expedition. Her guilt, however, was less for concealing from her grandson the fact that his father lived, than for the fact that she hoped that Michael would die, since he was the only person who truly posed a threat to her keeping Patrick.

  ‘As we all know,’ she replied a little tensely, ‘your father was killed in New Zealand about the time you were born.’

  Patrick’s expression reflected his belief in her lie and she relaxed. ‘I am going to be a soldier like my father,’ Patrick said suddenly. ‘I know he would have wanted that.’

  Now Enid felt a rising horror for her grandson’s aspiration to don the Queen’s uniform. All her plans were centred on him receiving the finest education the English system could offer and then going on to rule the family fortunes.

  ‘I think you will change your mind as you grow older,’ she said quickly. ‘You are young and I am sure that once you attend Eton you will see how much more there is to life than that of the soldier. So much more responsibility in managing the family’s financial affairs. It is upon your shoulders to take us into the next century.’

  Patrick stared into her eyes and she sensed a will as strong as her own in the boy. ‘Uncle Max told me how my father died a hero in the Maori wars,’ he said stubbornly. ‘It is my duty to be like him.’

  ‘Your father never wanted to be a soldier,’ Enid countered. ‘He was forced into that war because the evilness of your uncle Granville forced him there by circumstances none could foresee. Your father had always wanted to be a famous painter . . . not a soldier.’

  Patrick frowned. ‘Uncle Max told me that too,’ he said, and Enid sensed a slight confusion in his reply. The irony of explaining the gentle nature of a man who she had always hated for his involvement with her daughter did not escape her. For a moment she felt confusion as she gazed at her grandson and noticed the very different physical appearance of him from the men of her own bloodline. He was in so many ways a true Duffy man. And yet he shared her blood through her daughter. He must therefore be part Macintosh. This thought consoled her and she decided to let him live in his dreams of aspiring to be like his father. ‘Should you wish to be a soldier when you have completed your studies,’ she sighed, ‘I promise you that I will use my influence to purchase you a commission with a fine Scots regiment. My late husband’s family . . . your family now . . . have commanded Scots regiments in the past for the crown. I am sure you would make a fine officer of the Queen.’

  ‘You truly promise,’ Patrick grinned, ‘that you will allow me to be a soldier?’

  ‘I do,’ Enid replied
with a smile, ‘but only if you return the promise to do well at Eton and not display crude colonial behaviour at any time. Your uncle David won academic prizes when he was a student at Eton,’ she added wistfully, thinking of her long-lost beloved son. ‘But I know you will do so too as you have a fine tradition of nobility in your heritage.’

  For a moment Patrick tried to think of any Irish royalty in the Duffy family. He could not, and knew that Lady Enid was referring to her ancestors. He also knew that he must start thinking about his Macintosh blood even though his uncle Daniel had sworn him to a sacred oath not to forget his Irish roots or religion.

  ‘I promise Lady Enid,’ he replied with a disarming smile.

  ‘Good,’ she said with a gentle squeeze of his shoulder. ‘Then we shall go below and join the captain, young man. And there you shall display all the charm and manners of your aristocratic heritage.’

  Patrick glanced up the deck at two young girls watching him from behind giggles, their mouths covered to contain their girlish secrets. He pulled a face at them and turned to accompany his grandmother. Girls were a confusing species, he thought. They were a bit of a pest. But even so, lately he had experienced strange and confusing thoughts about them. It was something in the way they smelt different and in the compulsion to touch their soft skin. And an even greater mystery was what they seemed to want from him.

  FORTY-SIX

  Michael’s normally astute judgment was dulled. Exhaustion had taken its toll and he had no real indication that Mort was pursuing them, and was even now beginning to believe that he had either given up, or lost their trail. According to Christie Palmerston’s last instructions they should be close to Cooktown and it seemed to Michael that the young bushman had sacrificed himself for nothing.

  With the dark forests at their backs they now faced a broad, grassy plain that tapered to a rocky defile which led up and over a low saddle between two hills. It would be an arduous climb, but not as difficult as the steep hills either side of the valley, Michael estimated, hoping that they would be able to see the river from the crest of the saddle. To do so would raise morale and, although weak and hungry, his party still had reserves of strength to struggle on.