War Clouds Gather

by Peter Watt

  That night, as Donald lay on his back staring at the dark places in the room, he became aware that the curlews’ song was louder than usual, and that there was something disturbing in it. He finally dozed off, but for some reason a nightmare came to him. He dreamed of a hill that had a life of its own, guarded by an old grey-bearded Aboriginal warrior holding a long and deadly spear. The nightmare was a warning, but Donald had no idea what it meant when the sun rose to warm the brigalow scrub once again.

  Donald got up and snatched an early breakfast from the kitchen. Jessica was already saddling up her horse when he walked out to the round yard. She had selected a steady and reliable gelding for him.

  ‘I will give you a tour of this land of my father,’ she said, tightening the girth to her horse. ‘You may be the owner of Glen View, but you do not realise how much of my history is in these lands.’

  Donald swung himself into the saddle while Jessica flung over canvas water bags along with a picnic she had organised with the kitchen staff. He allowed Jessica to lead the way and they set off at a comfortable pace.

  Just before mid-morning they arrived at a grove of small trees and Jessica dismounted, leading her horse to tether it. Donald did the same. The oppressive heat of the day was already present in the stillness of the grove.

  ‘What is here of historical importance?’ he asked when Jessica passed him a water bag to drink from.

  ‘Over there,’ Jessica said, pointing to what Donald could see were three small, almost indistinct mounds of earth with a few rocks sprinkled on them. Termite-rotted wood lay at the head of each mound.

  ‘Those are the graves of Patrick Duffy – who is our mutual great-great-grandfather,’ she said, gazing at the three graves laid out in the little shade of the stunted grey trees. ‘One of the other graves belongs to my grandfather’s brother, Peter Duffy, and we do not know whom the other grave belongs to. My father thinks it might be Patrick’s faithful Aboriginal servant who came from the Murray River region.’

  Donald stared in awe at the graves and wondered at the fact his great-great-grandfather was under the ground in one of them. ‘No one in my family has ever told me about Patrick Duffy,’ he said softly. ‘It is if I have no ancestry other than Sir Donald Macintosh, my namesake.’

  ‘Patrick was murdered on Glen View, and so was Peter,’ Jessica said with a note of sadness. A soft, hot breeze swirled small eddies of dust around the grove. ‘I just wanted you to know who I am,’ she added unexpectedly. ‘I’m sure you know my father wishes to purchase Glen View for sentimental reasons, and because he made a promise to Wallarie when I was born.’

  ‘Wallarie,’ Donald said. ‘I have heard his name so many times in my family. He seems to haunt my father, but I gather he is dead by now.’

  ‘Wallarie can never die,’ Jessica said with a smile. ‘He has just changed into another being, still living on his traditional lands.’

  ‘I thought you had the best schooling a young lady could receive,’ Donald said, looking at Jessica. ‘I believe you went to an exclusive Roman Catholic college, so how could you make such a statement?’

  ‘Because in my blood is that of Wallarie’s people,’ Jessica said with a serious expression.

  Donald was taken aback by her certainty. She seemed suddenly much older than her years. Most of the girls he knew in Sydney society were only interested in the latest fashions, parties and gossip, but this woman walked with a deep spirituality.

  ‘I think it is time for us to visit Wallarie, and then we will eat,’ Jessica said.

  Donald followed her back into the saddle and within the hour they came in sight of a craggy, extinct volcano looming above the brigalow plains.

  ‘That is the sacred hill where Wallarie resides in a cave,’ she said, dismounting. ‘But it is a place for men only.’

  Donald couldn’t hide his scepticism. ‘Surely you don’t believe in all that?’

  ‘I do,’ Jessica replied. ‘But I don’t think there are any rules preventing me climbing the hill with you.’

  David was starting to be intrigued. ‘Here, let me take your hand. The track is rough,’ he said, indicating the path, which looked as though it had been worn down by bush animals.

  Jessica took Donald’s hand, although he knew that she did not need his help. Together they climbed the narrow twisting trail until they reached the summit with its magnificent panoramic view of the vast sun-baked plain. For a moment they stood side by side and Donald noticed that Jessica had not let go of his hand. Behind them was the opening to the cave under an overgrown old gnarled tree whose roots curled into the face of the overhang above the cave entrance.

  Jessica turned to gaze at the entrance. ‘Wallarie still lives in there,’ she said and for a moment Donald felt a chill when he remembered the strange nightmare from last night.

  ‘I bet I go in there and don’t find anyone,’ Donald said and Jessica let go of his hand.

  ‘I don’t think Wallarie would want a Macintosh to go into his cave,’ she said with an expression of deep concern. ‘It was your great-great-grandfather who slaughtered Wallarie’s people here so many years ago.’

  ‘But that was not me – although I might bear the same name,’ Donald replied.

  Before Jessica could stop him Donald turned and walked quickly towards the cave. He plunged inside to be assailed by the musty smell of ages. The sun was shining through the entrance, illuminating the centre of the cave and evidence of fires long extinguished. Donald’s eyes adjusted to the gloom and he realised that he was alone despite Jessica’s warnings. His act of bravado was only intended to impress Jessica, but suddenly he was gripped with an unexplainable fear that rooted him to the earth. The hair on the back of his neck was sticking up and he was afraid to turn around lest he see who was watching him with an intensity he could almost touch. It was as if the watcher was questioning his right to be in the cave and yet rationally Donald knew he was alone in the cave.

  Suddenly a ghostly voice was whispering in his ear, ‘You got any baccy?’

  Donald mustered all the strength he had then and found the use of his legs. He backed out, wide-eyed and frightened, into the reassuring light of day.

  ‘You saw him?’ Jessica asked. For a moment Donald was speechless. No doubt Jessica’s talk of the old Aboriginal had caused him to imagine things, but the voice had been so real.

  ‘I . . . I don’t want to discuss the matter,’ he said in a shaky voice and Jessica smiled.

  ‘I told you Wallarie still lives,’ she said.

  ‘I think it’s time we went back to the horses and had our picnic,’ Donald suggested, still trying to shake off the eerie experience in the cave.

  This time Jessica slid her hand into his and they walked together down the hill to the horses. As much as he hated to recognise it, Donald grudgingly admitted to himself that there were mysterious things beyond the world of the living.

  ‘Ah, Wallarie has flown away,’ Jessica said happily, gazing up into the cloudless blue sky at an eagle floating on the thermals. Any other time Donald would have scoffed at such an observation but this time he did not.

  16

  Double agent! The words kept going through Matthew Duffy’s mind.

  Major Guy Wilkes had explained how a British intercept of an American diplomatic cable had revealed that a British citizen, Miss Diane Hatfield, was working on behalf of the US domestic intelligence service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI under Hoover was only allowed to carry out intelligence on American soil, so the nature of Diane’s international movements had required some legal negotiations with overseas diplomatic posts – and hence the intercept to brief American diplomatic staff. Wilkes had surmised that the Americans had kept her recruitment quiet from the Brits as it was known the US President, Franklin D Roosevelt, had no love for British imperialism. America did not have a formal overseas intelligence service and outside the military intelligence departments, Roosevelt could only rely on a close group of wealthy and diplomati
c people to provide him with the information he required when they travelled to foreign lands. Diane was seen as a coup as she was slowly but surely gaining the German government’s trust and was moving closer to the inner circles of the Nazi dictatorship.

  Matthew sat alone in his office going over all that the British major had been able to put together from the report he had received from his own people in London. How Diane had been recruited by the FBI was not known, nor why she would agree in the first place. What Matthew did know was that she had once flown for an American gangster of Sicilian heritage who was rumoured to be closely allied with the Italian dictator, Mussolini. Therein was a clue, Matthew thought. Mussolini and Hitler were very close allies.

  Matthew knew Diane lived on the razor’s edge. What if the Germans were also intercepting American coded traffic? The thought chilled Matthew. Someone was bound to slip up, and Diane could find herself facing the Gestapo. He had heard they were ruthless and cruel and he had no doubt they would torture and likely execute her.

  ‘You are ordered not to make contact with Miss Hatfield,’ Wilkes had said at the end of his briefing to Matthew.

  Perhaps he could extract Diane from her dangerous double life. He had little faith in the Americans being able to protect her if things went wrong. They were too far from this part of the world controlled by the British and French. Matthew stood up and walked over to the map and stared at it. How could he make contact with Diane without endangering her life? For the moment there was no answer.

  *

  Sir George Macintosh sat in the Macquarie Street specialist’s surgery on an expensive leather chair, staring at the white walls with their clinical bareness. His symptoms had persisted and he had had a round of tests, the results of which he would know in a moment.

  The door opened and the doctor – a distinguished man of science who was also a knight of the realm for his services to medicine, and who belonged to George’s own exclusive club – walked in. He wore a dark suit and held a sheaf of papers. He took a seat at his desk and George waited for him to speak. The worried expression on the doctor’s face was bad enough but the silence of waiting for the results was even worse.

  ‘George, old chap, I am afraid I have bad news,’ the doctor said finally. ‘It is confirmed that you are in the tertiary stages of syphilis, and from what the tests say, it appears to be neurosyphilis.’

  ‘Are you damned sure that your tests are right?’ George exploded. ‘Other than losing my balance a little bit lately, and shooting pains in my lower body, I feel as well as anyone.’

  ‘I am sorry, George, but the tests were thorough. You may have contracted this disease years ago, and the only signs then would have been a chancre at point of contact and around ten weeks or so later some non-itchy rashes. The disease becomes latent before reaching a tertiary stage, which you are now in. I’m afraid there is no cure.’

  ‘Does that mean I am about to die?’ George said, unable to believe it.

  ‘No,’ the doctor replied calmly. ‘But it does mean you may drift into a state of dementia as time goes by.’

  ‘You mean madness,’ George replied bitterly. ‘What have I done to deserve this?’ As if an echo to his question he suddenly remembered the face of a very pretty girl he had murdered years earlier. What was her name? Maude Urqhart. It was just after her death that the ulcer had appeared, and a few weeks later the rashes. George had ignored the signs and he shuddered now when he thought that the girl he had murdered was reaching out from her grave to seek revenge. George paled and realised that his hands were trembling. He knew now that he was cursed.

  ‘If it is any consolation,’ the doctor said, ‘your disease is no longer infectious, and we have a variety of painkillers if you find you are suffering.’

  George looked up with a haunted expression. ‘How long do you think I have before I go mad?’

  ‘It can be many years before the sickness takes hold,’ the doctor attempted to reassure. ‘I cannot say how long, but I feel you should get your affairs in order. It pays to be prepared, old chap. I am sorry that I cannot offer any more hope than I have.’

  George rose from the chair with great difficulty. He did not bother to say goodbye but left the doctor’s consultation room as if he had been told of his imminent execution.

  *

  They had followed the Russian tanks into Boadilla del Monte in central Spain amid fierce fighting against Franco’s Nationalists and captured the town.

  After months of fighting the weather was bitterly cold and David Macintosh was vaguely aware that Christmas was not far away as he huddled against a low stone wall cradling his Mauser rifle in his arms. So much had happened since he’d arrived in Spain and already he had lost his friend, Horace Howard, in the fighting in Madrid. The artillery shell had exploded directly where the young Englishman had been bunkered down, and when the smoke cleared nothing remained of him. The blast had virtually vaporised him with its direct hit, leaving nothing to mourn except the memory of his smiling face.

  The former German soldier of the Great War, Otto Planke, moved along the wall where David huddled with others watching the low hills to their front and the enemy lines beyond. ‘Time to go back and get some food,’ he said in German. Of the original section only Jaroslav, the Czech, and John Steed, the American, remained. The Englishman who had joined them in Madrid, Archie White, was still alive; the others had either been killed or evacuated with wounds back to France.

  The men eased themselves from the shelter of the stone wall. They followed Otto back to the house in the town where they were billeted. Inside the warmth of the stone house the men sat down at an old wooden table. China plates, cracked with age, were placed in front of them by the elderly widow who resided there. She was dressed in a long black woollen skirt with a woollen shawl around her shoulders. She ladled vegetable soup into bowls and handed them around; the men ate the hot soup with a slab of cheese and some home-made bread. The old widow muttered about the war and how hard it was to get cheese with the siege on the town. Archie could speak Spanish and he promised her that the siege would soon be lifted, and she would get all the cheese she wanted, although he knew along with the others defending the town that the enemy was actually bringing in fresh forces, ready for an all-out assault, probably early in the new year.

  With their stomachs full, the men retired to huddle around the big open fireplace staring at the glowing coals. Archie had four cigars left from his precious stock, and handed them to each man with the exception of David, who did not smoke.

  They lit up and enjoyed the nicotine rush that soothed nerves and took them away from the cold and anxiety.

  ‘It feels like we have been marching and fighting forever,’ Jaroslav said in German to no one in particular.

  ‘God in heaven!’ Otto said, puffing on his cigar. ‘It was worse in the war when we were fighting the Frenchies at Verdun. At least Franco hasn’t used gas on us yet.’

  David stared into the small, flickering flames and let his mind drift to more pleasant moments. He had found fleeting love only three weeks earlier, in the arms of a young Spanish girl in the back of a shelled-out factory. Living with sudden and savage death had a way of bringing men and women together. Whether it had been love or lust David experienced he did not care. He lived day to day now. Although David could not speak Spanish it did not seem to matter; flirting between the two young people quickly turned into a passionate act of lovemaking among the deserted machines. For those moments there was no war or death, just the warmth of two bodies entwined in desire. All that David knew about the young woman was that her name was Cristobel and Madrid was her home. Regretfully, David had been transferred out to his current posting and since then there had been no contact. Such was the manner of war.

  Weary from the long hours posted to the front line of the town, the men eventually lay down on the stone floor, wrapped in blankets, to snatch sleep. But in the early hours of the morning the door opened, bringing David awake. Two men had e
ntered and shook Otto awake, speaking in low voices before leaving.

  Irritably, Otto awoke the others.

  ‘Get your things together,’ he said. ‘It is our turn to go out into no-man’s-land, and carry out a recce on the Nationalists. Brigade HQ has ordered the mission.’

  The men shook off sleep, picked up their rifles and fell out into the bitterly cold darkness. Together they made their way to the front line at the edge of the township, and there they were met by a leader of the Spanish Republicans. He briefed them in Spanish and Archie translated. In turn David spoke in German for Jaroslav and Otto’s sake. They were to go as far forward as possible and attempt to snatch a Nationalist soldier for interrogation. This would not be easy. The Spanish commander handed Otto a small coil of rope along with half-a-dozen hand grenades. All the men were armed with their rifles and deadly knives honed razor-sharp. Passwords were given and then it was time to wend their way down the hill into a small valley until they came to the forward positions of the enemy, marked by the flickering lights of numerous campfires.

  David had been posted to lead the section, as Otto considered that he had the best night vision of their group. As they had descended into the valley David felt how tight his stomach was. He had a bad feeling about the mission. Within a couple of hours they had advanced close enough to actually hear the voices of the enemy on the forward edge of a low hill. Otto signalled that they go to ground to make a decision on how they would make the next leg of their journey across no-man’s-land. Just as they settled on their stomachs on the wet and icy earth a star shell exploded over them and a parachute flare drifted slowly to earth, lighting up the countryside. It was sheer luck for David’s section that they were already crouching out of sight of any enemy observer. David clutched his rifle to his chest and fingered the safety catch. Had the flare been fired by an alert sentry? Or was it simply a random act? The bad feeling he had in the pit of his stomach grew worse and he wished that he could grow wings and fly away until he found some place where the sun shone to warm his chilled bones. There was such a place – and it was called home. But questioning why he was lying out on the slope of a foreign hillside did little to change the reality of his situation. The flare finally settled onto the earth and went out, pitching the country into almost total blackness, broken only by the glow of campfires ahead of them.