Flight of the Eagle

by Peter Watt

  ‘Scusi, sir, but a blackfella 'e bringa message to barracks.’

  ‘What blackfella, Sergeant Rossi?’ Gordon asked, in an attempt to calm the little sergeant down.

  ‘A blackfella no trooper know but say might be a Darambal man.’

  Gordon exchanged a sharp glance with Peter who appeared as equally surprised at the apparent tribal identity of the Aboriginal messenger.

  ‘Wallarie?’ Gordon hissed and Peter raised his eyebrows and nodded. It could be no-one else! ‘Where is the blackfella now?’ he asked as he rose from his chair.

  ‘He go away,’ the sergeant answered. ‘He talka to a charcoal trooper, Trooper John, before he go, tell him that when you ready the big chief of the Kalkadoon ready to fight you. He say the big chief of Kalkadoon not ′fraid of white man. He kill alla troopers whoa come lookin' for him.’

  ‘Very good, Sergeant Rossi,’ Gordon acknowledged calmly. ‘Now get the troopers to saddle up and go and catch the blackfella who brought the message to us.’

  Sergeant Rossi rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Black troopers ‘fraid of the Darambal man. They say man a debil debil. They say he turn into a baal spirit.’

  ‘You tell the charcoal troopers that the Queen pays them to hunt baal spirits along with live blackfellas who have the cheek to threaten me. Is that clear, Sergeant Rossi?’

  ‘Sah!’

  ‘Good. Then go and get the men to saddle up. Scour the northern approaches to the town as that's the most likely route he would have taken to get here from the hills.’

  The sergeant saluted smartly, turned on his heel, and went directly to the barracks to rouse his troopers. When he was gone Gordon excused Peter with a wave of his hand and he slumped back into his chair behind the desk.

  ‘We won't catch him,’ Peter said as he opened the door to join the troop in the hunt for Wallarie.

  ‘Why shouldn't we?’ Gordon snapped irritably. Somehow the fact that the Darambal warrior had chosen to deliver the threat from the Kalkadoon chief had an ominous ring to it, like a bell chiming doom. Or was it that there was a link with the man who now stood in the doorway and his sister? They were, after all, half-Darambal.

  ‘We won't catch him because Wallarie knows our white ways. Remember, my father taught him.’

  With the parting barb Peter closed the door behind him leaving the officer alone with his hidden fears. Sarah and Wallarie. Love and a shattered friendship.

  THIRTEEN

  Willie and the children felt awkward standing on the wide, polished timber verandah of Solomon and Judith Cohen's expensively comfortable home. They were covered in the dust of three weeks' travelling to Townsville and Willie felt out of place as the Cohens lavished attention on the three children of Ben and his mother.

  Judith knelt to brush away Rebecca's straggly locks. Willie stood self-consciously aside, twisting his broad-brimmed floppy hat in his hands once he had solemnly shaken hands with the Jewish merchant whose chain of businesses now spread across real estate, transport, stocks and shares as well as the stores he and his wife had established in the rapidly growing towns of the Colony of Queensland.

  When Judith turned her maternal attentions on the two boys Solomon stepped in to defend their masculine pride from the silly outpourings of a doting woman.

  ‘Oi, but the boys are too grown up for such things,’ he said as he ushered them to comfortable chairs on the verandah. ‘Look how they have grown since we last saw them, Judith.’

  Tears of joy welled in the tall, dark woman's eyes as she continued to fuss over little Rebecca who lapped up the attention and the clean, luxurious surroundings of the sprawling Cohen house. It was set amongst well-watered gardens of imported and native trees and was an oasis in a town that had ruthlessly cut down its trees to provide timber for building and fuel.

  The four travellers were grateful for the cold milk and sandwiches a maid brought to them on a silver salver and suddenly Willie remembered Ben's letter. He rifled through his trouser pockets to locate the folded sheets of paper with his free hand and when he found the letter thrust the dirty and crumpled paper towards Solomon. ‘Ben gave me this to give to you,’ he mumbled, biting hungrily into the delicious freshly baked bread.

  Solomon retrieved his reading spectacles from his waistcoat pocket to read the childish scrawl of his wife's nephew as Willie and the three children devoured the sandwiches. They were a pleasant change from tinned beef and the occasional kangaroo they'd shot for the cooking pot whilst on the long trek from Cloncurry across the seemingly endless plains of desiccated grass and dry trees.

  Rebecca sniffled as she ate and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Jonathan reached over and pulled her hand down with a little reproving scowl. It did not pay to look like ignorant country kids in the midst of town people, he thought. Judith suggested that they might buy them some ice-cream later in town and the undreamed of luxury made the children's eyes pop with impatient anticipation.

  Even Saul's reaction, which had been suspiciously reserved until the offer, was that of a kid who had forgotten for a moment the harshness of life on Jerusalem. Ice-cream was a mere fantasy on the long, hot days in the bush. Although he had never tasted it he had a fixed idea what its cold, creamy taste would be like.

  Solomon read the letter and carefully folded it. ‘It will be good to have the laughter of children around here, Judith,’ he said as he patted Saul on the head affectionately. ‘With our Deborah in Europe.’

  Children! Saul thought angrily. He was no bloody child. No, he would return to Jerusalem as soon as he got the chance. Jonathan and Rebecca could stay but his place was with his father riding the bush and mustering the small herd of cattle.

  ‘You will stay with us, Willie,’ Judith said as she guided Rebecca along the verandah towards the servants' quarters located at the rear of the house in a miniature replica of the main house itself. In the laundry the little girl could be scrubbed and dressed in one of Deborah's old dresses that had been carefully stored by Judith for sentimental reasons. Her daughter had grown to be a lithe, dark-eyed beauty whose voice was enthralling the audiences of Europe in the great opera houses. And her fame as a singer had spread to the Americas where she was destined to tour within months.

  Sometimes Judith would take out the carefully stored little dresses and stare at them. How had the time gone so fast in her life; one day a rowdy little girl playing rough games in the Queensland dust with equally rowdy frontier children, then the next day, a sophisticated young lady performing for the crowned heads of Europe. Judith had always known fame and fortune was her daughter's destiny.

  Scrubbed, and outfitted in one of Deborah's childhood dresses, Rebecca's brothers hardly recognised their little sister who scowled at their teasing grins. But the grins quickly faded when Judith said firmly, ‘Your turn next Jonathan and Saul.’

  They cringed at the assault on their manliness. How had it come to the tall stern woman ordering their fives like they were little boys? At least these were Saul's thoughts, if not his brother's.

  ‘I don't want Missus Tracy meeting you in your present grubby state tonight when we dine with her,’ Judith said as she gripped the bar of soap in one hand and grabbed for Saul's collar with the other.

  Willie also washed and changed into the clean working clothes that Solomon presented him with as a gift from the store. He gratefully accepted the clothes and now sat at Kate Tracy's table gazing at the woman who, although bordering on her fourth decade, remained as serenely beautiful as the woman he and his mother had first met on the Palmer goldfields ten years earlier. She was a woman of great beauty, unfaded by time and toil. But she also had a compassion that had not been diminished by power, prestige and her rise to a vast fortune. Next to his mother, Kate occupied the most important role in the young man's life.

  Willie could not help noticing the heavy swelling of Kate's pregnancy. So she looked as if she might finally realise her greatest dream, he thought. To have her own child. He was aw
are of the tragedy that stalked Kate's life.

  ‘Willie, help yourself to as much lamb as you like,’ Kate said kindly. ‘I suppose it will be a change from all the beef you have been living on at Jerusalem.’

  ‘Thank you, Missus Tracy’ he replied softly.

  Kate cast him a look of sympathy. The poor boy was suffering for the loss of his mother in a suffocating cloak of silent grief. Kate understood death. She had experienced so much in her own life. Her father murdered by the then Native Mounted Police Lieutenant Morrison Mort on the orders of the Scot's squatter Sir Donald Macintosh. Her eldest brother fatally shot by a trooper from the same police years later in Burkesland. And the death of her own babies. She had learned to come to grips with their untimely deaths. But not with the memories.

  The dinner in the elegantly spacious house that was the home of Luke and Kate passed in a kind of subdued politeness. But the death of Jennifer hung over the meal. Willie sat silently at the table, picking at his food with a fork while the Cohens and Kate discussed their mutual business arrangements and future plans for expansions as if conducting a general meeting of directors. Together the unlikely union of Irish-born woman and English-born Jews had proved to be extremely lucrative and together they had prospered.

  The links between Kate and the Cohens went beyond mere financial considerations, however. Their relationship was more like the closeness of family. It had been Kate's guiding hand that had steered Judith's sister's son Benjamin Rosenblum to learn the tough ways of the Queensland frontier and eventually invest for himself in a large tract of cattle country north of Cloncurry. And through Kate, Ben had first met Jennifer Harris who would become his wife and bear him three children.

  As the Cohens shifted from business to gossip about rival entrepreneurs Kate noticed Willie's melancholy. She had helped rear the young man as a boy when Jenny had worked for her as a nanny to the children of her dead bushranger brother, Tom Duffy, and his Darambal wife Mondo. As orphans the children had been placed in Kate's care and grew up with the best education and all the love of a good family.

  Kate had always considered Peter and Sarah as she would her own. She sighed when she thought about Tim. Always a strange boy, he had simply disappeared one night three years earlier. The note he left on his bed said he was going out west to find work. Since then nothing had been heard of him. Nor had there been any messages to his brother and sister.

  Kate reminded herself to talk to Willie as soon as she could get him alone. And she wished Luke was with her to share her thoughts on the young man's grief.

  ‘Ben has written a letter asking us to keep the children until he is able to get on his feet,’ Solomon said, interrupting Kate's thoughts about her husband. ‘He has not specified a time for them to return to him.’

  ‘That could be a good idea while the myalls are rampaging in the district,’ Kate replied, bringing her thoughts back into line with the conversation across the table. ‘He could hardly leave the boys and Rebecca at the house while he was off working the cattle.’

  ‘He had me to help him,’ Willie said softly. ‘But it would have been hard to look after Becky.’

  ‘Quite right!’ Solomon replied with an embarrassed cough and realised that he had been guilty of excluding Willie as a member of the family.

  ‘Hasn't Luke gone west to Burketown?’ Judith asked Kate with just the hint of concern for her friend.

  ‘Yes, he rode out a week ago.’

  ‘Won't his travels take him close to the Kalkadoon country?’

  Kate had not wanted to dwell on the possible danger her husband was exposing himself to. She had tried to convince him to take a boat to the Gulf town but he only smiled and kissed her on the forehead with reassurances that he was more than capable of looking after himself. ‘Luke's a tough old dog,’ she answered confidently.

  But a haunting memory of an almost forgotten conversation with Judith came back to her. It had been many years earlier when Kate had been hurt and angry with the tall American. They had been in Judith's tiny dining room in her house at Rockhampton and the subject of men like police sergeant Henry James and the American prospector had been raised by Judith – men whose fate was a lonely and forgotten grave in the vast plains of the western frontier. No memorials to such men, Judith had commented and Kate had felt the chill of an omen for her American. Now she shuddered with repressed fear. ‘Luke will return in good time,’ she said, as if to convince herself, and Judith nodded her agreement.

  When the dinner was over the Cohens made ready to leave in their buggy with Ben's children. Willie had ridden over to Kate's house on the dray horse and so lingered to chat with Sarah who had engaged him before he could swing into the saddle and ride away.

  Kate waved from her verandah as Solomon flicked the reins to the buggy and the fine-looking harness horse stepped out. She turned her attention to Sarah and could see her pretty niece talking to Willie. Kate regretted that she had not had the chance to speak to him after dinner but the Cohens had promised ice-cream and the shop would soon be closing.

  He swung himself into the saddle and rode after the buggy that bumped and swayed down Kate's tree-lined driveway. Sarah waved after him, turned and walked towards the verandah. Kate thought how beautiful Sarah had become. Tom and Mondo would have been proud of their daughter, she thought as she watched her approach with a frown clouding her dark face that had the exotic sheen of her mother and the fine features of her father. Her full lips, slightly agape as she frowned, revealed ivory white teeth. But the most startling feature the young woman possessed was her fight blue eyes. Many men had trouble accepting that the beautiful and desirable woman was in fact of Darambal blood when they gazed enraptured into her face. Her long dark hair was piled in a tight bun on top of her head and she walked with the easy grace inherited from her mother's people. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked as Sarah climbed the three steps to the verandah.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Sarah said.

  ‘Because I could see you frowning.’

  Sarah paused and turned to gaze at the horseman who rode after the buggy. ‘I wanted to tell Willie how sorry I was to hear of Jenny's death, Aunt Kate,’ she replied. ‘And he said it didn't matter. He is acting very strange.’

  ‘People have different ways of protecting themselves from the pain of grief. I suppose Willie's answer is his way. He loved his mother very much.’

  ‘I know,’ Sarah said turning back to her aunt. ‘But he also said that he was going to find his father and settle with him. I said, “Do you mean Ben?” and he said “No, my real father.” Then he said to me that he was never returning to Jerusalem.’

  Kate once again felt the old demon of fear. His real father! So Jenny must have told her son about Granville White. No good could come with the revelation about the man who Michael said was in one way or another an evil and dangerous man in his own right! She would ask Michael's advice on the matter when he came again to visit her that evening.

  Already her big brother had won the heart of his niece Sarah, who had swooned with girlish infatuation when she first met her legendary uncle the previous day on a brief visit. Ah, but her brother could charm women of all ages!

  The sun raised its soft and peaceful glow along the western horizon above the still bush. Flocks of screeching pink and grey galahs wheeled overhead, causing Kate to glance skywards. Where would Luke camp tonight? By some waterhole, thinking of her? Or had he reached the safety of a homestead?

  She dismissed the thoughts that had come to worry at her mind and glanced down at her niece's feet. Kate frowned as she could see that Sarah was not wearing shoes as a young lady should, a remnant of her childhood that lingered. ‘Go and put on your shoes, young lady,’ she said firmly – but not harshly. ‘Your uncle Michael will be here soon and he just might think his niece is not all that grown up,’ she added. The young woman pouted when ordered to put on shoes but beamed at the mention of her newly met uncle who had promised to bring her a present.

  Sara
h skipped across the verandah, causing Kate to smile. Not quite a woman, she thought wistfully. But no longer a little girl tagging after her brothers and Gordon James anymore either.

  FOURTEEN

  Inside the cavernous merchant depot of Wong & Sons the visitor was transported by the scents and sights to the Orient itself. Due to his time spent in Cochin China, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore Michael Duffy was familiar with the fragrant herbs and exotic spices. In fact, stepping inside the cool, cavernous shed that was piled to the roof with crates, jars and cedar boxes came as a relief from the fetid smells of Townsville's sewage.

  Michael adjusted his eyes to the dim interior of the depot and focused on a solidly built Eurasian man, arguing with a smaller Chinese man. The Eurasian, as tall as himself, was berating the other in the Chinese language and had not noticed Michael enter his store.

  ‘Hello, you son of a turtle,’ Michael said loudly. The Eurasian swung his gaze on the man who would dare question his parentage with the old Chinese expression of insult. ‘And begorrah it's a grand day for the Irish. Even half-Irish chinks,’ Michael added to his insult.

  ‘Michael Duffy, you old bastard!’ John Wong roared and completely forgot the Chinese merchant he had been taking to task over his exorbitant demand on the price of ginger. ‘You're still alive!’ In great strides the son of an Irish mother and Chinese father closed the distance between them and gripped Michael's shoulders with his huge hands. With a silly fixed grin of happiness he stared into Michael's face. ‘How the bloody hell are you?’

  ‘Still alive, despite friends like you and Horace Brown in my life,’ Michael replied with an equally stupid grin of his own. ‘Bejesus, John, you've grown fat living the life of a prosperous merchant.’

  ‘And I intend to get fatter, you worthless bastard,’ John growled fondly in response to Michael's observation on his thickening waist line. Although just thirty years old he was beginning to show the physical signs of a contented middle-aged man. ‘So forget any suggestions that I might help you and Horace Brown out on some harebrained scheme.’