by Peter Watt
The former policeman from Sydney wiped at his neatly trimmed beard as the fat dripped from his spoon. Now that he could see him in the blazing morning light, the man definitely reminded him of someone.
Private Angus MacDonald was striding towards the captain holding a chunk of bread and a mug of water. ‘Hey! Jock!’ Farrell called softly to the Scot as he passed him.
Angus acknowledged the call and turned to stare at the man almost as big as himself. He had recognised the Irish accent. ‘What would you want, Paddy?’
‘That boss of yours, what would his name be?’
‘Now why would you be wantin' to know, mon?’
‘Because I'd be askin' a civil question, boyo. And my sainted ancestors fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden. That enough reason for a haggis eatin' Gael?’
At first Angus had bristled when he heard himself addressed as Jock but he could not help but smile at the Irishman's explanation as to why he should answer his question. Angus' ancestors had also stood with the Jacobites against the forces of British redcoats and their lowland Scot's auxiliaries on the terrible battlefield. ‘God bless yor sainted grandmother for providing a well-needed service for those brave laddies at Culloden, Paddy,’ he answered with a wicked grin.
But Francis Farrell was not to be outdone by any big, hairy legged Scot and retorted with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Me sainted grandmother used to bounce me on her knee and say, “Francis, me boy, the reason those Highlanders lost to the bloody British at Culloden was because they didn't have the strength left when I'd finished with them”.’
Angus chuckled. ‘Captain Duffy be yon officer, Paddy,’ he replied with a grin. ‘I hear he was born in Sydney Town.’
Patrick Duffy! No wonder there was a familiarity. How often had he had a drink with the big German Max Braun at Frank Duffy's Erin Hotel and bounced young Michael on his knee! Frank Farrell shook his head in utter amazement. ‘Young Patrick Duffy in the bloody uniform of a British officer,’ he muttered as he continued to shake his head. ‘Who would have ever dreamed? And what would the big man, Michael himself, think about his son being a bloody British officer!’
Angus could not hear the Irishman's mutterings and was impatient to get breakfast to his captain. The Irishman looked as if the sun had got to him already. ‘See you around, Paddy,’ he said with a nod of his head. ‘Might be we could share a wee dram or two sometime. Keep your bog Irish head down when the fightin' starts, mon.’
‘You look after your boss, Jock,’ Francis replied as he came out of his state of amazement. ‘I knew his father and a finer man you would never meet,’ he added once the Scot had departed.
Patrick Duffy! Sure and he was the image of his father at that age, Farrell mused as he watched the Scot march across to Patrick. And would young Patrick have come across his legendary father in his travels?
Over ten years had passed since the former policeman had last seen Patrick. There was some matter of his maternal grandmother, Lady Enid Macintosh, taking the boy to England, for his education Farrell remembered. Something about his inheritance. Old Frank Duffy had been very tight lipped about the circumstances which his own son, Daniel Duffy had arranged. But Daniel, being the good lawyer that he was, let little be known of the mystery surrounding Patrick and his connection with the wealthy and powerful Macintosh name. Ah, but he would talk to the young Patrick when the opportunity arose, Farrell thought, tossing aside the empty tin and wiping his hands on the side of his trousers. Right now, however, he would have given anything for a cold drink back at the Erin Hotel.
The order to fall in and resume the advance across the shimmering hot sands was issued. For the troops, the order had not come too soon.
Patrick crossed the advancing square to make his introductions to Colonel Richardson. The sun was almost directly above them and little shadow was cast by the men and animals below. The forced march was going to be an ordeal and he wondered how the colonial volunteers would fare under the conditions.
By the time the army came to rest that night, however, Captain Duffy would feel pride for the stamina of the men from the country of his birth. Only three collapsed senseless. But not until the late afternoon.
EIGHTEEN
The tiny puffs of dust beneath the horses' hooves swirled to form a large, red cloud that trailed like a plume behind the combined column of thirty or so men. They galloped across the sparse scrub plain dotted with knee-high termite nests. Sub Inspector Gordon James led his column, following the guide from Sergeant Rossi's patrol, which had been operating close to the distant low hills of the Godkin Range.
The guide had been despatched to find Gordon's column and lead them to a creek where Sergeant Rossi was presently located. It was the first time the Italian sergeant had reason to call on his senior officer in the four months that they had been scouring the plains north of Cloncurry in their search for the Kalkadoon war parties.
When they finally reached the fine of trees that marked a meandering creek, Gordon reined his horse to a halt and flung himself from the saddle. He strode towards his sergeant who was standing with a small party, staring at the corpses of three white men stripped naked and swollen black. From the mutilations to their bodies it was obvious that the three men had died violent deaths.
‘Kalks,’ Commanche Jack grunted as Gordon joined the semi-circle of police and frontiersmen staring at the bodies which lay on their backs at the edge of the creek where a deep, rock waterhole trapped a last reservoir of dirty green water. ‘Ripped ′em open to take their kidney fat to eat,’ he added as he squatted to get a closer look at the bodies covered in clouds of flies buzzing in thick, noisy clouds around the wounds. ‘Looks as if'n they went for a swim an’ the Kalkadoon jumped ′em,’ he continued as his experienced eyes took in the scene. ‘Don' pay to take a bath aroun' here.’
The sickly sweet, unpleasant stench of the decomposing bodies caused some of the watching men to gag.
‘Get them buried before sunset, Sergeant Rossi,’ Gordon ordered with a wave of his hand. ‘And see if the myalls left anything that might identify who they were.’
The sergeant picked a handful of his troopers who quickly began to dig out a large single grave.
While the troopers sweated with bandanas over their noses, Gordon called a meeting of his expedition leaders as they stood or squatted in a semi-circle around the young police officer. Some of the men smoked pipes, their Snider rifles close at hand. Others just stood with thumbs tucked in belts slung with a variety of pistols. ‘This,’ Gordon said indicating with his finger to the three dead men awaiting burial, ‘is the first sure sign since this expedition set out from Cloncurry that the myalls are in large enough numbers to dare attack a party of white men. It appears to me from what I have been told by the black trackers that the Kalkadoon are retreating back to their mountain bases.’
‘Don't make sense the Kalks would bottle themselves up in the hills, Inspector,’ Commanche Jack drawled as he idled in the dust with a stick. ‘They's fight like the Apache. Hit an’ run the homesteads with us chasin' ′em all over the scrub in every direction. Jus' don't make sense for ′em to head fer the hills.’
‘A good point,’ Gordon answered. ‘But I feel that they are just bold enough to think they can take us head on in a fight. They think they are drawing us into ground of their choosing. But they have underestimated the power of the carbine.’
‘Mebbe so,’ Commanche Jack grunted. ‘Mebbe so.’
‘And that is their fatal mistake, gentlemen,’ Gordon continued. ‘Because what we need is to be able to pin them down in one place and let our rifles secure a lasting peace in the Cloncurry district. Tomorrow we begin the final stages in the dispersal of the Kalkadoon. Sergeant Rossi?’
‘Sari!’
‘Your column will ride with us tomorrow. From now on we will scour the valleys and hills to the west of our present position as a single force. We will endeavour to secure the ridges so denying the myalls any vantage points to rain rocks and sp
ears down on us.’
‘Some of them hills are bloody high, Inspector,’ a bearded squatter commented, an edge of disbelief in his voice. ‘We're not going to get horses up all them hills.’
‘You can bet that the Kalkadoon have worked that out for themselves. So we take particular note of such hills and surround them. If the myalls are on top then that is where they will die. Are there any further questions that need answering at this stage?’
The leaders of the parties shook their heads. The young inspector seemed to know his business. ‘I dare say that I don't have to warn you to be particularly vigilant from herein,’ Gordon said in parting to the men. ‘I feel that the myalls here are quite capable of launching an attack on us in the night. So keep sentries posted around your campsites.’
All had to agree with the young officer. Especially once they saw the naked and mutilated bodies of the three luckless men tumbled into the shallow grave nearby.
They rejoined their comrades who had commenced preparing their campsites for the coming night. Battered billies for boiling water for the tea and cast iron camp ovens appeared from the packs the spare horses carried.
The horses were hobbled to graze on the dry native grasses and men agreed to what watches they would stand through the night. Packs of greasy, dog-eared playing cards were produced out of saddlebags for the odd game or two to help wile away the time. The reality of the three dead men buried nearby had not unduly disturbed the tough frontiersmen. Death was a common enough event in their hard lives.
Night came to the expedition's camp, first as a gentle, beautiful orange light and then as a dark velvet cloak studded with crystalline diamonds.
Trooper Peter Duffy gazed across at Gordon James sitting alone by his small fire sipping tea from a mug. Over the long weeks of fruitless patrolling neither man had attempted to bridge the widening gulf of their dying friendship. The only thing they had in common now was Sarah – for Peter a loving concern of a brother for his sister's future; for Gordon a desire for a woman of mixed blood and a turmoil as to what he should do about his feelings for her.
Gordon gazed up at the stars and remembered the Aboriginal belief that they were the spirits of the dead. There were so many stars that a strange thought occurred to the young police officer. Would the skies be filled with many more before the expedition returned to Cloncurry? Three days earlier, boomerangs and spears whirred through the haze of the mid-afternoon, raining down amongst his column of horsemen.
Gordon had rallied his troopers and auxiliaries after the first onslaught to chase after the Kalkadoon who had flitted like shadows amongst the sparse trees of the plain. His reaction was based on the premise that the ambush was a sporadic affair. As such, the party had galloped at the warriors, his troopers and frontiersmen fanned out in a rough semblance of a charging cavalry.
But suddenly he had found another party of Kalkadoon warriors waiting to ambush his exposed flank. This time the spears found targets amongst the confused attackers. Two horses went down riddled with spears. The charge had ended in a melee, both horses and men breaking into confusion and panic as they fled in all directions. The warriors jeered at their retreat. Only Gordon's leadership had been able to rally his men, and turn a panicked flight into an orderly withdrawal.
When they had regrouped, sweating horses shivered and trembling men grinned sheepishly at each other. How easily they had underestimated their opponents, Gordon thought as he searched the plain for the Kalkadoon who had seemingly disappeared into thin air. It was a mistake he would never make again to underestimate the fierce and intelligent tactics of these warriors. Inspector Potter had underestimated them, and paid with his life.
On a hill top deep in the range of low round hills to the west of the Native Mounted Police campsite a seasoned warrior also sat alone by a fire and poked at the glowing embers with a stick.
Wallarie moodily watched the fire spirits dancing in a shower of sparks, fleeing into the night sky to join the twinkling spirits of the heavens. But he was not alone for long as he was joined by a broad-shouldered young warrior of the Kalkadoon.
Terituba had heard tales about the Darambal sorcerer who had travelled from the south to join them. It was said that the Darambal man knew much about the ways of the white men and had once befriended one who also had been hunted by the white tribes and the hated Native Mounted Police. The Darambal warrior had quickly learned the language of the Kalkadoon and been accepted as an advisor to the war chief.
Terituba sat cross-legged beside Wallarie and gazed into the glowing embers.
‘When the white men come to us we will wipe them out,’ he boasted to Wallarie who he knew had advised the Kalkadoon strongly against retreating into the hills. ‘Here they will be trapped in the hills and their horses of no use to them on the steep hillsides.’
But Wallarie remained silent and continued to gaze at the fire, ignoring the proud young warrior's boast. They did not truly know the persistence of the white troopers as he did!
‘We have the river to give us water and food,’ Terituba continued. ‘We have the rocks to shower on the enemy from our hills and we have killed a leader of the black crows before. They do not have the knowledge of the land as we do.’
Wallarie finally broke his silence. He could no longer stand the arrogance of the younger man. ‘The man who leads the black crows is a white man who knows the land,’ he said quietly. ‘I know this.’
Terituba stared at Wallarie with surprise. ‘But he is only a white man. How could he know the land as we do?’ he sneered.
‘Because he has lived amongst the Kyowarra for a time, and learned many things that we know. His father killed my people, until only I was left to tell you. He is a killer of all black people of the land. I know this because I know the man called Gordon James just as I knew his father before him.’
Terituba sat and listened as the older man uttered his words and felt the chill that came with the magic of a divine revelation. After a short while he rose to his feet and left Wallarie alone by his fire. The sorcerer was surely a man to be shunned or killed, he thought as he walked away.
When he was alone again Wallarie pondered on the coming of Gordon James to the hills with his horses and guns. Peter Duffy was with him. Peter, son of the big white man Tom Duffy and Mondo, Wallarie's blood relative. Peter was coming to kill his brothers who stood against the hated troopers of the Native Police.
A dingo howled from the depths of a valley. The old warrior glanced with dark eyes into the flames of the fire and saw things there. He crooned the songs of his people, songs that only he now remembered, until the dreams came. And when the dreams came the spirits of his people reached out to him across the vast plains of scrub, red earth and broken hills.
In his visions the spirit of the hill told him what he must do to save the memory of his people. Wallarie tried to protest but the voice of the spirit was strong and changed shapes to frighten him. Finally the Darambal warrior conceded to the wisdom of the ancestors. He sighed in his troubled sleep as the dingo howled to its kind in the Godkin Range.
NINETEEN
Michael Duffy bit the end off his cigar and spat the nipped section into the water that lapped gently against the rock wall of Sydney's Circular Quay. Passengers disembarking from the ferries bustled past him with barely a glance. He took his time in striking a match. He was in no hurry. He would savour the rich taste while he waited patiently to meet the man Horace Brown had contacted in the von Fellmann matter.
Paperboys peddled their trade, shouting to the passengers hurrying by in a language as unintelligible as that of an auctioneer. Horse-drawn trams and hansom cabs waited at the busy focal point of Sydney's link with the world. Steam ships lay at anchor in the many coves of the harbour city and sailing skiffs owned by the wealthy skipped the waves.
Michael idly watched the ladies in their long dresses that sprouted ungainly bustles. Men sported top hats and frock coats. He remembered similar scenes when, in his youth, he and his cou
sin Daniel had caught the ferry to Manly Village on the other side of the magnificent tree-lined harbour. It was there that he had first met the beautiful daughter of the powerful Scots squatter Donald Macintosh. But Fiona Macintosh was now Missus Fiona White and married to the man who had been responsible for the terrible turn of events that had thrust him into the violent world of mercenary soldiers.
Michael felt strangely at peace – even with the ever-present threat of his identity being disclosed to the police and the thought of the dangerous task that lay ahead of him – in the familiar sights and sounds of the city of his youth.
‘Mister Duffy,’ the deep, cultured voice behind him said as he continued to gaze across the water of the cove. ‘It has been some time since we last met.’
‘Major Godfrey. I see you are well,’ Michael said with some shock at recognising a face from his past. The last time he had met the military man had been over ten years earlier when the major had introduced himself at Baroness von Fellmann's afternoon party. They had talked about Colonel Custer and Michael had expressed his view that the Boy General would be in trouble if he ever confronted a united Indian front. Although the British officer had scoffed at this view Michael had proved to be right. In the intervening period George Armstrong Custer had perished with his troops at Little Big Horn. ‘Mister Brown informed me that you would be my contact in Sydney and somehow that did not surprise me.’
The older man smiled wryly. Although George Godfrey wore the fashion of the day, frock coat and shiny top hat, his bearing was that of the professional soldier: ramrod straight back, bending only at the neck to look down on the world of civilians. ‘Do not draw the conclusion that I am in the same profession as my dear friend Horace, Mister Duffy. My occasional work assisting him has been my duty as a soldier of the Queen. Any favours over the years have been motivated by a desire to see the possible enemies of Her Majesty foiled in their devious attempts to gain advantages over our imperial interests. I am a retired Colonel and have a small holding at Parramatta that is now my preoccupation in life. This will probably be the last time I will be assisting Horace in his work.’