Flight of the Eagle

by Peter Watt

  Even the men who had asked the questions nodded agreement. Gordon could see the tough bushmen would come down off their horses if they had to. They would fight, but so, too, would the warriors defending their lands. ‘I am sure we will have the cover we need. I suspect the Kalkadoon will have chosen a hill with plenty of cover for himself,’ he added as a balm for their fears. ‘Our guns out-range their spears. We will keep it that way when we attack. We will work to cover each other as we make our advance against them as we did successfully today.’

  His final attempt at reassurance was not entirely convincing. Many of the men gazed around the scrub at the Kalkadoon bodies and realised that they had also taken casualties in the savage skirmish and Inspector James's own trapped patrol had almost been massacred. They fully knew what had occurred had merely been a delaying skirmish and not a full-pitched battle.

  When he had finished his briefing and issued his orders to the patrols that would seek out the Kalkadoon stronghold the following day, Gordon watched the men amble away to set up campsites. Sergeant Rossi had his orders to organise the care of the wounded and to arrange for an escort party to take the more seriously wounded men back to Cloncurry.

  Gordon remained standing by his map. He slipped his ′73 army model Colt revolver from his holster to complete the task his trembling hands had failed to achieve before. He now loaded the gun with ease and his hands no longer shook with his fear. Once it was loaded and gripped in his hand he felt again its awesome power to take life. His decision to press the advance on the Kalkadoon was an important one in the colony's short history, he knew. To lose against the Kalkadoon with the force he had mustered could be a turning point in the way the government pursued its policies of opening up territory for settlement. Should they be defeated in battle then public pressure might force negotiation with the ancient and traditional landowners.

  No, he was not going to be the first representative of the Crown in the Colony of Queensland to be defeated in a major battle with the Aboriginal warriors. But if he was to ensure total success, his victory had to be a final, crushing defeat of his enemy.

  He slipped the revolver into the holster on his belt and gazed at the summits of the larger hills of the range to the south. They were out there waiting for him. No doubt, they also realised the significance of the outcome of one last, decisive battle. Not in political or historical terms, but for the very survival of their tribe.

  Gordon had a feeling that his old mentor of his boyhood, Wallarie, would have been proud of the way he had learned the killing ways of the Kalkadoon. Or would he now be cursing his very existence?

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The telegram boy was awed by the size of the house with its lush gardens. From the front door he could see the magnificent harbour below and his astonishment was only broken when a maid opened the door to chide him for not using the tradesmen's entrance. She snatched the telegram from the impudent boy. It was addressed to Lady Enid Macintosh and the maid handed the telegram to her on a silver salver where she sat in the library poring through business correspondence.

  The library doubled as Lady Enid's office as she now ran the family companies in reluctant conjunction with her son-in-law Granville White, whose office was in a building in Sydney's Bridge Street. But from her home Enid was able to monitor and decide on those matters affecting the future of the prosperous conglomerate.

  She was approaching her seventies and her once jet black hair had faded to a pure white splash of snow piled on her head. Her skin remained relatively youthful looking and her trim figure was like that of a woman twenty years younger.

  Stern and unsmiling, Enid thanked the maid and when she had left stared at the telegram with a rising fear. She instinctively knew that it contained bad news and her hand trembled when she read the brief but sharp words on the paper. Captain Patrick Duffy officially listed missing in action. Letter to follow. Major Hughes B.M.

  In the simple military expression lay the loss of the only person she had grown to love after the death of her son David. Soldiers do not simply go missing, she thought in her shock and disbelief. It was the army's way of saying that he was dead and that they could not find his body.

  The maid heard the strangled cry and hurried to the library. Without knocking she burst into the room and was shocked to see Lady Enid sitting so very still and pale in the huge leather chair behind the teak desk. It was as if the woman was dead but still remained breathing! Doctor Vane would have to be fetched.

  Michael Duffy gazed at the electrotype reproduction of a long dead Roman general's gold and silver plate. He wondered with idle curiosity just how much the original now held in some European museum would be worth in monetary terms. The original had been excavated from a dig at Hildesheim, near Hanover in Germany, where it had lain in the earth for fifteen centuries. Buried by the retreating Roman legions during a time when the fierce northern warriors had exploded from the dark forests of their lands to sweep south towards the heart of the Roman Empire, bringing about that time in history known to European scholars as the Dark Ages.

  The choice of meeting place with Colonel George Godfrey was rather apt, Michael thought, as he stood pondering on the link with the past. The warriors who had forced the Roman general to hide his prized plate might once again sweep across modern Europe. Not as undisciplined warriors wielding swords and spears, but as highly trained and disciplined troops, armed with the latest Krupps weapons of mass destruction. Not this time a threat to the Roman emperors – but a threat to the British Empire of the English Crown.

  The newly opened museum in College Street opposite the magnificent Hyde Park in Sydney's very busy heart, held collections of natural and technological history to rival famed international exhibitions of a similar kind. Exotic stuffed animals, birds and fishes from all corners of the world, brought the Australian public a step closer to the dwindling number of wild places on the planet. Steel railways were pushing into steamy jungles and across the vast and lonely plains of Africa and the Americas, taking carriages loaded with immigrants, scientists, tourists and entrepreneurs with them.

  ‘Good morning, Mister Duffy,’ the voice at his elbow said, and Michael turned to greet Colonel Godfrey who stood gazing at the plate nestled behind its glass case. ‘A magnificent replica of Roman beauty, is it not?’

  ‘Nice to have the original over the mantelpiece,’ Michael replied with a smile. ‘Would be worth a small fortune.’

  ‘I dare say you are right,’ Godfrey commented, and hooked the furled umbrella he carried over his arm. The weather outside the confines of the museum was brewing for one of those short but sharp thunderstorms that often ripped through the city. ‘How far have you progressed with your inquiries in the last few days?’ the colonel asked as the two men walked slowly away from the exhibit towards a wooden bench set aside for weary visitors.

  ‘I've confirmed the men working around the Baron's ship are, as you and Horace suspected, Imperial marines,’ Michael said as they took a seat. ‘My German was fluent enough to convince them I was sympathetic to the Kaiser's ambitions to spread the advantages of German culture to this part of the world.’

  Michael had noted where the marines drank when they were not with the supposed trading ship moored in Sydney Harbour. He had ingratiated himself in their company as an Irishman who happened to oppose all things English and explained his fluency in their language by inventing a German mother from Hamburg. With the ready flow of strong alcoholic spirits the German tongues loosened and he had been able to pick up bits and pieces of useful information.

  ‘And what of Mister Wong's efforts?’ Godfrey asked. ‘Has he had any success?’

  ‘He's established contacts with the Chinese in Sydney,’ Michael replied and stared at the polished marble floor of the museum. ‘Even found one of his countrymen who delivers vegetables to the Baron's house. The man has a good relationship with the servants there who keep him up to date on gossip.’

  When he glanced up, Godfrey could see
the pained expression in the big man's eye and had a good idea why the revelation of gossip in the house would cause it. Horace Brown had confided all in a report to him prior to the mission being undertaken and the report included Fiona's relationship with her equally beautiful cousin the Baroness Penelope von Fellmann.

  ‘When will you make contact with Missus White?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Day after tomorrow. It appears from what John has learned from his contact that Missus White will be staying at the Macintosh cottage in Manly Village and I suspect that she will be also meeting the Baroness there.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Meet with her and solicit her assistance with blackmail,’ Michael replied bitterly. ‘If there is no other way.’

  The colonel nodded and a silence fell between the two men. They watched the parade of ladies and gentlemen file past the exhibits.

  Godfrey sighed and broke the silence. ‘Your work with Horace is finished, Mister Duffy,’ he said quietly and Michael looked sharply at the other man as if not believing his ears. ‘Horace telegraphed,’ Godfrey continued, ‘to inform me that the mission is over.’

  ‘Over? What's happened?’

  ‘I don't know, old chap,’ Godfrey answered. ‘But Horace will tell you himself when he arrives next week. He left Townsville just after I received his telegram last week and I am as much in the dark as yourself. In the meantime you will be paid until Horace terminates your longstanding professional relationship with him.’

  ‘Then why ask me all the questions about the Germans?’ Michael asked with a frown of annoyance. ‘You could have told me the mission was off when we first met.’

  ‘I had my reasons,’ Godfrey said, staring straight ahead. ‘Your work with my friend Horace is over but I think a man like yourself will be interested in undertaking a job for another dear friend of mine. A job that will reimburse you more generously than what Horace has been paying you in the past.’

  ‘What job? And for whom?’ Michael asked suspiciously.

  ‘That,’ Godfrey sighed, ‘I am not at liberty to say at this particular moment. But I will ask you one question before we go any further with this conversation and you can either accept or reject my offer.’

  ‘Ask the question,’ Michael growled.

  ‘To what extent would you go to find your son?’

  Michael felt a chill creep into the museum. ‘What do you know that I don't, Colonel?’ His breathing had stopped.

  ‘Apparently you are not privy to the news of your son being reported missing in action. I'm sorry.’

  ‘The Sudan?’

  ‘I'm afraid so. It appears he was on a reconnaissance mission for the army at some place called McNeill's Zareba when he went missing and from what the army can tell me it seems he must have clashed with a band of Dervishes beyond the lines. They did not recover the body. So he is officially missing in action until they have substantive proof of his death.’

  The terraced walkways of the spacious hall of the museum closed in on Michael. Patrick missing in action, presumed dead! His son was the only part of his life that was created out of an act of love. ‘What does my son's fate have to do with the job you are offering me?’ he asked, barely above a whisper.

  ‘The person who has an interest in hiring you is a dear friend and has been recently made aware of your availability to carry out a trip to Africa and my ability to have letters of introduction prepared for you for the general staff of the army at Suakin. We both feel you have more than a financial interest in finding Captain Duffy, or at least confirming, either way, his fate.’

  ‘Who is that person, Colonel?’

  ‘All in good time,’ Godfrey replied. ‘But first your word that you will accept the offer I have made on behalf of my friend.’

  ‘You bloody well know I would go in search of my son. Money or no money.’

  ‘In that case I will meet you at Central Station at seven o'clock in the evening at the main entrance. We will go from there in my carriage to meet my friend and discuss the matter.’

  ‘You aren't going to tell me who your dear friend is before then?’ Michael asked irritably.

  ‘All in good time,’ Godfrey repeated. ‘I am sorry you had to learn of your son's fate in this manner, Mister Duffy. I know that you have had no contact with him. But I also know he is your son and always will be.’ Michael stared with a vacant eye at the marble floor as the colonel rose from the seat stiffly and glanced around. ‘You will need time to think,’ he said gently. ‘You can inform Mister Wong he is no longer required in Sydney. I believe he has a family and rather prosperous business in Queensland and so no doubt will be pleased to return home.’

  He unhooked the umbrella from his arm and absent-mindedly prodded the marble floor with the metal point. ‘You are a fortunate man to be able to command the loyalty of Mister Wong,’ he added as he made ready to walk away. ‘I believe he would follow you to hell if you asked him.’

  ‘We have been to hell together, Colonel,’ Michael said quietly. ‘I would never ask him to go with me to that place again. It is only a place where I go.’

  ‘Yes. I believe you do,’ Godfrey said sympathetically and cleared his throat. ‘I will bid you good day, Mister Duffy.’

  As Michael watched the colonel walk away he wondered who had a vested interest in ascertaining Patrick's fate. Who had access to knowledge about his own identity and how? ‘Granville White!’ he hissed between clenched teeth. Was Granville White the dear friend? It made sense that White would have friends at Victoria Barracks. If this was so, he knew he was in great danger. Was it that the traps would be waiting for him? Was it that Granville White desired to ensure his completion of a mission he had set out to achieve over twenty years earlier when he had hired the thugs to kill him?

  Paranoia was an inevitability in this world of treachery and deceit and only his comrade-in-arms, John Wong, could be trusted deep in enemy territory. Was it a coincidence that the colonel had told him John's services were no longer required?

  Michael felt as if he was walking in a valley with his enemies enjoying the advantage of the hills on either side. But at the end of the valley he could see Fiona smiling sadly at him. He sensed that her need to talk about the fate of their son was equal to his own. At least now he could go to her without the threat of blackmail. But the thought of the meeting with the colonel the next day caused Fiona to fade from his vision. Was he walking into a trap set by the utterly ruthless man he had sworn to avenge himself on one day?

  ‘You leave tomorrow, John,’ Michael said firmly to the big Eurasian sitting opposite him in the dingy office that had been a front for their operations against von Fellmann. Not that the office would have fooled a careful scrutiny by anyone acquainted with the import and export trade. There was no real evidence of the paperwork one would expect with the trade: no ledgers of accounts could be seen on the bare desk or empty shelves; no almanacs of shipping routes. Only a painted sign at the front of the tiny office declaring the proprietor. John Wong – Importer of Oriental Wares.

  John shifted in the swivel chair and hunched forward. ‘You go without backup to Central Station tomorrow you could end up dead if your suspicions about Granville White being behind the meeting are right,’ he growled. ‘You need me, Michael.’

  ‘Not anymore, old friend,’ Michael said mournfully. ‘You have a wife and family to think about and I was stupid to even recruit you for the job here. I took advantage of your loyalty without thinking through the possible consequences the mission might have had to your safety.’

  John's burst of laughter rolled around the tiny office, catching in the spider's web at one corner of the tin ceiling. ‘Old friend, I was getting bored,’ he said when the laughter had abated to a chuckle. ‘I was almost missing the days you and I pushed our luck to the limit. I was growing fat on my missus' excellent noodle cooking and I was starting to question why the hell I had left you to have all the fun somewhere in the Orient. I often thought about raising the
subject of rejoining you every time Horace came over for a chat.’

  ‘It's different this time,’ Michael warned with a sad smile. ‘Here I have come the full circle of my life to confront the enemy who started me on the road to the hell that has been my life. I'm in his territory and he holds all the advantages.’

  ‘Never much different in the past,’ John grunted. ‘You and I always seemed to be up against the odds. But somehow we survived.’

  Michael stared at his friend. Yes. They had seen much together and had always beaten the odds. But this was different. Here, he worked under the shadow of the gallows, should he be identified and betrayed to the police. A warrant for murder did not cease in a man's lifetime. Here, his friend could be compromised by association with a wanted felon. A compromise that could ruin his business and life with his family. ‘You leave tomorrow,’ Michael reiterated stubbornly as he bit down on the unlit Havana cigar he had retrieved from a box on the desk. ‘What happens tomorrow is personal. It's got nothing to do with you.’

  ‘All right, if you say so you bloody fool,’ his friend answered with a tone of exasperation. ‘I'll go, and leave you with your problems.’

  Michael stared suspiciously at his friend as he leaned back in his chair. The damned inscrutableness of his Chinese half had come to the fore, he thought. ‘Will you give me your hand on a promise to go?’ he asked, as he continued to examine the expression of the man opposite and noticed a faint flicker of uncertainty.

  But the uncertainty was quickly absorbed in the smile that came slowly as John thrust out his broad hand. ‘On the lives of my family and my illustrious ancestors I promise I will leave,’ he said and Michael took his hand.