Flight of the Eagle

by Peter Watt

  Sergeant Rossi acknowledged his superior officer's order and left the wounded man. The able-bodied men ambled listlessly over to Gordon who stood staring up at the summit. He could see the distant figures of warriors exposed amongst the rocks of the hill top. He could not afford to be defeated by the Kalkadoon. To return to Cloncurry was not an option.

  The bushmen and troopers who gathered around him were certainly a sorry sight. When Gordon addressed them his voice was full of confidence and the despondent men listened. But he was a born leader and could inspire men with the force of his personality.

  The men listened as Gordon outlined a new plan; they would split the force and assault the hill from two directions. The main assault would be up the slope from whence they had retreated. A diversionary assault would take the Kalkadoon from the opposite side of the hill. It was a simple plan and its simplicity appealed to them.

  The expedition was redeployed into two columns – one column under Gordon's command and the other under Sergeant Rossi. Gordon would lead the frontal assault on the hill and, although badly injured, Commanche Jack insisted on coming with Gordon. The American had one of the bushmen splint his arm and swapped his rifle for a revolver.

  Sergeant Rossi and his column rode out to take up their position on the opposite side of the hill while Gordon waited in the sparse shade of the scrub with his own force. After an hour they heard the sound of gunfire. Sergeant Rossi had commenced his assault.

  ‘Right, lads,’ Gordon said calmly. ‘It's time to go.’ The remaining able-bodied troopers and bushmen rose to their feet and heaved rifles from the earth. They formed a skirmish line and advanced with guns blazing under a hail of rocks, spears and boomerangs against the lightly defended summit.

  Again it was slow going as they moved from rock cover to rock cover, firing and reloading. But the attackers noticed a radical change on the summit. The defenders were no longer as organised and were running about in confusion as they moved to defend one side then the other. And, as they did, they were unwittingly exposing themselves to the guns of the attackers. One after another the Kalkadoon warriors fell as the bullets plucked away their lives.

  Gordon fired his revolver until it was empty. On either side of him his men kept advancing steadily forward. He raised his revolver searching for a target. But the battlefield had fallen silent.

  ‘Reload. And fall back to the horses,’ Gordon ordered to break the eerie silence that had descended. ‘See to the wounded.’

  The men broke rank and straggled back in silence to the scrub where the more seriously wounded had been left.

  ‘Goddamn Kalks!’ Commanche Jack muttered as he walked and shook his head disbelievingly. ‘Never know when to give up!’

  As weary men collapsed under the shade of the trees, Gordon wanted to seek a cool and dark place and crawl inside. He wanted to be alone and contemplate the enormity of what had just happened. But he knew he must stay on his feet and supervise the next stage of operations. His mission was not over – and would not be over – until the Kalkadoon ceased to be a people capable of ever waging war on the settlers of the Cloncurry district.

  ‘Damnedest thing I ever see'd,’ Commanche Jack said at his elbow. ‘Bravest thing I ever see'd in all my years of fightin’ Injuns.’

  Gordon did not reply to the American's observation but simply nodded his head. Where was the main body of Kalkadoon when every sign had pointed to an inevitable final battle? Just a handful of courageous warriors standing against his superior force. Why?

  When the answer came to Gordon he gazed up the hill. They had given their lives so that the women and children and the rest of the warriors could slip away. The realisation of the tribesmen's courage in their suicidal last stand humbled him and he bowed his head. They had denied him a victory and the story of their heroic stand would outshine his grasp for victory. Well, it was all over, he thought. The Kalkadoon had finally realised that they could not take on the might of the British Empire and he had done his job.

  So why did he feel as if something terrible had occurred? Not only in the lives of the defeated Kalkadoon but also in his own. Was this hill a spirit place, like the spirit hill of the Darambal people? Was he forever cursed like his father had supposedly been cursed? With a superstitious shudder Gordon turned his back on the hill and strode over to meet Sergeant Rossi who was riding in with the second column.

  In the late afternoon the troopers moved cautiously amongst the bodies of the Kalkadoon warriors to count the dead and shoot the wounded. Terituba regained consciousness and lay very still, feigning death, as the troopers stepped over him to advance up the hill. From the corner of his eye he attempted to see where Wallarie had fallen. But he was gone. Cautiously Terituba moved his head to scan the rocks around him.

  Everywhere he looked he could see the enemy firing the terrible weapons that took the lives of his people on the hill. To run now would be certain death. So he lay his head on the earth and waited patiently.

  When the sun was below the hill and the stars rose from the distant plains Terituba crept away from the battlefield. He wandered in the night until he came to the river where he knelt and slaked his thirst. His head throbbed and blood continued to trickle from the furrow of flesh opened up by the bullet.

  He lay down in the sand of the river bank and fell into a deep sleep. In his dream he remembered the death song the Darambal man had sung before the battle and woke with a start. His acute hearing picked up the sounds of the wild dogs snapping and snarling over the feast they had found on the slopes. The pride of Kalkadoon manhood was nothing more now than food for the scavengers. Terituba fell back into his sleep.

  As the sun rose the whistling flap of a flight of wild duck overheard woke the warrior. Much of his strength had returned. But he knew that his enemy would also have regained their strength. The leader of the white men had proved to be as ruthless as the Darambal man had warned. Terituba also knew that he would not leave the hills until he had hunted down the last of the Kalkadoon warriors. He knew that he must seek out any surviving bands of his people. But first he must find his wife and sons.

  He waded into the shallows of the river where the cold water bit his naked flesh although he did not feel it as he washed away the blood-adhered feathers. In the washing away of the totem signs of his warrior people he was washing away forever a way of a proud and courageous people. As a warrior people the Kalkadoon had effectively ceased to exist.

  In the gorges, and along the creek beds die troopers fired into the deserted gunyahs of the Kalkadoon. Smoke rose to mark the destruction to those survivors who had fled deeper into the sanctuary of the hills from where they watched in despair. Women wailed and the children joined their grief with tears of confusion for what had occurred the previous day. Surely in the long time reaching back to the Dreaming, no other catastrophe had ever been as devastating! However, had not the war chiefs listened to the Darambal man's advice not to pit the full strength of the tribe against the white man, then none would have survived. At least the women and children were alive and so too were a handful of the warriors.

  Gordon James made a personal tour of the slopes before joining his force which was preparing to ride out in search of survivors. He walked slowly amongst the bodies that littered the hillside searching for just one man. But he did not find the body of the Darambal man amongst the dead. The old warrior was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘What yer lookin’ fer, Inspector?’ Commanche Jack asked from astride his horse.

  Gordon stared across the red plains that stretched east from the hills. Above the plains a majestic eagle floated gracefully on a thermal updraft with its great wings spread.

  ‘I think I found what I was looking for,’ he replied as he gazed at the eagle. Commanche Jack spat a long chew of tobacco onto the ground and reined away. It did not appear as if the inspector would have told him what he had found.

  The American had guessed correctly. Gordon was not about to say that in the flight of the eagle
he saw the spirit of the old Darambal warrior. He continued to watch the eagle until it drifted on the wind to blur with the distant horizon. Maybe Peter had been right. Wallarie was a spirit man who could never be caught.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The ferry trip across the harbour recalled bittersweet memories for Michael. Times when, as a young man, he and his cousin Daniel Duffy spent their precious leave roaming the secluded beaches and scrub covered headland of Manly. A time of innocence when Michael had dreamed of a career as a painter and Daniel of ambitions in law.

  At least Daniel's dreams had been realised, as Michael knew from his sister Kate. He held a seat on the Legislative Council as the representative for the working-class district they had grown up in. Michael's dreams, however, had been shattered the night he killed Jack Horton's half-brother in a street fight. It had left him with two decades of living as a dead man to his family – with the exception of his sister – and two decades of constant danger to himself.

  In many ways, he brooded, fate had cast his lot the day he and Daniel had stood on the pier of Manly Village waiting for the ferry as a violent thunderstorm brewed in the sultry summer afternoon. That had been the day he had first lain eyes on the beautiful young dark-haired woman whose hand had gripped his arm as a reaction to the close clap of thunder overhead. Meeting Fiona Macintosh had been purely coincidental. But as the circumstances of the deadly relationship between the Macintosh family and his own began to unfold, Michael no longer dismissed the chance meeting as coincidental. It was as if a powerful force brought them together – to punish either one, or the other, or both.

  Kate was convinced that the slaughter of the Nerambura clan of the Darambal people had a definite link with the tragedies that had come to haunt both families over the years. At first Michael had dismissed her convictions. But he also had a respect for his sister's insights into the world that lay beyond the shadows of the night. Had the meeting with Fiona been ordained by a force beyond his understanding, he wondered again as he watched the pier crowded with people as the steam ferry approached the wharf. If so, was this yet another ordained passage in his life?

  The gangplanks clattered from the wharf onto the ferry and the passengers disembarked. Michael breathed in the salty freshness of the air as he strode down the pier towards the picturesque village which nestled between the calmer waters of the harbour and the rolling breakers of the Pacific Ocean. The village always seemed to have a holiday air about it which had been intended by its visionary founder, Henry Gilbert Smith, who had arrived as an immigrant from England in 1827. His vision had been to make Manly the Brighton of Sydney.

  Michael walked through the village along the Corso, named by Henry Smith after a street he had first seen whilst in Rome. He passed busy hotels and elegant little shops until he came to the end of the main street which terminated at the crashing waves. If what John had gleaned from his Chinese market gardener contact was correct, Fiona should be staying in the cottage this day.

  It was mid-morning and the onshore breeze ruffled his thick, curling hair as he walked with the sand squelching beneath his boots. In the distance he saw the tiny figure walking away from him on the beach. She held a brightly coloured parasol to protect her from the sun and walked slowly in bare feet to savour the feeling of the ocean's crispness between her toes. Even at a distance Michael knew it was the woman he sought.

  ‘May the angels protect you always,’ he said softly when he approached her from behind. Fiona froze and for a brief moment Michael thought she might faint. But she steadied herself and turned slowly as if expecting to be frightened by the spectre of a ghost.

  ‘Michael!’

  His name came as a strangled whisper as she stared up at his face with an expression of utter astonishment.

  ‘I thought you might remember those words,’ he said gently, smiling sadly down on her. ‘I knew you would be here. Don't ask me how, though.’

  Fiona did not respond immediately, such was her shock at seeing again the face of the man she had once loved above all others. She had seen him once since their last moments together in the cottage not far from where they now stood on the beach. But the last time she had met him he was introduced to her as Michael O'Flynn, American gun dealer. She had thought at the time that he was the man she once knew, the man who had fathered her son. But his denials of his identity had been convincing, although not convincing enough to fool her cousin Penelope. Now he stood before her, years older. But he still had the slightly crooked nose, a legacy of his days as a bare knuckle fighter. She did not think his ruggedly handsome face was marred by the leather eye patch; his remaining blue eye sparkled with the spirit of humour and gentleness she had always associated with him.

  ‘You are as beautiful,’ he said gently. ‘No, you are even more beautiful now than when I last saw you on this beach. Time has stood still for you.’

  Fiona touched her hair self-consciously and her laughter was mixed with tiny tears. ‘And you, Michael Duffy, have not lost any of that Irish charm of yours,’ she said. ‘My hair has the signs of age, as you can plainly see.’

  ‘Only the streaks of silver that mark you as a lady,’ he replied warmly, and his smile broadened for her benefit. ‘Your beauty is ageless, like the blue of the ocean or the colours of the rose.’

  ‘I know you are lying, Michael Duffy,’ she said softly, and the tears welled behind her emerald green eyes. ‘But I would believe anything you said because no man is as gentle and loving as you.’

  The big man who had survived years of war and deadly intrigue looked away to the rolling waves that broke with a soft hiss on the yellow sands of the beach. He did not want her to see the tears that came to his own eyes, although her affirmation of that side of his nature that he had to deny to the world at large was touching. Very few people in his life outside his immediate family knew him other than a battle-hardened soldier of fortune.

  ‘I know about Patrick,’ he said in choked words as he gazed across the sea. ‘I am going to find him.’ Then he turned to face her and the parasol fell from her hand as she reached out to embrace him.

  She held him and deep racking sobs shook her body. She cried tears for the years they had lost; tears for the son they created but was now lost to them. Her pain found release in the arms she so vividly remembered. She clung to him and felt his big hand stroking her hair as if she was a child once again in the arms of her beloved nanny Molly O'Rourke.

  As if they had gone back in time, Michael and Fiona sat together in the cottage and held each other's hands. But this time the passion was gone. Their love was different now as too much had happened in their lives.

  ‘I know of all that which occurred between you and Penelope,’ Fiona sighed. ‘But I doubt that she shared your soul as I have, only your body.’ He did not answer. But if he had it would have been to agree with her. ‘Penelope and I …’ Fiona seemed to struggle for words before she finally said, ‘I love Penelope in a way you might not understand.’

  Although Michael knew of the relationship that existed between the two women he did not reveal it. Better that she thought some things were secret from his dirty world of intrigue, he thought with a twinge of guilt. ‘I think I understand,’ he replied, and squeezed her hand gently. ‘You need not tell me anymore if you don't wish to.’

  ‘I will always love you, Michael,’ Fiona said softly. ‘When I learned of you and Penelope I was hurt and angry but I remember Penny telling me she had not loved the same Michael Duffy I had once loved. So we have both been fortunate to have found the love of our own Michael Duffys.’

  Michael laughed gently at her wide-eyed attempt to explain the situation. Her expression took on a puzzled crossness that was very appealing to him. ‘What is so funny?’ she asked him stiffly. ‘I am being serious, Michael.’

  He ceased his soft laughter and stared at her with a gentle smile. ‘You know something. As a man I have been very fortunate in life to have known you both. But I pray to God that our son never learns t
hat his mother and his aunt Penelope shared the bed of the two Michaels each of you knew. I suspect his English upbringing might not approve of the wanton ways of his mother and aunt.’

  Fiona's stern expression melted with her laughter as she had a fleeting image of her son's shock. But the laughter died as she gazed gravely at Michael and said, ‘You will find him. Won't you?’

  A haunted look came to her emerald eyes as she pleaded for her son's life with the one man she truly trusted.

  ‘I will,’ Michael answered and held her hands tightly in his own. ‘And when I do, I will bring him home to you.’

  Fiona tried to smile at his confident, reassuring words. ‘Even if you bring Patrick back, my mother has poisoned him against me,’ she said in a whisper. ‘He has been told by her that I sent him away to a baby farm and had it not been for Molly saving him he would have been killed.’

  For a second Michael was stunned by the revelation and stared at her in horror. This was not an act possible by Lady Enid, he thought. ‘Then I will tell him the truth,’ he said. ‘That your mother has lied to him.’

  With a gratitude beyond mere words Fiona hugged Michael with all the strength in her body. ‘Dear Michael, I know why I love you so much. You are able to see the truth.’

  Neither noticed Penelope enter the room until she was standing before them. Then it was Michael who saw her first and he disengaged himself from Fiona's arms.

  ‘Hello, Fiona,’ she greeted politely, then turned towards Michael. ‘I was expecting to see you earlier.’

  Fiona's expression changed dramatically. She was caught between guilt and confusion. Although nothing had occurred between her and Michael the situation appeared compromising. She brushed down the front of her dress and greeted her cousin who returned her words with some coolness.

  ‘What do you mean by “expecting to see me earlier”?’ Michael asked and Penelope turned her attention to him after she received a quick hug and peck on the cheek from Fiona.