by Peter Watt
Emma James listened to her son explaining his mission. It was only when he was gone that she sat and thought about the ironic turn of events; just as his father had hunted Tom Duffy, now Gordon hunted the son of Tom Duffy. A sad wheel turning in their lives and always coming back to the place where it had all started. All the threads had come together for a future tragedy: a Native Mounted Police patrol would once again ride armed into the lands of the Nerambura clan of the Darambal people.
The resignation letter remained in Gordon's hand. He would tender it as soon as he had found Peter and ensured that his best friend was safe. Surely Sarah would understand the importance of what he was doing?
Gordon did not ride over to see Sarah before leaving with his patrol. He sensed that in fact she would not understand why he would volunteer to hunt down her brother. How could he explain to her that it was more than his duty to find Peter and reconcile his differences with him before he could begin a life with her? To find Peter before he could get into any more trouble was paramount. He and Sarah would then be able to be free of the curse that seemed to dog their lives.
THIRTY-SEVEN
South-west of Townsville, and four days ahead of the police patrol, Peter Duffy and Wallarie camped in the thick tangle of dry scrub beside a waterhole. There was a third member in their company: a part-Chinese part-Aboriginal girl who had chosen to join them when they had bailed up a drunken shanty keeper.
Her name was Matilda and she had lived with her mother until she had died. Matilda had then remained with her stepfather until he sold her to the travelling shanty keeper who had purchased her from a prospector a week earlier for a considerable supply of good liquor. She was not of his blood and the old prospector had little room for sentimentality in his tough life roaming the isolated regions of the colony.
Matilda's mother and father, a Chinese shepherd, had lived together in a bark hut on a squatter's property. Matilda's mother had returned one day to the shack to find him murdered for the little gold he had kept from his meagre findings on the property west of Townsville. She had fled with her baby daughter and was found by the prospector who took her in as cook and someone to warm his bedroll at nights.
Matilda had grown up in the company of the white miner and her mother until she was fifteen when her mother had died after a bashing from the cranky old man. He had turned to Matilda to take her mother's place but the young girl had threatened to kill him if he tried to touch her. He was, afraid of the young woman but knew her exotic beauty – her slanted eyes and high-cheeked features – would help him fetch a high price with the right person. He was, after all, selling her into a decent employment – or so he convinced himself – at the sight of a crate of top shelf gin bottles offered for her ‘indenture’ into the grog shanty business.
The shanty owner had all intentions of offering her employment in his business – not behind the counter but in a cot in the back of his shop. She would fetch a good deal of money on her back, he had calculated, as he sized up the slim figure and firm young breasts and buttocks of the girl, as she leant over to serve her stepfather and the shanty owner a meal of curried beef and rice. The deal was struck between the grogger and prospector but on the track to his lonely grog shop Matilda had resisted his drunken approaches and he had beaten her.
It had been her cries of pain that had attracted Peter's attention as he and Wallarie rode up to witness the shanty owner straddling the young woman with his pants down around his ankles. Peter and Wallarie's presence had cowed the would-be rapist and robbing the ranting man had not even required the threat of a gun.
Wallarie and Peter helped themselves to flour, tea and sugar as the grateful girl adjusted the cotton dress she wore, and helped them load the supplies into their saddlebags. Peter had reached down and with a powerful sweep of his arm lifted her onto the back of his mount and she rode with her arms around the young man.
Peter by now only wore the trousers and boots of the Mounted Police and a bandolier of ammunition, slung across his shoulder and broad chest. Wallarie by comparison wore an old shirt and trousers, but no boots, when he rode the horse he had stolen from the Cloncurry Mounted Police barracks. Peter had been stunned by his audacity when he had walked into the town dressed in the clothes of Aboriginal stockmen. He had arrived brazenly at the police barracks and asked to speak with the trooper who had returned with the re-supply party.
‘How did you know I was here?’ Peter had asked.
Wallarie had chuckled. ‘Maybe I followed you on the wings of the eagle after the big fight out in the hills.’
Peter frowned at the old warrior's explanation but knew asking further questions would only elicit a nonsensical answer. ‘You know the whitefellas will hang you if they catch you in town?’ he cautioned.
Wallarie waved away the young man's concern. ‘No whitefella smart enough to catch me,’ he answered with a tone of contempt. ‘Time you left the whitefellas' town and came with me to the Dreaming place to become a man of the Nerambura people.’
Peter reflected on the offer. He had been denied his rightful place in the European world. Had he not proved his ability at the European school? And why was it that Gordon should be an officer when he was not as smart? The answers were all too simple. To the whitefellas he would always be just another blackfella.
‘We will need rifles and horses,’ Peter said, with an unwavering stare into the smoky eyes of the mighty Darambal warrior.
‘Just like the old days when I rode with your father,’ he smiled. ‘We will show the whitefellas we aren't beaten yet.’
And that was how it happened.
It all seemed so simple but in due time the grog shop owner had lodged his complaint with the police headquarters in Townsville. Embellished by his fury, the man added attempted murder and robbery whilst under arms to his story.
No-one questioned the word of a white man under the circumstances and, unfortunately for Wallarie, the shanty owner remembered his name being used by Peter. He also remembered the legend of the Aboriginal bushranger who once rode with the Irishman, Tom Duffy.
From the first night of their meeting Matilda and Peter had shared a bedroll. Before long she had fallen pregnant. For two weeks Matilda rode with Wallarie and Peter and for two weeks she had ridden with a life growing in her. Now she also carried the remnants of Nerambura blood with hers, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the old Nerambura warrior.
Not that she appeared different. But even so, Wallarie knew she had a spirit in her. He did not confide to Peter his knowledge. He would learn soon enough! When Matilda herself realised that she carried a spirit.
As Wallarie sat chuckling by the campfire, luxuriating in the beauty of the night sky and drinking cups of sweet black tea, he poked at the fire. A dingo howled in the distance and the old warrior suddenly lifted his bearded face to stare north. It was on the wind and in the mournful howl. Gordon James was riding south to find them and time was short. The old prophecy was soon to come true. Either Peter or Gordon was destined to die at their next meeting.
Wallarie stared morosely at the young couple curled together a short distance away under Peter's blanket, blissfully unaware of his dreadful premonition. Would all he had attempted to teach Peter prepare him for the meeting? Or would the son of Gordon James prevail? Only the ancestor spirits knew the answer. It was told by them long ago in the stories of his people's Dreaming.
Instinctively he glanced across the brigalow scrub towards the craggy hill silhouetted by the night sky. Once again they were in the traditional lands of the Nerambura clan and the sacred hill beckoned to him with its ancient power. In the morning Peter must leave Matilda and go with him to the cave to be initiated as a Nerambura man. Only then could he face Gordon James.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Lieutenant Alexander Sutherland scanned the flat – plain of broken rock and arid sands. In the distance beyond the shimmering plain he could see an endless sea of sand and broken rock. Behind him rose the craggy mimosa covered coas
tal hills and the busy military port of Suakin. Onwards was hell itself. Only a return to Suakin from the long and dangerous patrol would give a chance to return to heaven. To bath once again in cooling waters, he thought wistfully, and loll around the bazaars of the white stone city. A chance to buy exotic gifts for his family back home in Colchester.
The young officer scratched at his grimy face and dry skin peeled away under his dirty fingernails. His sunburn had long disappeared and under the peeling dry skin his once-peach complexion was tanned a nuggetty brown. Constant exposure to the fierce African sun had left him a mottled colour. As a former officer, in command of a troop of Her Majesty's horse cavalry, the transfer to the Guards' Camel Regiment had come as somewhat of a blow. The glamorous image of the dashing cavalryman was long lost to working with the huge ungainly looking animals. But time – and the remarkable endurance of the huge and often quarrelsome beasts – had converted him to the merits of the creature. They were unsurpassed on the long-range reconnaissance patrols into the burning, broken lands of the Dervish.
The lieutenant scanned the wasteland of rock and sparsely scattered scrub with his binoculars but there was nothing of worth to note. No camps of bedouins or concentrations of Dervish warriors. No tracks or trails left by the enemy roaming the land on the same mission as himself: to reconnoitre for their respective armies and collect information to be converted into intelligence. Behind him, two escorting troopers sat on their camels scratching at the tiny insects that itched their sweating bodies. They had removed their goggles, issued to keep sand out, and rubbed at their sore eyes with the backs of grimy hands.
‘Blimey, Harry’ one of the men grumbled to his companion. ‘Mister Sutherland looks like 'e might want to go further south.’
Harry stared across at the young officer who had advanced fifty paces in front of them to a tiny rise in the sand.
‘Gor blimey! You could be right,’ his companion answered. But he noticed that something had gained the attention of their patrol leader.
Lieutenant Alexander Sutherland leant forward and fiddled with the focus on his binoculars. They brought into sharper outline the blurred image of a solitary man who plodded towards the patrol. Although the man was at least a quarter of a mile away, Sutherland could see that he was big, with broad shoulders and he appeared to be wearing what looked like the tattered uniform of the British army. ‘Trooper Krimble, Haley. Up here,’ he called back softly and the two cavalrymen urged their camels onto their feet. ‘Out there, to my front, ‘bout four hundred and fifty yards, there is what appears to be a man wearing what looks like a British uniform,’ Sutherland said. He pointed with his binoculars across the sand at the shimmering figure which twisted and turned in the heat haze. ‘At least what is left of one of our uniforms. Do you see the man?’
Trooper Harry Krimble squinted, his hand held to shade his eyes. He could just see the outline of a man. He brought his camel down into a kneeling position, dismounted and slipped his Henry carbine from across his shoulders, laying the barrel across the saddle. It was loaded and he slid the rear sight back for a long shot so he could drop the fuzzy wuzzy while he was well out, just in case he had any mates with him. Harry raised the rifle to his shoulder and used the saddle of his camel as a prop to steady his aim.
‘Don't shoot him just yet,’ Sutherland cautioned. ‘Wait until he is at least a hundred yards from us before you fire, Trooper Krimble. It looks as if he has seen us, and the chap does not appear afraid to take us on.’
‘Sure you want the crazy bugger that close, sir?’ Krimble questioned from behind his rifle, as he kept the blade of the fore sight on the target which was steadily drawing closer. ‘’E might ′ave some of ′is fuzzy wuzzy mates with ′im out there.’
‘No, I doubt that,’ Sutherland answered. ‘I have a good view of the terrain to our front and he is well and truly alone. Possibly got separated from one of his Dervish patrols and has decided to get to his Moslem heaven by attacking us. Only right we grant him his wish for salvation.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ Krimble answered with a grin and slid the rear sight of his rifle back to one hundred yards.
They waited patiently under the blazing sun as the figure advancing towards them came on steadily, if not erratically. At one hundred yards Krimble had the man well and truly in his sights and was squeezing the trigger when he heard his officer bark at him, ‘Check your fire! Don't shoot!’
Lieutenant Sutherland dropped his binoculars and leapt from his camel as the two puzzled soldiers glanced at each other. They were confused by their young officer's sudden concern for the fuzzy wuzzy staggering towards them but neither of the camel men had the advantage of the officer's binoculars. They had not seen the green eyes of the sun blackened man.
‘Captain Patrick Duffy,’ the sunburnt man gasped through cracked lips as he stumbled into the arms of Lieutenant Sutherland. ‘Of the Scots' Brigade. And lately, of hell … out there.’
Patrick returned with the camel patrol to Suakin from where he was sent to recover from his three-week ordeal on the Ganges. She was a hospital ship anchored off the white washed port city of Suakin on the Red Sea and his removal from the missing in action list brought a flurry of newspaper reporters to his bedside.
Amongst the correspondents was one who worked for the paper now owned by Lady Enid Macintosh.
THIRTY-NINE
George Godfrey greeted the maid who took his hat and coat and returned the greeting with a warm familiarity born of his frequent visits to Lady Enid Macintosh's house. He shook off the outside cold of the early winter weather as he stepped into the large living room where he was pleasantly assailed by the heat of the log fire burning with a gentle flame. Enid greeted him with a vibrancy that Godfrey had not seen in her in a long time. The telegram that had arrived two days earlier proclaiming that Patrick was alive and well had rejuvenated her and her eyes were alight with the flame of assertiveness that had always marked her life. Once again she was ready to fight her son-in-law for control of the family companies as she now had an ally in her grandson who soon would be returning to her.
Enid swept across the room with a radiant and triumphant smile to greet Godfrey.
‘I knew that he must be alive,’ she said, as she took his hands in hers. ‘He is recovering at Suakin.’
Godfrey clasped her hands with a gentle squeeze and led her across to a couch where they sat together. ‘Your grandson certainly has inherited the luck of his Irish father's people,’ he said.
Enid glanced away guiltily to gaze into the fire. Godfrey realised that the indirect mention of Michael Duffy had caused her observable shift in mood from bubblingly happy to considerably sombre. ‘Michael Duffy should be arriving in Suakin in the next couple of weeks,’ he added. ‘There is more than a good chance that he will meet his son.’
‘I know,’ Enid replied as she continued to stare at the fire. ‘I fear he will.’
‘It was bound to happen sooner or later.’ He tried to comfort her with a gentle and reassuring squeeze. ‘You must have realised that would happen. What could concern you about the boy meeting his father? It was, after all, your idea for him to find Patrick in the first place.’
‘I did so when everything appeared so desperate,’ she replied. ‘But now that I know my grandson is alive, I have had time to reflect on my rather foolish haste to employ Mister Duffy.’
‘I would not say that your decision to employ Michael Duffy was a foolish one, Enid,’ Godfrey said gently. ‘He is an extremely capable man.’
‘He is also capable of swaying Patrick away from his inheritance and of convincing him to keep his Papist religion.’
Godfrey rose and walked across to the open fireplace where he stood with his back to the flames and gazed back at Enid. ‘Is it that important that Patrick renounce his religion in favour of yours?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘The very Macintosh name carries the defence of English and Scottish Protestantism in its utterance.’
A
s simple as that, George thought. Nothing in Enid's life was simple except her unwavering adherence to her religion. ‘Then I can take steps to prevent Mister Duffy ever meeting his son,’ he replied with a sad sigh. ‘If that is what you desire.’
‘That is what I desire, George.’
The former British army officer accepted Enid's request reluctantly. He had a grudging admiration for the Irishman he had last seen at Horace Brown's funeral. The little Englishman had been laid in the earth of the country he had grown to love – to the point of shifting his final loyalties to its interests over those of England's perceived strategic interests. Godfrey was aware of the ultimate sacrifice Horace had made for Michael Duffy's life. The Irishman had mourned for his friend and employer of the last decade. No tears, only the twisted pain in the big man's face, which said it all.
The Baron's expedition had long sailed to fulfil its destiny and Germany now claimed a half of the second largest island on the planet. The hoisting of the imperial flag on the Gazelle Peninsula caused a minor crisis in Anglo–German relations. Bismarck had been careful to hide his intentions in the Pacific from the English and the British Admiralty was abruptly informed by telegram in December. Spurred by the easy annexation, German traders pressed for further claims of the region. German territorial ambitions in the Pacific were beginning to prove Horace right.
Manfred von Fellmann had personally attended the funeral of his erstwhile adversary before he sailed, his attendance bringing the total of mourners to three. The tall Prussian had stood on one side of the grave whilst Michael and George Godfrey had stood on the other. They had acknowledged each other's presence with courteous words and a handshake.
And now Enid was asking Godfrey to stop Michael Duffy from meeting with his son! He could do what she wanted. The means to do so were within his long reach that extended across the Indian ocean to Africa.