by Peter Watt
‘Are you able to stay for supper, George?’ Enid asked.
‘Yes, I will stay for supper,’ he replied, bemused by her easy shift. It was as if nothing of importance had occurred in the last few minutes. But that was Enid's essential nature, to be able to shift alliances as quickly and as effortlessly as events dictated.
Not all persons related to Captain Patrick Duffy welcomed the news of his rise from the ranks of the dead. Granville White fumed alone in his library as he read the brief account of Captain Patrick Duffy's miraculous feat of survival behind enemy lines, the heroic account colourfully recorded in the newspaper Enid had recently purchased in her expansion of the Macintosh companies. But what galled Granville even more was the fact that the paper ran a front page article portraying the hero of the Scots Brigade as a native-born son of the Colony of New South Wales and revealing him as grandson of the Lady Enid Macintosh of philanthropic fame.
When Duffy returned he would be waiting and fully prepared for him. There could only be one left to inherit the Macintosh companies at the end of the day! The deal struck with his estranged wife had curtailed any hope of challenging Patrick's right to inheritance – but there were many other ways of discrediting a man. If only Captain Mort had been successful in his conspiracy to have the Duffy bastard murdered years earlier, then all the energy required to plot the man's downfall would not be required now.
The ticking of a clock marked the silence in the library. Granville sat behind his desk and brooded. His attention was drawn to the collection of spears, nullahs and boomerangs fixed to the wall and he experienced a feeling of dread for not the first time. He knew it was purely superstition. But the dread of the unknown had an unshakeable quality about it which sometimes haunted his dreams with images of a place he had never visited but knew well enough about: the pride of the Macintosh properties, Glen View, in central Queensland.
Granville rose from the swivel chair and walked to the trophy wall where he snatched at a spear and snapped it across his knee. It shattered with a brittle crack. He flung the broken spear aside and scattered the other Nerambura weapons from the wall. And so he would scatter Glen View! Rid himself of the awful nightmares that haunted him, he thought savagely. And rid himself of the damned name of Duffy once and for all.
FORTY
The station dogs barked up a fury as Duncan Cameron, the manager of Glen View, stood on the wide verandah of the main house and watched the seven men of the Native Mounted Police ride into his yard. The pack of dogs yapped furiously as they danced nimbly around the big mounts until, on a command from Duncan, the dogs reluctantly slunk away from the troopers to return to the cool shade under the tank stands and shearing shed.
Glen View had taken on an air of staid permanence since its establishment thirty years earlier by the tough squatter Donald Macintosh and his eldest son, Angus. Both men now lay buried in the red earth on the property, slain by Wallarie's spears. Despite their violent deaths, the property survived and was managed by a man appointed by Lady Enid Macintosh who, a Scot himself, was every bit as tough as his predecessor, Sir Donald. Improvements had been made to the main house and its outbuildings that would have pleased Sir Donald.
Duncan's young, Isle of Skye-born wife provided the female touch to the house itself. Mary Cameron now joined her husband on the front verandah to watch the dusty and weary patrol file into the yard. Visitors were a rarity and a welcome respite from the lonely isolation of the frontier, especially for a woman who had grown up in the close knit community of her Scottish village where regular visiting was a part of life. The tough looking mix of European and Aboriginal police certainly provided some colour to the day, Mary thought, as she stood by her husband watching the leader of the patrol, a young and handsome inspector, dismount.
‘Inspector James, sir,’ Gordon said as he strode across the dusty yard. ‘At your service. We have ridden from Townsville the past week in search of two darkies I suspect may be on your property.’
The Glen View manager took the extended hand. ‘Duncan Cameron and my wife, Missus Mary Cameron,’ he replied. ‘Might explain the tracks one of my boys picked up around the hills in the south paddock. Tracks of three myalls, he said they were.’
‘Ahh. It sounds like it might be why we have travelled here,’ Gordon said, slapping down his trousers to brush away the dust. ‘Probably still got the darkie girl with them who they took just south of Townsville some weeks back.’
‘Inspector James, you said?’ Cameron mused as if remembering something. ‘Not the young policeman who dispersed the Kalkadoon up north? Inspector Gordon James?’
‘That would be me,’ Gordon smiled, a little embarrassed at his spreading fame.
‘Read about your battle with the myalls only yesterday,’ Cameron said. ‘Bloody fine effort you and your laddies put on.’ He turned to glance at Gordon's weary men slouching in their saddles under a blazing sun. ‘Best we organise some tucker for your men and horses, Inspector. I'll get my gardener to show your lads where they can toss down for the night. I presume you will be staying the night?’
‘Yes, thank you, Mister Cameron,’ Gordon answered gratefully. ‘We've ridden pretty hard the last few days and the boys need a break. But we will be rising before dawn tomorrow and I will have to impose on your hospitality to provide a guide to take us to the hills. That is where you said your boy picked up tracks?’
‘Not far from the hills,’ the manager replied. ‘But my lads are a little shaky about riding too close to the hills when it comes on dark. They say the place is haunted by the spirits of the dead blackfellas old Sir Donald had dispersed back in ′62. Even my white stockmen believe the stories! Knowing its reputation as I do now I doubt that you would find any blackfella hanging around the hills.’
‘I don't know if you have heard of Wallarie, a Darambal man from around these parts,’ Gordon said.
‘I've heard of him all right,’ Duncan replied nodding his head. ‘It was said he killed young Angus Macintosh during the dispersal on the Nerambura clan near the waterholes and later speared old Sir Donald himself. I thought the man was some kind of blackfella myth.’
‘Wallarie is real enough,’ Gordon said grimly. ‘He has gone back to his old tricks of bushranging. Except now he has a partner, a former member of my troop by the name of Peter Duffy.’
‘Duffy? The same name as the bullocky who the myalls killed just after the dispersal?’ Cameron remembered the stories passed down to him by the old hands of the station. ‘Any relation to the bullocky?’
‘His half-caste grandson,’ Gordon replied in a tired voice. ‘But it appears the Nerambura didn't kill the Irish bullocky. It may have been Lieutenant Mort, who was in command of the detachment which carried out the dispersal.’
Mary Cameron listened in silence to the exchange of stories surrounding the mysterious hills south of the homestead. She had found Sir Donald's old journals when she had been redecorating and had read with revulsion his brief description of that terrible day. She also remembered something else.
‘It is rather strange, Inspector,’ she said quietly, and Gordon turned to her. ‘There was a sergeant Henry James who was second-in-command of the Native Mounted Police the day you and my husband speak of.’
‘My father, Missus Cameron,’ Gordon replied softly.
‘When one puts all the pieces together,’ Mary Cameron said, casting him a strange look, ‘it almost looks as if history is repeating itself in a queer sort of way.’
‘I hope not,’ he said firmly. ‘I certainly hope not.’
‘Well, I think we should go inside,’ Duncan Cameron said politely. ‘No sense standing out here all day. Ah Chee!’ he roared, and an old Chinese with a pigtail down to his waist hurried from behind the house.
‘Yes, masa Camerwon.’
‘Show the troopers where they can bed down for the night over in the shearers' quarters. And tell the cook to prepare extra meals to feed ′em.’
The gardener made a quick bow from th
e waist and in an authoritative manner rounded up the police troopers to shepherd them to the empty shearers' quarters.
When Gordon was satisfied his men were well provisioned and comfortable he strode across to the main house to have afternoon tea with the manager and his pretty wife. Gordon noticed that she was showing the first swelling signs of a pregnancy and for a fleeting moment had an image of Sarah carrying a baby in the future. It was a gentle and warm image that caused him to smile.
He reached the verandah and wiped his boots clean before knocking and being invited inside. An Aboriginal maid took his cap while Gordon unbuckled his gun belt to hang it on a coatstand in the hallway. The house was not luxurious by city standards, but it was at least spacious and clean. The original bark hut that Donald Macintosh had built was now used as a shed to store hay for the horses.
Gordon joined Duncan and Mary in the backyard under the shade of a rotunda-like building where grapevines struggled to enclose the shelter. Tea and scones were served by the Aboriginal maid as the three chatted about the latest prices of wool and beef transport costs and the news from the far-off Sudanese war.
South of the Glen View homestead from the summit of the old volcanic plug, Wallarie gazed across the plains at the orange ball slowly being swallowed by the scrub. No sound of the children's laughter or the old people's bickering at the end of the day, he reflected sadly. Just the gentle sounds of the bush lying down to rest for the night, the sounds of the earth as they'd been even before the coming of his people way back to the Dreaming.
The warrior tugged absent-mindedly at his long beard now shot with grey streaks. His thoughts were on times long past when he and Tom Duffy sat side by side gazing out across the same bushland. That had been the time of the walkabout into the channel country and back with the small party of survivors from the dispersal. So long ago!
And the squatter's shepherds had killed the old man and boy who had been with them on the trek. They had shot the old woman and taken Tom's woman for their own. But he and the Irishman had tracked the killers and exacted a bloody vengeance on them. That was when he had been taught the killing ways of the white man he remembered. How to ride and shoot and talk their language. But now he sensed that Gordon James was close at hand.
The sun was almost gone and the hush of that time between day and night settled on the hill. The old warrior eased himself to his feet and scooped up his odd mix of weapons: a Snider rifle and stone axe.
He would find Peter at the bottom of the hill by the campfire and retell the stories of the Nerambura. He would explain the meaning of the sacred tableau of painted figures on the wall of the cave and they would feel the spirits of the sacred place come to them. In the morning he would prepare Peter for his initiation into manhood. Granted it would not be a true initiation, the Darambal man admitted to himself. But it would be better than no initiation.
He found Peter sitting cross-legged before the fire in the cave. The young man had left his woman, Matilda, at their campsite down on the waterholes below the hills. Not in the place of the slaughter – that was taboo land – but further up the creek line. She would wait for Peter's return to her as a true Nerambura man.
FORTY-ONE
Captain Patrick Duffy reported back to brigade headquarters. His three-week ordeal wandering in the Sudanese wastelands had left him gaunt and haunted. He had said very little to anyone of his experiences and when he did speak it was only to say that he had been lucky.
Luck and an inherent toughness of body and spirit had kept him alive when he had stumbled on the Dervishes in the night. He had survived where lesser men would have despaired and died. The ragged remains of his uniform, now stained black with blood, said it all. No-one was about to closely question the captain who seemed to have genuinely blocked from his mind all that had occurred before he had been found by the camel patrol. Time might make him less reticent about his experiences, but for now he was silent and brooding.
On the night of his ill-fated mission he had fired blindly into the shapes looming out of the night and then escaped in the dark. But instead of attempting to make his way towards his own lines he had chosen to use the darkness to escape deeper into enemy held territory. He had guessed correctly that the Dervish would automatically assume that he would make a dash for the Zareba.
The following morning, as the sun rose over the tortured land of stone, sand and thorny scrub, Patrick lay hidden amongst the rocks of a small hill deep in the heart of the Dervish patrolled land. He watched helplessly as the roving bands of heavily armed Dervish warriors patrolled between him and the withdrawing army of khaki clad soldiers of the British force. He had been right in not attempting to head for his own lines.
Nor could he make contact with the patrols of mounted lancers whom he could see only as tiny figures on the horizon. They were obviously searching for him. Dervish snipers and ambush parties lay concealed and would welcome the lancers with bullet, spear and sword should they be foolish enough to stray too far from the main force of the British square. Any attempt to attract the attention of the roving patrols could possibly lead them to their deaths. By sunset, thirst drove Patrick from his well-concealed position where he had watched with despair the tiny cloud of dust marking the withdrawing British army.
Patrick knew he must first find a source of water and he was fortunate to stumble on an old well in the hills that had been overlooked by both the Dervish and British forces. It was not poisoned and he drank the cool and muddy water as if it were the finest of champagnes.
For the next three weeks he lived the life of a nocturnal beast of prey, hunting for supplies from the unwary Bedouin in the vast fortress which was the Sudanese desert. Using stealth, and the razor edge of his knife, he accumulated a small but adequate store of dates and unleavened bread. It was enough to give him the strength to live to see the burning sunrise each following day.
His lethal and stealthy forays into the camps of the desert people caused an unprecedented terror that outweighed the previous presence of the British army. At least they had been able to see the British infidels. But this nightly visitor was like some demon of the desert! An evil spirit that came when the sun lost its heat and the desert was as cold as a corpse. A devil that left the throat cut of the restless camel driver and was never seen in the day – which only proved he was not human.
Patrick always travelled a little further north-east each night but not in a direct line as he knew the Dervish patrols would expect him to do so. Patience and caution became his principles of survival as he made slow but sure progress towards the port of Suakin.
Living like this, Patrick was stripped of everything but his cunning and instinct to survive. No longer did he have thoughts of whether he should renounce his religion and accept the Macintosh name; no longer thoughts of fox hunts or fancy balls of his past English life. Just thoughts of where his next hiding place would be and finding a camp to raid when the night came.
Near the end of three weeks he had reached the end of his endurance. Time had become a meaningless blur and his tattered uniform was stiff with the blood of the uncounted men whose throats he had cut in his quests for supplies.
At times he would sit in the shade of a thorn bush on sunset and stare westwards across the plains softened by the disappearing sun. And sometimes in the lonely stretches of his three weeks he thought about Catherine. But they were thoughts for the pain she had caused him by letting him think she would be waiting for his return, only to taunt him with her cruel silence.
Still, Patrick knew that beyond the horizon was the place of Celtic mists. A place of magic and the home of the Morrigan. And often his thoughts would turn from pain to a bitterness fed on the despairing hate that gave him the desire to live and eventually confront Catherine with one question, one word: Why?
Then the day came when he watched the three figures mounted on camels shimmer in blurring outlines against the horizon. His first instinct was to bury himself deeper in the sand under the mimosa tree.
But the flash of light caught his attention. Were they possibly a British patrol? Had the flash come from a set of binoculars or a telescope? As far as he knew the Dervish did not use the ocular aids in the desert. But he was almost beyond caring whether he lived or died. If they were Bedouin then let it be he went down fighting, he thought as he forced himself to his feet. And with the last of his strength he staggered towards the patrol.
Major Hughes greeted Patrick with a display of genuine delight. His decision to send Patrick on the reconnaissance mission had weighed heavily on him and when he had received the report that he was missing in action it had become a crushing weight on his conscience. Had the aim of the mission been worth the price of one of the brigade's finest young captains? Days earlier he had privately celebrated Patrick's return to Suakin by uncorking and consuming a bottle of his best port wine as soon as the news came through. It had been an almost miraculous survival.
Now, Patrick was invited to sit in a cane chair draped with a tiger skin that the brigade major had acquired whilst he was in Burma. It now travelled with his mess kit wherever he served as a soldier of the Queen – a personal idiosyncrasy not confined to the B.M. as other officers also carted exotic, and sometimes bulky, items with them on active service.
Patrick looked more relaxed than when the B.M. first had seen him brought in from the desert. Then he had been a bearded giant with the dangerous, staring eyes of a hunted wild animal. But even now that Patrick appeared relaxed, the hunted look was not completely gone. A shadow of what he had experienced in the three weeks of his ordeal remained as a haunting spectre behind the eyes.
The B.M. had the task of briefing him on his duties. He was back on active service and his mess bill was overdue for payment. Missing in action did not exclude him from three weeks of rates levied for the food and wine he was denied the opportunity of consuming. However, there was something more important to discuss first.