Flight of the Eagle

by Peter Watt

  Patrick had never seen this model of the Winchester before but could see that it was not one of the lighter ones that fired a pistol cartridge. His observation was borne out by the packet of heavy brass cartridges on the tailgate of the wagon. They were a much larger cartridge. He hefted the heavy rifle from under the blanket. ‘Loaded?’ he questioned.

  ‘Loaded,’ his father confirmed. ‘New rifle from my friends at Winchester. Invented by an old friend of mine, John Browning. Sent me a couple to test trial on big game here.’

  Patrick took up a position at the wagon and rested his rifle against the timber. His stomach felt as if it wanted to turn inside out as he came to grips with what they faced: fifteen heavily armed horsemen advancing in a line that was capable of swamping them in a determined charge.

  ‘Take out the horses only,’ his father said softly as he drew a sight on the centre of the line. ‘Try and not hit the riders.’

  ‘Does the rifle have the range?’ Patrick asked with a note of concern. He knew that every shot must count if they were to break up any determined charge. And at a quarter of a mile the range was extreme for even the best of marksmen.

  ‘It does,’ his father answered softly and squeezed the trigger. His first shot had barely echoed off the gently rolling grassy hills around them when he had chambered a second round and fired again. Patrick saw two horses hit. One reared and dragged down its rider while the second crumpled, pitching forward. The rider leapt free and crashed heavily into the earth.

  Michael rapidly fired and reloaded. Although many of his shots went wild, his hope for a disrupting effect was rewarded with the line of advancing horsemen suddenly milling in a confused melee. Riders desperately pulled down on reins to drag their horses around and retreat out of range of the deadly volley of fire coming from behind the stout wagon. Michael fired until the last spent round spun from the side chamber of his rifle.

  Patrick continued to fire, amazed at the wonderfully smooth action of the repeating mechanism. Although he fired carefully he flinched when he saw a shot pluck a Boer from his saddle. The man threw up his arms and slid from his horse. The bullet that had gone high had taken the horseman square in the back. By the time he had fired his last round the Boers had deftly snatched up those men who had been unhorsed.

  Michael reloaded and fired a couple of shots in the air over their heads to speed them on. Soon only the empty plain, dead and dying horses, and ringing in their ears from the blast of the Winchesters was left.

  ‘What do you think they will do next?’ Patrick asked in a hushed voice. ‘Mount a charge?’

  ‘Not likely,’ his father muttered as he reloaded. ‘More likely they will either wait until dark and close in on us on foot. Or encircle us and come at us from different directions on horseback. Either way these boyos are bloody good at fighting and are not going to be put off by a couple of Rooineks they have pinned down on the veldt.’

  ‘I think they will attempt to take us out with a charge,’ Patrick mused. ‘They have the numbers.’

  His father shook his head. ‘My guess is that they will wait until dark, seeing as Bronkhorst is in command. He has a lot of experience in night fighting.’

  Patrick sat down with his back to the wheel of the wagon and reloaded his rifle from a box of cartridges. His legs felt weak and his heart thumped in his chest, a reaction to the adrenalin that surged through his body. And he had been worried only minutes earlier about what he would say to his father when they met!

  As Michael propped his rifle against the wagon and lit a cigar, Patrick marvelled at how calm his father was considering what they were up against. He seemed fearless. Or was it that, in his fear, Patrick had suddenly felt a surge of comfort at being in the paternal presence of his father? His father! ‘What should I call you?’ he asked as he gazed at the profile of the man puffing serenely as he watched the skyline on the hill to their front.

  Michael did not answer immediately. He felt as awkward as his son in the lull following the firing. ‘An uncaring bastard,’ he replied softly. ‘If that makes you feel better.’

  ‘Maybe. I have always wondered why you never attempted to contact me in all the years past.’

  ‘I had my reasons, Patrick. Reasons I doubt that I could explain under the present circumstances.’

  ‘Probably as good as any time to explain them,’ Patrick said. ‘Good chance we might not get out of these circumstances alive. Especially since it looks like I dropped one of them.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Michael sighed. ‘That seems like a good certainty.’

  ‘And where is Catherine?’ Patrick asked, with a bitter edge creeping into his question. ‘Is she still with you?’

  ‘Do you see any sign of her around here?’ Michael retorted angrily. ‘And is your next question, were we lovers? Because if it is you are wasting your time asking me.’

  ‘I was wondering,’ his son replied mildly. ‘But somehow, I knew you would not tell me.’

  Michael turned to his son and gave him a pitying look. He could see himself in the young man. The realisation of all that he had lost in his life stung him. It was obvious Patrick had travelled a long way to meet him – a long search that had exposed his son to the present, dangerous situation that he had created by his own hand. ‘Maybe this isn't the time to play games with each other,’ he said gently. ‘I will try to the best of my ability to answer your questions … son.’

  Patrick glanced at his father. His bitterness could not allow him to reciprocate with father.

  Michael turned his attention to the distant horizon. He could just see the head and shoulders of a man surveying their position, no doubt scouting to plan a strategy. ‘As for Catherine,’ he said, ‘I haven't seen her since Greece. She has an interest in archaeology. And when I left for the Cape she was about to leave for Constantinople to visit some ruins there. I don't know where she is now.’

  ‘I saw a painting of her back at De Aar.’

  ‘Ahh … yes. Katerina I called that one,’ Michael replied with fond recollection. ‘I painted that one from memory.’

  ‘She was naked!’

  ‘Most artist's models pose naked at some time in their careers,’ Michael answered. ‘It does not infer that she was my lover.’

  ‘But she allowed herself to be seen naked by you,’ his son insisted. ‘Surely one must come to certain conclusions.’

  ‘You sound like a petty schoolboy, Patrick,’ his father rebuked. ‘You will learn in life that women are their own mistresses. And, if we were lovers, that is a matter between Catherine and myself. No-one else.’

  ‘Then you admit you were lovers,’ Patrick insisted.

  Michael thought he could hear a whine creep into his son's voice. ‘The biggest problem you have in your life is that you had no choice in who your father would be. Well, it's me and there is nothing you can do about that except understand that I am not a man who has much tolerance for little boys in men's bodies. So, shut your infernal whining, or accept the facts as they are. She is no longer with me. And you and I have more to talk about than whether or not Miss Catherine Fitzgerald and I were lovers. If that is all right with you?’

  Patrick glared at his father with an expression of contempt. ‘You are a bounder of the worst kind. To allow a lady as young and innocent as Miss Fitzgerald to throw herself at you. She …’

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Michael exploded. ‘Where in hell did you get your ideas on the innocence of women? Eton, with all the other young men whose tiny minds are filled with romantic ideas straight out of books. And for that matter, Catherine was no little girl. Oh, she might have been young enough to be my daughter, as you have yet to express, but she was all woman when it came to satisfying her own needs. Believe me, son.’

  ‘You bastard!’ Patrick hissed as he rose from the ground and Michael swung on him defensively.

  ‘Thought you might find a name for me sooner or later, other than father,’ he said with a cold smile on his face. Patrick stood face to face with h
im as the two men eyed each other tensely like a pair of fighting dogs. ‘You could try to hit me, ‘Michael said calmly. ‘But I promise you I will hit you right back.’ Patrick suddenly realised that his fists were clenched and ready to be raised. ‘I hear you are pretty good in the ring. Old Max taught you well,’ Michael added. ‘But you have to remember, he also taught me.’

  Patrick relaxed and turned away to resume his seat on the ground with his back to the wagon wheel. ‘I didn't think it would be like this,’ he said sadly. ‘You and I almost coming to blows.’ He gave a short and bitter laugh then continued, ‘Here we are. We finally meet and I was terrified of what I should say to you. But right now, we are up to our necks in trouble, and all I am worried about is whether you were Miss Fitzgerald's lover. I suppose it has something to do with pride.’

  ‘There is nothing wrong in that, son,’ Michael said gently. ‘I did not know about you and her until we got to Greece.’

  Patrick glanced up at his father. ‘Is that why you parted company, because of me?’ But the answer was an enigmatic smile from his father.

  ‘Possibly,’ he said.

  In that simple answer and smile, Patrick saw his father in a new light. Maybe he was not the cad that he had first thought him to be. ‘Anyway …’

  Michael's sentence was cut short as wood splintered in his face from the side of the wagon. He flung himself on the ground and at the same time snatched his rifle from against the side of the wheel. A hollow, rolling noise of a shot followed.

  Patrick scrabbled to a position under the protection of the wagon. The shock of the sniper's round caused his heart to pound in his chest. ‘Where did it come from?’ he hissed across the space between himself and his father.

  ‘The rise,’ Michael answered as he lifted his head to scan the skyline. A faint puff of smoke lingered to mark the sniper's position. ‘’Bout five hundred yards out. Bloody good shot considering,’ he added with a note of admiration for his unseen adversary.

  ‘Think they will try and snipe us out?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘No. The range is too extreme. They will pot away at us until the sun goes down. Just keep us pinned here.’

  ‘What do you think we should do then?’

  ‘Wait until dark,’ Michael replied as he rolled on his back to locate the cigar he had dropped. ‘Then one of us will get out while the other keeps up a pretence that we are both still here. A trick I believe your Uncle Tom used to keep the traps occupied some years ago in Queensland. They had him and his blackfella mate Wallarie trapped in some hills in the Gulf Country. Worked for Tom. At least until they shot him.’

  ‘I can remain,’ Patrick volunteered. ‘You have a better idea of this country than I.’

  ‘Yeah. But I think you haven't finished your search yet,’ his father replied gently. ‘Better you get out of here while I hold them off. It's not the first time I've been in this kind of situation. You could say I've had a lot more experience than you.’

  ‘If you mean my search to find Catherine,’ Patrick said, ‘then you are wrong. I've found all I need to know.’

  Michael puffed on the stub of his cigar. ‘No, I mean the search for yourself. That will take you a lifetime. Believe me, I know.’

  Patrick felt a strange warmth in his father's words. How could this man know such deep, troubling thoughts that no-one else was privy to? ‘Father?’ Michael ceased puffing on the cigar. ‘Tell me about my mother. Do you think she gave me up like Lady Enid said she did?’

  The big one-eyed Irishman felt a strange peace settle over him. ‘When we both get out of here I will tell you that your mother loves you with her whole body and soul. Always remember that, son.’ And he turned away so that his son could not see the tears that welled in his remaining good eye.

  Beyond the crest of the grassy rise the Boer commando prepared for the night. No matter how deadly the Irishman proved with his strange rifle the night would blind him. Lucas Bronkhorst had lost one of his men and that left a debt to be claimed in blood.

  The firing from the rise continued throughout the late afternoon and the bullets claimed the lives of Patrick's two horses. Only Michael's two bullocks remained grazing on the lush grasses of the veldt.

  Great, billowing clouds tumbled over the horizon. A storm was coming to the African veldt.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Exhuming a corpse is an unpleasant business. The square of canvas Sergeant Johnson had thrown between two trees for shade trapped the sickly, putrid stench of decomposition, making it even more difficult to bear.

  Joe Heslop's body had been taken from his grave at Barcaldine's tiny cemetery and Sergeant Johnson attended as an independent witness to the autopsy carried out quickly and expertly by the former British army surgeon major, Doctor Harry Blayney.

  Gordon and two Aboriginal troopers from his escorting party stood watching the grisly scene from a short distance away. The corpse lay on its back at the edge of the re-opened grave. The curious gravedigger stood to one side, watching the doctor perform the autopsy.

  With a handkerchief soaked in cheap perfume wrapped around his face, the doctor probed the cadaver with forceps until he located the bullet. He dropped the lead projectile with the gore still attached into an empty tobacco tin. Then he handed the tin to Sergeant Johnson who duly recorded the fact that he had received from the doctor the bullet from the corpse of Joe Heslop. It was a recognisable .577 calibre round but Doctor Blayney continued to make a thorough search of the internal organs of the corpse to eliminate any other observable causes of death.

  The lead projectile was worth more than a nugget of gold to the young inspector. The findings by Doctor Blayney had corroborated Gordon's version of the bushranger's death.

  Satisfied that there could have been no other cause of death, the doctor rose from his knees and gave his permission for the body to be reburied. With little ceremony the gravedigger used his shovel to push the remains back into the ground. He would sell the cheap wood coffin to the mates of a stockman who had suicided after a massive drinking binge in town. After all, it had only had one previous owner.

  The doctor, Gordon James and Sergeant Johnson retired to a hotel to celebrate the finding of the crucial evidence. Sergeant Johnson would ride to Rockhampton with the tobacco tin containing the bullet and thus be able to vouch for the unbroken line of evidence from body to the coroner's court.

  The next day Gordon rode out of the town with the doctor and an escort of two police troopers. Two days later, when they were close to Balaclava Station, he left the doctor and his troopers at a camp they set up for the night. Gordon had to heal the pain in his spirit with the forgiveness and acceptance from the woman he loved above all others.

  Although the tracks leading out from Rockhampton to the central west of Queensland were more clearly defined since the days when pioneers opened up the land to grazing, the going was no less arduous. Many times the city-born Granville White had regretted his desire to confront the place of his nightmares. Many times on the two-week journey to Glen View with the cheerful stock and station agent as his companion, Granville had been tempted to call off the trip.

  But the agent kept telling him, in the indomitable way of the country-born man, that they were almost there and, finally, he was right.

  A day after arriving at Glen View Granville stood in the front yard of the homestead. ‘I feel you should postpone your trip to the hills, Mister White,’ the manager said. ‘Looks like quite a storm brewing on the plains this afternoon and I don't like the look of it. Not the time of the year for storms.’

  But Granville had not come all this way to put off the last leg of his journey. ‘I have to set out for Rockhampton no later than tomorrow, Mister Cameron,’ he replied from the seat of the buggy. Beside him sat the Aboriginal stockman Cameron had assigned to guide Granville to the sacred hills of the Nerambura. ‘Besides, you said it is less than a couple of hours from here.’

  Cameron shrugged. It was not his place to tell the owner of the property
where or where not he could go.

  Mary Cameron watched her husband conversing with Granville White, aware that Matilda was also watching as she stood shyly in the doorway holding her daughter in her arms. When Mary turned she was sure the young woman was scowling. ‘What's wrong with you, girl?’ she snapped irritably.

  Matilda glanced up at her and mumbled, ‘Nothing, Missus.’

  Mary regretted snapping at Matilda but she was upset that the arrival of Granville White heralded her husband's demise as manager of the property. The city man had informed her husband that with the imminent sale of the property he should seek employment elsewhere as the new owners had their own man to manage the place. She brushed past the girl, scowling at their less than welcome guest. ‘Man baal, I know, Matilda.’

  ‘Mister White, he baal all right,’ Matilda replied as she followed Mary to a bedroom where her own infant son lay in his crib. ‘He make Mister Cameron and you go from Glen View.’

  ‘I'm afraid so, Matilda,’ Mary confided. ‘Probably within the month.’

  She lifted her baby son from the crib and placed him in Matilda's arms to be wet nursed as Matilda undid the buttons on her cotton dress and placed the hungry baby on a fat nipple.

  Mary sat down wearily in a chair while the girl nursed her child and reflected on the exotically pretty young woman who had briefly been the lover of Peter Duffy before he was killed. Matilda had proved everything that Inspector James said she would be. She was highly intelligent and keen to please and with the birth of their babies the girl was also a compatible wet nurse for her. The two women had grown close in their time together – the mutual bond of women who had participated in delivering each other's babies.

  ‘Why Mister White want to go long the hills, Missus?’ Matilda asked. ‘Place baal.’