Eagle on the Hill

by JH Fletcher

  Slowly they learned Brenda’s ways. Charlie discovered a slackness in the steering where someone in the past had watered the rope gear to get it to run more efficiently. Now the rope was worn. He’d replace it with chains once they were on the Murray and no longer had to worry about being caught by the falling river.

  They inched on, moving by night as well as day, using reflected moonlight to light the channel. All the time they were conscious of the need to hurry, yet too much speed on a falling river could mean ruin.

  Finally …

  Heartbreak time. Three miles upriver from the Darling’s junction with the Murray, a sandbar had appeared where it had no business to be. In the middle of the night they ran aground with a crash that jarred the teeth in their jaws.

  Daylight would show them what needed to be done. They waited and at first light discovered an underwater bar stretching right across the river.

  Will threw his arms in the air. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘If we can’t go round, we’ll go over,’ Charlie said. No bar was going to stop him now. ‘We’ll have to drag ’er across.’

  ‘Drag ’er?’ Will gave him a look. ‘You crazy?’ But there was no time to argue about it.

  ‘Fetch some wire cable,’ Charlie said. ‘Heaviest we got. And some blocks. Quick as you can.’ He turned to Henry. ‘Check the rudder. Make sure she’s right.’

  They ran to do his bidding.

  Charlie lowered himself over the side. Moving cautiously, he checked the width of the bar. Ten feet across. Less, in places. Not too bad. He returned to the paddle steamer and hauled himself back on deck. Over the sandy shoal, the deceitful river glittered golden around the stalled hull. A kookaburra mocked him from a stand of trees.

  ‘You just watch,’ Charlie told it. ‘You needn’t think we’ll be here for long.’

  Henry reported that the rudder was undamaged. Will arrived, dragging the cable and blocks behind him.

  Charlie told them what they were going to do.

  They ran the cable across the sandbar to a large tree on the other side. When it was anchored securely to the tree they led it back through a succession of blocks to Brenda, where they took it around a drum mounted on the paddle shaft and again made it fast.

  ‘Now …’

  Gingerly, Henry eased the valves.

  ‘Not too much!’

  Slowly the paddles began to turn. The drum creaked as the cable tightened. It began to vibrate, then to sing, a high-pitched note at the limit of hearing. Higher and still higher. Brenda was shaking but did not move.

  Charlie felt sick with tension. If the cable snapped the backlash could cut him in half.

  Still the paddles turned. Still the drum creaked. And Brenda moved — just an inch at first, with the water slopping around the bow. Then she moved again. The hull groaned and complained but was moving steadily now. Moving with a rush, the voice of the over-stressed cable quieter at last, the pitch lower. A final bump, a lurch, and Brenda settled into deeper water.

  ‘Close the valves!’

  The paddles stopped. Charlie and the boys stared at each other.

  Safe.

  They unshackled the cable and went on down to the Murray.

  Since they’d set out, the presence of the gelding had been like a hot coal in Charlie’s mind.

  ‘I want to get it back, quick as I can. If anyone spots it …’

  They tied up half a mile from Eagle on the Hill. The gelding was tossing its head, itching to take off, as Charlie led it down the gangplank to the shore. Somehow he controlled it. He rode it through the scrub until he reached the edge of the estate. He dismounted, slapped its rump and watched as it cantered up the slope, heels kicking, heading for home.

  It had saved them from ruin but had been a major danger to him as well. He was glad to see it go.

  He looked over the estate at what had been his handiwork. It had rained in the night and the leaves of the vines formed a green mist across the dark earth. The plants looked healthy. So they should, the work he’d put in. Not that it made any odds now.

  He turned and went back to the boat.

  1875

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘I wish to go to Adelaide,’ Jane Grenville said. ‘I am stifled here. I would like to leave tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow won’t be convenient,’ her husband told her. ‘I have a business meeting.’

  His wife sighed, greatly put upon. ‘Always business …’

  Business was vulgar and Lady Jane could be petulant when she chose. It wasn’t surprising. She had a name and connections in high places. They were the main reason why George, who had once owned an ironmonger’s shop in Hindley Street, had married her at all. It had been a humiliation from which she had never fully recovered, because her father, Lord Henry Glastonbury, had been an aide to Governor Hindmarsh. In England such a marriage would have been out of the question, but in the colonies money carried more weight than class and George Grenville had money to spare.

  So a measure of petulance was understandable. George didn’t give a damn. Not a day passed without his blessing the Burra Burra copper mine. It had been such a gamble; even now the memory of those days could make him sweat. He had pledged everything he owned to buy shares in the company. Had the venture failed he would have been bankrupt.

  But it had not failed. It had been spectacularly, unbelievably successful, and George Grenville had become a rich man. Rich enough to buy an aristocrat whose taste for gambling had brought him close to ruin; rich enough to buy the aristocrat’s daughter and the contacts that came with her; rich enough to ignore the fastidious noses of her disapproving family.

  Not that it had been simply a marriage of convenience. Outside business George was not a passionate man, but he had admired his wife from the first, had desired the woman as well as her position and had shown her every consideration since their marriage. Eagle on the Hill had been his offering to her, her palace in the bush, as well as a measure of how far he had come since his Hindley Street beginnings.

  It hadn’t worked out quite as he’d hoped. There wasn’t much scope for lavish entertainment on the banks of the Murray and Jane Grenville had quickly become bored with country life. Nowadays she spent most of her time in Adelaide. As it happened, however, this suited George very well. With a finger in more financial pies than he could count, he needed to spend much of his time in the city too. He left his son Rufus to run the day-to-day affairs of the estate, but George wasn’t a man for delegation and still paid regular visits to Eagle on the Hill.

  Tomorrow’s meeting — with a marine architect and a representative of his bankers — was especially important. George had decided to take over the river trade from the ragbag of small-time operators who were running it at the moment. Drive out the competition, create a monopoly, and the potential profits would be enormous. There would be problems, of course; the boat owners weren’t the sort to go quietly. But problems were food and drink to George. He wasn’t a man for violence if he could avoid it, but he wasn’t the sort to shy away from it either. One way or another, he was determined to win.

  It was too important a matter to leave to Rufus, with his fancy ways and fancier waistcoats. Rufus was sly — George would grant him that — but when the going got tough George wasn’t sure his son had the stomach to take the hard decisions.

  Well, that was fine. George was nearing sixty but he wasn’t planning to retire. Not for a long time.

  ‘Business pays the bills, my dear,’ he told his wife.

  Which said it all, when you came down to it.

  The big table was covered in plans. At first the marine architect had made the mistake of patronising his client, but George was not a man to make a substantial investment without knowing his subject and he soon put the pipsqueak in his place.

  ‘You say she’ll draw four feet fully laden?’

  ‘Give or take.’

  ‘Give or take nothing! I want precise measurements. To the inch, you understand me?’
<
br />   ‘My dear sir …’ The architect felt his dignity under threat. ‘What possible difference can an inch make?’

  ‘The difference between floating and going aground.’

  ‘We’re talking four feet, not twenty!’

  George pinned the architect with his formidable gaze. ‘Let me explain something to you. The headwaters of the river system will not permit passage of a vessel with a four-foot draught. With the extra carrying capacity, that is acceptable. But I will not have her grounding before she’s halfway to Wilcannia!’

  He rolled up the plans and tossed them to the discomfited architect. ‘Sort it out and get back to me. No later than next week, mind. I want to get things moving. And be sure you keep it to yourself. I shall tolerate no rumours.’

  ‘I do not discuss my client’s business —’

  The architect thought he had grounds for complaint but George was not interested.

  ‘Make sure you don’t.’ He turned to the banker. ‘Now … how are we going to finance this?’

  Later, after he’d got rid of the advisers, George turned to his son, rail-thin and elegant in his fashionable clothes.

  ‘This man Con Copper who’s recently arrived. Supposed to have experience on the Mississippi, my sources tell me. Find out if the stones are true, see if he’ll suit. And go and talk to Clancy, the shipbuilder at Fitzroy. I fancy he’ll be the man for us. Make sure he understands that if he wants our business he must keep his mouth shut. I want no-one knowing who’s behind the new steamer.’

  ‘Why is secrecy so important?’

  ‘First rule of trade: keep the competition in the dark. Titan will seem all the more threatening if the other traders don’t know who owns her.’

  George walked to the window. At the bottom of the slope the river drew its green line through the bush. He imagined his new paddle steamer making its majestic way up and down the river. The first of many steamers, God willing. Titan, he thought. It was a good name.

  He turned and came back to the table. He looked at Rufus, who had not moved. ‘A bit nearer the time I’ll want you to get Saul to go along the river and drum up business.’

  ‘If the settlers are willing to come in.’

  ‘Of course they’ll come in! We’ll cut prices to the bone. Take a loss, if we have to. Why shouldn’t they come in?’

  Rufus looked dubious. ‘Some of those owners are hard men. It won’t be easy.’

  ‘So we pick them off one by one.’

  ‘We could be looking at quite a loss.’

  ‘In the short term, perhaps. But once we’re rid of the competition we’ll be able to charge what we like. Then it’ll be a different story.’ George spoke impatiently; surely the plan was obvious? ‘And tell Saul to get hold of that ruffian Armstrong and put the fear of God into him. I’ll teach him to steal my horse.’

  ‘You don’t know he did.’

  ‘Don’t I? The police description fitted him like a glove. It was Armstrong, all right.’

  And then to return it, as though tossing a coin to a beggar. In some ways that had been more humiliating than the theft. Well, the day of reckoning was coming. Titan would destroy Armstrong, along with the rest.

  ‘We could be looking at a heap of trouble,’ Rufus said uneasily. ‘You realise that?’

  There were times when George wondered about his son.

  ‘Of course I realise it! It’ll be a war. A war I intend to win. Why? The idea upsets you, does it?’

  ‘I wanted to be sure you understood the implications …’

  George gave his son an iron smile. ‘I’ve been at war all my life and I’ve not been beaten yet. That bastard Armstrong … I’ll drive him off the river, you see if I don’t.’

  CHAPTER 15

  Three months later two men came riding through the gum scrub towards the landing where Brenda lay alongside the bank. It was evening and the sun had just set. Clouds stood tall above the river and the leaves of the trees hung motionless in the still air. The forest gathered close about the moored vessel and the gaps between the trees were dark with shadow.

  A kangaroo sat on its hind legs to stare at the two humans as they passed. The men’s saddle leather creaked and their holstered rifles jogged in time with the horses’ stride. Despite their weapons, the men looked less like bushrangers than travellers ready for trouble, should it arise. They were soberly dressed and rode confidently, following the riverbank, with their hard faces turning constantly to scan the countryside through which they were passing.

  The leader of the two men saw Brenda and reined in, his companion following suit. They eyed the paddle steamer but saw no sign of life.

  ‘That’s the boat, all right. But where are the men?’ the younger man wondered.

  ‘On board,’ the other said. ‘Unless Arnott’s missus is giving them a welcome.’

  The young man grinned knowingly. This place was known as Arnott’s Landing, after the selector who lived half a mile back among the trees. Arnott’s woman had a name for being generous with her favours, when she was in the mood.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind a slice myself,’ he said.

  ‘Time for that later,’ the older man told him. ‘Let’s check the boat first.’

  They tethered their mounts and walked towards the river. They were halfway down the slope when a man emerged from the saloon onto the paddle steamer’s deck.

  ‘Help you?’ he said.

  ‘We’re looking for Mr Charles Armstrong,’ the older of the two riders said. He had close-set eyes in an axe-blade face.

  ‘And who might you be?’

  ‘My name is Saul. I am an attorney.’

  The man whistled mockingly. ‘A real live attorney? We’re honoured. What d’you want, Mr Attorney Saul?’

  ‘I represent Mr George Grenville —’

  ‘Sent you to pay what he owes, eh?’

  ‘My business is with —’

  ‘Charlie Armstrong. Yeah, you said so. I’m Armstrong. What does George Grenville want with me?’

  ‘We have reason to believe you stole a valuable horse, property of Mr Grenville, and —’

  Charlie turned, looking up and down the deck with an expression of pretend astonishment. ‘You see a horse anywhere round here?’

  ‘The horse has been returned. But Mr Grenville has instructed me to warn you —’

  ‘If he’s got it back, what’s his problem?’

  ‘— that he has laid a complaint with the police. Any more trouble from you and it is his intention to have you arrested.’

  ‘Dunno nuthun about no horse,’ Charlie said. ‘Don’ even own a horse. Paddles steamers aren’t much for stablin’, see.’ As though explaining to a child, or a fool.

  ‘I advise you not to play games with me,’ said Saul.

  ‘Advice from an attorney?’ Charlie said. ‘Not often I git that. Not plannin’ to charge me for it, I hope.’

  ‘The boot’s on the other foot,’ said Saul sharply. ‘You’ll pay if you don’t take it. Fair warning, Armstrong. Cross Mr Grenville again, you’ll be in trouble.’

  ‘I’m tremblin’ in me boots,’ Charlie said.

  After Saul and his companion had ridden on, Will and Henry emerged from the saloon. They’d heard every word through the open door.

  ‘They come all this way jest to tell us that?’ Will asked.

  ‘No, they’re up to somethin’. Saw us here and decided to have a word.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Like I said, I’m tremblin’ in me boots.’

  ‘They had rifles in their holsters,’ Henry pointed out.

  ‘Probably just a precaution. That Saul talks tough but I don’ see him as a violent man.’

  ‘More’n one way of bein’ violent,’ Will said. He turned and replaced the family shotgun in the brackets that he had screwed into the saloon bulkhead during Charlie’s absence.

  Charlie watched him with his unquiet eyes. ‘There was never gunna be no need for that.’

  ‘Maybe. But I like to be prepar
ed. Those blokes weren’t here for the good of our health.’

  Saul and his companion rode on along the river. This was one of the most closely settled areas of the district. Every mile or two there was a selector’s shack, which meant a potential customer for the river traders.

  Scrupulous in his employer’s business, Saul called on each family in turn. In each case the conversation followed a similar pattern.

  A creased brow; a suspicious look. ‘Con Copper? Never ’eard of ’im.’

  ‘The coming man, I assure you. Got big money behind him.’

  ‘What that’s gotta do wi’ me? I deal with the Armstrongs.’

  ‘And good men they are, too. If you can afford them.’

  Another suspicious look, while from the shadowed corners of the hut the selector’s sack-clad children watched with half-starved eyes.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Mr Copper’s got money behind him. He can afford to cut his margins. Seed, tools, all household goods. His prices are more than reasonable, I assure you.’

  ‘And when’s this Con Copper headin’ this way?’

  ‘Within a week or two. A month, at the outside.’

  ‘What about shippin’ out me wool?’

  ‘Special prices for existing customers. Margins cut to the bone.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Ask yourself this. Can you afford not to try him out?’

  The selector would be almost convinced, but suspicion lingered like a rat in a hole.

  ‘Why you tellin’ me this? What’s in it for you?’

  The attorney touched his long nose. ‘Friends at court.’

  Whatever that might mean.

  By the time Saul and his companion rode back up the track to Eagle on the Hill, they had visited every selector along a fifty-mile stretch of the river and come to an understanding with more than half of them. Meanwhile, downriver at the newly settled port of Fitzroy, a narrow-eyed man with an American accent, recently arrived in the district, supervised the fitting out of the trading steamer Titan, George Grenville’s most recent investment.