by Peter Watt
He glanced over his shoulder at his tiny command trudging behind him. At the rear of the file trudged Luke while John still carried Hue in front of Henry who limped with his rifle slung over his shoulder. Henry’s twisted expression reflected his pain but was able to flash Michael a reassuring smile. Michael acknowledged his courage with a nod as he turned to resume the march. He flicked open the lid of a small brass compass to check their bearings. They were on a northerly course. Satisfied that the bearing put them close enough to Cooktown, he was in the process of closing the lid of the compass, when a sudden crackling volley of shots shattered the serenity of the valley.
Henry grunted as a Winchester bullet ripped through his chest. He died without a chance to fight back and Mort smiled with savage satisfaction to see the former sergeant hit by his well-aimed shot. Fate had dealt him an ace. His first round had been meant for O’Flynn, but the sight of his former sergeant limping behind O’Flynn allowed him an unexpected opportunity to kill the man whose actions many years earlier had indirectly brought him to his current predicament.
Michael pitched forward in the tall grass, hit by a bullet that seared a long furrow across the back of his shoulder. But his fall saved his life as a second volley of gunfire filled the air around him. Even as he had hit the ground he instinctively crawled away to take up another position, denying the ambushers an exact fix on where he lay.
Luke only knew that he had been hit. He could feel a stickiness at the back of his leg and was not surprised to see his fingers covered in blood when he reached down to feel the source of the wetness. The bullet had hit him low across the thigh and shock had acted as a temporary anaesthetic. But the effect was rapidly wearing off to be replaced by a very painful stinging sensation.
‘If you are still alive Mister O’Flynn,’ Mort’s voice taunted across the fifty yards or so that separated them, ‘I suggest that you surrender. I promise you that I only want the girl. You have one minute before I send my men in after you.’
Michael slipped the Colt from its holster and pulled back the hammer. Between the rifle and the pistol, he had seven shots of rapid fire. Although the waist-high grass of the valley concealed him from view it did not provide cover from probing bullets. Mort had set his ambush with the professionalism of a trained soldier. They were spread in a skirmish line along the plain, and Michael’s small party had walked right past the men crouching in the long grass. Michael’s error of judgment had rendered his party virtually ineffective when the first volley had ripped through their ranks. Only John and Hue had been spared as Mort had given strict orders that they were not to be fired on.
Michael did not know whether he was the only one left alive. He dared not cry out to the others lest he give his new position away to the ambushers. He well knew that Mort had every intention of killing him, and cursed himself for not keeping to the high ground as his military instinct told him he should. He felt sorrow, not for himself, but for the others whom he had led into the ambush. One minute was not a long time to reflect on thirty-two years of life, he thought sadly, as he lay on his stomach waiting for Mort’s men to advance on him.
Although he was wounded, Luke was not out of action, and like Michael did not know who was left alive. He was at least sure Henry James was dead. The situation was looking hopeless. The long grass waved gently as a gust of wind funnelled down from the saddle of the ridge. Luke’s face was pressed into the dry earth and the brittle grass felt harsh against his face.
The grass!
He suddenly remembered a time when he had been attacked in Burkesland years earlier. The tribesmen had fired the grass to force him away from his camp and into a line of spear-wielding warriors. Luke slid his knife from its sheath and sliced a handful of dry grass in front of him. He fumbled with a tin of wax matches and struck one of them. The match flared, and he thrust it into the improvised firebrand, which ignited with a soft crackle.
He shoved the firebrand into the grass and the dry grass hissed into life. The wind was still blowing in Mort’s direction, he noted with grim satisfaction, and within seconds the fire had raced away from him, consuming all in its path. Without waiting he crawled dragging the firebrand behind him.
Mort was peering cautiously above the tall grass when he saw the first wisps of smoke. The wisps rapidly turned into a crackling black billow that spread along his front as a wall of flame rushed towards him and his men. How in hell?
As Luke crawled through the grass he came upon the body of Henry James lying on his back staring with blank eyes at the sky. Luke did not spend time mourning his friend but crawled on until he came across John and Hue huddled together, John keeping himself between the terrified girl and the direction from which the firing had come. ‘Henry’s dead,’ Luke hissed as he passed them, and continued crawling towards Michael’s last-known position.
The grass fire was now well alight and the rising gusts of wind swirled burning embers into the clear blue sky. The crackle turned into a roar and the sheets of flame rose in the smoke as a wall of orange and black.
‘Get back to the hill!’ Mort screamed as he rose from the grass. The hill had less grass to provide combustible material to feed the greedy flames. The Chinese did not have to understand English to know remaining meant being roasted alive. As one, they rose and fled with the European sailors towards the relative safety of the hills behind them.
Michael crawled through the grass until he almost collided with Luke. ‘Henry’s dead,’ Luke said, ‘but John and Hue are all right.’
‘He knew he was going to die,’ Michael said softly with a frown.
‘What?’ Luke asked. He had not caught Michael’s words as they were drowned in the roar of the fire.
‘Nothing important,’ Michael muttered.
The wind was pushing the wall of fire away from them. Burning cinders fluttered down, as the valley was seared by the fire, causing it to twist on itself like a tortured animal being scorched. Michael glanced up to see John running towards them. He was dragging Hue after him and when they reached Luke and Michael, the four survivors ran towards the saddle between the hills.
Mort saw them make their desperate dash for the hill and turned to snap a rapid fire at the retreating figures. He cared little if he hit the girl, such was his rage at having the tables turned on him. But the rounds fell short as the wall of flames roared towards him, and Mort turned and fled with his men to the hills.
The enraged captain could see the tiny enemy figures climbing the rise of the saddle between the hills. But all was not lost, he thought bitterly. He could still catch them. He still had Sims and two of his former crew with him as well as seven armed Chinese. They still outnumbered and outgunned O’Flynn’s party. The grass fire was burning itself out and was only a temporary setback. Ultimately he would kill them all and take the girl.
‘Goddamn! It hurts like blazes,’ Luke said gritting his teeth. ‘But I can still walk.’ The wound was painful but not severe, and John bandaged Luke’s leg with a sleeve he had torn from the American’s shirt.
Hue attended to Michael’s wound. It was an ugly, puckered, bleeding mark across his back leaving Michael with a stiff and painful shoulder. He stood stripped to the waist as Hue poured water from a canteen over the wound and marvelled at the scars that covered the big man’s body. He was surely a warrior who had seen much combat in his lifetime she thought, and winced at the pain she knew she must be causing him.
Michael ignored his pain to stare across the valley at the forested hills where he could see Mort gathering his forces. He estimated that he was less than half a mile away and considered his options. His choices were dangerously limited. They could stand and fight from a defendable position. But Mort could lay siege and wear them down. Or push onto Cooktown thus exposing their backs to Mort’s guns. Or choose an option that combined elements of the first two choices. ‘We have to keep going,’ Michael said, gritting his teeth as he stretched his arm to test its flexibility. ‘I’m going to keep Mort busy while
you get Hue to Cooktown.’
Neither Luke nor John made any comment. Michael was making the only possible decision under the circumstances. It was not a matter of heroics, but a tactical decision, one that gave the best chance of the majority surviving. If the river was close they would then be most vulnerable to Mort’s guns while they were trying to cross. Someone would have to stay and hold Mort off when the time came to cross.
Hue was puzzled by the strange expressions on John’s and Luke’s faces. There was a resigned sadness she did not understand as the two men turned to walk away from the warrior with the one eye.
‘Luke?’ Michael called softly to the American who was about to join John with Hue. ‘I want you to give my share of whatever we get for Hue’s reward to my sister,’ he said quietly as he stared across at the hills where Mort’s party had disappeared into the trees.
‘I’ll do that,’ Luke replied. ‘Just tell me where I can find her and I’ll make sure she gets it.’
‘You won’t have any trouble finding her,’ Michael said with an enigmatic chuckle. ‘You already know the lady. Kate O’Keefe is my sister.’ Luke gaped at him in a stunned silence. Michael grinned at his friend’s utter surprise. ‘She and the rest of my family think I was killed in New Zealand back in ’63. It’s a long story and we haven’t got time to chat about things right now.’
Luke suddenly felt guilty that it was Michael, and not he, who had volunteered for certain death. He reached out and placed his hand on Michael’s shoulder. ‘You go with them,’ he said grimly. ‘I can hold Mort off.’
‘Better I stay behind,’ Michael said gently. ‘As far as my family is concerned I have been dead for many years now. And that is how I want it to stay. Besides, I’ve got nothing to leave behind. I always figured this is how I would go anyway. Been a lot of men in the past who have tried to do what Mort’s men will probably do. But at least I will get a good chance to settle with him before they take me out. Kind of fitting that he and I go together.’
‘You aren’t dead yet,’ Luke said roughly, although he knew that Michael had little chance of beating off any determined attack.
‘Go now,’ Michael said, as he thrust out his hand to his friend. Luke accepted the gesture as a bond between them. ‘Be careful with John Wong when you get near Cooktown,’ Michael added softly. ‘Just keep up your guard at all times.’
Luke did not understand Michael’s warning, but nodded and walked away without looking back.
As Luke walked away with his rifle over his shoulder, Michael turned his attention to the tree-covered hills to his front and pondered the threat John Wong posed. Christie would not have left them if Horace Brown had given him secret orders to ensure that they got the girl back to the French, he considered, as he checked his supply of Snider rounds. So it had to be the Eurasian who was under orders to keep the mission on track. But Michael Duffy had made the mistake of considering only one possibility. Soo Yin had not entered into his calculation.
‘What was said to you when I was with the girl?’ John asked suspiciously as they made their way down the reverse slope into the scrub below.
‘Nothing much of interest,’ Luke replied, parrying his question. ‘Just that I have to buy him the first round of drinks when he gets back to Cooktown.’
‘You know he is Kate O’Keefe’s brother,’ John said unexpectedly as the three cautiously picked their way down the slope.
‘I do now,’ Luke replied sadly, gazing at the thick tropical scrub below. He could hear the steady, low roaring sound of water over rocks and guessed it had to be the river that Christie had told them about. If so, then Cooktown was very close.
FORTY-SEVEN
‘Sims,’ Mort said as he watched the tiny figures disappear behind the rise, ‘get the men together and follow me.’ Sims, who stood a short distance away leaning on his rifle, turned and bellowed his orders in English. Although the first mate’s orders were in a foreign language his belligerent tone translated into Chinese. Somewhat reluctantly, the Chinese looked to Captain Woo who snarled at his men to follow the white devil.
Grass burned to a fine powder swirled in the eddies of the valley’s breezes around the pursuers as they trudged across the valley towards the saddle. Weapons were primed and senses alert as they filed past Henry’s body. Mort spat contemptuously at the dead man. James was dead and O’Flynn was next!
Hawks and kites gathered in a swirling brown-feathered cloud to circle and swoop on the unexpected feast that the fire had left in its wake, while Mort and his men struggled up to the crest of the saddle. Despite his assurances that the survivors they hunted had fled from the high ground, they approached the summit warily. But without a shot being fired at them as they advanced up the scope they relaxed on the crest to gaze down the open landscape of the other side.
Sims saw the blood spattered on the rocks and a fragment of blood-stained shirt. Mort looked pleased when the grinning first mate held up the bloody scrap of cloth. The survivors had not come out unscathed from the ambush, he mused. And maybe their injuries would slow them down even more! With any luck their injuries might even prove fatal, but hopefully O’Flynn would be alive when they caught up with him. The man had troubled him in the same way that his nightmares did, and to hear the Irish bastard scream for mercy would exorcise the ghosts that haunted his sleeping hours. With a wave of his arm, Mort signalled to his men to descend, following the blood trail into the rainforest below.
The hunters were less cautious as they trailed down the slope. It seemed obvious that the party they hunted were in full, panicked flight. They were halfway down when their complacency was shattered by the explosive crack of a Snider rifle. Before the sound had time to roll away as an echo in the midday heat haze, one of the European crew men grunted, and fell with a bullet through his chest.
The pursuers momentarily froze in terror before scattering to seek the meagre cover of rocks up on the saddle. A second well-aimed shot took Sims in the stomach before he could retreat. He dropped his rifle to clutch at his belly and with confused, terror-filled eyes stared at Mort standing on the slope. Mort swore viciously as he flung himself behind the rise. The sniper’s ruse of ambushing had caught him like an amateur!
Michael flipped the breech of the Snider and slipped a cartridge in the chamber. With the systematic removal of Mort’s former European crew members, the final fight was brought down to just the two of them. He did not consider the Chinese pirates to be an immediate threat; as he had noticed that they responded with surly reluctance to the murderous captain’s directions when he had issued his orders. And the systematic killing of the two Europeans would demoralise them, he calculated.
He slithered from his cover behind an earth bank at the edge of the rise content in the knowledge that his ambush was buying precious time for the three survivors. It was not his intention to be located, pinned down and outflanked, and he already had selected a second position from which to fire on the pursuers. He tucked the rifle into his shoulder and searched for another target.
Mort lay on his stomach on the rise and was mystified as to why the unidentified sniper had not shot him when he had the opportunity. It was as if the unseen man was taunting him, he thought, and killing the first mate who had stood beside him a contemptuous gesture that his life was the unknown sniper’s personal property.
The thought caused Mort to shudder with superstitious fear, but he did not let his fear cripple his thinking. His fertile mind was already planning to out-manoeuvre the sniper. He would send half the Chinese under the command of the pirate captain to bypass the sniper and go after the rest of the survivors, while he and the remainder kept the sniper busy pinned down on the slope.
He called for the pirate captain who crawled up to where Mort lay peering cautiously over the edge of the crest and quickly issued his orders to him. Woo understood the tactics and slithered down the reverse slope to pick six of his best men who now had the task of cutting off the fleeing survivors. Woo preferred this task to
remaining on the hill; the tangle of the thick rainforest would provide cover.
When the pirate captain was gone Mort took careful aim and casually shot Sims through the head. The first mate had tried to plead for his life, but fell silent when he realised that there was no pity in Mort’s cold eyes. The Chinese on the summit stared sullenly at the white devil and pondered if following him could be any worse than returning to the tong and confessing the loss of the girl.
~
Michael had a fleeting glimpse as the pirate captain and his team plunged into the jungle. They were fifty yards out and only exposed for a second. He snapped off a shot and was rewarded with one of the Chinese pitching forward with a short, strangled scream of despair.
His shot was answered with a volley of musket fire from the ridge above him. He swore as dirt spattered his face from one of the musket balls that had ricocheted away across the slope. Mort had out-guessed him, he thought bitterly, and was now attempting to pin him down. If nothing else, he consoled himself, he had forced his adversary to split his forces giving Luke and John a better chance in any armed confrontation in the rainforest.
He rolled away and reloaded the Snider. He had not seen Mort with the Chinese who had disappeared into the rainforest, and guessed he was still amongst the scattered rocks of the saddle with the remainder of his men. He could not expose himself for a second as the shots had come from positions closer than when he had first fired on Mort’s party. In addition, he was now effectively pinned down until the night came to provide him concealment. By that time, either John and Luke would have escaped Mort’s men or they would be dead and the girl once again Mort’s prisoner.