Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1

by Peter Watt

  ‘From what I have read, it appears the Confederacy has that Yankee, Abe Lincoln, on the run,’ David interjected with a hint of his Southern sympathies. ‘Industrial strength or not, the Confederates will win. And there is also a chance that Mister Palmerston might bring Britain into the war on the Confederates’ side which will certainly give them the logistics they need. And break the Northern blockade to boot. Britain certainly has the navy capable of giving the Yankees a bloody nose.’

  Granville shook his head. ‘I doubt if Britain will get involved in the American war. I am sure Mister Palmerston’s advisers have reminded him about the past disasters she has suffered at the Yankees’ hands. And then there is the question of slavery. The English public’s abhorrence of slavery will not tolerate siding with a nation committed to keeping it. No, Britain will not rally to the Confederacy and I doubt if she will give any support to Mister Lincoln’s government either.’

  ‘What about the Confederate victories?’ David persisted. ‘That must count for something with Palmerston and the cotton millers in Britain. They are desperately short of cotton because of the Yankee blockade.’

  ‘What my military advisers tell me is that the Confederates are winning battles but are not able to adequately replace their losses in men and material,’ Granville continued doggedly. ‘It’s only a matter of time before the North wears them down. I suppose you could say it is a contest between Northern money and material against Southern guts and dash. I am afraid for the South that guts and dash will not be enough. So, in the end, all that will happen is a long war, prolonged by the South’s lack of a sound commissary system.’

  Enid had listened carefully to her nephew explain the strategic implications of the American Secessionist War and was impressed by his depth of analysis in the matters concerning logistics.

  ‘Is there any other crop we might be able to fall back on if the cotton enterprise falls through?’ she asked quietly.

  Granville smiled triumphantly. ‘Yes. Sugar!’ he answered.

  ‘Sugar. Yes, I believe sugar grows in warm climates from what Mister Macintosh has written to me.’ Enid mused as she delicately sipped at her coffee. ‘Queensland has such a climate as may be conducive to sugar-growing.’

  Granville had another card up his sleeve he had not yet played and he now threw it on the table. ‘The Queensland legislature has just passed a coolie Act that opens the way for black labour,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard around the Australian Club that Robert Towns is going to use Pacific Islanders as indentured labourers for his property near Brisbane, instead of Indian workers. Towns is no fool, and I think we should get in on the same deal.’

  The mention of the shrewd and wealthy Northumbrian shipowner and merchant impressed Enid. Captain Robert Towns was well known as a businessman who rarely made a mistake in his dealings, and if Towns had decided to use Pacific Islanders as indentured labourers then there must be substance in her nephew’s proposal.

  Enid placed her cup carefully on a small cane table from which she took a Chinese fan and flipped it open. With the storm almost gone, the air was becoming humid and unpleasant again. She stared into the depths of the harbour as she waved the fan slowly, contemplating all that her nephew had outlined and, although she had the authority to decide on Granville’s proposal, she would have preferred her husband to be in Sydney to make the decision. But Donald was more interested in establishing the Glen View lease and had become besotted with the idea of carving out a pastoral empire to rival any in the colonies. She could not understand her husband’s love of the harsh land he described in glowing terms as a new Eden and the idea of being with Donald on the frontier had no appeal whatsoever to her.

  ‘The Osprey is at your disposal,’ she said with a slow wave of her fan. ‘And the venture is under your control.’

  Granville smiled triumphantly and with a single gulp downed the last of the madeira in his goblet. Now all he had to do was win Fiona in marriage and he would be another step closer to a full partnership in the Macintosh business interests.

  ‘You will always be glad you made the right decision, Aunt Enid,’ he said jubilantly. ‘In a few years the enterprise will be a major jewel to the business. That I promise you both.’

  ‘There is one thing I failed to mention,’ she said, eyeing him shrewdly. ‘You have total control of the running of the enterprise, but David will review the operation from time to time on my behalf. And David will allocate all finances.’

  Granville ceased smiling. If David controlled the purse strings then he really controlled the whole venture. The damned Macintoshes gave nothing away! And his aunt, once a White herself, had become a true Macintosh. But he did not allow himself to display his bitter disappointment. Instead, he flashed a broad smile of his seeming pleasure at having his cousin as his de facto boss.

  From the harbour they could hear the clanking of a channel buoy and the sounds of fishermen calling across the water to each other. The storm was almost gone and the cruciform constellation of the Southern Cross reigned supreme in the southern sky.

  As Granville completed his deal, Penelope and Fiona were chatting in the drawing room where flickering candles cast a soft glowing backdrop to a conversation that was inevitably about Michael Duffy.

  ‘You cannot seriously entertain any thought of meeting the man,’ Penelope cautioned her cousin. ‘He’s nothing more than a common labourer.’ Fiona stared at the crumpled sheet of sketchpad paper in her lap. ‘Meet me at Hyde Park next Sunday afternoon. I will find you.’

  ‘He may be a common labourer, as you call him Penelope, but he has the manners of a gentleman,’ she retorted defensively. ‘And besides, what harm is there in just meeting him?’

  Penelope frowned because her cousin was not as worldly wise as she in the ways of men and she did not feel Fiona was really ready to discover what she herself knew intimately of men’s natures. It was time to be frank.

  ‘Men want more than idle chatter,’ Penelope said bluntly. ‘A man’s intention is to seduce you to his bed. And I fear that Mister Duffy, as charming as he is, has that intention. You must know that anything more between you is impossible. Although the very thought of him does have that appeal,’ she added wistfully as she imagined what it would be like to be under the Irishman’s muscled body.

  ‘Penny! Sometimes you are shocking,’ Fiona said with a nervous giggle. She knew her cousin had experienced the illicit pleasures, never spoken of, except between close friends. And they were more like sisters than cousins in their relationship.

  Penelope smiled. Although she was only two years older than her cousin she was two hundred years more experienced when it came to men. ‘Fi, trust me when I say you are no match for that man,’ she said quietly. ‘He has that look about him.’

  ‘What do you mean by that look?’ Fiona queried.

  ‘It is in the eyes . . . the voice,’ Penelope said as she stared into the flame of the flickering candle. ‘The way a man stands like a proud stallion among the brood mares.’

  Fiona blushed as she had a vivid image of her father’s big roan stallion mounting a mare to service her. It was a savage and arousing sight that had caused her to imagine, long after the event, things that disturbed her and which she tried to put from her mind with feelings of guilt. The images were definitely erotic, but disturbing, and she found that she was squeezing her knees together as the imagery took form in her mind. A desire to be totally filled by the giant organ of the stallion. Penelope continued to philosophise on the ways of men.

  ‘It is the way of his arrogance. And you, Fi, are like the lamb before the lion – helpless.’ Fiona could understand what her cousin was saying. Yes, she felt a certain amount of helplessness when she gazed into those grey eyes. An actual weakness in her body. Like the stallion servicing the mare . . .

  ‘I intend to meet Michael Duffy regardless of what you say,’ Fiona replied with a hint of defiance. ‘But I assure you I will be fully in control of my feelings.’

  Penel
ope smiled at her naive belief that she could control her deepest passions and leaned forward to grasp Fiona’s hands in her own. ‘Always remember what you have just said. Always control men, because they are easily controlled by strong women. I have learnt that much. Oh! they bluster and carry on like peacocks but a woman’s body is something they will fight for. When you know that, then you will always be in control of all else that follows.’ The flickering candlelight caught the intensity of Penelope’s plea on her face. Then her hands fell reluctantly from the grasp and slid down Fiona’s lap before she drew away from her cousin.

  ‘What was it like the first time?’ Fiona asked quietly. Although she knew from intimate discussions between them on previous occasions that Penelope had slept with many men and – it was rumoured – with women, Fiona had never inquired into the physical description of the act. The whispered stories circulating in the drawing rooms and parlours of Sydney’s colonial mansions alluding to her cousin’s unnatural acts with other women, Fiona dismissed as malicious fabrications. And yet they held a fascination she found disturbingly arousing. How was it that a woman could pleasure another?

  ‘The first time?’ Penelope’s face clouded as she echoed bitterly her cousin’s question. ‘The first time is something I would rather forget.’

  ‘I am sorry I asked,’ Fiona hurried. ‘I did not mean to cause you any distress.’

  But Penelope continued to speak as if disembodied from the pain of the first time. ‘After the first time, with other men it was nice. No, not nice. Nice is a word that does not describe the feelings. It was . . . it is . . . all-consuming. Like an explosion in the body and mind at the same time. An explosion of wonderfully wicked pleasures while the men grunt like animals and, for a while, all that is forbidden . . . except in your mind . . . happens. You become part of a secret world and can be anything or anywhere. And for the moment you really are. I cannot describe it in any other way.’

  Fiona listened in rapt silence to her cousin’s description of the act called love. But it sounded more like something else. It was partly as she imagined – a metaphysical experience – but at the same time strangely distant from what she had expected. The thought of Michael as half-man half-stallion crept into the dark rooms of her mind again and she felt the delicious thrill of the forbidden.

  The candles suddenly flared and both women glanced in the direction of the entrance to the drawing room.

  ‘I thought you might have the gaslight on, ladies,’ Granville slurred. ‘You could not possibly see anything in this gloom.’ His entrance into the room had become an intrusion resented by both women. But it was the bitter look from Penelope that Fiona noticed most as she had never seen her cousin look at her brother in that manner before.

  ‘I think the candles are much preferable to the gaslight on Sunday evenings,’ Fiona said defensively. ‘They are so . . . romantic.’

  Granville swayed on his feet as he stood in the doorway, and he had a strange expression on his face that was somewhere between happiness and regret. But when he adjusted his eyes to the candlelight, his expression altered and, when he stared at Fiona, it took on the expression of a horse dealer appraising the worth of a good brood mare.

  ‘I hope your talk with Aunt Enid and David was satisfactory,’ Penelope said conversationally to her brother. She knew of his plans to broach the subject of the Osprey as he had discussed the project with her the previous week over breakfast in the house that they shared.

  ‘Yes, quite satisfactory,’ he lied. ‘Aunt Enid has agreed to the setting up of the Queensland properties . . . and my use of the Osprey to get them under way,’ he said, as he walked unsteadily into the drawing room to stand between the two women.

  ‘Good,’ Penelope replied.

  ‘I shall bid you both good night,’ Fiona said, as she stood and brushed down her long satin dress. ‘I will see you in the morning at breakfast.’ They acknowledged her departure and remained silent until they could hear her footsteps on the stairway to the second floor of the mansion.

  Granville slumped into the chair that Fiona had vacated and stared into the flame of a candle with his chin tucked in his hands. Penelope could read her brother’s brooding mood.

  ‘It did not go well at all,’ she stated simply.

  ‘No, it did not,’ he answered bitterly without looking at her. ‘David has ultimate control over the whole project. The damned Macintoshes never give anything away.’ Granville had meticulously planned the whole enterprise. He had dined at his own expense with the regimental officers from Victoria Barracks, spent long hours speaking to men with experience in cotton and sugar growing and met with the less than savoury characters of the waterfront to inquire into the types of ships needed for transporting black cargo. Men who had once transported slaves to the New World from Africa. Now it was all taken from him by his aunt and her weak son.

  ‘I am sure you will get around David and Enid in time, Granville,’ his sister said sympathetically. ‘Knowing your skills at manipulation as I do.’ He glanced at his sister questioningly as he could sense that she was angry towards him over something. But he was not in the mood to inquire what it was.

  ‘In time,’ he mused as he stared into the flame of a candle. ‘David is not the problem. Enid is the real problem. David lacks her knowledge of the Macintosh companies. He would have preferred to remain in England and spend his life at Oxford reading Aristotle or the like. He’s never been cut out for work in the business and is nothing like his father . . . or brother. I don’t know why they didn’t leave him in England.’

  ‘Because he is Enid’s son,’ Penelope said simply.

  ‘So is Angus,’ Granville replied and was surprised at his sister’s statement of blatantly obvious fact concerning David’s parentage.

  ‘You don’t understand what I mean,’ Penelope said enigmatically. ‘Do you, Granville?’

  He shifted his gaze from his sister back to the candles. ‘I think you should elaborate.’

  ‘David has always been Enid’s,’ Penelope said. ‘While Angus belonged to Donald. It has always been that way. Enid wants David beside her because she sees him as a male extension of herself.’

  Granville snorted at his sister’s perception. ‘You really have some strange ideas about people, dear sister. An extension of herself! You know, you sound ridiculous when you say things like that.’

  ‘I might sound ridiculous to you, dear brother,’ she retorted, ‘but any fool can see that Enid dotes on David. She always has. I am not saying she doesn’t love Angus, but it is in David she sees herself. He is her guarantee of immortality.’

  ‘So where does Fiona fit into all this? Who does she belong to?’ Granville asked, leaning forward in his chair with just a touch of respect in his tone for his sister’s observations. Yes, he had seen Enid’s doting ways around David.

  ‘Molly O’Rourke.’

  ‘Molly O’Rourke!’ he exploded. ‘But Molly O’Rourke is nothing but an old drunken Irish nanny. Molly O’Rourke is nothing more than a paid servant.’

  ‘A paid servant she may be,’ Penelope replied in a measured tone. ‘But Fiona is closer to Molly than to her own mother. It has always been Molly who saw Fiona through her worst and best times. It has always been Molly Fiona goes to when she had something important in her life. You see, Granville, you might be good at business dealings but you do not know very much about women . . . and how we think,’ she answered astutely.

  ‘I will keep your advice in mind,’ he said as he turned to stare into the flickering candlelight. For now there was much to think about, including how he would win Fiona as his wife. But then he had Penelope as an ally to help him in that matter. And as much as she might detest him, he knew her weaknesses and he was not beyond exploiting anyone in his obsessive ambition to have total control of what he desired.

  TEN

  Daniel’s unease at entering the infamous Rocks area was highlighted by the lonely sound of their footsteps echoing eerily in the Argyle Cut. This was
not a place to be caught out alone. He hurried to catch up with Max and Michael.

  The rain had gone and in its wake the narrow lanes and alleys had an unhealthy sheen, like the sweat on a fevered body. The Rocks had been left behind the city’s growth to die a slow and obscene death, providing a rotting corpse to fester the maggots of crime. Gangs of cut-throat thugs flourished in the decay and ruled the streets with violent means, and haggard prostitutes of all ages plied their profession in the cramped hovels and back alleys, while street urchin pickpockets gained acceptance into The Rocks’ older and more vicious underworld ranks through their apprenticeships.

  Unscrupulous publicans adulterated gut-rotting grog with substances such as sulphuric acid, and they worked in tandem with the press-gangs to shanghai drunken customers to crew the ships that sailed and steamed for all parts of the world. Despite – or because of – its evil reputation, the area attracted sailors from ships anchored and moored in the nearby coves who came for the cheap grog, easy women and a place to doss.

  As they hurried through The Rocks, Daniel could smell the poverty of the area; the pungent and unpleasant aroma of cooking cabbage, human refuse and the natural decay of the neglected streets. The rain might have washed away the blood, urine and vomit from the narrow streets into the waters of the nearby harbour, but the lingering scent remained, hanging heavily in the stagnant and humid night air. He was acutely aware of the distant clanking of anchor chains and creaking of timber of the big ships waiting for cargoes of wool and grain. They were strangely normal and comforting sounds in contrast to the despairing wail of a baby neglected by its prostitute mother, and its wailing was drowned by the profane and hysterical screams of a mad-woman raging obscenities into the night. Sounds that seemed to echo out of the bottom of hell itself.

  He could not help but think they were in some surreal version of hell. But for Max Braun, the sights, sounds and smells were familiar and varied little from the many waterfronts he had known as a sailor. They could have been in Hamburg or in San Francisco’s notorious red-light district. Daniel did not know whether the eventual sight of the Hero of Waterloo Hotel was welcome or not, as he knew that inside the confines of the popular hotel was concentrated the human face of vice and viciousness.