Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1

by Peter Watt

  Mort stared at her with a smouldering interest. There was little need to go any further with the game, as it had already been won. When he smiled and brushed her hand with his fingers, she experienced a delicious shiver of anticipation ripple through her body.

  ‘Do you have a carriage, Miss White?’ he asked quietly, fixing her gaze with his.

  ‘Yes, I do have a carriage, Captain,’ she replied, holding his gaze with brazen acceptance of his meaning, and she slowly withdrew her hand from Mort’s thigh. ‘Could I possibly take you somewhere tonight after you have completed your business with my brother?’

  He nodded and with an enigmatic smile replied, ‘I would be very grateful if you could take me back to my ship tonight. I think I have something in my cabin that will be of great interest to a student of human behaviour.’

  Penelope had a strange feeling she was only hours from exploring a whole new world of pleasure.

  Mort’s cabin aboard the Osprey was cramped.

  It was cramped because of the chunky wooden bench that took up much of the confined space in the cabin. The bench was a perversion of the beautiful timber that had been used in its construction and the once-living trees had lost their souls to hell in the crafting of the device.

  Penelope recognised the whipping bench for what it was. She had an irresistible urge to run her hand along the smooth surface and she felt it grow into impulsive desire to feel the smooth and silky wood, which was mottled with dark blotches.

  So the bench had been used for its intended purpose, Penelope mused idly, and she thought, for an erotic but perverse moment, of an altar used for human sacrifice. The kind of altar that might have been used by the Druids in the dark forests of northern Europe in a time before Christianity spread its repressive teachings.

  Mort stood watching the beautiful woman stroking the bench under the sickly glow of the oil lantern that cast its feeble light in the tiny cabin and he could clearly see that she was reluctant to take her hand away from the smooth and oily surface of the timber.

  ‘It is a whipping bench, Miss White,’ he said unnecessarily.

  Penelope answered in a distant and dreamy voice, ‘I know.’

  ‘Would you like a rum?’ he asked as he ratted through a sea chest that was jammed against the single bunk fixed into the bulkhead.

  ‘No,’ Penelope answered as she gazed around the cabin, which had a lack of personal adornments, except for the sword hanging in its scabbard over the bunk. Mort was a very neat man who kept everything in its place. Just like Granville, she mused. Her social and sometimes sexual contact with the regimental officers of Sydney’s garrisons had taught her the difference between a cavalry sabre and an infantry sword and she thought it was rather unusual for a man who had served with the Native Mounted Police to own an infantry sword rather than a sabre.

  She turned to Mort, who stood awkwardly in the cabin holding the bottle of rum, and she slowly began to undress in front of him.

  He stood expressionless as he watched the layers of her clothes fall away until Penelope stood wearing only the long pantaloons that were divided discreetly at the centre, designed for calls of nature.

  She raised her arms above her head to undo the pins that secured her long silky tresses and her hair fell as a golden shower around her shoulders. Then she turned and lay forward across the whipping bench – gripping the stout legs with her hands. Her own legs spread enticingly to Mort’s view as her lustrous long blonde hair cascaded to the cabin floor.

  ‘I will have to secure your wrists,’ Mort said in a hoarse voice thick with lust. ‘For you to experience the full effect, Miss White,’ he added as he placed the rum bottle carefully back in the sea chest and produced thin strips of leather.

  Penelope smiled dreamily as he tied her hands securely to the legs of the bench. She was now completely vulnerable to whatever his fertile mind should conjure for their mutual pleasure. Bound and helpless, she imagined that she was a native girl being punished for resisting the captain’s pleasure. She smiled with delicious anticipation of what he would do to her as punishment. She was unable to see Mort reach for the sword above his bunk because of the manner of her bondage, but she did hear the soft and metallic hiss of the blade slide from the scabbard. The lovingly oiled silver blade was out of its sheath and in the hands of its cruel master.

  How could she know . . .?

  He stood behind the helpless woman and contemplated the erotic sight of her firmly rounded buttocks straining against the shiny and creamy silk of the pantaloons. A sweaty feverish sheen gave his face a garish and hellish look as the demons of his twisted mind took control of his actions and the murderous captain could see that she was utterly unafraid of him.

  How could she know . . .

  The sharp tip of the sword slowly caressed the exposed milky white flesh that was revealed where the pantaloons divided and its cold and unexpected kiss was an electric shock to her body. Penelope flinched when she felt the flat of the blade slide down slowly and precisely between her legs and over the most intimate parts of her body. She shuddered with the thrill of terror and sensual ecstasy and her moan of pleasure filled the small cabin.

  How could she know . . .

  The Osprey was once again at sea. And the helpless girl was begging to be impaled with the symbol of his manhood!

  ‘I should stick the sword up you, you black bitch,’ he hissed as the point of the sword lingered lightly at the entrance to Penelope’s body.

  ‘Yess,’ she sighed softly with her fear heightened and an overwhelming desire to be entered. ‘Do it!’

  She could feel the tip caressing the entrance to her body and experienced the most extreme fear and anticipation of death she had ever known. Pain and pleasure came together as one. The creature born out of the depths of humanity’s most evil and perverted desires was as old as the demons that had lived with the powerful who preyed on the weak.

  The sharp tip of the infantry sword lingered menacingly at the yielding flesh between her thighs and then, slowly and gently, the tip of the blade entered her just the shortest distance. Mort shuddered violently as the uncontrollable spasms swept him with waves of violent relief. The sword clattered from his nerveless grip onto the cabin floor and he buckled and fell to his knees behind Penelope. How could she know his terrible desire to hurt those with the power to bear life . . . to inflict an unspeakable perversity on little boys.

  ‘Kiss me there,’ she said in a commanding voice distant with her rapture. ‘Kiss me there, Captain Mort, and drink of my body.’

  He crawled forward to obey her order and his lips pressed against her. His mouth opened to receive her offering, which flowed warm into his mouth and he drank greedily. They were now bound as one in their mutual pleasure.

  As Penelope felt the tip of the sword caressing her body, her brother stepped with his wife from their carriage at the house Donald Macintosh had purchased for his daughter as a wedding gift.

  The house was much smaller than the Macintosh mansion overlooking the harbour but it was new and luxurious and Granville had gratefully accepted the wedding gift from his father-in-law, despite the fact that the house belonged to his wife. It did not matter, as one day all the Macintosh property would be his anyway.

  Fiona bade the carriage driver a good evening, whereas Granville did not bother to thank him. It was not in his nature to give praise or compliments to people employed by him.

  Husband and wife stood alone in cold silence on the driveway in front of their grand house as the carriage rattled away. Their conversation on the journey home had been limited to how well Penelope appeared. Or what a nice dinner Enid had provided for the guests. It had been trite talk between two people with little interest in each other and now Fiona was weary and looked forward to a good night’s sleep.

  She was about to walk towards the front door when they were startled by the figure standing in the shadows of the garden and Fiona gasped with fright. Granville gripped his wife’s elbow and summoned as m
uch courage as he could to demand the man step forward. The man obeyed and Granville felt a profound sense of relief to see that it was only Harris, his former gardener.

  ‘Harris! What in Hades are you doing standing around here frightening my wife?’ he demanded arrogantly as the gardener shuffled from the shadows. In the dim light, Granville could see that his former gardener was a very ill man who had all the signs of advanced consumption.

  ‘Come to see you, Mister White,’ he said quietly as he glanced at Fiona standing beside her husband. ‘Rather you and I talk privately if you don’t mind.’ Granville felt uneasy about the request, as there was only one thing the two men had in common. And he was not about to let his wife know what that was.

  ‘You go inside and see to our daughters, Fiona,’ Granville said quietly to his wife, who stared at the former gardener. She remembered that he had once worked for her husband and she felt a touch of pity for the sickly man. She could not help but wonder why the gardener had suddenly decided to visit her husband. Years had passed since Granville had dismissed him from service. But she did not question Granville and did as he directed.

  Fiona was met by the girls’ formidable nanny at the front door. She cast the gardener a contemptuous look. It was not fitting that such a disreputable-looking person hang around the gardens of good Christian people.

  ‘ ’E came early this evenin’ lookin’ for Mister White,’ the nanny said as she ushered her mistress inside the house. ‘Told ’im youse was out but he refused to go until ’e saw Mister White. ’E’s been no bother though.’

  When the nanny closed the door, Granville turned angrily on Harris.

  ‘I’ve told you, Harris, that you were never to come to my house and bother me,’ he snarled.

  The gardener looked Granville directly in the eye. ‘Jenny had a baby today,’ he said. ‘She’s had a baby boy. Your boy, Mister White.’

  Granville felt a cold vice grip his chest. The stupid girl had got herself pregnant! ‘I deny what you say to be true, Harris,’ Granville snarled as he took a threatening step towards the gardener. ‘And I suggest very strongly that you leave now or I will have the police fetched to throw you in gaol.’

  Although Harris was not a robust man, as the insidious disease of tuberculosis had long drained his strength, he refused to be cowed by his former employer’s threatening attitude. What more could be done to him that God had not already punished him for?

  Harris coughed, a deep hacking cough that caused Granville to step back lest he catch the dreaded sickness.

  ‘It’s your kid right enough, Mister White,’ he finally said, after he was able to bring the coughing fit under control. Dark mucus covered the gardener’s shirt sleeve where he had wiped his mouth. Sweat covered the man’s face from the exertion. The coughing had drained his reserves of strength. ‘And I’ll tell Missus Macintosh so if you don’t listen to what I say,’ he added in a voice wheezy from coughing.

  Granville realised the gardener meant what he said, as there was a defiance in the man he had never seen before. Jennifer was twelve now and although he had seen the obvious signs of her body turning from a prepubescent girl into that of a young woman, he had been careless concerning the risk of pregnancy.

  He had dismissed the gardener but had paid for a small tenement to house the man and his young daughter where he could visit the girl on a regular basis until six months earlier, when Jennifer had simply disappeared. Granville had the gardener evicted and sold the house, as the man was of no use to him without access to his daughter. Now it was clear why she had run away.

  ‘You can tell Missus Macintosh anything you like,’ Granville said contemptuously in an attempt to bluff the gardener. ‘I doubt if she will believe your slut of a daughter is the mother of my child.’

  Harris shrugged his shoulders and turned to shuffle away, but Granville sensed that the man was not leaving. He believed his threat that he was actually going to tell Enid Macintosh. He felt real fear verging on panic, as relations with his mother-in-law were tentative at the best of times.

  ‘Wait!’ he cried out to the gardener, who had taken a few steps. ‘Wait, Harris. I think we can come to an agreement in the best interests of you and me.’

  The gardener stopped and turned around. ‘Not in my interests, Mister White,’ Harris replied. ‘In the interests of Jenny and her boy. You see I don’t think I’m long for this world and when you’re looking at the next life you get to thinking there are things you should do before you go.’

  ‘If that’s what you want . . . the interests of your daughter,’ Granville said calmly as he resigned himself to dealing with Harris. ‘I’m sure money can be arranged to see she is looked after for a while.’ One of the great advantages of wealth was that money could buy peace of mind. ‘How much?’ he asked.

  Harris stared at Granville with just a hint of victory in his rheumy eyes. He had always hated himself for the deal that he had made with his employer all those years earlier. He had always tried to absolve his guilt by justifying it as based on altruistic motives for his daughter’s future. Or so he thought. But the deadly and insidious consumption, and the realisation he would have to answer to his Maker very soon, had changed the gardener’s attitudes. He had come to realise that the life he had been partially responsible for creating was his only earthly immortality and he’d thought it was rather ironic that he was now tied by blood to the man he had always hated.

  ‘Five hundred quid,’ he replied and he watched with vicious satisfaction as Granville’s mouth gaped.

  ‘I can arrange for the death of a man for less,’ Granville unwittingly replied.

  ‘That may be so, Mister White,’ Harris said quietly. ‘But if I don’t get five hundred quid for Jenny then I think you might have signed your own death warrant with Missus Macintosh . . . In a manner of speakin’.’ The analogy was not lost on Granville. The ensuing scandal that could emerge was the equivalent of a death warrant to his aspirations.

  ‘You will get the money,’ Granville replied. ‘On the condition that you take your daughter out of the colony of New South Wales . . . and never return.’

  Harris smiled. ‘Fair enough,’ he agreed. ‘I was told by the doctor I should go somewhere warm and dry. He says Queensland is as good a place as any. You get the money to me by next week and I can promise you that Jenny, me and the kid will be gone by the week after, Mister White.’

  Five hundred pounds was not a lot to get rid of the girl and her father, Granville thought, and he would certainly miss the little slut’s prepubescent young body. However there were others who could take her place. It was only a matter of careful searching in the right places.

  As the gardener and Granville made arrangements for the money to be paid, Fiona watched them from the bedroom window. Although she was relieved to see that her husband was not in any danger from the man he spoke to, she was also curious as to why Harris had come so late to see him.

  When Granville finally came to their bedroom, she did not ask her husband about the conversation he had had with Harris. But he volunteered that the gardener had spoken to him about a grievance of back wages not being paid to him. Fiona knew her husband was lying but she did not comment, as she preferred not to know whatever it was the gardener had come to the house for.

  That night Granville forced himself on Fiona. His lovemaking was rough and quick, as if he were using her to relieve his sexual tension. And when he was finished, he rolled over to sleep.

  She prayed that she would not fall pregnant as she stared into the silent places of the night, listening to a whisper of an unthinkable and forbidden yearning. Penelope was with her in spirit and she wished she was with her in body, holding and comforting her – as they had when they were girls so long ago.

  In a row of squalid tenements adjoining the backyards of the tanneries and gasworks, a young girl sobbed as she rocked her baby in her arms. He would not stop crying and she despaired that he ever would. She tried to get him to take one of her nippl
es in his mouth but he only screwed up his face and bawled at her attempts. Frightened, confused and facing utter despair, she tried to calm him by rocking him gently in her arms. And still he cried. Jennifer Harris buried her head in his thin wispy hair and whispered tearfully, ‘Your grandpapa will be home soon and he will help us, Willy.’

  The wax candle flickered and was snuffed out as the wick reached its limit of life. The tiny room, with only a dirty straw-filled palliasse as the major item of furniture, was cast into stifling darkness. But she did not mind. Here she was safe and he would not be coming for her body to do the unspeakable things that he had in the past to hurt her.

  ‘When you grow up, Willy, you will be my little man and look after Papa and me,’ she crooned as she rocked the baby in the dark. He continued to bawl irritably at the flea bites that were inflicted on his tender skin. ‘And when you grow up you will hurt Mister White,’ she said with mounting anger.

  She stopped rocking him and hugged him to her so that he stopped bawling as he fought for breath to fill his tiny lungs. ‘You will grow up and hurt Mister White. Hurt Mister White so that he can never hurt no one again.’ Her words echoed as whispers in the night.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The law firm of Sullivan & Levi was well known. Its fearless reputation to take on cases not popular with the establishment brought many to its doors. Mostly the guilty who could expect fire in the belly of their defence.

  Daniel Duffy was learning the rough and tumble of court work in a manner not too dissimilar from how his cousin, Michael Duffy, had learnt to fight with his fists. Except that he was learning to fight with his rhetoric and he was already being recognised as a rising star in the legal world. Daniel Duffy was humble enough to give credit for his skills to the two men for whom he worked.

  Gerald Sullivan was an Irishman and Isaac Levi was Jewish Australian. Although the two men were opposites in every way – Gerald Sullivan was short, fat and fiery; Isaac Levi was tall, slim and urbane – they complemented each other. Daniel had found, in working with the law firm, the art and science of court work. The art he learnt from Gerald, the science from Isaac. Both men were ten years older than Daniel but a hundred years more experienced in the devious ways of law. Neither solicitor was popular with the predominantly English judges they fronted at the bench or the police magistrates in the petty sessions. So it was strange that a Presbyterian missionary should seek help from the law firm of Sullivan & Levi.