Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1

by Peter Watt

  Sir Donald was fully aware of the schism between mother and daughter, which was not unexpected as he had observed the tension verging on animosity between the two women over the years. Tension which had always been concealed by a polite and dutiful veneer.

  But the animosity had risen to the surface at the time Fiona had given up the bastard son of Michael Duffy and he suspected that his daughter had allied herself with Granville in a way that might do Enid harm. But how? He did not know. But he knew Fiona was very different to the little girl he once knew. She was still outwardly affectionate to him but there was also a coldness he had not experienced from her before.

  ‘Hello, Father. You look very distinguished tonight,’ David said when he joined them.

  ‘Thank you, David,’ Sir Donald growled. ‘But I feel less than distinguished among all these poodle fakers. Damned bankers and merchants living off those trying to turn this country into a place fit for good Christian men and women . . .’

  ‘Donald! Do not let them upset you,’ Enid gently chided. ‘You promised no talk of business tonight.’ She could see her husband growing belligerent as he glowered at the cavalcade of the colony’s money manipulators, whom he saw as responsible for the July ’66 crash of the prestigious Agra and Masterton Banks in England.

  Queensland had suffered badly when the financial tidal wave had crossed the ocean to swamp the heavily indebted squatters of the new colony. The Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, and finally the American Civil War had come together to cause the commercial crisis now in Britain and adversely affect the colony of Queensland.

  Sir Donald acceded to his wife’s wish. He had a Scot’s tenacity to overcome tough times and for now it was his duty to forget falling cotton prices and the need for a loan to keep the Glen View lease. In the structure of the family companies, it had been agreed to keep the pastoral enterprises separate from the shipping and other ventures. As such, Sir Donald realised that his tenure of his beloved Glen View might face extinction and he would be forced back to Sydney. The thought did not rest well with him.

  ‘I’m sorry, m’dear,’ he replied contritely. ‘You are right.’

  Enid sat on a chair with a fan in her lap and asked David to fetch her a glass of ice water but the request was really an excuse to confer with her husband. When David was safely out of hearing she said, ‘David has told me that he plans to go on the Osprey and voyage to the islands with Captain Mort.’

  Sir Donald frowned. ‘That is if we still have the Osprey,’ he replied with a growl, and Enid gave him a questioning look.

  ‘Damned missionaries are moving to have the Royal Navy seize her as a slaver,’ he explained quietly. ‘It appears that Captain Mort has done something to upset them.’

  ‘But that’s preposterous,’ his wife protested and was indignant that anyone would dare link the Macintosh name with the abominable practice of slavery, although she was aware that the newspapers were attempting to liken the kanaka trade to slavery. Lurid stories had been reported in the newspapers of wretched souls crying out for freedom from the devilish blackbirders. Stories which inflamed public outrage. ‘The Osprey is a legitimate ship of trade,’ she continued, ‘not some African slaver of old.’

  ‘I know that,’ Sir Donald reassured her. ‘But it appears some missionary by the name of Macalister is saying Mort has done something rather nasty. I will ask Granville to give us a full report on Mort’s activities and then put it in the hands of our solicitors. I’m sure there is nothing to worry about. As it is, the damned missionaries are always bleating about atrocities. Keeps them in the public eye when it comes to asking for money for their missions.’

  Sir Donald could see that his wife had reacted to the news about the Osprey with mixed feelings. On the one hand she would have liked to see the Osprey taken out of the kanaka trade. But on the other hand she also feared the scandal such a move would bring on the family name. Should the Royal Navy seize the blackbirding ship, then David would have to cancel his trip on the Osprey. He had plans of photographing native life in the Pacific islands, but Enid did not like or trust Captain Mort. She had met the notorious captain when he first commenced employment with them in ’63 and she had taken an immediate dislike to him. It was in the eyes. A madness one would see in a rabid animal, she recalled later.

  Nor did she like the first mate, whom she knew for a fact was an extremely dangerous man. Mort and Horton were a bad pair in her opinion and worse still was the total loyalty they had to Granville as their employer. She strongly opposed the idea of her son travelling in the company of such cutthroats. Call it a mother’s intuition but the feeling persisted that her son could be in mortal danger aboard the Osprey.

  She had tried to talk David into taking passage on another ship if he was so determined to sail the South Seas but he had pointed out that the Osprey was the only Macintosh ship working there, and that he was, after all, a part owner. It was bad enough that David had resigned from his position at Oxford to pursue his foolish dream of recording history in his photographs, Enid thought. But to venture with the blackbirders into situations of dire peril was beyond foolish.

  Although she would never admit publicly what she had learnt of the darker side of blackbirding, her intelligence network informed her that atrocities were being committed in the trade. She was fully aware of how dangerous the trip could be for her son.

  ‘Do you think you could persuade David not to join the Osprey, Donald?’ she said.

  ‘I doubt if anything I said would do any good,’ her husband replied. ‘After all, he is your son and if he won’t listen to you then he is not going to listen to me.’

  Enid knew he was right. The family had always been divided in its loyalties. Angus to his father, David to her and Fiona . . . Well, Fiona’s loyalties lay with her husband’s interests now.

  ‘I almost pray that Captain Mort and the Osprey are detained by the authorities,’ she replied quietly.

  David returned with both the glass of water and Miss Charlotte Frost, and the conversation turned to matters of the wedding four months hence. It was scheduled to take place upon his return from the South Seas.

  On the other side of the ballroom, Fiona had met up with Penelope who was, for the evening, being escorted by an English cavalry captain posted to the colony from his regiment in England. She had made an excuse to leave him with fellow officers while she sought the company of Fiona. The captain was boring and his conversation limited to talk about the hunters he had brought with him to the colony. He complained incessantly about the lack of respect shown to him from the colonials as they did not seem to hold the captain in the same awe as he was shown England. Even the street urchins followed him when he wore his uniform in Sydney, and mocked him with clever impersonations of his deliberately affected manner of an English fop.

  Fiona giggled when Penelope made a mocking impersonation of her escort.

  ‘Oh, Penny, you are awful to the man,’ she said as she stifled her giggles behind a delicately splayed fan ribbed with mother-of-pearl. ‘You are awful . . . and shocking.’

  Penelope gave her sister-in-law a mysterious smile. ‘Shocking, yes. But not awful. The man is a prude!’

  ‘Prude, Penny? You mean he is a gentleman and does not share your attitudes to . . . well, you know what I mean,’ Fiona said, alluding to those things better not mentioned in genteel company.

  ‘Gentlemen are boring,’ Penelope retorted. ‘They think that we are passive receptacles for their relief. Why, Captain Hayes got off me last night after having mounted me like one of his brood mares and said, “There, there, old girl, do you feel better?” Feel better? Damn him! I was screaming out for relief.’

  Fiona glanced around and fervently hoped that no one could overhear her cousin’s explicit narrative of her interlude with the captain. Although she was embarrassed, an erotic and disturbing image flashed in her mind and she imagined her sister-in-law’s naked body under the British officer.

  ‘Penny, I think it might be wi
se if we change the topic of conversation,’ she whispered nervously behind her fan. ‘People may hear us.’ But two glasses of excellent champagne and Penelope cared little for the hypocritical mores of Victorian morality.

  ‘Not us Fi, . . . me,’ she replied in a more subdued tone. ‘At least I know you have married a man who knows how to touch the dark places in a woman’s mind. My brother might be a lot of things but one thing is that he knows how to go beyond that place between our legs. Yes, Granville is good at that. And so am I.’

  It was then Fiona felt her face flush with shock at the realisation of just what her cousin was saying. Before she could reply, Penelope touched her arm above her wrist and whispered in her ear, ‘If you think Granville is exciting, you should try me, my love.’

  With the words hanging in the air, Penelope turned and in a loud voice greeted the English captain wending his way over to her. He was flushed from drinking and his expression was a repulsive leer that made him unappealing to both Penelope and Fiona. To the other young women at the ball, Captain Hayes was an attractive catch; handsome and dashing in his colourful uniform and he was also the second son of an English earl. That implied in its own right wealth and a position in society. Penelope would have been more than happy to let them have him. At least when the candles were blown out.

  When the bandmaster struck up the traditional ‘Auld Lang Syne’ to mark the passing of the year, Sir Donald and Lady Enid linked arms, as did David and Charlotte with Granville and Fiona. Penelope had lost her beau to the drink, so she linked arms with her sister-in-law.

  As the guests sang the refrains of the Scottish song of joy and lament, when voices were raised in a mixture of hope and cheer for the promises of the New Year, Enid felt David’s arm in hers and she was content. Her fears for her son were almost forgotten as the voices swelled to the traditional hurrahs marking the midnight hour.

  In another place another family also celebrated the coming of 1868.

  It was not a splendid ballroom on a wealthy man’s estate, but a simple kitchen in an Irish-patronised hotel in Sydney’s Redfern district. The kitchen always seemed the most appropriate place for important occasions. For it was in this single room that so many events had transpired over the years and it was as if, by gathering in the kitchen, the spirits of the absent were one with those present.

  The battered table was like an altar where the family met to exchange gossip, tears, fears and news. A place where Michael had been patched up so many times by his Aunt Bridget. An altar to Kevin O’Keefe’s proposal to Kate Duffy.

  Frank Duffy was more than jovial as he swayed on unsteady legs, roaring out an old Irish song. Beyond drunk, he almost splashed his whisky over Daniel and his pretty young wife, Colleen, who good-naturedly pushed her father-in-law away when he stumbled into the table where she sat watching the celebration.

  Colleen wisely scooped Charmaine, her daughter, out of Frank’s way as he bounced off the stove and almost pitched into Daniel, who stood swaying behind his wife’s chair. Little Charmaine sucked at her thumb with wide eyes drooping for want of sleep. She was an intelligent two-year-old who had inherited her father’s dark and curly hair. Her brother Martin, a year older, had inherited his mother’s copper hair. Both children laughed at the drunken antics of their grandfather. It was a fine old time for the Duffy clan!

  Bridget Duffy’s face glowed. The usual one sherry a night before bed had been extended to five and she smiled at her daughter-in-law, who had proved to be a good wife for Daniel. The young woman had fitted easily into the Duffy clan traditions.

  As the daughter of an Irish country publican from Bathurst, Colleen was all too familiar with the antics of an Irish New Year. At least an Irish New Year transported to the far-off land in the Southern Hemisphere. And she was pleased to see that her normally teetotaller husband had allowed himself to get merry from the effects of the rum that flowed.

  Daniel was drunk and raised his glass in a toast: ‘To the downfall of the bloody Macintoshes,’ he roared above the din. ‘And the hanging of Captain Mort.’

  Colleen had never met a Macintosh, but from the things Daniel had told her she felt as if she knew them. She realised that the Macintoshes were, in fact, relations of a kind when she glanced at young Patrick asleep in the brawny arms of Max. He held the boy gently, rocking him as he crooned a German lullaby. The powerfully built man looked so out of place with his massive arms wrapped around ‘his Patrick’. Only minutes earlier the boy had been sparring with Max, who had pretended that the blows from his little fists were hurting him. And when Max would fall to the floor on his back, Patrick would leap on his ample stomach gleefully crying out for ‘Uncle Max’ to get up and fight more.

  Yes, Patrick Duffy was half Macintosh, Colleen thought with a start, as she gazed at the sleeping boy in Max’s powerful arms. She had been told of the events that had brought Patrick to the Erin Hotel and she had accepted the boy as if he were her own by birth. Young Patrick lacked for nothing when it came to love.

  Patrick was definitely more Duffy than Macintosh, her husband would often say proudly, although the boy was not aware that Daniel and Colleen were not his natural parents. But the day would inevitably arrive when he would learn the confusing truth.

  For now the family were together and it was a time to forget the pain of the past and think optimistically of what might be in the future.

  Outside the Erin, the Duffys could hear drunken and happy voices call out New Year greetings. Francis Duffy was too drunk to remember his native Gaelic so instead he raised his empty glass and wished all a happy New Year in the cursed language of his old enemies, the English. Patrick stirred in the big German’s arms and opened his eyes to gaze at all the fuss, but just as quickly he fell back to sleep.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Granville stood at the bow of the Osprey with the ship’s captain beside him. To the inconspicuous dockhand sitting with his back against the sandstone wall of a warehouse in the shadows of the mid-morning summer sun, the meeting was of no real significance.

  He had been asked by Constable Farrell to follow the Osprey captain and report on where he was at all times . . . nothing more . . . nothing less. It was a mission he had reluctantly accepted from the big burly Irish policeman, but he’d had little choice. It was that or be arrested for being in possession of certain items from housebreaking. Farrell was a man who would have made an excellent criminal himself and only the uniform gave him respectability.

  The observer did not recognise Granville White. He was merely a well-dressed man of gentlemanly appearance who was visiting the barque. To all intents and purposes probably a shipping merchant discussing business, the observer reflected, as he idled with the piece of driftwood he was carving into the shape of a whale.

  Mort stood stiffly with his hands clasped behind his back staring up the harbour and Granville could sense the fear in the man, who had said little upon his arrival. Mort instinctively knew that his employer had come to discuss a way out of the storm that was gathering around him. His aspirations to eventually retire to the village of Penrith seemed to be disappearing as fast as a tot of rum in the hands of a thirsty sailor.

  Granville placed his hands on the railing of the bow and did not look at Mort when he spoke.

  ‘Your suspicions about being followed have been confirmed,’ he said quietly between his teeth and Mort glanced at him with a touch of fear. ‘They are not going to let you leave Sydney.’

  ‘How . . .?’

  But Granville waved away his question. ‘It doesn’t matter how I know,’ Granville replied. ‘What matters is how much I know. And I know that papers are presently being compiled by a firm of Sydney solicitors to have you arrested for murder. You can thank the idleness that afflicts Sydney over this time of year for not already being thrown into Darlinghurst Gaol, Captain Mort.’

  ‘They can’t prove murder or any other crime, Mister White,’ Mort mumbled weakly.

  ‘I don’t particularly care if they do,’
Granville snapped as he turned to stare into the captain’s face. ‘What may occur to your personal welfare is of no interest to me. My only responsibility is to the good name of the Macintosh companies.’ Both men’s eyes locked and they recognised in each other their absolute ruthlessness.

  Theirs was a mutual acceptance forged in the very nature of that ruthlessness and, in recognising this fact, Mort felt the compounded fear start to melt away. He knew that his employer would do anything to save the Macintosh reputation. And in doing so, he would have to save him.

  ‘What do we do then to save the Macintosh name, Mister White?’ Mort asked with an almost audible sigh of relief.

  ‘I have set matters in motion that will buy us time,’ Granville replied. ‘All you have to do is play your part without question and I promise that you will not end up in Darlinghurst.’ Mort nodded. Not that he accepted his employer’s promise as anything more than words. White was too much like himself to honour his word. ‘Saving your neck comes at a price,’ Granville added. ‘And I know I can count on your total cooperation in what I am about to tell you.’

  Mort listened as Granville White explained what was expected of him and although he was not a man easily unsettled Granville’s proposal shocked even him. Not that the taking of life unsettled him. It was whose life he was expected to take.

  Granville leant away from the ship’s railing and patted down his jacket casually as if they had been merely involved in a conversation about shipping prices.

  ‘You have a good man in your first mate to assist you,’ Granville said as he let his eyes rove over the docks below the bow of the ship to settle on a seemingly insignificant man, sitting cross-legged and whittling away at a piece of driftwood. The man assigned to follow Mort did not seem to show much interest in his meeting, he thought with some satisfaction.