Flight of the Eagle (39 page)

‘Right you are, sir,’ Krimble answered with a grin and slid the rear sight of his rifle back to one hundred yards.

They waited patiently under the blazing sun as the figure advancing towards them came on steadily, if not erratically. At one hundred yards Krimble had the man well and truly in his sights and was squeezing the trigger when he heard his officer bark at him, ‘Check your fire! Don't shoot!’

Lieutenant Sutherland dropped his binoculars and leapt from his camel as the two puzzled soldiers glanced at each other. They were confused by their young officer's sudden concern for the fuzzy wuzzy staggering towards them but neither of the camel men had the advantage of the officer's binoculars. They had not seen the green eyes of the sun blackened man.

‘Captain Patrick Duffy,’ the sunburnt man gasped through cracked lips as he stumbled into the arms of Lieutenant Sutherland. ‘Of the Scots' Brigade. And lately, of hell … out there.’

Patrick returned with the camel patrol to Suakin from where he was sent to recover from his three-week ordeal on the
Ganges.
She was a hospital ship anchored off the white washed port city of Suakin on the Red Sea and his removal from the missing in action list brought a flurry of newspaper reporters to his bedside.

Amongst the correspondents was one who worked for the paper now owned by Lady Enid Macintosh.

THIRTY-NINE

G
eorge Godfrey greeted the maid who took his hat and coat and returned the greeting with a warm familiarity born of his frequent visits to Lady Enid Macintosh's house. He shook off the outside cold of the early winter weather as he stepped into the large living room where he was pleasantly assailed by the heat of the log fire burning with a gentle flame. Enid greeted him with a vibrancy that Godfrey had not seen in her in a long time. The telegram that had arrived two days earlier proclaiming that Patrick was alive and well had rejuvenated her and her eyes were alight with the flame of assertiveness that had always marked her life. Once again she was ready to fight her son-in-law for control of the family companies as she now had an ally in her grandson who soon would be returning to her.

Enid swept across the room with a radiant and triumphant smile to greet Godfrey.

‘I knew that he must be alive,’ she said, as she took his hands in hers. ‘He is recovering at Suakin.’

Godfrey clasped her hands with a gentle squeeze and led her across to a couch where they sat together. ‘Your grandson certainly has inherited the luck of his Irish father's people,’ he said.

Enid glanced away guiltily to gaze into the fire. Godfrey realised that the indirect mention of Michael Duffy had caused her observable shift in mood from bubblingly happy to considerably sombre. ‘Michael Duffy should be arriving in Suakin in the next couple of weeks,’ he added. ‘There is more than a good chance that he will meet his son.’

‘I know,’ Enid replied as she continued to stare at the fire. ‘I fear he will.’

‘It was bound to happen sooner or later.’ He tried to comfort her with a gentle and reassuring squeeze. ‘You must have realised that would happen. What could concern you about the boy meeting his father? It was, after all, your idea for him to find Patrick in the first place.’

‘I did so when everything appeared so desperate,’ she replied. ‘But now that I know my grandson is alive, I have had time to reflect on my rather foolish haste to employ Mister Duffy.’

‘I would not say that your decision to employ Michael Duffy was a foolish one, Enid,’ Godfrey said gently. ‘He is an extremely capable man.’

‘He is also capable of swaying Patrick away from his inheritance and of convincing him to keep his Papist religion.’

Godfrey rose and walked across to the open fireplace where he stood with his back to the flames and gazed back at Enid. ‘Is it
that
important that Patrick renounce his religion in favour of yours?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘The very Macintosh name carries the defence of English and Scottish Protestantism in its utterance.’

As simple as that, George thought. Nothing in Enid's life was simple except her unwavering adherence to her religion. ‘Then I can take steps to prevent Mister Duffy ever meeting his son,’ he replied with a sad sigh. ‘If that is what you desire.’

‘That is what I desire, George.’

The former British army officer accepted Enid's request reluctantly. He had a grudging admiration for the Irishman he had last seen at Horace Brown's funeral. The little Englishman had been laid in the earth of the country he had grown to love – to the point of shifting his final loyalties to its interests over those of England's perceived strategic interests. Godfrey was aware of the ultimate sacrifice Horace had made for Michael Duffy's life. The Irishman had mourned for his friend and employer of the last decade. No tears, only the twisted pain in the big man's face, which said it all.

The Baron's expedition had long sailed to fulfil its destiny and Germany now claimed a half of the second largest island on the planet. The hoisting of the imperial flag on the Gazelle Peninsula caused a minor crisis in Anglo–German relations. Bismarck had been careful to hide his intentions in the Pacific from the English and the British Admiralty was abruptly informed by telegram in December. Spurred by the easy annexation, German traders pressed for further claims of the region. German territorial ambitions in the Pacific were beginning to prove Horace right.

Manfred von Fellmann had personally attended the funeral of his erstwhile adversary before he sailed, his attendance bringing the total of mourners to three. The tall Prussian had stood on one side of the grave whilst Michael and George Godfrey had stood on the other. They had acknowledged each other's presence with courteous words and a handshake.

And now Enid was asking Godfrey to stop Michael Duffy from meeting with his son! He could do what she wanted. The means to do so were within his long reach that extended across the Indian ocean to Africa.

‘Are you able to stay for supper, George?’ Enid asked.

‘Yes, I will stay for supper,’ he replied, bemused by her easy shift. It was as if nothing of importance had occurred in the last few minutes. But that was Enid's essential nature, to be able to shift alliances as quickly and as effortlessly as events dictated.

Not all persons related to Captain Patrick Duffy welcomed the news of his rise from the ranks of the dead. Granville White fumed alone in his library as he read the brief account of Captain Patrick Duffy's miraculous feat of survival behind enemy lines, the heroic account colourfully recorded in the newspaper Enid had recently purchased in her expansion of the Macintosh companies. But what galled Granville even more was the fact that the paper ran a front page article portraying the hero of the Scots Brigade as a native-born son of the Colony of New South Wales and revealing him as grandson of the Lady Enid Macintosh of philanthropic fame.

When Duffy returned he would be waiting and fully prepared for him. There could only be one left to inherit the Macintosh companies at the end of the day! The deal struck with his estranged wife had curtailed any hope of challenging Patrick's right to inheritance – but there were many other ways of discrediting a man. If only Captain Mort had been successful in his conspiracy to have the Duffy bastard murdered years earlier, then all the energy required to plot the man's downfall would not be required now.

The ticking of a clock marked the silence in the library. Granville sat behind his desk and brooded. His attention was drawn to the collection of spears, nullahs and boomerangs fixed to the wall and he experienced a feeling of dread for not the first time. He knew it was purely superstition. But the dread of the unknown had an unshakeable quality about it which sometimes haunted his dreams with images of a place he had never visited but knew well enough about: the pride of the Macintosh properties, Glen View, in central Queensland.

Granville rose from the swivel chair and walked to the trophy wall where he snatched at a spear and snapped it across his knee. It shattered with a brittle crack. He flung the broken spear aside and scattered the other Nerambura weapons from the wall. And so he would scatter Glen View! Rid himself of the awful nightmares that haunted him, he thought savagely. And rid himself of the damned name of Duffy once and for all.

FORTY

T
he station dogs barked up a fury as Duncan Cameron, the manager of Glen View, stood on the wide verandah of the main house and watched the seven men of the Native Mounted Police ride into his yard. The pack of dogs yapped furiously as they danced nimbly around the big mounts until, on a command from Duncan, the dogs reluctantly slunk away from the troopers to return to the cool shade under the tank stands and shearing shed.

Glen View had taken on an air of staid permanence since its establishment thirty years earlier by the tough squatter Donald Macintosh and his eldest son, Angus. Both men now lay buried in the red earth on the property, slain by Wallarie's spears. Despite their violent deaths, the property survived and was managed by a man appointed by Lady Enid Macintosh who, a Scot himself, was every bit as tough as his predecessor, Sir Donald. Improvements had been made to the main house and its outbuildings that would have pleased Sir Donald.

Duncan's young, Isle of Skye-born wife provided the female touch to the house itself. Mary Cameron now joined her husband on the front verandah to watch the dusty and weary patrol file into the yard. Visitors were a rarity and a welcome respite from the lonely isolation of the frontier, especially for a woman who had grown up in the close knit community of her Scottish village where regular visiting was a part of life. The tough looking mix of European and Aboriginal police certainly provided some colour to the day, Mary thought, as she stood by her husband watching the leader of the patrol, a young and handsome inspector, dismount.

‘Inspector James, sir,’ Gordon said as he strode across the dusty yard. ‘At your service. We have ridden from Townsville the past week in search of two darkies I suspect may be on your property.’

The Glen View manager took the extended hand. ‘Duncan Cameron and my wife, Missus Mary Cameron,’ he replied. ‘Might explain the tracks one of my boys picked up around the hills in the south paddock. Tracks of three myalls, he said they were.’

‘Ahh. It sounds like it might be why we have travelled here,’ Gordon said, slapping down his trousers to brush away the dust. ‘Probably still got the darkie girl with them who they took just south of Townsville some weeks back.’

‘Inspector James, you said?’ Cameron mused as if remembering something. ‘Not the young policeman who dispersed the Kalkadoon up north? Inspector Gordon James?’

‘That would be me,’ Gordon smiled, a little embarrassed at his spreading fame.

‘Read about your battle with the myalls only yesterday,’ Cameron said. ‘Bloody fine effort you and your laddies put on.’ He turned to glance at Gordon's weary men slouching in their saddles under a blazing sun. ‘Best we organise some tucker for your men and horses, Inspector. I'll get my gardener to show your lads where they can toss down for the night. I presume you will be staying the night?’

‘Yes, thank you, Mister Cameron,’ Gordon answered gratefully. ‘We've ridden pretty hard the last few days and the boys need a break. But we will be rising before dawn tomorrow and I will have to impose on your hospitality to provide a guide to take us to the hills. That is where you said your boy picked up tracks?’

‘Not far from the hills,’ the manager replied. ‘But my lads are a little shaky about riding too close to the hills when it comes on dark. They say the place is haunted by the spirits of the dead blackfellas old Sir Donald had dispersed back in ′62. Even my white stockmen believe the stories! Knowing its reputation as I do now I doubt that you would find any blackfella hanging around the hills.’

‘I don't know if you have heard of Wallarie, a Darambal man from around these parts,’ Gordon said.

‘I've heard of him all right,’ Duncan replied nodding his head. ‘It was said he killed young Angus Macintosh during the dispersal on the Nerambura clan near the waterholes and later speared old Sir Donald himself. I thought the man was some kind of blackfella myth.’

‘Wallarie is real enough,’ Gordon said grimly. ‘He has gone back to his old tricks of bushranging. Except now he has a partner, a former member of my troop by the name of Peter Duffy.’

‘Duffy? The same name as the bullocky who the myalls killed just after the dispersal?’ Cameron remembered the stories passed down to him by the old hands of the station. ‘Any relation to the bullocky?’

‘His half-caste grandson,’ Gordon replied in a tired voice. ‘But it appears the Nerambura didn't kill the Irish bullocky. It may have been Lieutenant Mort, who was in command of the detachment which carried out the dispersal.’

Mary Cameron listened in silence to the exchange of stories surrounding the mysterious hills south of the homestead. She had found Sir Donald's old journals when she had been redecorating and had read with revulsion his brief description of that terrible day. She also remembered something else.

‘It is rather strange, Inspector,’ she said quietly, and Gordon turned to her. ‘There was a sergeant Henry James who was second-in-command of the Native Mounted Police the day you and my husband speak of.’

‘My father, Missus Cameron,’ Gordon replied softly.

‘When one puts all the pieces together,’ Mary Cameron said, casting him a strange look, ‘it almost looks as if history is repeating itself in a queer sort of way.’

‘I hope not,’ he said firmly. ‘I certainly hope not.’

‘Well, I think we should go inside,’ Duncan Cameron said politely. ‘No sense standing out here all day. Ah Chee!’ he roared, and an old Chinese with a pigtail down to his waist hurried from behind the house.

‘Yes, masa Camerwon.’

‘Show the troopers where they can bed down for the night over in the shearers' quarters. And tell the cook to prepare extra meals to feed ′em.’

The gardener made a quick bow from the waist and in an authoritative manner rounded up the police troopers to shepherd them to the empty shearers' quarters.