Flight of the Eagle (41 page)

He stumbled to his tent where he slumped into a chair behind the tiny table covered in the dust of the desert. Tears welled from his eyes as the emptiness of his life overwhelmed him. He was a man with no real family other than his grandmother. He wondered about the man who had been his father.
If only he had known him!
To be able to have met with Michael Duffy whose persistence even in death had given rise to a living legend.

Patrick's melancholic thoughts were distracted by a small object wrapped securely in a clean rag and he stared with a puzzled expression on his suntanned face at the parcel. But he did not need to unwrap the little goddess to know she lay within the folds.

‘Private MacDonald! You wonderful devious bastard!’ he exclaimed with a joyous hiss of relief ‘You disobeyed my orders!’

Gently he unwrapped the little stone icon and stared at her primitive lewdness as she smiled back up at him. The Morrigan was still with him!

On the hospital ship
Ganges
, Private Francis Farrell lay between sweat stained sheets and stared into the darkness as he listened to the men tossing and moaning in the vile grips of the enteric fever. Sleep was the blessed release that did not come to the former Irish policeman of Sydney Town as he watched the iron ceiling floating in nauseous waves above him. He cursed the debilitating disease that ravaged his body. Only three days earlier he had been on top of the world and had congratulated himself on surviving the campaign.

But now he lay helpless, ravaged by the deadly bacteria in his bowel. He knew they would be going home soon as the news had travelled through the ward and back. Loading of supplies had already begun.

Private Farrell feared that his illness might exclude him from transport on the troopship assigned to steam to Sydney with the Australian volunteer contingent. He had heard rumours that those soldiers too ill to transport would be left behind to recuperate and already a colonial soldier had died from the same disease that gripped Francis Farrell.

He felt the burning thirst spread through his body as the disease continued to dehydrate him in bouts of uncontrollable diarrhoea. The milk and rice diet he had been put on did not seem to be working. The tough former policeman who had walked the beats of some of Sydney's most dangerous areas felt as helpless as a child.

Tears splashed down his face. If he died now he would be denied the opportunity to tell young Patrick Duffy that his father was alive. ‘Water!’ he croaked feebly, and a shadow appeared beside his bed.

A gentle hand touched his brow and the soothing accent of an English voice came to him. ‘There, Paddy, I'll get you a drink.’ The medic on duty brought the water to his lips and helped prop him to drink. Francis had trouble swallowing and much of the liquid dribbled down his chin into his bushy beard. He could not see the medic's face but felt his aura of caring concern. ‘Try and get some sleep, Paddy,’ the gentle voice crooned, and Francis reached out to grip the man's hand in the dark. The grip was strong enough to tell the medic that the Paddy would get well.

Sleep did come to Francis Farrell. A deep and fevered sleep with strange and unexplainable visions of a craggy hill that shimmered with flames. It was a place of death and Francis felt himself drifting on the wings of an eagle over its fiery turrets. Was this hell, he wondered as the hot thermals of the surrounding desert buffeted him into helplessness high above. Or was this a recollection of the craggy hills where the New South Wales contingent had toiled under the blazing Sudanese sun to cut the line for the railway track for the British army from Suakin on the coast to Berber in the west?

The orderly's major concern that long night was for the big Irish colonial who was teetering on the verge of death. His temperature had suddenly soared and he was in the stage of delirium where the door opened to the next world. He sat by the bed of Private Francis Farrell and swabbed his fevered brow. There was little else he could do. He hummed a tune his mother had long ago sung to him when he was a child growing up in the slums of the Liverpool dock area. It was only right that a man hear the gentle sounds of a loving mother before he died. He wondered at the strange ramblings of the soldier. What did he mean when he called out ‘Patrick, your father is alive and I know where he can be found’?

FORTY-TWO

T
he horsemen were soft shadows in the piccaninny dawn. The expectation of the sun rising brought forth the sweet sounds of nature as the spirits of the night fled to the caves and crannies of the sacred hills of Glen View.

The weary horsemen let their mounts pick their way through the scrub. Not much sleep and an early morning rise still hung over them as the single file of troopers of the Native Mounted Police followed the Aboriginal stockman guide riding in front while Gordon James rode directly behind.

‘Place baal up there!’ the Aboriginal guide hissed and pointed.

Gordon followed the man's finger to see the craggy summit of a hill rising just above the thick scrub crowned with a tiara of the last stars in the early morning sky. He wondered how such a peaceful piece of geology could be a bad place. So this was the sacred place, he mused, as he reflected on the stories his father had told to him of its eerie power. Although his father had scoffed at the Aboriginal beliefs it had occurred to Gordon that his father had always seemed uncomfortable when relating the stories of the Nerambura hill.

‘On your guard,’ Gordon warned. ‘Trooper George to me,’ he called softly, and was joined by one of the Aboriginal policemen. ‘Scout down the waterhole. If you see anything, come straight back to me with your report.’ The trooper nodded his understanding and reined away. The order was passed along the file of horsemen to ‘stand easy’. In many ways Gordon hoped that he had been wrong in his presumption that Wallarie would be taking Peter to the Nerambura. The two men might elude him, then he could return to Townsville and resign. A tiny fear nagged Gordon. It was a fear of indefinite substance and one of those bad feelings Kate Tracy might call a premonition.

His troubled thoughts were broken when the police scout returned within minutes. His expression was grim and Gordon felt a knot in his stomach.

‘Found something, boss,’ he said and led them along the creek line.

Although Gordon did not unholster his service pistol his men had rifles ready. They moved quietly and broke into a small clearing set amongst the big river trees where they caught Matilda curled in a deep sleep by the dead embers of a log fire. Gordon signalled to one of the troopers to dismount and take her prisoner. She awoke to find herself looking up into the barrel of a police carbine levelled at her by an Aboriginal trooper. Behind him in the slowly strengthening light of day she could see other uniformed police. They sat astride horses, gazing down at her with a mixture of curiosity and in some cases undisguised lust. She was aware of her fear but refused to cringe before them.

‘What name you girl?’ the Aboriginal trooper asked gruffly. ‘You name Matilda?’

Matilda could not see any reason to deny it and nodded. The revelation of her identity seemed to please the trooper who turned to call over his shoulder to the white officer, ‘This lubra Trooper Duffy's woman.’

‘Not
Trooper
Duffy anymore,’ Gordon corrected, and gazed curiously at the young woman. She was quite beautiful, he thought.

‘Where is your man?’ the trooper asked with a menacing growl. ‘He nearby?’

Matilda's grasp of English was excellent but she suddenly appeared not to understand the question asked. The trooper realised she was deliberately ignoring him and raised the butt of his rifle menacingly.

‘No sense in roughing up the girl,’ Gordon said to protect her from any harm. ‘We will find him.’ He turned to the guide. ‘Do you know where there is a cave in the hills that the Nerambura considered sacred?’

The guide shifted uncomfortably in his saddle and would not look the police officer in the eye. ‘Place up there, boss. My word!’ he answered softly. ‘No good blackfella go there.’ Gordon guessed the stockman meant the largest of the hills in the range.

‘Where up there?’ he asked further.

The stockman looked at him.

‘Alonga hill down alonga place alonga black rocks.’

Gordon gazed up at the face of the hill now slowly taking on shadows and lines as the sun's rays crept into crevices and shone off rocks. He could see a small cliff face of granite-like rocks and a deeper shadow that might indicate a cave. ‘That place?’ he asked, and the stockman nodded. He did not want to say the name because it would bring bad luck!

‘Put the girl in irons,’ Gordon ordered. ‘And guard her well. Under no circumstances is she to be harmed. Do I make myself clear?’

The troopers reluctantly mumbled their understanding and Matilda was manacled under a coolabah tree. Gordon then issued further orders to set up a base camp by the creek, just down from where they had captured Matilda. While the troopers went about establishing a camp he quietly slipped away. He would go to the cave alone and attempt to find Peter.

‘Wallarie said you would find us,’ Peter Duffy said as he sat cross-legged on the floor of the cave before a smouldering fire. His near naked body was stripped of all European trappings and he was painted with the ochre of the earth. ‘He said you would come to this place.’

Gordon gripped his revolver and scanned the gloomy interior of the cave. ‘Where is Wallarie?’ he asked quietly.

‘Around,’ Peter answered vaguely, and poked at the fire to stir new life into the embers. ‘He is not far away.’

‘I have your woman as my prisoner,’ Gordon said defensively. He felt the cold exposure of a man vulnerable to sudden ambush. ‘She will not be harmed,’ he added. Peter did not comment but stared into the fire. ‘You have to return with me,’ Gordon said. ‘You will have to answer charges of robbery whilst under arms and possibly a charge of attempted murder.’

‘I won't be going anywhere with you, Gordon,’ the young man finally answered. ‘You would have to kill me first.’

‘You are not stupid, Peter,’ Gordon pleaded. ‘You must know I didn't just come here on my own. You must also realise that I came after you and Wallarie because I was concerned that any other patrol might just shoot you down on sight.’

‘You could just as easily leave here and say you never found me,’ Peter replied. ‘But you won't do that. You won't leave well enough alone because your duty to Her Majesty is more important than old friendships.’

‘I was going to resign my commission before I came on this patrol,’ Gordon said as he slipped his revolver back into its holster. ‘Sarah asked me. So that I could marry her.’

‘You …
marry Sarah?’

Gordon squatted on his haunches opposite Peter. ‘Yeah. This is my last patrol.

‘You're really going to marry my sister,’ Peter repeated and shook his head. ‘That matters. But I won't be going back with you. Wallarie and I have other plans.’

‘I have your woman,’ Gordon reminded him. ‘She will probably be returned to her employer who I know you have met in your travels.’

‘Drunken bastard. Probably said we tried to kill him. Did he?’

‘Yeah. But from what I heard he doesn't have much evidence.’

‘We didn't,’ Peter scowled. ‘If we had wanted to kill him he wouldn't be alive now.’

‘I know. That's why I didn't believe his story.’

The slight smile that crossed Peter's face marked a recognition of his old friend's faith in him. He stared through the veil of dim light. ‘Maybe I will come with you,’ he said. ‘But I need you to do a couple of things first.’ Gordon nodded his agreement. He would listen. ‘You do your best to get Matilda a job here on Glen View. She is smart and speaks good English. Not much she can't do around the main house for the manager's missus.’

‘That's fair enough,’ Gordon granted, and Peter continued, ‘Second thing. You call off any further search for Wallarie. You take me, but leave Wallarie here. This is his land and he doesn't have anything else in the world. He's not a young man anymore and no future threat to the white man.’

‘You ask a lot when it comes to Wallarie,’ Gordon replied painfully. This second request put his duty in conflict with his sense of fairness. ‘The old bastard has a lot to answer for.’

‘That's how things stand,’ Peter said stubbornly. ‘Look after those two things and I will go with you.’

A silence fell between the two men. Gordon rose to his feet and Peter could see that he was battling. His own choice to surrender had been made long before Gordon's arrival. He had made his decision upon learning of Matilda's pregnancy. Wallarie had told him that the spirits of the sacred rocks of the hill had entered her body. The consideration of his life as a wanted man in light of his responsibilities to Matilda and the child that she carried in her, brought the realisation that he should take his chances in a court of law. Better to go to a gaol than lose forever the chance to see his children grow into adulthood. Besides, he thought with a wry grin, he had outsmarted his old friend. He had always known that he would have to face Gordon eventually and by surrendering he would break the spell of the dreadful premonition. Neither need die.

From the first moment Peter had stepped inside the sacred place of the Nerambura he had felt uneasy. It was as if some terrible tragedy was brewing, like the anvil thunderhead clouds of the fierce electrical summer storms over the brigalow plains. Whatever it was, he knew that there was some kind of cycle that he must break.

‘Do you believe in all this?’ Gordon asked as he gazed upon the ancient painted figures on the back wall of the cave. ‘All this blackfella stuff?’

‘I don't know,’ Peter answered. ‘I think I do. But the nuns who taught me at school said it was all superstitious nonsense. Maybe it all depends on who taught you first. Like Wallarie teaching me now about the Nerambura stories. I might have thought all the Christian stuff was superstition and all this real. But here it's real enough.’

‘I think I know what you mean,’ Gordon said as he found his attention focused on a tiny stick-like warrior painted in white poised with his spear searching for a target. A faded scratch mark severed the figure as if a knife blade had been used in an attempt to desecrate the ancient art work. ‘It's like you and I are being forced to do things that have been done before.’