The Stone Dragon

by Peter Watt

  Peter Watt has spent time as a soldier, articled clerk, prawn trawler deckhand, builder’s labourer, pipe layer, real estate salesman, private investigator, police sergeant and adviser to the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. He speaks, reads and writes Vietnamese and Pidgin. He now lives at Maclean, on the Clarence River in Northern New South Wales. Fishing and the vast open spaces of outback Queensland are his main interests in life.

  Peter Watt can be contacted at www.peterwatt.com

  Also by Peter Watt

  Cry of the Curlew

  Shadow of the Osprey

  Flight of the Eagle

  To Chase the Storm

  Papua

  Eden

  The Silent Frontier

  Excerpts from e-mails sent to Peter Watt since his first novel was published:

  ‘Peter Watt is one of the best authors I have ever read and his ability to take you with him on the journey is wonderful.’

  ‘I am an avid reader of your books … I love your work.’

  ‘I could not put [Cry of the Curlew] down – great stuff, terrific story and a great feel of Australia permeating through the story … Thank you for writing these stories of the early settlers in this land of ours.’

  ‘I have thoroughly enjoyed your entertaining and informative books …’

  ‘Thank you so much for Shadow of the Osprey! I could not put it down.’

  ‘… buying Cry of the Curlew was probably the best book purchase I ever made, as it led to the many hours of enjoyment that all your novels have given me. They have all been fantastic.’

  ‘… thanks for an enjoyable read – I have now recommended [your] stories to all my friends …’

  ‘… you are a quality writer …’

  ‘Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed The Silent Frontier … Thank you for writing books about Australia and her history.’

  ‘Thank you, Peter, for bringing so much enjoyment to all of us out there in “Peter Watt” land.’

  ‘[I] … love reading your books. They’re hard to put down …’

  ‘Thanks for getting me interested in reading again.’

  ‘All your books are so powerful with detail of their period. Brilliant reading. Riveting.’

  ‘I wanted more! … no superlative would be sufficient to describe your work.’

  ‘I must say in all honesty I have never read a novel that has so captivated my imagination and heart and sent my mind and emotions on such a rollercoaster ride.’

  ‘Keep up the wonderful writing – your books are so full of interest and hold the reader from the first page till the end. They are hard to put down. Just what a reader wants.’

  ‘Your storytelling seems to get better with every book.’

  ‘Gripping to the very end.’

  THE

  STONE

  DRAGON

  PETER

  WATT

  First published 2007 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd 1 Market Street, Sydney

  Copyright © Peter Watt 2007 The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Watt, Peter, 1949–.

  The stone dragon.

  ISBN 978 1 4050 3789 1 (pbk.).

  I. Title.

  A823.3

  Set in 13/16 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  These electronic editions published in 2007 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd 1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  The Stone Dragon

  Peter Watt

  Adobe eReader format 978-1-74198-079-0

  Microsoft Reader format 978-1-74198-080-6

  Mobipocket format 978-1-74198-081-3

  Online format 978-1-74198-082-0

  Epub format 978-1-74262-479-2

  Macmillan Digital Australia

  www.macmillandigital.com.au

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.

  For my mother, Elinor Therese Watt nee Duffy, who has served her country in time of war and her community in time of peace

  Contents

  THE DRAGON ASLEEP

  Late Spring, 1900 Chihli Province North-east China

  THE STONE DRAGON

  1900 Cairns District The Australian Colony of Queensland

  Late May 1900 Pekin China

  Late May 1900 Cairns

  Late May 1900 The British Legation Pekin

  Late May 1900 Cairns and District Far North Queensland

  Late May – Early June 1900 Pekin and the Western Hills

  Early June 1900 Gulf of Chihli East of Pekin

  Early Summer, June 1900 Pekin

  Early June 1900 The Peiho River North-east China

  Early to Mid June 1900 Pekin

  Mid to Late June 1900 The Besieged Legation

  Late June to Mid July 1900 Pekin – The Siege

  Mid to Late July 1900 Pekin

  Late July to Early August 1900 Pekin

  Early August 1900 Pekin

  Mid August 1900 Pekin

  September 1900 Off the East Coast of Queensland

  THE DRAGON AWAKE

  1967 Beijing

  Author’s Notes

  Acknowledgments

  THE DRAGON

  ASLEEP

  Late Spring, 1900

  Chihli Province

  North-east China

  Sha! Sha! The chanting from hundreds of angry voices grew closer.

  Dr Nathaniel Davies fought to control the terrible fear rising in his gullet. The American had been a Methodist missionary in China for a dozen years and his grasp of the Chinese language was excellent. Kill! Kill! The raised voices chanted as hundreds of native rebels surged through the streets and alleys of the village, moving inexorably towards his mission station.

  Thank the Lord that he had evacuated his wife and two children, he thought as he stared at the open doorway to his office. His wife, Clarissa, had tearfully protested his decision to stay but he had no choice. He had a congregation of Chinese converts to protect from the mysterious members of the secret society he knew as the Band of Righteous Harmony. To many of the doctor’s colleagues the same society was better known as the Righteous Harmony Fists – or simply, Boxers – a term derived from the practice of martial arts by adherents carried out before audiences of village peasants to impress them with their fighting prowess.

  Now a more ominous sound mingled with the chanting. It was the sound of men, women and children screaming in terror as the Boxers advanced on the mud-bricked mission station at the centre of the village.

  ‘Please, God, spare my children,’ Dr Davies
groaned.

  Amid the sound of screaming was also that of death as broad-bladed swords hacked at those identified as Christian converts. It was only then that the brave missionary had any self-doubt as to the wisdom of remaining behind, instead of fleeing to the relative safety of Pekin, as it did not seem that he would be able to reason with the approaching rebels if they had now commenced slaughtering the helpless villagers. He sensed his own death was imminent and stared at the grapefruit-sized stone at the centre of his desk, lying next to a leather purse. If there was nothing else that he could do now for his congregation, he could at least do one service for science and all mankind.

  Dr Davies reached for the unimpressive-looking, mostly rounded rock and turned it over in his hand to reveal the small but distinct fossil of an ancient dinosaur, many millions of years old. To even his experienced geologist’s eye the stone was like many others that were being hewn from the earth in the hills of China – ancient reminders that the Earth once lived under the shadow of giant dragons, as his uneducated congregation would have called them for their reptilian shape.

  The villagers to whom he ministered knew of his passion for rocks and stones. They might not have understood that Dr Davies had studied geology – a love grown out of his youth spent finding Indian arrowheads on his father’s farm in Iowa. But they did understand that an unusual rock could please the mild-mannered missionary who would immediately pore over the specimen with a magnifying glass, muttering strange words.

  This rock was different. The story of its discovery immediately piqued the curiosity of the geologist in Dr Davies. If his theory was correct, the tiny stone dragon encased in the rock was one of the most important finds in the history of science. But the stone required further examination by those even more educated in mineral classification than himself. At the least it was an interesting record of a fossil. At best …

  ‘Dr Davies,’ a voice pleaded from the doorway. ‘You must flee now. They are almost upon us.’

  The American glanced up at the young Chinese man standing in the doorway wringing his hands. ‘I will not go, Chin,’ he replied in a calm voice. ‘It is too late. As a foreign devil I would not get far in the countryside. But you would – if you use that natural cunning of yours.’

  The Chinese man was in his early twenties and in good health. He spoke reasonable English but always conversed with his friend, the American missionary, in Chinese.

  ‘I have a red blouse,’ Chin replied, lowering his eyes. ‘I could pass as one of the Boxers in this time of madness.’

  ‘Good.’ Dr Davies smiled grimly. ‘You must take this rock and the letter I have written to Pekin, and give it to the American consulate. It is important that you do this,’ he continued, rising to his feet to stretch his tall, gaunt frame, attempting to prevent his assistant of the last five years from seeing how badly his hands trembled as he slipped the stone into the leather pouch. He secured the knot and passed the leather pouch to his assistant, who concealed it under his shirt. Chin did not attempt to further persuade his American friend to come with him. He knew that to do so would only bring death to them both. At least he hoped to survive and take this seemingly worthless rock to the Americans in Pekin. In discussing the implications of what Dr Davies suspected about the rock Chin had not understood his friend’s philosophical ramblings in the doctor’s own language, but he did know that the rock appeared as important to the missionary as the American’s own faith in Jesus.

  ‘Go, my young friend, and may the Lord be with you in your journey,’ Dr Davies said as the sound of a wooden door shattering under the impact of heavy metal objects came to them. Both men knew that it was the gate to the mud-bricked wall surrounding the mission estate. The howling outside was chilling in its animal intensity and to the Methodist missionary it was not many human voices, but one snarling beast from a Christian hell.

  Chin turned on his heel and slipped away to change quickly into his disguise. He even had an old sword to go with his uniform of red blouse and white trousers. He planned to mingle with the Boxers when they burst into the Methodist missionary’s office.

  Dr Davies opened a drawer in his wooden desk and wrapped his hand around the butt of a .445 Webley revolver. Once he had been a young man wearing the blue uniform of a Maine regiment at the second battle of Gettysburg. With calm courage he had chosen not to turn the other cheek, but to go down fighting in a bid to distract the everadvancing Boxer warriors. His last stand would distract them and allow his young Chinese assistant to merge into the melee.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ the minister prayed quietly. ‘Forgive me my trespasses and forgive those …’

  The snarling face of a Boxer appeared before him and the flash of a broad-bladed sword swirled through the air. Dr Davies fired, felling the first warrior who believed that he could not be killed by European firearms. A second stepped through the doorway taking his fallen comrade’s place and the Methodist fired again. Davies kept firing until the hammer of the revolver clicked impotently. Then the swords hacked at him until he was a bloody, shredded mess.

  Dr Davies was not the first missionary to die in the Boxer Rebellion. Nor would he be the last.

  Chin heard the firing and slipped into the mass of warriors streaming into the compound. So intoxicated were they with the rapture of their mission that the Boxers paid little attention to the man who joined their ranks.

  THE STONE

  DRAGON

  1900

  Cairns District

  The Australian Colony

  of Queensland

  First Class Constable Stanley Ogden clambered cautiously along the bank of the wide river flanked by lush, tropical rainforest.

  ‘Keep a sharp eye out,’ he called over his shoulder to the Aboriginal tracker who was following, trailing his Martini Henry carbine. The Queensland policeman had good reason to be wary, as giant saltwater crocodiles lurked in the river.

  It was the sickly stench that helped the policeman locate what had brought him in the course of his official duties to the banks of the north Queensland river.

  ‘See ’im, boss,’ the tracker said, squatting on his haunches with the rifle cradled in his arms. ‘He bin die over there.’ The young Aboriginal pointed to a shaded patch of evil-looking, black water in a gully leading into the river.

  The policeman followed the direction and his eyes fell on the rapidly decomposing body, lying face down in the glue-like mud. He wondered how the big crocs had not already found the corpse and dragged it away.

  Sweat poured down Ogden’s face and trickled under the stiff collar of his blue serge blouse. He did not relish the idea of sliding down the bank into the mottled shadows cast by the surrounding rainforest.

  ‘Give me the gun, Billy, and go down the gully. You drag the bugger up here,’ the policeman said, reaching for his rifle.

  Billy pulled a face. Handling dead bodies was not something he wanted to do. His culture had a reverence bordering on fear for the dead.

  ‘Go on,’ Ogden snapped, seeing the Aboriginal tracker’s hesitation. ‘Pull the bugger over here so we can get a better look at him.’

  The tracker reluctantly obeyed, sliding cautiously down to the glutinous, black mud that immediately squelched up to his knees. With some difficulty he waded over to the body and gripped the cotton shirt. With a tug he attempted to dislodge the body but fell backwards into the mud, causing Ogden to burst into laughter.

  Muttering fiercely, Billy made a second effort to reclaim the corpse. It came loose with a soft plopping sound and the tracker slid it across the gully to the bank. He was aided in his task by the body not being very large: hardly bigger than a child.

  ‘Roll him over,’ Ogden commanded, trying not to breathe in the nauseous smell that was stifling in the hot, humid air around the lagoon.

  Billy rolled the body over to reveal the barely recognisable, death-blackened face. From the information Ogden had received he had a fairly good idea that the dead man was a Chinese – although not a loc
al member of the already established community of this part of north Queensland.

  ‘Have a look to see if you can find anything on him,’ Ogden said.

  Reluctantly, Billy searched through the dead man’s clothing. He found nothing and shrugged.

  ‘Well,’ the policeman sighed, standing to stretch his legs. ‘We have the body, now all we have to do is find the culprit. You can leave him, Billy. With any luck the crocs will find him and save us the problem of transporting him back to town.’

  Caked in drying mud, Billy scrambled up the bank to join his superior officer. The finding of the culprit was his job and far better than retrieving the body of what was, after all, only a murdered Chinee man, and therefore of no consequence.

  Mounted on his horse, Ogden followed his tracker away from the riverbank into a maze of sugarcane clearings sprouting knee-high, bamboo-like stalks that slapped against the chest of the police officer’s horse.

  Billy was surprised how easy it was to track a quarry who had made no attempt to cover his trail away from the murder scene. He suspected that the man was also Chinese as the prints indicated a barefooted person who was not as large-framed as a whitefella. One thing puzzled Billy as he gazed at the almost invisible trail he was following. Whoever he was following walked with the stealth of a hunting animal.

  It was mid-afternoon under a scorching tropical sun when the tracks led them to a copse of tropical forest left unfelled at the edge of a paddock. Billy stopped, looked up at Ogden and, with the thousands of years of accumulated skills of his people, declared softly, ‘Chinee man we track in there.’

  Ogden felt the short hair on the back of his neck bristle. Billy was never wrong and they were now only yards from their prey. Carefully, Ogden slid the carbine from its bucket and lowered himself from the horse. ‘You take this,’ he said quietly to Billy, handing him his police issue sidearm while he retained the hard-hitting carbine. Billy gratefully accepted the pistol. Something told him that the man they had pursued was different to others he had tracked. Billy gripped the pistol as both men inched forward towards the ominous clump of tall trees.