To Chase the Storm: The Frontier Series 4

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 has lived and worked with Aborigines, Islanders, Vietnamese and Papua New Guineans and he speaks, reads and writes Vietnamese and Pidgin.

  Good friends, fine food, fishing and the vast open spaces of outback Queensland are his main interests in life. Peter lives at Finch Hatton in Queensland and is currently working on the sequel to his novel Papua.

  Peter Watt can be contacted at www.peterwatt.com

  Excerpts from emails sent to Peter Watt since his first novel was published:

  ‘At last Australia has its own Wilbur Smith! Keep on writing (PLEASE!).’ Mike, Australia

  ‘Thanks for coming to the rescue. I have just finished all of Ken Follett’s books, have read all of Clive Cussler’s books, and then was stumped for someone new.’ Noel, South Africa

  ‘I have read the novels and series of many authors including Wilbur Smith, Bryce Courtenay, Jeffrey Archer and Jean Auel and right down to Len Deighton’s spy series and thoroughly enjoyed them all. But the enjoyment I derived from your trilogy surpassed all of the aforementioned . . . don’t make us wait too long for another novel.’ Martin, Australia

  Also by Peter Watt

  Cry of the Curlew

  Shadow of the Osprey

  Flight of the Eagle

  Papua

  TO

  CHASE

  THE

  STORM

  PETER

  WATT

  For my much loved aunt Joan Letitia Payne, nee Duffy,

  of Tweed Heads, one of Duckie’s Daughters

  First published 2003 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

  This Pan edition published 2004 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited St Martins Tower, 31 Market Street, Sydney

  Reprinted 2004

  Copyright © Peter Watt 2003

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

  form or by any means, electronic, 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–.

  To chase the storm.

  ISBN 0 330 36485 5.

  I. Title.

  A823.4

  Set in 11.5/13 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.

  To Chase the Storm

  Peter Watt

  Adobe eReader format 978-1-74197-167-5

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  Epub format 978-1-74262-403-7

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  Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy

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  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  PROLOGUE

  END OF A CENTURY

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  A NEW CENTURY

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  BIRTH OF A NATION

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Acknowledgements

  As always, my special thanks for the hard work of turning a manuscript into a novel go to my publisher at Pan Macmillan Cate Paterson, ably assisted by Chris Mattey, my editor Simone Ford and patient copy editor Jan Hutchinson. For the artwork my thanks again to Deborah Parry and, for the ongoing support with regards to publicity, to Jane Novak. Special thanks go to an old friend – also my agent – Geoffrey Radford of Anthony Williams Management. I would like to extend my thanks to Rea Francis of RF Media for her continuing support as well as Brian Cook from the Manuscript Appraisal Agency. For ongoing technical advice from my old mate Phil Murphy in Cairns, my many thanks. Also to my sister and brother-in-law, Kerry and Ty Mckee, for helping in the transfer from Tweed Heads to Finch Hatton. To my wonderful mother, Elinor Watt, and all my family for their unstinting encouragement to keep writing – I cannot thank you enough. To my old wantok Robert Bozek and Nadine, whose flow of information in cyberspace keeps me up to date on so many matters, my thanks.

  Since the publication of my last novel, Papua, I have lost three very important people from my life. I would like to acknowledge their importance to me personally and professionally. My wonderful agent, Tony Williams, who passed away October of 2002: I will miss his company and conversation as much as his sound advice. To his sister Leonie and family in Perth I send my heartfelt thoughts. Beverley Harper, a truly great writer in this genre, also passed away last year. I will miss the times we spent around the barbecue laughing at ourselves and discussing the ins and outs of being authors. Fortunately Bev lives forever in our memories and in the words she has written. Finally, my aunt Marjery Leigh passed away last year and I will miss the support she gave me when I was struggling. Like some of my Aboriginal friends, I believe that their spirits now shine as brightly as stars in the constellation of the Southern Cross. We see them forever.

  Not least of all my love and gratitude goes to Naomi Howard-Smith. She is there when times get hard
.

  And he sees through the rents of the scattering fogs,

  The corroboree warlike and grim,

  And the lubra who sat by the fire on the logs,

  To watch, like a mourner, for him.

  ‘The Last of His Tribe’, Henry Kendall

  PROLOGUE

  1899

  The woman wore an old cotton shift that recorded the circumstances of her life. It had been torn and patched many times and the red dust of the brigalow scrub plains had turned the once white dress to a deep pink.

  Beside her walked a tall young man dressed in the garb of the Australian stockman: flannel shirt and long mole-skin trousers tucked into knee-length, calf skin boots. Each was deep in thought as they walked. The young man was barely fifteen years of age but on the frontier, in the hard and sometimes dangerous world of mustering the white man’s cattle, he was already considered a man.

  Sean Duffy’s face reflected the mixed blood of his ancestry: part Aboriginal, part Irish, part Chinese. It was a handsome face in any land and his mother, who walked with him, had also been pretty in her youth. But more than a decade of toil, working long, arduous hours as a station domestic, had drained her beauty. She carried a hessian sack containing a few of the staples of frontier life for both blacks and whites: sugar, tea, tobacco and flour.

  The sun over the vast, seemingly endless dry plain was losing its punishing sting when they finally reached their destination. They had set out from the Glen View homestead early that morning. The woman, known by the white man’s name of Matilda, now stopped to re-acquaint herself with the landmarks that had become familiar to her over periodic visits. Yes, there was the lonely old gum tree in the clearing. And the piled rocks amongst the grasses!

  Her son also knew the place. He had first visited the clearing as a chubby baby, holding his mother’s hand and toddling beside her. But now he stopped, using the back of his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his face and brushing idly at the persistent cloud of bush flies that clung to the salty sweat of his body. Without a word, he strode towards the small clusters of stones that marked the final resting place of three men – two of his blood – and gazed down upon them. His mother remained at the edge of the clearing with the sack of precious supplies intended for the living, watching her son pay his respects to his paternal great-grandfather, the big Irishman Tom Duffy, slain by the Native Mounted Police forty years earlier. He then turned his attention to the grave of his father, Peter Duffy, also killed fifteen years earlier by an officer of the Native Mounted Police not far from where he now lay. Sean scarcely gave the third grave a glance, for it contained the bones of an old Aborigine from a place far to the south. His spirit was the concern of his own people of the Murray River area.

  ‘We will go now,’ his mother said quietly when Sean turned to walk back to her. ‘He is waiting for you at the sacred place.’

  She spoke the words in an almost forgotten dialect. It was the language of a people brutally dispersed forty years earlier when the Mounted Police came to kill them, considering them as no more than vermin competing with precious flocks of sheep. Matilda had learned the language over the years from an old man who knew the sacred ways of the Nerambura clan of the Darambal people. The old man was the last full-blooded survivor of those terrible times and his name was still spoken with awe – and sometimes fear – amongst the station employees, Aboriginal, Chinese or European. Old Aboriginal nannies would frighten children out of the dark with threats that the spirit of Wallarie would come and snatch them away if they did not come inside to bed. White governesses would warn the same children that if they strayed too far from the homestead the old warrior would spear them.

  But Sean Duffy did not fear the terrible bogy man of his childhood companions, for his mother had told him other stories about the legendary Darambal warrior who had once ridden with Sean’s own father as well as with his grandfather, the bushranger of Burkesland, Tom Duffy.

  No more words were needed as they continued their trek to the low range of hills that dominated the vast red plains of central Queensland. Sean Duffy was about to meet the man whose name had for so long dominated the tales his mother told him. As the sun began its descent towards the western horizon they reached the craggy, most conspicuous hill in the ancient range, which itself resembled the protruding backbone of the earth.

  Following a well-worn trail first used by the hunters and warriors of the Dreaming, they struggled up the hill until they came to a rock overhang which concealed a large cavern, the very heart of the Nerambura people.

  Matilda passed the sack to her son and gestured for him to go inside. He could see his mother’s fear and knew that it was justified – no woman should ever step inside the sacred place of the men. Taking the sack, Sean hoped his mother could not see his own fear, for was it not said by all at Glen View that this was a cursed place?

  Taking a deep breath, Sean brushed aside a tangle of exposed roots growing down the rock face. Inside he could see a fire burning and suddenly felt a wave of strange and overpowering fear such as he had never experienced before. There was a presence here that transcended all that he had ever known in the living world. The young man stood petrified, as still as the stones of the hill itself. He would go no further.

  ‘Your white blood causes you the fear,’ said a voice that seemed to come from the flickering fire itself at the centre of the dark place. ‘But you are also Nerambura and you belong here.’ As his eyes adjusted to the dim light Sean could see that the voice did not come from the fire but from a dark figure, sitting with his legs crossed. ‘Come sit with me.’

  The young man obeyed. Drawing near, he could see the shadows of firelight flickering on the face of an old man with a long, grey beard. This was not the man he imagined from the stories told by the other station children. Wallarie did not have razor sharp teeth or horns growing from his head. Nor were his eyes blood red and burning. The face was that of a man who had seen much tragedy but it was also a gentle face, reconciled with the cruelty of mankind.

  ‘You have brought tobacco?’ the old man asked in the Nerambura dialect.

  Sean nodded and rummaged in the flour sack for the twist of tarry leaves. He passed it to Wallarie who sighed as he fingered the precious leaf.

  With deft fingers the Aboriginal bushranger – as he had once been labelled by the white man’s law-makers – curled off a piece and tamped it into the old clay pipe he produced from his lap. With a burning twig from the fire he lit the leaf and puffed until it smouldered with a bright glow. Dragging on the pipe, he again sighed with pleasure.

  Sean watched the ritual and wondered at this very European habit of the old Nerambura man. As if reading his thoughts Wallarie confided, ‘Your grandfather taught me to smoke when we were young men together. That was when he taught me the killing ways of the white man.’

  Sean nodded dutifully. He was less afraid now but understood that he should not speak unless asked to by the old man squatting on the other side of the fire. A long silence followed as Wallarie continued to puff on his pipe and stare with dreamy eyes into the flickering flames. When he finally spoke it was almost as if Sean was not present. Many of the Nerambura words he used were unknown to Sean with his limited knowledge of the dialect of his ancestors. Wallarie spoke of many things of great importance, telling the stories that the old men once told in the shade of the bumbil tree by the side of the creek that flowed gently as the blood of the land. He spoke of things that were sacred and should be remembered forever. He spoke through the night and the possums in their trees came to listen as the dingo, wild dog of the plains, howled mournfully. The moon rose and set over an endless sea of grey scrub and the curlews cried to each other the song of lost souls.

  Outside Matilda shivered as she crouched amongst the rocks in this place of Dreaming, wondering at what might be happening in the sacred place of the men. Finally she fell asleep. When the sun came to touch her face, waking too the rock wallaby from its rest and warming the goanna, she was a
ware of her son squatting beside her, staring across the dry and sunburnt scrub.

  ‘It is done?’ she asked as she sat up.

  Sean nodded and placed his head on his folded arms. He remained still for some moments before rising and Matilda could see in her son’s face a terrible burden. She knew then that the old man, to whom she had for so many years brought the occasional supply of white man’s food, had initiated her son into the blood of his father. Perhaps not in the traditional ways of the Darambal people but in another way, born of the necessity of the times. She also knew that she could never ask her son what he now knew. This was not the way of his Darambal customs.

  When he rose to his feet Sean cast a long look back at the entrance to the cave. Had the old Nerambura warrior flown from the sacred place on the wings of the giant wedge-tailed eagle, he wondered, as the Kalkadoon had once believed after the terrible battle that decimated their people. Sean had been reborn of his people and he must never forget all that he had been told. He tried to understand as best as he could. From now on he had a new name granted to him by the old man of the cave. He was to be known by all as Nerambura Duffy. A man of two worlds.

  END OF

  A CENTURY

  1899

  ONE

  The silent people on the street seemed to be running rather than walking. Horse-drawn carriages and drays were weaving in and out of the milling crowds at a breakneck speed. The grainy black and white images flickered to the accompaniment of a rhythmic clattering interspersed with gasps of wonder from those watching. The film spread its magic throughout the room.

  ‘Oh look, Father! I can see the David Jones building,’ Fenella exclaimed in awe. ‘It’s so real!’

  Patrick Duffy smiled at his fourteen-year-old daughter’s child-like wonder. She was not as grown up as she would like all to think. The demonstration of this new device they called a moving film projector by his old military colleague of the Sudan campaign, Arthur Thorncroft, could entrance his daughter and take her back to a time when dolls were more important than her debut into Sydney’s colonial society.