The Silent Frontier

by Peter Watt

  ‘I can assure you, captain, that the present condition is only a temporary affair,’ Lachlan replied stiffly. ‘But your presence here, seeking me, is of interest. How did you know that I would be here?’

  ‘I have visited your lodgings and spoken to your landlady,’ Lightfoot sniffed arrogantly. ‘She said that I might find you here – or in the gutter somewhere on the road back to her establishment.’

  ‘Well, you found me here,’ Lachlan said politely. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I have a proposal for you,’ Charles Lightfoot said. ‘I am about to steam for New Zealand to take command of a militia unit being raised to confront the Maori threat. Before I depart these shores I have promised my fellow officers a boxing match to remember. For some reason my sister has suggested that I choose you to fight our regimental champion, Bill Williams.’

  ‘Why me?’ Lachlan countered.

  ‘My sister was very impressed with the way you fought that Irish chap,’ Lightfoot replied. ‘I would have preferred to have O’Keefe but it seems he has wed and gone north with his bride to Queensland.’

  ‘How much?’ Lachlan asked, trying to stem his excitement that the beautiful young woman had remembered him.

  ‘Say, a purse of a fifty guineas.’

  Lachlan kept his composure. Fifty guineas was a lot of money. ‘Win or lose?’ he asked.

  ‘Winner takes all,’ the English captain answered brusquely. ‘There is no second prize for losers.’

  Lachlan wished that his throbbing head would settle. He did not have to really consider the proposed fight. He knew he needed the money if he were to find a way out of his current predicament stuck in Sydney. ‘I will accept the challenge,’ he replied. ‘When and where do I fight?’

  ‘Two weeks from now at the same ground you faced the Irishman,’ Lightfoot said. ‘I only pray that my sister chose wisely,’ he added, looking at Lachlan contemptuously. ‘I have promised a fight to remember.’

  ‘You will get that,’ Lachlan said proudly.

  ‘Well, I shall bid you a good day and see you on the field of battle in two weeks’ time, Mr MacDonald.’

  Lachlan watched the haughty English captain exit the hotel and turned to see Max hovering in the shadows.

  ‘I know of this Bill Williams,’ Max growled. ‘He is a goot fighter but you are equally matched in weight and size.’

  ‘How good?’ Lachlan asked.

  ‘You must give up the drink and train hard,’ Max replied, stepping from the shadows. ‘I vill train you – as I haf Michael and many others – and you vill vin.’

  ‘If I do win,’ Lachlan said. ‘Then I would like you to take a quarter of the winnings for training me.’

  ‘I do not want money,’ Max answered in an annoyed tone. ‘I want you to vin, nothing more, and a promise that you vill not drink anymore.’

  Lachlan was taken aback by the condition. ‘I promise,’ he finally said, giving in to the old German’s offer.

  ‘Das is gut,’ Max said, turning back to his chores for the day’s trading.

  Lachlan trained hard and kept to his word not to drink. He risked a week off work with permission from old Harry, the supervisor, who was happy to oblige when he learned of what Lachlan was setting out to do.

  ‘Me an’ the boys will be backing you this time,’ he said with a tobacco-stained smile. ‘I reckon you have it in yer to beat Williams.’

  Lachlan was cheered by the boss’s confidence in him.

  ‘So, take the time off an’ get ready fer the fight. Me an’ the boys will be there to cheer you on.’

  Max was also given some time off to coach Lachlan and in the backyard of the Erin Hotel they trained hard. Despite his large frame and big belly, Max proved to the much younger man that he was still a formidable fighter. His reflexes were fast and his jabs thrown at lightning speed stung Lachlan with the impact. Lachlan was just glad that old Max pulled his punches before they truly made contact.

  Max concentrated on Lachlan’s footwork and stance. ‘You must dance like one of those ladies who ballet,’ Max said, shuffling his feet. ‘You hit hard but not let the other fighter hit you.’

  Every day, Max made Lachlan toughen his knuckles by punching continuously into a bucket of sand and then bathing his hands in water laced with salt. Max would shake his head and mumble in German that he needed more time to toughen the young man’s fists but told himself that Lachlan would not have to hit his opponent too many times. Just that one good punch to end the fight . . .

  Sit-ups, push-ups and a run through Fraser’s paddock a short distance from the hotel helped Lachlan sweat away the past couple of months’ heavy drinking.

  In the evenings Daniel would share a lemonade with Lachlan and over the two weeks their friendship deepened. The hours on dusk as the three men sat in the backyard of the hotel surrounded by empty wooden crates were good times, although when Lachlan returned to the company of Mrs Woodford at nights she would look hurt by his absences. She knew of the coming bout and Lachlan had heard from one of his work mates that she had put ten shillings on him to win. This knowledge alone was enough to stiffen Lachlan’s resolve to win. The woman with the sharp tongue and big heart did not believe in gambling, rating it as a mortal sin alongside murder and adultery – but she was prepared to show her faith in him.

  On the eve of the bout, Max produced a bottle of English ale. ‘Just this once only,’ he grunted, handing the opened bottle to Lachlan with a shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘Vee drink to your victory.’

  Daniel had joined them with his usual glass of lemonade. ‘You know,’ Daniel said, ‘it was in this very backyard that Michael thrashed Kevin O’Keefe one night.’

  Lachlan looked at his friend in surprise. ‘I heard that they never fought each other – although the match would have brought out all Sydney to watch.’

  ‘Ja,’ Max said with a wide grin. ‘But it was a fight of honour.’

  ‘Over what?’ Lachlan asked.

  ‘Mine little Katie’s honour,’ Max replied, taking a long gulp on his beer.

  Lachlan was tactful enough to know that he should not ask any more questions. He was just pleased that he had never had to face the absent young Irishman who could thrash O’Keefe. All he had to worry about was this Bill Williams who Max was confident enough could be beaten by any man he trained. Lachlan prayed that he was right.

  A cold wind whipped at the green grass in the paddock, now filled with a much larger crowd than had witnessed Lachlan’s first fight in the same place. The dust was gone, to be replaced with mud. There were many colourful military uniforms and on the slight rise that acted as a natural amphitheatre above the paddock many fine closed and open carriages were parked. Lachlan also noticed many more ladies attending the bout. As he stood stripped to the waist, attempting not to shiver against the bite of the late afternoon winter’s wind, an expectant hum filled the air and Lachlan was very aware of the many eyes appraising him.

  ‘I didn’t think it would be like this,’ he said in an awed voice.

  ‘Ja, many people saw you fight O’Keefe and admire the way you fought,’ Max said, massaging Lachlan’s shoulders with his broad hands. ‘They have come to see you win.’

  Lachlan smiled inwardly. As nervous as he was, he was actually looking forward to stepping up to his opponent but his cheer dimmed when he saw the army’s fighter step out from the crowd. He was Lachlan’s height but had a massive barrel chest and a head that seemed stuck onto his bovine-like shoulders. A long, handle-bar moustache topped off his fearsome expression. He was older and appeared confident. He glanced at Lachlan from across the paddock, snarled and turned to say something to his seconds, who laughed at his joke.

  ‘Don’t let him trouble you,’ Daniel said quietly in Lachlan’s ear. ‘Poor fellow, he does not know what awaits him.’

  ‘Thanks, Daniel,’ Lachlan said with little conviction. ‘The other chap looks like he should be working in a slaughter yard rather than the army.’

  ‘
You vill beat him,’ Max grunted. ‘Just remember to dance.’

  ‘Mr MacDonald?’

  Lachlan heard the voice from behind him and turned to look directly at Amanda. Her deep brown eyes were locked on his and Lachlan felt his stomach knot.

  The young woman was given a path to move through the small circle of spectators directly around him. She was carrying a brilliantly coloured waist sash of deep blue in both hands and held it out to Lachlan. She was so close that he could smell the eau de cologne she wore.

  ‘I would like you to wear this for your fight against my brother’s champion,’ she said.

  Lachlan felt his heart thump. He took the sash from her hands and wound it around his waist. A small cheer rose from those spectators closest to him at the gesture. ‘I am honoured, Miss Lightfoot,’ he said with a smile. ‘I will win this fight for you. I am your champion – as in a Byronic poem.’

  An unexpected look of surprise swept across Amanda’s face. ‘Have you read any of Mr Byron’s work?’ she asked.

  ‘His and many others,’ Lachlan replied.

  ‘You seem to have hidden depths, Mr MacDonald,’ Amanda smiled sweetly. ‘Somehow that does not surprise me.’

  ‘It is time,’ Max said. ‘The referee has arrived and beckons.’

  Lachlan wished that he could share some more moments with Amanda but he could see his opponent was already by the referee. When Lachlan turned back to bid Amanda his best wishes, she had already been swallowed by the crowd.

  They were hammering blows, Lachlan thought in his exhaustion. For a good twenty minutes the fight had ebbed and flowed in either direction. Blood ran down both men’s faces from cuts above the eyes and from split lips.

  Gasping, punching, grunting in clinches, both men probed with their fists for a weak point on each other’s bodies. Lachlan had heeded Max’s good advice and kept his distance from what he had come to learn was a stronger opponent. Bill Williams’s massive shoulders were reservoirs of power and Lachlan knew a well-delivered straight punch could end the fight with a loss to himself.

  The earth under their feet was slippery and Lachlan was no longer aware of the crowd roaring with each punch delivered by either fighter. At one time, early in the fight, he had noticed Amanda sitting in her brother’s open carriage on the earthen terrace above the field. But that seemed an eternity ago as he fought to keep on his feet.

  ‘Go down, lad,’ he heard Bill Williams rasp when they went into a clinch. ‘Yer can’t take much more of a beatin’ from me.’

  Lachlan ignored the advice and realised that Williams was in worse condition than he had thought. His plea for Lachlan’s capitulation was not delivered out of kindness but a subterfuge for himself to win the fight before he lost all his reserves of strength. This gave Lachlan a boost in his own inner strength and he broke the clinch to land three good punches into Bill Williams’s midriff, expelling air from his opponent’s lungs. Lachlan followed with three more quick punches to the head and his opponent reeled. Without letting up, Lachlan waded in with a continuous barrage of punches to both the head and body. Williams continued to reel back, blood splashing them both from the serious cut above the older fighter’s eye. Now Lachlan was aware of the crowd roaring. They too sensed a change in the pace of the fight as Lachlan continued to deliver his punches.

  When Bill Williams dropped his guard, Lachlan knew he would win. The exhausted fighter fell to one knee and Lachlan stepped in to deliver the coup de grace of boxing. With all his remaining strength, he swung a punch that caught Williams in the side of the head. He toppled on his side to lie at Lachlan’s feet.

  All Lachlan could remember was standing momentarily over the army’s unconscious champion and the crowd sweeping forward to hoist him onto their shoulders. His eyes had closed so badly he could not see Amanda in her carriage, but he hoped that she would be pleased. He had been true to his promise to her.

  SIX

  The evening was drawing nigh and the cold of winter was turning bitter. Amanda Lightfoot was snuggled against the leather seat of her brother’s carriage with a warm fur coat and muff warming her hands.

  ‘You chose wisely in your fighter,’ her brother mused opposite her in the carriage, a cheroot between his lips. ‘One would think that you have an eye for the sport, my dear sister. Our father would have been pleased at your intuition. May I ask why you insisted that this young man should be the one you suggested?’

  Amanda gazed out at the tall gum trees bordering the road into the city. ‘I thought that he fought with courage in his fight before Christmas against that Irishman,’ she replied. ‘Nothing more.’

  Charles Lightfoot was not satisfied with his sister’s answer. As her older brother it was his duty to ensure that she make a good match in any liaison that might lead her to a good marriage, which was why he had introduced her to the eminently eligible Sir Percival Sparkes. Amanda knew where her duty lay but it seemed as though recently she had been neglecting her suitor and Sir Percival had spoken to him about the situation. She did not give any reason but simply declined accepting visits from her beau. Charles was puzzled and concerned at her sudden change of heart.

  He and his sister had been orphaned not long after Charles had departed on a military posting to the Australian colonies. His first action had been at the Ballarat goldfields and a short time later he had received a letter from his uncle in England informing him of the death of his mother and father from a fever when they had been visiting London. The letter went on to say that his sister was being sent to the colonies to join him. With his limited financial means as a vicar in an English county, his uncle could not ensure she made a suitable debut into refined society.

  Charles’s father had been a relatively well-to-do merchant with a warehouse just outside London and Charles had been able to purchase his first commission into a middle-ranking regiment. The money he had taken from the dead Scotsman at the Eureka stockade had been used to purchase his captaincy, with enough left over to ensure a comfortable cottage not far from his regiment. There he had been able to curry favour with his fellow senior officers with games of cards and bottles of good port.

  It was at cards that the captain had proved to be lucky. Charles Lightfoot was a born gambler, who had added boxing matches to his list of wage-earning gambles. He had respected his sister’s choice of the young Scot against his own regimental champion as the odds were long against MacDonald to win. Charles, wisely, secretly backed Lachlan, however, and had won a large amount on the fight.

  The arrival some time ago of his beautiful young sister in the colony of New South Wales had ensured his popularity with the young, unwed officers of the regiment, many of whom vied for her company. Charles had been careful to vet each officer’s pedigree with the hope that one of them was only marking time in the army until an inheritance from a substantial family estate came through, either freeing him to return to wealth in England or allowing him to pursue further fortune in the Australian colonies, where already several expatriate officers had demonstrated their keen nose for a good business venture. Sir Percival Sparkes had been the perfect choice. Now, it seemed as if she had rejected him. In her brother’s eyes she was far too independent and educated for a woman of some means. She even found the stark beauty of the colonies appealing and seemed to immerse herself in its coarse culture devoid of the genteel softness of home.

  But now Charles had been asked to take command of a militia being formed in New Zealand to confront the Maori warriors, and this was his prime concern. All that worried him was a small but nagging doubt about his sister’s interest in the young Scot. It was just something about the way she had looked at the man, Charles brooded. The way she seemed to react when MacDonald took the punishing blows as if she were feeling them too. No, she may think that she was infatuated with the Scot but he had nothing to offer the sister of an officer rising in the regiment.

  Although he had little to do with his sister when they were growing up – and his postings in the army had t
aken him away from home – Charles was coming to learn that Amanda was a far more complex creature than most women he knew. She loved to read and yet was quite outspoken at gatherings of his fellow officers when she should have remained quiet. She had a passion for life and the colonies seemed to agree with her. Charles was able to put on airs and pass as some kind of English aristocrat but Amanda spurned such behaviour. She was kind towards their housemaid, a young girl of fourteen, and did not speak down to anyone she met, whether rich or poor. This interest of hers in the young Scot troubled him more than he liked. But he had a plan.

  ‘Amanda, I would like you to accompany me to New Zealand for the duration of the campaign,’ he said, watching the grey smoke of his cheroot whirl away on the cold breeze.

  ‘I would like that,’ Amanda replied, her lack of hesitation surprising her brother. ‘I have read much about the people there and the land. It seems to be a fascinating place.’

  ‘Good,’ Lightfoot replied. ‘Then you can arrange our luggage for the voyage.’

  Charles Lightfoot breathed a sigh of relief. The Tasman Sea would surely dampen his sister’s strong feelings for a young man of no consequence other than his ability to use his fists. After his service in New Zealand he would ensure that his sister was reunited with Sir Percival and was made to realise her duty.

  Lachlan was in no fit state to enjoy the victory celebrations held for him at the Erin Hotel. Washed and freshly dressed, his face told the story of a hard-fought win. Both his eyes were nearly closed and the congealing blood from the cuts to his face marked what would be scars for life. The prize money had been delivered and a small amount of it had been used to pay for drinks all round. Despite Lachlan being raised a Presbyterian, the predominantly Irish Catholic patrons of Frank Duffy’s pub had supported him to a man, as had the popular publican himself.