Shadow of the Osprey

by Peter Watt

  The rum and beer had loosened the normally reserved nature of the stiff-necked German and Straub spoke of the Baron in an almost familiar way. It was the intimate knowledge that Straub seemed to have of the Baron that surprised Michael most; he spoke of the Baron as one would of family. Even so, Michael was sure that, in some way, a formal military relationship existed between him and Herr Straub.

  After lunch the two men retired from the dining room and returned to the verandah to enjoy the river breezes. They continued to empty another rum bottle between them and the sun was setting before Straub left for his hotel.

  Michael was left sitting alone on the verandah to enjoy the gentle breeze that accompanied the lengthening shadows. Up and down the busy street voices grew louder and more raucous. The residents of Cooktown were rising from the day like nocturnal beasts in search of prey and pleasure. The rum and beer, coupled with the tranquillity of the tropical sunset viewed from the comfort of his cane chair, soon took their effect on Michael and he fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.

  The vision came to Wallarie as he lay on the cooling earth under the constellation of the Southern Cross. It was the warrior spirit of the sacred cave calling to him to say that he was to return to the northern forests. The time of vengeance was near and the spirit warrior would need his help. The vision faded and Wallarie slowly opened his eyes. All was a sparkling blackness above him and a coolness that was refreshing around him. A dingo howled and a night bird called a lonely song to the moonless sky.

  He lay on the earth and groaned. Not only for his all-consuming thirst and throbbing wound but also because the spirit warrior was asking the impossible of him. He was too weak in his present condition. He needed life-giving water and knew there was a patch of damp ground in a dry watercourse not far away. With all the strength he could muster he dragged himself along, allowing his acute sense of smell to guide him to the water.

  The brackish water restored his body but the constant hunger reminded him he must also eat to stay alive. The two whitefellas had food, he knew. But they had preferred to shoot him down rather than share it.

  Hatred and hunger combined caused a new strength to surge through the emaciated body of the Darambal warrior. ‘Bloody bastards,’ he swore as he struggled to his feet. The bleeding had ceased but his arm was still too numb to move effectively. With stumbling steps he made his way in the dark to where he had left his weapons.

  Armed once again, he turned his attention to the north. That is where the prospectors had been travelling when they had fired on him. And that is where he must go to meet the warrior spirit of the cave. When the sun once again rose over the hills he would find their tracks and hunt them down. They had forfeited their right to live.

  EIGHTEEN

  Night was descending over the harbour and the Macintosh barque rose and fell gently on the tide. Channel bells clanged softly and muffled voices drifted on the evening breeze from ships moored nearby. The clip-clop of horses pulling drays, wagons and carriages from the nearby streets adjoining the Quay were becoming too frequent for Captain Mort, who sat alone in his cabin poring over charts and tide tables. He always felt uneasy in Sydney – and with good cause. It was a place where the law was mustered against him. But soon he would be sailing. As soon as the German Baron von Fellmann arrived from Samoa.

  Henry Sims stood uncertainly outside his captain’s cabin. He was the replacement first mate for the Osprey and had much in common with his predecessor Jack Horton. Like Horton he had been born and brought up in the infamous Rocks area of Sydney. He was a tough, brutal man in his prime who had lived on the wrong side of civilised norms. Unlike Horton, however, he was not fully aware of his captain’s murderous madness.

  His experience with the intricacies of sailing ships was limited. But that is not why he had been given the job that promised lucrative rewards. His abilities with a knife – and unquestioning loyalty – had brought him employment with Mort. All he had to do was dispose of his predecessor. A dark back alley, a drunken victim and the flash of a blade, was all that was required to register him aboard.

  The first mate’s uncertainty was fuelled by his knowledge that Mort did not like being disturbed whilst he was in his cabin. As for visitors coming aboard and demanding to see the captain – well, that was another thing. But this visitor was different, and even the relatively dull-witted former Rocks thug was overawed by the woman’s aura of power. ‘Cap’n Mort?’ he tentatively called through the door. ‘A lady to see you on deck.’

  ‘Who wants to see me?’ Mort replied irritably.

  ‘She don’t give her name. She jus’ said you would come up an’ see ’er.’

  There was a short silence and the cabin door opened. Mort appeared dressed in his full uniform with his jacket undone and thrust his face at Sims. ‘What the devil does this woman want?’ he asked belligerently.

  ‘Says she wants to see you. That’s all.’

  Mort buttoned his jacket and followed the first mate. Some bloody whore come peddling her wares, he thought as he clambered on deck. He would send her packing.

  But his belligerence dissolved very quickly when he saw who was standing beside the gangway gazing back at the shore. A cold fear gripped his kidneys. With a scowl he dismissed the first mate so that he might be alone with the woman. ‘Lady Macintosh,’ he said deferentially. ‘What, if I may inquire, brings you to my ship?’

  Enid turned to face him. ‘If I may correct you Captain Mort,’ she said coldly, ‘the Osprey belongs to me. It is not your ship by any means.’

  Flustered by her reminder Mort mumbled, ‘I am sorry for my unintended presumption. It’s just that the Osprey has been under my command for so long now, that I have grown to feel responsible for her, in every way.’

  ‘An admirable quality Captain Mort,’ Enid replied, without any hint of compliment. ‘But that is why my son-in-law pays you so generously. It is what we expect.’

  ‘If I may ask again Lady Macintosh, what brings you to the Osprey this evening?’

  ‘I must admit that I have never stepped foot on the Osprey’s decks,’ she replied, quickly glancing around the barque. ‘But I decided this was an opportune time to do so.’

  ‘Opportune time?’ Mort asked suspiciously. He noticed that she was alone on his ship. But down on the wharf he could see her carriage and a burly driver looking up at them. ‘Opportune time for what?’

  Enid fixed him with her emerald-green eyes. To Mort they were the colour of a dangerous sea. ‘Just to inform you,’ she replied coldly, ‘that should you be brought before the law on charges of murder I will need to seek another captain to replace you.’

  Stunned by the woman’s calmly delivered statement he gaped at her.

  Enid had prayed for this moment for a long time. It was not that she would not have paid anything to see him dangle at the end of a rope, but being able to cause him fear was her personal means of exacting revenge for the death of her son. ‘As this is most probably an imminent situation,’ she added, ‘I will require that you ensure all papers pertaining to the Osprey are secured safely with the company secretary George Hobbs tomorrow morning. Failure to do so will give me recourse to immediately dismiss you from your post. I hope for your sake that this does not happen.’ The last statement was a lie. Enid well knew anything to hurt the murderer of her son would give her joy.

  ‘Mister White might have something to say about your threat,’ Mort snarled like a cornered animal. ‘You do not have the power to threaten me.’

  ‘I suggest that you ask my son-in-law who still controls the Macintosh companies Captain Mort,’ she replied in an icy tone. ‘He does not own the Osprey. I do. He merely manages its affairs. Nothing more.’

  They stood staring at each other, the air thick with mutual hatred. Hers for the man who had probably acted on orders from Granville White to kill David. And his for the woman who he sensed had the power to deprive him of the only thing he had come to love in his life – his ship.

  ‘S
hould I be brought before any magistrates in Sydney, Lady Macintosh, what then becomes of the Baron’s expedition that the Osprey has been chartered for?’ Mort asked. ‘Will you replace me?’

  A cold smile preceded her words. ‘In the unlikely event that you are not arrested for murder,’ she replied, ‘then you will still captain the charter. The Baron has paid handsomely for our services and, if nothing else, I know you are capable of seeing that his mission is successful.’

  ‘Thank you Lady Macintosh,’ Mort replied sarcastically. ‘I am sure you will not be disappointed.’

  ‘I am sure I will not be disappointed,’ she replied, still holding her cold smile. ‘The Lord has given me the means to see to that. And now I will leave your presence Captain Mort with the knowledge that I know you killed my son. You may not answer to the law for that, but you will answer to my God when your time comes.’

  Mort did not attempt to deny the charge she had brought against him. Any denial would be a waste of time with a woman like Enid Macintosh as she was made of unbending steel dressed in velvet. He watched her walk away with a confident spring in her step as if his hanging were an inevitability.

  When Enid reached her carriage the driver stepped down from his seat to assist her into the finely crafted conveyance. She thanked him and settled back against the leather seat for the ride home. Now she would savour the discomfort she had caused the murderous captain and later sleep in the knowledge that he would not sleep. His nights would be haunted by the uncertainty of his fate. It was only a matter of time – and the legal brilliance of Daniel Duffy – to compile the evidence Detective Kingsley would present. As far as Enid was concerned the matter was settled.

  Now she was free to go after her own son-in-law for his conspiracy in the murder of her son. And it would be another Duffy who would be her ally in Granville White’s demise as a power in the family. The irony of life was not lost on Enid. Once the name Duffy had been an unspeakable abomination in her family. But time had changed all that. Time and the strange curse that bound the two families in a series of violent deaths.

  Mort watched the carriage rattle away from the wharf. He turned and went to his cabin where he slumped onto a stool. Uncertain as he was about what exact evidence Lady Macintosh had against him, he was certain that she would not have come to gloat, unless she was right.

  Mort stared at the sword on the wall above his bunk. He brooded on her words and presence aboard the Osprey. For an inexplicable reason he had a recollection of a hot and dusty morning in central Queensland. November ’62, he remembered. A big and bearded Irish bullocky by the name of Patrick Duffy manacled to a tree with his nigger boy. The sword sliding into the Irishman’s belly as Duffy fixed him with his dying hate and spat a curse on him. Something about him dying an equally painful death.

  Mort shook his head and laughed. The maniacal sound echoed throughout the bowels of the Osprey.

  He was tall and broad shouldered for a boy almost eleven years old, and there was a certain defiance, not servility, in his emerald eyes. He had the promise of dashing, handsome looks that could bring him the choice of any young lady in English society – or colonial society – for that matter.

  Enid could see in the boy what had attracted her daughter to his father. ‘What has your . . . what has Mister Duffy told you to call me?’ she asked young Patrick as he stood before her in the library.

  ‘Lady Enid,’ he replied.

  She nodded. Good! One day he would know all. But for now he seemed to accept the confusing events in his life. He had the stuff of the Macintoshes to adapt to difficult situations. After all, her blood ran in his veins, and he was the next generation to pass on that same blood to a long line of Macintosh heirs. ‘I will call you Patrick,’ she said with just a touch of grandmotherly tenderness. ‘Has Mister Duffy told you what is going to happen to you next month?’ she asked gently, as she sat in her chair behind her desk.

  In many ways the first meeting between the two of them was more like a business meeting. She had considered whether she might have done better to see the boy in the drawing room, rather than the sombre library, with its cases of leatherbound books covering the walls.

  But in many ways this was a business meeting. For a moment she could see that the boy appeared apprehensive – not frightened like a child – but apprehensive as an adult calculating his future in a business deal. She did not want him to feel that way.

  Patrick could not be less than awed by the surroundings of the Macintosh mansion. He had never dreamed that a house could be so big and beautiful. Even the library was like some treasure cove with all its books and strange ornaments made of metal and wood. There were Aboriginal spears and clubs, shields and throwing sticks. It was like a museum and Patrick loved museums. The thought of going away from his family made him sad. At the same time he was excited by what he was discovering in this new world his father had brought him to. ‘I have been told that I will be going to England with you so that I might get an education there,’ Patrick replied. ‘Father said I would be gone for a long time.’ She could hear just the slightest quiver in the boy’s reply.

  ‘But you will be coming back,’ she said to allay his fears. ‘And you will be able to write to your family from England whenever you wish.’ She felt that she should try to help him look forward to what was in the future, and shifted the conversation back to the present. ‘Mister Duffy has told me that you like reading books.’

  ‘And I like boxing,’ Patrick replied brightly. ‘Uncle Max teaches me. He says some day I will be as good as Michael Duffy who he once taught to box.’

  ‘I do not think that boxing is really something for gentlemen,’ Enid said, with the faintest of smiles. ‘I think that you might learn other things. You might learn to ride with the hounds some day. Now, that is much more suited to a gentleman.’ No, she thought wryly. It would not do to have the heir to the Macintosh empire known as some back street pugilist!

  Enid spent an hour with Patrick chatting in the library, and by the time they had exhausted subjects dear to a boy’s heart, she was quite enchanted by his natural charm. She even felt a strange urge to call him David.

  When Daniel came to the library he noticed that she was a very different woman from the stern Lady Macintosh he had left Patrick with. He saw a soft glow in her expression and suspected that it was a reflection of her grandmotherly pride.

  Patrick was taken by a maid to the kitchen to feast on cream buns and drink buttermilk while Daniel and Enid made arrangements for his sea voyage to England. She repeated to him that Patrick would be looked after as her very own grandson, and that he would be able to relay his impressions to his own family, at the Erin Hotel. Daniel was reassured that the decision to allow Patrick to be educated in England was in the boy’s best interests.

  As Daniel left the Macintosh house with Patrick he could not help but smile at a distant memory of another young man. While Patrick lived – so would Michael! And the boy could charm the pants off the devil’s wife herself – just like his father.

  Enid watched the carriage trundle down the driveway through the big front gates. She could see Patrick gazing back in open-mouthed awe at the house. Yes, some day he would realise just who he was, she thought with some contentment for the first time in many years. And the Macintosh name would continue through his blood line – her blood line!

  NINETEEN

  Michael was not sure what brought him out of his deep sleep. But years of living on the edge had honed his survival instincts; a cracking twig or the sudden silence of the insects in the night could alert him to danger. He was asleep among the less than subtle night sounds of a brawling frontier town: women’s voices raised in ribald laughter; men swearing and shouting; the sounds of dance halls with their tinny pianos and whoops of drunken men dancing parodies of the Irish jigs and Scottish reels; somewhere a child crying incessantly as a wagon rumbled past the hotel on the street below.

  No, it was not a sound that brought him out of his deep s
leep, but the skin-crawling feeling that he was not alone, a feeling of immediate and close danger!

  ‘If you are thinking about your gun Mister Duffy,’ the voice said in the night, ‘you need not because I have it.’

  Michael opened his eyes, blinking away the sleep, and focused on a vaguely familiar face. ‘We meet again Mister Brown,’ he said when he was able to get a clearer picture of the Englishman sitting in the chair vacated by Straub late that afternoon. ‘Hope you have a bottle with you. Or at least a good reason for taking my gun,’ he drawled casually, desperately trying to gather his wits fogged by an excess of alcohol. He was puzzled at something that the Englishman had said to him. Something important. Then it came to him with a shock. Adrenalin surged through his body, forcing his senses fully awake. Brown had called him Duffy!

  ‘Sorry Mister Duffy, or may I call you Michael,’ Horace said casually, although he felt far from being at ease. The more he had learned about Michael Duffy the more he respected the man’s ability to kill. ‘That way, only you and I know who you really are.’ Horace had guessed that the Irishman would be armed and he was proven right.

  Michael’s small revolver was nestled in his lap and he considered the option of attempting to recover his gun. But he also sensed that the Mister Brown that he knew from the clipper ship, was not the Mister Brown sitting in the semi-dark of the hotel verandah.

  Unexpectedly Horace passed the gun back to him. ‘I don’t think you will be needing this with me,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I haven’t come here to do you any harm.’

  Michael accepted the pistol. ‘If you think I am this Duffy person then you are taking a great risk Mister Brown,’ he said, as he held the pistol in his hand.

  Horace smiled and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I think you also know that it is a waste of time for you to deny that you are Michael Duffy, formerly of Sydney and one of Von Tempsky’s Rangers. Also former member of the Army of the United States of America and now a roving agent for German interests. You need not try to deny who you are as that would be futile with me.’