Shadow of the Osprey

by Peter Watt

  Horace spoke so calmly, and with such intimate knowledge of his past, that Michael did indeed know it was futile to deny who he was. ‘I won’t insult your intelligence by denying I am who you say,’ he replied calmly. ‘But that brings me to who you really are. Remittance men don’t normally follow me from one end of the Pacific to the other. So I doubt that you are a remittance man Mister Brown. If that is your name.’

  ‘My name really is Horace Brown,’ he sighed. ‘And I am a remittance man, of sorts. At least I am to my family.’

  ‘But who are you to the rest of the world?’ Michael asked suspiciously.

  ‘Let us say I have a great interest in this part of the world,’ he replied, with careful consideration for how much he could reveal. ‘An interest probably stronger than a lot of friends I have back in England. You know, you and I have a lot more in common than you would think Michael. Except that I am not wanted for murder . . . Or should I say, was wanted for murder. But warrants don’t apply to dead men do they?’

  ‘You know that,’ Michael answered with a growl. Brown was a man of mystery but already he was beginning to form his suspicions of who, or what, Horace Brown was.

  Horace removed his spectacles and wiped them on the sleeve of his shirt before replacing them on the tip of his podgy nose. ‘Some day you will have to tell me how you got the Von to feign your demise,’ he said. ‘I heard he was killed by the Maoris back in ’68. Regretfully I never had the opportunity to meet the somewhat colourful commander of the Waikato Rangers. But I heard a lot about him from his colleague Captain Jackson. Yes, I would have given much to have shared a drink with Gustavus von Tempsky. A very unusual man,’ he mused as he kept Michael under his scrutiny. ‘Not unlike yourself Michael. A soldier of fortune one could say. A former officer in the Prussian army turned guerilla fighter against the Spanish regulars in Nicaragua. And finally a commander of the Forest Rangers in New Zealand. And, like you, he was an artist of some note. Ah, but you never did get the chance to become an artist, did you? Oh, and he was very much a ladies’ man. Yes, I can see that you would easily become friends with such a man.’

  Michael was stunned by the little Englishman’s intimate knowledge. His detailed information on his military experience with von Tempsky’s Forest Rangers could only come from access to military records. The more Brown revealed information about him the more he actually revealed intelligence on himself. ‘Who do you work for Mister Brown,’ Michael asked bluntly, ‘the British Foreign Office?’

  Horace did not shift under his relentless gaze. ‘Let us just say that I work for the best interests of Queen Victoria, God bless her, and all who raise the flag on her birthday. Which brings me to you and I. And the Baron.’ Horace now shifted his seemingly casual rambling to that of hard-edged business. ‘In your best interests Mister Duffy,’ he said, leaning forward, ‘I think you should cooperate with me. I think you and I will have a long and happy future if you do, like a good marriage, one could say. But if you decide there is no chance of consummation then I am afraid to say divorce could be very messy for you.’

  Michael understood the Englishman’s analogy all too clearly. Either he cooperated with him – or he would suddenly find himself ending up in some uncomfortable police lockup awaiting extradition back to the Colony of New South Wales. That he might even be shot attempting to escape custody was also a possibility. There was something very dangerous about the man that belied his clerical appearance. Michael fully understood dangerous men and knew that he was dealing with one. ‘I think I would like to hear what you have to say, Mister Brown,’ he replied. ‘Somehow I don’t think I have much choice.’

  Horace smiled and visibly relaxed as he sank back into the cane chair. ‘I think you should start our “marriage” by dropping the formality of “mister”. My name is Horace and I would deem it an honour from a man of your considerable reputation if you called me Horace. But not Horry. My nanny used to call me that.’

  ‘Horace, I must tell you that today I have been feted by the Germans, threatened by a representative of Her Majesty’s government. And now here I am an Irish-Australian, with an American accent, it’s all very confusing,’ Michael concluded with a short and bitter laugh.

  Horace smiled. The man has a sense of humour, he thought and could not help but like the man for his easy-going manner and past proven courage in war. He felt comfortable in the company of men like himself: men who lived on the edge in a world far too civilised to accommodate daring and courage. ‘I must confess that I have lied to you Michael,’ he replied. ‘I said that I didn’t have a drink for us when you asked.’ He produced a silver hip flask. ‘I presume you will join me in a toast to our mutual future. And I can assure you that working with me will bring financial rewards commensurate with your rather peculiar skills. When we have made the toast, I will ask you some questions the answers to which, I assure you, are of critical interest to both the colony of Queensland and England.’

  Michael found an empty glass beside his chair and Horace poured the brandy. He raised the hip flask. ‘Her Majesty, God bless her,’ he toasted, raising his hip flask to the night.

  ‘Saint Pat. And damn the English to hell,’ Michael responded as he raised his glass. With toasts aside, Horace got down to business, and the next meeting between them was arranged.

  The evening was cool and pleasant when Horace left Michael to return to his hotel room. He had urgent work to do as a result of his meeting with the soldier of fortune. A fat, translucent pink gecko on the wall of the hotel room shrilled its startlingly loud staccato chatter.

  Horace flinched at the shrill cry. He knew that his nerves were on edge and sighed as he sat staring at the fresh paint on the wall of his hotel room. He pondered on how much he had gleaned indirectly from Michael Duffy – and the chain of contacts the Irishman had made from Samoa to Cooktown. He knew that the Germans were planning something of great importance. Something that had the potential to seriously interfere with British interests in the Pacific. But what?

  Bismarck’s unified Germany was a rising power in Europe and Horace knew that historically such powers required empires. But Bismarck had not taken any real steps towards colonisation in the Pacific. His Hamburg merchants had spread across the Pacific. So too had France, Holland and even the United States of America, even though it always denied its interests in colonisation. As such Samoa had become a microcosm of conflicting interests between the Americans, Germans and British.

  One day, Horace believed, England would find herself confronting Germany on the Continent. And when that day came, where the Germans had financial interests, they would also have military bases. But his radical views had been laughed at by his colleagues in the Foreign Office. France was the traditional enemy of England – not Germany, they had scoffed. He had reminded them of the crushing German victory in the Franco-Prussian War. But nevertheless, the fools could not see that Bismarck was looking at those places on the world map not yet shaded with British red!

  Horace Brown did not keep a journal but he did produce pages of reports for dispatch to London. He commenced his report, ‘Intentions of German Interests in the Pacific: Future Problems.’ He paused and placed the nibbed pen to the side of the blotting paper, stretching as he watched with interest as the gecko darted for a moth that had foolishly landed on the ceiling nearby.

  He considered all that he knew to date. Michael Duffy was acting for von Fellmann to recruit other men who had martial skills. Duffy had said that, if questioned, he had been instructed to say that they were organising a prospecting expedition. To where? For what? Not even Duffy had that answer. Herr Straub had the distinct markings of a military man – an officer in most probability. The Osprey – under the command of one Captain Morrison Mort – had been chartered to sail to Cooktown with the Baron aboard. Horace had been briefed by Major Godfrey about Mort and knew that he was definitely a shady character capable of taking money for any purpose.

  When he put all that he knew together the revela
tion came to the Foreign Office man like a divine inspiration. The party of heavily armed men with bush experience or martial/police skills . . . the Osprey . . . Michael Duffy’s knowledge of the jungles from his experience in South America and a ruthless ship’s captain experienced in working in hostile waters amongst the natives. There was one place where a man would need to be heavily armed or have an armed party always at hand. Only one place of strategic interest to an expanding German influence in the Pacific.

  New Guinea!

  The huge island directly north of eastern Australia was mysterious – and unexplored. Reputed to be a land of head-hunters and cannibals, it was an island of jungles with a massive mountain range along its spine, rising into the clouds. Should the Germans annex the island they could garrison it with troops only a stone’s throw away from a vital British holding. Such an annexation would pose a decisively strategic threat to the security of the British Empire in the Pacific.

  But it was all supposition. He knew his theory needed corroboration and Michael Duffy was the only man he had been able to recruit inside the Prussian’s organisation, although Duffy was not exactly a volunteer to British causes. He was, after all, little more than a soldier of fortune, and mercenaries were notoriously unreliable in their loyalties to patriotic causes. Money and survival primarily guided their loyalties.

  Horace knew that he needed more to ensure Michael Duffy stayed on his side. He needed to find a cause that would ensure he remained loyal to his ultimate aim of stopping the Germans if indeed they were planning to annex the island of New Guinea to their Pacific empire.

  The British agent picked up the pen and scribbled down a series of options. The answer had been with him all the time when he reviewed his list. The Osprey captain was the key! He was the key to obtaining Duffy’s total compliance in terms of stopping the Prussian agent. When in Sydney the English agent had dug further into the mercenary’s past and Mort’s name had cropped up like a deadly weed in the Duffy garden.

  With a satisfied smile Horace Brown recommenced his report to London. Whether the fools at the other end accepted his opinions was irrelevant. By the time the report reached London the Germans might have completed their mission and it would all be too late for British interests. But at least he had an idea of how to stop the Baron from succeeding in his mission. How would not be included in his report as his ideas were not always condoned by the niceties of international law.

  TWENTY

  Kingsley was surreptitiously taking in the rich decor of Daniel’s office. Like Enid Macintosh, Daniel did not warm to the presence of the police detective. There was something very mercenary about the man. Kingsley had been evasive when he had quietly interrupted and raised the question as to whether the dying criminal had mentioned Michael’s name at any time, Daniel thought, as he completed the notes he had taken concerning the policeman’s conversation with Jack Horton.

  ‘What do you think Mister Duffy?’ the detective asked.

  Daniel frowned and stood to stretch his legs. He walked to the door and glanced out at the clerks hunched over their ledgers in the adjoining room. ‘I’m afraid Mister Kingsley,’ he replied, turning back to walk across the room to his desk, ‘that all you have told me is old and unprovable news.’

  Kingsley scowled. He did not like lawyers and the off-hand manner in which this one treated his visit only confirmed his bitter dislike for them. ‘What about Horton’s confession that he and Captain Mort murdered all those darkie girls? What about that?’

  ‘Proof is a direct witness account of what someone has actually seen or heard,’ Daniel replied in a tired voice. ‘Not hearsay in the third person. But as a policeman you should know that. So I’m afraid all we have is confirmation of suspicion, nothing more. No real evidence.’ He slumped in his chair and added, ‘I truly wish I could tell you otherwise.’

  Kingsley scowled as he rose to his feet. Somehow he knew he would not be getting any more money for his assistance – especially from the likes of Mister Duffy. ‘I will bid you a good afternoon Mister Duffy,’ he said abruptly.

  Daniel nodded. He did not bother to escort the policeman to the door but sat dejected staring at the wall. When Kingsley was gone he shuffled the papers in front of him. If only Sergeant Farrell could have produced evidence to link Mort with the murder of the prostitute, he thought pessimistically. Something more recent with all the elements that might sway a judge to pass sentence of death on Mort, should the jury find him guilty. But that opportunity seemed as remote as man’s chances of flying to the moon. Daniel felt a need for a stiff drink. Evil seemed to have a way of surviving – like the rats that plagued The Rocks.

  ~

  Lathered in sweat Granville White awoke in the early morning hours. The persistent dream haunted him and, alone in his bed, he cursed Michael Duffy’s memory. It was as if the damned Irishman was laughing at him from beyond his grave. It might be that Michael Duffy was dead, he thought with a shudder. But was there a possibility that his bastard son had survived – despite what his mother-in-law had said about the brat’s fate at a baby farm.

  Granville eased himself from his bed, slipped a smoking jacket over his pyjamas, and made his way to the library. The rest of the household was asleep, and Fiona was away for the night, leaving their daughters in the care of the nanny. She’s probably with Penelope, he thought bitterly as he lit a lantern. The lantern light flooded the library. This was his special place of privacy where he could be alone to ponder on the fate of his enemies and take his perverse pleasures. But for now it was a place for thinking.

  The recurring nightmare of the dead Irishman had haunted him since his mother-in-law’s threat to challenge his position and had been heightened by the mysterious hint of a successor selected by her. If the Duffy bastard were still alive where would the old Irish nanny Molly O’Rourke have taken him for sanctuary? He sat on the couch staring at his desk and smiled grimly. It would have to be Michael Duffy’s family! The Irish were like that – clannish and devoted to family – and he knew where to find the Duffys!

  Granville had long ago learned that real power was the ability to buy life and death and that a man’s power was the aphrodisiac that attracted women, who didn’t really care how dangerous that power was. He stroked the big leather couch considering what he must do. As he felt the smooth animal skin under his hand the bestial cravings in his dark soul stirred. With Fiona away the house was his for the night. He needed to relieve his tension and it would be a pity to waste the opportunity. He rose from the couch and padded to his daughter’s bedroom.

  Captain Morrison Mort preferred to remain in the cabin aboard his ship. The quietly assured threat from Lady Macintosh had the outcome she had hoped and planned for. He was a man haunted by paranoia. Every rattle of a carriage on the wharf was a police van; every footstep on the deck above his head the traps come to arrest him.

  Sims had delivered the ship’s papers to George Hobbs as ordered by Lady Macintosh as nothing short of the ship sinking would bring Mort out of his cabin. Only a summons from his boss Granville White to meet him at an infamous brothel superseded his crippling fear.

  Mort had taken a hansom cab to a dirty hovel of a tenement house in Glebe where he alighted to be met by a tough-looking doorman who he followed inside. They passed tiny doorways in a long hallway, where Mort could see unkempt women lying about in the rooms on palliasses waiting for their customers. Mort sneered at the manner of the establishment. It had no class. He had seen better whore houses in conservative Melbourne.

  ‘Come through to the office,’ the tough said.

  Mort obeyed, stepping into a room where Granville White was sitting on a bed, a room that Mort casually noted was in a much better state than those he had passed along the hallway.

  Granville did not rise. ‘I am pleased to see that you answered my summons so promptly Captain Mort,’ he said, dismissing the escorting tough with a wave. ‘I would offer you a chair but as you see there are none in this room. So I am afraid
you must stand.’

  ‘That’ll be all right with me Mister White,’ Mort answered diffidently.

  ‘I need your special services once again,’ Granville said. ‘It has been a long time since I called on you for a favour.’

  Mort shifted uneasily. Had the matter been of a routine business nature, he knew that his employer would have called on him at his ship. But since he had demanded to meet elsewhere, it had to be of an extremely confidential nature. Literally a matter of life or death. But whose death?

  ‘I heard about the unfortunate demise of your first mate Jack Horton recently,’ Granville said. ‘Did you kill him? Or did you have someone else do it?’

  Mort stared hard at his boss. He was not afraid of Granville White but knew he owed him much – including saving his neck from being stretched on the gallows. ‘I’m not saying I had anything to do with his demise,’ Mort lied. ‘But it was a good thing when all is considered.’

  Granville smiled knowingly and dropped the subject. His question had been answered and his appreciation would be demonstrated later with a bonus in the captain’s pay. It was good to have employees who could use their initiative. ‘To ask about Horton’s demise was not the reason why I organised this meeting,’ he said. ‘The reason you are here is because I would like you to attend to a very important matter, before you sail with Baron von Fellmann for Cooktown. A matter involving a name I know you are familiar with.’

  ‘Who would that be?’ Mort asked guardedly.

  ‘Duffy.’

  Mort blanched. The name haunted him for reasons he would be unable to explain to a sane person. There had been too many nights at sea when an old Aboriginal wearing feathers and daubed in ochre had appeared and stood in the dark corners of his cabin just watching him. The figure had always come in that time between sleeping and waking. And always the name Duffy seemed to jump into his head. ‘You know I do,’ he answered. ‘You want something to happen to that bastard Duffy lawyer?’