Shadow of the Osprey

by Peter Watt

  Caroline frowned. She could not understand why they should have stopped their journey to assist an Aboriginal heathen when they were so desperately close to death themselves. Another day and their water would run out.

  The missionaries set up camp a short distance from where Wallarie lay under the shade of a small bush. Otto had bandaged the wound with a liberal application of stinging antiseptics. Wallarie had flinched but accepted the doctoring. He sensed that the strange man in black had a magic not unlike that of the big Irishman Patrick Duffy who had helped save his life so many years earlier when Mort had shot him during the Glen View dispersal. Otto’s gruff words had the same soothing effect as those of the Irish bullocky.

  ‘I will take him water,’ Otto said to his wife who was unharnessing their horse from the shafts of the sulky. ‘He will need it if he is to last the night.’

  Caroline bit her lip. She wanted to point out that the water was the last of their supply, but fought her natural response in favour of her husband’s decision. He was a good man, whose faith in the Lord was very rarely disappointed, and she prayed silently that he was right this time. If not, then they would most probably be dead within days.

  Otto bent to Wallarie and helped him so he could sip the water from the canteen. When he had finished drinking, Wallarie lay back and fell into a deep sleep. The loss of blood had drained him of strength and left him feverish.

  When Otto was satisfied that his patient was resting, he rose and returned to the campsite, where a blackened pot of coffee steamed over a small fire. Caroline poured a cup and passed it to her husband. ‘We only have enough water for one more pot,’ she said quietly. ‘Not even enough for our horse tomorrow.’

  Otto squatted by the fire and gazed out at the sun sinking below the flat horizon. ‘Have you noticed how beautiful the sunsets are in this country?’ he said, as if ignoring his wife’s slightly accusing statement. ‘It must have been like this when God created the earth.’ Caroline did not comment, but continued to busy herself around the fire preparing the evening meal. ‘In Berlin,’ he continued, ‘we would be shivering with the cold and praying for the warmth of summer.’

  ‘Instead we die of the terrible heat out here,’ Caroline replied bitterly. ‘And the dreadful scourge of flies.’

  ‘I thought that you must have lost your tongue wife,’ Otto said with a touch of mirth. ‘I thought that it had dried up and fallen out.’

  Caroline looked up from her work and into the dark eyes of her husband. She saw the humour, and a slow smile spread across her face. ‘I am sorry my husband,’ she said. ‘I fear my faith is not as strong as yours. I fear that . . . ’ her words faltered as she touched the edge of a great concern.

  ‘Fear what my wife?’ he asked gently.

  ‘It is nothing,’ she said, and continued with preparing the meal.

  ‘Fear that we may die out here in God’s wilderness,’ he said. She glanced up at him with just the hint of tears. He saw her fear and placed his arms around her. She wanted to cry, but knew that if she did, she would only cause her husband to feel despair. Her quiet strength had always supported her idealistic husband in his ventures since he had joined the Lutheran ministry. To cry now would strip him of confidence in his faith. ‘God will find His way to provide for us,’ he said tenderly as he held his wife. ‘Just as He did for the Chosen People on the Exodus. Just as He does when He brings us the cool evenings out here to take away the terrible heat of the day from our lives. And now He has sent us the Aboriginal man as our dark angel to guide us to the Schmidt farm. I know that the Lord will always be with us in our mission to bring light to this new country.’

  Caroline gently pushed her husband at arm’s length. ‘You are right Otto,’ she said with the faintest of smiles. ‘God has not forsaken us.’

  ‘You will see,’ he said, beaming her the brightest of smiles. ‘His will be done.’

  Caroline disengaged herself from her husband’s arms and went about serving the meal.

  That night, Caroline lay on her back and gazed at the spectacular canopy of shimmering southern stars. Beside her, Otto snored loudly, blissfully confident in the Lord’s providence. She could not sleep. Her faith was weak and she wondered at God’s cruel sense of humour in sending them a badly wounded heathen whose only concern was for tobacco and who drank the last of their reserve of water.

  She longed for white fields of snow and the pungent smell of the dark pine trees of Germany. This land was so alien with its harsh, ugly landscapes of grey scrub and dry red earth. But, as she gazed up at the Milky Way, she noticed the constellation of the Southern Cross and felt a strange peace, as if she were seeing for the very first time God’s sign of hope. Now, if only the black heathen lived, and Otto’s faith in Him was rewarded, they would live to carry out her husband’s ministry.

  A short distance away Wallarie stirred in his fevered sleep. A voice was calling to him from a place beyond the living world. It was Tom Duffy! He needed Wallarie to return to the dark forests of the dreaded northern warriors.

  Wallarie groaned his protest. It was not possible, he responded. He did not have the strength to do so. And besides, the journey was fraught with danger from the armed prospectors. Had he not already felt the sting of their bullets? But Tom was calling to him with the voice of the White Warrior spirit. He must leave as soon as he could and travel north. For there a great event would take place. An event that would still the Nerambura’s cry for vengeance.

  When the morning came to the plains Wallarie still lay in his fevered world. Otto tended to him, as the sun rose to a pinpoint of biting heat, scorching the earth below. He changed the bandages whilst Caroline looked on with a worried frown. ‘I think the Lord has willed that the heathen depart this world,’ she said over her husband’s shoulder. ‘He does not appear to be recovering.’

  ‘He sleeps,’ her husband grunted. ‘It is a good sign. These people have a reputation for being able to suffer wounds that might kill a European.’

  Caroline turned and walked back to their horse. Its head lolled and it did not appear to notice her presence. ‘I do not think our horse will last the day without water,’ she said when Otto joined her. ‘We are down to our last cup, and unless we are found very soon, we will be joining the heathen.’

  Otto gazed at the sweeping panorama of flat plains dotted with clumps of spindly trees that seemed to dance in the heat haze above the earth, and knew that his faith was being tested by the God of the Old Testament. ‘God has sent us the black man,’ he said simply. ‘He will save us.’

  ‘God helps those who help themselves,’ his wife retorted, with an edge of frustration for her idealistic husband’s optimism. ‘I think we should attempt to travel further west. Surely we must find a river or a stream soon.’

  ‘We cannot,’ Otto replied quietly. ‘To travel with no reserve of water would certainly kill the horse and most probably us as well.’

  Caroline shook her head angrily. Inactivity was not something she perceived as an option. ‘So we stay and wait for providence to save us,’ she said with a bitter smile. ‘But I will accept God’s will my husband,’ she added, ‘so long as you do.’

  Otto glanced at his wife and realised why he had grown to love the once flighty golden-haired girl from Brandenburg. She had been an unlikely catch for a man devoted to his ministry, a young woman who had given up a whirl of parties and balls to join him in a life devoid of luxury. But she had and now they faced possible death in a harsh land thousands of miles from their home. The flighty girl had matured, possessing a courage greater than his own, he admitted to himself. ‘Have faith my beautiful wife,’ he said gently, as he reached for her hand. ‘God loves us and I love you.’

  Caroline felt the tears well up in her eyes. Otto was not a man to express his love very often. He was a taciturn man, except when he preached to his congregations. He had been so different from other men she had known: quiet, strong and intelligent, a man whose charisma she often felt should have been tur
ned to politics or business. ‘I have faith in you Otto,’ she said as she took his hand. She did not mention God.

  They spent the day in the shade of the sulky. Otto read silently from his Bible whilst Caroline occupied herself sewing. The day droned with a silence broken only by the screech of an eagle and the distant cawing of crows.

  At sunset the horse lay down and refused to rise. Death was near. Otto gazed sadly across at Wallarie who had not moved all day. Was it that God had deserted them? Was it that he was a hopeless dreamer as Caroline’s father had once accused him?

  The night once again came to blanket them with its crystalline spread of tiny white lights. Otto held his wife in his arms and realised with savage self-recrimination that he had brought her to the point of a slow and terrible death from thirst. She was weak, and her skin felt hot and dry, but she had not complained. He knew that water was all she now craved. She had retreated to an imaginary world of icy waterfalls and clear-running streams of abundant water. He too felt the thirst but had to remain strong for his wife. As a last resort, he would put the horse out of its misery and they could drink its blood. It was not an option he wanted to consider, but it was all they had left.

  Sleep came fitfully to Otto. When he woke in the morning, he gazed through rheumy eyes, to where the black man was lying under the bush. He was gone! Otto jerked fully awake and cast about the plain for a sign of the Aboriginal warrior.

  Beside him Caroline stirred. ‘What is it Otto?’ she asked, rubbing her eyes. ‘You seem agitated.’

  ‘He has gone,’ Otto replied in a surprised voice. ‘He must have gone during the night.’

  Caroline sat up and attempted to brush down her long skirt, a feminine gesture strangely out of place considering their situation. ‘It was God’s will,’ she said in a hollow voice. ‘He is a child of this land and we could not have expected him to understand our need.’

  Otto nodded and stared blankly at the rising ball of fire on the eastern horizon. In the long days they had travelled south west, they had not sighted a fellow European. How long would it be before their bones would be found for a Christian burial?

  He staggered to his feet, and started walking uncertainly towards the horse which was breathing in ragged snorts as it lay on its side. He paused. Something was moving like a dot across the plain. He shaded his eyes and peered at the object which slowly took on a human shape. ‘Caroline!’ he shouted. ‘He returns!’

  Within minutes, Wallarie stood grinning before the missionaries, with canteens full of water dangling from his shoulder. ‘I get water,’ he said simply. ‘You drink.’

  It took only half a day for Wallarie and the Werners to reach the tiny bark hut Otto had referred to as Schmidt’s farm. Ironically the missionaries had only been a half a day from the creek that held the muddy pools of precious water. Wallarie had picked up the signs of whitefella habitation – the fading prints of cattle, horses and boots – when he had gone with the Werners’ canteens.

  The sulky jangled into the dusty clearing that served as a front yard. Adjacent to the single-room bark hut, were the termite-infested rails of the stockyards, long fallen into disrepair. The place was eerily silent and the front door banged on its hinges when a gentle breeze stirred the gritty air. The Werners sat on the seat of the sulky and gazed around the deserted yard.

  ‘This could not be the place,’ Caroline said. ‘It does not look like anyone has lived here for a long time.’

  Otto leapt down from the sulky and strode across to the hut. Wallarie hung back. He had an uneasy feeling about the place and fingered his spears nervously. It was a place of ghosts.

  The German missionary disappeared inside the hut and in a brief moment reappeared holding a book in his hand. ‘It is Herr Schmidt’s Bible,’ he said, holding up the book. ‘But it appears that he has not been here for some time.’

  ‘Do you think something has happened to Herr Schmidt?’ Caroline asked, as her husband helped her down from the sulky.

  ‘That is a possibility,’ he replied with a frown. ‘Or he may have just gone somewhere else.’

  ‘He would not have left his Bible,’ Caroline said quietly.

  ‘You are right my wife,’ Otto nodded.

  Wallarie watched the two conversing in the language he did not understand. His keen eyes surveyed the area looking for signs. But whatever signs might have existed were long gone. All he sensed was that death owned the place they had come to. He could see the deep worry written in the missionaries’ faces. ‘Whitefella go away,’ he said.

  The Werners turned to him. ‘Vot do you mean?’ Otto asked. ‘Vot you mean go avay?’

  Wallarie shrugged and squatted. His explanation was all the reassurance the white man and his woman needed. It was the way of the land. Walkabout, the whitefellas called it. ‘Go away,’ he repeated, and waited to see what would happen next.

  ‘I do not know your name,’ Otto said to Wallarie. ‘You have saved our lives and yet I do not know your name.’

  Wallarie looked up at the big German standing over him. ‘Danny Boy,’ he replied. ‘Whitefella call me Danny Boy.’

  Otto smiled. ‘Thank you Herr Danny Boy,’ he said. ‘We owe you a great debt. I think the Lord sent you to us and I hope you vill remain to be the first of our flock.’

  Wallarie stared at the missionary. He had lied about his name. He knew that the Native Mounted Police had posted a reward for his capture. He had learned much about the European way from Tom Duffy and the name Danny Boy came easily to him.

  He thought the offer to remain with the kindly whitefella and his missus had great merit. He was in lands where few would know of Wallarie the Nerambura warrior, and so he could stay legitimately in the care of this powerful spirit man. The bullet wound had not yet healed and the pain was still with him. He would stay and help the white man until he was better, then he would make his trek north for the sake of the spirit warrior. ‘I not stay,’ he finally answered.

  A frown clouded Otto’s face. He reached out with his hand to assist the warrior to his feet, and Wallarie had a vague recollection of another time, when another white man had clasped his hand in the same manner. How could he tell the spirit man that the voices called to him to return to the dark forests of the dreaded northern warriors. The white man could not understand that the voices had become stronger as his body healed.

  ‘Mebbe I come back one day,’ Wallarie said, letting go Otto’s hand. ‘Mebbe help you and the white missus.’

  ‘Mein friend you vill alvays be velcome,’ Otto said sadly. ‘It might be that you have a mission from God to be elsevhere.’

  Wallarie did not know if he had a mission from God. All he knew was that he must travel as fast as he could to the humid and wet forests of the north. For there he was needed for a purpose, one that would be revealed by the spirits of his ancestors, when they deemed so.

  The Werners watched the tall Aboriginal walk away, trailing his long spears. Wallarie broke into a loping trot. He felt the pain of his wound but the need to return overcame all physical sensation. Before sunset he would be well north of the Schmidt farm.

  They watched until the heat haze swallowed him from their sight. With a long, drawn-out sigh Otto turned to gaze at the desolate, silent lands that seemed to go on forever. ‘This is where we will establish our mission,’ he said softly. He could see Caroline’s troubled thoughts etched in the lines of her face. ‘God gave us one of His lost souls to guide us here. I am sure that He will not desert us now.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The arrangements had been made and Patrick was taken to Lady Enid Macintosh’s house. Duly prepared in a new set of clothes, he found himself beside his grandmother in a carriage driving into the city for a meeting.

  Enid had noticed the young man’s silence. She said little herself except for perfunctory words about his health and how manly he looked in his tailored suit and his replies in turn were short but polite.

  When they reached the head office of the Macintosh en
terprises in the city Patrick followed his grandmother inside. He was suitably impressed by the sombre building of granite facings and heavy timber doors. Even at eleven years of age he was aware of the power of money. People obeyed his grandmother when she told them to do something and she owned everything desirable in the world, like all the books in the library.

  ‘We are going to meet some important men,’ Enid said quietly, as they were escorted by a smartly dressed doorman up a broad flight of marble stairs. ‘You will not say anything unless I tell you to do so. If you are asked questions by any of the men, I will expect you to conduct yourself as the young gentleman you are.’

  Patrick listened carefully to his grandmother’s orders and nodded. She smiled quickly at his response as they arrived at an important-looking door on which the doorman knocked before opening. Enid stepped inside. Patrick followed, filled with curiosity. He was assailed by the heavy scent of cigar smoke mixed with leather, and sensed something very important was happening – and that he was very much a part of it.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ McHugh said in a commanding voice. There was a rustling scrape of chairs in the softly lit room as ten men pushed back their chairs from a huge table. ‘Lady Macintosh,’ he formally announced.

  The men nodded and Enid accepted McHugh’s hand. Patrick only recognised one man in the room and shuddered when he felt the eyes of Granville White glaring at him with undisguised hatred.

  ‘Lady Macintosh,’ McHugh said warmly as he ushered her to a chair at the table. ‘The directors are all here as you requested.’ Enid smiled, and Patrick followed to stand behind her chair once she was seated.