Shadow of the Osprey

by Peter Watt

  ‘With all due respect Lady Macintosh,’ Granville said, with undisguised animosity in his voice, ‘this is no place for that boy to be.’

  ‘It is if he is to one day run the Macintosh companies, Mister White,’ she said. ‘Gentlemen,’ she continued, as the men took their places at the table, ‘I would like to introduce to you my grandson, Master Patrick Duffy.’

  Not a word was said. The stunned silence said it all. Without a word of apology for withdrawing, Granville stormed from the room.

  McHugh smiled. The young man standing behind Lady Enid Macintosh reminded him of a young prince in waiting at a royal court. He certainly was impressive, with his fine, aristocratic bearing and dark good looks. A man born to rule the Macintosh financial empire.

  For a moment their eyes locked and McHugh saw an open frankness in the boy’s expression. There was nothing servile about him and yes, a sense of willingness to help those in need. As for which side of the blanket the boy was born, that mattered little. All that counted in inheritance was the right blood line. ‘I would personally like to extend my good wishes to yourself and your grandson Lady Macintosh,’ McHugh said with a genuine smile. A mutter of ‘hear, hear’ rolled around the room.

  Granville was suffering an impotence he had not experienced since the night all those years earlier he found his wife in bed with his sister Penelope.

  He stood in the foyer of the Macintosh building shaking with rage. The boy was still alive, as was his father. Now all hope of inheriting the sprawling Macintosh enterprises was wrenched from him forever – unless something unfortunate occurred to Fiona’s bastard son. He thrust his trembling hands in his trouser pockets. No, he was not beaten. Death can come in many forms.

  ‘Would you be wanting your carriage Mister White?’

  Granville did not hear his question. Only the sound of his voice. ‘What!’ he snapped irritably.

  ‘I said would you be wanting me to fetch your carriage Mister White?’

  ‘Yes,’ Granville snarled. ‘Immediately.’

  The doorman hurried away leaving Granville alone to smoulder. Slowly he brought his feelings under control and focused his thoughts on giving himself time to consider the future. What he needed was a physical release – and he knew just how he would achieve that. Money was power and power was the ability to indulge in any depravity he desired. He knew exactly what he would do. Already he was experiencing the thrill of lashing the young girl’s buttocks with a leather strap. She would cry for mercy and beg him to ravish her.

  Granville had his carriage take him to his Glebe tenements where a former Rocks thug greeted his boss with deferential respect. He listened attentively as Granville issued his order for Mary to be brought to him and sauntered away to find the young girl.

  Granville went to the room set aside for his private pleasures. He took off his coat and sat down on the bed. Inflicting pain on the innocent felt good, he reflected as he waited for the girl to join him. But his reverie was disrupted by the sound of raised voices outside the room and he was stunned to hear his sister’s voice raised in anger.

  The door crashed open and Penelope appeared in the doorway, the thug hovering uncertainly behind her. ‘I tried to explain to the Baroness,’ he mumbled apologetically, ‘that she shouldn’t disturb you Mister White. But she insisted.’

  Granville stared at his sister. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked as Penelope stepped inside the room.

  ‘I chose to see you here, dear brother,’ she replied icily, ‘because I wanted you to know that I know everything you think I don’t. Including this place.’

  Granville glanced across her shoulder and waved the doorman away. Whatever the reason his sister had chosen to visit him in Glebe, it was not for general knowledge. ‘My day has not gone well,’ he said wearily as he slumped back on the bed. ‘So state your business and leave.’

  ‘I suspect that before I leave,’ Penelope said, staring down at her brother, ‘your day will be even worse.’

  Granville looked sharply at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  With a touch of menace he rose from the bed. Not intimidated, Penelope stood her ground. ‘I know what you have been doing to your daughter,’ she stated bluntly. ‘And I have come to tell you that you will never touch her again so long as I am alive or so help me God I will destroy you. You will never receive that knighthood you so much desire. Nor will the government submit your name for the honour should they learn of this place here and your ownership of it.’

  For a moment Granville’s eyes glazed and his face reddened. With a raised hand he took a couple of steps towards his sister. Penelope did not flinch. ‘I will thrash you to within an inch of your life,’ he raged, ‘for the lie you bring to me.’

  ‘I would not do that Granville,’ Penelope replied calmly, fixing him with her blue eyes. ‘Or my husband will kill you as easily as he has killed many men in war.’ Granville checked himself and stumbled backwards to the bed. He knew his sister meant every word. ‘I have a witness in Miss Pitcher,’ Penelope continued. ‘She is prepared to swear that you have been making improper advances towards Dorothy during Fiona’s absences.’

  ‘Miss Pitcher,’ Granville blinked. ‘Miss Pitcher has left my employ.’

  ‘I know,’ Penelope said with a faint smile. ‘I told her to. And don’t even consider trying to find her. She is under my protection. You see dear brother, you are not the only one who can frighten people. It seems you still continue to underestimate the power of a woman. Just as you underestimated Lady Enid.’

  ‘You were at the office today?’ Granville asked suspiciously.

  ‘Yes,’ Penelope answered. ‘And Hobbs informed me that you left a meeting when Aunt Enid introduced young Patrick to the board members of the company. It appears that his acceptance is inevitable and I can sympathise that under the circumstances you have not had a good day.’

  ‘Only if the bastard lives long enough to turn twenty-one,’ Granville snarled.

  ‘You will not even consider anything untoward happening to Fiona’s son,’ Penelope responded with savage determination. ‘I may not be able to prove your complicity in David’s death but I do remember your link with Jack Horton who you sent to kill Michael Duffy. And now that we both know Michael is still alive, I am sure that it would not be difficult to relay what I know to him. Somehow, I doubt that you would want that. From what I know of Michael Duffy, he is an extremely dangerous man who, inadvertently, you helped to create. In a sense, you created the very rod for your own back dear brother, and now must live with it. I will bid you a good day Granville,’ Penelope concluded, as she turned to leave the room. ‘I feel that enough has been said.’

  Granville glared at his sister with undisguised hatred. It was a sorry history repeating itself, he thought. Like some ancient Aboriginal curse . . .

  Penelope settled back in her carriage and reflected on her impulsive gesture to protect the son of Fiona Macintosh and Michael Duffy. No, it was not an impulsive gesture, she reflected as the carriage pulled away from the tenements of Glebe. It was the natural reaction of any mother protecting her young . . . or the young of one she loved.

  THIRTY-SIX

  ‘They took us by surprise,’ Michael said as he slumped into a cane chair on the hotel verandah. Horace Brown sat with his fingers entwined on his ample stomach listening attentively to the Irishman relate the events that had led to the sinking of the Osprey. ‘I was asleep,’ Michael continued, ‘when the first mate woke me to say that Mort wanted to see me in his cabin. I didn’t think much of it. I wasn’t even surprised to see the Baron with Mort. But what came next took me by complete surprise. Mort started accusing von Fellmann of trying to kill him with the bomb that I had planted. The bastard was out of his mind with rage and I thought he was going to kill us then and there. If he suspects the Baron then why has he got me here, I thought. Then he turned on me, and started to rant that he and I had met somewhere before, and wanted to know where. The bastard was out of his mind.’


  So Mort was truly mad, Horace thought. And in his scrambled mind was being haunted by the ghost of the Irish teamster, Patrick Duffy. Michael must look a lot like his dead father, he reflected, as he gazed at the battered, bruised man who had lapsed into a brooding silence. Michael tried to remember the faces of the men he had recruited. They were still living and laughing men in his mind. ‘What happened?’ Horace prompted gently.

  ‘I told him we had never met before,’ Michael answered quietly, recalling the madness he had seen in Mort’s eyes. ‘He didn’t appear very convinced, and had us seized and bound by a couple of his crewmen, who left us tied up on the floor of his cabin. It never occurred to me he was going to blow up his own ship. I just thought he was going to toss von Fellmann and myself over the side. I knew there was no way he was going to let us live.’

  ‘How did Mister Tracy get involved?’ Horace asked, knowing that the American prospector had been the key in saving Michael and the Baron from certain death.

  ‘Luke just happened to be on deck taking in the night air when he noticed the ship’s longboat being launched and the Chinese boarding with Mort and some of his crew armed with our Winchesters. He kept out of sight, it didn’t take much to see something was up. When they had cast off Luke went below. He heard the Baron and myself thumping about in Mort’s cabin trying to get loose. He came and set us free. I had a suspicion that if Mort knew about the bomb, he had probably set the fuse. So I tried to get to my men . . . ’

  Michael ceased talking and stared across the verandah at the sunlight sparkling on the river. He was alive but the five men who had trusted in his leadership were dead – as was Karl Straub. Michael had lost men in the past in battle. But they had died with at least a slight chance of fighting back. The Irish mercenary took a deep breath before continuing to relate the bloody events that followed.

  ‘The murdering bastard had locked the door to the hold where my men were. I could hear them banging on the door trying to get out. They knew what was going to happen because when Mort had them locked in, the bastard he had taunted them about the bomb. We were in the process of ripping off the hatch when the bomb exploded and blew us into the water. I found the Baron half-dead, floating. Luke was all right, but the Baron was pretty badly stunned. So I kept him afloat until he could gather his senses, and we swam around all night calling for help. The captain of the Frenchie gun boat told us later that he dared not come in to pick us up, at least not until he had enough daylight to navigate the shallows. I suppose I can’t blame him for that. Captain Dumas treated us well enough. He allowed me to go ashore with a party of his men to search for any sign of Mort. We searched for three days along the shore and found his longboat but no sign of him or his men. Looks as if they struck inland just after they landed. The rest is history, as they say. The Frenchies brought us to Cooktown.’

  Horace eased himself from his chair and walked over to the wrought iron railing of the verandah. The heat of the midday sun had driven most people to seek the shelter of the many verandahs along the main street. Under the shady awnings men sat against the walls to gossip about the latest happenings on the Palmer. The mysterious blast that sent the Osprey to the bottom was also an item of speculation. As far as it was known there were only three survivors. A few miners who knew the men recruited for the mysterious prospecting expedition blamed the ship’s captain for his carelessness in stowing the blasting powder.

  ‘So Captain Mort took the girl and the Chinese pirates ashore with him,’ Horace surmised. ‘And from what you say he also took some of his own men. No doubt the cut-throats he needed.’

  ‘The bastards went well armed,’ Michael replied bitterly, thinking of the loss of the Winchesters. ‘It looks like they were preparing for an expedition of their own.’

  ‘You are probably right,’ Horace agreed. ‘None of my sources have seen them around Cooktown.’

  By his sources, the English agent meant the small army of Chinese, who worked for Soo Yin. The tong leader had strategically placed eyes and ears in the market gardens the Chinese diligently tended, as well as in the laundries, brothels, gambling dens and opium houses often frequented by white miners. Although Mort and his party had not been seen in Cooktown itself, there was a rumour that a rival tong with its headquarters just off the Palmer goldfields was expecting an important ‘guest’. An escort of armed Chinese from a rival tong of Soo Yin’s had suddenly departed Cooktown a day after the Macintosh ship had gone to the bottom.

  At the time that Horace had received this information, it had no connection to anything he considered relevant to his preoccupation with the sabotage of the German expedition to New Guinea. But, when Michael arrived on his doorstep with the story of the Cochinese girl, the astute British agent had immediately conferred with the captain of the French gun boat. He smelt a connection between these events, and with French involvement he knew he must investigate.

  Horace had introduced himself as a representative of the Foreign Office, and had inquired as to where the Osprey had sunk. A careful study of charts indicated to him that Mort had carefully plotted his course to put him very close to Cooktown before he scuttled his ship. Via a Chinese messenger travelling overland, it was then possible for the man to have made contact with Soo Yin’s rivals and arranged for them to meet him north of Cooktown, with an escort, for a journey overland to the rival tong’s fortified headquarters on the Palmer.

  Horace wondered how much Michael knew about the political importance of the sixteen-year-old girl to the emerging resistance movements against French interests in the Indo-Chinese province of Cochin. Already, Horace had calculated, any assistance to the French to secure the Cochinese girl for them, would be looked upon favourably by his masters in the Foreign Office. Britain was moving towards reconciliation with their closest European neighbour after centuries of suspicion and war.

  ‘The French want that girl,’ Horace said, ‘and so does the Tiger Tong.’

  ‘The Tiger Tong?’ Michael queried.

  ‘Soo Yin’s rivals. They are Macau men. Soo Yin is a Cantonese. The rivalry is a bit like that between the Irish and the British,’ he said with a grim smile.

  ‘So they kill each other,’ Michael commented. ‘Some things never change.’

  ‘Something like that,’ Horace said, as he eased himself back into his cane chair. ‘But we have the problem of getting the girl out of the Tiger Tong’s hands and back to the French.’

  ‘Why should you want to help the French?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Not my personal choice, old chap. A strategic political decision. At the moment the Froggies are preoccupied with colonising Cochin China, Annam and Tonkin. And from what we know of the people there they are a particularly stubborn race with a fierce sense of national identity. It looks like the place has the potential to tie up a rather large proportion of French colonial forces attempting to subdue them. It is a matter of letting the French bog themselves down there, while Britain gets on with bringing enlightenment to the rest of Asia, Africa and the Pacific. By helping them get back the girl, who it seems is some kind of rallying point for the Cochinese, we appear to be interested in helping our European neighbours further their colonial interests. A goodwill gesture you could say.’ Horace paused and pursed his lips in contemplation of his other peculiar interest. ‘The Germans are the ones who worry me the most,’ he continued. ‘They are emerging as the real power to be reckoned with in Europe and I suspect that very soon we will have to face them on the battlefield as the French have done so recently. But alas, I don’t seem to be able to convince my colleagues in London of this fact. They keep pointing the finger at France as the major threat to Britain’s interests.’

  ‘And you don’t agree?’ Michael said.

  ‘No. All Germany needs now is a navy,’ Horace replied, ‘and they will be in a position to challenge the rest of Europe. I can see the day when we will be at war with Germany and her empire. And when this war inevitably comes, the Germans will have established
bases across the globe. That is why your mission was of such importance although you may not have appreciated that at the time. But I fear we only bought time, as I doubt that the Germans will give up on New Guinea easily.’ No, Horace thought, the short-sighted fools in London were not students of history. If they were they would have remembered the lessons the Romans learned the hard way. It was from the dark forests of northern Europe that the barbarians had come to sack the empire that seemed invincible. And so too, would be the fate of the British Empire, if the German Kaiser had a chance to expand his.

  Horace Brown was an unlikely looking crusader. Middle-aged and plump, he commanded an army of only one man, Michael Duffy, and an intelligence system of Oriental people traditionally loathed by the Europeans. ‘The job I am offering you to retrieve the Cochinese girl pays well,’ Horace said, as he leaned forward in his chair. ‘And I presume you still have a matter to be settled with Captain Mort. If you go after the girl I am sure Mort will not be very far away.’

  ‘You were too quick with your offer to pay, Horace,’ Michael replied with a wry smile. ‘I was planning to go after Mort regardless. I will track him to the gates of hell and beyond if I have to.’

  ‘Then I think you will accept some help.’

  Michael nodded. He was aware of the magnitude of the task before him but had no intention of confiding to the English Foreign Office agent that he and Luke Tracy had already plotted to keep her for a reward. It had nothing to do with Horace’s gesture of goodwill.

  ‘Good. I know of a man who might prove to be of use to you,’ Horace said. ‘His name is Christie Palmerston. Have you met him?’

  ‘Christie Palmerston?’ Michael shook his head. ‘No. But there are few people up this way who haven’t heard his name. I tried to recruit him for the Baron’s expedition. Lucky for Mister Palmerston that I failed to find him.’

  ‘Mister Palmerston has been out prospecting with Venture Mulligan,’ Horace explained. ‘He was speared last year by the natives when they attacked Mulligan’s party west of here. But that hasn’t deterred him from going bush again. The only problem that we are going to have with getting Mister Palmerston to act as a guide is that he doesn’t like Chinamen much.’