Amy's Touch

by Lynne Wilding

  Meg and Winnie arrived at Drovers in double-quick time, driven there by Amy’s father. Winnie took control, ordering Jim and Mike to keep Randall occupied. Because Amy had prepared the birthing necessities, Winnie’s job was made much easier.

  Katherine Marie McLean, a rather large eight-pound baby, was born the next afternoon, after a twenty-hour labour. The birth was straightforward, and Winnie and Meg were able to report to those interested that mother and baby were both doing well.

  As Amy cradled the baby in her arms, Randall, watching his wife’s joyous, absorbed expression, was thankful that the labour had, according to Winnie, gone without any complications. For a moment or two his eyes misted as he gazed at the newest member of the McLean family. Smiling as he sat on the side of the bed to take Kate in his arms for the first time, he thought, Can life get any better than this…?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  March 1926

  Amonth after Kate was born the weather turned on a perfect day for the opening ceremony of the Mabel Ellis Sports Field by the town’s mayor, to coincide with Gindaroo’s first country show. There were the usual speeches. Byron Ellis talked about his mother’s generosity, and Amy spoke about how people had rallied and supported the building work, some with labour, others with donations. Then the recently elected mayor, Clem Yarborough, praised the undertaking and unveiled the bronze memorial plaque, which had been bolted to a huge rock at the entrance to the field.

  The sports field itself was a festive scene. Automobiles, trucks and horses and carts were parked around the oval and along Queen Street. The new oval was adorned with colourful stalls that displayed a wide variety of produce for sale, from all kinds of cakes, pickled vegetables, jams and jars of wild honey, to handmade lace and clothes and bric-a-brac. Cattle and sheep judging, as well as sheepdog trials, were being conducted in a roped-off section, and there were stalls with games to play and prizes to win.

  ‘Gindaroo’s not seen anything like this,’ Randall, who was carrying baby Kate, said as he and Amy walked around. ‘It looks as if almost everyone in the district has turned out for the day. With two notable exceptions: Bill and Margaret Walpole.’

  ‘Yes, but Joe’s here. I saw him as we came in.’ Amy smiled up at Randall and the baby. ‘Isn’t it wonderful to see how we’ve brought people together, and that they’re enjoying themselves, even in tough times.’

  ‘Thanks to you.’

  She shook her head as she took Kate from him. ‘I didn’t do it alone, you know. There’s been a good deal of help from so many women, and a few men.’ She spied Byron with his wife, Harriet, talking to a group of people. ‘I think Byron’s getting a big kick out of having his mother remembered in this way.’

  ‘Do you mind if I go and check out the sheep and cattle? Drought or no drought, I’d like to see how Drovers’ stock stacks up against other properties.’

  ‘Go ahead. I want to look at the cake competition. Meg has an entry.’ Amy waved him away and, cuddling four-week-old Kate to her, she continued to browse from stall to stall. Many people stopped to congratulate her and have a look at the baby, including Christine Cummings, who was trying in vain to keep her noisy twin boys under control. Part of the oval had been roped off for those who wanted to picnic and several families sat on colourful woollen rugs, munching their lunches and drinking tea from their flasks.

  Winnie came up to Amy, a beaming smile on her face. ‘I think we can claim that today is a great success. I’ve spoken to quite a few people’—working at the Royal Hotel she knew many who came in for a beer or a meal—‘and they’ve said what a good time they’re having.’ Her smile widened. ‘We might be able to make the show an annual event.’

  ‘That’s a good idea, but it would take a lot of organising,’ Amy replied, then added, ‘I saw Jonathon at one of the stalls. He appears fully recovered from his accident.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’ A frown flitted across Winnie’s forehead, ‘but between you and me, I’m a little concerned about Rebekkah.’

  ‘Why? She’s doing well at the hospital. She is quite bright, you know,’ Amy tried to reassure her friend.

  ‘I know.’ Winnie hesitated then the words came out in a rush. ‘I think she’s infatuated with Gavin Pearce. She talks about him constantly: what a marvellous doctor he is, that he’s sensitive and good company. And…’ her voice lowered to a whisper, ‘I think he likes her too.’

  Amy laughed as she settled Kate into the crook of her other arm. ‘That’s not surprising. Rebekkah’s a pretty girl and she’s almost eighteen. If Gavin feels the same, it could be an ideal match.’

  Winnie paused again, then said, ‘He’s not Jewish.’

  ‘Oh!’ Amy understood her friend’s concern. Winnie and her family appeared to be devout Jews, observing the Jewish holy days and special food preparations. ‘That may be true, but if Gavin makes her happy, surely that’s more important than him being of the same faith.’ She didn’t want to get into a religious discussion with her friend because their views were poles apart, and especially not today, when things were going so well.

  ‘I wish I could think that way, but it’s…hard,’ Winnie admitted. ‘I want her to be happy, but…’

  ‘Winnie, you’re worrying too much. Is that a Jewish trait?’

  Amy’s friend smiled. ‘You’re right. It is. If we’re not worrying about something then we’re worrying that something is wrong with us for not worrying.’

  Amy laughed. ‘Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? At present you don’t really have a problem, so you could be worrying unnecessarily. Often, infatuations run their course and end.’ She added, ‘I’m going over to the cake competition. Want to come?’

  ‘I thought I’d get a cup of tea and a couple of those wonderful biscuits the St John’s Ladies’ Auxiliary have made. I’ll see you later.’ Winnie smiled a goodbye and headed towards the refreshments stall.

  As Amy turned to go towards the cake competition, which was being held inside a canvas tent, a man cannoned into her, almost knocking her off her feet. Automatically, she gathered the baby to her more tightly. The culprit was Joe Walpole, in a rush to be somewhere else.

  ‘Sorry, Amy, I didn’t see you.’

  Amy’s hold on Kate had tightened, as she’d tried to keep herself from falling onto the grass. Suddenly startled, the baby began to cry. ‘Joe Walpole, you could have hurt me and the baby. Watch where you’re going, for goodness’ sake,’ she said crossly, her tone decidedly critical.

  ‘S-sorry,’ he repeated. His grey-eyed gaze darted to and fro over the crowd as if seeking someone in particular. The next instant his eyes widened and he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. ‘Got t-to go.’ He doffed his hat to her, spun about and merged with the crowd, seeming not to care that he was jostling others out of the way.

  ‘He is a pig of a man,’ Amy whispered to her frightened baby daughter. ‘Just like his father.’ She straightened her wide-brimmed hat and continued on her way to the judging of the cake competition.

  Nearly there! Joe gave a relieved sigh as he recognised his almost-new automobile, the one his father, having become weary of Joe’s complaints, had bought for him. Those ‘enforcers’ Reggie Brown had sent couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag, he thought, his upper lip curling in a sneer. The bookmaker’s goons had been easier to elude than he’d thought. What he hadn’t expected was for them to turn up on the day of the country show. He wiped the moustache of sweat from his upper lip. Another ten feet and he’d be safe. So he owed Reggie a lot of money? So what! The bookie knew he was good for it. Didn’t he always pay? Eventually. He’d had a particularly bad run of luck lately, one loss after another, both at the racetrack and at the card table.

  If only his father would loosen the bloody purse strings and give him a decent wage! But no; Bill Walpole had always espoused the theory that thriftiness built character. Shit, the old man held on to his money tighter than a fish’s arse. But one day—he smiled smugly—it would all be h
is and he’d do what he liked with it. All he had to do was be patient for a little while longer.

  ‘Where are you going, Walpole? We’ve got some unfinished business with you.’

  Joe stood still as a tall, burly man whose features were so disfigured he must have, at one time, been a prize-fighter, came out from behind one of the automobiles to block his path.

  ‘Reggie’s not a happy man because of you, and when he’s not happy,’ the man pointed to another man who had come up behind Joe, ‘we’re not happy.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The second man was now right behind Joe and spoke in a rough, gravelly voice. ‘Reggie don’t like welchers. You owe him money, Walpole, and he wants it. Now!’

  ‘He’ll get it. I always pay.’ Joe felt a trickle of sweat run down his spine. These were tough-looking fellows and they meant business. If he didn’t tell them something to satisfy them, they’d beat the shit out of him. ‘I—I just have to liquidate s-some…’ What? He knew he didn’t have anything to liquidate, but they didn’t. Besides, he could always get money out of his mother, who wasn’t tight-fisted like his father. She was a soft touch. ‘Some shares. Reggie will have what I owe him within the week. With interest.’

  ‘He wants the money today, now,’ the tall man said, taking a step closer to Joe.

  ‘Fellers! Be reasonable,’ he pleaded. ‘Next week. I promise.’

  As soon as he said the words the man shook his head. He nodded to the man behind Joe to come up and hold his arms. As soon as he was held, a fist crunched into Joe’s face and then another blow came to his stomach. Joe dry-retched as air whooshed out of his lungs. After the third punch he didn’t remember much. His knees gave way on him and he fell to the ground, after which they proceeded to lay into him with their boots.

  ‘Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Randall McLean shouted from about thirty feet away. He couldn’t see who or what the two men were kicking but instinct told him it wasn’t a football or a tin can. He started to run towards them, praying his action would make them take off because they were big and he really didn’t want to fight them…Fortunately, his tactic worked. The two men turned and dashed back into the oval, no doubt intending to get lost in the crowd.

  Randall found Joe. He knelt down and turned Joe onto his back. Joe’s face was a mess but he was conscious.

  ‘The bastards broke my arm,’ Joe cried out miserably, as he attempted to protect his injured left arm with his other hand.

  Randall helped him to sit up and used a handkerchief to wipe some of the blood off Joe’s face. ‘Why did they want to hurt you?’ He knew Joe had a smart mouth and a temper and thought he could take care of himself in a fight. ‘Did you pick a fight with one of them?’

  ‘No. They’re…they’re strong-arm blokes who work for Brown, the bookie in Hawker. I owe him money and he’s impatient for me to pay up.’ He saw Randall’s expression change from concern to unsympathetic. ‘I know, you think I’m a fool. Perhaps I am, but gambling is one of the few pleasures I have in life.’

  Randall knew there was little point in responding to that. ‘Come on, get up. I’ll help you. You need to go to hospital, get an X-ray and have that bone set.’

  ‘I guess.’ With Randall’s help Joe shuffled along, towards the hospital. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Randall. After I’ve paid Brown off I won’t be placing any more bets with him. He might offer the best odds but he isn’t the only bookie in Hawker.’

  Randall shook his head and didn’t bother to reply. Joe Walpole would never learn.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  April 1927

  The South Pacific Ocean was like a sea of glass, smooth and shimmering, as the Geraldine approached the Tongan coastline late one afternoon. They’d passed several smaller and some larger ships in the shipping lane between the islands, so when Danny noticed an antiquated steamer of about two and a half tons heading in his direction he paid it little attention—until its course began to veer dangerously close to the lugger.

  ‘Want me to alter course, Captain?’ Verne, who had the wheel, asked.

  ‘No, we’re on the right side of the channel, we have right of way. The steamer should give way to us. The skipper must be drunk or half asleep. Sound the foghorn, that should warn him to change course.’

  Verne did so, but the steamer’s course didn’t change. Danny’s gaze narrowed, his suspicions rising after he trained a pair of binoculars on the other vessel. He could only see one man, a native, on deck, where there should have been three or four men attending to various tasks. Without conscious thought of Abe he recalled the older man’s obsession about pirates. What if the steamer intended to run up alongside the lugger, where its crew would try to board it? Pirates could tell by the way the Geraldine sat low in the water that they were loaded with cargo. Better to be safe than sorry, he decided.

  ‘I’ll take the wheel, Verne. Go to my cabin and break out the rifles and the shotgun. Just in case.’

  ‘You think they might be pirates?’ the Englishman asked.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Danny shrugged. ‘If so, there’s only five of us and there could be a dozen of them with all kinds of weapons. I don’t plan to be taken unawares. When you issue the rifles, tell the men to keep them close but hidden. If they are pirates, we’re going to give them an almighty surprise.’

  Verne grinned at the prospect of a little excitement—the voyage from Fiji to Tonga had been uneventful so far. ‘Whatever you say, Captain.’

  Danny’s gaze stayed trained on the steamer, which was chugging along at between three and five knots per hour. When the two ships were about three hundred feet apart—loud enough for him to hail the steamer with the megaphone and tell them to change course—the other ship’s speed began to increase. The steamer came closer and closer, appearing to be on a collision course with the Geraldine. Danny stepped out of the wheelhouse and hailed the other ship. There was no response. Now he knew for sure: soon they’d be under attack. He gave the order to Verne to pass down to Jamie, Ming and Quincey: ‘As soon as you see anyone with weapons, shoot one round over their head then the next round straight at them.’

  Seemingly seconds later the steamer was almost upon them and, from various hiding positions on its deck, natives appeared, Malaysian in appearance and stripped to the waist, some bearing long swords and grappling hooks attached to ropes and others armed with pistols. Shots began to be fired indiscriminately at the lugger.

  Danny head-counted ten pirates, which meant his men were seriously outnumbered. And he knew from stories Abe had told him, and those he’d overheard in bars, that pirates who roamed parts of the South Pacific seeking easy targets were ferocious fighters and wouldn’t give up their intended booty without a struggle. He gave the order to change course, and threw the Geraldine into starboard reverse to stop the steamer from ramming the port side. Doing so would angle the stern of his ship away from theirs and make it harder for them to board. But if they boarded in numbers, he knew his crew wouldn’t stand much of a chance.

  The ocean soon resounded with the sounds of rifle and pistol fire and men shouting and yelling. Danny saw Verne fend off a grappling hook from the deck rail and shoot the pirate who’d thrown it. Danny picked up his own shotgun, took aim and fired one round into the Malays on the steamer. Two men fell to the deck and didn’t get up. Heart pounding, Danny ran to the ship’s bow, where one pirate had managed to jump on board. The man was small and dark and his eyes gleamed with hatred.

  ‘I kill you, English dog,’ he yelled as, brandishing his sword and slashing the air with it, he rushed towards Danny.

  Danny turned the shotgun around, butt forward, and jabbed it into the pirate’s stomach, after which he hit the man across the face with the barrel. The Malay collapsed onto the deck, moaning and bleeding profusely.

  As he caught his breath Danny saw Jamie, the big Fijian, lift one of the Malays up in the air and throw him overboard. By his calculations, they’d demolished half of the pirates with only Quincey receiving
a flesh wound to the shoulder. But was it enough to make the pirates retreat? He was sure they hadn’t expected such strong opposition but they had a reputation for being tough, and often desperate.

  A bullet whizzed past his ear and, seeing the culprit, Danny fired his shotgun again, without aiming it. The spread of buckshot pellets caught the pirate in the chest.

  The pirates’ leader sounded the steamer’s whistle and spun the ship’s propeller away from the Geraldine. They were giving up! As the steamer pulled away the man doing the steering emerged from his wheelhouse and stood on the deck, hands on hips, staring at the lugger’s crew. Then, curiously, he lifted his right arm in a salute, presumably as a token of respect for their fighting ability, and disappeared back inside the wheelhouse.

  Ming, grinning from ear to ear, came up to Danny. ‘We show them good, Cap’n Danny. They tell other pirates no go near the Geraldine. Her men too tough.’

  ‘There’s still one on board, at the bow. I think he’s unconscious,’ Danny told Ming and the others who’d gathered behind the cook. ‘We’ll tie him up and hand him over to the police when we dock in Tonga.’

  ‘No you won’t, Captain. Look.’ Quincey pointed to the bow.

  All the men looked to where Quincey was pointing. The injured pirate, blood smeared over his chest and loose-fitting trousers, had climbed over the railing and was staring down at the bow waves. He stood up straight and, with a defiant shake of his fist, dived into the ocean.

  ‘The man’s a fool. All that blood. The sharks’ll have him in no time,’ Verne prophesied.

  ‘That’s probably a better and quicker end than a slow death in a primitive Tongan prison cell,’ Jamie said with a sage shake of his head.

  ‘Thanks, men,’ Danny said. ‘All of you. I think this episode deserves a reward. Tonight at supper I’ll open the bottle of port I keep on board, strictly for medicinal purposes. And if I can manage it there’ll be an extra bonus in your pay packets when we get home.’ He grinned at each of them. ‘Now, let’s get things shipshape. The deck at the bow has to be scrubbed. We’ll lay off the port till dawn, until the tide changes.’