A Few Right Thinking Men

by Sulari Gentill

  Mr. Lang said that Mr. Stevens’ threat was idle. It was used simply to dragoon people of the State into voting for Stevens’ policy—the policy that would bring misery and ruin to the people of New South Wales.

  The Canberra Times, April 4, 1932

  Kate Sinclair kissed her brother-in-law fondly. “You look after yourself, Rowly. Have a wonderful time.”

  Wilfred shook his hand. Rowland winced, trying to balance on a single crutch.

  Wilfred frowned as he noticed. “You should have let me send Nurse Conroy with you.”

  “One day, Wil,” Rowland said, “if I have cause to retain a nurse for you…I’ll remember Nurse Conroy.”

  Wilfred smiled faintly. “I don’t know what you mean, Rowly. She’s a fine woman…came highly recommended.”

  “For what exactly?”

  “I’ve had a word to the ship’s doctor…he’ll keep an eye on you.” Wilfred glanced at Milton and Clyde who were skylarking with young Ernest a few yards away, and Edna who was bidding farewell to her father and the flock of eager young men who’d come to see her off. “You just make sure your friends don’t disgrace us internationally.”

  Rowland’s eyes darkened.

  Kate nudged her husband. “Oh Wil, don’t quarrel.” She reached up to Rowland’s ear and whispered. “He’s actually quite glad they’ll be there to look after you.”

  “You had best board now,” Wilfred directed sternly. “It might take you a while to get up the gangplank.”

  Rowland looked up at the ship towering above them. Was he walking away when New South Wales needed the few men left who were still sane? MacKay’s men had already faced off against the New Guard, on the day De Groot stood trial. The police had more than defeated the Guard; they had publicly humiliated Campbell. Guardsmen were trotted through Liverpool Street by their neckties, pounded and bloodied by a constabulary ordered to take back control. Had they succeeded, or would things simply escalate?

  Wilfred put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Rowly. They won’t get the better of us.”

  Rowland wondered briefly who his brother meant by “they,” but he left it.

  Ernest ran up to them, excited, and clambered into his father’s arms. “You have to throw lots of streamers, Uncle Rowly. From up there,” he pointed.

  “Of course,” Rowland replied. “I’ll throw yellow ones. You watch out for them.”

  Ernest nodded solemnly. “Are you going to see the King?”

  “Shall I give him your regards?”

  Ernest smiled. “Don’t be silly, Uncle Rowly, King George has his own guards…with big black furry hats.”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot.”

  Rowland finished his goodbyes, and turned to join his friends to board.

  As Wilfred took his family to the best vantage point to wave the Oceanic off, a brass band struck up, signalling the passengers that final boarding had commenced. The Sinclair party moved slowly toward the stream of travellers making its way to the gangway.

  “Oi, Sinclair!” Rowland just heard the hail above the music and the noise. “Sinclair!”

  Harcourt Garden ran toward them, pushing through the crush. Clyde and Milton stiffened. Surely Garden wasn’t going to challenge a man on crutches. The burly Unionist caught up.

  Rowland regarded Garden warily; their last encounter, in Pyrmont, had been anything but cordial. “Harry,” he said carefully. “What are you…?”

  “I was here talking to some of the boys on the docks, when I caught sight of you.” Garden stuck out his hand, grinning. “I hear the Boo Guard is looking for you.”

  Rowland took his hand. “So I’m told.”

  “I don’t know who the hell you were working for, Sinclair, but you obviously got to that mongrel, Campbell. That makes you all right in my reckoning.” He leant closer. “Did you really try to kill the Fascist bastard?”

  Rowland met his eye. “No.”

  Garden winked. “Of course not—you’re a gentleman, after all, eh, Sinclair? But still…it was a good try.”

  “Look, Harry…” Rowland thought now of the meeting of the Fascist Legion to which Poynton had taken him. Jock Garden’s name had come up several times. “The men in hoods, the ones who beat up Paddy…”

  “Paddy wasn’t drunk, you’re saying?”

  “No, he wasn’t…They’re a dangerous mob; fanatical. Tell your father to watch out.”

  Garden nodded. “That Detective Delaney’s already been round, but Dad thought the police were just trying to get him to back off. Thanks, Sinclair, I’ll stick to old Jock like glue.”

  “We’d better go,” Rowland glanced up the gangway.

  “Goodbye then, Rowly,” Garden slapped his back warmly. “Don’t worry, we’ll be ready for them.”

  Again Rowland wondered who exactly fell under the category of “them.”

  Leaving Garden, they made their way onto the Oceanic and up to the first-class decks. Rowland gripped the rail of the promenade thankfully. Clyde and Milton had all but carried him up the stairs and the roll of the deck was not pleasant on crutches. Still, the atmosphere of excitement was contagious. He was beginning to feel less despondent about this exile…at least he would spend it in good company.

  The ship’s horn sounded its low, belching note. The crowds around them and below on the docks cheered and waved. The band played “Auld Lang Syne.”

  “Here you go, Rowly.” Edna handed him several rolls of yellow streamers. “Ernie will be watching.” Thousands of passengers all began hurling the colourful paper strips.

  The tugs pulled the ocean liner away from the docks, its horn drowning out the crowds and the fanfare. Rowland watched as Sydney receded. There wasn’t anything more he could do. He’d just have to hope to God that democracy would survive all these right-thinking men.

  Epilogue

  Archibald Prize

  Won By Mr. E. Buckmaster

  Portrait of Sir William Irvine

  SYDNEY, Thursday

  The Archibald Prize of £370 has again been awarded to a Victorian, Mr. Ernest Buckmaster of Melbourne, for his portrait of His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor of Victoria (Sir William Irvine).

  Mr. Buckmaster was represented by five large portraits, all of which maintain a high standard of excellence in technique and delineation of character. His winning portrait of Sir William, shown seated against a sombre background, is imbued with quiet dignity and a sense of repose.

  The Argus

  Convicted of offensive behaviour, Francis De Groot was fined £4 plus costs. The Irishman’s charge upon the Sydney Harbour Bridge opening ribbon aroused a public reaction that galvanised both the New Guard’s supporters and its detractors. De Groot would later claim he took this action only to prevent Campbell from choosing a more extreme and dangerous plan.

  ***

  Later that same month, as tensions heightened, Superintendent Bill MacKay commissioned a full police report into the activities of the Old Guard, rumoured to greatly outnumber Campbell’s movement, and to be preparing for action.

  ***

  In May, 1932, the Peace Officers Act was implemented by the Federal Government as across the State the loyal men of the Old Guard stood ready to be sworn. The Old Guard was poised for mobilisation.

  ***

  On May 6, 1932, Jock Garden was assaulted by eight men in black hoods and robes. When Garden’s sons came to his aid, the assailants fled but for one man who was cornered by the family’s Airedale terrier. The resulting investigation saw the arrest of John Dynon, who gave the police the names of the other men, all members of the New Guard’s Fascist Legion. On May 9, 1932, all eight were convicted of assault and sentenced to three months gaol. They unsuccessfully appealed the decision on the grounds that police provocateurs in their midst had incited the operation. While Eric Campbell denied any prior knowl
edge of the Fascist Legion, he maintained that many “red-blooded Guardsmen probably felt that Garden had been let off lightly with only a good hiding.”

  ***

  On May 12, 1932, Herbert Poynton confessed to Detective Constable Colin Delaney everything he knew about the New Guard, the Fascist Legion, and their activities. The information was a major blow to Eric Campbell and his movement. Poynton made no mention of Rowland Sinclair. It was never clear to police exactly what led Poynton to confess.

  ***

  Excerpt: A Decline in Prophets

  On May 13, 1932, Governor Sir Phillip Game, in what was seen as a retreat from Moscow’s influence, dismissed the Lang Government. With Lang defeated, the secret, and less secret armies fell into decline, and the right-thinking men of New South Wales returned home to their wives.

  Enjoy this excerpt from A Decline in Prophets, the next book in the Rowland Sinclair Series:

  Prologue

  Death wore a dinner suit.

  His manners were perfect. Murder made sophisticated conversation while dancing the quickstep. He was light on his feet.

  Annie Besant shuddered and closed her eyes. How clearly she saw the spreading crimson stain on the starched white dress shirt. That much was revealed… but no more. She surveyed the room. So many immaculately tailored men—all dashing, some charming, at least one was dangerous.

  An old woman now, her celebrated clairvoyance was not what it once had been. The foresight was vague, useless for anything but tormenting her with a premonition of violence. The feeling was furtive, an occasional glimpse of a deep predatory darkness that lurked amongst the gaiety and cultured frivolity of the floating palace. A cold creeping certainty that one of the elegant gentlemen who gathered to dine, intended to kill.

  Chapter One

  RMS Aquitania

  The RMS Aquitania is like an English country house. Its great rooms are perfect replicas of the fine salons and handsome apartments that one finds in the best of old English manor halls. The decorations are too restrained ever to be oppressive in their magnificence. There is no effort to create an atmosphere of feverish gaiety by means of ornate and colourful furnishings. The ship breathes an air of elegance that is very gratifying to the type of people that are her passengers.

  The Cunard Steam Ship Company Ltd.

  It was undeniably a civilised way to travel… particularly for fugitives.

  Overhead, crystal chandeliers moved almost imperceptibly with the gentle sway of the ship. If the scene over which they hung had been silent, one may have noticed the faint tinkle of the hand-cut prisms as they made contact. As it was, however, the Louis XVI Restaurant was busy, ringing with polite repartee and refined laughter as the orchestra played an unobtrusive score from the upper balcony.

  The tables in the dining room were round, laid with crisp white linen and a full array of cutlery in polished silver. Each sat twelve, the parties carefully chosen from amongst the first class passengers of the transatlantic liner. Waiters wove efficiently and subtly through the hall. Though neither as large nor as fast as the newer ships in the Cunard Line, the RMS Aquitania boasted a luxury and opulence that was unsurpassed. Her passengers cared less about arriving first than they did about doing so in the most elegant manner possible.

  Rowland Sinclair, of Woollahra, Sydney, hooked his walking stick over the back of his chair before he sat down. He dragged a hand through his dark hair, irritated with the inordinately long time it seemed to be taking his leg to heal. It had been over seven months now since Edna had shot him. Early in the mornings the limp was negligible, but after a day contending with the constant roll of the deck, the damaged muscles in his thigh ached and he relied on the stick.

  His travelling companions, who had come with him into temporary exile, were already seated.

  Rowland glanced across at Edna. She sparkled, perfectly accustomed to the many admiring eyes that were upon her. Her face was rapt in attention to the man seated beside her, the fall of her copper tresses accentuating the tilt of her head. Rowland considered the angle with an artist’s eye. The creaminess of her complexion was dramatic in contrast to the chocolate skin of the man upon whose conversation she focussed.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti had dined with them before, and with him his eminent—perhaps notorious—entourage. Rowland found the man intriguing—it was not often that one broke bread with an erstwhile messiah.

  On the other side of Edna, leaning absurdly in an attempt to enter the intimacy between her and Krishnamurti, sat the Englishman, Orville Urquhart. A consciously elegant man, he had been solicitous of their company since he first encountered Edna on board. Rowland regarded the Englishman with the distance he habitually reserved for those who vied for the attentions of the beautiful sculptress. Urquhart was broad-shouldered and athletic, but so well groomed that it seemed to counteract the masculinity of his build. His hands were manicured, his thin moustache combed and waxed, and even from across the table, his cologne was noticeable. Despite himself, Rowland shook his head.

  He turned politely as the elderly woman in the next seat addressed him. “Tell me, Mr. Sinclair, will you be staying on in New York?”

  “Not for long I’m afraid, Mrs. Besant. We shall embark for Sydney within a week of our arrival in New York.”

  “I take it the Americas do not interest you?”

  Rowland smiled. “We have been abroad for a while,” he said. “We’re ready to go home.”

  Annie Besant, World President of the Theosophical movement, nodded. “I have travelled greatly through my long life,” she said. “First, spreading the word of intellectual socialism, and then, when I found Theosophy, promoting brotherhood and the wisdom of the Ancients. It was always the greater calling… but I do understand the call home.”

  “To London?” Rowland asked, knowing that the city was where the renowned activist’s work and legend had begun.

  “No, my dear… I belong to India where mysticism has long been accepted.”

  “Indeed.”

  “I was in Sydney before the war, you know.” She looked at Rowland critically. “You would have still been in knee pants I suppose, so you wouldn’t remember. I’m afraid I was considered somewhat controversial.” She smiled faintly, a little proudly.

  “And why was that?” Rowland asked, expecting that she wanted him to do so.

  “Free thought, and those who espouse it are always the enemy of those who rely on obedience and tradition for power,” she replied.

  Rowland raised a brow.

  “I gave a lecture…‘Why I Do Not Believe in God.’”

  He nodded. “That would do it.”

  Annie Besant smiled. She liked the young Australian. Clearly, he was a man of means, old money—well, as old as money could be in the younger colonies, but his mind was open, despite a certain flippancy. His eyes were extraordinary, dark though they were blue. There was an easy boyishness to his smile and, she thought, a strength. He had often stayed talking with her when the other young people got up to dance. She put a hand on his knee—Annie Besant was eighty-five now—she could take certain liberties.

  “Tell me, how did you hurt your leg, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “Ed… Miss Higgins shot me.” He glanced toward Edna, still talking deeply with Krishnamurti.

  “A lovers’ tiff?”

  “Not quite. She wasn’t aiming at me.”

  “So fate misdirected the bullet?”

  He grinned. “Not fate—Ed. She’s a terrible shot, I’m afraid.”

  “And her intended victim?”

  “Oh, she missed them entirely.”

  “I see.” Annie placed her hand over his and gazed into his eyes. “You have an interesting aura, Mr. Sinclair. I have been clairvoyant for some years, you know, but still, you would be difficult to read, I think.” Rowland was a little relieved. He was less than enamoured with
the idea of being read.

  Annie Besant smiled again and whispered conspiratorially. “I would not be offended, Mr. Sinclair, if you were to take out that notebook of yours.”

  Rowland laughed. It was his tendency to draw whatever caught his interest…it was not always appropriate to do so and he regularly checked the impulse to extract the notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket. Whether or not she was clairvoyant, Annie Besant was perceptive.

  “I should rather like to draw you, Mrs. Besant,” he said as he opened the leather-bound artist’s journal. “Actually I’d very much like to paint you, but I’m afraid my painting equipment is in the ship’s hold.”

  “You must call me Annie. I think we are well enough acquainted now… Besant is just the name of the man who took my children.” She sighed. “Of course that was well before you were born.”

  Rowland was already drawing. He was aware that Annie’s activism had seen her lose custody and contact with her children. He was not really sure why he knew that—it was one of those snippets of information told in hushed tones that came one’s way from time to time.

  “Not that old line again, Rowly.” Milton Isaacs leant in from his seat on the other side of Annie Besant. “Not every beautiful woman can be seduced with a portrait, mate.”

  Rowland ignored him but Annie chuckled. Milton and Annie Besant got on famously. Her past as a socialist agitator and reformist made her a hero to Milton, whose politics were definitely, and at times awkwardly, Left. She in turn was intrigued by the brash young man who called himself a poet, and made no effort to hide the letters of the word ‘Red’ which disfigured his forehead. Being too old to wait upon niceties, she had asked him about it on their first introduction.

  “Are you particularly fond of the colour red, Mr. Isaacs?”