War Clouds Gather

by Peter Watt

  Matthew struck north just as the sun was beginning to show itself on the horizon. He knew deep down that his quest was futile but he also knew that he must try to salve his conscience. He could not simply stand by and do nothing, not with the memory of losing Joanne so vivid in his mind. He would attempt the impossible and find Diane – either dead or alive.

  *

  Diane was surprised that she had dozed off and was aware that a streak of light penetrated her confined space between rocks. She lay on her back listening to the early morning sounds. She could hear no sound of humans. With any luck her would-be executioners would have given up by now. She was about to crawl out and stretch her body, stiff from the cramped conditions of the last few hours, when she thought she heard a man cough. She froze and strained to listen. She could now hear the voices of men grumbling only a short distance away, as if they, too, had just come awake.

  Very carefully, Diane peered out of her hiding place to see the heads of the men just a few yards away down the slope from her. They must have decided to camp there, waiting for the sun to rise. To her horror, one of the men ambled over towards her to relieve his bladder. He stood only ten paces from Diane’s hide with an expression of satisfaction on his face as the stream of urine splashed on the rocks. As he did he glanced over at where she was attempting to conceal herself. Diane knew immediately that he had spotted her as his face lit up in utter surprise. Within seconds of him shouting to his comrades the rest of the pursuers were dragging her out and hollering with joy.

  Diane knew that there was nothing else she could do but face her death with as much courage as she could muster.

  25

  Sarah Macintosh stood by the library window of her home, looking out over the beautifully manicured gardens. She held back the long curtain and gazed down on her father sitting on one of the stone benches set against a cascading series of flower gardens.

  ‘The old man has been like that all morning,’ her brother said behind her. ‘What’s going on?’

  Sarah turned from the window. ‘You should know,’ she snapped. ‘I heard you opposed Father over the issue of selling Glen View to that horrid Duffy man.’

  ‘Sarah, you’ve never visited Glen View,’ Donald replied with a sigh. ‘Nor have you met Mr Duffy, so why should you have any interest in what happens to the property?’

  ‘It’s important that we be loyal to Father on this,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why he should wish to keep hold of the property but I respect his choice to do so.’

  ‘I happen to disagree with him. I think it’s time Glen View was transferred to the man whose native ancestors lived there.’

  ‘You what!’ Sarah said in a stunned tone. ‘You think that because this Tom Duffy is part black he has a right to Glen View? I cannot believe that you would side with any member of the Duffy family.’

  ‘What is wrong with the Duffys?’ Donald asked, his anger rising.

  ‘Don’t you remember all the stories Father has told us of the trouble they have brought to this family over the years?’ she said. ‘They are Irish papists.’

  ‘You may not have heard it from Father but when I was at Glen View Hector told me that our ancestor – a man called Michael Duffy who was an Irish Catholic, and our grandfather – was illegitimate but fostered by Lady Enid Macintosh, so that means we have Irish blood.’

  ‘Stop it, Donald,’ Sarah flared. ‘Those stories are lies. It is no wonder Father wants to fire Hector MacManus. I have never heard of Michael Duffy as a member of this family.’

  ‘Well, technically he wasn’t,’ Donald continued. ‘But his son, Patrick, was born to great-grandmother Fiona Macintosh, despite her marrying a man called Granville White.’

  ‘I do not wish to hear these terrible lies,’ Sarah said, her face reddening. She placed her hands over her ears and glared at her brother. ‘You hate Father and make up these stories to hurt him.’

  Donald shook his head sadly; he had seen the written evidence in the records of Glen View and it had opened his eyes to many things. The family had dark secrets; his father had tried to expunge any version of the family tree that did not comply with his place in polite society. When Donald looked closely at his sister he could see many aspects of their father in her and he felt sorry for her. She lived in a closeted world of privilege and rigid principles. ‘I do not hate Father,’ Donald replied. ‘But I am not him, and I have my own views.’

  ‘Father should have left you to rot up in Queensland,’ Sarah said hatefully, and the venom in her rebuke stunned Donald.

  ‘I think it’s time I moved out,’ Donald said quietly.

  ‘Where will you go – to Mother?’ Sarah said angrily. ‘The woman who betrayed us for a crippled lawyer who is not half the man Father is?’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ Donald replied. ‘At least until I get my own digs.’

  ‘Good,’ Sarah said coldly. ‘Father and I do not need you here.’

  Sarah turned on her heel and walked from the room, leaving Donald to stare down at his father sitting alone in the sun. There was something definitely wrong with Sir George. Donald had been home for over a month and was puzzled by his father’s seeming lack of rationality. Donald wondered if he should go down and speak with his father but decided against it. It was time to pack up his belongings. In the morning he would call for a cab and move out to his mother’s apartment.

  *

  Sir George Macintosh stared at the sparkling blue waters of the harbour. Soon winter would come and the water would change to a green-grey under the cool sun and blustery winds of the season. The disease was slowly taking hold of him and he was frightened. He found it hard to sleep; an old Aboriginal warrior would come to visit in the dark hours and taunt him with the curse of his ancestor, Sir Donald Macintosh.

  Even as he sat staring at the harbour voices began in his head telling him that his own son was plotting to kill him and take the family enterprises for his own. George smiled. No one – no son or Duffy – would ever take the family business away from him. Even if it meant killing his own flesh and blood. Oh, if only Jack Firth were still around. Jack would have been able to dispose of the treacherous son who had been born of a viper. But George had experienced the thrill of killing that worthless girl during the last year of the war. How good it had felt to watch the life go from her eyes when he had administered the deadly dose of heroin. He knew now that it was his holy mission to kill his son for the sake of the Macintosh name. George swore that he would choose the time and place to carry out this sacred task. Thankfully, his wife, Louise was back in the house and when he was ready he would go to her and bed her and they would bear more children. Louise would resist but that had not stopped him in the past.

  ‘Father,’ a voice called, and George knew it was Louise, his estranged wife. ‘You should come in and have a cup of tea.’

  George slowly rose from the stone bench and walked towards the house. Louise was standing in the doorway, shading her eyes against the glare of the sun. How remarkable it was that she had not aged a year since he’d first met her. She was still young enough to have many more children, and this time she would get it right and bear a truly worthy son to inherit the Macintosh empire.

  *

  The café in Jerusalem was a favourite place for Zelda, the dark-eyed beauty and daughter of Micah. It was crowded with students from her school while outside the dangerous streets of the city seemed a world away. She was sixteen and boys were a great interest to her. James was both a little smitten and confused in her company. She was a Jew and his grandfather had so often told him that the Jews were the true evil in the world. So why was it that this young and beautiful woman opposite him at the rickety table in the café sipping coffee was so attractive? Not only physically desirable; but also intelligent and fun loving. In fact, she was like no other girl he had met back at college. Her English was not perfect, but it was obvious her intellect was far beyond that of his own and she was studying to enter medical studies with the aspiration of
one day qualifying as a doctor. Zelda could jump from one subject to another with ease, and when the dark eyes stared into his own he found himself lost in a world far beyond that he had known in the leafy suburbs of New Hampshire.

  ‘You are . . . how you say it . . . far away, James,’ she said.

  ‘I was wondering where my father is right now,’ he replied. ‘He just seems to have disappeared.’

  ‘He is with my cousin, Ben,’ Zelda said. ‘I think they are on a mission.’

  ‘Mission?’ James queried. ‘What mission?’

  Zelda glanced away and greeted a school friend who had entered the café. James suspected that she was avoiding the question he had asked.

  ‘Please, tell me if you know something,’ he said, leaning forward across the table and almost taking her hand.

  ‘I hear . . . heard my father talking to Ben,’ Zelda replied, dropping to an almost whisper. ‘It is dangerous. We don’t talk such things here. The British look for Ben – and he go to prison when . . . if they catch him. Maybe hang him.’

  James frowned. All his father had told him was that he had to go and meet with some business friends, and would leave him with Saul and his cousin while he was gone. For a moment the coffee tasted like acid in his stomach. James had come so far to meet and punish his father for his years of neglecting him, but had come to understand him as a loving father.

  ‘Do you know where my father has gone?’ James asked and Zelda shook her head.

  James remained with Zelda for the rest of the day as they toured the areas she deemed safe under British military guard, although they were stopped on the streets by British army patrols, and forced to identify themselves to the soldiers, attempting to quell the daily violence in the city between Jew and Arab. Once or twice James heard gun fire in the distance and Zelda would look around fearfully. Once he took her hand to reassure her and she had not let it go as they made their way back to her father’s residence in the Jewish quarter. Only outside the door did she let go of James’s hand and flash him a warm smile.

  James was made to feel as if he was a member of the family, and was still confused by this treatment he was getting from the people his grandfather had told him were scheming to take over the world for the Zionist cause. All he had seen to date was a small group of people in an Arab sea, attempting to hold on to the only place they could call home. And then there was Zelda who seemed to delight in teasing him for his American ways. His journey of self-discovery had taken him beyond the search for his father. He was being challenged about everything he had come to learn in New Hampshire from his waspish grandfather.

  The following morning when James awoke he suddenly experienced a feeling of danger as he lay staring at the ceiling, and listening to the sounds of the house coming alive for the day. He instinctively knew that his father was in a perilous situation – and there was nothing he could do about it.

  *

  Diane found herself down on the ground as the men formed a circle around her, pointing their rifles at her. Mohammad smiled behind his beard.

  ‘So, we find you and the Germans will pay well for us to dispose of a traitor,’ he said. ‘But first, we have fun before we kill you.’ The Arab leader turned to the youngest of his men, a boy of around sixteen years, and said something. The boy broke into a smile and commenced loosening his belt.

  Diane watched from the ground in horror. The screwdriver was in her belt at her back and she slowly reached around to grip the handle. The boy knelt down and grabbed the bottom of her trousers to yank them off, and it was then that Diane struck with all the speed and strength she could muster, driving the point of the large screwdriver into the boy’s stomach.

  He jerked up, screaming, and immediately Diane felt the crash of a rifle butt to the side of her face. She saw a spray of red haze, before falling back to the sandy ground.

  ‘You will pay for this,’ Mohammad hissed in her ear. ‘The boy is the son of the village head and you have caused him a severe wound. I will not kill you now but we will take you back to the village so that your execution can be carried out under shari’a law before all the people to witness – that is after the men of the village have had their way with you first.’

  The boy was whimpering as the screwdriver was withdrawn from his stomach and a cloth placed over the bleeding. He stared with eyes of hate at Diane and was refrained from shooting her on the spot with a promise that he would throw the first stone when she was buried up to her neck in the village square.

  Yanked to her feet, Diane was forced to retrace the path she had taken in her attempt to escape. For the rest of the morning she stumbled ever closer to her degradation, torture and death. If only the death could come first, she prayed. The situation was hopeless and she knew it.

  *

  Matthew Duffy gazed at the desolate panorama of sand, rocks and hills. He had been lucky to find the slight trace of a man’s footprints. When he cast about he found more and finally ascertained the prints belonged to at least four men. He had already guessed they were trekking west into the arid lands beyond the horizon, and the fortunate finding of the tracks gave him hope that they may belong to a party searching for Diane.

  A couple of hundred yards out he swore he could see the figure of an Aboriginal warrior pointing with a spear to the west. ‘Wallarie!’ he said softly, remembering how the old warrior had always been like a guardian angel in his life. But when he came closer to the figure standing on the crest he was disappointed to see he was actually looking at a solitary stunted tree growing in a rock crevice.

  Then Matthew froze. He could see five figures moving towards him and he immediately went to ground, snatching for the binoculars Ben had given him. He focused on the group and gasped. He could see Diane, half stumbling half walking between the men escorting her. They were not dressed as Arabs but an instinct told Matthew that was a deception. Their firearms were German and they had the bushy beards of devout Moslems.

  Matthew calculated that they were about five hundred yards away and on their present course they would come very close to him. He unslung his rifle and waited, desperately formulating a plan. Four armed men was too large a number for him to take on, and even if he killed one or two the others might automatically execute Diane. Matthew knew his accuracy with a rifle was second to none, but the problem remained of how to separate Diane from her captors before they could kill her.

  From the map he guessed from the route they were following that they were connected to the Arab village only about five hours’ walk from where they were now, which meant they would arrive at their destination well before last light. Under the cover of darkness he might have had a chance to extract Diane from her captors, but clearly that was not going to be an option. The party was growing closer and all that separated him from Diane was four armed men and a slight gully. He had to make a decision. The only thing he could think of was to get in as close as he possible and spring an ambush.

  He slithered away from the crest and ran down the gully behind him. He searched about for a place to conceal himself, and found a low depression behind a crumbling ledge jutting from the side of the slope.

  He could hear the voices of the men as they drew closer and every nerve in his body was strung out to breaking point. He wrapped his hands around his rifle and realised that he was both sweating and trembling. Then the men and Diane came into view a mere twenty yards away. He could see the bruising to Diane’s face. It was a desperate gamble but he had no other options. Matthew acted – despite the odds of his plan being successful. A quick death would be better for Diane than the fate Matthew guessed awaited her at the village.

  *

  Sarah Macintosh sat at her father’s desk in his library, perusing the business papers he had left for her. The complexities of the company structures fascinated the young woman and she soon found herself absorbed in her reading. Engrossed, she barely heard the gentle knock on the library door.

  ‘Yes,’ she called.

  The do
or opened and the old valet came in, clutching a small dilapidated wooden box in his arms. ‘Miss Macintosh, I found this when I was going through the family papers,’ he said, placing the box on the desk in front of Sarah. ‘It seems to have been put away for many years and I was not sure if you wished to go through it before it is disposed of, according to Sir George’s instructions.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sarah said. ‘I will see if there is anything we should keep.’

  The valet retreated, leaving Sarah with the musty-smelling box. She looked inside, and among the age-stained papers found a large leather diary embossed with the name of Lady Enid Macintosh. Intrigued, Sarah took out the diary and wiped it down. She guessed it must be almost seventy years since the diary had been used by her ancestor and flipped open the book to see that the entries were dated to the 1860s. The writing was a strong copperplate style and Sarah was hardly aware of the time that passed in the library as she read the story of the long-dead Lady Enid Macintosh.

  As she read the secret thoughts of the colourful and strong woman, Sarah paled. It was Enid’s story of an Irish rogue by the name of Michael Duffy that turned Sarah’s world upside down. She gasped when she read of his intimate involvement in their staunchly Protestant blood line. Everything her brother had told her was true and this was a bitter thing to learn. She was tainted with Irish papist blood! This was more terrible in her upper class world than she felt she could dare face. Before she closed the diary she decided that some things from the past should remain in the past.

  26

  Matthew could see that the men with Diane had stopped to examine one of their party. He looked very young, little more than a boy, and his front was covered in a large blood stain; he was clearly in a lot of pain. Diane stood a few paces away, a man guarding her. Matthew carefully lined up in his rifle sights. He squeezed the trigger and a split second later the man fell back, a bullet hitting him just below his throat.