Eagle on the Hill

by JH Fletcher

Trembling, almost incoherent with rage, Charlie grabbed his arm. ‘I’ve a mind to kick your teeth in,’ he said.

  And suddenly the bruiser with the marked face was there, his hands curled into fists, his eyes watching Charlie with the keen interest of a terrier eyeing a rat.

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ Grenville said. ‘Unless you believe you can take on Smart here, and win.’

  Charlie looked at him; the man waited, grinning to reveal broken teeth. With his track record Charlie thought he could deal with the bruiser, if he had to. But that might bring the police into it, and in a dispute with a man as rich as Grenville there was no doubt whose side the police would be on. ‘I’ll see you again,’ he said. ‘And when I do —’

  ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Threatening physical violence against a law-abiding citizen is a criminal offence. And I have a witness, don’t forget.’

  To walk away was the hardest thing Charlie had ever done, but he managed it. He turned on his heel and went away down the slope.

  Behind him George Grenville laughed genially.

  Charlie had no idea what he was going to do now, knew only that it would be something to do with the river.

  He worked in a sawmill, then for three months in a snagging camp, helping to clear some of the thousands of trunks and branches that lay beneath the river’s surface, making navigation dangerous.

  A steel tripod was set up in the bow of a paddle steamer and fitted with a heavy pulley. From the pulley a steel cable ran to a capstan rigged to the paddle mechanism. One by one the sunken tree trunks were secured by a chain grapple, the chain attached to the cable and the capstan activated by the steamer’s engine. One by one the waterlogged trunks rose into the light. One by one they were ferried ashore and dumped along the bank. Then it was back to repeat the process with the next stump. There was no shortage of them; there was work here for years to come, but it was slow and arduous and the pay wouldn’t have kept a maggot for long. Within three months Charlie had moved on.

  He found a temporary job on a paddle steamer. A deckhand had fractured his wrist and wouldn’t be able to work for a month or two. The skipper took Charlie on in his place.

  Unlike George Grenville, the master of the Adelaide made it clear that it was a temporary job; when his regular hand had recovered, Charlie would be back where he’d started.

  Charlie didn’t mind. He had always wanted to follow the river and see something of the world beyond the dust-dry miles of emptiness that were all he’d known until now. He did more; he made use of his time to learn the secrets of this marvellous new world: how to use the rippled surface of the river to detect underwater snags, how to winch a vessel around the river’s tight bends and to negotiate the rock-strewn rapids.

  The Darling was in flood. Adelaide made her way upriver as far as Wilcannia, took on a load of wool and came back to the Murray, where the recovered hand was waiting on schedule.

  Charlie stood on the bank and watched as Adelaide put out into the current. The sun was setting, and Charlie stood transfixed as the riverboat disappeared into a blaze of golden light. He knew he had found what he wanted to do with his life. He needed money and an opportunity, but never doubted he’d lay his hands on both.

  The country along the river was alive with rabbits. They’d been introduced from England back in the 1850s to provide an additional source of food and perhaps sport, but lacking natural enemies, had quickly become a pest. Now their numbers were so great that they threatened to wipe out the wheat harvest altogether.

  So there was a lot of money to be made as a rabbit catcher. Farmers were offering a penny a scalp and on his first day Charlie netted five thousand.

  He sent for his brothers to join him. Henry, two years his junior, was rolling logs at the sawmill on Gunderoo Station; Will, the youngest, had followed Charlie’s example and was a drover. Both were getting by, but the rabbits offered a chance of real money. They came running.

  The three brothers laid their traps along the river and around billabongs, in the pastures and banks where the rabbits had dug their burrows, across wheat paddocks heaving with the creatures. Their nights were punctuated with the crying of the trapped animals. In three months they killed one hundred and twenty thousand of them.

  ‘Five hundred quid!’ marvelled Henry. ‘Never thought I’d see such money in me life!’ It was a fortune; riverboats changed hands for less.

  And it was a riverboat that Charlie wanted. He even knew which one.

  The paddle steamer Brenda lay marooned on the Darling, some miles from its junction with the Murray. Charlie had spotted the steamer by chance. He’d kept an eye on her ever since, because although Brenda carried a full load of wool, she wasn’t going anywhere. Brenda had broken down.

  ‘With a name like that, she’s gotta be ours!’

  It had to be an omen. Charlie was proud of his ancestry; not everyone could claim a grandmother who’d been transported for harlotry. Her trade name had been Brenda Bodice.

  From the bank Charlie observed how every morning the captain came stamping out of his cabin, his red rage almost hot enough to set the river on fire, because the engineer couldn’t sort out how to fix the engine. The fly-laden air reverberated constantly with the crash and clang of spanners on metal, but to no avail. Every so often the engineer emerged with grease-stained hands and one or other piece of metal that he raised in supplication before the skipper’s furious eyes, but nothing made any difference.

  Brenda was stuck. Another month and river levels would begin falling. The Darling would empty like water pouring out of a bucket, and Brenda would be going nowhere until the next heavy rains, which were still months away.

  Charlie rode off and the next day returned with his brothers. Brenda was stuck as securely as ever.

  ‘Reckon we could operate her?’ he asked Henry. They were both familiar with the steam engines in the sawmills where they’d worked.

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  Of course it depended on what was wrong with the engine. If they could fix it they’d be jake. If they couldn’t …

  There were always a few million more rabbits, if things went crook on them.

  They rode down the bank and hailed the marooned vessel. The master’s greeting matched his furious face.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’

  ‘I thought maybe we could help you,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Got a new engine in your saddlebag, have you?’

  ‘Not quite. But I’ve a suggestion to put to you.’

  The skipper rested beefy arms on Brenda’s rail.

  ‘If you told me to sink the bastard I’d probably agree with you.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea than that.’

  ‘And you’re an expert on paddle steamers, I suppose.’

  ‘Not an expert, but I know something. I was a deckhand on Adelaide when Dancy Crook was laid up.’

  ‘That right?’ For the first time the other man showed a flicker of interest. ‘So what’s this smart idea of yours?’

  ‘Let me come aboard, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Help yourself.’ A sour laugh. ‘We’re not goin’ anywhere.’

  The boys crowded up the gangplank and onto the deck. They looked about them. For two of them it was an unfamiliar world, a confusion of winches and lines that seemed to go nowhere, but to Charlie it was like coming home.

  Careful to keep his thoughts out of his face, he followed the skipper into the saloon. The portholes were closed against flies and the air was frowsty. A small table, its legs screwed to the deck, was covered in dirty tin plates and mugs. Along one side of the cabin was an unmade bunk.

  As scruffy as hell, but the timbers looked sound, which was what mattered.

  The captain sat on the bunk and frowned suspiciously at Charlie.

  ‘So talk.’

  Charlie told him.

  ‘Out of the question. Ridiculous!’

  But he was listening, all the same.

  Charlie told him a
gain. ‘Another month, maybe less, you’ll be stuck here till halfway through next year.’

  ‘Tell me somethin’ I don’t know!’

  ‘Sell her to me and it won’ be your problem.’

  ‘What makes you think you can do any better than my bloke?’

  ‘Maybe I can’t. Why should you care?’

  The red-faced man was wary of being outsmarted by this young feller who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, but he was beginning to waver.

  ‘Cash,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t be interested in no bank drafts.’

  ‘Of course cash,’ Charlie agreed. In the other man’s place he’d have wanted the same; too many banks had failed in recent years.

  The man named a price, casually, while his eyes studied the trees beyond the porthole.

  Charlie laughed. ‘We’re talking Brenda, mate, not Cutty Sark.’ And he made a counter offer of the amount he had decided upon the previous day. ‘There’s one near Murray Mouth goin’ for that.’

  ‘Reckon you’d better buy ’er, then,’ the skipper said. ‘Sounds like a bargain.’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ Charlie said. He squinted through the porthole at the sunlight. ‘Things to do,’ he said. ‘Better get ashore.’

  And went, his brothers following him. The next day he was back. He had marked the water level the previous day and reckoned it had dropped half an inch overnight. When the Darling had a mind to fall, it could drop like a stone.

  ‘You back?’ the skipper said.

  ‘Reckon she’s beginnin’ to drop.’

  It took another day to convince him. In different circumstances it might have been a week, or maybe the red-faced owner would not have sold at all. But time was not on his side, his engineer had no more idea than a kangaroo what was wrong and he wanted to cut his losses.

  They agreed a price fifty pounds more than Charlie had wanted, which might prove a catastrophe or a good deal, depending on what was wrong with the engine. And provided they could fix it before the Darling became unnavigable.

  ‘I wish you joy of it,’ the skipper said, jovial now with his money in his pocket.

  ‘Reckon we’ll manage,’ Charlie told him, and got to work as soon as the man’s boots were off the deck. His deck. It was a good feeling.

  Working side by side in the cramped compartment, Charlie and Henry stripped down the engine and found …

  ‘That’s what it is!’ Charlie exclaimed.

  One broken piece, not six inches long.

  ‘But how do we fix it?’ Henry asked.

  Charlie examined it. It had sheared right across.

  ‘We’ll have to get a workshop to make us a new part.’

  ‘That means goin’ to Adelaide,’ Henry protested.

  ‘Know anywhere nearer?’

  ‘We’ll never manage it in time.’

  ‘We certainly won’t if we sit around jawin’ about it.’

  And Charlie took off, riding as fast as he dared through the bush. Soon the river was gone. Once again the tawny scrub stretched ahead of him as he headed southwest to the distant city and what he hoped would be the solution to their problems.

  CHAPTER 12

  It was a long haul from the Darling to the city of churches. Charlie had had his fill of sleeping under the stars by the time he got there, and both he and his horse were exhausted.

  He soon found a workshop, where the owner inspected the broken piece and told him he could have a replacement in a couple of days.

  ‘No earlier?’

  An affronted glare. ‘Look, mate —’

  ‘Two days will be fine.’

  Charlie found a cheap lodging house and stabled his horse in a shed at the back. He gave it a good rub down, made sure it had plenty of hay and water, and left it to recover from the journey. He found a hash house just across the road from the up-market new Southern Cross Hotel, swallowed a bowl of stew and headed back to the lodging house, where he snored his socks off until first light. He staggered out of bed, washed his face and chest under the pump, went to check on his horse — and found it gone.

  He went thundering in to see the lodging-house keeper.

  ‘Where’s my horse?’

  The man didn’t know; worse, didn’t care.

  ‘You gotta look after yourself in this town.’

  After your horse too, it seemed. Charlie looked everywhere, but this was the city of horses as well as churches, and he had no chance.

  He tried to hire a horse but the livery stable didn’t want to know his problems.

  ‘Take it up the Darling? You outta your mind?’

  You could see the owner’s point of view; how would he get his horse back?

  ‘I got a hack I’ll sell you.’

  Charlie gave it the once-over, but it was a bag of bones with a price tag suited to a cup winner.

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Charlie checked around, but there was nothing available at anything approaching a reasonable price. That night he had nightmares of a mud-bound river and a paddle steamer stuck for six months or longer in the middle of nowhere.

  The next day he went back to the workshop to check out the new part that was waiting for him. They’d done a good job but it set him back three times what he’d expected. It was more than twenty years since gold had first been discovered but Adelaide prices were as high as ever. By the time Charlie had paid the workshop owner he didn’t have enough to buy the hind leg of a mule.

  He revisited the hash house while he tried to think what to do. It was evening, and across the street the lights of the Southern Cross Hotel cast rectangles of golden light in the dust.

  A man rode up to the hotel entrance on what looked like a thoroughbred. Charlie watched him casually, then his interest sharpened as the rider, leaving his mount in the care of a hotel groom, climbed the stone steps and entered the building between gaslights that flared on either side of the main door.

  ‘George bloody Grenville …’

  He hadn’t forgiven the vineyard owner for his shabby treatment. He reckoned Grenville owed him; now he might have a chance to settle accounts. He finished his meal. By the time he’d paid for it he had barely tuppence to his name.

  Only one course of action remained.

  He strolled casually past the façade of the hotel. Beyond the entrance were the windows of the dining room. Charlie took a cautious look and saw George Grenville eating at a corner table, seemingly settled for the evening.

  Next door to the hash house was an ironmonger’s shop. Charlie went in and bought a box of matches for a penny. Out in the street again, he walked around the side of the hotel.

  Away from the gaslight, the night was dark. He struck a match and in its feeble glimmer discovered a cobblestoned alley running off the street. He could smell horseflesh and hear animals shifting in the darkness, the gusty sigh of horses at peace. There was no-one about. Three or four matches later he found the stables.

  There were several horses looking at him from their stalls. He passed them silently. None of these was the one he sought. He came to the last stall and there it was. George Grenville’s black gelding with its familiar white markings.

  Charlie did not hesitate; he had to get upriver or they’d be bankrupt before they started. And besides, George owed him.

  He reached out his hand to the gelding. Its soft nose explored his palm. Heart pounding, he slipped the bolt on the stable door and stepped inside. The gelding shifted uneasily but Charlie calmed it, murmuring softly, and it grew still.

  A bridle was hanging from a hook on the wall. He slipped it over the animal’s head and cinched it tight. Next the saddle, from the wooden stand at the rear of the stable.

  When all was ready he eased open the door and looked up and down the alleyway. No sign of the groom. He led the horse out into the night. Its hooves sounded on the cobblestones.

  Once on the road, he mounted. He was committed now. He walked the gelding for a hundred yards, then broke into a trot.<
br />
  He’d decided he would use Grenville’s horse to get home and then return it to Eagle on the Hill. It was not theft, he told himself, but a loan. Without permission, admittedly, but still a loan. He knew very well that no-one would believe him; he doubted he would have believed it himself. He didn’t know what the penalty was for stealing a horse, but it was too late to worry about that now.

  He rode rapidly out of the city and headed northeast.

  It was growing dark the next day when he arrived at the customs post on the New South Wales border. He’d hoped the guard would let him through without even coming out of his hut, but that was not how things worked out.

  There were in fact two guards, both with lanterns.

  ‘Where you from?’

  ‘Adelaide.’

  ‘Heading?’

  ‘Up the Murray.’

  ‘Long ride.’

  The taller of the two men walked around the horse, inspecting it closely.

  ‘This horse yours?’

  ‘I borrowed it.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘A friend.’

  ‘Nice friends you got, lending you a horse as good as this.’

  Charlie, increasingly nervous, attempted a joke. ‘I’m a nice bloke.’

  ‘You must be.’

  Neither man smiled. The taller guard turned to his companion. ‘What you reckon?’

  ‘This is the one, all right.’

  Charlie was wondering what his chances would be if he took off and rode for his life when the tall guard put his hand on the bridle.

  ‘Want to hop off a minute?’

  Both men were armed. Try and make a break with one of them dragging on the bridle and he’d likely get a bullet in his back. His sense of doom growing stronger by the minute, he slipped his feet out of the stirrups and dismounted.

  The second guard examined the saddle flap.

  ‘Take a look at this.’

  The two men inspected what they’d found, then turned to face him.

  ‘G.G. Your initials, are they?’

  ‘I told you, I borrowed the horse.’

  ‘That right?’ said the first guard.

  ‘Looks like you got problems,’ said the second guard.