by Peter Watt
‘I would have thought that was an advantage,’ Michael commented with a grin, ‘considering who I am going after. There will be a good chance I might have to deal with some armed and angry Chinee.’
‘Ah yes, that it might be,’ the Englishman said casually. ‘But you are going to need John Wong to identify the location of the Tiger Tong stockade.’
‘Stockade!’ Michael said with a note of alarm. ‘You mean the bastards have some kind of fort?’
‘Yes, I am afraid so,’ Horace replied awkwardly. ‘It was built to keep out their fellow countrymen. At least Soo’s tong.’
‘I don’t think Mister Palmerston will object to Mister Wong going along,’ Michael commented. ‘After all, John informs me that he is half Irish, on his mother’s side.’
‘That he may be,’ Horace said with a chuckle, ‘but I’m not sure about Mister Palmerston’s feelings towards the Irish either. He might object violently to both halves of Mister Wong along on the trip.’
Michael smiled ruefully at Horace’s joke. The actual planning of the expedition had lifted his spirits. Here was a second chance for him to settle scores for a lot of dead people.
Horace produced a map which he unfolded and placed on the verandah at their feet. He had sketched the map from information he was able to glean from various experienced bushmen and after consultation with government surveyors. Regretfully it had little information apart from major landmarks as the rugged and often near impenetrable country in the far north of Queensland had not been explored. ‘This should help you work out how you will go after Captain Mort.’ He pointed with his unlit cigar at the map between them. Michael stared down with his one good eye. Distances were vague, as were actual locations. ‘From my calculations,’ Horace said, still stabbing with his cigar, ‘Mort is probably going to use this track to escort the girl to the Tiger Tong stockade on the Palmer. The track is not often used now I’ve been told, and my guess is that he will be about here . . . ’ he said, tapping the end of the cigar on the sketch at a point on one of the tracks. ‘From what I know Mort and his party are on foot.’
Michael stared at the sketch and estimated time and space calculations with the eye of a military man while Horace continued his briefing. ‘Soo Yin has volunteered some of his men if you need them. In fact, he insists you take them with you.’
Michael frowned. He had planned going after Mort on horseback. As far as he knew not many Chinese knew how to ride. If on foot, they would never catch Mort, who had a lead on them. ‘Tell Soo Yin thank you. But the four of us will do the job.’
‘Four?’
‘I’m taking Luke Tracy with me. He’s a bushman I trust.’
Horace slumped back into his chair with a sigh. ‘I think you are being over ambitious. I think you will need more than four. You don’t know the numbers you might come up against.’
The Irishman smiled at his caution and answered confidently. ‘From what I have heard of Christie Palmerston and what I know of John and Luke I think they are equal to an army of Chinese. Besides, the four of us on horseback can move further and faster than men on foot.’
Horace raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘It will be your plan that will ultimately determine how you get the girl out. But always keep her rescue in mind. Your dealings with Mort are your affair alone and I will deny any knowledge in that matter. I hope you understand.’
‘I understand,’ Michael replied grimly. ‘You get me Christie Palmerston and John Wong and I will do the rest. I promise you, on my mother’s grave, that the rescue of that Chinese girl will be my primary purpose in going down the track. What happens between Mort and myself will involve no-one else.’
‘I believe you Michael,’ the Englishman replied with a heavy sigh. ‘But be assured, I will put in place means to ensure that you stick to your primary mission.’
‘So who is it going to be? John or Mister Palmerston?’ Michael said with a cold smile. He knew the way the Horace Browns of the world worked. He was utterly ruthless, and one of the two men accompanying him would be under instructions to remove him, should he deviate from his contract. And ‘remove’ probably meant a bullet in the back of the head.
‘It could be both,’ Horace replied with an equally cold smile. ‘But you will never know unless you do not stick to the mission you have been given.’
Michael shrugged nonchalantly at the implied threat. ‘Well, if there is nothing else, then I think you and I should retire to the bar for a drink to seal the bargain.’
Michael heaved himself from the cane chair. His body ached in places he had not ached before. Although he was only thirty-two his battle wounds made him feel old.
As Horace followed Michael along the verandah his thoughts were on the Prussian baron. Although the German had been foiled in his first attempt to annex New Guinea for the Kaiser, he would certainly try again. Horace had learned that he had booked a passage to Sydney. The loss of Herr Straub in the sinking of the Osprey had been a personal blow to von Fellmann, more than just the loss of a colleague, as Horace had discovered in his discreet inquiries. He felt some sympathy for his opponent, but he also knew that they would inevitably find themselves pitted against each other in the years ahead. The little English agent hoped he would have the services of Michael Duffy in the next confrontation.
The forced march was gruelling in the oppressive heat of the day. Captain Mort pushed the Chinese pirates and his own European sailors mercilessly as they trekked south west. At their present rate he calculated that they would strike the main trail within hours.
‘We stop for a rest soon Cap’n?’ Sims said puffing as he struggled up to Mort striding at the head of the column. ‘Men all done in if’n we don’t.’
Mort slowed his pace. ‘Call a stop Mister Sims,’ he said grudgingly. ‘I’ll use the time to take a bearing.’
Sims straggled back down the column strung out through the tall rainforest. He gestured to the men to take a rest. When he came to the sweating Cochinese girl she slumped to the ground and hardly looked up at him as he passed.
Hue felt her body ache in every joint from the almost continuous twenty-four-hour forced march. She took deep breaths and gazed at the surrounding thick forest. So this was the land of the barbarians, she thought. It was lacking in character compared to her own lush forests of Cochin China.
She pulled herself to a tree, and rested with her back against the great forest giant while one of the Chinese armed with an ancient flint lock musket, squatted a few feet away, staring at her with barely concealed lust. She was not afraid of him. The cruel European barbarian with the piercing blue eyes and hair like the dried grass had quickly established his authority over the pirate captain, and the Chinese who had been fetched from Cooktown to join them.
The barbarian captain’s name was Mort. In French it meant death. An apt name, she thought. He had so casually killed one of the Chinese escort who had attempted to fondle her when they had stopped early in the morning. He had walked up to the Chinese pirate and simply run his sword through the man’s chest as smoothly as he had drawn it from its sheath. With the man dead at his feet, he had turned to Hue and, just as casually, wiped the bloody sword across her shoulders. Although she did not understand the words he had muttered, she did feel the chill in the tone of his voice.
Captain Woo had been outraged by the slaying of one of his men without his permission and had moved to intercept Mort. But the barbarian had been backed by his European sailors, who had brought their rapid-firing Winchesters to cover him, and the matter of who was in command was quickly established by force of arms.
So now Hue knew she was safe from the unwanted attentions of all the men – except perhaps for Mort. As the leader would he have her for himself? She shuddered, remembering those pale blue eyes examining her just after he had so casually killed the Chinese sailor.
Hue tried not to think about the future. The little hope she had felt since her capture, had been swept away by the blast that had ripped apart the barbarian
’s ship four days earlier. Up until then she had entertained a single ray of hope. When she had looked into the face of the big barbarian with the eye patch, she had almost felt safe.
But he was gone now, and so was any hope of her return to Cochin China and her family. All that lay ahead was a fate she knew would inevitably bring her to a French prison. What would happen before her captors handed her over to the French worried her more so.
Hue closed her mind to the future and any chance of salvation. All she could do for the moment was, with the stoic patience of her people, endure the nightmare of her captivity.
Mort slipped the small brass compass back into his pocket. Although he had lashed his column with scathing words for their tardy behaviour on the march, he was secretly pleased with their progress. All had gone to plan, from the very first moment he had formulated his scheme in the cabin of the Osprey.
He had set his ship on a course that had practically brought him into Cooktown. When he scuttled her he was able to run the lifeboat ashore with his small complement of crew and Chinese pirates. They had enough supplies to survive until one of Woo’s men was able to get a message through to Cooktown’s Chinese quarter.
Reinforcements had duly arrived, and the matter of command been settled, with the help of the Winchesters. All he had to do, was get the girl to the Tiger Tong stronghold just off the Palmer River goldfields, and there collect his ransom from the tong leader.
Mort did not fear a doublecross, as the rapid-firing rifles gave him a distinctive edge over the ancient muskets of the tong men. Once he had the ransom in his hands, it would only be a matter of returning to Cooktown, and taking a passage on a ship sailing for the Americas.
The thought of a ship brought a deep sadness to him. He had destroyed the only thing in his troubled life that had brought him close to happiness. And yet, he reflected, he had been forced to kill his own mother when she had betrayed him to her gin-sodden customers. Such was the way life was meant to be, he philosophised. One must sometimes destroy that which is loved in order to survive. His brooding thoughts caused him a melancholy that he knew could distract him from his present mission. He forced himself to concentrate, and gazed beyond the rainforest before him where he could see the vegetation thin to the drier eucalypts of the country below the Great Divide.
He turned and snarled to his mixed command to get to their feet. They did so reluctantly, although none dared show any aversion. The sword that hung at their leader’s waist was more than a symbol of his rank.
Only Captain Woo displayed any defiance. He shouted to his men that they would obey the blue-eyed barbarian only until the time they reached the Tiger Tong in the mountains of the land of gold. Then he, Captain Woo, would personally assist in slowly and agonisingly sending the barbarian to meet his ancestors. Woo was not afraid that his boast was heard by Mort and his European accomplices. He spoke in Chinese, which he knew they could not understand.
But Hue could understand and she shuddered involuntarily. She had personally witnessed the bestial cruelty of the Chinese pirates. Not even a demon deserved such a fate, she thought sympathetically. But Hue did not know Captain Morrison Mort as other young girls had in their last agonised moments of life. If she had, then she might not have wasted her sympathy.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The misshapen, dried sea creatures piled in heaps along the wooden plank counter always made John Wong shudder. Although he knew that they were delicacies highly prized by his Oriental relations, for most of his twenty years he had lived with the smell of corned beef and cabbage.
In Soo Yin’s store he felt uneasy for an unfathomable reason. Was it that the dreaded leader of the Cooktown-based tong had commanded his presence? Or was it simply his feelings of trepidation for the arduous and very dangerous mission that lay before them? Whatever it was, he was about to find out.
One of Soo Yin’s bodyguards, a thin, surly Chinese man around John’s age, beckoned him to follow him into the back room. John ducked his head as he passed through the tiny doorway built low to resist an onrush of would-be assassins, and entered a world divorced from the antiseptic scent of eucalyptus. The pungent but sweet aroma of the East wafted from burning incense sticks and opium pipes.
The bodyguard moved to a corner of the room and stared vacantly into thin air. John was not fooled by the man’s seeming indifference to his presence. He knew the man was one of the tong leader’s best killers, and could move with the speed of the deadly cobra if required to defend Soo Yin’s life.
Soo Yin reclined on a low bed in the dimly lit room, staring menacingly at the tall young Eurasian who he did not like for his mixed blood. He blamed John’s seeming arrogance on the fact that he had been denied the venerable teachings of Confucius in his youth. John did not cower in the face of the tong leader’s barely concealed hostility. To do so would be a loss of face.
A small hessian sack in the centre of the room attracted John’s curiosity. It seemed to have been placed there especially.
‘You are satisfied with the supplies,’ Soo Yin said rather than asked.
‘Yes,’ John answered in Soo Yin’s dialect. ‘I think Mister Brown will be satisfied with what you have supplied.’
‘You are now alone,’ Soo continued. ‘Brown has told me that this man of his, the Irishman, does not wish to take a contingent of the Lotus Tong with him. It will be up to you to bring the girl back to me at any cost.’ John nodded and Soo Yin’s deceptively soft voice continued. ‘The barbarians do not recognise you as one of them . . . they never will . . . so you must decide to whom you swear your loyalty.’
‘You employ me,’ John answered simply. ‘As my boss I recognise you alone.’
Soo did not acknowledge John’s reply, but gestured to the surly young bodyguard standing in the shadows. He stepped forward and picked up the small sack from the floor and with a twisted grin held it up to John. John felt the weight of the hessian bag and sensed the sticky slime of its contents. Every instinct told him what the bag contained and he fought the desire to let the bag fall from his grasp. He stared back at the tong leader and was careful to conceal any feelings of fear. ‘Dispose of that,’ Soo Yin said. ‘Now go and remember where your allegiance must always be.’
Turning on his heel, John left knowing, with a vicious triumph, that he had remained seemingly impassive to Soo Yin’s gesture.
The tong leader made a slight nod of his head to his bodyguard, who discreetly followed John from the Chinese quarter to the river. He would report back later to Soo Yin that the Eurasian had opened the bag to look inside, before hurling it into the crocodile-infested waters of the Endeavour River.
A faint smile creased the tong leader’s face. Then the Eurasian would have seen the hands, tongue, genitals and head of the coolie who had betrayed him, he thought with some satisfaction. Such a lesson was not easily forgotten. Fear would ensure that the young man did not deviate from his task, should the Irishman succeed against all the odds, and rescue the Cochinese girl. From the little that Soo Yin knew of Captain Mort’s reputation, he did not hold out much hope he would ever see the Eurasian again. But that was of no consequence as John Wong was, after all, a barbarian, as far as the Chinese tong leader was concerned.
Soo Yin sighed and beckoned to one of the beautiful doll-like girls who ministered to his every need. Head bowed, she shuffled forward from behind a silk curtain and knelt before her master, who reached out to fondle her naked flesh.
Horace’s meticulous preparations for the expedition gave Michael a chance to stand down and enjoy a night on the town. Having planned that his party would set out first thing in the morning, Michael went in search of a poker game. Win or lose at cards – it did not matter – when he knew he was faced with the daunting mission of going after the man he must kill. They would be in unfamiliar country, as hostile as the dreaded tribesmen who haunted the forests and hills west of Cooktown. Michael was in luck when he found John Wong and Luke Tracy at the Golden Nugget. But he was surprised t
o see Henry James sitting with them.
Although Henry sat at the card table, he declined to play poker as they were playing by the American rules of the game, and Henry was unfamiliar with that style. The hotel was crowded and the secretive conversation between the three men was ignored by the drunken miners, crushing the bar with shouts for drinks while arguments over the merits of the various means of taking gold from the Palmer raged around them.
‘I want in on any expedition Mister O’Flynn,’ Henry growled as he gripped his tumbler of rum. ‘Don’t let my gammy leg worry you, because I know you are going after Mort on horseback, and I can outride any man in the north.’
Michael scowled at Luke who shuffled the deck of cards ignoring his anger. ‘You can get your backer to include Henry on the payroll,’ Luke said quietly without looking up. ‘After all, you got me on your expedition to go north with von Fellmann.’
‘Different paymaster,’ Michael snapped tersely. He was not pleased that Henry James wanted to join them, even though he respected the man’s experience. He was secretly concerned that he might get him killed, and he understood from his conversations with Luke that the former trooper sergeant had a wife and son. He did not want the big Englishman’s death on his conscience.
But he also understood the importance of friendship between men. Mateship was a bond as strong as any, even as strong as that between men and women in marriage. He stared at the cards in his hand and chewed over the reasons why he should either include, or exclude, Henry James. When he glanced up at Henry, he could see a smouldering fire in his eyes, one that he recognised in himself. ‘What’s Captain Mort to you Mister James?’ he asked quietly.
