Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (49 page)

FORTY-EIGHT

T
hey came under the cover of a thunderstorm. Horses’ heads drooped and tails tucked against the driving rain while the troopers shivered as the water drenched them. Although it was only late afternoon, it felt more like early evening as the storm had drowned the sun and extinguished its light. Men and horses felt miserably exposed on the scrubby plain and the numbed thoughts of the drenched troopers were mostly on the comforts of their barracks many long miles behind them.

Soon the land would be green and alive in the Gulf Country. The lagoons would be covered in flowering waterlilies and countless water birds such as the black and white magpie geese, ducks, herons and long-beaked ibis would flock to the banks of the water holes. The tall and graceful brolgas would dance with graceful leaps. It would be a time of plenty.

But now it was the transitional period before the dry season crept once again upon the land to bake the earth and turn the water holes into places of death, even for the undisputed master of the Gulf’s waterways, the giant estuarine crocodile. The Rainbow Serpent had not yet reached His own lagoon and it could be seen in the last of the storms that rent the tropical sky electric blue and drenched the earth below with each heavy downpour of rain.

Lieutenant Wentworth Uhr’s thoughts were on the small range of hills somewhere to the south of the police patrol. As miserable as the day was, it was only one such day, typical of life in the Native Mounted Police. The long-ranging patrols had often lived with the vagaries of the weather. Tomorrow would probably be oppressively humid and the police would be plagued by the myriad of insects that rose off the lush green grass to bite and sting them. The troopers would grumble irritably and yearn for the rain to return and drive away the pests.

Behind Uhr rode Sergeant Henry James, whose thoughts were decidedly mixed. In all probability this would be the second time he would meet the infamous bushranger. He secretly hoped that Tom would not be in the hills.

Lieutenant Uhr brought the mounted column to a halt as his Aboriginal tracker, who had been sent ahead on foot to reconnoitre the hills, stood silently on the trail waiting for the patrol to catch up to him. He jogged back to Uhr and stood by the stirrup of the police officer’s mount.

‘Big-fella hill there, Mahmy,’ he said, pointing into the wall of rain to the south. ‘One man blackfella, one man whitefella, one fella gin got camp.’

‘Good man,’ Uhr said and twisted in the saddle to address his sergeant. ‘Sergeant James, we will split up here,’ he said. ‘You take two of the troopers of your choosing and I will keep the other five with me.’

Henry did not have to ask any questions of his boss. The plan had been worked out the night before at their last camp site. He turned to the column, choosing two Aboriginal troopers whom he knew well. They were men who had served with him at Rockhampton and both troopers were now the most experienced and reliable in the patrol. Uhr respected his sergeant’s choice of men. What he lacked in numbers, he made up for in years of experience with his choice.

Henry gave the order to his two troopers to move out with him and the three policemen wheeled away from the troop to ride south. The plan was for them to take up a position on the reverse side of the hills and act as a cut-off should Duffy attempt to retreat from the advance of the main body of police.

When the rain had swallowed Henry and his two troopers, Uhr contemplated the weather. The damned rain was a nuisance! But it did provide concealment to the patrol advancing on the wanted men. He had anticipated that the bushranger would never expect a police patrol to be dogging him under such atrocious conditions.

‘Dismount!’

The lieutenant’s order to the remaining troopers was welcome, as they had a need to stretch their legs that had stiffened from the long ride and soaking cold rain. Although they would not be able to find shelter, they could at least huddle by a tree while they waited for Sergeant James to get closer to the hill.

They waited an hour until Uhr gave the order to his men to prepare to advance on foot. The horses were left hobbled and the troopers gripped carbines as they followed their officer towards the rocky slopes of the hill.

The bushrangers’ camp was protected by a convenient rock overhang which gave them shelter. At the same time, it allowed for the camp fire smoke to disperse without choking them. Tom had selected the site because it was a naturally protected position with a commanding view of the sparse tree plains below. But the panoramic view only existed when it was not raining.

Mondo slapped at young Peter’s hand as he snatched greedily at the flat bread damper in the hot ashes. Peter was the elder of the two boys. He was dark like his mother but he had his father’s grey eyes. At five years of age, he was already learning the ways of the bush from Mondo and Wallarie. From his father, he had become relatively fluent in the English language. Tim, at four years of age, was lighter in colour than his older brother and it was evident that he would take after his father in appearance, except that his eyes were brown like Mondo’s. And finally there was Sarah. Just over two years old, she had the lightest colouring of the three children. She was chubby and a spoiled favourite of her father.

‘Hot!’ Mondo said to her greedy son in English, but he had already learnt the lesson. He sucked at his fingers and glared at the damper while his father laughed at his son’s discomfort.

‘That will teach you, boy,’ he said as he ruffled his elder son’s curly mop of dark hair.

Mondo smiled as she watched her man give the boy a couple of playful punches. Tom was a good man! And she was grateful that he had turned out to be a provider for his growing family. There would be a fourth child, as was evident from the swelling of her belly. To provide was all-important and a good hunter made the difference of whether a man’s sons would grow strong like their father and be able to provide for their generations of families. Although her children had at first looked strange to Mondo, she had long forgotten the physical differences with her own people. She knew that, whatever they were – white or Darambal – they would grow strong.

Little Sarah sucked her thumb with one chubby arm on her mother’s shoulders as Mondo sat by the fire baking the damper. They also had the delicious sweet jam that Tom had taken in a raid on a property and tea that Mondo had acquired a taste for. She was very content during the time the Rainbow Serpent was away from His lagoon. It was a time when Tom and Wallarie stayed close to their hills. A time when game was plentiful, which left the two men time to sit cross-legged and talk for hours in a smatter of English and Nerambura dialect around the camp fire. They were as close as brothers and Mondo knew this was good because, between the two men, they were able to use the best of their skills – black and white – to stay ahead of the troopers.

The storm rolled around them and the echoes of thunder bounced off the cliff faces of the ancient hills. The big bearded bushranger was laughing and keeping young Peter playfully at an arm’s length as he tried to grapple with his father. Tom glanced across the fire and saw his wife staring at him with the strangest of expressions. Her big dark eyes were opened wide and she had an odd look that gave her an expression of wonder and bewilderment. He could see that she was trying to tell him something, then blood erupted from her mouth as she pitched forward into the fire.

Tom snatched Peter under his arm as the child stood stunned, staring down at his mother lying face down in the camp fire. He had not heard the killing shot of the police carbine as it had been muffled by the thunder. His father’s reactions were fast. He flung the boy on the ground, knocking the air from the child’s lungs.

‘Wallarie!’
Tom screamed as he made a leap to push Sarah away from the body of her dead mother. The little girl stood with her thumb in her mouth, staring wide-eyed at the body on the fire. She could not understand why her mother’s head was in the flames. Her mother had always told her that fire was hot. Tim saw his father push Sarah away from the light of the fire and knew that something was terribly wrong. The little boy stood and bawled with fear until Wallarie scooped him up and dropped him behind a rock.

Tom spun and hurled himself across the open space to the body of his wife where he reached with a frantic effort for her ankles to drag her from the fire. But a vicious volley of shots rang out, sending spurts of wet earth to spatter his face and pluck at his boot, wrenching his ankle painfully sideways.

Illuminated by the light from the camp fire, he knew he was the perfect target for the marksman hidden in the rocks below. Tom was not even aware that he was screaming his frustration. He made a last desperate tug at Mondo’s ankles and fell back, feeling the sting of a grazing shot across his hand.

‘Leave the woman!’ Wallarie screamed as he slithered across the clearing around the fire and slammed into Tom. ‘Leave her now! She is dead!’

Tom felt Wallarie grasp his hair and shake him savagely. He realised that his friend was risking his own life by exposing himself in the clearing beside him. He cast Wallarie an imploring look but only received an answering plea in the warrior’s smoky eyes. Death had already come to Mondo. The fire could do no more to her.

A bullet exploded a spout of earth between them only inches from both men’s faces. Tom rolled away from the fire while Wallarie slid across the clearing to the protection of the rocks and the Snider rifles that were close at hand. As well as the Sniders, both men usually carried three Colts each. But now they were some feet away, wrapped in blankets to keep them dry.

The crash of rifles echoed in the hills and the whine of ricocheting bullets left shattered fragments of rock showering down on the two men and the three children, who could smell the pungent aroma of burning flesh as the red-hot coals of the fire cooked away Mondo’s face.

Peter watched horrified from behind the protection of the rocks as his mother’s upper body began to sizzle. He wanted to scream at her to get out of the fire because it was hot. But no words came to him and instead, he shut his eyes as tightly as possible to make the sight of his dead mother’s body go away. He could hear his father screaming at him to stay behind the rocks and keep Sarah and Tim safe. And he could feel Sarah and Tim clinging to him like the koala or possum young clung to their mothers.

On the slope in cover of the rocks, Lieutenant Uhr roared angrily at the trooper who had fired the shot that killed Mondo. ‘You bloody stupid man. I said no shooting unless fired on.’

The trooper grinned sheepishly back at his boss. ‘Me tink Duffy see me, boss. Me shoot. But miss Duffy. Gettim his gin,’ came the reply from the trooper and Uhr cursed him to hell. He had hoped to use the storm and the gathering night to get closer and take both Duffy and the Aboriginal by surprise . . . and alive. Now the patrol was committed to a pitched battle in the rocks and the police officer did not underestimate his opponents. They had not stayed ahead of the best of the Native Police for so long without reason.

The two shots that came from the hill were uncomfortably close to Uhr and the trooper whom he’d chastised for firing without orders. The well-aimed shots told him that the men on the hill had not panicked. They were carefully selecting their targets. It was going to be a long night.

Tom flipped open the breech of the Snider and slipped a cartridge into the chamber of the rifle. He closed the breech and pulled back the hammer. The weapon had the advantage of range to keep the police at bay while Wallarie crawled across the space to where the revolvers were wrapped in a blanket and then crawled back with them to Tom. Now they had the means to deliver a rapid fire on any foolishly attempted rush by the police troopers. Neither bushranger had any intention of being taken alive.

The Irishman glanced across at the rocks a few feet away where his children were huddled. He hissed at Peter to make sure that he kept his brother and sister with him, safe between two rocks, while he and Wallarie lay on their bellies with their rifles tucked into their shoulders.

When they had fired, they would crawl away to take up a new position and their shots were always answered with a volley from down the slope. Some of the stray police rounds plucked at Mondo’s smouldering body and the impact of the heavy rounds caused her to jerk as if she were still alive.

Peter saw the body twitch with each impacting round and wondered why his mother refused to get up and get out of the fire. Her death was a concept the young boy could not come to grips with, even though he knew of death. He had helped his father and Wallarie hunt and he had hunted for lizards and small game by himself. But the idea that his mother could be dead was beyond the boy’s thinking.

During a lull in the shooting, Uhr had called on the bushrangers to surrender in the Queen’s name. He received a chip of shattered rock in his face for his effort. He realised that by speaking he had identified his position to the men above him and Tom’s next round almost found its mark. He crouched as the bullet whined away into the night and guessed that surrender was out of the question for the bushranger. Wisely, he did not attempt to call on him again.

Slowly – and very cautiously – the police troopers advanced up the hill in a leapfrogging manoeuvre as they gave each other covering fire while dodging from position to position behind the cover of the rocky slope. Each stop was just a little closer to the summit where Tom and Wallarie held them at bay.

Tom knew it was only a matter of time before the troopers would be in a position to either rush them or pin them down, without any hope of escape. So far all the firing had come from their front. He suspected there might be another party of police quietly flanking their position while they were engaged by the troopers who fired on them from below. It was the thought of the flanking tactic that worried Tom most. If it was successful, then they would be surely trapped, cut off from escape on the other side of the hill.

‘Wallarie,’ he called softly to his friend a few feet away, ‘I want you to take the children and head down the hill behind us while I will lay on as much fire as I can and you make the break for the plains. I will keep the traps occupied here.’ Tom had spoken in the Nerambura dialect in case there were troopers within hearing.