Flight of the Eagle (15 page)

Gordon's short speech on the drinking and whoring reputation of his white troopers, and the comparison of size of the very short Italian sergeant – who had once fought against Garibaldi – with the giant Kalkadoon warriors, brought a snicker of laughter from the troopers standing at ease.
Maybe the new boss might be all right.

Gordon let the snicker of laughter go unchecked. He knew he had to give a little to get a lot from them in two short weeks, and he also knew instinctively that he was winning them over, as he had the squatters and townspeople earlier that afternoon. Sure, the Kalkadoon might have them frightened. But as far as he was concerned the tribesmen were Utile different to any others he had dispersed in the past. ‘The lesson I hope you have just learned from my question concerning Sergeant Rossi's whereabouts is obvious to you. If it's not then I will tell you. When you are tracking myalls beware of letting the sun blind you in the late afternoon. Keep your eyes always away from the setting sun or else the thing you thought was a black tree trunk might suddenly move and spear you. Sar'nt Rossi!’

‘Sah!’

The barracks sergeant hovering nearby came stiffly to attention and snapped a smart salute.

‘Your parade, Sergeant.’

‘Sah!’

‘Give the men drill until the sun is below the horizon, Sergeant,’ Gordon said softly to the little Italian with the huge moustache that curled with wax at its ends. ‘Then make sure their carbines are cleaned and ready for inspection before they retire tonight. I will inspect them at nine o'clock sharp.’

‘Sah!’ The ends of the moustache bristled with efficiency as he stepped back and saluted Gordon, who returned the salute with the lazy affectation of officers.

‘Paaraade. Aaaa … ten … shon!’

As Gordon walked away from the troopers to return to the office that had once been Sub Inspector Potter's he felt the wave of satisfaction that comes after a good drill session. Yes, he had learned well from his father how to handle men. Ah, but that he could do the same with Sarah Duffy! As Gordon walked away Trooper Peter Duffy watched him and wondered at how things would be between them now.

After the evening meal Peter marched over to the office occupied by Gordon. He knocked at the rough-hewn, timber door and announced his presence. A muffled voice granted him permission to enter and Peter stepped inside. Gordon was sitting at a plain desk scattered with paper.

He glanced around the tiny office to see an old picture of a young Queen Victoria on the wall behind Gordon; a fly-specked surveyor's map of the district was pinned beside the obligatory depiction of the reigning monarch, and on a peg behind the door to the office hung Gordon's belt and pistol.

He could see Gordon had been drafting requisitions for supplies and writing reports on the situation as he had found it upon his arrival in the town. Peter stood at attention as Gordon dabbed his pen in an ink bottle and scrawled his signature at the end of a requisition. He did not look up to greet Peter's entry but continued to sign the report. Finally he said ominously, ‘Haven't you forgotten something?’

Puzzled, Peter frowned. ‘I don't think so,’ he said slowly as he cast his thoughts about for what he may have forgotten. He was dressed in the uniform as regulations required.

‘You forgot to salute when you came in, Trooper Duffy,’ Gordon said. He placed the pen aside and looked up at the young policeman standing loosely to attention before him.

‘Sorry, Mahmy,’ Peter replied as he stiffened and saluted.

Gordon was not wearing head cover and returned the salute as protocol required by sitting stiffly in his chair with his hands on his knees.

‘That's better,’ he said less formally. ‘As much as we have been friends for years I know you will understand that discipline must be maintained regardless of the personal relationship that may exist between us.’

‘I understand, Mahmy,’ Peter replied formally to hide the hurt he felt for his longtime boyhood friend's apparent coolness towards him.

‘Take a seat, Peter, and stop calling me Mahmy. Only the charcoals in the troop address me as Mahmy.’

‘I'm half-charcoal, sir,’ Peter replied with an undisguised bitter edge as he sat stiffly on the government issue chair in front of the desk. ‘Maybe I should address you as Mahmy half the time.’

‘In this office and outside this office you call me sir. I know that is hard for you but we both belong to Her Majesty's constabulary and we knew the rules when we joined.’

Peter could not bring himself to acknowledge the rebuke. So this was how things would be between them from now on. Gordon had changed dramatically. His martinet behaviour was so unlike the larrikin boy Peter remembered growing up with. They'd been as close as any brothers. When Peter became aware of the subtle and disturbing changes early in their enlistment, he speculated that Gordon's behaviour was driven by his friend's need to eclipse his legendary father's reputation. It was as if the son were out to prove himself a better man. Peter shook his head. Henry had been a man who he had looked up to in lieu of his own father's absence. He was certainly no martinet and now Gordon's formal reprimand to an old friend simply reinforced Peter's opinion. Gordon had become a horse's arse.

‘I've read the report you submitted on the massacre of Inspector Potter's patrol while I was at Townsville,’ Gordon said quietly. ‘Damned thing to happen to a fine officer, so I've been told, or was he such a fine officer?’ The question was delivered with the two men's eyes locking and Peter realised that in his own way Gordon was reaching out to re-establish a trust between them. His request to comment on the conduct of an officer was one not normally made of mere troopers.

‘He was a bloody fool,’ Peter answered. ‘He had no idea of how good the Kalkadoon are at fighting on their own lands.’

‘Our lands,’ Gordon corrected. ‘The lands the Kalkadoon occupy have been legally leased, or purchased, by the men who we are here to protect.’

Peter did not reply to his officer's view on the matter of ownership. He was confused himself as he was a member of the Native Mounted Police and thus a representative of the Crown. But he was also half-Aboriginal and it was this half that secretly sympathised with the plight of the tribesmen who he also hunted. Although he had received the best education his aunt Kate Tracy could buy for him, white society still considered him a darkie, a nigga or part myall. As a trooper, he was a half-caste charcoal.

‘I would like you to elaborate,’ Gordon said reasonably, ‘on why you considered Inspector Potter's decision to go into the hills in pursuit of the Kalkadoon a mistake.’

Peter leant forward in his chair. ‘Inspector Potter underestimated the Kalkadoon. He treated them as inferior fighters and that cost him and the patrol their lives.’

‘But you survived, Peter. How?’

The question took Peter unawares. He had never included his contact with Wallarie in any report. How could he alone survive such a cleverly executed ambush?

‘Wallarie saved me,’ the young trooper answered softly. ‘He was with them.’

Gordon winced as if slapped in the face. Wallarie! The warrior who had taught them both the ways of the Darambal people when he and Peter had been boys. The sorcerer who had so cunningly eluded the Native Mounted Police for years and had become part of the frontier folklore. The man whose very name and existence carried the mystique of an ancient curse on his father. The being which was both friend and foe. ‘Wallarie is alive?’

Peter nodded and Gordon stared down at the desk as he gathered his thoughts and feelings. He had been locked in a terrible turmoil of indecision but was now clear as to what he must do. His duty to the law went far beyond any personal feeling he may have had for his old mentor in the ways of the indigenous people. ‘When we capture him he will no doubt be tried and hanged for the crimes he committed when he rode with your father in Burkesland those years past.’

‘You cannot capture a spirit man,’ Peter said softly. ‘No-one will ever capture Wallarie.’

‘He may be many things but I fear that your darkie half clouds your judgment,’ Gordon said with an edge of anger. ‘Wallarie is
still
only just another blackfella wanted for the murder of white men.’

‘He was your friend once, and saved your father when he had good enough reason to let him die on the spears of the Kyowarra. Do you not remember that day when we were kids?’

‘I remember,’ Gordon struggled. ‘But we have a duty to the law of this colony and you must always remember that too if you want to take your place alongside us.’

‘Alongside
us?
Peter countered. ‘Not
with us.
No, not with us, because despite all my education, and the fact that half my blood is a whitefella's blood, I will always be a blackfella to you. Just like the way you think about my sister.’

‘Shut your mouth before you say something you might regret,’ Gordon flared. Peter had touched on a subject that made the young officer most vulnerable. ‘Just drop the subject about Sarah now. I'm warning you as a friend and not as your superior officer.’

But Peter was angry. So angry that even if the warning had been directed from Gordon as his superior officer it would have still gone unheeded. The matter of Gordon's desire for his beautiful sister had festered in Peter for some time now. The three had grown up together and Sarah had been equal to them in the rough and tumble of children's games. But as they grew older Peter had noticed the change in his sister's attitude to Gordon. She began to avoid the rough games of the boys and Peter became aware that his younger sister acted strangely around his best friend. When he was old enough to experience the effect the opposite sex had on him he became aware of what was behind her behaviour towards Gordon and he was also acutely aware of where it might go. Now he was angry enough to bring the matter to a head and release the poison between them.

‘No. I won't shut up. I'll tell you just how it is with us blackfellas. My sister is a lady who can do something with her life. She has brains and a lot of eligible blokes around Townsville will “forgive” her for being half-caste. In fact, they would marry her. But she mopes around, hoping that some day you will ask her to be your wife, except you are frightened that if you marry her your chances of promotion in the Mounted Police will be a lot less if it is known you have a gin as your wife. No, you will end up using her to satisfy your own needs and, in time, caste her off to marry some respectable white woman. Then my sister will be just another darkie gin around town giving herself for a cheap drink. She …’

Gordon sat trembling, white with rage behind his desk.
Peter had gone too far!

‘You don't know what's between Sarah and me,’ he interjected with quiet fury. ‘You might be her brother, but you don't have any idea what my plans are concerning her.’

‘Do you?’ Peter snarled.

How had the situation come to this? Had it always been the real reason for their meeting? Had the issue of Sarah's future really been the reason to talk privately? Had all else that transpired in the office been a mere formality?

As Gordon glared at Peter sitting across from him the guilt that touching on the truth elicits in a man's face was obvious. All that he had said concerning his attitudes to Sarah were true! Yes, he wanted her. But at the same time he was pragmatic enough to realise what could happen to his career should he profess his love to the beautiful young woman! ‘I …’ He struggled to find words and was no longer an officer talking to a subordinate but a man defending himself against the bitterness of a brother who loved his sister. He leant forward and raised his hand as if to ward off the piercing glare of his boyhood friend. The room shrunk away as they were together again laughing and loving the bush they grew up in, Peter teasing him over his sister's obviously amorous attentions. He fought to find words in his defence and was saved by the urgent rap on the door. Gordon recovered his composure and sat up in his chair. ‘Who is it?’

‘Sar'nt Rossi, sir.’

‘Come in.’

The door opened and the Italian police sergeant entered the room in an agitated state. His dark eyes bulged and his moustache seemed to bristle. He was so agitated that he forgot to salute. Gordon overlooked the lapse in protocol as he accepted his senior non commissioned officer as a naturally excitable Latin.

‘Scusi, sir, but a blackfella 'e bringa message to barracks.’

‘What blackfella, Sergeant Rossi?’ Gordon asked, in an attempt to calm the little sergeant down.

‘A blackfella no trooper know but say might be a Darambal man.’

Gordon exchanged a sharp glance with Peter who appeared as equally surprised at the apparent tribal identity of the Aboriginal messenger.

‘Wallarie?’ Gordon hissed and Peter raised his eyebrows and nodded.
It could be no-one else!
‘Where is the blackfella now?’ he asked as he rose from his chair.

‘He go away,’ the sergeant answered. ‘He talka to a charcoal trooper, Trooper John, before he go, tell him that when you ready the big chief of the Kalkadoon ready to fight you. He say the big chief of Kalkadoon not ′fraid of white man. He kill alla troopers whoa come lookin' for him.’

‘Very good, Sergeant Rossi,’ Gordon acknowledged calmly. ‘Now get the troopers to saddle up and go and catch the blackfella who brought the message to us.’

Sergeant Rossi rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Black troopers ‘fraid of the Darambal man. They say man a debil debil. They say he turn into a baal spirit.’

‘You tell the charcoal troopers that the Queen pays them to hunt baal spirits along with live blackfellas who have the cheek to threaten me. Is that clear, Sergeant Rossi?’

‘Sah!’

‘Good. Then go and get the men to saddle up. Scour the northern approaches to the town as that's the most likely route he would have taken to get here from the hills.’

The sergeant saluted smartly, turned on his heel, and went directly to the barracks to rouse his troopers. When he was gone Gordon excused Peter with a wave of his hand and he slumped back into his chair behind the desk.