To Chase the Storm: The Frontier Series 4 (30 page)

Alexander found his stretcher on the verandah and was soon being entertained by an old prospector who regaled the young boy with stories of his life. Commanche Jack had an American accent and a face that bore the scars of his escapades. Alex listened, enthralled by Jack’s adventures fighting Indians on the American frontier.

When Alex told him that he was travelling to the Godkin Ranges the next day the old man sighed. ‘Used to be big blackfellas up there a few years ago,’ he said, scratching at the sweat under his grey beard. ‘Big warriors called Kalkadoon, amongst the finest and bravest of the fightin’ men I ever fought. That was back in ’84 when we trapped ’em on a hill, but theys wouldn’t surrender an’ died to a man. Wes just kept shootin’ until theys was no more standin’ up to fight anymore. All gone now an’ that’s the pity of it.’ He bowed his head as if remembering another time in his life. ‘You remember old Commanche Jack, young fella, when you go ridin’ in the Godkins. Remember those big heathens who stood and died like real men out there.’

Alex nodded. The gruff old American told stories
the likes of which he had only read about back home, so far from this noisy verandah. How could he forget Commanche Jack? Before Alex knew it, he was dozing.

Sleep did not come so easily to Helen. She lay beside her husband in the big, sagging double bed. The noise from the bar continued, accentuated by the tinkling crash of a glass. This was followed by the heightened voices of men locked in an argument, which in turn gave way to the sounds of a scuffle and the voices of men swearing as they slugged it out in a fight. Suddenly she missed the serenity of the nights spent on the plains by a campfire listening to the soft sounds of the bush, the swish of birds in flight or the sweet song of a nearby creek, broken occasionally by the splash of a big fish rising from the water. Helen sat up and felt the perspiration run in rivulets between her breasts.

‘You cannot sleep?’ Karl asked. ‘It is very hot.’

‘No, I cannot sleep, Karl,’ she answered, placing her feet on the wooden floor and proceeding to gather her dress from a sideboard. ‘I think I shall go for a short walk. Perhaps that will help tire me.’

Her husband cast a concerned look in the semidarkness of the room. A light from the hallway filtered under the door and from the fanlight above it. ‘Do you think that is wise at this time of night? The men around here are rough and unpredictable.’

Helen touched her husband’s face with her long fingers. ‘They may be rough and unpredictable,’ she said gently, ‘but I do not fear them as much as I fear not being able to sleep.’

Karl watched her dress. He sensed that she had things on her mind. Maybe it would be better if she went for a short walk.

Helen made her way down the hall and out through the back door of the hotel where she found herself in the backyard, bordered by the horse stables. She did not really have a clue where she would go but knew she had to get away from the confines of the hotel room. Or was it that she had to get away from Karl? She had never really questioned their marriage until she had set out on this journey across Queensland’s vast plains. She had always accepted her husband as an intelligent, kind and sensible man who had professed his need for her. She had also come to accept that they could not have children, though it was never certain which one of them was barren. Their lives had settled into a comfortable routine in Germany and the most exciting thing Karl had ever suggested was this: to travel to the country of her birth and undertake missionary work and his academic studies of Aboriginal people. She had agreed to his dream as the thought of a change in their lives promised something. But what? Nothing had really changed in her life, Helen reflected. Her gentle, educated husband had simply been transplanted in terms of geography alone.

Helen crossed the yard with the intention of strolling out into the street to take in the night air, away from the smell of horses, when she suddenly froze at the sound that came from the stables. There was no mistaking Michael’s deep voice. Nor was there any mistake in comprehending what was
occurring. Helen felt her face flush at the unmistakable sounds of a woman in ecstasy. The young girl had been right!

Helen’s curiosity was overwhelming. Cautiously she made her way across the yard and keeping to the shadows she slipped through the open door of the stables. She sank back against the wall, her eyes sweeping the darkness until she saw movement. She felt her breath coming in small gasps as if she were suffocating. Even in the dark she was aware that the undulating shape was that of a naked woman straddled across a man lying back against a pile of horse rugs. The woman’s long hair flowed over her shoulders and down her naked back. Michael’s hands were on her breasts as she moved her hips slowly and rhythmically, moaning softly in her pleasure. Helen could not tear herself away. So now she was witnessing the pleasure the Irishman could bring to a woman in ways that did not bide by God’s laws. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Helen became aware of Michael staring back at her.

In guilty terror, Helen spun on her heel and ran from the stables out onto the dark street. Slumping finally in a vacant yard across from the hotel, she found herself weeping uncontrollably. She huddled on the dry earth, staring up at the brilliance of the star-studded sky until she felt she was suitably in control of her emotions. Then she stood, brushed herself down, and walked unsteadily back to the yard. Michael was sitting on the step of the hotel’s back verandah smoking. Beside him was a bottle of cheap rum. Helen felt her heart pounding in panic.
He was barring the way to her room. She hesitated for just a moment before walking towards him.

‘Good evening, Helen,’ Michael said softly as he took a long puff on his cigar. ‘I was worried that what you saw might upset you.’

‘Why should it, Mr Duffy?’ Helen asked defiantly. ‘I saw only animals in their natural state.’

Michael chuckled softly and took a swig from the bottle.

‘I’ve been called worse,’ Michael said with a sigh. ‘But not by a woman as pretty as you.’

‘I expect you have been called many things worse. Murderer, mercenary, cad.’

‘Cad, now there’s a word I wasn’t expecting,’ Michael replied as he stared up at her with a smile. ‘But it is pretty mild compared to murderer.’

‘Well, you are, aren’t you?’ Helen spat contemptuously.

Michael looked away for a moment, avoiding her angry stare. ‘It depends whose side you were on when I did the killing,’ he replied with an edge of pain and bitterness in his voice. ‘To the British, I was a necessity. Albeit one that they kept quiet about. To Mr Abe Lincoln I was a hero. He even gave me a medal to show how he valued my services to the Union way back then. But that was before you were born anyway, so I suppose it doesn’t count. And I should not forget your own family, Helen. To your grandmother, Lady Macintosh, my services a quarter of a century ago up along the Palmer River settled a matter of vengeance for your Uncle David’s death.’

Helen sensed the pain in his reflections and felt
guilty for her accusing words. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t know why I said those things to you. I suppose it’s just that you once loved my mother, and that seeing you in the stables with that woman felt like a betrayal to her memory.’

‘To her memory,’ Michael said, staring into her eyes, ‘or to your feelings? But you have nothing to fear from me,’ he continued. ‘You are the daughter of a woman I once loved very much.’ He took a long swig from the bottle and rose to his feet. Helen felt his hand touch her cheek and brush back a wisp of her hair from her face. ‘God knows that I want you more than anything else on earth right now,’ he said in a tight breath.

Tender feelings mixed with yearning welled up in Helen. She placed her hand over his and pressed it into her skin, as if attempting to absorb his very soul.

‘If only we had met in another lifetime, Mr Duffy,’ Helen said with a strangled sob. ‘If only God had granted us another life to live away from your past and my present. Perhaps then, everything would have been different.’

Dropping his hand abruptly, Helen brushed past Michael to the room she shared with her husband.

Michael drained the bottle before staggering to his bed on the verandah. He could not change the past. In the morning the sun would once again rise over the plains. He was to yet meet with the mystical old warrior who held the answers to so many of the terrible events that had haunted the two families for so many years. He had a job to do.

THIRTY

U
nder cover of the bitterly cold night, Captain Butters sent the wounded back to the main defensive position with the water cart detail. Amongst them was Trooper Matthew Duffy. He was able to walk. The piece of jagged shrapnel had ripped through the fleshy part of his side and, other than an ugly open wound, had not damaged any vital organs.

Matthew trudged slowly with his rifle slung over his shoulder. The small column of soldiers was winding its way north towards the once insignificant rocky mound that was now as important to each of them as any geographical feature on earth. Matthew reflected on how lucky he was to be alive, despite his wound. Another few inches to one side and the shrapnel might have disembowelled him. He had lost a lot of blood, as the soaked wad of bandages strapped to his side testified. But it had all happened
so haphazardly that Matthew hardly remembered the explosion.

One minute he had been lying face down behind the sanger of rocks as the shells came raining down and the next moment he felt as if he had been kicked in the side by a giant wearing a red hot boot. Matthew did not remember screaming but he must have. A fellow soldier had leapt to hold him down as he had attempted to stand. To do so would have meant certain death as the deadly sprays of shrapnel sought out anything alive above ground level.

When the bleeding was stemmed Matthew had lain on his back and watched a hawk circling above the battlefield in the blue sky. He had wished that he was that hawk and could fly from this terrible place of carnage. The little water that could be spared was given to him and although the pain was excruciating, he slipped into a blissful state of unconsciousness until the night came when he was ordered to join the others making their way back to the field hospital.

As Matthew and the rest of the walking wounded passed through the picquets manning the outer trenches, they were assailed by the stench of decomposition. Dead horses, mules and oxen littered the slopes from the first day of the siege. The unpleasant stink of their own unwashed bodies was hardly noticeable to the soldiers anymore.

At the hospital, a bullet riddled wagon behind walls of tinned meat and bags of flour, the doctor examined Matthew’s wound and changed the dressing. At his own insistence Matthew was given permission to man the defences. The doctor, however, was concerned
about infection and gave the young soldier strict orders to report each day to have the dressing changed.

Matthew groped his way through the jumble of trenches and flour bag defences until he found the Queenslanders’ section. Whispered directions from shadowy shapes in the dark led Matthew to the end of the trench where he found Saul Rosenblum dozing with his back against the wall. Saul snapped out of his troubled sleep when he heard Matthew’s voice call to him.

‘Yer still alive,’ Saul answered with obvious relief. ‘I heard you Whalers took on the Dutchmen over on Captain Butters’ hill a couple of days ago and . . .’ He ceased speaking once Matthew was close enough for him to see him in the dark. ‘You been hit. How bad is it?’

‘Not bad,’ Matthew answered as he eased himself down into the trench. ‘A bit of shrap in the side but it went clean through and left me with only a bit of a cut.’

‘Looks like more than a bit of a cut to me,’ Saul said peering at the wad of dressings. ‘Looks like the shrap left a bloody big hole in you.’

‘I’ll live,’ Matthew replied with a nonchalant shrug. ‘How have things been in this part of the world?’

‘Same old thing every day. The Dutchmen shell us. And when they are not shelling us their bloody snipers make life hell. Some of the night raiding parties have had a bit of luck though. A few of the boys brought back some fresh-baked bread they got from a farmhouse over there,’ Saul said indicating with his
rifle out into the dark. ‘Got the bloody sniper who was using the farmhouse too.’

‘I heard a rumour that one of the boys went out on his own accord, a couple of nights ago, and not only settled a matter with a sniper but also found fifty sovereigns in his pockets.’

Saul flashed a grimy unshaven grin at the young man. ‘Yeah. That’s true. Lucky bastard. Not a bad effort for a night’s work in any job. Sure beats wrestling all day under a hot sun with some cranky scrub bull back home.’

‘I suppose you could say the army is teaching us a lot of useful things,’ Matthew said with a grin. ‘Except civilians would hang us if we did the same back home.’

Saul laughed softly. He has shaped up to be a bloody good soldier, he thought, with admiration for the way Matthew was handling himself under fire. A bond had formed between the two men that would never be broken in their lives. Age and social differences between them meant nothing anymore. Under their unwashed skins and rags for uniforms they were brothers.

A bullet cracked close by. Instinctively, both men flinched and Matthew felt the tic at the corner of his eye return. His nerves were stretched to breaking point.

‘There’s a bloody Dutchman about eight hundred yards in front of our positions who works us over every day,’ Saul said in a grim voice. ‘He’s a cunning bastard, uses the long grass as cover. I reckon he has dug a series of shallow hides in the night and is able to
move from one to another on his belly whenever we think we’ve got his position fixed after he fires. If he is still there in the morning, I’m going out after him tomorrow night. The bastard is starting to get to me.’

Matthew frowned. ‘Sounds like you aren’t looking for permission to go out.’

‘I wouldn’t get it if I asked,’ Saul growled. ‘But I’m going anyway. He got Frank just before last light so I intend to even the score.’