Beyond the Horizon (31 page)

EPILOGUE

June 1919

T
oday was the day George Macintosh expected to hear from Sir Hubert that he was to be knighted by the king. George hurried to the exclusive Australia Club to meet Sir Hubert and found that in his eagerness he had arrived first. George settled back in a deep and comfortable leather chair, Scotch in his hand and smile on his face. When Sir Hubert arrived George rose to greet him.

‘Well, old chap,' he said without any of the polite preliminaries. ‘Do you have the news?'

Sir Hubert settled in a chair facing George and ordered a whisky from a passing waiter. George had to admit he was feeling a little nervous. At least nervous was better than the nightmares that still haunted him in the darkness of the night since his return from Glen View.

‘I'm sorry, George, old chap,' Sir Hubert said. ‘But the past year there has been too much scandal associated with you and your companies. The bestowal of your knighthood has been deferred.'

The news struck George as painfully as if Wallarie had pieced his chest with his fire-hardened spear. He sat stunned. The bloody curse, he thought.

‘However,' Sir Hubert continued, ‘given time, I am sure that you will be renominated.'

‘I bloody well better be,' George snarled. ‘Considering how much has gone into your party's coffers and your own pocket. How long . . . a year, two years?'

Sir Hubert looked uncomfortable. ‘Two years should see things settle down. I am sure it will eventually be approved.'

George swallowed the remaining whisky in his crystal tumbler and glared at the senior public servant. ‘Two years,' he said firmly. ‘After that, if it has not been approved, you and your party can go to hell.'

‘Don't be like that, old chap,' Sir Hubert protested. ‘You have to look at it from our point of view. A knighthood now would raise questions in the house, but the newspapers will move onto some other scandal and the death of that unfortunate girl will be quickly forgotten.'

George had heard enough. He stood up and left, without bothering to shake hands with Sir Hubert.

George stepped out into the bitter cold of the day and glanced up at the scudding clouds whipped through the sky by a southerly gale. Nothing seemed to have gone well since his visit to Glen View, he thought morosely, pulling up the collar of his overcoat as he walked along the street. His wife had given birth to a useless daughter when George had hoped for a boy to strengthen his future hold on the family name. George could have nurtured a fierce competitiveness among two boys to see which would emerge the stronger.
A girl was of no use to him. His wife had given his daughter the name of Sophia – not that George cared much.

Worse still was the death of Jack Firth, whose violent and mysterious death still caused talk on the streets. Drunk one night, Jack had been returning home when it appeared he had been confronted by a robber and stabbed to death in the dark. The police thought the killing had been done by an ex-serviceman with experience in using a bayonet. Although neither the murder weapon nor a suspect had been located, the single thrust under the ribcage and into the chest cavity was remarkably like that of a killing thrust from a soldier armed with the long, deadly blade of the bayonet.

Although the name of Harry Griffiths had been pandered about among investigating detectives, it seemed the man had an airtight alibi at the time Firth was killed. Harry Griffiths was playing cards with the well-known and respected Sydney solicitor, Sean Duffy. There were no other leads, and it seemed that the murder of the former detective inspector would remain unsolved.

Without Jack Firth in his employ, George felt vulnerable. He had no one to do his dirty work for him now, nor did he have anyone within the police force to watch out for his interests.

George was sure that his wife had renewed her affair with Sean Duffy, as she disappeared for long periods and was haughty in her responses to his questions of her whereabouts. He was sure people were talking behind his back about the affair. He was angry and humiliated, but he could not afford to alienate Louise – she knew too much about his private life and he could not afford the public shame and scandal of a separation, not after all the business with Maude Urqhart.

It was as if all George's power was slipping away; he felt old and weak and powerless.

As if to add to the weight of misfortune weighing him down, the sky burst asunder and rain poured down. George hunched against the rain, knowing that when returned to his office he would have to deal with the German chemical company and the huge loss the company was having to carry as a result of his investment. Somehow, he would have to find a way of keeping the loss from the company directors. It was just another nail in the cross he found himself hanging from. Damn the curse!

On the other side of the world, Matthew Duffy stood on a newly constructed airstrip outside the former Ottoman city of Basra where the two great rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates met. Nearby, in the searing heat of the day, a couple of his flying service's British fighter aircraft were waiting for a ground crew, due to arrive any minute.

Behind Matthew was a vast shed of corrugated iron and timber housing the two civilian versions of the Vickers Vimy bomber he had purchased. He had painted on the nose of one the name
Joanne
and on the other,
Kate
– the two women in his life.

Matthew was aware that a people called the Kurds living in the north of the country were in rebellion against the British occupation, and the Royal Air Force was flying bombing missions against their villages. There was talk that chemical weapons should be deployed against the rebels, and that idea was backed by Winston Churchill. Matthew was saddened by the continuing unrest as he wanted the war behind him, but in many places around the world, from Russia to the newly emerging Arab states, war still raged and many of the innocent were still dying. The complexities of political manoeuvring to secure resources ensured that the killing would go on, despite the Western world looking forward to a bright and prosperous new decade.

Matthew's appointed agent in Jerusalem, Saul Rosenblum, had advertised for a ground crew and interviewed the potential employees of the company Matthew had registered as Desert Airlines with the British civil service in Baghdad. Saul had grudgingly accepted Matthew's request to act as his agent in Jerusalem; he had felt that he would be better off leading his people at their settlement but the generous pay had proved a compensation for the task. He had whittled the prospective employees down to five and they were expected very soon.

When the lorry finally arrived at the airstrip, five new employees tumbled from the back to stretch their legs.

Matthew strode over to the small cluster of people gazing around them at their new home. They had answered the advertisement published in English newspapers that promised adventure and good money.

Matthew scanned their faces and stopped at the last one. ‘Bloody hell!' he swore under his breath. The fifth member was a young woman, wearing overalls and a cap.

‘Welcome to Basra,' Matthew said. ‘I am Matthew Duffy and, as you can guess, I am an Australian. Any of you Poms have any trouble with that?'

They grinned and shook their heads. ‘Only if you don't pay us,' a voice said from the group, and they broke into laughter.

‘You will be paid if your work is up to the high standards I expect of you. I have housing organised for you and you can settle in after I take you for a look around the strip and its facilities. As you can see, the conditions are harsh but the money you make will compensate for that.' Matthew's eyes fell on the only female in the group and could see that she was strikingly beautiful. Her raven hair was cut short and her emerald eyes dominated a peaches and cream complexion. She noticed him staring at her and looked back defiantly, as if challenging him to question her right to be in his team.

Matthew escorted the cluster to the vast shed and they inspected the two aircraft inside. A young Iraqi man stepped forward with a platter of fresh sandwiches and indicated a small table with a big teapot and china cups laid out. Matthew invited the group to take refreshments while he interviewed each one at a desk in the corner of the hangar.

Each man came forward with his papers and Matthew was satisfied that Saul had chosen well. The last to be interviewed was the young woman and she placed her papers on the desk in front of Matthew.

‘Take a seat,' Matthew said, flipping open her dossier.
‘I see that your name is Diane Hatfield and that you are eighteen years old.' Diane nodded her head. ‘Why in hell did Saul accept you onto my team?' Matthew said in a pained voice. ‘You are both very young – and a woman.'

‘I worked in the factory where we built the Rolls-Royce Eagle engines that your aeroplanes are equipped with,' she said. ‘As my parents were killed in a Zeppelin bombing raid and my fiancé did not come back from the war, I had nothing to lose by applying for the position, Captain Duffy, and Mr Rosenblum seemed to think I was perfectly capable of carrying out the job.'

Matthew relented. ‘My first instinct is to pay you off and send you back to England,' he said. ‘But you remind me of someone I once knew who had the same adventurous spirit you seem to possess.'

Diane turned her head to gaze at the two big aircraft in the hangar. ‘Was it Kate or Joanne?' she asked.

‘Both,' Matthew replied with a smile. ‘So long as you prove your worth, you have a job. I will arrange separate housing for you in Basra. Welcome to Desert Airlines.'

‘You will not regret your decision, Captain Duffy,' Diane said gratefully. ‘I can work as hard as any man in the team. One day I hope to fly too.'

Matthew glanced at the young woman. The world had certainly changed with the end of the war. He had no doubt that this slip of a girl would end up flying one of his Vimys one day.

Outside the hangar Matthew could hear the two British light bombers roaring into life for a bombing mission over the desert in search of rebel formations. The sound was a reminder that the war had not really ended and the future was far from certain. The memory of Joanne was always with him in the silence of the beautiful desert nights, and on the other side of the world were his son and daughter who he had not yet held in his arms. Matthew swore that when he was settled he would go to them, but for now he had a job to do in establishing his airline in a very troubled part of the world.

In England it was a warm summer's day and Tom Duffy was glad to be out of his expensive hotel room and down in Hyde Park, watching a brightly uniformed military band playing for the well-dressed strollers in the magnificent gardens. He had been in London for over three months now and he missed the vast open plains of Queensland. His money had brought him respect from those he dealt with and provided funds for a firm of private investigators to find Juliet.

Day after day he had waited for their reports, until this morning Mr Greaves, the head of the firm, had rung to say they had made a breakthrough.

Now Tom stood in his tailored suit and bowler hat watching the band perform, waiting impatiently for the private investigator to arrive. He had said on the telephone that it would be better that they make contact this way and his news was both good and bad.

‘Mr Duffy,' a voice said behind him. Tom turned to see the smallish, balding man in his late fifties. ‘I have some news for you.'

‘You have found Juliet, Mr Greaves?' Tom asked, holding his breath in his excitement.

‘Sadly, I have some bad news on that front, Mr Duffy,' the investigator said. ‘We were able to trace your fiancée to a poorhouse where she died in childbirth earlier this year.'

Tom paled and fought to remain on his feet. ‘Where?' he asked. ‘Is the baby alive?'

‘That is why I arranged to meet you here, Mr Duffy,' Greaves said. ‘The institution is a cab drive away and I have arranged to have us taken there to meet your daughter.'

Tom was too stunned to speak and tears welled in his eyes. Juliet was dead, but he had a daughter. It was too much to take in at once. With a gruff attempt to wipe the tears away, Tom let the investigator lead him from the park to the street where a taxicab was waiting. They drove in silence along busy streets until they were almost at the establishment Greaves had located.

‘I have had to pay a fair bit of money to get doors opened for you to meet your daughter,' Greaves said quietly.

‘You will be reimbursed,' Tom replied, and the cab came to a stop. Greaves paid the cabbie and asked him to wait.

Greaves and Tom walked up a driveway to the front door of a double-storeyed brick building. From the outside it did not appear to be a place that could be called a poorhouse, but rather it was more like an aging English manor house.

Greaves knocked and was met by a plump woman wearing an apron. He removed his hat and spoke to the woman. ‘I am Mr Greaves and the gentleman with me is Mr Duffy. We have an appointment with Doctor Mills.'

The woman looked them over and ushered them into the dimly lit foyer of the institution. Tom could hear his footsteps echo as they were led down a corridor to a room with a glass partition on the upper half of the door engraved with the word
Doctor
. She knocked and a voice bade them to enter.

Tom stepped through to see a young man behind a desk wearing a white lab coat, a stethoscope around his neck. He stood when Tom and Greaves entered the room.

‘So you are Mr Tom Duffy,' the doctor said, extending his hand to Tom. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you. I was able to make some enquiries about you and learned that you had a distinguished service record in France.'

‘I just did my job,' Tom replied modestly.

‘A DCM and bar as well as an MM – that is more than just doing your job, Mr Duffy,' he said. ‘Mr Greaves contacted me last week and explained your situation. I suspect that you have learned of the fate of Miss Joubert. I would like to express my sympathy for your loss.' Tom nodded, not trusting himself to speak.