Flight of the Eagle (14 page)

‘You have done a lot for Her Majesty's Empire in the last ten years, Michael. That must count for something in your life.’

‘I had little choice, Horace,’ Michael retorted. ‘You and your contacts in the colonies made sure of that. But that's all finished now. I'm home and no more of the past.’

Horace fidgeted with the cane and tapped the end with his fingers. He cleared his throat as he leant forward in his chair. ‘Not quite, dear boy. Von Fellmann is back and I believe he is behind a second expedition to claim New Guinea for the Kaiser's empire.’

Michael stared at the timbered floor of the verandah. ‘I came home to find what's left of my life, Horace. I came home to leave the ghosts of my past in other countries. I've had enough.’

‘What would you do here, Michael? You have no real savings so you cannot retire to the life of a painter. Work for your sister? Work in a store, keeping ledgers of accounts? Do you think you could live like that after all you have done and seen? Do you think my contacts
could
protect you from that knock on the door in the middle of the night and some policeman with a warrant for your extradition to New South Wales to answer a charge of murder?’

‘You mean
would
protect me against arrest, not
could
.’

Horace did not answer. He knew Michael was right. Once his usefulness to the profession was finished so, too, was any need to keep him out of the clutches of the law. ‘Not my choice, dear boy. If it was within my power I would not be asking you to do this one last thing,’ he apologised sadly. ‘But after this I give you my word that the Crown will find a way of showing gratitude and repaying you for services rendered faithfully to the Queen. God knows you deserve some kind of reward for all that you have done.’

‘Why not recruit someone else for the job?’ Michael asked.

‘Because a situation is unfolding in Sydney where your knowledge and talents will be best employed.’

‘Sydney! Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Michael exploded. ‘That's the last place I want to go. If the traps are going to catch me then Sydney is the most likely place on earth. Why doesn't the bloody British government just annex the damned place themselves?’

Horace leant back in his chair and pursed his lips with an expression of annoyance. ‘Because we have stupid men who refuse to listen to wiser men,’ he replied. ‘We have men in London, like Lord Derby at the Colonial Office, who advise Gladstone that the resolutions of the Intercolonial Convention held in Sydney a couple of years ago are the ravings of naive colonial premiers about the possible threats to future defence in the Pacific to Australia. Gladstone does not believe that Bismarck intends to annex New Guinea. He has even gone one step further to reassure the Germans that he has no intentions of acting on the resolutions for British annexations proposed by the Sydney conference. That is why.’

Michael was well aware of the Englishman's concern towards German imperial interests in the Pacific. Although his colleagues in the Foreign Office still looked towards France as the natural threat to English interests, Horace had been a lone voice nagging them about the rapid expansion of the German military machine in Europe. He could see years ahead to when Germany would have established trading posts in its annexed territories – which could easily be used to support future military operations against strategic British interests. To Horace the drive for imperial annexations was a dual drive for military supremacy in the international chess game of strategic moves. The political leaders in Australia held the same views.

Horace had dedicated his very life to thwarting the Germans in the Pacific. Michael Duffy's fluency in the German language had been an extremely valuable asset in Horace's undeclared war against German covert operations. The man who opposed Horace was Bismarck's intelligence chief in the Pacific, Baron Manfred von Fellmann.

Michael sighed and poured himself another champagne. ‘If you know the bloody Germans are going to annex New Guinea why do you need me in Sydney?’ he growled. ‘It's obvious those fools in London aren't particularly interested in what happens out here.’

‘They would be
if
I could prove von Fellmann is organising an expedition with the intention of seizing the northern half of New Guinea and the surrounding islands,’ Horace replied quietly. ‘But I have no proof. All that I know is that he has suddenly returned to Sydney as a representative for a German trading company and claims that he is setting up an expedition to go to the islands to indulge in trading with the natives.’

‘That's possible, you know,’ Michael interjected lamely. ‘It's been over ten years since he last tried to get his hands on New Guinea. And he might be like me, a man who wants to find some peace in his last years of life. Trading in the islands can be very lucrative, you know.’

Horace laughed softly and shook his head. ‘I doubt that the Baron ever required a contingent of German marines to protect him. Not the hero of the Franco–Prussian war.’

‘How do you know he has marines with him?’ Michael asked suspiciously.
Was it a ploy by Horace to justify sending him south?

‘We have both been military men, Michael. It is easy to recognise fellow soldiers – even if they do pose as German merchants.’

Michael could not argue with Horace's point. If the Prussian was in Sydney with a contingent of marines he was obviously on a covert mission of some kind.

‘You realise, of course,’ Michael said, ‘that von Fellmann probably still holds somewhat of a grudge from my mission to blow up the
Osprey.’

‘I know all that. But I think you will find a way to renew your acquaintance with certain key people around the Baron.’

Michael flushed with a realisation. ‘You mean Penelope, don't you?’

Horace nodded. ‘Not only the Baroness, but also her lover of many years.’

‘And who would that be?’ Michael asked with an edge of jealousy.

Although he knew that Penelope was a woman of unlimited passion for the pleasures of the flesh and had taken many lovers, memories of her golden hair cascading on silk sheets, her milky white skin bathed in a sheen of perspiration, her body arching with her desire when he entered her came to him with bittersweet recollection. In all his travels and in all his years no woman – except possibly Fiona – had ever matched the beautiful wife of the Prussian aristocrat in the act of unbridled coupling. And he had known many women's bodies in his turbulent life.

‘Fiona White. Your son's mother,’ Horace said softly.

His revelation caused the champagne flute destined for Michael's lips to remain hanging in mid-air. ‘Fiona!’ The name came as a soft hiss from his lips. Fiona was Penelope's lover! He had no reason to doubt the Englishman's intelligence. Horace was rarely wrong.

‘An interesting situation,’ Horace said quietly, ‘if I must say so myself. And you, the link between both women.’

‘Penelope is in Sydney with Manfred?’ Michael asked.

‘Yes, she is staying at their house they keep on the harbour. I have reason to believe she spends a lot of time with Fiona while Manfred gets on with organising his mission. And from what I already know, we have little time to send you south before he completes his plans to sail from Sydney. But you will have enough time to visit your sister before you leave,’ Horace added kindly. ‘I know you have a lot to catch up on concerning your son and family in Sydney, so I will leave you with the bottle and be on my way. I will see you here tomorrow at ten in the morning.’

He rose stiffly from his chair and stretched his back. The pain was through his whole body now and he badly needed the opium to help him forget the future and the painful reality of the present. ‘This will be the last time for us both,’ he said softly. ‘I promise you that with my very life. You know, Michael,’ Horace said in parting as he leant heavily on his cane, ‘if you ever get to grow old and write your memoirs, they would make interesting reading. Especially with regards to your acquaintance with the ladies in your life.’ He sighed a deep sigh and continued in a sad voice, ‘But men like you and I do not have the same privileges of old generals retired to the comfort of their libraries to reminisce about the battles they fought. The battles we have fought over the years can never be told. We carry our memoirs in our heads, memories of good men and women who have died so that others might live in a secure peace. And I suppose it will always be so for us, and for those who follow us in future times – and future undeclared wars – for the information that keeps us one step ahead of our “friends”. Until tomorrow, dear boy.’

Michael stared after the little Englishman hobbling along the verandah on his cane. He had little to show for his life, Michael brooded, except the many scars of old battles in foreign lands that marked his body; of memories of good and bad times, of terror and laughter. Of a family in Sydney who had buried him so long ago and to whom he could never reveal his existence for fear of the scandal it would bring down on them.

But he did have a son! A son who he had met briefly in Sydney for just a few minutes. At the time he had not known that he was talking to his own flesh and blood. Now all he had was the chemical image on a faded photograph of an eleven-year-old boy. What sort of man had he grown to be?

Michael was aware of the pact made with Lady Enid Macintosh and his cousin, Daniel Duffy. Kate had told him all as confided to her by Daniel. And Michael had to agree the deal was of personal benefit to his son's future. Where else could he get the best education in the world than England? With whom else other than the powerful and wealthy Macintoshes could he have access to a financial empire rivalling the biggest in the colonies?

But a fundamental issue had to be resolved by his son alone – an issue that was more important than all the fame and fortune the Macintosh name could grant. He must never forget that he was born a Duffy and would die a Duffy. Part of being a Duffy meant retaining his allegiance to the Church of Rome and to deny either his name or religion was to deny his father.

Ahead of Michael now was the possible reacquaintance with the woman who was the mother of his son. And there was also the prospect of meeting Penelope and her husband, Baron Manfred von Fellmann, one of the most dangerous men Michael had ever encountered in his violence-filled life. Ah yes, all this was ahead of him, and life was not a guaranteed thing in his own dangerous existence.

TWELVE

‘T
roop will stand at attention. Aaaa … ten … shun!’ Gordon James drilled his men relentlessly on the dusty parade ground at the police barracks. The troopers' arms began to ache as they shouldered carbines, sloped arms and brought the carbines to the state of present. Gordon wanted to push the physical and mental resolve of his men to the point where they no longer thought of themselves as human creatures capable of feeling pain or distress. He had learned his technique of drilling men when he was a boy watching his father as barracks sergeant drill his troopers.

‘That trooper there!’ he bawled as he detected one of the white policemen waver. ‘Third from the right. I haven't given the order for the attention yet. As a matter of fact I might even go for my evening supper and when I return give the order.’

All the troopers groaned softly lest they be heard. The way the new boss was driving them they half believed he would carry out his threat and leave them for an hour in the painful position. The wavering trooper cursed to himself for allowing the upstart bastard to see him fidget.

‘Keep your eyes straight ahead. Don't blink unless I say so!’

The tableau of human statues waited patiently for the final order to stand at ease, thus releasing the tautness of stretched muscles. But the order did not come and the troopers remained frozen at attention. The officer who tortured their resolve was ominously silent. Then his voice came to their ears like the hiss of a snake warning of its impending strike.

‘I know you think,’ he said, ‘that the Kalkadoon are noble warriors who rule this country, who can strike at will and send you all scuttling back to the barracks to sit around like old women bemoaning the hopelessness of it all. Well, this is my first meeting with you as a troop and, as you can see, no glorious speeches as my way of introducing myself. Just this drill and a lot more to follow. And at the end of two weeks I promise you that you will be glad to go out and disperse the darkies and I also know that you will be the best Mounted Troop in the colony if not Her Majesty's Empire at the end of two weeks. Staaand … at … ease. Too bloody slow! We'll do it again until you are all able to get yourselves together.’

They came to the attention and stood sweating with the setting sun in their faces. Men squinted to focus on the figure silhouetted against the orange ball, as Gordon had deliberately placed his men with the sun in their faces. He could see their discomfort but gained no pleasure from it. ‘Second trooper from the left. Yes, you. Where is Sergeant Rossi?’ he barked and the second trooper from the left pulled a puzzled frown and made a move to seek out the barrack sergeant who had been exempt from the drill. ‘Don't look for him, keep your eyes straight ahead,’ Gordon bawled. ‘Tell me where Sergeant Rossi is now.’

‘Not here. Sah!’ the trooper responded as he stared into the fiery orange ribbon of light that stretched along the western horizon. Black swirling stars clouded his eyes and as he fought to clear his vision the trooper suddenly saw a second figure to the left side of the officer and standing ten paces away. It was Sergeant Rossi! ‘Sergeant Rossi is to my front, sah!’ he replied somewhat sheepishly.

‘If Sergeant Rossi had been a dirty big Kalkadoon, trooper,’ Gordon said in an almost conversational and compassionate tone, ‘with a dirty big spear, then you would probably have been a dead man by now. And that would mean I would have to write home to your dear mother to tell her lies about your sobriety and respect for the weaker sex. For a God-fearing man as myself, such a letter could send me to hell. But I would have at least the consolation of finding you there.’