Shadow of the Osprey (36 page)

‘T
hey took us by surprise,’ Michael said as he slumped into a cane chair on the hotel verandah. Horace Brown sat with his fingers entwined on his ample stomach listening attentively to the Irishman relate the events that had led to the sinking of the
Osprey
. ‘I was asleep,’ Michael continued, ‘when the first mate woke me to say that Mort wanted to see me in his cabin. I didn’t think much of it. I wasn’t even surprised to see the Baron with Mort. But what came next took me by complete surprise. Mort started accusing von Fellmann of trying to kill him with the bomb that I had planted. The bastard was out of his mind with rage and I thought he was going to kill us then and there. If he suspects the Baron then why has he got me here, I thought. Then he turned on me, and started to rant that he and I had met somewhere before, and wanted to know where. The bastard was out of his mind.’

So Mort was truly mad, Horace thought. And in his scrambled mind was being haunted by the ghost of the Irish teamster, Patrick Duffy. Michael must look a lot like his dead father, he reflected, as he gazed at the battered, bruised man who had lapsed into a brooding silence. Michael tried to remember the faces of the men he had recruited. They were still living and laughing men in his mind. ‘What happened?’ Horace prompted gently.

‘I told him we had never met before,’ Michael answered quietly, recalling the madness he had seen in Mort’s eyes. ‘He didn’t appear very convinced, and had us seized and bound by a couple of his crewmen, who left us tied up on the floor of his cabin. It never occurred to me he was going to blow up his own ship. I just thought he was going to toss von Fellmann and myself over the side. I knew there was no way he was going to let us live.’

‘How did Mister Tracy get involved?’ Horace asked, knowing that the American prospector had been the key in saving Michael and the Baron from certain death.

‘Luke just happened to be on deck taking in the night air when he noticed the ship’s longboat being launched and the Chinese boarding with Mort and some of his crew armed with our Winchesters. He kept out of sight, it didn’t take much to see something was up. When they had cast off Luke went below. He heard the Baron and myself thumping about in Mort’s cabin trying to get loose. He came and set us free. I had a suspicion that if Mort knew about the bomb, he had probably set the fuse. So I tried to get to my men . . . ’

Michael ceased talking and stared across the verandah at the sunlight sparkling on the river. He was alive but the five men who had trusted in his leadership were dead – as was Karl Straub. Michael had lost men in the past in battle. But they had died with at least a slight chance of fighting back. The Irish mercenary took a deep breath before continuing to relate the bloody events that followed.

‘The murdering bastard had locked the door to the hold where my men were. I could hear them banging on the door trying to get out. They knew what was going to happen because when Mort had them locked in, the bastard he had taunted them about the bomb. We were in the process of ripping off the hatch when the bomb exploded and blew us into the water. I found the Baron half-dead, floating. Luke was all right, but the Baron was pretty badly stunned. So I kept him afloat until he could gather his senses, and we swam around all night calling for help. The captain of the Frenchie gun boat told us later that he dared not come in to pick us up, at least not until he had enough daylight to navigate the shallows. I suppose I can’t blame him for that. Captain Dumas treated us well enough. He allowed me to go ashore with a party of his men to search for any sign of Mort. We searched for three days along the shore and found his longboat but no sign of him or his men. Looks as if they struck inland just after they landed. The rest is history, as they say. The Frenchies brought us to Cooktown.’

Horace eased himself from his chair and walked over to the wrought iron railing of the verandah. The heat of the midday sun had driven most people to seek the shelter of the many verandahs along the main street. Under the shady awnings men sat against the walls to gossip about the latest happenings on the Palmer. The mysterious blast that sent the
Osprey
to the bottom was also an item of speculation. As far as it was known there were only three survivors. A few miners who knew the men recruited for the mysterious prospecting expedition blamed the ship’s captain for his carelessness in stowing the blasting powder.

‘So Captain Mort took the girl and the Chinese pirates ashore with him,’ Horace surmised. ‘And from what you say he also took some of his own men. No doubt the cut-throats he needed.’

‘The bastards went well armed,’ Michael replied bitterly, thinking of the loss of the Winchesters. ‘It looks like they were preparing for an expedition of their own.’

‘You are probably right,’ Horace agreed. ‘None of my sources have seen them around Cooktown.’

By his sources, the English agent meant the small army of Chinese, who worked for Soo Yin. The tong leader had strategically placed eyes and ears in the market gardens the Chinese diligently tended, as well as in the laundries, brothels, gambling dens and opium houses often frequented by white miners. Although Mort and his party had not been seen in Cooktown itself, there was a rumour that a rival tong with its headquarters just off the Palmer goldfields was expecting an important ‘guest’. An escort of armed Chinese from a rival tong of Soo Yin’s had suddenly departed Cooktown a day after the Macintosh ship had gone to the bottom.

At the time that Horace had received this information, it had no connection to anything he considered relevant to his preoccupation with the sabotage of the German expedition to New Guinea. But, when Michael arrived on his doorstep with the story of the Cochinese girl, the astute British agent had immediately conferred with the captain of the French gun boat. He smelt a connection between these events, and with French involvement he knew he must investigate.

Horace had introduced himself as a representative of the Foreign Office, and had inquired as to where the
Osprey
had sunk. A careful study of charts indicated to him that Mort had carefully plotted his course to put him very close to Cooktown before he scuttled his ship. Via a Chinese messenger travelling overland, it was then possible for the man to have made contact with Soo Yin’s rivals and arranged for them to meet him north of Cooktown, with an escort, for a journey overland to the rival tong’s fortified headquarters on the Palmer.

Horace wondered how much Michael knew about the political importance of the sixteen-year-old girl to the emerging resistance movements against French interests in the Indo-Chinese province of Cochin. Already, Horace had calculated, any assistance to the French to secure the Cochinese girl for them, would be looked upon favourably by his masters in the Foreign Office. Britain was moving towards reconciliation with their closest European neighbour after centuries of suspicion and war.

‘The French want that girl,’ Horace said, ‘and so does the Tiger Tong.’

‘The Tiger Tong?’ Michael queried.

‘Soo Yin’s rivals. They are Macau men. Soo Yin is a Cantonese. The rivalry is a bit like that between the Irish and the British,’ he said with a grim smile.

‘So they kill each other,’ Michael commented. ‘Some things never change.’

‘Something like that,’ Horace said, as he eased himself back into his cane chair. ‘But we have the problem of getting the girl out of the Tiger Tong’s hands and back to the French.’

‘Why should you want to help the French?’ Michael asked.

‘Not my personal choice, old chap. A strategic political decision. At the moment the Froggies are preoccupied with colonising Cochin China, Annam and Tonkin. And from what we know of the people there they are a particularly stubborn race with a fierce sense of national identity. It looks like the place has the potential to tie up a rather large proportion of French colonial forces attempting to subdue them. It is a matter of letting the French bog themselves down there, while Britain gets on with bringing enlightenment to the rest of Asia, Africa and the Pacific. By helping them get back the girl, who it seems is some kind of rallying point for the Cochinese, we appear to be interested in helping our European neighbours further their colonial interests. A goodwill gesture you could say.’ Horace paused and pursed his lips in contemplation of his other peculiar interest. ‘The Germans are the ones who worry me the most,’ he continued. ‘They are emerging as the real power to be reckoned with in Europe and I suspect that very soon we will have to face them on the battlefield as the French have done so recently. But alas, I don’t seem to be able to convince my colleagues in London of this fact. They keep pointing the finger at France as the major threat to Britain’s interests.’

‘And you don’t agree?’ Michael said.

‘No. All Germany needs now is a navy,’ Horace replied, ‘and they will be in a position to challenge the rest of Europe. I can see the day when we will be at war with Germany and her empire. And when this war inevitably comes, the Germans will have established bases across the globe. That is why your mission was of such importance although you may not have appreciated that at the time. But I fear we only bought time, as I doubt that the Germans will give up on New Guinea easily.’ No, Horace thought, the short-sighted fools in London were not students of history. If they were they would have remembered the lessons the Romans learned the hard way. It was from the dark forests of northern Europe that the barbarians had come to sack the empire that seemed invincible. And so too, would be the fate of the British Empire, if the German Kaiser had a chance to expand his.

Horace Brown was an unlikely looking crusader. Middle-aged and plump, he commanded an army of only one man, Michael Duffy, and an intelligence system of Oriental people traditionally loathed by the Europeans. ‘The job I am offering you to retrieve the Cochinese girl pays well,’ Horace said, as he leaned forward in his chair. ‘And I presume you still have a matter to be settled with Captain Mort. If you go after the girl I am sure Mort will not be very far away.’

‘You were too quick with your offer to pay, Horace,’ Michael replied with a wry smile. ‘I was planning to go after Mort regardless. I will track him to the gates of hell and beyond if I have to.’

‘Then I think you will accept some help.’

Michael nodded. He was aware of the magnitude of the task before him but had no intention of confiding to the English Foreign Office agent that he and Luke Tracy had already plotted to keep her for a reward. It had nothing to do with Horace’s gesture of goodwill.

‘Good. I know of a man who might prove to be of use to you,’ Horace said. ‘His name is Christie Palmerston. Have you met him?’

‘Christie Palmerston?’ Michael shook his head. ‘No. But there are few people up this way who haven’t heard his name. I tried to recruit him for the Baron’s expedition. Lucky for Mister Palmerston that I failed to find him.’

‘Mister Palmerston has been out prospecting with Venture Mulligan,’ Horace explained. ‘He was speared last year by the natives when they attacked Mulligan’s party west of here. But that hasn’t deterred him from going bush again. The only problem that we are going to have with getting Mister Palmerston to act as a guide is that he doesn’t like Chinamen much.’

‘I would have thought that was an advantage,’ Michael commented with a grin, ‘considering who I am going after. There will be a good chance I might have to deal with some armed and angry Chinee.’

‘Ah yes, that it might be,’ the Englishman said casually. ‘But you are going to need John Wong to identify the location of the Tiger Tong stockade.’

‘Stockade!’ Michael said with a note of alarm. ‘You mean the bastards have some kind of fort?’

‘Yes, I am afraid so,’ Horace replied awkwardly. ‘It was built to keep out their fellow countrymen. At least Soo’s tong.’

‘I don’t think Mister Palmerston will object to Mister Wong going along,’ Michael commented. ‘After all, John informs me that he is half Irish, on his mother’s side.’

‘That he may be,’ Horace said with a chuckle, ‘but I’m not sure about Mister Palmerston’s feelings towards the Irish either. He might object violently to both halves of Mister Wong along on the trip.’

Michael smiled ruefully at Horace’s joke. The actual planning of the expedition had lifted his spirits. Here was a second chance for him to settle scores for a lot of dead people.

Horace produced a map which he unfolded and placed on the verandah at their feet. He had sketched the map from information he was able to glean from various experienced bushmen and after consultation with government surveyors. Regretfully it had little information apart from major landmarks as the rugged and often near impenetrable country in the far north of Queensland had not been explored. ‘This should help you work out how you will go after Captain Mort.’ He pointed with his unlit cigar at the map between them. Michael stared down with his one good eye. Distances were vague, as were actual locations. ‘From my calculations,’ Horace said, still stabbing with his cigar, ‘Mort is probably going to use this track to escort the girl to the Tiger Tong stockade on the Palmer. The track is not often used now I’ve been told, and my guess is that he will be about here . . . ’ he said, tapping the end of the cigar on the sketch at a point on one of the tracks. ‘From what I know Mort and his party are on foot.’

Michael stared at the sketch and estimated time and space calculations with the eye of a military man while Horace continued his briefing. ‘Soo Yin has volunteered some of his men if you need them. In fact, he insists you take them with you.’

Michael frowned. He had planned going after Mort on horseback. As far as he knew not many Chinese knew how to ride. If on foot, they would never catch Mort, who had a lead on them. ‘Tell Soo Yin thank you. But the four of us will do the job.’

‘Four?’

‘I’m taking Luke Tracy with me. He’s a bushman I trust.’

Horace slumped back into his chair with a sigh. ‘I think you are being over ambitious. I think you will need more than four. You don’t know the numbers you might come up against.’