To Ride the Wind (2 page)

Wallarie dropped his spear and stepped forward to grip Tom by the shoulders. ‘You have come back to me from the Dreaming, my brother,’ he said, tears appearing in the corners of his eyes. ‘It has been a long time since we hunted together.’

It was obvious that the old Aboriginal had confused him for someone else, Tom thought, although he had used his name correctly. He had been named after his grandfather, the infamous bushranger who had sired three children to his love, the Nerambura woman Mondo.

‘I am the son of Tim Duffy, grandson of Tom Duffy and his woman, Mondo,’ Tom said, realising the old Aboriginal was mistaking him for his grandfather. Wallarie had been as close to the white man as he could be to any of his own people.

‘You are my whitefella brother’s spirit come back to me in this body,’ Wallarie answered.

Tom wanted to shrug off the mad blackfella’s belief but felt it was best to humour him. After all, he had traversed a lot of hostile country to be here in the place of the dreams that haunted him – dreams about a hill and the sacred cave his father had often told him about before he died. His white mother, Mary, a cook in a hotel at Cloncurry, had dismissed the stories as superstition. But now she was also dead. She had ensured that he received a European education and the young boy proved to be an excellent student, devouring his school work with such enthusiasm that he always came first in his class. But there was little opportunity for an educated, highly intelligent mixed-race boy and Tom found himself employed as a stockman in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Without a word, Wallarie scooped up his spear and turned to walk through the haze of the scrub. Tom sensed that he should follow and led his horse, walking behind Wallarie. Before long he could see the top of a hill covered in sparse patches of stunted trees. Tom could have sworn that his feet had lost their power to move as the figure of the old Aboriginal was suddenly that of a young warrior, smeared with animal fat and strong muscles rippling on a lithe frame.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Tom swore, suddenly frightened by the apparition a few yards from him. But when he blinked he only saw Wallarie as he truly was – an old man with long, greying hair.

‘You tie horse here and come with me,’ Wallarie said, turning to look back at Tom, who removed hobbles from the horse to allow her to move about and graze on any sparse native grasses she could find.

Wallarie led Tom to the foot of the craggy hill that in the fading light had a strange, blood-like appearance about it. Tom followed him up a well-beaten, winding track to the peak from where he could look over a sweeping plain of scrub and red earth that stretched far beyond the limits of Glen View station. The sun was a red ball touching the horizon with a hot kiss.

‘You come inside,’ Wallarie said, gesturing to a half-hidden entrance to a dark place beyond. Tom hesitated and Wallarie noticed his fear. ‘Not going into your whitefella’s hell,’ he chuckled. ‘Pastor Karl tell me about the Christian hell. He say it under the earth but I know that the good spirits live under the earth, not the debil.’

Tom stepped into the cave. A tiny fire still smouldered at its heart, throwing a dim light into the corners of the spacious opening upon whose walls he could see the ochre paintings of the Nerambura people, relating the story of ancient times as stick figures hunted giant kangaroos and warriors fought warriors.

‘You sit here with me,’ Wallarie said, gesturing to a place by the fire which he now stacked with a bundle of dry wood, causing it to flare into a gentle flame as smoke curled towards the rock ceiling. The old man produced a battered pipe and tamped down a plug of precious tobacco. Lighting the pipe he puffed contentedly away while Tom remained silent.

‘You more whitefella spirit than blackfella,’ Wallarie finally said, gazing at Tom across the fire. ‘The last fella who come to the cave was a whitefella but he have more blackfella spirit than you. He fly with the great eagles in a place far, far from here.’

The accusation stung. Tom had long lived with the slurs against his mixed parentage. ‘Why did you bring me here?’ he asked.

‘You have dream of this place?’ Wallarie said.

‘You could say that,’ Tom retorted, still feeling wounded by the old man’s blunt observation of him.

‘Me think you my spirit brother who I rode with a long time ago,’ Wallarie sighed. ‘Me think he come back to take me to the sky where we hunt together and run away from the black crows of the Native Mounted Police. But they all gone now.’

‘My father told me about you when I was a kid,’ Tom said. ‘I think he put the dreams in my head.’

‘Mebbe.’ Wallarie nodded. ‘Mebbe not. Mebbe you meant to come here and see the Dreaming.’

‘What do you know?’ Tom asked, leaning forward in an attempt to see into the old man’s eyes. Tom did not believe in the superstition of his Aboriginal ancestors, having become cynical when exposed to the great philosophical works of the European world and having seen the power of Western civilisation.

‘I know that you do not believe in the ancestor spirits and their power over the world,’ Wallarie answered. ‘But the ancestor spirits believe in you.’

Tom shook his head, doubting the old man’s observation.

‘The ancestor spirits say that one day you become big boss of the whitefella,’ Wallarie said. ‘They say that first you must prove yourself as a warrior and kill more men than can be counted, and one day you be big boss. Many man and woman look up to you as their chief.’

Now Tom was convinced that the old Aboriginal was some kind of charlatan. No doubt he could fool uneducated stockmen and wild blackfellas with hints of supernatural powers. But the man who sat on the other side of the fire was nothing more than an aging Aboriginal – the last of his clan – who spun wild stories from a vivid imagination brought on by too many hours living alone in this landscape.

‘But first you must stay alive in a white man’s war far away from here,’ Wallarie chuckled. ‘Mebbe the ancestor spirits have fun with old Wallarie and tell him lies about you.’

‘The white man’s war is in Europe and they do not allow blackfellas to sign up,’ Tom scoffed. ‘No chance of me enlisting.’

Wallarie tapped his pipe on the log beside him. ‘There is one who you must ride to. The ancestor spirits call her auntie and she will help you. She lives in a place called Townsville and her son believes in the curse that came to this place many seasons ago. The woman is my spirit sister. She has roamed all the lands of the north and has the soul of a warrior. Her name is Kate Tracy.’

‘Kate Tracy,’ Tom mused. ‘I have heard of her. She was my grandfather’s sister.’

Wallarie nodded. ‘You must find her and listen to her words. The ancestor spirits do not tell me all, but I know she has the power to set you on the great hunt for your true place in this world.’

Tom smiled. ‘Old man, your words are good but I am not some superstitious blackfella. I wish your thoughts were true but to the white man I am just another Abo – a boong, a half-caste.’

‘Be proud of your blood,’ Wallarie said softly. ‘You are of the new people who come from the earth of this land. One day you will see that ol’ Wallarie know because he listens to the sounds in the dark. Now it is time for you to go and ride to my spirit sister and listen to her words. The ancestors have told me that you will find the fiery stars in a land far from here and they will give you much power. You will be the man who will return our clan’s blood to this land. Now I am tired and must sleep.’

Realising that he was being dismissed, Tom rose stiffly to his feet. ‘I brought this,’ he said, taking from his pocket a tin of pipe tobacco and placing it on the earth. ‘My father said you had a liking for it.’

Wallarie looked up at the young man and smiled. ‘You are a cheeky bugger – but your father was right. Mebbe there is hope for you if you listen to your Nerambura blood.’

‘Maybe we will meet again,’ Tom said, turning towards the entrance of the cave.

‘Mebbe,’ Wallarie answered, reaching for the round tin.

Tom left the cave just as the last light flickered on the horizon to the west. ‘Matches,’ he muttered, remembering that he had meant to leave Wallarie a packet. Quickly he returned but was stunned to see that Wallarie was gone. He searched in every part of the cave’s interior but there was no trace of the old Aboriginal.

Mystified, Tom stood at the head of the track back down to where he’d left his horse. Suddenly the shadow of a huge wedge-tailed eagle rose up behind him from an old gum tree. The flutter of its wings caused Tom to jump as the great bird of the inland plains rose into the air to fly towards the sinking sun.

Tom shook his head. It was impossible. The unexpected appearance of the bird was nothing more than a coincidence and yet he remembered Wallarie’s last words about listening to his Nerambura blood. Had the old warrior flown from the hill as an eagle? As Tom stumbled down the track he attempted to tell himself the great bird was nothing more than just that. But still . . .

After Wallarie watched the young man walk away, he closed his eyes to dream. He could see the plains below drenched in the blood of the current owners but the image was not of this time. He knew that he was seeing the death of many of the Macintosh and Duffy clans. He had not assured his visitor that he would live when he went as a warrior to fight in the whitefella war. Only the ancestors knew a man’s fate, but Wallarie suspected that Tom’s ability to stay alive would depend on his skills as a warrior. He did know that the good would die with the bad and Glen View would become a place of grieving. Just as it had a half century before when his people had been slaughtered by the whitefellas who came to seize the lands he still roamed.

PART ONE

1916

1

L
ieutenant Colonel Patrick Duffy was approaching his fiftieth year, having served in three colonial wars for the British Empire. Tall with broad shoulders, he still had the patrician appearance of a man who inspired confidence in those he led. As a battalion commander, he had brought his men off the beaches at Gallipoli a few months earlier and his competence and concern for his men there earned their respect.

Now, as he leaned against the damp parapet of the trench, scanning the no-man’s-land before him with a pair of field glasses, he wondered if they would continue to respect him after hearing the insane orders he must deliver to his company commanders. Briefed by the brigade commander at a gathering of battalion COs, he had raised the question of adequate artillery support for the planned assault on the formidable German entrenchments a mere 500 yards away. The answer he received made the tactic appear suicidal, although he as an officer could not reveal his personal opinions to the men he would lead in the attack.

He could see a plain of knee-high grasses, nurtured by the rain and sun of the northern summer, sweeping towards a gentle rise etched with the outline of entrenchments along the high ground in front of him. The sea of grass covered the scars of battles from the year before when the British army had suffered terrible casualties on the German-held ground. Now it was the Australians’ turn to assault the German trenches.

Only hours earlier Patrick had been behind the Australian lines, basking in the warmth of a beautiful summer’s day, listening to the lazy hum of bees as they buzzed around fields of red poppies and watching butterflies flitting among pastures of blue wild flowers. The lush green grass dotted between neatly defined fields clearly impressed those men of his battalion who had worked the harsh lands of Australia, while the cleanliness of this countryside paradise was a sharp rebuke to his Gallipoli veterans, who were still living with the memory of flies, dust and, when the dust had gone, the biting cold of the peninsular winter.

As Patrick stepped back into the trench, his boots squelched in the glutinous clay. The stench of wet soil, cordite, decomposing flesh and human waste permeated the muggy air. Now he was away from the land behind the lines and had gone from heaven to hell in a matter of a few short miles.

‘What do you reckon, sir?’ Patrick’s second-in-command asked. Major Fred Higgins had once been a solicitor practising with a well-known Melbourne firm before being commissioned into the army. Like Patrick, he had served with his local militia before the outbreak of war and, like all the men waiting that day, he was a volunteer.

‘It’s bloody flat terrain and the Huns have the only high ground worth a pinch of anything,’ Patrick said, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘If we cross that bit of ground without a truly devastating bombardment from our guns then we can expect the worst.’

‘They must know that at divvie level,’ Major Higgins said, glancing around to ensure that their conversation was not being overheard by any of the soldiers near them in the trench.

‘They don’t ask the opinions of mere battalion commanders,’ Patrick sighed. ‘It’s time to call in the company commanders for a final briefing.’

‘Righto,’ Major Higgins replied. ‘I will have them report within the hour.’

‘Good show.’

For a moment Patrick was alone in the trench, a rare moment to reflect. How different this time and place were to what they had known fighting the Turkish troops of the Ottoman Empire. His men had rejoiced in the countryside so wonderfully different from what they had known on the narrow beach and rugged gullies of the peninsula. Unlike Patrick, they did not dwell on the fact that, since 1914, this very land had seen the death and maiming of men on a scale far beyond their experiences in the Dardanelles campaign. Here was massed artillery capable of smashing whole divisions in a day, and barbed wire entanglements that stretched from the cobblestoned beaches of Belgium to the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland. No, this campaign was huge. Patrick felt some nostalgia for the trenches he left behind at Anzac Cove but well knew that the extent of a soldier’s world on the battlefield was limited to the bit of earth that he could see and walk over; all else mattered little to the soldier with rifle and bayonet. He only knew terms like flanks, fronts and sectors. They had no bearing on his personal survival on that patch of ground that lay before him and which he must cross. Within the hour, Battalion Commander Patrick Duffy would be briefing his younger company commanders on their roles in the attack to be launched against what Patrick suspected was a well-entrenched and armed enemy. He fully knew that after the attack there would likely be many faces missing from his debrief – maybe even his own.