Shadow of the Osprey (3 page)

T
he graceful clipper rose and fell. Under a mass of square-rigged sail her ornate bow slipped between the scrub-covered headlands marking the gateway to one of the world’s most magnificent natural harbours. Once past Sydney’s rugged sandstone cliffs, the captain tacked to port putting his ship on course for the busy southern shore.

The Yankee clipper
Boston
had made good time on the Samoa to Sydney passage and her captain was a happy man as his ship glided past the tiny sand-fringed coves. There would be a bonus for him at the end of the journey to reward him for his competent seamanship.

The clipper only carried a handful of passengers on this run. One of them, standing alone on the portside, was taking in the beauty of the harbour. He was a man who had taken leave rather suddenly from Samoa and had the unremarkable name of Horace Brown, a name that seemed to reflect an unremarkable physical appearance. Of medium height, portly and balding, with spectacles perched on the end of a podgy nose, Horace Brown was not a man who stood out in a crowd. He was known to his fellow travellers as a remittance man, one of the lost sons of Britain who wandered the Pacific colonies endeavouring to live off the allowance sent to them by their wealthy – or at least moderately wealthy – families from the old country. Families who could not afford to have their sons at home for one scandalous reason or another.

Horace was no longer a young man. Nearing fifty he had long lost his youth and, in his middle years, lost the family which had banished him from their fold for his sexual indiscretions with similarly inclined young men.

But the nondescript man had an interesting history. That is, if he would ever talk about his life, which he was not prone to do.

Two decades earlier Captain Horace Brown had worked on Lord Raglan’s staff in the Crimea. Although he did not ride in the great charges against the Russian infantry, nor stand shoulder to shoulder with the Thin Red Line repulsing the Cossack cavalry, the British Army could ill afford to lose a man with the uncanny skills that he possessed. An expert in languages and the subtle workings of the human mind, Captain Brown had controlled one of the most efficient intelligence networks on the Russian Peninsula. Although he had not claimed for himself the glory of the dashing cavalry officer, nor the stalwart infantry commander, he was probably responsible for many victories. An essential of waging war is to know the intentions of your enemy and Horace had made a lifetime career out of knowing what his country’s enemies were thinking.

Since leaving the army and joining the Foreign Office in the service of Her Majesty he found his cover as a remittance man made him inconspicuous to those he spied on. He was well placed in the Pacific and Far East as he spoke Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, German, French and Russian fluently and with just the merest trace of an English accent.

Had he not commenced his working life as a soldier and developed a taste for adventure and intrigue he would most probably have taken a position as a professor in one of Britain’s more prestigious universities teaching exotic languages. Now his considerable analytic and linguistic skills were used to assess the intentions of the French, German and American interests that might be considered a threat to British strategic interests in the Pacific and Far Eastern regions.

But for the moment, his interest was focused solely on an American gun dealer Michael O’Flynn, who also travelled on the Yankee clipper. A tall and broad shouldered man, Horace guessed O’Flynn was in his early thirties. He could plainly see why women would be attracted to the man with the eye patch. He had an open, handsome, clean-shaven face tanned by years in the sun and only slightly marred by a once-broken nose. But none of his imperfections seemed to detract from the man’s obvious charisma.

The English agent wiped away the thin crust of salt spray from his spectacles and peered myopically along the ship’s rail to where the big American stood gazing at the tree-lined shore. The day was exceptionally warm, but such days were not unusual for Sydney as Horace knew from his previous visits. He fervently hoped that the afternoon would see a summer storm, rather than the weather remaining uncomfortably muggy, as trailing a man as athletic as Mister O’Flynn could be hard work. Once ashore the American gun dealer would have to be followed until Horace was satisfied he had identified who he was meeting in Sydney.

He knew enough about Mister O’Flynn to arouse more than usual interest in the man. He knew that he was a New York Irishman who had fought on the Union side in the recent Civil War and that as a captain he had lost his left eye to Confederate shrapnel at the battle of Five Forks south west of Petersburgh in ’65. But his gallantry under fire had earned him a Congressional Medal of Honour. A recognition of courage which was the American equivalent of Britain’s Victoria Cross.

Although the American had a glass eye he preferred to wear a black leather eye patch to cover his disability. And he had not let the disability affect his skill with firearms. After the war O’Flynn had followed the great migration West and it was rumoured that he had also served as a mercenary in Mexico for the rebels under Senor Juarez.

O’Flynn had first come to the attention of the British intelligence networks when he had travelled to South America where he had got himself into a bit of a bother in one of the many small wars raging. He was a mercenary soldier whose skills were in great demand and he was now working for German interests in the Pacific. But what vital German interest had caused the Irish-American to sail across the Pacific from Samoa to Sydney? That was the question Horace knew he must find the answer to.

He had gleaned from his contacts in Samoa that the man was now working for the Prussian aristocrat Baron Manfred von Fellmann. Horace knew that the Prussian was one of the best intelligence agents the aggressively expansionist German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, had in the Pacific. Until now the Iron Chancellor’s ambitions had all been in Europe where he had waged war against his Danish, Austrian and French neighbours. So what was Bismarck up to by sending one of his best agents to the Pacific?

Horace turned his attention once again to the Irish-American with the black leather eye patch. O’Flynn was also a skilled card player, as Horace had learned to his dismay during the passage from Samoa. He had not let himself dwell on his loss at cards as he was able to learn much about Mister O’Flynn from the way he played the game of poker. Horace had a firm belief that a poker player’s style was very much like the man himself and Mister Michael O’Flynn was exceptionally good at the game.

Horace had noted too that both married and single women, charmed by his good looks and old fashioned courtesy, had vied for the American’s attention. But Michael O’Flynn had discreetly sidestepped any shipboard romances.

This avoidance had intrigued Horace. He had wondered if the man might have similar sexual preferences to himself. But as he got to know the American better he strongly doubted that O’Flynn was inclined towards the sensual pleasures of the male body. It was as if the man could not afford to draw attention to himself in any way that might cause scandal.

Michael gripped the portside rail of the clipper and gazed at the harbour scenery, searching eagerly for the familiar landmarks of the city that had once been his home. Then he had been a younger man who had aspired to the gentle life of an artist.

But so much had happened in his life since those days. Instead of holding a paintbrush he now carried a gun. Rather than developing his creative talents sketching with a pencil, he had honed his skills to kill and maim.

Under the assumed name of Michael Maloney he had fled from his home eleven years earlier on a Yankee merchant ship destined for New Zealand. Since then he had adopted many names as a means of protecting his real identity. And even now he must remain living under an assumed name. He knew he could never resume being the dreamer the world had once known as Michael Duffy.

In the decade that had passed he had experienced the ugliness and horror of battlefields; from the dark and dangerous forests of New Zealand to the bloody carnage of the American Civil War, he had roamed and learned the arts of war.

When the cannons fell silent on the American battlefields he had drifted along the newly opened Western frontier to eventually travel south to Mexico as a soldier of fortune. His formidable reputation grew, but only to thrust him deeper into the world of international intrigue and, often enough, sudden and violent death.

Now he was home – albeit by accident rather than design – and he knew that his home town would not have forgotten that he was wanted for murder. At least if they believed him still to be alive.

The man who stood at the rail of the
Boston
was no longer the idealistic young man who had fallen in love with the dark-haired beauty Fiona Macintosh. Now Michael Duffy was Michael O’Flynn, battle-scarred veteran, mercenary and gun dealer called on a mission in the pay of the German Kaiser.

Horace cupped a cigar in his hands. The thick smoke was immediately blown away on the harbour breeze as he puffed contentedly and gazed at the busy shipping activity on the harbour.

Little had changed since he had last visited Sydney eighteen months earlier. The impressive man-o’-wars from Britain floated regally at anchor as symbols of the Empire. Plumes of black smoke billowed from the tall stacks of the busy little ferries as they dodged expertly between coastal schooners, brigs and barques steering for the open sea beyond the imposing headlands.

Horace watched crowded ships pass the clipper, their decks filled with hopeful miners seeking their fortunes on the newly discovered ‘River of Gold’ in the Colony of Queensland. The ships carried men, families and even single women, all with a dream of finding their fortunes on the Palmer. For an unlucky few it would be the last voyage they would ever make. Death would come for them at the end of a spear, starvation, fever or simply sheer exhaustion.

Some would only get as far as the goldfield’s seaport of Cooktown where they would be prey for the armies of whores, unscrupulous publicans and shysters. In some cases, they would be recruited reluctantly to that army of human predators. But for now they were rich in their dreams as they watched the graceful American clipper glide into Sydney Harbour.

Australia’s northern frontier was not even a consideration in Horace’s thoughts as he idly watched the crowded ships leaving for Cooktown. He was still wondering how the American gun dealer was linked with the German government and, more importantly, just what the Germans were up to in this part of the world.

Michael Duffy’s turbulent thoughts on the other hand were on coming home. He didn’t know what was waiting for him. One thing he did know however: there were old scores to be settled with those who had taken away his dreams.

‘You will be meeting the Baroness von Fellmann at a reception she is having for some Froggy official tomorrow, Mister O’Flynn,’ George Hilary said as he poured Michael another rum. The Sydney gun dealer had a red and bulbous nose which Michael saw as a sign of a man addicted to strong liquor. ‘The reception is being held at her home mid-afternoon.’

‘My German isn’t that good Mister Hilary,’ Michael said as he accepted the generous tot of rum.

They were sitting at a table covered in gun grease and pieces of assorted rifles at the back of Hilary’s gun shop. George Hilary was a Sydney gunsmith who had made his name supplying Snider rifles to the men going north to Queensland’s dangerous goldfields. The Snider rifle was quickly establishing a reputation not unlike the Winchester rifle’s reputation on the American frontier.

‘You won’t have to worry about your grasp of German. The Baroness is English,’ Hilary said, eyeing Michael in a calculating way. He sensed that the Irish-American was a man he would not like to get on the wrong side of. His very demeanour was that of a man who had lived with violence for so long that it manifested itself in the way he related to everything around him. There was a wariness in him that threatened to explode at the slightest hint of trouble and he moved with the grace of a hunting leopard, ever vigilant and yet apparently relaxed at the same time.

Michael sipped sparingly at the strong rum. He would not allow himself to become inebriated as he had not been told the reason for his unexpected passage to Sydney. All he knew was that he had been promised an extremely lucrative job utilising his proven skills as a leader of men and his knowledge of jungle warfare, and that the model ’73 Winchesters, destined for Baron Manfred von Fellmann in Samoa, had been re-routed to Sydney. He was being paid generously to escort the rifles to their new destination and did so without asking questions. Intrigue had long become a natural part of his life. He knew he would be told in good time why he was in Sydney and what he was to do.

Hilary was of little help in making clear just what was expected of him. The conversation was like walking through a hedge maze. So far Michael was not lost but he felt it could be easy to take the wrong turn if he were not careful. The Prussian aristocrat behind this mission had a reputation in Michael’s world not unlike his own.

‘I hear you brought some ’73 model Winchesters with you Mister O’Flynn,’ Hilary said. As a gun dealer he was interested in the rifle that might prove to be competition to the single shot Sniders he sold. ‘I’ve been told the ammunition for them is a centre fire cartridge.’

‘Yes. They’re in storage until I hear what I’m supposed to do next. And I’m out of pocket for customs duties on them,’ Michael growled irritably.

‘The Baroness will no doubt reimburse you for your expenses when you tell her of the costs you have incurred,’ Hilary said, refilling his battered mug. ‘I hear she acts for her husband in Sydney on all business matters.’

‘So you say. Will I be told everything when I go to this reception tomorrow afternoon?’ Michael queried.

‘You will be told as much as you need to know,’ the gun dealer smiled sardonically as he leaned back in his chair. ‘Because that’s the way they work. But I’m sure they will look after you. They have been pretty fair in their dealings with me.’